Author's Notes:
Another one from the 50 theme drabble challenge bearing certain similarities with my earlier drabble "Gray." You might also notice similar themes with Chibi Hime's "Mind Games." This drabble was actually written and uploaded to my DA account prior to me reading Mind Games but I purposely waited for Chibi Hime to post her fic first before uploading this. Just wanted to make that clear.
--
Parasite
"Get out." A deadly growl, a menacing warning. Strong, calloused hands pinned a slender figure against a solid titanium wall, russet eyes glaring hatefully between onyx locks in disgust at the sight. Broad, leather-clad shoulders tensed in suppressed fury, teeth grinding to bite back the rage that burned inside.
"But why would I want to do that?" An arrogant sneer, a raspy inhuman voice. A slim finger trailed up along muscular arms to brush lightly over the cross-shaped scar on a square jaw. Disheveled sun-kissed hair did little to hide the obsidian cracks marring the skin surrounding twin pinpricks of lavender in dual pools of darkness.
"I'm very comfortable in this body in fact I might even keep it. Seeing as how it now comes with such wonderful new features since the last time I've taken it for a test drive." Ruby red lips widened to a wicked smile, "Nearly over thirty years ago."
An expression turns ugly and a snarl practically rips itself from a throat. "You don't want to make me angry, Zs'Skayr. Get out my wife. NOW."
--
A report of a portal suddenly opening in an abandoned, underground storage facility had been made. With intergalactic and interstellar travel having become common place, this was considered nothing out of the ordinary. Suspicious, perhaps, but it was something rookies were sent to take care of.
Gwendolyn had volunteered, wanting to finish early so she could be ready with a congratulatory dinner to celebrate her son's little league baseball team reaching the finals. No one seemed to object and the red-head had set off.
Her feet made no sound as she descended the steps into the storage facility, the lights had stopped working years ago but that didn't prove to be a problem. The charms of bezel glimmered briefly as a small tongue of fire lit on her fingertip to illuminate her surroundings. She noticed a strange protrusion up amongst the exposed, rusting pipes and summoned panels of energy to get a better look.
The last thing she saw was a pale, inhuman leer.
And everything was darkness.
A never ending void of nothingness.
It was in this abyss that stretched out to infinity that Gwendolyn shivered, curled up within a cocoon of fear and helplessness. She knows what's happening to her, recalling the events of that one day during that fateful summer so many years past.
This icy, unnatural chill encasing her, it wasn't something one forgot even if it happened just once. The time Zs'Skayr, the ectonurite more commonly referred to as Ghostfreak, had taken control of her body when she was but a child.
She doesn't remember what had occurred while she was trapped within the empty expanse of darkness. Or of how the alien had used her body to attack Ben and later threatened him with her demise if he didn't surrender. Her memories had chosen to push back the fear and the shame she felt upon realizing she wasn't strong enough to free herself from the ectonurite's clutches.
For all her talk about being the smart one, the resourceful one, in the end she still needed to be saved. But back then she wasn't aware of her powers or of her heritage.
What was her excuse now?
"You are simply just not strong enough." Zs'Skayr cackled in an ear-grating, manic glee, "Never were, never will be."
"That's not true!" Gwendolyn tried to summon mana to her hands, to will magic to her lips, but there was no response, no crackle of energy, not even a faint spark.
"I suppose you're partly correct." The alien continued to laugh, "You are weak, your body is something else entirely. Would you like to see?"
A shaft of light pierced through the darkness and Gwendolyn is momentarily blinded. When her eyes become accustomed to the glare, her jaw drops in horror at the smoking ruins that was once a shopping complex.
"You should have seen them, screaming, shrieking, clawing at each other just to get away from me. You. Us."
The image ripples to show Zs'Skayr wrecking havoc with the female Plumber's powers. Panels of violet energy cut through support beams, the charms of bezel glowed as fire shot out from her palms to incinerate any drones that attempted to put out the flames. With a wave of her hand, a twister formed to swallow countless innocents before they were thrown against walls and into display windows.
Limbs were shorn, lives were lost, and all throughout the carnage Gwendolyn's face was twisted into an eerie, soulless grin as the ectonurite laughed and laughed and laughed.
From behind a stream of fire shot past her ear, red hair fluttering briefly before she glanced over her shoulder. The grin widened into a maniacal smile of recognition when Zs'Skayr caught sight of the source.
"Gwendolyn, what on earth are you doing?!" A pyronite demanded before his eyes widened at the dark cracks running between the red-head's cheeks and forehead. He frowned, reaching for his Plumbers badge to request for immediate back up. "Bring some sun guns. We've got an ectonurite possession."
Zs'Skayr looked thoughtful, "Gwendolyn wouldn't be the one who's cousins with that irritating little pest Ben Tennyson? But I suppose she would be, given you're here, Ben."
The fiery alien narrowed his eyes as he reverted to his human form. Instead of the brunette, there standing before the ectonurite was Alan Albright. "I'm not Ben, but I'm enough to take you on, whoever you are."
A roar of laughter echoed throughout the crumbling structure before large boulders rose off the ground and they launched themselves at the pyronite. The chunks of debris shattered upon collision with the burst of fire shot out before the fiery alien managed to tackle the possessed Plumber to the ground.
"Gwendolyn! It's me, Alan!" Words that fell upon deaf ears.
"Little Gwendolyn can't hear you right now, half-breed." The ectonurite sneered as he lashed out with a backhand followed by a fistful of violet energy.
Alan stumbled back and regained his senses in time to see Gwendolyn's body swoop down towards him.
"Aw man, rock and a hard place much?" he groaned, knowing full well that two people would be out to give him a beat down even if it what he was about to do was excusable. He took to the sky at the last second, fingers interlacing as he descended to deliver a hammer blow that caught Gwendolyn square in the back.
A deep impression was left on the ground upon her landing. The red-head groaned, eyes clear of the obsidian marks. Alan reverted to his human half to see if he had hurt the female Plumber, only to have a sphere of violet energy explode against his chest. A violet dome closed down over Alan who was instantly in his pyronite form.
Zs'Skayr leaned in close to hiss, "Did you know that I can turn this little enclosure into a vacuum?"
The man's eyes widened in horror as he felt his fire die out before the very air in his lungs were sucked out of him. He reverted to his human form before falling face down, his skin ashen, body completely unmoving.
Tears were streaming down Gwendolyn's cheeks, her hands clamped over her mouth to muffle the sobs in her throat.
"Oh I didn't kill him." Zs'Skayr promised, knowing that did little to comfort his host. "Though I can't say the same for all those other aliens. Earth has certainly changed the last, three or so decades since you and your cousin somehow managed to trap me in the Null Void. It really wasn't all too different from being on my home world, really.
"In fact I rather liked it in there until I came across an alien who had the ability to glow with the intensity of a thousand suns! Then I had to get away and fast." The ectonurite then made himself visible.
The red-head tore her eyes away from the taunting smirk, only to hear a mock-disappointed tsk-tsk-tsk-ing.
"Now, now, it's perfectly fine if you stare. Really. I don't mind. But in my opinion you wouldn't want to miss what I'm doing right now." Sharp nails cut into Gwendolyn's skin as fingers clamped down on her chin to force her to continue gazing onto the image that was now displayed before her.
A gasp died in her throat as she whispered, "Kevin..."
--
"I said get out of Gwendolyn!" The dark-haired mutant yelled.
"Make. Me." Zs'Skayr hissed, "Come on. I want to see you try to beat this body to an inch of its life. That's the only way I'll willingly leave it."
Kevin's body shook in restrained fury; he was doing everything he could to keep his anger in check. Even if he wanted to unleash hell upon the bastard ectonurite, he was unable to do anything. Not as long as the coward was inside his wife's body. "What do you want?"
"Who knew the Tennyson female was a half-breed anodite? If only the spark had been awake when I first used her, I wouldn't have needed the Omnitrix to take over this world." The manic grin widened. "But my wants are simpler now. Just the destruction of this miserable little planet. And with this body, I can easily do just that."
"Gwendolyn, baby, I know you're in there. You have to fight him" Kevin ordered, eyes staring intently at the possessed features of his wife, trying to find even the barest hint of her within the empty darkness.
"Your mate can hear you, but she can't do anything unless I want her to." The canting of her head was followed by the charms illuminating as she broke free from Kevin's grip. Fire rained down upon the dark-haired man, but they were easily absorbed as he morphed his body into a hulking amalgam of the alien parts he had absorbed from the null void.
"Then you'd better start wanting to. And fast!" Kevin roared, the fire burning through his body flaring in anger.
"My, my, isn't the future just full of surprises?" Zs'Skayr remarked in awe before a massive hand grabbed him. "And I thought this body's destructive potential was untapped. Change of plans."
The ectonurite released his hold on Gwendolyn and attempted to merge with Kevin. But like his first attempt with Ben, Zs'Skayr could not join with the mutant, not while he was a bizarre mishmash of features.
Gwendolyn groaned, her vision blurry as she slowly grew used to the light. Before she could regain her senses, darkness blanketed her as she was once again taken over.
Strange, the darkness wasn't as deep and the chill wasn't as biting this time around.
"Let me out of here!" Gwendolyn shrieked as she clawed at the gossamer trappings she was enshrouded in. "I won't let you take Kevin! I won't let you destroy my home and my family and everything I care about!"
"And how do you propose to do that?" the ectonurite sneered.
Gwendolyn felt the cocoon give way ever so slightly and she wondered if...
Human teeth sank on her lower lip so hard she began to bleed.
"Gwendolyn?" Kevin uttered as he watched the struggling female he held bite down on her lower lip to the point she broke skin. The dark lines marring her eyes still indicated the ectonurite was in control of the situation but they were distinctly fainter.
"What do you think you'll accomplish by doing that?" Zs'Skayr laughed. "Oh no, I hurt my lip, whatever shall I do?"
With an inhuman snarl, Gwendolyn tore through the bindings and tackled her captor.
"I felt the pain which means I managed to take control of my body. I swear I wish I had a sun gun in here but biting my tongue and bleeding to death will just have to do." She growled, catching the ectonurite into a choke hold and holding strong, despite the tentacles snaking around her limbs. "And I'm taking you with me, you sick, pasty-faced bastard!"
Kevin heard every word that the two exchanged and struck by realization he shifted back into a human. He released his hold on Gwendolyn, taking several steps back before yelling out "Gwendolyn, you're not going to do something stupid as that. I'm not letting you!"
The cracks nearly faded away as the real Gwendolyn screamed out "There's no other way!"
"Yes! There is! Zs'Skayr, leave my wife's body and you can have mine."
The offer was too good to refuse. Gwendolyn's grip tightened; desperation and adrenaline providing her with greater strength. The ectonurite, however, was experiencing the same thing and managed to free himself.
Gwendolyn crumpled in exhaustion as Zs'Skayr practically bolted out of her body. He soared upwards to release a series of triumphant, manic laughter before diving towards Kevin.
The dark-haired mutant was instantly kneeling by his wife's limp form. He shielded her eyes with his hand, a stray lock of her hair dangling over his fingers. He whispered, "You're not going to want to see this."
As Zs'Skayr swooped in, he suddenly caught sight of a familiar glow breaking through a majority of Kevin's skin. There was no time for the ectonurite to pull up and flee as the mutant's body was suddenly alight with the intensity of a thousand burning suns.
The rays of illumination bore holes in the light-sensitive alien's body. He writhed and seethed and shrieked as he felt himself dissolve completely into smoke until not even a smallest trace of him was left.
--
"It's all over, baby." Kevin's voice was soft and low as he cradled Gwendolyn in his arms while he wiped at the blood on her lips.
Gwendolyn's body was racked with sobs. "I killed so many people, Kevin. Hurt so many people, strangers and friends."
"No, no, you didn't. You didn't do any of that." Kevin promised her, "It was not your fault. None of it was your fault."
She clutched at the fabric of his shirt so tightly her knuckles paled. "How can you say it's not my fault!? You saw me. You saw how I somehow managed to get control. I could have done it sooner. I should have done it sooner. I could have done something to prevent-"
The red-head was silenced as Kevin suddenly hugged her tightly. She heard his soft, nearly inaudible sob, felt his body quake with tremors of fear.
"People die all the time!" Kevin's voice trembled with rage and helplessness and frustration, "Friendly fire. Collateral damage. Unforeseen casualties. Damn it Gwendolyn, you know this shit better than I do! These things happen and it's not anyone's fault!"
She stared up at him, eyes wet with tears.
"Zs'Skayr got under your skin and made you feel weak and useless. Made you do things you'd never do. But he's not you." Kevin continued before noticing the lock that stood out from the rest of her sun-kissed hair. The intensity of the light he had emitted to destroy the ectonurite had apparently blanched it to a distinctively lighter shade.
Idly, he fingered the paler strands. He whispered, as if speaking any louder would render his point null and void, "You're a Plumber, you're a hero, you're also human and not perfect. Even if I think you are."
The corners of Gwendolyn's mouth slowly curled upwards into a smile, small and wan. She buried her face into her husband's chest, allowing herself to take comfort in the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.