As with the previous chapter, this one contains quite a bit of monster violence, but not as intense and horrific as the previous one. Still, between that one and this I wouldn't go skinny-dipping in the ocean at night anytime soon... >;)
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Prometheus Busted — Part 5
By Skaea
Contains: F/M, M/M, and */M ballbusting, femdom, peril, violence/gore, and graphic castration.
Word Count: 5,911
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Myrmex of Mattellia, as played by Sam Bond
Chapter 5: Myrmex
This must be the place, Tristan thought, his gaze shifting from the card he was holding to the magnificent sparkling courtyard in front of him, which seemed to have been ripped straight from the cover of some trashy fantasy romance novel. The garden seemed to cover the width of a basketball court, with winding paths flanked by exotic flowers and plant life that looked like it didn’t otherwise exist on Earth. At the center was a massive fountain, with stone-hewn sea monsters shooting torrents of water from their mouths high into the air above it.
In short, the most pretentious place anyone could live in. At least from Tristan’s standpoint, anyway.
But he was not here to scorn the scenery. Taking the shortest route to the front door of the Greco-Roman-styled, almost gilded mansion, he narrowly avoided multiple carnivorous plants on the way, and couldn’t help but notice several varieties of strange insects inhabiting the garden, including a species of ruby-red ant as big as his thumbnail with giant, serrated jaws. He quickly guessed that picnics here were out of the question.
Once he reached the extravagant front porch, Tristan wondered whether it was really worth coming here. But he decided he had nothing to lose, not after his nards had recently detonated thanks to the venom of a monstrous many-headed water serpent. He’d put the head he’d accidentally obtained from it in a plastic bag and put in the backpack he was currently wearing, hoping this ‘Myrmex’ would help him understand it. He doubted someone as rich and snooty as whoever owned this place would lend a hand, though. As usual.
He knocked on the door anyway… and was greeted by a surprise that wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
It was as though he was staring down the heroic barbarian protagonist of an 80’s fantasy cartoon. The man was eight feet tall, olive-skinned and blue-eyed, scantily clothed, and so stupendously muscular that his arms alone were the same width as Tristan’s torso. His flowing golden hair went down to his lower back, and was matched by a small goatee on his otherwise smooth, almost marble-hewn face. His forearms and lower legs were covered in furs, with fingerless leather gloves on hands as big as the smaller man’s head and Greek-style sandals over his enormous feet. His only other articles of clothing were two leather straps crossing his chest and a leopard-fur loincloth over his waist… the latter of which just barely failed to conceal the biggest genitalia Tristan had ever seen.
“Oh? Didn’t expect someone to stop by at this hour! Well, hi there!”
The barbarian’s voice was deep and masculine, with a slight British accent reminiscent of the hero of a historical sword-and-sandal drama, but so cheerful in tone that it took Tristan by surprise once again. He was expecting a brooding, antisocial, and possibly misogynistic loner, but then again this wasn’t the sort of city to follow his expectations. “Um, hello?” said Tristan, feigning a smile. “I’m Tristan Petropoulos, and I’m here to see a certain Myrmex of Mattellia ab—”
“You called?” The barbarian grinned, a twinkle in his eye. “Hmm, judging from that card you’re holding, I’m guessing Nina sent you. Bless her, I was wondering when she’d pass somebody over to me for once!”
Tristan raised an eyebrow. “Wait. You say you know h—”
“But of course, she’s got contacts all over the city, mate! Y’know, just in case her patients have bigger problems to deal with than a broken arm?” Myrmex laughed at his own joke, though Tristan wasn’t quite as amused. “Anyway, come on in! I’ll be happy to listen to whatever’s got your dire bats in a belfry!”
Seeing no other choice in the matter, Tristan decided to follow Myrmex into the mansion, which was quite well-kept, though he couldn’t help but notice that almost everything — including the grand-piano-sized chandelier, the golden grand piano, the brazen master stairwell, the stained glass windows, and statues and busts of enough famous figures, superheroes, and celebrities to fill five years’ worth of almanacs — was virtually untouched. They exited the main hall, finding themselves in the guest room where multiple gilded, red-velvet couches lay in wait for someone to sit or sleep on them.
“You live here?” he asked, feeling awkward even before the question left his mouth.
“Oh, this little dump? Technically, the fat cats at the head of the city administration lent it to me so I could have a roof over my head at night. Too bad they didn’t figure on my tendency to sleep under the stars! A couple of other big-name folks do live here as well, but they’re kinda busy at the moment.”
“Why am I not surprised?” asked Tristan.
“Yeah, being a hero is overrated, trust me. Gets you into no end of trouble twenty-four-seven!” Myrmex turned to Tristan with a winning smile.
The very surprised youth tried not to meet his gaze. “Well, uh… At least you have good taste. Anyway, um…” His gaze was drawn towards the barbarian’s crotch — and specifically those balls underneath the loincloth, each of which was the size of Tristan’s entire head. Wait a minute, was there something moving just under the skin of one of them…?
“Oh! If you’ll excuse me… Be back in a jiffy!” Myrmex suddenly turned and swiftly headed out of the room. Tristan stood there for a few moments, feeling utterly bewildered, but before he could call out to the bigger man to ask what was happening, he suddenly heard a very loud noise from just outside the room.
It was Myrmex’s screaming.
Tristan all but bolted out of the room, but Myrmex was nowhere to be seen. He was certainly heard, though, his surprisingly high-pitched shrieks of what seemed like absolute agony echoing throughout the main hall. The smaller man looked around frantically, trying to determine the source of the noise, but a few moments later it stopped. All was quiet in the mansion once more.
Feeling very, very uncomfortable, Tristan decided it was best to hide inside the room he’d been in earlier and wait for Myrmex to come back… if he was still alive.
“Sorry ‘bout that!” the barbarian said when he returned several minutes later. Tristan couldn’t help but notice that his voice was a bit hoarse from all the screaming, and that his skin and hair were drenched in sweat. “Had a bit of a disagreement with some friends. Anyway… What did you wanna talk to me about?”
Tristan decided that he was better of not asking about what had happened earlier. Instead he sat on one of the couches, took off his backpack, and opened it. “Well… I had an encounter with some kind of multi-headed sea serpent at the harbor a while ago. I managed to get one of its heads…”
He pulled out the dark green, snake-like head, still in the bag that Nina had given him. The toxic black blood, which was thankfully not acidic, had pooled at the bottom of the bag.
Myrmex’s eyes widened. “Bloody hell, mate, you actually got yourself a Scyllan hydra head, of all things? And didn’t die in the process?!”
Tristan looked at the bag, his eyes narrowing. “I know what a hydra looks like. But what’s with the Scyllan moniker specifically?”
“How familiar are you with Scylla and Charybdis?” asked Myrmex. “Y’know, those monsters that used to hang out betwixt Italy and Sicily? Whirlpool, many-headed monster, the works?”
“I read The Odyssey in college, but I thought Scylla was just the one monster.” Tristan rubbed his chin, setting the bag on the coffee table in front of the couch. “So, there’s multiple varieties of hydra?”
“Yep. The Lernaean one killed by Heracles, or Hercules as you lot call him now, was just one of several species. Scylla gave rise to another. See how this head has forward-facing eyes and a slightly wolf-like bridge of the snout? Those are the trademarks of her species, right there.”
“I’m more worried about those teeth,” said Tristan, a shiver running down his spine. “I know the main head bit me in the crotch before I could escape. The acid in its fangs bloated up my testicles and burst them…” He covered his mouth a second later, realizing he’d said too much.
“Are you sure about that?” Myrmex looked at him skeptically. “You’ve got a noticeable bulge. Are you lying to me, or just happy to see me?”
“I’d be interested, but I judge people by their nature, not their looks, and you don’t exactly sound my type.” Tristan realized what Myrmex was indicating, and decided that the word was out at that point. “And I’m not lying, no way. You should’ve seen the blood and spunk everywhere. The thing is, though… I can heal. Very fast. I regrew my poor ballsack in less than a day.”
Myrmex’s eyes went wide. “I… Wow. I wish I had that power. Well… Okay, maybe not so much, actually. I’d have to suffer getting new tunnels carved inside my junk a lot more often…”
“Not to derail this conversation, but I thought I saw something move inside your nuts before you fled.” Tristan looked understandably concerned. “And then you started screaming, like you were in agony or something. What was with that? And what did you mean about tunnels being carved into your, uh…” He cringed from head to toe, unable to bring himself to finish that sentence.
The barbarian looked taken aback, but a moment later, he sighed. “Alright. I’ll let you in on a secret, but promise me you won’t spoil it to anyone else. Got it?”
Tristan nodded.
“You know how I said that being a hero was overrated earlier? Well… I was quite popular where I came from. Before that weird portal dropped me off here in this city, loads of awful people wanted my head thanks to being ruined by my good deeds. One fine day, some nasty cult worshiping an insect goddess took me hostage to use as a sacrifice to her. It… didn’t end well for anyone. Except her, but that’s beside the point.”
He lifted his loincloth, revealing both of his huge bollocks, and Tristan now realized to his horror that multiple little creatures — were they like those ants he’d seen earlier, except smaller? — were now crawling around inside his scrotum, just under the skin, the bulges betraying their presence moving with alarming speed.
“By the time I convinced the Hive Queen to off those fuckers who’d tied me up in the first place, the ritual had already been underway, and there were tons of hellfire ants inside my precious testicles!” To Tristan’s surprise, Myrmex spoke with pride, rather than the far more obvious reaction. “A whole colony in each of ‘em, queen and all, constantly tunneling and munching away at the living, sensitive nut meat inside! Turns out, the Hive Queen had chosen me as her mortal emissary, because nobody had lasted as long as me against her brood up to that point, and that was before I’d managed to turn her on my captors. I had to be the host of her power so other less scrupulous blokes wouldn’t, so becoming a living ant nest in constant testicular agony is just a small price to pay for keeping the world from being overrun by enough ants to blanket half a continent!”
Even though Tristan felt revolted at this tale, he couldn’t help but admire Myrmex’s valor, even in the face of immense pain and almost certain doom. “I… I don’t know what to say. I’m proud, but I’m sorry you had to go through all that…”
“Naw, don’t be!” Myrmex laughed heartily. “If anything, people’ve stopped bothering me much since then unless they were either really powerful or really dumb. I mean, imagine trying to mug an eight-foot sod with a sword as big as him, and the ability to unload an entire swarm o’ flesh-eating hellfire ants from his eighteen-inch schlong! Not my idea of fun, ain’t it?” he added, playfully slapping one his giant bollocks where there weren’t any ants just under the skin.
Tristan winced in sympathetic pain, deciding to return to the topic at hand. “Well, uh… What kinds of monsters did you encounter before you came here? And, um, did you meet any Scyllan hydras?”
“You can call me a walking bestiary, mate. I’ve had run-ins with almost every single critter you could find in all the mythology compendiums in the world, including the beast you apparently have a score to settle with. There’s a reason Nina’s got me on her contact list!” Myrmex beamed proudly. “Anyway, there are two things you’ve gotta know when dealing with hydras. Set their necks on fire after you cut their heads off, and aim for the middle head if you wanna kill ‘em for good. All the other heads are magically conjoined to the main body, neck, and head. Those ones can regrow if cut off — but the center one can’t, ‘cuz it’s connected to the bit of the spine running through its body. You’ve gotta use a cauterizing weapon, though, because if the blow isn’t a mortal one, the middle head will heal even faster than the others!”
Tristan picked up the bagged hydra head. “You said you have a sword as big as you. Does it light up?”
“Oh, that one? I’d need the right enchantment jewel to imbue it with the necessary fire magic, and I’m a bit short on fire gems at the moment. But perhaps if we bring along a tank o’ gasoline, a flamethrower, and some very fast reflexes…”
“Lemme guess. You want to help me kill that monster, huh?” Tristan laughed bitterly.
“If that’s really the poor thing that ate thirteen people over the past few weeks, then I’m all for putting it out of its misery! It’s a shame that we’ll have to get rid of something so majestic, but it must’ve gotten permanently crippled by a fight with a sea-boar or merlion or something anyway, and couldn’t hunt out in the open sea like the species usually does. If only it hadn’t learned that people are tender, defenseless idiots who have a bad habit of swan-diving into the wrong place at the wrong time!”
“…so in short, yes?”
“You got it, mate! Me and my ladies are at your service!” Myrmex saluted comically.
Tristan grinned. “Right, then. I’ll see if I can find the quickest bus route to the harbor. Let’s go fishing!”
*****
Later that evening, the two men stepped off of the bus (Myrmex, of course, had to duck to avoid bumping his head on the door frame) and found themselves on a street not far from the bay area. Without pausing to admire the scenery, they headed off towards the harbor, Prometheus clad in his hero attire this time around and Myrmex in his typical barbarian outfit, sans underwear. It was a sight to see this truly incongruous duo on the job, but they had to make do.
“Alright, so.” Tristan leaned against the wall of a fuel station meant for docked boats, gazing out over the setting sun. “Based on my… past experience… with this thing, I know it hunts at night, waiting for people to come out for a swim while nobody else is on patrol. It seems to know when heroes are most active, so that means you’ve gotta stay hidden until the time is right.”
“Like I don’t already know that, mate,” said Myrmex, patting his shoulder. “But what about you? I mean, you nearly got eaten once, so why come out here at this hour and risk it again?”
Tristan started slipping his shirt off, though he kept his helmet on. “Here’s the thing. The last time I nearly got gibbed, I was in my jogging clothes, and because I looked like a lone civilian who was stupid enough to be out on his own at night, the hydra took me for easy prey. I lived, don’t get me wrong, but I was lucky. What I’m gonna do tonight, though, will be different – and even stupider, if you ask me.”
“What do you–” Then his mouth fell open. “Tristan… Oh gods, don’t tell me you’re gonna–”
“Use myself as bait? What choice do I have?” He shook his head. “Not the most savory option, but I’ll have to try. It’s tasted me before, and I’m counting on it to want a second go.”
Myrmex looked understandably concerned. “You’re playing a suicide gamble. I know you want to make a difference, but… You sure you can handle hydra venom? It’s one of the most toxic substances in the world, and hideously corrosive to boot!”
Prometheus took the smartphone he’d bought with him out of his pocket, and handed it to the taller blond with a confident smile. “I know. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
With this, he headed off towards the nearest pier, taking his outfit off piece by piece and laying it on the pier.
“I get the feeling that this is not gonna end well…” said Myrmex, shaking his head with a look of dismay.
Tristan remained sitting on the pier for two hours, his bare feet dangling from the dock with the waves lapping against his toes. Myrmex stayed near the gas station and out of sight, but he had his broadsword and the flamethrower he’d fished from his weapons bunker at the ready in case things went horribly wrong – and there was a good chance that they would. If all else failed… He didn’t want to think about that possibility, but he could almost feel his bugs nibbling away at the millions of tubules inside his balls, excited at the potential meal that was coming to them soon. If only they weren’t a last-resort weapon…
Almost a hundred and forty minutes into their task, Myrmex perked up at a distant sound like some kind of wet smacking. Looking up in confusion, he saw nothing except the figure of his companion illuminated in the moonlight. “Uh, Tris? I heard something…”
Tristan raised an eyebrow at his new nickname, stopping what he was doing with an apprehensive expression. “You did? I thought the only noise here was me, well… I got bored and horny, sorry. Thinking about someone.”
“Like what, a girlfriend?” Myrmex frowned. “This is not the time to see Rosie Palms about a dog, y’know! Do you know how many monsters are attracted to human sperm?”
Tristan instantly stuffed his cock back in his briefs.
“Hah, just kiddin’,” Myrmex laughed a little. “But seriously, maybe jackin’ off directly into the ocean may not be the best idea!”
“What’s wrong with that, anyways?” Tristan stood up and began walking back towards the street, feeling a twinge of disappointment at coming up empty-handed once again. “It’s not like I’m getting blood in the w–”
There was a tremendous crash, and Tristan’s form was obscured by something huge and sinuous, its many necks writhing and its finned tail thrashing. The deck seemed to explode into splinters as Tristan was flung screaming into the water, slipping out of sight.
“TRISTAN!” Myrmex grabbed his broadsword in one hand and the flamethrower in the other before running towards the broken dock. “Tristan, no! No no no…”
Prometheus was still alive, but in the water, he was at the hydra’s mercy. Its seven heads were suddenly all around him, snapping at him from all directions, but in a panic-fueled frenzy he proceeded to lash out with his fists and feet in a bid to escape. Random punches and kicks actually managed to fend off its fearsome heads, but he knew that if the main one set its sights on him, he was royally screwed.
One of the heads snapped at him from behind, but he managed to whirl around and aim a clumsy roundhouse at it, throwing off its aim and causing its teeth to hook onto his underwear. It wasn’t enough to drag him into the deep, but it did succeed in pulling his briefs off, not that it mattered to him at the time. Kicking wildly, he struggled towards the surface, the monster’s heads lunging at him with bloodthirsty malice.
He broke the surface to find a panicked Myrmex waiting for him, his hand outstretched. “Grab on!” he cried, and without a second thought, Tristan obeyed. But no sooner had his hand felt Myrmex’s iron grip when he felt something clamp around his scrotum.
“YEEEEAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!”
The scream sent birds scattering into the night air. Dozens of razor-sharp teeth had extended from the gums of the secondary head that had got him, piercing right through the thin skin of his sack and deep into his sensitive nut meat!
“TRIS! Tris, I’ve gotcha!” Myrmex struggled to pull him out of the water, but even he was no match for the hydra’s sheer size and thrashing aggression. Someone or something had to give way, and while ideally it would be the monster, its recurved fangs meant that it wasn’t letting go anytime soon, and Tristan was not too fond of the more likely option.
“The sword!” Tristan shrieked. “USE THE SWORD!”
“But its heads–” Myrmex began, but he was quickly interrupted.
“NOT THOSE!” He turned his head frantically towards the water, which was already starting to turn red around him. He could feel his sack beginning to give way, the puncture wounds already widening as his captor continued struggling to drag him off.
Myrmex realized what Tristan was talking about, but he couldn’t reach for his sword and maintain his grip on the poor guy at the same time. If he let even one hand go, the newbie would be dead within seconds.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, a hint of shame and terror in his voice, before yanking as hard as he could.
Tristan’s second scream was even louder than the first. His nut cords were painfully yanked, his scrotum literally ripped from his body, and the fangs buried to the hilt in his testicles seemed to tear them apart like meatballs being savaged by several dozen barbecue forks. But with one more tug, Myrmex finally pulled him free, hearing the horrible grisly snap of both of Tristan’s nut cords giving way.
The two of them collapsed upon the street, Tristan bleeding heavily from his crotch and curled into a ball. Myrmex picked up his broadsword and sat up, readying himself for the beast’s attack.
“Th-thanks…” was all Tristan could say before he uttered a rattling gurgle.
“Tris? TRIS!” Myrmex dropped the sword and frantically swooped to his companion’s aid, turning him over and noticing that he was now slightly paler than usual in the dim light of the moon and the street lamps. He needed first aid, or he’d bleed out! Without thinking, Myrmex frantically began pumping himself, and though this seemed like the worst possible action in light of all of this, there was method in his madness.
Within a matter of seconds, his mammoth cock had stiffened, and then with a loud moan, it burped out a spurt of several dozen little red bodies. Myrmex’s thoughts were focused on the gaping wound between Tristan’s legs, and the need to seal it up before he lost too much blood mobilized the bugs into action. Tristan let out a whimper of mortal fear while he felt the hellfire ants begin to clamber onto his crotch, and then a cracked scream when their jaws sank into his flesh, pulling the ragged edges of his wound towards each other while more of the insects sealed it shut.
Wild with fear and pain, Tristan started pushing himself along the road, the trail of blood glistening behind him. If he could just get to safety and call 911…
Myrmex, meanwhile, got to his feet, still trembling with horror at the sorry state of his partner. “We have to get out of here,” he said in a frantic voice. “This was a horrible idea, and we weren’t even close to prep–LOOK OUT!!!”
Tristan turned his head and then screamed. The hydra’s heads whipped downwards, one of them slamming its teeth into Myrmex’s cock and another into Tristan’s crotch!
“GYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”
Myrmex let out an ungodly howl, the vicious recurved teeth plunging into the tender flesh of his member. But that was about to be the least of his worries, for when his streaming eyes opened, he saw the black veins beginning to spread through Tristan’s entire lower body. Oh gods, did one of its fangs embed itself in his penis?!
“N-NOOOOOOO!” Myrmex howled in agony and panic. But it was too late, and it had been ever since the venomous fangs had embedded themselves in his companion. The hydra suddenly swung its necks around, and then both men were flying through the air. Tristan hit one of the gas pumps, his spine cracking upon impact, while Myrmex slammed into the wall of the station, his cock trailing blood from numerous painful gashes. Only the latter was still able to stand, but he was now slipping on the wet surface of the pier, and it was only a second before he landed on his ass, scooting backward as the many-headed serpent advanced upon them.
With a thrill of horror, Myrmex realized that Tristan was now a mere five feet from their attacker, and all of its heads were about to sink their teeth into his envenomed flesh. If something wasn’t done fast, within seconds, his companion would be violently ripped apart like all those previous victims. But he was sure he wasn’t fast enough for his blade to intervene.
Hive Queen, if you can hear me, Myrmex thought desperately, help us! Please help! Save my partner from that berserk cripple, and let us all know peace…
It seemed as though things couldn’t get any worse… but just after he finished the thought, his balls erupted in agony. As if the power of the Hive Queen had once again called to them, the ants swarming deep within his juicy man-orbs all began reacting as one. And all of them turned upon the thousands of hyper-sensitive tubules and dense nut meat within his balls, and started chewing. Chewing… and tunneling…
The hydra struck its heads down, seizing Tristan’s legs and groin and lifting his body clear off the ground. Its prey was twitching and writhing, its horrid venom coursing through veins and eating away at muscle and nerves. The man’s mouth was wide open in a silent scream of agony, but no sound came out, for such was the intense pain now screaming through every nerve and cell in his body. Paralyzed, helpless, and literally dissolving from the inside out, there was nothing he could do to fend off the horrible jaws of the beast’s wounded main head creeping up below him, which were preparing to engulf his entire upper body and finish off its meal…
The scream of utter, primal anguish caused every window in the area to crack, and even though the hydra lacked external ears, even it seemed to wince at the high-pitched, piercing noise. It let its load fall slack, its recurved teeth tearing horrible bleeding gashes into Tristan’s genitals, before he fell to the ground, his skull actually cracking against the pavement, and slumped lifeless onto the street in a pool of his own envenomed blood. The hydra would deal with him later, but what was the source of that blasted noise?
Myrmex was screaming and wailing and crying, his back to the wall he’d been thrown against, pounding his fists against the bricks with enough force to crack them. And it was now that the hydra realized that the sources of its new target’s agony were now pouring by the tens of thousands from at least a dozen holes chewed through his mammoth nuts and scrotum from the inside, a raging red tide of slicing mandibles and venomous stingers. There were far, far, far more ants pouring from Myrmex’s mangled sack than even it could feasibly handle, as though all those bugs had somehow teleported into the insides of his nards and bored their way out in a seething angry mass of vengeance.
The hydra had only one chance to end this new threat. It bared all of its fangs and lunged.
Myrmex’s vision was going fuzzy, tears of pain obscuring it further, but he would swear the swarm had fallen upon the beast like a great tidal wave of biting, stinging bugs. There was a blur of thrashing coils, screeching roars of agony, and then a great WHOOSH and an immense ball of smoke and flames. In the midst of thrashing about in wild pain, the monster had inadvertently blundered into the gas station and collided with at least one of the gas tanks, the resultant explosion driving shrapnel into its torso and most of its vital organs. It screamed one last time, ants pouring down its copiously bleeding nostrils and throats, and then the whole gas station crumbled and fell on top of it, crushing all of its necks and heads under tons of burning debris.
I’m gonna need a bigger sacrificial picnic basket, the barbarian thought in gratitude to his deity, only now beginning to feel his own blood pooling under his ass and wounded nuts. Turning away from the wreckage before him, he took the phone from his pocket and dialed a number he knew all too well.
“Hello? 9-1-1? This is Myrmex of Mattellia, and I’d like to report a pretty bad snakebite…”
*****
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Tristan slowly opened one eye, and then the other. A familiar white light was shining directly above him, and he was lying on a plush, cottony surface, almost like a puffy cloud of some kind. For a few moments, he was still too weak to move a muscle, but soon he could feel his fingers begin to twitch.
He lifted his head weakly. One look at his surroundings told him exactly where he was, and he let out a quiet moan of frustration before slumping back down on the hospital bed. The beeping from earlier was the heart monitor he was hooked up to, which had just resumed the activity signalling his heartbeat.
A familiar woman had just entered the room, looking even more haggard, exhausted, and completely done with everything than the last time he’d seen her.
“H-hi?” Tristan’s voice was cracked and quiet, and likewise he could barely lift his hand to wave at the nurse before him.
“We have got to stop meeting up like this,” said Nina, an embarrassed smile on her face. “For what it’s worth, I’m so glad you gave Myrmex your phone before, well, what happened last week.”
“Last week?!” his eyes widened in horror.
“Give or take,” said a familiar voice from somewhere to his right.
Tristan looked around at the blond barbarian sitting on the bed next to his own. Under his loincloth, Myrmex’s giant balls were covered in bandages, and there were still some ugly red blotches indicating where the ants had chewed through his scrotum. His gigantic cock, meanwhile, was covered in a seething red mass of ants, though thankfully they weren’t stinging the flesh of his member now. Were they still holding the gashes carved into his cock shut, or had they already been healed up?
“Good gods, Tristan, I was so worried you wouldn’t make it!” cried Myrmex. “I knew you could heal and all, but I never thought your power could counter something as strong as hydra toxins! Ooh, have you already applied for a hero job or should I get you the necessary forms?”
“No need. Mayor Norman offered me the position in person.” Tristan coughed, and was immediately relieved to see that no blood was coming out of his mouth.
Myrmex’s eyes lit up like a child on Christmas day. “Hooooly shit, you actually met the mayor?! Gods, I’m so jealous!”
Tristan laughed bitterly. “So, uh… Did we live?”
“Well…” Myrmex picked up the remote on the bedside table and switched on the TV.
“…while no human fatalities were recorded, rescue workers did uncover the remains of the seven-headed sea serpent that presumably caused last week’s explosion by colliding with the gas tanks for unknown reasons. The creature was presumably buried alive when the gas station collapsed, although forensics has determined that the blast had already mortally wounded it before it was crushed. DNA analysis has only now confirmed that it is the same monster that killed thirteen people this past month and injured twenty-five-year-old Tristan Petropoulos two weeks ago. In addition to the monster itself, paramedics also found the local hero and fantasy naturalist, thirty-two-year-old Myrmex of Mattellia, and an upstart superhero trainee only known as Prometheus, who were presumably responsible for the monster’s demise, but remain at Gray-Carter Municipal Hospital in critical condition and are unavailable for comment…”
Tristan stared at the screen, completely shocked. He was on the news. He was famous. He was a hero.
Oh, Jesus fuck, no.
“This… does not feel like a victory,” he said, his tone clearly stupefied and, perhaps, a little afraid. “Not at all.”
“Why? We killed that man-eating hydra!” Myrmex beamed at him. “The harbor district is saved thanks to the two of us!”
“It’s only going to get harder for you two from here on out, though.” Nina glanced at the two of them with a clearly worried expression. “I’m afraid Tristan’s right in that respect. Now that you’ve gotten yourself noticed, every single villain in the city will want you imprisoned in their hideout. They’re getting an eyeful of your powers, and they know what you boys can do.”
There was a long, awkward pause. “So… What now, then?” asked Myrmex. “I’m all for being celebrated, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like even my ant farms can only defend me for so long.”
“To say nothing of what the baddies would do to me if they knew I could heal,” added Tristan.
“I… I think I’ll leave you two to talk,” said Nina. “I need to file your release paperwork anyhow. I’m quite sure there’s still a lot of reporters wanting answers, and it’s better that I address them than you two.”
“Thanks, Nina.” Tristan smiled a little. “You’re a lifesaver, in more ways than one.”
She smiled back, and then left the two of them to their own devices.
There was a long silence, save for the quiet rustling of the ants crawling all over Myrmex’s dick. And then the completely unfazed barbarian spoke up.
“I’d hate to say this to even myself, mate, but… even I’m starting to get a little scared. And I haven’t been scared for so long, not since my girls moved in,” he added, pointing at his ant-infested crotch.
“How come?” asked Tristan.
“Well… I’m pretty sure a lot of the people who are bound to want our heads soon would be way more powerful than either of us at our best, and I’m not at my best right now.” Myrmex waved down at his bandaged balls. “What are we going to do?”
Tristan gazed up at the ceiling, wondering about the wisdom of many of his life choices. And then he remembered something that made him smile.
“You know, Myrmex… I think I know someone who can help you out.”
Ooooh I found myself squirming from the detail and description of those ants....but why do I now have a raging boner hahahaha
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