Slowly I made my way to the nearest door and went in.

  As expected, the old warehouse was dilapidated. Rust covered almost every visible even vaguely metallic surface. There are very easily cast spells that keep even the cheapest metal rust-free and in top shape, but if they aren't regularly re-cast the rust will attack with a vengeance, as seemed to be the case here.

  About 20 Men and women in red were hanging around, talking, some playing on their phones. One seemed to be listening to something. Not a very engaged crowd in here. The only one who appeared to be even vaguely on alert was a man standing guard next to the stairs up to the second level.

  My eyes wandered upwards to take in the upper floor. I could see the little office where, presumably, the merchandise was safely in the paws of Heat Hazard.

  Then I noticed something strange. There was another set of stairs leading up. Taking that route would take you a bit longer to reach the office, but it was still very much reachable. The peculiar thing was that there didn't seem to be any kind of guard stationed at that end.

  Without further ado, I went back outside the other entrance.

  Empty. Good.

  This place would do. It was the opposite side of the wall where the twins were, and there was a nice, big, juicy tree right behind this side of the wall. Well, not literally juicy, but juicy for my purposes.

  I went through how I understood the Power of this puppet to work in my mind again.

  I could direct some kind of (probably heat-based) energy into my palms. If I touched my fingers together while I did that, a small sphere of energy builds between my palms. I can vary the size of that sphere by increasing or lowering the energy output. Once I am happy with the size of the sphere, I can control its movements to some degree. And finally, if it touches something smaller than it, it will enter into that object and explode.

  Now, the explosion of the rock was tiny, but so was the rock itself. I could safely assume that a bigger sphere meant a bigger bang since my unwitting friend told me I was good for crowd control. Nothing like big, indiscriminate explosions to ruin the day of any attacking force.

  My plan was a simple, though if it worked, sure to be effective one. I would explode the tree. This was not only definitely loud enough to attract attention, but the broken down wall would lead to a need to further the defenses on this side, not to mention the active attack they would think was happening from this side.

  I steeled myself for a bit and began putting my plan into motion. After creating the sphere, I made it grow until it was about the size of three curled-up humans stacked together and willed it to move toward the three. When it was halfway there, the ball of energy began to wobble.

  I had just enough time to regret my decision when it violently exploded.

  I was thrown back against the warehouse wall and could feel my bones cracking. It was...endurable. Agonizing, but endurable. My doll on the other hand would be feeling this for months.

  It wasn't long before someone ran out to check what was going on.

  "What happened?!" he yelled when he saw my condition and the obliterated perimeter wall.

  "We're being attacked. A whole group of people. They're coming from this side....we need to fortify and prepare to flee." I forced out.

  "God fucking damnit." he muttered and ran back in. I heard muffled shouting and shortly after about a dozen members came back out. Mission accomplished.

  A huge wall of fire rose up to replace the missing part of the wall, and a few of the others lit up, preparing their powers.

  The others ignored me, probably too preoccupied with defense. I took about 5 minutes to regain some of my strength, climbed back to my feet, and moved toward the door.

  When I limped back inside I saw a vision of carnage in front of me. I was going to go to the other side now to give the twins a signal, but it seemed the explosion had been signal enough for them. Or at least Lone Twin. His sister was either still invisible or had stayed back.

  Blood was everywhere. The people who had been relaxing here just a minute ago had been reduced to piles of twitching meat.

  Immediately upon entering, I stepped on something squishy. When I looked down I realized it was an arm. The red hoodie sleeve was soaking up the blood. As I kept staring at it I noticed that....the appendage was...moving.

  Crawling forward, very slightly.

  But not with its fingers.

  There seemed to be something....growing out of the wound. I could make out a few small, oval pearls that reminded me of eyes. Small, claw-like structures had grown from the bone, pawing at the ground and slowly dragging the arm forward, whereas newly formed teeth and a rudimentary, sinew-based jawbone equivalent inside the flesh were chewing it to pieces from within and pulping it into a small, yellow, organic sac.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  As I focused on the carnage in the room my eyes widened. The arm was not an exception. What I misinterpreted as twitching was the same strange, horrifying transformation affecting every corpse. Not just every corpse, but every single severed limb, appendage, and even innards. A small intestine was crawling through the room like a worm.

  A groan ripped me from my thoughts. The last gang member on the first floor was grabbing her throat, while Lone Twin stood silently in front of her. The Grunt tried to speak, but no words left her mouth when suddenly her throat was slit from the inside by tiny, boney crab legs. Her head fell off her body and began to crawl away, and before the rest of her meat-sack even hit the ground other parts of it split off for independence.

  By now, Heat Hazard had left the office. He wore the regular red with a welding mask on his face. His body language was calm and collected, even after observing the massacre, but when he grabbed the railing it melted in his fingers.

  "So...Freakshow, huh? Can't say I expected that." His voice was devoid of any emotion.

  "Give me what I want and I'll let you live." Twin replied, equally as calm.

  8 more gang members exited the office behind Heat Hazard and joined him.

  "Tempting. But I have to decline. If you want it so bad, why don't you come up here and get it?"

  Lone Twin smirked.

  "If you insist."

  The Freakshow member slowly walked up the stairs, but when he reached the halfway point everything went white. For the second time today, I was flung against the wall by an explosion.

  When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw was Heat Hazard and his goons protected by a fiery sphere. Lone Twin was lying on the floor, both legs and a good bit of his lower body missing.

  I barely had time to process all of this insanity. With great difficulty, I got to my feet and stumbled over to him.

  "Hey. Are you okay?"

  It was a dumb question, but I was not in a clear state of mind. Both hope and trepidation blossomed inside me. On the one hand, with an abject failure such as this, I was sure to be rejected. On the other hand, Freakshow seemed a volatile enough group to pin Lone Twin's death, or at least maiming, on me, and I didn't fancy my chances in that scenario.

  Just then a few of the gang members I had lured outside stormed back in to check on the commotion.

  "Look, Boss. A traitor." one of the female goons next to Heat Hazard said.

  "Indeed. We'll deal with her later. First, let's finish the intruder."

  Lone Twin groaned in pain and looked up at me. "Not really. But it doesn't matter. The mission will succeed."

  "But..." I started when I was interrupted by a banshee-like screech. The Sister reappeared, right behind Heat Hazard, and with a flick of her finger the walkway they were standing on collapsed.

  The dead woman stayed afloat in the air and screamed once more before diving down into the mass of startled, hurt villains. The disgusting sound of tearing flesh could be heard as she began to feast.

  "What the fuck?" one of the men from outside yelled, stumbling back and hurling a fireball at the woman.

  "Your presence was never necessary. I was just supposed to evaluate how well you do on a run." Lone Twin groaned. "I'd say you did well. Well enough, at least. My situation is my own fault."

  The fireball fizzled against some kind of invisible protective shield. The sister looked up, her mouth covered in blood, screamed and pointed at a shard of glass. The sharp object lifted itself up and flew right into the terrified attacker's neck. I could hear him gurgle as the blood filled his throat. More and more of the other gang members streamed in and joined the fray.

  "Just go. You get my approval." His voice was strained and breathy. "Go to the Gas Quarter. Find the clown mural. Knock on its nose five times and say 'Laughter, Laughter. Laughter all day'. Now move. We'll handle the rest."

  "But...you'll die if..."

  "We'll handle the rest."

  It was clear he wasn't going to be handling much of anything for much longer, but I didn't need to be told a third time to get away from this madness. I closed my eyes and began decoupling my mind from my unfortunate victims.

  --------------------------

  As soon as I was back in my body I tried to run like hell, but the reintegration period meant it started more as a prolonged set of slow stumbles. But once I was back in the groove I booked it until my legs couldn't carry me any longer.

  Flashes of the crawling, self-devouring body parts flooded my mind, all the death I had witnessed crashing over me, and I sank to my knees and emptied my stomach.

  I had done that a few times lately.

  When did my life get so fucked? Probably when I decided on the Yellowbrick run. No matter how often I posed that question to myself, this one decision seemed to be the lynchpin. Because the only reason I did it was self-importance. Could've stayed as a register robber forever, but nooo. I needed to be the best of the worst. The top of the bottom-rung. Stupid! Stupid Mallory! Stupid and arrogant. Everything that happened you have only yourself to blame for!

  After I calmed down sufficiently I decided to make my way to turn the mission in.

  ------------------------

  A few hours later I was back where it all started. Or ended, rather. The Gas Quarter.

  It took me a little while to find the mural Lone Twin was talking about. It was painted on the back wall of an abandoned house, the door of which had been broken down.

  Instead of a whole clown, it was a gigantic, smiling clown face. Hesitantly I raised my arm and knocked on the big, black nose five times.

  Suddenly the pupils of the drawing focused on me and its smile widened.

  "What's the Ambrosia that gives life meaning?" it asked in an exaggerated, almost absurd sing-songy voice.

  "Uhm....laughter, laughter, laughter all day?" I replied.

  My BHF marker was flooded with warmth and the clown giggled obnoxiously.

  "Welcome home!"

  The mural opened its mouth cartoonishly wide and almost seamlessly the red tongue turned into curtains.

  I took a deep breath and went in.

  The room I found myself in was...strange, to say the least. Instead of solid walls, fluttering, black and red striped fabric surrounded me. A circus tent? The floor was soft and slightly spongelike. I didn't sink in from walking, but it felt like a jump would get me stuck for sure.

  Someone was there to greet me. Boneyard.

  "You.....came......If you made it in here........that must mean......you passed."

  "Well...the mission....it went..."

  All of a sudden something flew past my head and Boneyard caught it. It was a lockbox, the Midgardsummer flame emblazoned on top.

  A beautiful girl in an Arabian princess costume strutted past me, followed by a shambling, rotting abomination in a suit.

  "Target acquired." the woman said and moved deeper into the tent with her companion.

  "Welcome back, Lone Twin." Boneyard said with a smile, her raspy voice and frequent pauses gone.

  She put a hand on my shoulder, squeezed gently, and looked at me with a bright grin, an expression that didn't fit her gloomy exterior at all.

  "Congratulations, Master Controller." She started and then said the words I had been dreading this whole time.

  "Now, you're one of us."