The wind howled through the skeletal remains of what was once Dead Wood's industrial heart. Towers of rusted scaffolding stretched into the sky like the fingers of a long-dead giant, and old streetlights flickered half-heartedly, casting jittery halos on the cracked asphalt. The air tasted of dust, ozone, and oil. Cullen and Daisy walked side by side through the ghost town of metal and fog. Leo was safe back at Ribolt's. The current state of the town annoyed Cullen. Too many boarded-up doors. Too many eyes watching from shadows. Too much silence in a place that once buzzed with life.
"This place…" Daisy murmured, hand resting on the grip of her baton, "It feels like it is holding its breath."
"It is scared," Cullen replied, scanning the rooftops. "The people are scared."
A metallic clang echoed from an alley up ahead. Cullen raised a hand, motioning for Daisy to stop. She obeyed without a word. Another sound followed like silk dragging over bone. Then the shadows moved. Something dropped from the top of an old metal silo, landing in the alley like a spider dropping into its web. The streetlight above it instantly shattered, plunging the corner into a deep black gloom that bled unnaturally outward. Not just the absence of light, but the presence of something wrong.
Two eyes glowed from within, luminous white slits, like cracks in porcelain. And then the figure stepped forward. The creature was tall, far too tall, and wrapped in a tattered coat made of hundreds of overlapping pieces of black and gray cloth that fluttered like wings even without wind. Its face was hidden behind a porcelain-white mask shaped like a bulbous moth's head, two large, oval eye lenses, no mouth, and thin antennae protruding from the forehead. The limbs were long and jointed like a marionette's, and as it walked, its cloak unfurled to reveal additional limbs, thin, membranous wings lined with sharp metallic threads. It did not speak. It just stared.
"Moth Man," Cullen said grimly, his hand drifting to the grip of his rifle.
The creature cocked its head, slow, jerky. Then it raised one arm… and the shadows rippled like water. A wave of inky black spread along the ground toward them, snuffing out every bit of light in its path. Cullen fired. The bullet struck true, but instead of flesh, it hit shadow. The Moth Man dissolved like smoke, then reformed behind Cullen instantly.
"Cullen!" Daisy shouted, lifting her hand and releasing a crackling arc of lightning.
It shot through the air like a whip, but the Moth Man vanished again before it struck, his form tearing apart into tendrils of shadow that raced up the walls and disappeared into the rooftops.
Cullen spun around, breathing hard.
"He is fast. Does not move like a person."
"Yeah, I figured that part out," Daisy replied.
Suddenly, the buildings around them began to creak and groan. The fog thickened, congealing into awful shapes, faces screaming in silence. The Moth Man's voice finally echoed through the dark, ethereal and wrong, like insect wings rubbing against a radio signal:
"In my wings, only fear remains, and I need your fear to be collected… so scream for me,"
The fog lashed out. Not smoke, fear given shape. Daisy was the first to react, slamming both hands forward. A torrent of electricity burst from her palms, burning away the illusion long enough for her to see the Moth Man descending again, wings outstretched like an embodiment of rot and silence. She dodged left as he slammed into the ground, sending a shockwave of dread through the metal. Cullen barely kept his footing.
"His aura…" Daisy gasped. "It has weaponized fear!"
"Then we do not flinch," Cullen said, raising his rifle again. "Do not let him have what he wants."
He fired a series of rounds, not at the Moth Man directly, but at the light fixtures above. The explosion of sparks lit the area for a split second, just long enough to see the shadow-creature vulnerable in the light. Daisy lunged, electricity pouring from her hands in concentrated arcs. She blasted him directly in the side. The shock connected. The Moth Man screeched, a sound like tearing wings and dying breath, and twisted unnaturally, hurling Daisy backward with a pulse of dark energy. She crashed into a rusted vehicle, gasping, but alive.
Cullen used the opening, slamming his mechanical boot into the ground and launching himself forward with a cybernetic boost. He tackled⁷in creature mid-air, sending both of them crashing into the side of a steel tower. The Moth Man thrashed, its limbs shifting into hooked claws that scraped across Cullen's cybernetic chest.
"Got you!-" it said.
But it was not enough. The Moth Man exploded into moths, actual, swarming insects made of shadows, dozens of them pouring from its body and swarming Cullen. They clawed at his metal face side, his skin, his memories. Flashes of failure, of his father's death, of every moment of helplessness, pounded into his mind. Daisy rose from the wreck and hurled both hands toward Cullen, her fingers sparking violently.
"Cullen, down!"
He dropped just in time. A forked blast of lightning surged from Daisy's hands and exploded in a burst of crackling light that dispersed the moths in a shrieking storm of smoke and feathers.
When the air cleared, the Moth Man was gone. Only a torn piece of its cloak remained, fluttering in the wind, charred at the edge. Daisy rushed over to Cullen, who was kneeling and panting hard, face pale.
"You okay?" she asked.
He nodded, slowly.
"Yeah… He is not gone. I saw him run away… escaped through the shadows on the rooftop."
She looked toward the rooftops, fingers still twitching with residual electricity.
"We need a plan."
Cullen stood, eyes narrowing toward the rooftops.
"And better light… Albus would have been very useful here."
- -
"You have infected these woods long enough!" Albus shouted.
Albus charged at the Pumpkin Man, his spear of blazing light clutched in both hands, fire trailing behind him as he pierced forward like a comet. The Pumpkin Man, standing tall and twisted beneath the canopy, did not flinch. Albus hurled the spear, and it struck the monster clean in the chest, an eruption of radiant energy bursting outward and briefly illuminating the entire glade. The blow sent the Pumpkin Man staggering, his carved gourd-mask cracking further down the center. From within, a toxic green light pulsed like a heart. Vines flailed in every direction as he roared:
"Still you burn… Still you fight! But rot does not die, it only spreads and kills the light!"
He slammed his fists into the ground. A network of thorned roots and black vines shot out from beneath the earth, snaking and slashing, splitting the ground toward Albus. The young warrior summoned a shield of radiant gold, but the impact knocked him back, skidding across the dirt.
"Burn me, stab me, and still I bloom. Against me, you will meet your doom."
From the side, Lillian darted forward, both six-shooters drawn, the forged fire rounds gleaming with orange-gold heat. She fired again and again, each shot hitting the pumpkin beast, splashing embers against his body. Some vines ignited, burning away in curling embers, but still, he laughed.
"Get your orange-ass off my friend," she muttered under her breath, cocking the hammer again and firing twice more.
The Pumpkin Man turned to her, a whip of vines snapping toward her like a serpent. Lillian leapt aside, rolled, and returned fire, a bullet grazing his mask, taking a chunk of gourd away. But again… it grew back. He hurled a cluster of smoking pumpkins into the air, they exploded mid-flight, raining shards of vine and rot.
Blanchette dove into the chaos, her fire sword slashing upward, slicing through a chunk of vine that threatened Lillian's leg. She spun through the smoke, blade glowing red-hot, cutting through the mass of summoned horrors crawling from the underbrush.
From the treeline, Adolfo roared into the fray, leaping into the air with his claws drawn, his werewolf form massive under the pale light. He tackled the Pumpkin Man, dragging him to the ground, snarling and slashing with furious strength. However, the villain's vines wrapped tight, forming a cocoon of living wood around them both. For a moment, it was a blur of snapping fangs and thorned tendrils inside the bundle. Then Boom! The cocoon burst outward in splinters, and Adolfo came tumbling free, bloody but standing. The Pumpkin Man was there too, staggered but still fighting, his body shifting in shape and size, now more plant than man, his chest a hollow of twisting green light.
From the left flank, Blanchette joined, her fire sword roaring to life. She let out a scream and charged in, slashing with a wide arc that set the ground ablaze. The flames caught the vines, forcing the villain to leap back, hissing as smoke hissed off his vine-flesh.
"You are no king of harvest," Blanchette snarled. "You will be the one who will rot."
She pressed forward with a storm of fiery strikes, her sword glowing with every swing, cutting deep into the arms of the monster. He retaliated, slashing with claws made of gnarled wood, catching her shoulder and sending her flying into a tree, but she rolled back to her feet, scorched but defiant.
Albus, rising again, formed another spear of light and shouted to his friends.
"Together! All at once!"
He darted back in, light flaring from his hands, spears forming in rapid succession, battering the Pumpkin Man from afar. At the same time, Lillian shot at him with both her revolvers as she moved to flank. Adolfo, growling low, lunged from behind, pinning the villain's arms with brute force. Blanchette, her coat torn and her face smudged with ash, rushed forward in a spinning strike, her flaming sword cleaving into the monster's lower body and igniting a surge of fire across his vines.
The Pumpkin Man screamed, his voice not human, "Your flame will not end the harvest."
He unleashed a wave of black spores, which flew out in all directions, choking the air with darkness. The team was thrown back, coughing and shielding themselves as tendrils slithered through the smoke once more.
Only Adolfo was still standing. He made a thunderous howl then leapt across the clearing, claws bared, fangs glinting. He tackled the Pumpkin Man from the side, driving him into a boulder. The two crashed into the stone, tearing at each other with claws and vines. The Pumpkin Man stabbed a wooden spike into Adolfo's shoulder, but the beast howled and retaliated, sinking his claws into the monster's ribs. For a moment, the two were locked in primal combat, rage against rot.
Lillian and Blanchette regrouped beside Albus, who was now channeling a new enchantment, his arms aglow with flame-infused runes. Together, the three attacked again, working in concert, Albus hurling fireballs, Lillian shooting from a flanking position, Blanchette charging head-on with sword ablaze. They managed to force the Pumpkin Man back, bit by bit, but then he screamed, and the vines exploded outward.
Everyone was thrown back. Roots surged from the ground, wrapping Lillian's leg and dragging her toward a massive thorned tendril, glowing with venomous sap and raised like a scorpion's tail. It came down fast, too fast. Lillian could not move. Then… Adolfo lunged. He tore from the trees, bloodied, one arm hanging limp. He got there just in time to throw himself between Lillian and the strike. The massive vine-blade plunged through his chest.
Time froze. The air left Lillian's lungs. Adolfo stood there, impaled, his claws still wrapped around the vine as if trying to tear it apart. The Pumpkin Man laughed, twisting the vine deeper. Blood bubbled in Adolfo's mouth. His werewolf form faded in a moment as if it was surrendering, and where he laid, the human form also laid. The blade was still going through Adolfo's body. For the first time ever, Adolfo truly felt the pain of his fights. His gaze, fierce and kind, turned down to Lillian as his knees buckled.
"I got to stand… between you and danger…" he rasped, a smile cracking through the pain, "…and I am not complaining."
He collapsed. The thorned vine pulled back, leaving a hole in his chest as his body fell limply in Lillian's arms. Adolfo was gone. Lillian screamed, raw and broken. Blanchette cried out in fury. Albus's light flared into a blinding sun. And the Pumpkin Man stood tall, grinning with vines writhing around him.
"One down. Shall we see who is next in the harvest?"