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The Brockton Look [Worm/Lovecraft]

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The Brockton Look
Worm AU, A Shadow Over Innsmouth spiritual crossover, Emma POV

The Brockton...
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Immersion 1.1
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    • BeaconHill

    BeaconHill

    Lost Among Carbon Fields
    The Brockton Look
    Worm AU, A Shadow Over Innsmouth spiritual crossover, Emma POV

    The Brockton Look
    Immersion 1.1

    Originally posted in Morning Worm.​

    I stood, horrified, as the fish men surrounded us. We were trapped in a back alley, one of my Dad's shortcuts... they'd locked us in, behind two heavy wrought iron gates. Our car couldn't get through them, no matter how hard it pushed.

    They'd yanked us out of the car. And now we were standing, in the center of a circle. Three of them, two of us.

    And the people who had trapped us, they were... strange. They were too tall, too thin, their arms too long. Their heads seemed almost webbed to their bodies, and their skin was gray and scaly.

    I had almost thought they were capes. But capes didn't look like that. Or smell like that.

    "You don't belong here," said one of them. "Not in this neighborhood."

    "Now, now... let's be reasonable, here! I'm a lawyer, a respectable businessman! Just last month I helped the Dockworkers' Association with a case! I—"

    "You don't have the Look," he rumbled. "You don't belong." He motioned to the two others. "Grab them. Bring them down. Make them kneel."

    I was grabbed from behind, by slimy hands – how had they gotten back there so fast? – and forced to the ground. The man pressed my hands together in front of my face; I glanced over, and the other one had done the same to my father.

    "W-what are you doing?" asked my father.

    "Pray! Pray to the Deep Ones, that you may be delivered!"

    "Who?" I whispered; the man kicked me.

    I looked up in pain... and I saw him. Lurking around a corner, in the shadows.

    Khaki trenchcoat, dark pants, dark hat. He had an old-timey Press card stuck in his hat band. And his face was completely blacked out... covered in cloth or something.

    And he was really short. I didn't know why I cared, let alone noticed, but I did.

    He raised up his camera and took a photo.

    I cried out; the one behind me pulled me tighter.

    "Screaming won't help you," the man in front of us said. But then he screamed, too.

    The man in the trenchcoat had taken out a metal spray gun, industrial-looking, and blasted him from behind. As he fell to the ground, rolling around in agony, the ones holding me and my father sprung up. He got the second man with another blast, but the third knocked it away and lunged for him. The fish-man was so much bigger, the fight didn't look close at all, but he turned into shadow, a living incorporeal shadow, to dodge, passing straight through the fish man.

    "A cape!" called the man fighting.

    "Run!" said one of the others. He was already fleeing, opening the gate at the back end of the alley to try to get away.

    And, as the fish-men vanished, the cape ran after them.

    "Well," said my father, "l think it's about time we got going."

    I stared. Well?! You're really going to say 'Well' at a time like this?

    I got into the car anyway.

    ~~~~

    It was like nothing had happened.

    Like nothing had ever happened.

    No one wanted to talk about it. My father wouldn't acknowledge it. My mother and sister hadn't been there, but they wouldn't talk about it either.

    Dad had talked to the police, but only to reassure them that it had only been a misunderstanding.

    What... what the hell?

    I couldn't take it. There was no way I could take it.

    The next day, I slipped out of my house, and walked away.

    Walked back.

    The wrought iron gates were still there. They always had been. Just... they were open, now, like they always were.

    And a man in a trench coat was looking at them. Puzzling over paint marks.

    Then he turned, and stared at me.

    "You... You were here yesterday, right?" The man in the trenchcoat... wasn't a man after all! I hadn't heard her voice before, but she sounded like a woman. A girl. Given her size, probably about my age... "What are you doing here?"

    "I... No one's talking about it. My dad won't even admit that anything happened. I... I want to make sure it was real."

    "Oh, it was real all right." She stood and turned to me. "I'm the Shadow. A superhero. I fight them... I'm the only one fighting them. I'm trying to figure out who, or what, they are. And I... I'm making some progress. But it's hard. They built this city, uh..." She was launched out of her monologue. "What's your name, actually?"

    "Emma," I said listlessly.

    "Right. Emma, you have to realize that they built this city. It's here for them. The police, the hospitals, the government in general... they all work for them. The PRT... I'm not sure how, given that they're mostly from out of town, but the PRT has been made to stay out of it somehow."

    She stood, and turned to me, somehow managing to loom ominously despite being several inches shorter than me.

    "What happened to you... it doesn't just happen to you. It happens to a lot of people. Girls like you... and like me. People who aren't from around here. They're not the whole town. Probably not even most of it. But there are a lot of them, Emma."

    "H-how? If this happens... if this happens all the time, then why is no one fighting?"

    "Most people don't choose to fight, Emma. They choose to forget. Everyone, sooner or later, will run into the fish people. They just... put it out of their minds."

    "But... But... How could I ever forget that? Who would forget anything like that?"

    "You'd be surprised what people in Brockton Bay manage not to remember," she said. "Most people just can't hold on to memories of those things. Even people who went through what you did wouldn't remember that anything strange had happened. I'm not sure if it's a power, or magic, or just human weakness, but it happens. And the ones who do remember... it's because they work with the monsters. Collaborate. And they know not to say anything."

    "Oh."

    "But, you... You're different, Emma. You... I gave up talking to victims I'd saved. Long ago. But you... you came back. You're stronger than any of them were... strong enough to face it."

    I stepped back, freaked. "I, uh... I don't really feel very strong."

    She shook her head. "You don't realize just how significant what you're doing is, Emma. I..." She sighed, put her hand to her forehead. "I might be getting ahead of myself, here, but... I need help. I do what I can, but I don't think I can make it on my own. Emma... Do you want to help save people? People like you?"

    "You— You're—"

    "Join me," she said, offering a hand. "I know you're not a cape like me. I know you can't fight like I can. But... You can help. More than you know."

    "I..."

    How could I do that? She was a cape, fighting terrifying monsters. I... I didn't know the first thing about fighting monsters! I could never... never...

    But she'd saved me. She'd saved me, and nobody was doing anything about it. Nobody would do anything about it.

    How... How could I not?

    "Yes," I said, taking her hand; she shook it with a firm, strong grip. "I'm scared, but I'll do it."

    "Thank you," she said. "It's OK to be scared. I am too. But... I have to try. To do what I can. And, uh..."

    She pulled her mask down on her face, revealing a black girl, a little bit younger than me.

    "My name's Sophia. Nice to meet you."

    "Emma," I said, smiling and shaking her hand.

    ~~~~~

    I think this was fun. :)

    Sophia's power is an intelligence-gathering variant of her canon one, optimized for sneaking around and eavesdropping. She's able to move through walls and electrical wires, but is otherwise weaker. She also has a minor Thinker power to go along with it.
     
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    • Immersion 1.2
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    • The Brockton Look
    Immersion 1.2

    Originally posted in Morning Worm.​

    Sophia and I strolled down the boardwalk, in costume and ready for action.

    Not the Boardwalk, the big one downtown with all the shops on it, but... a boardwalk. Well, sort of. Sometimes it was a boardwalk, sometimes it was a sidewalk next to the seawall, sometimes there were parks or patios or whatever. It wasn't really very exciting. But, at least according to Sophia, it was fishman central.

    Seemed pretty quiet tonight, though.

    I'd only just met her, and I was already going on patrol with her. My costume was a duplicate of her own – trenchcoat, hat, black mask – mostly because she had a spare. Even though I didn't have powers, I did have one of her sprayers... I could probably handle myself? If I kept back?

    I'd be helping people, I reminded myself. People like me.

    Still, I thought I'd be happier if Sophia did believe in book learning.

    "Look at this," she said. There was a big stone patio, out back of a big stone building. Some old shipping company or other. "Something you should notice."

    "It... looks like a nice place to rest?"

    She motioned to the seaward side of the patio. "No, this!"

    I glanced at it. "... Stairs?"

    She nodded. "Yes, and..."

    "Stairs down... into the water... Oh."

    "You get it?" said Sophia, smirking. "In my line of work, that's what we call a hint."

    "Do... Do they actually use these? Like, are they here for things to, uh, walk out of the Bay?"

    "I've never actually seen that. I think they're too likely to get spotted doing it... I'm pretty sure they have tunnels now. But they built all of these steps for a reason. Other cities don't have them."

    "Huh..." Now that I thought about it, there were steps to the water all over Brockton Bay. They were... they were just a thing around here.

    She motioned along the shore. "Lots of places. Everything old along the shore. The Port Authority building, Old City Hall, a few hotels, a lot of houses... They mostly stopped building them by the '40s, although the Dockworkers' Association building has a big set of stairs, and it was built in the '70s."

    Oh. Yeah, I remembered the ones at the Dockworker's Association. Big flat concrete steps, modern-looking things, running the whole length of the building and straight down into the water. They seemed pretty recent. "You sure they don't have those everywhere? They just seem so normal..."

    Sophia shook her head. "Not like this, they don't. That's just sort of how it works; this stuff seems normal to people from Brockton Bay. Until you notice. I mean, why would you put a police station on an oil rig?"

    I glanced out to sea; the forcefields of the PHQ were shimmering on the waves. "No," I breathed. "No way..."

    "Duh," said Sophia. "I'm still honestly not sure whether that's meant to be a threat, or submission. But there's no way they put it out there by chance."

    "I..."

    A scream cut through the warm night air; our conversation was cut off, as Sophia and I scrambled. I didn't really know where we were going, but Sophia did. A tight little alley, crammed between two rows of houses; public access to the boardwalk.

    A fishperson was slowly running its claws through a young girl's hair.

    This fishperson looked different, though. The ones who had attacked me were grayish; they had muted features, muted colors. But this one... This one was scaly, but bright. Blue and white, with fins and red-tinged gills and things like that. Kinda loud.

    Wasting no time, Sophia lobbed a "water" balloon at it; the creature writhed in pain.

    Sophia was a really good shot with those. She'd let me try lobbing a few at her – just filled with water, of course – and I wasn't anywhere near as good. They were filled with a mix of a few different kinds of caustic chemicals. Nasty for humans... seriously painful for fishpeople. It went straight through their skin and hurt like hell.

    It dropped the girl, ran for the street. I followed after it, while Sophia hung back, making sure the girl was OK.

    I wasn't doing much out here. Just trying to figure out which way it was going.

    But, predictably, it had gotten away.

    This was a residential street; there were lots of nooks and crannies, lots of places to hide. And it wasn't in sight. I... had no idea where it had gone.

    Then I saw something move.

    It... was my fourth-grade teacher.

    Huh.

    "Hey!" I called. "Did you see anyone suspicious coming through here?"

    "I'm not sure what you're talking about," he said, walking toward me. "I'm, uh, not sure who you are, either... Are you a cape?"

    "I'm—"

    A water balloon sailed past me, and hit him in the face.

    And he... turned into the fishperson, spikes and scales creeping across his body like paint splatter, his face and nose and mouth distorting and—

    I shuddered. Closed my eyes. Breathed deeply, and opened them again.

    He was gone, and Sophia was holding me by my shoulder.

    "You're OK," said Sophia. "It's weird and it's shocking and it probably won't hurt you that much to watch, got it?"

    "Y-yeah. I think. What was that?"

    She sighed, rubbed her hand into her mask. "I... maybe should have told you more about things to begin with..."

    "You really think so?"

    "I already told you to trust no one. That should have been enough."

    "But... he was my fourth grade teacher! I know him!"

    "That doesn't make him no one," said Sophia. "Anyone could be one of them."

    "He looked perfectly human! Like... Can I at least trust the victims? Fishpeople don't attack fishpeople, right?"

    "Actually, the victim has been another fishperson before."

    I stared. "What?"

    "I can only assume they were just playing around, because they were both mad at me..." She sighed. "Anyway. You know how that one looked different from the ones that attacked you?"

    "Yeah..."

    "I call the type of fishpeople who attacked you 'grays.' Because, you know, they're gray. They look sort of knobby, squishy, webby... there aren't any really distinctive features. Young ones look fairly normal, and get grayer and fishier as they get older. I think they're the less important kind of fishpeople. In their civilian lives, they're usually dockworkers, fishermen, that sort of thing. They don't hide what they are. They just... they sorta rely on people not noticing. And they don't do anything that takes looks."

    I sighed. "I still can't believe that nobody notices."

    "Preaching to the choir there. Anyway, that one was the other type. I call them switches. They look like that one did when it was attacking... a lot more fishy. You saw it. Fins and scales and things. Big, obvious gills. Weird colors."

    "But... it looked human! When it was talking to me."

    "Well, that's because they switch. Switches can look completely human, or completely fish, and then switch between the two, whereas the grays always look sort of in the middle."

    "Okay..." I looked away. "That's not comforting. How do they do that?"

    "I'm not a fishperson," she said, giggling a little. "I couldn't tell you how. But I have some guesses about why. I think it's because they're sort of the fish person upper class. So they have to go out in public, and do normal-people things, and you can't really do too much of that if you're a gray. Even in Brockton Bay, people will notice eventually."

    "Okay..." I sighed, deeply and heavily. "How do I tell who they are?"

    "Well... As a general rule, switches in human form are taller and thinner than normal people, their arms and legs look too long and too thin, their skin is either paler or grayer or both, and their eyes are bigger and usually lighter colors, like hazel or blue. Sort of like the greys, but less so." She shook her head. "The problem is that a lot of people look like that. So you can't really jump to conclusions, or you'll get tripped up by some blue-eyed basketball player somewhere."

    "But I can suspect, right?"

    "Suspect everybody," said Sophia. "Then you'll never be surprised. Even if they're not fishpeople, they could be working with fishpeople."

    "Okay..." I shook my head. Could I live like that? "Is there anything else I should know about them?"

    She shrugged. "I don't know if it's that important to patrolling, but... the thing with switches is that they get worse over time. Kids, for the most part, look like regular people. Older ones start to look almost like grays. Switches change less than grays do in their human form... but it's not nothing."

    "Oh. Really? Is that something I can watch out for?"

    "Sort of. Like... probably old folks can't be switches, but how much they get worse varies a lot from switch to switch. I've seen teenagers who were nearly gone, and grandparents who still looked pretty much normal." She shrugged. "It really does depend."

    "I see..." I put my hand to my forehead. "So there isn't anyone I can trust?"

    "Welcome to my world." She motioned to the alley we'd come out of. "Now come on! It's already gone, and we've got more boardwalk to patrol."

    ~~

    I stepped out onto my porch, stretching in the warm summer air.

    Taylor was back! Taylor was finally home from camp!

    She hadn't even met Sophia, and she hadn't heard anything about— "Aack!" I said, as Sophia tapped me on the shoulder.

    "Hey, Emma."

    "Um. Hi, Sophia."

    "You can't tell her," she said, not making eye contact. "Taylor, I mean."

    "What? Why not?! I mean, I know, 'trust no one' and everything, but she's my best friend! She's not one of them!"

    "You sure?"

    "Um... Yes? Of course?" I was waving my arms now, exasperated. "How could she be! I've known her for years!"

    "So, uh... I looked into Taylor's background, and her family's lived in Brockton Bay for generations, both her mother's side and her father's side. Did you know her great grandfather bought their house in 1908?"

    "Um. I sort of knew that? But you said before that you can't be sure people are bad guys just because they've lived in Brockton Bay for a while!"

    "Let me finish," Sophia said. "There's more. Her dad works at the Dockworkers' Association. We've talked about them before... they're a front group."

    "Not all of the dockworkers are fishmen either!"

    "No, but he's not a dockworker, he's a union boss, and he's pretty high up... He's the spokesperson, and the head of hiring. They don't talk too much about how their organization works, but he's inner circle, Emma. If he were a janitor or a secretary or an IT guy, that would be one thing, but... There's just no chance he's not one of them, Emma. None."

    "And so that means she is, too?" I said, folding my arms and frowning. "I mean, assuming you're even right..."

    "It's in the blood, Emma. Nothing you can do about it."

    "I'm not sure I believe that..."

    "Look, if you talk about it you'll put me in danger, too. Please, please don't."

    I was staring at her, silent... and then came a loud voice from the road.

    "Hey, Emma!"

    I turned back toward the road, and Taylor was walking up. And she...

    Taylor was tall for her age, and thin for her height, her arms and legs were long and spindly, her skin was very pale, and her eyes were big and gawky and a vivid, bright blue.

    I'd seen Sophia's photos.

    This was basically as obvious as a switch her age could get.

    That didn't mean she was, but I... suddenly wasn't feeling so confident...

    Oh, come on. She's wearing a bright-colored T-shirt and braided hair... There's just no way!

    "Hey, Taylor," I said, hopping down and giving her a little half-hug. "How was camp?"

    "It was awesome!"

    "Get to swim much?" I asked.

    "Well, duh," she said. "It was a swim camp! You know that. Um. Anyway, who's your new friend?"

    "Oh, this is Sophia," I said, leading Taylor back up to the porch. "She—"

    I did not say anything about the fishmen to Taylor that day.
     
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    • The Brockton Look
    Immersion 1.3​

    Sophia kneeled down over the fallen man, sprawled across the ground looking pale and cold and limp. He wasn't unconscious – he moved when Sophia touched him – but neither was he very responsive.

    "What happened to him?"

    "One of them took blood from him. It's actually pretty common." She lifted his arm; it flopped around. "They're not usually this out of it afterward, though. I'm not sure what happened here."

    Not for the first time, my mouth curled into a mask of disgust. Underneath my actual mask, of course. It had been two weeks already, but they kept finding new ways to disturb me. "I... I can't believe they would do that. Just... in the street like that?"

    "I think they consider it kind," Sophia said. "He'll live. A lot of their victims won't."

    "Yeah, I know, but... I mean, I almost think it's creepier." I glanced around. "I don't actually see any blood, though."

    "They just use needles. It's very clean." She looked back to the body. "Actually, I've never really seen them make much mess at all. They use the blood, so I guess they just don't like wasting it."

    I swallowed. "That doesn't actually help."

    "Yeah." Sophia stood up, patted me on the back. "I know. Now, come on; let's see if we can catch up with whoever's doing this."

    We ran down the road, not stopping to check on more victims. Sophia said the last one would be fine, and we didn't really have the medical knowledge to help anyway – maybe that was something I could do? – so we focused on finding whoever was doing this and stopping them, or at least scaring them off.

    A quiet, muffled shout from down the road got us running. We arrived at a small alley, just by the sea; I peeked around the corner, while Sophia watched from the roof above.

    A teenager, probably only a few years older than me, fresh off the Boardwalk in his shorts and his sandals, was clutched between two monsters.

    One stood in front of him, a brownish-orangeish blobby thing that my eyes didn't want to linger on; when I tried, I felt a chill, as scared as I had ever been.

    Another wrapped around him from behind. An octopus-looking thing, green, big and bulbous. It had coiled around him from behind, wrapping his head and his chest. It had one big eye, bright green and sort of squiggly-shaped.

    The fishman stood over him, a plastic bag in his hands, needles dangling from it on long plastic tubes.

    As I watched, he shoved the needles in. Four different places: right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg. Quick, rough, businesslike. The blood started to flow through each of them.

    It looked like a lot of blood... Sophia said they'd probably live, but it was a little hard to believe. I really hope you're okay...

    The fishman was just watching now, waiting for the blood bag to fill.

    Actually, I thought it was a fishwoman, looking more closely at her. A little on the small side, even, for one of them. Very brightly colored, with an emphasis on blues and purples. Classic switch, with one additional feature: a long reptilian-looking tail. I'd only seen one of those once before; Sophia said they were rare but not unheard of.

    I heard a soft thunk behind me; I turned around to find that Sophia had dropped our ladder. One of the things she'd figured out, so I could keep up with her. It was small, light enough for her to carry it around, and it would let me get to places i couldn't normally reach.

    When I'd gotten to the roof, she pulled me right up to her and whispered into my ear.

    "Those monsters are really dangerous!" she said. "We have to do something about them!"

    "Oh." Sophia could probably see just how scared I was. "R-really?"

    "I've never seen the tentacle one before. But I have seen the ooze one. It... It ate someone whole. Maybe more than one. It took three fishmen to wrangle the thing, and I just stayed out of their way."

    "But... That fishwoman has them under control, right? If we attack her, maybe they'll get loose?"

    "Or maybe she'll set them loose," Sophia sounded really angry. "Or maybe she'll screw up, and they'll get loose on their own. Honestly, I'm not even that sure she can control them; the other one I saw definitely wasn't tame. We can't have these running around in a city, Emma!"

    "Oh..." I forced my eyes to focus on the blob monster. There was something inherently revolting about it, something that disturbed me at an instinctive level. Was it the slick, oozing nature of its skin? The eyes that coated it? Or the open, dripping mouth, big enough to fit a car? But it also wasn't after me... it hadn't even noticed me. Sophia put a hand on my shoulder, and I was fine again.

    "Keep it together, OK?"

    I nodded, swallowed. "Do you think we'll be able to stop them? What if we just make them mad?"

    "Then we'll run away," she said. She handed me a balloon, one of her yellow ones. I remembered the type; the fishman she'd used it on last screamed like nothing else. "This is the best I've got... I almost wish I carried a gun, but honestly I don't think they work so well on monsters. I should probably try to find something better..."

    Oh, this felt like such a bad idea.

    "Anyway..." She glanced back over the edge of the roof. The fishwoman was still watching the blood run – that bag looked really full already – and not looking at us. "Three. Two. One."

    We tossed the balloons.

    Without turning around, without looking – I supposed the blob monster had probably seen us, given how many eyes he had – they all moved.

    The fishwoman and her two monsters dodged – but they dodged in different ways. She and the tentacle monster tried to dodge out of the way, as the blob monster tried to dodge into the way.

    Sophia's balloon hit the blob monster. Mine hit the octopus.

    The octopus shrieked; it jumped to its fishwoman master and latched on, gripping her tightly and moaning; she, in turn, ran toward the bay, leaving her victim behind.

    The blob monster jumped for us, hitting the building we were standing on with a loud, sharp, thud.

    Sophia grabbed my hand and ran, to the harsh scrabbling sounds of the blob monster climbing the side of the building. To the other side of the roof. Away. As far as possible, as fast as possible.

    Dropping my hand, she jumped down to a lower roof, and then onto a shed, and then finally onto the ground. It was scary, but not as scary as the blob monster; I was right there with her. And, somehow, I didn't think I even twisted anything.

    Sophia grabbed my hand once more as we sped through some twisting alleys. I couldn't imagine that we were faster than it... I could only assume that she wanted to confuse it. Sure worked on me. I had no idea where we were. I could hear it behind us, but it didn't sound that close...

    She turned toward a door, sprinted to it. But it was an exit-only door, flat and featureless, no handle at all. Sophia turned to shadow, went straight through it. I... I couldn't.

    The door didn't open. I waited... probably only for a few seconds...

    For a brief, crazy moment, I thought that she was going to leave me. So the monster would slow down. While it was eating me.

    Then she shoved the door open and pulled me in. Slammed it behind me.

    I could hear the monster outside. It howled and bayed and smashed things up. But... it didn't seem to know where we had gone.

    Sophia sagged for just a moment, bracing herself against a wall. But then she stood back up, and took my hand again.

    We were in some sort of industrial building. A warehouse or something. There weren't any people around, though – thank god, it was six o'clock on a weekend.

    She put her finger to her mouth – shh, they might hear us, she didn't say – before leading me up the stairs. There was an office here. Blinds drawn, but a window was open beneath one of them; the sound of the blinds rattling and smacking against the window was distinctly unsettling.

    Sophia walked to the windows, peeked through the blinds, and I followed.

    The blob monster seemed to have settled down; it was patrolling up and down the alley, but not making any noise. You could see where it had been, though; dumpsters and trash cans had been thrown around like they were nothing.

    Movement at the mouth of the alley caught my attention. The fishwoman, with the octopus trailing behind her. They were both dripping wet – with seawater, probably? – but the octopus had a nasty-looking rust-red rash on its mostly green skin.

    And it looked mad.

    They walked back to the blob monster, the fishwoman giving it a few pats – oh, god, the thought of touching that thing – and then they both turned to look at the octopus.

    It pointed its tentacle down the alley. Toward us. It squirmed off down the alleyway, its motion unsettling and unnatural as it came closer and closer... it stopped and pointed again. In front of our building, pointing to the second floor where we were hiding. It started to gurgle, with a low, rumbling sound.

    "You think they went up there?" asked the fishwoman. She frowned. "Hrm... I don't want to chase them around all day, and if we break in it'll leave a mess to clean up..."

    The octopus turned back to its master, stared at her with its one big eye. It looked almost pleading.

    "I think we should just move on," she said, rubbing the octopus around the base of its tentacles. She began to murmur at it, in words that seemed somehow harsh and scraping and lilting and lyrical at the same time. And then it started to chirp back, and the big blob monster started to snort and howl along. I clasped my hands to my ears, but I still couldn't block out the sounds, and I—

    I was sprawled against the cold concrete floor beneath the windows, unconscious. I slowly got back to my feet, peeked through the closed blinds once again...

    They were at the mouth of the alley, just barely visible. Walking away.

    "Yeah, I'll get you some dinner," the fishwoman said to the blob monster, as they walked off down the street, before adding a few more words in her own language.

    Sophia and I both sighed with relief, at exactly the same time.

    "Thank god they're gone," I said.

    "Holy shit," said Sophia, pulling her mask off. "That really didn't go well."

    "Told you." I pulled my own mask off, sat down in an office chair. "I—" My eyes flickered across Sophia's face, and I stopped talking almost instantly. She looked scared. More scared than I'd ever seen her before. Scared and sad. But that didn't make sense... we'd escaped, right? "What's wrong, Sophia?"

    "I... I almost got you killed, Emma. For a moment, I forgot, trying to get away from that monster I just forgot that you couldn't walk through doors! I mean... it's a really stupid thing to forget, right?" She giggled unevenly, looked away. "It could have eaten you, Emma!"

    "You didn't forget. You let me in. I'm fine."

    "I can be crazy and reckless and foolhardy, because I'm a cape and I can get out of it, no matter how badly I mess up. You..." She had tears in her eyes. "You can't! I can run away from anything, and you... you're just a girl." She wiped her eyes, then shut them. "You shouldn't come with me. Not that I imagine you want to right now. I mean, who would?"

    "I would," I said.

    Sophia's eyes opened again; she was staring.

    "I... already almost died, Sophia. Just from driving down the road. I wasn't doing anything, but they almost got me anyway."

    A tear ran down Sophia's face.

    "I can't just do nothing and hope someone else fixes things for me. I don't want to be helpless again. If I get attacked again, or if I... I wake up in an alley feeling lighter than I did when I stepped in, I want to know I did everything I could. And... if someone else gets attacked, someone I care about... I want to know I did all I could for them."

    "There's... one other thing." Sophia seemed about ready to eat her tongue... she didn't really want to look me in the eyes. "You could end up attacking someone you care about."

    "I know. I'm still not sure what I should do with Taylor. It's hard to deny, at this point, but I've known her for so long, she's been my best friend since we were little girls, and I don't want—"

    "I get it, Emma. I've met her. And, I mean... she is a good friend. I like her too. She's fun to be around. Just... if you keep doing this with me, you're probably going to end up spraying acid at her someday."

    "I know! I'm thinking about it."

    "But... you're really, really still okay with this? After you almost got eaten?"

    "Yeah." I closed my eyes. "I am."

    "T-thank you," she said. "You... you're a lot braver than I am, you know that? I mean, maybe not very smart, but..."

    I laughed out loud. "Gee, thanks. But, seriously, please don't provoke any more blob monsters when I'm around, OK?"

    "No," Sophia said, shaking her head, "no, no, of course I won't."

    "Anyway, you wanna go get some food? That fishwoman had it right, it's time to eat. I'm starved!"

    "Got it," she replied, sounding like she was trying very hard not to cry. "Burgers?"

    "Sure."

    ~~~~~~

    They invited Taylor to dinner. Sophia suggested it, actually. But she was in a really rotten mood when she got there...

    Sorry this is so late. As you probably know, I'm in the process of changing my schedule around, and that naturally slowed me down a bit. But it didn't help that I did this on the same week that I finally got around to playing Skyrim... I do have a three-day weekend this week, so I should catch up.

    This chapter was beta read by landcollector, who receives a bag full of blood. Mmm...
     
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    • So Taylor's a deep one? I'm... not entirely sure how to feel about this.
     
    . . . was that a shoggoth?
     
    Contessa's Path to Victory, Evil Fish-Men Edition.
    Step One: Steal a gardenful of lawn gnomes.
    Step Two: Blame it on cultists.
    Step Three: Sit back, pop popcorn.
    Step Four: Profit!
     
    I do hope we get out of the totally specieist thinking soon.
     
    Just what i need to fill with warm and fuzzy feeling for bed, a Worm/Lovecraft crossover, thanks. I am sure my overactive imagination will not conspire against me.

    This really reminds me of the time i decided to read Gravity Falls/Lovecraft crossover.

    Still, nice stuff.
     
    Could see Taylor being a fishperson coming as soon as we got the switches, but it was the kind of ominous twist you see coming and love it all the while nevertheless.
     
    Really good. Poor Taylor, she is not a cool monster like a shoggoth. Probably.
     
    Poor things, even if they managed to convince the 9 or Scion to eliminate the fishmen, it would only bring the attention of worse things: Starspawn, cultists (Dagon's are relatively easier than Hastur's or Cthulhu's), or Nyarlathotep (the guy who taught Satan)
     
    néocorvinus said:
    Poor things, even if they managed to convince the 9 or Scion to eliminate the fishmen, it would only bring the attention of worse things: Starspawn, cultists (Dagon's are relatively easier than Hastur's or Cthulhu's), or Nyarlathotep (the guy who taught Satan)
    Click to expand...
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    Cthulhu cannot defend himself while sleeping, and Zion is capable of destroying multiple iterations of a planet simultaneously. Besides, Zion is killable, what makes you so sure Cthulhu can't be permakilled?
     
    Finagle007 said:
    Cthulhu cannot defend himself while sleeping, and Zion is capable of destroying multiple iterations of a planet simultaneously. Besides, Zion is killable, what makes you so sure Cthulhu can't be permakilled?
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    Its sorta a thing with Lovecraftian horror... you cant make things better, only worse. Killing his followers might draw Cthulhu's attention, and regardless of whether Scion (a being whos powers operate on physical laws) can defeat Cthulhu (a being who's powers think 'reality' is a adorable concept) is ultimately a moot point, because killing the grandson of Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath cannot possibly end well for anything in our galactic cluster.
     
    Now if I were in this Lovecraftian setting the way Emma is, I'd probably go to my friend among the Deep Ones and ask to join up. It's safer than trying to fight and we're doomed either way. Better to learn some magic and maybe become a mermaid than end up as one of the sad sacks that tend to be Lovecraft's protagonists, really.
     
    I have to ask, what is wrong with Emma? She seems relatively stable, and Sophia is actually helping her recover from the near death experience. Anyone else see the problem?

    Lovecraft protagonists are not stable, not a damn one of them. They are always a bit off, a little unhinged, that makes them prone to absolutely losing their shit when the world flips on its head.

    Emma is approaching things so rationally that I cannot help but wait for the other shoe to drop.
     
    Interregnum said:
    I have to ask, what is wrong with Emma? She seems relatively stable, and Sophia is actually helping her recover from the near death experience. Anyone else see the problem?

    Lovecraft protagonists are not stable, not a damn one of them. They are always a bit off, a little unhinged, that makes them prone to absolutely losing their shit when the world flips on its head.

    Emma is approaching things so rationally that I cannot help but wait for the other shoe to drop.
    Click to expand...
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    I dunno, giving it a quick re-read, she actually cracks up a couple times, its only the presence of Sophia that allows her to keep herself together. I figure shed have gone the way of lovecraft protagonists if she was alone. The key seems to be Sophia's support, and she herself doesnt seem to be effected the way Emma is. Perhaps her shard is handling the stuff that humans are incapable of, like some kind of external processor, allowing her to avoid SAN Loss?

    Would be a ironic twist, shards drive people to conflict, but also protect them from Mythos exposure.
     
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