by Thomas Duder
He was also one of the most powerful "alternate" energy users the Shop had ever come across, registered with the American Federation as a form outside the standard "four basic food groups of energy." It was neither ki energy, psychic, magic, or based around spiritual faith. Thankfully he didn't count them as enemies but, at best, obstacles depending on what contract he took.
"Hello, Shop," the mercenary spoke in calm, even tones, "I'm going to have to ask you to turn around and leave. Go home and stay there until the morning comes."
"Yo, Cipher," Frank called out, stepping forward defiantly, his hands flexing at his sides, forearms bulging as he continued on, "Weren't you supposed to be in Cambodia doin' shit?"
"I got it done," the mercenary responded, growing warier as Frank grew closer, "And if you keep tryin' to distract me, I'm sending you all to Oz."
That stopped Frank completely mid-stride, his hands to either side of him. Though Cipher was unable to directly control any normal mode of energy, he could still sense it incredibly well, being innately sensitive. Like Frank's own twisted quirk of nature, Cipher's enabled him to be sensitive to the nature of such things, and the experience he had gained in a mere five years as an international mercenary for hire had only heightened that ability.
Frank snarled as Dash dropped the car he had heaved overhead and moved in front of Jude, obscuring the smaller man with his own bulk. Frank nodded, "Alright, so...we're at an impasse. We would've hired you if we knew you were in town, friend-o."
"I wouldn't've accepted," Cipher responded simply, smiling, "It's been too long, and we've had too many stalemates. We need to settle the pecking order, our hierarchy, Frank."
Dash called out, his fists balled up loosely close to his waist, "Dammit Cipher, we don't have time for this! Just...let us pass, man."
Cipher frowned, "I can't do that, Dash. My pride, alone, won't let me do that. Either I defeat the two of you or hold you here long enough that you've lost. UH-UH!"
The mercenary held a hand out even as Jude rushed him from the side. Having used Frank's distraction and Dash's bulky form to maneuver himself out of eyesight behind a nearby parked car, Jude nevertheless wasn't prepared as a massive chunk of their surroundings shifted unnaturally to the side.
Jude had gained his position having survived and thrived in a difficult, world-ending event back in Detroit. Even that, and his adventures since then, did little to prepare him as he was inexplicably and unstoppably slammed into another dimension in the space of a single breath. Electric blue lines suddenly carved out a cube the space of the street before "turning" unnaturally at a ninety-degree angle, almost rotating before once again settling back into place.
And to everything within that prescribed area who suffered that same planar shift, the velocity went terminal.
"This, then, is Glitch Mob," a silken, masculine voice spoke within Jude's mind, "a shift, a warp, in reality. Even more so, it allows him to do other things like bring things into this dimension from others...or cause spacial warps that affect a limited area, like the Gravity Howitzer that fucked up that car earlier. His greatest attack is to create a minute pinpoint of highly pressurized space, usually as a counter to fast-moving attacks or people. It can be devastating against aerial vehicles."
Frank, on his knees in front of Jude, concentrated as he exerted the full might of his telekinetic ability on them both, keeping them anchored even as the dimensional shift occurred. Cipher, the central point of the rotation and impervious to the strange, lethal motion, laughed as he looked about and beheld the strangely red tones of the new dimension they were in, a neighboring one close enough for everything to be the same, save for that strange light.
Jude vomited violently despite himself, clutching at his stomach as the voice in his head continued, "Interdimensional Sickness. It's another reason why Glitch Mob is so dangerous - he could screw with an entire army on a whim and decimate them with this alone. You'll be fine, but you're out of commission for now."
"Who...what was that?" Jude groaned.
"That would be Kitty himself," Frank murmured loud enough for him to hear, "And he did his best to keep you alive as we shifted. I guess he trusts you, or he wouldn’t speak to you directly like that. Reckon so do I, kid."
"WOW, what a rush!" Cipher cackled as he slowly drew a long Bowie knife, gleaming a sickly silver in the odd moonlight, "Looks like your boy Dash is a puddle over there, and whoever Billy Bo Bob Fuckface there is just gonna hafta sit this one out. Don't worry, pretty-boy.
I just want Frank's skull."
Frank stood up slowly, cracking his neck. Cipher, his wariness surging to the fore, backed up and took up a fighting stance quickly.
Keeping his eyes on Cipher, Frank addressed Jude behind him as the younger man fought with his own nausea,"Here's something to note, kid - interdimensional sickness works great on people who've never traveled to another dimension, and eventually you'll get used to it."
Frank snarled, "That trick won't work on me more than once, you idjit."
Noting the various forms of energy that would work in this dimension through information fed through his shades, Frank finally noted the puddle of green and red that was all that was left of Dash, having splattered against the very walls of violently shifted realities. Guessing it would take him at least ten minutes to reform and thankful that merely liquefying the creature wouldn't affect his weak point and actually kill him, Frank prepared himself. Mixed in amongst the Troll soup were bits and pieces of internal organs - so long as even a bit of those remained physical, the creature would regenerate completely.
He was going to have to take on Cipher, alone and on a foreign dimension.
Cipher, unwilling to give Frank any more time to recover, crossed the distance between the two with a sudden surge of speed. Utilizing his incredibly fast dash, Cipher stepped in low and struck high for Frank’s face. Frank, remembering Cipher’s techniques, sidestepped into the blade’s arc, narrowly evading it while lashing out with a rock-crushing punch of his own.
Juking to the side slightly, Cipher switched from his Howe-style to holding the blade properly, parrying Frank’s punch with one hand while stabbing at him with the other. Growling, Frank exerted himself and turned his strike into a powerful backfist, mid-strike, sending Cipher reeling backwards as he blew the parry away with sheer, brutal force.
Whistling, impressed despite himself, Cipher once again came in low and struck out at Frank with a series of high-speed jabs, cutting through the air cleanly and recoiling the knife fast enough that Frank couldn’t catch him. Growling, Frank dodged the attacks by backing up slightly, ever and always aware of Cipher’s range.
Ignoring the two combatants as they dueled, Jude closed his eyes and focused on a particular sutra that Mesmer himself had taught him. Though he had been briefed about Interdimensional Sickness like all Spook Squad members, this was honestly the first time he had experienced as violent a maneuver as this. Ignoring the feeling that he was a hostile invader in alien territory, he instead focused inward, focusing on the memories of his own home dimension, the feeling of familiar energies within himself.
Noting Jude’s professional-level recovery, Frank kept Cipher’s attention on him as he reached out with a free hand, parrying the bladesman at the wrist while grabbing the decimated car behind him. Roaring, Frank moved with sudden, vicious force as he hefted the car overhead, intent on smashing Cipher with it.
His eyes widening underneath his goggles, Cipher sent the car away with a sudden shifting of his power, gritting his teeth hard as he realized the trap he had walked right into.
While Cipher’s powers were stranger than most, there still remained the briefest bits of observation of them, observations and notes that the Shop were privy to. Having fought him and survived before, Frank knew full well that while Cipher’s usage of Glitch Mob wasn’t hampered with any internal usage of energy, he DID require a cooldown period before he could use it at such lengths again.
While Cipher coul
d use Glitch Mob with emergency reserves afterwards, he wouldn’t be able to use it for a bit of time after immediately using up those reserves.
Frank, a feral grin plastered across his swarthy features, stomped the ground once as his entire body took up the perfect alignment necessary for the most favored of his physical attacks, stepping into Cipher’s guard with one smooth, fluid motion.
Whipping his head back within that same instant, Frank slammed the most perfect Headbutt he had ever launched for Cipher’s face, both caught off-guard as Cipher responded almost instantaneously by hunkering himself down, letting Frank smash him forehead-to-forehead instead of the softer center of his face.
Despite that, Cipher’s eyes still squinted as he lost consciousness for a second, his brain violently slammed against the back of his own skull as the sweat was blasted off of his head, flying through the air to glitter in the strange light.
“You really, REALLY shoudn’t’ve used Glitch Mob so soon, you little fuck,” Frank growled through grit teeth, grinding his forehead against Cipher’s as he grabbed the younger man’s wrists, “As good as you are, you should be aware that we have contingencies planned just for your appearance.”
“Be that as it may,” Cipher growled back, his heels digging into the ground as Frank pushed him back slightly, his muscles straining against Frank’s hold as he attempted to bring the knife closer to the darker man’s flesh, “If you saw me coming, you’d also have your countermeasures readied and launched. I figured it would be best to simply have it out and warmed up, all ready for you.”
“You’re breakin’ my heart,” Frank growled, pushing Cipher back further, “You’re also not paying attention. Two of our allies were waiting for us and knew about the Drive-In as a target area. One of ‘em is almost here.
Let us go and I won’t feed you to the goddamn thing.”
Cipher laughed and suddenly relented, leaping back in the hopes of throwing Frank off-balance only to watch as the Generalist stood up, his body relaxing instead of committing himself further to the attack. Growling and cracking his neck, Cipher once again took up the reverse-blade grip and got into attack stance, low, with one hand held out.
“You’re trying to Talk your way out of this situation again,” he growled, “Just like Malta. I won’t let you do that again, Frank.”
Frank chuckled, “You think I can’t use Magia ‘cuz we’re in another dimension and I haven’t had time to connect with the local ley lines, eh? Or that I’m possibly saving all my other tricks and traps for the chicken-boned fucker we’re after?
Boy, I don’t need those to simply connect to a Hellride.”
Ignoring Cipher’s look of confusion, Frank held a hand out to the side as an ornate Summoning Gate appeared out of thin air, erupting from a central point and connecting one dimension to the other. Several circles of ornate, almost Gothic script in between each erupted from a glistening point of reality as it opened wide in a single action, revealing a dark tunnel within.
The naked flesh that existed between realities glowed once before the black goblin-horse erupted from the strange, dark matter, exploding the gate violently behind itself.
Grimcan the Pooka reared up on its claws, shaking the very air with the power of its roar, and Hellfire erupted from its muzzle.
Coming down on all six of its hard-clawed hands, the digits themselves strangely humanoid despite ending in jagged, hoof-like claws, the creature glared at Cipher through eyes of liquid, enraged gold.
Shivering its golden mane about, the creature spoke in plain English, its muzzle slightly pointed at Frank as it growled in a rich, bass tone, “Mara has the other side firmly anchored. I am ready to extract the Shop from this location, but do my eyes deceive me or are there more than two?
I don’t know if the Hellride back can hack it, Master Todd.”
Cipher hissed lightly, not moving from his spot as he beheld the regal creature. Powerfully muscled and mostly horse-like, the massive creature sported six legs where normal creatures only had four, radiating a foul, tangible energy of plainly demonic nature, the golden eyes bespeaking of god-level power. Gibbets of acid drooled out of its sharp-toothed maw as it glared at Cipher, pinning the mercenary where he stood, still in battle stance.
Patting the evolved Pooka on the side of its massive neck, Frank chuckled, “I warned ya, friend-o. You think me and Dash are the only two monsters we got here at the Shop? We got friends you haven’t even met, boyo.
Meet Grimcan. Ya ever hear of a goblin horse? It’s a creature of the Fae, y’see. A little memento we picked up in another dimension during a previous misadventure.”
Grimcan turned an aggravated eye towards Frank, finally breaking its deathgaze on Cipher, “How did I ever find you two so impressive?”
“Because you secretly love us, you idiot monster,” Frank punched the creature on its massive shoulder with a chuckle, both sets of glares returning to Cipher, “Suffice it to say, you feel you owe us a debt, so you stick around. Riiiiight?”
The horse made a rude noise.
“See? You love us, you big bastard,” Frank chuckled. Hiking a thumb at the Pooka, Frank continued to explain, “Y’see, something we did pissed off Grimcan here to the point where his own magics forcibly warped and evolved him to whatever the hell he is now.”
“I am the Pooka Evolved,” Grimcan noted proudly, almost puffing up with pride, “I am Grimcan, Lord of the Goblinate Horde. I am no mere Pooka, greater than any goblin horse before me. ALL will know of my power and tremble!”
”Dramatic fuck, ain’t he?” Frank grinned.
Cipher frowned then slowly turned his blade-hand, looking at a watch and snarling, “Dammit. You’re eating up time so Dash can regenerate fully.”
Frank grunted, “Looks like I’m not the only one who remembers shit. Yeah, so long as you pay attention to me Talking you won’t notice me casting a particular spell in the background-”
Moving suddenly and swiftly, Frank slapped Grimcan, sending him barreling forth like a shot. Having relayed his own set of psionic orders to the goblin horse, the creature attempted to run Cipher down as he hurtled himself forward. Ignoring the mercenary, who sidestepped the sudden flurry of violent activity, Cipher found himself unable to find out Grimcan’s true intentions as he found himself under a vicious assault from Frank.
Brutal punches and kicks sent Cipher scrabbling backwards, his attention completely on Frank as the Generalist pressured him with an unending series of attacks. Aware that he wasn’t using the knife as a bigger threat, Cipher leaned into Frank’s jab and attempted a back-handed stab. Shifting his own stance slightly, Frank let the blade skitter across the side of his tough jacket, deflecting most of the dangerous edge even as he spun closer into Cipher’s territory to catch him in the throat with a vicious, close-quarters elbow smash.
Feeling it more than seeing it coming for the second time, Cipher lowered his head out of instinct and took it on the chin instead. Roaring a kiei into the mercenary’s ringing ear, Frank sent him sprawling to the ground by completing his rotation, knocking him down with ferocious intent.
Landing hard on his back, Cipher once again moved without thinking and brought his arms up over his head, knife bared even as Frank smashed a bootheel down to his head. Thankful for the steel shanks in his specially made combat boots, Frank nearly snapped the knife’s tip as he smashed it against the man’s hands, crushing them both as he ground Cipher into the pavement.
Not one to forgo his advantage, Frank reared back and delivered a full-swung soccerball kick for Cipher’s head, doing considerable damage to the man’s forearms despite the block, sending him rolling across the ground as Grimcan leaped over both of them in a roar of Hellfire and rage at missing the fight. Jude clutching tight to his mane, both disappeared as the Gate opened up amidst an explosion of Hellfire as the Pooka rode between dimensions, taking him back to their home dimension.
Frank, knowing full well that Jude had been employing the excellent internal con
trol techniques of the FBI, had psionically relayed quick orders for him to gather up as much of Dash as he could, especially the brain and liver, and to get them the hell out. Stepping in quickly, Frank dragged his toe across the ground as ki energy gathered within his legs.
Though he would need time to gather and spindle mana into usable magic energy, provided that he was able to even connect with a ley line in a strange dimension, he was still able to expend what energy he carried naturally within him. While he had nothing close to the amount that Dash could employ, he nevertheless had more than enough to cause Cipher more problems.
“HIGH OCTANE DRILL!”
Dragging his toe across the ground in an empowered kick, Frank sent a wave of brown-colored, sparking energy at Cipher. Creating a small ripple in front of him, Cipher shielded himself with Glitch Mob, sending the wave of attacking energy to a nearby dimension blindly.
Getting up with a cough, Cipher prepared himself again as Frank took up a baseball pitcher’s position. Drawing his hands close to himself, he combined magical energy with ki energy in an almost taboo technique, creating a small sphere of packed, explosive energy within his hands.
Hurling the Fastball Special forward, Frank grinned as Cipher slapped it away with a wave of his hand, the back of it coated with the rippling energy. Slowly walking towards Frank, Cipher growled as he began to charge up Glitch Mob fully, his defenses growing now that it had a focus.
Frank took up position and threw another Fastball Special at Cipher, who once again waved it away to harmlessly explode against a nearby streetlamp.
“That’s strike TWO, Fran-”
Cipher gasped as Frank leaped up, suspended mid-air by the sheer size of the massive globe he now conjured overhead. The Fastball Special upgraded, this was exactly the moment Frank’s Overdrive-fueled intuition had been waiting for.
