Chimera Time! 3 (Patreon)

Chapter Three: Fight For To Survive!

Kori jumped into the air as I forced myself into the fire-alien form, and I immediately sent a blast of hot flames at Crawler. The monster laughed and leapt through the flames, forcing me to dive to the side. A series of green bolts slamming into his head gave me enough time to get to my feet and shout a warning to Kori.

“He’ll adapt! Keep an eye out for his teammates, up to eight of them!”

“Got it,” Kori responded, before bringing her hands together and sending a big, concentrated starblast at Crawler.

Focusing on making the flames as hot as I could, I sent my own concentrated beam at the monstrous cape. Upping the heat as much as I could, I could see the asphalt bubbling under Crawler’s feet, and even I was feeling the heat from the blast I was pushing out. My fingers were starting to burn, before Kori’s beam cut off with a cry of pain.

I glanced up to her, to see her holding a hand to her side where there was a small cut. A loud voice started to fill the air, and the shattered glass in town picked up. Some of the fire that had splashed off Crawler moved under another’s power. SHIT! Reaching out with my mind, I doused all of the fire I could reach, and frantically tried to think of a plan as I spotted several individuals that could only be the Slaughterhouse Nine.

“It seems we have some other potential recruits,” a man with a goatee mused aloud as he flipped open a razor.

“Another fire user… and he put out the fire I was using. I don’t like him,” a pale woman with circular scars under her eyes growled, glaring at me.

This was really bad. I don’t know if Jack Slash’s talking BS power worked on aliens or whatever I am, and I didn’t want to find out. To make matters worse, while the fire I’d sent at him apparently left burns on Crawler, they were already healing. The melted flesh of the cavities in his face I’d made opened up, having formed new eyes.

“I want to play with this one, it’s been a long time since fire hurt,” Crawler growled.

Well… it was fun while it lasted. I’m about to die, fighting a masochistic monster that for all I knew ate people for shits and giggles. After which… he’d go for Kori. With that thought, I felt a cold wave of rage pass over me, smothering the fear that had threatened to make me panic. I was probably going to die, but like hell would I make it easy.

I had to keep my fire controlled, if I let that control slip then the Nine’s pyrokinetic would be able to use it against Kori. Bending my knees, I held my hands up, preparing to deal with whatever Crawler’s next move was. I was dimly aware of Kori launching a starblast to counter Shatterbird’s initial attack, while also moving to counter the rest of the Nine from moving in on me.

Crawler lunged at me in a burst of speed, his mismatched fangs coming far too close for comfort as I ducked down and rolled to the side. Coming up as he was landing, I sent a stream of fire at him, ramping up the heat as quickly as I could. It wasn’t enough, he was laughing as he leisurely turned around to face me.

“Is that all? I thought you were going to be fun,” he said with an ominous chuckle.

If I could I’d swallow nervously. Crawler adapted a lot faster than I’d anticipated. I’d need to change to a different form, but I didn’t know if I could do that without going back to human first, and if I couldn’t he’d kill me before I’d be able to change to a new one. That was without worrying about Kori.

My thoughts raced as I tried to think of a way out of the situation we were in, but Crawler didn’t give me the time to think. I was expecting another pounce, instead his tail lashed around, showing dexterity and speed I wasn’t expecting. It wrapped around me, coiling around me and pinning my arms to my body like a constrictor.

I flared my body as hot as I could, pushing the heat higher and higher. The skin on his tail turned flaky and charred, only to show fresh, restored skin underneath. Hotter, and the skin underneath that layer was more heat tolerant. By this point, I was held up next to his face, the rancid smell of rotting meat strong on his breath.

“End of the line Meat,” he all but cooed before opening his jaws wide.

“FELIX!” Kori screamed as I was dropped into Crawler’s mouth.

There was a flash of light, the sound of something breaking, a scream of pain, and I felt the ground under my feet. I looked down at my body, which while bipedal was more saurian than anything else. I didn’t recognize what I could see of it, but I could tell that I was big, and I was powerful. A glance back showed I had a thick, red tail that resembled a sword. Something I quickly used against Crawler, giving myself some space.

Crawler’s face looked like a bomb had gone off inside it, but it was already approaching something akin to healed. Only… his jaw wasn’t closing up. In fact… yeesh, his upper and lower jaw were both split down the middle and moving independently.

That was just wrong, but it gave me a chance to take stock of this new body. My tail was covered in metal plates, so my earlier sword comparison was surprisingly apt. Feeling around my mouth, I felt some metal… comparing the shape of my mouth and the shape of the blade, I had a hunch. Bringing my tail around, I bit down and dragged my tail out, repeatedly. The metal heated up, glowing red hot. So that’s what these metal bits in my mouth were for.

“M͍͛͞å̛͎y̢͕̓b̥͗͢e̳ͤ͟ ̶̠ͯy͇̿͝o̴̙̅uͣ҉̲'̨̭ͬl̰̈́̕l̶̪ͣ ̦̔͟b̵͖̃e͎ͪ͝ ̨̼̓s̛̤ͦo̯ͥ͝m̦ͥ͟e̢͚͌ ̲̎͢f̼̓͝ȗ̴̘n̷̳̉ ͈ͦ͡aͮ͏̬f̸̤̆t͉̒̕ȇ͎͝r̆͟ͅ ̑͏͔ą̰͆l̯̂̀l̘̏͜,̻̓͢” Crawler growled, his voice barely understandable.

I didn’t speak, I wasn’t sure I could in this form. Instead I gave a hiss and raised my red hot tail in warning. The Nine and Kori were still, watching us monsters squaring off. Without warning, we lunged at each other, fangs snapping, claws thrashing, tails slashing.

His jaws clamped on my arm, acid eating through my scales. My metal jaws biting down on his neck. His claws scraping off my armored carapace. My burning tail cleaving through flesh and blood. I couldn’t tell you how much damage I was doing, only that I was doing damage. But so was he, and unlike him I couldn’t regenerate. I could feel his saliva burning where it landed, my arm (little as it might be) was hanging limply, and it was getting harder to bite through his hide.

I couldn’t deny it: I was losing. Slowly, but inexorably, I was losing against the monster that was Crawler. I was sure I could turn into some alien that would be able to use some new ability that he’d never encountered fast enough to kill him, but I didn’t have the time to take a full catalog of the aliens I was connected to, if I could even conceive of the full number.

“FELIX, LOOK OUT!”

Kori’s cry caught my attention just in time to see the Siberian charging me, and sever my tail from my body. Bellowing in pain, I backed away from the two monsters, my balance ruined and center of gravity thrown off. I glanced up into the air at Kori, who was covered in cuts and small burns, while juking and dodging the glass under Shatterbird’s control. We were going to die. Not even a full day in this new world, and we were going to be killed by these monsters that thought themselves human.

That was when everything changed. From the rubble of the destroyed buildings, the cars, even from some of the Nine themselves, everything made of metal rose into the air. Including me. Rebars and cars went flying at the Nine like missiles, while sheets of metal wrapped around Kori and dragged her, along with myself by the metal in this form, off into the distance.

My vision was going dark, the blood loss weakening me. I… sleep… sleep sounded… so… good…

…

…

[hr][/hr]

I woke up to the smell of coffee. There was a blanket over me, and I was in a bed. What…

“You’re awake. Good,” a harsh voice, not one I recognized, said.

I turned to face the speaker, and my eyes widened. First Kori, then the Nine, and now Mystique? That… what kind of world did Discord send me to? What else was here, the Incredibles? My Hero Academia? The Boys?

“I owe you for distracting those monsters long enough for rescue to arrive,” she said, ignoring the surprise on my face. “Your… companion will be pleased to hear that you’re awake. My boss will want to speak to you once you’ve had a chance to recover.”

With that, she walked out of the bedroom I was in. My eyes were not locked on her ass as she did so, and not two seconds after she left, an orange missile came barreling through the door before wrapping me in a rib splitting hug.

“I was so worried, you were so pale and wouldn’t wake up. I was afraid that you’d died, left me after we’d just met,” she babbled into my chest, soaking the blanket with tears as she cried in relief.

“S’okay,” I said as I wrapped an arm around her, my voice raspy, “I ain’ dead yet.”

She didn’t say anything, so I just took the opportunity to look at her. Evidently I’d been out for a while, because she was wearing clothes that weren’t made from my shirt. More specifically, a light purple bathrobe. Were I not half dead, the sight of her in that would be doing very interesting things below my waistline. Instead, I just rubbed at her back as best I could.

Mystique said her boss, and I had a very strong suspicion of who that was, wanted to talk to me but they seemed to be willing to wait. It was two hours later that Kori finally let go of me and left. I was still weak, but I was able to walk unsteadily to the bathroom. The color of my pee had me rather concerned, but considering there was undoubtedly some sort of super healing bullshit going on it was still better than being dead.

The shower felt heavenly, and the clothes that had been left for me were on the large side, but there was a good enough belt so I didn’t have to worry about my pants falling. I walked out of the bathroom, there was the distinguished form of Sir Ian McKellen in the middle of the bedroom.

“Good to see you’re awake, Mr. Tennyson. I have an offer for you and your wife.”

[hr][/hr]

Mystique and Magneto spent the next several minutes, almost an hour, explaining what it was they were offering us. It was basically a job that involved fighting. We’d be his muscle for various missions, that would take us all over the world.

I’d managed to pick up from the way that he talked that he was basically like the Magneto from the X-Men movies, but instead of considering himself an advocate and protector for mutants alone, he considered everyone with powers to be under his protection. That included both Parahumans and aliens.

Kori and I spoke briefly, before saying that while we were flattered, that didn’t sound like something we were interested in. I was more than a little worried that he’d take that badly, instead he chuckled and proposed a compromise: he’d provide us a home and the resources to get our feet under us and in exchange we pass along any information we come across that might be of use.

That we couldn’t really refuse. Not because he wouldn’t accept our refusal, but because those were things that we needed. So, we agreed. He thanked us and left to lay down the groundwork, while Mystique remained.

“Thank you again. Somehow the Nine figured out I was there and decided that I was a target for recruitment,” she told us after Magneto left.

“It was an accident, but you’re welcome. I don’t want to be rude, but is there anything to eat around here?” I asked.

“I’ll get some take out, you wait here.”

As she stood, we were treated to the sight of her skin… folding, for lack of a better word. It started at her head, and then in a wave down it was like it folded over like turning a page of a book. A second later, there was a portly man in a hideously tacky hawaiian shirt and board shorts where the blue skinned redhead had been.

[hr][/hr]

I’m a guy, so is it any surprise that I very much enjoyed the show that Kori was giving me? After Mystique left, we talked a little bit, sharing our perspective of the fight with the Nine, before Kori decided to change out of the bathrobe. Which she did by untying the belt and leaving the robe on the chair as she got up to pick out her clothes. I, meanwhile, just leaned back and enjoyed her naked body. Not just T&A, but also the muscle definition to her arms, legs, and her abs.

What she ended up picking was a dark maroon long-sleeve shirt and a pair of daisy dukes. This woman was going to kill me. From the smirk on her face, she knew exactly what she was doing to me. The fact that she turned around, pulling her hair over her shoulder so that I could see the entirety of her back and ass, before bending over to put on the shorts.

Of course, it was at that exact moment that Mystique returned with takeout bags that had the design of a bear on them. Thus getting an eyeful of Kori’s chest swaying as she stepped into the shorts. On Kori’s part, she didn’t let the interruption throw her off at all, continuing to give me a show as she slowly pulled the shorts up her legs, over her full, muscular ass.

“Normally I’m the person wearing the least in a room,” Mystique said as she placed the bag of takeout on the table and Kori slipped on the shirt.

“You should have seen what she was wearing when I met her,” I couldn’t help but quip as the burgers and fries were passed out.

“Oh?”

“Let’s just say that I’ve seen girls on the beach in the Caribbean wearing more.”

That got a raised eyebrow, but no other response. The table was filled with the sounds of three hungry people eating, focused on enjoying the food instead of conversation. But soon enough, the food was gone and I had the opportunity to find out just what the fuck was up with this world.

“If you don’t mind, I have some questions I’d like to ask,” I told her.

“Not right this moment, Erik called while I was out: I’m taking you to your new home.”