Pulling a gun on evil

Caitlyn Beach

Welcome back to the sunny and snowy days of the little town of Verghula where the hills are high, and the feelings are neutral on stormy days. There is a lovely gathering of people surrounding the Lakes of Milk participating in the new hot flash sale right now. Business is booming, even without their top salesman, Blorgus. Blorgus is still reported missing and Corporate is sleeping still with a 0.5% chance of waking up anytime soon. I have not seen Grandma Raeyechaeyelle in some time and authorities were about to send in backup… oh there she is!! Looking as suspicious as ever surrounded by trees. Probably finding her top secret ingredient for her infamous sauce. Are those trees moving? Probably my mind, and in your mind, you’re probably wondering who I am.

Hi. I’m Caitlyn Beach, reporting half alive from a location not invented yet until about three days in the future. Thanks for listening to this brief news report and we return to the main story after a quick update of news about what's going on in town.

Mysterious Lavender

Thanks Caitlyn for that brief introduction. Previously, it was in no way discussed that the secrets to the one and only Skinerator 3000 were held in a vault, supposedly in a bank called Gringotts. No public announcement was made about the moving of said secrets to another location, thought to not be located underneath the house of none other but the 84-year-old man who spotted the local idiot whilst going to his interview.

Apparently, he has an actual name. To be released publicly soon.

Again, I must put no ads here for a large sum of money for the first one to reach those secrets again not underneath the 84-year-old man who-shall-not-be-named. That is all on this topic and now, I must move towards a lighter and fluffier one.

The floating kittens that were up for sale quite a while ago have now fully grown and one of them was adopted two days ago! The buyer was unknown, but we know that no one would hurt these little guys. It’s much more likely that you would get hurt in the process… Anywho, the point is that these little guys need a special home! If you are in need of a loving tiny wittle kitty then see me after this and I shall set you up with the details and procedures required to sign your dedication for life to a kitty… I mean adopt one!

From the eastside of town, the one gym in town, Get Ripped, has offered a new challenge to any folks willing. The owner, Poe Cling, has set up a new training course designed to set your fight or flight response off and get that body literally ripped. I mean… the training has had no survivors yet but the goal is to get actual abs, not mutilated. Don’t be scared on that note folks! I’ve heard the great and mighty Poe Cling has completed the challenge at least once before, after all, he designed it, and the effects are stunning! Mr. Cling has completed his professional physique degree with Mr. Hurderer so no suspicious activity here. None at all.

That car from the last session actually managed to survive the "sad" episode and, though it's future looks grim, is still drivable. Good on you whoever owns that car for buying a durable and reliable car brand. Hover mobiles are soooo much more reliable than grounded cars. It has a giant scratch on the right side of it and has started to form rust from the overflow of tears, but with a couple hundred souls in repair, it should be good to go.

In accordance to our last message from our new master, an adventure bulletin board that was not there last week now has a shiny sheet of paper pinned to it with a little bit of blood on the top left corner. It shows nothing but a map from your current location to the destination stated in the message. Upon further inspection, its sheek material shimmers with little bursts of sparkling powder, holding Western-styled magic within its small dimensions. A small crowd has already started to form including the never-ending researcher, the murderer Mr. Hurderer. After his intensive research on Mr. Flur Shreddy, and the boredom Hurderer feels on the one day a week where Flur goes into the 5th dimension, he decides to expand his comfort zone and invest in adventuring. Of course, this request given out by the one and only ShAgY came in perfect timing but will require at least 4 personnel. Mr. Hurderer is using his currency of not stalking people to bribe others into joining him on his quest. So far, it hasn’t really helped as everyone assumes he will die within the first 3 hours.

And now, we continue our suspenseful journey...

Lou

As Lou passed what seemed to be an identical door to all the others, the door suddenly swung open and a lasso wrapped around her body and her bag, pulling both her and Blorgus inside. Smartly, Blorgus suppressed all sounds of revealment but Lou’s shock of being discovered whilst moving invisibly threw her off balance and allowed the weapon to restrain her. As it wrapped around her neck, her vision started to blur and her reflexes started a ripple of seizure-like motions to escape. The door shut tightly behind and Lou could hear the all too familiar click of four locks locked into place. As her strength was sapped from her, she could just faintly see a large one-way mirror painted on the other side to look like the hallway. Shapes of her friends were hovering around the space where she assumed the door would be as it all faded to darkness…

T

In the hallway, T had only glimpsed L disappear with Blorgus through a door before it magically sealed itself off. Vivian had seen them leave too and stopped abruptly. Even though T had never reached the heights of mastery L had in her stealth training, he knew that no one who hadn’t trained for at least 10 years in detecting movement would have been able to spot her, especially when she was that focused. He crouched low to the ground and smelt the air.

Calm and fruity, with a hint of rosemary.

Him and Vivian approached the door cautiously for further inspection but preparing for any surprises. On the outside, it looked like a regular wooden door but something felt wrong. The hinges were dated back to the 18th century but the door’s wood was paired from the wrong era.

Look behind you,” Vivian smiled, the look of confusion upon their happy face.

As T turned around, he realized he had been so focused on the door ahead of him that he hadn’t been paying attention to where they had been. On the opposite side of the hallway was an exact replica of where they were headed, with the same burgundy door.

T stood up slowly and gestured for Vivian to stay close behind him. He took a slow step towards where they had come from and froze.

Something was moving within the walls and it was moving fast. T was having a tough time trying to find where in the walls it actually was because it seemed to move through the ceiling and underneath the floorboards. It was coming from the original destination and quickly moving towards them, the noise suggesting a spiralling motion. As T and Vivian prepared for battle, they started to hear an unfamiliar scratching of claws rushing to get to them. It grows nearer and nearer as the sounds get louder, forcing T and Vivian to move back and take a defensive stance. Once it is right above the space in front of them it stops, and all is still. T slows down his breathing and Vivian just stops moving. Time and space all seem to slow as they await their opponent’s next move. 15 seconds pass by and nothing has happened. Curious, T moves slightly forward from his original position and from the ceiling comes a big crash as it caves in. Dust flies everywhere and both of them have to move back and start coughing. A small shadow can be seen within the mayhem and T recognizes it to be the silhouette of the local idiot laying on the ground. He takes a couple steps forward to help him up when a giant round creature jumps down from the hole above, creating another whirlwind of dust. When Vivian and T looked up at the figure, Vivian made a noise only described as their version of a scream. Both of them were terrified of the beast that lay in front of them as it began to stand up, reaching its full height. As it bared its teeth, a spark of memory flitted in T's memory of a previous encounter with this being.

"Nostalgia?"

Mysterious Lavender

Breaking news: someone has left their baby turtle unattended in a baby carriage outside of Walmare for longer than 5 hours on a Saturday. This is illegal and whoever claims this poor little guy will be charged with turtle abuse and spend Friday afternoons helping the local jail keep the guard pigs from eating the residents, as they are quite a handful. The baby turtle has been put in the care of our loving Grandma Raeyechaeyelle’s great niece and nephew, Charlie and Duncan who just moved in 3 hours ago. Hopefully they can take care of this little guy until their parents claim her. Sorry about this intrusion.

T

As her name was called out into the open space, she turned, her giant pink nose sniffling about. What lay before T and Vivian was a peculiar sight. Covering her face were long thin white whiskers that were assumedly sensitive and had two beady black as night eyes peering down at her dinner. The body was covered in what at first looked like soft black and white fur, but at a closer look, were tiny razor sharp spikes with longer ones lining the spine. The tail wasn’t visible, but T was taught to never underestimate an opponent, no matter their size.

T had remembered picking up a couple of the telepathic messages that had supposedly gone secretly in between Vivian and the local idiot. He found out about the original mission information stating that Nostalgia had been M. Wok’s close partner, but he could have never guessed that she was 10x her size. All he could remember about the message was that the local idiot had mentioned that she knew M. Wok’s actual name which could be useful information.

“WHAT IS HIS NAME?” T yelled, as she roared, showing off her extremely sharp bloody dentures and a pale yellow underbelly. He pulled out his swords and started taunting the giant beast, distracting her from the devastating attacks he knew Vivian would bestow upon her.

“I will never tell you,” she snarled, surprisingly speaking fluent Spanish.

“You have to,” T intensified his stare, the ying necklace starting to glow. “By law and by my word, you must tell us.”

“I swore an oath, and you know nothing of trust,” she shrieked, her voice not fitting her large body. The giant hamster hurled herself at the tiny annoying human before her, revealing the local idiot slowly gaining consciousness behind her.

“RUN!” T cried as he dodged out of the way, but the local idiot did something unexpected. He started trying to climb out the hole that he had just come from and gestured for Vivian to follow. T didn’t know how this would help but was too distracted by Nostalgia’s very dangerous teeth gnashing at the air five feet in front of him. He jumped towards the wall and used it to propel his slim body over her, effectively confusing her about his whereabouts and slicing across her side. She yowled, clearly hurting but not enough to prevent her from lashing her rotting strong claws at him. He did a quick roll underneath her body and slashed upwards, drawing one sword up her belly in a nonlethal move while defending any oncoming attacks with the other. A noticeable red tag was found underneath the skin of her right arm, but he couldn’t read it in time. She yelped and her circular boulder-of-a-tail came crashing down where he was moments before. It was nighttime black to the point where nothing reflected off of it, except for the brightly glowing necklace around T's neck. Besides that, it just sucked all the light from the surrounding area and even the ground started to grey and pale because of its presence.

“You must tell us, otherwise you will be charged with helping a criminal and punished with 5 years,” T stared at her, eyes daring to challenge him.

He could see out of his peripherals that Vivian had quickly floated upwards into the hole and changed their molecular composure to become similar to gel while the local idiot plunged his hand in it and held on. The ying was becoming hotter and hotter, and only T's resistance training stopped him from screaming.

“The consequences are nothing compared to what that name does,” she howled.

He noticed the spikes quivering on her back where he had slashed her and prepared for the worst. Her entire body shook and 3 seconds later, the spikes flew everywhere. He just had enough time to analyze the pattern of the spikes velocity to see where it would land before he flattened himself into an impossibly small space in the wall. Immediately all around him were the thuds of poisonous spikes driving deep into the drywall, or what looked like drywall. T heard the distinctive sounds of metal clanking, resisting the spikes’ points as he peeled himself off the wall.

“What the…” he murmured to himself as he saw Vivian rising up to attack an unsuspecting Nostalgia. Their body started vibrating violently as they gathered energy and power from unknown sources. The ying necklace seemed to have a mind of its own and understand that this powerful being was going to handle the situation and it started to cool down, its light fading.

“We need her alive,” T communicated to her through telepathy, distracting her from what was about to come. He covered his eyes as Vivian released all hell.

Vivian

Blub….

Blub…

Blubb blub…

Sszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzszssshhhhhhhhhh... SCHIAO!

.

.

.

Blub blub…

blub...

T

The blinding silent light seared T’s eyes even covered with hands and his body turned away. He was thrown from his original spot and thankfully didn’t land on any of the spikes that had landed moments ago. When he opened his eyes, Vivian seemed to not have gotten the message. Laying on the floor with steaming flesh and singed hair was an extremely dead hamster. A gaping hole was straight through the monster’s heart and a giant spike identical to the spikes on the hamster had apparently instantiated inside its body, effectively piercing all vital organs.

T sighed, but turned over the beast with years of strength training. Right underneath the right arm, there was a red tag that had black cursive writing on it. He ripped it off but before he could read it, the entire hall seemed to shake and rock side to side. His ying pulsed for a second in the light of danger but quickly became dormant once again.

“Come up quick!” the local idiot shouted, eyes wide with the burden of taboo knowledge.

T vaulted himself up into the hole and started running as soon as his feet hit the unknown metal. The local idiot had gone ahead and gestured towards what looked like a giant dumbwaiter that hadn’t been used in years. He was running on a dark grey metallic tube that wasn’t actually very long but seemed to have created the very convincing illusion of a long hallway. At ground level, there were railings and suspensions holding holey platforms, similar to those used in high-end industrialized companies. He made it to the dumbwaiter which he noticed wasn’t actually as old as he had initially thought it to be and the local idiot pulled a lever while explaining what had happened to him.

Mysterious Lavender

...please do realize that we cannot allow backpacks into the planetarium as it distracts viewers from the wonders and beauties of the galaxies and stars that hold unknown meanings to this world and others. It allows the soul to soar above the clouds and experience the astonishing rarest collisions and sightings that just make you really appreciate how beautiful our world is, and THIS is why we cannot allow backpacks inside as pesky humans like yourself as you will bring crunchy LOUD snacks like CHIPS and POPCORN like it’s some sort of MAGIC SHOW…*whisper**whisper*...

Wait… You’re telling me I’ve been on the air for about 5 minutes now!?!?!?! Well reader, I am the most apologetic towards you. I had no idea I was keeping you from reading more on the local news and ongoings of this town. I am terribly sorry. Forgive me as I bring you back to your story…

Lou

Lou wakes up to her head pounding. With her vision blurry with half-open eyes and her senses not at their prime, she assumes she’s been drugged. Her surroundings are dark and blurry, but as they come into focus, she sees a very potent half white half black mask with piercing black eyes staring extremely close to her face.

“Hey!!!” she yelps uncharacteristically of her, and her cheeks burn with the heat of the shame but no redness.

The person does nothing but slowly lean away from her and slowly starts to circle her, inspecting her position. Lou slowly starts to feel her way around her body, finding her feet are shackled and her hands are in unusual cuffs. She tries to move her hands towards the lock while her captor is in front of her to try and easily pick them as she is a master thief, but they become immensely hot. As her fingertips approached what would have been the most common place for the lock to be, the kidnapper spoke up.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” they said, their voice muffled by what Lou assumed to be a mask.

“Why not?” Lou asked curiously, all the while trying to find any discernible features about them. The kidnapper said nothing, but had stopped in front of her. They turned around and walked a couple paces away, causing Lou to panic a little inside. She continued to find all of the components of the cuffs she was currently restrained with while trying to distract her kidnapper from leaving.

“Hey, I asked a question,” she shouted, carrying her voice to reach the entire room, giving her an approximation of the size. It was quite a large room with barely any furniture or equipment or anything at all. Her eyesight was getting better but strangely was slower than what she was expecting, making her explore the insides of her mouth for traces of evidence.

Out of nowhere, her kidnapper draws a CZ 75B out, the pistol barrel directly aimed at her forehead, as theirs was covered in beads of sweat. They pulled back their hood, revealing nothing but a mask covering their entire head except for the small wisps of a dark brown beard, revealing part of their sex and leading her to assume them to be male. Loupella Albedo Lang racks her brain as to why he would want to kill her now while continuing to keep a calm composure.

"Are you willing to die for your family and friends?" the undistinguished unrecognizable voice growls, giving Lou a small time period to come up with an answer. Strangely enough, the gun did not intimidate her at all and she thought about who she would consider to be her friends. Her past, although sad, was a learning and building experience to rid her of all fears or conceal them at the least.

Lou thought about her Mom, strict, but caring and loving when the time called for it. She was always ready to help her daughter with anything, from cooking to paying for trips to teaching her self-defense (the Lang family was part of a secret assassination company which undergoes life-threatening missions to protect their country). Mrs. Lang was an expert in hand-to-hand combat, a skill she passed down to her daughter from the minute she could walk. All Lou could remember from her early days was being taught again and again the multiple pressure points on the body, the ways legs and arms bend and how to reverse them, and also how to disarm her opponent without hurting them. Her dad, Izuku, had been a mechanical engineer (his public job). Although years of toil had worn down his body, he had still made time for his daughter and had been a wonderful role model. Unfortunately, during one of his missions, an enemy aircraft released the deadly toxins of chlorine gas onto the agents hideouts and thousands of them perished or went missing. Lou's father had been declared missing in action, and although no body was found, he was pronounced dead. She secretly hoped, on the slim chance that he wasn't dead, that he would return one day but so far, no contact had been administered. Thinking about her family gave Lou a clear answer for her confident captor.

"No, but I'd kill for them." she murmured; a deadly whisper as she pulled out one of the concealed guns she kept in her jacket and aimed it straight at his temple. His eyes widened and she saw his hand clench even tighter around his gun, now terrified. She knew that if he pulled the trigger, there would be no escaping for him unscathed. Either way, he was a dead man; threatening and kidnapping the daughter of one of the most famous assassin's in all of the Assassin’s Academy was a dumb move on his part, but was not the worst Lou had endured. She was used to being threatened by men who didn't know any better and occasionally felt sympathetic towards them, but this man had caught her off guard, tied her up in a 4th level designed handcuff from the Pearl’s Nodon Secrecy Store, and not answered her question. Lou hated being ignored.

They stayed there for about 15 seconds before the kidnapper made a crucial mistake. He broke eye contact. Without blinking an eye, Lou jumped up from her restraints that no longer bound her and ran towards the only window that she had detected in the far left corner. She covered her ears as the kidnapper expectedly shot where she was a few seconds before. The gun had a surprisingly stronger kickback than what he had expected and he stumbled back as she stabbed him in the shoulder as she passed. He yelped in pain and proceeded to weakly try and stop her from escaping.

“You’ll never find your way out of here,” he stumbled, over his words and feet towards her.

“Watch me,” she stated, jumping and clinging to the grate bars like a monkey. She bent the metal like it was nothing and slipped right through their grasp, much to her once-kidnapper’s disappointment. She quickly started running on what seemed to be a low ceiling attic, wondering where she would go and hid underneath a giant structure, hoping she would be safe long enough for her to find an escape route.

Unfortunately my eager readers, it is that time of afternoon again, where I must go and brave the face of reality. May your spirits be strong, keep smiling and all will be okay :)