Greed God chapter 192

April 7th 2016 Brightedge City, The Perigrinator's Club, 7:00 AM EDT

The  next two days passed in a blur of activity. Well...for Silver and  Barbie. I didn't really do much personally, I have people for that.  Still, I was at least cognizant of the fact that there was a lot to get  done. Once we got everything out of the way I was invited to watch them  set up (as Mammon of course) for the big event at the Perigrinator's  Club. Despite knowing they wanted to use me as intimidation, I decided  to accept, if only to scout the venue.

Which is how I  found myself here walking the halls of The Perigrinator's Club, alone,  an hour before the event was supposed to start. Despite being a big  fancy upper crust gentleman's club (not the kind with tits sadly) this  place had a big ass complex of back halls and a basement that extended  out much further than the building itself. Since I wasn't a fucking  moron who ignored large portions or the venue where I held events, I was  checking them all out.

"This is annoying." I said out  loud. "Like...more annoying that most stuff." I'd been wandering around  for about fifteen minutes now, and I was pretty sure I was lost. Not  like...super lost. But I wasn't totally positive where I was. Of course,  I could retrace my steps perfectly and find my way out, but if I did  that I had no clue if I would manage to check every bit of of this  place. It made more sense to keep going until I hit a dead end, since I  could backtrack at any time.

Since I was alone though, I  decided to check in on an old friend. "Hey, Crassus, you around?" The  voice in my head never spoke to me unless I addressed him. It had been  quite some time since I'd checked in though. There had been quite a bit  going on for a while now.

[Yeah, I'm here as always. Where the hell else would I be. Been a while. I'm surprised you didn't check in earlier.]

He'd  been silent so long, I had to wonder. "Do you experience things that  happen to me in real time?" It seemed odd to me that he would be silent  for weeks and then when I called to him pop up without any complaint.

[Not  really. Or not exactly. The dead don't experience time like the living,  kid. The time between conversations barely passes for me. A blink  between one talk and the next. I know what happens during that time and  can address it, but it's not like I just sit around waiting.]

That  was interesting. A bit of a relief too. Would have sucked for him if he  had to sit around silent for ages between talks. I was about to ask him  a question when I heard a slight rustle. I stopped. With deliberate  slowness, I turned to look at the spot the sound had come from. Just a  corner. Nothing else. I stared at the empty hall. Without taking my eyes  away from the corner I slipped out the Eye of Oberon, catching my  reflection out of the corner of my gaze.

"Is this you?"  Asked my fae fragment. "Because your nonsense with the reflections  wasn't funny before, and it's not funny now." I absolutely didn't have  time for this shit. I doubted anything down here could actually hurt me,  but I was looking for infiltrators. If I left a mysterious thing down  in the basement tunnels and it got one of the guests it would fuck up my  whole night.

My reflection met my eyes lazily. "No. Once I  got in touch I didn't need to do any more of th- wait what the fuck was  that?" His eyes jerked off mine, looking behind me. I rolled my own  eyes and turned to look behind me. Nothing. I didn't think he'd been  fucking with me though. I'd seen a flash of dark movement behind me. My  reflection stared hard at the empty space, eyebrows furrowed. "That  was...weird. Like, as in I don't know what the fuck I was just looking  at."

I growled, letting my eyes bleed to draconic riots of  glowing green power as my scales rippled over my skin. "Ok. No. None of  this. I am not some fat tittied blonde in a horror movie being stalked  by a psycho. Whatever the fuck you are, get your ass out here and fight  me like a beast, or I'm going to start going through walls until I find  you." I briefly regretted going so hard into combat capability. Some  sensory powers beyond the normal would have been nice. I should have  been able to pick this asshole up with the sharp senses I already had,  but I was getting nothing.

There was a scraping on the  ground behind me and a low chuffing laugh as I felt the wind of someone  hurling themselves at me. Rolling my eyes, I leaned back, my entire body  bending at the knees in a way no normal person would have been able to  manage. A dark furry shape sailed over my head, and I wrapped my arms  around it, standing up and falling forward to my knees, using all my  weight and momentum to smash the thing down on its neck.

The  laughing stopped as a strangled cry erupted from the head of the  monster I now saw was some kind of hairy man beast with the head of a  cougar as its head smashed into the basement floor, denting the ground. I  stood up, grabbing the thing's ankle and swung it sideways into the  wall with enough force to crack the thick concrete, then I reversed  direction and swung it again into the other wall.

Before I  could do any more a massive fist crashed into me, and I let go of the  furry ankle so I could adjust my positioning in midair and pop into  handspring. Wings weren't great for confined spaces. When I came to my  feet, I found myself facing not just the cougar man, but another hulking  shape. A dark and twisted looking monster covered in shaggy fur so  black it looked like moving darkness, with only a pair of pupilless  yellow orbs for eyes. It's arms were the length of its whole body, and  it leaned forward, the knuckles of its giant fists resting on the  ground.

I glanced down at the mirror. "Ok. What the actual  fuck is THAT? Hell, what are either of those? Are they fae? Because if  so I need to have a long talk with Tamlin about exactly what kind of  representatives he's sending to meetings." I'd never seen anything as  ugly as these two things.

My reflection rolled his eyes.  "I don't fucking know genius, why don't you try appraising them. You  know, since you can identify basically anything on sight."

"Hey  fuck you." I said defensively. "I was getting to it. I just wanted to  explore all my options fist. No such thing as too much information when  it comes to combat." That said, I focused on the big long armed beast.

[Appraisal  function activated. Fear construct detected. The Hob- D rank. A  creature of dark appetites, the hob is an unceasing machine of carnage  and hate. A denizen of the darkest shadows, it stalks its prey with a  single minded fury, waiting for it's chance to tear them limb from limb  and devour them.]

I froze. Not because of the  rank, I was pretty much peak D rank and I could take this thing. No, I  froze because I saw something in the description I'd never seen before.  This thing dsidn't say 'Treasure Detected' like every other person place  or thing I'd ever appraised. It said 'Fear Construct'. If there was one  thing I knew, it was that anything that could cause the Greed System to  change the way it did things was bad news. Swallowing hard and keeping  my eyes on the monsters, I decided to double check by appraising the  other one.

[Appraisal function activated. Fear  construct detected. Jaguaro- E rank. A vile beast-man hybrid who craves  the blood and flesh of humans, Jaguaro has been conjured forth from the  depths of the human psyche to inflict death on all it surveys.]

That...was  that the fucking monster from Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase? It was.  It was the same monster with the same name. The use of the word conjured  made me a bit suspicious too, and combined with the fear construct  thing I was almost positive I knew what was going on. Knew and was NOT  happy. I opened my mouth to check with Crassus, but I was cut off by the  yowl of Jaguaro as it threw itself at me again. I didn't bother with  fancy moves this time, I hauled back and punched the bastard with my  full dragon strength.

Or at least, I fucking TRIED to. The  Hob reached out with a colossal hand and caught my fist. It's oversized  mitt somehow grounding out the force before it began to squeeze down on  my hand. My eyes widened as I felt the bones in my fingers fucking  CREAK. Oh fuck that shit. I poured Primal Force into my hand, set my  feet, and shoved forward, driving my fist deeper into its palm.

Whatever  energy grounding bullshit it did before wasn't equipped to deal with a  fist driven by the elemental fury of primordial momentum, and the  monster was sent staggering back, it's yellow eyes shining with shock  and anger. At least until my other fist came across its face in a left  cross and sent it staggering into the wall. Rather than follow it up, I  turned on the Jaguar man beast and lashed out with a punch, pulping its  head with a single blow.

The headslam earlier had been  concrete vs E rank monster skull, and concrete had caved. This time I  just fucking smashed its head in, and my fist was a LOT tougher than  concrete. The Hob yowled with rage and climbed to its feet, hurling  itself at me. Not being a fucking idiot I sidestepped the lung, grabbing  the monster and guiding it into the wall with a crash. As it began to  pull itself free, I hissed aloud. "Crassus, please tell me I'm not  fighting what I think I'm fighting!"

[Wish I could  kid. But you have a brain, and I'm sure you figured out what was going  on based on the oddities in the descriptions. Or at least, I'm guessing  you have a good idea. I swear I didn't expect this though. It's too  soon. None of them should have been able to find you this quickly. Sure  merging the city was a big flashy neon sign, but they aren't informed  what the others can do. Same way you didn't know what to expect from  them.]

I snarled as the monster lunged again, and  I was officially done with this shit. I stepped to the side and pulled  deep on my power, flooding my body with Primal Force. As the Hob passed  to the side of my I reached out and wrapped an arm around its neck  before giving a sharp jerk with my upper body and pouring the power into  it's neck in the most concentrated burst possible, snapping the thing's  spine.

As I dropped it, I snarled. "Well that didn't keep  me from figuring it out, did it? Now one of them is here, and it's  obviously trying to fuck things up for me. Since I confirmed that, can  you tell me what the fuck I'm dealing with at least. You're not giving  anything away that I haven't probably guessed."

[You're  not wrong. You're already on the right track anyway. It doesn't hurt  anything to confirm. Yes, as you guessed, those were constructs created  by another user of a power just like yours. One of the others is here  and they're after you. On the upside, it's hardly the worst of the  bunch. Still, I don't think anyone in their right mind would relish  going up against the host of the Fear System.]