'Oh god I'm being recruited' My mind starts going a mile a minute with this thought. 'Okay self-preservation first, figure out the rest later.'
"U-um, sure." Fear, you and I going to be good friends today, I just know it.
"Great! Here are the rules. You have until sundown, Bonesaw, Siberian, a few others and I are going to chase after you, if you get tagged enough times you lose. When you are it, you have to tag someone, when they get tagged, you get ten seconds to run. If you are it at sundown, you lose." He says.
So I have like, four hours to run from some of the most dangerous and deranged individuals ever thought up. Great! Fun! Oh, the JOY!
"Alright, let's begin, I'll start. One, two, three-" He goes.
'NOW!? Shit, shit, fuck, shit. A minute. I just need a MINUTE, to process this. Is that so much to ask?' I start running. At this point the panic and frustration are driving me to tears. I don't know why but I run towards and past The Siberian. She just looks down with a smirk as I pass her. Why do I feel like I'm forgetting something?
"Ten. Tag your it." Jack says.
"AAAAaaaah" I scream and fall over on the blood-soaked pavement, as a searing pain spreads across my back. Looking back, I see he has not moved but is now holding a knife in his hand. Oh, his powers. I try to get up only to get slammed into the ground by a foot. I look up and see The Siberian grinning menacingly down at me.
"Ah, ah, ah" I hear Jack say. "You know the rules. Count to ten" Why am I getting flash backs to Tokyo Ghoul?
"One, T-Two, Three, F-Four." I continue to count as I hear running, the whole time The Siberian kept me held to the ground. "T-ten" The Siberian takes her foot off of me and I get up. Jack and Bonesaw being nowhere in sight. The Siberian just looks down at me with a devious expectation.
'Yeah, no. I am not going to essentially give the murderous JoJo stand a free ticket to hunt me.' I just look at her. Look behind me see nothing there, look at her. And turn around and run. 'Okay I can do this, I just gotta last a few hours and tag someone at the end. Easy!' Distracted by my thoughts I trip over something and once again, fall face first, *Crack* 'I think I broke my nose' Looking up I see a HUGE blackish green eldritch abomination of a creature.
"Well." It says with a deep guttural voice. "Looks like I'm it, One. Two." I couldn't jump to my feet faster as I ran as fast as I could and jumped down another alley. "Ten, Ready or not, Hear I come" I can still hear him clearly as I hide in a plastic trash can. Throwing the bags of refuse on top of myself and covering my mouth to keep myself quiet. After what must have been hours, though was probably only half of one, I feel the trash can get violently thrown through the air and slam against something hard. Somehow surviving the crash only for something to grab me and yank me out of my smelly safe space. Opening my eyes, I see a featureless grey faceplate staring at me.
"..." It grabs my right arm roughly and with its long, pointed fingers, starts carving.
"OWWW! STOP! PLEASE! PLEASE! STOP!" I scream out, full on crying at this point as it gauges deep into my arm. 'I miss my nerve damage.' It stops and drops me down after what felt like minutes of agony. I fall to my side crying while holding my bloody mutilated forearm.
"..." It grabs my head in one grey slim ceramic hand and jerks me to look up. Crouching above and down at me it grabs my bloodied arm and twists it painfully to face the carvings at me.
#TAG#
"... THATS WHAT THAT WAS FOR?! WHY NOT JUST CARVE IT ON THE BRICKS?!" I force out through the sobs. I recognize Mannequin at this point. I knew the 9 were sadistic and deranged but there is a difference knowing of, and knowing. "Why? W-why is this ha-happening? What do y-you want?" I'm about ready to give up. 'There is no help in sight, my dominant hand is mutilated and useless, my back is carved to bits after Jack and The Siberian, my nose is broke. I don't even know why I'm here, or why I'm apparently a little girl.'
"..." As I think this Mannequin lets go of my head and starts carving into my arm again.
"OH GOD WHY!? WHY!? PLEASE! I DON'T WANNA DO THIS ANYMORE! THIS ISN'T FUN!" My vision goes white with the pain. After he is done, he twists my arm towards me again, only this time it hurts more. *POP* I think my shoulder dislocated. My vision is blurry from the pain and tears but I can make out what he carved.
#COUNT#
"O-one, t-two, th-th-three, fo-o-ur." This goes on with me crying the numbers until I get to nine when he lets go and with harsh throws of his arms, disconnecting from the joints with chains extending and finding purchase with the roof of the buildings in the alley. Retracting himself up and disappearing over the ledge.
As soon as he's gone, I fall back on the ground and start crying. An ugly pathetic sobbing, I think I peed myself. 'Why, just end it.' As I hit that rock bottom, I felt this churning in me, a desire, a need to get back. To take something away, to let them know they didn't win.
Then it happened. A trigger event, I saw it, God it was impossible to describe. An eldritch cosmic horror wet dream the likes of which would have H.P. Lovecraft frothing at the mouth. And I understood.
My trigger was to be pushed to the point of fighting back, to stop taking punishment, and give as good as I got. My power renders me functionally immortal, I can be hurt, but I can't be harmed, my body will always be healthy no matter what, shaping at my desire and will. I absorb energy, store it, redirect and use it to empower myself. And as a bonus I can use this energy to craft illusions, tactile, auditory, visual.
[Inquiry: Goals?]
"..."
'Wuh?' What was that? Was that my shard?
[Affirmation]
'Oh, Wait aren't I supposed to be unconscious? From the whole, gazing upon extradimensional being thing?'
[Data]
!
Okay, that was a thing. Ever just know the answer to something but you forget who you know? It's like I just got information downloaded into my brain. Which is pretty much exactly what just happened.
'So, the reason I am not unconscious, and no longer panicking, is because you're partitioning the stress from my brain because you need me to escape from Jack Slash and his shard and can't risk it on the off chance he wakes up before me?'
[Affirmation]
'Why?' Aren't all the shards on the same sort of network, working together? Why would one try to hide from the other?
[Data]
Oh, oh, oh no. My shard is not from the Warrior, or the Thinker. It also just so happens to have the answer to ENTROPY! The ONE THING all the shards would literally kill themselves to obtain for their entities. On the bright side, due to my power being immortality I can literally never die as my shard will never run out of juice. On the down side, I have a MASSIVE target on my back due to my shards status as a deviant and a foreigner. I need to be careful moving forward, Jack needs to be avoided at ALL costs due to his shard being able to forcibly connect to other shards and manipulate them.
[Recommendation: Escape Primary Priority, Speculation Secondary Priority]
'Right, good idea, moving now.' I hobble up and notice my arms are healed, sore and in a moderate amount of pain, but otherwise not impaired, aside from the blood covering them there is nothing to suggest an injury. I can only hope the rest of me is the same, healed despite the pain. I start running as much as my little legs could carry me. Which was admittedly not far before I ran out of breath.
"Curse *Huff* this *Huff* tiny body." I Look around and spot a tv store on the left side of the street I've been running down. No, not an electronics store. There are old box tv's in front display window showing the news.
'Oh boy, when was the last time I saw one of those, has to have been a good decade at least. Wait.' On the news station was the headline, Leviathan Devastates Newfoundland, Casualties Rising. That tells me when, now I just need to know where.
"OH MY GOSH! YOUR SO CUUUUUTE NOW!" 'Please no.' Looking left from where I just ran, I see Bonesaw, looking as happy as ever. There is something to be said for the absolute levels of nope a little girl smiling and covered in blood conjures in one's mind.
"You need to be my little sister now; I don't care how much I have to beg Mr. Jack." She says as she starts skipping towards me.
Looking towards the tv's I get an idea.
'This is going to suck so hard' I think with a whine. And stay by the window.
"Come on I don't think we're allowed this far out from the others so let's go!" She exclaims innocently. Coming up to me, I act fast.
"TAG! You're it" I shout as I tap her.
"What? No! I'm here to bring you back, you can't tag me while I'm getting you!" Bonesaw huffs out looking adorably angry in a way only children can. Again, so many levels of nope. But that's okay! I have a plan for this!
"But it's the rules! Jack said if you're it then you have to count." I have a plan! Trust me!
"That doesn't count right now!" She stomps her foot.
"Says Who?"
"Says me!"
"You didn't make the rules, Jack did."
"Jack wants me to get you!"
"Jack said if your it you count to ten!"
"Fine! But I'll count once we get back!"
"Then I'll tell Jack you're a cheating cheater who cheats!" That gave her pause.
'Success!' Now to seal the deal.
"I'll go with you if you count, then you can tag me when we get back, I'll even wait inside the tv store for you to finish. Unless you want me to tell Jack you broke the rules and argued with me before counting." I say sweetly. As deranged as she is, she has one kryptonite from what little I remember. Jack, she is obsessed with being a 'Good and Proper Little Girl' and Jack is her source of validation for this. Challenge her on this one thing and with the right prodding you can get her to do just about anything.
"MMMMMM! Fine! One. Two. Three." I waste no time rushing into the store and running to the back. Fun fact! CRT tv's use about three times as much electricity than modern LCD tv's. You can't just have all those tv's hooked to extension cords for safety reasons, so stores with active electronics displays have a special area were all the wires go to connect. Or they could be lazy like these guys and just use actual extension cords barely hid under the tv's and held together with ZIP TIES! 'C'mon really? Plan B! I don't have time to look for a likely locked fuse box.'
"TEN! Alright, come out now we gotta go!"
'Shit, running out of time' I run to the backroom and find the little breakroom, complete with a kitchenette with a microwave, toaster, and coffee pot. Mini fridge, and table with foldable chairs. Running over and opening the drawers of the kitchenette I am sadly disappointed. 'Plastic! Of all the things!'
"Hey! What are you doing!" I hear from the doorway.
'Crap! Think of something!'
"Making a sandwich." I say dumbly looking over to Bonesaw. IDEA! "Wanna see something cool!"
"Umm, sure? But make it quick." She says, I can't believe that worked.
I take the toaster and put it in the microwave, don't do this at home kids.
"HEY! THAT'S DANGEROUS YOU'LL HURT YOURSELF!" Not gonna lie, hearing that line from a serial killer of all people made me laugh a little.
"You might wanna run if you don't want to go kaplooey." I say calmly, as blue plasm arcs across the toaster.
"JAAAACK!" Bonesaw Screeches as she runs out of the breakroom and presumably the store. I sigh in relief and turn off the microwave, yeah that who thing about blowing up? While you should never put metal in a microwave it's actually a myth that it will blow up. No, my plan is a bit different. I pull the toaster out of the microwave.
"HOT!" As I drop it, I feel some of the thermal energy get absorbed into me. So while I can't be damaged the heat, it still hurts all the same. Yay. I grab it again, pushing through the pain as I absorb the energy. "Okay, okay, I got this." I feel the energy inside me but it's not much. And certainly not enough to escape with. Going over to the coffee make I use the energy to enhance my strength and rip it apart. Pulling the metal pieces out, I plug the toaster back in and turn it on. 'This is going to hurt so much.'
Sticking the metal in the toaster everything was agony for all of a few seconds before everything was White. Then I woke up to the darkened and smokey room.
'Huh so I was knocked out? Better than experiencing the full scale of pain that was in store for me. Still –10/10 would not recommend on my worst enemy.' I can feel the energy inside me, just sitting there, waiting.
"Let's try this." I say to no one in particular as I access my stored energy. Guess what happens to a speedster who slams into a wall? Splat, red pancake. But a speedster augmenting their body to be more durable than it has any human right to be?
*Crash* I barrel through the store and don't look back.