NOVEL NEXT Chapter 7 – Long Live The New Flesh
While Aleah was holding her gorgeous d20, Ellie pulled out a monocle she had tied around her neck, a monocle which had crosshairs painted on its surface. “Fate Dice Power, Roll!” Aleah called out, while next to her Ellie gave her monocle three finger flicks, making it ring. Aleah’s die hovered above her hand, and a light around it grew to the size of a grapefruit, while being just as round, and Ellie’s monocle detached from her necklace and grew an entire bow of light from itself, becoming a scope on it in the process. As each grabbed hold of their items, the light enveloped them, first shifting so they were but silhouettes of their naked bodies before the light stretched and changed in places, becoming clothing. As the light dissipated off of them, I could get a proper look.
Aleah looked like a witch, with a pointy hat and a flowing dress, with a crystal ball in her hand, the colors of her outfit being magenta, blue and purple. Ellie’s outfit was that of a ranger, a hooded cloak with small antlers on its hood, a skirt of fur and a leather breastplate, a large recurve bow in her hand, her colors black, grey, white and purple. Those colors were definitely not forest-appropriate. All in all though, both of them looked stunning. I threw my wand back in my backpack and threw it on, right as the sound of more gunfire rang through the halls. “Right, gotta move fast, the fog makes it near impossible to see stuff. Lucky for us three, I have a way around that.” Aleah held her crystal ball up. “Fate Dice, Grant Us Sight!” she called out, and there was a buzz of static electricity in the air, for but a moment. Nothing really felt different at first, but as Aleah opened the door, the fog was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’d the fog go?” I asked, turning to her.
“Nowhere, it’s there, we just have super-vision now. Come on, this way.” She dashed out, holding her ball with both hands, and Ellie followed right behind her. I tried to keep up while staying behind the two experienced fighters. We didn’t encounter any kids in the halls, thankfully, alive or dead, but I did notice bullet holes in the walls and lockers, and that Aleah was following a smear of blood on the ground. I didn’t know whose it was, but I desperately hoped it wasn’t a student’s. The trail was thin, and the way it was spaced, it was clear the Nightmare was stumbling on one foot.
More gunshots rang across the school, close to us, and I could see the bullets flying past through the next hallway. While Aleah proudly stepped in the middle, Ellie stood behind a corner, peeking around it, and gesturing for me to do the same.
The Nightmare looked young. Very young. In contrast to the shadowy figure with yaoi hands I had seen yesterday, this one was much more corporeal, looking almost like a human. Almost. The chest and its left leg and arms were normal; all of it was proportionally appropriate for a 5’9” high schooler. However, its face was covered by a Guy Fawkes mask, kept attached with screws around its perimeter. Its right leg had had most of the flesh blown off, exposing half its thigh bone and most of its shin bones. Except for the little flap on the bottom, on which a thin blue line flag was tattooed.
Then there were its hands. If they could be called hands. It was like somebody took the idea of finger guns and took it to the logical conclusion. Flesh covered a pair of submachine guns, like at the end of Videodrome. I definitely should not have watched that movie, but I had watched it, and now I could point to the handgun at the end of it for a visual aid. It was looking directly at Aleah, who had a confident smirk on her face. It roared and fired a volley at the floor next to her. “Notice me! Date me! Go to prom with me! You belong to me! I own you! I deserve you! I will have you!” it cried out, shooting around Aleah again. She barely moved her head to avoid the bullet flying past her ear.
“Oh, nice try, but I’m sorry to say, incels aren’t really my type.” Aleah held out her hand towards Ellie, who rolled her hands and took hold of it. She was pulled directly towards Aleah, who tipped her forward like a dancer, “I much prefer the tall, kind and quiet type to your lot,” and with that, she kissed Ellie, earning another roar from the Nightmare.
“No no no no no! You’re mine! Look at me! You belong to me! You have to be with me! If I can’t have you no one can!” It fired again, aiming for them directly, but Aleah pulled Ellie up and they both spun out of the way in a practiced motion. The moment Ellie stopped spinning, she already had her bow pulled back, a pair of glowing arrows prepared to fire. She let them loose, and they found their mark in the Nightmare’s feet, faster than it could respond.
“You can’t take someone dancing if you’ve got two left feet, mind if I help you with that?” Aleah quipped, dashing forward, her crystal ball floating at her side, and she grabbed the Nightmare’s hands, grinning wide, and rapidly waltzed around it while still holding on. There was a sickening crunch as its exposed bone cracked, and it kept firing into the air in a frenzy. “Not used to the girl being the lead, are we, Mister Fear of School Shooters.” She stepped back ever so slightly, and kicked. With the way its remaining leg was pinned, the knee bent backwards, bone breaking out of the back of it. Aleah was still standing on top of it when Ellie fired a pair of arrows into its wrists, and followed it up with a leap over to her girlfriend. Blades of light formed on both of the weapons, while Aleah’s was like a saw blade with the crystal ball as its center, Ellie’s covered the entire front of her bow. With quick swift motions, they removed the Nightmares finger guns. “It’s Nerf or nothing, don’t you know.” With her last remark, Aleah cast a fireball from her crystal ball that hit the Nightmare directly in its Guy Fawkes mask, shattering it upon impact and melting away its face underneath.
“Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine…” it cried out as its dying wail, melting away into white goo before turning into mist. A strong rush of wind struck me, and as it did I could see all the bullet holes in the walls, ceiling and floor disappearing.
“Fate Dice Powers, Fall,” Aleah called out, while Ellie flicked the scope on her bow three times once again. Their magical girl forms faded away, and they stood before me, confident smiles on both their faces. Aleah then fake gagged. “Bleugh, I stepped in incel goop, you think it's contagious?” she shook her head. “Okay, now we all bunker down somewhere nearby and wait for the all clear to be official, got it?”
I nodded to reply, and got once again dragged into the nearest girl’s bathroom, to sit behind the row of stalls. I felt like an intruder again, being in a space forbidden to me, but with the revelations of the past two days I figured I would no longer feel welcome in any public bathroom. Intruding in the women’s, and not belonging in the men’s. I opened my backpack and looked at Potato Bun. I wanted to call her out, to yell at her, for opening the emotional floodgates I was dealing with now, but I couldn’t find my voice. So, since Emily wasn’t around to translate for me, I had to reach for the TTS app. “Why did you have to show up and cause me to have all these feelings about gender, Potato Bun?” the app spoke for me, which earned a raised eyebrow from Aleah.
“Do you have communication issues?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Anxiety makes me go nonverbal a lot. Usually Emily, my best friend, is around to interpret sign language for me,” I typed out, which earned me a shy smile from Ellie.
“You sign?” she signed, and I nodded. “I prefer to sign or write to actually talking. Aleah is learning ASL but is not very good yet,” she finished up, which earned her a huff from Aleah.
“Hey! I understand it well enough, I just can’t speak it. In a manner of speaking. I AM learning, though, because I love your amazing double ace butt and want to be there for you.” Aleah moved closer to Ellie and gently cupped her face.
“Double Ace?” I asked with sign language. It took Aleah a minute to process it.
“Ace Sharpshooter and Asexual. Didn’t you notice Ellie’s colorscheme? It was the colors of the asexual pride flag,” Aleah answered, which made me recall Clara’s rainbow color scheme. That meant that Aleah’s was the bisexual pride flag, if I understood right. I looked at my wand, and frowned. Blue, pink and white. I had come across that color scheme a few times in stories.
“Why did you exchange money when you saw the wand?” I asked, signing once again, which earned me a nervous cough from Aleah. Ellie was the one to reply with sign language.
“After Clara messaged us about you, we bet whether you’d have the trans pride flag or the nonbinary pride flag as your color scheme. Obviously it’s the trans flag, so--”
“So I won.” Aleah closed her eyes for a second. “Okay, the fuzz are nearly here, get some tears going, really ham up the fear you felt. Vulnerability is the word of the day here.” Aleah took a deep breath, and burst into tears on command. I was honestly impressed, but also saddened that I couldn’t cry, my body wasn’t letting me.
Something to get out of my system once in girl mode, I figured.