Author's Note: Again not a heck of a lot to say right now. All this Corona Bull going around has left me with a lot of time and not a heck of a lot to do with it so if nothing else you won't be short on chapters any time soon. Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!
Chapter 67: Of Mongrels and Men
Raven and company were looking through one of the window's down at the two contractor's that Laura spotted earlier, it was still only two contractors, and they were setting something up on the lawn down below instead of making their way to the school itself. Out of context it seemed innocent enough, if not outright out of place, as it all looked like so much sound equipment, until you realized that one of them was a Shadmok. Raven saw the obvious signs, he was scrawny and skinny, a frame so thin that you'd be forgiven for thinking it a skeleton with but the lightest covering of skin and flesh substitute covering it, he looked older than he probably was likely thanks to the bald spot covering most of his scalp. The most important detail of all though would the quality of the curse coming off of him, she could make out at least three different kinds coming off of him, but intermingled, cobbled together and jumbled up in a mess that would take a crack team of specialists at least a decade to unravel.
"Ramona what do you think?" Raven stated looking down at them from above.
"I think I better get down there and stop them before they turn that bloody thing loose and kill us all." Saying that Ramona prepared to jump out the window but was stopped by Raven pulling her back inside instead.
"Why don't you wait until the rest of us are out of the school before you tip our hand and let them know what we're trying to do?" Raven asked turning to look at Ramona while holding her by the scruff of her shirt.
"Aren't you guys over reacting a little bit?" Laura asked looking concerned. "I mean I don't think that thing is that strong."
"You're speaking from the point of view of a noble woman Laura, you haven't seen the kind of damage that one of these things can leave in their wake." Raven stated finger accusingly pointed at the Vampire Girl's face.
"Enlighten us." Cleo stated as she crossed her arms and looked down at Raven with dread on her features.
"Do you understand what a Obscuris is?" Raven asked causing most of her friends to shrug in ignorance.
"Huge cancerous mass of curses, highly unstable and prone to throwing space warping fits twisting everything around it into a huge jumbled mass." Frankie provided gulping before she continued. "Does this thing have one of those?"
"No but it's close, Very close. Instead of hundreds the Shadmok has three intertwined curses. Destablizing each other into a big jumbled up mess. Unlike the Obscuris it's not powerful enough to act on it's own, it has to be released through a spell. Of course the Shadmok is only strong enough to cast the weakest spells." Raven explained prompting a look of realization from Clawdeen.
"Like a whistle?" Raven nodded and Clawdeen felt bad about laughing at the poor thing whistling.
"The good news is those same curses that make it so Hel be damned dangerous also means that he's so physically frail that he can't put up a fight in close quarters." Raven explained scratching her chin.
"What about the whistling?" Cleo asked recalling the explanation Raven gave.
"And what makes you think that he would want to be caught up in the aftermath anymore than we do?" Raven asked her features that of someone who'd been asked to tap dance on a mine field.
"So we grab him, muzzle him, tie him up, and ask his friend just what they were hoping to accomplish here. Easy." Cleo stated shrugging her shoulders with the indication that her words did not match her mouth.
"Then how about we hurry, cause they got a head start already." Ramona asked again indicating the work that was being completed on the school's courtyard.
The two of them were nearing work on completing the stage, just had to fill up the generator and let the havoc fly.
"Are we finished yet?" The more hideous looking of the pair asked watching his companion empty a jug into the tank of a generator.
"Done." The Gil Man stated as he finished work on the generator. "Let it rip."
Thus the Shadmok breathed in as he prepared to loose the ability that his 'species' was known for. He was interrupted by a ten foot long stick spearing him through his thigh, taking the microphone stand with it.
"AAAUUUAAAGGGHHH!"
"Nice shot." Laura commented watching the screaming mutt of a monster as he bowled over holding onto his leg.
"Lucky shot. I was just aiming for the microphone." Even then she didn't hit it, she just knocked it out of his reach. "We need to get down there before he gets back to his microphone." Ramona stated as she grabbed hold of the railing and turned into her mid-size form.
"On it." Laura took to the air, one of the tool-kits they brought with them filled with the heaviest items they could find as she flew above the Shadmok, the hideous hybrid reaching for the microphone on the ground, only to see the box drop from above and nearly land on his hand, crushing his weapon in the process.
"Damn! Bat!" Grunting in pain the Shadmok looked above him and took sight of his target and so took a deep breath.
"RRREEEEEEEEE!" The monster let out a high pitch screech, the space above the Shadmok twisted, compressed, and then exploded right in front of Laura knocking her out of the air in the process and leading her to a painful crash in front of the school. Then the Shadmok got up, stick lodged in his leg and all, scanning the area in search of where the next attack was coming from. And he saw it, a werewolf dropping the rooftop was a werewolf in a painter's smock landing with enough force to make the ground shake. So in other words she wasn't a werewolf, or at least not a normal one.
"What is the meaning of this!" Ramona snapped finger stretched out and pointing accusingly. "Depending on your answer I may let you leave here with your life!" Clawdeen was also in her wolf form, quickly acting to drag Laura back into the relative safety of the school, her body twisted by the effects of the spacial distortions.
"A werewolf and a Vampire getting all buddy buddy with each other. How quaint. Do you have more of your 'Ghoul-friends' in there by any chance?" The Shadmok asked glaring at the werewolf scathingly.
"I suggest answering my question." Ramona walked over to one of the few things that were still firmly rooted into the ground in the courtyard, the flag pole, and promptly changed that, ripping it from the ground and aiming the hoisted flag at the Shadmok. "I'm losing my patience!"
"Oh forgive me for offending a pure blooded monster of a glorious bloodline!" The Shadmok stated as he worked Ramona's stick out of his leg.
"Fore!" Yelling that Ramona wound up her makeshift golf club and slammed it into the side of the Shadmok, or at least that's what she would have done had she not been blind sided by a water stream to her face fired by the Gilman.
"Are you okay?" The Gilman asked his tone of voice that of someone wondering if a piece of equipment was functioning properly.
"Do I look okay!?" The hybridized mongrel asked gesturing to the stick run through his leg.
"We'll have to retreat for now. This one is a little bit out of our price range." The fish faced thug stated keeping up the stream of water at Ramona.
"She's just one werewolf!" The Shadmok snapped indignant.
"You didn't actually read the briefing packet did you?" Simultaneous annoyed that she was being ignored and irritated about being continuously sprayed in the face Ramona decided to stop screwing around and went full Gigan. The stream of water looked more like a drizzle of luke warm water now in comparison, the water harmlessly draining off of fur which loosely resembled strands of brownish red spider silk as the Gigan stared down the pair. "Oh sh-!"
"RRROOOAAARRR!" Ramona's huge body allowed her to instantly close the distance between her and the pair of monsters, her howl sending the whistler flying. He should be grateful to the beast having just shortened the distance back to their ship with the rest of their equipment including more microphones.
The first stomp of Ramona's paw bounced the pole seven feet into the air, followed up another howl sending the pole flying flag first into the golem ship harpooning it through it's engine and causing it to make a short fall back to the ground. Clearly she intended to cut off their escape as she turned her blatant hostility towards the two monsters who had been attacking her.
"Damn it! RRREEEEEEEEE!" Like before the Shadmok let off another screech twisting the space he was facing, Ramona almost suffered the same fate as Laura before she rolled out of the way and shrunk down to her mid size form and went for a charge towards the ugly tri-bred. "RRREEEEEEEEE!" Ramona pushed herself out of the path of the spacial explosion with a gust of air and rapidly started moving closer than what the Shadmok was comfortable with. "RR-" The final attempt to blow her up was silenced with Ramona punching the ugly bugger across the ground again.
"Oh No you don't!" Now that Ramona had stopped moving again the Gilman had the perfect chance to line up a shot at her with both of his water spewing arms. The Gilman quickly found himself on the receiving end of a nasty upper cut as a sand storm suddenly sprung up and sent him flying backwards and rolling for a couple of feet.
"Please don't think that the wolves and bats were the only ones in the building."
"Another wind user!?" The Gilman prepared another attack in response to the appearance of Cleo, but she was having none of it.
"Oh by the way, I don't just deal in wind." Sand was more accurately Cleo's area of expertise, sand that was now mixing with the comparatively light and easy to move around water and turning it into heavy, heavy clay preventing the Gilman from reabsorbing and weaponizing it again. "Now are you going to calm down like a good little boy, or am I going to have to take a page out of my friend's over there book and bludgeon you into submission?"
"Wrong on bo-!" Cleo too opted for neither, rather using her affinity for the air to suck the oxygen out of the fish man's pseudo lungs and force him into unconsciousness.
"Welp this is all wrapped up. Ramona how are yah doing with that one?" The Shadmok was barely able to move at this point in time let alone whistle, he was barely conscious enough to watch Ramona rip the stick out of his leg, and see her slam her foot into his face. Course Ramona wasn't trying to render him unconscious, that would make interrogating him all the harder, no she was trying, and succeeding for that matter, to break his jaw so he couldn't whistle anymore.
"I got this one guys!" Ramona shouted dragging the Shadmok over by what little hair he had.
"So what do we do now?" Cleo asked cocking one eye towards their prisoners.
"I'm going to go see what they got on their little ship, you can go check on Laura." Thus Cleo tied both of the prisoners up and dragged them off back to the school.
Laura was in bad condition, her face, unlike the rest of her head, was on backwards which necessitated that Frankie carve a mouth over her mouth just so that she could breath. But not only that, twisted and stretched out flesh could be made out all over her body, yet nothing below the surface had been affected.
"Well?" Cleo asked sounding rather impatient.
"I have no idea how to fix any of this." Frankie stated scratching the back of her head as she looked down at Laura's condition.
"That's not a good thing." Laura mumbled as she curled up the best she could.
"Let's grab Raven and get her to the tower witch." The other's nodded their heads their heads to Cleo's suggestion. "Where did Clawdeen go?" Cleo stated noticing the absence of the werewolf.
"Went to get Raven after Laura was dragged in."
Well it was a shame that the Shadmok got captured, individuals with that much raw destructive power and yet so easy to manipulate didn't exactly grow on trees. No matter the most valuable aspect of the fool was his voice after all, all they'd really need to do was hard wire it into the school's speaker system and this gods forsaken place would burn. Hence why he was now in the Headmistress's office, and hence presumably why she was here too.
"A Chimera? My My today is full of rare stuff isn't it?" Raven stated her feet up on the head Mistress's desk. "So tell me what's a horrible psychopath like you doing in a nice place like this?"
Technically speaking Chimera is a catch all term applicable to any type of hybrid between multiple species of Monster, named for the famous ancient Greek monster who was assembled out of spare parts the gods had lying around. This one was the spitting image of that one even in a human like form, walking down the hall way Raven heard the tell tale clicks indicating goat hooves, a long snake like tail was hanging out the back of his suit. Raven also recognized the scaly arms that were being used to carry the suitcase, dark green scales ending with sharp short talons, like on a Dragon Newt, serving in direct and blatant contrast with pointed fuzzy ears and a long mane of hair, not unlike a lion.
"Destroying a abomination." The Chimera stated as he cracked his neck in a gesture saying bring it.
Review Section:
Starlord Master: I would hope so. I would say ghoul, Vampires and werewolves were originally humans, and while not all humans are good media is quite fond of portraying a lot of them as being turned against their will into a inhuman monster. Ghouls on the other hand were never human, and they've got no problem with humans as a food source.
