[Vfw-times] Story : Figment, Part 14

[Hedonism]

Figment, Part 14

When Humanity Awakens

By Hedonism

Earlier stories in the series available at My Story an' Stuff Archive :
http://users.transfur.com/hedonism/

Synopsis : Rebecca has kept her best friend with her since childhood,
despite knowing full well that this friend, Figment (AKA Hedonism), is just
an imaginary one she never had the heart to forget with maturity. Putting up
with this minor psychological idiosyncrasy, she got on with life. Until two
vicious gangs attacked her, and the friend she knew damn well was just made
up turned out to be quite real, and capable of giving her ass-kicking powers
of transformation.

Rebecca is on a mission to find Figment after her friend, was extracted from
her by a sinister police-like organisation, the Union Of Coils. The Union,
composed of Werecreatures (animals capable of transforming into humans) and
Yuan-Ti (serpent-like entities also capable of appearing human) is dedicated
to hiding the world's population of supernatural creatures from humanity,
and protecting everyone from supernatural threats. Doctor Jagar, a
self-serving Yuan-Ti extracted Figment from Rebecca and tricked the other
members of the Union into thinking she had died.

Figment, still trapped in Jagar's Operating Theatre, is due to have her mind
destroyed so the doctor can take over the part of her brain that gives her
transformation power. Then he will merge the creature with himself and gain
her incredible powers.

When Rebecca reached Jagar and found out that he was holding her dear friend
captive, the doctor placed Rebecca into a trance, framed her for the murder
of another Yuan-Ti (whom he killed to keep Figment a secret) and had her
arrested.

But Rebecca's allies are on hand. They include fellow human Sarah 'Magpie'
Fritz, heroic but troubled monster Critter-Man, and two self-styled
were-creature super heroes, Nice Rack the deer and Amanda the squirrel.

That sounds like a lot of allies, doesn't it. Well, you should see how many
enemies there are...

* * * * * * * * * *

Facility Head Priest Ituri took a break from polishing his scales when his
secretary came in. Things don't look good when your aide is entering your
office with the serpent equivalent of a flat-out run.

"We're being attacked by the Kodhosians! said the secretary in blustered
Yuan-Ti language. "They're demanding the release of Rebecca!"

Who? You mean the parasite carrier? Don't they know we released her
yesterday?"

"She... broke back in again. She's just murdered one of our Internal Affairs
officers and nearly killed a doctor."

The Head Priest nodded his great serpentine head.

"The one who treated her, I presume? Doctor Jagar?"

"Yes sir. She's in our detention cells."

"Well... Maybe they'd like us to release all the other murderers as well,"
he replied in a clipped, exasperated voice. "Are any of them acting
blatantly supernatural?"

"Most of them are either glowing, have wings or other inhuman features, or
are flying. I think they're showing off to force our hand."

Ituri's face didn't change. It had started out stormy.

"And how many civilians are watching this?"

"Hundreds, sir. We'll never be able to cover this up!"

Ituri imagined all those people watching the most amazing things happen
before them. Humans witnessing entities in the world that had power they
didn't understand, destructive weapons that could endanger them and their
families. Those people telling their friends, starting groups dedicated to
ridding the world of these dangerous monsters before 'it was too late'. The
discovery and deaths of thousands of innocent beings who just wanted to fit
in and live normal lives. The start of a new witch hunt.

"Then we'll have failed our god, our pledge and our people. So we _are_
going to cover this up. Maybe I can talk sense into the Kodhosians. If not,
we'll have to arrest them. We'll use non-fatal tactics. At first."

* * * * * * * * * *

Figment stood inside the huge black tube, her mind numb. She strained to see
through the rounded walls of her prison and just managed to pick out faint
outlines of monsters and furniture. On the other side of the bleak pipe,
blatant injustice took place. The Yuan-Ti guards and investigative force
talked at length to Doctor Jagar and believed the lies he casually replied
with. He was backed up by John, who in his hypnotised state believed
everything the doctor told him he saw.

John swore that Rebecca screamed that Jagar should die. Well, the bit about
Jagar deserving to die was pretty bloody right, but Rebecca never said that.
Neither did she take the Doctor's gun and and shoot Chief Tobruk dead. John
praised Jagar as a hero who calmly hypnotised Rebecca before she could kill
again.

The guards left the doctor and John alone to pursue their enquiries
elsewhere. Now she could see the doctor's faint silhouette coming closer,
taking a little sheet of glass from out of a drawer. This sheet not only
allowed him to see through the black wall of her prison, it also allowed
Figment to see whatever was looking at her. When he brought it into view, it
was like a little mobile window opening up in the surface of the tube.

Therefore, she could see, on that monster's reptilian face, a slight
benevolent smile. He must have been pleased with himself, because nothing
else in life made him happy. Nothing else mattered to him but... him.

Jagar wrapped his long tentacles around the tube and swiveled it upon it's
stand into a horizontal position. Figment flopped back against the wall as
it turned into the floor. He pressed some button or another, and an
electrical current flashed through her body, convulsing her flat against the
surface. Sure that his captive was restrained and paralyzed, he opened up
the upper half of the tube and looked directly at Figment's prostrate body.

Jagar stood over her and lashed out psychic thoughts. He scraped at the
surface of her mind while Figment fought to move her utterly relaxed
muscles, tried to scream. The doctor slipped his right tentacle into a
glittering robotic implement, something resembling the arm on a suit of
armour ending in a gauntlets tipped with cruel medical implements. He
stretched it forwards as his psychic probings picked out what parts of
Figment contained her personality, the parts that were valueless and could
be cut away to leave the powerful transformation section intact.

Hedonism tried to block him, but his mind just worked it's way in through
the gaps in her resolve, weakened as she was by emotion starvation. He found
what he was looking for, and Figment knew that soon he would get physical.

: You will stop this! : she broadcasted to him in screaming thoughts.

The doctor ignored his subject, knowing the creature was too weak to fight
back.

: But I do have the ability to fight myself, : she thought to him. : What
choice do I have? A monster like you taking over my powers?

: Goodbye Rebecca... :

The doctor felt desperate commands being sent to her powerful hindbrain -
Kill the body, then die. Her mind and body started to shut down. Her
circulation ground to a halt, her lifesigns faltered.

: The subject is capable of killing itself : thought Jagar, loud enough for
Figment to hear with her own psychic powers.. To his mind, she was neither
important enough to talk to or block his thoughts from her. : But it can't
succeed. Its need to remain alive is too strong. :

: You want me to merge with you! You will scoop out my brains and leave
yourself in charge! You'll kill me anyway, freak! :

: But it knows that even without cognitive thought, it will still be alive.
Maybe I'll leave it the most primitive thoughts, for the sake of
experimentation. Whereas if it doesn't cooperate I will just throw it in the
incinerator.

Figment's consciousness started to slip away as her body and mind continued
to deteriorate. Jagar snarled with anger as he realised she wasn't bluffing.

: The subject has a defective will to live! Stupid, shabby piece of crap! :

The doctor withdrew his vicious lobotomy implement quickly. Figment stopped
the countdown to her death and desperately recovered her thought processes.
He doctor raised his tentacle and balled his fingers into a fist, as he
looked down at her malevolently.

: You can kill me when you want, but so can I! I'm holding myself to ransom.
You mess with me in any way, and I'll leave you with a useless corpse! :

The doctor sighed and calmed down. Figment kept a metaphorical finger on the
button that would restart the death process.

: Maybe it's will to live is... misplaced. Maybe the defect lies in it
wanting something else to remain functional. :

He felt a pulse of emotions from the creature. Jagar 's serpent mouth curled
up in a blissful smile.

: Yes, like it's original human host, Rebecca. :

He noted from his scanners the way Figment's tried desperately to struggle.

: If you harm Rebecca then I will kill myself! :

"John?" he called. "Come here."

The white Yuan-Ti slithered obediently to him. He was under an ultra-deep
state of hypnotism that allowed Jagar to make the subject do or think
anything he wanted. Back when the doctor found out that John was going to
observe Rebecca while she got used to living without the parasite, he
programmed the Yuan-Ti to go into this dazed state whenever he heard the
right dial-tone on a mobile phone. He also did the same thing to Rebecca, as
was standard practice on humans who had to be persuaded they hadn't seen
anything unusual, so they could be re-hypnotised nice and quickly if things
went wrong. Although incredibly illegal to do this to a Yuan-Ti, Jagar was
glad he had taken the risk.

The doctor gave John a security card and a mobile phone.

"Rebecca has betrayed your trust, John. She has killed your chief and tried
to kill me. She should have been executed for killing a Yuan-Ti, but all
they did was imprison her. This is a blatant injustice, isn't it."

John nodded but didn't show any emotion.

"You have decided that she should die for her crimes, and you'll do anything
at all to ensure her execution. Therefore, you stole this card from me and
will use it to obtain a disintegrator and full battle suit. You will use
these to go to the prison and kill Rebecca, as well as all the other
prisoners and the wardens. If anyone stops you, kill them. When you have
completed this mission, you will disintegrate yourself. If you are about to
be captured, you will disintegrate yourself."

John nodded as if he had been told a casual statement, then slithered out of
the lab.

The doctor smiled with professional pride and picked up a second phone.

"You will let me take over you, parasite. If you do, maybe I'll call John
and reprogram him, then I'll use your enhanced powers to cover up all of
this. If you don't give yourself to me, John will die, and Rebecca will die,
and with their bodies a pile of dust, no-one will know what I did to them or
what I made them do."

He leaned over the still reptilian form. His tongue wavered in the air.

"Either way, you lose and I win. But how badly do you want to lose? You have
about fifteen minutes to decide."

* * * * * * * * * *

Rebecca sat on the floor of her cell and looked blankly at the bars in front
of her. Despite imprisonment she felt great hope - Figment was alive! She
was so close to rescuing her friend, but... she remembered those surgical
torture implements that filled the room, and the calm monster that somehow
made her believe she had killed that innocent Yuan-Ti.

Nice Rack and Amanda shared her cell, still in their curious Were-animal
forms. It was they who had pulled her back out of the trance that the doctor
put her in. Her face still hurt from an over-enthusiastic slap from the
deer's furry hand. She told them what had happened, and they carefully
avoided her questions about how they ended up on the wrong side of the bars.
There were other cells here, occupied by several miscellaneous monstrous
shapes, laying around as they waited for parole or their trial. A Yuan-Ti
guard in chunky body armour stood watch while he chatted to some of his
tenents. He was too damn jolly.

The door opened and Sarah walked in, still dressed as a partially
transformed human sanitary engineer.

"Hey, you!" called the guard. "You can't clean up in here!"

Magpie looked around and adjusted her overalls. She wore a shapeless
gown-style apron suitable for fitting over the upper Yuan-Ti body or on
humanoid. Getting the tatty little thing had been an embarrassingly
difficult task - the original owner, a Yuan-Ti cleaning lady, had nearly
killed her despite the element of surprise and a chloroform laced pad.

"I'm not here to clean," she replied, changing track smoothly. "One of your
prisoners saved my life. I just want to thank her properly."

"What? One of _thiss_lot?_"

The Yuan-Ti laughed in a fashion that made most of his long body sine wave.
He looked over at the motley inmates.

"You mean... Officser Crowley?"

A serpentine form looked up at her and smiled in a good-natured but
extremely drunken way. At least the creature had stopped singing.

"Nope."

"Rebecca? The human?"

Magpie shook her head.

"Surely not Ssister Mercsy!"

A woman dressed as a catholic nun looked up from an air-sealed glass cell
with glowing Poison and Biohazard signs on it. She muttered and got back to
praying.

"You _do_ have some super heroes in this place, you know," said Magpie with
as deadpan a face as she could manage. The guard's own expression was
cracking under the force of another poorly buried laugh.

He looked around at the cells. Twice. Nice Rack screamed and threw a plastic
cup. As it bounced off the Yuan-Ti's helmet, he turned back.

"Nahhh, ssurely not!"

"Yes, straight-up! She's the most heroic deer I ever saw!"

They both burst out laughing, grabbing each other to stop themselves from
falling over. Nicey looked for something murderous to attack them with. The
Yuan-Ti slithered obligingly out of the way, looked at the deer's expression
and laughed even louder.

"If your hero repayss it by trying to kill you, gimme a call!"

He left her alone in the cell and closed the door behind him.

Magpie grinned and got to the bars.

"Oh God..." Rebecca said miserably as she looked at Magpie's scaly skin.
"Did John get you too?"

Sarah looked confused, then cottoned on. She wiped away one of the imitation
scales with a wet finger. Rebecca sighed with relief.

"Before I came here I stopped off at home and picked up some stuff. One of
the things I got was my Secret Agent Disguise Kit. Anyways, Amanda, Nicey,
how did you end up in there?"

"They put us in for littering," said Nice Rack.

"Really? How many bodies did you litter the place with?"

Nicey snarled malevolently, in the fashion of someone who had wanted to
deliver the punch line herself.

"They were the unconscious sort," said Amanda curtly.

"You weren't _really_ laughing at me, were you?" asked Nice Rack, wishing
she had claws.

"Only on the outside, cutie," replied Magpie as she examined at the cell
door.

"It's what's outside that counts. Don't do it again."

"Locked with both a card reader and a complicated dimple-configuration
keyhole. Needs a key _and_ the right magnetic code!"

Magpie looked at the bars. They were two inches thick, and the metal was
unfamiliar. If it replaced good old steel it was probably because it was a
hell of a lot stronger.

"What are these things meant to hold?"

"The Union have pretty big enemies," said Amanda. "And clever ones, too."

"Like me," said Nicey, sounding like she meant it completely.

Sarah shrugged.

"Can't pick this. I'll just have to rob the guard."

She opened the door.

"Closse the damn door!" shouted the serpent guard, turning around. He was
joined by a second, what looked like a normal human with an assault rifle.

"What's happening?"

"_That'ss_ happening!"

He pointed to the end of the corridor. The thick door at the end of it had
dissapeared. In the empty frame was a Yuan-Ti, completely covered in
segmented black armour. The monster's three fingered gauntlets clutched a
long silvery weapon that resembled an oversized rifle with a mass of needles
tipping the barrel. It slithered forward patiently.

The second guard fired a volley of bullets at the foe, but they just
ricocheted of it's armour and poked holes in the walls around it. The
invader hefted his gun and fired a bright slab of blue energy at his
attacker. The blast covered him and he flopped backwards on the floor,
shrieking pitifully before collapsing into fine ash.

The Yuan-Ti pulled himself against the wall and shouted into his radio,
"We've got some ssorta traitor! Need backup, with weapons that can pop Class
10 armour!"

"We can't deliver in time!" shouted the response. "There's a frontal assault
on the Embassy, everyone we can spare is fighting in it! Just teleport the
hell out of there!"

The Yuan-Ti looked down at the radio and spat. He looked back at Magpie as
the invader fired another shot and disintegrated a ten foot wide section of
covering wall. He slighered forwards as he waited patiently for his weapon
to prime for another shot. John knew there was no other way out of this area
except past him.

The guard looked around and found no cover left. He gave the radio to
Magpie. "Use this, it can save one persson only! Dial in one sseven two
nineaagggh!"

A blast hit the end of his tail. The soft blue glow climbed up his body like
fire up a trail of oil. He convulsed as he burned up, then turned his head
around, looked at Magpie imploringly.

"one sseven two, nine, four... two! Gooo..."

The glow closed over his head.

Magpie slammed the door closed and ran to the cells.

"What happened?" asked Rebecca frantically.

"A snakie's coming to kill us. And the guard died to save me," she said with
a strange casuality. "Only he ain't saved anything yet, cos I ain't going
until I've had a go at freeing you."

A blue glow lit the door Magpie had just left and ate it alive.

"Damn right too!" said Nice Rack caustically.

But the cell was still there, the bars were still present and there was
still no way to get through them.

"We gotta think of something!" squealed Amanda, scrunching her fuzzy face in
concentration.

"Sarah, just bloody save yourself!" ordered Rebecca with exasperation.

"Nope, you ain't thinking hard enough," said Sarah, simply.

The Yuan-Ti advanced up the long corridor, his armour making heavy scraping
noises as it slithered over the rough steel floor.

Rebecca kicked the cell bars. Out of desperation she looked over the
thought-message that had been deposited in her mind by Hedonism. They were
her last goodbyes, composed as something to do in the tube without expecting
them ever to get delivered.

Instructions on how to contact her father, even though he was apparently an
imaginary monster. Sad but vague thoughts about her even more mysterious
mother. And...

"A leaving present from Figment," Rebecca murmered. She reached her arm
through the cell bars and grabbed Magpie's shoulder. Sarah let herself get
yanked forward and the girl pulled a few strands of her hair free. She broke
the strands in half, then tied them back together in a tight knot.

"Having fun there Rebecca?" asked Magpie.

Rebecca nodded her head. "You'll like this..."

She let the hairs leave her hand.

A shiny black feather landed softly on the ground.

Magpie squatted down to look closer at the feather as her hair unknotted
from it's tight ponytail and swished over her face. She cupped her hair as
each strand puffed out into long black feathers.

"Waaaahh, shiiiii..."

Sarah leapt backwards and bounced off the wall. Her fingers were already
melted into mitten-like structures. Her face was awash with intense feelings
and moving bone structure.

"Whoahhhkk..."

Sarah's rigidly controlled mind filled with a wild sense of horror at the
changes. Despite her dislike of her humanity, she was utterly repelled at
losing it. She screamed as she let the disgust run it's course.

The changing, shrinking woman finally stopped her wails, stood still and
controlled her breathing, even as her lungs were altering. With super-human
self-control, she forced away the fear and took in her changes. Feathers
were erupting from her skin and tangling into her clothes. She felt the
first urges to fastidiously preen them back into line. Her teeth were no
more, but a sharpening mass was escaping her mouth. Already it was a
budgie's beak shape, and continued lengthening visibly. When she saw the
proto-beak turn black, she knew she was becoming the creature she had
always, always wanted to be.

Magpie squawked shrilly as delight was the next emotion to break free. She
couldn't control this feeling, even if she wanted to. She wailed again, now
with a higher pitched, raucous call of joy.

Rebecca watched the awesome transformation and Sarah's outbursts, the first
time she had ever seen her supervisor act anything less than calm and cool.
A smile slowly broke over her face as she felt hope for the future again. Up
until now, she had been feeling so bad, her mind had little room for any
other feelings. Now Magpie was laughing her way through a startling,
humanity-robbing metamorphosis, and it wasn't hysteria. It made her want to
laugh too. Rebecca may already have lost a part of her forever, but Magpie
had gained her heart's desire.

Sarah shrank into her clothes, her arms elongating out into wings, her feet
and legs dwindling into gnarled talons. She pulled herself free of her
garments as the transformation gradually completed, leaving her a scruffy
ball of feathers, inquisitive eyes and horn beak.

"It's my leaving present as well. Now leave so you can enjoy it!"

Magpie the magpie turned one beady, alien eye directly at the human. The
Yuan-Ti crawled his armoured body through the empty doorway and looked
around, just as Sarah leapt into the air. The serpent threw out an arm but
missed her as she fluttered past and disappeared up the corridor. He ignored
her escape and pressed forwards, looking through the cells.

Most of the other prisoners hid or cringed in fear as he slinked past them.
His first objective was to end Rebecca's life, so they could wait. Then
after he had taken their lives, he would seal his own fate. For murdering
the betrayers and the criminals, he would sentence himself to death. But
first there had to be a crime...

Amanda pulled the discarded radio into the cell with her long tail. She
threw it to Nice Rack.

"Well, it was nice knowing you, Nicey! Looks like I do the sidekick thing
and get killed off."

The deer looked at the radio. "Fine, fine... Uhhh... what was that number
again?"

John found Rebecca and lifted his heavy gun once more. He slid it through
the prison bars. Rebecca just looked on, thinking clearly, letting the fear
fade away.

She wasn't looking at the monster, she was looking behind him.

Magpie shrieked as she flapped towards the Yuan-Ti, her body now human
sized, a gangly, tatter-feathered mixture of bird and woman. She smashed
into him at nearly thirty miles an hour, and the serpent's armoured trunk
clanged into the bars.

Rebecca grabbed his gun, yanked it all the way into the prison, then tightly
gripped his arm. He struggled madly and bunched his other claw into a fist.
But as he punched out at the human, Amanda grabbed the other tentacle-limb
and hauled that in as well. His whole body was rammed hard against the
prison.

"Come to momma!" screamed Nice Rack, as she rammed the prominent parts of
her chest through the bars, trapping John's helmetted head between their
spandex-covered expanses. She wrapped her hands around his long neck and
locked him in her boobs.