Super Science
Ch. 119: An Assassin's Tale part. 3
Nagat crawled through the tunnel until she reached the hatch. With all her might, she pushed the heavy cover off, tanked herself free from the stone and dirt, and headed to the night sky. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she steeled her nerves and ran out into the jungle with a map in one hand, survival bag over her back, and splinter into the other.
For the next few days, Nagat struggled to survive the perils of the island. Everything was out to get her, and I mean everything! If the weather was something to worry about, nearly everything from animals and plants was deadly! If it weren't for the survival book full of notes about the island and its inhabitants, she never would've survived a day!
Thanks to it, she knew what to eat, where to drink, what to do during the night and day, which animals were friendly and we were not, and how to best avoid the spiders she half-dragons. Although she could use the AirWalk splinter to cover more ground, it left her in the open for dragons and spiders to spot her, so she had to use it at the most necessary times. But using it was taxing since she had to concentrate on using it.
It felt like getting a new pair of prescription glasses for the first time. Thankfully, she made good progress until she ran into Quelaag one day. As she ran through the forest, hoping to reach the beach closest to the lab, she was nearly caught up in a nearly invisible spider's web! Luckily, she saw it reflected in the light and stopped just in time.
Taking a moment to catch her breath, it got caught in her throat when she heard a voice she didn't want to hear. "Well, Well, I have to say you're smarter than you look. Most would've gotten caught in my trap for sure." Then, the form of Quelaag emerges from the trees above and crawls down before the woman, tearing away the web like candy floss. He smirked with an impressed expression on his face as he said, "Then again, I guess you are a different breed. You have survived on Pacifica all by yourself for this long."
"Quelaag.", Nagat growled at him.
"I don't know a woman whose name I probably won't care enough to remember. How the hell are you?" he asks in a chipper yet snarky tone.
Nagat stood firm against him and yelled in demand, "Get out of my way! I don't belong here, and I'm going to leave!"
Quelaag rolls all of his eyes as he says back, "Can't you criminals say anything different? It's always the same thing. I don't belong here, I don't deserve this, blah blah blah! And you ain't leaving, sister! No one comes to Pacifica uninvited and leaves with their lives.", he tells her with a crooked smile.
"Guess I'll be the first.", Nagat says in opposition.
Quelaag smirks at her before stating, "You got spunk; I'll give you that. But it'll take more than charisma to-."
Only for Nagat to silence him with another headshot that seems to finally put him down as his upper half slumped back, unmoving. "How about that, freak!?", she spat while trying to run around his body, only for a line web to snag and catch her leg.
Nagat fell to the ground and looked back to see the lower half glare and snarl at her. The man rose back up as his head healed back to full form. She broke the web holding her back and readied her quirk for another shot, only to see the man smile at her attempt at intimation.
"You've got guts.", he told her while pulling the bullet from the head and crushing it between his fingers as he followed up, "Shame, I'll have to rip 'em out of ya."
"How the hell do you do that?!", Nagat demanded.
Quelaag smiled even wider as he spread his arms and stated boldly, "My goddess Ungoliant, that's how! Through her power, I am protected from all mortal ailments and weaponry! You'll have to do better than that to have a chance at-."
Only for Nagat to shoot the entire upper half of his head off, silencing him again, as she huffed while getting back to her feet from the dirt, "You really need to stop monologuing."
Only to be equally shocked and horrified as the mouth of the man kept talking, and he replied, "Perhaps you're right. But I do so love doing it. It is so fun to watch those people freeze up and recoil before my magnificent form. Allow me to be the big man for once and speak my mind!"
Nagat felt her blood boil at his words, and she yelled, "You're sick! They were people with lives! And you see them as nothing but tally marks on a chalkboard."
The upper half of Quelaag's face finally grew back as he rolled all his eyes and shit back in an exasperated tone, "Oh please, spare me your inane garble smack about motility! I may be cut off from the rest of society, but I know the story. Those 'people,' as you call them, were criminals, but not just any kind, the worst of the worst! Rapists, murderers, pedophiles, abusers, gang members and bosses, scammers, and terrorists! Those who were set to die or rot in a cell. And you think because one of them was nice to you, the rest are saints by comparison?" Nagat looked at the ground for a brief moment, and Quelaag shook his head in disappointment, saying, "How stupid. And I thought you were an adult, not a dumb child."
"You're the dumb one! What do you know anyway?!", Nagat demands.
Quelaag's expression grew a bit darker as he said in a more serious tone, "What do I know? I know plenty. You may stand there and think of yourself on the moral high ground as I scope the island and mercilessly kill people like lambs to the slaughter. But who is the one who brought them here? Not me. Who dumped all these people on an island with no way to escape that was full of unknown dangers? Go on, tell me." Nagat said nothing, so he continued circling around her. "It was your government, your society, that did this. They couldn't handle the ever-growing jail cells because they couldn't fix the problems that created these types of people. So, instead, they sent their mess here to forget about them. And their mess became my mess. And I'm forced to clean them up. Does that make me bad, does it?", Quelaag asked, still getting no reply. So he finished off by saying, "They were sacrifices to keep their broken societies just a little less broken. Nothing else."
"You know nothing of sacrifice.", Nagat growled at him while gripping the trigger even tighter.
"Do I? Or maybe you do. That man did sacrifice himself for you to escape.", Quelaag vexed her, making Nagat flinch at the memory. Seeing her weakness, he began to close in while saying, "Even so, despite the fact that my goddess gives me immunity to all mortal poisons, diseases, and weapons, I can still feel pain, and I allowed you to shoot me three times in the head. Allowing the other to surround you."
Nagat almost freaked out at his words and quickly looked around, only to see dozens of giant spiders coming out of the woodwork. Anywhere she could escape, she was cut off, and Quelaag knew this! "Monologuing does help, but only if you can trick your audience," he told her with a chuckle as the spiders closed in on her.
Nagat knew this was the end for her, but then she looked down at the splinter in one of her hands and clutched it tight as she looked up at the clear and open sky through the trees. She looked back at the man spider and said in an angry yet small voice, "His name was Dacken." but Quelaag said nothing as the spiders nearly engulfed her. "And his sacrifice won't be in vain.", she stated while raising the sprinter above her head and taking a deep breath.
"Wait! You have a splinter!?", Quelaag exclaimed as soon as he realized what was in her hands.
Only for Nagat to stab the crystal into her stomach as the spiders washed over her like a black flood! The pile of spiders went unmoving, making the man spider think that she had expired, only for his thoughts to be made false as three bullets cut through the dome and outburst Lady Nagat jumping on invisible platforms in the air! She bounded with all she had as she shot bullets one after the other at any spider who tried to crawl up after her! She leaped high above the trees and then far off into the distance, far out of sight from the spiders.
As Quelaag crawled up a tree and watched in amazement and shock at what the woman had just done, he began to laugh, making the other spiders look in his direction with concern. After he stopped laughing, he said, "Ha ha ha, she has a splinter! And she stabbed herself with it to use its power full time! I don't know your name, woman, but I'm beginning to like you already! You'll make for an amazing hunt.", he said as both of his mouths smiled with all teeth showing.
For the next two days, surviving was even harder than it once was! The spiders actually hunted her down alongside several encounters with Quelaag, who saw this as a challenging game. Luckily, this Quelana person who was associated with him never showed up. She barely had time to eat, drink, or sleep. Always on the run. Pushing herself and quirk to the max while constantly using the AirWalk sprinter still logged in her stomach!
By now, she had probably killed over a thousand spiders and had killed Quelaag over a dozen times! Dame, that regeneration was seriously annoying! Still, she was only about several hours away from the lab, and Airwalk helped out quite a bit. But it was still annoying that she had to dodge flocks of birds or shoot down dragons who tried to dive-bomb her from the air! The worst of them were the mountain devils!
However, things came to a close on the very last leg of her journey. Being pushed to both her physical and mental limit, Nagat was starting to slip, and that's just what her hunters needed to take advantage of. When Nagat was descending from the sky to get out of the reach of a very hungry Drakolisk, she found herself caught in a mid-air snare and sent to the ground, where she was held down by several giant spiders by their web. As Nagat tried to wriggle free or even activate her quirk to shoot the spiders, out from the shadows strutted out Quelaag with that same shit-eating grin he always wore when he thought he had her. Only this time, he wore it even wider. He Had her, and she knew it!
He clapped his hands at her while circling around like a hungry vulture. After he was done mocking her in a non-verbal way, he verbally mocked her, gloating to her, "Well, well, well, the flying rat has finally been brought out of the sky. I'll admit, I thought that trap would never work, but that Drakolisk was a stroke of luck for us."
"I thought I was a mouse.", Nagat inquired, trying to keep him talking as she tried to figure a way out of this.
"Oh ho, you're so clever. But what is a rat or not a bigger mouse? And I do so love eating rats over mice. And you've been well worth the effort. After all, of all the people dumped on this island, you're the only one to evade me for this long, with my full attention on you, and you managed to cause me the most physical damage! You should feel proud about that.", he told her with a cruel smile and sinister tone. "Normally, I would just send a few half-dragons after you, but I saw what you did to the last one, and speaking from experience, it wouldn't be worth it. They're more useful alive than dead.", the man spider told her while pointing to the parts of his head and face she shot through.
"Yeah? So what now? You gonna take me to your goddess or whatever and give 'em a sa worthy sacrifice or some shit?", Nagat asked as she finally managed to get her arm free.
"I hadn't thought about that. Normally, I just take the corpses or whatever is left behind from my lesser sibling and feed them to her. And for what it's worth, you do fit the criteria.", he admitted, but then an idea came over him, and he said with a sneaky smile, "But before that, I'm gonna break your spirit."
This got Nagat's attention, and she looked up at the man spider, who shot a web over her like a net and began to drag her away. After a long while, he finally brought her out to a beach, where she gasped at the sight of finally seeing the ocean and the one landmark she needed! But she couldn't get to it because she was trapped in the web. Just as soon as she saw it, she was pulled back into the jungle, slowly watching as her one hope disappeared into the greenery, and all of a sudden, Quelaag mocked her.
"So close and yet so far away, as always. You speak of sacrifice, and here you are as one from the country that threw you away. So tell me what you know of such a thing when it hasn't become one of your own will or used by others. Cause the way I see it, you have not sacrificed anything!", the man spider told her as he allowed her body to drag across the ground, making her cry out.
Nagat felt her eyes well up with tears and knew he was right. If she wasn't being used, others were sacrificing themselves for her—all her life—the association, her hero career, trying to warn NIP and even those death row inmates who took her in, even now! It frustrated her to no end! Has all that she has ever done or tried to do been for nothing?
No! It couldn't be! It just couldn't! She was so close now! She couldn't give up! She was alive! It wouldn't end till her last breath! And she would make it so!
So she hooked her feet against a rock, and using Air Walk, she pushed off it with all her strength! Despite having over twelve legs, Quelaag was nearly thrown off of them as he tried to hang onto the woman! But Nagat never stopped pushing off against anything and everything, trying to break the web binding her! When Quelaag got tired of playing fishing, he held her off the ground and tried to say something to her, only for the woman to shove her feet against his face and push off with more power than ever before!
The kickback from this was so powerful that not only did Nagat break free from the net but also snapped Quelaag's neck and tore some of his face away! As the man spider tried to keep upright and wait for his body to heal, Nagat landed on the ground and, with fury in her soul, looked at the monster.
"I'll show you sacrifice, you damn monster!", she screamed as she activated her other quirk and suddenly felt a change within herself.
Ripping out a chunk of her hair, she slammed it all into the gun, where the barrel didn't extend to its full length. Instead, it stayed short, and when she fired, it shot like a semi instead of a sniper. The shots were fast but also flew with much more deadlines as she peppered Quelaag's upper half with tons of hopes, even severing an arm. When his spider hair tried to spew lava, Nagat reloaded again and peppered it with bullets, even shooting off its jaw!
Then she took a smaller chunk of her hair and loaded it in. But something different happened. Instead of a quick shot, her gun almost seemed to charge up, making the barrel slowly reach its full length before she pulled the trigger, and a shot with the power of an anti-tank rifle shot through several of the spider's legs. She loaded and shot again, cutting through more legs until only eight were left, leaving the monstrosity to fall over onto a nearby boulder.
Nagat finally deactivated her quirk. Her hair was a mess, and her breathing was ragged. She asked, "How's…that?"
Despite…literally everything that happened to Quelaag, he was still alive but completely unable to move or act. Surprisingly, the only thing he could do was talk, and with whatever of his face was left, he asked, "What's your name?"
"I was once called Lady Nagat, but you can refer to me as Tsutsumi Kaina!", Nagat proclaimed, catching her breath.
"That's a stupid name. I'll call you Nagat.", Quelaag scoffed as she rolled her eyes at him. "I gotta say, Nagat, you really got me. None have been able to claim that before.", Quelaag began to say before Nagat shot him through the head.
Deactivating her quirk again, she spat, "Don't hold your breath; I know you're only buying time to heal. Just know that I'm the one who got away."
With that, she turned tail and ran off. As Quelaag sat there and slowly felt his body repair itself, he gave a horse chuckle before spitting up blood. After breathing calmly again, he said, "I guess you have." But then his expression turned to malice as he said, "Doesn't mean I'll give up."
With that, he used his good hand to pay his spider's lower half, and his conjoined twin released hormones into the air from pores on its body. In seconds, he heard the telltale sound of rustling foliage and thin legs running across all surfaces and smiled.
Nagat ran through the jungle, following the way that Quelaag brought her, and within minutes, she finally found herself at the beach. She stood there for several seconds, soaking it all in. She walked to the shore edge and let the waves hit her feet. A feeling she never knew she'd be so glad to feel again. She felt her knees and rubbed the salty water all over his dirty and sweaty face and body, just to make sure it was real, and it was.
However, she didn't get to enjoy the moment until she heard the hissing of the giant spiders back in the jungle. So she climbed up with Air Walk and took out her compass and map. Finding the way to go, she ran through the air at a full sprint as the spiders burst out of the plants and chased after her!
Luckily, she managed to get high enough for them to be unable to jump or shoot webs to grab her. So all she had to do was run! But that dream wouldn't last long as four half-dragons came from overhead and tried to breathe fire on her! Luckily, she managed to dodge but lost control of her quirk for a moment. As the half-dragons tried to swoop down upon her, she turned around in mid-air and took shots at each one. Only one of the four survived and crashed into her, piledriving her into the soft sand!
But Nagat didn't have long to recover, as the spiders were closing in fast, and the half-dragon was above her, trying to take a bite of her face! Nagat kept trying to dodge the bote attack, but the monster changed tactics and tried to breathe fire on her! Thankfully, she managed to break one of her arms free and shove her rifle into its mouth. Using the semi-automatic setting, she blasted several holes through its mouth!
Pushing the animal off, she grabbed more of her hair and unloaded a whole clip into the swarm of spiders! Once they got too close, she began to run and shoot back at them every once in a while. But no matter how many she managed to tear to shreds, there never seemed to be any end to them! Eventually, she used her AirWalk to gain some ground, and once she was far enough away, she used her charge shot three times and finally thinned the herd!
After this, the spiders appeared to flee from her, and she descended back to the ground, hoping the bugs finally gave up. Only to be proven wrong when three new spiders came out of the woodwork! One looked like a Japanese yokai called a Gyuki, another looked like an even more giant spider, and the last one was a smaller spider puppeteering a corpse; there were a dozen of those. Nearly freaking out of the sight of the new monsters, she shot a normal rifle bullet into the Gyuki, only for it to bounce off with ease. Seeing this, she decided to run for her life!
Not only were these spiders bigger and stronger, but they were also faster and deadlier! The really big spider tried to spit venom on her with such corrosive properties that it melted the sand! The spider zombies were really hard to kill! And the Gyuki…it is just weird to look at and really tough! Nagat had to think fast; otherwise, she was spider food!
Then she saw her chance in the sky. It was a Hold Taker dragon, no doubt looking for metal. She had to make this count! If she used Air Walk, the Gyuki would just pull her down. So she jumped up and, with one quick shot, grazed the dragon's face! It nearly fell out of the sky from that attack but looked down to see Nagat's sparkling metallic-like rifle quirk. The animal's eyes lit up, and it dove down! Just before the Gyuki could shoot a web, she did an evasive maneuver and dodged just in time for the web to hit the dragon, pulling it down in front of the spider and causing a battle between them! Nagat took her change and Airwalked as far as she could!
After a while, she finally started to feel the effects of overusing the quirk, and the splinter stabbed through her belly. Eventually, she had to land and stop using the quirk. Finding a moment of peace, she breathed for the first time in a long time and fell to the ground.
After catching her breath, she centered herself once more and remembered her task. The association's attack could be days or hours away, and every second that passed was wasted. And thanks to that boastful spider and his goon, she had wasted too much time! She got to her feet and began to run once again! She ran, and ran, and ran for what felt like ever! She almost missed the jungle since it is shaded and she is out in the sun. Just when she thought she had gotten turned around or she was on the wrong beach, she finally saw it. At first glance, it looked like a chain link fence, but once she got closer, that fence was much higher than she thought, coursing with electricity and surrounded by what she assumed to be the Merrow. From what she remembered and read up on, the merrow really did look like huge monkeys made into walruses! And from the looks of it, they were not too pleased to see her.
She thought she could simply airwalk over the fence, but the after-effects were setting in fast, and she couldn't bring herself to do it again. So she came up with something else; seeing one of the female merrows close to the fence and roaring at her, she activated her quirk and began a charge shot. When the merrow tried to attack her, she did a mi-air jump and flipped over the small whale-sized creature's head. She used the force of the charge shot plus the height of the animal to blast herself clean over the fence! This killed the merrow on the other side and made the others flee, but she was finally on the inside!
Landing on her feet, she turned to see a small yet long building made of chrome-white metal. Square in shape and flat as a board, it was definitely a place where nerds lived. There were several defense robots on the outside alongside several other defensive measures, which Nagat, running on fumes by this point, blasted through with a rifle until she got to the reinforced door and used a charge shot to blast through it! She was finally in, and her journey was almost over!
Meanwhile, on the inside of the Pacifica facility, the only two NIP workers present at this time are Professor Cephlode and Doctor Anima. The booth took a lazy day to monitor the island and its natural habitats. Taking note of the movement patterns of animals, growth patterns of plants, growth of the island, ways burrowers, and much more expanded the natural tunnels behind the island. They really only had to do a little since the machines did most of the heavy lifting for them, and Anima didn't feel like going out into the field today. Things were totally relaxed as Genus propped his feet on the table while idly sipping his coffee, and Otto floated around in his tank. All of a sudden, Otto rose from his tank to touch his head like it was in pain. Genus saw this and raised his concern.
"What's wrong, Otto?", Genus asked the octopus.
"I'm not sure; I almost feel…a disturbance.", he bubbled out a reply.
"It's probably nothing.", Genus waved him off while taking a spit from his cup.
"You're most likely right.", Otto agreed while sitting in his tank.
Just then, the alarms and warning signal went off as the only two scientists present did nothing in response or act. Only stated the obvious as Genus hit the disengaged button to turn the sounds off.
"The alarms are going off again.", said Anim in a casual tone.
"It's probably just another Merrow scratching itself against the fence poles," Otto replied while skinning back into his tank.
Suddenly, the barrel of Nagat's rifle pressed against the side of Anima's head, and he said while looking at her, "Or…it's her."
"Take me to Doctor Egon, now!", Nagat demanded, looking half dead and half crazed.
But before she could do anything or before Genus could say anything, Otto had camouflaged in the background, grabbed the emergency crowbar, and snuck up behind Nagat before whacking her on the back of the head! Nagat fell to the ground, and her quirk was deactivated.
Genus let out a breath he was holding and said, "Thanks."
"Anytime," he replied, dropping the improvised weapon, looking down at the woman, and asking, "So now what?"
"I guess we will take her to Egon and see what he says," Genus said with a shrug.
"And that's the last thing I remember before passing out and waking up here," Nagat said as she wrapped up her story to the scientist.
Egon, who was staring at her in stunned silence the whole time, took his hands off his face and told her, "I'm…sorry you had to go through all that. It must've been hard. And thank you for nearly sacrificing yourself to tell us. Far as I'm concerned, you are a hero."
"Hold on! There's another person like Quelaag!?", Hankoyo interjected with an angry tone.
"That's what you're taking from this?", Egeon asked him with a baffled expression.
"Yeah, it's a big deal! Remember when they told us about the half-dragons?" Hankoyo told him as Egon opened his mouth to reply, only for nothing to come out. A look of realization spread across his face as the man stated, "Exactly."
Egon dishes and turns back to Nagat to ask her, "How much time do we have?"
"What's today?", she asks.
"Thursday.", he answers.
Nagat bit her lip and answered, "Three days. We have three days to prepare."
Egon shot up from his seat, ran to the nearest PA system speaker, and yelled through the intercom, "Then there is no time to waste! Buckle your britches bitches! We're not just dealing with a single threat or some op thugs! We're dealing with the big boys now! Heroes and most likely a small armada made up of anyone the association can hire or get from the military. We have to make sure this place is in top condition and then some! We need planes of attack and counters and then some! Cover all avenues!", she was shouting all this; the facility doctors walked in and quickly turned to them; he exclaimed, "Doctrine, Chopper, get Tsutsumi patched up and back to full strength."
Both looked confused at first but ultimately nodded as Chopper ran out to grab a gurney. As Chopper returned and Doctrine helped the woman out of the restraint chair and into the medical wheeler, she asked in surprise, "You're helping me?"
"Of course, you did so much for us; it's only right to return it.", Egon assured her.
"I'll find a way to thank you," Nagat said, looking off to the side, trying not to cry in gratitude for the man.
"If you're up to snuff in three days, help us out." Egon offered to her, and she gave a small nod.
"We'll be sure to get that splinter in your stomach looked at.", Chopper told her while she noticed the crystal poking out of her stomach.
While the ex-hero was helped into and situated on the gurney, Otto came up and inquired, "What about Izuku and the blonde?"
"Hankoyo, you take care of that.", Egon told the man, who nodded and set back to work on finding where the wrapped pad sent them.
"What about Inko?", Cluck inquired.
Egon sighed nervously and unsurely as he told her, "I'll talk to her. It's only right that I do it."
"Talk to me about what?", said Inko's voice, almost making Egon jump from his skin as he turned around to see his fiance, well into her first trimester, standing there with an expression of confusion and concern.
"You might want to keep her here. They'll take any avenue to gain leverage against you," Nagat told him as she was wheeled away from the room.
Even more confused and scared at this point, Inko asked, "Egon. What's going on here?"
Egon centered himself with a deep breath. Taking his soon-to-be wife's hand in his own, he told her, "Inko, I need to tell you something."