No Room In Hell

The night auditor peeked his balding haloed head out the screen door and a long tendril of root speared through his throat and dragged his body out. Several other shoots speared into his barrel chest and upper thighs as the roots pulsed and drew the bodily fluids from his dying body.

Sauin's monstrous form loomed at least a couple stories higher than the motel, of everything Ray has ever seen both as a cape and as a horror movie fan, a giant tree with angry branches was not a new concept. It's upper branches smoldered as Ray sat just to the side of the still sparking, partially demolished bug zapper that barely hung mounted on the wall.

Negalodon landed a few feet from Ray's position and paced in the drizzle. One of the beast man's eyes was gouged out, white and pink meat bulged from the wound site. The freak bared its teeth and bloody shreds of Ray's and other's flesh still clung between it's sharp teeth. Ray's breaths came and went in shudders, his body cooling to a dangerous degree the longer he stayed out of his breaker state.

"You taste funny, Morsel", Negalodon picked a shred of flesh from its teeth and tossed it onto it's tongue.

Ray used his legs to push himself up against the motel wall to stand, "If only you could see yourself, dick." He held out his fist, opened his hand, and dumped the crushed remains of an eye out in the mud at the edge of the parking lot.

Negalodon flew forward and his fist passed through Ray's breaker form. Ray materialized above his attacker and drove both his heels into the back of Negalodon's head pitching the beast into the building's wall. A split second later he diffused as smoking branches raked at the space Ray barely occupied. Ray reappeared back in the bathroom to his room and shut off the faucet of the half full tub.

Negalodon flew into the room immediately after the running water stopped. The shark man's broad shoulders filled the door frame of the bathroom as his jaw unhinged and raked the air near Ray. The scarred ex-hero tore the shower curtain off the shower's rod, balled it up rapidly and chances jamming it in the beast's great maw, choking the cycloptic killer.

Negalodon reeled back. His hands clawed desperately at the clear plastic sheet his serrated teeth dug into trapping it in place. Ray delivered a punishing heel strike to the solar plexus further denying breath to the killer's lungs. As Ray concentrated on asphyxiating Negalodon he realized his opponent was all ambush and intimidation, so long as Ray poured on the speed and kept things in brawler range there was no chance of succumbing to jumpscares.

Sauin's true form howled as it shedded its mass, wet leaves withered under the light patter of rain and drizzle. The trunk of the tree creature split and out tumbled a young Sauin in a tatter of blood soaked orange colored clothing. She lurched to her feet, body and joints twisted at unnatural angles as the volcanic glass black skinned woman found her balance.

"We're not having very much fun anymore", Sauin announced as she swayed on her feet.

The rain slowly turned from the light rain and drizzle to barely a sprinkle while Summer still sat in the driver's seat with cigarette in hand. Summer started the car and drove ever so slowly and pulled up just behind Sauin.

"We just wanted DeeDee to have fun is all".

Summer got out of the idling car and guided Sauin to have a lie down in the back seat. The blue skinned woman exited the backseat and beckoned at the still recovering Negalodon, who couldn't see her from his ruined eye, so she snapped her fingers a few times drawing his attention.

"I'm- I'm not done with Morsel."

Summer pinched the bridge of her nose and flicked her cigarette butt into the mud with her other hand, "One, we're not getting paid for this; Two, I was told to keep you alive; and last, I'm your ride, so you're done when I say you're done - unless you're flying all the way back to Cali."

Ray went back to leaning up against the motel wall as he watched the beast bellow a roar in defiance before petulantly shuffling to the passenger seat. The notorious serial killer violently shoved the car seat back as far as it could go before scrunching up to fit into his seat and slamming the door.

Summer stared Ray down for a long moment, the kid was a mass of scars and sported a partial bite on his back, the blood ran down the side of the wall he leaned against. She looked up into the cloud heavy night sky and then strode forward to the Dust Devil and stopped a few paces from him. Ray diffused into his dust breaker state but remained in place.

"You know what I can do, Dust Devil. All this water and mud is just ammunition to me, so you're going to stand there and listen. Then if you're feeling sore afterwards we can fight and you're hurt so - it'll be stupid but your kind get so hot blooded I half expect it."

Ray didn't move an inch, his breaker state just remained stock still.

"I'm taking that as an agreement. Anyway, I'm about to hurt you alot more than these other two have done, and I want you to remember - just like the shit we pulled these past few weeks, it was all business."

Summer Gone pulled another cigarette from a pack in her jacket pocket and sparked it up. After a long draw she started, "So before we brought you on the crew we got files on you, so we knew your story pretty well."

Ray's breaker form flickered but remained in place.

"Our Sponsor wanted to start moving in on the East Coast, specifically Brockton Bay so they made offers to your Grandfather, then your Grandmother and the neighbors but got a lot of No's. Our sponsor had thinker info that an Endbringer would show at some point on account of the gang war in Brockton Bay, so we were paid to hide in wait. So when the sirens hit, so did I. Now, you know the key here is Leviathan doesn't do ice, his deal is specifically water. I got to make those ice chunks that fucked up your home, your neighborhood."

A snap of electricity sparked from the broken bug zapper next to Ray and he materialized. He spilled forward from the wall and landed on his hands and knees and vomited. Summer turned on her heels and started back to the car.

"Why?!" Ray gasped between heaves.

Summer yelled over her shoulder, "Business. Just business."

Ray stayed on all fours unable to right himself as the sound of the car kicking up mud and speeding off onto the once dusty road by the motel filled his ears.

~~x