Whether it was the chemical composition of his body having changed in a short period of time, or simply because Needle administered a more subtle dose into his system, the sweet euphoria blooming through his veins this time didn’t feel quite as all-consuming or incapacitating as before. Brennan could still retain some tenuous grasp on reality, allowing him to navigate the real world with still dazed, yet conscious eyes.
With Needle climbing onto his shoulder again, whispering guidance that Brennan didn’t even think to question, he just focused on chasing that blissful high, letting it numb him of worries, horrors and anxieties.
On the monstrous cricket insistence, Brennan crossed to the apartment’s window and threw it open, inviting the cool night air to caress his frame. He climbed out onto the exterior ledge with fluid grace, deftly shimmying up the building’s veranda in effortless acrobatic motions that defied human capabilities. Fear of falling would have normally gripped him, yet he remained utterly unaware of such trivial concepts like gravity or danger.
He leapt from building to building, his bare feet pale against the rough concrete yet undaunted by the dizzying heights. His focus had narrowed to simple pleasures —the crisp breeze ghosting over his naked torso, the solidity of the rooftops as he stepped upon them, and the glorious absence of thought or responsibility.
For however long that bliss lasted, he was unshackled from the confines of his pathetic mortal form. Embracing his re-found transcendent freedom, Brennan surrendered fully to Needle’s lead as they traversed across the city skyline in an inhuman display, leaving only impossible footprints behind.
Beverly, Oscar, parents, his studies and the past. All of them mere names and matters he chose to leave behind, receding into the horizon just like the building he had been calling home until now.
It was rebirth, shedding the shackles of his former life like a serpent would do so with its skin.
There was a million of shimmering possibilities, half-formed wishes and obscene dreams yet unknown to him but soon to be realized. His trail was one of gleeful uncertainty, a journey with no defined destination save for the next thrill or pretty sight to enrapture his senses with.
One or two times, he stumbled, crashing through unclear obstacles in a strepitous disaster that should by all means have left his bones shattered. Yet not even a military missile could pierce the heavy steel casing of his euphoric high. He simply picked himself up and marched on, recovering without effort.
Flashing lights from ambulances and police cars painted his name across the night sky, fleeting iridescent streaks that branded Cretierfield as his own personal playground. He moved through the blinding chaos until finding his sanctuary in the basement of a nightclub, a ghost amidst the churning mass and the background neon strobes —a supernova out of phase with their base reality.
Surrounded by the faceless crowd and bass pulsations, Brennan felt like freedom given breath, like the insatiable hunger that drove the universe ever outward into unexplored infinities. Voices drowned by the thunderous music, petty human concerns held no sway over him —he could afford to be unaware, to let their fleeting dramas play out without consequence.
They could all retain their shapeless form for all he cared, their vapid existences beneath his lofty contempt… At least until suddenly, one indistinct figure coalesced into something more… Lovely. Petals of crimson satin, flushed with inner light like a wildflower in full bloom. There was an intoxicating perfume mixing in with all the sweat —the scent of warm flesh and sin.
“Don’t you seem like a fun one?” The silken voice was a velvety caress against to his ears as the rosy apparition danced closer, feminine curves grazing his naked torso in tantalizing delight. “Mind if I cuff you for tonight?”
“I… I can't wait...” Brennan trembled amidst pants and gasps from all the adrenaline coursing through his veins. “I want your petals to water my garden in blood.” The feverish words tasted foreign on his tongue. Were they murmurs induced by Needle’s suggestions, or his own depraved desires given voice? “Please… Be my rose...”
“You’re really fucking wasted, aren’t you?” A silky laugh escaped the rose-woman's lips, amused and intrigued. “We get your type all the time in here. It’s what makes the Pixipoint Club such fun.”
Statement that was punctuated by a downwards trail performed by her delicate hands, fingers wrapping around the fabric over his crotch with hungry need. The spike of physical sensations was barely felt through Brennan’s drug-addled numbness, for other possibilities altogether were the ones igniting his cravings.
Beyond her awareness, this living rose was temptation incarnate, daring him to indulge in raw, brutal desires. To force her flora to unfurl in crimson ecstasy, to scatter the petals of her flesh across the writhing dance floor.
Lowering his mouth to the juncture of her neck, Brennan inhaled the heady fragrance of her perfume, further unraveling himself in her.
“That’s it, Brennan.” Cutting through the haze, Needle’s voice resounded inside his mind as the monstrous creature crawled from his body and onto hers, position itself on the back of her shoulders. Perhaps he would have been revolted by its form under normal circumstances, but right now… Brennan was past caring about its abysmal silhouette. “Keep her that way… Close and vulnerable.”
Like a bee drawn to nectar, any self-restraint he could’ve possessed dissolved in the sweet warmth of this nebulous girl, as she melted against him when their limbs intertwined, fevered and pliant beneath his wandering hands.
His tongue explored the thrumming pulse just beneath the satin skin on the nape of her neck, and Brennan felt like he could practically taste her lifeblood, so close and so inviting. It was just too exquisite to resist.
In one savage motion, his teeth sank deep into her tender flesh. The girl’s breath hitched in a gasp of surprise, and immediately afters, nails raked harsh lines down Brennan’s back as her body tried and fail to put distance between them —the pain only inflaming his ardor even further.
A guttural groan vibrated up from his chest as hot arterial spray painted his tongue. Her sweet blood was ambrosia, a forbidden fruit from the garden he now defiled with rabid abandon. It trickled down his chest like a nurturing rain, embracing him as a lover’s caress.
Vaguely, Brennan registered shouts and screams from the crowd as his atrocity became hard too horrific to ignore. Hands clawed at him, trying to tear him away from the bleeding rose he clutched possessively. Grinning, his teeth peeled back from the bloodstained neck as entire chunks of tissue were ripped by his savage motions, exposing the pulsing artery beneath.
She was his prey, and he would let no one steal what was his, not until every petal had been plucked and consumed.
The tumult surrounding Brennan intensified into a seething mob of flailing limbs and strident protests. Fists and feet collided against his body multiple times, but in his stupor, he only registered them as little more than whispers when compared to the discordant symphony he created and unfolded.
All that mattered was the way in which meat yielded to the insistence of his caving fingers… That, and the refined chuckle of Needle reverberating through the fog.
“Brennan-boy… You’re such an impatient fool.” The cricket’s tone held a mocking disapproval, yet it was clear that it too was drinking from the escalating pandemonium with a glee akin to his own. “You need to cultivate your patience, my dear lad.”
Patience? Such an abstract concept, completely lost to Brennan as his entire being was consumed by a frantic surrender to impulse. The frenzy of violence became an outlet, a way for his body to catalyze that carnal high into a tangible medium.
With each vicious tear of limbs and snaps of bone between his savage hands, he experienced fleeting instants of the sublime. He wasn’t sure when he had moved on from the rose-woman’s form after tearing her asunder, diving into the butchery with wild efficiency. The screams replaced the music to conform a chaotic chorus, fueling delirium as he transformed into the eye of a storm.
Rapid pants flowed through his system like a bellows stoking the inferno, breathing in destruction through the lens of distorted perception. This was his baptism by fire… And it was so fucking glorious. Brennan threw his head back, his mouth open in a feral smile of sheer pleasure.
Only Needle’s crisp, refined laughter was capable of piercing his euphoria, but rather than stop him, it egged him on to discard every last vestige of restraint —its own mouth full in their shared feast.
At least until his entire surreal ecstasy screeched into a jarring halt, as if the entire world had slammed the brakes on him. One moment he was the vortex of the hurricane, and the next he was being viciously launched backwards —able to interpret only half of the brutal force that collided with his body.
He crashed through the rickety structure of what must have been the nightclub’s stage, jagged wood and twisted metal tangling with his limbs. He groaned in profound agony, as a wave of pain he had believed himself impervious to washed through him, rupturing against the shores of his awareness.
The living purple hues of Needle’s poison ebbed inside his veins like a retreating tide, leaving him disoriented and half-broken to the cruel confines of reality once more.
Every breath was a labored rasp in his ravaged chest, struggling and failing to rise from the rubble, his arms giving out from under him —his weight far too much for his dislocated joints to support.
“Rise and shine, Brennan-boy.” Needle’s voice sliced through his faded consciousness —sharp, unwavering, and uncharacteristically serious. The cricket crept into his view, spindly legs standing by his side as its eyes remained laser-focused on a threat still out of view, appraising it with cautious tension. “I’m going to require your complete faculties for what lies ahead.”
Despite his battered state, the words chilled Brennan like a bucket of freezing water. He dragged himself to sit upright as his body reformed itself haphazardly under protesting wheezes of suffering, his head swimming as the disorienting fragments of the surroundings slowly assembled into a full shape.
The first sensation registered through his skewed senses was the acrid, foul taste coating his mouth. He gagged, struggling to swallow down the piece of… Something meaty and viscous still lodged in his esophagus. Bile burned at the back of his abused throat as he fought against the powerful urge to vomit up the lingering remnants.
Finally, hawked up a bloody chunk and spat it aside, gasping for air. It was only then that he could finally ascertain the enormous figure slowly walking closer towards him.
He was an immense mountain of a man, his bulky frame composed more of layers of fat than muscle. Grease-stained jeans threatened to split at the seams around his midsection —the waistband cutting deep angry grooves into his distended belly. A sleeveless shirt did little to contain the rolls of tan skin and flesh spilling out beneath his filthy biker jacket.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“So who the fuck do you think you are, you fucking sonuvabitch?” In his forced awareness, Brennan felt like each of this man’s heavy steps made the floor tremble, enraged blue eyes staring at him with practically no humanity left, under a rounded and puffy face, a wiry and unkempt lock beard covering his double chin.
Terror lanced through Brennan, cutting through whatever lingering chemical haze to let sheer cold clarity set in. This wasn’t a brad trip or a hallucination, but a very real menace instead.
“You mess in my turf! Fuck with my cattle!” His words were punctuated by heavy slams of his hands against his chest, rumbling the wild chaos of greasy black hair attempting to stand high on his head, dyed on the tips with deep red hues. “I should fucking dismember you for even rearing your fucking head on my territory!”
>> “Tell me one good reason I shouldn’t gut you right fucking here.”
The once vibrant nightclub was in ruins around them. The dance floor and seating areas were now a gallery of shredded bodies and spilled viscera. His own handiwork, Brennan presumed, committed in the throes of his all-consuming frenzy.
“Stay still.” The monstrous cricket whispered from the shadows of the rubble. Before he could react, he felt the sharp point of its proboscis piercing his back —a new dose of the toxin flooding his veins. He couldn’t completely suppress a full-body flinch, but only a faint groan was extended from his mouth as his companion’s hypnotic voice overrode the instinct to recoil. “On my cue… You pounce.”
>> “Do not falter, we are not the prey in this encounter.”
An exchange that seemed to occur completely outside of the fat punk’s awareness, his meaty hands moving to clench around Brennan’s throat as he ranted.
“I know for a fact that no one is stupid enough to walk like this into Tools n’ Corpses territory, not without a death wish.” Cold sweat beaded on Brennan’s brow as those dead eyes bored into him. What did he see staring back? Some skinny kid in way over his head? “Are you from Midwich Valley? Did that bastard Ross send you?”
>> “Are you some kinda fuckin’ kamikaze or something?!”
Releasing him momentarily, the mountainous and overconfident man seemed to get lost in his own ramblings, his beefy arms crossing as he seemed to ponder upon something. It was a split second of distraction, and enough for Needle’s piercing command to lance through Brennan’s nerves.
“Now!”
With a feral growl, Brennan launched himself —his frame employing far more speed and strength than its scrawny composition should be able to. One moment he was sitting down defenseless, and in the next he tried to drive himself into this foul-mouthed stranger with the force of a train itself.
The impact from his charge should have been more than enough to blitz through the man where he stood. Brennan was employing even more conscious might than he had when rending human bodies to shred barehanded.
Yet somehow, impossibly… This man held his ground.
Brennan’s teeth gritted hard enough to produce sound as he slammed into the pile of fat and muscle, being met with an unyielding resistance. The biker’s legs planted themselves firmly, his boots grinding into the nightclub’s floor as he withstood through sheer mass alone. He could feel the corded muscle straining under the layers of flab as the two of them grappled in mutual effort.
Only for the man’s mouth to split into a yellowed and crooked grin —one that made Brennan immediately realize that both him and Needle had been underestimating this new monster.
A new presence manifested in the periphery of his vision with a sound like ripping butcher paper. Brennan’s head whipped around just in time to see a hulking, grotesque figure solidifying from the ether itself.
This… Thing, appeared composed of various animal carcasses stitched together in a nightmare patchwork of rancid meat and foul ooze. It had a pig’s head, lolling lifelessly atop elongated limbs that ended in meat cleaver appendages. There was no smell, but the image alone was enough to make his nose crinkle.
The pig specter violently shifted through the air between him and its partner, a cleaver arm rearing back in a swift motion aimed straight for Brennan’s frame… And then his world was momentarily overtaken by agony.
He gasped, soundless, as the uneven blade diced through his abdomen with sickening force, cleaving flesh rather than slicing cleanly. His body hardly had the time to draw blood before he felt himself airborne once again, this time crashing through flimsy wooden tables near the basement’s walls, slumping amidst discarded corpses.
Shock cascaded over him, gripping his open wound with trembling hands to prevent his organs from spilling forth, cruelly held completely aware by the dregs of Needle’s toxin swimming in his organism.
Through a growing crimson haze, Brennan made out the swagger of his opponent’s lumbering approach, the menacing outlines of the pig-like creature floating behind his back like a grotesque guardian.
“That was no regular blow, alright.” The self-proclaimed owner of the place kept a cautious distance despite his overzealous bravado, sizing Brennan up with wary eyes. “I see clearly you ain’t no regular human.”
>> “Not like I didn’t suspect that from the get-go.” He added with an ugly sneer. “What? Thought you were the main character or something, you little bitch?”
>> “Bad news tough guy. You fight like a little kid learning how to walk.”
‘Where was Needle?’ Brennan resentfully asked himself, abandoned by the monstrous cricket in the most crucial time. Had it scuttled off cowardly while he faced this brute alone?
“Wait…” His aggressor seemed to notice something amidst his frantic glances, a glimmer of self-gratification in that mug of his. “How long since you’ve had it?”
>> “Your Punisher.”
“Punisher?” Brennan managed to ask, releasing some of the pressure from his wounds as he realized the opened flesh had sealed itself, something he’d rather not let this man notice just yet. “Is that what those things are called?”
He ended up wincing as the brute let out a loud and mocking laugh —a sound as ugly as the guy that birthed it.
“Oh kid, you got no idea the kinda shit you’ve stepped in, do you?” He made a motion with his bulbous face towards the pig-creature hovering at his side, his ‘Punisher’. “Been rolling with Rottgore since before you were born, fucko.”
>> “And know what? You need to teach these monsters who’s in control. Otherwise, they eat you alive. Heart first.”
The creature so-called Rottgore let out a disturbing squeal at the punk’s words. Whether it was in defiance or acceptance, Brennan couldn’t decipher. The only thing he knew was that the two of them had a very different relationship from his and Needle’s.
“But I dunno if you’ve got what it takes.” The brute leveled him with a final look of utter disdain. “You’re just a fresh-faced runt still shittin’ your diapers.”
>> “Look at you. I bet you’re even waiting for your little babysitter Punisher to swoop in and save your ass, don’t you?”
The fat punk’s words struck a chord deep within Brennan’s pride, rousing what should’ve been withered long ago, because… Damn it all, the bastard was right —he was waiting for Needle to come and save him, just like always expected others to solve his issues.
A familiar feeling of helpless resentment welled up, that same frustration he bottled away after the incidents in the past with Moxie, and more recently with Beverly. Brennan hated how easily this disgusting man had him figured out, hated that such a revolting person could so brazenly mock him.
But more than anything, he reviled the truth behind those cutting insults.
He had already allowed Needle to say whatever the hell it wanted before. This random guy? No matter how strong he thought he was, Brennan vowed to force-feed every one of those demeaning words back.
Savagery exploded once more from Brennan’s chest as sheer defiance took control of his body. It wasn’t something born out of any desire for self-improvement, nor any other misconceived higher moral standpoint. It was a simple and petulant refusal to accept his weaknesses being so crudely stated by a stranger.
If this was to be his deathbed, then he’d rather go out in a blaze of useless self-destruction instead of a pathetic whimper.
With that goal, Brennan dredged up every last searing drop of Needle’s toxin clawing through his veins, harnessing its unnatural power in one final, desperate burst. He launched himself at the punk’s direction once more —lacking any semblance of strategy or even much thought; just rage and reckless abandon fueling his attack.
Rottgore swept in to intercept him, cleavers slashing in a horizontal arc that would bisect a normal man with ease. But Brennan was already twisting with inhuman reflexes, retreating in millimetric precision to avoid the swinging blades as the beast interrupted his advance.
Frustration continued to build as his reckless charge was cut short time and time again. With the pig-beast insisting on shielding its partner, the cleaver appendages were swung every time Brennan tried to close the distance, each lunge avoided by a hair’s breadth.
Well… If that fat fucker wanted to hide behind his monstrous bodyguard, then so be it. He simply needed to batter his way through the abomination first.
He feinted left, allowing one of Rottgore’s slashes to whistle past before whipping back with a vicious overhand haymaker. Brennan poured every last ounce of his phantasmagorical strength into the blow, feeling his knuckles connect with a sickening crunch.
The pig-creature’s head whipped sideways with the force of the impact. For one delirious moment, Brennan thought he’d shattered the beast’s skull entirely, but Rottgore merely shook itself and turned its dead eyes back towards him, undeterred.
“Nice shot, runt!” A mocking laughter grated on Brennan’s nerves. ”But there ain’t no way you’re winning with punches alo—“
But Brennan had no intention to let either of them get the last laugh. Whatever insult that was forthcoming died on the brute’s lips as his expression morphed into one of surprise, the young man raining an onslaught upon Rottgore by repeatedly slamming his fists into its grotesque form until reducing it to the floor in a crazed frenzy.
Each blow landed with a meaty thud, rending flesh as Brennan unleashed the full force of his drug-fueled rage. He was sure he heard cries of pain along the way, but everything was drowned out by the his own roars of exertion, knuckles splitting and bleeding as he made his damn best effort of pummeling the creature.
However, before he could reduce it to a rough, pulpy mess, what could only be described as chain of viscera and spinal cords whipped and coiled around his throat, yanking him forward with brutal force. The punk bastard had woven the nightmarish bindings from the corpses littering the basement, using Brennan’s distraction to regain the upper hand.
He choked and sputtered, clawing at the slimy chain tightening around his neck. Spikes of bone pierced his skin, growing unnaturally from the segmented vertebrae as they pressed constricted him. They were a strong indicator that this may very well be an effect akin to Needle’s toxin —however, his restricted air supply, as he was yanked with brutal force once more, left his thoughts half-baked.
Rottgore recovered somewhere amidst his struggle, letting out an enraged squeal as it rose on shaky limbs, cleaver-appendages raised high, prepared to mutilate its victim beyond recognition.
“Do not maim him! I want him alive!” Words loudly spoken that Brennan could barely interpret through the escalating panic and urgency gripping him.
In that moment, failing to break free from the flesh-molded confines, resignation fell over his shoulders like a divine judgment. He tried, by whatever suicidal and ultimately useless means he had at his reach.
But at the end, he was hopelessly outmatched against the synergy that his opponents held over him in such an abhorrent supernatural power. Perhaps if he and Needle could work together in the same manner…
The world grew hazy around the edges as Brennan began slipping towards the abyss. He didn’t even completely feel it when Rottgore’s bulk was slammed into his back like a truck running over him —his bones contorting and fracturing under the merciless impact.
He had only a distant, dreamlike impression of that bastard stepping into his view —or rather his boot grinding his face into the floor as Rottgore’s spectral form dissipated in a rancid-looking cloud of mist.
“You’re certainly a crazy motherfucker. Got flashbacks of an old dead pal of mine." The larger man grunted, sounding almost impressed despite the remnants of their struggle also being felt on his strained voice. “Still, never seen anyone fight a Punisher bare-fuckin’-handed like that before.”
>> “So let it be known that Vardon Hogstead is willing to show you mercy, kid.”
A series of dull thumps reverberated through Brennan’s shattered form as heavy stomps connected with his skull.
“First though…” Vardon continued, his voice merely wisps on the abyss now. “I gotta make sure I beat some proper respect into ya.”
And then he felt his consciousness slipping away, entirely numbed to both pain and insult as his eyes slid shut.
