Seeing Things
Bloody garlands of viscera stretched across the rusted edges and barbed wire wrapped on the crudely armored vehicle as it pulled up to the entrance. The front of the vehicle unfurled and opened up creating a ramp and shield walls as it slammed against the torn open entrance. The group charged through the hall and up the ramp while glass fragments followed, the stream of glass flowed along the floor molding by the walls and slid up the ramp. Sauin hung back and waited talking to herself in an animated manner just outside the vehicle.
Ray witnessed, from hanging on Negalodon's back, as inside the vehicle pieces of Silicate clanked and screeched as it reassembled into a more compact humanoid form.
"Quickly now, Sauin", Negalodon snarled.
"Not a wasted moment when it comes to our Gorehound", the wisp of a woman offered a gnarled thumbs up in response and a blood stained grin.
"I hate you", the creature huffed under his breath.
He squatted in the back of the vehicle, Ray was crammed against the rear doors uncomfortably. Outside the thick windows the moon hung low, full and bright in the dark sky. The silver light illuminated the carnage that stained the grass in front of the facility. PRT armor pieces, weapons, and swathes of hardening containment foam dotted the landscape. The remains of the drugs in his system tugged at his eyelids as the cold that emanated from the blue skinned Summer's presence sapped the warmth from his tethered limbs.
~~x
Ray was torn from his sleep at the sting of the IV feed line being extracted from deep in his arm. His eyes fluttered open and shut just as quickly as the brightness of the room burned purple spots in his field of vision. Slowly he peeked through his eyelashes and spied himself sitting on a plush couch in a fairly spacious office.
"And there, no harm no foul, kid", the voice familiar as Ray blinked the spots away.
Beside himself on the couch was his counselor from the asylum, an older man with silver hair, liver spots and a tv show grandfather's disposition. His counselor had an uncanny appearance: the fingers on their hand didn't match the rest of the arm, his neck bore something of a ragged seam of raised scar tissue near the base of the throat and the man's eyes were mismatched. Both ice blue yet kindly in the interviews but here one brown and the other green.
"Ray, would you like something to drink before we begin this meeting or would you prefer a handjob to mellow you out a bit?" He asked with a twisted grin.
Ray tried to use his speed to cross the room to the door next to the ornate wooden desk but instead found himself spasming on the floor.
The counselor snorted, "It's the drugs, you little pyro. They're still suppressing your gifts, just relax for now. Hear us out then, if you behave, you can see your literal jailbait, huh?"
Ray laid on the floor, tremors in his limbs reducing as the seconds wore on. The older man stood up and carefully stepped around the younger man and approached a cabinet. He pulled a door open and it was a hidden refrigerator of sorts, containers and baggies bearing the biohazard symbol emblazoned on stickers stuck to the packages. Ray cringed as he heard the crinkle of plastic gave way to the wet sound of tendons and muscle tearing away from bone.
"Now you might think to yourself, what the hell is this fellow up to? Well, my young, dumb companion, think of your body. It's largely composed of bacteria, and you're lucky maybe one in ten cells in you are human. Well I am blessed with a gift, much like you, and I may not be as fast as you, boy, but-"
The counselor stretched out their leg and used their foot to turn Ray's head to look up. The man grabbed both sides of their own head, and with his bare hands, wrenched his head free of his shoulders. Blood spattered onto the kid's face as he struggled to wriggle away from the horror. With a lewd squelch the head dropped next to Ray and the sickening sound of rapidly constricted muscles was made as a woman's head was melded into the torso.
Her pink tongue lightly stuck out as she wetted her lips, "- but I am technically immortal so Iong as humanity keeps on trucking. Alas, I'm the one you all waited on so politely for; my cape name is Gorehound, and I - guide this growing group of gruesome ghouls and ghastly grumps, my good guy."
Gorehound's smile twitched and faltered before the muscles relaxed and the grin became natural.
Her eyes flicked open and blue eyes tracked oddly for a second before synching up and locking onto the kid's eyes, "I spy with my baby blues, a boy in distress."
Gorehound stepped closer, leaned forward and gripped the front of Ray's in-patient garb pulling the boy up to his feet. He wobbled in place, despite the helping hand.
"Now, you are Ray Alcaraz, curious that your first name means king and your last means land of the cherry, but those are meaningful to the people we were born to first. We work for an organization of rogue's and villains, but our particular cadre here is called The Horrorshow so we stick to cape names, the ones we're given to ourselves or by our infamy", Gorehound placed Ray back on the couch and rested their mismatched hands on their hips.
"Dust Devil was your latest from your files. So are you a devil? Do you have the need to feed your sins? Does your soul burn with the passions of your flesh? Ah, still channeling poor Dr. Wagner, pfft." She ran her fingers through matted platinum blonde hair, and shook the locks loose from their tangled nature from storage.
His throat burned and up came bile from his empty stomach, all over the front of his clothes.
"Hmm, I know you aren't feeling quite yourself but drugs have a habit of opening the mind's eye to new truth - new avenues of thought. Let's put a pin in this and in a few hours try this again."
Gorehound stepped over to their desk and pressed a key on the phone, "This is Gorehound. Okay, my v-key is Slasher Pittance Eight Niner. … Perfect. Yes, our guest needs a room and clean up - no not Sauin, we don't need her assaulting him while unconscious. Try Farewell, they need a break from their tinkering anyway. Thank you, dear."
~~x