Hunting Horrors: 2.5C

You couldn’t help but sigh as you made the decision in your head.

No matter how much you wanted, almost needed to keep hurting her in every way you could, the fact of the matter was clear. Tattletale was your best bet for doing this in as covert a manner as possible. You’d need to use her both as transportation during your hunt, and as bait to lure out the unsuspecting prey into the trap.

“You’re going to free me from this?” Her voice almost jumped you where you stood naked and considering. “You have a use for me beyond the pain.”

You didn’t like the knowing tone which colored her statement.

You didn’t trust that she was absolutely yours.

And you especially did not enjoy that you had no definite ways to change that fact. No tools no actions you could take nothing. You knew that the wrong stimulus could unravel the tapestry of pain and pleasure which you’d instilled into her world as absolute. The contentment and desire which you’d instilled her in the process of shattering everything that she was in ways that could never be humanly described.

“Yeah. You’re going to be human for a little while.” You tried not to grimace, resisted reaching out to give her a round of blinding pain just for displeasing you by her very existence. “I need you to come up with a nice believable story about how you got away from me and laid low until you could track him down.”

“He’ll probably shoot first if I show up.” She spoke with conviction. “You don’t want to lose your investment in me to panicked attacks. The chance of me getting him to talk to me at all are slim. And his sister will likely be there as well.”

“Then I’ll move your brain into your ass where it belongs and put some bone down there to keep it safe.” You sniff factiously. “Right where it belongs.”

“Thank you Mistress.” It churned your stomach to think that that response was genuine. You’d held off making her actually enjoy being your torture pet. Something deep inside driving you to want to attack almost everything she said even though you’d shaped her to say it.

It was somewhat creepy.

“You made me learn to love it when you punished me. Anything is better than remembering the nothing... the long empty nothing between the times you hurt me...” She spoke, looking right at you, a chill running down your spine as she seemed to have divine just what you were thinking about. She reached out her hand, spindly fingers resting lightly against your skin. “You made yourself my world, your hatred is everything I crave... you hurt me and I love you for it. You break me and I crave it… this headache that throbs in my head all the time now just makes me want to work harder for you. To have more of what you can give me... Even though I know that every bit of contentment, desire, need, and every religious experience that shaped me into this was manufactured in a single night... even though my powers scream constantly of every way in which you despise and mistrust me. I want it so badly… I want you to hate me, fear me, despise me, and punish me.”

And now it was really fucking creepy.

What was even creepier was the way you felt her mind skitter and stray across the subject, her emotional responses fucked up and giving you weird false positives with every word, but in such a consistent pattern that you could only conclude that either every word was truth being told or that you’d fucked up something so deep that you could no longer tell.

You hadn’t bothered to keep a pre-reworking record of her. Hatred causing you to purge it from your system after you’d made her your creature successfully.

But what was happening here seemed to be a weird interaction between her information feed powers and the processes which you’d put her though to ensure that she was yours.

A mutation of the intended process.

... you didn’t know if you should be feeling overjoyed, or disgusted with yourself over this, the single grossest violation which you’d ever made. Your hate had been focused in a way that had never been before as you worked her over. Even Rune never truly got your ire, just your annoyance. In a way you’d broken her almost as utterly, and glued the pieces back together in a coherent fashion.

This was...

You felt sick; revulsion welled within your gut. You wanted to throw up.

This, this was worse than you’d ever imagined doing. This was a nightmare in its own way, no wonder you couldn’t read her, no wonder you couldn’t be sure about her. She wasn’t loyal to you, she was loyal to her perception of you as the worst possible monster.

She’d become loyal to the pain.

And there was glee on her face as she realized that she’d hurt you again in that moment of confession, and you knew that in every line of your body she could read the pure desire to make her hurt like hell for it.

You calmed yourself.

“You’re mine. But you know what; I think I hate me more for you than I can hate you.” You spoke almost tenderly, as you reached out and gave her what she craved. The smug smile never left her lips even as you reworked her body back to human once more. You made sure that she suffered every step of the way.

Tattletale ruined even this.



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Apparently it was a simple matter for you to 'borrow' a parked van. You just needed the right one while your Skittering lookout ensured that there was no one who would be coming along to encounter you, and then shape some biomass actively into a key. A thin film of Ripple Skin over the license plates to change their content and boom, you now had a suitable van for travel.

It didn't hurt that people were staying inside, scared of the ABB's activities.

You end up sitting in the back of the Van, the bulky Exo-armour put to one side in case you needed to get out suddenly during any point in the journey. For the most part between your insectile guide and the intuitions of your driver it was an exceptionally uneventful drive, though you’d had to take a detour or two around areas which had been bombed.

“He’s in there. And his sister’s with him too, oh, she’s board too.” Tattletale pointed out with a smile, knowing clearly how much you hated her jeering grin.

“Well, you know the plan. I’m going to start suiting up, ass brain.” You’d gone through with that particular ‘innovation’ using dedicated high conductivity fiber lines to reduce the total amount of lag time between brain and the facially focused senses which would result in the shift, and sheathed the entire compacted brain, now no larger than her heart, in a reinforced Silkwood casing.

Carefully you toyed with one of the concepts which had been popping into your head of late. Really you hadn’t started getting ideas this vivid on how to shift about biological constructs until whatever that tinker had hit you with had loosened up your inhibitions. Somehow you suspected there was more to his desire dust than even you had first supposed.

Your Ripple Skin, with a little tweak you found that you could greatly increase just how quickly the patterns on it transitioned, a bit of neural tissue in between the various pigmentation and muscle cells which created the interactive mosaic effect and you could speed up everything by at least thirty percent... loosely speaking of course, you measured these things precisely but not by any human systems which you could think of.

Conversions and labeling was always a bitch.

You finished suiting up, awaiting the moment when you’d move in and either corner or collect your prey as your fox flushed them out. in the combination of your armour and the special robe you’d made you were imposing and impressive. Where normally you’d be dressed in white, a mottled brown mixed with reds and grays like crusty dead growth and splashed blood coated your exterior. The entire look you’d composed not to blend in, which you could do at will, but to impose a feeling unlike your own normal looks.

You’d done the ‘branding’ 101 course with your sister. The basics of hiding an identity with even the smallest of cues were well known.

The building itself was a small apartment complex, easy to blend into the background of the city, and from what Taylor was telling you with buzzed whispers into your ear, it was filled with people, Grue’s apartment on the second floor with an easily accessable fire escape. In all you could be sure that he had ensured a great amount of control over how any encounter would happen if he were cornered within his apparment. Both Taylor and Tattletale had spoken of him with a certain level of fondness.

Apparently a good guy if one overlooked that he was a common criminal.

You practically sneered at any such implications.

With a command you allowed skitter to pull together several of her bugs in a representation following Tattletale’s progress inside.

“Hello Brian.” She spoke you couldn’t quite tell inflections or expressions from the presentation, but it was good enough to give you an idea of what was going on.

“She got to you.” He moved, keeping his distance from her as he double checked his environment.

“Brian. I wouldn’t be here if she’d gotten to me. I’m out alright? Bitch thinks she’s got me under her thumb but we’ve got to get moving before her little bugs start biting. Keep your eyes out for any white ones, they’ll make you fall asleep right away. She’s co-opeted Taylor. Come on let’s move. She knows where we are right now!”

Wait… what… oh fuck.

Already she was moving, and so were you, her