Delinquency

by Daemon McRae

Level Fourteen: Bad to Worse

Level Fourteen: Bad to Worse

In most stories, when there is a single male among a myriad of females, the male will typically take the lead in a show of bravado and dominance. This is a trait that has been passed down genetically since cavemen first started leaving their mates at home to go hunting. It has, of course, evolved since then, and more recent gender equality movements have encouraged the undermining of this trope, but it still exists. The small lizard brain at the base of our own has more control than we’d like to believe, driving men to protect women at great risk, even that of looking like a fool.

Deep Treble, on the other hand, seems to have dodged this genetic trait entirely. Walking steadily, if not entirely confidently, in the middle of the group, he was more than happy to let an excitedly violent Aria and an over-eager Pinkie pie take the lead, while he stood in front of Adagio, flanked by Twilight and Sonata. Under normal circumstances, he would revel in the situation, if at least internally. Strutting down the hallway surrounded by cute girls was, is, and will probably always be a dream of his. Though he would never say it aloud, for fear of being verbally and physically assaulted by most if not all of the women he knows. He was unsure how he’d managed to fill his life with over-aggressive boys and girls, but decided many times not to dwell on it as long as he didn’t have to do too much fighting. Combat was not his strong point.

Returning to an earlier point, it bears stating that these were not normal circumstances, and in all honesty, the last thing on his mind was the bevy of pretty girls in his company. He was much more distracted by the fact that the walls seemed to be peeling off, revealing sickly, fleshy masses underneath.

The general consensus was that they were all going to be rather ill afterward. “What the hell is all this?!” Aria demanded, pointing her weapon at the walls, unsure of whether or not to open fire.

Treble fought back a rising tide of bile. “Well, if I remember my Spooks 101 well enough, this is what happens when stuff from outside our dimension starts forcing its way through. They start imposing the laws and nature of their reality onto our own in an attempt to create an environment they can exist in without collapsing into our limited number of dimensions.”

Twilight turned and blinked at him. “That was both very succinct and extremely terrifying.”

“You should sit in for the next class,” Treble replied dryly. “You’d be thoroughly impessed. If not traumatized.”

Pinkie Pie flinched away from a wall that had… pulsed at her. “Ok, this is like, SUPER-icky, can we light it on fire?”

Aria nodded. “Kinda wondering that myself.”

Adagio scoffed and cuffed her sister. “Of course not, moron. That’s still the WALL. You know, attached to the floor we’re standing on? Believe me when I tell you you don’t want to walk through melted linoleum.”

“Right,” Treble agreed, as Aria grumbled something rude, rubbing her head. “Also, there’s a chance this might not be real. And if it’s not, we don’t really want to introduce fire into this equation.”

“What do you mean?” Sonata asked hesitantly. She pulled a disgusted face as some of the wall dropped to the floor next to her, revealing more of the reddish, inflamed material underneath.

Treble gave an explanation rather similar to, if not significantly less wordy than, the one Spooks had provided earlier in regards to psychic projections and what the mind could and couldn’t process. “It’s possible that this isn’t actually what’s going on, that it’s just covering up something much worse that our brains refuse to process. And who knows what’ll happen if you add fire to that powder keg.”

Aria leaned away from the wall until she was in the middle of the corridor. “Wonderful. Is there anything I can light on fire?”

As if in answer to her question, a classroom door burst down behind them all. Strutting into the hallway with heavy footfalls was another of the Blank Slates, as the Sirens had called them. “THAT!” Treble barked, pulling up his own makeshift weapon. “YOU CAN KILL THAT!”

Adagio, who was, unfortunately, closest to the creature, had a bit of trouble figuring out which part of her flamethrower did what. Aria had no such qualms, practically sliding in front of her sister and opening fire on the advancing golem.

Open fire she did, as a matter of fact. The stream of flame that burst forth from the gun encapsulated the golem in a tide of heat and light, as it flailed wildly in a poor attempt to put itself out. Barring that, it opted to run forward, possibly in an attempt to catch its prey on fire. Of course, they were all too eager to step aside. As the creature ran forward, it met no resistance, instead charging blindly down the hallway where it eventually fell to its ‘knees’ and collapsed into a heap of burning flesh.

Sonata, unfortunately, had stepped too far aside, all but launching herself into the hideous fleshy walls. She met the pulsing meat with her shoulder, and tumbled into it.

Both of her sisters ran to her aid, screaming her name. “SONATA!” They yelled, as they reached the now hole in the wall where she fell through. They breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that she was, for the most part, unharmed. If not completely grossed out. Then they got a look at the other side of the wall. “Oh, that is GROSS!” Aria shrieked, her cry echoing into the cavernous opening.

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Catching up to Rubble had been easier done than said, in fact. Spooks and Dusty had only had to run the length of maybe one corridor before they caught up to him. Of course, it helped that he’d stopped walking entirely. When they reached him, they too, stopped, seeing what it was that had drawn their friend to a halt.

Spooks took a moment to excuse himself to the nearest trash can, where he politely emptied his stomach.

The hallway had devolved, or evolved, somehow, into something much worse than pulsing veins and glowing skin. In the light of day, they would have been looking down the hallway leading to the rear of the building, where the motocross course had been built for the Friendship Games last year. In this increasingly alien, moonlit environment, however, it had mutated into something terrible. A jungle of flesh spread out before them, the walls, floor and ceiling an intricate web of tendons and stretched skin. Bands of taught muscle stretched out over thick layers of undefinable meat, all throbbing out of sync with one another, almost maliciously. Large fibrous bands of muscle hung from the ceiling, suspending large orbs, or sacks, of glowing skin and fluid in the air. Overgrown stumps of muscle and withered skin grew out of the ground until they reached the ceiling, where they ended in almost web-like intricate patters of tendons and nerves.

The hall itself was significantly larger, both in length, height, and width, than it had been when they’d patrolled it only hours before. In fact, if one had bothered to measure the dimensions, it would have outgrown the space of the building it occupied. It looked less like a hallway and more like an endless, macabre tunnel, dug out by a monstrous beast of ill intent. On top of it all, amidst the irregular, desynchronized pulsing and throbbing, the entire hallway expanded and contracted at regular intervals, and with each such contraction, a wave of hot, vile air rushed along it’s length.

It was breathing.

Spooks returned from evacuating his stomach contents, only to take another look at the manifestation and fight another rising tide. “There is no fucking way I’m walking down that hallway.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” said a malicious, mature voice from behind them. The three turned to see an angry, familiar looking woman in purple robes approach them, hate burning in her eyes with the same unnatural light as the hanging pods. “You won’t make it that far.”

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The rest of the girls, and Treble, gathered around the fallen Sonata to help her up. In doing so, they’d also caught sight of the world beyond the wall. In an opening no bigger than a classroom, which it might have been at one point, was a small cavern of the same flesh and otherwordly light the other boys had encountered. Although they had no way of knowing that. The major difference, however, was the lack of any tendons hanging from the ceiling, suspending the glowing pods. Instead, said pods seemed to line the walls and floor in places, gathering in nests in the corners, and covering what looked to be a massive tree trunk of heavy, fibrous muscle in the middle of the room.

“That is… oh my god that’s awful,” Adagio murmured, barely restraining the urge to vomit.

Twilight was less fortunate. Pinkie Pie patted her on the back as she leaned against a small, still regular-looking section of hallway, heaving her stomach contents onto the floor. Pinkie, of course, was having trouble not following suit.

Sonata had a rather different reaction. “Oh god it’s ON ME get it OFF I can FEEL it somebody give me a shower!!” she ranted, moving far away from the opening, and standing as dead-center in the hallway as she could. She adamantly refused to take a step that would draw her closer to the walls.

Aria gave Treble a look he had seen before. One that said ‘Ok, I should be freaked out, but somehow I’ve hit my maximum and come full circle to just being mad again.’ It was one Rubble had all but trademarked. “NOW can I light it on fire?”

Treble handed her his own flamethrower. “Be my fucking guest.”

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Rubble almost smacked himself in exasperation. “Really? THIS was your big idea?! Throwing your chips in with some otherwordly monstrosity?!” he bellowed at the newcomer.

The newcomer being ex-Principal Cinch. “Why not? Your… ’school’ has already taken enough from me! My job, my reputation! My HOME! I was thrown out on the street! Thanks to that fiasco at the Friendship games, I’ve been blacklisted by the school board! Not even Private Schools will hire me!” she ranted, pacing madly back and forth across the hall, as if it weren’t made of horrible, unyielding meat. “There’s nothing you can do to stop It That Breathes Last, anyway! I just wanted to make sure your precious… institution was ground zero!”

Spooks raised a hand, currently buckled over, yet somehow on his feet. He didn’t bother looking up before he addressed the newcomer. “Problem. This shit’s been in motion for like a hundred years. And I doubt even a gargoyle like you has been around that long.”

Cinch scoffed at the petty jab. “Please, do insult me more if it makes you feel better. Of course I’m not the one who orchestrated all of those accidents. That was the Last’s work. We simply gathered to make sure you upstart children didn’t get any bright ideas about derailing His Monstrosity’s grand design.”

Dusty rolled his eyes. “Oh wonderful, a doomsday cult.”

Cinch snapped a finger, and a handful more robed figures stepped forward. Most of them were unrecognizable, save for one that Rubble pointed to indignantly. “Dude! We bought our kitchen stuff from you! Come ON!”

The man, a portly sort with a large mustache, nodded. “That you did, boy. I appreciate your patronage. Unfortunately, pocket money like that isn’t enough to turn the tide of Armageddon.”

Rubble thought for a second. “Well, ok, that’s fair.”

“DUDE!” Dusty barked, smacking Rubble upside the head.

“Enough of your squabbling,” Cinch growled, pulling out a large athame. Her cohorts did the same. “You children will be no more than extra flesh for the manifestation as he rises when we’re done with you.”

Despite her cliched threats, however, the boys’ next move served to surprise her. They did take a step back in fear, as she had expected, but not from her or her fellow cultists. Instead they’d opted to move as far away from Rubble as they could without touching… well, anything.

Rubble grinned widely, a maniacal, almost relaxed grin, as if all the tension had gone out of him. The kind of smile you see on a sociopath when he realizes the cops no longer suspect him. Pulling out his knives, and sliding on his knuckle dusters, he took a martial stance and stared down the advancing crowd with something in his eye that gave even Cinch a moment’s hesitation.

Happiness.

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The scene in the gym had quickly devolved in the boys absence. More students had noticed the now-expanding veins in the walls, as well as other phenomena reflective of the rest of the school. Gathering in the center of the room, they had long since moved past panic, and were huddled together, looking to someone to save them.

That someone, of course, being the few Rainbooms still left in the room. Sunset had taken off to look for Pinkie and Twilight when Rainbow had let slip their idea to use the Chem Lab’s sodium supply. Which may have been the best move, given that using her power in such a crowded space, with such a rising tide of fear, might have shattered her psyche.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack were busy alternating between tearing down the encroaching forest of flesh, and fighting off the wave of golems coming through the gym doors. Applejack had taken point in guarding the entrance, as her enchanced strength was more than enough to take on one or two at a time. And as long as she kept picking them up and throwing them back out the door, into the advancing crowd, the golems weren’t gaining any ground.

Dash was dismantling the forest as quickly as it grew, though even with her speed being everywhere at once was impossible. She couldn’t risk setting fire to it, either, lest the entire gym catch and endanger or kill the students still trapped inside. “Where the hell is Fluttershy?!” Dash screamed, in a moment of passing by Applejack.

The farmgirl yelled back over her shoulder as she threw two more golems bodily into the doorway, knocking over a large portion of the crowd. She’d pushed them back enough that they were now on the other side of the doorway, and she took the opportunity to pull the door shut and lock it. “I don’t know! She said sumthin’ ‘bout goin’ to find help!”

Rainbow, seeing the now locked door, rushed tables and chairs into a pile in front of it for Applejack to build a barricade.

This lasted until one of the windows crashed in, and another tide of golems crawled through. “SUNUVABITCH.”

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Sunset Shimmer was lost. The hallways she knew and trusted, even ruled at one point, had remapped themselves. Flesh covered the walls and lockers, growing unorganized in meaningless masses out of impossible angles. She ran, corridor after corridor, doing her best to ignore the surroundings. Eventually, she came to a halt, as she heard something familiar: voices. Lots of yelling. Some screaming.

She ran towards the commotion, turning one last corner and finding the source of the noise. In a large, an impossibly large, cavernous jungle of meat and light, were most of the boys, and a group of robed adults, some of which she recognized. Dancing among them, moving with more speed and aggression that she had ever seen, was Rubble. He ducked and spun, almost dancing as he dodged glints of steel and wildly aimed punches, cutting and jabbing at anything he could reach.

As Sunset watched the fight, it became apparent that the adults present had depended on their size, age, and a child’s natural cow to authority to win them the fight. What they hadn’t depended on was a professionally trained delinquent who’s favorite pastime was not only ignoring authority, but actively opposing it. Well, his second favorite.

As Sunset stared on, unsure of whether or not to be more afraid of the monsters, or the man, she realized his true favorite pastime, and what would have been his ‘special talent’ had he been born in Equestria: violence.

Comments

[Ytak]

I'd say the excrement has hit the fan except that might be an improvement compared to what they're facing.
I have to say that I like how you write your OCs. They have interesting and distinct personalities.

bevy of petty girls in his company

Petty? Or pretty? Or both?

[Jarimor]

violence.

img.memecdn.com/violence_o_262684.jpg

[Phoenix Flight]

As Sunset stared on, unsure of whether or not to be more afraid of the monsters, or the man, she realized his true favorite pastime, and what would have been his ‘special talent’ had he been born in Equestria: violence.

I wanna see that cutie mark

[LordMentat]

There’s nothing you can do to stop It That Breathes Last, anyway!

Any relation to He Who Walks Behind?

[psychosis]

8795586
Second cousin. We met one of its siblings in Cold Days, He Who Walks Ahead, or something to that effect. I think we can assume the other sibling, following the law of threes, would be He Who Walks Beside.

This is the part of the story were I remember that other than your comedy works, which I highly appreciate, you wrote a certain horror fic that kept me awake for two days straight.