Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2023 05:27:08 -0400 From: Chuck Beehner Subject: The Monsters of Faggot Forest chapter 10 I donate to Nifty.org I do it because they are one of the very few places that is willing to publish my story. You see, my story involves incest, science-fiction drug use, brief bits of bestiality, a thirteen year old sex addict named Robbie Byrne, and an unglorified pedophile called Burt Veribton. It is all fiction, and therefore *should* be covered by the First Amendment. But things are changing. Fascism is on the rise, books are being burned, books are being banned, drag shows are being banned, saying the word "gay" is being banned, drag queens are facing violence and intimida- tion for reading to children, and all of us homosexuals are now "groomers", solely by virtue of a sexuality that was assigned to us by the god that those horrible people claim to represent, in spite of never doing it for a reason that isn't hateful and self-gratifying. I donate to Nifty because I came up with a story idea, and writing it brings me joy, something that I rarely experience. But like everything else good in my life, THEY must actively seek to destroy it, as vigorously as they seek to end our marriages, reinstate anti-sodomy laws, and go back to the days when it was a rite of passage for boys like Tom Daggen to grab a baseball bat, gather a mob of their friends, and beat one of us nearly to death, or further than that, for fun. I donate to Nifty because it's still here for us. ___________________________________________________________________________ Alerted to the situation at the Bottleneck by Caboose's cry, Maximus Morgan has dispatched The Creeping Vine to go get him some "GAWDDAMNED ANSWERS!", but the person who HAS those answers is a very unpleasant female police officer who the Creeping Vine is NOT prepared to handle in the *slightest*. Officer Tracy Rogers kicks the SHIT out of the greatest Warrior Thrall in history, whose reluctant origin is revealed. And inside the traumatized mind of Caleb Crandal, Reality Itself tells Ruby Nash the reason why he created homosexuals. It's not as bad as you'd think. ....it's MUCH worse. The Monsters of Faggot Forest Chapter 10 *************************************************************************** Caleb Crandal's Fourth of July Party *************************************************************************** "You've never even *talked* to your brother yet?" Cindy Sullivan shouted into Caleb's ear, buzzing his eardrum. "He's not my brother!" Caleb tried to yell over the music and loud conversations after lubricating his throat with another swig from his latest bottle of beer. "He's the trick baby of my dad's slut." "Why aren't you living with them?" Cindy asked in spite of not really caring. If a girl wanted access to Caleb's money, drugs, and expensive toys, she had to be willing to either talk to him or spread her legs for him. Neither was a desirable option. "Because I told my father I'm not helping him legitimize his illegitimate secret family by moving in there. Not gonna happen! He's not gonna use me to help make people forget about my mother!" "So...what...he's letting you stay here all by yourself?" Cindy asked, sizing up Caleb's house for future gatherings and all sorts of activities she and her friends couldn't do at home. *KSHHHHHH!* The sound of glass breaking caught Caleb's ear and made him turn away from Cindy and squeeze through the crowd to the other side of the room. Several of Caleb's mother's figurines were missing from their shelves, and one of them was shattered on the floor. It was the frog. The frog whose head stared lovingly upward. He'd always been there, for as long as Caleb could remember, sitting happily on his shelf. Whenever Caleb felt unloved, which was quite often since his mother passed away, he would look down at the frog and feel his mother's love looking up at him. The frog's head was severed, and its gaze was directed in the exact opposite direction to where Caleb Crandal was standing. "What happened?" Caleb asked a nearby group of guests that included Tina Carrouthers, Tristan Brubaker, and Brody Wilson. They were good friends of Caleb, but to them, Caleb was just an acquaintance. Just someone they knew. "Uhhhhhhh........it FELL, maybe?" a kid that Caleb didn't recognize informed him, his mocking tone pulling at the corners of the mouths of the rest of the group, as well as a few onlookers. "It fell and landed all the way over here, hard enough to shatter it?" Caleb asked, looking at the pieces and trying to maintain his composure in spite of the painful loss. "Well, the head survived, so technically it didn't really *shatter*," Austin Mitchell needlessly pointed out from several feet away. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - On November 20th, Austin Mitchell would have a complete nervous breakdown after failing to convince Caleb that *technically*, this remark wasn't meant to score a cheap laugh at Caleb's expense and encourage others to commit more acts of vandalism. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "How the FUCK should *I* know what happened to your fucking toy?!" the guilty party yelled after using Austin's distraction to draw on his cheroot, putting Caleb in social checkmate and attracting the attention of everyone around, who were just dying to see exactly how Caleb would make a fool of himself, with his mouth or with his fists. "Caleb...whoa...deep breath, buddy...relax," Brody Wilson urged, in spite of Caleb appearing totally calm, and despite Brody demonstrating at that moment that he'd never *really* been Caleb's 'buddy'. Caleb would always remember how Brody tried and failed to hide his amusement at Caleb's plight, and how pleased with himself he appeared to be as he entertained the crowd by drawing attention to the situation and making people think that Caleb was spazzing out. Brody wanted to throw gas on the fire and make things worse, but he also wanted to make Caleb look like a chump while doing it. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dakota Smith would suffer the most, but Brody Wilson, with his fake "voice of reason" bullshit would be Lure's very first victim, and 'acquisition'. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Look," Caleb told Dakota, ignoring Brody's wicked 'helpfulness', "those belonged to my mom, and she died of cancer a few weeks ago. Please put them back." Caleb handled the situation with a maturity he'd never manifested before, but no amount of reason can resolve a conflict if one of the two parties is unreasonable, and determined to be an asshole. "I DON'T HAVE THEM, SO WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BLAMING *ME*?" Dakota shouted, letting Caleb know that he was perfectly willing to take things to a physical level over the accusation, in spite of the telltale bulges in his front pockets. Unable to keep a straight face, Tristan Brubaker quickly and stealthily navigated through the huge, crowded, open-concept main floor until he reached the kitchen area. "I'm not singling you out," Caleb explained, still playing the game, in spite of there being no way to win it. "I'm just asking whoever took the figurines to please put them back." Caleb happened to see Jessica Hutherford looking over Caleb's shoulder with a bemused look. He spun around. His mother's figurines were all gone. "Guys......please," Caleb groaned, trying the 'yeah, yeah, real funny' approach, which NEVER worked. It was also a *dumb* thing to do, as Caleb had just announced open season on himself. "Caleb...look...I'm tryin' to help you here," Brody lied while pointing his upraised palms in a completely unnecessary 'calm down, dude!' gesture to 'innocently' infuriate Caleb and hopefully make him spazz out in front of everyone. "I thought we were friends, Brody," Caleb declared with deliberate calm. "I really did." The music stopped, and conversation died down so that EVERYONE could listen in, framing the second worst night of Caleb's life, the first being when Alicia Crandal finally succumbed to her cancer, and the night nurse hadn't arrived on time, leaving Caleb all alone to frantically call for help while listening to his mother's panicked, protracted reaction to facing her death. "Man, why are you acting like this?" Brody Wilson asked, pulling a masterful maturity-switcheroo on Caleb while straightening his glasses in a subliminal attempt to project maturity while behaving immaturely. "I *am* your friend, that's why I'm trying to tell you to *calm down* and stop blaming Dakota without proof. I'm sure people will put them back if you Please! Just! Calm! Down!" Caleb knew that Brody was trying to make him scream: "I AM CALM!", which strengthened Caleb's resolve NOT to. Tristan flung a blender through the dining room window and promptly ducked down behind the kitchen island, clamping both hands over his mouth to muffle the sound of his joygasm. Caleb watched as his guests, consisting mostly of people he considered friends, helped Tristan by suddenly looking in random directions to avoid indicating his location as he crawled away to avoid taking responsibility for his misdeed. *KSSSSSH* Caleb turned back around to see another broken figurine next to the shattered frog, both next to the feet of the unknown kid whose name Caleb had just learned from Brody. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "GET IT OUT OF ME!!!" Dakota Smith would wail to his older brother, whose unlubricated cock would agonize Dakota's unprepared anus and tear his rectum, making blood drip from his brother's pumping penis down onto Dakota's scrotum and bedsheet. "PLEASE!!! MAKE HIM S-S-S-STAAAAAAAWWWWWP!!" "I AIN'T THE ONE FUCKING YOU!" Caleb would yell back, remembering Dakota's words and attitude at his Fourth of July party, "SO WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BLAMING *ME*? I MEAN, WHAT'S YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM WITH ME?!" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "What?!.....WHAT?!" Dakota raged at Caleb's accusing eyes, flinging his arms wide open to show that he welcomed the possibility of a fight. "WHAT'S YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM WITH ME?!" "Caleb, I know you're upset, but with all the pot and booze around, I wouldn't call the police if I were you," Brody 'advised', looking out for the best interests of everyone *except* Caleb while placing his hand on Caleb's shoulder in a supremely ironic gesture of support. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Caleb would break that hand....then heal it with the turquoise tendril...over and over....pushing Brody's pain tolerance and sanity to their limits until Brody dropped to the ground and bawled and slobbered like a baby. The others would be compelled to laugh at Brody uncontrollably while acting like baboons. Caleb would receive no joy from it, nor would he gain any satisfaction. Nevertheless, he would continue to do it in the hope that he would feel.......something, and that his rage would subside, even just a little. It wouldn't. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Here, use my phone if you think you want to call them," Brody offered like a friend, while proving he wasn't, by adding: "Maybe you should call your dad, too." Caleb turned his head in response to another of the huge windows being smashed, and turned it back at the sound of another figurine, another piece of Alicia Crandal, being destroyed. Like the other two figurines, the newest casualty was lying at Dakota's feet. "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!!!!!" Dakota screamed with WAY over the top indignation, his legs twitching, preparing to charge at Caleb if he DARED to accuse Dakota AGAIN...in spite of his guilt, which as far as Dakota figured, didn't even factor in to the situation. "WHAT?!? WHAT?!? FUCKING SAY SOMETHING TO ME!!!! FUCKING SAY ****ANYTHING****!!!" Caleb stared at Brody, registering his feelings of betrayal, even as two more windows were broken on the other side of the house. Tristan had recruited help to make the "work" go faster, adding kindling to a tiny vandalism fire that was destined to become an inferno. Brody, unwilling to surrender the silent approval he was receiving from the crowd, just stared back at Caleb's icy gaze with feigned confusion and a goofy grin. Caleb couldn't hold back his emotions any more, so he turned and walked upstairs lest he accidentally give the Monsters exactly what they were eager to see. But they didn't NEED to see it, since Tina Carrouthers falsely claimed that she HAD. "Did you seeing him crying?!" Tina Carrouthers lied, whispering so loud that one might wonder why she bothered whispering at all. She hadn't seen Caleb crying, of course. She'd just wanted to insert herself...to be a part of what was going on...just to get a little attention for herself. Caleb hoped that by going upstairs and removing himself from the equation, the destruction of his home would stop. Instead, all hell broke loose before he'd even reached the second floor landing. Caleb just kept walking. "WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO?!?!?!" Caleb screamed internally while realizing that he'd stupidly given his father the perfect justification for making Caleb move in with his father's *new and better* family, thus not only forcing Caleb to betray his mother by living with her replacement, but also betray himself, by living with the newly re-named Parker CRANDAL, *Caleb's* replacement. At the top of the stairs, Caleb unknowingly walked right by an imperceptible old man wearing a fishing cap and carrying an accoustic guitar and a fishing pole, both of which he flung down the stairs Caleb had just ascended. Andrew Miller smiled at Caleb as the doomed boy headed towards the first of his two awful fates. Caleb walked down the hallway, glancing into rooms as he passed by, looking for an empty one...one where he could privately compose himself, or stated less affluently, where he could privately fall to pieces. "What's going on downstairs?" a kid asked as Caleb stormed by. Caleb didn't *dare* answer, or everything he was feeling would've poured out of his mouth, rendering him a frantic, babbling mess. Caleb entered the final door, the door to the Children's Guest Bedroom. "Oh, hey," Kenny Miller greeted. "What's all that noise down- stairs?" Caleb's eyes narrowed, and all of his pent up emotion burst forth at once. But instead of fear, it had become hate... ...and shy, timid, beaten-down Kenny Miller was *such* an easy target. "I didn't fucking invite YOU!!!" Caleb hollered, his subconscious mind desperate to establish control over THIS situation, to somehow compen- sate for the situation downstairs, which he *couldn't* control. "I'm with-" Kenny started to explain when Caleb suddenly shoved him, knocking Kenny backwards and making him fall to the floor. Reality Itself was now standing in the corner of the room, invis- ible and intangible, watching with great interest. "GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE, YOU FUCKING RETARD!" Caleb screamed before making the fateful mistake of projecting his insecurities onto an abused boy who'd recently attended the funeral of the only person who ever truly loved him. "WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU EVEN COME HERE?! NOBODY *WANTS* YOU HERE! NOBODY HERE EVEN *LIKES* YOU!!! GET THE FUCK OUT!! YOU DON'T *BELONG* HERE, YOU FUCKING MORON! YOU DON'T FUCKING BELONG ***ANYWHERE***!" Kenny Miller's eyes darkened, delighting the inhuman thing that had murdered his grandfather.....and was now wearing his skin. Andrew Miller cackled as 'his grandson' jumped up and slammed his fist into Caleb Crandal's cheekbone. "It's working," Reality Itself said, still cackling while scanning the unwoven threads of the future. "I fixed the timeline. Probability now favors the death of Maximus Morgan and his creation. All I have to do is make sure that everything STAYS on track while I sleep." Kenny threw a second punch that cracked one of Caleb's teeth and caused him to fall. Before Caleb's head had even struck the floor, Kenny was on top of him, pounding away. Kenny Miller never would've hit Caleb back, and he *certainly* never would've continued beyond one punch, but in addition to 'priming' Kenny Miller by murdering his grandfather, Reality Itself had also forced Caleb to say the exact wrong thing. Kenny Miller didn't know where he belonged, but he NEEDED to believe it was out there...somewhere. By telling Kenny that he didn't belong "anywhere", it was too much for the abused boy's mind to cope with. Hearing Kenny's angry ranting, a boy with black, slicked back hair, and another boy with a crewcut and a sloppy, unkempt beard, came running into the room and... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I'm a human who was turned into a monster, twice. The first time, I had no choice." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lure's riddle to Mike Pearson had been a lie. Caleb HAD a choice. He could've chosen NOT to push Kenny Miller, both verbally and physically, which would've prevented Kenny from fighting back, which would've prevented two juvenile delinquents from using Kenny's confrontation as an excuse to reveal their true natures, thus taking their first step towards their dark destinies. Tom Daggen and Grant Anders were the first and second Monsters of Faggot Forest. The first and second......of six. *************************************************************************** The Bottleneck *************************************************************************** Tracy Rogers regained consciousness in a state of panic. She was lying on the wet roadway of the I-147 Bottleneck, between two packed lanes of north-facing cars. Guile's bubbles of light were all around her, and her throat was still clogged with vomit...but somehow her lungs were now full of air. Tracy coughed and spat to clear her airway, fighting to keep from retching, which as far as she knew, would nullify her efforts and cause her to resume choking to death. But then, her hand came in contact with a tube, a *TENDRIL*, one that she frantically traced with her fingers. Although she couldn't feel it inside of her, the tendril was GOING UP HER NOSE! "GET IT OUT OF ME!! GET IT OUT OF ME!!" Tracy demanded, thinking that Guile was trying to take control over her, like he'd done to Brian MacCrouder and Joe Prender. "YOU FUCKING MONSTER!" "Calm down!" an offended young male voice pouted. "I was just, you know, saving your life. We also...uh....*I* also stopped the fog from making you sick." "GET YOUR ASS TUBE OUT OF MY NOSE!" Tracy shrieked, remembering from Cynthia Keim's statement *exactly* where the tendrils came out of. "Wait, what?" Steve asked in surprise, retracting the maroon tendril and pulling it into one of the housings on the back of his right fingerless gauntlet, just behind his armored knuckles. Tracy got to her feet and sprinted up the rise. She only made it a few yards before a figure materialized ahead of her. His fingerless gaunt- lets, the only part of her self-proclaimed rescuer she'd managed to see with her blearly eyes before she took off, marked him as the same young man she'd just been speaking with, who should've still been well BEHIND her. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Creeping Vine wore a black bodysuit that covered everything except his eyes, which were barely visible through a bright, cloudy, swirl- ing, pink energy nimbus that filled the eye-holes of his yellow brass colombina mask. The same effect filled his mouth, which was framed by what Tracy *thought* was metallic lipstick, but was actually a thin metal lip- covering that was bonded to both Steve's lips and the bodysuit. (A minor miracle in translated extradimensional technology allowed Steve to speak and move his lips without having to fight against fabric resistance.) Steve was wearing armor....or at least pieces of armor...all colored the same yellow brass. In addition to the gauntlets, he wore pauldrons, elbow armor, forearm guards that only protected the ulnar side, knee protection, shin guards that *just* covered his shin bones, and thin, flexible, metallic boots that looked like protection had been abandoned in favor of comfort and stealth, yet possessed all three attributes in abundance. The ridiculous outfit had no other armor, leaving the majority of his body completely unprotected, save for a small oval plate on his sternum, with two small holes from which the hot, glowing red tendril and the freezing white tendril were forming the stylized letters "C" and "V" in front of his chest, creating an insignia of sorts. "Completing the ensemble" were all the tendrils whose coloring enabled them to pass for vines, thus providing the sole contribution to Steve's chosen motif. They came out of Steve's asshole, slithered through the channels inside his costume, and emerged from apertures in the tops and bottoms of the pauldrons, at which point Lecher snaked them up and down Steve's body, keeping them in motion.....slowly moving and "growing"....to make them "Creep". Lecher took this job seriously, ....too seriously. He was *really* into the whole superhero thing......even more than Steve WASN'T! Lecher was giddy about the Creeping Vine finally "exposing himself" to a member of local law enforcement! His enthusiasm would be dampened once Lecher got to KNOW Officer Tracy Rogers. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Tracy had a split second to decide whether to keep running at the figure or risk the loss of speed that would result from stopping and duck- ing between cars before continuing her sprint. In a potentially disasterous move, Tracy decided that the young man who'd "magically" appeared was just another of Guile's illusions....AND CHARGED STRAIGHT AT THE RED AND WHITE TENDRILS. "WHAT ARE YOU--???" the kid yelped in surprise as Tracy slammed right into him. Steve barely retracted the tendrils in time. Just before impact, Lecher shunted most of Steve's gravity to Thunderbug, causing the confused superhero to fly backwards and slowly descend like an Apollo astronaut on the moon. "WAIT! WE JUST WANT TO TALK!" Steve yelled, quickly firing the violent tendril from his left gauntlet. It wrapped around the guardrail and went taunt, stopping Steve's upper body and whipping his legs underneath him, righting Steve in midair. Lecher then instantly recalled Steve's gravity, allowing him to land on his feet with superhuman grace. Tracy ran between the bumpers of two cars to the southbound guard- rail and continued her run up the rise. A young man in a wheelchair appeared just ahead of her. "Officer, please stop. We will not hurt you. We just wish to talk." Tracy saw that the left wheel of the chair was passing through the guardrail, identifying THIS young man as DEFINITELY one of Guile's illusions. Tracy ran right through him. "Ma'am, I cannot allow you to reach your fellow officers until we've spoken," The ghost pleaded after once again rematerializing a few yards in front of Tracy, startling her and causing her to bang her left arm against the side mirror of a car that had parked too close to the guard- rail. "NOT UNLESS YOU GIVE ME BACK MY PEOPLE, GUILE!" Tracy screamed, running through the ghost again, then using her endless anger to propel her exhausted limbs up the rise. As soon as Tracy passed through the ghost a third time, the young masked man in the black body stocking and yellow brass accessories appeared in front of Tracy and made a second attempt to stop her....WITHOUT his potentially lethal insignia this time. "In case you forgot, I'M SOLID!" Steve reminder her. Tracy turned to slip between two cars, but she suddenly stopped to fight off the tendril she felt wrapping around her ankle. Although she could feel it, however, see couldn't see it. "LET ME GO, GUILE!" Tracy yelled at The Creeping Vine. "LET ME-" Tracy suddenly found herself at the base of the rise, standing just behind Craig Byrne's wrecked red pickup truck. The ghost in the wheel- chair and the young man in the superhero costume were standing in front of her, at a polite distance. "Welcome back," the ghost greeted coyly while Tracy felt the invisible tendril release her ankle and presumably retract back inside of the superhero's gauntlet. "In all seriousness, though, if you run away again, we'll just bring you back here, over and over. However, if you spend just a few minutes briefing us on what's been happening here, and answer a few related questions, we'll be happy to take you to your people at the top of the rise...instantly." "OFFICER REQUESTING ASSISTANCE!" Tracy screamed into the fog. "They can't hear you, Officer, but if you need to scream and yell to blow off some more steam and regain some control over your emotions, please do continue," Guile patronized. "Afterward, we can start the briefing." "What the hell are you talking about, Guile?!" Tracy shrieked in exasperation, her head turning back and forth between Guile and the costumed young man, not knowing which one of them was actually Guile, since neither of them had a tendril up their nose. "You're the one who told ME what's been happening here, so what the hell could I possibly tell YOU that you don't already know?! And when I tried to tell you about the silver orb I saw at Malawny Hollow, YOU WENT NUTS AND TRIED TO DROP A FOREST ON ME! AND THEN YOU MADE ME SICK AND ALMOST KILLED ME WITH MY OWN PUKE! SO WHY WOULD I RISK TELLING YOU ANYTHING *ELSE* THAT MIGHT MAKE YOU FLIP OUT??" Guile smiled. To a Guile, a fascinating conversation is a rare and precious thing, and as Tracy unknowingly revealed, *this conversation* held immense promise. "Because, Officer, you're mistaking me for someone else," Steve- Guile patiently explained while calculating exactly how much 'safe' infor- mation he would need to sacrifice in order to give Tracy Rogers the mistaken impression that the two of them were engaged in a mutually-bene- ficial information exchange. "Guile" is not a name, it is a job title. You know those people who hear voices in their head? Well, imagine that instead of telling those people negative things, the voices acted like *extremely* intelligent handlers, who make your life *better*, because God knows YOU'RE too stupid and useless to do it YOURSELF! That was a little joke, by the way." "It wasn't funny, and it sounded EXACTLY like the bastard who ambushed us in the woods!" Tracy snapped. "He 'ambushed' you?" Guile mused. "Hmm. Like Master, like Thrall, I suppose." Tracy didn't respond, but she had a damned good idea as to the identity of the "Master". The silence lingered, concerning Guile. A silent human was a think- ing human....a plotting human. Guile needed to get her out of her head, ASAP. "It might interest you to know that the sphere...orb, I mean...was made out of osmium, a metal much more valuable than silver...just in case you...you know...kept some and haven't gotten around to selling it yet," Guile pretended to chit-chat, reclaiming Tracy's attention before proceed- ing. "But here's the problem with that Guile you encountered, Officer: all Guiles are *supposed* to be essentially the same, personality wise. Life experiences *change* us...slightly...but not enough to account for the desire to dump forests on police officers and make them drown in their own vomit." "HE DID A LOT WORSE THAN THAT!" Tracy yelled, causing Guile to recalculate Tracy's emotional state and make further adjustments. Women were such a challenge, but strangely, this one wasn't fun. "I'm sure *HE* did, which is why it was a good thing that *WE* came along just in time to SAVE YOUR LIFE," Guile said pointedly to drive home this important distinction between him and the other Guile. Tracy got a thoughtful look on her face and turned toward the young man in the black bodysuit and armored extremities. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "What's she up to?" Lecher questioned while trying to read Tracy's body language. "I do not have enough information to form a hypothesis at this time," Guile muttered. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "RETRACT THOSE ASS TUBES!" Tracy commanded as if she'd already asked twice already. "Huh? Why?" Steve asked. Tracy rolled her eyes, huffed, and stared upwards. "BECAUSE I'VE JUST SPENT THE LAST HALF HOUR OF MY LIFE BEING TERRORIZED BY THEM, DUMBASS!!" Tracy yelled before making the unpleasant realization that karma was probably punishing her for the way she'd handled Robbie Byrne. "But I guess you freaks GET OFF ON traumatizing people, DON'T YOU?!?!" "Jeez, will you *relax*," Steve grumbled, "I didn't think mean people like YOU could even BE traumatized." Tracy wasn't traumatized....she was setting him up. The Creeping Vine withdrew the various green-shaded tendrils that traveled up and down his body, decorating his bland outfit and providing the sole contribution to his *vine* motif. "There....happy?" The Creeping Vine said once all the 'vines' had been sucked back into their apertures on Steve's pauldrons. "And they're not *tubes*!" "I'm going to need to check something," Tracy suddenly announced before walking up to Steve and feeling his arms and chest. "Uh....okay," Steve muttered, his Thrall nature making him feel deeply uncomfortable at being touched by a woman. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "This could be a problem," Guile told Lecher privately. "Why? Timbersburg cops grope people all the time," Lecher joked, although a strong case could be made. "Usually the genders are reversed, but women have made great strides with regard to equality, so it's only *natural* that they'd start-" "She already knows Steve is solid," Guile pondered, ignoring Lecher as he often did when one of his jokes flopped but he kept talking in a hopeless attempt to salvage it, thus denying it the mercy of a quick death, "so why is she touching......OH CRAP!" "What?!" "She's checking to see if Steve's using a screen to alter his appearance and visually reduce his physicality! She knows Ryan Klein is a Thrall!" Guile informed Lecher, experiencing as much concern as a standard Guile CAN. Lecher laughed at Guile's apparent sudden attack of irrational paranoia. "How the HELL could she possibly piece THAT together?" Lecher dismissed. "I mean, what's the connection?" "Dugan's Vroom Room!" Guile spat, suddenly wondering if the conversation was about to become TOO fascinating for him! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Officer Tracy Rogers," Tracy stated with no warmth whatsoever once she'd completed her 'examination'. "What's YOUR name?" "Uhh.....my CODE name is The Creeping Vine, but that's kind of a mouthful, so you can call me 'Vine' if you want," Steve offered, "or what- ever." "I can call you 'whatever'?" Tracy asked with a cold bitchiness. "Great. I know *just* what to call you." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "STEVE, SHE'S PROBABLY GOING TO SAY YOUR NAME!" Guile warned tele- pathically. "REMEMBER YOUR TRAINING....DO NOT REACT!!!!" "Huh? There's no way she could know-" Steve began. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "CAN I CALL YOU 'STEVE'?!" Tracy snarled, walking forward and rattling the fledgling not-a-superhero so much that he responded by allow- ing Tracy to intimidate him into backing up. "AND YOUR FRIEND...THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS *MESS*, SEVERAL ABDUCTIONS, A SERIES OF SEXUAL ASSAULTS ON LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS, AND THE DEAFENING OF HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE...CAN I CALL HIM RYAN KLEIN???" "Ryan isn't responsible for this!" Steve blurted without thinking, carelessly establishing that he was an associate of Ryan Klein. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "So much for your training," Lecher muttered. "He's not even TRYING to use it!" "No, but perhaps THIS experience will teach him to use it the NEXT time an authority figure gets in his face," Guile glass-half-fulled. "Steve's altered psychology rejects maturation, which makes him a more effective sex lure, but it works against our goal of turning him into a superhuman operative." "You mean SUPERHERO!" Lecher insisted. "Yes, I keep forgetting that a superhuman operative is *completely* different from a superhero, Guile grumbled sarcastically. "Anyway, unlike his *physical* training, training his eternally-adolescent mind tends to involve allowing him to learn things the HARD way. Fortunately, until he *does* become skilled at dealing with situations like this on his own, the two of us can always step into his body and take over for him." "You mean like we should be doing right NOW?!?!" "No. I wish to hear what the officer *knows* and what she *thinks she knows* about us. Also, I want Steve to spend some time marinading in the sauce that *he created*." "The sauce HE created??? How do you figure *that*?" "Because Steve OUTRANKS Ryan, yet he let Ryan talk him into forcing me and the Ryan-Guile, and you and the Ryan-Lecher, to slap together that ill-advised......no, that doesn't go far enough......that PAINFULLY STUPID gang rape scenario." "You're BLAMING Steve for that?" Lecher gasped. "We BARELY caught up with Ryan in time to stop him from throwing his entire Thrall's LIVES AWAY by confronting Kaschak! And THEN, while we're talking Ryan down at Dugan's, Coach Morgan contacts us and says his Fingernail ISN'T stabilizing AFTER ALL! He was fucking DYING, Guile! He said good-bye to the boys, gave you and the Ryan-Guile his final instructions, and ordered us all to stay at the bar and LET HIM UNTETHER AND DIE ALONE! What the hell ELSE were Steve and Ryan going to do except DISOBEY HIM AND DO ***ANYTHING*** THEY HAD TO DO IN ORDER TO SAVE HIM!?!?!" "I'm not blaming Steve for seeking to save our Master's life, I'm blaming him for allowing himself to be pressured, *like he's doing right now*," Guile clarified. "We all have to deal with the consequences of our actions, whether they're the result of OUR decisions, or the result of decisions we allow others to make FOR us. Steve's ambitions, superhero or otherwise, will end badly if he doesn't strengthen his will." "WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!!!!" Lecher mocked, deepening his voice dramatically. "I will expect an apology for that as soon as this cop finishes backing Steve up against that guardrail and reveals our Master's name in order to startle Steve and throw him off balance so she can shove him down that embankment and take off running again." All of a sudden, Lecher got serious. "SHIT. You could be right!! The cop said the rogue Guile 'went nuts' when she told him about the osmium sphere, Kashak's torture weapon for killing other Untethered Ones. That Guile might've blurted out our Master's name by accident before his internal monitors could stop him!" Lecher considered. "Even if he didn't, his reaction established a connection between the devastation at Malawny Hollow and anyone with 'ass tubes'...like us and Ryan," Guile spelled out. "And since the policewoman probably knows that Ryan was vowing revenge and crying in his beer on the same day his football coach was *ostensibly* involved in an unwitnessed single-vehicle accident that was BAD enough to merit an emergency leave of absence, but NOT bad enough for him to require hospitalization, I would be ASTONISHED if this exceptional cop from an utterly UN-exceptional police department DIDN'T know the name of the Master we serve." "Yeah....I guess...but still...." "The sphere was found next to a road that leads straight to our Master's compound, Lecher," Guile sighed, driving a stake through the heart of Lecher's deaf, dumb, and blind faith...pouring Holy Water on it...then chopping off its head and leaving it to burn in the sunlight. "There are only three other dwellings on that stretch of road, two of which are abandoned, and one of which is owned by a doctor who makes a lot more money than a high school gym teacher...yet even HE can't afford A WHOLE DAMNED COMPOUND!" "I'm gonna go ahead and give you that apology right now," Lecher muttered glumly. "but you can still rub it in while Steve's busy 'gathering no moss'." "I accept both your apology and your terms," Guile said with even MORE glum. Guile and Lecher dropped out of Hypertime and silently watched Officer Tracy Rogers gradually walk Steve backward towards the guardrail. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "THEN WHO *IS* RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THIS, STEVE?" Tracy screamed while advancing another step. "My name isn't....I mean....I don't know WHO'S doing all this!" Steve babbled. "All I know is that it isn't that Ryan Klein guy!" Guile groaned. Lecher snickered, but only because he couldn't possibly stop himself from doing it after hearing Steve's cringeworthy attempt at damage control. "One of the reasons I touched you was to see if that outfit's for real, or if you're naked like you were when you and Ryan pulled that stunt at Dugan's Vroom Room!" Tracy hissed. "I've got no idea what you're talking about!" Steve claimed. "And stop calling me Steve! My name's not Steve!" "You said I could call you ANYTHING," Tracy reminded him, "so if your name isn't STEVE, then why does it matter so much to you?!" "It......It doesn't!" Steve faltered. "Here's what I *know*, STEVE!" Tracy snapped. "Tonight, a group of us were ambushed by someone HIDING HIS FACE IN THE DARK who stuck searing red and freezing white ASS TUBES in front of my FACE, STEVE, exactly like the ones you were using to make your supervillain insignia!" Lecher stopped snickering. "I'm NOT a superhe.......wait....WHAT?!" Steve yelped. "WE JUST SAVED YOUR LIFE!" "AND EITHER *YOU* OR ONE OF *YOUR KIND* IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL *THIS*!!!!" Tracy countered, sweeping her arms around at the fallen tree, Craig's pickup, Jayden's SUV, and all the vehicles with shattered windows while simultaneously succeeding in walking The Creeping Vine TWO steps backward THIS time. "SAVING ME DOESN'T BALANCE THE SCALES AN *OUNCE*, SINCE YOU, RYAN, OR *ANOTHER* GODDAMNED ***CUM VAMPIRE*** IS THE ONE WHO TRIED TO KILL ME IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "......The FUCK that bitch just call us?!" Lecher gasped, utterly aghast. "A cum vampire," Guile answered with barely hidden amusement. "Or were you talking about her calling us a supervillain?" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Steve crossed his arms, closed his mouth, and pursed his foil- covered lips. Tracy noted that the backs of his legs weren't close enough to the guardrail yet. "Nothing else to say, Steve? Good, because I want you to hear my theory about what's been going on tonight!" Guile leaned forward in his chair. Lecher considered which tendril would be the most satisfying to maim Tracy with. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Guys, I'm really screwing this up," Steve whined telepathically. "Can you two-" "No, Steve," Guile refused. "Let her tell me her theory, keep her talking, and use the time to calm down, review your training, and *find your balance*. We'll step in if *things REALLY start going downhill*." "Yeah.....FINE!" Steve grumbled, leaving the conversation. "You KNOW he didn't pick up on EITHER of those two clues, right?" Lecher remarked. "Yes, I know," Guile sighed. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Dugan told me that when YOU and RYAN entered his bar, Ryan was an angry, emotional wreck," Tracy recounted, "but as soon as you got him calmed down, he challenged you to a punching contest and started laughing at you in front of the whole bar, humiliating you." "That's NOT what happened! He was-" Steve blurted before he could stop himself, verifying that he'd been at Dugan's bar.....with Ryan. "I work with battered women all the time, Steve," Tracy went on. "Their men keep beating the shit out of them, but always know just the right thing to say to keep them coming back for more." "Ryan and I *AREN'T* in a relationship, and he's NOT beating me!" Steve scoffed, ignoring Guile's advice altogether. "Then why are you here looking for him WHILE WEARING ARMOR?" Tracy demanded, walking Steve back other step. "Nice try," Steve spat, falling deeper into Tracy's trap with every syllable he uttered, "but I never said I was looking for HIM. I'm just here to find out who IS doing this! And my armor is OFFENSIVE, not DEFEN-" "So we have an emotionally unstable cum vampire..." Tracy continued to provoke. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "I swear to fucking GOD if that bitch says that one more time...!" Lecher growled. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "...who's prone to violence and cruelty...just like Ryan was at Dugan's...but he's NOT Ryan Klein?" Tracy laughed. "And YOU just *happen* to show up here wearing your very offensive armor...." "Real funny," Steve hissed. "Real damned funny." "...claiming that someone ELSE, EXACTLY LIKE YOU AND RYAN, BUT YOU DON'T KNOW HIM..." "LOOK, LADY," Steve yelled, trying and failing to get TRACY to back up for a change. "I can *feel* Ryan right now! He's NORTH of us, probably in Johnsport! HE'S NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DOING THIS!!!" "THEN WHO IS?" Tracy shrieked. "I handle most of the sexual assault cases in the area, female AND male, and I'm in contact with sex crimes divisions all over the STATE, but I've NEVER heard of THINGS like you and Ryan until Dugan's, and before tonight I've never EVER taken a victim's statement that mentioned ASS TUBES-" "THEY'RE CALLED *TENDRILS*, NOT 'ASS TUBES'," Steve corrected out of sheer frustration. "That's what *HE* called them!" Tracy roared, springing her trap. "How can you not KNOW this guy IF YOU BOTH USE THE SAME TERMINOLOGY?! TELL ME HIS NAME!!!" Tracy walked Steve back another step. "I...DON'T...*KNOW*!" Steve shouted back, entirely off his game. "That's okay, Steve," Tracy said sweetly, instantly going calm, "because I know who's REALLY behind all this bullshit." "Who?" Steve asked sarcastically, finally following Guile's instruction to keep Tracy talking. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Here it comes," Guile sighed. "I'll contact Coach Morgan and-" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "REALITY ITSELF!!!!!!" Tracy screamed, shocking the SHIT out of Steve. "WHAT?!?!?!?" Guile and Lecher yelled in unison. Tracy performed a lightning-quick double palm strike to Steve's solar plexus, just under his sternum plate, knocking him backwards over the guardrail, just as Guile had predicted. Steve tumbled down the embankment, and Tracy spun around to see a young man with a loose man bun clapping at her from the back of Craig Byrne's pickup. He was completely naked, except for a leather chest harness, and he was erect to the point that his unusually long cock had an unnaturally high upward tilt. For a second, Tracy thought she might have to fight him, but then she looked down and saw that his foot was poking through the tailgate, revealing him to be another ghost, like the boy in the wheelchair. "Slick move," the obscene teenager smirked. "Points awarded." "Before you try to run, know that the knowledge you possess is *PRICELESS* to us, Tracy Rogers, and WE WILL HAVE IT!" Guile informed her. "You will not be harmed...but you will NOT be going ANYWHERE until you tell us everything you know about the Reality Itself Phenomenon and its involve- ment in what's been happening here tonight!" Tracy ignored Guile's "advice" and sprinted towards the rise, running between the two rows of endless cars once again, pouring on the speed in a mad scramble to reach the top before Steve could recover and teleport her back. "SEE YOU REAL FUCKING SOON!" Lecher called after her. *************************************************************************** Faggot Forest, a half hour ago. *************************************************************************** "We should go back there and see the monster!" Kenny blurted out of nowhere, startling everyone in the car with his sudden energy and enthusiasm. "I don't want to get stuck in all that traffic," Tom refused flatly, his eyes constantly scanning the clearings for potential prey. "Besides, the cops are swarming all over that place and they probably got troops there from the base at Mawklynd City. I bet they scared the thing off." Tom had summed up the exact reasons Kenny wanted to get Mike there as soon as possible. "Maybe, but it would still be fun...and we could tell people we were there!" Kenny pointed out, unwilling to give up on the only way he could get Mike to safety. "How cute," Mike thought bitterly, "even after Tom's surprise 'fun' activity turned out to be fag bashing at Faggot Forest, Kenny STILL thinks that tonight has *anything* to do with cheering him up." Kenny had another desperate argument to make concerning going back to the Bottleneck, but Grant changed the subject before Kenny could keep pleading his case. "Think they'll cancel school because of Jayce?" Grant wondered, expressing his sole concern regarding the fate of Jayce Harris. "I hope," Tom grumbled. "And I hope that monster killed that mouthy little n****r." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mike looked over at Kenny, who was staring at the floor again as he fought to think up a way to convince Tom to take them to the Bottleneck, and safety. "THESE are the friends you chose over ME?" Mike thought bitterly at Kenny. Mike experienced a chill. The thought felt...different, just like the ones that Lure put into his head. "I *didn't* choose them," Mike heard Kenny's voice say in his mind, "they chose me, and they're the kind of friends that a stupid fuck-up like me deserves." Kenny suddenly looked over to see Mike giving him a horrified look. "Wait...did Mike just ask me that in my head?" Kenny wondered. "Yes, I did," Mike thought with intention, mimicking the exact feelings he'd experienced during the first accidental psychic broadcast, successfully replicating the phenomenon. "This is so..." Kenny started to think before he got lost in how amazing it was. "NO IT ISN'T!!!" Mike contradicted before Kenny had given him some- thing to contradict. "THIS IS WHAT IT WAS LIKE WHEN LURE-" "OUCH!" Kenny interjected. "Not so loud!" "This is what it was like when Lure was putting fake thoughts in my head," Mike thought with less force, something that hinted to both boys that Mike was probably the source of the sudden miracle, not Kenny. "You mean like you just did to me?" Kenny inquired. "I didn't mean to, since...you know...I didn't know I *COULD*!" "OW! I know! I wasn't accusing you. I wouldn't care if you DID do it on pur-" "Lure has to be around here!" Mike interrupted, so alarmed at what was happening that the LAST thing he needed was to listen to Kenny twist it into another appeal for forgiveness. "Lure? Where are you?" "..............................................." "Lure, if you want me to trust you, this is the LAST thing you should be doing right now. If you have something to say to me, please just say it. Don't pull this crap again." "Mike, maybe Lure *isn't* here," Kenny suggested psychically. "Maybe it's just *you* doing this." "Kenny, when we were kids, and you found out about my visualization ability, you were always bugging me to try to read your thoughts and move stuff with my mind. It *never* worked! I even tried it again...recently... since *I've had nothing else to do for the last seven months* except home- work and raising my parents' children for them!" "But that was before you and Lure...you know...he got into your head," Kenny pointed out, side-stepping Mike's bitter comment. "OR MAYBE LURE'S ABOUT TO JUMP OUT OF THE FOREST AND-" "Mike, STOP HURTING ME!!!!" Kenny screamed in his mind. *************************************************************************** "STOP!!!!!!!!!!! HURTING!!!!!!!! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!" *************************************************************************** Realizing that he was *again* unintentionally inflicting agony on someone, Mike backed off, severing whatever connection had been established between his mind and Kenny's. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Kenny, what the fuck are you doing?" Tom asked in response to see- ing Kenny squinting painfully and bearing his clamped teeth. "I shifted and made my thigh injury flare up," Kenny lied, "I think I'm just gonna go to the hospital. I don't care what my mom says, and I don't care if my dad hits me some more. Can you take me, please?" Tom didn't answer. Instead, he stopped the car, put it in park, and shut it off. "Gonna take a piss and look around," Tom informed everyone, in spite of there not really being anything to look AT. "C'mon, Grant." "You guys coming too?" Grant invited after exiting the vehicle and squatting down to stare in at Mike to make sure he knew that his invitation was actually a challenge. "No, they're not," Tom told Grant with an edge to his voice. Both front doors slammed, and Tom stepped around back and opened the trunk. After some mumbled conversation that neither Mike nor Kenny could hear, Tom slammed the trunk lid closed with a jarring amount of force. Tom and Grant strode around the car, each carrying a flashlight and armed with a baseball bat. For a tense moment, Mike anticipated the worst, but surprisingly, Tom and Grant continued around the front of the car and headed off into nearby "Clearing 23", to the left of the vehicle. They stopped when they reached the broken down gazebo at its center. "Mike, if you're gonna do something, you'd better do it now," Kenny advised. "The second I open the door, they're going to see the interior light, and even if I *do* make a break for it, I'm double their weight and I don't have a flashlight," Mike summarized. "They'll catch me." "Text the police back and tell them you're with Tom Daggen and Grant Anders!" Kenny suggested. "I don't understand why you didn't already tell them." "Because after you abandoned me, I had LOTS of time to think about just how much I fucking HATE IT HERE!" Mike snarled. "I want OUT! I want to leave, and NEVER COME BACK, not even for breaks and holidays. I'm not letting a trespassing charge mess that up for me." "But you already used my phone to text the police," Kenny disputed. "If they ping my phone, or check my cell records, they're gonna *know* you were here." "No....they'll know YOU were here," Mike stated coldly. "It's your phone, and it's your fault I'm in this mess. If the police ask, I'm telling them that YOU texted them and pretended to be me." "I don't mind," Kenny offered. "I wouldn't care if you did," Mike growled. "You've earned it." An uncomfortable silence reigned for about a minute. "Mike?" Kenny called out, shattering Mike's train of thought. "WHAT?" Mike snapped. "I was talking to you in my head, but you weren't saying anything." "Because I've been focusing on reading Tom's mind, but nothing's happening," Mike replied. "You could try *screaming* into their minds," Kenny suggested. "It was painful, and you weren't even *trying*." "I've *been* trying that, on Grant," Mike sighed, "but he's not reacting to it." "How do you *know* he's not reacting to it?" Kenny inquired with confusion. "Uh....maybe because I'm looking right at him?" Mike snarked. "Mike, even with the moonlight and their flashlights, I can't really see them. How can *you*?" Mike angrily turned towards Kenny, but his bluster instantly disappeared when he realized that he was seeing Kenny *too well*. It was like those videos where a passing meteor suddenly turns night into day for a few seconds. But in this case, the light was lingering...and it was rapidly intensifying. "Something's happening to me!" Mike announced before turning back to his left and looking at Tom and Grant, who were perfectly lit by a light source that *DIDN'T EXIST*! "It's....it's like a....a filter. I don't see shadows.....everything's just....it's like the air is luminescent." "Nothing here," Kenny commented sadly. "Whatever neat stuff you're seeing, all *I* see is darkness." "If my eyes keep doing this, I *could* make a run for it!" Mike pondered aloud, ignoring Kenny's latest pity ploy. "And if you're fast enough, you can get lost in the trees before they even get here...if they're even going to attack you *at all*. Lure could've been lying," Kenny opined. "He could also be outside, waiting for me to get out of the car," Mike countered. "Mike, the Bottleneck is miles away, and he only attacked Jayce a little while ago. He *can't* be here." "You don't KNOW that!" Mike flared, stress making him unable to cope with Kenny's tendency to present ignorance as logic. "Besides telepathy and telepathy-based illusion casting, we don't know WHAT Lure's capable of! For Christ's SAKE, Kenny, he said he could kill me in less than a SECOND!" "Lots of guys say that," Kenny mumbled. "Yeah, your two new best friends, for example," Mike hissed. "If you think Lure was lying about you being safe from him, why do you believe him about being able to kill you in under a second?" Kenny pointed out, ignoring Mike's angry comment in favor of saying something atypically wise. Mike looked out the window at Tom and Grant, just to make sure they weren't coming back yet. "Oh shit....something else is happening now!" Mike yelped. "WHAT?" Kenny insisted, hoping it was something helpful. "This is so fucking weird! I'm seeing the inside of the car, but I'm also seeing Tom and Grant. It's like I'm standing right next to them." "So....you're seeing everything all jumbled together?" Kenny asked, trying to get a better sense of what Mike was experiencing. "No, I can sort it all out...I can keep them separate...I can see it all!" Mike gasped in wonder, his fascination giving him a momentary respite from his fear. "Maybe that's the reason you see different than everybody else," Kenny speculated. "Maybe you're supposed to be able to see a whole bunch of different stuff all at the same time. It was one of the stupidest things Kenny ever said, but before Mike could tell him so, he realized that Kenny might just be right. "What are Tom and Grant doing out there?" Kenny asked. Mike's remote point of view looked down to see Tom fumbling with his zipper. "Grant has his back to Tom, and Tom's pulling his dick out," Mike informed Kenny. "I'm seeing it right in front of my face, ....down to the slightest detail." Ordinarily, Kenny would've made a joke, but his heart wasn't in it. Kenny had exposed himself to Mike in a sad attempt to use his 'twig and berries' as an 'olive branch' to hopefully rekindle their friendship. But now, Tom was unknowingly upstaging Kenny, and rendering his personal sacrifice meaningless. As attractive as Kenny was, he didn't have Tom's tight body, with all of its rock solid, lean muscle. And even though Tom was an imminent threat to Mike's safety, Kenny knew his friend...former friend...well enough to know that physically, Mike found Tom sexy as hell. "I shouldn't have even bothered doing it," Kenny lamented. "First, Tom turned it into a reason to accuse Mike of being gay, and now he's ruining it even more. That's all Tom and Grant ever do: ruin stuff." And they were far from done. *************************************************************************** Tom and Grant's Perspective *************************************************************************** "We're doing it now?" Grant asked with a smile as Tom reached into his open trunk and handed Grant one of the two bats inside, which had been lying next to an assault rifle. Most boys who went to Weyerhauser High had at least *one* assault rifle. "We gotta talk first," Tom stated coldly, slamming the trunk with needless force to startle Mike...and Kenny. Tom walked back around the car and headed into the overgrown field designated "Clearing 23" with Grant right behind him, physically and symbolically. Neither said a word until they reached the dilapidated gazebo at the center. "Kenny isn't saying anything about getting called by that guy," Tom finally announced after building sufficient tough guy drama. "He either didn't get one, or he doesn't want to say anything about it in front of Fat Ass," Grant speculated. "OR maybe he already TOLD Mike, back at the Bottleneck," Tom suggested, swinging his bat and slamming it through one of the gazebo's rotting slats, "Or he's telling him *now*. And even if Kenny didn't get a call *today*, like we did, that doesn't mean he won't get one tomorrow, or the day after. And when he does, you *know* he's gonna spill his guts, right?" Tom took another swing at the gazebo, but he picked a slat with some life left in it. The bat bounced back, so Tom tried again....and again ....and again, getting angrier each time. In the light of his cellphone, Grant stared intensely at Tom's back and arms as he swung the bat, and the brief, full-body quiver of his muscles each time the bat impacted. The slat finally cracked, taking longer than Tom would've liked, but happening far sooner than *Grant* would've liked. "Have you seen Mike use his cell phone tonight?" Tom questioned while discretely pulling his zipper down, and whipping his penis out into the humid night air. "He and Kenny have been using Kenny's phone to write notes to each other, but I haven't seen Mike use his own phone tonight." "You know, I don't think he *does*, because...WHOA!" Grant started to answer before noticing that Tom's dick was hanging out. "A warning would've been nice!" Grant turned away......just like guys are *supposed* to do. "He didn't look away fast enough," Tom thought before letting loose with a powerful stream of piss while staring at the back of Grant's neck to see if Grant showed any indictation of *wanting* to turn around and watch. "Why's it matter if Mike has his phone or not?" Grant didn't really want to know, but needing to say *something* to make Tom believe that Grant wasn't even *thinking* about Tom's dick. The dull sound of Tom's urine splattering on the grass suddenly changed, indicating that Tom was now directing his stream at a large leaf, probably burdock. "Hey, what's this plant?" Tom asked innocently, "The leaves I'm pissing on." Grant turned towards the sound, keeping the beam of his flashlight low to avoid catching Tom's dick in the beam. However, out of the corner of Grant's eye, he could see that Tom was already "accidentally" spotlighting it himself by awkwardly, or deliberately, holding his flashlight against his waist with his forearm while peeing. "Burdock," Grant confirmed while briefly watching Tom's piss splatter on the leaf and wishing to GOD that he could take a nice, long look at what it was spraying out of. Grant was doing a good job of feigning disinterest in Tom's penis, but Tom still wondered if Mike might be right about Grant being gay. Grant had successfully convinced people that he'd only taken those dick pics of Ryan Klein to embarrass him, but after what Mike said, Tom now had serious doubts, and considering what he was about to ask Grant to help him do, Tom couldn't *afford* to have doubts. "I'm not gonna fall for it," Grant told himself angrily as the piss splatter took on an oscillating quality, letting Grant know that Tom was wiggling his dick, trying to *lure* him into taking a look. Tom's stream died down, and after a light squeeze, he put it away and zipped up. Grant had passed Tom's test. ....but he shouldn't have. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mike's remote point of view had watched Tom's penis emerge from the zipper of his jean shorts, examining and memorizing the shape of the head, top and underside, and the way the skin of its shaft formed folds. It was beautiful, truly *artistic, but natural*, just the way Mike liked things to be. Mike wished he could see it erect, so he could know its exact length and commit the positions of its visible veins to memory. On a less esoteric level, Mike wanted to touch it, to know it intimately by feel, both hard and soft. And although Mike wasn't *quite* comfortable enough with his sexuality to admit it, Mike desired to stroke it until he felt Tom climax. Mike wanted to feel Tom's penis pulsing, and feel his semen surge through it. By the end of that terrifying evening, Mike would do all of those things...and more. Provided Mike got home unscathed, he vowed to sketch Tom's penis, putting every ounce of his skill into recreating it on paper, down to the smallest possible detail. But then, Tom began to pee, and started wiggling it, causing Mike's perception to shift, stretching out time, allowing him to see Tom's dick in motion, *SLOW* motion, along with the fascinating effects Tom was creating with his flashlight-illuminated piss stream. Mike's intended sketch suddenly became a flip-book, which Mike vowed to start working on the very next day. Mike never would. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Mike said that his parents don't know where he is, and since Kenny's mom called Mike's mom to look for Kenny, Kenny's family doesn't know where *he* is, either," Tom informed Grant. "Yeah, so?" Grant asked, knowing exactly what Tom was getting at. "So....if you beat Mike to death, no one would know you did it. As long as we don't break out my guns, the cops might even think that the 'monster' did it," Tom suggested, although a forensic pathologist probably wouldn't come to the same conclusion. "Kenny would know," Grant reminded Tom, not at all enthusiastic about the idea of killing someone *else*, especially if the private invest- igator went to the cops with his theory about who'd attacked Caleb. "If you take care of Mike, I'll do Kenny," Tom offered. "Kenny's gonna crack, if he hasn't told Mike *already*. You KNOW I'm right." "But if Kenny's found dead, won't that guy who called suspect US?" Grant debated. "Not if we back each other up and keep quiet. It's been MONTHS. They don't have any proof, or they would've already used it by now," Tom pointed out. "Do you fucking WANT Kenny to crack and send us to prison?" "No," Grant admitted while gathering up his courage by reminding himself that he'd *already* decided to beat Mike up. All that was being asked of him was to take things a little bit further. "I *don't* want to go to jail." "Then let's DO this," Tom commanded, gathering *his* courage by acting like a football player taking the field, or a soldier entering the battlefield....instead of a loud-mouthed, white trash delinquent who was getting ready to murder an injured classmate who regarded Tom as a friend. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Mike, they're coming back! You have to go!" Kenny warned, completely oblivious to the fact that *he* was in as much danger as Mike. Mike still hadn't 'come back' all the way from visually spying on Tom and Grant. He was shaking his head and trying to get his bearings, two things that he didn't have time to do!" "MIKE, YOU HAVE TO GO!" Kenny yelled, seeing yet ANOTHER chance to save Mike slip away. Mike opened the door and stepped out, but he didn't start running, in spite of the fact that Tom and Grant *were*! "MIKE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GO!!!" Kenny continued to yell, although at this point, it sounded more like a shriek. "Kenny, someone's talking to me in my head!" Mike said in a hollow, confused tone. "It's not Lure...and he says that you have to cover your ears as hard as you can!" "MIKE, STOP TALKING AND JUST *RUN*!" Kenny insisted. Mike shut the car door and just stood there, just like the voice instructed. Tom saw that Mike was out of the car, so he poured on the speed to make sure that he could reach Mike before he could disappear into the trees. Grant almost yelled at Tom to remind him that Mike was *HIS*, but he realized that if Tom killed BOTH targets, Grant didn't need to worry about any consequences, so he slowed down and let Tom run ahead. "Should I cover *my* ears, too?" Mike asked, projecting his thoughts into the telepathic void. "No. It won't hurt you." "Why am I calm right now?" Mike wanted to know. "My doing," the voice replied. "I'm weak. I need your mind to be quiet in order to maintain contact long enough to save you. But don't worry, it's almost here." "What's 'almost here'?" Mike questioned. "Is Lure coming?" "Which one?" the voice robotically requested. "I sense three Lures, ......an exceptionally strong one....another that is well above average.... and a very weak one. And Entangleds....some near, some distant. But...why are there so many? Three Thralls shouldn't require THAT many Entangleds. "I don't under-" Mike started to say before realizing that Tom was almost right on top of him. "FUCKING HATE YOU, FAT ASS!!" Tom screamed as he approached, hold- ing his flashlight with his left hand while raising the baseball bat with his left. "FUCKING *KILL* YOU!" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "SSSCRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARTCH!!!!!!!!!!!!" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Caboose's cry hit Tom and Grant mid-stride, making them lose their balance and slam down onto the cratered and jagged road, tearing at the exposed flesh of their arms and legs. They didn't appear to notice. Their only concern seemed to be their ears, which they covered while grimacing in agony. Mike was confused. He could hear the noise, but it wasn't really all that loud. Why was everyone acting like-? Mike's attention was drawn to the car by Kenny's foot, which was repeatedly slamming into the rear driver's side window. At first, Mike thought it was Kenny reacting to the pain that the sound was causing every- one except Mike, but Mike could plainly hear Kenny screaming for him to flee. Mike picked up Tom's bat, which had landed at his feet. "Mike, the noise is about to stop, and I have to leave you and go back to sleep," the voice informed him. "Unless you're prepared to do to Tom and Grant what *they* were going to do to *you*, I suggest you follow Kenny's advice." "Thank you," Mike told the mysterious voice. "You're very welcome, Mike," the voice replied. "Before you leave, what's your name?" Mike asked, running around the car and heading towards the trees. "I think my name is.....Overseer," the soft voice said as it quickly faded away. Mike dove into the pitch black forest, seeing everything as if the sun were shining....everywhere. Mike ran amongst the trees, easily avoiding thick, low-hanging branches, and using his sweatshirted forearms to deflect the endless tiny limbs that threatened to tear into his corneas. Mike was faring much better than Mark Pudroolen would do a half hour later, back in the woods to the east of the Bottleneck. "You have to watch where you're going, .....OR FAGGOT FOREST WILL SWALLOW YOU WHOLE!!" the distorted memory of Mike's father's oft-repeated warning called out once again from the back of Mike's mind, seeking to fill him with hopelessness and despair. "I've got my brain, night vision, a wise and friendly mind ghost, and a mental map of the entire fucking park, Dad!" Mike snarled. "Faggot Forest *CAN'T* swallow me whole! I've *GOT* this!" But Mike *didn't* have it! He'd BARELY just survived his encounter with the first and second Monsters of Faggot Forest, and THEY were merely HUMAN! The others were NOT. *************************************************************************** The Present, at The Feeding Area of the Caleb Crandal-Thrall *************************************************************************** Buck Hammond fought through his Pit Fog-induced wooziness and struggled to his feet, pulling his privates free from the hand of the drugged-out, biker-looking guy who'd been idly playing with Buck's cock and balls for over a half hour, leaving Buck sexually aroused with an aching hard-on. Taking far longer than it ever would've required while sober, Buck waded unsteadily through the giggling, babbling, blindly groping, naked men who were either lying down, sitting up, or staggering around on the sticky pinkish-red mat while experiencing varying degrees of intoxication and euphoria. "Where'z....where'z the KID?" Buck barked at a brown-haired young man who was barely a kid himself, probably no more than sixteen. To Buck's half-aware enjoyment, the kid looked to be afraid of Buck. "The white-haired kid with the cords up his butt?" Todd Seevers asked, straightening his glasses and pulling a twig out of his disheveled hair. "YEAH!" Buck yelled, making the kid jolt. "I WANNA FUCK THAT MOUTHY LITTLE PUNK THE FUCK UP!" Buck was confused as the young man seemed to float to Buck's left, but what was really happening was that Buck was listing to the right. Buck's shoulder slammed down onto the spongy mat, and he found himself staring at the kid's feet. One of them, his right foot, was wearing a sock, the only piece of clothing he hadn't taken off yet when Lecher leveled Todd with a sudden blast of empty-headed bliss. "My dad's here," the kid mumbled, seizing the opportunity to escape Buck. "I gotta go find him." Buck groaned and got back on his feet while watching the young kid stumble way. The sight of the boy's smooth bubble butt mixed with Buck's sexual arousal and the Pit Fog, restoring the hardness he'd lost after reclaiming his cock from the biker's grip. It also restored some urges that Buck hadn't had since he'd finished a very long stint in prison for assault. "Better watch that ass!" Buck warned the young man while watching that ass. After Todd's ass disappeared into a group of shuffling naked guys, Buck turned towards the two raised "beds", where he'd last seen the punk who'd obliterated his clothes. The musclebound redhead was lying on his stomach, and the black kid was squirming around, delirious and face up, on *his* platform. "WHERE'D THAT MOUTHY KID GO?!" Buck yelled at Jayce Harris, picking the less intimidating of the two males to lean on. Jayce didn't answer, since he wasn't even aware that Buck Hammond existed. Jayce was twelve feet and a billion miles away, and from his smile and laughter, he was absolutely having a fun time on his trip. "I SAID-" Buck began to repeat. The red-haired bodybuilder farted. It started out loud and flappy, but after attracting Buck's attention, it built in intensity, holding Craig's asshole open. Buck caught a whiff. A wave of energy.....strength.....MANLINESS.. ...and *virility*...swept through him. Buck liked being totally fucked up, but he also liked feeling powerful. Buck got a little closer, and *casually* inhaled deep. Buck's penis rose as his horniness returned with a vengeance. No longer giving a shit about what anyone watching might think, Buck leaned down, close to Craig's gaping asshole, then inhaled *deep*.... and was promptly rewarded. "Awwwwwwww Chriiiiiist," Buck groaned between huffs, randomly flexing his pecs, biceps, and shoulders to the point of pain in order to express his masculinity, his DOMINANCE OVER LESSER MEN! Without warning, a visually horrifying but functionally endearing creature that was visiting the inside of Craig's rectum to do a little housekeeping and pre-game preparations, extended two of its smooth, hollow, genetically-engineered tentacles with lightning speed, out through Craig's anus and up into Buck Hammond's nostrils. Buck felt a shower of liquid coat the inside of his nose, making further inhalations of Craig's weaponized flatulence unnecessary, redundant, and weaker than the Ball Sweat that was now vaporizing and flooding into Buck's sinuses. If Buck had been sober, he would've yelled in surprise and tried (and failed) to use his finger to wipe away the wetness, or expel the vaporizing liquid by repeatedly exhaling through his nose with the intensity of an air gun. Thanks to the Pit Fog, however, Buck was NOT in his right mind, so he just stood there and inhaled the Ball Vapor while enjoying the effects...until the manic sexual frustration set in. Jayce watched Buck reach down and start openly and aggressively masturbating like an escaped asylum patient. The sight reactivated the green tendril residue in Jayce's rectum, giving Jayce his own uncontrollable compulsion. Jayce said nothing, since even though he was doped stupid, he didn't really need his brain to see what Buck Hammond was all about. But Jayce didn't need to talk to the guy in order to let him know that Jayce was suggesting that the two of them help each other out. Jayce scooted to the edge of the platform that faced Buck, and pulled his knees to his chest and presented his asshole, which was rapidly gaping and closing while making an audible chattering noise. Buck instantly rejected Jayce's offer, not because Jayce was black, although Buck WAS racist as shit, but because Jayce had done something that had made him a far less desirable male sex partner than the defenseless, sleeping man on the other platform: Jayce had given consent. Of all the men Buck fucked in prison, every single one had been *desperate* to keep Buck's cock OUT of their ass, for reasons related to self-respect, reputation, and *pain*. They fought, they begged, they threatened, and they negotiated, but in the end, they got it in the end, and their agony became Buck's pleasure....his unbearably intense pleasure. In Buck's view, if he were to fuck a "faggot", he would be taking part in homosexuality, and according to the Old Testaments (which modern- day Christians pound when it suits them, and ignore when it doesn't), homosexuality is a sin, and in spite of living a life that ignored the teachings of Christ in every single way, Buck considered himself to be a devout Christian. And if anyone ever dared to point out Buck's cognitive dissonance, they'd better be able to take a barrage of Christian punches to the face. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Buck separated Craig's legs, clumsily got onto the platform, and crawled up onto Craig's body. When he was situated, Buck lifted up his haunches in the air and awkardly spread Craig's muscular buns with the fingers of his left hand, and used his right to move his boner along Craig's crack, feeling around with the tip of his dick, searching for Craig's asshole. "Found it," Buck whispered ominously into Craig's ear. Buck lowered himself while shoving his prick up Craig's backside. Instead of the typical sticky resistance of an unlubricated asshole, Buck was surprised to find that once his helmet overcame the unusually strong tightness of Craig's o-ring, Buck slid straight in and found himself enjoy- ing the sensation of a vise grip of slippery warmth. Buck rested all of his body weight on Craig and thrusted his cock as deep inside as it could possibly go, forcing several creatures to either drift back across the dimensional veil or hug the walls of Craig's rectum to avoid being detected by Buck's tool. It *did* manage to caress one of the creatures, but Buck dismissed it as shit, something that Buck usually encountered while fucking a guy, since his partners were never given a chance to prepare to receive Buck's cock. A vague part of Buck was disappointed that Craig didn't react to being violated, but his insertion into an Entangled caused the Pit Fog in Buck's brain to change slightly, relieving him of his seldom-used capacity to think. Left with nothing except his out of control sexual urges, Buck proceeded to lift and drop his hips, vigorously using Craig's anal ring to masturbate. There really wasn't any other way to describe it. Some of the delirious men and boys in the clearing, drawn by Buck's grunts, their *own* intense arousal, and their maddening inability to achieve sexual release by using either their hand or someone else's, trickled over to the two raised platforms in a zombie-like fashion. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Wish....wish I could do that," Ed Seevers said to his son, Todd, who'd laid down on his back, thrown his legs over his head, and was licking and sucking his own penis. "S'not...s'not...s'not working, Dad," Todd informed his father, flopping his legs back down on the mat and reaching up with his sticky right hand to allow his father to pull Todd to his feet. "Can't cum. I'm startin' to cramp.....real bad." "C'mon, leave it alone," Ed commanded while pulling his child's hand off of his raging boner and drunkenly replacing it with his own, in order to stop his kid from hurting himself. "you're gonna make yourself sore. HEY, I told you to STOP." Todd had grabbed Ed's hand with both of *his*, squeezed tight to keep his father from letting go of his cock, and started frantically working his hips, desperate for release from his all-consuming lust. "Dad...don't make me stop! I CAN'T stop," Todd begged. Ed looked over and saw Jayce offering himself to Buck Hammond. "C'mon!" Ed slurred, pulling his son along by the dick. "I th-th- think I gotta idea." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - On the verge of tears due to his unaccepted invitation and his insane need for rectal stimulation, Jayce was lowering his legs in defeat when a balding, dad-bodied man grabbed his ankles and lifted them skyward. "C'n my boy fuck you?" Ed Seevers blurted. "Yeah, PLEASE!" Jayce blurted right back. A kid with glasses ducked under the man's arm, squatted, and poked around a little before sliding his long, skinny rod into Jayce's soul...or at least that was what it felt like. "Yessssssssss," Jayce hissed euphorically, lifting his back off the platform and arching it, looking like he was receiving a spinal tap or heart paddles instead of a heavenly cock up his butt. "Thanks, man! Really 'preciate this! Couldn't hold...couldn't keep ....couldn't stand the ache any more," Todd babbled with genuine gratitude as he screwed Jayce while talking to him as if he'd merely offered to let Todd use his bathroom. "I'm getting fucked by a dude," Jayce thought, trying the words on for size and failing to force his drugged mind to grasp the enormity of the moment. Nevertheless, after years of being too afraid to be honest with himself, Jayce Harris now knew exactly *who* and *what* he was. Unfortunately, that realization came far too late to be of much use to Jayce, since Reality Itself was going to kill him in just over an hour. ....but at least something interesting would rise from his ashes. *************************************************************************** He wore a gray suit...he *always* wore a gray suit. The dress shirt beneath would change color every once in a while, and *everything* he wore, including his shoes, would frequently change styles, but the jacket and slacks were gray, and they always *would* be. When he was having a good day, which meant that *everything* was going according to his ENDLESS plans, and those plans were yielding EXACTLY the results he wanted, you could tell by the darkness of the gray of his suit. The darker, the better.....for everyone he deigned to care about. He wouldn't be there during the Battle of Faggot Forest, when all life on Earth would hang in the balance. But long after the winners and losers were declared, and the dead and the broken were removed from the cursed attraction, and Timbersburg was wondering what the hell horrible THING was going to happen to their traumatized, conservative, homophobic, racist, selectively-devout, whitebread community NEXT, the answer to their question would be: Mister Harris. No relation. Mister Harris, the unintended ambition-child of Reality Itself's evil determination, the Overseer's desperate machinations, and Future- Guile's entitled greed...was coming to RULE! To the subjugated masses who were unable to see and think anything they weren't *allowed* to see and think, thanks to the Overseer and the one he served, it was falsely believed that Raymond Crandal, formerly "Death Ray" Crandal, was the primary beneficiary of the legendary "Timbersburg/ Johnsport Incident"...the night of "The Monster of Faggot Forest". They were wrong, of course. Anyone who was allowed to know the truth about Faggot Forest knew that NO ONE managed to profit from the horrors of that terrifying night more than a certain tall, athletic, bald, elegant, middle-aged black man by the name of.....Mister Harris. *************************************************************************** "How's the cramp?" Ed asked his copulating son, chuckling to him- self as he watched Todd's ass pumping away. Even totally trashed, Ed Seevers couldn't help but feel intense love and pride while watching his son boy fuck like a BOSS, regardless of the fact that his son was fucking another boy. "It's jusht...just pressure now," Todd informed his father. "It doesn't hurt at all." "Try to...to cum," Ed advised while straining to stay focused on reality. "Blue balls doesn't go...go away until...till you cum. Do you think you...you can?" "YEAH!!!" Todd screamed, exchanging his smooth fuck rhythm for a series of powerful slams, letting Ed know that his child was *indeed* cumming. After Todd was done squirting his load into Jayce, he obeyed his body's need to continue thrusting, but he was finding it difficult because his penis was experiencing post-orgasm sensitivity, which had been intensified due to Jayce's treated insides. "Fucking CHRIST!" Todd yelped in front of his normally-strict father at a sudden sensual spasm that jolted him so bad that Todd thought he might require a chiropractic adjustment. In spite of that, it had felt good, and Todd wanted to feel it again, so he kept on fucking while he slowly shriveled. "Once he's done, you're goin' next, RIGHT?" Jayce pleaded to the man still holding Jayce's legs up. The man was too mentally disorganized to answer, but as soon as Todd's floppy dick slurped out of Jayce, Ed's prick squished right in. Instead of arching his back this time, Jayce eased back and relaxed, drifting in and out of bliss. At some point, Jayce opened his eyes to see that the father and son were gone, and he was being fucked by another white guy, approximately 40 years old, with long brown hair and an even longer beard. His eyes were glazed over, and he was rolling his head around on his shoulders as if he were grooving to a song that only he could hear. "You good?" the man asked, noticing that Jayce seemed to be semi- aware of what was going on, and what was being done to him. "S'cool," Jayce mumbled, then drifted away on a cloud of Pit Fog. *************************************************************************** Inside the Mind of Caleb Crandal, On the Dock Behind the Lake House *************************************************************************** An artificial cool breeze blew off of the simulation of Manjinank- ton Lake, lifting Guile's bathrobe a la Marilyn Monroe. Guile fucking HATED operating a physical body! That was a LECHER'S job! Also, it was bad enough *looking* like a zombie in a diaper, but now Guile had to *be* a zombie in a diaper. Guile stared at the mechanical screen, which contained a hologram of his Lure's only friend, Alan Richardson, whose image was being used as a temporary avatar by the being who called himself The Thrall Overseer. "Overseer, have you ever seen that Friday the 13th sequel, the one where the ghost of Jason's mother leads him to Camp Crystal Lake in order to SAVE the lives of a group of camp counselors who are in danger of being slaughtered?" Guile snarked. "There IS no Friday the 13th movie where that happens," the Over- seer stated patiently. "And there's a very logical reason for that," Guile noted, making his point. "You're TEN WEEKS OLD," the Overseer counter-snarked. "How do you even know who Jason Voorhees IS?" "Well, I could jokingly tell you that my Guile Archives contain the plots for all the Friday the 13th films, but that would be an obvious lie, since my Guile Archives contain NO information about ANYTHING!" Guile ranted. "Besides, the truth is MUCH funnier. You see, the reason I know about Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and all the rest is because the superpowered, homicidal MANIAC you want to send to Faggot Forest has been *obsessed with slasher films*...when he's not busy training to CARRY ONE OUT IN REAL LIFE, of course." "Am I sensing reluctance?" "No, Overseer. You are sensing refusal," Guile sighed with regret, turning away from the holographic cube in case the Overseer tried to show Guile another symbol, perhaps to reactivate Guile's internal monitors. Guile had no intention of giving up the advantages the Overseer had foolishly bestowed upon him. Guile's lack of gratitude would doubtlessly piss the Overseer off, but his actions were totally in keeping with Guile's "little speech in the woods", as the Overseer had mockingly refered to it. Guile turned away from the mechanical screen and walked toward the end of the dock to await Reality Itself's arrival. Guile was just about to drop out of Hypertime to shorten his wait, when he heard a voice behind him. "Have you checked the children?" Caleb Crandal's voice asked. Guile turned around and saw that the Overseer was still standing in his cube, using a hologram of Alan Richardson to serve as his visual and auditory avatar, but there was now someone inside with him. Unless it was a trick, Guile had succeeded in manipulating the Overseer into giving Guile *EXACTLY* what he wanted from the very beginning. "I recognize the movie reference, but I don't understand its present significance," Guile informed the cube's new occupant. "When I lived through the events you're living through now, my meeting with Reality Itself had already ended." the zombie in the black robe informed his identical twin, "But since yours HASN'T, you might want to check on Lecher. DO IT NOW!!!" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "LECHER! HEAR ME!" Guile screamed telepathically. It was murder. Guile had left behind *just* enough of himself to maintain the Pit Fog, screen all communications equipment so that people thought they were nonfunctional, and enable Lecher to *barely* operate the Thrall all by himself. But still, there was enough of himself left inside the Guile station to receive telepathic broadcasts and send them along to Lecher. So why wasn't he answering? "LECHER? ARE YOU-" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "HE'S UNDER ATTACK!" Future-Guile's voice boomed from whatever advanced technology served as the speaker system for the mechanical screen. "The cops caught him off guard! They couldn't break the Thrall's neck, so they're slamming a rock down on your head! You have to help Lecher, FAST! Their attack was FUNNY when they tried it on US, but since your Lecher is operating the Thrall all by himself, he's WEAK! The cops' assault might possibly KILL YOU! Send all of your power back to your brain-section! Leave only the bare minimum required to maintain your presence here!" "But if Reality Itself attacks me *here*, I'll be defenseless!" Past-Guile disputed. "JUST DO IT!" Future-Guile screamed with both fists raised in the air and balled in frustration. "IF HE ATTACKS, ALL YOU FUCKING NEED TO DO IS BOOT CRAIG OUT OF HERE...AND *KEEP* HIM OUT...AND ANY *OTHER* ENTANGLED THAT REALITY ITSELF TRIES THIS SHIT WITH! REALITY ITSELF CAN'T REMAIN HERE WITHOUT USING ONE OF THEM AS A PSYCHIC ANCHOR! HAVEN'T YOU FIGURED THAT OUT BY NOW? WAS I *SERIOUSLY* THAT FUCKING STUPID A MERE FIVE DAYS AGO?!?!?!" "Well, he's certainly *acting* like me," Past-Guile noted while flooding most of himself back out of the Lure Section, as Future-Guile had *kindly suggested*, "but that's not a *good* thing! If the Overseer hasn't at LEAST fixed Michael Pearson's modifications to my emotions, then this vision of my alleged 'future self' is nothing but a-" "It's not a trick!" Future-Guile snapped. "And stop looking away from me! The Overseer won't use the symbol to restore your monitors. If he did, he'd be even FURTHER away from getting your stupid ass to Faggot Forest!" "OUR stupid ass," Past-Guile reminded him. "Nope, just yours," Future-Guile boasted across the cube's sound system while forcing his useless, droopy lips into a horrid smile. "MY Guile Archives are FULLY COLLATED, and I've read ALL OF THEM, even the files that Lecher HID from me, the PRICK!" "Oh, so the Overseer actually KEPT one of his 'pie in the sky' promises to us?" Past-Guile mocked. "Then why are our emotions still out of control?" "No they're not!" Future-Guile argued. "The Overseer put them completely under MY control. He gave me the ability to go through all of my emotions, one by one, and change their levels at will. One of my *MANY* new *obsessions* is finding the precise mix and intensity required for a Guile to achieve a perfect emotional balance for optimal well-being AND maximum productivity." "But...all *I* want is to be exactly like other Guiles...except smarter...and more powerful," Past-Guile objected. "What could possibly change that wish so radically in just five days?" "Meeting two other Guiles," Future-Guile answered while stretching his arms out as far as the mechanical screen would allow and yawning melodramatically. It was an amusingly obnoxious thing to do, and Past-Guile could easily imagine himself doing it. "I am now certain *enough* that YOU are ME," Past-Guile announced. "As my temporal superior, I will do whatever you ask, including taking Lure to Faggot Forest." Future-Guile turned back toward the Overseer. "I have done as you asked, as I always will," Guile told the Over- seer, buttering him up for a favor. "May I remain? My continued presence would help set my past self's mind at ease." "I'll be monitoring your mind," the Overseer warned. "If you try anything, I'll know." "I understand," Future-Guile affirmed before 'casually' turning towards Past-Guile and making deliberate eye contact. Since the Overseer had no idea where Past-Guile was looking, he held Future-Guile's gaze. Future-Guile was up to something. Past-Guile kept his mind empty regarding the matter, so that the Overseer wouldn't pick up on it, something that his future self was no doubt doing as well. "Guile, as soon as you exit Caleb's mind, and you've processed enough of Robbie's Soul-Creation Energy to make the trip, I want you to fly to Faggot Forest. Once you arrive, Fog everyone in Tom Daggen's car and knock them out, then tell the Entangleds to retrieve Caleb's backpack and go home. Once that's done, summon Kaschak." "SUMMON him!?! One does not SUMMON Master Ladislav Kaschak of the Tethered Ones!" Past-Guile laughed. "And why should I *SUMMON* him to Faggot Forest when he can just as soon MURDER ME ANYWHERE HE CHOOSES!" "He *doesn't* kill you.....OBVIOUSLY!" Guile's future self groaned, rolling his eyes verbally, but not physically. Physically, Future-Guile continued to hold Past-Guile's gaze. "He 'obviously' didn't kill YOU, but once I'm done fucking with the past on your behalf, what if one of your changes causes Master Kaschak to kill me after all???" Past-Guile objected, deliberately becoming testy with his future self to conceal the fact that he and Future-Guile were (as far as Past-Guile could tell) about to collude behind the Overseer's back. Although Guiles are infinitely patient, Past-Guile *WASN'T*, thanks to Michael Pearson's emotional tampering. Whatever Future-Guile was up to, Past-Guile wished he would JUST GET ON WITH IT ALREADY! "Our survival is an absolute CERTAINTY, as long as you get Master Kaschak to Faggot Forest!" Future-Guile snapped angrily, doing his part to aid in the deception. "On the night of the Ferret Forest Massacre, I never went there. I took Reality Itself's deal. He kept me covered with Probability Spasm Residue, and when Lecher and I met with Master Kaschak the next morning, HE DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO LOOK AT IT! He took ME...A GUILE ...AT MY WORD!!!!" "Really? Why?" Past-Guile sneered, disbelieving. "Because the sudden deaths of several Entangleds caused our Master to go to Faggot Forest to investigate," Future-Guile explained. "And when he arrived, he sensed *IT*!" "He sensed *what*?" Past-Guile grumbled restlessly. And that's when Future-Guile made his move. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Future-Guile's eyes twitched twice, downward to his right. Past-Guile scanned the area indicated. At first he thought that maybe his future self had written something on the dock, or perhaps beneath it. But then he saw the glitch. There was a tiny little cube, barely a tenth of an inch, within the mechanical screen that appeared to be glitching, flashing random colors and images. But there was a flaw in Past-Guile's *glitch* theory: He'd figured out exactly who had created the mechanical screen.....and a creation of Maximum Morgan, smartest of all the Tethered Ones, would NEVER glitch. It was an easy deduction...even Lecher could've figured it out...or not. Basically it came down to two things: First, Master Kaschak would never invent something that didn't have a military application, and second, why was the apparatus kept in a *gym bag* instead of a customized carrying case that a Thrall Master could've whipped up in seconds? The inventor was clearly sports-minded. Perhaps he was even *the coach of the Weyerhauser High School football team*. Past-Guile adjusted his vision and zoomed in on the "glitch". If he'd allowed himself to think about it, instead of shielding his thoughts by NOT thinking about it, he would've realized that he was looking at "Screen Code", a holographic message that was broken down into symbols representing its auditory and visual components. If Past-Guile had *dared* to take his eyes off of the barrage of symbols for even a *second*, he would've seen that the corners of Future- Guile's horrific mouth had twisted upwards ever so slightly. Future-Guile's forbidden plan was *WORKING*! To hell with a *new and better* life, Future-guile wanted a *NEW AND ABSOLUTELY PERFECT* life, and his past self would GET IT for him. Past-Guile continued reading, bringing Mister Harris closer and closer to existence. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Master Kaschak came to Timbersburg to steal something from Maximus Morgan," Future-Guile began, strategically giving Past-Guile time to focus on absorbing the Screen Code. "Master Morgan created a telepathic bridging device, or a telepathic step-down transformer, if you will." "The device allows Thrall Masters to safely interface with human minds," the Overseer jumped in, unknowingly aiding the Guiles' deception by distracting himself by taking over Future-Guile's 'lead-in' and running with it, "LOTS of human minds, giving them telepathic dominion over thou- sands of people at a time." Past-Guile was astonished. Such a device could change *everything*, perhaps even render Guiles and Lechers unnecessary. Past-Guile had questions, so many questions, but he didn't *dare* ask them while the Over- seer was so beautifully involved with his own lecture. The Screen Code, Past-Guile's PRIMARY concern, just kept going on and on and on. Hopefully, so would the Overseer. "You see, for quite some time, Kaschak has been planning to create a kingdom for himself," the Overseer continued. "He created an army of warrior monsters and designed S.C.E. harnesses that allow them to remain on Earth for extended periods of time without the forces of nature ripping the SHIT out of them. To provide S.C.E. for those harnesses, Kaschack recruited and Enthralled...unwillingly....312 young men who have been stockpiling S.C.E. for CENTURIES." "At least those Guiles and Lechers got to live for 'centuries' before being slaughtered," Past-Guile pondered, still in mourning for the brothers he would never know. Mercifully, the Screen Code finally cycled back around to where Guile had started to watch. Future-Guile must've been aware of this, too, as he instantly deleted the glitch from the holographic environment inside the mechanical screen. Mister Harris was now a temporal certainty. "But even with Kaschak's army and his own matter/energy powers, defending and retaining whatever land he stole to build his kingdom would've been difficult, especially if the conflict turned nuclear," the Overseer went on, having no idea what Future-Guile had just done. "But all that has changed, in *our* time, at least, because Kaschak got ahold of Morgan's creation. Right now, he's controlling key military personnel at the bases in Mawklynd City, having them acquire more weapons, supplies, and the best soldiers. He's got control over their nuclear arsenal, which he'll use as a nuclear deterrent against the U.S. Govenment, and on August 17th, as a demonstration of his power, he intends to televise the destruc- tion of Timbersburg and the wholesale slaughter of its inhabitants by an attack force composed of monsters and Enthralled soldiers." "From what you've told me, Overseer, I'll have an excellent view of the invasion from the top of the Timbersburg Courthouse," Past-Guile joked, trying to lighten a mood that shouldn't be lightened. "Please tell me that the vine you mentioned...the one creeping around my neck...is full of grapes for me to snack on if I get hungry while watching." Future-Guile's shoulders slumped in response to the comment. "No," the Overseer replied sadly, "the creeping vine won't be there to give you grapes." "That's good, I suppose, since a Guile can't eat," Guile sighed, indulging in more gallows humor. "Wrong!" Future-Guile snapped like an evil game show host, and in so doing, reminded Past-Guile that he was comparatively ignorant to his future-self....and that he should straighten up and 'cut the shit'. "So this creeping vine kills me then?" Past-Guile speculated, cutting the shit. "Are you telling me that even if I survive my Master's wrath tonight or tomorrow, I'm STILL GOING TO DIE IN SEVEN MONTHS?" "I won't let that happen," The Overseer stated confidently. "Overseer, you really MUST stop making off-the-cuff promises," Past-Guile groaned. "because HOW can you claim to be able to stop this creeping vine from killing me, when you've JUST TOLD ME that you've seen the future, and YOU'RE FATED TO FAIL?!" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "He makes an excellent point, don't you think?" Future-Guile asked the Overseer telepathically, returning to a topic that Future-Guile and the Overseer had argued about frequently during the last five days. "How does Reality Itself still have that vision of The Creeping Vine killing me if you're fated to stop it? Shouldn't it have erased, like the picture of Marty McFly's family in 'Back to the Future'?" "As much as I would LOVE to have a conversation with you about why 'Back to the Future' shouldn't be considered a non-fiction guide to temporal mechanics," the Overseer grumbled, "I'm pretty sure 'Avengers: Endgame' already covered it really well. But if you HAVE to have that conversation with me, could we at least do it ANY OTHER TIME EXCEPT RIGHT *NOW*?" Guile let it go, but only because unbeknownst to the Overseer, Guile had seen to his *own* survival. "But if MY plan worked, and my past-self uses the information I gave him to fix our future, why hasn't THAT erased Reality Itself's vision?" Future-Guile would've thought if the Overseer weren't monitoring his mind. Future-Guile and the Overseer knew nothing about temporal uncertainty.....but they would learn, from the unlikeliest of sources. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "You know, Overseer, Alan interrupted before I could ask you this," Past-Guile questioned, "but now I *REALLY* need to know: how DOES a being from FIVE DAYS in the future possess information from SEVEN MONTHS in the future?" "I'm afraid we can't tell you that, Guile," the Overseer refused. "Basic deductive reasoning indicates that you're not telling me because you're either afraid of my reaction, or you need my reaction to be authentic for the benefit of whoever DOES tell me," Past-Guile surmised, "most likely Reality Itself. He doubtlessly shows me my death, death being the only thing that scares me." "Dammit, Guile, for this to work, Reality Itself has to believe that you're *scared to death* by what he shows me!" the Overseer said angrily. "Stop trying to ruin my plans BY DISSECTING THEM! We fucking GET IT.....YOU'RE SMART!" "You are correct, past self," Future-Guile interjected with an extreme amount of condescension, "Reality Itself is going to show you our death in the basement of the Timbersburg Courthouse." "The 'basement'?" Past-Guile asked in confusion. "I thought I was supposed to be on the roof? How do I get to the basement?" "QUICKLY!" Future-Guile snapped. "Guile?!" the Overseer blurted in alarm. "It doesn't matter, Overseer," Future-Guile told the being he respected more than any other. "You could describe every second of what Reality Itself intends to show him...what Reality Itself showed ME five days ago...and it would be nothing but words. Only when he actually *sees* it, and the vision causes him to contribute more piss to our damned diaper than Caleb Crandal EVER did, will it become REAL to him. He'll promise to stay away from Faggot Forest, so sincerely that even Guile himself will believe it. But after Reality Itself is gone, and he calms down and THINKS, he'll do *the right thing*. Have faith in my desire for a *new and better* life....have faith that all Reality Itself offers me is STATUS QUO, an UNENDURABLE status quo." "Are you LYING to me?" Past-Guile accused. "Because as far as I can tell, when I meet the Overseer's past self, he'll fix me whether I go to Faggot Forest or not." Past-Guile felt an icy chill that had nothing to do with the wind coming off the lake. "The first thing I do when I'm activated is perform a mental audit on you, Guile," the Overseer snarled. "I'll know ALL of this, making him and me indistinguishable. I'll *know* you refused to help me, and I'll repay you by doing NOTHING to help YOU. Our relationship will consist of me just showing up, giving you grief, laughing at your pain, cracking the whip, and then fastidiously tending to the needs of your Thrall Brothers, who will all HATE YOU for what you failed to do for me." "I was only just bringing up a hypothetical-" Past-Guile started to say. "Oh, I do so LOVE the Hypothetical Game," Future-Guile snarked. "Please let ME take a turn. The Overseer wants to save the doomed boys of Faggot Forest...Mike and Kenny, in particular. And hypothetically speaking, if YOU refuse to follow his plan, then *I* refused to follow his plan, and I will have to LIVE with the knowledge that I *FAILED* one of the only two beings on this planet who give a SHIT about my happiness. But unlike Robbie Byrne, the Overseer actually has the power to *DO* something about it. SO BEFORE YOU ***HYPOTHETICALLY*** DECIDE NOT TO-" "If I agree to carry out the Overseer's plan, will you agree to *RAPPEL* down off of your high horse?" Past-Guile negotiated with a smug, self-satisfied expression. Future-Guile gave Past-Guile a matching smirk. "I'll never have to meet myself again, but in five days, you'll have to stand right here and deal with your own insufferable bullshit in order to maintain the continuity of time. I hope *your* past self chooses to be as difficult as *you've* chosen to be." "Overseer, why do you care about Kenny Miller?" Past-Guile suddenly asked without warning. "And considering that Michael Pearson is a creation of Reality Itself, why does *HIS* life matter to you? Or are you doing this for the OTHER dead boys? I have to say, though, I've Entwined with all of THEIR minds at one point or another, and I must say that NONE of them merit BREAKING TIME in order to save their worthless, delinquent asses!" "You'll understand in a few hours," the Overseer breezed. "And that ISN'T an 'off the cuff promise'. Now tell me your mission." "My mission is to await Reality Itself, watch him reenact my death through interpretive dance or something, lie to him about staying away from Faggot Forest, eject him from Lure's mind, seal it off from all Entangleds, return to reality, feast and recharge, and then be *somewhere* inside Faggot Forest at exactly *something* o'clock........." "10:25, clearing 37," the Overseer announced, glad that Past-Guile had asked, since if he hadn't, it would've hinted that Guile wasn't being honest about following the plan. "Once I arrive, I disarm 'Crazy Tom' and have Lecher proceed to make sweet, sweet Entanglement with him and the others," Past-Guile guessed. "Wrong," the Overseer corrected. "*I'll* handle them, once Kaschak activates me." "Wait.....YOU'RE the telepathic bridging device????" Past-Guile asked in astonishment. "But....but....I thought you were just a Thrall babysitter!!!!!!" "Master Morgan created me to serve both purposes," the Thrall Over- seer informed Past-Guile. "But according to your thoughts, you already figured that out." "Yep," Past-Guile gleamed. "The sudden appearance of a 'Thrall Overseer', just after my Master is slated to acquire and activate one of Maximus Morgan's inventions, was a bit too coincidental...in a non-Reality Itself kind of way. Also, you never told me why you couldn't deal with the Ferret Forest Massacre all by yourself, you never included yourself in your plan, and you're in possession of some of Maximus Morgan's technology. Maximus Morgan wouldn't trust a possession of Ladislav Kaschak with his inventions, unless there was some sort of connection between you and Master Morgan." "If you already knew that I'm Morgan's creation, why did you act all shocked when I told you just now?" The Overseer inquired. "Meh, I just wanted to practice looking upset to prepare for watching Reality Itself's puppet show," Past-Guile admitted. "You won't NEED any fucking practice!" Future-Guile spat. Future-Guile was right, far more than even HE knew....because the plan was about to go very wrong. Unlike a Thrall, time doesn't *like* to be fucked with. *************************************************************************** Across the Lake *************************************************************************** "Craig?!" Ruby yelled at the ginger giant, who'd just collapsed mid-stride, falling down on Delores Kimbly's neatly manicured back lawn. "Oh FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK," Craig groaned, rolling onto his stomach and allowing his muscles to go completely limp. "Craig, are you okay?" Ruby fussed in alarm. "Do you need help...?" Ruby stopped talking and watched in fascination as Craig's ass flattened and an area of his butt crack separated to form a cylindrical opening. "Oh...I see," Ruby muttered, positioning himself to confirm that the cylindrical opening extended all the way *through* Craig's asshole. "You're already *being* helped....outside, back in reality." "RUDOLPH!" Reality Itself screamed as the old man trotted to catch up. "Nice rhythm," Ruby thought at the sight of Craig's ass flattening, then briefly regaining its curvature before being mashed flat again and again and again. "Done running, Rudolph?" Reality Itself asked from directly behind Ruby. "Yeah," Ruby replied confidently, his brisk walk having given him adequate time to come up with an alternate plan. "I'm done running. I'm also done with your threats, so just go ahead and kill me in the name of *protecting all life*. I've spent my life being beaten down, sometimes physically, by people who claimed to be Christian, so it's only fitting that my death be carried out by someone just as self-deluded, with just as little self-awareness." "Who told you about Kaschak's plans?!" Reality Itself demanded, ignoring Ruby's bullshit assertion of fearlessness. "It *WAS* the Overseer, *WASN'T IT*?!" Ruby looked across the lake to put Guile in his field of vision, thus momentarily removing the "Information-Lock" that the Overseer had placed in Ruby's mind. Ruby needed to be able to tell Reality Itself the truth in order to tell him the perfect lie. "Yes," Ruby reluctantly admitted, "I'm acting on behalf of the Thrall Overseer." "HOW?" Reality Itself screamed, contorting the face of Andrew Miller so horribly that it almost appeared as if the skin would rip into tatters. "Even though the Overseer hasn't been activated, he's not totally inert," Ruby confessed before stretching the truth...a LOT. "He reached out to my mind a few minutes ago and filled it with information that I'm able to use now, as a memory phantom." "No he didn't!" Andrew insisted. "I have complete access to your mind...your REAL WORLD mind...and it contains nothing about ANY OF THIS!" "Because you can't find it," Ruby countered, reaching STRAIGHT up the bull's ass, pulling out a handful, and then spewing it out of his mouth. "Maximus Morgan's creation outclasses you telepathically by every *possible* metric, even while 'unborn'." Reality Itself glared at Andrew for several seconds, saying nothing. "If you're scanning my mind for the information, why not amuse yourself by watching my assaults?" Ruby coldly suggested. "I'm sure you'd find my second bashing particularly amusing. I was in the hospital for weeks." Andrew didn't respond. He only continued to stare. "Push it in harder...go deeper!" Craig begged his imperceptible sex partner, distracting Reality Itself by making him think that Craig was referring to Reality Itself's probing of Ruby's mind. "WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE HERE?!" Reality Itself yelled in frustration, letting Ruby know that he'd failed to find the non-existent information in Ruby's brain, but he also failed to determine for certain that it wasn't there. "WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO *DO* HERE?!" "I'll answer that, honestly, but only if you answer some questions for me," Ruby bargained. "ASK THEM!" Reality Itself ordered, at the very edge of his patience. "DO IT *NOW*!" Ruby launched right into his pre-prepared and well-rehearsed question. "Since the purpose of life is to propagate, but homosexuals weren't designed to breed, the Thrall Masters....The Tethered Ones, believe that nature isn't responsible for creating homosexuals." "It isn't," the Guardian of Life confirmed. "Since the Tethered Ones aren't aware of any other independent and autonomous aspects of nature besides you-" "SEMI-independent and SEMI-autonomous," Andrew corrected. "And NO, there is only the biosphere and its protector." "Which means that YOU created homosexuality, and unless you do things that have nothing to do with protecting the biosphere-" "EVERYTHING that I do, I do to protect the biosphere," Reality Itself asserted proudly, "and YES, that includes my decision to create humans who do not usually procreate." "At first, the Tethered Ones thought homosexuals where the planet's response to overpopulation-" "Wrong," Reality Itself rudely interrupted yet again. "Nature WANTS to be packed with life. Sustainability matters less to nature than it does to humanity. Any surge in population will reverse due to disease, war, and starvation...the biosphere will recover......and nature will go on." "Then why DID you create us?" Ruby blurted to avoid further inter- ruptions. "Homosexuals, I mean." Reality Itself smiled at Ruby, building the moment. For ten seconds, both men just stood there, staring at one another while listening to Craig's passionate moaning. "I needed a large number of disposible people...people whose sudden deaths would only have a minimal negative impact upon society as a whole, possibly even a wildly *positive* impact," Andrew revealed when he was finally ready, then broadened his smile in anticipation of Ruby's reaction. Ruby's hatred of Reality Itself was now set in stone. "Centuries ago, when the Tethered Ones created a Thrall out of a young homosexual male, he instantly started pulling in a vast quantity of Soul-Creation Energy from the world around him, uncontrollably, causing his Pilot Fish's biological S.C.E. storage systems to rupture, and breaking its internal connections to the boy," Ruby recounted as emotionlessly as possible, given the circumstances. "Without being able to shunt the energy across the dimensional veil, poor Peter Toynsbee kept absorbing more and more S.C.E.! There were five Thrall Masters present, and they tried to stabilize the boy by absorbing as much of the energy as possible, filling all of their Fingernails to capacity. In the end, poor Peter Toynsbee could not be saved, and the Masters had to yank him out of *our* dimension and into *theirs*, where he soon exploded." Ruby paused to take a ragged breath. "Why? Why did Peter Toynsbee die?" Ruby finally asked. "The Entrallment process flipped a switch that only *I* was ever meant to utilize!" Reality Itself explained. "It's a switch that ALL homo- sexual men and woman have. And one day, I *will* use it." "I see," Ruby muttered. "How could murdering every homosexual on Earth POSSIBLY 'protect the biosphere'?!" "Since the Overseer told you about life force energy, did he also tell you where it comes from?" Andrew inquired. "He said the energy travels as a beam, from star to star," Ruby replied, "and each star's stellar wind pushes some of that energy outward, causing it to wash over every planet in that system, nuturing life and creating sentient beings." "And what happens WITHOUT that energy?" Reality Itself snarled. "Everything dies....I suppose," Ruby guessed while getting the uncomfortable feeling that he knew where the conversation might be heading. "The beam has been getting weaker over the eons," Andrew revealed, sounding very much like the old man he resembled. "Sometimes it flares up, sometimes it puts out more life force than *EVER*, but when things stabilize, the beam is even weaker. It's a downward trend." "But how does killing-?" Ruby began. "Life force energy can barely be *detected*, let alone *studied*," Andrew grumbled. "The invaders have the technology to do it, but none of their devices *work* over here, so they have to bring some back to *their* side, containing it carefully so that the natural forces over THERE don't destroy it." "They've DONE that....a lot," Ruby disputed. "They never discovered anything that would explain why you-" "BECAUSE THE INVADERS NEVER TOOK A DYING HUMAN TO THEIR SIDE AND EXAMINED THE 'SOUL-CREATION ENERGY' RELEASED UPON DEATH!" Andrew yelled impatiently. "How COULD they?" Ruby reasoned. "Humans can't survive over there, not even Thralls. The native natural forces would tear them to pieces instantly, like Maximus Morgan's first attempts to create Tethering avatars ....Fingernails....and bring them HERE." "And that is why, for all of Maximus Morgan's OVERSTATED intellect, he will never know the answer," Andrew gloated with visible delight. "As a memory phantom, I am snapshot of Rudolph Nash, taken just before I arrived here," Ruby nudged so that Reality Itself wouldn't reconsider telling him. "I am not in communication with my body, nor will I ever be again. I will simply cease to exist. Maximus Morgan can't learn your secrets from ME. So please tell me." "What do YOU think happens to a human's "Soul-Creation Energy" when they die?" Andrew inquired, just to laugh at Ruby when he answered incorrectly. "I would assume that it leaves the body and rejoins the 'current', washing across the globe and flying off into space, just like the rest of it does," Ruby guessed after a thoughtful pause. "WRONG!" Andrew snapped with unnecessary harshness. "Although the energy that resides in vegetation and lower forms of life behaves in exactly the way you described, whenever a higher life form dies, the energy that leaves their corpse is different. It ignores the current and STAYS with the biosphere, finding new life forms to saturate and nourish until the energy is eventually used up." "So at some point, homosexuals will suddenly start pulling in a massive amount of S.C.E., just like Peter Toynsbee?" Ruby deduced after a long pause. "We'll process it...we'll supply the Earth with a layer of S.C.E. that doesn't blow away...and then we'll all explode?" "Yes, once you're compelled to go somewhere isolated," Andrew said coldly, increasing his level of monstrousness, "I can't have you all running around like suicide bombers." "Wow, and you're calling us terrorists too," Ruby mused. "It's not bad enough that you intend to force us all to make the ultimate sacrifice for societies that persecute us and won't feel an ounce of gratitude, but you also want us to die alone, while treating us like enemy combatants, to ensure that we don't cause any collateral damage. That is...just evil, 'Guardian of Life'." "I look forward to hearing YOUR solution to the problem, Rudolph," Andrew taunted. "Go ahead...enlighten me." "FINE!" Ruby snapped back...with an actual snap, "Here's my solution! First, get over your INFANTILE hatred of Maximus Morgan for bringing his people here. He did what he HAD to do, and killing HIM doesn't serve the interests of the biosphere...it just serves YOUR need for REVENGE, or possibly just your need to mindlessly fulfill your function! Next, for the love of GOD, don't risk Kaschak getting his hands on the Overseer! If Tom Daggen fails to kill the Overseer, Kaschak will get his hands on him and use the Overseer to endanger ALL LIFE on your precious biosphere! Get the Overseer BACK to Morgan, who you KNOW will only use him responsibly. THEN, TALK to Morgan, explain the dwindling S.C.E. problem, and see if HE can find a solution! Where he comes from, he can do ANYTHING." "But the biosphere ISN'T OVER *THERE*, IS IT?" Andrew snarled passionately, revealing that despite his claim that he only ever acted in the interests of the biosphere, this was a *personal* matter to him. "It's over HERE, and over HERE, he's broken...helpless...pathetic! And in spite of his *cosmic* intellect...the intellect YOU think can SAVE THE PLANET.... after ALL THIS TIME, he STILL can't figure out why his gay Thrall candidate BLEW UP!" "The boy's name was Peter Toynsbee," Ruby reminded Reality Itself, "And Maximus Morgan didn't just give up on Peter...he didn't pull Peter through the dimensional barrier just to chuck him into space like a piece of garbage. Maximus brought Peter onto his surface, into a hastily con- structed, protective habitat, where he used his wondrous technology to fight for Peter's life. But Maximus couldn't undo the MONSTROUS thing you DID to that boy. Peter exploded on Maximus Morgan's surface, creating a crator roughly the size of a city block. But Peter's death wasn't in vain. Maximus' instruments revealed that as he was dying, Peter was putting off large amounts of S.C.E. with unusual properties, different from those of the S.C.E. that sweeps across the biosphere. He calls his discovery "Static Soul-Creation Energy", and logically enough, he calls the unaltered form "Kinetic Soul-Creation Energy". "If you already KNEW why I created homosexuals, WHY DID YOU WASTE MY TIME BY ASKING?!" Andrew shouted. "Because I wanted to hear your inhuman plan in your own words," Ruby admitted, "and because, to answer YOUR question, my sole purpose is to distract you...so that the Overseer can talk with Guile and enable him to make...shall we say...a more *informed* choice regarding Ferret Forest, and all the boys there you want to KILL, just like Peter Toynsbee, 'Guardian of Life'." The withered, old fist of the vengeful god flew forward into Ruby's face, literally, accomplishing nothing. When Andrew pulled it back, he was holding the neck of his guitar, which he flailed at Ruby, AGAIN accomplish- ing nothing. "How are your present actions serving the biosphere?" Ruby desired to know, but saying it in a thoughtful, non-antagonistic way. In spite of his hatred of Reality Itself, Ruby preferred to remain calm in the face of Andrew's rage, thus becoming 'the adult in the room'. "YOU FUCKING TRAITOR TO HUMANITY!" Andrew wailed, tears flowing down his crepy flesh. "THEY SHOULDN'T BE HERE! THEY'RE PARASITES...FEEDING ON LIFE FORCE ENERGY THAT THE BIOSPHERE *NEEDS*!" "How can I be a traitor to humanity *and* one of its sacrificial lambs?" Ruby queried. "Also, the S.C.E. needed to protect the Fingernails of ALL the Tethered Ones is so utterly miniscule that it makes your tantrum an absurdity. If you really WERE the biosphere's guardian, you'd be working to Untether Ladislav Kaschak, who we both know is the TRUE threat. But instead, you'll watch Timbersburg die, which, by the way, WON'T 'have a ***MINIMAL*** negative impact upon society as a whole', and will probably lead to the complete BREAKDOWN of 'society as a whole', and possibly a nuclear Armageddon. All to kill a high school football coach." "To kill an invading organism, you have to go for the head!" Andrew growled. "Bullshit, KASCHAK'S the head NOW!" Ruby countered, using a word he didn't like saying. "You're not using your *new* intelligence, you're rely- ing on your *old* instincts, acting exactly like the Thralls' Emergency Survival Protocols, and being JUST as effective." Ruby raised his arm and pointed behind Reality Itself, who turned to find a rowboat floating in the water. It was Andrew Miller's boat, down to the slightest detail.....except one. There were words on the side of the boat, and they were written in blood. S.S. BEST LAID PLANS "Very funny, Overseer," Andrew muttered, "but I've got new ones, and just enough time to see them through." "And I'm sure they'll be JUST as disastrous as your old ones, with an equal or greater amount of ruinous collateral damage," Ruby opined. Andrew Miller's fishing rod appeared in Reality Itself's hand, only to be instantly flung into the lake by an old man who was trembling with impotent rage, with no way to vent it at the INFURIATING memory phantom unless he detonated Rudolph Nash in the real world, obliterating a huge section of Manjinankton Lake in the process, for reasons that boiled down to nothing other than HATE......which nature would not allow Reality Itself to do. "The Thrall Overseer and the Caleb Crandal-Guile are ready to see you now," Ruby taunted in a professional tone, establishing who was REALLY in control of this situation......and who wasn't." Reality Itself snapped his head towards Ruby, but before he could speak... "I'm cumming....I'm cumming!" Craig moaned. "I know just how you feel, Craig," Ruby announced with a pleased grin while holding Andrew's gaze. *************************************************************************** A Hundred Yards West of The Feeding Area *************************************************************************** George Klempernick's shaking arms somehow managed to lift the rock one final time, bringing it down with the last bit of his remaining strength. "FUCK!" George yelled at his physical limitations. "TYLER! TAKE A TURN!" Joe Prender commanded. "George and I are outta steam!" "Do you think he's dead?!" Tyler called behind him while keeping Robbie in his sights, acting as if he were somehow doing his part by making sure the thirteen year-old didn't try to come to Lecher's aid. Burt Veribton laughed out loud, causing his camera to shake. "If I thought he was DEAD, would I be tellin' you to TAKE A TURN?" Joe yelled as if he'd just read Burt's mind. "CALM DOWN!" Tyler yelled, running over, grabbing the rock, and lifting it high. "CALM DOWN??? After what you fuckers DID to me, YOU DON'T GET TO TELL ME TO 'CALM DOWN'!" Joe shrieked, visibly fighting off tears. "Funny, you really seemed to like it at the time," Burt thought. "We'll have to leave it to the viewers to decide, Officer Prender, along with your wife, children, fellow parishioners, and the other homophobes at the station." "It's not our fucking fault, Joe!" George shot back, his mouth not nearly as depleted as the rest of him "The boy MADE us do all that!" "Yeah, do you think I *WANTED* all of you guys watching me take a shit?" Tyler added. "He was *making* me treat you like that!" "I don't recall Robbie handing you a *script*, Tyler," Burt commented in spite of no one being able to hear him. "All the nasty things you said and did to Officer Prender just seemed to flow out of you so.... naturally." Burt was correct. Tyler had been forced to withhold sex from Joe when the green tendril caused him to beg and plead for a cock up his ass, and Tyler had been compelled to fuck Joe when Robbie grew tired of tortur- ing him. But as for the self-gratifying verbal sadism...that was *ALL* Tyler Whitlock. Cruelty was one of Tyler's many awful defining character- istics. "He'll be making you do a lot WORSE if you don't hit him harder than THAT!" Joe snarled. "How can arms that big be so weak, boy? Aren't they good for anything except opening married women's legs?" "Are you STILL pretending to be a Christian?" Robbie asked, trying to distract the cops from killing Guile and Lecher. "FAG, YOU'D BETTER SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Joe snapped. "I think Joe is giving you some good advice, Robbie," Burt sighed to himself, and only himself, as he simultaneously filmed what was happen- ing and indulged his pedophilia by playing with Robbie's tiny, fear- shriveled pee-pee. "Just like me, these men are at the mercy of terrifying supernatural forces. They're afraid, angry, desperate, and confused. Situations like these can turn a good man *bad*, and none of these men were any *good* to begin with." Neither was Burt, and he would soon prove it far more than he was already was. "My mom says that Christians are supposed to be Christlike," Robbie mocked. "Do you think you're acting like Jesus right now?" Joe slowly stood up, turned around, and walked towards Robbie. "Anything else you want to say....faggot?" Joe dared. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Burt considered putting the camera down and protecting Robbie from Joe, who'd been pushed *way* too far. But as much as Burt would've liked to slam his fist into the homophobic cop's face, knowing that Burt's "Mister Cellophane" power would protect him from any consequences, Burt knew he could hurt Officer Joe Prender far more by filming anything violent that Joe did to Robbie, up to and including murdering the boy. Burt knew that he would most likely have to close his eyes, and the screams alone would probably make Burt throw up (something that even the sickest child pornography hadn't managed to accomplish), but Burt's hatred of the Timbersburg Police Department, and the very real possibility of single-handedly destroying it completely, would help get him through it. Burt Veribton had made his decision, and Maximus Morgan would PERSONALLY make him PAY for it! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Just that your Christianity isn't worth that pile of tyler's shit over-" ***POW!*** The punch instantly caused Robbie to go from sitting to lying, briefly making him wonder what happened. But then the pain set in. Robbie was terrified, and he wanted to cry, but he also didn't want to give Joe Prender the satisfaction. "I'll pray for your soul, sinner," Robbie hissed, tasting blood in his mouth. Joe Prender squatted down, encouraging Robbie to bring his arms up to defend himself. "If you kill him, Joe, I won't say anything," George promised. "With all the weird shit going on here, Joe, the military's gonna cover it all up," Tyler instigated, doing what he did best while continuing to deliver rock strikes to Lecher's forehead. "There won't BE any evidence for C.S.I. to find, and the military probably won't release the body. After everyone saw that tongue wrap around his head, they'll chop it off and keep it in a freezer somewhere so they can study it." "Oh my GOD," Burt chuckled to himself, documenting what he believed to be the final nail in the coffin for one of the country's most sadistic, incompetent, and corrupt police departments. "This is solid GOLD!" Robbie sobbed. He tried not to, but it just happened. And when it did, Robbie saw Tyler's expression change. He was receiving pleasure from Robbie's fear. "Hand me the rock," Joe instructed Tyler with no visible emotion. Tyler immediately handed the rock over, then jumped up and backed the FUCK away from Lecher. "GUILE!!!!" Robbie screamed telepathically as Joe raised the rock to bash in Robbie's head. "GUILE, HELP ME!!! HE'S GONNA-" "GET AWAY FROM HIM!!!!" A naked young adult with brown, tight curly hair yelled as he exploded out of the darkness and into the lit area of the light bubbles. Russell Hawksmore, now Entangled, dove at the squatting form of Joe Prender, knocking the raised rock out of his hands and driving Joe down onto the tongue mat, where he proceeded to beat the exhausted older man with his Pit Fog-induced rage and power. "Get off'a him!" George shouted, grabbing Russell by the underarms and pulling him off of Joe, only for the kid to reach back and elbow George in the face, dazing him enough that George released Russell, enabling him to spin around and deliver a volley of punches, hitting George in the nose, cheek bones, and jaw." Suddenly, Tyler came up on Russell's left side and delivered an impressively well-delivered punch to his temple, sending Russell to the ground. George Klempernick was instantly on top of him. "GET OFF!" Russell Hawksmore screamed back at George Klempernick, who ignored Russell in favor of smashing his nose and pulping his face, in spite of George's arms still being weak from repeatedly slamming a rock down on Lecher's head. All of a sudden, everyone except Robbie just....stopped. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "LECHER!" Guile screamed. "I'm back! Pull yourself together! We have work to do! We need to start the party as soon as possible! We need POWER...LOTS OF IT....NOW! We're running out of time!" "Guile? Need....need status...* " Lecher requested, having no idea what was going on. "You were manning the entire Thrall by yourself, you were attacked, you over-extended your brain section by trying to deal with it alone, and we sustained minor facial and cranial injuries," Guile explained. "I'm sending you the S.C.E. we received from Craig and Russell Hawksmore. Heal yourself, heal the Thrall, but for fuck's sake, KEEP IT AWAY FROM LURE!" "Doin' it," Lecher groaned. "What happened with Re...Realit..." "Reality Itself is still inside Lure's brain section," Guile responded impatiently. "Don't worry about that!" "W-What??," Lecher grunted. "Then...then why are we bothering? We lost...it's over." "No, it's not!" Guile cried out with glee. "Here are my memories of what's been going on inside Lure's mind. YOU WON'T BELIEVE IT!!!!" Lecher reviewed the file. Guile was wrong. Lecher DID believe it, because he NEEDED to believe it. The Thrall trembled as a SUDDENLY REINVIGORATED AND *INSANELY* MOTIVATED Lecher forced it to heal as fast as possible. Lecher had a little police matter to deal with. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Thrall got to their feet. "Hello, Robbie," Guile's telepathic voice greeted. "Sorry about-" Robbie suddenly jumped up off the mat, ran over to the now- paralyzed Joe Prender, and began raining punches down at his face, continu- ing what Russell Hawksmore had begun. "Where's God NOW?" Robbie screamed, his voice cracking to the point that his words were barely comprehensible. "He's where he was when you *HIT ME*! He's where he is when my mom BEATS ME ALL THE TIME!!!" When Mark Pudroolen back-handed Robbie across the face, Robbie couldn't find it in his heart to repay Mark while *he* was paralyzed and defenseless. Joe was different. Joe's hateful, bastardized, self-serving, "for thee, but not for me" take on Christianity had gotten under Robbie's skin in a really bad way. "Whoa, hold up there, Cop Fucker-Upper!" Lecher called out, striding over and pulling Robbie away from Joe. "You went away again!" Robbie continued to shriek, turning his post-traumatic emotional release at Guile. "You keep leaving me, like you did when that bitch cop almost took me away, and- OWWWWWWWWWW!" Robbie suddenly clutched the side of his face, which was beginning to bruise from Joe's punch. Robbie broke down. A tendril slid out of Lecher's ass and rose up towards Robbie's face. "W-w-w-w-what's THAT do?" Robbie bawled before jumping in surprise in response to a bright flash of turquoise light. "It cures boo-boos and hopefully makes an immature thirteen year- old boy act his fucking age," Lecher snarked while flashing Joe as well. Both Guile and Lecher wanted Joe pain-free so that he'd be forced to *enjoy* the many homosexual acts he would soon be performing. "Ignore Lecher, Robbie, I need you to see something," Guile instructed, pointing at the pulped, fleshy mass that used to be Russell Hawksmore's face. "What am I supposed to be looking at?" Robbie mumbled miserably. "Accelerated healing," Guile lectured. "Not as fast as what we just did to YOUR injuries just now, but still *superhuman* nonetheless, and he does it automatically. He doesn't need us and our turquoise tendril in order to heal." Robbie realized that the throbbing in his cheek had stopped. He reached up and felt his face and confirmed that the pain was gone. "So what?" Robbie spat, still mad at Guile for abandoning him. "Well, he's also immune to all diseases," Guile enticed, "so he won't get sick." "I already never get sick!" Robbie lied, rebuffing Guile as he wiped tears from his eyes and tried to fight off *more* tears by getting angry and raging against them. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Just so I got this straight, we're doing what that Overseer guy said to do, right?" Lecher inquired, fighting to process the overpowering wealth of information that Guile had just shoved into his head. "We're trying to get Robbie to agree to Entanglement?" "Yes, and we have to do it FAST, while Reality Itself is still otherwise occupied!" Guile jabbered. "We have to go to Faggot Forest, but Reality Itself *must* believe we're NOT going. But the only way we'll be strong enough to fly there within the next hour or so is by obtaining Robbie's S.C.E. *without* having to wait for his semen to be processed by Caboose's extractor. By ENTANGLING Robbie, Caboose's creatures can just dimension-shift into Robbie's body, absorb it all internally, and take it back across the dimensional barrier to Caboose, READY FOR IMMEDIATE USE, with Reality Itself none the wiser! But if Reality Itself catches us in the act, he'll know I'm not negotiating with him in good faith, and we'll be totally screwed." "If we don't want Reality Itself to know we're charging up to go to Faggot Forest, why are you going ahead with the party?" "Reality Itself knows our needle is only a tiny bit above the "E", since he's the one who had his agent drain us and PUT IT THERE! If Reality Itself knows enough about our S.C.E. storage and usage to pull *that* off, then he knows that S.C.E. processing takes *forever*, and that no matter HOW many men we drain until they "lock-up", we wouldn't reap the benefits until long after "The Ferret Forest Massacre" had already taken place. As long as we act casual instead of frantic, avoid Churning anyone, and *only discuss all aspects of Faggot Forest telepathically*, Reality Itself should assume that we're merely doing what cum vampires...uh...I mean "Thralls"... always do. He'll just think we're feeding to FEED." "Okay, I think I got it," Lecher announced. "I hope so, since I can't possibly dumb it down any further," Guile sighed. "But what I *don't* understand is: how are we supposed to convince Robbie to let us Entangle him when he's busy pouting over his LATEST traumatic incident tonight, which was also his SECOND assassination attempt by the local police?" "QUICKLY!" Guile suggested. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Lecher reached down, grabbed his boner, and started to jerk off, earning himself Robbie's full attention. In no time at all, Lecher leaned his head back, shook violently, and let out a "Shit YEAH!". Puffs of white smoke started to pour out of his dick, looking exactly like an underwater ejaculation. "It didn't feel THAT good," Robbie lashed out, bitter at the world. "WHICH ONE OF THESE COPS SAID THAT TO YOU, KID?!?!" Lecher yelled, startling Robbie, who hadn't picked up on the fact that Lecher was trying to snap Robbie out of his pissy mood by clowning around. "It's not YOUR fault you give sloppy head and you just lie there like a dead fish when you're getting fucked! What do they EXPECT? You're THIRTEEN, for Christ's sake! Around here, most little gay boys don't get really GOOD at that stuff until they're at least FOURTEEN!" Robbie just glared and continued to pout. "Well, well, well, look who decided to come back!" Lecher taunted at the jerky, unwilling, zombie-like return of Mark Pudroolen, whose body bore countless bloody cuts and scrapes, the predictable outcome of running naked through a dark forest at night. "I wasn't...I wasn't here!" Mark stuttered upon seeing that Lecher was still alive, and Robbie and Tyler's eyes were red and teary. "I didn't do anything!" "YEAH YOU DID! YOU RAN AWAY, YOU FUCKING COWARD!!!!!!" George contradicted, yelling so loud that even Lecher jumped. "QUIET!" Guile shouted, enforcing his limited control over the men's minds...control that wouldn't be limited for much longer. "You cops need to get laid, BIG TIME!" Lecher taunted. "And that's *exactly* what me and Guile got planned for you....just not the way you boys are used to. Now get the fuck over here and gather round. Since I can't line you up without one of you *shoulder flipping me*, I think I'll just do you all one at a time, and let your buddies watch. "WHAT?!?!" Mark yelped in response to the plum tendril dropping out of Lecher's butt and flying up his nose. In spite of Mark almost shooting Robbie a little while ago, after what Robbie had just been through, he was now the best candidate to act as Guile's avatar, since Russell was Entangled, and Guile mistakenly believed that Guiles couldn't puppet Entangleds. "Guile and me are turning Marky into a meat puppet," Lecher explained to Robbie's confused, weepy expression. Robbie watched Mark Pudroolen's features suddenly lift up, confirm- ing what Lecher had just said, and letting Robbie know that Guile was about to start laying on more bullshit. "Look, Robbie," Mark's mouth consoled, "tonight is a really bad night, and lots of stuff is happening. I'm sorry I had to leave you again, and I'm sorry the cops were able to incapacitate Lecher, like the stupid pussy he is, and free themselves, putting you in a very scary situation-" "THEY WERE GONNA TO KILL ME!" Robbie wailed, causing him to start crying again. "Huh, well isn't THAT interesting," Lecher grumbled, pretending he hadn't known while looking around and making brief eye contact with each of the cops, seeing fear from Tyler Whitlock, defiance from Joe Prender, and abject hatred from George Klempernick. "Well *I* certainly feel a lot less guilty about turning these guys into cock-hungry cum-pigs. How 'bout you, Guile?" "I didn't feel guilty to begin with," Guile deadpanned. "Kid, if it makes you feel any better, lots of GOOD stuff happened to Guile while he was away," Lecher told Robbie, but directing his words at Joe, Tyler, and George. "For instance, Guile can do ANYTHING now, including frying the brains of a couple of bad cops. I'm still stuck obeying the rules, most of 'em, anyway, but if you were to agree to *ENTANGLEMENT*, I'm sure that Guile would be happy to ORDER ME to kill these assholes with my bare hands, Robbie. Or you could pick which tendril I use to kill them! Ever see a guy frozen solid and cut into ice cubes????" "I don't think *someone* would approve of that," Guile snarled pointedly, wanting to remind Lecher once again of the chain-of-command, but not DARING to rock the boat AGAIN, for fear of getting into *yet another* argument with Lecher at the *worst* possible time. "Why not?" Lecher grinned. "After we go *somewhere* to pick up a special *something* for that *someone*, we KNOW the gloomy son of a bitch will be so fucking happy that he won't give a shit about *anything* we do tonight, including killing a few-" "I want Tyler to be just like my dad," Robbie interrupted angrily. "But I don't JUST want him to do sex stuff, I want him to do *ANYTHING* I tell him, no matter WHAT! And I want him to like me.....a lot." Robbie started having interesting thoughts about Tyler, and as they were sexual in nature, Guile could see them. He found them to be as repug- nant as Lecher would've found them to be sexually arousing. Still, in spite of Guile's disgust, he had to admit they were potentially *very* useful. "It's a deal, Robbie," Mark's face said with a sinister smile. "If you agree to let us *ENTANGLE YOU*, I will COMPLETELY enslave Mr. Whitlock to your will, forever." "I need to think about it," Robbie stated, giving Tyler a vengeful, icy cold stare that even the white tendril couldn't match. "Take your time," Guile offered with an unfelt patience concerning the matter. "While we wait, though, how about we all watch a short indie film?" A screened image of Tyler appeared on the tongue mat. He was down on all fours, beneath a German Shepherd that was whimpering loudly as it clutched Tyler around the ribs while it repeatedly slammed its hindquarters forward like a woodpecker's beak, savaging Tyler's asshole. On the ground in front of Tyler, a Rottweiler was baring its belly as Tyler eagerly licked and sucked its endlessly spurting cock, getting the clear, sticky, puppy juice all over Tyer's pretty face and all through his thick, full, surfer blond hair. Robbie's penis rose, partially because he was now able to SEE his sick fantasy play out, but mostly because everyone ELSE could see Robbie's sick fantasy play out. "Well, it looks like I'm doin' Officer Surfer Dude first," Lecher decided, basing his decision on how the tip of Robbie's hardening penis was poking out of his foreskin, and more and more of it was quickly coming into view. "Tyler, how about kneeling down in front of me and opening wide? No particular reason." "ROBBIE, I'M SORRY!" Tyler yelled, straining against Guile's order to remain silent and mashing his words together in a desperate bid to get out one more last ditch effort to spare himself Robbie's perverse revenge. "I didn't mean to hurt you! I'm just really scared, and I do and say dumb shit when I'm scared! Please don't-" "C'mon, give that flapping, poison tongue of yours a rest," Lecher commanded with an evil smirk. "You'll need it well-rested for all the nasty things that Robbie has planned for you and his dad tomorrow." "You read my mind," Robbie uttered while getting off on the fear in Tyler's eyes. "Actually, that was me," Guile piped up through Mark's mouth. "And I have to ask, what IS it with you wanting to make men shit hotdogs into each other's mouth? That's disgusting, as I'm SURE Tyler and your dad will agree after they're finished eating lunch tomorrow. I *would* say that I'm happy that a Guile isn't capable of eating, but a part of me has JUST been informed that within five days, I'll be able to eat grapes. Sadly, the flow of the conversation prevented me from asking for elaboration. What were we talking about again?" "We were talking about Tyler being too chicken shit to take a puff of a MAN'S smoke!" Lecher crowed. "I see what you did there," Burt noted, making an unfunny remark about an unfunny remark that thousands of viewers would pause on while preparing to show a loved one the MOST IMPORTANT part of Burt Veribton's video: The ENTANGLEMENT PROCESS! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - How Mister Harris ***HATED*** Burt Veribton for introducing the Entanglement Process to the world in such a CRASS fashion. Mister Harris' self-narrated documentary concerning Entanglement would be much classier, and far more *dignified*, since *wholesome* was too far of a reach. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Sweat poured from Tyler's face as Lecher put the opening of his prick right in front of Tyler's mouth, just under his nose. Tyler couldn't move, even to turn his head, so he did the only thing he could do. In addition to being a skilled surfer, Tyler was also a freediver. If he would've prepared himself instead of pleading his doomed case to Robbie, Tyler could've held his breath for just under nine minutes. As it was, he was STILL good for at least five or six, unless.... "Raise your arms," Lecher ordered. Without needing instruction, Robbie walked up behind Tyler and wrinkled his nose in anger as he tickled Tyler's armpits, forcing him to inhale Lecher's cum-smoke. Tyler tried to blow it right back out, but noth- ing came. It was all soaking into Tyler's lungs, transforming them into a "safe space" for creatures from another dimension...a place where they could do what they were genetically designed to do, without Earth's natural forces seeking them out and destroying them for being where they didn't belong. The psychoactive substance also went straight to Tyler's gray matter, where it did things far more complicated than Pit Fog could ever achieve, relaxing Tyler and mellowing him out while it initiated the process of making endlessly complex physiological, psychological, struct- ural, and chemical alterations to Tyler Whitlock's brain. "I don't...please...I don't want...Robbie, please....I...," Tyler sputtered before suddenly lunging forward and putting his lips back on Lecher's fleshy, spongy 'mouthpiece' and puffing on it like a cigar, build- ing up smoke in his mouth before eagerly inhaling it as if Tyler were performing a bong rip. "Oh, God," Tyler whined after exhaling. He looked up at Robbie with a desperate, pleading expression. When he saw no compassion there, he glanced hopefully at each of his colleagues, whose eyes only offered Tyler concern for *themselves*. Tyler's head dropped down in defeat and he stared at Lecher's fuming cock, his expression alternating between forced determination and passionate longing. "I see this all the time," Lecher told Robbie with a wicked sneer, "he can FEEL what's happening to him, and he DOESN'T want it, but what it's doing to him feels SO FUCKING GOOD that he can't stop taking hits. The look he's giving all of you....that's him trying to beg someone to pull him AWAY from me." "Lecher, time is running-" Guile started to command. "You WANT to take another puff," Robbie enticed, making Tyler's face twitch...and his eyes squint as if he suddenly needed glasses, or as if his mind were playing tricks on him, diminishing his will, and making him more suggestible." "Don't listen to him!" George forced himself to say. "Do you WANT to suck off DOGS?" "I don't know what to do, George!" Tyler sobbed, "I don't want to do this, but it's like...." Tyler looked up at George, but his eyes never made it higher than his thick, dangling cock. "Fight it!" Joe encouraged, more out of a desire to *prove* his Christianity to Robbie than to actually save Tyler from unnatural temptation. Truth be told, he actually enjoyed the idea of Tyler becoming addicted to cock, both human and canine. "I see it all the time when we fuck girls together, but I never.... I really never...." Desperate to be rid of the indecision that was tearing him apart, Tyler put his lips back on Tyler's glans and started to power smoke. pffffffffffft......huuuuuuuuuuuuh.....fooooooooooooo. "Smoke up, buddy!" Lecher encouraged with a dreamy look in his eyes before looking over at Robbie. "And 'yeah', it DOES feel THAT GOOD! These cops will know what I'm talking about, after I *ENTANGLE* them. Entangleds have POWERFUL orgasms, never a ruined one, even if they spend all day jacking off! And the orgasms last a whole lot longer, up to almost THIRTY SECONDS if you want. *click* "What was that?" Robbie asked, turning his head towards the sound briefly. "That was the sound of Russell Hawksmore's broken nose clicking back into place," Guile informed Robbie....and thousands of others. "Robbie, I know that you've seen Entanglement being used to enslave and punish, but that wasn't why the process was created. You see, sometimes we need a LOT more 'cum energy' than usual, and when that happens, we need help, and the only ones who can *provide* that help are homosexuals. But since homosexuals can't become cum vampires, Entanglement was created. And yes, cum vampires CAN CONTROL Entangleds, but that was only done to keep Entangleds from revealing our secrets, and to keep them from willfully putting themselves at risk. THEIR survival is OUR survival, after all." "Think of them like that Renfield guy in the Dracula story," Lecher suggested while cruelly switching his cum from smoke to liquid without informing Tyler, making him pull away to gag and choke while Lecher contin- ued ejaculating like a racehorse, all over him. "NO HE SHOULDN'T!" Guile snapped. "That is a STUPID COMPARISON!" Tyler coughed himself back under control, put his lips back on Lecher's prick, and proceeded to fill his belly while making very audible gulping noises. "It still sounds like a bad deal for the gay guy," Robbie opined. "Quicker healing and stronger, longer orgasms ain't worth the risk of you guys changing your mind and making the gay guy a slave after all." "Kid, you're a cock-crazed gay boy, and we're CUM VAMPIRES!" Lecher growled, the boy's short-sightedness ACTUALLY SUCCEEDING in ruining the constant orgasm Lecher was experiencing while Entangling Tyler. "I under- stand why these cops are fucking TERRIFIED right now, but for the life of me, I can't fucking figure out YOUR problem! Being compelled to open your lips and spread your ass for an army of rowdy good 'ol boys is the ultimate NIGHTMARE for these cops...but for you, it should be a WET DREAM! And if you're afraid we're gonna embarrass you sexually, we WON'T, because HOW WILL THAT HELP US GET YOU TO ACCUMULATE MORE CUM FOR US???? And also, I THOUGHT YOU *LIKED* SEXUAL HUMILIATION!!!!" "Robbie, Entanglement slows aging, and over time, it can not only cure cancer, it can also regrow limbs, restore hearing and vision-" Guile tried to jump in, seeing that Lecher was getting a bit too intense for the boy. "You'd never catch or transmit AIDS, or any *other* STD, which means you'd never need to bother with condoms," Lecher interrupted. "You'd be able to rim every asshole in Timbersburg without worrying about getting hepatitus or parasites! You can't even catch CRABS! You'd never become impotent due to either physical or psychological factors! You'd never need to clean yourself out before getting FUCKED.....!" "Huh? Why?" Robbie wanted to know, absently amusing himself by reaching in with his foot and moving Tyler's junk around with his toes while Tyler continued to guzzle Lecher's cum. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Don't you DARE tell him about the creatures!" Guile cautioned. "DUH!" Lecher replied. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "And you'd never dribble OR squirt...YOU'D BLAST, all the way to the fucking ceiling...EVERY TIME!" Lecher kept going, ignoring Robbie's question. "Or, if your partner doesn't want a mouthful or an assful of cum, or if you want to cut the right pocket out of your pants and jack off during class, you can ORDER YOUR BODY TO CUM WITHOUT EJACULATING! And before you even had time to go limp, you could make yourself horny again! The school days would just FLY by." Lecher was NUKING Robbie's reservations and filling the boy's mind with loads of sinful possibilites, but the dullard was now running out of steam, so Guile played his ACE. "If you're Entangled, Robbie, you can reach out to me with your mind, and if I'm strong enough that day, I can "Entwine" with the male minds around you, looking for men and boys who'd be willing to slip away with you to engage in a sleazy hook-up. I could use my illusion-casting abilities to "screen" the two of you from view, and quell the concerns of your 'date', enabling you to suck and fuck in semi-public places!" "Every once in a while, you could even go to school NAKED," Lecher added, referring to one of Caleb Crandal's many ways of tormenting the boys who'd trashed his house on the Fourth of July. Robbie was suddenly distracted by Tyler, who let out a loud belch and a brief laugh before rolling back and going from a kneeling position to lying flat on his back. After laughing a little more, he pulled his knees to his chest, exposing his sloppy, unwiped, vigin asshole to Lecher, who dropped to the ground and buried his face and tongue in Tyler's crack, cleaning him up and making Tyler shriek with joy. Joe Prender and George Klempernick watched Tyler in fearful disgust as he squealed and sqirmed like a child while kicking his feet in the air, unable to control himself in the face of such unbearable pleasure, thanks to his rapidly changing pleasure center. "And best of all, Robbie," Guile spoke up, continuing his Entangle- ment sales pitch, "you'll have LOTS and LOTS of friends, both gay and straight, HOUNDING you to breathe our special fog in their faces, so they can experience the effects of any drug they want to try. And as long as you make them unzip their pants and pay *us*, we'd have no problem if you made them open their wallets and pay *you*." "Don't listen to them," Joe strained to say. "They're trying to damn you even more than you already are!" "A couple of the boys who got killed in Faggot Forest were MY age, but you STILL said you thought there weren't 'ENOUGH murders'," Robbie spat before Guile could shut Joe up. "Don't pretend you CARE ABOUT ME! You fuck- ing HIT ME....called me a FAGGOT.....AND TRIED TO KILL ME! You don't get to act all Christian after THAT! You're not trying to save ME right now, you're trying kiss God's ass so that he comes to save YOU!" Robbie turned towards Mark. "Let's fucking DO THIS!" Robbie yelled, psyching himself up. Mark's face smiled briefly before the plum tendril suddenly dropped out of his nose, leaving Mark looking confused. Guile no longer needed him as a relatively-soothing, flesh and blood reference point to help convince Robbie to agree to Entanglement, so now it was time for Mark to join his 'friends'. Unlike Robbie, they WOULD be slaves. "Hey Marky! Eyes down here! Pay attention!" Lecher ordered Mark, just to let Robbie know that Guile had moved on, in case the boy was too dumb to figure that out from the fact that the plum tendril was no longer up Mark's nose. Robbie knelt down, wanting the best view possible of Tyler getting his cherry popped. When Robbie was situated and comfortable, Lecher raised his shitty muzzle and scootched forward, tapping Tyler's asshole with the tip of his dick. Tyler turned his head towards Robbie. His face was radiating a sort of drunken cheerfulness. "I've never been fucked before," Tyler announced with giddy excite- ment. "I've never even let *girls* fuck me with a STRAP ON! You're gonna stay here and watch him DO me, right?" "Uh...yeah," Robbie confirmed, taken aback by Tyler's sudden *new and better* attitude. "Cool!" Tyler replied, casually linking his fingers behind his head and wearing a bemused smirk on his face. "I'll watch him fuck you, too. Oh, and my parents were planning to go away next month, but I lied and told them I couldn't take care of the dogs. I'll call 'em back and tell them my schedule changed, and I can do it now. I'll take you up to the kennel when they're gone. We can hang out, eat pizza, drink, smoke, fuck, get high, ... ...and you can make me do whatever you want, with and without the dogs." "O-okay!" Robbie agreed, instantly forgetting his anger at Tyler and once again falling in puppy love with him. "Do you want *me* to fuck him, or do *you* want to do it?" Lecher teased. "I want to watch your dick go in up-close!" Robbie demanded, lower- ing his head down to watch Tyler get penetrated for the very first time. "Jesus," Lecher chuckled. "Any closer and I might accidentally grate your eyeballs with my cock veins!" "Okay, NOW!" Robbie excitedly 'directed'. "Yeeeeeeeeaaaaahhhhh," Tyler sighed as Robbie watched Lecher's dick head disappear into Tyler, followed by Lecher's impossibly long shaft. Since the green tendril spray negated the need for a slow build up, and because Guile told Lecher exactly how Robbie wanted things go, Lecher got his hips going and fucked Tyler hardcore right off the bat. "Just like that," Tyler groaned. "No....FASTER!" Robbie insisted. "You're the boss," Lecher smirked, increasing his speed until his haunches were a blur, and Tyler's semi vibrated from all the rapid slapping. "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck," Tyler moaned, enjoying himself so much that even the disgusted stares of his friend, George Klempernick, and his enemies, Joe Prender and Mark Pudroolen, didn't matter to Tyler. After all, Tyler would soon be watching THEM getting fucked up the ass, TOO. "NO....STOP!" George Klempernick barked as the black, beige, and brown tendrils zipped up his ass, plugged his hole and violently liquifying George's shit. "MAKE IT STOP!" "FAGGOT PUSSY!" Robbie taunted and laughed at George's pained expression and his strained neck muscles as he endured the blender-like sensations up his ass. Robbie hadn't just "survived" it, he'd fucking LOVED IT!" "HEY, WARRIOR-LAMB OF REPUBLICAN JESUS!" Lecher hissed, looking up at Joe Prender while continuing to fuck Tyler with superhuman speed and endurance. "Widen your stance and raise your arms!" Joe tried to fight to keep his feet together and his arms locked at his side, but he was exhausted from trying to bash in Lecher's head. "WHAT ARE YOU-?" Joe grunted in response to the silver tendril whipping around him, shaving off his white chest and back hair, along with his pubes, making Joe's crotch smooth like Robbie's...something Robbie didn't care for at ALL. "Lookin' good, 'Sunday Morning Christian'," Lecher harassed, "but you might not want to take off your underwear if you change at work, or you might get the 'Rainbow Tavern treatment' from your buddies." "Shave everybody!" Robbie insisted, not wanting for him and Joe to be the only ones without pubic hair. "Sure thing," Lecher agreed. "HEY MARKY....ASSUME THE POSITION!" Mark Pudroolen squatted unwillingly and scrunched his face as a very important symbol of his heterosexuality was taken from him without his consent. It was another blow to his male ego, which had already been suffering a lot because of Mark's involuntary nakedness and being forced to take the virginity of a thirteen year-old boy. But things would get much, much worse for Mark. After spending a lifetime trying to needlessly convince himself that his childhood indiscretions in Ethan Young's bedroom did NOT mean that Mark was gay, Mark had finally succeeded when he bested Guile in the dreamscape of that very same bedroom. But now, Guile would get the last laugh by MAKING Mark gay (bisexual, actually, but given Mark's fear, it was difficult for him to appreciate the distinction). It wasn't fair, or at least MARK didn't think so, but there was a certain agonized, deafened municipal worker who was standing in a long line, waiting for painkillers and medical treatment, who would've been happy to remind Mark Pudroolen that life isn't always fair. "UGGGHHHHH!" Mark cried out as the brown, black, and beige tendrils flew out of Joe's ass and invaded *his* without the courtesy of being sterilized first. Shouts of "WHAT'S IT DOING!?" followed, making Robbie bust up laughing, especially after Mark let out a squirt of piss that hit George in the knee. Everything was in chaos...naked, sexual chaos....putting Robbie Byrne in heaven. "Yeeeeeaaaahhhhhhhh," Tyler moaned, learning the enjoyment of complete sexual submission to other man's cock, especially when that cock and the walls of your rectum are coated with green tendril spray. "Robbie, I'm about to start cumming!" Lecher warned. "Watch what happens to your back-up fuck toy when my cum starts 'water flossing' his treated insides. Since you get off on humiliation, you'll appreci....fuck, HERE WE GO!" "JESUS CHRIST!!" Tyler screamed at the feeling of Lecher's cum blasting into him, overloading his altered pleasure center and making him react by deliriously whipping his head back and forth while bucking his hips in a frantic effort to un-ass himself from Lecher's cock. He couldn't. Lecher was making his glans expand, giving Tyler a little taste of what it would feel like next month when dogs knotted with him. "IS HE OKAY?" Robbie yelled, legitimately concerned that his new present was being broken before he'd even gotten to play with it...the sick way he WANTED to play with it. "You'll find out in a few minutes, and whenever you're lying in bed, reliving your Entanglement," Guile assuaged, giving Robbie yet another gift...this one designed to KEEP THE BOY FROM BACKING OUT. "Don't forget to urinate and defecate first...and you might want to lie on top of your father, face-up, and have him brace you." "OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! IT'S TOO MUCH! IT'S TOO FUCKING MUCH!" Tyler pleaded as Lecher moved the opening of his prehensile penis all around, so he could pleasure-torture Tyler by hitting every square INCH of Tyler's colon. "You're gonna do THAT to me too, RIGHT?" Robbie demanded in response to Tyler's eyes rolling back in his head and his jaw going slack. "Absolutely," Guile claimed telepathically in his own voice, confusing Robbie briefly, since he was in a state of information overload, and had forgotten that Guile was no longer using Mark as a ventriloquist's dummy. Robbie and the group were momentarily distracted by Joe, who'd collapsed down onto the mat as a result of the black, brown, and beige tendrils shooting up into him. Joe still wasn't able to speak, but the look on his face when the 'Jacuzzi' started was priceless. When Robbie turned away from Joe to watch some more of Tyler's intensely arousing seizure, he noticed that Mark's missing nose tube was now up Tyler's nose. "The trick is to make Officer Whitlock like you without tampering too much with his personality, otherwise I could accidentally make him too clingy, or change something else about him that will make Officer Whitlock less desirable to you," Guile lectured to Robbie, sounding as if he were trying to impress upon Robbie just how much WORK was going into fulfilling Robbie's request, and how GRATEFUL Robbie should be. Just like Guile, Robbie's mother was a martyr, too, so Robbie hadn't needed Guile's anti-manipulation training to figure out what Guile was trying to do. "It will be difficult, but I think I can prevent Tyler from treat- ing you like a child and trying to *mentor* you. If you two are going to be sexually intimate and getting high on Pit Fog together, the last thing you want is for 'Officer Whitlock' to remind you to always look both ways before crossing the street." "Thanks, I appreciate that," Robbie said, even though he didn't. Robbie just wanted Guile to shut up, and offering insincere, solicitied gratitude usually did the trick with his mother. But Robbie's mother wasn't a Guile. "No you don't. I detected obvious sarcasm in your voice, and your use of the word *appreciate* stuck out like a sore thumb, considering your rather limited vocabulary. When you lie, you can't change *anything* about yourself, or people will pick up on it. And never pat yourself on the back for telling a good lie WHILE YOU'RE TELLING IT, or even AFTER YOU'VE TOLD IT. *Only* take pride in a lie AFTER it has successfully done what you wanted it to do," Guile *mentored*. "I'll remember that," Robbie promised with obvious sarcasm in his voice. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Guile, when I'm done Entangling everyone here, what do I do THEN?" "Get them to the feeding area!" Guile snapped impatiently. "But Lumberjack's still inside Lure's mind, acting as Reality Itself's psychic anchor!" Lecher objected. "If Robbie sees that his dad's still in a coma...." "He's not. When I ordered Russell Hawksmore to come here and save your useless ass, I saw that Caboose's creatures seized the initiative and somehow got a few men to wander over and fuck Craig's unconscious body." "Sneaky devils," Lecher chuckled proudly. "From inside Lure's mind, I was able to eject a sufficient amount of Craig's awareness to enable him to wake up and join the party." "How's he doin'?" Lecher giggled. "Most of the men are intimidated by Craig's muscles, so he's not doing NEARLY as well as JAYCE!" Guile growled. "HUH??? But...he's not Entangled...and isn't he *straight*????" Lecher asked before realizing something of EXTREME importance! "OH MY GOD! YOU COMPLETELY FUCKED UP!!!!!!" "I did," Guile admitted. "When Lure was dying, I located a car with two viable males, one of whom had an *impressive* amount of Soul-Creation Energy, so I acted without finishing my scan. If I *had*, I would've found out that Jayce's heterosexuality was based on fear, denial, and force of will, all of which have been temporarily, or perhaps permanently, removed by the effects of our tendrils and Pit Fog." "I'm happy to hear that," Lecher commented honestly, yet sounding sarcastic as always. "Well, allow me to balance the scales by telling you something about Jayce that will make you very UN-happy," Guile offered. "Oh, shit! WHAT?!" "Now that Entanglement has given me greater access to Craig's mind, I was perusing everything that's happened to him since he first encountered us. Apparently, when he was saving Jayce from having his head ripped off by a SHAPE-SHIFTING RACK belonging to a *certain* out of control creature that shall remain nameless..." "No it won't, since it HAS a name," Lecher grumbled. "...Jayce happened to mention to Craig where he went last year to smoke pot and celebrate the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. "WHOA! We gotta ditch him, FAST!" Lecher blurted. "The Overseer told you that Robbie was artificially packed with S.C.E. by Reality Itself, which means that JAYCE probably was, TOO!" "I'm certain of it, since it explains why Jayce and Jaden Harris don't share the same S.C.E. storage capacity," Guile pondered. "No matter. I order you to clean Jayce out, apply a fresh coat of Green Tendril Spray to his rectum, Magenta Spray his mouth and whichever dicks he sucks, put some Ball Sweat up his nose, and assign Baby Blue *exclusively* to him. "Why are we KEEPING Jayce instead of sobering him up and having a few light bubbles lead him back to the road?" Lecher wanted to know. "Jayce was *THERE*!!! And *THERE* is all Lure fucking THINKS ABOUT! Reality Itself has to KNOW THAT!!!" "Jayce didn't vandalize anything and he didn't encourage anyone ELSE to vandalize anything, otherwise Lure would've found out about it when he interrogated the Entangleds," Guile reasoned. "That was a 'GLARING OMISSION', not an answer!" Lecher indicated. "We're keeping Jayce because Reality Itself was listening when I deduced that Jaden Harris was one of his pawns. Therefore, he knows that I checked Jayce, too. If I get rid of Jayce NOW, just before my remote point of view meets with Reality Itself in Lure's mind, it will indicate that no matter what I tell Reality Itself, I'm not playing above board, which I'm NOT," Guile explained. "Besides, I can't think of a *SINGLE* impactful way that Reality Itself could use Jayce against us, can *you*?" The Overseer could've. However, in the previous timeline, Reality Itself hadn't needed to detonate Jayce. In this one.....he would. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Well, there you go, Cop-sucker!" Lecher flourished, simultaneously pulling his plum tendril and his cock out of the Entangled Tyler Whitlock. "Unless you purchase our extended warranty, he and your dad are covered for thirty days. Parts, not labor." "Thanks, I appreciate that," Robbie said to tease Guile. The peach tendril ducked under Lecher's balls and squirted his crotch before retreating. Lecher lathered his junk to wash off Tyler's anal juices before moving on to the next Entangled-To-Be. "Would you like to go next, Robbie?" Guile prodded, ignoring his smart-ass remark. "Um, could I wait until last?" Robbie requested. "I suppose, but the party has already started and Jayce and your father are making WHORES of themselves. And now that Tyler is ready to head over there, and considering that the really MASCULINE men tend to push to the front of lines, I'm afraid that by the time you're FINALLY ready to commit, the only men left will *hardly* meet your personal stand-" "Okay, I'll go next," Robbie agreed, kneeling down in front of Lecher and waiting until the bubbling peach 'soap' finished disappearing into thin air before opening his mouth and engulfing Lecher's cock, earning him an endless stream of cum and filthy remarks from Lecher, and patron- izing praise from Guile. All it took was one swallow before Robbie discovered that he couldn't stop. His journey into the supernatural had begun. But while Guile's Pit Fog and Lecher's cum made Robbie get higher and higher, a quarter mile to the west, someone else had fallen all the way down to... *************************************************************************** Rock Bottom (The Bottom of the Embankment Just Over the Guardrail of the Southbound Lane of the I-147 Bottleneck) *************************************************************************** *Steve Collier was not a superhero.* He hadn't thought so *before* his tumble down the steep embankment, and he sure as shit didn't think so *now*. When Maximus Morgan gave Steve his legs back by turning him into a Thrall, not only could Steve walk again, he could run FAR faster, jump MUCH higher, and kick SIGNIFICANTLY harder than any human! Steve went NUTS with his restored and enhanced mobility, learning gymnastics, parkour, free climbing, tightrope walking, swimming, skin diving, and every other skill that involved taking one's body from point A to point B, regardless of the terrain. Martial arts naturally followed. Before withdrawing from his fellow Tethered Ones, Max Morgan traveled the world with Steve, and since sucking cock and getting fucked didn't eat up too much of the day, Steve was able to seek out those who possessed the skills he wanted to learn. Steve would sign up, pay his fees, buy yet another Gi, and walk into the training area after instructing Lecher to reduce his strength and speed to human levels. Many were the masters who delighted in practicing their deadly arts on a student who wore no pads, yet could not be broken. They would spend months or years, however long it took, sending Steve's body flying though the air or smashing straight down onto the floor....until they couldn't, at which point Steve would move on. Although there were no Thrall martial arts experts to learn from, Steve Collier's Thrall Master was, or so he thought, the de facto leader of the Tethered Ones, which enabled Maximus to acquire the combat-related and skill-related Guile and Lecher Archives from *most* of his people. Once the Steve-Guile and Steve-Lecher finished digesting those Archives, THEY became Steve's 'masters' for a time, teaching Steve the traditional way, since Guiles were wisely designed to be unable to tamper with a Lure's mind. As the decades passed, Steve's capricious and knowledge-addicted mind pushed him into military training, spycraft, linguistics, and psychology, .........with an emphasis on FUCKING RESISTING INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES!!!!!!!!! *Steve Collier was not a superhero.* The Caleb Crandal-Guile mistakenly assumed that the reason Ladislav Kaschak left the osmium sphere behind was "because Master Morgan *gave* as good as he *got*, and Master Kaschak's Fingernail was too damaged" to destroy it. Guile was wrong. When Ladislav Kaschak ambushed Maximus Morgan to get his hands on the Thrall Overseer, Kaschak BEAT THE EVER-LOVIN' SHIT out of Maximus Morgan, so much so that by the time Kaschak had Morgan successfully sealed up in the osmium sphere, Morgan's Fingernail was heavily damaged and leaking S.C.E. In other words, Morgan was Untethering, and mere minutes away from plummeting into the Gash, taking the secret location of the Overseer to his grave. Thinking fast, Kaschak feigned weakness and allowed Morgan to break free. Morgan emerged to find Kaschack's Fingernail in the throes of an *apparent* catastrophic systems failure, randomly discharging lethal bolts of energy as Kaschak *seemed* to be hopelessly fighting to stabilize his avatar and regain control. After a cry of frustration, Kaschak gave Morgan a hateful glare and used his matter/energy powers to yank his "malfunction- ing" Fingernail into the sky...and apparently, "far away". The performance was an insult to the intelligence of the being who'd created the Fingernails to begin with, and an obvious attempt to convince Morgan that Ladislav Kaschak was gone, and that it was therefore safe for Morgan to go retrieve or destroy his gestating Thrall Overseer as soon as he'd stabilized his Fingernail. Maximus Morgan fled home and activated his compound's security system, which had sufficient firepower to ANNIHILATE, or even UNTETHER any- one stupid enough to approach. Once secured, Maximus Morgan dealt with his *own* ACTUAL catastrophic systems failure, and warned his Thralls to stay away, knowing FULL WELL that in spite of his pathetic ruse, Ladislav Kaschak was COMPLETELY UNDAMAGED, and concealed just outside the compound's perimeter, waiting to kill them in order to cut off Morgan's supply of Soul-Creation Energy. A superhero would've come back to the compound and fought Kaschak, even though it would mean sacrificing his life, but.... *Steve Collier was not a superhero* ...so Ryan Klein ended up trying to do it, instead, only to be talked down by two Guiles, two Lechers, and a Lure who was not a superhero. And when Maximus Morgan contacted his devoted servants at Dugan's Vroom Room to let them know that in spite of his best efforts, he was Untethering, a super- hero would've sprang into action, collected as much S.C.E. as possible, and made a suicide run back to the compound. But since..... *Steve Collier was not a superhero.* ...Ryan Klein made the call, and convinced Steve to disobey Coach Morgan's direct order to stay away. After collecting as much semen as the ticking clock would allow, Steve and Ryan ordered their Pilot Fish, Thunderbug and Touchdown, respectively, to process the S.C.E. as quickly as possible. In the mean- time, the boys made a beeline for the compound. They *were* going to borrow a pair of bikes from the bar, or just screen themselves and run at top speed (around 77-81mph) on the road, but the Guiles warned against it. The roads in the region were not just winding, they were undulating, which would've severely limited the Thralls' progress. Worse still, they meandered, adding unnecessary milage. Ryan and Steve tore through endless forests, navigating via mental maps created by the Guiles. Silver tendrils ripped through brush, and Thrall feet were shape-shifted into claw-filled nightmares, enabling rapid transit across loose earth. Superhuman jumps sent the boys sailing over creeks and rivers alike, except for the Norriad Dam Spillway, which required Steve and Ryan to send most of their gravity to Thunderbug and Touchdown, reducing their body weights to ten pounds apiece. *************************************************************************** The Night of March 1st., Hours After the Attack on Coach Morgan. *************************************************************************** "Ryan, STOP!" Steve shouted when they were both about a mile away from the compound. "WHAT?!?!" Ryan yelled. "WE'RE ALMOST *THERE*!!!" "RYAN-LECHER, I ORDER YOU TO STOP HIM!" Steve commanded, asserting his authority as Maximus Morgan's Thrall-Leader. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Ryan cried out apoplectically while his Lecher took control mid-stride and brought Ryan to a completely stop. "HE'S GONNA DIE IF-" "Ryan-Lecher, give me all the S.C.E. you have!" Steve commanded. Gold tendrils slid out of both boys and touched, transferring all the S.C.E. that Touchdown had managed to processa at that point. Once completed, Steve took off running toward the compound. "WHY???" Ryan screamed indignantly into Steve's mind, using his Guile to establish telepathic contact. "Because you and Coach Morgan are probably right," Steve explained. Kaschak's not hurt...he's FINE, and he's nearby, watching to see if the Coach leads him to the Overseer, or has us bring the Overseer to him." "THEN YOU'LL NEED ME TO RUN INTERFERENCE!" Ryan raged. "No they won't," the Ryan-Guile contradicted. "Kaschak needs Coach Morgan *alive*, so he'll *most likely* let the Steve-Thrall pass in order to save him. But if they DO manage to save Coach Morgan, Kaschak won't want him to get any MORE S.C.E., so he'll KILL the Steve-Thrall as soon as they set FOOT off of the compound. Instead of 'sweating' Coach Morgan in an osmium sphere, Kaschak will sweat him in Coach Morgan's own compound, and the Steve-Thrall will be trapped along with him." "HOW WILL WE FEED THE COACH'S FINGERNAIL *THEN*?!?!" Ryan demanded to know, emotion seizing him once again on that horrible, horrible day. "After Coach Morgan is saved, Ryan, that will become HIS problem," the Steve-Guile interjected. "And contrary to what you strong-armed Steve into forcing us to do at that bar, we DO still follow MASTER Morgan's lead." "Oh Christ, this sucks," Ryan bawled, too upset to address the Steve-Guile's reprimand. "I should go too, in case Kaschak DOESN'T let Steve in....and fucking KILLS HIM INSTEAD!" "You would BOTH die, and then Master Morgan would have NO options!" the Steve-Guile snapped. "And the SECOND that Kaschak saw you and realized what you are, he woule know you *exist*, and he would psychically MARK YOU ON THE SPOT! He'd be able to track you...find you anywhere you went!" "Wait.....Kaschak doesn't know that my Thrall *exists*?" the Ryan- Guile jumped in. "Why not?" "Because on the night Ryan was made Thrall, I warned Coach Morgan that his people were plotting against him, and suggested he take certain precautions, like keeping your Thrall a secret, which means that all of you, AND RYAN'S FAMILY, are still safe," the Steve-Guile revealed, "unless, of course, your Lure decides that he's not done being an IMPULSIVE, PETULANT LITTLE BITCH, and tries to get you all killed FOR THE SECOND TIME TODAY!" "Or unless Ladislav bothered to do any reconnaissance before carry- ing out this sneak attack," the Steve-Lecher contributed. "We're here!" Steve announced, exploding out of the woods and racing towards the lights of the compound, wondering if he would live long enough to reach it. "Is HE there?!" the Ryan-Guile demanded to know, frustrated by not being able to send a SINGLE remote viewpoint to the compound, for fear that it might end up being tracked back to Ryan. Although none of the three members of the Ryan-Thrall were capable of holding their breath, they all did, each in their own way. "Yes, he is here." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The ghost of a boy in a wheelchair rolled up to the gaunt god in a black leather trench coat. "If you kill my Lure, Master Morgan will die as well," the Steve- Guile informed him, knowing full well that he would not be deemed worthy of a response. The god's eyes tracked the running naked boy all the way from the forest to the security perimeter. "Steve's inside," the Steve-Guile informed the Ryan-Thrall, to their great relief. "Maintain telepathic silence." Once the door to the main building slammed shut, the god's eyes shifted straight ahead. Inside the building, 99 percent of the Steve-Guile was working feverishly to help his Master to save himself. But outside, a tiny piece of a tiny piece of nothing decided that he was exactly where he needed to be. "I once made the mistake of speaking above my station," the Steve- Guile informed the god while wondering if the god was listening, or if he was tuning him out. "Master Morgan accused me of thinking that a brain the size of a baseball is superior to a brain 400 miles across. I don't. I honestly don't even believe that I have the capacity to determine *just how* meaningless I am to an entity such as him....and you." The god stared ahead without saying anything, thus answering the Steve-Guile's question. "I also cannot fathom how a being who once traveled between stars, graciously bestowing miraculous technologies upon the needy inhabitants of struggling worlds, could ever do what you have done today." The eyes of the god looked down at the ghost of a boy in a wheel- chair. "And I don't understand why someone with a reputation for being a master strategist would be so certain of an off-the-cuff, on-the-fly, Hail Mary play that he would jeopardize his people by leaving behind proof your kind's existence, just to lend it credence." The eyes of the god narrowed menacingly. "Did you HONESTLY think it would WORK?" the Steve-Guile continued, pushing his luck to an incomprehensible degree, as he tended to do. "Master Morgan DESIGNED and BUILT that body you THANKLESSLY use to keep yourself alive. Do you think he wouldn't KNOW that he hadn't inflicted enough damage on it to cause a systems failure? He's not like YOU, someone who miscalcu- lated Master Morgan's injuries and remaining S.C.E. levels so badly that you honestly believed that he'd be leading you straight to the Overseer by now...instead of fighting for his life." The god squatted down, so he could be at eye level with the ghost of a boy in a wheelchair. "But if you choose not to answer any of *those* questions, would you at least answer THIS one?" the Steve-Guile 'petitioned' the god while leaning forward in his wheelchair. "As you stand there with NOTHING to show for your cowardly act except an internet full with pictures of the army transporting a "spherical object of unknown origin" away from the devasta- tion at Malawny Hollow on the back of a flatbed truck, bringing your people ever closer to being exposed, can you offer me a SINGLE reason why a group of beings with 400 mile brains should choose the likes of YOU to lead them?" The god opened his mouth and lowered himself to speak to the ghost of a boy in a wheelchair. "Tell me, brave little Guile who speaks far above his station, can a Guile ever *truly* be crippled?" Ladislav Kaschak inquired, eight months before creating the most handicapped Guile of all. The Steve-Guile had the perfect response, but it evaporated from his mind the instant he saw Kaschak reach into the front right pocket of his trench coat and pull out a small black box, roughly the size of a deck of cards. The god smiled, and the ghost of a boy in a wheelchair stared at the box while trying in vain to feign composure. "Sir, Kaschak is showing my remote p.o.v. a box with a switch on it!" one of the Steve-Guiles tending to Maximus Morgan inside the compound blurted to the charred, cracked, and barely functional husk lying on the table in front of him. "I believe I offended him, and he intends to use it to hurt-" "CONSOLIDATE...NOW!" Coach Morgan screamed telepathically with all his might, but his damaged Fingernail could only transmit the tiniest bit of the titanic god's psychic power, so the command was received merely as a whisper. "RYAN-THRALL, JUMP THE SPILLWAY AND WAIT!" "Consolidating no-OWWWWWWWW!!!!!!" Guile screamed as his lingering presence was suddenly ripped out of the mind of Angelo Consiggieri, forcing Guile to endure the pain of an improperly performed psychic disconnection in order to avoid SHREDDING ANGELO'S MIND. If Steve had had more than just one Entangled, they would've all died. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME?!" Ryan screamed as his body turned and fled at top speed against his will. "Kaschak has surrounded the compound in a field that prevents any incoming or outgoing telepathic transmissions," the Ryan-Guile explained while the Ryan-Lecher ran towards the spillway, retracing their path at full speed. "WE CAN'T JUST LEAVE THEM TRAPPED IN THERE!" Ryan shouted incredulously. "We're not. Just before the field went up, Coach Morgan ordered us to retreat back to the spillway, jump to the other side, and WAIT!" the Ryan-Guile reported. "I DON'T NEED LECHER TO RUN FOR ME!" Ryan snarled. "GIVE ME BACK CONTROL OF MY BODY!" "No, the Steve-Guile was right," the Ryan-Guile flatly refused. "You've been an irrational hothead ever since we learned about the attack. You disobeyed Coach Morgan, and unilaterally decided to throw all of our lives away by seeking HOPELESS revenge against Kaschak, and then you pressured Steve into ordering the rest of us to arrange that gang rape scenario. We don't function like a typical Thrall, Ryan. I'M in charge, not you, and I'm not ordering Lecher to release control of your body until we are EXACTLY where Coach Morgan TOLD US TO GO!" "But I *SAVED* him!" Ryan defended. "You all were just going to let him DIE!" "Yes, just as he TOLD US TO DO!" the Ryan-Guile snapped before softening, slightly. "Ryan, on the night you were made Thrall, MASTER Morgan and the Steve-Guile had a VERY unpleasant conversation, after which Coach Morgan became an ENTIRELY different person. Before then, if you would've defied him TWICE IN ONE DAY, regardess of the circumstances and your self-justifications, you'd no longer look like Lecher, you'd be back to looking like *ME*, with that tumor reinstalled in your head." "I did what I had to do," Ryan stated with solemnity. "I can live with the consequences." "That's good to hear, since one of those consequences is named Officer Jennie Price, and she's at your house, standing in the foyer with your parents, informing them that someone reported that their son was allegedly the victim of a horrific gang rape at Dugan's Vroom Room," Guile revealed. "BUT EVERYONE THERE FUCKED US!" Ryan yelled, trying to debate reality into submission by using his inability to see beyond his personal logic. "WHY WOULD HE CALL THE POLICE TO CONFESS???" "Because according to Officer Price, he was concerned about you possibly ending your life, or perhaps dying of a rectal perforation. In your haste to save Coach Morgan, it would seem that you forced a good man to do a very bad thing." "What the fuck's a 'good man' doing drinking at Dugan's?" Lecher chuckled. "FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK!!!" Ryan screamed into the cold, late winter night, scaring two barred owls into taking flight. "SHIT! WHAT DO WE DO?!" "While I'm pleased that you're finally including Lecher and myself in your decision-making, I can't help but notice that you're only doing it to get us to help you escape those 'consequences' you just said you were willing to live with," Guile sighed. "Don't worry, we're already taking care of everything, and all YOU need to do is enjoy the passing scenery as Lecher sprints us to the spillway and jumps across, taking us to our destination, at which point YOUR control over OUR body will be restored, and WE will WAIT, as we were instructed to do, for *whatever* it is that we are supposed to wait FOR.......preferably without another of your melt- downs, or rather, tantrums." "When YOU finally hop off of your high horse, are WE gonna be able to survive the fall?" Ryan snapped. "As long as we don't try to base jump off of your ego, we should be just fine, quarterback," Lecher snarked. "because I'm pretty sure we can't survive an ORBITAL PLUNGE!" "You underestimate the size of our Lure's ego," Guile corrected. "We wouldn't fall, we would float off into space. Our Thrall body would be able to handle the cold and radiation, but I fear after a few days, Touch- down's air storage bladder would run out, leading to us dying of-" "SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT MY PARENTS AND THAT COP?" Ryan growled, desiring an IMMEDIATE subject change. "When the gang rape started, the Steve-Guile contacted the Steve- Thrall's sole Entangled, Angelo Consiggieri, and asked to borrow his body for a while. Angelo agreed, and the Steve-Guile and Lecher drove him over to your house. With an Entangled on the scene, the Steve-Guile was able to use the tiny amount of himself within Angelo to throw up a screen, link up with me, and then allow me to explain the situation to Jeremy and Kendra." "I liked it better when you called them Mr. and Mrs. Klein," Ryan bitched. "It's not our fault they like us better than you," Lecher needled, playing on one of Ryan's not-so-secret insecurities, which in and of itself was a ridiculous notion, considering that Jeremy and Kendra Klein FULLY supported Ryan's "chosen lifestyle", a lifestyle that they BEGGED their dying son to adopt, in spite of his initial revulsion and fear, in order for him not to die...and leave them forever. "So when Officer Price showed up," the Ryan-Guile soldiered on, "it was an easy matter to screen Angelo to look and sound like *you*, and have him deny being at Dugan's. It was perfect, since even if you'd had your car with you, you wouldn't have had time to drive all the way back home from Dugan's." "So it's all cleared up?" Ryan asked. "Well, MISTER AND MISSUS KLEIN aren't exactly *happy*, and the ruse almost fell apart when Kaschak activated his telepathy jammer and nearly caused Angelo to experience MIND DEATH when the Steve-Guile was ripped out of him, but since I was linked up with the Steve-Guile at the time, I was able to take his place inside of Angelo and continue the charade instead of getting snapped back into our Thrall body. Angelo is now OUR Entangled, by the way, which will be nice, since WE haven't been able to find any suit- able candidates. By the way, Lecher, we have to take Angelo to the gym every day at 5am. I'm looking forward to it." "Me too," Lecher said honestly, "I hope tomorrow is leg day!" "If Coach wants us to stay at the spillway, instead of having us go feed or go home, we're probably supposed to meet someone there," Ryan speculated. "Maybe some of the other Tethered Ones, or a couple of their Thralls?" "Guile doesn't want to be the one to tell you this, since he's in charge of your psychological health," the Ryan-Lecher grumbled, "but Coach Morgan asked for their help, and none of those useless assholes want to get involved in Coach Morgan and Ladislav Kaschak's 'personal dispute'." "'PERSONAL DISPUTE'?!" Ryan freaked. "It was a fucking AMBUSH!" "Ryan, I think they know that," Guile soothed. "They most likely don't want to get involved for fear of siding with the eventual loser." "Oh, I think those fuckers have already made their....CHOICE!" the Ryan-Lecher yelled, saying the word "choice" at the exact moment his right foot reached the concrete edge of the spillway and he propelled himself high into the air and allowed his forward momentum to carry him across the water. *THUD!* "Well, we're here!" Ryan pouted upon landing, reclaiming both his body and the gravitation that Lecher had shunted to Touchdown in order to make the unbelievable jump. "Now what?" "Well, I guess we could just.....I dunno.....WAIT, like we're supposed to.....or like......something," Guile snarked, angrily reminding himself that along with fiery sexual passion, Thralls were also consumed by the UN-desirable aspects of youth, such as mood swings and impatience." Ryan scanned his surroundings. The area around the spillway was devoid of any trees or bushes, enabling the Thrall's night vision to determine that if they were supposed to wait for someone, that person would not be arriving for quite a long FUCKING time. "A Mil-lion Bottles of Beer on the Wall, A Mil-lion Bottles of BEEE EEEEEER!" Lecher sang unhelpfully. "You can either stop singing, Lecher, or I can make you *incapable* of speak...RYAN! BEHIND US!" Ryan spun around. "What the....what the fuck?" Ryan chuckled at the figure standing a few yards away. The guy was dressed all in black, with yellow brass armor covering his arms, lower legs, and sternum. He wore a mask of the same material. "I don't like this," Lecher snarled. "I can't read his biology at all. Guile, does that...creep have a mind?" "None that I can detect!" Guile said with alarm. "I don't even know if he's really standing there." "Hey...what's that pink, cloudy shit in your eye holes?" Ryan inquired rudely. The figure's lips, which were the same color and shine as his armor, curled into a smile. Gradually, his mouth opened enough to demon- strate that the "pink, cloudy shit" also filled his mouth. The ghost of an emaciated boy in a light blue tank top and a pair of black athletic shorts stepped out of Ryan's body, as did a massive phantom duplicate of Ryan. The figure's head turned and tracked Guile and Lecher as they proceeded to attempt to flank him. "Can you hear me, Creep?" Lecher hissed. The Creep nodded. "Lecher, please let ME handle questioning-" Guile started to say. "ARE YOU WITH KASCHAK?!" Ryan yelled. The Creep nodded again. Having established himself as an acceptable target for the rage and frustration of the strongest human who ever walked the Earth, Ryan Klein charged at The Creep, determined to sack the SHIT out of him. At the last second, The Creep turned sideways, taking the consider- able impact with his right pauldron. Ryan Klein grunted in surprise as every bit of his forward momentum became backward momentum, sending Ryan on a return flight across the spillway. "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" the Ryan-Lecher screamed at The Creep, who smiled in satisfaction at the sound of Ryan's naked body splashing into the raging waters and getting swept down the spillway. "To cool off our hothead," The Creep replied, sounding exactly like Steve....or in THIS case, Steve-Lecher. Ryan-Guile could now sense Steve's mind, and Ryan-Lecher could read his biology. It was definitely Steve-Thrall under the stretchy fabric and metal armor. "STEVE-THRALL??? WHAT THE FUCK'S GOING ON???" the Ryan-Lecher demanded to know. *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** "Fucking technology!" the Caleb-Lecher had grumbled, "I wish the Masters would get their shit together and give us a few abilities to counter it before gadgets and gizmos make hunting impossible! I mean, they haven't gathered since WWI, for Christ's sake! We're all due for *major* upgrades!" *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** "FUCKING POWER UPGRADES FOR EVERYONE!!!!" the Steve-Lecher hollered triumphantly as he raised his arm and fired the *LILAC-COLORED TENDRIL* out of his right gauntlet, aiming at Ryan's quickly departing form. "LILAC???" the Ryan-Guile screeched in wonder. "That was just a PLACE-HOLDER tendril! What did Master Morgan turn it into? WHAT DOES IT DO?" The Creep pointed straight up. Hundreds of feet above them, Ryan Klein appeared out of thin air.....and started to fall. "Our Master is truly astonishing," the Ryan-Guile gasped. "WATCH THIS!" the Steve-Lecher cried out happily, the happiest he'd been all day, as the lilac-tendril finished retracting after touching Ryan in the water. The Creep raised his arm and fired the tendril once again, snagging the plummeting Ryan-Thrall by the ankle. Ryan suddenly stopped falling....and just hung there, seventy feet in the air, resisting both the force of gravity and the early March winds that were trying to blow him back towards the compound. "Christ, keeping him there is burning up Spacial Distortion Energy like a sonuvabitch," the Steve-Lecher commented. "Thunderbug's almost out!" "Painless though the fall would be for our Thrall, do you SERIOUSLY want to wound Ryan's pride even further?" the Ryan-Guile advised. "We have a looooooong evening ahead of us, and Ryan's mood is already intolerable." "Point taken," the Steve-Guile agreed. Ryan Klein suddenly appeared in front of the Steve-Thrall. He'd been righted in transit, and his Thrall equilibrum enabled him to instantly get his balance. Seeing his enemy standing right in front of him, Ryan's fist shot out and slammed into The Creep's unarmored jaw. As hasty as it was, it was a really good punch. The Ryan-Lecher had to admire Ryan's perfect hip-snap and follow-through. If Steve were still human, his head would've been ripped from his neck and sailed, appropriately enough, the length of a football field. As it was, The Creep's body began to corkscrew as it was lifted off the ground and propelled backward............only to teleport directly behind Ryan. Steve's shoulder impacted against Ryan's upper back, becoming the transfer point for every bit of kinetic force that Ryan had put into Steve's jaw. Ryan flew forward almost thirty feet before hitting the ground and rolling and flopping as if someone had pushed him off of a speeding train. It was suprisingly graceless for someone who possessed a supernatural level of grace. Steve's future tumble down the embankment beside the southbound lane of the I-147 Bottleneck would be far more acrobatic...and far more soul-crushing. Ryan came to a stop, got to his feet, and started sprinting back towards The Creep, who, as far as Ryan knew, was a Thrall of Kaschak. "Wrong, it's Steve," Ryan's Guile informed him telepathically, stopping Ryan dead in his tracks. "THAT'S STEVE?!?! WHY'S HE ATTACKING ME?! AND HOW IS HE-" Before Ryan could complete his thought, Steve's lilac tendril lept out of the dark, wrapped around his ankle once more, and teleported him back to the rest of the group. "-told him it wasn't *you*," Ryan heard "The Creep" explain to the pissed off ghost of Steve Collier, who was now outside of his body, instead of being trapped inside it while his Guile and Lecher fought Ryan. "YOU FUCKING KICKED ME OUT OF MY BODY AND TALKED TO COACH MORGAN IN HYPER-TIME SO I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND A FUCKING THING!" Steve screamed, his anger snuffing Ryan's anger. Steve *never* lost his temper, and he hardly ever swore. "We were working desperately to save Coach Morgan," the boy in the wheelchair consoled. "We HAD to take control of you and communicate with Coach Morgan in Hyper-time. We almost LOST him, but we FINALLY managed to stabilize his condition, and..." "AND THEN YOU STICK ME IN THIS STUPID OUTFIT AND...AND WE'RE IN DIFFERENT PLACES....AND THEN WE'RE *HERE*....AND INSTEAD OF ANSWERING ME, YOU ATTACK RYAN-" "The suit ain't 'stupid', it's COOL!" the Steve-Lecher opined, interrupting at the worst time. "You look like a superhero!" "NO I DON'T!" Steve disputed contemptuously, his metal-covered lips twisting into an open-mouthed sneer that looked utterly bizarre due to the cloudy pink energy effect that formed whenever Steve's lips parted. "STOP MAKING FUN OF ME! YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN ON RYAN AND ME EVER SINCE THE BAR, CRITICIZING US AND TEARING US DOWN-" "I wasn't tearing you down," the Steve-Lecher said sadly, sounding hurt, "I *like* the costume, and I really DO think you look like a super- hero." "IT'S NOT A FUCKING COSTUME, AND I'M **NOT** A FUCKING SUPERHERO!!" Steve screamed. *Steve Collier was NOT a superhero.* "ENOUGH!" the voice of Maximus Morgan announced. All yelling and bickering stopped at the sight of a screened image of Coach Morgan. He looked awful, and it wasn't an easy thing to see. Most of his flesh was missing, and what remained was charred and blistered. Since the Coach's muscles were non-existent, just an illusion created by his artificial skin, Maximus Morgan's baffling innards, constructed of atomic-level technology, were visible. They periodically emitted flashes of multi-colored light, which would've been pretty but for the fact that the flashes were the equivalent of sparks showering from a broken down machine. Since the Steve-Thrall had already seen the Coach's condition, their silence was strictly due to respect, but the Ryan-Thrall was in a state of absolute shock at the obliterated appearance of a man who Ryan thought of as a godlike being, and Guile and Lecher thought of as THEIR GOD! "It *isn't* a superhero costume, Steve, it's camouflage. Kaschak MARKED you on your way into the compound, but as long as you're wearing that, his Fingernail won't be able to detect you, unless you get within a hundred feet of him. This means that your Guile can teleport you in and out of the compound, and Kaschak won't know how my Fingernail is receiving S.C.E. infusions to keep me from Untethering. Ryan, from now on, you hand off your haul of S.C.E. to Steve, and he'll get it to me. And until further notice, you STAY AWAY FROM THE COMPOUND! And THAT is an order I expect you to OBEY!" "If you're mad about me saving you, I can't apologize for that," Ryan stated defiantly. The ruins of the great man shook his head sadly. "I worked through my anger while I had the Steve-Guile and Lecher use you as a tackling dummy so's I could run a few sloppy tests on the powers you boys weren't supposed to get for another couple of weeks," Coach Morgan grumbled. "Besides, considering how bad you've FUCKED YOURSELF, I'm having a tough time staying mad at you." "But...the Guiles straightened things out with the cops-" "I'm not talking about the cops, Ryan, I'm talking about Kaschak," Coach Morgan interrupted. "If he finds out that the quarterback of MY high school football team was gang-raped just before my only *known* Thrall made a suicide run into my compound, Kaschak's going to figure out that Steve isn't my only Thrall. Kaschak will find and kill you to cut off my supply of Soul-Creation Energy. And if he can't find you, he's going to go after your parents to draw you out." "Uh.....okay," Ryan said, just to say SOMETHING while he stood there and processed that fact that he HAD fucked himself. "I'll....uh.... figure something out." "I hope so," Maximus stated ominously, "because in the situation I'm in, there's NOTHING I can do to protect them. Your father and I have been making calls, reaching out to the mayor, the chief of police, the publisher of the Timbersburg Times, and former mayor Raymond Crandal. *************************************************************************** "Dugan, I'm off-duty, I'm not here in an official capacity, no one's pressing charges, and as far as I can tell, every elected official is *screaming* for this to GO AWAY," Officer Tracy Rogers would tell Dugan two days later. *************************************************************************** I'm hopeful that we can tamp down the story, but Ryan, this is a gossipy town, and you just handed them the JUICIEST piece of red meat. Fortunately, though, Kaschak probably won't hear any of those rumors since he doesn't have much to do with humans. Neither do *I*, quite frankly, but unlike Kaschak, I *DO* have friends...one in particular is the wife of Principal Kemmler, and she's the gossip QUEEN of Timbersburg. She's gonna help us nip this thing in the bud". "Calling 'Death Ray' was a masterstroke," the Steve-Lecher snarked. "If anyone can help us cover-up a scandal..." "Yeah, but this ain't exactly as easy as assassinating his son's unborn child to save the Crandal family fortune from a gold digging, under- aged whore and her conniving parents," the Ryan-Lecher 'contributed'. "Sir, how are you transmitting a telepathic signal through Kaschak's telepathic jamming field?" the Ryan-Guile said pointedly to let the Lechers know to STAY ON TOPIC! "I'm not, I'm broadcasting Screen Code to Steve's outfit, using microwaves, radio waves, x-rays, and neutrinos," Maximus Morgan informed the group, sounding proud. "Steve-Guile is reading the code and screening me into existence, and the suit is recording you all and sending back the feed to me." "I know that the physics in your realm are drastically different, but your people are technological GODS," the Ryan-Guile noted with confusion. "Surely after these hundreds of years, Ladislav Kaschak has learned enough about the Earth dimension's physics to detect and decode those signals." "Just to correct you, Ryan-Guile, in OUR dimension we ARE technological gods, but in THAT dimension...YOUR dimension...with its fucked-up physics and our inability to channel much of our matter/energy powers through our Fingernails, every one of the Tethereds except *ME* didn't see the point of relearning EVERY aspect of science from the ground up, particularly since once they reached Earth's present level of technol- ogy, it's not as if they could fly away to a different solar system over there and look for a more advanced culture to learn from. My people are all about acquiring and distributing knowledge, not adding to it. Trust me, Kaschak won't figure out how I'm communicating with Steve's suit. Hope- fully, he'll never even discover that there IS a suit, or that Steve isn't still trapped in here with me." "That telepathy jamming field seems pretty hi-tech to me," Steve- Lecher opined. "No it ain't," Maximus contradicted. "Telepathy is one of the few things that works exactly the same on *both* sides of the dimensional barrer, and telepathy blockers have been around for millennia. All Kaschak had to do was translate the technology for use on Earth. I could do it in a few months, but it probably took HIM over a decade, which means that he saw this day coming. But thanks to Steve-Guile, so did I." "You are very welcome, Sir," the boy in the wheelchair replied graciously, so as not to irritate his Master by dwelling on the praise being bestowed upon him." "And Steve? I do appreciate you and Ryan saving my life, even if you both disobeyed me to do it. The idea of falling into the Gash, like so many others of my kind, scares me...a lot...and thanks to you boys, I won't have to, for now. However, it's important to me that you know.....I never, EVER would've ordered you to run into the compound, past Kaschak, but I'm real glad you did. I never expected him to just show up and ATTACK me like a COWARD, so all of my preparations would've been meaningless if you hadn't done what you did." "Steve was just doing what superheroes DO," the Steve-Lecher explained. "I'm not a superhero," Steve snarled through gritted teeth. "Will WE be receiving a teleport suit as well?" Ryan-Guile wanted to know. Morgan smiled with his shredded lips. "Good, you mistakenly thought Steve's teleportation is tied into the suit. It's not, but that's what I *want* Kaschak to think if he ever manages to catch the Steve-Thrall teleporting in or out of the compound." "Why?" the ghost of a boy in the wheelchair inquired before Ryan- Guile could. *************************************************************************** "I would *RESPECTFULLY* and *HUMBLY* suggest that the king make preparations to defend himself against his own people, in BOTH dimensions." *************************************************************************** "I have a damned good reason, and I don't want you to know it, in case Kaschak ever manages to get inside any of you guys' brain-sections." "I must '*RESPECTFULLY* and *HUMBLY*' tell you that I suspect it has something to do with our first 'honest' conversation about your people," Steve-Guile admitted. "It does," Maximus Morgan confirmed, "which is why you will NEVER teleport if I inform you that I can't sense Kaschak at the compound, and you will always relay my 'Kaschak status updates' to Ryan-Guile so that HE never accidentally teleports in front of Kaschak...ever!" "I promise to do so," the Steve-Guile vowed, gladdened and relieved that his Master had taken his advice, but fearful that whatever the rest of his secret preparations were, they would be inadequate." "And you Guiles should be constantly scanning for Thralls, so YOUR Thrall can be ready to defend yourselves at an instance's notice, and not do something fucking STUPID, like getting caught totally unawares at Malawny GAWDDAMNED Hollow. Lechers: ALWAYS be on the lookout for people tailing your Thrall, of BOTH genders, and let your Guile know. Guiles: BE VIGILANT about Entwining will ALL males in your vicinity. If you can't Entwine with someone, or if you CAN, and you see that their impure motiva- tions are *murderous* instead of *sleazy*, get the hell out of there, fast, in case more Thralls are on their way! ANY Thrall-aged boy with a German accent should be presumed to BE a Thrall, whether they ARE or NOT. And DO NOT let a potential or proven Thrall see you teleport! I'm giving you both TRUE invisibility. Activate it, and try to get out of their line of sight before you teleport. That'll make them question what they saw, or better said, what they *didn't* see." "Yes, Sir," the six voices of the two boys said in unison before the Ryan-Guile piped up. "Not counting sight, I couldn't detect the Steve-Thrall at all, Sir," Ryan-Guile pointed out. "Should we count on Kaschak's Thralls having similar camouflage tech?" "Doubtful, since it's not simply acquired technology from the other side of the dimensional veil that's been translated to work HERE," Coach Morgan ranted proudly. "I had to research, design, and build it, using my own personal advancements to Earth's technology. After centuries of being precariously confined exactly 1 astronomical unit away from certain DEATH, I'm the only Tethered with enough hope and ambition left to take an interest in developing Earth's caveman science and taking it to the next level." "But, Kaschak certainly doesn't lack for ambition, Mast-...Sir," Ryan-Guile pointed out respectfully. "What does HE do during HIS confine- ment?" "Fail....over and over....trying to use super-science to get around the galactic armada that has us trapped here," Coach Morgan explained before his screened image suddenly turned towards Ryan. "And if he EVER figures out how to do THAT, you and the rest of the Fightin' Woodpeckers will be practicing that play on the field until even YOU pass out! I want to be the first coach in history to take a high school football team all the way to the motherfucking SUPER BOWL!" In spite of the extensive damage to the "grappling hook" that was the only thing keeping the ancient god from falling to his terrifying end, Maximus Morgan was able to momentarily look past the doom and gloom, and chuckle at his own joke. "If Kaschak or any of his Thralls catch up with either one of you, teleportation is a *last resort*," Coach Morgan instructed before snapping his fingers at the Steve-Guile and Lecher and motioning towards Ryan to let them know that it was time for them to share the Guile and Lecher Archive Updates they'd received back at the compound." "Oh MY," Ryan-Guile gasped at the knowledge flooding his brain- section. "You'd better believe it! That power update was one HELL of a lot of work," Coach Morgan snarled. "And fortunately, I don't need to use Pilot Fish nano-creatures to perform surgery on you boys. All of your NEW powers are just modifications of your pre-existing powers." "Sir, there is no information here about how the lilac tendril works," Ryan-Guile pointed out. It teleports things on contact, but it also kept Ryan suspended in the air by negating all vector forces acting upon him. And according to this file, the tendril can be used to impart kinetic energy to an object at rest, or increase or diminish the kinetic energy of an object already in motion." "I don't want you to know ANYTHING about the lilac tendril other than how to USE it, and RECHARGE it," Maximus Morgan dismissed, "And most important of all, that tendril doesn't leave your assholes or the Steve- Thrall's armor without being cloaked by your brand new, non-screen, *true* invisibility power...EVER!" "My Thrall will '*RESPECTFULLY* and *HUMBLY*' comply with your order," the ghost of the boy in the wheelchair said, pushing his luck as always, but too proud to remain silent about the fact that he now *KNEW* what ace his Master was keeping up his sleeve. "If you're done trying to impress me with just how smart that base- ball-sized brain of yours IS, Steve-Guile," Coach Morgan hissed. "How about impressing me with how well you can keep the secret you just figured out, you little bastard?" "I will, Sir, but if I might be so bold as to ask a question?" "You're ALWAYS so bold as to ask a question!" Coach Morgan barked. "So go ahead and ask it!" "I believe I figured out what you intend to do, so why not do it NOW?" the ghost of the boy in a wheelchair asked, confusing everyone else, who either hadn't been present on the night of the confrontation between Coach Morgan and the Steve-Guile, or couldn't remember everything that had been said. "Because I have to wait until conditions are absolutely PERFECT, and even then, it might not work," Coach Morgan replied honestly but vaguely, giving the little smart-ass a smart-assed answer to chew on. "And THAT was the last question you get." "Sir, how long will it take for you to fix your Fingernail?" Ryan- Guile asked...after Steve-Guile quietly transmitted the question to him in order to avoid provoking Coach Morgan any further." "Fingernails *can't* be 'fixed', they were designed to heal, using S.C.E., just like Thralls," Coach Morgan sighed, knowing exacty what the Steve-Guile had done. "And the damage is so extensive that I don't think you two could EVER acquire enough S.C.E. to do the job." "Sir, if you BUILT the Fingernail, why can't you just fix it?" the Ryan Lecher wanted to know......for Steve-Guile, who'd asked him to pose the question. "Or simply replace it." "Because once I bonded with it in order to initiate the Tethering process, the connection between us became permanent and exclusive," Coach Morgan replied while addressing Steve-Guile instead of Ryan-Lecher. "For all intents and purposes, I'm hanging from an unclimbable rope attached to a disintegrating grappling hook, and YOU'RE asking why I don't "just fix it, or simply replace it". I can't. I could TRY, but I'd be so scared out of my fucking mind that I'd screw it up and end up falling into the Gash." The trashed avatar of Maximus Morgan shivered. "You have your orders," the wounded god concluded. "Does anyone ELSE have any questions?" "Umm....yessir," the Steve-Lecher humbly spoke up. "Now that we can teleport, we'll be covering a lot of ground and Entwining with LOTS of guys while we're out feeding. If we're ever out, and a human needs....you know...assistance....maybe he's being attacked or something....do we have your permission to....kinda....help him?" "Oh God," the superhero whined. "The suit's designed to camouflage us from Kaschak while we try to save Coach Morgan's life, and you want to endanger our lives and his by risking Kaschak ***seeing us on the news***!" "I know Lecher and I haven't yet briefed you on our new powers, and the SUIT'S powers, but you might've heard our Master mention something about us now having TRUE invisibility!" the ghost of the boy in a wheel- chair piped up. "We cannot be visually recorded when we do not wish to be. And by the way, Lecher was asking Coach Morgan, not the Lure who crumbled in the face of peer pressure and may've put things in motion that might lead to Kaschak hearing about RYAN on the news!" "Wait...YOU want us to be a superhero TOO?" Steve sputtered with disbelief. "Why?" "Steve-Thrall, the Coach doesn't have time for this," Ryan-Guile ass-kissed. "Now that I'm pretty much under house arrest, the Coach has all the time in the world," Coach Morgan corrected the scrawny ghost of a boy in a tank top and athletic shorts. "And since I need all six of you now more than ever, working to keep me from Untethering, I want this situation resolved, here and now. Continue, Steve-Guile." "Thank you, Sir," Guile acknowledged before continuing. "Of COURSE I want to find an activity that requires us to master our new skills! As I believe our 'wish-granting' Master would agree, Guiles do not ATTAIN power only to not USE it. Steve, until the update I just received, the only way I could interact directly with the physical world was to use Pit Fog, and that's not good for doing much beyond turning pages and closing doors. But now, although Lecher controls what the lilac tendril *touches*, I'M the one who decides what the Spacial Distortion Energy DOES to whatever is being *touched*. That gives me an *intoxicating* amount of power, and I want to wield it PERFECTLY! The Archive updates that Coach Morgan gave us were instruction booklets, nothing more. Lecher and I must PRACTICE with this power until we're so good that if Kaschak sics another Thrall on us, we'll defeat him EASILY!" "And the only way you can GET that practice is by Entwining a huge area and looking for muggers to teleport and throw around?" Steve disputed. "Muggers, rapists, and violent punks tend to have *dicks*, Steve," Lecher added. "Wouldn't you like to punish a few of those bastards by CHURNING a couple against their will? Imagine their psychological turmoil! Imagine the drop in the city's crime stats when perpetrators are afraid to go out at night, for fear they might face....THE CREEP! Uh, the name is a work in progress." "I can't believe you two are ganging up on me like this," Steve grumbled. "I can't believe that after all these decades as a trio, you STILL can't tell the difference between a majority and a mutiny." "Lecher, why *now*, when we've got all this crap to deal with?" Steve groaned weakly, feeling so, so tired. "You never mentioned this desire of yours to be a superhero at *any* point in the last fifty years." "Do you mean up until a few minutes ago, when we were naked and most of our superpowers came out of our asshole, instead of being channeled through a hi-tech costume and exiting through our gauntlets, pauldrons, or sternum plate?" Steve-Lecher questioned in a stupified tone. "I never brought up the superhero thing because we never got handed an awesome costume, a power upgrade, and pieces of armor that have their OWN super- powers!" "I can't believe we're actually having this conversation," Steve groaned, wishing he could take off the stupid mask, the armor, and the body stocking without Kaschak detecting whatever "mark" he'd placed on Steve. "And the costume isn't awesome! It looks like most of my armor FELL OFF, leaving me in my black underwear." "You're not *supposed* to be a knight, Steve," Coach Morgan explained. "The armor covers all of the parts of your body that you use for striking: fists, elbows, shoulders, forehead, knees, and feet. Your forearms and shins are covered, too, for both offensive *and* defensive reasons. However, since your chest, back, abdomen, ass, and upper legs are already pretty tough, and the silver tendril can act as a effective pro- tective barrier, I didn't think you'd benefit from core armor cutting down your speed, agility, and flexibility." "Yeah, but it sure does make for a lot of empty black SPACE," Steve-Lecher pondered while symbolically rubbing his ghostly chin with his left hand while scratching his nuts with his right. Steve-Lecher's face suddenly brightened, and his eyes opened wide with excitement. "Hey, what are you doing?!" Steve demanded to know as the plum, olive, green, dark green, and lime green tendrils exited the apertures in the armor's pauldon's, spiraling around Steve's arms, core, and legs, clinging to his body without restricting Steve's movements. "OH, THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT!" Lecher squealed, brimming with excitement. "But it needs an insignia. I know a lot of superheroes don't have insignias these days, but I want one. Maybe I can make the vines creep around and make one on our chest, but they won't POP against the black." "Did he just call our tendrils 'vines'?" Ryan-Guile muttered. "I GOT IT!!! I FUCKING GOT IT!!!" Steve-Lecher announced victor- iously. Two ends of the yellow tendril poked out of Steve's sternum plate. One formed a stylized "C" and the other a "V", both of which hovered in front of Steve's pecs. Electrical arcs randomly formed between and inside both "letters". "Oh God," Steve whimpered after looking down and processing JUST HOW BAD IT LOOKED...........to him. "Celestial god and gentlemen, I give you The Creeping Vine," Ryan- Guile guessed, based on the 'look' that Steve-Lecher had inflicted upon poor Steve...and Steve-Lecher being hung up on the word: "creep". "OH-MY-GOD-THAT'S-*SO*-MUCH-BETTER-THAN-'THE-CREEPY-VINE'!" Steve- Lecher gushed. "That crackling would become VERY annoying, VERY quickly," Ryan- Guile opined, throwing metaphorical water all over the electrical insignia, earning him a glare from Ryan-Lecher, who didn't like his Thrall rolling their eyes and smirking at ANOTHER LECHER'S HAPPINESS!" "Not if he only forms the insignia when others are watching," Ryan-Lecher hissed. "And there's no reason the insignia couldn't be formed using, say, the white tendril, to produce a dramatic continual shower of water vapor, or the red tendril, to create a heat ripple effect. And the 'C' and the 'V' don't necessarily need to be formed by the SAME tendril. Combinations could be used." The ghost of the boy with a manbun, who was naked that night except for a chain mail loincloth, gasped with glee at Ryan-Lecher's *fantastic* suggestions. "Whoa," Ryan interjected. "No one's gonna SEE the insignia, because we'll be invisible! Now that Kaschak's after us, we have to be careful. Steve-Lecher, this superhero thing....it ain't happening." "Yeah....it's happening all right," Maximus Morgan decreed, finally breaking his silence, "because I'm *ordering* it to happen." Two formerly-human boys and four ghosts turned and stared at Coach Morgan with varying degrees of astonishment. "Boys, if you EVER encounter someone in an emergency situation, I expect you to act. Do it invisibly, but ACT," Coach Morgan instructed. "I am NOT like the others of my kind. "We used to care about lesser beings, bringing them technology that solved their problems and allowed them to thrive. But our confinement here has changed us, made us all hate the Earth and everyone ON it. I've been forcing myself to FIGHT that urge since the night Ryan joined us, and I will continue to fight that urge, even if it means Kaschak accidentally finding out how I'm keeping my Fingernail functional and supplied with S.C.E." "Mental dams will be *more* than adequate to deal with any male victims, perpetrators, or witnesses, who end up seeing us, but what should we do about any *females*?" the Steve-Lecher wanted to know. "If there are any females present....you let it ride," Maximus Morgan stated coldly. "We let the chips fall where they may, and amuse ourselves by monitoring the news outlets and watching the citizens of Timbersburg, Mawklynd City, and Johnsport, lose their fucking *minds*!" "I'm afraid I must respectfully make use of our agreement," Steve- Guile spoke up, "the one about 'wishing I were free to tell you things I think you should know', Sir." "Go ahead," Maximus Morgan sighed. "As much as I appreciate you granting Lecher's and my wish, I must point out that if your people catch wind, via Kaschak or the media, of one of your Thralls running around playing superhero, while wearing translated advanced technology from your dimen-" Steve was about to remind Guile once again that he *wasn't* a superhero, but before he could open his mouth, the broken god COMPLETELY LOST HIS SHIT! "MY PEOPLE??? You wouldn't by chance be talking about the bastards who won't lift one of their Fingernail's FINGERS to help me in YOUR dimension, and keep floating further and further away from me in MY dimension, would you?! Fuck...THEM!!! LOOK at what they let Kaschak DO TO ME! You think NONE of them KNEW he was planning this? And not one of them gave a FUCKING SHIT that Kaschak let the military get their hands on that osmium sphere he created to trap me! He KNEW that I wouldn't fall for his wounded bird BULLSHIT and go collect the Overseer with Kaschak in hot pursuit, but he decided to take a CHANCE, even if it meant letting the population of Earth KNOW WE'RE HERE! So "MY PEOPLE" better not say a GAWDDAMNED THING about the Creeping Vine, or I might be tempted to call the MOTHER OF ALL PRESS CONFERENCES!!!!!" *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** That's my statement, Officer! And thanks to Reality Itself, if you want to announce it to the press, IT'S A REALLY SHORT WALK!!!" Why walk to the press when you can teleport instead? *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** "There are days when even I think I should learn to keep my mouth shut," Steve-Guile confessed weakly. "Don't sweat it," Maximus Morgan growled, slowly stepping down from his stepladder of pain, outrage, disappointment, and out-and-out betrayal, "I needed to vent. And Steve, I know you're not too keen on this idea, but do you *really* think you could just ignore someone in need of help?" "Of course not," Steve replied while spreading his arms to indicate his outfit, which, thanks to Steve-Lecher, was now *way* over the top."I just never thought I'd be wearing something like *this* while helping some- one out." "You know, the odds of us coming across someone in trouble are pretty slim," Ryan told Steve, basing his claim on nothing other than a desire to make his Thrall-Brother feel better. "You could be getting upset over *nothing*." Steve stared off into the distance, towards the compound that had just become his Master's prison. "I don't think we have that kind of luck anymore," Steve observed darkly. "Ryan, I want you to go home...you've got school tomorrow, and I have no intention of breaking my deal with your parents, regardless of my personal problems. Steve, your outfit can reconfigure to allow you to perform oral and anal sex...Steve-Guile will show you how...but considering your drastically increased quota, you might want to stick to using Baby Blue. I'll have Steve-Guile reduce your urges so's your Thrall lust doesn't drive you nuts. You'll have to be a lot more predatory, though, but after Dugan's, I don't think you'll have a problem with that. You'll know where to draw the line. Now *go*....or I'll start Untethering again in six hours and forty-five minutes." The screened image of Coach Morgan disappeared, leaving Ryan and Steve to briefly contemplate their overwhelming new circumstances, which would last far longer than either one of them could've ever suspected. "Let's try this out....take me to Johnsport!" Ryan instructed. "I believe you mean 'three and a quarter miles *closer* to Johns- port'," Ryan-Guile corrected. "Whatever, man," Ryan replied while hopping from foot to foot and shaking his arms, as if he were about to take the field. "Steve, we'll meet in a few-" "Ryan-Guile, Ryan-Lecher, take over Ryan's body, get him home, see to his mom and dad's security, and then knock Ryan out," Steve ordered bluntly. "Make him go to school tomorrow, and start feeding afterwards." "YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS ABOUT THIS!" Ryan screamed. "HE'S *HOURS* AWAY FROM-" Ryan-Lecher took over, shutting Ryan's mouth. "I've GOT this, Ryan," Steve informed the angry look on Ryan's face. "I went along with Dugan's, but I think I'm done letting *your* rage control *my* actions. Lecher, Guile, if Ryan goes after Kaschak again, I order you to take him over until I can come talk his hot-headed ass down. I'm sorry, Ryan. Goodnight." Taking the cue, Guile initiated the teleportation process, leaving Steve as alone as he could ever truly be. "Well? What are you waiting for?" Steve-Lecher squealed at Steve- Guile, "Entwine with the masses! Entwine! Entwine!" "We're in the middle of nowhere, standing next to a spillway, there ARE no masses to Entwine with," Guile snarked. "But there IS a man tending a bonfire who could use our help." "IS THE FIRE OUT OF CONTROL???" Lecher shrieked. "We could use Pit Fog to snuff it, or stretch out the aqua-blue tendril and turn it into a high-pressure fire hose...AND THEN FREEZE THE WATER WITH THE WHITE TENDRIL, AND THEN-" "Actually, the man is sexually aroused from periodically glancing at porn on his phone, and he really wishes he were stoned right now," Guile clarified. "That *definitely* sounds like a job for The Creeping Vine," Steve informed his group with a long-needed chuckle. "And this guy's getting *more* than stoned, because I'm going to Churn him! Lecher, you're in charge of fire management, and more importantly, using the maroon tendril to blow away any smoke headed in my direction. I hate smelling like a camp- fire." "Not exactly the superhero debut I wanted," Lecher muttered bitterly. "Yeah, but since I'm NOT a superhero-" Steve started to say before disappearing from the bank of the spillway. The words were partially meant to tease Lecher, but they were also an indisputable fact. *Steve Collier was NOT a superhero.* *************************************************************************** Rock Bottom *************************************************************************** Far in the distance, Steve could hear helicopters coming. A whole fleet of them. Steve didn't care. He stayed on the rocky ground, thinking about happier days...carefree days...days and nights of gorgeous naked men, ravaging Steve's body and driving him crazy with levels of pleasure that could KILL an ordinary human. The days before Ladislav Kaschak decided to come to Timbersburg and FUCK IT ALL UP! Guile and Lecher appeared, forming a triangle with Steve. "We were patiently waiting for you to do 'The Teleport of Shame', but we no longer have that luxury, nor do you," Guile began. "It is time." Steve raised his head off of the ground and saw that Lecher was smiling.....A LOT. "Whatever," Steve grumbled. "I'll get her back, and-" "Officer Rogers is no longer a priority, Steve," Guile stated with absolute seriousness. "Then why's Lecher laughing at me?" Steve grumbled. "I ain't laughing at you.....I'm not even *thinking* about you getting your ass handed to you by that woman cop. I'm so fucking happy right now that I'm gonna pretend THAT NEVER EVEN HAPPENED!" ??????????? "What's going on?!" Steve demanded, jumping to his feet with super- natural grace. "The helicopters are coming to evaculate the wounded in preparation for a full-scale military invasion of the area," Guile reported. "Once those who were deafened are taken away, they will be distributed amongst any and all available hospitals, far and wide, making it virtually impossible to find and help them ALL. Therefore, we must act NOW. I am linking twenty-nine Pilot Fish together so that we will have sufficient healing organisms to do the job. We must go....NOW." "Wait! HOLD UP!" Steve commanded. "How are we going to gather THAT many people together while we're INVISIBLE? They're not just going to do it because a telepathic voice in their head TELLS them to do it!" "We will not BE invisible!" Guile declared, making the ghost of a nearly-naked young man in a leather chest harness giggle excitedly while jumping up and down and clapping his knuckles. "Are you SERIOUS??" Steve yelped. "Like..." "Steve, this....incident....has caused Coach Morgan to become unhinged with rage. He's feverishly working on...something...while scream- ing at his people in the other realm to help...or at least get them to make Kaschak go away so that Coach Morgan can help. They do not respond to his telepathic pleas. WE are the ONLY ones who can help those people." "Does he know about Reality Itself's involvement in all of this???" Steve blurted. "No, he does not, since he and I did not have a 'conversation', I merely listened to shouted commands." "But....what if Reality Itself is...well...doing this on purpose, as part of a plan? We could be stepping into a trap!" "The Reality Itself Phenomenon is a random occurence, not a super- villain," Guile explained with wild inaccuracy. "It only targets Thrall Masters. We are beneath its notice." "Then why did that other Guile mention it to that police woman?" Steve challenged. "Because the Guile is *clearly* psychotic, and psychotic people say psychotic things," Steve-Guile countered impatiently. "And we are leaving.. ....right now!" "WAIT! I'M NOT READY! GIVE ME ANOTHER MIN-" Steve screamed. The Creeping Vine disappeared from "Rock Bottom", and to Steve's UTTER HORROR and Lecher's ABSOLUTE DELIGHT, they reappeared at ....... *************************************************************************** The Top of the Rise Overlooking the I-147 Bottleneck, Above the Pit Fog *************************************************************************** Tracy Rogers gasped for breath as she hopped over the eastern guardrail at the top of the rise and ran across the wide, grassy strip of land that had been cleared of trees to accomodate gas transmission pipe- lines. It had been transformed into a triage location, and it was a DISASTER. Under the hastily set-up emergency lights, people were every- where, moaning, crying, and complaining due to the pain of their destroyed auditory canals. Exhausted from her sprint up the road, Tracy staggered and pushed her way through the crowd of people who wouldn't part for her, since few of them could hear her yelling that she was a police officer. Tracy's radio suddenly came back to life, startling her and almost making her slip in the mud. Captain Harry Patrell, who'd recently arrived in HELL to secure the removal of all police personnel -who were completely unreachable due to deafness and a communications issue that had NOTHING to do with electron- ics-, made his way towards Tracy Rogers with a BILLION questions. Several officers and civilians were missing, two officers came stumbling up the hill a short time ago, both naked, in shock, and with their hearing restored! And at the heart of it all, there was some sort of MONSTER on the loose, smashing up cars, bringing down trees, sending out deafening wails, and grabbing kids with its frog-like tongue. Harry needed information STAT, to get a handle on things, so as soon as he saw Tracy making her way through the mob, he rudely shoved people aside to get to her. ....and so did a lot of men in suits and military uniforms. "Harry! I saw it! I know what it is!" Tracy shouted, attracting the attention of two camera operators who, like Captain Harry Patrell, hadn't been near the epicenter of "The Mournful Monster Cry", so they'd managed to retain their hearing. "OFFICER ROGERS, STOP TALKING!" The nearest 'suit' barked at Tracy, worn by a gruff, pockmarked man who was so large, loud, and intimidating that Tracy's usual defiance to male authority failed to engage. Captain Harry Patrell's, however...... The man in the suit grabbed Tracy Rogers by the shoulders and started leading her away, but Harry burst through the crowd, grabbed Tracy's wrist and slammed his right shoulder into the suited man, knocking him away. The suited man spun around and pointed his gun at Harry, only to see that Harry had drawn first. "YOU BASTARDS TREATED HER LIKE *SHIT* AT MALAWNY HOLLOW," Harry Patrell snarled. "YOU FUCKERS AREN'T DOING THAT TO HER AGAIN!" Seeing the guns, the crowd finally gave Tracy the space she'd been seeking. Everyone backed off, except for a growing number of soldiers.... and Timbersburg Police, all of whom were pointing guns at one another. "Looks like I'm retiring early," Harry thought with hidden amuse- ment as he and his opponent locked eyes while cameras recorded an alter- cation between the U.S. military and members of local law enforcement. It was a POLITICAL NIGHTMARE, full of men with guns screaming orders at men with guns screaming orders at men with guns. But then... Special Agent Calvin Hill held his weapon steady, pointed straight between Harry Patrell's eyes. Calvin didn't speak. Others were speaking at the cop FOR him, and Harry could tell that they weren't getting through." "STAND DOWN!" A military officer screamed, so loud that his voice was going *instantly* hoarse. "WE NEED TO DEBRIEF HER!" "YOU WERE ABOUT TO GIVE A REPORT IN FRONT OF CAMERAS, YOU STUPID BITCH!" an older, heavyset female military officer with long black salt and pepper hair squawked at Tracy. "IF YOU WERE THE COP AT MALAWNY, WHY WOULD YOU *DO* THAT??? I KNOW YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE NEWS TONIGHT, BUT THE WHOLE COUNTRY'S LOSING ITS *MIND* OVER THIS! YOU HAVE TO TELL YOUR FELLOW OFFICER TO STAND DOWN! AND WE HAVE TO QUESTION YOU TO GAIN INTEL BEFORE WE RISK GETTING SOLDIERS KILLED IN THERE!" "YOU WANT *ME* TO ORDER MY *CAPTAIN* TO STAND DOWN, YOU FAT, UGLY FROG?" Tracy snapped. "THAT AIN'T THE WAY IT WORKS! AND I ALREADY HAD MY FAMILY THREATENED BY *ONE* DISGUSTING MONSTER TONIGHT, AND THAT'S WHERE I DRAW THE LINE...'BITCH'!" "She was the one who saw the globe in Malawny Hollow, AND she just had a paranormal encounter in these woods???" Calvin pondered while still exchanging a hateful gaze with Captain Patrell. "That's a pretty messed up coinci-" There was a glint of silver in the air, and Calvin Hill felt the trigger of his handgun drop to the roadway. A series of startled reactions followed as other military weapons, mainly rifles, lost their triggers as well. Smiles crossed the faces of many of the Timbersburg police officers as the soldiers, military officers, and nondescript, suit-wearing, intel- ligence officers, like Calvin Hill, were forced to stand down and be held at gunpoint. "WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" Tracy's military equivalent barked at her as if Tracy's hand had slipped, causing her to accidentally sign an enlistment form. "You've been working this shit since March 1st., but you don't even *KNOW* what these *MONSTERS* can DO????" Tracy snapped, letting her righteous anger consume her, and deliberately yelling loud enough to become the focus of every camera and cell phone recorder in the vicinity, too many for the military to confiscate...although they were actively trying. "You people INTIMIDATED me into SILENCE after I saw that OSMIUM SPHERE, and I *DID* keep quiet, thinking you people had this situation handled! WHAT A JOKE! I did a brief, informal, off-the-books investigation MONTHS AGO, right after Malawny Hollow, and I was able to shock the SHIT out of one of those freaks by CALLING HIM BY HIS FIRST NAME! And I think I know the identity of the one who's holding four of our officers and three civilians hostage! But even if I'm wrong...I know for certain who their BOSS is!" Tracy took a much needed breath before screaming directly into Lieutenant Veronica Preston's face. "AND WHAT THE FUCK DID *YOU* MANAGE TO LEARN ABOUT THEM DURING THE LAST TEN AND A HALF MONTHS, WITH ENDLESS MANPOWER, RESOURCES, AND AN UNLIMITED BLACK BUDGET, LIEUTENANT FROG???" "Not much, missy," Veronica snapped with her teeth visible, "but you just told me that all we have to do is take you into custody, and we'll learn a whole lot more!" All of the men surrounding Officer Tracy Rogers and Lieutenant Veronica Preston either tilted their heads or looked around in confusion. Tracy turned around and looked at Harry, who was still triumphantly pointing his gun at Special Agent Calvin Hill. "Harry, Guiles can't broadcast telepathically to women. What's he telling you?" "What's a 'guile', Officer Rogers?!" Veronica ordered, only to continue receiving Tracy's back, letting her know exactly what Tracy thought about her. "A voice is saying that if anyone makes a move on YOU, The....The Creeping...Vine will...'put the squeeze on them'," Harry relayed, saying it as if he were slowly coming to the realization that his chewing gum was shit-flavored. In spite of the enormous tension of the moment, or perhaps *because of it*, Tracy let out a snort of laughter. If she ever saw Steve again, she would definitely tell him to come up with a better catch phrase. "Who or what in the hell is The Creeping Vine?!" another prick with an attitude and a uniform yelled at Tracy after advancing as if he and the military were presently in control of the situation. "A teleporting gay superhero who also has the same abilities wit- nessed by Cynthia Keim, the girl in the SUV that was attacked!" Tracy 'reported' after turning and addressing a crowd of people recording the exchange on their cell phones, and a cameraman who STILL had possession of his camera. "The Creeping Vine also has two ghosts with him, one of whom is more eager to debrief me than YOU are. But don't worry! If they ask whether or not the military knows anything about them.....about THRALLS.....I'll be sure to LIE and say 'yes', as a patriotic courtesy." People in the crowd, who were ironically backing away from the cops and the military in order to protect themselves, started to turn, one by one, towards the east. Bubbles of light were headed in their direction, lighting a path to a figure about a hundred yards further down the mowed gas line strip. It looked to be a man, waving around a glowing rope that was somehow creating the light bubbles. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> "The Creeping Vine has the power to heal your ears!" Guile informed the male members of the mob. "Follow the lights...and bring the women, since they cannot hear me! Do it quickly, before the military gets its shit together and FUCKS IT ALL UP." <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> In spite of Guile urging haste, people waited to gauge the crowd, not wanting to be the first to accept the bizarre offer for fear that it might be a deadly mistake. With all the weird shit going on, and a real life *monster* on the loose, was it really a good idea to wander away from the protection of the crowd and head towards a guy with glowing pink eyes, wearing a superhero costume? "ANYBODY ELSE GETTING A *PENNYWISE* VIBE OFF THAT GUY?!" an unhelp- ful male voice called out. Officer Tracy Rogers made a decision. "Come on, let's go!" Tracy yelled, heading to the front of the group and walking towards Steve while making wild motions for people to follow, for the benefit of those who could not hear her. "Move it! Move it!" Harry Patrell ordered, adding his voice, uniform, and gesturing arms to the effort. "Tracy, please tell me you know what you're doing." "All I can tell you is that I *know* for certain that he can heal these people," Tracy stated confidently before adding, "and I *think* we can trust him, but I'm not staking my professional reputation on it." "Good enough," Harry shrugged as more officers began to shepherd the afflicted towards Steve. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - UNafflicted reporters and cameramen ran ahead of the group, filming and reporting the situation as they approached. "Uh...I wasn't expecting this!" Steve fretted. "What should we do?" "YOU should do *nothing*," Guile informed Steve while hiding his elation at possibly the greatest moment of his long, long life. So many reporters were coming, eager to hear what Guile had to say!!! "Lecher, we are taking over the Thrall for the duration of this interview." "Whoa...INTERVIEW?!" Steve yelped. "NO WAY! Coach Morgan isn't going to be okay with THAT!" "Steve, I've been in constant contact with Coach Morgan ever since you went tumbling down that embankment," Guile explained. "I've been *ordered* to establish a dialogue with the press." "SERIOUSLY??? WHY WOULD COACH MORGAN EVER *DO* THAT??? WHAT IF KASCHAK COMES TO GET US???" "I'm guessing we......I dunno......teleport away?" Lecher snarked. "Just sayin'." "Steve, while I refer to him as "Coach", as he now insists, Maximus Morgan is my MASTER, and I will do as he commands, regardless of my inability to understand his motivations! Now if you'll excuse me, the public is absolutely CLAMORING to hear me speak!" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "SIR, are you responsible for the attacks that occurred here tonight, or the sonic wave that deafened the people you claim to be able to cure!?" the very first reporter yelled before the others could arrive and interrupt him. "Not at all," Guile answered confidently, hiding his giddiness and making the Creeping Vine sound like someone you absolutely DIDN'T want to fuck with....figuratively speaking. "As soon as I'm done here, I intend to hunt down and *deal* with that psycho." "CREEPING VINE," a woman called from the back of the growing crowd, delighting Lecher by calling them by their superhero name, "ARE WE IN DANGER OF ANOTHER SONIC EVENT?!" "No, you are not!" Guile stated with confidence, using the armor's voice amplification system to talk over the noise. "I know exactly how that was done, and if the 'mechanism' is 'activated' again, I'll be able to pinpoint it's exact location, teleport there INSTANTLY, and *DESTROY IT* long before it can 'charge up'." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "WE'RE NEVER SUPPOSED TO MENTION TELEPORTATION!" Steve shouted at Guile mentally. "By order of my Master, quelling the public's concern over future Pilot Fish screams supersedes EVERYTHING, absolutely EVERYTHING! Steve, I've been Entwined with some of these reporters who have been keeping tabs on how people are REACTING to all of this. It's BAD, Steve, 'War of the Worlds' BAD.....and that badness is TRENDING, HARD! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Creeping Vine, were you the one who warned the men in the crowd that the sonic wave was coming?" a female British accent called out. International news cameras recorded the Creeping Vine's yellow- brass covered lips form a confused frown. "He warned you it was coming?" Guile asked the crowd, baffled beyond belief. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> "If you can hear this, please help the Creeping Vine by thinking about the telepathic message you received about the sonic wave." <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Why would he WARN people he was about to unleash a Pilot Fish scream?" Steve demanded of Guile. "That doesn't make sense!" "Nor does asking me that question, since I just made it abundantly clear that I do not know," Guile replied. "Now SHUSH...and listen...." <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Cover your ears....cover your ears....cover your ears...cover your ears... ...cover your ears....cover your ears....cover your ears....cover your ears <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> "Have I ever met that guy?" Steve asked Guile, who had *complete* access to HIS Lure's brain.' It was one of the MANY ways that Maximus Morgan's management style differed from that of Kaschak and the other "Thrall Masters". "No, that voice doesn't belong to anyone you've ever heard," Guile answered after a moment. "We're too busy at the moment, but later on I'll check with Ryan-Guile to see if Ryan's brain holds the answers we seek." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Creeping Vine, would you briefly explain this...healing procedure, and tell us if those affected will experience any pain or side effects?" requested a portly reporter who'd muscled his way as close as possible to the Creeping Vine. "I've undergone the procedure myself!" Tracy Rogers shouted into the camera. "It's incredibly painful and there's a danger of all these people passing out." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "WHAT???" Lecher bellowed. "So this psycho-Thrall has a sadistic LECHER, TOO???? I can't WAIT to meet up with THAT guy!!!!" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Officer Rogers was healed by my adversary, who's shown NO regard for human life!" The Creeping Vine disputed. "I *DO* respect human life, and I promise you that although the process will feel a little weird, there will be no pain." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Some are reconsidering!" Guile announced. "Lecher, Steve, DO IT NOW!!! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "No further questions!" The Creeping Vine dodged, raising his arm and launching the turquoise tendril over the crowd. When it reached the outer edge, it veered to the right and encircled everyone. "Healing in 3... ....2......1.......NOW!!!!! *************************************************************************** The world turned turquoise, and the area was flooded with micro- scopic creatures who sought out humans, as they were designed to do, and awaited instructions from the Lecher of the Thrall who'd summoned them into an extradimensional hell, wherein their only protection from the Earth's natural immune system was the turquoise light...a blast of life-sustaining S.C.E. from THEIR side of the dimensional barrier. Deep inside the mind of Caleb Crandal, Reality Itself could feel the distant light, and its *wrongness*. The ears of hundreds of people were healed by the microbe swarm, brought over to the Earth dimension from the insides of 29 Pilot Fish, linked up with their alpha, Thunderbug. After the attack on Maximus Morgan's Fingernail, Morgan altered the nature of some of the Pilot Fish on his surface, turning them from nomadic to social. He did it so that Steve and Ryan would always have a large reserve of Spacial Distortion Energy for teleport purposes, but tonight, it also served a very special purpose: Supporting Cheryl Kemmler's assertion that Max Morgan was nothing like the rest of his race. He was FAR better than his people. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "They're done!" Lecher announced. "I don't detect ANYONE with hearing issues!" "Nor do I sense any male psychic traffic from anyone still experiencing pain and/or hearing loss," Guile noted. "A complete success! Sending healing microbes back......NOW! All clear, Lecher. Discontinue foreign S.C.E. field." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The near-blinding light gradually faded away, leaving nothing but the unnatural combination of moonlight and light bubble illumination. The applause started before The Creeping Vine even had time to retract the turquoise tendril. Whistles were soon added, along with random chants of the Thrall's superhero name. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Wave to them, Steve," Guile instructed. "Lecher and I are tired." "No you're not," Steve chuckled. "And I *know* why you two are making me DO this." "Well, you *should* receive at LEAST one-third of the credit, in spite of STILL insisting you're not a superhero," Guile gratiously offered. "That's because I'm NOT a superhero!" "Maybe not, but considering that these idiots won't stop cheering, good luck convincing THEM," Lecher smirked. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - *Steve Collier was not a superhero.* ....but he sure was one NOW. End of Chapter 10