[LNHY/ACRA] The Daily Super Short-Short Story #61

[Saxon Brenton]

The Daily Super Short-Short Story #61
 
A Devil Came Down to Georgia 43
 
Last time: TJ and Delroy were under attack from Kien.
 
     "Tim!" cried Delroy. Intellectually they both knew that in this 
time and place having a large hunk of metal speared through the guts 
would not be fatal, ever. Still, the sight of the spear that Kien had 
put through TJ was not a pretty one, and it certainly didn't hurt any 
less. The mutant had half collapsed, and Delroy was helping him to the 
ground to lie on his side.
     "Shit," swore Delroy as he gazed at TJ's state with helpless horror. 
Then he looked up at Kien, who was watching with a particularly satisfied 
smirk, before returning back to TJ. "I'm sorry man," he whispered.
     Kien sauntered forward, once again walking through TJ to get to 
Delroy. The latter youth glanced about hurriedly, partly looking for 
anything that might be useful in fending off the Tulpa, and partly 
wondering where Kien's real body had gotten off to this time. Heck, he 
even had a instance's worth of wondering about why Kien had allowed 
himself to get so physically close in the first place:  .oO( I guess 
Tim was right, and Kien is a totally bloodthirsty psycho. And I blew 
Tim's one chance to deal with him, ) he though with recrimination.
     TJ was weakly struggling to remove the spear, but the pain of it 
was greater than that of Lisa's poison. Frankly he was amazed that he 
was even conscious, but then the part of his mind that always watched 
decided that it made sense that if the Dark Lords wouldn't allow anyone 
to die, then they'd want to keep them conscious when they were wounded 
and in pain. He gritted his teeth and ignored the tears of frustration 
as he worked with seeming futility at getting the spear out. His fingers 
couldn't get a proper grip on the bloodsoaked and gory barbs, and it was 
simply taking too long for him do. Kien would have maimed Delroy and come 
back to finish off TJ long before he got this damned thing out.
     With a satisfied look on his face Kien's psycho-projection grabbed 
Delroy by the throat and held him up. Then Kien was knocked to the ground 
as a huge wolf hit him side-on at chest height.
     "What?" said Kien, clearly confused by this turn of events. "That 
isn't possible, How...?"
     "Nothing should be able to touch your psionic double?" said the 
wolf with Martin's voice. Then he said, with a big wolfy grin, "Astrally 
Travelling Werewolf Crusader, remember? I can reach you this way," before 
beginning to maul the psycho-projection. Most of TJ's attention was on 
the bloody and bloodyminded task of getting the spear out, but he noticed 
that Kien's screams of pain were coming from both in front of him and 
more distantly as well. .oO( I guess Kien's body must be over that way, ) 
decided the part of him that was paying attention that issue.
     Then TJ found Delroy beside him, helping with the spear by pushing 
through from behind. Delroy didn't say anything until it was out, then 
asked, "Are you all right?"
     "I'm fine," said TJ. Actually, what he was was tired. His adrenalin 
high from earlier had worn off, and he just felt numb and bruised. Delroy 
looked much the same. Martin didn't and was calm and smiling - but TJ 
supposed that considering the mythopoeic setup of Martin's powers that 
the opportunity to Fight Evil had flooded his brain with endorphins.
     "Well dudes," said Jesus, walking up, "old tall, dark and evil 
decided to take the better part of valour, if you know what I mean. I 
think we can, like, call it quits here."
     Delroy couldn't help but notice TJ tense up. He wondered why. In 
fact TJ was mentally running over what could go wrong now, and the top 
candidate was that he'd be left here. Well, it was obvious, wasn't it? 
TJ had worked out a quid pro quo with Martin and Delroy that they would 
act together against their mutual enemies among the diabolicals. Now 
that that was over, and knowing the self-righteous arrogance that various 
gods had shown over the years (this was a superhero class universe; gods 
were always turning up to kibitz), TJ could well imagine being left 
marooned here unless he agreed to become a worshipper or something. 
FsckingFsckingFsckingFsckingFscking. As if an agreement made under 
coercion was valid. Oh well, at least he'd be able to spit in his eye and 
say that if was going to be relegated to Hell, at least he'd take pride 
in not having collaborated with a middle-eastern terrorist god...
     Jesus looked at TJ and said, "You look wasted man. Here, you'd 
better, like, have a drag on this," and handed over his joint.
     TJ took the rolled up weed in bemusement. Normally he would have 
refused, on the grounds that you can't keep alert for your enemies when 
you're drugged out of your head, but he was exhausted and his train of 
thought had just been derailed. He stared at the joint stupidly for a 
few seconds, and then Delroy leaned closed and whispered, "You stick 
the end that isn't burning into your mouth and inhale."
     TJ followed the prompting, and immediately doubled over in a 
coughing fit because it didn't taste anything like cigarettes.
     "I think I'd better get you boys home," Jesus said.
 
Tomorrow: The Epilogue.
 
The Daily Super Short-Short Story series created by Arthur Spitzer, and
used with belated permission.
 
All main characters created by Saxon Brenton are Ask First Before Use
for the duration of this storyline, then they'll probably go to Usable
Without Permission.
 
-----
Saxon Brenton University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
     saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au
The Eyrie Archives of Russ Allbery which collect the online superhero
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