Notice:
There'll be no stories next week Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. This is because I'll have a rough week in meetings pretty much all week long. Weekend stories won't be impacted. Just the three during the week.
Hardly helps this week that one of the instigators of the company collapse who I had to fire has now been found to have forged orders to customers. Her manager was meant to catch that and check orders, but the manager was too busy "being her pal" and defending her against me, and now is seeing the consequences of it as half the orders her "best mate" secured turn out to be fraudulent and she has to deal with half of these angry clients while I deal with the other half. Fun!
Cover Art: Kirire
Chapter 111
Night crept over the ranch and the rancher brought the animals into the barn, sealing the doors and turning off the lights with them still inside. With moonlight creeping in through the openings toward the ceiling, there was enough natural light for even Pyrrha to see, let alone Blake with her faunus vision. The animals in their pens and stables didn't mind them, domesticated and used to human interaction. At first, they paid the duo attention hoping they would bring more food, but they soon fell into a quiet calm.
Hours ticked on.
Waiting on stakeout was never an interesting experience – it hadn't been in the White Fang and it wasn't here. The hope was always that nothing would happen, because something meant incredible danger, but nothing meant six to eight hours passing by without a single thing to distract you. It was the most boring experience to be had, without even a chance to read a book or talk for distraction. Just hours spent counting the spots on cows, naming sheep in her head, spotting rats scurrying in the straw and playing make-believe with buckets and shovels on the walls.
Pyrrha looked no less thrilled than she, sat back on what looked to be a wooden stool meant for someone milking cows. The first hour, they'd both been crouched and alert, but their leg muscles soon started protesting and they gave up on that. And after their rough conversation earlier in the day, neither felt like chatting.
Not that Blake regretted what had been said. It was so ridiculous for Pyrrha to pull the sympathy card with Saphron. Sure, maybe Jaune's father was a dick to her as well, but that'd never been in question. The one person who had never been a dick to her was Jaune, and it was the mistrust of him that pissed her off.
The book on Blake's hip dropped in temperature, the cold seeping through her leg. Wincing, she placed a hand on it, wondering for a moment if the anomaly within wanted to take control now of all times. It wouldn't be the best time for it, what with Pyrrha here, but Blake was bored enough to consider letting it happen anyway.
With her hand on the cover, she heard the rich, cultured voice in her mind.
"Thou would see to have me take over thy wearisome task? Alas, it would bore even one such as I."
That sounded about right. Blake didn't dare speak with Pyrrha nearby and any instance of this sure to make it back to Saphron and Jaune's father, but she had always suspected the anomaly could read her thoughts – or at least glean something from them.
"Not entirely accurate but not inaccurate either," it replied. "Thou art learning. But if thou wisheth it, thine companion might perish tonight."
Offering to kill Pyrrha for her? No thanks. That would be too suspicious.
"I speak not of murder, mine dear wielder. But accidents happen in thy line of work, do they not? A moment's inattention on thy part, a slow reaction, and thine enemies would be down one member."
That was true, but getting rid of Pyrrha wasn't her goal or concern. If anything, it was better to make sure she made it back to the Fist Office in one piece so there wouldn't be any drama whatsoever. The book accepted that with a quiet chuckle and a return to normal temperature. Blake took her hand from the cover and glanced over to see Pyrrha watching her.
Had she noticed? Had she given off some sign while she was communicating with it? Blake steadied her expression and raised an eyebrow in silent question. Pyrrha didn't look away. Every member of ARC Corp was paranoid. It was just the way they were.
The flap of wings broke their staring contest. Both of them glanced up to see an owl land atop the rafters. Blake stared at it, trying to see if there was anything unusual about it, but barn owls were called such for a reason. Aside from nesting here or just wanting a vantage point to perch on, it might have been aware of the rats and vermin making the barn their home. Its yellow eyes peered through the barn, surely spotting them, but they roamed on. Looking for rats, no doubt.
It hopped off the rafter and glided serenely down to perch atop a stable door, then raised a wing and stuck its head under to preen itself. A soft, warbling hoot came from it, sounding less like a call and more a satisfied sigh. It pivoted a little and hunched up its feathers, dipping its head into its own shoulders as if taking a break from a long night's work.
Blake kept staring at it either way but the owl really didn't care for her or Pyrrha, and the cows didn't appear to care for it either. A few heads rose to peer at it, but they soon went back to herding together and sleeping. The owl might have been a frequent visitor for all she knew.
A rustling sound in the straw caught not only her attention but the owls as well. A small black creature made a mad dash across the open ground, leaving the straw and running over the concrete central pathway of the barn, where it had no cover. Resting or not, the owl wasn't about to give up a free meal and launched itself, talons extended and wings spread wide. It lunged down silently for the rat, which squeaked in panic and darted about in a helpless circle, driven by fear. It had no chance.
The owl, that was.
The rat's back exploded outwards, black-brown fur expanding into a ferocious maw the size of a small car lined with razor sharp teeth each larger than the rat itself. The owl panicked and flapped its wings but it was already committed, and the maw snapped down over it with a sickening crunch, one wing caught twitching outside its mouth.
The huge maw reeled back, sucking itself back into the rat as it crunched and chewed a creature bigger than itself. The same mucus-like substance splashed out its mouth as it did, expelled outward because it couldn't possibly fit within the tiny creature.
"Moooo! Moooo!"
The cows stumbled to wakefulness, herding away from the terrifying scene and trying to hide in the far corner of the barn. Even though they couldn't see over the stables, pigs sensed the atmosphere and squealed in fear, while a single ram stood before the sheep and pawed at the ground to try and scare the monster away.
And Pyrrha was already taking aim with her rifle, finger squeezing the trigger.
The sharp crack of the shot was followed by a loud ping and a spark as it struck concrete instead of flesh – but not because she had missed. The rat's body morphed around the shot like water, opening up where its spine should be to create a large hole for the shot to pass harmlessly through. The bullet ricocheted high into the barn wall, thankfully missing the animals. The hole closed behind it.
The rat turned to them and squeaked – sounding terrified.
But it scurried toward Pyrrha, dashing through the straw.
"Don't let it close!" Blake yelled and opened fire. Though she liked to think her aim was excellent, Gambol Shroud was not a precision weapon and the rat was tiny and quick, only half visible as it reached straw. The first burst of three shots tore up straw around it, and the second, after a brief adjustment came closer, one almost catching its snout. But almost wasn't good enough.
The rat squeaked at Pyrrha and its face, head and neck exploded outward, the great maw jutting out like a detachable jaw of a deep-sea fish. Its teeth peeled out its lips, extending with every fang jutting out at forty-five degrees.
Pyrrha threw herself back and landed in a roll, scurried to her feet and dashed for the closest wooden wall, jumping up and pulling her atop the stable. The rat followed, its huge maw crashing into and through the wood, ripping a massive hole into the stable wall some three feet tall and five wide. The structure wobbled, threatening to throw Pyrrha down, but she was able to leap off and land on a mound of hay on the other side of some pigs.
Blake's shots were immediately blocked by the panicked animals who, on having Pyrrha land on one side of them, misjudged where the danger was coming from and stampeded out the new hole in the wall. They couldn't see the rat, or maybe they could and it looked too small to threaten them. Whatever the case, Blake cursed as porcine bodies blocked her shot.
Only for a moment, though. The maw came back, swallowing three large pigs in one go and biting down to silence their frightened squeals forever. With the mouth out, Blake opened fire – finding a much larger and easier target. Every shot found its mark, and the anomaly didn't seem capable of pulling its flesh away from her. Maybe because there was too much flesh, or because it couldn't manipulate its maw when there was prey within it. Or because it didn't hurt. Blake unloaded eight shots into it with no sigh of pain or injury. There was no blood, either. Just holes left smoking in its body.
Pyrrha took the pigs' sacrifices as a chance to clamber out the stable and sprint over to Blake, then turn and take aim as well, letting off two accurate shots. There were no eyes to aim for, so she went for what would have been the throat – the thickest part connecting the huge maw to where the small rat was hidden among straw and terrified farm animals.
"Don't take any risks with aura!" Pyrrha barked. "Even if you survive the teeth, we've no idea what happens if we're in that mouth when it shrinks back into the host!"
It wasn't like Blake had intended to let it swallow her, but she got the idea. With aura, they shouldn't be able to suffer anomalous effects, but if the beast tried to shrink them and they couldn't shrink then it might just crush them to a pulp instead. Aura was useful, but if they were caught in a shrinking space and couldn't get out then every bone in their bodies would be broken.
"Split up and crossfire!" Blake hissed.
Pyrrha nodded and went left to her right. Typically, the stupid rat went after her instead – which was probably better since Pyrrha had the weapon capable of more accurate shots on the host body. That didn't make her feel any better. Blake swore, avoiding the animals in a moment of empathy and sprinting instead for the barn entrance. Taking to the open concrete section of the barn away from the animal pens also provided an easier shot for Pyrrha.
The crack of her rifle sounded several times over but Blake didn't bother to look back. Instead, she loaded a dust shell into Gambol Shroud and fired at the barn door, blasting it open with a rush of fire and running outside where they'd have more room to manoeuvre. The downside was more cover for the rat body, but the area directly outside the barn didn't have any grass. Too much grazing, and then animal hooves stamping the mud whenever they came in and out. It was uneven and rough, and the dark probably didn't help Pyrrha's aim, but at least there wasn't grass and undergrowth for it to escape into.
And I guess it's better this is a monstrous anomaly, she mused. Makes it easier for me if I don't have to worry about the Fist Office dragging me out to kill some innocent creature.
There was little empathy to be felt here. Blake leapt back as the giant maw tried to bite through her, unloading the last of her ammo into its face as Pyrrha did the same from behind. It had taken so many rounds, and so much dust, but it wasn't slowing down or even wounded. A streak of metal flew and struck into the creature's neck, Pyrrha's javelin, but that didn't bother it either.
The metal just dropped out of it when the maw next shrank back into the rodent's body, left on the ground as it scurried after her squeaking aggressively. Flooding her body with aura, Blake summoned a clone and darted left, sacrificing her immobile clone to its maw. Her clones had been shot, cut, blown up and crushed in the past without consequence, but when this thing swallowed it, Blake felt a sudden lurch, a sense of vertigo and a pain in her stomach, all of which had her attempt to circle and stab the beast's body thwarted. Crying out, she stumbled and broke off instead.
"Blake!" Pyrrha shouted.
Pyrrha's javelin wobbled and then flew back to her hand. The redhead darted in and stabbed down on the rat while the mouth was busy crunching up Blake's clone. Distracted or immobile, the rat didn't dodge this time. The javelin stabbed down into its body, cutting its spine in two and pinning it to the ground.
Far from die, the creature shrank back its mouth and then expanded it out its other end, going for Pyrrha. Thankfully, she'd known better than to stand there and see if her attack worked and has broken off immediately after scoring her hit. Pyrrha jogged to her side and helped her up.
"Did it get you?"
"I—I'm okay! It... it tore a chunk out my aura just by interacting with my Semblance. It swallowed my clone and I felt... I felt it. Not like it got me, but like it was hurting me through my Semblance and aura."
Pyrrha looked worried. "Are you wounded? Bleeding?"
"I don't think so. The pain is in my aura, strange as that sounds. I'll get checked up after we've dealt with this."
Checked for anomalous influence. Pyrrha accepted that and they split up again, Blake feeling a final lurching shudder as her clone was devoured. The pain wasn't traditional pain, more of a shudder as her aura dipped by a fifth.
It must be absorbing my clone instead of eating it. If that's true, I've just given it a small energy boost. Just my luck.
The anomaly couldn't use aura, that being another anomaly, but it could sure as hell eat it and convert it into calories, or however it did things. The tiny thing leapt for Pyrrha with so much speed that the redhead was flatfooted. Cursing, she fell back and scrambled away, almost being swept up in its jaws as it flew by like a missile. It landed past her, skidding onto the grass of the garden.
Right as the door to the farmhouse opened.
"What's all this!?" shouted the owner. "Aliens come for my animals!?"
"Get back inside!" Pyrrha screamed. "Get back inside!"
The man hefted a shotgun, used for putting down Grimm tangled in his barbed wire traps. "I'm not afraid of some little green men!" he shouted, stepping forward scanning his barn. "Now where are—"
He didn't see the rat.
It was too small, too insignificant, and people didn't tend to look down at their feet any more than they did look up. The farmer's boot came down onto the thing's back.
And the anomaly did not appreciate it.
Its body warped like water and reared up all around the farmer, who had a brief moment to shout out in shock before it snapped shut on him. There was the loud noise of a shotgun discharged, but then silence as the creature's maw bit down with a disgusting crunch of bone and flesh. Yet more of the saliva-like goop sprayed from its mouth as it ate the man whole.
"Shit!" Blake cursed. Her eyes landed on the glowing mess on the grass, more and more coming out as the creature expelled it. "Pyrrha!" she shouted. "That stuff! It doesn't ingest it for a reason!"
"You really think its own stomach acid is its weakness?" Pyrrha shot back. The anomaly was still processing its latest prey, which gave them a moment. "Where's the logic?"
"These are anomalies. There is no logic. But it expels it all rather than swallow it. Even if it doesn't kill it, it might cause it some upset."
Pyrrha looked back and sighed. "Good enough for me. You collect it and I'll lure."
Blake couldn't tell if she'd gotten the raw end of that deal or not but let Pyrrha draw the beast away as she scurried over to where the farmer had died. He'd been a rude man, but not a bad one. Foolish, maybe. He'd known there was something out there harming his animals and had come out without aura when he heard gunshots. He should have known better.
Without a container, all she could do was collect it in her hands, trusting to her gloves and Terra's lab team saying it was as harmless to humans as could be. And it might well have been, because the creature obviously hadn't needed it to bite and crush its prey. Soon, she had her hands full of the nasty, glowing stuff and shouted out to Pyrrha.
"Come on, you rat scum!" Pyrrha howled, backing away with her arms held out. "Here I am. Take a big bite."
Pyrrha backed up toward Blake.
The anomaly lunged for her, snapping out wide with its impossible mouth.
There was no missing. Blake's real fear was there not being enough, or this just not achieving anything, but getting it in the mouth was easy. Criminally so. Blake hurled the goop and it was bitten out the air, the rat landing and the teeth clamping shut.
Blake and Pyrrha waited with breath held.
The rodent's mouth sucked back into its body.
Seconds ran by.
"Did it not—?"
"Splrkk..."
The rat convulsed, glowing blue liquid spraying out its tiny mouth – a lot of liquid. What was a handful to Blake was apparently not to something so small. The reason why struck her like a thunderbolt.
"It shrinks its prey to eat!" Blake said. "But anomalies can't effect anomalies, and the gastric juices are anomalous couldn't be shrunk down."
It convulsed again, its entire body wracked by hacking and spluttering as it fell onto its side. The rat's body twitched and writhed, skin and fur breaking into tendrils like worms grabbing and gasping at the air – trying to breathe. But the creature's throat was clogged full of its own stomach juices. It was drowning on its own stomach acid that couldn't be shrunk, and which it had swallowed in quantities larger than its stomach could contain.
Not a weakness after all, but a loophole. It relied on shrinking anything it ingested to fit inside its body, but it couldn't shrink that. It wouldn't have been able to shrink us either. If my clone had been solid and hadn't turned to smoke, it probably would have choked and died on that. Like it would have if it managed to successfully eat one of us.
Neither of them lowered their weapons or moved any closer until the thing was well and truly dead, until its little chest stopped rising and it lay there with its tongue hanging out and numerous tendrils draped lazily on the grass.
"Disgusting thing," Pyrrha hissed. "Good riddance."
Blake couldn't find it in herself to disagree this time. "I guess the cleanup will be easy but we let a man die..."
"We didn't let anything. He came out on his own. Idiot!" Pyrrha said it harshly, but she also ran a hand through her hair and clenched her eyes shut, gritting her teeth. "That stupid moron," she whispered. "Why didn't you stay inside...?"
He probably wanted to show off in front of Pyrrha or see her fight.
Blake didn't say it. "We'll burn this, shall we? And see what Terra wants to do about the ranch."
/-/
Terra Arc looked unsteady on her feet as she was helped out the Bullhead by a man who looked more like a police officer than an ARC Corp agent. The creature had been set alight, but now a full crew of scientists were being shipping over to make sure it wasn't one part of a greater collection of anomalies. They'd never done this back in Vale, made sure it was over with and done, but then they wouldn't have been able to. It was just the two of them.
"We'll leave a team here for the next week to watch and care for the animals," Terra said, after receiving their report and story. "They'll alert us if any animals are taken and residue left, which will be a clear sign there are more of them."
"What of the ranch itself?" asked Pyrrha.
"I can't say." Terra shrugged. "We'll have to see if the man had a will. His wishes for it will be honoured assuming the place is clean and safe to be handed over. We'll let his family know he was killed by Grimm. It's hardly an unbelievable outcome here in the wilderness. We'll create some evidence that the barbed wire failed or was breached."
"There's no body for them," Blake mumbled.
"All too common where Grimm are concerned. No one will question it. How about you two? Were you able to work well together?"
"I believe so." Pyrrha answered for her and was more optimistic than Blake. "We set aside our differences to do the job that was needed. Though we may disagree on some methods, this was hardly a controversial anomaly for either of us."
Blake shrugged in agreement. "Jaune would have killed this as well."
"Really?" asked Terra. "He wouldn't have tried to keep it in some reinforced hamster cage?"
"Is that a joke?" Blake realised it wasn't by their expressions. "For fuck's sake, what does Saphron tell you two? Jaune doesn't keep dangerous anomalies if they're sapient. We've killed numerous like this. The anomalies we keep are anomalous objects that can't move around or escape on their own. We don't keep live specimens."
Except Timothy, but he wasn't a specimen. He was a beloved member of their family and she would fight anyone to the death if they suggested otherwise.
"That is a relief to hear," Terra said.
But it didn't sound like she was entirely convinced.
You're lucky you're pregnant...
"Is that all you need me for?" asked Blake, crossing her arms. "Because I'd rather take an early flight back to Vale than stay in Argus."
"I suppose that's all. Director Jaune Arc will be pleased to know you are well. I understand the facility has finally been handed over to him and that Associate-Director Saphron is assisting with the transfer and logging of his anomalous objects."
Of course she was, the better to check each and every one and destroy any she felt were too dangerous. Well, there weren't many like that left. Saphron had taken the Blank Slate a while ago. Assuming she wasn't going to freak at a dog collar or a pair of panties, there shouldn't be any drama.
Famous last words, Blake. Famous last words...
Next Chapter: 12th August (Two weeks)
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