Slugma sped her way through the hallways of the building, keeping a close eye on the area around her. The building smelled disgusting. Like a bathroom that had never been cleaned or something. Or a Stunky.
But the place didn't seem dirty. So where was the smell coming from? Slugma didn't have time to ponder this mystery before she heard someone walking close. She hopped up and dived into a nearby concrete wall. In mere seconds, she'd made a small hole and climbed in it. Slugma 'swam' through the concrete walls, feeling a bit like that cartoon Tyrunt had watched the other day with the tall gray skinny Bunnelby that kept getting lost underground.
This place was big. It had looked much smaller from the outside, and much less maze-like. There were ramps going up and down to different levels, rooms dedicated entirely to storage, dozens of boxes of strange smelling powders and liquids. But there weren't many people. Maybe everyone had called in sick? This place was so empty…
Slugma sighed as she walked through the halls, thinking to herself about how boring this had turned out to be. She poked her head out after some more crawling, only to find herself looking into a large round amphitheater, dirt and concrete covering felt seats all across the room, and a wooden platform at the other side of the room from her that had given in to rot. In a section of the room that had been cleared out, groups of men were working with guns, cleaning, oiling, and packing them away in boxes. For such a dirty room, it was a very clean looking operation. They all seemed to know what they were doing-
Then, Master's mind pressed against hers. He was staring through her eyes in shock, directing her to look at one particular man. Slugma blinked at the sight of him.
The man that Master was focused on was tall, thin, and completely covered in from top to bottom in a black costume. The costume was thick and leathery, with a belt on his chest that held grenades, with more of them lying on his hips, thighs, and shoulders. He had a helmet sitting next to him as he sat at a desk tapping on a cell phone, his booted feet up on the table. The helmet was large and round, with two large yellow 'eyes' on either side of it. Behind him, on the floor, was a large set of wings with pods that reminded her of the ones on a Garchomp's head.
His face… Slugma winced at the sight of it. He was burned. VERY burned. The scars swirled across his bald head, a section of melted skin over a corner of his left eye. She felt so bad for him…
"Fucking FIREFLY," Master was apparently not feeling as charitable. "Slugma, he's a fire type… Actually, we might as well call him a fire-type that can use explosion a bunch of times."
Slugma felt a burst of annoyance. She wasn't dumb. She knew what a grenade was. Master apparently felt her annoyance.
"Sorry. It's just… Firefly is a Batman villain. He's experienced, smart, and tough. Even if his fire doesn't work on you, he's intelligent enough to-"
Firefly, the man at the desk, stood up quickly, eyes wide. He was staring at his cell phone. Actually, it was very big for a cell phone. He was lifting it up now. He pointed the back of it… towards her?
Then his eyes snapped upwards, landing on her head poking out of the ceiling. Slugma froze. The man didn't.
"We have a contact!" he ripped a grenade from his belt, tossing it towards her. Slugma instinctively opened her mouth.
"MAAAA!" A stream of fire erupted from her mouth, hitting the grenade in mid-air. It blew up with immense force, shaking Slugma out of the ceiling and sending her tumbling to the ground. She landed hard, crashing in the rotting amphitheater seats and sending felt and wood flying. "Slu!" she shouted, pained. Shaking her head, she looked up at the sound of loud jet engines.
"So you're one of those monsters, huh?" Firefly floated over to her, helmet and wings on, a long flamethrower in his hands as he buzzed above like his namesake. "Guess I'm getting paid early."
He pointed the flamethrower at her, a long plume hitting Slugma… who looked down at her unharmed form, then up at Firefly. The seats around her ignited, sending smoke into the air.
"Fireproof, huh?" Firefly didn't seem deterred. In fact, he looked intrigued. "Well, guess you're more than just cute. Let's have some fun!"
Firefly reached for his chest, Slugma took a deep breath and blasted out flames. One of the criminals in the area screamed as the flames around the two began to rise.
Mimikyu
Moments before
Mimikyu flitted from one shadow to the next, travelling in her own special way through the halls. Like all ghost-types, she was able to hide in the dark of the world. And like all ghost-types, she was sensitive to the deeper nature of the world.
This place felt… pained. As though it had been physically attacked somehow. She could taste it on the air. People had gone through something bad in this place.
She entered a shadow in one room and looked around. It looked like a hospital. But gross. There was a red stain no one had cleaned on the floor, beds covered in dirt and smelling of sweat, hanging divider cloths splitting them into 'rooms', dirty medical trays in different parts of the room. It looked horrible.
"How unsanitary!" Alakazam scoffed as he followed Mimikyu's path through the room. "This facility is clearly medical in nature, but even the most heartless of scientists would at the least make sure their laboratory was clean! Were these people raised in a barn? Good Arceus, is that meth in the corner!? WERE THEY DOING SURGERY WHILE HIGH!? I-"
Mimikyu ignored him as he seemed to devolve into an absolute rage at the sight of the place. She was more worried about what she could feel. Some of the beds were very small.
She reached the other side of the room, where a door was open to show a set of stairs, leading to a very dark place. She hopped down, stair by stair, the small Batman head of her costume bouncing with each step. A smell was rising up from the place. Like something had been rotting inside the place.
She found herself at the bottom of the stairs. There was water dripping from the ceiling, pooling on the concrete floor.
All across the room were plastic tarps, laid out along the ground going for dozens of feet. Underneath them, lumps of varying sizes lay, only Mimikyu's eyesight allowing her to see them. She walked forward, sadness in her eyes as she contemplated the 'lumps' she was walking past.
"I…" Alakazam stared through her eyes, horrified. "I knew they were doing something, but the scale is-"
Mimikyu stopped. Something was there.
Alakazam's mind pressed against hers. She felt him reach out psychically… then pull back. "I can sense something, but it's mind is strange. I cannot read it. It's like-"
Mimikyu turned to her right. In the shadows, she saw something uncurl from the ceiling. She crouched low, her eyes narrowing as her Batman head curling down to scowl.
It was big. Big as Kalini. A single long leg stretched down, bending unnaturally, claws on the toes of it's feets briefly scratching at the concrete, long pin-like hairs twitching along its length. Two arms let go of the ceiling, while three more stretched and cracked, water dripping on its carapace, sliding along to mat it's long hairy form, then landing on the floor as Mimikyu watched. It landed, crouching, fingers twitching on each arm. The creature had no eyes. Yet she felt it's focus land on her.
"How… strang-strange…" lips opened, revealing fangs, but the mouth that spoke was higher up. "What a little thing you are…"
A hand lashed out, claws snapping outward. Mimikyu, already wary, jumped back from the reaching hand, landing with her wooden 'tail' smacking against the ground.
"I can smell you," the voice of the monster stretched through the air. His mouth opened in a facsimile of a smile, fangs stretching. "Hear you. No fear. Do you know… how rare… that is since I changed?"
He lowered down to crouch on the ground. "What are… you?"
"Mimikyu," she said as both an answer and a challenge.
He had no eyes. But he didn't seem to need them. He laughed, fangs clattering. "I am sorry… You are interesting. But I am hungry."
He scuttled across the floor, fangs lashing out. Mimikyu's shadow tentacles lashed out to try and smack him out of the air, but the inhuman monster leaped over the tentacles as they cracked apart the concrete below him. He slashed at her with his claws, slicing through a tarp behind her as she dodged.
"Kyu!" she focused her shadows, turning them into claws of her own, and slashed out at him. He took the blow across an arm, but snapped out two arms to punch her in the chest. She was surprised when the blow actually landed, sending her flying back. She spun in mid-air before disappearing in the shadows. When she reappeared behind him, she was surprised that he spun around immediately and grabbed her.
"You are interesting!" he pulled her close, fanged mouth snapping out to bite into her.
"Mimikyu!" she reared back, then forward, her head smashing into his. He snarled, falling back and letting her go.
The two fighters glared at each other.
"You… are cute," he licked at a fang, jumping upwards to land on the ceiling.
"Mimiiiiiiii," she lowered herself into her one shadow.
After a deep moment, Mimikyu disappeared into her shadow, swimming in darkness as the monster above sped about, looking for her.
Mahmoud Schahed/Kahu Kiaʻi
This was WHY I wanted to avoid this hero shit. At it for barely any amount of time, and now we had to deal with fucking Firefly.
He wasn't just some new guy or random unknown like Sidearm, he was ESTABLISHED. He'd fought Batman. Multiple times. He wasn't a moron. He was dangerous, willing to kill, batshit insane and he was fighting Slugma.
And then there was that… thing Mimikyu was taking on. The weird spider monster man. He was an unknown. But he also didn't worry me as much as Firefly.
"My serum wasn't made for arachnid life!" Grace said in my ear as I began running through the woods, Mudkip on my shoulder, Gurdurr and Tyrunt at either side of me. "That person, whoever he is, he's not… I never intended this. He should be DEAD. He must be in so much pain-"
"Grace, focus!," I said as I ran. "He's here now, he's an enemy, and we need to deal with it. Figure out his existence later! Gurdurr, Tyrunt, I want that fucking door down, now! Mudkip, freeze it!"
"Mud!" the little guy blasted a beam of ice at the metal doors in front of us, covering them in sheets of cold.
"Guuur!"
"Tyyyy!"
Dinosaur and Construction Worker smashed into the doors with immense force, snapping the weakened steal apart and sending them flying inwards.
The room beyond must have once been a lobby, with marble floors, a receptionist's desk, and a couch that had seen less shabby days. The people within stared at us as we stood in the doorway.
"Hey fellas. Your lease is up," I said with a smile under my mask.
"What the fu-" some guy screamed, rising to his feet with an assault rifle, only for Tyrunt to jump for him with jaws of blue crystal, snapping into his gun with an Ice Fang, shattering the thing to pieces.
Two more guys ran out of a room, only to get a blast of water to the face that sent one smashing through a table and the other into a crate. Mudkip dropped from my shoulder and ran deeper into the room.
One enterprising woman managed to aim her assault rifle at Gurdurr, pulling the trigger. The hail of bullets bounced off of Gurdurr's I-beam as he twirled it. He ran up to her, bullets clinking off his weapon, then smashed her gun apart, before grabbing her by the shirt and pulling her down for a solid headbutt.
I grabbed a guy as he ran up to me with a knife, broke his arm, and lifted him into the air before tossing him to Tyrunt, who knocked him out of the air with a tail swipe.
"Slugma, Mimikyu, focus on those guys. You aren't on scout duty any more, you are taking on the boss monsters," the next thought I sent out was reluctant. "We'll take down the rest of the base. Now kick those guys asses."
Gurdurr smashed a guy who was going to shoot at me with a shotgun, and I punched another man in the chest, feeling ribs crack under my fist. Tyrunt hopped onto the receptionists desk and roared from atop it, his stone claws scratching the wood. Mudkip smacked a man aside with his paws.
"Alakazam, tell us where to head next…"
With that, the four of us began running through the halls.
Grace Balin
"Those assholes!" Grace cursed to herself from the back of the vehicle they were using for surveillance. "The serum is made for mammalian life! Whales, dolphins, hell, a fucking pig would have worked! Not a spider! What have they been doing!?"
"Illegal shit, mostly," Kalini looked back at her. "Oy, calm down. You're breaking the door handle."
Grace glanced at him, then down at the handle in question. She had a death grip on it. When she let go, the metal had finger holds embedded into it. "S-Sorry."
"No problem," he was giving her an odd look. "Hey, don't worry. The kid is pretty good at this hero shit. Him and his little monsters, they'll get this done for you."
...That was kind of the problem. For her. As though it wasn't her fault. Her responsibility.
She looked briefly down at her hands. The white coloration of her palms, the way it smoothly transferred to black. Her hands were so much bigger. Stronger.
Through the mental link, she could feel Mimikyu fighting that… thing. The monster created from her serum.
She clenched her fists unsteadily. She'd gotten in fights a few times growing up. You couldn't avoid it in Gotham. But never anything real...Still.
"Guess the kid got impatient though," Kalini chuckled. "He's nicer than he pretends. Like a mama bear. But hey, they'll be okay in there I thi-" the sound of a door opening surprised him. He turned around in time to see the door slam closed. "Oh, Gracey, what-"
He looked behind him to see Grace disappear into the shadows around the building.
"Ahhhhh… shit."
Author's Note: We're back. And yeah, Firefly and a weird spider-monster!
If you want to picture the location the team is fighting in, I might upload a map later, something visual to help things, but for now, imagine Slugma and Mimikyu are deep in the base enough that they'll be on their own. Better that way.
For those thinking Firefly is gonna get beat purely because Slugma can ignore fire attacks that aren't magical in nature, keep in mind that not only is he fairly fireproof, he can fly, he has other options for attack, he's smart as hell… and he's insane. Legit insane. And not in a fun way. In a disturbing, quiet, all too realistic way.
As for the spider-monster-man dude, he's got tricks of his own.
Anyways, I hope you guys like the chapter! Let me know what you think, and I'll catch you all later! Oh, and please consider supporting me on . It helps support me and my writing, and you get to read the chapters four days early!