Figment, Part 8

To Serve And Protect

By Hedonism

Synopsis : Rebecca has kept her best friend with her since childhood, despite knowing full well that this friend is just an imaginary one she never had the heart to forget with maturity. Putting up with this minor psychological trait, she got on with life. Until she was attacked by two vicious gangs, and the friend she knew damn well was just made up turned out to be quite real, and capable of giving her ass-kicking transformation powers.

It turns out that things don't return to normality too easily after all. Rebecca's supervisor, Sarah AKA Magpie, proves she isn't a Lois Lane by figuring out Rebecca's alternate super identity, just on it's second appearance. What can our heroine(s) do to keep things secret, and how will they react to Sarah's request for them to make her into a bird?

* * * * * * * * * *

PART 8

: Don't you love the irony? : said Figment to Rebecca. : Yes, I can change her, with enough time. And if I do that, she won't be able to tell anyone about who we are!:

"Why? Why do you want to become an animal?!"

"You can't imagine. You know about that condition... dysmorphic something disorder?"

"Nope."

"It's where you want to get rid of perfectly fine limbs. Hell, it's a bit like that. Anyway, why did _you_ become an animal?"

Rebecca paused and turned her thoughts inwards. : That's a pretty good point. If you made me a bigger, tougher human, it'd be a bit less... I dunno... :

: Icky? Weird? :

: Well... :

Sarah watched Rebecca going red for no apparent reason.

: No offence taken, I was wondering when you'd be wondering that. It's 'cos I specialise in scaly; I can control our body best when it's reptilian. Plus, normally I sit inside you as a separate being. A parasite, basically. When we need to do something... Super, I merge with you completely. Then I can control our transformations and form even better still. :

Rebecca let this sink in while Magpie fidgeted.

"I have my reasons," she replied eventually, glad she knew now what they actually were.

"Oh yes?" asked Magpie in her inquisitive, secret-prizing crowbar voice. But as Rebecca just looked at her she smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

"So can you do the transformy thing on me, Rebs?"

"I... can. It'd take a while though."

: A week at least. :

"A week at least."

: I can make the changes to her body without actually altering her shape. Then when it's complete I can initiate the transformation in one go. This should only take a few minutes. :

Rebecca repeated this to Sarah. "But please think about it first! You get a week to be sure. Then it'll start."

Magpie nodded, her face showing pain and exuberance.

"I _will_ think about it. Believe me, I have for... about twenty-eight years. It's the oldest thoughts I remember having."

Suddenly she reached forwards and kissed Rebs on the cheek, making an exaggerated "Mwwah!" sound. Rebecca flinched backwards as Sarah laughed.

She thought to Figment, : Ick... Figment, could you tell me what you can do in the way of making a friend into a bird? Hell, more importantly, can we work out how the hell we can stop her from wanting it to happen? :

Before she could reply the canteen door opened and Isha stepped in. She closed the door firmly and pressed her back against it. If that had happened a second earlier she could have been a great witness for Reb's sexual harrassment charge joke.

"Sarah, there's some men come in," said Isha. "There's loads of them. I think they're here to cause trouble."

* * * * * * * * * *

The men in question were young, heavily tattooed, and wore mixtures of plain grey clothes, mostly torn T-shirts and khaki combat trousers. Some limped, nearly all wore bandages, but it was clear in their faces that they were looking for trouble and happy to create some if they couldn't find any. Rebecca paled as she recognised a few of the faces she had gotten to work on last night.

"They're one of the SCAN groups," said Magpie. "Isha, call the police."

"Who're the Scans?" asked Rebs as Isha gladly re-entered the canteen.

"The Society of Creative Anarchism."

Rebecca pondered on that.

"You mean the Society of Creative Anarchy?"

"Call them that and they'll probably kill you. They're vicious, weird bastards, like war re-enactors. But they like to re-enact some of the most worst gang wars ever held. They've killed - "

She topped talking as the leader, that towering basketballer walked to the counter, stared down at them and rumbled, "Where's the section on dragons?"

Rebecca stammered, tried to regain control of her vocal chords. Leaning over her, speaking carefully and angrily, he was somehow even more terrifying than Critter-Man.

"Dragons? You, ahh, mean mythology?" asked Magpie, back with her characteristic cheerful shrill voice.

"Yeah, close enough."

Magpie walked out from behind the counter, oblivious to the number and size of the men. The basketball thug took a long look at her, a challenge to meet his stare. She did so, uncompromisingly, and her smile was replaced with an up-for-it angry glare. While the men crowded around her she pulled her smile back on and turned at her leisure towards the right section, close to the Children's Corner. The gang walked with her and Rebecca peered nervously up the corridor, hoping Magpie would come back in one piece. A mother left the area swiftly with her kids.

Rebecca clutched her guts as she felt something move inside her.

: I don't think they recognised you. It was dark, and for much of the fight you were... pretty well disguised. :

: I hope so," she thought sincerely. "And I hope I don't have to go Lizard on them in broad daylight. :

She walked apprehensively into the Fiction room. The leader cracked his bandaged nose with his long fingers as the members of his group picked up books from the mythology section, went through a few pages and threw them away casually.

: Messy boys, : said Figment contemptuously. : You know the weird thing? I'm barely getting any fear out of Magpie. She's calm as hell! True, she knows you can back her up but even still - :

"She became a big-ass lizard," said the basketballer, continuing a conversation with Sarah. "Wings, tail, snake hair."

His voice was now tinged with fear, but this didn't reassure Rebecca. Now she expected him and his fellow psychopaths to start a fight out of unpredictable panic.

He continued. "The other SCANs, the ones we were gonna fight yesterday, she beat them as well. They went to the newspapers, said they'd share the money they got with us. But they disappeared. All of them."

There was a general nodding and muttering from the considerably more cowed gangbangers.

"They couldn't have left without us knowing, 'specially as we didn't want 'em going with our half the money. But they never even reached the press! This dragon bitch... I think she's killed 'em all. Probably eaten' em as well."

Magpie looked concerned. But she put a slight trusting smile in Rebecca's direction.

"Hey!" said the basketballer. "You think this is funny?"

As he clenched his fists Magpie shook her head and, surprisingly, placed her hand on his shoulder.

"No. This dragon thing? I even believe it. You'd be amazed how much us librarians know."

He looked temporarily pacified, but angrily shrugged away her hand.

"Keep looking. She ate a steel pole with her chest so I don' think we can just cap her. We wanna find out how to kill her before - "

"THIS IS THE POLICE!" Shouted a voice from the library foyer. "COME OUT OF THE ROOM WITH YOUR HANDS UP, OR WE WILL COME IN!"

Silence reigned in the library, as it should do.

"Ren, see if they're armed," said the leader cooly. He reached out and grabbed Magpie and Rebecca by their arms. Neither struggled.

: It's okay, Figment. The police'll get us free. Don't change me! :

The reptile gave an image of shrugging her shoulders and smiling. "I wasn't going to. I know you don't wanna get outed as a big reptile. :

Ren pulled his head out of the room. There was the sound of guns clicking.

"Yeah, they're armed," he said slowly as he put up his hands and slowly walked out of sight.

The basketballer looked at Rebecca and Sarah, almost certainly contemplating a hostage situation. The gangbangers shuffled uneasily, reached into their jacket pockets.

"Look, it's okay!" said Magpie urgently, confidently. "What can they charge you for? Throwing around books? Besides, how can the dragon get to you if you're in a police station?"

The leader looked vilely into her eyes, possibly furious at her speaking out of turn, or thinking of something that sounded right and that he'd have to carry out. "We ain't got form they can pin on us. Come on then, let's get a lift."

He motioned to his homeboys to leave. They did so, hands held high. He was the last to exit, while Magpie and Rebecca stood at the doorway. There were over twenty policemen in bullet-proof vests and visors. They all had short, professional-looking automatic rifles.

Rebecca became aware of some funny, electronic noises in her head.

: Fig? Ist that you? What're you doing? :

: This is odd. I'm trying to tune into their visor radios, but they use a frequency I've never sensed before - "

A short, shouted voice crackled in Reb's head. A single syllabled order. The policemen fired en masse at the gangbangers and they all fell with barely a whimper. Each shot sounded like it was filtered through a poor quality TV speaker. Rebecca screamed and pulled Magpie backwards.

: Rebs! I don't get it! They weren't shot with bullets! : exclaimed the voice within her.

Magpie looked mystified, but she let herself get pushed behind a bookshelf. Rebecca's sound pickup intensified, as did her vision. She heard a door being kicked open, Isha's scream and another burst of electronic gunfire. The librarian's scream stopped.

"Rebs?" asked Magpie. "How fast can you change?!"

Rebecca's face was already covered in green scales, and started to press forwards into a toothy snout. The pupils in her eyes sharpened and became framed with green. She pulled off her clothes before they became too restrictive, glad despite the terror that while the transformation was incomplete she was only being looked at by another woman.

"Magpie, Rebs! " said the Figment side of Hedonism aloud. "The thugs are still alive! They were hit by some sort of taser blast!"

Two policemen leapt into the room and immediately fired at Hedonism. Now her vision was enhanced Rebecca could see the shots were actually bolts of lightning, flashing straight into them and guided by a laser-like beam. The arcs splashed over her chest and she bucked and flopped backwards onto the floor, her limbs out of control. But her tail spasmed out of her body just in time to swipe the feet out from underneath her attackers.

: Ack! Try not to get hit by those things! :

: Duh! : responded Rebecca. She wondered where Magpie had gone to as she fought off the paralysis and rolled clumsily to her knees. She loomed over the coppers, ripped off their visors and punched them both in the face. They convulsed a little and went to bed.

Hedonism looked out of the doorway again. There was a pile of unconscious thugs and a V-formation of policemen, all aiming their rifles at her. She ducked inside again as a volley of white electrical arcs slammed into the bookcase behind her. They reminded her of the zappy proton packs from Ghostbusters, only not so flashy.

: Figment! How dragonlike can we become? Like, for example..."

Figment agreed. Hedonism breathed in deeply and felt the power from her emotions being spent on transformation. Her lungs expanded as they metamorphosed, then diluted the air they stored. As Rebecca heard the policemen stepping closer she breathed out, freeing masses of churning black smoke. The impenetrable mist curdled the air, erupted out of the room and plunged the foyer into darkness. Her vision had already changed to see through it with ease.

The electrical crackle in Hed's head became filled with confused shouts as the officers desperately shouted for new orders. The lizard woman leapt out through the doorway and onto a bookcase, receiving only a blast to her leg. She shook off the loss of feeling as she unfurled her wings. Bracing herself against the air itself, Hedonism kicked the rack of shelves onto three of the coppers.

* * * * * * * * * *

Magpie skulked silently along the bookshelves, treading carefully through the darkness. All her senses competed in a race to track down the bad guys before they tracked down her. Her hands swayed casually by her sides, looking deceptively relaxed.

The dome of a policeman's black helmet gleamed just ahead. Magpie stalked him as he paced hesitantly forwards through the gloom, his hands running against the wall for comfort and guidance. As she composed herself and readied her strike she examined all she could see.

Five foot three male, armour making head, neck, back and groin strikes unfeasible. Movement and apparent alertness indicating a competently trained, calm policeman, with some other motions that are not recognizable. Several possible killing strike areas, but if the reptile was right they haven't actually killed anyone yet. Why not go for the sleepy-time option.

As she calmly plotted she watched him pull up his visor and... something... extended out. A long black tongue, split at the end, flitting crudely and withdrawing. He turned around suddenly, raised his rifle but Magpie calmly seized the weapon and spat through the visor into his eyes. Blinking madly he tried to aim the rifle but Sarah ensured the shot went wide. He let go of the weapon with one hand to rub his eyes, causing Magpie to smile and bring up her foot to kick his remaining hand. The copper hissed with pain, then alarm as the weapon was yanked away from his fingers.

Sarah blasted him in the crotch. The officer flinched every muscle in his body and dropped.

Heh heh.

Slipping into a corner, ducking down into a squat, Sarah looked at the softly gleaming weapon in her hands.

Weapon bears a perfect resemblance to a normal police-issue Bertram HP4, except for it's adjusted recoil compensation, retrofitted gunlock and reduced ammo clip to allow space for a cleverly hidden battery pack. Capable of normal ordinance release as well as the taser effect which was clearly beyond human design capability. Yummy.

* * * * * * * * * *

Hedonism hefted a policeman's dangling body and held it before her. Seeing one of their number in the firing line, a group of policemen stopped trying to fire at the big reptile and instead spread out, falling over comatose thugs and spilled books. She lobbed the copper at another officer to the satisfying crack of helmets colliding, and punched another in the stomach. He doubled over and Hedonism reached her talon-like hands around the helmet, yanking it off. Like two others she had done this to, he was utterly bald. Or in this case, she was.

: They're damn well trained - I can't get any emotions off them, they're too calm! :

: Figment, why are they all bald? They don't even have eyebrows! :

A flash of lightning zipped out of the smoke and sent a policeman to the ground. Rebecca smacked this one in the face with her own helmet and leapt onto two more. Luckily, it looked like they were starting to win - Rebecca winced as a shot thudded into her shoulder - and her own desperation, fear and triumph was keeping her scaly body going even with all these shots. Plus individual hits barely made her flinch any more - Figment must have made her much more resistant to them.

: Oh, they're bald 'cos they ain't human. Simple really. :

A new voice came over the crackling confusion of voices. This one was solemn and slow, a liturgy of mouthing chants and rich hissing that mixed with the crackling reception. Rebecca dived behind the Returns table, panted wildly, then grabbed the table and ran forwards. More satisfying clonk noises of helmets hitting Formica followed.

Suddenly, all the library windows imploded, filling the foyer with twinkling jewelry. An enormous gale entered and exited the foyer like an express train, sweeping up books, fluttering clothes and, most importantly, blowing away all the obscuring smoke. Hedonism looked around at the unobscured room and swung her battered table around like a shield. An officer on the other side of the room pulled off his helmet and his face immediately elongated, turned deep red and became overlaid with scales. His bald head gradually transformed into that of a seprpent. The remaining officers got to their feet, surrounded the lizard woman and hissed shrilly, long tongues slipping out and pointing accusingly at her.

Hedonism and Rebecca felt an intense power fill the room, make their ears buzz and their skin tingle. And suddenly the freestanding energy coalesced into an immense serpent, floating in midair over them. It's scales were invisible but white light streamed around their edges. Below it's head grew two snakelike tentacles that ran to vague fingers.

: So we run? :

Hedonism ran. The serpent leapt through the air, passing effortlessly through any objects in it's way and coiled about her. The lizard woman's arms, legs, wings and tail were pinned together, and she was hoisted into the air.

: Damnit! Rebs, we gotta get out! :

The officers fired at Hedonism. Great arcs of electricity passed through the insubstantial snake and earthed on her body. She tried to writhe but the snake was immensely strong. An arm broke free but the ghost serpent recoiled itself, sometimes passing through it's own body to rebind the rogue arm back into place.

Shot after shot hit her. She jerked and thrashed as waves of numbness pooled over her body, claiming more and more of it. One by one the livid snakes atop her head dangled down torpidly. She lost control of all her limbs, then her cramped-up wings stilled. Electrical nimbuses splashed her whole body, making random muscles flinch. Eventually her eyes and brain were affected and blackness covered the room once more.

All she could sense were blasts hitting her randomly, the electricity skittering over her scales. Then the ground under her body.

The blasts ceased.

Some voices.

"Issssshe dead?"

...

"No."

"Isssshe fully unconssciouss?"

...

"Nope."

Several more shots, directly at her head from point blank range. Then nothing at all.

* * * * * * * * * *

The officers crashed through the rooms of the library in search of Magpie, who had left a trail of unconscious bodies in her wake. A copper smashed open a cupboard and received a blast in the stomach.

She leapt clear, shouting, "I was _trying_ to get some peace and quiet!"

A single invisible arc of lightning granted her wish.

By Hedonism