Dragons, Decay, and Too Many Legs 10 (Patreon)

It was the tail end of January, and I was looking out at a squad of Empire thugs pushing into our territory. Thus far, they’d pushed back several of the unpowered members that had come out to stop them, but as the saying went: I was in the neighborhood.

Well, I and the unofficially dubbed Brute Squad. Including Ass, there were ten others that had successfully gone through the ritual. Thanks to me, the ABB now tied with the E88 in sheer number of capes, but our capes were a lot harder to put down. To paraphrase Richard Roxburgh when he played Dracula, it’s hard to kill what’s already dead.

Enough woolgathering, “Boys, go kick some ass.”

With eager chuckles, the Brute Squad rushed to join the fight as I sent Cathartes to be my eyes in the sky. A smile on my face, I turned towards the brickwork and stepped. Some of the mundane ABB men started when they saw me step out of an alleyway behind the Empire thugs, while others cheered as the Brute Squad showed up at their backs.

I reached out and wrapped my hand around the neck of one thug, sending concentrated necrotic energies into them. They fell to their knees, clutching their throats as blood and air tried and failed to pass through the now rotten passages. I was on the third thug by the time the rest realized I was behind them, while the Brute Squad had put down another two. Of course, this was when the lazy overseer for these Empire goose stepping morons finally decided to get involved.

“It’s about time the chinks got their act together,” Alabaster said as he moved in front of me and swiped with his knife. “You yellow-skinned pussies were making this too easy, but then again I suppose I should have expected that from you subhuman filth.”

Behind my mask, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. It was one thing to hear about and intellectually know that some people spouted this shit, but hearing it in person just made the speaker sound sad.

“Really? That’s the best you can come up with? I guess I shouldn’t have expected any better from the intellectual descendants of the book burning Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,” I shot back, making Alabaster blink in confusion as he tried to figure out what I said.

“The wha?”

“How does a guy in an asian gang know more German than the guy in the literal nazi gang? I knew you guys were idiots but I figured you’d at least have read up on your origins.”

Before he could respond, I took advantage of his confusion and lashed out at his throat, my hand glowing black with necrotic energy. Fortunately for him (relatively, anyway) he got his arm up to block, and instead of having his throat rotted out it was his left forearm. The look of shock on his face as he screamed like a little girl was a thing of beauty.

“What the fuck? How are you?” he stammered, before his whole body flickered like an old timey TV. Right his power, now I’d have to… start over?

Both of us stared at the smaller, but still present mass of rotted flesh on Alabaster’s forearm. Before a wicked grin spread across my face and I turned to look in Alabaster’s eyes. Raising both hands, I suffused them in necrotic energy just as he flickered again. Like before, the wound was smaller, but still there, the edges a frostbitten black.

In a pained voice, Alabaster meekly asked, “Talk this out?”

“No,” I responded, taking a deliberate step towards him.

“Welllookatthetime,IthinkIleftsomeoveninthebrownies,gottago!”

Blinking at the rapidly retreating form of the Empire cape, I couldn’t help but say aloud, “I didn’t think he had a Mover rating.”

I briefly considered chasing after him, but decided to do something a bit different, “Cweðan bladesung.”

Dark clouds rolled in from the bay, covering our area before with a crack of thunder, a bolt of lightning shot down from the formerly cloudless sky. Alabaster screamed in pain, but continued to run (after a fashion). I chuckled in amusement, but my mirth was interrupted by the arrival of some uninvited guests.

More specifically, a humvee filled with more Empire fucks. As I rolled my neck, the Brute Squad finished mopping up the unpowered mooks and lined themselves up behind me. The first to get out of the humvee was a blond guy about a foot taller than me in far too much denim, soon followed by what looked like half the Empire’s cape roster.

“You got a lot of nerve showin’ up here. But I’m glad you did,” Denim growled as knives, hooks, and other sharp pointy implements pushed out of his skin.

“Not for long, you won’t be,” I quipped with an easy going tone of voice as the other Empire capes got ready for a fight.

“We’ll see abou…” what Hooky was going to say was cut off as my spell went off.

A bolt of lightning came down out of the sky, drawn to the largest collection of metal in the area. As the spots cleared from everyone’s eyes, Hooky was still standing, growling in pain, but not out of the fight just yet. With the Brute Squad, we outnumbered the Empire present but with Ghostboy over there making minions, I decided to engage in a little minion making of my own.

My hands glowed with an absence of light, and with a smirk hidden behind my mask I sent the deathly energies into some of the dead Empire gangsters. The capes paused as I did so, the Brute Squad in anticipation, the Empire capes out of caution. That caution turned into shocked fear (for some of them, anyway) as the five bodies pushed themselves into standing positions and turned to face their former bosses.

“Sic’em,” I ordered.

With a bloodthirsty cry, the Brute Squad charged, followed more slowly by the zombies. The Empire capes rushed in to meet the charge, only to cry out in surprise as the Brute Squad showed why they were called that. Ass charged Ghostboy and kicked one of his ghosts in the dick so hard his foot stopped somewhere in the stomach. Baskethead charged my zombies, dancing and slashing away, but her usual methods had decidedly less impact than usual given how they were already dead.

I blocked out the rest of the fight, focusing on the now lupine Hooky who was staring me down. I breathed deeply and got ready to move. I couldn’t fight him in melee, I didn’t have the durability or ability to recover from what he’d do to me. So I had to play keep away while blasting him with spells and other abilities.

As I tensed my legs, I focused and muttered under my breath, “Monatinn.”

A beam of silvery light shot down from the heavens, enveloping Hooky with ethereal silver flames. He bellowed in pain, but the biggest shocker was the fact that it burned away his metal, leaving him back in human form. The fighting stopped, as everyone turned to stare in surprise.

“Being perfectly honest,” I said, pulling the attention to me as Hooky crawled out of the light beam. “I wasn’t expecting that to happen.”

Sabrina the Teenage Bitch flew down on a chunk of asphalt and grabbed Hooky, moments before the rest of the Empire capes all booked it. Thinking back, I tried to think of why the spell did that. Moonbeam was primarily a damaging spell, but… oh, if a shapechanger failed their save they were reverted to their base form. Huh, that’s what I get for never using shapechangers in my games.

[hr][/hr]

After reporting back to Yao Ming, I headed back to my “lair” that he’d given to me when the Brute Squad hit six guys. The last two weeks had been both busy and productive, in addition to the daily Brute-ifying I’d been cultivating several species of fungus and now had enough to do some really serious shit with them. Sophia was still being a stubborn little mouse, but she was close to breaking.

I’d also been giving both halves of my oyakodon at home daily doses of… okay even in my head that sounds weird. I’ve been doing my best to make sure they get pregnant. Speaking of my asian waifus, Kaede had been doing her best to approach Taylor at Winslow (with little success, but so long as she kept trying that was all I cared about). I still had the favor that the elder Hebert had promised in my back pocket, but hadn’t needed it yet.

Cathartes flying down from the rafters as I was watering my fungus with a spray bottle pulled me from my thoughts. Landing on one of the arms of a body being used as fungus food, he leaned forwards, my cellphone in his beak and ringing.

“Thanks big guy,” I said before taking the phone and answering it. “Yo.”

“O-Ophioc-sama?” Kaede’s voice came over the line.

“How’re things at home, Kaede?” I asked as I continued watering the garden, unbothered by the bodies Yao Ming gave me to dispose of. A normal person using my method would have been driven out by the stench of seven rotting bodies, but I’d cultivated some special breeds of fungus that would break down the soft tissue a lot faster.

“Um… good, I… I have some news… and an update about Taylor.”

“Good, I’ll be home in two hours. Be sure to be wearing something naughty when I get there.”

“Hai, Ophioc-sama.”

I was curious what she’d pick out, but I had to finish up here before I could head home. Still, my gardening was eventually finished and I locked up. I could have walked, but why do that when I could take the form of a bird and fly? Truly, making the commute easier was the greatest use of Wild Shape.

Entering through the front door, I was treated to the sight of both Yumi and Kaede kneeling in front of the door, Yumi in an apron and Kaede… black pleated skirt, a button down shirt that ended just below her tits, red tie, and thigh high socks. She looked like a slutty school girl (which she was, but only for me). I was so aroused by the presented display before me, it took me a little bit to realize that Kaede was holding something in her hands.

“What’s that, Kaede?” I asked as I shut the door behind me.

“The news I mentioned, Ophioc-sama,” she said without lifting her head.

Holding my hand out, she placed whatever she was holding in my hand. Looking at it, my eyebrows rose upon seeing the pregnancy test. Smile on my face, I turned to look at Kaede and softly rubbed the top of her head.

“Good girl,” I told her, while doing my best to keep from shouting my joy from the rooftops.

“Thank you, Ophioc-sama.”

“I’ll make sure to reward you for this later, but first you said you had an update about Taylor.”

“Hai. Until now every time I approached her she rebuffed me, but today I was able to sit with her at lunch and speak to her. I didn’t tell her that I was the one who told you about the locker, I didn’t think it would be a good idea so soon after just sharing a table with her. We mostly talked about inconsequential things, but I figured you would want to hear that I’d made progress.”

“You thought correctly,” I told her while considering how best to reward her.

Feeling out my Embers, which had grown greatly over the last month since I arrived in Brockton Bay, I saw a possibility that wasn’t there previously. Smirking, I stood before Kaede and straightened my posture. Even if I was an irreverent ass, the nature of what I was about to do demanded some ceremony.

“Kaede Tabata, I offer you power. In return, you will obey my edicts, serve as my sword, and bear my heirs. Do you agree to these terms?” I asked, my Embers flaring in response to the ensuing bond.

“H-hai, Ophioc-sama,” Kaede responded, clearly not understanding what was happening but agreeing to it nonetheless.

Dark energies writhed around my form, before flowing from me into Kaede, making her gasp in shock at the sensations flowing through her. After less than a minute, the flow of energy cut off, but I could still feel the bond that had formed between us. The bond of warlock and patron.

“Kaede-chan?” Yumi muttered, trying not to draw my attention but still concerned for her daughter.

“It’s okay,” Kaede reassured her mother, though to my surprise I understood her despite the fact she wasn’t speaking English. Huh, an unexpected perk.

“You now have power, Kaede. But don’t expect things to be easy from here on out. Your power will grow in time, but you must train it in order for that to occur. And I will not allow you to ride on my coattails now that you have a hint of my power.”

“Yes, Ophioc-sama. I look forward to learning under you,” Kaede agreed, bowing to me.

“Good girl. Now, Yumi, what’s for dinner?”