Mimic

[Desdenova VonTombs]

Desdenova pushed open the black English police call box that his mother had set up as a gate point between his home and the Lyceum. It meant, in his mind, that he got twenty extra minutes of sleeping in. He was sorely mistaken, it meant he could get his room tidied up and wash in the laundry before he had breakfast and went to work.

Greek. He considered the ancient language as he walked. He was pretty sure Maggie spoke it, certainly Mallory did. He scoffed a laugh. The witch was dragging around one of Charon's oars, and she used it like a staff. Likely the old man was too pissed off at her to show Mallory some of his sweet oar bashing moves.

The underworld crowd were the only Olympians Desdenova got along with for any length of time, past even his remarkable ability to remain polite and sweet tempered when needed. He rolled his shoulders. He'd just nag Mallory for lessons when she was in the shop, and Maggie for lessons when they hung out.

A peculiar sensation lashed down Desdenova's spine as he walked past an alley, as if the air pressure had changed dramatically. An unpleasant chill roiled in the steamy summer heat. Desdenova stopped short, his brows knitting. His shadow wound a slow spiral around his feet.

"Oh help, please, help me," a girl cried out. In distress, and her voice was still sweet. Desdenova drew back, his upper lip snagging. He glanced to his shadow, then down the alleyway.

A dragon, about the size of a large dog, strained and scrabbled frantically at the crumbling asphalt and dirt, snarling and hissing. Behind the creature was a stunningly beautiful little china doll of a girl, all of thirteen: peach and blonde perfection, with enormous blue eyes, lashes for miles, circlets of pristine golden hair, her lips adorably cupid bowed.

Desdenova drew back, perplexed, as the girl called out to him the moment she spotted him, appealing for help against the horrible beast that had dragged her from her bedchamber.

The dragon, however, was a mud splattered blue, its eyes wild, one of its tusks broken. It was clearly hysterical. There was a tell-tale red tag punched around one of its wing bones.

Desdenova lifted a hand, focussing down his fingertips on the dragon. He whispered several words, and the creature abruptly flopped to the ground.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, bless you, kind soul!" the girl warbled, clasping her hands together before rushing for Desdenova. He liked that way less than a ravening dragon and stepped back, his teeth baring, his hands lifting to ward the girl away.

The girl startled when she ran into the shield Desdenova had erected, and laughed self consciously.

"I was just trying to thank you for saving me," she implored, her eyes wide and adoring, "You're the bravest boy I've ever met. Won't you let me give you a kiss for your trouble?"

"First, no, euw," Desdenova replied flatly, "Secondly, I wasn't saving you, I was saving the dragon. What the hell are you doing with this poor thing? If you bought it out of the stock yards to release into the wilds, yay, but dragging it around like that is just cruel."

"...I didn't... I didn't buy it... It attacked me! It dragged me from my bedroom and home!" the girl insisted, batting her eyes and trying to laugh off his strange accusation.

"Yeah, whatever. So go home," Desdenova replied, "I gotta get the dragon out of here."

"Fine," the girl sneered, rocking her shoulders tauntingly. She shook out her hands and they became long, slender, very much like a praying mantis's arms. She turned to hack at the sleeping dragon.

"Hey!" Desdenova yelled, lighting off a barrage of small missiles. Pebbles leapt from the ground to zing into the girl. She shrieked, still somehow musical and mellifluous, as the pebbles struck her, and she turned on Desdenova.

As the girl took that one step too close to Desdenova, his shadow erupted. Ichor splattered in foul sheets, the rotting carcass of the nightmare stamped hooves to the asphalt, and the girl ran headlong into the ghastly creature. A few bones and ligaments snapped, a horrendous odor filled the alley.

Desdenova stepped back, his nose wrinkling. The girl fell out of the fetid chest of the nightmare, vomiting uncontrollably. Cool and distant, Desdenova pulled a scalpel from his vest and pitched it into the girl's heart.

Daisy hissed, stepping back and forcing Desdenova back, as the girl let out a siren's aria of beauty and grace. A few people gathered around to see what was going on. Desdenova promptly cast an illusion over the alley.

To the curious onlooker, the blue dragon was wailing for its mother.

To Desdenova and Daisy, the fairy tale story beautiful little girl was collapsing into a disgusting mess of vomit, ichor, blood, and bizarre bladed limbs.

"Oh, uh, I'm taking it to the uh rehab. It escaped the stockyard pens, so..." Desdenova explained to the curious group around him, "Please don't crowd around it, it's already really scared..."

To his relief, most of the people continued on their way. The rest, Daisy could deal with. Desdenova frowned as he stepped closer to the body of the girl.

"The hell is this thing?" he asked in a harsh whisper.

"Siren?" Daisy suggested as she loomed over the carnage. Desdenova shook his head.

"Take it to Dad. He can figure it out."

"What about the dragon?" Daisy inquired. The little blue was coming back to its senses, and whined apprehensively.

"Take it to a re-hab, I guess. It'll be okay in the back room of the shop, after I get it cleaned up and healed," Desdenova said with a shrug.

"Your optimism is charming," Daisy assured the boy. She planted a hoof onto the girl's throat, and she and the girl melted back into shadows. Those pooled at Desdenova's feet before vanishing in a miniature vortex.

"Come on, let's get this off and get you cleaned up," Desdenova muttered to the young blue. He dug a pair of clippers from his backpack and snipped the tag free. The little blue dragon followed him, hunkered as a frightened dog, to the Lyceum.

[Jackie Von Tombs]

"Wow, this is Nope and Nightmare Fuel to the nth degree," Jackie announced cheerfully as she watched her father dealing with the cadaver her brother sent them. She sat on a wheeled stool in her father's sunny and bright cellar morgue.

"...No argument. However. This seems to be quite an interesting example of Peckhamian mimicry. Now here's the question, is it truly sentient, or does it just mimic intelligence?" Jack mused, frowning faintly as he pried open the skull to regard the creature's brain.

"Peckhamian... Mimicry..." Jackie echoed as she tapped out the words into her phone. She flicked at the screen a few times, then paused to read. "Oh. Cool. A creature which mimics its preferred prey. Also known as aggressive mimicry."

"Hm. Something of an avian type of brain. It could be intelligent, it could just be a mimic. If it poses as pretty girls in distress, that can't take a lot of brain power."

"Geez, Dad," Jackie scolded, amused.

"Scientifically speaking, it is not difficult to portray a pretty male or female in distress," Jack amended with a scoff, carefully inspecting the brain with a probe. He paused. "Ah. Watch."

Jackie shrugged and regarded the corpse. Jack pressed at a point in the brain, and the arms flexed, returning from sharp, jagged blade like appendages to soft, round arms and hands.

"Oh, cool," Jackie hissed, her green eyes wide, quickly lifting her phone to record the phenomena. "Do it again!"

Jack snickered and did as she asked. The pressure on the brain caused the creature's arms to return to nasty, grasping weapons.

"Hum. I wonder. Let me study more on these connections," Jack noted after a few moments. Jackie nodded and stepped back, still recording the corpse.

"Ah. Okay. Let's see..."

"Euwwwwww!" Jackie squealed as her father used the probe on several points of the creature's brain. Its legs folded up, insectile and just as jagged bladed as the girl's arms. Then her body flexed into a hard curve under the clothing. Finally, its face altered, becoming grotesquely attenuated, its lower jaw seeming almost entirely separate from its upper jaw, its eyes beady and round, with several pits around its brows. Its hair remained perfect blonde ringlets, however.

"Kind of a nasty praying mantis, alright," Jack decided, raising his brows. "Let's get a better look."

Jack paused, his lips drawing back in distaste, when he removed the creature's clothing. Its body was thick, white segments, its lower abdomen curled upwards and was furnished with a sharp hollow spike.

"...What is that?" Jackie asked slowly.

"Stinger, but a praying mantis doesn't need a stinger. So let's assume the worst," Jack decided, reaching over to pick up a scalpel.

Some time later, the creature lay in a neatly dissected pile, various organs off to the side, ligatures pulled straight, a pair of palmetto bug – like wings leaned to the dissection table. Jack frowned as he regarded the carcass, absently eating a submarine sandwich. Jackie munched through a bag of potato chips.

"It appears that our Katydid from Hell can expertly mimic a humanoid damsel in distress. The troubling part is that it only has genitals capable of fertilization when it's in its mimic state. It has eggs but no womb, meaning it deposits its eggs with that spear tip there. Since it's got a spear tip like that for depositing eggs, it's piercing through something to do so. Since the spike is not strong enough to go through wood, my guess it that it deposits its eggs into a humanoid host."

"That is so awesomely disgusting," Jackie crooned, munching through her chips.

"You really have to wonder where a thing like this would evolve. Daisy said that it had grabbed a dragon to act as a threat to it?" Jack mulled, his brows knitting. He wasn't fond of dragons, but he liked bugs even less.

"Yeah, they were walking to work and this thing started calling for help. Damsels in distress aren't Des's thing, plus the dragon was clearly out of the stockyards, it was tagged, and it was just a little blue lake dragon. Some people think they're tasty."

"Now I'm going to have your mother bring home a dragon roast. The irony will be more delicious than the dragon ever possibly could be."

"Dad!" Jackie sputtered, laughing.

"I am the one that got bitten in half by a dragon, I'll thank you to remember. Hm. Well. Judging by the size of this thing's brain, it could be intelligent. But it's too alien for me to really tell whether it is or not. Keep your eyes open for more of these things. Bring them back if you can, study what they do if you can't," Jack decided, finishing off his sandwich. He turned to a sink to wash up.

"Okay."

"I'm going to finish writing this thing up and then run it into the crematoria. Hopefully, it's just this one thing, and not like a mass hatching, like katydids, or a swarm, like locusts." Jack added. Jackie nodded, and popped up to kiss her father's cheek. Then she went skipping on her way.

[Pharlen]

"Oh, fuck," Pharlen noted succinctly as Jack showed her the file he'd compiled on the damsel mimic. Jack quirked a humorous brow at her.

"You even got the common name right, yes," Pharlen went on. She opened her aluminum clipboard and withdrew her small laptop computer. After a few moments, she turned the computer to Jack.

"Damsel Mimic," he read, laughing once, "Delightful. Native to Luyten b, carnivorous parasite, aggressive mimic, self evolved...?" Jack paused to eye Pharlen.

"Yes, yes. Means that it had a distinct parent species, and basically employed magical and scientific means to create itself. In this case, it was, once upon a time, a humanoid princess."

"Tell me the story," Jack chuckled wryly, "Should I call in the kids?"

"Sure, let's make a night of this," Pharlen replied, amused, "Go make some popcorn. We'll watch 'The Deadly Mantis' afterwards."

"Once upon a time," Pharlen began, some time later. The family sat in the parlor, sprawled on the antique furniture under the steady breeze of the air conditioners, munching popcorn.

"There was a huge, wide world, Luyten b, a vast planet orbiting a pleasant star. Animals, people, plants, they all evolved under the calm red sun. Soon, there were humanoids, and towns, villages, countries. One of these countries rejoiced, as their kindly king and queen had a second child, a daughter, yes, yes."

Pharlen paused, taking a drink of her iced tea while glancing at her laptop. It was open on the table beside her.

"Princess Ghia-lii was so beautiful, that the sun would often stop to gaze upon her, or the moon, should she walk through the evening. Her voice was a song, lilting and pure. Her eyes were like crystals in the purest spring water..."

"And her poops didn't stink, we get it," Desdenova chortled. Pharlen swatted him lazily.

"I'm setting the mood. Hush. However, the princess had one flaw. She was the most evil creature on the planet. She had been born with all the beauty their world could offer, but her heart delighted in the pain of others."

"Total sociopath?" Jackie asked.

"Probably a psychopath, doesn't sound like she was ever under any hurtful pressure," Jack put in idly.

"Simply put, she had no empathy for others, no understanding for them, and found others to be most amusing when they were in pain or suffering somehow. To make matters worse, she had discovered a tome of alchemy. For a while, it seemed safe, she had a hobby that couldn't possibly hurt anyone, yes. It was just science and magic, there was no evil or good to it. But Ghia learned to put evil into them," Pharlen explained, "Her parents, despairing of what to do with her, called upon the wisest of the wise, an ancient dragon named Hasta."

"It's always gotta be dragons," Jack muttered. Pharlen hushed him, amused.

"More like a big, intelligent dinosaur, but that's beside the point. Hasta came and decided it would be best if Ghia-lii came to live with her. Hasta felt if she removed Ghia from the stimulus that the court provided, she would be able to ignite empathy within the princess."

"Did that work?" Jack asked, quirking a brow.

"No, no. But it kept Ghia from constantly causing problems in her parents court. Hasta was wise, she was kind, she was loving, but... she also was exactly the perfect victim for a psychopath. She was teaching Ghia how to act and not let people know what she was until it was too late. Ghia was able to manipulate Hasta without half trying, yes. The only thing she couldn't do was to get Hasta to return her to court."

"That'd probably be bad if she went back," Alice decided darkly.

"Very bad. As years went by, Ghia became ever more beautiful, and she began to resent the fact that Hasta wouldn't budge on that one thing, returning her to her home. She could manipulate Hasta into everything else, but not that," Pharlen responded, quirking a brow, "Then, one day, a handsome knight in shining armor rode up, yes, yes."

"Ut oh," the kids all chorussed.

"Mmhm. He was chivalrous, he was handsome, he was strong and brave, and not that bright. He had been sent by another kingdom with a message for Hasta, but he'd never seen her before. Ghia met him before he could come to Hasta's home, and learned all this about him. Then, as he finally went to see Hasta, Ghia convinced the dragon that the man was there to hurt them. She screamed to the knight that the beast had killed Hasta and was going to kill her. And you can guess what happened next."

"Ooo," Desdenova winced.

"Sneaky," Jack mused, snorting a wry laugh.

"The young knight then slew poor Hasta. Ghia promptly threw herself into his arms and plighted her little troth to him, now they just had to go on to her home. She spun him a story of her horrible childhood, how her older brother was allowed to abuse her however he liked, and how her parents and people hated her for her beauty. Dear Hasta rescued her, and now, Ghia wanted only to return home and somehow work out the terrible family dynamics, so they could all love each other, yes," Pharlen continued, her tone pious and sweet. The family all made various gagging noises, and she laughed.

"Well, the knight, Fomry, wasn't the brightest sword in the scabbard. He ate up all that Mary Sue stew and pumped himself up on how he would punish her family and people for being so mean to her. She made sure he knew that her family would insist that they were loving and kind to her so they could get their hands back on her and abuse her more."

"Covering all the bases, I don't know whether to admire that or deplore it," Jack chuckled, shaking his head.

"You admire it all the way until you're looking at a manipulative little devil," Pharlen reminded him dryly. Jack laughed.

"Truth. Go on."

"So. Fomry summoned his troops, and they rode on Ghia's kingdom. They swept through and massacred her family and the royal court. Then Fomry and Ghia were crowned king and queen. That, and being able to return to her studies of alchemy, was good enough for Ghia for a while, yes. But. Not a year later, a huge dragon arrived, Cartus, son of Hasta. He wanted to know what the hell happened to his mother."

"Busted," Desdenova murmured.

"Yes-- no. Ghia knew that her story wouldn't hold up to Cartus, who knew why she had been sent to Hasta, so, while he was asking what had happened, she quickly accused Cartus of being the monster that had killed Hasta. Fomry promptly attacked while Cartus was off guard and killed him," Pharlen shrugged slightly. Jackie drew back, frowning.

"That's kind of casting some shade on Good Knight Fomry."

"He was desperate to have Ghia. She had him convinced that any number of monsters and horrible people were going to take her from him. She was insanely beautiful, and he was jealous, and she knew all of his weak points. She had entirely seduced him to her madness," Pharlen replied, her brows lifting.

"Joker and Harly Quinn gender bent," Desdenova nodded.

"Yes, yes. Now let's get to the chemical baths," Pharlen grinned toothily, "Soon enough, Ghia was pregnant with a new little princess. However, there wasn't any way in hell that she was going to ruin her body just to spawn an heir. Thus she created a formula to expel the baby in an egg from her body. It still needed warmth, humidity, and nutrients, so she cut open Fomry and implanted the egg in him."

"EUW!" the kids chorused. Jack cringed.

"...Is story time over? I think I left the oven running," he complained.

"Hush. Now. This focussed Ghia. She became obsessed with her own perfection. She experimented on herself and Fomry. Fomry's mind finally broke when the baby was born. It was a monster. It had blades for hands to cut its way out of the egg and its father. He..." Pharlen paused again when the family all groaned and complained.

"Monsters do not come from nice little stories about kittens and puppies, yes," Pharlen scolded mildly.

"Euuuww," Desdenova groaned, hiding his head under a pillow.

"Where was I...? Oh yes. Baby monster, blades for hands, cut its way out of its father's abdomen. Fomry's mind broke entirely then, and he became a true accomplice to his wife. He survived this, incidentally. About this time, Hasta's daughter, Truah, came to find out what happened to her mother and brother. However, she was a sharp cookie, yes. She saw what was going on and bailed, quickly returning to Fomry's home kingdom. She raised an army against Ghia and Fomry, and the little family escaped during the fighting."

"Aww. I bet they'd go squish if a dragon stepped on them," Alice put in.

"Probably. Ghia, Fomry, and baby escaped to an ancient library, where they went right back to business. They were crafting themselves so that they could more easily reproduce, so Ghia wouldn't have to lose her figure and Fomry wouldn't have to be cut open so often. Then something magical happened. While their first born was out playing, a knight in shining armor came riding up."

"Oh, no," the kids chorussed.

"Yes, yes. Little Monstra lured him to her, playing damsel in distress, pretending she had been trapped by some rocks. So he didn't see she was a horrible monster with knives for hands until she was happily consuming him raw," Pharlen beamed.

"Uggghhhh," Jackie cackled.

"Her parents were delighted by this, yes, and realized this was a great survival strategy. They knew neither they nor their descendants would ever be able to return to society, but this gave them a way back in. And though neither Ghia nor Fomry were cannibals, Monstra clearly was. And what better way, in Ghia's mind, to get the horror and terror that she craved so much?"

"Oh boy," Jack chortled, shaking his head.

"So. Between their own machinations and their own bad decisions, they soon were breeding Damsel Mimics," Pharlen went on with a flourish of her hands.

"Euw. So... it's all females?" Jackie asked, making a face.

"No, they do have males. They're adapted to the entire process. They impregnate the female, then the egg is implanted into them via a cloacal type of organ, and the baby is expelled the same way, before it starts clawing. The baby is fed blood and flesh. The males will often drive the females off to be able to raise the baby without competition, or to avoid being implanted again while they're raising a baby, so the females are free to hunt down humanoid males or females to parasitize. They are partially parasites, by the way," Pharlen related with a wrinkle of her nose, "Females will raise the babies born from their hosts. So, they can reproduce quite quickly."

"Are they sentient?" Desdenova asked sceptically.

"Not really, no, no. They used to be. They're cunning. They're spiteful. They're observant. But they're really no more intelligent than a parrot or something, except a parrot can love. A parrot can love its mate, its babies, and even owners. Damsel mimics, they don't. They raise the babies on instinct, they don't nurture it, and it doesn't want nurturing. It wants its meals on time."

"How long do they live? How long before they're grown?" Jack asked, making a face.

"They moult a few times, pupate, and are adults within about six months. The babies are not cute. They are the opposite of cute, yes," Pharlen replied, "They live about four, five years. During that time, their mimic form of a beautiful boy or girl goes from perfect to pretty raggedy. The claws tend to cut through the exoskin."

"...And... that's what I dealt with today..." Desdenova asked slowly. His mother's brows lifted and she nodded.

"...Are there more? How did it get here?" the boy demanded, his eyes wide.

"That is what we need to find out. Luyten b is no where near space-able, nor do they have the technology or magic to open gates between realities. That leaves anachronistic episodes, things which only happen once or twice, or visitors to Luyten b picking up specimens and finding out later why there are inter-dimensional laws against that."

"Or intergalactic carpetbaggers setting up shop on Luyten b and opening a gate to RhyDin in order to sell goods," Jack put in.

"Whichever way, I'm going to have to see what the hell's going on. Even a small infestation of damsel mimics could do a walloping lot of damage in a place like RhyDin, with all its wannabe heroes and burgeoning supply of criminals, yes, yes," Pharlen responded with a slow exhalation.

"Should we tell anyone?" Jackie asked, frowning heavily.

"If you see another one, yes, immediately. I will leave inquiries with the police, first responders, and hospitals to be on the look out for weird puncture injuries to the abdomen. I need to make sure that if there are any open doors from Luyten b, they're not only closed, but removed," Pharlen told them, grim. Then she smiled.

"Who's ready for a movie?"