The sheddings were angry.

When Gren scuttled into the tunnels from Bain's territory, the whole brood was buzzing with a deadly fury. He could barely hear himself think over the infuriated screaming coming from every direction. All of his family was roaring and screeching at each other in an enraged fury. It hadn't been this bad since Bain lost an arm.

He wasn't overly surprised. In fact, he agreed with them wholeheartedly.

Someone... had hurt Bain.

"FAMILY! We need to talk about the evil spiky weapon brute!"

Thousands of heads turned his way, and he was bombarded by hissing voices.

"KILL HIM!"

"Murder his bones!"

"Evil bones!"

"Make him a corpse and bring him back to kill him again!"

Quite a few sheddings turned to glare at the one who had made that last comment, and it shrank back. Nobody wanted another evil corpse, since Bain might ask them not to permanently end that one too.

Gren coughed loudly, getting their attention. "But family, Bain does not want us to kill the brutes that call themselves heroes!"

The brood hissed, considering it carefully.

"Make them kill themselves?"

"Bring them to Whiteball and let space kill them!"

"Kill them anyway!"

Once again, a large group of sheddings turned to the exact same shedding who had made the corpse comment, eyes narrowing. One of them spoke. "You want to go against the will of Bestmonster?"

It shrank back, its lower half lashing nervously, but tried to continue. "What if he doesn't know it was us?"

Gren overheard it and blinked. "Family!" he roared again, and heads turned to him. "Hero-brutes are killed sometimes by villain-brutes."

They stared at him uncomprehendingly, and he continued. "So we find a villain-brute to do it for us!"

There was a short silence, and then chaos reigned again as the hive began to argue against itself on which villain-brute they would find to do the job, and how they would convince the villain-brute and maybe take a nibble out of it for being a brute and therefore related to other brutes.

Finally, the troublesome shedding shouted again. "What if we pretend to be a villain-brute and do it ourselves? Then we don't have to ask any filthy brutes and we get to make sure the heroes end up dead!"

The idea took hold and the family started repeating it in a low chorus, excitedly building to a crescendo as they started hopping up and down in their fervor. Gren let it grow for a short moment, then interjected, "There is a useless human in this plan!"

They hissed in surprise. To use such language in the middle of a family gathering! There were brand-new sheddings present that were still very young, and now they had to be told not to repeat such filthy words. What did Gren have in mind?

Gren snarled his frustration. "It is a good plan. Almost a Goodest plan," he admitted, and some of the senior sheddings fell quiet out of respect. He regained his intensity a moment later. "But only humans can be brutes!"

The troublesome shedding yelled, and Gren decided that he would have to find somewhere else for him. Perhaps on Whiteball. "Bain says he is a hero, and he isn't a brute!" The family nodded their agreement, then turned their attention to Gren expectantly. He suddenly realized that this random shedding was trying to challenge him for his leadership position! Maybe even his name!

Crawling down from his position, Gren moved over to the shedding in question, family members sliding aside so he could. Once he was in front of the shedding, he hissed quietly, "Are you trying to have my name?"

The shedding jutted its jaw belligerently. "You have had the name for a long time. I want a turn!"

Gren raised himself until he was looming over the shedding, and it instinctively shrank down. Very, very quietly, he whispered, "You dare to use the Bestmonster's pain as an opportunity? Are you a human?" The family began to bristle as they rolled the thought around, a rumble of annoyance audible.

The shedding's eyes widened. "No! That's not what I was doing! I just wanted a name! You seem so happy with yours and I wanted happies."

Gren sat back on his lower half. "Well, let's give everyone names then."

It frowned. "But you got yours from Bestmonster Bain! Yours is special!"

Gren preened proudly. "I did get mine from Bain. You can ask him for one later, but that is not why we are here."

The shedding retreated into the family, and Gren crawled back up onto his position. "Anyway, we want to kill the heroes and we need to find a villain-brute to do it, because then we will not have been the ones to kill him. We are agreed on this?"

The family nodded its assent, and Gren mused on the thought for a moment. Hesitantly, a shedding in the back - not the troublesome one, thankfully - ventured, "What if we pretend to be a human brute and make Bain think we're a villain-brute?"

Before anyone could hiss their irritation at the H-word, Gren pointed an antenna at the shedding. "What do you mean?"

The shedding curled its antennae around each other, flicking them back and forth nervously. "Well, if only humans can be villains, then we just have to pretend to be one! It can't be hard to do."

The whole family, every shedding present in the tunnels that could hear it, wandered a little closer, and Gren spoke. "That is a good idea. But we will have to make it convincing, or else Bain will be disappointed in us." As a whole, every shedding present shivered. That was an absolute worst-case scenario.

Gren leaned forward, rubbing his front legs together in anticipation. "So, here's what we should do..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Spike staggered along the sidewalk in the park, the moon illuminating the ground and casting shifting shadows from the leaves in the trees, random patterns sliding across the asphalt in uncertain ways. Holding onto his broken arm, he winced as the sidewalk dropped unexpectedly, and he nearly tripped over his feet.

Behind him, Bull ambled along, a massive purple bruise forcing one of his eyes shut. He didn't seem especially perturbed by it, but he was somehow even quieter than usual. There was an angry red pattern of lines on his throat where the monster had seized him by the throat, and he was rubbing it absentmindedly.

A small flash of white light appeared nearby, and Spike looked to the stars, groaning his frustration as he did. "Teepee, I swear, if you ever cut and run like that again, I'll kill you myself."

The nervous hero rubbed his arm, not making direct eye contact with them. "Look, I got scared, all right? You know how the cooldown works on my power, I can't teleport someone else very fast, and I'd already done the tentacle girl."

He approached him, poking him hard in the chest. "No excuses. I thought we were gonna die! D'you know how that feels?"

His voice broke as his pitch increased, his panic apparent, and Warp backed away. "Sorry, all right!? I panicked! What was I supposed to do against that thing?"

Spike threw his arms wide. "I dunno, maybe help?"

"Shut up."

It was a good five seconds before they realized it was Bull who had spoken, his eyes flicking around rapidly. Spike's eyes widened, and he spoke in a hushed voice, moving closer to the giant. "What is it?"

Bull pointed, and they both followed his vision.

There was a person, his face cloaked in shadow, wearing a long brown coat and a huge flat-brimmed hat, standing some distance away, right underneath a flickering street light. His hands were tucked into his pockets, and the only features visible were a pair of faintly glowing pure red eyes, glaring at them.

Spike's eyes narrowed, and he started pacing towards the figure, yelling, "All right buster, what'd you want? Just standing around staring at people? Well, I'm a hero, so watch out! And take that hat off!" He reached up and whisked the hat away, smirking into the mystery figure's face.

Except there wasn't a face. As he pulled the hat away, the coat dropped to the ground as whatever had been occupying it disappeared. As though it'd never been there to start with. There was no flash of light, no noticeable teleportation ability, it just... vanished.

Spike dropped the hat as though it was coated in acid, rubbing his hands on his shirt. "What the-"

The street lamp blew out, glass raining down on him. He yelled in surprise and pain, covering his head until it was over, then looked up.

The exact same figure, hat and coat undisturbed, was standing underneath another street lamp. The same even glare, staring at him. A moment later, a hat and coat blinked into existence under a further lamp, and another, and another, until there were men wearing identical hats and coats standing underneath every street lamp in the park.

Spike backed away, bumping into Bull. Warp had disappeared again, and Spike cursed him mentally. It was strange that he could only think of how irritated he was at Warp at time like this. To Bull, he said, "Aight, what's the plan?"

Bull clenched his fists in response, an audible cracking noise emanating from his knuckles. Spike shrugged. "I'll take it." Swinging his mace, he paused, realizing that he'd left the end embedded in the monster's hand. He whipped the handle around, ready to fight either way. "Listen up, you freaks! We're heroes, and we're not afraid of you! So bring it on!"

Every single lamp in the park shattered simultaneously, sending the park into instant darkness. Blinking away the spots in his eyes, Spike felt a hand wrap around his neck. Except it wasn't a hand. It had far too many fingers.

A pair of glowing red eyes filled his vision, the person in the coat standing directly in front of him. "Hello." he said softly, in a calm, gritty voice. Spike swung upward with the metal pole, sending his power through it and forcing spikes to erupt from its surface, hoping to at least inflict some damage with that. Another one of the weird hands seized it and wrenched it from his hands with all the ease of an adult taking a butter knife from a child. The hand around his neck increased in pressure, and the figure lifted him off the ground.

From behind him, Bull sent a punch at the figure's face. It went straight through, the hat and coat falling to the floor like before as the grip on Spike's neck disappeared. Dragging breath back into his lungs, Spike stood up, gripping his mace, and lowering his center of gravity. "What, running away?"

A scraping sound tugged at his attention, and they both turned around, Spike's eyes widening.

A writhing figure stood before them, easily forty feet tall. The coat it wore had to be at least three inches thick, and its hat cast a shadow across the entire area. The glowing red eyes set in its unseeable face were made up of hundreds of blinking lights, each one randomly lighting up and turning off. A wide smile split in the center of its head, leaving a gap through which Spike could see the stars.

His eyes widened. "Oh..."

The figure crashed down on them like a wave.