The Skittering Chaos 11
Bit of a loss of where exactly to go with this now as I've got a few ideas but not exactly the confidence to make a definite decision. Either way, things will continue to trundle along. I've also edited the chapters to make Adam's dialogue less egregious to read and hopefully people who've just been skipping his dialogue will give him a second chance, but truth be told, that might be asking too much, kind of like for some people it might be asking too much to make Greg likable, also I've basically dropped Greg being a prominent character for now as well it just don't feel proper and Snipes actually fits the roll of Greg better than having Greg show up for no reason and possibly acting out of character
Any who, any and all feedback would be highly appreciated
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I'm going over the loot that we got from the vigilantes in the back of the van, the fresh bodies of our unfortunate enemies beside me, or rather, one body and a pile of gore and what little we could nab of Rollout. Skidmark was holding the feet of the winged man demon inside of a pail of quick-dry cement, while the other we were going to put into one of the bags and just fill that with cement.
The vigilantes had a significant stock of firearms and ammunition, though most of it was for lighter guns like nine millimetre or .38 special. Some of the heavier rifles they had didn't even have full magazines from what I could tell, although they did have a pile of what looked like 7.62 rifle rounds to go with several soviet looking assault rifles they had a few of, and a couple of boxes of rounds for Snipe's own sniper rifle.
Off at the warehouse though, I hear a knocking sound. I send a few bugs around to the front and there are a few smaller demons or something there, knocking. I move some of the bugs around to get a feel of the newcomers. The two of them are wearing wide-brimmed hats on them as well as I can tell are holding a couple of what appear to be Tommy guns. Looking back over to the loot, there are a fair few Tommy guns there as well. Seems the guns in movies and television are a hot commodity down here. From what I can tell about the two demons at the door, other than being short was that they don't have fur, but they did have horns and short spade-tipped tails.
"There's trouble back at the warehouse," I say to Adam and Sherrel. "Two short demons armed with Tommy guns, any ideas?" I ask. Adam makes a humming sound while Sherrel tears down a side street, causing the guns to slide a bit, though I've gotten much better at bracing myself for Sherrel's wild rides.
"No idea, unless someone wants to get their car fixed up, but I don't have anyone booked for the day," Sherrel explains.
"I'll listen in on them then," I tell them. We aren't far from the warehouse anyways, the place where we are planning on dumping the bodies having gone right past the warehouse's neighbourhood.
Through some of my bugs, I feel Mimi get up from her spot watching over lil' Mark and begin to head for the warehouse floor. With the bugs I have breeding in small corners of the house, I have them fly or scurry towards the door that leads to the staircase for the warehouse floor, and move them to form a large X on the door. Mimi notices the unusual activity of the insects immediately and stops to watch them converge on the door.
"Alright then Skitter," Mimi responds as she sees the X before going back to the living room, but not before entering the kitchen and grabbing what looks like her gun from off the table. It isn't loaded, but she did have a magazine on her in a separate pocket. Meanwhile, the pair of demons below began talking.
"You think they're home?" one of them asks while the other shrugs.
"Yeah, they've got a light on upstairs and I saw someone in the windows there when we were walking up to the place."
"Hey what do you think they sell here anyways?"
"Can't you smell it? It's demon weed, Hell, this place is probably a weed den for a bunch of losers who came in after the fighting settled down and those Crimson bastards finally stopped destroying the place."
"Huh, I thought it was just that someone had been smoking a joint near here."
"Nah, it's coming from in here."
"Think we should just break in and show these losers some manners then?"
"Hold on a minute, we'll wait another five minutes, and if they still haven't opened up, we'll break in and show them manners," luckily we won't really need the time to get there as Sherrel begins driving up the road to the warehouse. Meanwhile, Adam points the tank turret down at the pair of demons. The two turn towards the sound of the van and the two freezes. Through the window of the van, I see the two of the men now. As I had felt before, the two demons are rather short and have wide-brimmed hats along with some cheap-looking suits. They are red-skinned and have horns sticking out of their hats. They look almost exactly like mobster stereotypes from television and fiction.
"Hey Frank?" the larger of the two asks his buddy.
"Yeah?"
"They got a tank."
"I know."
"They got a tank."
"I know."
"They got a fricking tank."
"I know Phil, I can see it!" The van comes to a stop on the driveway of the warehouse, and Adam is still pointing the turret of the van at the two demonic mobsters. Reaching down to the pile of guns, I grab a shotgun from the pile and head to the back door, having my bugs bring me a few shells which I load into the gun. I open the door of the van and step out. I rack the shotgun to get a shell into the chamber before rounding the corner of the van to look at the two mobsters. They similarly look in my direction as well. I feel for any movements of their guns through the bugs I have on them but they don't move. Good. Sherrel then rolls down her window.
"Can we help you two?" she asks in a sickeningly sweet voice. The two mobsters look at each other before shaking their heads at her.
"We uh, we were just leaving."
"We were in the neighbourhood."
"And uh we uh wanted to say hello."
"And a warning," the smaller one said and got a swift elbow to the arm before he elaborates. "about the Crimson gang."
"Yeah, the Crimson gang."
"They sometimes run around this area."
"Y-yeah."
"Well uh, since we warned you, uh we'll be off."
"T-talk to you again soon." Immediately the two demons start walking away, and we let them, though the sound of the turret moving to track them seems to speed them along their route. Inside the warehouse, I gather my bugs together enough to speak through them.
"They're gone now, we'll be up momentarily."
"Who was at the door?" Mimi asks.
"I don't know, some kind of Mafia-looking guys. They ran rather quickly after realising that they were in the sights of the van's cannon."
"Yeah I'll bet, that can be pretty scary." I don't say anything in regards to Mimi's statement, just raise my eyebrows, but she doesn't elaborate. Mimi then leans over to pick up Mark who was standing up on the couch and hitting one of his adorable little hands-on Felix's arm to get his attention. The imp boy in contrast would swing his head rapidly towards Mark for a second, saying in a silly voice "what you doing," much to Mark's delight.
"How're the kids doing?" Sherrel asks as I head towards the garage to open it up.
"They're alright, only Mimi heard the knocking, so they don't know much," Sherrel nods at that before she holds up a set of keys for the door. "Need these?"
"I should be alright," I say as I unlock the door with some of the hell spiders I have on the other side. The little creature's webs, even individual strands, are much tougher than the ones back on Earth. I'll have to check on my phone if they sell any of the bugs down here in Hell, or if they have a preferred environment, as well as do more research on the bugs native to Hell in general.
I head off towards the door and open it, much to Sherrel's surprise. A thought occurs to me. If I had joined the Undersiders earlier in my cape career and had been serious about it, I think I might have made a fairly good thief even if I just controlled insects.
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"Who was knocking?" Mimi asks as we ascend the stairs into the loft, holding onto Mark who has his arms reaching out towards us. Sherrel lets out an "aww" before walking up to Mimi to take her baby back from her.
"Some kind of gangsters, they looked like the stereotypical mafia tough, they were in suits and even had Tommy guns," I say, making way for Adam. Mimi's face scrunches with confusion. Felix on the other hand, seems to perk up, and calls from the other room.
"Wait, did you say suits and Tommy guns?" he calls from the other room and gets up from his comfy spot on the couch. I let him poke his head out of the living room before I answer.
"Yes, there were two small demons in some somewhat shabby suits that were knocking; do you know anything about them?" I ask. Felix is a local that lives somewhere close by, likely in a less ruined part of the city, so he might know a thing or two about these people.
"Yeah, the Raz family, they're a crime family thing that watches over the area, or at least they were. A year or so ago, a different gang moved into the area called the Crimson gang and started causing trouble, robbery, kidnapping, a bunch of stuff. The Raz family tried to go after them or something, it didn't exactly go well for them and they've been hiding ever since. Actually, I think this place used to be the farthest part of their territory, and it was the same place that the Crimson gang were doing a bunch of their kidnapping and robbing."
"So where's the Crimson gang now? We've been here for months and I ain't never seen no one around here 'cept for a few pedestrians now and then," Adam asks. Felix in response shrugs.
"I don't know, all I know is what my brothers told me about avoiding gangs and stuff, I was a bit busy with school and videogames and stuff, but I can ask them more if you want," Felix offers.
"Probably a good idea, I'll ask Angel Dust as well, he might know a thing or two since Valentino's territory is close enough that he might keep tabs on these two," as I say that, Felix's eyes widen. I raise an eyebrow at him as I pull out my phone. However, he says nothing more. Ignoring it for now, I dial Angel Dust's number. I don't have to wait long for him to pick up.
"Yello?" I hear Angel Dust from the other end of the phone. I walk over to the kitchen where I can take a seat. Sherrel's heading over to the living room while Adam follows, his hands wrapped around Sherrel's sizable rear. Felix on the other hand follows me to the kitchen and stands by the doorway, listening in. I consider shooing him off, but all I'm doing is confirming his information. Maybe he just wants to see if his information is right, or maybe it has something to do with Angel Dust.
Could he be a spy for Valentino?
"Hey Angel, it's me, Skitter, there were a couple of gang members in suits that were knocking at our door just a bit ago. Supposedly a gang called the "Raz Family" were the last ones to walk around in suits like that in our area, that sound about right?" I hear a slow groan come from Angel from the other side of the phone before he finally answers. Did he and the Raz family have a history then? Or maybe he was just thinking.
"I think so, yeah, some kind of Imp neighbourhood watch that kind of turned into a mafia gang thing. Guys called the Crimson gang wrecked their shit nearly a year ago and they ran away with their tails between their legs. For a while Val was getting a bunch of his new whores from them, as well as a couple of choice cuts of meat. Crimson's mostly slavers and cannibals. Not good people, plus, they've got a couple of tough guys in there as well. I only know about the leader guy though. Calls himself The Beast, real original, he's a tough customer, figured out magic a long time ago, and he's been around longer than me. As far as I know, he's the main threat. Took out damn near everything that the Raz family sent at him and more. Started fucking the whole gang up and attacked the place. Reason your neighbourhoods a shit hole to. Most of the damage and shit was from him fighting the Raz family and the cops all at the same time. Hell I bet if you go looking you could probably find a couple of helicopter wrecks."
Slavers, and ones I can actually get at. Funny, the Merchants briefly experimented with slavery back in Brockton after they got their big break, apparently after Adam stopped giving a shit and just let things go on how they were. I'd saved Charlotte from the Brockton Bay Merchants at the time. I certainly won't let something like that continue if I can help it. Another interesting tidbit of what Angel told me however was that there were apparently cops around. Whatever happened to them? Or are they trying to control the situation all around the city and we just aren't in the area where they are trying to restore law and order?
"There are cops here? I haven't really seen them around."
"Yeah, apparently, they mostly hang out in the other circles of Hell, or in the areas where the nobility hang out like the parks that certain nobles like, their estates, yadda yadda ya. Pretty much are just security for the nobles and public officials and stuff like that. Most of them won't even go out to anywhere controlled by a gang on good days. Now? After the apocalypse apparently dropped and shits going down? Not a chance you'll see them outside of the palaces and parks of the few nobles up on this circle so I wouldn't go doing anything there unless you're up for giving them a hefty bribe of cash or bullets," I frown at that. We had been thinking of dumping the bodies into one of the lakes of the parks.
"Are there any good dumping spots for bodies?" I ask. Angel however doesn't answer for a few moments, but I can hear his breathing pick up. Did I catch him on a run or something?
"Ah, uh yeah, but they've got a bunch of bodies in those places already. If anyone actually is looking for whoever you killed, then they'll probably show up there and have a Hellhound find their bodies for them. Those guys have wicked snouts ya know?"
"Do you know of any way we can get rid of these bodies that will keep them dead for a while that they can't just easily find?" I ask. However, before Angel has time to respond, Felix from behind me pipes up.
"There's milf," I turn to look at Felix, my brows scrunch as I try to figure out what he meant. Maybe "milf" was some kind of organization?
"Milf?"
"Yeah, M.I.L.F, milf! I think their name stands for "Manual Imp Labour Force" or something like that. My Mom apparently went to school with the woman that made the company. They mostly work in the rings below, but they also do corpse storage. Dad usually uses them when he kills someone he really doesn't like and wants to keep them down for a while."
"Probably, mmmh, your best bet, I don't usually care about keeping anyone down unless it's what they paid for if you know what I mean," I don't have to imagine what Angel meant by "keep them down." Considering how many innuendos and his job as a whore, Angel was obviously talking about sex.
"Thank you for the advice Angel, I'll call you again later"
"Sounds, hah, good, mmmhh, talk to you later," I hang up at that, feeling warmth flood my cheeks after I properly identify why Angel was making the noises he was making. I didn't really need to hear that.
"Do you have their number?" I ask Felix as I try to distract myself from what Angel was doing just now, but he shakes his head.
"You could probably just find them online and call their number from there," He answers. I nod and look at my phone, pulling up the internet app on it. Now I just need to schedule some corpses to be taken away.
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"So, how you think we should deal with these guys?" Adam asks, lounging on the couch beside Sherrel. Mark's sleeping on top of Sherrel and she didn't want to move him in case it interrupted his sleep. I'm left standing in the living room off to the side and Mimi has elected to just sit on the floor while Felix leans against the wall.
"Can't we just attack them? Felix, you know where they are right?" Mimi asks. Felix meanwhile shrugs.
"Not really. My brother and Dad might know where they are but I don't know where they are exactly."
"Why not just use the bug trick Skitty used on those vigilantes?" Sherrel asks. "You can plant bugs in the bars they go to and then we can find out where they usually are, then we can hit them like we hit the vigilantes."
"That might of worked if the bas… buggers didn't know where we were. We ain't got a lot of places to hide and I would really rather not have to relocate. Reason we could do that up top was cause we had the money to keep setting back up. We ain't got that here, remember?" Adam says to Sherrel.
"But didn't we get all that money from the vigilantes, with what we got right now we could right?"
"Yeah but that don't mean I wanna waste it getting another place, I'd rather use it to get more money," and keep Skitter loyal. I complete Adam's remark in my head. They knew I want to find Alec as soon as possible, though keeping me loyal could just be a secondary goal in comparison to accruing more money to let them live the good life down here. We did get a somewhat sizable amount from the vigilantes. The money we got is enough that if our raids on vigilante hideouts continue to be this profitable, I might even be able to afford the private investigator after all, but we would have to do a few more raids to be sure. For all I know, Snipe's group was just that lucky.
"So what, we have to pay them then?"
"Maybe not," I interject. "If the Crimson gang is still around, and still kidnapping to sell the people off to Valentino, then we could perform something of a false flag attack on them," that brings everyone's attention to me.
"Considering that one of the main ways that the Crimson gang makes their money is through kidnapping and enslaving people they grab off the street. Then they sell them to Valentino and perhaps others. If Angel can tell me where Valentino's men go in order to purchase more girls to make into whores, then we will have a place to start off at. From there, we just need to take down their warehouse and make it look like the Raz family did it. So long as we keep a low enough profile, the Crimson gang may assume the Raz family is trying to get back at them, especially if we hit a warehouse with a number of their girls in it."
"What about them vigilantes? Could also assume they found wherever they're keeping the girls," Adam asks.
"That is a possibility. We'd have to find reports of their attacks and see if they do anything distinctive, or we could try to dress up as them and do it like that." I suggest. Some of them are nodding along now.
"But what if they're not here anymore? They could have moved on," Sherrel suggests. From my pocket, I produce two of the cell phones that not too long ago had belonged to Ariel Ace and Rollout.
"Then we can send the vigilantes after them. We'll still be able to see what the Raz Family is capable of, and we can track the vigilantes back to their bases so that we can take them down before they become a problem again."
"Why not both? Hit them on all sides while we raid the Crimson guys," Mimi suggests, and I nod along.
"Good idea, it'll give us more opportunities to raid them as well, and we can have vigilantes raiding the Crimson's slave operations as well. Hopefully, they will take care of the slaves there, or we can offer our services to them, take the girls in, and give them a safe haven here. Most of these buildings are abandoned. We could even see about taking advantage of the vigilante's goodwill and getting donations from them to help buy the buildings and fix them up," I turn to Felix. "Felix, I assume from the M in M.I.L.F. that they do repairs?" The Imp boy nods.
"Yeah, they're kind of a general labour force kind of thing. You need any kind of heavy lifting they'll do their best to get it done, so long as it doesn't require fighting and stuff like that; they're not that kind of imp."
"That's fine; I doubt we'd be able to afford many mercenaries anyways."
"Sounds like a plan's coming together," Adam says, a wide grin spreading across his face.
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I step outside into the alleyway where I'd shown Mimi how to use her gun. It was all cleaned up now, the only evidence of our little range was a series of bullet holes from the practice. I consider not even going farther than the alleyway. It was as close to safe in this city as I could get. Now isn't that funny. I'm safe with the Merchants of all things. I'm sure if it was back when I was alive, and I ended up in this position, I'd be happily drugged away, either drowning my sorrows away in a drink or shooting it up, having finally given up on life and deciding to just enjoy my last moments on Earth.
Now… I'm the bad influence, pushing the Merchants into becoming a gang again. Not just three hours ago we made a plan to fire off a four-way gang war in hopes of getting out on top and taking control of the area properly. The hero, Weaver, planning on causing millions of dollars in damages, getting dozens of people killed, all for some nebulous goal of taking control and making things better and safer for everyone… actually, I'm pretty sure none of my teammates would be surprised at what I'm doing now.
The only real justification I've got is that no one will actually die, since no one can die. Instead, I'll just be destroying their livelihood as innocent people are caught in the crossfire between the four of us. At some point, I'll have to answer for that. Maybe no one will bring me to task for it, but I should still do something to help them out.
Tactically, it made sense to do. They would have their property destroyed by the Crimson or the vigilantes in the attack against the Raz Family, and we, after claiming the territory around us, would be able to take the desperate people in and give them the protection and safety they needed.
However, helping the girls and probably boys that would be getting sold to Valentino was the major reason I wanted to go after the Crimson gang. For almost a year they had had free reign to just do as they wanted in this part of the city, which mostly consisted of robbery and slavery. It disgusted a deep part of me and I didn't want to wait a moment longer than I had to before we went after the Crimson gang to save them.
We'd agreed that we would mostly be financing the purchases of the ruined buildings around us with money from the raids against Crimson territory, as well as promoting people working for us so that we could push more product, and thus, make more money, or they could help us in other ways. Just like how I did it in my territory, giving privilege to those that helped me out and making sure they got food. If that isn't enough, I'll contribute my portion of the loot from the raid on Snipe's vigilantes. Not ideal, but it'll contribute towards my long-term goal. It's a gamble, this could actually set me back on trying to find Alec, and I don't want to go through a purge without bringing Alec into the fold, or at least making sure he's safe.
With the bugs in some of the hives in other buildings, I begin to have them bring their young to me, either through handing them off to my controlled flying bugs or just flying them to me themselves. With my hands outstretched, the moment a larva lands on my hand, I push a minuscule amount of my magic into it, and possess it, and establishing my control. It was one of the various ways of increasing my swarm.
Another thing I want to do was to test out what Rollout had done to make himself so tough. He'd used his magic and just seemed to push it throughout himself. Rollout's magic had almost seemed more potent as well, but I hadn't had the luxury to notice it at the time. I'd watched how he had done it, and it almost looked like a changer power. Reaching within myself, I mentally grab a hold of my magic, and try to push it throughout myself, trying to assume this so-called "true demon form."
I felt a change wash over me, and I see myself getting taller, and in general, growing larger, my antenna grows more as well, and I can sense things with it much easier than before. I feel more fluff seem to spread across my body underneath my clothes. A part of the fluff makes a kind of scarf or collar. I feel my bust begin to expand as well along with my rear. I look down and I'm surprised to see that for once I have breasts, though I use a bit of magic to make them just a little bit bigger, though they are more fuzzy things, kind of like what angel has, though I can still feel the flesh underneath the fuzz. Running my hands on the fluff I feel beneath, I note how soft and sleek it is. It's almost like petting a well-groomed dog whose hair was meant to be sleek, or like running a hand over a soft and comfortable blanket. It's certainly something that I wouldn't mind having as a material for a blanket or for a pillow.
With my antennae, I can also feel my own magic, and it feels much denser than before, and from my senses, it looks like it too. With a hand, I place a barrier down and note how it glows a deeper blue than when it is usually first put down, almost as if I'd put down a few instead of one. I continue the place-down barriers and note how its intensity seems to have been doubled with half the time it would take to cast a barrier of similar strength. I mentally dismiss it.
So in my "true demon form," I apparently gain more power over my magic, and my perception is generally better. I wonder…
I begin to walk out of the alleyway and onto the street of the ruined part of town. Almost no one was here as usual. Though there was a person or two wandering about. As I pass them I notice a few heads turning towards me as I walk, I can smell… something through my antennae. It smells like the smell that had from the demon in scrap armour when I'd stuck my pistols underneath his helmet. I wasn't quite sure, but maybe… fear? The other smells mixed in I can't easily identify.
I cross over to the other side of the street and begin to make my way down an alleyway, letting my bugs scout the way, though I can also sense through my antennae some of the various creatures that are around here. I take a deliberate left as I come to an intersection. I can feel one of the creatures of the alleyway, eating the corpse of some unfortunate creature. It perks up as I walk forwards towards it.
It's a strange thing, like a giant rodent. The thing is completely covered in black fur and with wicked teeth and claws as well, while its eyes glow a soft white. Rather than let it charge, I unleash my magic and begin to shove it down the alleyway with the wind generated from pushing my magic in a certain way. The creature begins to roll, curling up into a ball and rolling backwards until it seems to lose balance and begins to tumble until it's stuck up against a wall. I decrease the force of my magical pushing the closer I get so that it stays up there but there isn't so much pressure on it as I get closer.
As I step up to it, I reach out towards the black furry creature. While I will have to test this while not transformed, this would serve as a good initial test. I'm not exactly sure that my magical master power is as limited as I initially thought. I set my hand down on the creature, it tries to thrash at me but my magical push is still keeping it immobilised. I push my magic into it, there is a slight resistance, before, suddenly, I feel in control of the thing. I let my magical pushing cease and the creature drops to the ground, docile. Bending down, I begin to pet the creature, and it begins to purr at me. I've never really been a cat person, and technically this creature isn't a cat, it just purrs like one, but this is nice. Mentally, I seize control, and it allows me to as if it were natural to let some greater power than itself control it. The black-furred creature plods over to the corpse and I have it dig in, filling itself on the smaller creature it was devouring, some kind of large meaty insect by the look of it.
Seems my hunch was correct.
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Experimenting with giving myself a bit of a break before trying to edit it so that I'm hopefully not just sliding my eyes past a punch of mistakes. Hope you enjoy.
