damned_institute | Nightshift 34: Bus Unloading Area

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Nightshift 34: Bus Unloading Area

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Wally shivered as he stepped out into the cool night air. They seemed to be in some kind of parking area - a few buses were throwing huge shadows across the ground which, combined with the general lack of lighting and cold breeze, sent a chill down his spine. Not that he was afraid or anything, it was just a little creepy, that was all.

He looked around, trying decide which would be the best direction to try for a phone. Probably the one the road was leading in. Duh, he mentally berated himself.

First things first, he had to lose Kal. Not that he really had that much of an issue with the guy normally, but he really wanted to get to a phone and call the League and he couldn't do that with a kid following him around the place. Wally glanced over his shoulder to check that Kal hadn't followed him yet. The coast was clear and it was probably too dark for him to be seen, he decided. He smirked as he kicked into speed and ducked behind one of the buses, figuring he could hide until Kal gave up and left on his own.

Hunkered down in the shadows, Wally pressed his head back against the bus and supressed a whimper. His stomach was painfully empty now and it was making him feel a little light-headed. He wasn't sure any more if he would even be able to run all the way to a nearby town. It was looking like he'd be lucky to make it over the fence, let alone however many miles away a town would be. It was hard to imagine this night getting any worse.

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"Ugh!" Wally yelled as the dragonfly creature hit his upper arm. He flailed at it wildly with his free hand, hoping that his flashlight would be heavy enough to dissuade it from attacking him. Gross! It was rotting all over his arm! "Oh, that is just wrong!" he moaned.

He struggled to right himself and get his bearings, still trying to get the insect-lizard off before it had the chance to bite him or something. As if the oozing wasn't enough. He noticed Kal a distance away, also doing the 'get it off' dance. It looked almost comical, if a little slow due to how fast his own thoughts were racing. He needed to find a way to slow down his senses, or at least get the rest of his speed to kick in. Thinking at superspeed while moving at normal speeds was going to do a lot more harm than good.

He tried to focus on slowing his mind down, blocking out Kal's voice as he yelled something. The dragonfly was distracting enough, and he couldn't handle more than instinctivly beating at it while he concentrated on slowing his heartrate. Without really realising it, he closed his eyes, trying to focus. Get his speed under control, then beat off the bugs. There were only four of them after all, even if they were huge. Nowhere near as big a threat as some of the other things the League had faced.

With both Clark and Wally doing their best to shake the bugs off, the dragonflies were forced to cling for dear life in order to stay attached. With Clark, it worked, and the dragonfly held fast to his arm, and soon started to dig its razor teeth into the man's flash.

However, with Wally using his flashlight on the bug that had attached to him, the thing really had no chance. It was half-squashed by the hit, and some of its putrid blood spilled out onto the man as it let out a screech of pain. It started to beat its wings and managed to get away, but it was forced to land in the grass as it recovered from the strike.

Luckily, another dragonfly was able to pick up where the other had left off. One of the two that had been idling took the injured one's place, approaching Wally from behind and latching on to his back.

Clark grit his teeth as the thing started biting into him, its teeth drawing blood - sight of his own blood in the moonlight still shocked him to the core, glistening red. The fresh pain was almost secondary to that. Trying to shake it off wasn't working. He brought his arm up and this time tried to swat it off open handed. Clark didn't know how much of his strength was there, but he had to try.

Wally was so caught up in getting his speed back under control that he almost didn't notice the dragonfly dropping off from his arm, but the spray of foul blood across his arms and the accompanying shriek brought his attention back to the situation. His eyes snapped open to follow the insect-thing as it half-flew, half-fell away from him to land in a somewhat-squashed heap on the ground. One down, three to go. No problem, he told himself.

Redoubling his grip on the flashlight, Wally rapidly played the beam around the area, trying to remember where the other creatures had been and hoping that the light would help scare them off or something. If all else failed, hitting them with it seemed to work too.

A bright flash of red on Clark caught the light. Blood. Wally wasn't sure if it was Clark's or the dragonfly's, though he hoped it was the dragonfly's. "Clark, are you..." he began, but it turned into a yelp as another dragonfly attached itself to his back, right at the point it would be most difficult for him to hit it.

The dragonfly sucked at the blood as if it was a mosquito, making sure to bite through as much of the flesh and get as much blood flowing as it could, considering that it was being smacked at in the process. Even taking into account its size, the bug couldn't eat too much before it got full, and so when Clark's attempts became more and more of a threat, it moved away to join its circling friend, content now that it had sated itself.

The one working on Wally was just getting started, however, and realizing that it had picked a good spot to hold on, it dipped its head against the man's back, tearing through the cloth of his shirt first. Once enough of Wally's bare skin was exposed, the bug tore its small (yet effective) teeth in and started on its meal.

Clark clutched at his bleeding arm, dizzy. He wasn't sure if it was the sight of his blood or the blood loss, but he felt light-headed, like he was floating almost. That or the ground was tilting slowly. The pain on his arm kept him grounded, weirdly enough, and the teenager whirled back toward Wally, remembering why he'd broke cover.

The guy was getting attacked from behind. His injured arm pressed against his chest, small rivulets of blood from the bite dripping down his arm. The farmboy headed toward Wally, his progress slower as he tried to make sure he kept his feet under him and didn't trip. Eventually he got close enough to try to pull the dragonflies off Wally's back.

Wally yelled as he felt the dragonfly on his back first tear through his shirt, then latch onto his back. He felt a flare of pain between his shoulderblades followed by a warm, wet trickle of what could only be blood. Clar- Kal forgotten, Wally desperately tryed to dislodge the insect-thing from his back, and, when that didn't work, he fell back to what he'd always done in this kind of situation. Run about in the hopes that his speed alone would shake it off.

He took off, instinctively trying to access the Speed Force, but finding it distant and almost completely gone. Adrenaline helped him complete a small circle at normal speed, before a crippling surge of hunger brought him to a stop in front of Kal. "Can you please get this thing off?" Wally begged, no longer caring about his previous claims of being able to handle himself.

The running certainly made the feeding process a little tougher, but the dragonfly was used to attacking prey that was much larger than it, and so it didn't let that stop it. Instead, it made sure to hold on even tighter, and it managed to get a few bites in until Wally stopped in place.

That was when it had other hands trying to remove it. The dragonfly shrieked in anger and started to beat its wings in an attempt to ward off Clark.

Meanwhile, the one dragonfly that hadn't yet had a turn with the patients heard the sound and came over to help, flying straight for Clark's face to distract him.

Clark held on stubbornly even as he grimaced at the feel of the pus-coated, rotting body twisting in his hands even as he continued to pull. He flinched away as the other dragonfly came at him, trying to duck as he gave one mighty pull.

Wally gritted his teeth against the pain of the dragonfly biting him. His instinct was still to run, but that wasn't going to help much, as he'd already learned the hard way. He knew Kal must have grabbed the thing when it suddenly stopped biting and shrieked angrily.

"Could you maybe hurry it up a little?" Wally griped. The thin t-shirt didn't offer much protection and the dragonfly was dealing with Kal's attempts to remove it by holding onto him tighter. Then, to make matters worse, the insect-thing's cries called the other one over to attack Kal.

So much for this being an easy fight, he thought. The angle was bad, but Wally did the best he could to try and hit the approaching dragonfly with his flashlight.

That final pull of Clark's was enough to get the job done, and the dragonfly let go of Wally only to writhe in Clark's hands, biting madly at whatever it could get to purely out of defense.

The smack from Wally's flashlight managed to graze the other dragonfly, throwing it off course. It flew down toward the ground as it recovered, but it wasn't yet deterred. It circled around near Wally's legs and landed on his ankle, tearing at the cloth of his pants ravenously.

Clark was flustered. "I'm trying!"

The dragonfly finally let go of Wally's back, but it was flailing and twisting in Clark's hands now wildly, snapping at him as he tried to stay out of reach. Finally Clark threw it down at the ground, his hands bleeding. They had to get out of here! But Wally was still under attack - Clark couldn't take off without him, even if he found him annoying. The farmboy went on the offensive, aiming a sharp kick at the monster trying to bite the other patient's ankle.

His flashlight managed to hit the other dragonfly, but all that seemed to do was cause it to decide to attack him instead. Wally tried his best to shake it off, but considering how tightly the other one had gripped his back, he doubted that was going to work. At least Kal had managed to get the other one off, though by the sound of it, it wasn't too happy about the matter.

"Oh come on," he muttered, still trying to dislodge the other insect-lizard. The last thing he wanted was a leg injury, with his powers already wonky. He clenched his flashlight tightly and swung it at the dragonfly. Unfortunately it was at that moment that Kal decided to aim a kick at the same target.

When Clark threw the dragonfly down, it wasn't able to recover fast enough to avoid hitting the ground. It fell into the grass with a wounded cry, spotting the other bug the two had injured only a short distance away. It was obvious that this fight wasn't going well for the creatures, and so this one started limping its way through the grass to get away from the two humans.

The one that had already gotten its fair share of flesh decided that it no longer needed to wait for the others, and it flew off into the night.

Which left the final one, which was still trying to rip through the skin on Wally's leg. It did get a few desperate bites in, though they were rather small ones. When the two patients sent their attacks simultaneously toward it, Clark's kick connected with Wally's flashlight, sending the hard item toward the dragonfly with even more force than before. It made direct contact, and the bug died instantaneously, squashed all over Wally's leg in a mix of paper thin wings, pus, and blood.

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Nightshift 34: Bus Unloading Area

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