A Horror Story 3: Thrill Kill
If you somehow missed the FIRST two Author's Note's…
This is not the world of Danny Phantom. This is the world of Danny Phantasm, a dark re-imagining of the future of everyone's favorite ghost boy. Someday, maybe possibly this century, I will write more about it. For now, all you get are the glimpses…
I've done ghost stories and examinations of evil… This year however…I'm upping the rating to M for this part (I repeat, THIS PART IS RATED M YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED) and going for the sheer visceral kick to the teeth. And worse damages…
Somewhere in the United States…
Perhaps in a small town much like your own…
"You will RISE on my command!" Jimmy Flexner chanted, as he knelt over his makeshift alter (mostly constructed of some cardboard boxes and a black tablecloth he'd picked up at a Wal-Mart two towns over) and poured the makeshift mix of pig feces, internet-ordered herbs, and virgin's blood (his own) over the symbol he'd constructed as he began chanting in a dark, mostly forgotten language.
"SDR'AWKCA BSI'HTDEAROT EMITEH TG'NIKA TYLL AUYCTERUOY…"
Like many people, Jimmy felt his life sucked. He was tormented in school, he couldn't get laid, his parents didn't understand him, the usual. He'd grown to hate the world that was so nasty and fucking mean. And after finding a book tucked away in the dark recesses of his school library, he decided he'd do something about it.
"SGGE'RETSAERO FRELKC ITSASAWIT HGUOHTID NA…"
So he'd puzzled out that it was a book of dark magic and forbidden secrets and all that jazz, and he'd decided that he'd call something up, bind it to his service, and use it on all the people he hated. He'd be getting revenge and blowjobs in no time.
"WONKUOYOSTSU JT'NEMENIF ERNIAT RECAKC ALYAMYR OTSSIHT…"
Of course, like many people who had tapped into forbidden, terrible powers like he was currently doing, Jimmy Flexner gravely underestimated the kind of strength needed to do such a thing. Such a factor was greatly exacerbated by the fact Jimmy really didn't know what he was doing.
Such as the fact he was calling on the wrong 'client service'…
Or that his circle of binding had been broken by his mom's cat when it had pawed at it a few seconds before before getting a bad feeling and running away…
Or the fact the book had been whispering dark suggestions without him realizing it and the voice that spoke knew the barriers were weaker then it had once been and saw a chance for it and its fellows to finally return after so long…
"GNIOGPEEKLL EWSATH GIMOSRA FSIH!" Jimmy chanted, as a cold wind began to blow outside and Jimmy's eyes gleamed as his alter began to float up. "T'TIE DAMU! OYTUB!"
And then Jimmy's eyes widened as he felt it come…and his heart turned to ice and the primal centers of his brain screamed…
But it was too late. Soon Jimmy was screaming.
And it didn't stop with him.
Dictionary Dot Com defines 'misanthrope' as 'a hater of humankind'. That's really a bit too vague, but it's true. But in our cases, I find it tends to revolve around a certain kind of hate. The kind of hate you get when you think you're so much better then everyone else, and hate the fact that they're so much worse then you. Mainly because that fact doesn't make them worship you as the god you supposedly are. Like that. It's complicated.
Thinking they're so much lower then you… makes it easy for people think they're so much higher then they are…
But God broke the Tower of Babel, and in humanity's case, being high just often means you have further to fall.
The worst is when you land on someone.
Tucker paused in his entry writing, gathering his thoughts, as the rest of the team waited on tenterhooks to get the order to go in. It was strange how their hierarchy worked. Technically Maddie was in charge, she was the oldest and most experienced after all, but when her son put his foot down…
And with them waiting on Danny and Tucker lost in his thoughts, it's not surprising he didn't catch the time the gray, nondescript van was on their cameras, as it quietly drove by on the road below.
And it was out of sight, heading for its own destination, as Tucker resumed writing.
Like the place we've found. Danny smelled it out. He tends to be drawn to two things. Fissures, and places where fissures have allowed bad things to go down. And he says this place reeks of it.
He's gone in alone. Won't let any of us go in with him. To scout, he says. Hah. He keeps drifting in and out of radio contact. A surefire sign something REAL rotten's lurking around there.
Alone, no one to watch his back…
I hope he comes back alive. Danny actually likes humanity. And he's strong. Many don't realize that until he demonstrates it.
But those who hate…can unleash horrors beyond even the greatest of strengths...
I just wish he wasn't alone.
Tucker was going to get his wish. But he'd have never thought of the way how.
That same small town…
One week later.
Nothing like yours.
Fall on your knees and pray for thanks for that fact…It was dead.
The whole town was dead.
It wasn't a metaphor. The entire town population of…whatever its name was had been reduced to cooling corpses. It had become a hunting ground and a massacre, no escape allowed, no rescue, no outside interference.
And Danny was being kicked in the face without actually being kicked in the face.
Perhaps you are confused. Let me verify just why this strange description was occurring: Danny had just been clubbed across his features by a severed human leg.
He crashed to the ground, feeling in disgust the faint droplets of blood on his cheek and nose, as his attacker smiled down on him. Smiling through bloody teeth.
"Cleetus says, good eats' a' comin'." The madman said in the most stereotypical hillbilly tone one could imagine. This Cleetus was wearing bloodstained overalls and a tight T-shirt that might have once been white and was pretty much the dark-reddish brown that blood stained the color of. He had a shock of white hair, animalistic features…and was carrying a severed human leg, cut off at the knee and wielded by the bone stump at the end.
As if he couldn't wait, Cleetus raised the leg to his mouth and took a bite out of it, as Danny blinked, feeling his gorge rise. But then, why should he be surprised? When he'd found Cleetus, he'd been leaning over the corpse of a fourteen year old girl and delightedly eating her kidney, which was probably most of what was left of the mess that had once been her body. Then he'd seen him, and before Danny could react he'd bounded over with inhuman speed and 'kicked' him.
"Gonna squeal boy." Cleetus cackled, and leapt, slamming his leg weapon down.
Danny leapt to avoid it, spinning through the air, his long duster coat whirling around him as he landed, narrowing his eyes. Cleetus whooped and charged.
Danny stood his ground. He'd had no exhaled coldness, so Cleetus wasn't connected to ghosts or spirits. And Danny knew, deep down, that he wasn't some insane human who been plucked from some nightmare Deliverance clone and stuck in this poor godforsaken town. Mainly because there was no way he could have committed slaughter on this scale all by himself.
Which spoke of other, worse things from beyond human existence finding a way to walk on the Earth and spread their wretched taint. Yeah, Danny knew what this Cleetus was. He looked like a cannibal, but the reality was even worse.
As Cleetus swung his leg, and Danny snapped out the Magnus and blocked it, leaping backwards immediately afterward.
"I know." Danny said quietly. You'd think he was speaking to himself, and you'd be wrong, as Cleetus rushed in. "Just need…"
Cleetus reached out a clawing hand for Danny's face, going for his eyes.
As Danny did a Matrix dodge backwards…and stopped, as Cleetus overextended himself and charged over him, and then Danny pushed himself back to a vertical base.
Cleetus swung around, grinning through the blood.
As the sword crunched through his ribcage. Danny could move fast too.
"You don't belong here." Danny growled, and focused…and Cleetus hollered as fire erupted from his wound, screaming as he was burned away.
Danny yanked the sword free as Cleetus crumbled to the ground, his skin blackening and his body turning to ash.
"That's one." Danny said. "How many…"
And then his eyes widened as a voice, silent to everything but him, shrieked a warning.
But it was already too late, as the cattle prod plunged into Danny's spine, and he screamed as the electricity tore through his form, disrupting his muscles and nerves and severing his connection with his blade. Falling to his knees, his sword clattering to his side, Danny tried to force himself to recover.
As a powerful female hand reached around his head and seized his jaw in a vice grip, as Danny suddenly felt hot breath in his ear.
"Awwwwwwwwwww…little boy, don't spoil our play." A female voice whispered, a seductive tone touching Danny's hormonal centers…and the cold, snarling viciousness lurking beneath it quickly changing the chemicals to fear. "Let Belladonna show you some games you'd never learn on the schoolground. It will be the greatest lesson of your life."
And Belladonna jammed the cattle prod into Danny's spine again, and even as he screamed in agony she let out a low moan of ecstasy…
"Hey bitch. Got a game of my own."
And Belladonna, a lovely and well-endowed woman, who was actually wearing a maid's outfit, found herself interrupted in mid-pleasure, and with a snarl she turned away from Danny, her short black hair whirling as her features contorted into the face of the sadistic animal beneath…
As the baseball bat smashed across those lovely features, sending a spray of blood and broken teeth into the air as Belladonna was thrown to the side and then to the ground from the blow, falling on her face with another loud crack…
As the figure stepped up, swung her bat up, and brought it down against with a disgustingly wet crunch.
"America's pastime and all." She said, and spat on the ground beside the body.
"Uggggghhhhhhh…" Danny said, trying to blink the world back into clarity. The fact he was no longer being electrocuted indicated someone had probably come along to help. Maybe he shouldn't have been so gung-ho in going in alone…
As said helper stepped into his vision, and Danny blinked.
It was not his mother, or any of his fellows.
The girl had short black hair (quite a bit like Belladonna actually) and lovely features done up with dark makeup. She wore a clingy black top under a short, open light red jacket, a pair of black 'skorts' (skirt/short combination), and black fishnet leggings that ended in black combat boots. Combine that with the fact she was well-endowed, and you can't blame Danny for what he said.
"…did I miss something?" Danny asked. "When did we get to Scores in time for Goth night?"
Fortunately, the girl did not introduce him to the dense wooden bat with "KISSTHIS' carved into it. She just settled for punching him.
"Ugh! Last time I save your ass, you stupid kid!" The girl said, as Danny blinked the new stars out of his eyes and then stood up.
"Wait…what? Who are you?"
"Who are YOU?" The girl retorted. "I know what you were: getting your first orgasm from some psycho dominatrix. Forget the safety word?"
"…what? Whoa whoa whoa, what's going on? Tucker, are you there?" Danny said, pressing his finger to his ear. All he got was static. "Who ARE you?"
"Sorry kid, this ain't Meet The Press. You'd best bug off before something else comes along to try and make your balls drop, or maybe your guts. Life doesn't hand out second chances." The girl said as she walked past him, swinging her bat up on her right shoulder with both hands.
As Belladonna rose, her head a bloody mess and her eyes screaming bloody murder.
"…unless you're one of THEM." The girl groaned.
Belladonna screamed…
And then twin knives exploded from her chest, as Belladonna jerked, and then let out a curious gurgle as the knives twisted and were yanked out, Belladonna pitching over dead as Danny recoiled a bit at the massive figure that had crept up behind her. How had he moved so quietly? How did someone that large sneak up on someone smaller then him and not even have Danny see him before he struck?
"Nggggh. Overconfident, Cass." The giant figure grunted as he shuffled forward. He had nearly two heads on Danny and was twice as wide as him. Unlike the female, who the giant had addressed as 'Cass' (so it seemed), the giant just wore a simple dark blue boiler suit…and a metal gas mask that covered his features.
There was something off about his skull, Danny realized (as if the dark grayish skin that Danny could see covering it wasn't enough). It wasn't a smooth semi-sphere, it was kind of ridged in the middle, forming two smaller 'peaks'. A skeletal deformity. Who knew what the mask concealed...
"Hey Vlad, I would have brained her better if dickless here hadn't decided to get his misogynist on." The girl called Cass replied, indicating Danny with her head.
"WHAT? HUH? WHAT?" Danny said: he'd encountered all kinds of bizarre and unnatural horrors, but this situation's refusal to clarify itself was proving especially maddening. "WHO ARE YOU TWO?"
"Oh fine, since your life, which I gave back to you by the way, won't be complete unless you know, I'm Cassie. He's Vlad. And we have to work kid. So get out of town before something sends you out, feet first."
"Mgghhh. She's probably correct. Not safe here." The giant called Vlad replied: he was more polite but no less dismissive, as he and Cassie turned to leave.
"WHOA! HOLD IT!" Danny said. "What do you mean your jobs?"
"Oh man, I bet his teachers wanted to cut his hand off." Cassie growled to herself, before turning back around. "Look kid, if you somehow haven't noticed, and that would be VERY hard even considering your apparent lack of brains as well as penis, there are some REAL BAD THINGS in this town going around doing rather socially unacceptable deeds such as cutting people into more pieces then it is in their interest to be! And since the police seem to have blinders firmly on and thumbs firmly inserted into asses, we have to deal with it. Now get out of here!" Cassie said, pointing before turning around and starting back down the town street with Vlad.
"…hey hey wait!" Danny said, as he started after the pair again. Unfortunately, Danny's social development had been rather slowed by certain bad events in his life, and he could be knocked off-kilter and take a while to recover if the wrong situation presented itself. Hence Danny came off as more of an over-curious puppy then someone who had faced horrific monsters himself, and that was what Cassie picked up as she whirled around, her immense aggravation apparent in her body language.
"WHAT? WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN, DICKHEAD?"
"Hold it! I'm not some random passerby! I'm here, very likely, for the same reason YOU are! Can we PLEASE speak for a moment? And can you PLEASE stop making comments about my genitalia?"
"Someone has to, or the poor thing might curl up and die from lack of use." Cassie retorted.
"Who seemed to have shit…in your oatmeal today, Cassie?" Vlad enquired, seemingly surprised by how pointedly nasty she was being.
"That's piss in your cornflakes Vlad."
"Mmmmmm. Nonsense still…" Vlad said. Danny let the latest comment pass.
"Look, yeah, I didn't look too good back there, and thanks for the save, but really, there's more to this then you realize…"
"Oh and YOU'RE the one who was gonna clean it up! Send the evil packing! Even got the longcoat going on, very faux-badass of you!" Cassie said acidly. "This isn't a roleplay session of the Matrix, nutsack, and…"
"MY NAME IS DANNY!" Danny roared.
"Your name's gonna be mud and you'll probably end up six feet under it if you don't get lost. Now if you DON'T mind, I'd like to accomplish something before everyone in the surrounding six towns knows I'm…"
And Cassie turned around.
And saw the small, wild-orange haired man standing before her, his eyes nearly popping right of his sockets and his mouth frozen in a near rictus grin, his arms bound in a bloodstained white straightjacket (he also wore brown pants, but no shoes or socks) as he leered at her.
"THE FUCK!"
"HI!" The straightjacketed man said cheerily.
And then he smashed his forehead into her nose, sending her flying back as blood gouted from the damaged cartilage.
"Cassie! …DIE!" Vlad snarled as he pulled his twin giant butcher knives out and slashed at the straight jacketed lunatic, but he ducked down easily, the slash going over his head, then dodging aside from the second downward slash, his balance as insane as he was, as he leapt backwards from Vlad's third swing and rolled, flipping over on his feet again and then springing off the ground as if he'd jumped onto a trampoline, his feet lancing out and slamming into Vlad's gas mask as the lunatic's feet blurred, smashing several kicks into Vlad's face before he delivered one final one with mustard, flipping him over and back onto his feet as Vlad stumbled back from the blow.
"YOU ARE FUCKING HAMBURGER MOTHERFUCKER!" Cassie screamed as she charged and swung her bat.
The lunatic leapt into the air, avoiding her swing, and before Cassie knew it he was actually standing on her bat.
"I'm not Motherfucker!" The lunatic merrily chirped. And then he jumped, bouncing off Cassie's head and shoulders like he was Mario and she was a hapless Koopa, driving her to the ground and knocking the wind out of her as he landed nearby.
"I'm Oddball!" He declared.
"I'm drunk." Vlad said, as he hurled his knives at Oddball.
Oddball dropped into a perfect split to avoid the first one. But Vlad had expected that, and thrown the second knife just a little after and a little lower.
So Oddball twisted his head to the side and a touch back and bit down, and Vlad goggled behind his mask as Oddball actually caught the knife in his teeth.
"Heehee!" He giggled as he tossed the knife up and then bit down again, now holding it by the handle in his mouth as he leapt to his feet and sprinted at Vlad.
Vlad was big, but he wasn't slow, and as Oddball stabbed at him he jerked slightly to the side and then slammed his hands down, catching the knife between them…
As Oddball purposely let go.
"GOTCHA!" He laughed, as he rolled around Vlad, getting behind him and onto his back, and with a mighty thrust he buried both his feet into Vlad's meaty rear end, throwing the giant forward onto his chest and face…as Oddball kipped up and leapt, and before Vlad could move he had come crashing down heel first on the back of Vlad's head. Curb stomping, to the next level.
"Awwwwwwwww…it was just getting good!" Oddball laughed.
"FUCKKKKKKK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" Cassie screamed as she came at Oddball twice as mad and four times as vicious as she had been before. But Oddball just leaned away from her attacking bat swipe and then ducked under the next one, and as Cassie overextended herself he lightly jumped up. Before Cassie knew it, he was on her shoulders…as he sat down and wrapped his legs around her neck.
Cassie gasped as her air was cut off, and she tried to bring the bat up and smash Oddball off her. But the madman held on despite her blows, and she quickly found her fingers going numb as her body screamed for air…
And then she lost the bat. Staggering around, she clawed at Oddball's legs, and then tried to get to one of her backup switchblades, but everything was going black…
As black as Vlad's mood as he seized Oddball.
"OFF." He snarled, as he tried to both pull Oddball off Cassie and perhaps remove his head in the process…
"No fun!" Oddball complained, and rammed his head backwards, slamming it into Vlad's mask and briefly staggering him again as he abruptly unlocked his legs, pushed himself up on Cassie's shoulders, and ran over to Vlad's, kicking off the back of his head and sending him crashing into his partner, both of them tumbling down as Oddball flew up into the air with a whoop…
And then a black blur zapped past him in mid-jump.
"…….Huhhhhhhhhhhh?" Oddball said, as he turned around, still flying from his push off, a look of confusion across his face.
As a bloody diagonal line appeared across it as well.
And then blood exploded from his body as his left arm, shoulder, and most of his head separated from the rest of him. His bisected corpse crashed to the ground.
Danny landed a few seconds later, kneeling slightly, as he turned his sword sideways, blood dripping from the blade. Danny looked at it in distaste, and as Cassie, still holding her throat and gasping for air, watched with as much surprise as Vlad, he turned the sword intangible, letting the blood fall free onto the ground.
"Now that I have a more appropriate level of your attention." Danny said, as he sheathed his sword. "We should have that talk."
"You're him. The ghost kid. I've heard of you." Cassie said, and then took a long gulp from a bottle of water Vlad had 'liberated' from an empty convenience store. He was currently holding some ice packs to his face, gas mask removed. As it turned out, his features weren't TOO deformed, but they were far from conventional, including a somewhat uneven facial structure and a slightly upturned nose. But Danny had seen a lot worse. In terms of deformity and what lack of deformity sometimes hid.
"Good to know. But the name is Danny…Cassie, was it?"
"Cassandra Hack. Cass, Cassie, whatever you want." Cassie said, and took another drink. "I thought you were a myth."
"Truth in myths, I've found, are hit or miss. Hit or myth, really." Danny commented, and tried his radio again. Nothing but static. "Look, I might be getting some backup soon. They'll be wearing full body outfits, so try not to bludgeon or stab them on sight. Which reminds me, just what are you two doing here."
"Our job. What are you?" Cassie replied.
"Your job?"
"Yeah. We hunt slashers. And kill them."
"Slashers?" Danny asked.
"Aw man kid, you handle a blade so well…though I must point out you certainly TOOK YOUR TIME coming to help. What the fuck, kid? Did you just have to have a big damn heroes moment?"
"Hey whoa whoa, hold on. I'm used to dealing with certain people, and you popping up out of the blue with all your running commentary about my…you know, flustered the hell out of me. I left my sword behind on the ground, and I had to run back and get it. That's all."
"Hurrrrr. Should not let the bad blood rule your asshole, Cass." Vlad commented. Danny arched an eyebrow.
"Sorry kid. Vlad here wasn't born in a barn, but he might as well have been when it comes to combining proper vocabulary and slang and cursing. Vlad, yes, PISSED means intoxicated, but you were supposed to be saying you were angry."
"Urrrrrr. Ridiculous need for pithy comments. Can go fuck a rooster." Vlad said, as he slid his gas mask back on. "More to do Cassandra."
"Okay wait wait…first, just what do you mean by hunting slashers?" Danny asked.
"It's simple kid. There are slashers. We hunt them. And sometimes we headed out to rumored trouble sites only to find the problem already fixed. Sometimes it was never there to begin with, but a few provided some vague snatches of info that some kid who moved 'like a ghost' showed up and cleaned up the mess. That you?"
"Quite possibly. I don't 'hunt slashers' though. Just what are slashers? It sounds like a movie term."
"It is, but in the past several years reality is copying fiction. You know what a zombie is, right?"
"Yeah."
"Vampire?"
"Yeah."
"And I take it with how well you cut that tied-up loonybird shit that you understand the concept of a serial killer."
"….yeah."
"A slasher's a little of all three. Generally, they come in two types. One's a living maniac with a gimmick. The other is more tied to all three: someone who died but didn't stay dead."
"Yeah, I've had my troubles with that situation…" Danny mused.
"Sometimes they were innocent victims, and sometimes they were complete pieces of shit, but they died filled with rage and hate. And it brought them back. Changed them. But like vampires, they retain the ability to think, even if they lose all moral restraint. Sometimes it even grants them strange abilities, but it always makes them a lot harder to kill the second time. And then they start or resume killing, and people get hurt." Cassie said. "And then I show up and knock their brains into the next time zone. When I can. There are…annoying variants to the system. Animals at times. Living mutants. Hell, one slasher I stopped stayed a ghost and killed people in their dreams."
"Where have I heard that before?"
"He was a stupid, sadistic kid born bad. They don't have much originality." Cassie commented. "Anyway, we heard through our grapevine that something wasn't quite right here, so we gassed up our van, and here we are. Looks like there's a whole nest of the fucks. I don't know why they gathered here or how they managed to kill the entire town without the outside world noticing, but that's all water under the fucking bridge. We have to kill them. Wanna help out, kid?" Cassie said, as she swung her bat over her shoulders and perched her arms on it.
"Please stop calling me kid. My name is Danny. And there's more to it then you realize. These things…they're not 'slashers', as least as you describe them. They're demons. Well, to be more specific, they're demonic essences wearing 'skin masks'."
Vlad and Cassie stared.
"…look, if you could humor me, just follow me. I need to gather some more information." Danny said. "Oh, and keep on your guard. We can't surprise these things. They knew we were here the moment we arrived. We're already being hunted."
"…help?" Tucker's voice said through some static.
"Yeah. They kinda just showed up. I'll let Mom and the girls know if I need them as well, as soon as I do some verification." Danny said, and took his hand away from his ear.
"Well organized." Vlad noted, as the three walked along the empty streets, having left the actual town part to enter the houses surrounding it, Danny following some faint trail only he could detect.
"Oh shut up." Cassie retorted. "So where are we going, Disneyland?"
"Flare is pinpointing the origin point of this mess." Danny said off-hand, before he recalled he wasn't with his friends.
"Who?" Cassie asked.
"…well if you hunt undead 'slashers' who rise from the grave to kill, I suppose you can accept this." Danny said, and drew his sword, holding it out. It wasn't a specific type of weapon: it was a little katana, a little rapier, a touch of longsword, a dabble of falchion, but what really made it stand out was the fact it had holes in it: specifically, a line of small squarish holes lined the blade.
"…that thing looks like it would break after one good hit." Cassie said.
"Nghhhhh. Poor design. Style over sustenance." Vlad added.
"Yes, you're right. By itself. But this is just the vessel for the real weapon."
And misty white and blue energy trailed out of the holes, briefly tracing around the weapon before withdrawing.
"This is Flare. Short for Magnus Flareium. Which is a very, VERY rough and shortened translation for the closest thing the spirit has to an actual name, which comes out to something like "That Would Let The Hand Wield A Bane That Would Cut Fire And Freeze Ice, Break Mountains And Sunder Rivers…"…and it goes on like that for another paragraph or two. It…well, she, as I see her, is sort of a 'spirit of blades', an entity that had appeared and joined with those she deemed worthy of her aid to do great deeds. She's had a lot of names. Caladbolg. Gram. Kladenets. Skofnung. Dyrnwyrn. Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar. Durendel. Kusanagi. Joyeuse."
Cassie and Vlad looked blankly.
"...Excalibur." Danny finished, and sheathed the weapon.
"No way. You gotta be shittin' me." Cassie said.
"Perhaps. Myths tend to get crossed over with each other and all. Who knows what was real, what was exaggerated, and what was invented from whole cloth. But she's been around a real long time. And now she's with me."
"And what did you do?" Vlad muttered.
"….not enough." Danny said, his voice briefly sad. "Anyway, she's a great help, though certain powers I have while on my own don't work very well when I wield her. Something to do with the human and ghost sides not being able to fully sync up due to some reason or other… But it's a worthwhile sacrifice. And besides I…in any case, my abilities allow me a small degree of empathy. I can sense certain things if I concentrate. She focuses that. Think of it like tracing a phone call."
"And just what is the point of this again? As it's taking us away from cracking skulls?"
"Fools rush in. These demons…Skins, if you will, they can be immensely dangerous if you lack certain information. Plus the fact we haven't been molested since that straight jacketed one probably indicates they want us to know. If only for vanity and to damage morale."
"Demons…so there is a hell." Vlad mused.
"Not so simple, really." Danny said. "What we call existence is…part of a far greater mass. Normally we just kind of all exist together peacefully side by side, kind of like one of those giant gumball machines you used to see in malls, except the balls were more of a weird gel/gas material then…but anyway, everything is generally separate. But crossing between the 'gumballs' wasn't impossible…but it was immensely dangerous, because unlike those machines, no two gumballs are alike, and you have no idea where you'd end up, and what reality would be like there. But it was damn hard to cross…but recently, this…stupid, STUPID bastard threw a temper tantrum and took a sledgehammer to the status quo. It screwed up the balance. Realities started leaking into each other. Bad things came here, and on top of that, our reality's 'essence' could leak into other places and act like a scent trail to OTHER bad things. And just to REALLY make it bad, this made it easier to cross between them, or in this case, call on something to cross between them. That's what I do. I close up the holes, and deal with anything that showed up that doesn't belong her. Sort of like you two, I guess."
The hunters of slashers stared.
"…yes Vlad, there is a hell." Danny said lamely.
"It seems like there are many hells." Vlad mused.
"Wonder why if there's so much real estate we have so many unwanted guests so determined to hang around here." Cassie muttered.
"I don't have an answer to that…just…" Danny said, and sighed. "The basic concept of heaven and hell is that if you're good you go get to be with God and be at peace for eternity and if you're bad you go the other way and suffer for eternity. But it's never basic in life. There's a theory that whatever comes after your life ends is whatever you think you deserve. Milton said 'Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell'. There's no great moral judgment, just perception. You go where you think or want to go. Which would certainly explain your slashers hanging around."
"You'd think a ghost would know more." Cassie commented.
"Don't confuse ghosts and spirits with theological matters. I could swear I've met at least four manifestations of judgment after death, and I had no real idea which one was legit or the highest power. If I ever die-DIE, I'm as at much of a loss as you where I'll go, or where many evils come from. All I have is what I've seen and thought. Much like you two."
"Hurrrrr. Imperfect, such a process, if one goes where one believes."
"Yeah man, you'd have people riddled with delusional guilt going to Hell while morons who bomb abortion clinics while screaming self-righteously about sinners getting into Paradise." Cassie added.
"If I made a list of all the things that were unfair about life…well, it would be a very very long list."
"Life shits a lot of fucks." Vlad said.
"…you said it big guy." Danny said, and stopped. "We're here."
He pointed at the nondescript house they'd stopped in front. It looked little different from the many they'd passed during their walk.
"This is where it started. If we find any answers, it will be in there."
"I'm glad to know the many hours of effort that went into building all my neat toys was appreciated Danny." Tucker groused from the phone Danny had put on speaker. With radio communication proving spotty, Danny had just dialed the Ghost of a Chance's secret number from the house phone: it had worked out.
"Go with the flow, Tuck." Danny said.
"So just who are these guests of yours?"
"Kindred souls. We want the same thing and after some bumps we're on the same path."
"Honey, are you sure you can trust them? We can be in the town in two minutes." Maddie's voice came over the phone.
"And I don't like how isolated this incident is. It speaks of a trap. I'd rather it spring on me and leave you free." Danny said. "As for Cassie and Vlad, well, they're a touch rough-hewn, but if I was the type to judge on surfaces chances are we'd all be dead back in Amity Park a long time ago."
Maddie was silent.
"I'll turn on any more phones I find and keep this on. We're checking the house for info and clues."
"Standing by Danny." Tucker said, as Vlad walked into the room. Even with the gas mask on, Danny could tell he was wincing.
"What…terrible smell, hurr. What IS that…"
"You know how birth, despite being natural, can be a messy process? As well as the act of ridding one's body of solid waste? Well, take those two experiences, combine them, make them distinctively UNNATURAL, and make the whole toxic mix we now have about, oh, 1700 times worse. That's what you're smelling, Vlad. That's the smell of the world being violated."
"Smells like rotten meat and old sweat to me." Cassie said as she walked in. "I'm tired of farting around, get your Flare Magazine or whatever to pinpoint what we're looking for."
Danny was about to reply before he paused for a few seconds.
"…yes, I know." Danny said, though he didn't sound like he was talking to Cassie. "Upstairs."
Danny lead the two up the stairs, walking on eggshells and ready for any possible nasty surprises.
But nothing attacked them, and they soon found themselves in the scorched, blackened, and slathered with traces of crusted gore room that had once belonged to an unfortunate idiot named Jimmy Flexner.
"This is where it started. Any answers we can find are here." Danny said, as he looked at the ashes of what had once been a makeshift alter. "I don't really know what we're looking for…books are usually a good place to start…"
"Found some." Vlad said, having flipped up the burned mattress to reveal a disturbing amount of pornography. Danny glanced at it and turned away in disgust.
"Not quite what we need." Danny said, as he began opening desk drawers, feeling inside for hidden compartments or concealed objects.
"Cannibal Corpse…Prostitute Disfigurement…Pungent Stench…Dying Fetus…yep, this kid's got the classic compartment of the nihilistic little poseur." Cassie said, flipping through blackened CD's.
"Here we are." Danny said, as he found it buried beneath an overturned chair and some random magazines: a black bound book (they always were) with the title written in some gobbledygook Danny didn't understand. Locating a phone in the room, Danny tried turning it on and was somewhat surprised when it worked.
"Tuck?"
"Yeah?"
"Sending back scans of a tome. Likely a grimoire of some power." Danny said, as he reached into a pocket and withdrew what looked like a fat pen, as he pressed a button on it and scanned a light, wide purple beam of light over the cover, before opening the book carefully and beginning to scan the pages. "We need to try and pinpoint just what he…"
Danny got his answer quicker then he expected, as he found the page circled with blue pen.
"Or you could just translate this." Danny said, as he started scanning it.
"Found a diary." Cassie said, as she flipped it open. "Entry 42: Chad that fucking asshole knocked my lunch all over me today and then laughed about it, I wish I had a rusty hook to stick in his balls and then…moving on…" Cassie said as she rifled through the pages. "Entry 61: That fucking slut Erin looked at me like I was garbage. All I did was bring her the book she dropped! Like she hasn't spread it for half the guys, she looks at me like I'M shit. I swear, if I could tie her to a bed, I'd make sure she wouldn't be so haughty, I'd raise her ass up like a pig and blah blah blah violent sexual fantasies, and it goes on like this." Cassie said, dropping the book in disgust. "This is what happens when you care enough to get your kid a computer but don't care enough that he's looking at porn at age 11. What a fucking loser."
"And he knew it, and it ate at him like cancer. Seen it before. Lived small bits of it, in another life." Danny said, as he continued to scan the book. "It can be grown out of…if you have the right support structure. If you don't…well, usually you just get ranting on the internet and disturbing adult magazines like those." Danny said, pointing. "And then there's what happens if you stick something like this in a mindset like this. Angry, immature, blind to consequence and reality…worse things use it to breed."
"So now what?" Cassie asked, sitting on the bed as Vlad continued to pick over the room.
"Give my group a little more time. We know this kid was an angry loser, and we know this made him call up something really bad, and we know what happened…but I want to see if we can figure out WHAT he called up. It might explain why you mistook them for slashers. They WERE gimmicky."
"They always are." Cassie said as she crossed her legs.
"…so." Danny said, as he waited. "What's your story?"
Cassie frowned.
"Oh what is this, Jerry Springer? Keep your fucking nose out of my business! I hunt slashers! That's all you need to know! Why do YOU do your thing?"
"Because I have to." Danny answered simply. "…..heh. We look at this kid and what he did…thing is, go back a few years and in too many ways I'm not much different from him."
"A fucking emo pervert?"
"No, more in the way I lived in my own world, appreciating nothing else. It's dangerous thinking. Turns rotten easily…and yet it's so damn typical. You're so stupid as a kid…never appreciate what you should…" Danny mused. "…my dad seemed like such a bumbling, deluded idiot at times, obsessed with ghosts, building worthless inventions, unable to interact with my sister and I unless it was about ghosts…if I hadn't gotten my powers I probably would have thought as little as him as this kid's parents apparently did. There's teenage rebellion and then there's the anger that blooms from coldness. And as silly as my dad was, he was never cold. He loved me, deeply. And I was too stupid to appreciate it and then…I was going around, having adventures, battling villains…thought it was enough. I never realized that good deeds could have such drastic consequences…and that I'd never get a chance to say all that mattered before it was over."
Danny sighed and ran a hand through his hair: he needed to trim the shoulder length locks he now had a little soon or he'd end up with a mullet again.
"So now I'm proactive. I deal with things instead of sitting back and taking them for granted. I don't ever want to have to have these regrets again."
"…regrets are life." Cassie mused in turn. "I just had my mom, and we were close…and even that wasn't enough. I didn't see any of it coming…and like you, it's why I'm out there, bat in hand. Someone has to…oh fuck this noise. Get your damn group to send their data or I'm out of this bitch right now."
"Patience Cassandra…" Vlad said, looking through a collection of video games.
"Fuck patience. I want answers or something to hit."
"Then you'll be glad to know you came to the right place, beautiful!" Tucker said over the phone.
"Cram it with walnuts, blinky."
"Hey! Wait, what?"
"She's like that Tuck. What did you find out."
"Well, it's the usual bad shit. REAL bad shit. That page details summoning, like you said, demonic essences, Skins, in this case the "Scourge of the 8th Level Whose Blood And Tears Run In Oceans"…or something like that. Real mean and vicious. Supposedly you could call them and they could take the form of your enemy provided you had the flesh to make it, like a freshly killed corpse or two, and then they'd go out into the enemy camp and slaughter and mutilate and all the usual jazz…thing is, they NEED those flesh bodies to exist on our plane. Otherwise they can't stay."
"And this stupid kid didn't have any flesh present but his own. Another one dies of lack of fine print reading." Danny said. "That doesn't explain the precise shapes we saw."
"Well, if they have raw material, they'll turn to whatever's handy. If need be they'll just copy humans, but they prefer taking worse shapes, anything that would be written down in a book, on a scroll…"
"Or a video game?" Vlad asked.
Danny and Cassie looked at the giant, as he held out a black DC case on which two words were scratched.
THRILL KILL.
"Thrill Kill. Playstation game developed in the late 90's by Paradox Development, and was all set to be shipped until its publisher, Virgin Interactive, was bought by Electronic Arts, who canceled the game's release a few weeks before it actually launched." Tucker said. "Apparently it was such a violent, nasty game they didn't even want another company to put it out: they killed it entirely. But a few bootleg copies managed to sneak their way out…and your friend apparently found one."
"Charming. And just what was this game about?"
"According to this game site, the story goes "Eight fighters, eight souls. Each has died and descended into Hell - except it is not the classical Dante's Hell. It is a modern day Hell based on the real world of today's deviants. The characters are the physical manifestations of their mental illnesses or vices on earth. Marukka, the God of Secrets, is bored and decided that it would be fun to pit them all against each other with the prize being rebirth. Each character is battling for nothing more than self-preservation and the hope to be born again." You would all fight in a room until someone's 'Kill Meter' filled up then you'd kill someone and so on until there was one left standing. It was violent beyond belief, crude, nasty, and nihilistic."
"Lovely. What the fuck is wrong with people?" Cassie bitched.
"Hey man, er, miss, it was just a sign of the times. Mortal Kombat'd been released several years ago and started a massive brouhaha over its violent content and how it was affecting the youth, the usual nonsense scapegoating, so when it came out for home systems Nintendo caved in and censored the violence and Sega didn't, and Sega's copies sold tons more then Nintendo, which made them leave the violence in for the sequel and showed that blood and guts can sell. Combine that with the Playstation system breaking the belief that games were all for kids and that adults could play this machine, well, how do you do an adult Mortal Kombat? Turn everything up to 11. It probably WOULD have sold tons, simply based on that." Tucker said. "It's the classic problem of seeing the most hyped feature of a game make people think that that's all that makes it worthwhile, which is why you had all those Kombat knockoffs and games like that. Violence is just part of a game. The Grand Theft Auto and God of War games are immensely violent, but they're also very good games: if you took the violence out…"
"Yes Tucker this is all very interesting but does it have a point?"
"You said you ran into murderous lunatics called Cleetus, Belladonna, and Oddball? Well, Thrill Kill happened to have three of its eight playable characters named that. The essences took flesh from their initial murders and crafted bodies based on the fighters from the game."
"And then they killed the whole town." Danny said grimly.
"They gain strength from such atrocities. That and actual presence in our realm. You can kill them Danny, but they won't go down easy."
"Story of my life." Cassie and Danny said at the same time: the two glanced oddly at each other when they'd finished.
"What are the rest of this game's characters Tuck?"
"Well counting Marukka as a likely final boss, there are six left. Besides Marukka that's…"
And then with a sudden hissing click, Tucker's voice cut out.
"Tuck? Tuck?" Danny said, as he ran over to the phone. His efforts to restablish a connection proved fruitless: the phone had gone stone dead.
But not silent.
"HHHHHHHHAAAAAALLLLLLLFFFFLLLLLINNNNGGGGGGG…"
Danny took a step back as the voice traced ice down his spine.
"FRESHHHHHHHHHHHH……BLOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDD…"
And then the Thrill Kill disc burst into flames, Vlad throwing it down in surprise as it did. Danny's head snapped to the movement, and then back to the phone, but it was now completely silent. Danny's second try to use it proved as useless as the first.
"…well, they've thrown down the gauntlet. Let's go." Danny said.
"Go where now?"
"Who knows? They'll find us soon enough. They know we're here. They can smell us."
"What a barrel of shitass." Vlad commented, as the three left the room and the house, weapons at the ready.
But no attacks came, and with guarded steps, the three began making their way back into the town.
"How do slashers typically act?" Danny asked a few minutes later, as the two made their way back into the town.
"Huh?" Cassie said, glancing at Danny.
"They kill. How?"
"Uh, well, they're often not very subtle about it. They're usually already dead, or insane, or both, and I have yet to meet one that didn't possess some degree of resilience or regeneration. But they often pick easy targets. Most of them don't have much of a clue what to do when myself and Vlad show up…"
"That won't be the case here. These are malevolent intelligences, not vengeful ghouls. They'll know how to fight. The only advantage we have is that they'll be bound by the rules of the form they picked. As long as they chose something sensible…"
"Ahhhhhhhh…but isn't that the great secret?" The soft, almost gentle female voice said.
As Danny suddenly found the area in front of him piled with bodies. Danny recoiled from the sudden appearance: he'd KNOWN that they hadn't been there a second ago. Cass and Vlad were just as surprised and alarmed at the sight.
The townspeople, so cruelly butchered and then strewn around the town square like garbage. Danny suddenly found the street beneath him sticky with blood, and the smell of death filled the air.
And then it swooped down, landing on the fountain in the town center, long wings coiling up behind it as he did so, and Danny found himself looking at a demonic figure once more.
It was clearly not human, unlike the previous three essence-skins, but unlike the typical demon colors of black and red, this creature was actually green and yellow: green on the extremities and wings (with some red on the wings) turning yellow on the torso. It had a two-toed clawed foot, organic blades sprouting from its wrists and covering the top of its hands, and while having breasts the figure was nippleless and sexless, its face possessing neither a mouth or nose, just a pair of glowing green eyes (and a pair of fleshy antenna like projections from her forehead).
Danny looked at it, and he knew.
"Marukka." Danny said, drawing the Magnus. It was not the demon's true name, but since it wore the form of the creature from the game, it would do.
"Spirit boy, a mess of flesh." Marukka replied. "Your heart will be delicious to feast upon."
"You don't have a fucking MOUTH, you stupid bitch." Cass said as she brought her bat to bear. "Why don't you come down here so I can show you how to play a REAL game."
"…this is the only warning you get. Leave your constructs and return to your realm of existence. Or suffer the consequences." Danny said, pointing his sword at the demon.
"Hmmmmmmmm…no. I'd rather know your secrets." Marukka said. "And my fellows thirst for blood. Scream for me, meatsacks!"
And Danny sensed the movement, coming out of nowhere, just like when Belladonna caught him off guard…
As Cassie turned and found another length of wood slamming against the side of her head, pitching her down, even as Vlad was spun around and sent flying by a gigantic fist blow…
As the limbs wrapped around Danny's body from behind, the arms and legs pretzeling around him as Danny gasped.
"Hello you bastard." A female voice, for the second time, whispered in his ear. "Get ready to be broken."
"GRARGGHHHH!" Danny hissed, as the arms and legs began to yank at him, trying to twist his body into a position it would not naturally go into…as Danny sliced the Magnus behind him, striking a glancing blow and drawing a cry of pain. Danny used that chance to slip free from the grip, whirling around to face his assailant.
It was a young woman, with red hair, a skintight purple outfit consisting of pants, a bra-shirt, and a headband, and, as she glared at him with a look of petulant rage while holding her cut arm, more joints then she knew what to do with, as she promptly twisted her body into a position no human could have accomplished without breaking half the bones they had. She was a contortionist.
"Gonna snap you in half you BASTARD!" She snarled. Danny raised his sword…
As the chain wrapped around his neck, and he was promptly jerked off his feet with a yell of surprise. He hit the ground hard, clawing at the chain as he was dragged along the ground several feet before being yanked back up.
He found himself staring into a black masked face, an executioner's hood from which two cruel, vicious eyes stared.
"Little delinquent."
And a chain-wrapped fist slammed into his face.
Vlad's attacker didn't need a chain: he was even bigger and wider then the deformed giant, a truly mammoth attacker, which was apt as his name WAS Mammoth. You'd never find that out from him though, as he bellowed and charged at Vlad, a gigantic slab of muscle with a blobby, bald, mouthless and noseless head from which two blankly furious eyes glared through heavily hooded brows. Maybe he was angry at the fact that he had no genitals, a fact made clear by Mammoth's lack of clothes.
"Ngghhh. A first…" Vlad said, as he sidestepped Mammoth and slashed out, cutting two deep wounds in the giant's side. But Vlad was an expert at meat cutting and he knew the injuries were superficial: he needed to get closer and stab harder…
As Mammoth's fist pinwheeled around and knocked him sprawling with another vicious blow.
And he needed to do it before he suffered the unexpected fate of being beaten into paste.
And from giant to anything but, Cassie blinked the pain from her head as she looked at her attacker…
He was a midget. Wearing a skintight red devil suit (so skintight she could make out a lot more detail about his 'little devil' then she'd like). Complete with Van Dyke. With stilts strapped to his legs.
"You gotta be shittin' me."
"Nope, that was my old job." The Imp said, and swung his stilt leg out with a control as equal to any kickboxer. Cassie whirled away, the blow thudding into her back and knocking her sprawling, but she was back up and swinging in turn in a second, spittle flying from her mouth as she snarled…
The Imp ducked under her blow, and his own 'leg' lashed out, slamming into her ankles and knocking her back down…as his other stilt leg spun around and back-roundhoused her across the head again, knocking her fully down and causing her to lose the grip on her bat.
"Little old for me. But I'll make due." The Imp said as he licked his lips, and then he leapt up, pistoning his stilt-leg at Cassie's head.
As she rolled aside and spun back up to her knees as the Imp thudded back down on the ground.
"So will I." She hissed.
As her hand snapped out and grabbed him. By his far too prominent bulge.
The Imp's bug-eyed look would have almost been comical before he started to scream, as Cassie brought every big of crushing force she could bear into her grip, blood staining the spandex beneath her hand before she pushed the Imp away, and as he stumbled backwards she darted forward and seized him by one of his legs.
"Not the size asshole, HOW YOU USE IT!"
And Cassie lifted the midget right off the ground and swung him overhead in a burst of strength fueled by a rage that seemed bottomless, as she smashed him face first into the ground, and then, still in the grip of her fury-born adrenaline blast, swung the Imp around until his head met a nearby telephone pole.
She left his twitching form there, as she turned around and went for her bat…
The scalpel sliced out, so quick Cassie barely saw it, cutting two wounds across her face and chest before she knew it, and she squawked and stumbled backwards again, looking at her new attacker…a doctor. Dressed in classical white shirt and brown pants style, complete with a head covering that had that the small mirror doctors used for some mysterious purpose…and a bear trap grafted onto his face in place of his jaw.
"Holy shit." Cassie said.
"Not quite." Dr. Faustus replied, and hurled his scalpel at Cassie, impaling the girl through her hand as she went for her bat and then knocking her back once more as he impaled another surgical knife into her left shoulder.
"Ah, the joys of first cut." Dr. Faustus sighed, and then sliced another wound across Cassie's chest.
"….Cassie." Vlad said as he saw the attack where he lay, and he furiously pushed himself up to go help…
As Mammoth's cruel hands seized him, lifting him up and smashed him into the ground, and then smashing down on him again in a axehandle blow, the impacts crashing through Vlad with terrible strength and unbelievable anger.
As Danny was smashed in the face with another chain-enhanced fist, knocking him back down…mostly: the chain's give ran out a brief bit before the ground and Danny's neck and head were jerked back with a vicious snap: he was lucky the wrench hadn't broken his neck. Overall, it wasn't the best start.
And then the masked killer snarled and electricity surged through his chain, and Danny found himself being electrocuted again. He screamed in pain…and then grabbed the chain and returned the favor, shocking the masked killer back in turn and making him stumble back. He wore loose black pants and a skintight sleeveless black tee, his chains wrapped around his arms and torso and right up around the back of his head to end attached to two piercing above the maniacal eyes glaring from beneath the hood, as Danny got the Magnus up and sliced through the chain, yanking it off his neck as he pushed himself back up.
"GODDAMN PUNK! NOW I'LL REALLY THROW THE BOOK AT YOU!" The masked killer yelled, and hurled his chains out again.
Danny leapt backwards…
And found himself leaping back into the same furious grip that had seized him before, as the contortionist grabbed him and tangled him up in a painful octopus grip.
"He's MINE Tormentor!" The girl hissed, as Danny struggled to break free before his arms and legs were dislocated, or worse.
"Oh I think we can reach a compromise Violet." Tormentor replied, as he lifted his arms and his barbed chains floated up. "Because this offender definitely needs a bigger whupin'."
And the cutting chains lanced at Danny's head again…
"…no." Danny said, as he threw the Magnus…away, briefly severing their connection.
And then he did Violet one better and phased backwards out through her grip, and the chain smashed into her face with a shriek, as Danny re-appeared and zipped to the side, picking up the Magnus as Violet agonized.
"YOU FUCK!!!!!!!!!" She screamed, and leapt at him.
This time, Danny was ready.
KER-SLASH!
Violet hit the ground, her head rolling a few more feet as her neck gouted fresh blood onto the already soaked streets.
"Not really." Danny replied.
He should have focused on Tormentor.
Too late now, as the chains surged out and seized him, and Danny found himself being yanked off the ground as the chains wrapped around his wrist and ankles, snatching away his sword before he could cut himself free.
"Now you're REALLY in trouble you fucking punk. Time for some old school punishment. Drawing and quartering." Tormentor said, and Danny screamed as the chains began to pull on his limbs…
And Vlad found himself being picked up. He stabbed at Mammoth, but the giant slapped his hands and knocked his knives away before drawing him in and locking his arms up against his chest as he began to crush him in a bear hug. Vlad could feel his ribs and spine screaming…
And Cassie was screaming too, as she missed a punch for Fautus' face and received another scalpel slice across her body. She staggered back, clutching the new wound as it burned. He was toying with her, and she knew it.
"Such a lovely young lady. You will make quite a canvass for my…vision." Dr. Faustus said, and then he charged at Cassie, scalpel slicing out…
As Vlad violently shook his head, seemingly in pain from being crush, but in reality to dislodge his gas mask somewhat, as it slid up on his face…
And he bit at the tape wrapped around his wrist, his teeth seizing onto what was hidden in there…a razor blade.
As he reared back his head and then thrust it forward, slamming the razor straight into Mammoth's left eye.
The giant grunted…
And then Vlad snapped his head back and forward again, headbutting Mammoth and driving the razor all the way in, and the giant finally squealed and let Vlad go, clawing at his face as Vlad dropped down and got his proper blades.
"Size doesn't matter. Hurrrr." Vlad murmured, and stabbed out, driving his knife straight into Mammoth's chest, and then slamming a fist down to make sure it went all the way in, as the giant staggered but didn't fall…
Mammoth introduced his other blade to Mammoth's head, the knife bisecting Mammoth's blank features, and the giant lurched and then fell, landing face first on the knife and driving the point out the back of its skull.
"Ingest me." Vlad then, as he adjusted his mask…and then muttered darkly to himself: he'd probably gotten it wrong again.
As Danny felt the joints in his arms and legs screaming at him for what they were allowing to be done, and Danny concurred.
"Overruled!" Danny snapped, and began pulling back.
And Tormentor found the stick-like Danny had far more strength in his body then one would expect, as he stopped the pressure on his limbs within two seconds, and much to his surprise Tormentor suddenly found the pressure REVERSED, Danny was yanking on HIM. He snarled and redoubled his efforts, but Danny held the course, as he freed his legs from the chains and bore back on the chains wrapped around his arms, pulling with all his might…
On the chains attached to Tormentor's arms and chest.
"NOOOOOOOOOARGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" Tormentor screamed, and then he shrieked as his arms were torn from their sockets, blood gouting from his body as he staggered about, as Danny dumped the chains off his arms and snatched up the Magnus.
"Case dismissed." Danny said, and stabbed Tormentor through the heart, and his body collapsed in ash as Danny turned and walked away.
As Cassie did what all her attackers inevitably wanted: she fell down.
But she did it under her own power, as she darted between Faustus' legs as he slashed at her.
"WHAT?"
As Cassie yanked the scalpel still impaled in her hand out with a scream and slashed out herself, cutting both of Dr. Faustus' Achilles tendons, and as the doctor screamed and fell to his knees Cassie rolled over to her bat and snatched it up.
"It's not the first cut that matters asswipe." Cassie said.
And she swung her bat with all her might, smashing Dr. Faustus across his mutilated face, and with a giant gout of blood his bear trap jaw from ripped from his features, clattering across the ground as more blood sprayed from his face, the doctor not even able to scream…
As Cassie swung the bat up and brought it back down on what was left of Faustus' head, crushing his skull into an unfixable ruin.
"Sorry asshole, no hypocritical oath for me." Cassie said, and spat once more before turning to Marukka. "THAT THE BEST YOU GOT?"
"Please don't taunt the evil demon essence. It never ends well." Danny said as he rejoined Cassie.
"Hurrrrrr. Trim her wings." Vlad commented, doing likewise.
"I guess you thought it's be a cakewalk, didn't you? Sorry shithead, this is my world. You can just go fuck off." Cassie said, as she stalked towards the winged creature, who had stood and watched the whole battle impassively.
"Hmmmmmm…but I'm afraid we're not done. We all have our secrets." Marukka said. "You believe you've won, but clearly you've forgotten about sub-bosses."
"Sub-wha…"
The flaming punch knocking Cassie on her ass, and Danny whirled around as a figure suddenly leapt on Vlad and began pummeling on him anew.
"They are not your concern halfling! It is my turn to taste your blood!" Marukka declared, as she spread her wings and leapt at Danny. Danny whirled back around as the demon flew at him.
And vanished.
"Wha…"
And smashed into his back, having teleported around behind him. Danny flew forward with a yell, trying to turn around…
A blast of demonic hellfire flew from Marukka's hands, and Danny went smashing through the fountain.
As another explosion of fire knocked Cassie on her ass, and she looked up at her attacker: a literal fireman, dressed in a burned fireman's outfit and on fire at the same time, firing wreathing his obscured features as he smiled…and hurled another firebolt at Cassie, as she dodged away, barely.
As Vlad found himself being savaged by…what the hell was it? It had four arms and no legs, two pairs of heads…what it was was a pair of conjoined twins attached at the waist, the two torsos operating in perfect sync as they attacked, one pair of hands stealing Vlad's knives even as another hammered on his face.
"Cain! Judas! Those two are yours! I claim the halfling!" Marukka yelled, and then surged forward at terrible speed as Danny picked himself up from the rubble…
Marukka smashed a wing into him, the limb feeling as hard as steel as he was sent flying once more…as Marukka seized him by the hair and rammed him into a nearby building, dragging him along it for a second before hurling them forward and through another.
And Cassie found herself in total retreat, unable to attack or defend against Cain's flames. She took refuge behind a pile of dead bodies and recoiled as Cain turned his terrible fire on them…even as Vlad's arms were restrained by one pair of hands and another slammed repeated blows into his stomach and chest, before Judas rapidly switched position, one pair of hands seizing Vlad's ankles and another grabbing him by his boiler suit as both sides yanked, hurling Vlad through the air and sending him crashing down near Cassie.
"Vlad! Damn, we're in the shit now!" Cassie said, as Cain continued his fire barrage.
As Danny crashed into the ground nearby, his jacket and suit in tatters from the vicious pummeling Marukka had given him. The god of secrets landed before him.
"You have no hope, halfling. I was butchering civilizations while your species still cowered in caves. What power you wield is far from enough. Surrender to your demise." Marukka said.
Danny coughed, and then he slowly got up. Nearby, Vlad and Cassie cowered behind their rapidly vanishing barrier…
Two more people who would die, because of him. The fact that they could fight back so well didn't seem to matter. Danny's actions had set in motion the events that had led to this, and now they were at risk, those who would fight to save the innocent as he would…
….like hell.
"…actually…I have a secret of my own." Danny said, as he brought the Magnus in front of him. "I just wanted to get an idea of what was necessary. And now I do."
"Oh, you believe your little sword spirit can save you? Impossible, with the degree you've got it sealed."
"Yes…such is the problem of flesh and blood. It can limit what you can do…and for humans, this is wise." Danny said, as he put his fingers against his sword. "But do not confuse conservation with weakness."
"What?" Marukka said.
"UNLOCK." Danny replied.
And the street suddenly exploded with blue radiance, Marukka recoiling from the blast.
Danny's unique sword flew from the light and clattered to the ground. Empty.
As Marukka looked at the Halfa, now standing and holding a massive, surging mass of blue, twisting energy, a combination sword and spear and shield and a few other weapons as well. The true form, and power, of the Magnus, unleashed.
"Bankai." Danny said. "Oh wait, wrong series."
"…Judas! Cain! Forget them! Kill him!" Marukka ordered, pointing at Danny. The pair of demons, wearing the flesh of fictional monsters, immediately turned and went for Danny. Perhaps they saw it as a chance to feast on Danny's unique and powerful energies.
It was the last mistake they made.
Judas ran again on all fours, leaping at Danny with a squeal…
Danny's form blurred, and in the next second there were four Dannys, as they all stabbed upward with blades of pure power and impaled Judas in mid-air.
The freak of nature collapsed, dead on the spot, as the four Dannys merged back into one.
As Cain landed nearby, and with a roar he turned a blast of intense flame on Danny.
Danny turned and looked as the fire came, and then a surge of blue power sprang up before him, stopping the fire dead. Cain snarled and increased the pressure, the fire burning ever higher.
"Been there, done that." Danny said quietly, and then slashed out, and fire sprang from his own form, blasting out and overwhelming Cain's own flame, and as the fireman's eyes widened it consumed him, blowing the flesh off his bones in a fiery spray of fat and sizzling muscle, as his blackened skeleton collapsed on the ground.
Danny turned back to Marukka, as Cassie and Vlad watched in slack-jawed amazement. They'd seen some crazy shit, but even for them, this was a keeper.
Marukka growled.
And Danny slashed out with the Magnus, and a blast of blue power flew out, a sword of energy that zapped through the air like a bullet. Marukka dodged it, but Danny just fired another, and another, and another, and Marukka had to take to the air to avoid the assault of the cutting blades.
And so did Danny, all shackles on his powers removed as he flew once more, as he raised the Magnus and cut loose, sending blast after blast of deadly cutting power after the demon, Marukka dodging through the skies as it avoided blade after blade by the skin of her non-existent teeth…
As Danny yelled and then fired a spray of the blades, the blue cutting bolts ripping through the air…
As Marukka abruptly turned and dove back at Danny, zipping through the spray of air blades and grabbing onto Danny as the teenager's eyes went wide.
"I have a few secrets of my own." Marukka said.
And then in a surge of dark energy, Danny Phantasm was turned to stone.
"OH SHIT!" Cassie said as Marukka hurled the Halfa's rocky form back down towards the damned town that a tragically misguided idiot had condemned to a wretched death…
As Danny shattered on the ground, and for a moment Cassie thought he was dead…until Danny's body flew from the mass of rock and bounced a few more times before coming to a stop. He'd just been encased in stone rather then being turned through and through.
Not that it seemed to make much difference, as Danny lay there, broken and unmoving, as Marukka flew back down.
"Sealed power or none, you cannot change what you were born as, halfling. Flesh and blood. Your existence is set. To rot. And fester. And be devoured by those superior." Marukka said. "Do you know the greatest secret of all? All that exists, exists only to stop existing."
"…oh geez, you ate that fuckwit who summoned you's brain, didn't you?"
Cassie's bat flew out…
Marukka caught it without even looking.
"He was more right then even he knew." Marukka said, and hurled Cassie backwards into Vlad, as the demon turned. "Let me show you…"
"No…"
Marukka turned back as Danny started getting back up, the blue energy of the Magnus swirling back around his right hand.
"You will not." Danny said, as he stood, his back to Marukka. "This is over."
"You wish to make a last futile effort?"
"No." Danny said, as he reached down and picked up the empty blade that housed his greatest weapon. "No need."
"You have accepted the inevitable?"
"No…" Danny said. "Just waiting for you to see my last secret."
"What…" Marukka said.
As she saw the flicker…the flicker across the nearly invisible blade of energy that was floating in the air.
As the flicker went across ALL of them, and Marukka realized what Danny had been talking about. He hadn't fired all those cutting, piercing energy blades and let them just fly off into the ether. That had all been a feint.
And now they'd all returned, gathered around the demon.
Aimed at her.
Cassie and Vlad saw them, and they threw themselves on the ground.
"I warned you." Danny said.
"NO!"
And Danny slammed the Magnus power back into his sword.
As the blades all slashed out, so fast Marukka couldn't even teleport.
The buildings around the demon exploded into ruins as the blades tore through them, and Marukka was briefly transfixed at their heart…and then blood exploded twenty feet into the air as all the blades ripped through her, a massive fountain of gore and destruction.
Such is the weaknesses of the flesh. All flesh.
Marukka fell, her body disintegrating into so much meat, as Danny turned around and swung his sword behind him, placing it against its hilt.
"Game over." He said, and drove the blade home.
"You gonna be alright?" Danny said some time later.
"Owtch. Hazards of the job." Cassie said, as she finished stitching up her hand, Vlad and her having raided a pharmacy for medical supplies. As well as all the cash registers in town. Cassie felt a bit guilty about that, but she and Vlad had to eat.
"Hurrrrr. How about you, Danny?" Vlad asked, pressing an even larger ice pack to his face.
"I'll live. I always do. Bad habit of mine." Danny said. The tone was semi-jokingly. Semi. "The pall's lifted. This is just a dead town now. But there's other threats out there."
"No kidding." Cassie said. "Hey kid, I wanted to apologize. I was rough on you earlier. I take it all back. You're fucking hardcore, man."
"No. I'm not." Danny said. Cassie blinked. "I'm just someone trying to do the right thing. The rest is just tools for the task. They do not define me."
Cassie was silent.
"Keep that in mind. That's their greatest trick you know. They turn you into them. And then you end up the hunted."
"Save the Dr. Phil kid. I'm not as dumb as you look." Cassie said. Danny gave her a wry, tired glance. Cassie grinned.
"Keep kicking ass and taking names. Maybe we'll see you around." Cassie said, as she offered a hand. Danny took it.
"But don't bring your troubles to us again, hurrrr." Vlad added. Cassie looked at her partner.
"What, you kidding Vlad? This is one for the scrapbook!"
"We nearly got killed a dozen times over, and we do not have a scrapbook."
"It's a metaphor."
"Mmmmmm. Metaphors don't work."
"Oh Danny, could you…" Cassie said as she turned back.
Only to find him gone.
"…damn. He is a ghost kid." Cassie said.
"Only in America." Vlad said. "…did I use the expression correctly this time?"
"…it'll serve Vlad. It'll serve."
Arthur Ashe wrote "True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost."
You don't always need a dictionary to find the truth in words.
End file.
CLICK!
Cassie and Vlad are owned by Devil's Due publishing and their comic series Hack/Slash. Thrill Kill is probably owned by someone (yes, it really exists) but I don't know who. Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo, and it REALLY irks me how much he stole from me, so in your face Kubo, I steal from you! (Not really. My ideas and his just turned out remarkably alike in some aspects. It annoys me.)
See you later.
Maybe.
