Ainōryoku Sentai Nightmærangers #53 (Patreon)

The Baseco Horror, Part 1

Another line of light carved itself along the sky. It reflected off the clouds above, staining them white as it seemed to make night into day for a moment. A wave of heat came a moment later, hot as an open flame from far too close as the beam of plasma shot between the two monsters flying in the air. Both darted back from the beam, one moving in a sinuous, serpentine motion, the other just seeming to fade out of sigh save for swirling mist pulled down from the clouds that evaporated away in moments from the heat.

The beam itself ceased to be as it crossed over the waters of Manila Bay, a measure of darkness falling once more. Yet even this darkness was not the black of a true overcast night, as the burning ball of plasma floating between the city below and the clouds above shone with a sun-like radiance. Skyscrapers of the city cast long shadows through the light. It lit the flattened and debris-strewn blocks of the city where a surprisingly brief battle between towering beasts had occurred.

In the midst of this, a fallen corpse more than fifty meters in height lay sprawled and still as blood and viscera gushed from the hole stabbed through its chest, dripped from wounds. Already it smelled worse than sewage as the bodily fluids pooled on the ground and flowed, dripping down to the shattered road and into the sewers beneath. In the harsh light of the burning orb, the corpse's rubber skin was a dolphin grey, its fur dark brown, its scales a silvery green.

The light from the burning orb shone down of crowds of hundreds of people in various states of dress. Wet, cold and tired, they milled about in confusion and fire, their bodies free once more, yet all too aware of being trapped in their own flesh as they had run—as they had been made to run—from their homes and business by the distorted, feminine voice they had all heard. They had run for kilometers, over broken roads, over cars, over the bodies of the dead, as behind them two monsters like something out of movies had clashed and one had reigned victorious over the other.

In the water of the bay, that victor stood, its cracked shell already whole, limbs thick and strong as it rose upright in the water, staring down at the tangled juncture of roads between the port area that had been turned into a military camp to contain the infected corpses of the artificial island of Baseco, the old fort of Intramuros, and the highway that passed between them. Walls formed from trees had grown, containing the spreading horde of the infected of the slums of Baseco. From the trees hung the bodies of the living, their nerves burning with pain as eldritch, unnatural mycelial tissue spread through them, stealing their bodies even as it fed upon them slowly, and leaving the poor souls—many brave soldiers who had stood watch against this evil for months—in agony as they begged for mercy, for surcease, for God…

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Tammy had honestly thought things would finally get easier when Yellow and Red finally reached their location and would be able to assist. Why had she thought that?-!

"I've managed to shut down the most painful of the nerves, but they'll still be in a little pain," Yellow reported through her drone. "If I shut it down completely I won't have any warning for if any more issues come up as the infection keeps spreading through their nerves or they go into shock. More into shock. The ones with hypothermia I've warmed up, though they'll have lost a little weight. Eh, no one ever minds having a smaller gut. They'll will live, and if we can get them out of this situation I should be able to get the fungus out of them. Green, I think you've managed to get everyone still alive at your end… and you've got a few that are dead but you probably couldn't te—Red, shoot! Shoot! "

Tammy felt the heat and radiance as another line of plasma tore through the sky and there was a crack of thunder as the Lightning Shark was presumably diverted away from moving in Yellow's general direction again. Tammy couldn't actually see this, occupied as she was by the mushroom monsters and mushroom-armored infected trying to batter down the barrier of trees she'd built. She'd only seen them forming too late, growing out of the ground covered in fungal mycelia. She'd thought they'd just be normal giant mushrooms at first, and had been in the middle of sighing about how it was now 'normal' for giant mushrooms to be a thing, until they'd ripped themselves out of the ground and started moving on their own power towards her wall. The mushrooms has been surprisingly tough, certainly tougher than the canned stuff from the supermarket that went with the pasta she liked to cook, but that hadn't been mush of an impediment to them trying to climb over the barrier she had made.

They hadn't been vaguely human shaped, like the popular depiction of mushroom monsters, with the cap acting like a head and inexplicable limbs sprouting from the rest. Instead, they had grown in clumps that looked less phallic and more like some kind of weird architecture, growths of different sizes and lengths seemingly fused together in a common base. Each growth seemed to move independently, bending along the stalk, each of them acting like limbs as they propelled themselves along the ground, and Tammy had been reminded of the form she had taken when trying to fight he Gagambuhala. The clusters of mobile mushrooms had no visible—or at least identifiable— eyes, butthey somehow knew where to go because they went straight for the barrier's she'd raised

Tammy had needed to grow her walls, more and more roots growing and spreading underground to anchor it in place as branches grew, trying to push and pull and cast down the mushroom drones trying to climb over the barrier. Despite the fact they had no fingers or even any structures like hands, they seemed to bond with the white web of mycelia already growing on the trees, sticking to them like glue to pull themselves up.Their size made it difficult to just pick them up and grab them, and when her branches made contact, more strands of mycelia dug into her bark and wood, burrowing inside and breaking down her cells, forcing her to grow to repair the damage and repel the infection.

She'd had to detach her main body from the tree she was on to prevent the infection from spreading into her, making her perch precarious, but she hung on with fingers and arms that were harder and stiffer than mere flesh and bone as she directed branches to batter the clusters of moving mushrooms, to bend and fold under their weight and drop them, to impale them and grow inside them to hold them in place.

Her mind was so occupied she couldn't come up with a catchy name for them!

Blue helped as she could, blasting back the infected now that Tammy's attention was torn, encasing more and more in ice, and reshaping that ice to try to pull them away from the walls and push back those behind them. It made Tammy burn with pride when she saw that. Her cousin was improvising, being creative, yet still using minimal force instead of just blasting away and ripping limbs apart…

More of the things had also appeared at the bridge Magenta was defending, but from the sound of it he didn't seem to be having any problems dealing with them. Others had grown even larger and fallen into the waters of the bay where she hadn't raised barriers because of the water, their large bodies awkward but buoyant, as they tried to propel themselves around the blockade that had been raised. They were enthusiastically sunk and eater by Sanny. In the salt water, her drones didn't have to worry about being infected by fungal spores, letting them tear apart the mobile mushroom clumps—no, Fungal Clusters!—with relative impunity.

…all right, maybe things were a bit easier, but it certainly didn’t feel like it for her!

"Where did these things even come from?-!" Tammy cried as another line of glowing plasma tore across the sky, scaring away the Gale Bird.

"Well, the mushrooms were growing," Magenta said.

"But they were just mushrooms! And they were growing slowly! Well, slow, anyway. And none of the mushrooms in Baseco were walking around!" Yes, as the leader she knew she shouldn't complain, but it was a legitimate question!

"Maybe it was the proximity to the Lightning Shark?" Yellow said, sounding surprisingly calm and thoughtful for someone literally controlling hundreds of thousands of things at once. "Studies have shown mushroom growth can be stimulated by electrical arcs, and there's even old superstitions of mushrooms growing from lightning strikes."

Her face had absolutely no expressions at all, but it was the thought that counted as Tammy sent the dirtiest look she could at the Lightning Shark flying above. "Red, try to see if you can get direct hits on the Lightning Shark, maybe you'll actually be able to convince it to stay away."

Petty? No, she wasn't petty, she was the leader of a superhero team! That sort of petty was unbecoming of her, this was a genuine tactical decision!

"Uh, Yellow?"

"Yes, Magenta?"

"I have to ask… your fight with Laking Kamay is done, right?"

"Correct. I won."

"And... you're not actually doing anything, right? I mean, physically."

"Nope. I mean, I'm controlling a bunch of kinda-sharks to eat the giant mushrooms in the water trying to get around the defenses you, Green and Blue have put up, while at the same time keeping all the infected people still alive from dying or being in too much pain, while also keeping an ear on this drone for communications purposes, and connecting to hundreds of other drones around the city who are keeping hundreds of thousands of people from getting sick or dying, but no, I myself am physically not doing anything besides standing around since I can't get close to the fungal spores."

Tammy winced as while branches hammered at the Fungeal Clusters. Put like that… the other woman was still dealing with a lot of stuff even after beating Laking Kamay, wasn't she? "I'm sorry for asking you to do so much!"

"It's fine, I'm a gainfully employed adult. I'm used to being treated like disposable garbage good only for making money by negligent bosses who undervalue my experience and abilities, and see me as a replaceable cog in their cash machine."

"I'm VERY SORRY for asking you to do so much!"

"Really, it's fine…"

"Uh, so… if your fight is done… why are you a hundred foot tall giant…? I don't even know what."

"Because until now everyone and everything has been able to get huge and fuck the square-cube law but me, and now that I have, I am not going to stop unless I have to."

"But… wouldn't it be safer for you to get smaller so that the Lightning Shark can't see you?"

"Hell no! Being smaller than a shark is a good way to get eaten! Small things made of meat are prey! At least they're actually naturally wary if you're bigger than they—RED, SHOOT IT, SHOOT IT!"

Tammy's view brightened, and she felt the trees around her opening their leaves, despite the fungus growing on them, soaking in the energy in the light as Red fired another beam of plasma. Once more, the Lightning Shark diverted its path to avoid being hit.

"Thank you…" Yellow said in a shaky voice.

"It doesn't seem to be working," Magenta said flatly.

"It's still be bigger than it can swallow in one bite."

"Fir enough, I su—oh, shit."

Tammy blinked. That other exclamation had been… unexpected. "Magenta?"

"The mushroom things are getting over the bridge!" the previously composed college student reported. "Damn it, they grew this white stuff under the bridge to get around the curve I made to contain them! Mushrooms are growing all over the bridge!"

Tammy made a snap decision. "Red, destroy that bridge NOW!" she ordered. "If they infect the people on the other side, they'll be able to spread across the entire city!"

For a moment, there was silence as Red hesitated. In that moment, Tammy knew what was going to happen. Red… Jaselle was going to ask if they had to do it, if there was some other way, and they'd lose precious time explaining—

A beam of light slammed into the bridge, and there was an explosion as concrete and steel were superheated in an instant. At the point of impact, an incandescent, glowing cloud surrounded by an ineffectual veil of cement dust rose, plasma no longer pressurized and directed but a loose, expanding cloud that glowed with light and should have burned with such heat as to set the atmosphere on fire. Then the glowing cloud seemed to ripple, and then it was a bright orange, glowing wave of lava falling out of the air that caused the swollen and rushing river beneath the bridge to bubble with clouds of steam.

Eventually, Red's cube vibrated. "Was that enough?" she asked hesitantly.

"Uh… let me check…" Magenta replied.

Tammy waited as she had Bleu go back to flooding the ground and creating layers of ice to keep this trick from being repeated at her end of the blockade. If they could grow mushroom behind her lines…

"I think you got them," Magenta reported. "The white fiber stuff they were growing from is burned on the other side of the bridge, and doesn't seem to be spreading anymore. It'll leave a little sand to wan me, just in case, but I think you stopped it…

"Magenta, with the bridge down, you don't need to defend it anymore," Tammy said. "Check the other places you've blocked in case they've spread there too."

"Shit, you're right. On my way as soon as I secure the people I've managed to extract."

"Be careful," Yellow said. "There are still a few live ones in the horde on your end."

"I know, but trying to pull them out is a bit to chancy for me. Don't blow them up?"

"Just trap everyone near them and sort it out later," Tammy said. More mushrooms were growing on the streets in front of her, rising up into more Fungal Clusters to replace the ones impaled on her branches. "We need to finish this so we can deal with those two flying—"

There was a crack of thunder.

There was a reverberating, echoing roar that shook her trees and made the roots she used to balance herself vibrate. It was a monstrous cry that would have been deafening had she had ears made of meat, the sort of thing foley artists have been trying to make to bring creations of the silver screen to life.

It sounded absolutely terrified.

Tammy turned her head to get one the many spots on her head that she could see through pointed at where Sanny was, only to see a gigantic shark clamed on to her enormous arm. Unlike before, it wasn't bright and glowing and flying. Instead, it looked… well, it didn’t' even look like the sharks she saw on TV. Instead, it looked more like something from her dentist's aquarium, almost like a catfish, except it was a big as a ship and was fastened on to Yellow's bus-thick wrist, which she'd seemed to raise to protect her face. The shark wiggled and jerked back and forth as if trying to tear a huge chunk off, while Yellow was…

…was…

Tammy paused and double checked, just to be sure.

…

There was no denying or mistaking it. Yellow was flailing around in batshit panic, screaming at the top of what must have been considerable lungs. There was none of the composed, intelligent, widely read and occasionally frighteningly ruthless woman that Tammy had come to rely on, the kind who treated bodies like disposable clothes and viewed pain as something to get rid of by shutting down nerves.

It would have been funny if Tammy couldn't perfectly understand why she was freaking out.

After all, she had a shark biting on her arm.

There was a flare of light, and suddenly the shark was flesh and blood no more, but instead glowing electric plasma, and Yellow was screaming louder and louder. The windows of nearby cars and buildings didn't break, but the sound was in the range where it felt like they should, even for her. arcs of lightning played across Yellow's body, causing it to shudder and spasm all over before the shark was once more solid and thrashing back and forth, doubtlessly drawing blood as the shark's teeth dug in. Yellow was slumping, her limbs shaking and weak as she slumped forward and walked unsteadily.

Even with her size, the fact she was still shaking from electrocution—some parts of her were actually steaming—the steps where clearly panicked as she walked towards the closest land. The giant shark's weight was making her list, and for a moment it looked almost like she was going to collapse into the water.

With a shudder that Tammy felt from where she was standing on a tree, Yellow collapsed onto the grounds of the port area, and there were nauseating cracking sounds like bone breaking. She actually saw a the shell on Yellow's back seem to crack in half as one side started lifting up. There were flopping sounds like a beached whale as the Lightning Shark continued trying to rip a large chunk from Yellow's wrist by thrashing its head so that its teeth would saw through the meat and bone…

Tammy shook herself. "Yellow! Are you okay? Yellow!" she yelled at the drone next to her drone, trying to get Ate Sanny's attention. "Yellow, snap out of it!"

Finally, drone shuddered, its eyes—which had disturbingly started to roll independently of each other, focusing on Tammy. "Boss…"

"Yellow! Good, you're okay! Get up Yellow, you're going to get eaten."

"Boss…" Yellow's drone quavered. "I think I've found the monster controlling the mushrooms."

Tammy wanted to blink. "What?"

Yellow's huge kaiju body started screaming even louder as the Lightning Shark, in a burst of light, turned back to arks of electric plasma and shot back into the air as steamers of electricity from it scrapped along the ground and Yellow's fallen form.