I'm afraid this chapter will be short - but eventful!
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Chapter Three
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Desolation doesn't sit will in Harry's aura. Puts him in a foul mood and makes the air tinge and crackle in ominous successions.
Lightbulbs in the chandelier of his apartment popped. The kerosene in his lamps burst to orange glowing fire.
These moods strike him every now and then. No warning. No hello how are you. It hurdles itself out of that dark locked up part of his brain and gives him strange thoughts.
And when they do Harry likes to get very, very drunk.
This is how Harry finds himself snapping bottles of fire whisky into existence as he smashed floundering fingers onto the keys of his pipe organ at four in the morning. Exactly seven hours after sending a tip to Shota's fan site.
Exactly six hours into his slate of depression.
These moods typically lasted for 48 hours then disappeared, never to be thought of for the next century or so.
He was in the middle of one of those retro renditions of Beethoven's sonatas when his phone ringed from the bedside table. Harry swerved in his seat to grab it and slid off. Face on the floor hand outreached, he willed a bit of magic and the phone floated to his palm.
"Herrowe?"
"My Lord!" A shrill panicked voice relayed. "We've got a bit of a situation!" In the background someone else growled "A bit?"
Head lolled to the side, Harry faced his demented reflection in the pipes and muttered. "I'm not having a wonderfully good time right now. Could you call back later?"
"My Lord!" The voice wailed. "People who aren't supposed to be are dying."
"Hey," Harry moped, "There's no need to yell."
The voice stuttered, "I'm sorry My Lord, that was disrespectful."
"My son hates me," Harry moped some more. Toes scrunching in their floppy, pink skull patterned socks. "And you're shouting at me. I think you should know I'm very upset and drunk right now."
"Er," the voice floundered. "Er. Yes. But my Lord, please, we're facing an unforeseen and unknown crisis on our hands that has never occurred before in this universe! Heroes have charged the Nomu facility and the Nomu are out and rampaging across the city!" Out of nowhere, the voice started sobbing. Harry peered at the receiver. Disturbed. "People who shouldn't be are dying and we have no idea how to handle this - oh skull and crosses my Lord we don't know what to do."
Harry cleared his throat. "That's really none of my business."
There was muted scuffling on the line and a different voice hissed at him through the speaker, "You're Death!"
"Is that you, Mai?"
"Yes, my Lord."
"Oh goodie. I've given the questionnaire some thought," Harry twirled the sash of his dressing gown in one finger, "and come up with a few ideas. What do you think of an origami that sings Elton John's 'Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word'?"
"Now is not really the time, my Lord."
"Another is actually sending Elton John to James' house to perform it live."
"My Lord," Mai sighs. "Elton John can wait."
"I know for a fact when he dies. So no, Mai," Harry corrects tartly, "He can't."
There's the click of the line dying and Harry has no time to chuff when Mai appears behind him from the shadows. He could see her in the oogly-boogly reflection of the pipes. Stalking out from darkness. 'Hello my name is: Mai' glinting. She snatching him by the ankles of his pink skulled socks and dragged him back.
The last Harry's apartment sees of him that night are two feeble hands scraping across the floor.
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Among the fighting that engulfed the once barren carpark outside a burning warehouse, Harry was puzzled. And horrifically sober.
"What do we do, my Lord?" The shrill voice from his phone asked besides him. It belonged to that young looking reaper he met on his second day here.
Some hero whizzed through Harry and whizzed back out when a short, squashed looking Nomu backhanded him before leaping towards the city its brethren had done moments ago. Harry's eyes followed it as the thing crashed through one building after another.
Sirens blared a warning to its citizens to stay inside.
"Is 'Forgive Me' by Evanescence too depressing?" Harry worriedly asked Mai.
"Do we have to speak about this now!?" Mai frizzled.
"Suggest something else we can do."
She gestured widely to the screaming mingled with war cries. In the distance, located at the epicentre of the destruction, a blonde girl grew to the height of the Eiffel Tower and went: "AAAAAAAGH!" with a stomp.
Harry scratched his cheek. Ground vibrating through the soles of his feet. "Reapers can't interfere with the living. That's the long and short of it. So really, this is none of our business."
"We can't do anything?" The young, kindergarten looking reaper whimpered. Hugging her katana to herself with big eyes.
"Not at all!" Harry firmly insisted. Snapping his fingers. A name tag zinged onto the girl's Hokum. On it he inscribed with black magic marker, 'Eri'. "There, we did something."
For a moment Harry feared the girl might cry. He scooted behind Mai and feeling exceptionally foolish, ordered the kid to go reap something. She hurried off and disappeared into the shadows. Relieved that was over and done with he skipped out and offered:
"Alright, Cher's 'If I Could Turn Back Time'.
Mai said nothing for one solid minute. After all what, could she say?
Then, with wonderful restraint she reported. "My Lord, I have duties to attend to. People are dying and require safe passage." She bowed, whirled, and sunk into the darkness of the brewed morning.
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Unhappy with the way things had turned out between him and Mai, Harry chose to wander back to his apartment building. He was too long dead to care about the heroes blazing about the place and setting things on fire.
Walking up the steep hill to his place of residence, Harry heard the tread of loud, unsteady footsteps and metal snapping. He spun to face one of the sickly, looming figures of a Nomu rushing up towards him. Mowing down lamps and lighting the street in sparks of yellow.
It leapt at him. Wide, carnivorous mouth set out to chomp his head off. Infected puss filled arms stretched wide.
Harry pirouetted like a dancer and felt it soar past him.
Dashing up the hill behind it in a dead sprint, Harry spotted Shota. Eyes masked by goggles and scarf flapping around him like fire.
The man must have gotten his message.
"Hey, Shota," he waved. "This guy one of yours?"
"Get out of here!" Shota yelled. Picking up speed. "Run!"
"Please don't shout at me," Harry said dolefully. Pirouetting past another swipe from the murderous Nomu. Not having to look. "I'm particularly sensitive this evening. Family and coworker troubles you understand."
"Fuck that. Down," Shota ordered. Coming up and leaping over his flattened body to land a momentous roundhouse kick to the Nomu's neck. It faltered in surprise and twisted back to gather itself. In that sparse moment, Shota gripped Harry by the sleeve of his dressing gown and flung him up, past the Nomu to his apartment complex. "Inside!"
Harry intended to follow Shota's orders, simply to please the man who looked to be very preoccupied, to stop as he watched one of Shota's punches getting caught in a meaty infected grip. What followed was a loud snap of breaking bone and a ringing cry of pain. Shota's arm was bent, white bone exposed and red running.
Shota was a young man, a baby in comparison to Harry. And most of all he was Harry's tenant. Lived under his roof and called it home. He was one of Harry's people, and to see his person get bullied lit a light in the desolation of Harry's soul.
He didn't bother with words.
In a flicker caught by sparks of upended street lights, Harry materialised between Shota and the Nomu. Twisted its arm off his tenant and clobbered it with a powerful kick to the sternum. The Nomu flew. Landing some feet away.
Shota landed on one knee, face gritted in pain. "Thanks. Cool quirk. Backup is close by."
"Won't be needed," Harry told him. Eyeing up the Nomu distastefully. To think he had asked Shota to spare these mongrels. "I'll deal with it."
Shota gripped his wrist. Tense as he rose along with the Nomu. "You got lucky with your quirk. It wasn't prepared for it. Now it is. Retreat, I'll hold it off as you get out of here."
Harry cocked his head. Amused and warmed by Shota's protective concern. He patted the man's head and smiled.
A smile that has lips pulled back over teeth.
"This beast hasn't a clue about me, Shota."
The Nomu rasped out a hellish scream that resembled a small child. Yellow, blotched eyes connecting with his own. The thing was pissed.
"Isn't it cute?" He cooed and charged forwards. The Nomu drew up and went to catch his kick, but stuttered to a confused halt when Harry disappeared.
It toppled forwards. Head kicked clean off like a soccer ball.
As it collapsed, Shota spotted Harry behind it. He himself dropped back to his knees, shaken to his core by the raw brutality of his grinning landlord.
"Well then," Harry breathed. Mood certainly lifted, "would you care for tea?"
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