Ainōryoku Sentai Nightmærangers #52 (Patreon)

The Nightmares That Came To Manila, Part 10

Inconsiderately, getting impaled near the spine by a spike that suddenly sprouts tentacles to start ripping apart flesh wasn't enough to kill Laking Kamay. It was still a spike through its back which had tentacles ripping at its flesh, however, and therefore very distracting. Being impaled through the back, it was also nearly impossible to reach and remove since limbs rarely had the flexibility to reach that far.

Sanny would have liked to say he planned it that way, but it had simply been a lucky hit.

Laking Kamay was screaming as blood flowed from its back, the flesh tearing even as it tried to heal. Thrashing about in pain, it slammed into the buildings on either side, repeated impacts wearing them down to rubble. There was a crack and another scream as it accidentally broke one of its own bones in its frantic struggling with pain.

The urge prey consume devour filled him as he stepped back to be out of tantrum range, but he gently pushed it back. Yes, he agreed they were going to eat this one, but there was no reason to get in close and put himself in danger when it was already hurting itself. A new bone and hand were growing to replace the one he'd removed to make the drone, which was he was using to dig through the ribcage from the back to try and get at the heart again. It was the tougher approach, since there were more bones and the spine in the way, but it was working as Laking Kamay frantically tried and failed to rip it out, completely ignoring Sanny as a result. Taking out the heart would also be temporary, but the affect it would have on bloodflow should slow Laking Kamay even further.

Laking Kamay's attack forced Sanny to upwardly revise his assessment of how fast the monster could move out of the water, even if it was in bursts. He should have figured, many aquatic predators were burst ambushers at the edge of the water. The attack had been quick, sudden, and had been meant to be overwhelming and final, and so when his arm had finally grown back, a new spike jutting out from the bones of his forearm, he decided to return the favor.

The monster's thrashing had leveled the buildings around him, its pained kicks throwing debris into farther buildings and roads. Try as it might to bend it's arm up and over, it still could reach the drone on its back, and the few times it was able to brush at the drone sideways, the barbed and clawed tentacles managed to ward it off. Laking Kamay completely ignored Sanny, completely focused on the drone on its back.

It afforded a wonderful distraction as Sanny through his entire body on top of the monster. He felt bones on both of their bodes break at the impact, felt three of his rib crack, but considered that a fair deal as the spine under him broke and Laking Kamay's legs abruptly stopped moving. The drone lay sandwiched between them, the spike digging deeper in as Sanny pressed down harder, has bag inflating to try and spread his weigh as evenly over the monster's body as he as his limbs—arms and legs, because he was a bipedal upright hominid and thought like it—using them to weight down Laking Kamay's limbs. Tentacles erupted from the ends of his feet, eventually tangling around Laking Kamay's long, bony legs. Sanny felt perversely like a rapist, using his body weight to force his victim do to do unnatural and unwanted things to them…

Prey consume devour!

Laking Kamay roared, trying to buck him off, but the monster's slender build and lack of leverage allowed Sanny to press the advantage of his position. His drone fused with him, adding to the perversely rapist-esque position as the tentacles grew and lengthened, wrapping around Laking Kamay's torso, mouths on the tentacles opening to attack leech-like to patchwork flesh and fur, teeth full of spiked barbs anchoring even further. He could feel the beginnings of spines starting to grow on Laking Kamay's flesh, but not quickly enough. They were already meeting the scales he'd clad his gas bags and limbs in. The protection wouldn't last long, but they'd give him time.

His head extended, turtle-like—or at least, cartoon turtle-like—out from between his shoulders, his spine elongating out from under the spiny shell on his back. The triangular, tooth-like horn on the bone mask at the end of the limb moved like as sword as Sanny carefully lined it up and stabbed his nominal face downwards at Laking Kamay's head. The monster's head twisted back and forth with a nearly unnatural range of motion—but then, who was he to talk about 'unnatural'? It's wide, black eyes seemed to see the horn poised above it, and the thrashing grew more violent, but Sanny waited patiently, even as he took control and diverted the military geniuses who kept trying to aim their shoulder-mounted rocket things at his head.

The temptation to just point the things at their own feet and blow them up was strong, but he wasn't some murder hobo. Besides, power wasn't killing them, power was having completely control of them and treating them like annoying insects barely worth his attention!

…

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, because that was a bit too borderline supervillain even by his standards…

Sanny waited for the right opportunity as his scales warded off spines and Laking Kamay finally started ground other vestigial limbs before his head stabbed down, the bone horn stabbing into the base of the skull, severing the spine. The rest of Laking Kamay twitched and went limp even as the spines and limbs continued to grow. If it was anything like him—and it was starting to look more and more likely—Sanny had less than a minute before the damaged was sufficiently repaired for the monster to be mobile again.

This was his best chance.

Making the military shoot off any of their rocket loads away from him, since he'd have to stop paying attention to them and foiling their aim, Sanny's bone mask split open vertically, peeling outward on either side of the long triangular horn. The empty space that had once contained pulped brain and eyes unfurled with tentacles to hunger, all line with round mouths that seemed to go too deep, to open into depths. He felt once more a phantom sensation, like she was taking a deep breath. Anticipation filled him, and Sanny knew it wasn't entirely his own as the tentacles began to wrap around Laking Kamay's head, the mouths biting, teeth digging in.

As the weakly struggling head tried to fight back, jaw snapping open and close as the tongue, stinger tip dripping with venom, tried to flop at him, Sanny felt it. The shift inside, as if a mouth as opening wide, and licking teeth, lunging…

…and was met head on.

For the second time, Sanny felt someone trying to devour him while he was trying to devour them, and he just barely managed to evade the possibility of a far too intimate deadlock,. The only reason he knew such a deadlock was possible because he'd indulged Tammy's idea of trying to share the same prey, and he barely managed to pull her back from simply following instinct metaphorically swallowing whole. He felt the surprise and annoyance at his interference, like he'd held in a relieving biological action while it was still unfinished and was causing the pressure to build when it could be given release.

However, for the first time he found himself on the receiving end on an attempt to consume him, a genuine, intent one that wouldn't end in a frantic burst of teenaged self-control and apologies. Instead, Sanny was pressed—

It was huge. Something, endless, boundless, almost beyond comprehension, almost understandable—

And then suddenly he and she were pressing back, and he was a spark, bright and burning, while she was around him, part of him, inside him, a vast, terrible and great thing that pressed against the other, so like themselves, too like themselves, but not them, nothing like them. Sanny could feel her, calling not just to consume but filling him with such basic, raw hunger and the call to satisfy it. He felt it when she and the force that could only be Laking Kamay trying to devour them right back clashed, no longer deadlocking like two hands accidentally entwining fingers when they were trying to shove against each other. Instead, two fists shoved back and forth, hard, closed, wrathful, except the fists were also mouths, lined with teach to shred and tear to bite-sized bits and bleed and chew and bite and swallow.

There were no images, no convenient visual metaphors of slightly curved, needle-like teeth meeting triangular, serrated, saw-like teeth, only two forces pressing against each other, and Sanny was just there, hanging like a like spark…

And on the other side, hanging from Laking Kamay, was another spark. Small. Weak. Flickering, almost snuffed out…

Laking Kamay and she clashed once more, like open mouths trying to might each other, teeth rebounding on teeth, trying to find something anything, and advantage, a deadlock in its own way…

This wasn't the Blood Bug. It was beaten, broken and overwhelmed. Laking Kamay was still full of vim and vigor, and what the hell was vim exactly, so that even when held down, it still fought, still didn't surrender, driven by animalist need and appetite that couldn't be matched….

Or rather, could be matched, and that was a problem, because she was only matching it, becoming locked in bloody battle of attrition, even as—

Sanny felt, in a strange way that felt both distant and immediate, rockets slamming into his back, his shell, of the thick bone and titanium organic composite breaking and buckling at the pressures, of ruptured cells and internal bleed, felt her rock as the injuries registered, and she was almost pushed back, almost eaten, before Laking Kamay got hit with a glancing hit with another rocket. Laking Kamay immediately stopped fighting, drawing back almost all the way, and Sanny heard it roar in pain, once more losing sight of its priorities…

Sanny struck. They couldn't risk more rocket, not with them on top of Laking Kamay and likely to take more of the hits. He threw himself somehow at the reeling, distracted monster, and she came with him, because she was within him, around him, partof him.

He threw his small, almost insignificantly little spark, burning bright with all he was, at the monster as it was drawing back and in pain. So was she, but he pressed them both forward, made her open wide, and while Laking Kamay was ignoring them in favor of itself—

—Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Not Like. Pain. Anger. Not Like. Not Like! Pain. Surprise. Prey. Consume. Devour. Prey. Prey. Consume. Devour. Prey. Consume. Devour. Prey. Consume. Devour. What? No. It Not Prey. It Not Prey. Other Prey! Consume! Devour. It Not Prey! Other Prey! No! No! No! N—

—make it stop. Make it stop. Mommy! Daddy! Make it stop! Don't want to eat! Save me mommy, daddy! The monster is making me eat! I don't want! I want to wake up! I want to go home! I'll be a good boy! I'll stay home! I'll go to school! I'll work for money for food! I'll be good! Please mommy, daddy, save me! Make it stop! I want to wake up! I want to go home! I don't want to go swimming anymore! I thought I was awake, so I tried to go back home, but now I'm asleep again! I'm dreaming I'm a monster! Mommy, daddy, please… Kuya? Kuya, can you see me? You can see me! Kuya, please save me, I want to go home! I don't know how to go back home! Kuya, kuya, please, please kuya, take my hand, save me, please, the monster is about to eat me, please Kuya! Kuya! No, no, no! Kuya, please! I want to wake up, please kuya, don't eat me, don't eat me kuya, I'll do anything, I know where you can find cheap girls, almost free, just please save me kuya, please, please, I want to wake up, I want to wake up, please kuya DON'T EAT ME! NO! NO! No! no! no. no… n…—

Sanny tried. At the last moment, he tried. He tried to pull back, even if a part of him knew it was too late for the small, weak, faded, smothered spark that SAW HIM! He tried. He wanted to say he tried…

For a heartbeat that lasted forever, Santiago Dalag saw the… the…

His mouth, her mouth, their mouth, snapped shut, and there was no going back as he felt the little spark of s… as he felt the thing that had once been human, the little spark that… that for the grace of God could have been him—

When he opened his many, many, many eyes, to find his mouth-lined tentacles feeding on meat of the lifeless, empty corpse of the monster that had been Laking Kamay… Sanny knew he was a murderer, of the worst, most terrible sort.

He expected to wretch, even if he didn't have the organs for it. Expected shock, disgust, loathing. Expected himself to think 'what have I done' as he forced himself to let go of the gnawed-upon head, pulling his neck back into his damaged shell, the bone plate face still open, tentacles drooping down, bracketed on either side by paleness and dark eyeholes.

He expected guilt. Shame. Horror. Denial.

Instead, there was only the cold, detached thought of 'Ah. Now it makes sense' as urges of prey consume devour coming from the back of his head, replaced by the most wonderful feeling of satisfaction, of contentment, of being pleasantly full after a large, wonderful meal, of a belly full but not bursting, of new possibility, of power…

The little spark was already gone.

Sanny knew he should feel wretched. Shocked. Disgusted. Loathsome. Ashamed. Horrified. Guilty. He even expected to feel numb and empty.

Instead, all he felt was a perverse expectation as he waited for feelings that didn't come, followed by impatience when they didn't.

…

He was a truly twisted piece of shit, wasn't he?

…

Well, enough trying to see if he had some kind of normal, stereotypically 'healthy' emotional response. There were more monsters out there and a team who needed him.

Sanny let go of the giant, already cooling corpse of a most unfortunate soul. It was still warm, cells still metabolizing, but it was only dead meat now, empty of anything to make it special. He loosened the grip of his tentacles and gently, gingerly rose up and up and up and up, the imaling spike slowly being absorbed back into his chest. At their feet, it looked like a picture from World War 2, crushed buildings and everything completely flattened, with something poking out here and there to give an almost comedic bit of contrast. There was a tree that looked completely unharmed, swaying in the night breeze that was stronger now without so many building to get in the way. A car, standing as if perfectly parked, if a little dusty.

Shewas already at work, changing their body, replacing gas bladders with muscle, actual muscle as he began to walk with a bow-legged gait through the path of destruction the… the poor child just trying to go home after months trapped in a waking nightmare had made. With each step, each pendulous swing of arms longer than busses, he felt strangely… not light. More… able, somehow.

Hesitantly, he relaxed, letting go to her and she stepped forward, eager happy seeping the back of his head, and all he could think of was a puppy with a toy, running around and playing with it without a care in the world.

The cynical part of him pointed out that puppies grew up to be dogs, which were nothing but loud, bite-happy poop machines of no redeeming values.

He didn't feel like he grew lighter, or stronger. Yet as the layers of muscles grew and grew, as he walked away ignoring the unrelenting gunfire that was all being directed at him now that he was the only monster left in the sight of all the soldiers around him, Sanny felt… more comfortable. As if his own skin had been refit to sit better no his frame. Not perfectly. But better.

Experimentally, he increased his pace from a slow walk to what he imagine was a predatory stalk, leaning forward a bit. The movements felt natural, as if all the weight of the bone and muscle and shell of his body had been wonderfully balanced and not just slapped together because fuck it. he feltthe ground shake with every determine step, felt the pavement collapsing under his feet as sewers collapsed under the road. Wind roared, barely chilling the wide expanse of his skin, and when lightning flashed and was followed by the inevitable thunder, the wince caused a rippling, full-body involuntary muscular contraction that lasted a good five minutes…

Wait.

Sanny swore inside his own head as he actually lookedthrough his senses and noticed the world around him rather than enjoying the feeling of, if not exactly fucking the square-cube law, then at least copping feels in intimate places and getting under its clothes. The wind roared liked there was a typhoon, and lightning flashed like a strobe, to deafening thunder. The clouds above were being blown this way and that, not in any orderly direction or in a rotating cyclone, but in haphazard streaks and lines. In the sky, something bright and sinuous as flickering, serpentine around something with great wings that seemed to flicker in and out of view.

From the back of his head, a familiar urge came.

What a glutton.

"Guys, I'm done," he said calmly through his drone in Kim's house. "Heading your way."

"Yellow? Oh, thank God! We need help, I think we're losing some of the people here! We need you to keep them alive!" Green's drone exclaimed. "The Lightning Shark and Gale Bird are fighting too close! And there are giant mushroom monsters all of a sudden! I don’t' know where they came from!"

"I'll do what I can, but they'll still have fungal infections," Sanny said, already reaching out. "Not my area of expertise. I'm better with bacteria." Still, he wasn't entirely helpless. Fungus was protein. He could have cells eat protein…

"Do what you can! Red's almost here, she can burn the stuuf away!" Magenta said. "Red, where are you?"

A thin line of light bright as the sun wrote itself across the sky. It passed between the Gale Bird and Lightning Shark, and for a moment, Sanny felt a burning, fiery heat, hotter than any summer, and the two flying monsters darted back from each other with alacrity. The clouds above roil strangely, like the surface of a boiling kettle, as the line of light disappeared.

"I'm here!" Red's cube of obsidian vibrated. "I'm in range!"

"New plan!" Green said immediately. "Keep shooting those two, and try to drive them away from here and over the water! You can burn Baseco later, we need to get the people still alive out of here! These mushroom things are toughed then the zombies, but I'm holding them off for now! Yellow, can you end drones to help?"

"I'll try!" Red said, and another line of light drew itself across the sky, aimed at the Lightning Shark, which dodged aside with a crack of thunder. "I'm not sure how effective it is, but plasma to plasma contact seems to be happening"

"I won't be able to get close to those things, not without my drones getting infected," Sanny said as he waded through the bay, water splashing up to his knees now, feet sinking into the cold, ground that was alternately soft and hard, depending on if he was stepping on mud, rock or debris. He walked past the American Embassy, keeping the buildings between him and the tanks of the marines, ignoring the little rubber boats with more of them in the water. "Made of meat, remember?"

"Holy shit, I see you, you're huge! That's still vulnerable?"

"I'd rather not test it," Sanny said. "Let's not have the 'mind-controlled teammate' fight tonight, all right?" He could see things moving, pale and glowing a little green, pressing clumsily against what looked like a wall made from trees. Huh. He sort of expected some humanoid-shaped thing, but no, it was just a tangle of fungal reproductive parts that seemed to have gone mobile

"Do what you can, then! Red, as soon as you think those two are far enough, burn Baseco and get rid of those mushrooms that are spreading spores!"

"Those are all just symptoms," Sanny pointed out. "Unless we find and devourwhatever central monster is actually responsible for the growths, they'll just keep growing and spreading."

"But it has to be somewhere in Baseco, right?" Magenta said. "One of the mushrooms? It's not like there's anything elseit could be. The infection hasn't spread beyond there."

"We don't know that," Sanny said. "The growths coincide with the fungal infections on people, but the actual source could be anything living there. It… it might even be one of the still-living infected."

Tammy sounded confused. "But why would they do that?"

"I currently have strong reason to believe that the five of us were very, very lucky. Jas had shown that the urges can be so overwhelming we lose control to the power. Take that to the most horrific extreme."

There was silence.

It was Ryan who said, "Ate Sanny… Laking Kamay…"

"Not now," Sanny said curtly. "Not the time."

The look in Ryan's eyes… "Oh, Ate… "

"Not the time!"

He didn't need their pity or compassion. After all, he'd felt nothing for what he'd done. He didn't care.

"Well… if it's on the island, it'll still burn," Green said with shaky finality. "So it works either way. Red, continue with driving those two off, then fire when ready!"