He was the big bad of the Powerpuff Girls universe incarnate—Him himself.
And just like that, I found myself not running… not fleeing… but hesitating in the presence of this devil in heels.
"Fufufufufu," he laughed, his eye locking directly onto mine as he licked his lips.
Him swayed his hips, clearly amused by my hesitation—my conflict between staying and escaping.
"How interesting," he mused, lifting his chin. "I can't find any way into your mind… nor can I probe the lamp buried in Fuzzy's maimed aaaarm~"
He dragged out the last word, his gaze lowering to my hollow symbiote arm—wrapped around Fuzzy's injured forearm and shaped into a tendriled claw. I flexed the mock limb, making sure the lamp inside was secured tightly.
I stepped back, keeping one eye on him.
The other was on the armed military—they were all frozen in a hypnotic trance, their eyes marked with white and red rings.
"What do you want from me?" I growled.
I stopped feeling fear and instead tried to tap into the raw potential of rage inside Fuzzy Lumpkins.
This was our fight, after all. What right did this other cryptid have to butt in?
I stepped forward, my chest swelling.
The rifles emerging from me aimed forward, ready to attack at any given moment.
!!!
But even so… my eyes, locked onto him, shuddered—
In a split second, without visibly moving an inch, he was gone.
It was so fast I couldn't even register when he moved.
Behind me.
I turned, slashing through the air with my jagged left claw—
It passed straight through a red figure.
"He… hehe—"
Him laughed, dissolving into mist.
I tried to move—
But my body froze.
Paralyzed.
The mist spun around me, engulfing me whole.
His voice echoed from everywhere at once.
"No need to be on guard. I wasn't planning on snatching your lamp."
The mist condensed—forming a face in front of mine.
Pew! Pew!
"My, how violent~" Him's face spoke.
His voice darkened.
"I only came to say hello to a possible new friend," his body began to reform, "since this is the first time I've ever seen a genie or their creations in person."
A reconstructed claw lifted my chin.
My body rose with it—
Dragged upward, forced to look beyond the city.
Toward the harbor.
And what I saw—
…made everything else feel small.
Far beyond the skyline, rising from the waters—
A massive three-headed serpent towered over the harbor.
Each head hissed, crowned with jagged black horns. Green fins flared along their necks, glowing faintly beneath the smoke-filled sky.
Helicopters swarmed it—
Missiles streaked through the air—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions lit across its body—
But it didn't fall.
It roared.
All three heads at once.
Octi-evil.
I almost said it out loud—in that episode I watched with my little sister, there was a throwaway monster just like this. That's how I recognized it—it came from one of the show's earliest episodes…
The same one that introduced the figure now holding me hostage.
"I was going to say I found your side performance here amusing and let it slide… as I'm more than happy to share the stage…
But since you're so trigger-happy, why don't we say hello the old-fashioned way—with a good old Mexican standoff?"
"What do you say, partner~?"
Him asked, jingling in his bell-tipped cowboy boots, wearing red jeans and twirling a revolver on the tip of his claw.
I looked down at myself and saw I was still in my venomized state, but something was different. I was wearing cowboy clothes, with tassels hanging off my jacket sleeves.
When did he conjure these?
I asked myself, then looked further down at my jeans and saw two double-barrel shotguns awkwardly holstered there instead of pistols.
"But that shall have to wait for another day. I'm not quite fond of doing too much in one day."
He let go.
"Todalooooo~!"
The red mist vanished.
I dropped.
My body twitched as feeling returned.
"Tch—"
I clicked my tongue, glancing up just in time to see him smiling—bright yellow eyes watching, waiting, anticipating.
I turned, ready to web to safety—
When I saw it.
A rocket.
Coming straight at me.
…Of course.
With nowhere to go, I curled inward, crossing my arms and tucking my knees.
"Fuzzy!!! Make a wish—something that keeps us alive!!"
"DON'T THINK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE—JUST WHAT HELPS US!! I'LL LET YOU PAY WITH A FEW STRANDS OF HAIR IF I HAVE TO!!"
I shouted as a gacha wheel materialized behind me.
"G-got it!"
Fuzzy's mind raced.
The wheel spun—
A trampoline.
An ice cream truck.
A dozen trees.
A bucket of water.
His gun.
More—more—more—
Then—
It stopped.
A magic carpet.
A beam of light shot out—
Materializing it midair.
And the moment it appeared—
It panicked.
It fled.
!!!
"The—what?!"
I snapped, instantly detaching from Fuzzy's body and launching my tendrils toward it.
They latched on—
I swung, barely catching the edge, dangling as the carpet tried to escape on its own.
"W—"
Behind me, the red bear—stripped of my symbiote—turned in confusion.
He watched me leave him behind, fleeing on the cowardly carpet, his body defenseless as I took the lamp and my rifles with me.
His expression twisted—
Fear.
Heat.
Anger.
"Hey—!!!!"
Fire swallowed him.
BOOOOM!!!
The rocket hit.
—
Third Person POV
A fighter jet fired at Fuzzy from a distance, the missile tightly locked onto him.
"One down," the pilot reported. "The other has disappeared, and the secondary threat retreated before impact."
He stirred, his visor locking onto the figure leaving the explosion cloud.
Ben clicked his tongue, spotting the fighter jet—his mind not fully focused on it, but rather on the carpet jerking violently beneath him—
Swerving left.
Then up.
Then spiraling like it had a mind of its own—
Because it did.
"HEY—! HEY!! STRAIGHT—GO STRAIGHT!!"
It didn't listen.
Of course it didn't listen.
It shrieked—yes, shrieked—its fabric rippling as it panicked while another explosion lit the sky behind them.
BOOOOM!!!
Ben held tight.
"Tch—useless!"
He tightened his grip, tendrils digging into the threads as he tried to steer it—
Nothing.
It bucked harder, twisting midair, nearly flinging him off.
"You're kidding me—!"
Another missile screamed past—
Fuck, that was way too close. If I can't angle this thing fast enough, we'll be shot out of the sky in no time.
His eyes narrowed.
…Fine.
"If you won't listen—"
Black-and-silver tendrils spread from his Anti-Venom, crawling across the carpet's surface like living ink.
They sank in.
Thread by thread.
Fiber by fiber.
The carpet screamed.
Its entire body spasmed, folding and snapping as it tried to resist—
—but Ben kept forcing his will into it.
"Then I'll just take over."
His symbiote flooded through it, overriding whatever passed for its instincts.
The resistance lasted—
A second.
Two.
Then—
Silence.
The writhing stopped.
The carpet flattened beneath him.
Obedient.
"…There we go."
He exhaled, suppressing its mind—shoving its consciousness into the deepest recesses of itself, syncing with it almost perfectly.
He twitched left—
It turned.
A push forward—
It surged ahead, smooth and controlled.
"Much better," he thought.
Behind him, the sky burned with streaks of fire and smoke. The serpent roared in the distance, helicopters circling like flies.
And somewhere above—
Ben could feel him watching.
Waiting.
Smiling.
"Tch." He'd had enough of being toyed with. "Let's disappear."
The carpet dipped sharply, diving between buildings, skimming past shattered glass and crumbling walls.
Wind howled—
He could sense the missile racing toward them—
There was no time. His eyes scanned for a way to lose the jet and its barrage of rockets.
"There—!"
A narrow street flashed into view.
At the far end—
A storm drain.
Barely wide enough.
The carpet obeyed instantly, folding inward as they dropped.
The missile screamed after them—
Closer—
Closer—
Ben gritted his teeth.
"NOW—!"
They shot straight into the drain—
Darkness swallowed them whole.
A split second later—
BOOOOM!!!
The entrance collapsed behind them, concrete and fire sealing the tunnel in a violent shockwave.
Dust and debris rushed past, the carpet wobbling before stabilizing under Ben's control.
Silence followed.
Dripping water.
Distant rumbling.
And the faint echo of chaos above.
He exhaled slowly, his eyes adjusting to the darkness.
"…That worked."
The carpet twitched beneath him.
Not resisting—
Just…
resentful.
"Heh."
He gave it a small mental tap.
"Get used to it. You're mine now."
He drifted deeper into the sewers.
Rats scattered as they sensed him coming.
Far above, muffled through layers of concrete—
A distant hiss echoed.
Ben looked up instinctively, even though he couldn't see the sky anymore.
"…Yeah."
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
"This city's completely screwed."
I need to find my way back to Ben's home and start from there. I should probably call Morbucks and ask if she gave me an alibi. I should also un-clone a few symbiote streams in MHA.
He rolled his neck, his body still strained from the battle, undoing several Anti-Venom clones in the mha world—
"Ahhh…"
Ben rolled his shoulders.
His body shifted back into human form, wearing the clothes he got from West City.
[(Anti-Venom's: Skin)](Canceled)
"Nice. I still have everything from before I equipped my new skin."
He patted himself down, then reached into his pocket.
He pulled out a capsule case—one of the items from Capsule Corp stores.
He opened it and took out a tiny capsule from a row of three.
Ben popped it open, revealing a high-tech device shaped like a palm-sized square with an antenna sticking out from the side—a Capsule Corp smartphone.
He wasted no time switching it on.
"Yes! It's got network!"
Ben grinned at the two bars on the screen. That meant it was usable in this world.
"Let's see if I can make a call…"
He opened contacts and started typing a number, his mind racing to reach Morbucks.
But how?
He didn't have her number, nor was it public information—so why was he so confident?
It all came down to one thing—
When he recorded them together earlier, he had accidentally left his phone with her as he escaped.
Which meant—
Right now—
She had it.
Druu. Druu. Druuu.
"Hello?"
His own voice came through the phone.
"Who is this?" the imposter on the other end asked.
Ben's lips curled up.