The Vespidian

Arc 11 Blood Moon

Chapter 5

Den Mother, Glitter Kitten, and I walked along the secluded and neglected streets of the Slums. Old rusted cars rested where they had been abandoned years before. Most had been cannibalized for parts leaving metal frames, husks of their former and complete selves, dotting the sides of the streets and in some cases sticking halfway out of a dilapidated building from where a subhuman had thrown it. What was different now was the overabundance of life.

Green, vibrant vines had slithered their way along poles, crept up the sides of buildings and smothered fallen debris. Sprouting from these vines were flowers of varied colors, some were smaller than others. It was actually rather lovely. Last time I had been here everything was dried out and dead.

“So,” I said glancing at Glitter Kitten, “Are you sure we will be fine with just the three of us?”

“Nyahaha, those little lizards won’t stand a chance!”

“You say that, but your hand did get broken.”

Glitter Kitten lightly kneaded at my leg, scratching the carapace with her claws. It sent some rather confused signals up my spine, was she trying to turn me on? I am not sure. She purred, “Nyessss, but this time we got you. We were just about even before, well actually my side is stronger which is why they got kicked out into the boonies down here, to begin with.”

“You say that, but they still managed to hurt you,” I replied giving her a concerned pat.

“Nyes I suppose. This little kitty might have gotten hurt a little, but I killed one last time, so they are even weaker than usual.”

“You killed one? Who?” I asked thinking over the four that had been mentioned.

Her confident smirk faded for a moment as her eyes seemed distant, it was brief, but I noticed the change in her demeanor, “I, I eh don’t know all their names. They are just stupid Scalies after all. Besides, none of them are over rank 6. Slither is as strong as they get and she is just a cowardly slippery snake in the grass.”

As we walked, I asked, “So Slither is a snake right? Is she like a snake bottom or snake top?”

Den Mother thought it over, “She kinda like a snake with a humanoid upper body, but the top half is scaled too and she has a frill type of thing that fans out of her neck. Come to think of it; she kinda looks like a cobra huh, GK?”

“Yeah, that is the snake, got a big hood that has eye patterns in the folds. Oh remember never to look at them, or she will make you all weird.”

I tilted my head, “Make me all weird?”

“Nyeaah if you look at it she will sway her body and mesmerize you, I think it might be a mind power, but it makes her not seem dangerous. That is when she strikes. Her fangs are big, like two feet long. So don’t look at her face and head area. Oh, also she spits venom that can paralyze you if it gets into your eyes or mouth or a wound.”

“That sounds rather difficult to deal with. I thought you said that she just turned invisible?”

“Well, yeah, but she is still a snake. Snakes have venom; after all, everybody knows that.”

I nodded reassessing if this is actually going to be easy or not. Definitely leaning toward the not category, “So Slither can turn invisible, has paralytic venom, and a potential mind power to lull one into a false sense of security?”

“Well, maybe not the mind power one, it more of it distracts you if you look at her hood. But yeah more or less.”

I stopped walking, thinking it over, “So how big is Slither? You said her fangs are two feet long.”

This got the two of them thinking, “Hard to say, but she is certainly longer than you are tall. I saw her next to an old school bus once. She was about to the back tires from the front end, so however long that is. She is also pretty thick too. She is surprisingly fast for something that big and sluggish looking, granted it isn’t anything like a rank 4 speed super.”

I think we just solved our storage issue. Snek puss, I wonder what she tastes like?

Shush Sub, she sounds dangerous.

Meh, it should be a good fight. Can’t wait to show her who is boss. I bet she gives great head; we can probably actually go abdomen deep in her.

Assuming she won’t bite us.

It adds to the excitement. After all it more fun when they are rough~

Sub.

Fine, fine. Well, for what we have planned, she won’t be needing those fangs.

Ah, I see. I nodded. But isn’t that cruel?

I am sure Xava will facilitate the removal, the snake won’t even feel anything.

Still… alright, we will stick with the original plan. Capture alive and then see what Xava thinks.

Fufufufu~

Having sorted it out better, I asked, “She is only a rank 6 with that sort of stuff? I don’t get it. How did you guys beat her?”

Glitter Kitten puffed out her chest, “Nyahaha she can’t even hit me so; usually, she just retreats every time I show up. That being said that fucking bitch is only scared of me. If it others she will attack them and eat them whole.”

“She eats people?” I asked.

“Nyeah, she eats ferals mostly, but the first time I ever encountered her she ate three of my Kittens. Ever since I have wanted that big dumb Scalie head on a pike, she has also eaten a lot of the other kids that wander off. She lures them with her hood.”

“Wait she eats ferals and isn’t sick?”

“I don’t know. I know that she and the rest of those Scalies are demented fucks. They are evil. Like they don't feel bad about the things they do.”

I tilted my head quizzically. Hmm is the feral flaw not infectious? Or perhaps the reptiles and amphibians are immune to it due to it being a mammal thing? Of course, this is all assuming the Slither isn’t feral. Would my eggs even be safe in a feral? This brought up a few questions, which very well might need answering. I would have to ask Dr. Arbor once I returned. We might have to run some tests.

“So how are we even going to find Slither and her group?” I asked, just now realizing that this was a very legitimate question that needed an answer.

Den Mother, who led the way pointed to a duo of vast concrete structures that loomed in the distance several miles away, though the closer things got to them the fewer buildings there were and the more lush things seemed to be and said, “Easy, they are holding up in the old nuclear power plant that started the meltdown.”

I had heard a little about that, but I thought that it had been salvaged? Unless I had heard wrong from Mr. Johnson. My brain pieced together what I had heard and after a minute or so I recalled that he had said that they had stopped it from going critical, not that they had salvaged anything from it. Well, it would be hard to fight your way through hordes of subhumans, let alone the ferals just to get to the place.

Speaking of ferals, there wasn’t even a hair of evidence that I could see or smell for that matter of any. Perplexed I asked, “Hey, how come we haven’t seen any ferals yet even though we are a good distance from your turf?”

“We are in the Scalie’s turf now. Ferals can smell it and steer clear.” Said, Glitter Kitten.

If this was their territory, then they were worse off than the Mad Dogs in terms of just about everything. As we drew closer to the concrete towers, it became more evident the damage that they had been inflicted over the years. Particularly during the initial outbreak when the military had been called in. The left tower had collapsed in on itself, and the other was missing a large section that left a gaping crack in the vase like structure. Moss grew in large patches on the surface and vines ascended the sides. However, the oddest thing was the top of a tree emerging from the inside of the mostly intact silo.

The surrounding buildings were reduced to rubble long ago. Disjointed walls stood alone, where once houses and stores were. Craters dotted the landscape where the fighting had been particularly rough. Trenches and abandoned checkpoints sat silent. Dirty water filled the cracks and dips in this area creating a boggy environment. Glowing fungus clung to the walls and algae covered whole sections of the water in a thick green. Poking at it, the stuff was fibery. It was pond scum.

However, even with the lack of buildings, this place was not flat, and we could not see a straight shot to the concrete structure that towered above everything. There was a simple reason for this, trees. In the short time that man had relinquished this place; trees had forced their way through what little remained of the ruins in some areas.

My antenna flicked smelling the rancid odor of rotting flesh, hearing the distant croaks of frogs and the buzzing of insects. Gurgling noises came from below the surface as bubbles rose here and there, and then began a sulfurous stench of rotten eggs. It was startling how this place felt so different. It was as though we had left all civilization behind and entered another world. It almost felt like some ancient forest.

The deeper we went, the more abundant the trees became and the taller the plants grew. Scratchy moss filled with twittering insects dangled from branches, oddly looking like green beards. Dragonflies darted about above the water’s surface, some were regularly sized of bright colors, and then there were the monsters. The giant insects that could carry off dogs or possibly even the mutant sewer rats. Those sat on the tree trunks, their convexed eyes shifting for prey.

“Has it always been like this?” I asked looking around the trees sprouting from the swamp.

“This swamp used to only be around the silos but as the years went by it grew. Parts of the Slums are even starting to get flooded thanks to the sewers being uprooted and gushing out into the streets.” Said Glitter Kitten crouched as she observed the surroundings, ears twitching.

“So you are sure that Slither will be in that tower?” I asked.

Glitter Kitten seemed to be second-guessing herself, “Well, it is her nest so she will be there eventually.”

“Should we just fly rather than wading through all this muck?”

“Fly? Oh, you do have wings huh… Maybe, but won’t they see us coming?” replied Glitter Kitten thinking it over.

“I doubt we will be sneaky enough to evade detection even if we stay on the ground. Both Den Mother and I are rather large and not exactly the quietest.”

“Can you carry us?” asked Den Mother.

“I believe that I can.” My body shifted to be easily mounted, letting my abdomen touch the ground.

Glitter Kitten scampered up my back and sat on my head. My head was almost as large as she was and the tentacles coiled around her to ensure she wouldn’t fall off. More or less strapping her down to my smooth carapace. She made a slight Mreow before settling down. As for Den Mother, she was too large to be on my back, since she would get in the way of my wings flapping. Instead, I hugged her to my chest, and she latched onto me. Her arms wrapped around my neck and my lower arms firmly grabbed her booty. I kneaded for a moment getting a feel for her muscular hind end before shifting her into a tighter hug.

Now that my passengers were secured, Air Vesper was ready for take off. I hopped, and my wings swung out, branches snapped, and mud swirled away as I started to flap harder and faster causing my body to vibrate. As my wings stabilized the flapping became a buzzing sound, and we rose up from hovering ten or so feet off of the ground. With every flick of my muscles, we rose higher and higher until the swampy forest and rubble were merely distant shapes below.

Glitter Kitten let out a gasp as she stared about the clear and crisp world in wonder. “First time flying?” I asked.

The kitty squirmed looking about even as my limbs held her still, “Nyya, first time I ever been this high before everything looks so small down there.”

Den Mother was apparently afraid of heights such as this and had buried her face into my hardened chest, whimpering softly. My upper hands stroked along her back, reassuringly as she quivered. Poor thing, well, it was understandable. Falling can be pretty scary after all. Although, it might be more that she has no real control over this other than clinging to me for dear life. Not that she would die from a fall of this height, at most she might break something, and that is assuming she doesn’t stick the landing. Perhaps it was some sort of instinct ingrained? Glitter Kitten wasn’t scared cause cats always land on their feet. Dogs though, dogs were not so fortunate or graceful.

Now that we had a wasp’s eye view the swamp was reasonably small in size, at the least on this side. Couldn’t be more than several miles across with the dilapidated nuclear power plant in the center. Looking past it, I saw that the city had actually been spared something horrific. Due to how everything was sloped and at a slight angle, the water went down forming channels and spreading the irradiated swamp out for miles away from Bronson city. I squinted seeing where most of it went, flowing almost like a river until it reached the side of the gorge and cascaded down into the trench.

It seems that the Hammer Strike had made this much worse than it used to be since last I looked down from the Bronson City Bridge there was not a glowing river flowing beneath it. Now I could see that faint green reflection way down in that canyon below. Questions of whether it would build up over time or sink into the earth rose, but now was not particularly the time for that.

I banked away from the clouds moving towards the circular structure. The light from the sun grazed the top of it casting a deep shadow over a section of the swamp around it. Within the bowl-like shape, the green of the massive tree reflected several different shades ranging from an almost blue to a nearly yellow. Perhaps it was going through some sort of fall cycle? Even with all my eyes, I could not spy any movement as we descended. Seeing that the coast was clear, my claws dug into the concrete lip, and we sat perched above the lair of Slither.

“So what is it like in there?” I asked.

“Nyo idea,” said Glitter Kitten, wiggling top my head.

I paused, “What do you mean you don’t know? I thought you guys fought her?”

“Well, sure, but we never chased her into her lair. She was the one attacking us, and we would beat her back into her own, place. This place has always been a swamp, so we had no reason to claim the territory; it wouldn’t do us any good.”

“So we are going in blind then?” I peered into the darkness below.

“Don’t really have much of a choice, do we?” asked Glitter Kitten.

“I guess not,” I leaned in, my claws gouged into the thick walls as we began our descent.

We crept along the wall deeper into the dank and strangely warm structure. My antennae wiggled about smelling the scents of some animals, definitely almost human and yet also very not human. Still, this high up I couldn’t get a good read on what might be going on lower down. This place was much larger than I had first thought, using myself as a sort of measurement well it could fit fifty or so of me standing on top of one another from top to bottom though that is a very rough estimate. The point is, this place was huge. Even going across from our end to the next many of me could stretch across.

Due to the jagged gash in the side of the silo light penetrated the depths below at an angle and in a thin shape that moved ever so slowly with the sun. I squinted looking around. This place was tranquil save the croaking of frogs far down below, though from the ribbits it seemed that some were even on the tree at different locations. Speaking of that thing, the canopy expanded out, but after reaching a certain proximity to the walls, it looked as though it had been trimmed away. Someone was pruning this thing.

The thick trunk was not a single plant as I soon realized, but rather a twisting, gnarled mass of overlapping vines. The more that I looked, the more that I realized it was not natural and I wasn’t even talking about the irradiated growth. The tree looked sculpted. At places smaller vines were wrapped tightly, binding the many thicker trunks together, forcing them to grow up around one another. On the surrounding outside, there was a winding platform, a walkway made from the tree itself. It was organically grown rather than attached to the trunk.

As I followed it along at various intervals branches would sprout out, and from those branches circular meshes of growth created domes. Interested I pushed off from the wall and glided over landing upon walkway near the trunk. Now that we could see the front, there was a hole. I tilted my head a little approaching the murky darkness. Peering inside, this one was empty. However, it appeared that someone or something was living here. In the center, the structure dipped creating a pool of water. Along the walls were shelf like outgrowths with several trinkets sitting on them.

This, well this was a home. A nest. It was clearly not Slither’s nest simply due to the size; it was much too small. Due to the croaking that I could faintly hear down below us, this must be a frog subhuman’s home. Then did that mean the Frogs were the tree shapers? My feelers twitched taking in the scent of wet skin and a pungent odor of amphibian. Due to how strong it was, the owner of this place must frequent it often; the whole area had thoroughly been claimed. Whatever it is must have been rubbing itself all over, I could still see some glistening mucus from the body. Though at the moment it must be away or it can hold it’s breath for a long time as I didn’t detect any movement. Now that I had this particular scent I could smell where it had climbed along the branch over to the trunk and went along the path spiraling down the tree.

I found this place oddly fascinating. It was so primitive, but I could tell that there was some form of civilization here. It almost felt like I had stepped into some fantasy world. I was honestly half expecting to turn the corner of the tree and see an elf or something.

A magical forest elf we did not meet. It was a frog. I almost walked right past the thing it blended in so well. But my antennae smelled it out. The froggy was a dark green nearly brown color, and it lay flat against the wood hiding or perhaps it had been sleeping in a crevice of the vines. It was small, child-sized, but it was undoubtedly humanoid with two arms and legs granted they were webbed and had large bulbous fingertips that suctioned onto things. The red eyes with a black gash running down the middle stared back at me.

Visibly the creature gulped as it inflated, the neck had bulged out with a thin membrane that was almost clear. The frog jumped, leaping away and my hand lunged out crushing around the thing. Slimy and wriggly the amphibian struggled to escape my claws that closed in around it, trapping it in my fist. The plopping noises of the suction cups grasping and then letting go of my carapace filled the inside of my hand as it searched for a way out.

I opened a small hole and looked in at it. The minute hand emerged feeling about the exit to the cage of carapace as it started to whimper. I felt a little sorry for it, I mean I had not come here to kill anyone.

“Kill it before it gives us away!” Growled Glitter Kitten.

“Don’t struggle,” I said.

The hand slowed, retreating inside as the creature quivered. This was a subhuman right? Before I could say anything else, the frog gaped its mouth and sucked in air. The throat pouch grew and grew as it inflated like a balloon. Then it snapped the toothless jaws shut and stared at me, having expanded to more than double the original size. My eyes gazed back at it wondering what it was up to. The mouth opened up again and it squeaked… or rather screamed. The noise it emitted was worse than a cat being skinned alive piercing to the point my antennae shrunk away from the little thing.

It had returned to the previous size now that all the air had been pushed out of it. It started to inflate again, but before it could my hand tightened around it, squeezing it to the point that it let out a gasping squeal and huffed desperate to breathe. I wouldn’t let it do that again. The damage, however, had already been done.

“I told you to kill it. Now they know we are here!” Groaned Glitter Kitten as she and Den Mother were freed from my grasp getting ready to fight.

Below, a chorus of croaks rose, it sounded like there was a good number of them too.