Chương 60: Basilisk

Life was easy when one convinces themselves to just let things pass their mind. The living struggle with this, but Jairo? Jairo never had any such problem. Jairo had been dead for months now. The person inhabiting Jairo had his name, most of his face, his memories, his personality, arguably his soul. But his life was long-since gone.

It was, unfortunately, claimed by a little creature that took up residence within Jairo's chest, a punishment for the sin of existing as merely a normal predator in the temporary demesne of the super predator that paid his hometown a visit. That specific memory was one he was never able to forget. Huddled in a cramped office building he had escaped to, thinking the thick concrete walls would provide bulwark against the thunderous steps of the great beast that climbed from the sea.

In all technicality, this was completely true. What he had not realized, due to losing his phone in the escape, was an evacuation order. The legendary hero Guapo Galera, the great shrimp-like superhuman, was in town. As a consequence of the monster's size, Guapo Galera would have to exercise his "Mantis Shrimp Punch," a sort of strike so powerful it could cause severe collateral. Had Jairo known about this evacuation order due to Guapo's decision, he would likely have been far, far away. That was not the case.

The thundering boom, so great that no font was able to represent an iota of its auditory assault, had sent the beast hurtling through the air. Unfortunately, the pressure of the blow had done two things in order. The first was, every single piece of glass in the city shattered. Exploded, practically. A cubicle protected Jairo from the worst of the injuries. The second was that the pressure of Guapo Galera's strike compressed the kaiju's body, squeezing out what would taxonomically be comparable to fleas.

The issue is, when a creature is the size of a cruiseliner, the fleas are about the size of cats. One had hurtled in through the destroyed windows. Due to instincts far too alien for human comprehension, it sought out a warm body. That warm body was Jairo's, which it entered via its mouth. Jairo recalled its appearance being something like a horseshoe crab, but with protruding limbs, and bony white. The noises it made were akin to squeezing of particularly seedy fruits, such as pomegranates.

He didn't hear many before it let out a squelching hiss and pounced, of course. That was the last memory he had of being truly alive. Everything since had been an afterlife on Earth. He accepted it, living as a fleshy ghost. It would be easier to do if the creature in his body didn't always echo with pulses of animal instinct. Some part of it dug into a linguistic center of his brain, though he lacked the verbiage to articulate that, it did mean that sometimes it would communicate ideas with him.

Never good ideas, just considerations for the taste of random small animals. His greatest surprise was its lack of interest in human flesh. Monster and horror movies and comic books and video games always painted these alien beasts as wanting to eat people. Perhaps it was simply too small to consider it. For the best, really. These thoughts were occurring to him as he was scrolling through his phone, home from being delivered by his good friend and fellow "Dojo Stormer" Christian.

Many tweets were composed with just the intent of distributing new links to reuploads of the video. That video featured quite a bit of footage of Leo likely taking a human life. It just surprised him. He thought he was at risk of being the first, with the monster in him trying to make a monster of him, convincing him of violence and frenzied carnivorism. Instead it was someone that everyone else was worried about, but none wanted to truly air the concern out loud. Leo was violent, he had a history of vigilantism!

He was arrested right after destroying someone's legs! He was stand-offish and always looked like he was in fear of ambush. Of course the fear would be there. But six months of hunting criminals and none died, so maybe he had the restraint? That was the unspoken excuse everyone gave. Unfortunately, they were wrong. All he could do was scroll past those videos, focusing on other random tweets he saw on his feed.

THE DARLING KING @kingtechofficial I'VE BEEN WARNING PEOPLE DAY IN, DAY OUT DON'T LET THE GOVERNMENT FUND PUBLIC SUPERHEROES PATRIOT PROJECT ARE KILLERS NO ONE LISTENS! ✰29. 8k ⟳10. 2k Adam "Witty" Wits @WittyAtTheKatt There's been a lot of armchair capes trying to talk about what Hercules did. He's a child. You weren't there. Leave him be. ✰3. 8k ⟳1k Jack "The Jackal" Mansley @TheJackal weve all made mistakes in our lives its about learning from them and overcoming our worst choices.

u arent a hero because u lived a spotless life ✰30k ⟳9. 5k CrimeMaster @TheCrimeMeister Look I'm going to be honest if one of my goons got punched through the chest I'd quit robbing banks #honest #facts ✰1.

2k ⟳122 BillPumpsterFan4875 @BillPumpsterFan4875 LA CUERNA THRU MY FUCKING VAN AT A VILLAIN AND FUCKING MISSED I JUST PAID IT OFF ✰900 ⟳388 goon sword @goonsword1 someone please tell the saint i need a list of all his weaknesses ✰366 ⟳69 Hero Pulse @HeroPulse Hero Pulse is aware of the recent news related to The New Sentinels. Due to its disturbing nature, we will not be covering it. ✰1k ⟳210 Absolutely nothing of value. People had too much free time and too many opinions, even Jairo could understand that.

He opted to put the phone away for now, instead focusing on just shadowboxing. The only time he could feel alive was when he was able to punch. As his body got into the stance that it was honed into since he could walk, he let memories of being alive flood his mind. Striking the bags, eating dinner with his parents, going to school, all the little games and recreation that filled his time. He could play in parks without people staring at him. When he spoke, no one flinched at the sound of his voice.

The most important thing was he could let his body relax. Jairo couldn't relax his body normally. It's when he let his muscles slip and relax that some little tendon that strangled the parasite in him could start modifying him. That's when the scales would form and his fingers would fuse together and his sight would be taken from him and all he could see were the little buzzes of lights and electricity. It wasn't the worst, in retrospect. Seeing all of those lights moving around, knowing they're from people?

That was the closest maybe anyone could verify to the existence of humans having souls. That was kind of cool. A little reward for his suffering, secret knowledge no one else could necessarily have. Except May, if she figured out how to see the same way. May. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. She deserved better. If he knew about the raid, he would have taken her place. Leo and Jairo could've easily beaten the tree guy.

They fought something like that before, the big robot guy! It just wasn't fair to her. If he lost a leg, it could easily be fixed, the magic lady fixed up a portion of his stomach after the robot guy put a hole in it! His fists cleared through the air faster and faster. Frustration was gasoline for his little engine. Was it because Leo hit harder? Jairo could hit hard too. He was more than capable of that. And he was trained. He could move even faster than Leo. So much faster. His arms were a blur.

The visions of different thugs and bad guys got clobbered with every blow, striking through miles of villainy in his head. But it's not Leo's fault. He's just doing his job. Tancred should've just reached out to him. Da-dum Da-dum Da-dum His heart finally started to beat now. Until the cardio pushed his heart into his throat, he was just a corpse. This was how he revived himself, kept his body aware of what being alive felt and looked like. He had to punch faster.

Tancred needed to be able to understand that there were no hands faster than his. Da-dum Da-dum Da-dum Da-dum Just had to keep going faster. No one could out pace him. Da-dum Da-dum Da-dum All he'd have to do Da-dum Is one clean strike Da-dum Straight through Da-dum Tancred's Da-dum Chest. He halted. That wasn't right. He didn't want to hurt Tancred. Tancred's never been actually mean to him. The auditor was the one who offered his ghost a chance at actually doing something with his lost life, gave him a new one.

Why would he think that? That's when it dawned on him that his vision wasn't clear. It was hazy. He recognized the haze. Jairo had let his body relax too much. That tendon was freed and his body was overtaken. So the answer was to flex it again. It never felt like anything. He only knew it by sight, and his eyesight told him it wasn't going back. Red alert. Jairo rushed out of his room, only managing to do so via familiarity with the layout, same for barging into Sam's lab.

He searched out for her heartbeat, and found nothing. She wasn't here. She must have still been checking in on Leo and May. Jairo cursed. He wasn't good at swearing but he swore nonetheless. Stumbling about, he couldn't take any further steps in. He wasn't familiar enough with the layout of the lab to risk moving further in and breaking everything. As tantalizing as making a wreck of the place felt to the little creature in him, his human brain won that debate.

Slowly, he backed up the stairs, stumbling onto his back by the time he made it out of the room. His body couldn't re-tense back up. This had happened a couple of times before, but it was always a matter of just relaxing. Deep breaths, tying his thoughts back together. Nothing. This was the worst-case scenario. Despite the fact he trusted Tancred, he didn't want to call out to the agent. There were enough complications. They were down two superheroes. He didn't want Christian to be left on his own.

And like that, he was forced to be distracted from his problems for just the shortest of moments. There was a buzzing in his pocket. Sensation was, thankfully, not stolen from him by the parasite; it was unable to take that away. Scrambling a hand into his pocket, he procured his phone. It said nothing. Not in that it was a false alarm, but it was a phone screen that emitted a vast array of light frequencies, including electromagnetic.

There was no way to actually see the screen, just a fuzzy rectangle of what might as well be white. He took deep breaths, flexed every muscle in his body. Barely was he able to twinge it enough that his eyes gained just a hair of focus. Just enough he could read the words on the screen. Three text messages. HELP NORTH CAN'T CALL That was all Jairo needed. He let the beast take back over his senses. He couldn't navigate the full base, but he was able to navigate to his own room and throughout it.

There, he acquired his costume, forcing it all on haphazardly before rushing out to the tunnels. These were all things he practiced, over and over. How to get out from his room to the tunnels. The one little bit of common sense he knew to employ. If only he kept that for other things. North meant police station path. Getting places was easy in terms of just movement. He was faster than anyone else he'd known. He was there in seconds, bursting through the door of the "outpost" that obscured this tunnel exit.

That's when he realized he had no idea where Christian was. Figuring out North was easy. North was something you could notice magnetically. But that didn't guarantee anything. There were over forty-five thousand people in Charlottesville. Focusing on one half meant he was still dealing with over twenty thousand people. Twenty thousand different heartbeats. And the distances. The heart's electromagnetic frequency, according to Sam, could radiate as far as three feet and still be picked up.

Anything further would make the waves to long to read by machines. But Jairo was no machine, Jairo was Jairo. Maybe he could catch the waves. The waves themselves were identifiable. That was something he also practiced: Identifying hearts. It's part of why he felt it was some mark of souls. Every heart beat just a little different due to personalities and disposition, despite being the same twitching muscle in everyone. Leo's was always heavy and fast. He seemed to be allergic to being calm, so it made sense.

May's was slow, methodical. She was always relaxed. Tancred's was practically quiet. He might have done some sort of training to keep his heart from beating too fast or hard. Sam's was light and super super fast. Jairo always thought that was because it needed to work harder to keep her big brain active. Christian's was the most distinct. Heavy like Leo's, but much slower. All he had to do was focus on that rhythm.

Da-dumda-dumda-dumda-dum Doomdoomdoomdoomdoomdoom Da-doomda-doomda-doomda-doom Too many hearts- Da Dom Da Dom Da Dom There it was. It was hard to find through all the noise, at this distance, but its shape was unmistakable. Just had to run in that direction. The world blurred. Heartbeats became little stars while he was a spaceship surging through a galaxy of souls disguised as a city of people with lives and dreams and futures. The only thing discernible besides the hearts was stone, concrete, asphalt.

It made its shape by being nothing. Instead of seeing them, Jairo saw their silhouettes as electromagnetic frequencies echoed off of them. Da dom Da Dom Da Dom Christian's heart was closer, and closer. Just had to- Da Dom Da Dom Da Dom It was even closer now. The building just ahead. Some parking garage. Beside it, this... mass. Electromagnetic frequencies piled together like almost a little sun. It was radiating from one floor, flooding out. That must have been where Christian was.

He lunged onto the wall, his claws digging into the concrete like it was soft sand. At his weight, it didn't cause him to fall down either. He was able to just keep clawing and yanking himself further and further up until he managed to scramble past the lip, rolling onto the ground.

"Teiú!" yelled Christian, prompting Jairo to snap his head in the direction he heard it from. He couldn't make out Christian's appearance, but that recognizable heartbeat was there, on the ground. Christian was lying down for some reason.

"Thank God, you made it. Look, there's-" Another voice, deep and heavy, spoke up.

"There you are!" Turning to the new voice, Jairo was nearly blinded by the electricity of the two people. One had a normal heart, but the other was clearly the source of that larger burst. Like a walking sun. Yet he could make out the person's appearance as a silhouette, contrasted by the electricity. The walking sun spoke, his voice smooth and hissing." What perfect timing. We had more questions that are best answered by more people."