The Power of Ten

We take a step back in time, before a certain someone became infamous, some two decades ago...

Sama opened her eyes, and stared at the thing leering over her in the dark.

It wasn’t much taller than she was, but the difference was that it was a fully grown fey of the phage sort, that could move around and get into and out of places that it shouldn’t have. It was built like a stick, with a leering nose, flappy bat ears, wild hair, needled teeth, and exaggerated nails on its hands.

She’d heard it messing around in the walls and conduits at nights, scratching subtly after her parents were asleep.

It was a phage, and phages fed on fear. It wasn’t actually here to harm her, and indeed would have difficulty doing so, despite its appearance. It was a leech and a skulker, not a killer. That was for the more advanced members of the breed.

It was looming over her, clearly visible in the moonlight through the window, glaring down at her, waiting for the sweet, sweet terror it wanted from a helpless baby.

Sama could feel her dinner starting to percolate in her belly, so this fey thing coming in through the radiator was just annoying her. However, she was six months old. There wasn’t a whole lot she could do.

Or so it thought.

She debated calling for Bowser, the family dog, who would happily rush to her rescue and rip this thing apart.

Well, the thing was, she was a sapient and fully aware six-month old child. She had established a simple dantian, set up energy circulation, and been exercising continuously, almost since the day she was born. She had to disguise it as playing with toys and wandering all over the place while crawling and stuff, but she had already impressed her parents by being able to sit up and down, and follow things with her eyes.

She’d been dragging herself up and down repeatedly, and was going to be walking soon, but she was already in absolutely marvelously physical condition just from isokinetics and using ki for resistance training.

And this was just a goddamn phage trying to leech off a baby.

She sort of looked at it, than away, naturally not being afraid of the thing, and watching its claws more than anything. It could potentially freak and start clawing at her, but it was a stupid, simple Fey thing, and she had no respect for it.

Sensing her completely oblivious to its threat and not getting the fear it required, the fey bent down to get into focus range of her eyes, hissing grandly, reaching down to shake her.

Okay, that’s enough of that...

Sama snapped her eyes back around, looked into those yellow eyes, and moved.

The fey was very surprised when she grabbed his twiggy wrists, clamped on, and pulled in both directions as she opened her mouth.

Her parents were very surprised when her canines came in first, and there were two sets of them. She also liked to chew on things rather too much, developing her jaws... not that she hurt her mother when breastfeeding.

The phage was pretty shocked when she lunged up in under its throat, and bit down hard.

It was naturally shocked, and tried to tear free... and was very surprised when it could not. Sama sat up, rolled over, and using the fact she weighed three times as much as the skinnyass thing, pinned it underneath her as she worried at its neck with all the pissed-off nature of a grown person trapped in an infantile body very, very happy to have a chance to vent her ire.

The phage was certainly not expecting to feel a raging killing joy arising from the thing supposed to be spitting up some sweet, sweet fear, and tried to kick and struggle, and found the heavy baby had just too strong a grip, and was now pushing on its chest.

She tore its throat open as she lifted herself up, looking down into its horrified eyes as it stared up into her blue orbs, the tufts of golden hair with a blue ribbon hanging down... and dark blood on her face.

She said nothing to the writhing phage, just sat there and watched it struggle and bleed out underneath her.

She licked the foul blood off her lips in irritation once it stopped moving, and because she didn’t want to put up with its smell, shoved it out between the gaps in the crib and down to the floor.

It was already starting to mist and disintegrate, and in minutes there would be no sign that it was ever here.

There was a clicking of dog-nails in the hall, and then a paw rose, the door knob turned, and a dark nose poked inside the nursery room.

Bowser pushed open the door, growling softly. The Lab-mix sniffed the air, and came quickly up to the dead Fey.

Cat-like Whiskers spread on her cheeks. “Go pull Daddy here.”

He spun around and exited the room as Sama washed her face in her blanket, adding to the mess there.

A minute later Darren Piotrowski was being pulled into the room by his hand, groggy and stumbling and in his shorts. He hit the light as Bowser let go, and froze when he saw the dead thing falling apart in the middle of the floor.

Bowser sniffed around it, and went over to the radiator, pointing at it intensely with a soft growl. Her father walked over and pushed it, and it slid aside, the screws falling out, turned out from within.

Mother Karen was soon up, and barely stifled a scream when she saw the phage bubbling away there. She went immediately to Sama, snatched her up, and made all sorts of noises when she saw the mess on the blankets.

Naturally, there was nothing wrong with Sama at all, and Bowser definitely became the hero of the hour...

-------

Some years later...

“Josiah! Kill it! Kill it!”

Sama’s older brother jolted up from his nightmare at the sound of his little sister’s voice. He floundered about, gaping, trying to focus, and saw a figure in white atop something that was black, getting thrown around the room, and still refusing to let go.

“Josiah! Help!” his little sister called out to him desperately, and the oldest brother of the Piotrowski family screamed and leapt on top of the unnatural black thing she was hanging onto.

He had never felt so frightened in all his life, but his weight slammed the thing to the floor, he heard Sama go oof!, and saw her beating on the head of the thing with her little fist, teeth bared.

It was ripping at him, trying to throw him off, and he screamed and clawed at it, rolling and hitting it, until he bumped into something against the wall while they were rolling, and realized it was his baseball bat from Little League.

He didn’t have room to swing it, but he could insert it into the big gaping mouth of the creature, which it didn’t seem to like, and then pound it against the floor boards as hard as he could.

Sama rolled away, cheering, “Get it, Josiah! Get it!” and his confidence surged, and with it his wrath, all the years of fears and nightmares bubbling and boiling up, and he slammed the boogeyman down again, and again, and again, until its skull shattered and gore flowed, and still he was pounding it, until the dissolving head fell off the end of his bat, and he was kneeling on the floor in a puddle of gore, screaming and sobbing and tearing at it with his fingers.

“It’s gone, Josiah. You killed it.” His little sister’s voice came into his ear as she hugged him gently, proudly. Heaving for breath, Josiah could only grab her little arms and hold onto her, feeling something dark and terrible in his heart dying and melting away.

He wasn’t going to let anything hurt his little sister. It could be in his nightmares, but if it came for his family, he would beat it to death again, and again, and again!...

---

Sama just held him as his breathing slowly returned to normal, and then he slumped back against her, a rattling breath escaping from him as he fell asleep again.

The bleeding wounds all over him, and their pain, vanished like the illusions they were. Sama held him as she sat back against the wall, ignoring the very real bruises she had from the boogeyman thrashing around with her on it.

Naturally she couldn’t kill the thing, as it wasn’t focused on her. It had been bedeviling her older brother for years, and she’d finally managed to sneak in here and wait for it without being sensed. When it had crawled out from under his bed, she had jumped on it immediately.

But it was only semi-real to her, as she’d quickly confirmed, which meant Josiah, in the grips of one of the nightmares that occurred to him so often, was the only one that could put down this phage.

Where these things were coming from, she didn’t know, and maybe it was nothing special, just fallout from the Haze that was blocking off the sky.

He’d needed to find his moment of courage, something to defy the nightmares and the phage inspiring them and feeding on them.

Of course, it had left his room a mess, but that was the standard condition it was left in, so nobody would notice... and under the somnolent aura of the boogeyman, no one had.

But he would know he had beaten the boogeyman, he would know he had protected his little sister... and he would know he could do it again.

---

“Samantha,” Josiah asked her urgently. He never used her full name, so this was serious.

“Yes, Josiah?” she asked, big blue eyes wide with admiration at him, and he felt bigger and stronger without even realizing it.

“It... last night...” he stumbled over what he wanted to say, not wanting to embarrass himself. “Last... last night... was that real?”

Sama blinked at him. “Did you save me?” she asked directly.

“I, uh, yes,” he had to nod.

“Did you beat that nasty boogeyman to bits?” she asked, smiling wider, and he couldn’t help but smile back at her.

“I did! I beat him right to mush!” he agreed, and hastily lowered his voice as their mother looked over at them from the kitchen.

“My brother beat a boogeyman!” Sama squealed, clapping her hands, and Josiah glowed.

----

Josiah Piotrowski was never bothered by nightmares like that again. Or maybe he was, and he beat them to death with a bat, swearing and cursing at them for daring to threaten his family.

The rest of the family noticed the improvement in his mood, his school grades, and his ability to work. They didn’t know why, but they were certainly grateful...