Rewind
Chapter 7, The Fish Lord
Heisenberg x OC
The air was thick and damp. It swallowed Penelope whole with every squelching step through the caves. It was hard to breathe in the rank air, so she covered her nose and mouth with the neck of her shirt. Deep inside the caves appeared to be an out of order mineshaft, giving Penelope some hope that no one was down here. She thought that if she could stand the stench and the weird slime, she could hide here, or see if there was another way out.
Low growls rumbled around her. Her spine stiffened, eyes wide and wild while she tried to listen which direction the echoes rang from. Penelope flattened herself against the slippery walls of the mine as the monsters came closer, their shadows puppeting up the walls in a macabre display. She tried to run back the way she came but couldn’t move; the muck had grown over her boots and was creeping up her legs, trapping her. Moving was out of the question and screaming would only draw them on faster. I’m dead I’m fucking dead, was all her panicked mind could give as she screwed her eyes shut, not wanting to see her own killers.
“W-Who are you?” A warbled voice broke through the lycan calls, the slime and damp thickening impossibly further.
Penelope’s eyes shot open, taking in the hunched visage of Salvatore Moreau, who gazed at her. It was near impossible for her to tell what he was feeling. Most of his face was hidden by his bone-crown and cloak, and what she could see had been deformed by the horrors in this place. This Lord she knew the least about as well. When she had read briefly into the game, she stopped during the meeting of the Lords, not wanting ‘spoilers.’
What she wouldn’t give for spoilers right now.
Both in false humility and revulsion she cast her eyes down.
Thinking fast, she gave him not her proper name, but a nickname, hoping to keep any undesirables off her trail for at least a few precious moments.
“I’m Nellie, Lord Moreau. I got lost.”
Moreau stared blankly at her, mouth open and shark-like. He touched her hair with a webbed hand. Penelope gritted her teeth to keep from recoiling.
“Pretty… Mother a-always gives the p-pretty ones to Alci,” he mumbled, petting her. The slime fell away, but his hand did not. “Y-You… You can s-stay here. With me.” The more he spoke, the more distorted his voice became. “Come, come.”
Penelope found herself being dragged by Moreau to his shack deeper within the mine, a curious group of lycans trailing behind. The factory, with all its metal shavings and rust strewn about, was immaculate compared to Lord Moreau’s domain. She particularly missed the warm, dry cottage she’d been calling home. She doubted Moreau had any of the few creature comforts she had sheltered in. Lord Moreau seemed to only have creatures scuttling around, all of which were drawing too near for Penelope’s nerves. Moreau ushered her inside, somewhat gently pushing her onto a stinking, rotting sofa. Most of the furniture looked as if it had been pulled up from below the reservoir’s murky surface, save the staticky television that was playing some black and white movie Penelope’s grandpa would’ve loved. Pleased with her state of obedience and shock, Moreau lumbered off to some corner and clambered about, grabbing a miscellany of things. Penelope looked at her hands, wishing she could peel off her skin and start fresh. She wasn’t sure she would ever get this feeling off of her, sticky and slimy, cold and acidic, all the while smelling of rotting fish and lycan. She mourned every shower and bath taken for granted, even those at Heisenberg’s home with his probably 15-in-one mystery soap. While her ‘host’ was distracted, Penelope mentally noted the exits and anything she could make into a weapon. It was mostly junk left around, but she hoped Moreau fit into that category of ‘those who don’t like things lobbed at their heads.’ Heisenberg hadn’t, and he could control most of the debris cluttering his home. If she could survive weeks of Karl Heisenberg, Penelope could survive the Fish Lord. Probably.
Moreau retched loudly, startling Penelope out of her stressed stupor. Penelope scrambled away; not only was she emetophobic, but her brief sight of his expulsion showed some sort of steam coming from it. It was humid in the caves, but not freezing. He was spewing acid, like some cartoon monster villain. Penelope’s breathing hitched then sped up, keeping irregular time with her heart. She needed to get out. She could hear him groaning, still hunched away from her. She knew this could be her only window, and his sputtering was already starting to calm down.
She grabbed the first thing in front of her and ran, sprinting through the far exit. An indignant roar echoed behind her as she stumbled and tripped over the broken and splintered tracks on the ground. Following them blindly, she saw daylight ahead, and she barreled forward as bulbous, sickly growths crawled up the walls. She could hear Lord Moreau calling after her, then silence as she finally reached the snowy earth outside. Gulping down gasping breaths of air, she turned behind and saw nothing but the remnants of Moreau’s slimes. She started down the path, head on a swivel to catch any fishmen or lycans, or whatever the hell else Moreau was making here. Ahead was a small fishing hut, barely standing. No one was inside. No one had been in for a long ass time if Penelope’d wager. The furniture was almost as bad as in Moreau’s ‘home,’ and papers and fishing supplies littered the floor. There even appeared to be blood but Penelope was pretending to not notice as she barricaded the door, shoving any piece of furniture she could against it. She looked down, finally, at what she’d grabbed during her flight. A medical bottle, with thick, brown glass. The label was too worn to read, but something was still sloshing on inside. Penelope was not about to find out what. She dropped it with a low clunk, and continued making her fortress. She tore down a bloody tapestry from the wall, shoving it into the space of a small window at the back of the hut. There were holes in the roof (to the point that there barely was a roof) but Penelope wasn’t a magician. She hastily snatched up the bottle again, covering her face with her shirt to avoid immediate fumes from the ghastly thing sure to be lurking, and smashed it. A rich, sweet scent filled the air.
Penelope almost felt guilty. She thought she’d been ridding the world of a noxious liquid crafted by the gnarliest of Lords, but instead she’d basically gone and broken his bottle of vintage Malibu rum. Oops, was all her addled mind could manage as she held the bottleneck as anchor, barely staying afloat. Lord Moreau hadn’t hurt her necessarily, but he had assaulted her senses. And kidnapped her! And threw up acid! No, Penelope could not say she was a fan. Donna and Angie were seeming real nice right now, even if Angie liked to pull hair. So far they had treated her the kindest, with Moreau chasing her through mines and Heisenberg slicing into her, maybe they should be next on the list.
“Can’t be worse than involuntary parasitic insertion!” she whisper-screamed at herself, empty hand tugging at her hair. If she didn’t die, again, she would go insane.
Ssshlup. Shlup. shlup.
Penelope froze, all thoughts of insane replaced with horrifying clarity with each squelching step she heard outside. She pointed the business end of her broken bottle at the barricade with quivering hands, ready to make a last stand.
“P-Pretty girl, where did you go?”
———————————————————————
Karl Heisenberg was angry. This wasn’t a new or revolutionary thing for him, but he was angry all the same, marching angrily toward his least favorite marshy territory as he whistled an angry tune. A burning cigar was clamped between his teeth and his hammer swung in jubilant loops at his side. There wasn’t a chance of running into overly curious and reverent fishermen anymore; Moreau had devoured them all. Only Moreau’s lycans remained, or a rare vârcolac, but neither were stupid enough to fuck with him. Most of the time. A cluster of lycans were rustling around behind him. Karl thought nothing of it until one lurched forward, latching onto his shoulder with a snarl. Karl cursed, twisting violently until it was shaken off before smashing its head in. He raised his hammer above his head, his opposite shoulder broken and dripping blood into the snow.
“Any of you other fuckers want some?!”
Two more lycans rushed in. Karl tore the railing off of a nearby pier and skewered them both to the dirt, grunting as his shoulder flexed. The rest of the small pack ran off after this, and a now livid Karl Heisenberg trudged on.
“Moreau! Get your pathetic ass out here.” Karl shrugged off his coat, frowning at the state of it. Fucking dogs. “Moreau, I swear to god!”
Karl listened carefully, not hearing any of his fellow Lord’s telltale groans and retching. He did not have the patience for this. Salvatore Moreau was about to have a very bad time. He had something of Karl’s, and his dogs bit him. Scrap metal swirled around Karl’s head, the air crackling.
“C’mon big brother! Just wanna talk to ya,” he yelled into the silent reservoir, his rage reverberating over the still water. Where is the fucking freak?
As he walked, bits of metal screeched against railing and stone, flashes of lightning streaking between each strand of his hair. Then he heard it.
Grinning wildly, Heisenberg stalked toward the retchings and warblings of a distressed Moreau.
“No no no, pretty girl, o-oh no, you should have stayed- urgh- stayed inside, not safe out here, now look at you, stupid pretty girl,” Moreau whimpered and trailed off, his mutterings almost nonsensical as he draped himself over a prone body.
Karl roared.
———-
Salvatore Moreau’s brain was not what it used to be. Before Miranda, he was a doctor with old nautical dreams, sailor tattoos hidden beneath white coats. With a human body to boot. Now he was a shadow of that time, a mockery. The Fish Lord, barely able to remember how to stitch a body up after he opened it. The joke of the village, lowest of the lords. He saw a pretty girl and thought of all the romance movies he loved so much, all of those love at first sight, cheesy, things he watched day in and out. Perhaps this girl, perhaps he could make her love him if he used the cadou. If she didn’t go pop, or turn into a lycan…
But oh, his own mutated body got ahead of him. He finally found the pretty girl, what was her name… Nellie? Doesn’t matter. Salvatore found her hiding in the dilapidated fishing hut. She must have been hiding from the lycans! Something had spooked her inside, before he had gotten around to anything. She was a smart girl, boarding up the door. His own walls of mucus got through anyway and she threw broken glass at him! It hurt! Oh no…
He couldn’t hold it in anymore. He tried to warn her, but there was no time. The burning acid that lined his stomach was all over the room, the floor, and the girl, burning her clothes and skin. Moreau was already panicking, more and more bubbling out of him and then—
Heisenberg.
Salvatore ran.
———
Karl couldn’t believe how fast that little fucker could run, especially while mutating. Just before he leapt into the water, Karl released all of the scrap he’d been collecting into Moreau’s half-mutated form, semi-satisfied when he heard a pained shriek and saw red in the water.
“Heis…?” The voice was scratchy and weak, yet gained all of his attention at once. There she was.
She looked like shit. The skin and muscle had melted from parts of her arms from shielding her face and her clothes were in tatters. He had no clue how she was alive, much less speaking.
“Hey, buttercup. You’re uh, not looking so hot.”
“Kill me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
If she hadn’t been half-stuck to the floor and covered in Moreau’s spit-up, she might’ve laughed, or smiled. “Kill me. Please. Then go to the, the cabin. Please,” she begged him, tears dripping onto the floor.
Karl swallowed and clenched his jaw. He did it as quickly, painlessly as he could, though he doubted that mattered now.
He needed several drinks.
But first, he has to find his Penelope.
