[Vfw-times] Story: CM council pt 8

[Oren Otter]

Critter-Man
council of his peers
part 8

	Simon lay on the floor, staring up into the barrel of a gun.  His eyes
slowly shifted upwards to the policeman holding it.  Mentally, he sighed.
Policemen, he had come to find out, were the hardest for him to deal with.
Opening his mouth very slowly, being careful not to bare his teeth, he said
"I have been shot at least a dozen times this past week alone.  I'd really
appreciate it if you didn't fire that."
	The policeman relaxed a bit, but did not holster his weapon.  "So... it's
you.  Get up off of the floor before somebody sees you."
	Critter-Man sniffed the air.  "You're not human." he said without surprise.
	"Neither are you.  Come on."  With incredible strength, the policeman
pulled his furry captive between two very long, very high shelves.  "You
must be crazy coming out in daylight, you... what are you anyway?"
	"I'm Critter-Man."
	"Oh, that's descriptive."
	Simon looked the man over.  There was something wrong, here.  His eyes
didn't look quite right.  It made even the half-alien monster uneasy.
"Look, I'm sorry, officer, but I don't have time for this.  I really have
to..."
	"Save the parasite."
	This time, Simon was indeed surprised.  "How did you know that?"
	"You didn't exactly keep your intentions a secret when you sent your
friends ahead.  The Union of Coils has been fighting Greek weirdos in
spandex for the past eight hours.  I've been left here to make sure you
don't involve yourself personally."
	Simon smiled.  It looked terrifying.
	"What?"
	"Let me tell you what I've learned so far." said the professor.  "I now
know that my enemy is called the 'Union of Coils'.  I've learned that
they're not human.  In fact, they smell rather like humanoid reptiles.
>From their name, I think I can assume that they are humanoid snakes with
metamorphic powers, able to pass for human like you might if I weren't able
to smell as well as I do.  I've learned that my allies are still fighting
the coil, which means that both halves of Figment are still alive, since it
means that Hedonism is still captive and Rebecca is going after her.  I've
also learned that you have some means of blocking my telepathy, but only
partially, and that you've been trying for the last two days, with partial
success, to keep me thinking that everything was all right.  Do you know
how that makes me feel?"
	"I imagine you..."
	The being who looked like a policeman went flying backwards and crashed
into a reading table, smashing it.
	"I AM ROYALLY TICKED OFF!"
	Critter-Man leapt at his foe, claws flexed, teeth bared, eyes burning with
hate.  Gone were the signs of mirth from his previous battles.  This time,
human and alien agreed.  The loathsome deceiver had to be destroyed.  A
split second before Critter-Man landed, the lizard-smelling cop jumped out
of the way.  Landing on his feet, he took aim, and fired.  No bullets hit
Critter-Man's flesh.  Instead, a bright, blue arc of electricity snaked out
and bit his skin in several locations.  This only made him mad.  With one
hand, he grabbed the gun and made sure that it kept firing.  With the
other, he grabbed the fake policeman.  A raw, primal scream echoed through
the library as the reptile was soaked with hundreds of kilowatts.
	At last, the charge in the gun expended itself.  "You fool!" the coil
hissed.  "Our battle will bring humans wanting to know what is happening!"
	"Let them come!"  Critter-Man turned the snake-man around.  In his
electrified state, he was too weak to resist.  Critter-Man, however, was
stronger than ever.  He marched his enemy forward to the doorway of the
next room.  As predicted, there were dozens of gawkers.
	"Run for your lives!" hissed the captive.
	"STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" Critter-Man roared.  Nobody argued.  "I want you all
to see what this fellow here has been hiding from you.  Go on.  Change."
	"Ssseth would never forgive me!"
	"Is that your god?  Have you ever heard of the godslayer?  Hmm?  Big
werewolf guy.  Good friend of mine."
	"You wouldn't!  He could never beat Ssseth anyhow!"
	"That's what they said about Hatu.  Now show them."
	"Forgive me."  Said the reptile-man.  As he spoke, his face began to
extend, bulging outward into the muzzle of a snake.  The transformation
seemed to strain him, and halfway through, he passed out.  Simon dropped
him in disgust.  He turned to the quivering crowd.  "This world is full of
monsters." he said.  "Some good, some bad.  It's sometimes hard to know
which is which.  But there is one who saved dozens of human lives, whose
heart is noble and true." He stepped forward and held out his arms,
pleading for understanding.  "She was kidnapped from this very library by
evil monsters like this one.  What's more, they've been pulling the wool
over your eyes, making you think that nothing ever happened!  Do you want
some snake telling you what to believe is reality?"
	Someone shouted "BEHIND YOU!"
	Critter-Man whirled around to see the policeman, now totally reptile,
brandishing a cordon post.  "I can't let you do this." he hissed.
	That did it.  With a savage fury as yet unparalleled, Critter-Man attacked
the deceiver.  Teeth bit.  Claws gashed.  Powerful arms dashed him from
surface to surface.  The reptile screamed in agony as his body was broken.
	Then he stopped screaming.
	Critter-Man shook him and grumbled "Wake up!  I'm not finished with you!"
	The reptile did not wake up.
	Simon's heart skipped a beat and his blood ran cold.  He had finally done
it.  He murdered a man.  He looked around, eyes pleading for help, but
everyone had fled.  He was alone.  Alone, and stained with the blood of a
man who was just doing his job.
	"No.  It's different." said Simon.  "He's not human."  But even as he
spoke the words, he caught his own reflection in the counterfeit badge.
His own inhuman face stared back at him, mocking him with its helpless gaze.

	* * *

	Simon sat alone and unmoving on the roof of the library.  The police
milled about below, no doubt investigating the crime he had just committed.
 He didn't care.  No doubt the weresnakes would cover the whole thing up
very nicely.  No one would remember a thing.  Then, possibly, they would
come after him for killing one of their number.  It didn't matter.  If they
got him, it would be no great loss.  He was a monster, and should have been
destroyed that first day he had been transformed.  The monster mind made
him do terrible things.  Now, it had fallen silent.  All that was left was
truly human remorse, and an empty feeling which pervaded everything.
	"They're looking for you." someone said.
	Slowly, as if to emphasize that it was not important to do so, Simon
looked up to see who had spoken.  There was a man standing on thin air.
Unlike one might expect, he was not wearing spandex, nor was he supported
by wings, tentacles, or some kind of jetpack.  He was simply an ordinary
looking man, in jeans and a T-shirt, standing in the middle of the air.
Around his neck hung a pair of binoculars.  Otherwise, he looked amazingly
nondescript.
	"I know." Simon answered.
	"Not the police.  The Metapolis mutants.  It's you they're here for."
	Simon hung his head again.  "I'm too late.  She's surely dead by now."
	"Actually, you're not.  Rebecca and Figment are both alive, though not
altogether well.  Hedonism is emotionally starved and Rebecca is in a
trance.  Magpie, Nicey and Nut Lover are there as backup, but it looks like
Hed might get lobotomized unless the cavalry shows up."
	"How do you know all this?  Who are you?"
	"I'm called Observer.  That's what I do.  I observe.  It's an omnipower."
	"A what...?"
	Observer shrugged as if it weren't the slightest bit interesting or
important.  "I used to work for Knowledge.  I mean the being called
Knowledge.  You know... one of those cosmic beings like Ramphon?"
	Simon nodded.
	"He gave me the ability to use any power I need to in order to watch the
action.  Of course, if I try to intervene... POOF!  I disappear and pop up
someplace where I can't get hurt."
	Simon looked incredulous.
	"So you gonna save her, or what?"
	Simon hung his head.
	Observer looked a little worried.  "Listen... I probably shouldn't be
telling you this, but... the cosmics goofed."
	Simon didn't respond.
	"Don't you remember how Ramphon said that you become stronger by struggling?"
	No answer.
	"Everything that has happened top you up until this point was meant to
strengthen you.  To make you an emotionally ripped but mentally controlled
fighting machine suited for one purpose.  They've even used time dilation
to give you time to digest what you've learned."
	"Time dilation?"
	"Try to keep up with me.  They knew the fight in the library was going to
happen.  They foresaw that you would force the yuan-ti to change.  They
even knew that it would cause him to suicide."
	Simon's head snapped up.  "Suicide?"
	"Only he didn't really.  It's a long story, and I don't want to give it
all away.  The important thing is that you had to force him to change.
That action is going to set off a chain of events which is going to change
the entire galaxy.  But they didn't contemplate that once you stole his
honor, he would deliberately change his body to become as vulnerable as
possible.  Had he wanted to survive, you wouldn't have killed him."
	Simon stood up, now.  "Okay, back up a moment... what's this about time
dilation?"
	"They had to do that to prepare you."
	"Are you saying I time traveled?"
	"No, no... everyone knows that time travel is impossible.  But at certain
junctures, you've been sped up in relation to the rest of the world.  That
walk from Greece to Kodhos?  It took five minutes.  The holdover in Cairo?
Ten.  Even the flight from Zaiire didn't take but an hour or so."
	"Is this a common practice?" asked the fuzzy one, straightening his toga.
	"Oh, yeah.  They do it all the time.  They have to in order to make all
the pieces of the great plan fit.  Just usually not in such huge
quantities.  They had to get you ready for your mission."
	"My mission..."
	"I've probably said way more than I should have.  Hey... here come the
Greeks.  Have fun saving Figment!"  With a poof, Observer was gone.
	Flying along above the city street came an odd hook nosed man in a blue
body stocking.  He was followed by several others.  He came up to
Critter-Man and said "Thank goodness we have found you at last!  I am
Concord, your ally from across the sea."
	"Where is Rebecca?"
	"She is at the Caoran embassy."
	Simon scratched his head.  "She's been kidnapped by South Americans?"
	Concord and the others laughed.  One of them said something in Greek.
Simon got the distinct feeling he was being insulted.  "I am sorry." said
hook-nose.  "We of Kodhos have known for much time that Caora is not really
country.  Is all strange beings of the world.  You have met Dreadlock?"
	"Felipe?  Yeah..."
	"He has talking tiger friend.  Tiger's people are part of Caora."
	"She's being held by...animals?"
	"By er... what is word... lycanthropos..."
	"Werewolves?" said Simon in surprise.
	"Not wolves.  Many beasts.  Many snakes.  We have kept them busy for much
time, but we are few, and we are human."
	Critter-Man scratched his chin.  "Do you think I could get in?"
	Concord shook his head.  "They know you too good.  Every yuan-ti in
country knows you face.  They say you are danger to being secret."
	"I am having plan." said a voice at the back of the group.  Simon looked
over to see a small woman clinging to the back of a large man, apparently
unable to fly like the others.  "Name Shtara.  I am being here for special
purpose."
	"That being...?"
	Shtara leapt from the man's back to the building.  Even before she touched
the roof, her entire body had undergone a drastic change in midair.
Standing before Simon was a white humanoid mink.  "While others keep to
distract yuan-ti, I am getting you inside."
	Critter-Man smiled gleefully, the old alien side churning to life once
again.  "Let's go kick some tail!"


-Oren the Otter
8=-3
tlhaQ biQ Ha'DIbaH
The Changing Workplace: http://www.geocities.com/ottercomics