Outsiders 1.3: Ribbons
⸻1⸻
Flush with the concrete wall, Maddie huddled, hidden among a family of survivors in the dark backroom of the supermarket. Cans of vegetables and fruit sat abandoned on the floor, along with bags of flour and other grocery items. Cardboard boxes half-stocked laid next to the bountiful harvest. They had the foresight to bar the door with unused shelves and stocking carts, but nothing obscured the scratched plexiglass window that allowed anyone, or anything, to look into the room.
Shadows passed by the door, interrupting the beam of light filtering into the backroom. Maddie could hear the gruff voices of men outside, banging on shelves and knocking things over. One of the survivors, a little girl, whimpered in fright. A scared young man, her father, wrapped an arm around the girl and covered her mouth.
Having spent the last month living like a rat, slinking around for scraps and fleeing from eldritch horrors and other atrocities; Maddie knew that it was imperative that they remained quiet. The last thing she wanted was to draw any attention to herself. There were rumors, hushed whispers delivered from behind shuttered doors and boarded up windows, of a dangerous group that was hunting people for sport.
To Maddie, they weren't just rumors. She herself had already escaped from them once. The Anderson family were nice enough to take her in when they found her ragged and bloody, face-down on a patch of snow. Though it had been a trying two weeks, the time spent with them was enjoyable. For the first time she could remember, it felt like she had a family.
Of course, it made sense for them to think that. They thought she was a part of the family from the beginning.
Mark Anderson was a bartender. He worked hard to provide for his two children that were born out of wedlock when he was eighteen—just a kid himself really. His then girlfriend had walked out on him and married an investment broker. Luckily, he later found the love of his life, Carmen.
Carmen was a nurse, though her greatest aspiration was to be a doctor someday. She refused to leave her patients' sides during the post-battle evacuation and ended up in quarantine. Was that admirable? It was hard to say since her actions likely doomed her entire family to a life in this hell. And all for a handful of strangers that died by the end of the first week.
Perhaps that outlook was a tad pessimistic, but Maddie was a realist. It was ironic for her to think that when things inevitably went bad, it's best not to stick your necks out for strangers. But she knew that trust would only lead to betrayal.
The two children, twins Jane and John, were only around six or seven. They buried their faces into Mark's chest, imagining they were anywhere else. Mark didn't want them to come along on their food run, but it wasn't like he could simply call a babysitter. He figured it was probably less dangerous if they all stayed together. At least then he would know that they were all fine… or all fucked.
Abby Anderson was Mark's little sister and a student at the University of Wisconsin. It was actually Abby that found Maddie in the snow and saved her. And for that, Maddie was eternally grateful. Though she wasn't the best student, she had a big heart and wanted to follow in her sister-in-law's footsteps. Unfortunately, it was too late for that now.
The men outside the room began shouting. Gun fire broke out, causing the children to squeal—the noise lost among the clamor. Shelves crashed and the shouts crescendoed into screams and the screams into silence. Dead silence.
One of the kid's feet tipped over a can and it toppled with a deafening clunk.
A shadow blocked the light of the backroom door.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A finger lightly tapped away on the plexiglass window. A voice that Maddie heard in her nightmares slithered into her ears and constricted her brain; muscles seized in fear. "Little pigs, little pigs, let me in… You all smell divine. I know you're in there, Matryoshka. I followed your scent. It is quite nuanced, given your unique composition and all. I'm impressed that you had been able to evade me for so long, but you can't run any longer"
"Matryoshka?" Carmen muttered quietly, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She turned to her sister-in-law. "Do you know what he's talking about, Abby?"
Abby shook her head, platinum blonde hair cascading on her shoulder. Scooching over to the cardboard baler, she grabbed a long piece of metal that had been left propped up against the machine to use as a makeshift weapon. The man outside the backroom was getting restless, banging on the door fervently. The amateur blockade bounced with each hit and wouldn't last much longer.
Mark pushed the kids into his wife's arms and bolstered the door with his shoulder, foot pressed against the adjacent shelving for leverage. He groaned in pain as his leg was forced inch by inch into the unyielding steel. The man outside was too strong.
Straining, Mark shouted, "Look for another way out! I can't hold out for long!"
But there wasn't another way out. A by-product of her life on the run, Maddie had scoped the room for any possible exits the minute they walked in. Just shelves populated by overstocked merchandise and consumables. There was a sliding backdoor, but it was clamped down and sealed with a padlock. There were no windows. The place was practically a death trap.
The door buckled and ten long, slender fingers slid through the gap, widening it. A leather patchwork mask pressed itself to the opening. Animal teeth had been sewn into the upholstery, giving it a frightening visage. Greasy black hair framed the leather face, hanging down to his chest. Audibly sniffing, the man grunted, "It won't be long! I can practically taste you. Matryoshka! Give me Matryoshka!"
"Fuck off!" Abby yelled and charged the door, jabbing the metal bar into the cape's beady eye hole. The instant the bar touched the man's eye all the momentum and speed of the attack died. Her hands slipped off the piece of metal by the sudden stop and Abby tumbled to the concrete. From the ground, she looked up at the cape. The bar hung straight out from the man's face, defying gravity.
"Going for the eyes, you bitch? You're my kind of woman," the man growled, shaking the bar off his face, and kicked the door open completely with an unexpected burst of brawn. Mark, leg pinned by the shelf, had his fibula snapped and screeched in agony. The cape basked in the screams. "Ah, what a sweet symphony. If I could live off the anguish of others, I would have grown fat and happy by now."
"That mask! I recognize you! You're Grendel of the Four Horsemen. What the hell do you want from us?" Carmen cried, holding the two children close. The twins had tears streaming down their faces, smearing snot on their stepmother's clothes.
The Four Horsemen? Maddie hadn't heard of them before, but Abby knew all about them. Before the quarantine, Madison was a fairly safe city as far as parahuman crime went. There were only four supervillains of any renown: Black Death, Pressgang, Grendel, and Novocaine.
After butting heads with each other, and getting hounded by the leader of the Madison Protectorate, the four all decided to team up and form a dangerous biker gang—The Four Horsemen, creating a monopoly on the criminal underground. Abby thought they had all been wiped out when the Simurgh attacked since the Horsemen had been quiet lately. Evidently, she had been mistaken.
Despite the Horsemen's strong parahuman abilities, they weren't terrible when compared to the horror stories spawned by groups like the Slaughterhouse Nine or the Elite. They mostly pedaled drugs and ran the red-light district. Basically all crime in Madison was connected to them in some way. Any other criminals prowling around either had to join up, move out, or get killed.
In a sick way, the Horsemen helped keep the crime rate down. Of course at the end of the day, they were still a plague on the city.
"Those losers and cowards? Not a chance. I run with a different crew now. One that lets me be as ruthless as I want," Grendel replied, stepping into the room. His costume, a long black raincoat and dark pants, was slick with smatterings of bloodstains—some fresh, while others were days old, dry and flaky. "No more pain in the ass morals or rules. As for what I want, it couldn't be simpler. I'm here for Matryoshka. The rest of you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The price of keeping such bad company."
Carmen gritted her teeth. "We don't know who that is, you fucking psycho!"
"We'll see." Grendel turned to Mark and to a hold of the man's hair, lifting him off the ground. Mark whimpered, sluggishly wriggling as if trapped in slow-motion. "Scary, right? I'm what the PRT would call a 'Striker'. My body automatically absorbs nearly all the energy of whatever I'm touching and adds it to my physical strength. It may seem like you are paralyzed, but make no mistake, you can still feel everything."
Grendel smashed Mark's head into the wall, cracking the concrete and splashing blood across the gray surface. Releasing him, Mark limply dropped to the floor. The front of his head had been bashed inward and shards of cartilage from his ruptured nose turned his complexion to a raspberry pie. Grendel licked the dead man's blood off his fingers. "Okay…who's next?"
"What…" Abby said, staggering. Blood pounding in her ringing ears, her gaze drifted to Mark. It had all happened so fast and she was struggling to process it all. She had seen people die before, but he was her brother. Death happened to other people.
Well, that wasn't exactly true, Maddie thought.
"Well, Matryoshka? I'll keep killing these people unless you surrender. Doesn't that sound fun? It does to me." He stared at Abby, narrowing his eyes. "What's wrong? Afraid to show these people who you really are? That's fine, I guess. I think I'll kill a kid next."
"No wait!" Abby exclaimed, holding her hands out. "I'll do it."
"A-A-Abby, what are you talking about?" Carmen blubbered, her face ugly and red and stained with tears, "What's going on?"
The skin on Abby's arms slowly unraveled, spiraling into ribbons. The skin on her legs, back, and face soon followed; unveiling another woman underneath. She had pale, colorless white features with thick black horizontal lines striping her body. The ribbons then folded into her head, becoming honey blonde strands of hair. No signs of Abby were left, only Maddie remained.
"What the fuck! Like, what the fuck! …Abby?"
"Abby's not here. I'm Matryoshka," Maddie said, her natural eastern European accent permeating her voice. It was much easier being herself when not calling upon her power. The alien emotions of her absorbed victims were more readily staved off, relegated to a distant hum in the back of her skull.
"No… Where's… Where's Abby? Show me Abby!" Carmen begged, desperately trying to push herself further against the dusty wall of the storeroom. The grip on her step-children tightened, causing them to whimper in pain as well as fear.
Grendel laughed. "Hah! Don't you get it, you stupid bitch? She fucking dead! Gone! Poof! Matryoshka devoured her and took her place like some kind of fucked up chameleon. That skin suit would have fooled most, but not me. My sense of smell can't be spoofed."
"Carmen, it isn't so simple. Abby and I became one. She still lives, in a fashion. She isn't gone completely," Maddie said softly. She went to put a comforting hand on Carmen's cheek—an action that Abby had done a hundred times—but the women shirked away.
"Don't you fucking touch me, you damn monster!" she snapped, slapping the hand away. Scrabbling to her feet, she and the two children moved to the corner of the room. Her eyes darted around, hoping to catch a glimpse of another way out. If not for her then for Jane and John. She owned Mark that much at least.
"Please, listen to me," pleaded Matryoshka, and took a tentative step towards the panicking woman. She kept one eye on Grendel, however the man seemed content to watch the drama unfold and casually leaned next to the bloodstained wall.
"No! Go away!"
"Is it really such a surprise?" Grendel asked, "Or what, were you expecting them to welcome you with open arms? The world isn't so convenient. A monster like you, dumped from another dimension no less, will never find a place to belong. Come back to us. We'll give your life purpose."
Growling in frustration, Matryoshka snatched the metal bar off the floor and sprinted at Grendel. Harnessing the combined strength of everyone she had assimilated, she swung at the man's head. The shock of the impact died within a second, but a blow across the eyes still distracted Grendel enough for her to snatch a small bag of flour and smash it in his face.
Freshly powdered, the villain coughed and stumbled backward. He tripped over Mark's body and careened into the steel shelves, buried by an avalanche of boxes and cans. Carmen took her chance and bolted through the exit. Matryoshka ran out after her, calling her name.
The interior of the supermarket was obliterated. The bodies of several men were strewn across the place, pistols still gripped in their dead hands. One man had been thrown through multiple shelves, collapsing an entire row like giant dominoes; while another was tossed into the ceiling with only his ragged legs dangling in view.
With single-minded determination, Carmen led the kids past the carnage—keeping their eyes covered with her hands—and to an emergency fire exit. Normally, an alarm would have sounded. However, in a city without power, the latch gave way to the backlot silently.
Before she could follow, Matryoshka heard thudding boots chewing up the tiles behind her. Splitting up into ribbons, she avoided Grendel's outstretched hand and maneuvered like a snake; looping around him and back through the destroyed sales floor.
As much as she wanted to, she couldn't follow Carmen. It was clear to her that she'd only end up leading Grendel back to her and the kids. She couldn't do that to them. Though it may have been brief, it was nice to have a family, albeit one built upon deception. But now she was on her own again. It was nothing less than what she deserved.
Grunting, Grendel forcefully tossed the wreckage out of his way, spending some of the energy he had absorbed earlier. Eyes closed, he moved by scent alone and chased the swarm of fleshy ribbons slithering along the ground.
Spotting a hole in the plaster, likely made by a bullet during the brief gunfight between Grendel and the deceased scavengers, Matryoshka dove through it and reconvened on the other side. The ribbons coiled around one another to reform her body. She had made it outside.
Grendel slammed into the wall with a mighty crash. Matryoshka stepped back as the man repeatedly tackled the bullet hole, steadily widening it. Drooling and gnashing his teeth, Grendel clawed like a rabid animal, scraping away concrete and plaster. Before long, he squeezed his upper body through the opening. "You can't escape!"
What the fuck was this guy? At this rate, she'd need a miracle to escape.
Squealing tires captured their attention as a large black pick-up truck crashed directly into Grendel, pinning him between it and the wall. Steam hissed from the vehicle's engine. A teen exited the driver's side door by phasing through it like a ghost. "Oh, man. I think I hit someone."
"Dummkopf! That's the last time I'm letting you drive," complained the woman in the passenger's seat, massaging a kink out of her neck. Kicking the door open, she walked around and inspected the damage to the truck. "Never mind hitting someone, you drove right into a damn wall! Look at what you did to my baby."
Maddie dropped to her knees in relief.
⸻2⸻
Slumber surrendering to the grating screech of grinding metal, Whitney woke up on his Egyptian silk sheets. Pressure compressing his noggin greeted him like an old friend that had well outstayed their welcome. A rather unfriendly reminder of last night's binger. A few empty bottles of high-end liquor displayed on the shelf in his room attested to that as well.
This could very well be the wake up call he needed. Any responsible adult should know how to limit their alcohol consumption…or so he's heard. Too bad the only adult in Whitney's life at the moment wasn't responsible at all. In fact, the binger was her idea from the start.
Just another celebration for another successful heist. Whitney didn't think stealing a bunch of cars and junk from discount electronic stores was worth the fuss, but any excuse to get shitfaced was good enough. And he had been doing that a lot lately.
It was weird. Whitney had everything he had ever wanted, but happiness was a fickle phantom that only graced him fleetingly. What more could he need? What was he missing? Unfortunately, the answers eluded him.
Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Whitney looked around his room. Morning light drifted in from the glorious penthouse window. Smoke from a fire downtown floated up past the broken building, middling with the overcast sky. The 'Wall' looked as impressive as ever, reality's stark reminder dominating the horizon.
Other than that, the view was quite lovely. Rent at this lofty apartment must have cost a small fortune in a past life, but for him and Oppenheimer it was free. Though they did have to kill a few rats before they could move in.
Looking across the spacious bedroom, he noticed his roommate's bed was empty. The covers were waded up and sloppy, hanging off the side of the mattress. Burns scored the bed like the grill marks on a hamburger patty. Living with a human heater, plus the copious amounts of alcohol on the premises, they were one accidental fire away from kissing the moon.
Speaking of his roommate…
A loud clang echoed around the open concept apartment. Whitney, rising from his bed, peeked over the lofted bedroom's balcony to the main room on the first floor. The kitchen, living room, and dining room were all a part of one big room which used to have nice furniture and utilities, until Oppenheimer, in one of her fugues, had torn it all to pieces and made it into her personal workshop.
She was hard at work rendering a Toyota Prius into an even bigger hunk of junk than it already was. Dressed in a welder's mask and heavy apron, she sliced off another chunk of metal from the car's frame with her superheated fingers, showering herself in yellow sparks.
The floor was littered with piles of twisted scraps, but Whitney knew that soon they would be reforged into futuristic gadgets and gizmos that would be right at home in a time traveler's arsenal. Sets of ray guns and rifles leaned against the wall, a coffee maker (prone to glowing green in the middle of the night) was perched on the kitchen counter, and a little cube-shaped generator sat in the thick of it all. Sure, it kept the overhead lights on, but it could also turn the entire block into Little Chernobyl at the slightest touch.
Those are just some of Oppenheimer's inventions.
She was a so-called 'Tinker', a parahuman capable of creating outlandish technology out of utter garbage. Having never paid much attention to capes before, PRT power classifications were completely lost on Whitney. Luckily, Oppenheimer had gleaned some information from her time in captivity. So they weren't totally clueless, just mostly.
Apparently, each tinker had a specialty. Like for example, tinkers that specialized in a type of energy: steam, water, etc. Or ones that dealt with vehicles, or robotic minions, or a thousand other things. She called herself a 'Nuclear Tinker', meaning everything she created had to run on nuclear energy. It was the reason that she took the name 'Oppenheimer' to begin with. Her real name had been scrubbed from her brain years ago.
The tech she built was incredibly potent, however using it exposed you to massive doses of radiation—a definitive double-edged sword. By nature of her existence, Oppenheimer was immune to all forms of radiation; and by virtue of his power, so was Whitney. He might be the only person besides herself capable of using her tinker-tech. Their meeting truly was a convenient miracle.
The group that held her prisoner had Oppenheimer create all manner of different things for them, including a virtually perpetual nuclear-powered generator that energized their whole continent-sized base. More than once, she tried to secretly develop a slew of weapons to facilitate her escape, but they foiled her at every turn. It was like they knew her every move even before she did.
Whenever she wasn't inventing things for them, they kept her locked up in a containment pod. To them, she was little more than a tool to use and abuse.
"Do you have to do this shit, like, so early in the morning?" Whitney shouted down at her. Oppenheimer paused and raised her visor, exposing her golden glowing teeth that illuminated through her gray cheeks. She must have been working all night—the luminescence from her bones and hair was more dulcet and dim than Whitney had ever seen. They weren't even shining through her clothes anymore.
"Early? It's ten AM."
"Exactly. Early. We can't all be solar-powered, you know? I need my beauty sleep." Whitney vainly flicked his brunette hair over his shoulder with a hand weighed down by sparkling gemstone rings and silver bracelets, showing off his diamond studded ears. "I'm flattered you think I look this good by accident."
"I never realized you were such a diva, Herr Geist. Did you sleep in that jewelry?" Oppenheimer sighed, taking off her welding mask. She set it on her tool-infested workbench and combed her fingers through her golden locks, waves of light rippling down the strands. "Just quit bitching and get down here. I have something to show you."
"'Kay. Gimme a sec, Hoss," Whitney said and disappeared into the loft. Oppenheimer could hear the rustling of fabric as her young housemate changed out of his sleepwear. Finished, Whitney slipped through the floor of the upstairs bedroom and gently floated down like a day old balloon. His hair was held in place by the long hairpins and he wore his white fur pimp coat.
Yawning, Whitney walked past her to the kitchenette at the edge of the workshop. Putting on a pot of black coffee, he stood back as the coffee maker whirled to life—humming ominously—and filled the room with the bitter, yet comforting scent of a quality French roast. He reached into the sparse cabinet, grabbing a package of pop-tarts, and sat on the counter. "Okay, I'm ready. Wow me."
Oppenheimer sauntered over to a large, lumpy object hidden under a tarp. In a flourish, she ripped away the covering to unveil a truck. It looked like a rugged, black pick-up with dark tinted windows. An eerie glow shone out the bottom of the vehicle. When she started it up, an undulating noise emanated from the hood and vibrant orange lights traveled along the contours of the truck's frame.
When Whitney was a kid his family didn't have much money. They couldn't afford cable and the only thing he had to watch was a bootleg VHS tape of classic Scooby Doo episodes from the late 60s and early 70s, refuse of an age before Scion and parahumania ensnared humanity. He must have watched that tape a thousand times. For the most part the episodes weren't scary, however there was one particular exception—the Space Kook.
The skull face encompassed by blaze orange and the shrill laughter begotten a frightening impression for his young malleable mind. Looking at Oppenheimer's creation, Whitney couldn't help but be reminded of the Space Kook and his junkyard spaceship. The way the engine purrs sounded exactly the same as that UFO. Fuck, he wanted to drive it.
"That's, like, cool as hell," he commented, biting into his pop-tart.
Oppenheimer smirked and twirled a ring of keys on her finger. "Shall we take her for a spin?"
⸻3⸻
The truck drove like a dream, smoothly grinding and plowing anything in its path. On the eve of the quarantine, pretty much the entire city of Madison packed their shit up and raced to get out of town. This ended up clogging the roads and left a ton of cars abandoned in gridlock traffic once the owners decided to hoof it.
That wasn't a problem for Oppenheimer's quantum shitbox. The truck had a built in repulsion system capable of sending anything it touches flying. Whitney had no clue how it worked and he suspected that neither did the inventor.
Tinker-fugue was one hell of a drug. If you could call it a drug. The effects are similar enough considering the vehicle was slapped together in a single night—in the midst of an alcohol binger. Whitney was just glad that she was lucid enough to add seat belts.
Gliding around a corner at the speed of fuck it, her arm dangling from the window like a trucker, Oppenheimer turned the nob of the radio. The speakers coughed static and she fiddled with the tuning, barely paying any attention to the road. Whitney had his window down too, sticking his head out like a dog. He watched as the truck clipped another car and sent it skidding into a storefront. Eventually, a haunting voice floated into the cabin.
It was an old eighties song that Whitney vaguely recalled hearing on classic rock radio stations and PA systems at shopping centers.
Oppenheimer softly sang along. "Von 99 Luftballons, auf ihrem weg zum horizont. Denkst du vielleicht grad an mich? Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich—"
"Oh, wow," Whitney said, "You're actually, like, a really good singer. What the fuck."
"Hm?" She glanced over at her passenger, distracted. Her thoughts had been worlds away and she had forgotten where she was for a moment. "I guess you're right. I never realized."
"What do you mean by that?"
"So much of my life is just a blank to me. Maybe I was a singer before all this happened to me. Before I was taken from my home and stripped bare. Before I became this…thing. All that remains of my memories are flashes, slivers that escape through the cracks in my cortex."
The two sat in silence, surrounded by Nena and her luftballons drifting out the stereo. Whitney looked at the older woman and saw a tear sizzle on her cheek, evaporated by her intense heat. She… was crying? He had known her for only a month, but one thing was certain, Oppenheimer didn't cry. She was brash and boisterous, and a bit of a bitch, but not emotional.
Whitney spoke, "If… there was some way to, I don't know, undo what was done to you… Would you do it?"
"Definitely." The response came without hesitation.
"Even if it meant remembering everything?"
"Bestimmt."
Whitney leaned back in his seat and laughed esoterically, "It's kinda funny, isn't it? You want to give up your powers and become a normal woman again, memories and all; while I'd wish for the opposite. There are plenty of things in my past that I'd rather forget. And I never want to go back to who I was before. Never. Getting these superpowers was the best thing that ever happened to me."
It was Oppenheimer's turn to spare a sympathetic glance to her young companion. It was easy to forget that Whitney, for all his strength, was still a child. A child that had been spirited away from his own world and everyone he had ever known. In that sense, they were similar.
She wasn't a good mentor or role model. Words often failed her in these situations. It would be easier if she could invent something that could help, but some things you had to do yourself—without any fancy tinker-bullshit. "You… Wanna try driving it?"
With the way Whitney's eyes lit up, perhaps she wasn't such a bad role model after all.
⸻4⸻
"How did you even manage to crash my baby in the first place? The repulsion field was working perfectly!" the woman with the gray skin and glowing bones barked at the teen in the white fur coat. She tried to grab him by the collar, but he somehow slipped from her grasp. "Hold still and take your punishment!"
"Nope, if you didn't want this to happen then you shouldn't have let me drive," the boy shrugged, dancing away from the woman, "Crashing the uncrashable car, just another Tuesday for Whitney Geist, King of Fuck-ups. I'm just that awesome."
On her knees and exhausted, Matryoshka listened to her unintentional saviors squabble, ignorant to her presence. The rubble adjacent to the crumpled front end of the vehicle shifted and a man gave a low moan of pain. Oh, great. It was Grendel. What the fuck did it take to kill that guy? "Uh, hello?"
They paused and turned towards Matryoshka. Their gazes were level and unperturbed by her striped form. Their blase reaction wasn't surprising considering that one of them was like her, a so-called 'Monster Cape'.
The woman spoke, "Who the hell are you?"
Matryoshka drew herself to her feet. It was important that she made a good impression, or at the very least, didn't show any obvious weakness. Swallowing her nerves, she looked the other woman in the eye. "I'm Matryoshka. Maddie, if that's easier to remember."
"I'm Oppenheimer and the brat's Ghost," the glowing woman stated, pointing at the teen with her thumb.
"Yo," Ghost waved and stepped right up to her, fear vacant from his voice and body language. "The name's Whitney. I'd actually prefer it if you call me that. I'm not one for codenames, ya dig? We should totally get a drink sometime. Don't worry, I'll pay. Yeah I know, I'm basically Prince Charming."
He circled around her like a dog excited to meet a new person at the park. Seemingly very interested in the black stripes running up her body, Whitney intently studied the markings, itching to poke her.
"Er, what…? Okay, Look. I'm flattered, but this isn't exactly a good time. You don't have any idea who you just hit with your truck, do you? If you don't get out of here that man will kill you, and capture us," Matryoshka said, gesturing to the crashed vehicle as it was pushed back from the supermarket wall inch by inch.
"Why would he bother capturing us and only killing the kid?" Oppenheimer asked, "It would be less of a hassle to just kill all three of us."
"Maybe he doesn't kill women? Like a misogynistic chivalry thing," Whitney proposed.
Matryoshka shook her head. "That guy? No way in hell. He works for DVARG. They are an organization bent on capturing people like you, Oppenheimer. People like me. I'll spare you the details, but just know that if we are taken, we'll wish we were dead instead."
"Sounds interesting." Undeterred by the warning, Oppenheimer smiled. "I've been looking for something to test my new toys against. This DVARG might make for a good target, wouldn't you agree?"
"Uh, No? That's a terrible idea."
Freed from the hole in the wall, Grendel pushed open the door of the supermarket, letting the glass fall and shatter on the pavement outside. Blood dripped from the leather patchwork mask, leaving a crimson trail of breadcrumbs with each step. His arms hung uselessly at his sides. Turning his head, the man hacked up a glob of blood with a raspy cough.
"That guy?" Whitney asked, pointing at Grendel. He glanced at the villain and then back to Matryoshka. "Seriously, you think he can kill me? He looks half-dead himself."
"And who's fault is that?" Oppenheimer said, sarcastically.
"He may be weakened, but his ability is formidable," Matryoshka warned, putting up her guard and steeling her resolve. "He can absorb the energy of anything he touches and add it to his own strength. The battle's lost if he so much as lays a hand upon you."
"Blah, blah, blah. You just can't keep your whore mouth shut. Eh, Matryoshka? You, glowy woman, you're one of those monsters too, right? It's my civic duty to get freaks like you off the streets," Grendel said, his voice sore and gravely. Pushing off the ground with superhuman strength, he closed the distance to Oppenheimer in an instant. Swinging his arm, he grabbed the woman by the shoulder. "You're finished!"
Oppenheimer's body slowed down, just like what happened to Mark. Grendel's laughter swiftly changed to an anguished howl. The stench of burnt flesh perfumed the air as the skin on the man's palm fried. He yanked back the appendage and clutched it to his chest. Matryoshka could see blisters and welts dotting the tender red meat.
"Interesting. By absorbing my kinetic energy, you stopped me from moving. You couldn't, however, absorb the high thermal energy that my body emits," Oppenheimer commented, and backhanded Grendel, or tried to. The strike halted once it made skin contact, though he still flinched from the heat of her skin. "The same goes for receiving attacks as well. Hm, I wonder…"
She drew a stout pistol from her waistband, twisted a knob on the side, and fired a continuous green laser. The beam struck him and he began to absorb it into his body. The wounds littering Grendel slowly mended the more energy he took in. "So you can absorb thermal energy too?"
"So, you figured it out, you cocky bitch. A little late, I'm afraid. All this tasty energy is gonna get me back to my old self in no time!" Grendel replied, an arrogant swagger creeping into his tone. At least until Whitney stabbed him in the neck with one of his ornate hair pins. "Gahk!"
"Just as I thought," Whitney said, nodding. He yanked the pin out and allowed the blood to fall through the silver pin to the ground below. "These do make for handy weapons."
"Dummkopf," Oppenheimer muttered, "It means that he can only absorb one type of energy at a time. That's why our truck was able to hurt him before. He absorbed the gravitational energy of the repulsion field and was subsequently crushed by the kinetic energy of the truck itself. Honestly, it was rotten luck on your part that you ran into the two of us."
"Fuck you!" spat Grendel, pressing a hand to his neck and staggering to one knee, "I was one of the four strongest supervillains in Madison. You really think a wound like this is enough to put me down? This fight is long from over, bastards."
Oppenheimer shook her head. "And you missed his jugular. I thought I taught you better than that. Gut Gott, I gave you a perfect opening too."
"Hmph, no way. I totally stabbed it. I guess I should go for the spinal cord next time," Whitney replied.
Snarling, Grendel swung at Whitney, but his fist harmlessly phased through the teen's body. Whitney countered with the hairpin—the needle stopping the second it made contact with the top of the villain's spine—and Oppenheimer instantly blasted the creep with the laser pistol. A scorched hole tore Grendel's hide and ironically set his raincoat on fire. He fell to the ground, burning.
The flames sunk into his skin and Whitney kicked him in the face. "What happened there, Annie Oakley? Looking like he's still alive to me!"
"I put a hole in his heart, but his body was hardier than expected."
"...Was that a pun?"
"...Listen, okay, that wasn't intentional, I swear."
They're… They're utterly destroying him! Maddie thought, flabbergasted. And while joking around with each other! To her, Grendel seemed like an unstoppable monster, but these two were toying with him like he was naught but a nuisance, a small pitiful child. These people were even bigger monsters than he was!
The two, Oppenheimer and Whitney, continued whaling on him until Grendel, face-down on the pavement, didn't move. Dead or unconscious. Matryoshka particularly didn't care which.
"So, that guy was some kinda big shot?" Whitney asked, leaning over the villain with his hands resting on his knees, "Another victim of the power creep. I almost feel bad for him."
"Don't, he was rather unpleasant," Oppenheimer commented, stepping on Grendel's head with her boot. He groaned under her weight, but he didn't stir. She held out her laser pistol for Matryoshka to take. "He's still alive. Do you want to kill him? His power doesn't seem to be active when he's unconscious."
Maddie looked at the gun in the woman's hand and reached out only to pull the limp back just before touching it. She wanted to take it. She wanted to kill him. Put him down like the rabid beast he was. He killed Mark! However, Carmen's face flashed in her head. The nurse would never condone killing, especially not in this situation. Grendel was defeated; taking his life now would be murder. End of story.
Take it. Take it. Take it. The voice of Abby surfaced in her head. An eye for an eye and a death for a death.
Matryoshka felt sick.
She wobbled on her feet and split into ribbons. Reforming as the late Abby Anderson, she took the laser pistol and shot Grendel in the back several times. Each beam struck a vital area, burning more holes in his ragged clothes. There was no hesitation in her actions nor mercy in her eyes.
"Whoa, badass," Whitney whispered with bated breath, "I think I'm in love."
Abby handed the gun to Oppenheimer and shifted back to Matryoshka. Maddie took a few steps and then bent over, vomiting. She had temporarily lost control of one of her assets. That had never happened before. The more she used her power, the more her power used her it seemed. Her psyche further diluted into the human soup that was her mind.
"Are you okay?" Oppenheimer inquired, more curious and confused than concerned, "Are you feeling a slight burning sensation throughout your body? ...Radiation sickness, perhaps?"
"How would the average person know what that feels like?" Whitney questioned, and moved to Matryoshka's side. He held her hair out of her face and patted her on the back as she vomited again. "There, there. Just let it all out. Cough up all that radiation."
"That's not how that works."
"What, really?"
"I'm fine. Thank you," Maddie said, brushing Whitney away and standing up straight. "I…just never killed anyone before. That's all."
"Oh, okay. No big deal, then. Hey, while we're here we might as well stock up on groceries," Whitney said, trotting over to the busted storefront, and peeked inside, "Wow! There's, like, a ton of dead guys in there. Too bad we ain't cannibals, looks like they're having a clearance sale on corpses."
"And with all the scrap, we won't be short on parts to fix the truck. It could be a longshot, but let's check out their liquor selection too," Oppenheimer added, joining Whitney in the entrance. She glanced back at Matryoshka, "You coming, or what?"
Maddie was conflicted. These people may have saved her, but they weren't heroes. That much was obvious. In a way, they were as mad as Grendel—they just hid it better. But then again, she was crazy too.
"Uh, Sure. I guess."
⸻5⸻
Pain. Stiffness. Thirst. Lizard brain synapses blipped in his skull on repeat. Dredged like a bloated cadaver from the mucky lake bottom, Grendel resurfaced to consciousness. Each breath was shallow and tinged with the iron taste of blood. The earthy stench of the supermarket parking lot clogged his nose. Besides his rattling breaths, it was quiet.
His tenacity when it came to survival surprised even himself sometimes. It was miraculous.
Though with every nerve ending in his body ablaze in agony, maybe death would be preferable. Unless someone got him medical attention, or at least a steady supply of energy for him to siphon, he was dead anyway.
A pebble clattered on the ground.
Fighting through the pain, Grendel turned his head and looked up. There was a man standing over him. He was dressed in a black suit and tie. The top half of his face and head was covered by a white bone mask of a lion skull. Jutting from the fringe of the mask was a mane of faux fur, obscuring the man's real hair from view.
It was his boss, the leader of DVARG, Chimera.
"Look what has become of you, poor Grendel. Who could ever do such a thing to my dear subordinate?"
His false concern grated Grendel's ears and he growled, "It was a monster cape… One I hadn't seen before. Her bones and hair glowed. And her skin was gray."
Chimera crouched down and caressed the side of his mask, fingers entangling in Grendel's hair.
"Are you certain?" he asked sweetly.
"Yes…," Grendel said, and coughed. All this talking was tearing apart his throat, "I swear… take me back to base, save me, and I'll hunt them down to the ends of the world."
"That's out of the question. Look around you, dear Grendel." Chimera's grip turned to iron and hoisted him off the ground by his hair. Grendel wasn't a short man, but his boss was taller. Standing just below eight feet, he'd put most basketball players to shame. It had to be part of his power. Just like how he had no trouble holding a grown man above his head with one hand. "The world has already ended. Not to worry, there is a way that you can still be useful to me."
"No… No! I—I can do this! Please, don't kill me. I'm the best tracker you've got!" Grendel pleaded, wriggling in his grasp. He tried to call upon his powers, drain his boss of all his kinetic energy, but they weren't working. Why weren't they working?!
His pain was gone and his body felt numb. Arms and legs dangled unresponsively from his torso. This strange feeling… Grendel had felt it in the past. It was almost like Novocaine's power. But that wasn't possible. Novocaine was killed by the Simurgh a month ago.
Wasn't she?
Chimera tilted his head back and his jaw unhinged. A tongue like a red viper slinked out and glazed his sharp elongated fangs with saliva. The skin at the edges of his lips split, unzipping into tendrils of squirming flesh. He moved his hands and gripped Grendel by both shoulders.
Grendel thrashed in vain, but Chimera lowered him towards his gaping maw until his entire head was inside. Then the man chomped down in a sickening crunch. Swallowing, Chimera let the headless body of his former employee ragdoll into a crumpled heap. Pulling out his pocket square, he dabbed his lip. "Thanks for the meal."
Chimera refolded the square and tucked it back into his suit pocket, adjusted his tie, and walked away. So you're here too, he thought; and looked up at the sky, admiring the orange hue of the sunset coloring the clouds. "I can't wait to see you again, my lovely Oppenheimer."
End of Chapter
⸻Author's Note⸻
And Matryoshka joins the party! Our group of outsiders grows to three! She is a canon character that joins Faultline's crew after they free her from Madison, but I think I'm gonna tweak her power a little to suit the narrative of this story. (All the other capes mentioned/debuting in this chapter (Black Death, Pressgang, Grendel, Novocaine, and Chimera) are original characters).
I probably rewrote this chapter, like, ten times, but I think it turned out alright. A little longer than I expected though.
Cronyistically Yours,
A Horseshoe Crab
Chapter Word Count: 7,311
Arc Word Count: 18,376
Story Word Count: 18,376