AnotherArchetype

144. Resistance

We made our way back downstairs to the ground floor hallway entrance. The Sub-Divisioners had already reached the front door, which they opened easily enough since the lock had long since been broken by previous vandals.

Clang, Miss Toontastic, and I, stood by the stairs several paces away from the front door. Soaks entered first, getting himself out of the heavy rain. He was quickly followed inside by Lure and Chips.

I heard Miss Toontastic sniffing, and for a moment I wondered i...

143. Desperate Times

“No talking about anything we’ve discussed,” I whispered, “Because they’ll be able to hear anything we say to each other.”

The other two nodded in understanding.

“And if it becomes a fight?” Clang’s voice rang.

“Then we stick together,” I said, “And give as good as we get.”

CLANG!

In the heat of the moment Clang and I entered into a bros-handshake, as if testing the other’s strength; the whole of the slip-suit in turn tensed from the e...

142. Smudge

I was the first to reach the mansion kitchen backdoor, taking hold of it, but finding myself not turning the handle, because a sudden overpowering sense of dread had taken hold of me.

It was a feeling which had gripped me before back when Xandra and I were moments away from yanking open the back door to the Putsley Bay petrol station. Back then, we had agreed on a plan to go in through the back of the petrol station, to then steal what food and other supplies we could get our hands on b...

141. Dismayed Princess

I knew all too well the kind of grief Xandra was going through. To take a life, the most precious thing there could possibly be, wasn’t something anyone could just forget and move on from.

Knowing I was in any way responsible for the deaths of the Piper officers during their last attack had changed me far more than the power had.

But even then, I understood well enough that I had taken those lives either indirectly, having lost control to the fox-frog-monster, or I had done so i...

140. Free Spirit

It took me much longer than I would have liked to put the slip-suit back on. Each second which passed was one more that the stranger outside had as a head start to roam in on the mansion. The figure had looked feminine in shape, a young woman, perhaps, wearing a dress. The trees and the mansion boundary walls had obscured too much of the figure for me to have seen more than that. I hadn’t had the forethought to use my power to slow down my perception to get a better look, because my immedia...

139. N

I had finished another patrol of the mansion grounds, and had discussed with Azad that we would take turns doing a patrol every hour throughout the daytime. Then, through the night, both of us would simply need to keep an ear out for trouble.

The day drew on and I found myself retreating to one of the smaller bedrooms which I had picked out. Once inside, with the door locked behind me, I then removed the skull-cowl and slip-mask (I had begrudgingly replaced the word ‘sinew’ with ‘...

138. Moussaka

I was examining the burn mark on my wrist where Azad had gripped me during our ‘training session’.

I then willed the sinew-suit to heal the burn there, and after a moment the darker hue faded back to the same pink which covered the rest of the suit.

A plate filled with cooked vegetables was slid into my field of view. It looked like the vegetables had been taken out of the rubbish bin and put directly onto the plate.

“Here,” said Azad, proudly.

He sat on a stoo...

137. Slip & Clang

It quickly became apparent I had two ways to deal with Azad’s sudden new speed and power.

The first was to evade faster and with greater distance than I had done before. To do so would likely entail leaping as high upwards as I could to then attach myself to the ceiling or one of the walls.

That option seemed less in the spirit of what our sparring session was supposed to accomplish, though it may have been the smarter way to handle Azad’s attacks.

The second option seem...

136. All-New, All-Improved

Combat really was a whole other means of existence.

The visual stimuli of the fight with Azad was only the first layer to contend with.

When he bounded up to the edge of the pool where I had stood before, I was already leaping backwards to create more distance between us.

Any daydream I had about how the fight might go dramatically diminished.

Azad’s fist was closing in on my face with all the weight and unrelenting power of a meteor.

The last time I felt as if...

135. One In A Million

When the door opened I wasn’t at first sure it was Azad I was looking at.

Because the young man standing at the doorway was, objectively, very handsome. He was standing shirtless, his leanly muscled body on display and glistening slightly even in the dull hallway light.

His head of hair was long, reaching just shy of his shoulders in thick black curls.

Gone were his acne scars, the bulbous-ness of his nose, and the bushiness of his eyebrows. There were a thousand smaller c...

134. Prickles

Stepping out the back of the kitchen to the start of the sprawling mansion garden beyond, I found myself thinking of home.

Not the London flat. But my true home, my childhood home on the far side of Stowchester.

The home I had known for fourteen years before having to move out.

It had belonged to my grandparents, who paid a mere six-thousand-pounds for the home which would later sell for around three-hundred-thousand.

Having had a lonely childhood, what I remembered mo...

133. Cowl

It was morning by the time I left the classroom and ventured back out to the mansion proper.

Has so much time really passed? I thought to myself.

As ugly and vandalised as the interior of the mansion was, the way the morning light shone through the fractured window panes at the end of the hallway caused me to stop and appreciate the warm glow.

Further along the hall steam continued to eke from beneath Azad’s bedroom door. I heightened my hearing and heard him brea...

132. Workbooks

Azad had taken a handful of the dwindling food supply from the blue basket, and when I had asked him about what he was intending to do he said, “Major healing.”

“How are you going to do that?” I had asked, “You don’t have enough medical knowledge to fix everything properly, right?”

“I have ideas,” Azad had said, “It might take me a while to figure things out, so don’t disturb me. When I’m ready to come out of my room, I will.”

I had felt a familiar ...

131. Adhesive

Thankfully, the mansion proved to be deserted throughout its entirety. There were many rooms on the ground floor and first floor, all of which had been gutted of anything valuable. Those who had been to the mansion before us had done a very good job making sure the place was well on its way to becoming a broken ruin.

Although my heightened hearing made the effort not needed, I found myself tapping the walls occasionally with my knuckles on the off-chance doing so might reveal someone hi...

130. Recon

I couldn’t resist the temptation to try out what, if anything, I might be capable of whilst wearing the new ‘sinew-suit’, a term I made up in my head on the spot.

With very little forethought I let myself fall onto my side, landing on my right hand. The sinew-suit responded to the movement automatically, and with surprising grace I held a one-handed handstand with very little effort.

The tactile feedback from the suit flooded my brain, giving a whole host of new information ...

129. Muscle

At last Azad brought us to a wall that would have been twice my height were I still my normal self.

“It’s here,” said Azad.

He had his hands at his hips and he took several steps ahead of Xandra and I to examine the wall.

“If we follow the wall round there’ll be a hole we could climb through, and there’s several places where anti-climbing spikes have been cut off. But, we don’t need any of that.”

Azad readied himself to scale the wall.

“Wait,”...

128. Zig-Zagging

Azad had been running at close to a sprinting pace when he suddenly went limp, as if shot by a taser gun. He collapsed to the tall grass in the field we were in, and let out a long pained groan.

Xandra and I couldn’t get to Azad quick enough.

Xandra, being faster and nimbler in comparison to my huge, lumbering body, reached him first.

“Are you okay?” said Xandra.

She reached down to help him to his feet but he shrugged her off and got up on his own.

THOMP-T...

127. Stop, Look, and Listen

The three of us breached the last of the national park forest, which bordered a quiet winding road at the start of a huge stretch of open field.

If I had learnt one thing about roaming across England, it was that there were always more fields, forests, and winding roads to cross.

Xandra and I had escaped the Peepers and their hunting dogs before in a similar location. It was only after we left the fields and forests for the World War Two bunker, which had been located nea...

126. Another Five Minutes

We stopped to rest after an hour of traversing more of the national park forest. We moved slowly, opting to be as quiet as possible and to not push ourselves physically. 

Conversation between the three of us died out, not that I was able to do more than grumble or shake my head to communicate anyway. 

Azad and Xandra did their best to trek onwards despite the incredible physical and emotional exhaustion they were under. 

We had come to a clearing in the forest...

125. Up & Down

Our progress was painfully slow going all the way up the slight forest incline. Azad limped ahead, barely at a jogging pace. 

Xandra sprang along too, but like some kind of feeble rabbit with a belly ache. She held the dinner-plate sized burn mark at her stomach which also had a blueberry-coloured bruising around the edges. 

And then there was me, lumbering along, smacking into one tree after another with my hulking form as if determined to touch every one on our way out...

124. Human Noises

I returned to my body the instant the fox-frog-monster relented control. Like before at the textile factory I was still in the beast's hulking form, and needed to change back. 

The beast had collapsed sideways on the forest floor, and it was there I opened my eyes to see Xandra. She was standing outside of my arm's reach, panting, one eye pinched shut, and a line of blood leaking from the corner of her mouth. 

"B?" she said, "You in there?" 

I let out a bestia...

123. Eldritch

The beast lumbered sideways on its good left arm to avoid any potential blood-spears thrown from Xandra. The effort proved unneeded, since Xandra, who was standing at the far bank again, was simply standing and breathing heavily; whether it was to take a reprieve to heal herself, regain stamina, or simply to figure out her next move.

The fox-frog-monster, seeing this, slowed and took the reprieve to yank out the blood-spear in its right armpit. It gave a squealing-screech of pain and th...

122. No Time to Heal

The beast was moving fast on Azad and Xandra. Its mind and eyes had plenty of time to soak in what they were doing, as if in slow motion. 

Xandra had her fists closed, her arms at her sides, and she was angrily screaming, facing towards the approaching beast. Veins protruded on the visible parts of her body, such as her neck and forearms. 

She's using her power in a different way, I thought, but to what effect? 

I couldn't tap into the fragme...

121. The Monster's Prisoner

"Please run!" I screamed, my voice no longer my own, but much deeper and that of the monster taking over. 

Both Azad and Xandra, who were backing away from me, looked as if they were becoming smaller as the were-fox-frog-monster which had come out at the factories steadily made its return. The top of my head brushed the slanted den ceiling, causing the wood to creak against the skull-like bone armor which domed my head. The hot lava-like glow of my skin beneath the emerging slabs o...

120. To Beast, or not to Beast

I screamed bloody murder. 

My legs thrashed and the muscles in my back tensed up to the point I thought my spine might snap. 

Azad and Xandra were kneeling by me, their hands tearing away at my shredded shirt to better see the wounds which were there. 

"What happened?!" Xandra shouted. 

I could feel her hands touch close to the open wounds, her fingertips slick with my blood. I thrashed wildly, unable to stop myself from showing the full extent of t...

119. A Coloured-In Shadow

Azad continued to explain more about his encounter with the Sub-Division escapees, but I stopped comprehending anything he was saying. 

A feeling like indigestion started in my gut, and grew worse to the point every breath became a conscious effort. 

It was cold in the den, but the harshness of the evening breeze hadn't made its way inside. 

Despite this, I felt stifled in the shredded clothes I was wearing as if it were a raging hot summer's day. 

...

118. Baba

"Is he okay?" I said. 

Azad's caramel coloured eyes stared vacantly beyond Xandra and I. 

"I think so," he said, "I watched from a distance when he went into the police station." 

"When?" said Xandra. 

Her good mood had become serious, and all of her attention was on Azad. 

"About three weeks ago," said Azad, "We went into town and my brother Aaron handed himself in. I stuck around outside for a few hours to make sure he was okay. I don't...

117. Blue Basket

Since Azad was resting on the sofa, I made my way over to a corner nook of the den and laid down on the soft ground; it was mostly soil with sparse bits of foliage peeking from underneath the adjacent wood panel wall.

After tossing and turning for a few minutes I drifted off into a deep sleep. 

Much later, just when I thought I had suffered plenty, I was lucid enough to detect the oily smell of fast food. 

The sloshing sound of ice cubes inside a paper cup entered ...

116. Fight the World! Fight the World!

The sticks and stones and other bits of forest debris hurt my feet. Trekking through the increasingly dense forest in such a sorry state made me feel, for the first time in a long time, as if I were back to my normal self again; no powers, no superhuman stamina. 

And what did it take to be rendered this useless? I thought to myself. 

You lost your mind, went full monster, got beat down, spent hours healing, all so you remember what it's like to be exhausted ...