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Description

[Trophy]

Clyde and Belix arrived at the designated location, a small gambling house disguised as bar. They flashed a card to the barkeep and he led them into the basement where they were met with their job for the night, protecting a small golden statue, a bust in the shape of a unicorn. Belix looked it over and shook her head.

“No accounting for taste,” she muttered.

“You mean the idol or the ramshackle hut they stashed it in?” Clyde responded.

“That’s my bar you’re talkin’ ‘bout boy!” the barkeep responded.

“…it’s a dive,” was all Clyde said in response.

The barkeep glared at him, then scoffed.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve gotten yourselves into here?”

“Enlighten us?” Belix said with a shrug.

“Long, long ago, when Seriquisse was formed.

“Oh, for Gods’ sake…” she grumbled.

“It was a battleground, a warzone, everyone wanted it, all six clans that made up this nation,” the barkeep pressed on, “When the church joined the fray, they knew they couldn’t eradicate the bad blood and make everyone play nice, so, they invented a game,” he glanced at the statue, “Capture the flag.”

“One group defends while the others rush in to steal the prize,” Clyde surmised, “And they chose this place a battle ground because it’s basically a tear down that no one’s going to care about if it gets destroyed.”

“Think what you want smartass,” the barkeep spat at him, “I can still get paid for repairs, I can renovate, but you, you’ll be dead by dawn.”

“That’s…nice,” he rolled his eyes, “So, are you a mediator in this game or are you just here to lock up?”

He mumbled something on his way out and slammed the door, locking them in. Clyde and Belix glanced at each other and shared a chuckle.

“So…I don’t suppose we could just throw the match,” he mentioned, glancing down at the tied satchel he had been carrying, “I do have other things I could be doing.”

“Probably not,” she admitted, “It’s most likely a victory or death type thing.”

“Figures,” he muttered, then headed out of the room.

“Where you goin’?”

“To get a head start on this,” he shrugged, “I figure he’s probably got a soup pot or something I can melt it down in, and, anyway, might as well close off the chimney so that they can’t enter that way.”

“Smart,” Belix nodded, then followed him out.

“And what are you…”

“I’m gonna raid that prick’s fridge,” she admitted.

They walked together and started breaking down chairs and tables for firewood, Belix keeping a particularly jagged table-leg to use as a weapon while Clyde emptied the barkeep’s cutlery drawer. While he worked, melting down his iron shavings, she mixed together some oats and bread, giving him a portion as he worked, she burned the bread and undercooked the oats, but he didn’t mention it and thanked her for the meal. She helped him when he ran out of shavings and together they pried apart the furniture, pulling out the nails and adding them to the pool of molten iron in the pot.

“Alright, that’s just about full,” she commented, “So, what next?”

“No idea,” he admitted, “Sort of making this up as I go.”

“Tongs?” she offered.

“Hmmm,” Clyde considered, “Might melt off, dilute the mixture…wait…”

Together they located an overturned table and started shoving blades through it, protruding their pointed ends through the top. They killed the fire and rigged up a device, mostly, it was just a chain with a hook on it, to tip the molten metal out of it. After shoving the table against the fireplace, both checked to see if the other was ready, then they pulled on the chain.

     The table immediately caught fire and they jumped away as the soup pot fell off of its sconce, sending a river of blazing hot steel rolling across the floor. Belix’s shoe caught fire and she quickly tore it off, tossing it away and examining her foot to make sure it hadn’t burned. Fire spread throughout the tavern, and they spent the next hour trying to track down and subdue the burning embers. In the end, Belix wound up with a large white blister spread across three of her toes, and Clyde had to resort to using his Spiders to create fireproof cloth so that he could snuff the flames.

     Both were charred, smoking and exhausted.

“Well,” Belix commented, still examining her foot, “That was truly pitiful.”

“Yeah…” Clyde was still looking around, trying to make certain that they had snuffed out all of the flames.

     Then his eyes fell on the table with all the blades sticking out of it, with a desperate curiosity, he walked forward and checked it out, hoping against hope that the chaos he had created had at least been worth it. To his joyful surprise, the molten iron bath seemed to have done the trick, each of the blades, fifteen in all, now had a thin layer of smoldering iron across their tips.

“Did it work?” Belix wondered.

“It’s not perfect,” Clyde admitted, while testing whether or not he could remove the blades, “But, after we break it out of here, file it down…”

Belix let out a yelp and he saw she had popped one of the blisters on her foot. Abandoning his knives for the moment, Clyde ran into the kitchen and grabbed what he needed for some quick first aide. He helped Belix wrap her foot and walked her to one of the few tables that hadn’t been utterly ruined in the fire. While she collected her shoe and tried to salvage what remained of it, he broke down the table and started separating out the blades. They sat together, quietly, each concentrating on their own project when Belix looked up at him with a smirk on her lips.

“This is nice,” she commented.

“What is?” he glanced back, “Acting like a complete moron, nearly getting us both killed…inhaling half-vented smoke?”

“No…just…this,” she smiled, “I like sitting with you.”

Clyde looked away, nervously tapping his fingers against the table.

“It’s not like…I didn’t mean it like…”

“I did,” Clyde whispered back, “I meant what I said, I don’t ‘feel’ anything.”

“If that’s the story you want to go with man,” Belix shrugged.

With a frustrated grunt, he dropped his iron tipped knives and grabbed a meat cleaver from the table.

“Oh come on, don’t be mad,” Belix called after him as he turned away.

“I’m not,” he replied dully, “But I…we, should probably check on the statue.”

“So, you’re coming back then?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” she nodded happily, “That’s good.”

He said nothing but meandered down the stairs, languidly swinging the meat cleaver at his side. The golden statue glinted in the dark from the bottom of his stairs, but he still walked towards it, needing something to focus on but not really knowing why. After turning on the lights and staring at it for a solid minute, he turned his attention to the blade in his hand and gave it a few test swings. Needing a few more minutes, he made an excuse and released the twin spiders onto the floor and signaled them to set up some alarm wires. When they finished, wrapping the last cord around his wrist, he still didn’t want to leave.

“You know…” a man spoke from the side of the room, hidden away in shadow, “My buddy and I, we actually had a bet goin’.”

Clyde cast his eyes over to the corner of the room where the voice was coming from and saw a pair of purple eyes staring back at him.

“You see, he bet me five gold, you jerk-asses would kill yourselves before midnight,” the voice mentioned, the man behind it emerging into the light, dark skin glistening in the dim glow of the lantern, his black hair being blown about by some unseen breeze that seemed to exist only for him.

“…hmm…” Clyde glanced down at the wires around his hand, not a single one so much as shook, he let them drop and held the cleaver tightly in his other hand, “Sorry to disappoint.”

“Oh, don’t be,” the stranger responded pleasantly, “I just won five gold.”

He circled around Clyde, examining him with a smile on his face.

“You know…despite the cracked foundation,” the stranger mentioned, “You’ve got a pretty nice body, I see what she likes about you.”

Clyde snarled at him and the stranger chuckled.

“You want to know what I’m doing here, right?”

“Obviously,” Clyde hefted the cleaver so the stranger could see it and got another amused chuckle from him.

“Let me guess,” he smirked, gesticulating wildly, “Somebody’s paying you, a fuck-load of money, to do this job, and do you know why?”

Clyde lowered the weapon but said nothing.

“Me!” the stranger declared happily and extended his hand, all of his fingers extending into glowing purple claws before retracting, “Name’s Chester by the way.”

“Clyde,” he shook the stranger’s hand.

Chester seemed impressed, his smirk became just a little more genuine as he stepped back, scratching his chin.

“You know, it’s a shame I’m gonna have to kill you.”

“So what the Hell are you waiting for?”

“Just trying to spice things up,” Chester shrugged, “It gets so very dull killing all you pathetic…”

Clyde rushed him with the cleaver and wound up cutting nothing but air. Chester appeared behind him and started pacing the room.

“Good form by the way,” he commented, then let out an amused guffaw, “Oh, oh Gods I am tempted.”

“To What?!” Clyde growled back.

“To let you go, I’d love to fight you in your prime,” he spread his arms and let out a defeated groan, “But rules are rules, I’ve got to come back with your head, or at least an ear…”

“If you don’t mind…” Clyde held out his hand, the spiders came to life, winding an intricate cloth across his arm and then over his body, forming a black and gold costume that covered him head to toe, “I’d like to get this over with.”

“Wow…” Chester breathed, his eyes glittering, “That is so cool…let me guess, flame retardant, tear resistant, slick…oh-wow, can I please have them after you die?”

Lunging at him with the weapon, Clyde managed to get closer, but Chester dodged his every strike and kicked him in the leg. He stood on the bend of Clyde’s knee, holding him in place even after Clyde stabbed the cleaver into his side. Green blood leaked down Clyde’s fingers as Chester wrapped a large glowing claw around his head.

“Love the tenacity kid,” Chester mentioned, squeezing Clyde’s skull until it started to crack, “Tell ya what, why don’t you give me the deets on you and that girl upstairs, and I’ll end you mercifully quick.”

In response, Clyde spun around and slammed his palm against the flat of the blade, slicing open Chester’s gut. Freed from Chester’s grip, Clyde fell down on all fours, took two quick breaths and rolled back onto his feet. In utter shock, Chester looked down at the gaping hole in his stomach.

“Fuck me…” then he started laughing, “Goddamn bruh, that shit was clean, right through the muscle.”

Clyde kicked him in the guts and slashed open his face when Chester leaned forward from the pain. The attack split his eye in two and sent a gout of green blood splashing across the floor, but Chester only cackled.

“Nice, NICE!” he laughed, pressing his skull back together until the wound healed, “And you capitalize on the injury, that is It right there, that is my boy!”

Worrying the blade in his hand, Clyde watched, trying to understand what he was seeing, what he was fighting against. Chester’s eye was a bloody green fountain until he blinked and closed it off, the eye behind the lid still healing when it opened again.

“What the Hell are you?” Clyde demanded.

“Me?” Chester shrugged, “I am exalted, ascended, risen above the petty…”

“Oh, My, Fucking, God!” Clyde shouted, angrily kneading his palm against his brow, “You have no idea, how sick I am of every person I meet telling me how special they are.”

“…damn…I mean, I’m just trying to have some fun here,” Chester replied meekly.

“Name, title, genus!” Clyde snarled, “Answer the fucking question or I’m going to slice you open and go looking!”

“You know I like that, I really do,” Chester smiled again, he opened his mouth to speak when they both heard a thump coming from above them, “Wait, did you hear that?”

Clyde tilted his head to the side, hearing the unquestionable sounds of a scuffle.

“Your friend I take it?”

“No…” Chester mused, stepping back, “No, he wouldn’t make that much noise.”

Thinking it over for a second, Chester moved towards the door.

“Can I trust you not to stab me in the back?”

“No,” Clyde replied flatly.

“Love the honesty bruh, but, now’s not the time…”

Grumbling under his breath, Clyde followed him up the steps and saw Belix on her knees, crouching on the floor, as a green-skinned monster loomed over her. Its four leathery wings fluttering behind it as it hefted a broken table to slam down on her head. Clyde spotted his daggers on the ground, scattered by the battle and ran for them. Belix waited until the last minute, then jumped through the monster’s legs, landing behind it and snatching up one of the knives for herself.

They attacked it in tandem, using the sharpened, iron tipped knives to tear open its flesh, leaving behind harsh smoking rents everywhere they cut, until it finally dropped to the ground. Chester watched them work and gave them a slow clap when they had finished.

“Beautiful,” he commented, “You two are quite the pair, you might even make this interesting, but, before we get on the main event, uh, missy, pointy-ears,” he smiled warmly at Belix who leered back at him with disgust, “You seen my buddy around?”

“You mean the guy in the rafters,” Belix mentioned offhandedly, then pointed, “His head’s over there.”

“He’s…” Chester’s face turned three shades paler and that quirky smile that seemed glued on his face finally vanished, “Reese…? REESE!!”

He ran across the room, searching for his friend while Clyde and Belix tended each other.

“You’re alright?” Clyde asked, noticing a scratch along the side of her neck

“Fine,” she insisted, pushing him away, “I was expecting the other guy to pounce when flappy over here took a swing at me, caught me flat footed is all.”

Clyde checked her over, and made sure that was her only injury before kneeling down to examine the body. He buried his knife into its brain before beginning, not wanting to take any chances, then flipped it over to get a better look. The entire creature was long and slender, its body sleek and elongated. To his mind it looked like a cross between an insect and a lizard, except for the face, it’s horrible, twisted face. there were no eyes, no mouth, none that he could call as such, but a split running down its skull where the face should have been, and seemingly held together by a necklace of fangs.

“Anything you recognize?” Belix wondered as he reached down to open the mouth revealing a long rubbery proboscis surrounded by a mass of prickle fangs.

“Not…entirely,” he admitted, stepping back from the body and wiping his hands on his pant legs, “I saw something like it before, but it was different, sort of… twisted, malformed…”

“So…this,” she kicked the corpse, “This is normal to you?”

“No, but, the teeth were just sort of everywhere…” he muttered, “And the bodies were more…swollen, bulky…”

“They were imperfect specimens,” Chester sniffed, calling out from across the room, “They drank from the blood of a lesser host.”

Both Clyde and Belix turned and stared at him while Chester remained on the ground, cross legged, his best friend’s head in his lap. He said nothing else, just sitting there, quietly brushing Reese’s hair out of his eyes and silently weeping.

“What the Hell do you know about it?” Belix demanded.

“I’m two-thousand and forty-seven years old, I only took this job to make ends meet, and I know things,” he replied simply, tears freely leaking down his face.

“Can you help us?” Clyde wondered desperately, “We’re looking for the person behind all this, We could really use…”

“Not my problem,” Chester replied dully as he cleaned the tears from his face.

Rolling her eyes, Belix grabbed the corpse by its leg and threw it at him, almost knocking the severed head out of his lap.

“In case you haven’t figure it out yet asshole, That thing just killed your friend!” she snapped while he glared at her incredulously, “So, maybe instead of gawking at his body you could…”

“Sorry,” Chester whispered, lifting Reese’s head and kissing him on the brow, “I wasn’t being clear,” he stood up and stretched a bit before continuing, “THIS, isn’t my problem, right now…”

As he spoke, something slammed hard against the door, very nearly caving it inward, and Chester simply sighed.

“Because that is,” he pointed at the green claws poking their way through the gaps in the frame, ripping away chunks of wood to reveal something much larger and more terrible on the other side, “This thing here,” he stomped on the corpse, splitting it in two, “Was just a scout, a seeker for the hive.”

Clyde and Belix listened to him, but also circled the room to collect the fallen daggers, all the while keeping an eye on the creature that was very quickly ripping apart the door.

“They won’t have sent it alone,” Chester warned darkly.

In response, the creature at the door thrust its toothy, frothing mandibles through a large enough gap in the door and shrieked at them.

Description

[Trophy]

Clyde and Belix arrived at the designated location, a small gambling house disguised as bar. They flashed a card to the barkeep and he led them into the basement where they were met with their job for the night, protecting a small golden statue, a bust in the shape of a unicorn. Belix looked it over and shook her head.

“No accounting for taste,” she muttered.

“You mean the idol or the ramshackle hut they stashed it in?” Clyde responded.

“That’s my bar you’re talkin’ ‘bout boy!” the barkeep responded.

“…it’s a dive,” was all Clyde said in response.

The barkeep glared at him, then scoffed.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve gotten yourselves into here?”

“Enlighten us?” Belix said with a shrug.

“Long, long ago, when Seriquisse was formed.

“Oh, for Gods’ sake…” she grumbled.

“It was a battleground, a warzone, everyone wanted it, all six clans that made up this nation,” the barkeep pressed on, “When the church joined the fray, they knew they couldn’t eradicate the bad blood and make everyone play nice, so, they invented a game,” he glanced at the statue, “Capture the flag.”

“One group defends while the others rush in to steal the prize,” Clyde surmised, “And they chose this place a battle ground because it’s basically a tear down that no one’s going to care about if it gets destroyed.”

“Think what you want smartass,” the barkeep spat at him, “I can still get paid for repairs, I can renovate, but you, you’ll be dead by dawn.”

“That’s…nice,” he rolled his eyes, “So, are you a mediator in this game or are you just here to lock up?”

He mumbled something on his way out and slammed the door, locking them in. Clyde and Belix glanced at each other and shared a chuckle.

“So…I don’t suppose we could just throw the match,” he mentioned, glancing down at the tied satchel he had been carrying, “I do have other things I could be doing.”

“Probably not,” she admitted, “It’s most likely a victory or death type thing.”

“Figures,” he muttered, then headed out of the room.

“Where you goin’?”

“To get a head start on this,” he shrugged, “I figure he’s probably got a soup pot or something I can melt it down in, and, anyway, might as well close off the chimney so that they can’t enter that way.”

“Smart,” Belix nodded, then followed him out.

“And what are you…”

“I’m gonna raid that prick’s fridge,” she admitted.

They walked together and started breaking down chairs and tables for firewood, Belix keeping a particularly jagged table-leg to use as a weapon while Clyde emptied the barkeep’s cutlery drawer. While he worked, melting down his iron shavings, she mixed together some oats and bread, giving him a portion as he worked, she burned the bread and undercooked the oats, but he didn’t mention it and thanked her for the meal. She helped him when he ran out of shavings and together they pried apart the furniture, pulling out the nails and adding them to the pool of molten iron in the pot.

“Alright, that’s just about full,” she commented, “So, what next?”

“No idea,” he admitted, “Sort of making this up as I go.”

“Tongs?” she offered.

“Hmmm,” Clyde considered, “Might melt off, dilute the mixture…wait…”

Together they located an overturned table and started shoving blades through it, protruding their pointed ends through the top. They killed the fire and rigged up a device, mostly, it was just a chain with a hook on it, to tip the molten metal out of it. After shoving the table against the fireplace, both checked to see if the other was ready, then they pulled on the chain.

     The table immediately caught fire and they jumped away as the soup pot fell off of its sconce, sending a river of blazing hot steel rolling across the floor. Belix’s shoe caught fire and she quickly tore it off, tossing it away and examining her foot to make sure it hadn’t burned. Fire spread throughout the tavern, and they spent the next hour trying to track down and subdue the burning embers. In the end, Belix wound up with a large white blister spread across three of her toes, and Clyde had to resort to using his Spiders to create fireproof cloth so that he could snuff the flames.

     Both were charred, smoking and exhausted.

“Well,” Belix commented, still examining her foot, “That was truly pitiful.”

“Yeah…” Clyde was still looking around, trying to make certain that they had snuffed out all of the flames.

     Then his eyes fell on the table with all the blades sticking out of it, with a desperate curiosity, he walked forward and checked it out, hoping against hope that the chaos he had created had at least been worth it. To his joyful surprise, the molten iron bath seemed to have done the trick, each of the blades, fifteen in all, now had a thin layer of smoldering iron across their tips.

“Did it work?” Belix wondered.

“It’s not perfect,” Clyde admitted, while testing whether or not he could remove the blades, “But, after we break it out of here, file it down…”

Belix let out a yelp and he saw she had popped one of the blisters on her foot. Abandoning his knives for the moment, Clyde ran into the kitchen and grabbed what he needed for some quick first aide. He helped Belix wrap her foot and walked her to one of the few tables that hadn’t been utterly ruined in the fire. While she collected her shoe and tried to salvage what remained of it, he broke down the table and started separating out the blades. They sat together, quietly, each concentrating on their own project when Belix looked up at him with a smirk on her lips.

“This is nice,” she commented.

“What is?” he glanced back, “Acting like a complete moron, nearly getting us both killed…inhaling half-vented smoke?”

“No…just…this,” she smiled, “I like sitting with you.”

Clyde looked away, nervously tapping his fingers against the table.

“It’s not like…I didn’t mean it like…”

“I did,” Clyde whispered back, “I meant what I said, I don’t ‘feel’ anything.”

“If that’s the story you want to go with man,” Belix shrugged.

With a frustrated grunt, he dropped his iron tipped knives and grabbed a meat cleaver from the table.

“Oh come on, don’t be mad,” Belix called after him as he turned away.

“I’m not,” he replied dully, “But I…we, should probably check on the statue.”

“So, you’re coming back then?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” she nodded happily, “That’s good.”

He said nothing but meandered down the stairs, languidly swinging the meat cleaver at his side. The golden statue glinted in the dark from the bottom of his stairs, but he still walked towards it, needing something to focus on but not really knowing why. After turning on the lights and staring at it for a solid minute, he turned his attention to the blade in his hand and gave it a few test swings. Needing a few more minutes, he made an excuse and released the twin spiders onto the floor and signaled them to set up some alarm wires. When they finished, wrapping the last cord around his wrist, he still didn’t want to leave.

“You know…” a man spoke from the side of the room, hidden away in shadow, “My buddy and I, we actually had a bet goin’.”

Clyde cast his eyes over to the corner of the room where the voice was coming from and saw a pair of purple eyes staring back at him.

“You see, he bet me five gold, you jerk-asses would kill yourselves before midnight,” the voice mentioned, the man behind it emerging into the light, dark skin glistening in the dim glow of the lantern, his black hair being blown about by some unseen breeze that seemed to exist only for him.

“…hmm…” Clyde glanced down at the wires around his hand, not a single one so much as shook, he let them drop and held the cleaver tightly in his other hand, “Sorry to disappoint.”

“Oh, don’t be,” the stranger responded pleasantly, “I just won five gold.”

He circled around Clyde, examining him with a smile on his face.

“You know…despite the cracked foundation,” the stranger mentioned, “You’ve got a pretty nice body, I see what she likes about you.”

Clyde snarled at him and the stranger chuckled.

“You want to know what I’m doing here, right?”

“Obviously,” Clyde hefted the cleaver so the stranger could see it and got another amused chuckle from him.

“Let me guess,” he smirked, gesticulating wildly, “Somebody’s paying you, a fuck-load of money, to do this job, and do you know why?”

Clyde lowered the weapon but said nothing.

“Me!” the stranger declared happily and extended his hand, all of his fingers extending into glowing purple claws before retracting, “Name’s Chester by the way.”

“Clyde,” he shook the stranger’s hand.

Chester seemed impressed, his smirk became just a little more genuine as he stepped back, scratching his chin.

“You know, it’s a shame I’m gonna have to kill you.”

“So what the Hell are you waiting for?”

“Just trying to spice things up,” Chester shrugged, “It gets so very dull killing all you pathetic…”

Clyde rushed him with the cleaver and wound up cutting nothing but air. Chester appeared behind him and started pacing the room.

“Good form by the way,” he commented, then let out an amused guffaw, “Oh, oh Gods I am tempted.”

“To What?!” Clyde growled back.

“To let you go, I’d love to fight you in your prime,” he spread his arms and let out a defeated groan, “But rules are rules, I’ve got to come back with your head, or at least an ear…”

“If you don’t mind…” Clyde held out his hand, the spiders came to life, winding an intricate cloth across his arm and then over his body, forming a black and gold costume that covered him head to toe, “I’d like to get this over with.”

“Wow…” Chester breathed, his eyes glittering, “That is so cool…let me guess, flame retardant, tear resistant, slick…oh-wow, can I please have them after you die?”

Lunging at him with the weapon, Clyde managed to get closer, but Chester dodged his every strike and kicked him in the leg. He stood on the bend of Clyde’s knee, holding him in place even after Clyde stabbed the cleaver into his side. Green blood leaked down Clyde’s fingers as Chester wrapped a large glowing claw around his head.

“Love the tenacity kid,” Chester mentioned, squeezing Clyde’s skull until it started to crack, “Tell ya what, why don’t you give me the deets on you and that girl upstairs, and I’ll end you mercifully quick.”

In response, Clyde spun around and slammed his palm against the flat of the blade, slicing open Chester’s gut. Freed from Chester’s grip, Clyde fell down on all fours, took two quick breaths and rolled back onto his feet. In utter shock, Chester looked down at the gaping hole in his stomach.

“Fuck me…” then he started laughing, “Goddamn bruh, that shit was clean, right through the muscle.”

Clyde kicked him in the guts and slashed open his face when Chester leaned forward from the pain. The attack split his eye in two and sent a gout of green blood splashing across the floor, but Chester only cackled.

“Nice, NICE!” he laughed, pressing his skull back together until the wound healed, “And you capitalize on the injury, that is It right there, that is my boy!”

Worrying the blade in his hand, Clyde watched, trying to understand what he was seeing, what he was fighting against. Chester’s eye was a bloody green fountain until he blinked and closed it off, the eye behind the lid still healing when it opened again.

“What the Hell are you?” Clyde demanded.

“Me?” Chester shrugged, “I am exalted, ascended, risen above the petty…”

“Oh, My, Fucking, God!” Clyde shouted, angrily kneading his palm against his brow, “You have no idea, how sick I am of every person I meet telling me how special they are.”

“…damn…I mean, I’m just trying to have some fun here,” Chester replied meekly.

“Name, title, genus!” Clyde snarled, “Answer the fucking question or I’m going to slice you open and go looking!”

“You know I like that, I really do,” Chester smiled again, he opened his mouth to speak when they both heard a thump coming from above them, “Wait, did you hear that?”

Clyde tilted his head to the side, hearing the unquestionable sounds of a scuffle.

“Your friend I take it?”

“No…” Chester mused, stepping back, “No, he wouldn’t make that much noise.”

Thinking it over for a second, Chester moved towards the door.

“Can I trust you not to stab me in the back?”

“No,” Clyde replied flatly.

“Love the honesty bruh, but, now’s not the time…”

Grumbling under his breath, Clyde followed him up the steps and saw Belix on her knees, crouching on the floor, as a green-skinned monster loomed over her. Its four leathery wings fluttering behind it as it hefted a broken table to slam down on her head. Clyde spotted his daggers on the ground, scattered by the battle and ran for them. Belix waited until the last minute, then jumped through the monster’s legs, landing behind it and snatching up one of the knives for herself.

They attacked it in tandem, using the sharpened, iron tipped knives to tear open its flesh, leaving behind harsh smoking rents everywhere they cut, until it finally dropped to the ground. Chester watched them work and gave them a slow clap when they had finished.

“Beautiful,” he commented, “You two are quite the pair, you might even make this interesting, but, before we get on the main event, uh, missy, pointy-ears,” he smiled warmly at Belix who leered back at him with disgust, “You seen my buddy around?”

“You mean the guy in the rafters,” Belix mentioned offhandedly, then pointed, “His head’s over there.”

“He’s…” Chester’s face turned three shades paler and that quirky smile that seemed glued on his face finally vanished, “Reese…? REESE!!”

He ran across the room, searching for his friend while Clyde and Belix tended each other.

“You’re alright?” Clyde asked, noticing a scratch along the side of her neck

“Fine,” she insisted, pushing him away, “I was expecting the other guy to pounce when flappy over here took a swing at me, caught me flat footed is all.”

Clyde checked her over, and made sure that was her only injury before kneeling down to examine the body. He buried his knife into its brain before beginning, not wanting to take any chances, then flipped it over to get a better look. The entire creature was long and slender, its body sleek and elongated. To his mind it looked like a cross between an insect and a lizard, except for the face, it’s horrible, twisted face. there were no eyes, no mouth, none that he could call as such, but a split running down its skull where the face should have been, and seemingly held together by a necklace of fangs.

“Anything you recognize?” Belix wondered as he reached down to open the mouth revealing a long rubbery proboscis surrounded by a mass of prickle fangs.

“Not…entirely,” he admitted, stepping back from the body and wiping his hands on his pant legs, “I saw something like it before, but it was different, sort of… twisted, malformed…”

“So…this,” she kicked the corpse, “This is normal to you?”

“No, but, the teeth were just sort of everywhere…” he muttered, “And the bodies were more…swollen, bulky…”

“They were imperfect specimens,” Chester sniffed, calling out from across the room, “They drank from the blood of a lesser host.”

Both Clyde and Belix turned and stared at him while Chester remained on the ground, cross legged, his best friend’s head in his lap. He said nothing else, just sitting there, quietly brushing Reese’s hair out of his eyes and silently weeping.

“What the Hell do you know about it?” Belix demanded.

“I’m two-thousand and forty-seven years old, I only took this job to make ends meet, and I know things,” he replied simply, tears freely leaking down his face.

“Can you help us?” Clyde wondered desperately, “We’re looking for the person behind all this, We could really use…”

“Not my problem,” Chester replied dully as he cleaned the tears from his face.

Rolling her eyes, Belix grabbed the corpse by its leg and threw it at him, almost knocking the severed head out of his lap.

“In case you haven’t figure it out yet asshole, That thing just killed your friend!” she snapped while he glared at her incredulously, “So, maybe instead of gawking at his body you could…”

“Sorry,” Chester whispered, lifting Reese’s head and kissing him on the brow, “I wasn’t being clear,” he stood up and stretched a bit before continuing, “THIS, isn’t my problem, right now…”

As he spoke, something slammed hard against the door, very nearly caving it inward, and Chester simply sighed.

“Because that is,” he pointed at the green claws poking their way through the gaps in the frame, ripping away chunks of wood to reveal something much larger and more terrible on the other side, “This thing here,” he stomped on the corpse, splitting it in two, “Was just a scout, a seeker for the hive.”

Clyde and Belix listened to him, but also circled the room to collect the fallen daggers, all the while keeping an eye on the creature that was very quickly ripping apart the door.

“They won’t have sent it alone,” Chester warned darkly.

In response, the creature at the door thrust its toothy, frothing mandibles through a large enough gap in the door and shrieked at them.