Critical Failures VII

by Robert Bevan

  Cooper attempted to make appropriate gestures to follow what Stacy was saying, but he felt more like he was mocking sign language. He could barely keep up with what she was talking about anyway, the bulk of his concentration focused on keeping his sphincter sealed tight.

  The guard took a step toward Cooper, then stopped just short of invading his personal space. His nose twitched and his smile faltered. “I've got a gift for you.” He reached down the front of his pants and pulled out his rather sizable semi-erect dick, which he stroked hurriedly to achieve full erection. “How about you turn around and hike up that pretty little dress of yours, and I'll give it to you.”

  Cooper was quickly reaching the threshold for how much of this he could take.

  “No thank you,” said Stacy curtly. “I'm just here to browse.”

  The guard laughed. “I think not, miss. I'm afraid you've wandered into the wrong neighborhood.”

  “You disgusting creep! We're out in the middle of the street, for crying out loud. Are you some kind of animal?”

  “I can be.” The guard's face elongated and sprouted brown fur. His grin widened, his teeth becoming pointed and needle-like. Even as his arms and penis took their hybrid forms, he continued stroking.

  As disturbing as the scene was, and as much as he could feel Nabi's bloodlust burning within him, Cooper appreciated the man's ability to jerk off during the metamorphosis.

  “Unbelievable!” said Stacy, yanking off her hood and becoming instantly visible beside Cooper.

  The guard halted his stroking and yelped something that Cooper figured was the equivalent of “What the fuck?” in rat-person-ese.

  It was just as well that Stacy had moved out of the way, because Cooper's ass had finally reached its limit. If the element of surprise was their goal, he felt they had unquestionably achieved it. He couldn't think of anything more surprising than seeing Meg Ryan shitting herself in the middle of the street. When it was done, the chunky brown puddle was more massive than what eight Meg Ryans could hope to shit out over a month.

  Stacy kicked the guard in his exposed rat nuts, eliciting a squeal of agony.

  Cooper followed her lead, allowing Nabi to sate her nagging thirst. In another course of action not generally associated with Meg Ryan, he pulled a massive axe out of his body and buried one of its blades into the chest of a wererat. “Surprise, motherfucker!”

  As Nabi relished in the delight of murder, Cooper let out a long extended fart of relief.

  Stacy frowned as the body reverted back to its human form. “Why don't you give me the hairclip?”

  “Gladly,” said Cooper, pulling it out and taking on his half-orc form again. “If I wore this any longer, I might have shat out my intestines.”

  Stacy plucked the hair clip out of his hand and gave it a sniff. After rubbing it on her sleeve, she put it in her own hair and turned into a dude. More specifically, the dead dude lying at their feet.

  “How's this?” she asked, then shook her arms and shoulders like she was psyching herself up to make a speech in front of a lot of people. “Hey there, Missy.” She didn't sound like herself. Come to think of it, she didn't sound like anybody. Her voice was more like a caricature of someone doing 1940s radio ads. “I got a gift for ya!” She thrust her crotch aggressively at Cooper. “How about you and me take a roll in the hay?”

  Cooper considered it. “Do you have to wear the hair clip? I don't want to come off as homophobic, but – ”

  “Cooper!” Stacy snapped at him in her own voice. “Stay focused.”

  “I honestly have no idea what the fuck is happening right now.”

  “Do I sound like him or not?” she asked in her other voice.

  “Oh. Is that what you were going for?” He was a little freaked out, and didn't want to upset her. “Yeah, totally. You nailed it.”

  “Are you lying?”

  Cooper looked down at his shit puddle. “Yes.”

  “Well I appreciate the gesture. Going forward, I would appreciate you not killing everyone we meet. We're trying to get information, after all.”

  Just as Cooper opened his mouth to relay the message to Nabi, she cut him off.

  I understand.

  Cooper nodded at Stacy. “Do you have some sort of plan you'd like to fill me in on?”

  Stacy gave him an annoyed look. “The plan was to try and coax some information out of this guy.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It's okay. He didn't sound like he was going to be very forthcoming anyway.” She scowled down at his hand still gripping his dong. “At least not with information.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “First we get rid of this body.” Stacy nodded past Cooper. “That alley should suffice.”

  The alley in question was a little too clean to hide a body in. There weren't any piles of garbage, stacks of crates, or broken furniture to conceal him. “Are you sure?”

  “We only need to keep him hidden for as long as it takes to get what intel we can and get the hell out of here.”

  “Right,” said Cooper. “I'm on it.”

  “I'll take care of the body. Do you still have that Decanter of Endless Water?”

  Cooper felt the slender metal container through his bag. “Yeah. Everything happened so fast, I forgot to give it back to Katherine.”

  “Good,” said Stacy, patting down the guard's clothes. “You clean up this big shit puddle.” She found a small coin pouch and a dagger, both of which she absorbed into her disguised body.

  “Are you sure?” said Cooper. “He looks a little heavy for –”

  Even though she was disguised as the guard while doing so, Cooper thought it remarkable how easily she picked him up and hefted him over her shoulder. Then he remembered the series of arm wrestling matches he'd had with her, which he'd only won by using his Barbarian Rage. She was strong as shit.

  While Stacy walked off to dump the body, Cooper pulled out the Decanter of Endless Water. He frowned down at his puddle of ass chili. This was definitely a job for the geyser setting.

  He pointed the mouth of the decanter down at the puddle. “Geyser.” Water gushed out of it like a fire hose, but the shit puddle moved like lava. It expanded out slowly in an arc while the water accumulating in the middle of it turned murky brown, then started spreading out from it. This was almost certainly worse. Given enough time, he could wash the street, but in the meantime he was just flooding it in a sea of shitwater.

  “You there!” said a bald human man as he stormed out of the building's entrance. He wore a green cloak identical to the one the guard had been wearing. His voice was high and nasally, just begging to be fixed with a fist. “Who are you? What are you doing? What is this –” He stopped, then scampered back just in time to avoid the expanding mass of brown water. “Stop this at once!”

  Cooper deactivated the Decanter of Endless Water. “Um... hi.”

  “You had better start explaining yourself at once, filthy half-orc trash.”

  “Dude,” said Cooper. “No need to bring race into this.” He had a strong urge to chop the guy in half, but he had a sneaking suspicion that was coming from Nabi. Instead, he considered geysering him. That is, until the man's hands started glowing with white magical light. Cooper had seen enough of Julian's Magic Missile spells to recognize this one.

  “Who are you,” the man demanded with the implied threat of blasting the shit out of Cooper. “And what are you doing here?”

  “I'm the street cleaner. I was called here to clean up this giant pile of shit.” Cooper felt confident in his story, considering the unmistakable huge pile of shit there to back it up.

  “Called by whom?”

  Shit. This guy was good.

  “I think his name was Roy.” That sucked even by Cooper standards. He needed more details to sell the story. “Kinda husky voice. Like Oscar the Grouch with throat cancer, or Kathleen Turner, or –”

  “Where is Kepler?” demanded the annoying-voiced man.

  �
�Where is Kepler?” he repeated, this time without moving his lips.

  “Whoa,” said Cooper. “Do that again.”

  The man shot an annoyed glance past Cooper, and his hands stopped glowing. “There you are. Do you know this... person?”

  Cooper turned around to find Stacy returning from the alley, still disguised as the guard.

  “There you are,” she said as she walked around the shitwater. “Do you know this... person?” Her mimicry was as on point as it was annoying.

  “Stop doing that,” said the bald man. “You know I hate that.”

  “Stop doing that. You know I hate that.”

  “I'm going to tell Dolazar.”

  “I'm going to tell Dolazar.”

  “For fuck's sake, guys,” said Cooper. “I can't take much more of this.”

  The bald man glared severely at Stacy, who was getting closer to him, while pointing at Cooper. “Who is this?”

  Cooper braced himself for Stacy to repeat his nasally question. But instead, she replied in her own voice as she pulled a piece of paper out of her illusory body.

  “What do you know about this halfling?”

  “What?” The bald man's eyes widened with sudden panic as his hands began to glow again.

  Stacy punched him quick and hard in the face. The magical energy in his hands fizzled out as he collapsed into the shitwater.

  “Thank you,” said Cooper. “I thought I might have to chop my fucking ears off.”

  Removing the hair clip, Stacy turned back into Stacy. Then she put it back into her hair and turned into the bald guy who had a very unpleasant awakening in his future.

  “How do I sound?”

  Cooper cringed at her imitation. “Like an accordion that just got kicked in the nuts.”

  “Is it convincing?”

  “If you're trying to convince me to kill myself. Otherwise, I'll do whatever you want if you just stop talking like that.”

  “I'm sorry. I know it's annoying. But I'm afraid I'll lose it if I break character.”

  “I'm going to fucking lose it if you don't,” said Cooper as he followed Stacy into the building.

  “Here's the plan,” Stacy continued in the voice. “Follow me upstairs. I'll go into Dolazar's office and try to Gather Information. You stay outside. If things get hairy, I'll shout for you. Even then, use lethal force only as a last result. Got it?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Cooper. “I got it. Just stop talking already.”

  Stacy led the way up the stairs, and Cooper followed as quietly as he could, which wasn't very quiet at all. With every step, he was certain that his foot was going to go right through the rotted old boards, but they held together.

  “That's Dolazar's office over there,” Stacy whispered, still in character. It was like a single fork being dragged lightly across a chalkboard. She pointed toward the front side of the building. “Wait by that window and look out for anyone coming in from outside. If shit goes down, come in and help me.”

  Cooper nodded, then walked over to the window, leaving moist shitwater footprints on the dusty floor.

  The window was broken, which was just as well since what little glass that remained was opaque with dust and cobwebs. Peeking outside, Cooper saw nothing out of the ordinary. His massive shit blob protruded from the sea of brown water like a crescent-shaped turd island. The bald guy lay still exactly where Stacy's punch had dropped him. Cooper looked back at Stacy and gave her a thumbs up.

  Stacy nodded, took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped into the room. “Nothing to report outside,” she said. “Just some filthy half-orc looking for...” Whatever followed was muffled by the door closing behind her.

  As certain as he was that Stacy could hold her own in a fight until he arrived to back her up, Cooper didn't like the thought of waiting around like a useless bag of dicks while a woman went alone across enemy lines. Maybe that was sexist of him, but he couldn't help the discomfort in his gut or in his bladder. Actually, come to think of it, the discomfort in his bladder probably had more to do with him needing to take a piss, and that could be helped. But where? He didn't want to leave his post, but neither did he want to piss here on the floor if he could help it.

  Go out the window. With all the shitwater on the street, a bit of urine will make little difference.

  Nabi was right, but Cooper wished she wouldn't remind him of her presence while he was trying to pee.

  Facing the window again, he flicked away some jagged pieces of glass poking up from the bottom, so as to lessen the chances of accidentally slicing his dick open.

  He pointed his dick out the window and closed his eyes as he held it. Though the discomfort in his bladder was now worse due to his attention being focused on it, his dick muscles refused to relax.

  What are you so shy about?

  “It's weird with you watching.”

  Would it help if I sing to you?

  “Fuck no! It would help if you'd just shut up for a minute and let me focus.”

  Cooper concentrated on becoming one with his penis, feeling the hot urine flow from the soles of his feet, then erupting from the top of his head. Yes, that's it. Be the flow. Release the –

  Just to be clear, I'm not watching. I have no eyes with which to see as you understand it. I perceive the world around me through your senses, which my mind then interprets.

  “I don't give a fuck,” said Cooper. “Please. I just need to forget you're there for a few seconds, so that I can –”

  SMASH!

  The sound of glass shattering above him was just the distraction Cooper needed. His stream fired out powerfully, right into the face of a man in a green cloak who had no doubt assumed that being thrown through a window was going to be the biggest surprise he would experience in this span of five seconds. Poor bastard still had the shitwater to look forward to.

  Cooper was confident that a man being thrown through a window constituted the requisite level of shit going down to warrant his participation. But he also felt that, unless Stacy had again changed her disguise and was the person lying on the street who he was currently pissing on, she was handling the situation well enough on her own such that he had time to finish his piss.

  “COOPER!” cried Stacy, thankfully in her own voice.

  He still had half a bladder's worth of piss to squirt, but his conscience constricted his dick muscles and cut off the flow. There was nothing more uncomfortable than stopping mid piss.

  Following the shouts and screams and crashes of what sounded like a hell of a fight, he ran back to the door Stacy had gone through. He kicked as hard as he could with the heel of his foot, and the door swung wide open. The stench of old piss curdled in his nasal cavity and stung his eyes. It was a tiny room, containing only a copper cauldron half filled with piss.

  “A fucking bathroom.” That would have been nice to know about a minute ago, but now it just seemed to be mocking him, especially since he still had to pee.

  “Cooper!” cried Stacy again. “Help me!”

  Shit. That sounded more desperate than Cooper had ever heard Stacy sound. Gather Information be damned. He would have to use his Barbarian Rage. Acting on pure instinct, he grabbed the piss pot before moving to the next door down the hallway. Hoping he had the correct one this time, he spoke the words that would release the Rage within him.

  “I'm really angry.”

  Cooper's vision turned pink as his heart started to race. He felt a warm stream running down his thigh in spite of the fact that Nabi was very much present at the forefront of his mind, eagerly anticipating the carnage to come.

  This door looked more solid than the bathroom door, but instead of swinging it open or tearing it from its hinges, Cooper's foot went straight through it. In his raged state, that only pissed him off more, and he punched holes in the rest of the door until there was so little of it left that he could force his way through it.

  Stacy lay on the floor in a puddle of blood. At first glance, it appeared that no one e
lse was in the room. Then Cooper caught a flicker of movement in his periphery. One of the green-cloaked men was climbing out of the window from a rope attached to the sill by a grappling hook.

  Cooper barely had time to appreciate the terrified expression on the man's face before he caved it in with a flying pot full of piss.

  Two seconds later, he heard the splattering thud and clang as man and piss pot contributed to the mess on the street. He started toward the window to see if there were any more people climbing down the rope who he could pull up and beat the shit out of, but Stacy called out to him.

  “Cooper, stop!”

  Her pained cry of distress brought Cooper out of his Barbarian Rage, which left him via the anus.

  “Help me up,” said Stacy, struggling just to raise her arm.

  Cooper walked over to her and pulled her up to her feet. “What happened?”

  “They saw right through my disguise. They all jumped me at once. I fought as hard as I could, but there were too many of them.” She gazed up at Cooper with tears in her eyes. “If you had not been outside... I cannot bear to think what they might have done to me.”

  Cooper had never seen Stacy so shaken up before. He felt a little guilty for letting her go in alone. But she was so confident. Who was he to tell her what she could and couldn't handle? This fight must have really spooked her, though. Broken chairs and overturned tables and shelving units littered the floor. Even the extremely heavy-looking desk on the other side of the room had been shoved a few inches, judging by the scrape marks on the floor. For as short as it was, it must have been a hell of a fight, and Stacy had probably thought she was staring death right in the face.

  Maybe that was for the best. As badass as she was, she had limitations. A good solid reminder of her own mortality might do her some good in the long run.

  Still, he didn't like to see her so traumatized. He patted the back of her hand, which he was still holding. “Don't worry. It's all over now.”

  “No, it is not.” Her eyes were wild with fear. “They will return in greater numbers. We must flee at once.”

  “They're just wererats,” said Cooper. “Nabi and I chopped through a whole pack of them.”