Empusa 1.5
Miss Militia was fifteen minutes away from getting to us. So before she arrived, I busied myself with sewing a makeshift mask. That is, my spiders busied themselves with lining a bandage cloth with their silk, cutting it into a proper shape and sewing the pieces together. Meanwhile, I locked the door and sat across Sophia on the floor. Her hand pressed against her recent wound. I tried to disinfect and dress it as well as I could but it must have still hurt.
Sophia tried to strike up another conversation, and then tried to flirt with me again. And every time I cut her off she made that little excited whine that she thought I couldn't hear. It took effort not to walk up to her and punch her in the face whenever I felt her gaze running across my body. She was injured, I had super strength, it isn't worth it. She was injured, I had super strength- I repeated that mantra like my life depended on it. It didn't. I had considered going full assassin for hire, so maybe murdering my tormentors isn't such a bad first kill. But also, I'm not so far gone to just kill someone for- what? Ogling me? Scandalous! But not murder-worthy. An agonizingly long wait later, my third favorite cape enters the classroom.
“Recluse, I presume?” She asks, and I nod. That’s the name I told them. I point at Sophia.
“There’s a civilian injured here.” I watch as recognition flashes across her very expressive eyes as she directs the troopers to bring Sophia to the medics.
“Thank you for contacting us. I heard there was a cape attack?” She looks around the classroom.
“I… have enhanced danger sense that comes with my power. Around twenty minutes before I called you, I felt it flare up and rushed to the source, which turned out to be in Winslow. There was a… one of the students was being attacked by a monster cape.”
“... Could you elaborate please? Maybe describe the cape in question?” She asks, frowning.
“She had pointed ears, her fangs were elongated, her nails were replaced by thick yellow claws and her skin was all grey and cracked. She was pretty strong and durable. I myself have super strength but she took my punches like a champ.” I held back cause I didn’t want to end up with a corpse in my hands. Not yet at least. But still, I was exerting above humanly possible forces on Emma.
“Are you sure it was a monster cape? Maybe, it was someone with a changer form?”
“Ah. That’s right. Sorry about that. Yes, she did seem to recognize her victim. Sophia, she called her.” I say evenly. Right, almost forgot. Not every abnormal looking cape is a monster cape. Those are amnesiacs.
“Would you like to recount the fight at the PRT headquarters?”
“No. No I wouldn’t.” She’s rather surprised by my… it’s not aggression, but I’m not being friendly either. Distrust would be the right word.
“You’re new, aren’t you? Have you considered joining the wards?” She asks.
“Let’s recount the story and I’ll be on my way. I have places to be. The cape is still out there.” And I do. I go into as much detail about Emma’s durability and strength, what she used and what she survived. I leave out as much as I can about myself and my own capabilities. That’s why I only used whatever was lying around the classroom to attack Emma. I wasn’t… that committed to saving Sophia. But throwing Emma around was therapeutic. I would like to talk more with my childhood hero. But I have wasted too much time already. Emma’s trail will disappear soon. But I have a way. I attached a couple stinky spiders on her and told them to slowly release their webs. And all my bugs keep following the commands I give them even outside my range. So I set my most sensitive bugs to seek that scent and rushed off after the trail.
I almost lost her by the time I caught up to her. The spiders don’t have an infinite source of silk, after all. And the only thing that saved me was when I got to the spot where the silk trail ended, the spiders I left on Emma entered my range. She was in a warehouse, pacing impatiently. In her hands I see something crushed. My ants are going kinda crazy from it, actually. And there’s a trail of ants going from the warehouse to… somewhere.
Before I can get too curious, Emma turns around sharply and shouts “M-mother! Mommy!” I freeze in place, dread overcoming me. Aunt Zoe is involved? “M-mom?”
“I told you not to call me that, you little freak.” Says someone’s harsh voice as a figure in a red robe appears from the shadows. But I sigh in relief. Whoever that is, she is not Aunt Zoe. She’s wearing a blood red robe with white lines along her arms and back, her face obscured by a freaky looking mask. It looked like insect carapace but if it was stretched and shaped in unnaturally geometrical ways, interlocking with each other to form an expressive visage of a face made of layers of teeth and eyes, all piled on top of each other and merged into each other. Now the question is, what the fuck is going on between the two for Emma to… I silently retch to the side. Oh. Oh man.
“I’m sorry, mommy.” Emma whimpers as the figure steps closer to Emma and grabs her face.
“Do. Not. Call. Me. That. I never told you to call me that. It’s weird. It’s fucked up… call me sis instead.” She says after thinking for a couple seconds. “What happened to you?”
“I-I’m so sorry m- sis. I wasn’t strong enough. You did all that for me and I still failed you.” Emma falls to her knees, the other cape’s hand still on her forehead. “It’s… I almost got her! I bit into her! And- and that little worm interfered.” Her voice gains a monstrous growl for the briefest of moments.
“Explain.”
“I- I did as you told me. Used electricity against Sophia. Fairy lights! Sh-she thought I set them up for romantic… stuff. A-and I bit her. But she got out and Taylor came rushing to save her.” Oh, you bitch. You bitch! You outed me just like that! I’ll have you externally digested for that!
“Taylor?” The cape asks curiously. “Tell me more.”
“She’s… she’s also got powers now! She’s as strong as me… m-maybe stronger. And she had some way of hearing us from her classroom. I know where she li-”
“Did she follow you here?” The cape interrupts.
“No. No! I made sure! She was still taking care of Sophia when I left.”
“Hm. Alright. I’ll give you a boost. Don’t fail me now.” She says as Emma’s body begins warping. “Giving you more strength than your body can take needs… sacrifice. You understand, right?” Emma nods enthusiastically. “You can’t walk under direct sunlight now. And I replaced your bone marrow and some organs with more important stuff. So find yourself red blood cells somewhere else.” Emma nods again, beaming at the cape.
“Thank you! Thank you so much m- sis! I’ll succeed this time! I’ll bring Sophia to you and end Taylor!”
“Yeah, yeah. Focus on your task first. Whatever beef you got going for you, leave it for after you’re done. Wait until the night comes and bring Sophia to me where we agreed.” The cape brushes her off and walks back into the shadows.
So, I have several concerns now. Emma is stronger, that’s one. She’s got a backer. That’s two. Her backer can grant powers or modify existing ones. That’s three. The spiders I landed on her, mercifully free of my control in their descent, disappeared from my senses and my other bugs saw them liquefy on contact with the red robe. I can’t track her the way I tracked Emma. And she’ll supposedly be staying here till night. So my target is clear. The mystery cape.
I rush to the part of the building she must have exited from, since I can’t use my bugs to tag her. I’m almost going in blind, so I’m not going to stand directly where she would be exiting. Instead I go through the rooftops, my newfound ability to stick to walls coming in handy. I use my bugs to scan their surroundings using their senses instead of just bumping around. Using non-spiders for that is headache-inducing, but I need to power through. But she’s gone. To both my senses and the bugs. I lost her! But… There's an ant trail! I locate the trail again and follow it along rooftops. It starts leading towards the downtown, to the town center. And suddenly, all the ants that formed the line disappear from my senses. What? Were they… summoned? I send a couple bugs to check on them and they also disappear from my sight once they enter the former ant line. But now I know what happened to all of them. They’ve been liquefied. Down to the last ant. And it’s some form of acid that quickly evaporates on its own. I even checked for corrosion traces on the ground, but it only affected bugs. I lost her trail. And when I came back to the warehouse, Emma was gone as well.