Picking on the Team: Reading between the Lines (Patreon)

Oh no, he’s the only one left! The Liveman team made a horrible decision to split up in an abandoned school in the dead of night. Now, their fate is sealed, metaphorically and literally speaking. Liveman Black Bison sacrificed himself to venture alone in the dark, but little that he knew, he would be the last one targeted by the invincible evil!

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Time to wrap up the lesson!

Black Bison felt uneasy. He was a superhero, yet the thought of exploring an abandoned school in the middle of the night all by himself still gave him the creeps. Needless to say, Tetsuya chose to ready his weapon despite no present threat being apparent.

His Bison Rod was too big and clumsy in the tight corridor of the school. He chose the Liblaster and kept it in pistol mode. The spandex hero moved with caution across the western wing of the building. His boots occasionally stepped on pieces of broken glass despite there being no damaged windows or lights around.

Tetsuya cursed to himself. He noticed the peculiarity. “Nice way to track your enemy,” concluded the Liveman.

There was nothing he could do. Even with his helmet headlight, the place was still too dark. The strange mist that came and went didn’t help either. The air felt colder than before. Black Bison wondered what season he was in.

Noise from a distance made Tetsuya jittery. He turned around but there was no one there. He calmed himself. It might be the building structure breaking down.

Black Bison gulped. He liked it better when monsters like to charge them head-on in battles instead of sneaking around like this. They were cowards with no sense of honor. Worse, they were animals that were always hungry for victims. “No, I won’t be on the victim list tonight, you hear?” Tetsuya said quite loudly, but there was no one there but himself.

Black Bison walked past the group of school lockers. On each door, the numbers were smudged out, but the kinky stickers and graffiti persisted. Tetsuya blushed at one image of two individuals in a twisted position. His headlight illuminated it to give out the details. Those people were Megumi and himself, fondling each other in helmetless Liveman suits.

When his hand tried to reach the locker, it suddenly broke open. From the dark interior, a slimy tentacle launched itself at Black Bison. Surprised, Tetsuya’s reflex was to fire his Liblaster.

The shot was a bullseye. The energy decapitated the thick tendril, letting black goop burst out and splat on Black Bison’s spandex suit. Immediately, he felt a strange burning sensation.

Tetsuya rushingly swept the repulsive sludge off his costume at the sacrifice of his glove that in turn felt stingy. But his problem was just beginning. As one tentacle retreated, others broke out of the other lockers.

Black Bison shot some of them, but others managed to pass his defenses. They wrapped themselves around the hero’s legs and arms. One of them even stabbed Tetsuya on the back of his hand, prompting him to drop his Liblaster due to the pain. He tried to take the weapon back, but other tendrils mischievously slapped it away.

Grunting, the Liveman superhero was picked off the floor in a spread-eagle position. His arms and legs were stretched until the spandex started squeaking due to the pressure. But their main purpose wasn’t to break Tetsuya’s body. It was just to restrain him before another tentacle came in.

It was the one he slashed before. Its broken end was still dripping with black goop. With it, the diabolical organ struck the mouthguard of Tetsuya’s helmet. The hero could feel it trying to get in and it did a particularly good job in doing it. The concentrated slime was able to act like acid that slowly but surely burned the rigid helmet’s protection.

Black Bison flexed his muscles to try to break free from the tentacle bondage. Grunted, Tetsuya focused his strength to pull his arms back in. After a long struggle and resistance from the monstrous tendrils, it seemed that his strategy worked. His Liveman energy was able to overcome their grasp.

He was almost free when the acidic goop made its way in. The tendril had lost its potency, but its slime was still a foul-smelling disgusting substance. It swung back like a cobra that ready to strike.

Tetsuya’s attention was on that tentacle. Unbeknownst to him, another one stalked him from behind. It jabbed his tight, athletic rear hard. The thunderstruck spandex hero gasped. The first tendril used the moment to dig into his gaping mouth.

Black Bison was being gagged by an alien tentacle. Restrained, he was defenseless to stop the diving bulge that traveled deeper and deeper into his throat. He tried to vomit it out, try to disgorge it. As his eyes became watery, his attempts were still futile. The monstrous organ’s shape was visible on his neck.

He only got one chance to escape. This was more than an emergency situation. He ignored the humiliation and focused on his strength to break free again. Yelling while being choked, Black Bison used his extraordinary muscle to pull the tongues until they gave up. One by one, his limbs were freed.

Black Bison didn’t waste time pulling the tentacle that violated his mouth out. He obeyed the sudden urge to vomit. The greenish sludge was poured onto the floor.

Tetsuya wondered whether his escape was too late. He felt an agonizing pain in his belly. It was as if his abdomen was being twisted and turned. But he had no time to stay where he was. Behind him, the tentacles were after him again.

Black Bison’s steps were wobbly at best, but it managed to help him get away. The ravenous tentacles could only stretch so far from their lockers. The Liveman stopped to see the tongue’s attempt to catch him. “Stay where you are, you creep!”

Then something caught his attention. Tetsuya cursed. The Liblaster was on the other side of the locker row. There was no way he could reach it without being snagged by these grapplers again.

Something took the Liblaster. A humanoid shape was slowly formed by the coalescing tentacles. When it lifted the weapon, its form as a slimy vine monster was completed. Its massive claw opened wide in hunger.

The monster didn’t even need the blaster. He simply split Liblaster into two useless parts and discarded them. He let out a burst of demonic laughter that echoed in the darkened hallway. “Liveman Black is all alone…”

The words made Tetsuya get goosebumps, especially when the monster slowly approached him. Trying hard to keep his anxiety to himself, the hero decided that it was best for him to just retreat. He hightailed it and left the scene. Behind him, the monster mocked. “What a coward! The little hero in tights is running for his life!”

Black Bison ran and ran. He didn’t care that there were more corridors and corners than structurally possible. The building seemed to be bigger and bigger the deeper he went. Finally, what stopped the Liveman was not his fatigue but his vomit.

Tetsuya was attacked by another urge to disgorge the content of his stomach. He slipped and splashed his helmet while tumbling awkwardly. The hero arched due to the intense jabbing pain in his belly. There was something definitely wrong with him. His two hands tried their best to ease the agony until it slowly subsided. “What is happening…” mumbled Tetsuya, his penetrated mouthguard spilling the everpresent black goop. “It won’t stop… URGH!”

Another vomit. Tetsuya’s breaths were shallow now. He could barely breathe with this impulse. He got back up unsteadily. He needed to lean on a corridor pillar just to keep himself from falling. The hallway in front of him seemed to stretch forever. He finally realized the weirdness of that place.

Worse, Black Bison could hear the coming har-har of the monster. It seemed to approach him from both directions. This wasn’t a good time for a battle. He needed somewhere safe to recharge his energy.

When in desperation, he accidentally looked up at the room sign. The door led to the library. That’s it!

Black Bison turned the knob, but it didn’t work. “Shit!” cursed Tetsuya as the monster’s intimidating voice came closer and closer. “Come on!”

The creaky knob finally turned. The Liveman hero basically dropped himself into the empty room. He kicked the door just in time.

Tetsuya forgot something else. He immediately turned off his headlight. Even the darkened corridor outside was brighter than this place.

The Liveman bit his lips. There’s no way he could win against the monster now. He should keep his mouth shut.

There was a moving shadow outside. The sound of heavy footsteps followed it. It stopped right in front of the library door.

Sweat perspired on Tetsuya’s face. His eyes felt stingy when drops hit them. He covered the broken mouthguard. The intense moment felt like an eternity.

Then the shadow passed. The footsteps retreated and disappeared. Black Bison finally could breathe freely.

But he still got the pain. As much as he tried to move carefully, the occasional agony was still pricking his abs. In an unsteady stand, Black Bison turned the headlight back on. Before him, the numerous cabinets were filled with labeled books. Between them were rows of reading tables. He explored the place further.

Either it was an expensive school with the largest book collection in the country or this location was an eldritch one. The cupboards extended as far as Tetsuya could see. To the sides, to the front, even to the back. The hero gasped as he suddenly lost his way out. The entrance door was nowhere to be seen. He tried to run back, but even a few quick steps were enough to hurt him again. Tetsuya cursed at his condition.

Perhaps his teammates were better off. He activated his wrist communicator. “Liveman team, this Black Bison. Are you guys alright?”

There’s nothing. There was only static. Typical splitting-up problem. Tetsuya began to fear that he was in a monster’s trap all along. He couldn’t reach his friends and neither could they. Gulping with the aftertaste of the horrible goop before, the spandex hero tried again. “Liveman team, come in.”

“Tight… So tight…” A mysterious voice came through the static.

Tetsuya recognized the voice. “Yellow, is that you?”

“Rubber… Rubber all over my body… Pressing on my crotch… Massaging it until I burst… Burst and burst again…”

It was another voice. “Green?”

There was a squeaking hard moan from a female voice. “Angh! It’s getting deeper and deeper!”

“Megumi!” cried out Black Bison without caring about codenames anymore. The thought of Blue Dolphin having met her heroic demise was too much for him to bear. “Please, not you…”

“Tetsuya…” called out the mumbled voice of another person. Tetsuya recognized that one for sure.

Tetsuya wasn’t even sure that he wanted to reply. “Red?”

“We live in the dark. We live in the suffocating strangle of the rubber. There’s no escape for Liveman.”

“No…” There was nothing more to hear. Tetsuya immediately turned off the communicator. He was sweating in fear. All of his friends had fallen. He was the only Liveman left in this demon school. “There must be a way to beat this monster…”

Just then, he felt a light behind him. It was a desk with a golden chair. On the table was a thick book.

He approached it. He could see the title of the book: The Struggles of a Biased Brain. As weird as the title was, he recognized the pattern. “Bias? Brain Army?”

The Black Bison Liveman sat and opened the book. There must be something inside to help him. The thick hardcover was heavy, but the Sentai hero managed to open it.

To his surprise, the pages were empty. There was nothing in there. No writings, numbers, or symbols. It was simply blank.

But wait! On one of the pages, Tetsuya found his team’s logo. Before he knew the reason why it was there, the book zapped him back.

The throne chair snapped shut at Black Bison’s wrists, ankles, and neck. It locked the struggling hero into place. Then, the zaps continued to torment Tetsuya’s mind.

He could feel it. His memories, knowledge, and everything he knew about his life as a superhero were taken away. The Liveman logo page turned and there were new writings on the next pages. As if moved by intense wind, dozens of pages were filled with new information drained from the trapper youngster.

“No, stop!” cried out the helpless Tetsuya. As much as he tried to keep his thoughts in, they leaked out through the strange bolts of lightning that connected his helmet with the cursed book. The more he thought about himself and his teammates, the more he forgot things. “I can’t… I can’t remember…”

“You are nothing but a freak in a spandex costume. A fool who plays the hero despite knowing well about your patheticness. You’re imagining yourself as a warrior of justice just to escape the grim reality as a slave to the Armed Brain Army Volt!”

“No… No… I’m a genius… Academia recruited me… My friends… We’re heroes….” Tetsuya’s mental strength was waning. The appearing monster had a good trick to break him. The library books flew out of their cabinets and landed on the golden desk. One by one, they continued the process of brain-draining the poor Black Bison Liveman. Their empty pages also got filled by Tetsuya’s intelligence.

He was pouring everything in: the details of his Liveman powers, the team cannon, even the schematics of their giant mecha. Someone could simply read these books and create their own clone of the Liveman team for their own benefit. Tetsuya’s own team would be rendered obsolete.

For the hero himself, he began to drool. His mind couldn’t handle the zapping anymore. He tried to be defiant against this evil creature but he was fighting a losing battle. “Can’t… Can’t fight…”

“All you will remember now is to be a horny slave that knows his place in the filth,” whispered the monster to the side of Black Bison’s helmet. It activated something deep inside the youngster’s mind. He arched up and writhed. All while his crotch growing into a thick baton tent.

“Brain Army! Brain Army!” cried out the depleted Tetsuya as the subjugated Black Bison Liveman.

The monster laughed. As the zapping continued, he moved on to the next phase. The arcade machine appeared again. The monitor showed the final fates of the Liveman team. Yellow and Green as latex slaves in their ball and box. Red and Blue as stinky slaves in their shoes and condom. What should become of the Black Bison Liveman then?

In the book itself, of course. The throne unlocked the exhausted Sentai hero. The zap pulled Black Bison into the tome helmet-first. The youngster tried to keep himself from behind entirely devoured by grabbing onto the sides. His screams echoed in the empty library as he was holding for his dear life against the pulling force. His legs were kicking wildly in the back.

Then, his entire body got squirted by a deluge of black ink. That was his doom. The slippery fluid made Tetsuya’s grip fail. Like a victim of a snake, the spandex hero was pulled inside the tight throat of the cursed book. With his arms on the side, there was nothing more he could do to stop the hyperdimensional vore.

Black tentacles burst out and grabbed the rest of the struggling warrior’s body. Some of them even caress his perfect rear and wrapped around his mature baton, causing the prey to squirm just before his final moments. The book finally closed with its lock snapped shut.

Even then, Tetsuya’s desperate screeches could still be heard. Perhaps it would be heard forever as the spandex-clad Sentai hero finally met his end. The title melted and changed. The new one was The Ballad of the Tetsuya Yano: Black Bison, Brain Slave.