Chapter 38:So Comes The Beast

38

It had been fewer years than one would imagine, the last time Decatur, nearly centralized within a landlocked Illinois, had experienced an earthquake of note.

The town was, in fact, located not far from the New Madrid fault line that cut through Missouri and the southern most portion of Illinois and there was, over the course of time, several, if not necessarily notable, tremors. Some even graduating to the status of impressive.

As the beast rose up from beneath her chambers, the impact of her arrival could be felt far outside of Decatur. The already unsteady Depot and its motley collection of shops, collapsed like a house of cards.

When the dust from the rubble cleared, a beautiful, raven haired woman stood stark naked amongst the wreckage, her bronzed skin harkening back to an aboriginal nature, not long from the crossing of the Bearing Sea.

She blinked rapidly against the bright sunlight splintering her vision. This was a strange, unrecognizable place. Even its people, as she reached out into their minds, were of a different sort.

It had been less than fifty years or so since she'd ventured up to the surface. The changes she sensed within them were fascinating, having evolved in such a short period of time, at least as far as their kind were concerned.

The smells overwhelmed her, the base stink of their industrious humanity. All around were their markings, signs of their growth, retraction and new progressions.

Setting out, ignoring the shock and panic caused by her arrival, she could see her workings woven throughout as she walked the streets anew, unseen by them. She wanders about for a bit, like a slightly amused tourist, peeking in windows, marveling at the technological progressions made since she'd gone to sleep, fat and full, beneath the Earth.

She follows no particular path, but allows herself to be drawn towards the place where Monique and Jo-Mel were hiding, like an iron filling caught in the gravitational drift of a powerful magnet.

Dropping her wardings, the Majora Shitani steps free, fully into the light of day, as she strides past a nearby park filled with children drawn to the city's free lunch program. The kids in the park are too distracted by the offer of free food to notice the naked woman.

There are dozens of neglected and crumbling houses and a couple of post-war apartment buildings surrounding the park. A full scale, open air drug market is in full swing.

The beast passes on and stands bemused, in the middle of the busy street which bordered one side of the park. The sharp metallic tang of magic drawing her attentions right into the heart of the illegal activity.

Jo-Mel and Monique had made their way through several different strata of Decatur's economic levels before settling here, starting most immediately nearest the river that flowed through a WPA project-widened lake. The lake itself was surrounded by scenic mansions fronted by their own private boat docks.

Further downstream, past where the river had been dammed, where they had arrived from the Incata, the sheer size and quality of the houses diminished, though they remained fairly middle class in make-up.

It was these folks, watching Jo-Mel and Monique's passing, who were compelled to lock their doors, pull shades and phone 911.

Pressing through, Jo-Mel found the shelter they'd need as the houses began to show more and more signs of wear, the lawns grew more bare.

They were now shielded, hidden away beneath the Breaker. The beast could taste its power. Its magic stood out against the bleak backdrop of the local, mystical landscape.

In that time, back before her defeat, the Great Beast, herself, had drawn all of the energies flowing through the local ley lines into herself. When the Felani wrested this power away from her, she had short-circuited them, cauterizing them like severed nerve endings.

Since then, the magics that Decatur relied upon belonged to the Great Beast. They were the residual energies left over by her gradual awakening.

The purity of the coruscating magic that formed the Breaker shined as she drew nearer. So focused on its pearlescent beauty that she didn't notice the approach of a handful of local toughs. Their sneering comments, though, finally drew her attention.

“What the fuck, lady?”

“Yeah, bitch, where yo' clothes at?”

“Aye yo, this bitch fine den a mutha...”

The beast walked the Earth in several forms. She could most often be seen as nothing more than an idea, but she did take a body when it suited her.

It was this form, this body that had died upon the prairie plains. She had been living among the Anasazi, had worked a corruption right under their noses before being exposed and driven out.

She was reminiscent still of those first people who had crossed the Bearing Straits. Her dusty, lightly ambiguous complexion was stark in contrast to her long, raven black hair.

Looking over the young monster-lings, she supposed that her nudity offered distraction. It was nothing that she'd considered. She turns away from them, dismissively, and looks closer at the rippling energies of the Breaker.

These fools wouldn't be capable of perceiving of the working. The beast, in fact, can feel the repulsive spell woven into the shield's magics. She was disrupting it, allowing the young thugs to come near. Otherwise, they would simply avoid this area, a sickening in their guts causing them to turn away.

Grabbing his crotch derisively with the one hand, the boldest of the little gangsters steps up to her and clutches her arm from behind with his other. “Hey, bitch, I know you want some of this.”

The beast's attentions are finally fully drawn over to those closing in around her. Looking at the hand on her arm and then to the face of the one with the temerity to touch her, a sneer curls across her lips.

The instant he looks into her eyes the young man realizes with a bladder emptying horror what a mistake he'd made. She incinerates him, reduces him to dusty ash before he can draw breath to scream. The others, shocked into silence, can't quite make out what they'd just witnessed.

Too late, one of the more swift breaks from his stunned spell and turns to flee, the panic griping his chest keeping him from voicing a warning to the others.

They all burn. Their blood boiled away in a flash. The children in the park and the yellow visor wearing Park Leaders stop their play, their laughter, and look to the source of the blooming heat. The young boys' bodies are completely engulfed in flame and they run and dance about, dripping molten fire to the ground.

One of the children in the park begins to scream. The others join in. They scatter, each heading towards the safety of home. The Park Leaders leave the kids behind, diving towards their cars.

The beast watches on for a moment, amused by the directionless panic, and turns her attentions back to Jo-Mel's shield.

Rising up to the fullness of her being, she grows large into her true form, clasps her clawed hands together into a double fist, and brings them down with a thunderous blow upon the Breaker.

Inside, Jo-Mel is sent flying across the floor, blood springing from her nose and ears, as if she'd just been struck full on.

The beast's thunderous blows sent sparks which flew in every direction, setting several houses for blocks around aflame.

What was, moments before, a fairly peaceful day for this already poverty stricken, nightmare of a neighborhood, had just been transformed into an active war zone.