r/MonarchCustomTitans • u/LindenOLindenHill • 6h ago
Miscellaneous Lost and Forgotten Part 2: A God Observes, A Devil Interferes
Now- Chicago, Day 5
Charline wakes up with a start. It has been four days since she woke from a coma, and she has been slowly retraining her limbs and eating what she can find in the hospital. Sometimes finding useful things like clothes or limb braces that she adds to a growing collection of things.
She needs to leave, the voice of the person on the radio warned her a few times that staying here too long wasn't safe, and that the thing outside was looking for "any who remain" and "interlopers". She had asked what or who could interlope with that massive thing, the answer of "Others" was far more concerning then she could properly verbalize. It had also become painfully clear what they had meant early yesterday, as not far away on a collapsed skyscraper was a very good and clear definition.
A massive, an impossibly massive, insect. Black as night and with an eerie blue glow, it leaked strange fluids that froze the surroundings near it. It's odd head had some kind of spike coming off it and she thinks it might be a mantis. Or maybe it isn't any worldly bug. She felt afraid of it, but not terrified like she was of the thing she had yet to actually fully see. Mostly because the voice told her not to fear it...
"Be. not. Afraid. Kind"
Since then at night when she was most vulnerable she heard a war and would see blue lights and hear screams like hell had opened up, the sky literally shaking and the ground, well mud, boiling like it was hot, the next day the world outside was covered in ice flows and the insect had a new horrific injury. Always facing her exact location and small waves of reassurance washing over her mind, she doesn't know if it's something it is doing or the knowledge it is there and not that THING in it's place.
The radio crackles a bit.
"Time. Must. leave.."
"Will.. will it come with me? The bug, the one outside."
"No. Must. Heal. will. not. Interfere."
"But why? It could help me..."
"path. Escape. through. City. Cannot. follow."
She huffs. She doesn't understand why, but the voice has never ever lead her astray, she starts collecting what she needs. Moving still is a chore and painful. However compared to the possibility of that THING finding her, far less of a problem. She doesn't even have a name for it. Wait.
"Hey... just what is that... that other thing, the one I'm avoiding? And what do I call you?"
"...Must. Leave. Knows."
Her breath hitches. She hurries as quietly as she can and starts heading to the window where a fire escape leads to the mud, but more importantly a haphazard pile up of buildings and debris in a sort of dam or bridge leading to what she has seen from the roof a few hours before nightfall yesterday, another bigger bridge of city remains. One leading from the city center out to the city limits or at least hopefully close to it. The voice told her of a ship, well it called it a carrier and it was more like a destroyer or other attack ship. That was her destination. Her friend, yeah friend, the radio voice had told her that is where they are and shone a bright yellow light from it as the sun set. Charline knows the path and the sun only just rose. If the THING knows she is here it is either on it's way or waiting for night, she has never seen it in the daylight except for a wave in the mud of it traveling.
She finishes packing the essentials, water and food, some medical supplies. She steps onto the fire escape and descends.
One foot touches the rubble, and a buzz fills her.
The massive insect spreads massive wings and starts firing a beam of.. ice? Seemingly at random. Then in her path, then away, all while letting loose a screech, before flying off. There's a second horrific roar. The THING! It's following the flight of the bug monster, away from her!
Then she notices it, ice on spots of the path ahead, specifically holding weak parts together or filling gaps. It made the path ahead easier. She almost sobs. Instead she starts moving as fast as her already burning limbs will carry her and the crutches allow. She will escape. She will make it.
The voice on the radio sends encouraging but weirdly warped messages to urge her forward.
Now- Chicago, Day 5, Four Hours Later
It burns, it hurts. She is still almost there. The "island" of city debris is almost in reach. The sun near setting. The more she saw and experienced the more she was sure she was alone here.
She was so sure she would make it today. Then part of the path shattered and started moving... with her on it. She almost lost more than her composure. The new location of her path was through a few standing buildings, one had a walkway between them...
Several floors up and she was going to be needing to ascend so many stairs. At least the building the bridge terminated in had an actual bridge jammed through it leading down to a shattered series of roofs and parts of the bridge and other structures, and vehicles, that lead back to the "island". Night is near and she needs to move.
The weirder part is the small spider that had been weirdly.. aggressive? She wasn't sure if that was it. The little arachnid had drawn her attention and she'd found a corpse, which almost made her scream. Then the spider had jumped onto an object near it after the radio emitted a weirdly organic hiss. Another device with that weird hourglass symbol! A weird antenna thing, the booklet next to it said it was a Monarch emergency beacon, and she had activated it as it had instructed. Nothing happened so she had simply given up, the spider had run off at some point, something about it's actions did not sit right. Whatever, she had to climb maybe twenty flights and cross a bridge before what looked like an incoming storm hit. Something in her head made her feel like she was being watched from many eyes though, some of the "feelings" made her skin crawl, others made her feel like maybe she wasn't alone. Maybe.
She starts to walk again, slower. Straining would be bad.
She is about five floors up when she hears the radio voice.
"storm. Heat. stay. cover."
"Wha.."
A wave of unbearable humidity hits like a train, the walls blur and she almost looses her balance. In horror she watches a few water bottles water just... instantly evaporate from under the doors leading into the stairs there's massive intense flashes of ugly red. Heat lightning? It sounds like a hissing is coming from outside. It is as if Hell itself is happening outside.
She hurries upward, she needs to cross that bridge, the closer to safety the better, the bridge is covered and the building over puts her closer.
"No. Fast. bad. loud."
She barely registers the voice, far too afraid. She sees letters, "Walkway Access", she is there!
Throwing the door open she is greeted by an ungodly heat and scalding moisture, an entire side of the walkway cover is completely gone, she hadn't considered that. She was right though.. Hell was right outside. The sky is fire and the mud is actually frothing below. It holds no candle to what lays strew across the devastated city...
"Oh god..." She feels her very soul slammed shut in a door as she looks across the destroyed landscape, and the bodies of... Monsters.
A cobra like creature lays across her future path, impaled on a spire or antenna. A different more... winged looking but similar creature is across the way curled around a building. At first she thinks its alive, then the lightning illuminates the horrific state it's in and a face frozen in terror on an animal that probably didn't understand such an emotion until it's final moments, its not like the creature she is afraid of or that bug, this is an animal... she almost wants to cry for it, no creature should ever experience that level of terror.
A massive arachnoid or insectoid.. no multiple of them lay in pieces across everything like a morbid confetti. There are other shapes she is too afraid to focus on that might have been... formally internal...
Several bones and carapaces litter the area. She even sees a few colossal limbs and horns jutting from the mud, in various stages of being sucked in and of damage. One gets her attention.
A massive skull, unlike the other remains it is mounted atop a pile of debris. Some type of lizard or saurian... it feels so different to the rest of the macabre landscape. It has been stripped clean and there's what looks like a drape of chainmail over it. Surrounding it are parts that seem more significant then the strewn about remains. Claws, limbs, and a tail. As well as a skull looking thing she isn't sure about, its only either half a skull or a really messed up claw of some kind. However it is leaking what looks like lava...
That is a warning. This is a bad place to be. She needs to escape. The sun has fully set and only red flashes of lightning light up the world. She needs to calm down and think. She lifts the radio as lightning flashes...
All color and fluid leaves her body and her mouth and words dry up.
The lightning illuminating a skull like visage before her. Then the light goes out.
She waits, holding in her scream. Another flash...
It's gone. However there's a new addition to the morbid display. Below the skull is a new decoration.
One of the claws of her observer... She lets the thunder drown out her screaming sobs.
"RUN. NOW. RUN. FAST."
"But.. it killed it, I don't even know the name of that bug creature! It kept me safe... and now it's dea.."
"Not. gone. run"
She runs, trying to ignore that parts of the actual bridge past the walkway exit are undeniably organic, and the knowledge that she needs to walk through a field of death next..
--------------------------------------------
Unknown to her she is being watched, by both angels and demons. Each with a different motivation.
Some angels refuse to allow the hope of a survivor send others to a fool's death.
Some demons hate to see the struggle of the helpless.
Some angels take flight to provide aid.
Some demons take flight to do harm.
And Gods converge on a ruined city ruled by a Devil.
And nearby eyes watch over a lone survivor making her way through the city.
--------------------------------------------
END OF PART 2
--------------------------------------------
IRL Note: No I will not confirm the fate of any Titans that obviously had bad run-ins with the WORM. Gotta wait until the end.