Run.
There was no room, no time, for anything more complex than that thought. She was behind him. She was coming.
She and her hate.
Long black tentacles tore through the brush, uprooting the forest as they passed, and rending it apart in chase of him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see crooked legs, skittering across the air even as they peeled to nothing under their own weight. Globs of inky black flung at Russ' back over and over, each one dodged with less time to spare than the last. Russ had no real idea where she was, able to see only the tiny circle around him that did not fade into full black. The shadow was closing in. She could be anywhere in that shadow. Russ could not shake the feeling that she was everywhere in that shadow.
And she screamed. Oh, how she screamed.
I KNOW YOU'RE THERE!!!
Her maw bloomed like a flower, one becoming three. One screeched like a bird, one roared like a beast. One made a high pitched noise Russ could not hope to identify. Russ could hear the hunt calling, see the dogs dressed as men chasing him down across the field. The judge was a black lion and the jury was her. It was all her.
IT'S YOUR FAULT! She bellowed as Russ leaped over a fallen tree even as it rotted away beneath his feet. The path had long been abandoned now. Sometimes there were not even trees. Something else was there instead, sickly and dark. Watching him. YOURS! YOURS! YOURS!
A tendril lashed out, morphing into a claw even as it whipped at his suit, clawing at his skin. Where it ruptured, white mist began to slowly leak away. He felt strands of something else leave him, something he could not name. It didn't hurt. But it ached.
He pushed on, brush and thorn scraping against his face, roots threatening to snag his feet, pushing blindly away from danger. His shirt was still stained with the viscous fluid that had poured out of him, though every few seconds another glob of it floated off to rejoin the whole.
Guilt welled in his mouth, spilling in black, bitter flecks of a crime committed in ignorance and recalled in oblivion. He had no idea where he was going, groping blindly in the dark woods that were not woods amongst the birch trees with a thousand eyes. When he blinked his eyes the trees were a thousand feet tall. But they still weren't there.
It was only a matter of delaying now, there was nowhere to go-
There was something in the woods.
It was far. It was distant. Russ couldn't look at it directly, or he found his mind beginning to drift.
But it felt like light.
I'M GONNA RIP YOUR AAAAARMS OFF~ She cried in a sing-song voice. It continued for a few horrible seconds before slipping back into the same furious screech. DESTROY YOU, DESTROY YOU, KILL YOU, RIP YOU!
Russ redoubled his speed. Something was better than anything. Something might be escape.
Moving faster meant making mistakes. A rusted spoke of metal rose out of the dirt at just the right angle to send him tumbling to the ground. Russ rolled and slid, coming to a rough landing on the loamy forest floor. Even as he landed he could feel it crawling over him, the dirt squirming with the idea of worms.
He let out a breath.
Before he could move, a dozen strands of inky black slammed into the ground around him, like a web of ink boxing him in. Russ looked up to see a cute, tiny, smiling mouth, placed below a long, curved nose that tapered to a wicked-looking point. Four wide black tendrils floated and shifted in a corona around her head, which tapered into a far too tiny body that could almost fit in Russ' hand. The thin black strands emanated from her form with no clear start or end to them. Her eyes were bright, and happy. Her eyes were innocent.
They had no pupils.
HEE HEE. She giggled. FINALLY! I HAVE SO MUCH TO GET DONE AFTER I'M DONE WITH YOU. SO MUCH MORE REVENGE FOR LITTLE OLD ME TO TAKE! AND I'VE GOTTA CATCH UP WITH THE FAMILY.
Russ, in desperation, tried to tear apart the black strands imprisoning him. It only served to cut his palms and send more of the white wisps falling out of him. He saw his life's work and could not comprehend what it meant. As she began to lower her needle-sharp nose towards him, Russ felt overwhelming regret flood into him. If only he's been faster, or surer. If only he'd had a way to fight back.
Fight…
Russ slapped his forehead. "Oh my god."
She stopped her advance and tilted her head back and forth curiously. HUH? WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED?
Russ smiled. "I'm an idiot."
The Spycycle erupted in a burst of coalescing dream, slamming into the tiny creature with a loud whumff. A second later the telltale whine and chirp fired in record time as a blast of thought tore into her body. She screamed from within the blinding light, even as barbed fingers tore forward, a joint for every inch they stretched. One snagged itself on the rim on the Cycle, scoring a ragged gash into the metal, but Russ leapt onto the vehicle and wrenched it out of her grip before her sight could return, ignoring everything but the chance to accelerate away.
YOU- YOU SCAREDY-CAT! AAAAGGGH, I WAS SO CLOSE! I'LL GET YOU, RUSS! I KNOW YOUR NAME NOW! I KNOW YOU! GET BACK HERE, OR I'LL-
She faded as the nightmare ended. Russ would recall it as a bad dream.
It had been. For him.
The soft white light was growing stronger by the second now. He could feel it begin to suffuse him even as he cleared the edge of the birch forest. It felt familiar as he flew into it.
It felt like home.
===
Dhg ohslu'x xy vizlmjpk? Kav heyw?
Xul Qcpxb'l rmdahsz daa etyxu jhiq lry. Iuakwlvrux rsg vnkp, uim aaywi.
Saje asx ktz ren pmxl tptl.
Gal mi orxrahmcxr gva, dixlvug jfm o wyiqg.
===
"Was something supposed to happen when you said that?" You ask.
"It would appear it needs more power." The Blot says, nudging a rune-inscribed crossbow with a foot. "Not unexpected. I shall simply have to-"
The Blot is interrupted by the click of a phone camera.
The Blot closes his eyes for a moment. "Why exactly have you decided to…?"
"If you're going to explain it, I may as well take notes." Mezmerella chirps.
"I will pretend that statement was made in good faith." The Blot replies. "Now do you intend to stop me or shall I simply complete my intentionally vague plan?"
"Yeah, I'm willing to take the coin flip that it goes wrong and eats you."
The Blot glares at her. Slowly, he trudges over to a comically oversized lever situated on the near wall. "Let there be light, I suppose. Honestly, you are lucky I have much better things to look forward to, or I would have livened things up. Honestly, I had an entire double bluff prepared, and I am rather cross to have wasted it."
"Oh what, should I fight you when I have no leverage and you've got my paycheck sitting in a massive death apparatus, ready to go? Go out of my way to ruin your obviously non-hostile ritual circle and hope it doesn't explode in my face? I'm sitting tight, what more can I get you? A soda? Just get this over with."
The Blot sighs. "Oh, I am going to have to deal with you later."
Blot Intrigue Check: Do You Mind?
40+52+16=108
Mez Opposed
51+31+34+10(Do It All The Time)=126
Failure
The Blot glared archly at her for another moment. "A matter for later. For now-"
"Mr. Blot, if I may ask, why exactly are you going to all this trouble? What is your goal here in contacting this… person?" Mirage interjected, waving Mezmerella down from behind.
Mirage Diplomacy Check: Diffuse Tension
DC 70
44+26+20=90
Success
The Blot smiles. "Ah, thank you madame. Your manners are impeccable, as always. Unfortunately, I do fear we have left behind us the environs in which I might monologue further about my plans."
"He's right, you know." you say, still bleeding. "Mood is totally off."
"Eh." Mez shrugged.
"But even that is no matter. The result, by demonstration, will resolve itself!"
The Blot threw the switch, slotting it down with a smoothly oiled click, and a vast skylight revealed itself as the housing for a laser the size of a car.
"Put the batteries in, Ralph." The Blot says, weariness plain to see. The wolf pulled out a pair of Technor's spare high-capacity batteries with a mute salute, slotting them into the apparatus.
"Hey, those things are expensive! You better be planning to pay for those." You say.
"Be quiet."
"Okay."
There is a long, unpleasant silence as the laser slowly and dramatically lowered into place, a tense and exciting ticking time bomb backdrop to absolutely nothing of interest.
"Oh, this is just sad." The Blot said. "Fire!"
A brilliant burst of light flared down into the circle- and directly onto you.
Doofenshmirtz Martial Check: Ow ow ow ow ow
DC 105
83+21=104
Barest failure
It's not very fun being cooked alive by a giant laser, you have to admit. It started out mostly tingly, but you can't feel your arms anymore except when you really can. You manage to rock your chair back and forth enough to knock yourself out of the beam's direct path… and onto your nose, which is just insult to injury if you ask yourself, which you do as your face hits the ground.
The good news is that the energy beams were brief enough that you did not suffer third degree burns all over your entire body.
The bad news is that you did suffer second degree burns all over your entire body.
Or maybe it's just first degree?
It's hard to tell, you're screaming too hard.
===
Doofenshmirtz will not take any future-turn penalties as a result of the Blot's plans this turn.
Doofenshmirtz will not be rolling for anything the rest of this interlude.
Doofenshmirtz has gained a healthier respect for the deadlier side of deathtraps. DC for trapping DEI HQ has been reduced.
===
"Yes!" The Blot declares. "It's working!"
Mezmerella tenses, winding up for the right moment.
The light twists in on itself in a way that the eyes have trouble seeing, blinding light seeming to bend on itself before going inward in a direction you can't quite comprehend.
That might be the shock setting in, though.
With a pulse, the light begins to expand again, and a faint noise begins to emanate, growing louder by the second. It was the revving of an engine, the firing of a gun, or the catching of a flame.
The light folds in on itself once more, taking on a bright blue hue that grew nearly unseen but then stronger by the second. It grew, as if some far-off headlights had suddenly rounded a bend.
"What… is that?" Mirage asks.
"Why, don't you remember?" The Blot smiles. "It is…"
===
"So, Max. Tell me again." Karl asked. "How exactly did you manage to set up a spy network, beat a supervillain, and quote 'get three hot babes' in a single day?"
"Well, uh I…" Max frowned. "I… I didn't."
"Wait you're admitting it?" Carl asked.
"I didn't. It was… It was Agent-"
===
Director Theodore Riddle paused in his testing as the pressure on his mental countermeasures eased slightly. He examined his mind for a moment, determining which paradox he monitored had just resolved itself.
Ah. So he's alive then. He thought to himself. Unexpected, but fine. I'll be interested to see where exactly his mind wandered, and how he got lucky.
Riddle sighed.
You're filling out your own absence forms. You continue to confound me, Agent-
===
Nomanisan Island was a slowly moldering mothballed mountain filled with dangers deliberate and accidental.
Agent K pressed on slowly. The Inspector from INTERPOL -- Penelope, she remembered -- had provided very valuable intel as to the disappearance of the Gadget Program, and where exactly those stolen files ended up. Yet even after the change in management, she doubted Olympia would be happy to find the government snooping. Too many skeletons.
One perhaps with a very large chin.
She avoided a security detail by mere seconds, once again cursing how few resources were available to her. She could use a partner. Someone like…
She blinked.
LIke Agent-
===
"Alright, I'm ready! Tell me what big fancy strategy we'll be using to prove my innocence."
The lawyer shuffled his papers. "You see, Mr. Bobcat, we've barely begun preparing for arraignment. Given the lack of profile this case has seen in recent months, I doubt that the media will be in an uproar about anything. All you'll need to do to begin with is act professional and not make a nuisance out of yourself while the formalities are observed. Keep things simple and we should see a hopefully brief, incredibly boring court battle on our hands."
Bonkers shook hands with the quite literally cartoonish villain assigned to his case. "I think I can do that!"
The Devil stared at him. "You know, I think you actually can."
"Thanks for taking this case pro bono, Mr. The Devil!" the bobcat smiled gormlessly.
"Think nothing of it." The Devil grinned. He couldn't remember the last time anyone was happy to see him take on their case. Was it the forked tongue? "It's all covered in the contract."
"Well, that's great to hear!"
There was a pause.
"What?" Bonkers asked.
"I… get the feeling you're meant to say something." The Devil said.
"What? You do? Oh no!" Bonkers said. "I must be missing some sort of narrative cue! Quick, you gotta help me figure out what the story needs before it-"
===
In a dimly lit speakeasy far from the center of downtown LA, Judge Doom watched unblinkingly as the waiter delivered two Sidecars and a plate of Oysters Rockerduck. The small diversion after the transaction was an unnecessary one, but certainly not an unwelcome change of pace. Miss Amara was excellent company.
With a slight change in perspective, he realized he could expect more.
"A toast!" He smiled, too-pearly teeth reflected in his glass. "To this ever-changing world in which we're living."
===
The headlight resolves itself into the herald of a sleek black motorcycle, hubcaps raised and shining with blue light as it banked to avoid slamming into the wall. The man upon it wears a dark black suit, rayban glasses, and close-cropped brown hair just beginning to grey utop a squarish head.
"YES!" The Blot screams.
"What is going on?!?!?!" The man replies, head whipping around to take in as much of the room as possible.
"Oh, welcome back! I trust you appreciate my preparations." Even as the Blot said it, the remains of the ritual circle unfolded themselves into a new and unprepared configuration.
"So who is this?" Mezmerella asks.
Mirage's eyes widened as months of cobwebs burned away.
"Agent Russ."
