Chapter 194: Everyone’s a Critic

“What do you think this power would qualify as:” Perry asked, backhanding aside a skittering horror made entirely of paint, that had gotten inside the reach of his sword, staining him up to the elbow in thick, squirming oil paints.

“Minder with a gimmick, extradimensional space with godlike powers inside it, or Wildcard?”

He glanced up at the painted sky, which trembled slightly as new brushstrokes overwrote old ones at a speed nearly fast enough to trick the human eye into believing it was seamless. Maybe twenty-four times per second. The same applied to the ground, the nearby forest, and the sky beyond, it flickered at low frames per second, not quite fast enough to lend a sense of reality, but a jerky sense of motion that was slightly disconcerting.

Even if it was faster, the differences between individual brush strokes would create a strange sense of non-reality as everything wobbled and shifted like it was passing under the bottom of a coke bottle.

“We’d be separated into our own personal paint nightmare if it were option number one, and the second would be hitting us harder, and we might be turned into paint too. The fact it’s limited to paint screams Wildcard to me.” Natalie said from within Boomer’s confines.

“Maybe that’s what you want me to think, Minder.” Perry said before Heather gave him ‘the look’. “Sorry. Mind-control humor.”

“Putting Boomer on auto.” Nat said, climbing out as turrets popped out of Boomer’s sides and began pasting the paint-creatures that literally rose out of the walnut #43207F colored mud.

This gave them time to plan.

“If it’s a Wildcard, it’s got rules. We just need to figure out what they are,” Perry mused. “Anybody bring any turpentine with them?” he asked.

Their heads shook.

Perry crossed his arms, thinking for a moment. “I admit, my knowledge on painting is limited. I know the chemical composition of turpentine, and how it interacts with oil paints, but…”

Oh, right.

Aerosolize.

Perry summoned a can of solvent and tossed it out into the writhing mass of paint like a grenade before Boomer shot it.

The paint monsters screeched and flinched away, revealing canvas writhing under their forms for a moment before their skin drew back up onto their bodies, nudged by the gentle brush of an invisible painter working at stop-motion speeds.

Perry repeated this process on the floor, inspecting the canvas underneath them.

He cut it a bit, revealing…nothing beyond the painting.

“I don’t think cutting the canvas is the way out of here,” Perry said with a shrug. “But we can save it for an emergency.

“Hey guys, I don’t mean to freak you out or anything, but I shouldn’t be away from my body for too long,” Heather said, her cheeks looking just a bit sunken in as she stooped over, hands on her knees, catching her ethereal breath.

“This probably won’t take too long,” Perry said.

***20 minutes later***

“I know, I know, I should’ve knocked on wood.” Perry muttered, holding up his hands. Boomer was still pounding away at the encroaching paint monsters, but they were getting tougher as the paint dried, and The Painter was getting more creative with his creations as time went by.

“I’m getting kinda woozy guys.” Heather said. “If I pass out, I’m dead, because you guys can’t carry me back to my body.”

“Can’t we?” Nat asked.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Eh?” Heather grunted, glancing up at Nat.

“Can’t you like…possess one of us until you’re back to your own body?” Nat asked.

“Huh. I didn’t think of that.” Heather said, straightening. She floated over to Nat and put a hand on her shoulder.

“You have to welcome me in.” Heather said. “I dunno. It’s a spirit thing. I didn’t even know about it until I tried.”

“You’re always welcome.” Nat said with a smile.

Heather gave a mischievous smirk and funneled into Nat’s body.

“Wow.” Nat said, staggering. “That’s really weird. It’s like dual controls,” She began tapping herself on the nose and pinching her own cheeks while Perry turned back toward the problem at hand.

Turpentine weakens them, but it doesn’t kill them, and they reform just fine after some time. The border of the world, as defined by the canvas under the paint, doesn’t seem to lead back to the ‘real’ world.

We could try cutting it open and jumping through, but there’s not confirmation whether we’d land in the real world or just be stuck in an extradimensional void for the rest of eternity.

Most likely these supers were trying to arrest Perry instead of flat-out kill him, which implied they would let them out of the painting eventually even if they didn’t get out on their own.

Only problem with that was, the enemy wouldn’t let them out until they were in a position of absolute control, like an army of supers or several exceptionally powerful Minders, an area that rendered superpowers inert, or something of that sort.

It would be better to break out sooner, rather than later.

A soft retch drew Perry out of his musing.

Natalie sank to her knees, her legs shaking as she doubled over, Heather slipping out of her onto the ground.

“What’s wrong?” Perry asked, kneeling down beside them, checking Nat’s heartbeat. Despite her miserable groaning, it was steady.

“She’s four-foot nine.” Heather groaned. “There just isn’t enough juice there to support two spirits without the crown I absorbed.

Perry froze.

On one hand, Perry probably had enough life force to support six Heathers, and it would be a quick, convenient solution. On the other hand, Perry was bunking with not one but two grey-goo, infinitely expanding spiritual cancers, each racing to beat the other. Exposing her to that was risky as hell. Maybe even a death sentence.

Nat’s soul was welcoming to all…nearly to her own detriment. She was a much better candidate for short term hosting Heather.

Plus, it was Heather, and he was pretty sure he didn’t want her rummaging around his body.

Under his dimensional senses, he could see Heather’s ethereal form beginning to fray. That made his mind speed up, giving him an idea. He had the energy. Nat had the ideal inner environment.

Let’s solve it this way.

PPP.EXE

(4/6) remaining.

“Hop back in Nat,” Perry said, wrapping the Pernicious Prison around his wrist and Nat’s. The spell was designed to shift life-force around, so he could hack it together into a life-support to keep Nat going even with Heather taking up extra juice.

“AGH!” The moment Perry’s life-force hit Nat, she came out of her stupor, screaming as she leapt to her feet, eyes wide as Life-force flooded her system.

For Perry, donating an entire person’s worth of energy felt like wearing a back-pack, or walking a little faster than usual. It wasn’t bad. Body was providing him with six and a half times a normal person’s.

“Get in there before she has a heart attack.” Perry said, to which Nat nodded emphatically, her black hair shaking with the wild motions.

“Yes please!” Natalie yelped.

“Roger.”

Heather’s wraith-form funneled into Natalie’s body again.

“How you feeling?” Perry asked.

“Dial it down a little.” Nat said, holding her fingertips to her own neck, tracking her heartbeat.

After Perry dialed it down approximately seven percent, Nat nodded her head. “That’s still marginally above normal, but it’ll give Heather excess energy to recover in case she needs to leave again.

“Alright,” Perry locked in the drain speed and turned his attention back to their predicament. It didn’t…look great.

Boomer was still providing cover, but the painted monstrosities were becoming bigger and harder to kill as the paint dried, pushing the circle around them in a little closer as time went by.

Also, The Painter was getting more creative as time went by.

Shackles of paint leapt out of the ground and attached themselves to Perry and Nat’s wrists and ankles, the chains looping up their arms like living things; constrictors with a mouse.

Perry clenched his jaw and broke out of the chains, snapping the chains before wrenching the cuffs off of himself.

“These things are getting tougher and tougher the longer we’re in here,” Perry said, turning to assist Nat, snapping the cuff off her left arm while simultaneously stomping down another set that was trying to restrain him again.

The paint had started out as squishy as an actual oil paint, but now the ‘steel’ chains were almost actually as strong as steel. This could be a problem.

“It’s weird that the quality isn’t improving, though.” Nat said contemplatively as she tugged on the other chain. “I thought in a Wildcard’s painting the strength would be related to the quality of their work, but the perspective on these shackles is way off, and their shading is bad. It shouldn’t actually be getting stronger.”

Crack.

The shackles on her right arm crumbled into paint flakes and fell away, turning monochrome and ashen as it laid on the floor, inert and deprived of life.

Perry and Nat shared a look that conveyed everything they needed to about their current predicament and how to avoid it.

Best way to stop an artist: Hurt their feelings.

“The sky doesn’t have any gradient near the horizon! A third grader could do better!” Perry shouted at the sky.

“The ground has no texture! You know you can place highlights with a couple drops of white and scrape them over with the palette knife, right!?” Natalie shouted. The ground began to crumble beneath them as the sky above began to fade.

“Your sfumato is poorly executed! Your distance shots are soullessly sharp and deny the viewer a sense of wonder. It’s hamstrung by your over-enthusiastic, roughshod chiaroscuro, which only serves to highlights your terrible sense of scale!” She continued, her words cracking the very fabric of reality.

***Sarah Mayer (Flag)***

Acolyte Karen was off to the side, haggling with the pregnant Blessed, trying to convince her to at least follow along with them to the Mission without a fight, when things got…weird.

“Luke, what’s wrong?” Sarah asked the painter, who’d suddenly turned pale.

“Ow,” The painter whispered, clutching his chest and sinking to his knees.

“Luke!” Sarah said, kneeling down beside him, almost dropping her flag in her haste.

“I think…they’re getting out. And it hurts,” Luke whispered. “On multiple levels.”

Their leader’s eyes widened.

“Combat positions!” Acolyte Karen said lunging over and yanking Sarah back by the collar of her armor. “Back away from Lu-”

WHOMP! A blast of displaced air pushed both of them back, and an instant later, a massive robot appeared near Luke, its leg nearly crushing Sarah.

The green-eyed monster named Paradox with the power of a full-rank Acolyte appeared near Luke and gently pushed the painter to the side, causing Luke to topple to the ground, unable to move as he was seemingly suffering from debilitating pain that reached his very soul.

“Artists,” he scoffed, shaking his head ruefully before glancing back up at them, pinning Sarah in place with that predatory stare.

“Alright, you got some pretty good teamwork. You guys obviously have a decade of training together and we don’t. Mad respect. Now that we’ve all gotten warmed up, we can get to the real fight.”

Paradox held out his arms and a suit of armor that devoured the very light around it flew out of the massive robot, clasping down around him to create a walking void of pure black.

Sarah had seen nothing more evil in her entire life.

***Paradox***

“Detaching!” Natalie shouted an instant before Heather’s Wraith form shot out of her chest like a cannon.

“Roger!” Perry said, dropping the life-energy infusion, letting go of Nat’s wrist with the spell and whipping the deadly black gunk towards their Karen.

The armored zealot put up a wall of magic that stopped Perry’s spell dead and began eating away at his control over it.

Give her something to chew on, Perry thought as he turned on the thrusters of his suit to twenty percent, shoving him straight forward without changing his stance an inch.

The bruiser’s eyes widened, and he reflexively brough the demonic buster-sword up between the two of them.

With the suit’s added strength, Perry drove his obsidian blade halfway through the buster sword before it gave up and folded over.

Guess I reached the flexible core, Perry thought as his prized $50 sword snapped at the sudden change in torque.

Perry tossed aside the handle and grabbed the bruiser’s hair before he lashed out with his foot, folding the rest of the demonic sword around the chunk of volcanic glass and driving it up into the man’s stomach.

Perry reached behind him with his off hand.

Melt.EXE

Monkey screamed in alarm as his heavier arm began to stretch violently away from his body.

Perry waded through a sudden bloom of steel-like vines, ignoring the plant-user entirely as he found a new target for his spell.

Melt.EXE

Flag’s raised flag snapped in half before she began to sing as a small portion of her flagpole turned to soup.

She attempted to sing anyway, so Perry targeted her vocal chords with a light-duty Melt in order to interfere with her power.

Karen hauled her out of the way, shielding subordinate with her own armor, which melted instantly.

BOOM!

HP:12

A concussive blast rocked Perry’s head to the side as a grenade teleported partway through his armor. It was only a tiny fraction of an inch, as the weave of his armor stabilized the dimensional weave enough to prevent Baldy’s grenade from detonating inside his helmet.

Still, it triggered his HP, since the concussive force that made it through his padding was about the same as a boxer’s punch.

Perry paused, then turned toward Baldy, who took a step back, his legs shaking.

“Hold on!” The leader said, holding up her hands. “We surrender!”