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Taylor Hebert stared with a combination of utter defeat and no small amount of spite at the enormous television that took up the opposite end of the room.
On it, the front steps of Brockton Bay City Hall were visible. For the vast crowd of people that had surrounded it, held back only by a double row of police, one could imagine that some manner of vast protest was taking place.
At least, were it not for the cheers and whoops of celebration that filled the air.
Neon green glow sticks waved frantically, hundreds, if not thousands of them in a crazed dance, there were people from all walks of life who had taken time out of their busy day to see the big event in action.
It made Taylor scowl.
The surround sound speakers, which had cost thousands of dollars, were turned low, but did nothing to disguise the audible excitement that thrummed through the crowd. She felt as though she could hear pretty much everything there, whether she wanted to or not.
When somebody stepped out of City Hall, there was a thrum of excitement, dampened by the fact that it was not the person the crowd so desperately sought to see. However, the person, a young woman, cleared her throat and began to speak, voice magnified by a speaker.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the woman you've all been waiting for! Please welcome our glorious leader, the new Mayor of Brockton Bay!”
The cheers were so loud that Taylor had to lower the volume for the third time so far in the news broadcast, her mood darkening further. Oh, the woman could hide the truth as well as she wanted, but she knew, Taylor knew so much more than anybody else---
A woman stepped out into the adulation of the crowd.
“Hello, my dear humans!” the woman called out in a voice of delight and cheer. “Thank you for coming to my rally!”
She was tall and dark-skinned, her face angled in ways that Taylor wasn't quite sure conformed with the standards of mathematics that were in any way conventional, yet somehow still created a bombshell beauty. With long black hair made to look almost green with the glow of the various glow sticks and other lights of the crowd, a curious pallor was cast over her.
From the crowd, Taylor could pick out various people trying to be heard over the din.
“We love you!”
“I see another dimension whenever I look at you!”
“MISS MAYOR, PLEASE STEP ON MEEEEEE!”
However, with a gentle raising of the hand, the crowd fell silent, as if all at once their voices had been stolen from them, and now they waited, breathless, for what the new leader of Brockton Bay would say.
Like any great orator, the new mayor allowed them a moment to wait, before she spoke in a voice quiet at first but rising in intensity and volume by the moment.
“Now, some of my critics have tried to turn you against me...” she said, her placating hand becoming a fist, as if in anger. “They said that no human could be three-thousand years old, the PRT has said that I must be a Parahuman trying to usurp the rules of democracy through underhanded means!
And like fools, the crowd shouted back in the pause:
“Send them to jail, miss Mayor!”
“Death to Costa-Brown!”
“I sent a pipe-bomb to Alexandria!”
Taylor blinked at the last one, momentarily thrown out of the seriousness of the situation. What sort of idiot would try to send a pipe-bomb to the brutiest brute in North America?
“But that's a lie!” the Mayor declared, eyes wide and almost manic, so bright and green that they eclipsed the same lights directed on her. Her hair was the same, radiating an unearthly glow that far too few people seemed to recognise as abnormal, despite it being blatantly obvious. “I am no Parahuman! Just the one who will lead the world into a new utopia! The PRT cannot contain us to Brockton Bay! Support me, my adorable little humans, and I will create a bright new future! The ABB will go the same way as the Empire Eighty-Eight, swept aside and ground into space dust, never again to blight my city!”
The woman really couldn't be any more blatant, could she?
Taylor sighed, rubbing at the corners of her eyes as the speech went on.
It was, mercifully, short.
“And those were the scenes from City Hall earlier as Mayor Nyarlatho---”
She turned the TV off and stood, pacing.
Goddammit, first the city had been locked off because of that weirdo with the blonde hair and now this!?
Well, they had tried to lock the city off, quarantine it from the rest of the world, but it kept going wrong.
Were it not for the fact that they were the small fry (small calamari?) running around currently, perhaps Taylor would have cared about the plight of the PRT in its multiple failed attempts to contain Brockton Bay.
In truth, a lot of things of recent had kept going wrong.
Like that unstoppable tentacle monster that attacked the construction crews. Or when they tried to isolate Brockton Bay from the internet, and then the entire internet upgraded overnight and now couldn't be controlled at all, and the letters of any search engine were now images of tentacles shaped like letters. Or the sudden prevalence of madness around the planet, centreing around dreams of abyssal depths and many-limbed things from beyond the stars.
Thinking about it, there were numerous things to do with tentacles at the moment.
She'd never liked squid in the first place.
Taylor glowered at a certain skin-bound book sitting innocuously at the end of the sofa. No matter her attempts, she'd yet to find some manner of knowledge or secret within that could undo what she had inadvertently caused all those months ago!
Somewhere in the enormous penthouse apartment, a door opened.
A shudder ran down her spine as she hunched in place, a weight pressing down on her. The shadows of the room suddenly felt all the closer and more suffocating.
Taylor twitched violently.
Time to perform.
Grabbing the accursed book, as she never let it out of her sight now, she stomped out of the home cinema and began heading for the solitary entrance to the labyrinth of corridors and rooms that was now her home.
Passing countless doors, Taylor ignored the obvious signs of luxury that had come to dominate her new life of recent. The penthouse of Hebert Tower was theirs, and it was filled with such extremes of luxury and wealth that it boggled the mind. She passed Raphael's and Caravaggio's without a second look, and was pretty sure that a trio of Fabergé eggs long thought lost were sat on a random table that she almost sent to the floor when she clipped it.
She was beaten to the front door by her father, who was greeting the third permanent resident of their 'home'.
“Evening, Nyathy.”
Taylor's stomach churned powerfully at the nickname, her life momentarily flashed before her eyes as the red haze almost led her to launch a cushion at her father's head.
“Or should I say, Miss Mayor?”
“Perhaps soon it'll be Mrs. Mayor?” the woman said, stepping forward to give her father a lingering kiss on the lips.
Taylor would beat her father senseless with her mother's framed photograph if he so much as considered trying to put a ring on the loathsome creature's finger. As if sensing her presence, the tanned woman looked past her father and to Taylor.
Bright-green eyes, the shade of a computer interface in those Earth Aleph films about evil computers, stared unblinkingly at her.
Her father chuckled knowingly to the thing's statement.
“Will you go and run me a bath, darling? I'm feeling rather sore from all that hard work,” the woman declared, and her father acquiesced, going to get the water running in the preposterously large obsidian bathtub carved with runes that now dominated one of the five bathrooms. "Oh, and can you put on that new drama we were watching last night on the TV?"
The latter part was in a tone far less composed and serene, betraying a keen excitement to watch whatever K-Drama slop she was currently binging.
When he departed, the room fell into a hushed gloom.
Without the lights from the side hall, the only light left was the glowing green eyes and inner side of the hair of the thing that had just rejoined them.
Suddenly, Taylor really wished that she had turned on the lights of the hall behind her.
Click.
The woman's heels sounded more like hooves against the marble floor.
Taylor swallowed thickly.
Click.
The thing in the shape of a human stood, not two metres away, having come to a stop.
The creature was taller than Taylor, even without heels, and with them, she seemed to reach for the heavens... those baleful eyes stared down at her with such an evil-seeming amusement or delight, faceless stars in a black void shrouded in the eerie green glow of the inside of the woman's hair.
Slowly, it reached up with a hand bearing nails more like claws, and removed a scrunchie that held its hair, and then, with an easy, errant motion, flicked her hair upwards.
For a moment, the hair become a lashing tendril of prodigious size that disappeared into the high and vaulted ceiling, which was decorated with engravings of what could be hieroglyphics, or some manner of unknown language. The tendril moved this way and that, in defiance of gravity or any other known law, and then fell back down to once more frame her face as hair.
The thing returned to looking human, gazing down at her with those hellish green eyes, and then---
“Taylor!”
Arms wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her into a grip that could crush a dynasty or civilisation.
“How's my most adorable little cutie-patootie of a human!”
She yelped and squirmed, but it was pointless to try and escape the grip of this crawling chaos, even as it delivered unto her an unceasing barrage of torture and horror.
“Mwah!” Nyarlathotep placed a big kiss on her cheek.
“Mwah!” A second, even bigger kiss on the other cheek.
The woman's hands gripped her cheeks in their palms as Nyarlathotep stared unblinkingly into her eyes with such a childish, petulant excitement that it made her want to crawl away and die somewhere.
Or perhaps fall to her knees and curl up into a ball from the incomprehensible degree that she had utterly fucked up.
“Oh, please tell me you watched! I put on an extra special speech just thinking you might be watching! Did you see the crowd, they were so stoked up for me, but I only wanted to know that you saw everything!”
God fucking dammit, she made one request in a moment of utter desperation and weakness, and now the woman wouldn't stop pursuing it!
“Get off me, you lecherous, treacherous star-spawn!” Taylor shouted, fending off the master of the World of the Seven Suns by trying to bat at her with the Necronomicon in her hands.
The woman sighed dramatically as she pulled back.
“That's okay, I definitely felt you watching my speech! I'm sure when you see just how much I'm going to improve the city, you'll eventually warm up to me!” the monstrosity said, turning on her heels to depart.
'Fat lot of chance,' Taylor thought, with just a little more spite than more would consider necessary.
Ever since Taylor got her hands on the book and attempted to use it to make her life better, everything had gotten worse in ways she couldn't possibly have expected.
It wasn't just in the number of cephalopod monstrosities crawling on the land, or the PRT response and repeated failures to do anything. It wasn't just the Crawling Chaos deciding that Taylor was adorable and her father was attractive, but so much more beyond that.
Walking with her bag held close to her chest, Taylor did her best to avoid the attention of those around her.
Winslow was filled with cheer and noise, the various hormonal teenagers around her easily distracted by worldly things that caught them in the fullness of their youthful vapidity.
“Duuude, I managed to get a limited edition one! It's inlaid with gold from R'lyeh!”
“Well, the Principal looked at me when she called humans cute the other day!”
“Pathetic, she chose me to be a sacrifice for a play!”
Her grip tightened, her vision darkened around the edges.
'You've opened the gate for us, my adorable little human, the rest of us will awaken soon.'
She cast a glance to the side.
Every student around her was proudly wearing the latest fashion.
Be it a pendant, a letterman or some other means to display the symbol, the Yellow Sign was omnipresent not just in Winslow, but across the city now.
The Empire had been taken by it when it first emerged, and when its origin had demanded that they kill one another for her pleasure... well. The largest gang in Brockton Bay didn't exist anymore, and that was when the first Quarantine Site order had come down.
The sign hurt to look at, it made the brain tingle as it tried to rewrite neurons and electrical pathways into something new, something docile and dedicated utterly to a new purpose.
Were it not for the protections of the book in her bag, and those that had been placed on her by the thing behind it, then perhaps she would have fallen under its sway as well.
A traitorous part of her sometimes wondered whether it would be better if she did.
No more worries or fear, no more questioning and guilt, just the safe, soft release of mindless, ardent worship---
She jammed her eyes closed,
Somebody was walking at her side.
Sophia Hess, flanking her like some sort of stalking shadow. Despite being a little shorter, the girl walked with the unceasing stride of a good bodyguard, or perhaps an incredibly irritable Doberman
Every school day, no matter her efforts to obscure her route, Hess would find her way to Taylor's side.
Sometimes she would greet Taylor at the limousine Nyarlathotep organised for her, practically a member of the official bodyguard that the woman had set up. Other days, she would be waiting outside the entrance to Hebert Tower's penthouse, having waited there for hours or even since the previous night.
Somebody stepped out in front of them, having not noticed their coming.
Sophia stepped ahead and pushed them aside, throwing them roughly to the ground.
She didn't pause, simply stepped over them as Taylor apologised under her breath, trying to ignore the adoring, giddy smile sent their way.
When they reached the classroom, Sophia practically wrenched it off its hinges by Sophia to make way for Taylor. At this point, she was so used to it that Taylor didn't bother commenting on the frankly unnecessary degree of force invested in the effort---
“Taaaay!”
She shuddered as her former best friend flounced up to her with all the excitement of a golden retriever puppy starved of affection for longer than a few seconds.
The yellow sign was practically branded in Emma's pupils, which were wide and manic, stared unblinkingly at her for a moment. The redhead's lips were pulled into a huge smile, and for the life of her, she had no idea whether it was genuine or not.
Taylor sidestepped the hug; she'd already been thoroughly grappled by Nyarlathotep this morning.
Her father's girlfriend (she refused to use the term lover) had insisted on trying to braid her hair in a way that would 'introduce new dimensions' to her life.
Taylor hadn't been sure whether the woman was literal, but the notion of having a multidimensional hairstyle was not high on her list after the Shoggoth incident.
“Tay, don't ignore me, we're besties!”
'We're not anything, you Yellow Sign addled maniac.'
Automatically, Taylor reached up and patted Emma's head, if only to placate her for the next few minutes.
Honestly, it was so disturbing to see her former bullies now fawning over her, in their own way. Were it not for the fact she was now so deadened inside from the constant cosmic horrors in her life (and doting on her) perhaps Taylor would dedicate more effort to trying to process and fix the various students around her.
But there were so many things wrong with the world at the moment that she could only try to deal with so many at a time, goddammit!
Between Nyarlathotep and her sister, her hands were quite full as it was.
“Will Taylor Hebert please come to the Principal's office.”
Speak of the abomination, and it shall appear.
She wasn't sure whether she was glad for the distraction or not, because now she would have to deal with a different sort of maniac.
Taylor stood with an apology on her lips automatically, grabbing her bag.
“Take me with you! I'll make sure you get there!” Emma begged.
“Me as well! I want to see the Principal pleeeease!”
Pathetic.
Utterly pathetic.
Desperately reaching for the attention of something that saw them as less than ants, that saw all of them as motes of dust.
Taylor did her best to ignore the horde around her, and began walking to the door.
As always, Sophia was right there beside her, following her to the office despite it barely being a minute or two away. If Taylor had less experience of this place, perhaps she would feel worried to always have a bodyguard; at this point though, she was used to it.
Sophia waited outside when they reached the mahogany door, engraved with scenes of decadence.
Taylor didn't bother knocking, and simply stepped through.
The office of the Principal of Winslow High School was dark and luxurious.
The air stank of perfume and incense, a cloying concoction that did little to hide the obvious sweet scent of rot that underlay everything here. There were drapes of expensive yellow silk and other fabrics that transformed the place from an office into something more fitting for the most lovely (if colour addled) harlot or prince in all the land.
The woman behind the Principal's desk was in no way dressed like an educator should be. In a luxurious yellow robe trimmed with fur and a black dress, she looked more fit to be from a high-fashion photography shoot than in charge of a municipal high school. The woman's legs were on the desk, and she was leaning back in the chair with a half-eaten parfait in hand.
“... Principal,” Taylor greeted with gritted teeth.
The woman grinned.
In the gloom of the office, the woman's eyes burned a lovely gold.
“Bah, I keep telling you to just call me Auntie Hastur!”
No.
There was no relation, be it blood or family.
“That wouldn't be very professional.”
The shadows of the room shifted, as if innumerable coiling arms shifted to brush against the yellow curtains.
“Taylor, my adorable sugar-muffin, I've transformed this school into a primary cult meeting ground,” the woman said, flippantly gesturing towards the opposite wall, on which a giant image of the yellow sign was proudly displayed. “I was never trying to be professional!”
“Evidently.”
“Oh, here, speaking of not being professional,” the woman reached down and retrieved another parfait. “Fresh this morning.”
Resolutely, Taylor ignored the tempting confection.
“I ate back home.”
“Your loss.”
The Principal left the small plate on the table, not bothering to sit normally and keeping the same relaxed pose as before, even as Taylor sat, stiff, in the chair facing her.
“Anyway! Please give my congratulations to my sister when you go home tonight, I'll be busy at a rally and interview, but I'll see if I can pop by tomorrow to celebrate more properly!”
Taylor dreaded to imagine what sort of utter decadence Hastur would consider to be a celebration worthy of such an event.
The last time the woman came over for a 'small celebration' all sorts of horrors occurred, which got progressively worse and worse through the night. First three lost languages were rediscovered and sent some visiting academics mad, a portal to a hell dimension was opened in the guest bedroom and worst of all, Nyarlathotep got very excited about a pair of fluffy pink handcuffs Hastur gave her.
“I am sure that just a really small, personal celebration would be for the best,” she said, trying to keep her tone neutral.
“Now, Taylor, Taylor, there's no reason to be so modest! We're only here because you called us, and we're trying to give you the best life possible.”
“Well, if you want to do that, you could leave and give me back a normal life.”
Hastur, the King in Yellow, looked at her with raised brows for a moment.
“Nah.”
Taylor resisted the urge to throw the untouched parfait at the Elder God sat opposite her.
“How could we do that when this world is so interesting, and you're so precious! In the infinite number of Earth's we've played around on, this is in the top ten! Do you have any idea how many boring Earths there are? Half the time when we get summoned it's by crusty old men who think they know better, or deranged inbred morons! But here there's all sorts of traumatised weirdos who think they're kings of the world and giant death machines spicing things up, it's great!”
“Well, I'm glad that people's suffering is fun for you,” she ground out.
“Aww, don't be like that, most of them deserve it! You'd be amazed at just how many skeletons the Triumvirate alone have in their basement!”
“... Don't you mean closet?”
“Nah, in this case it's a basement.”
Well, good to know Alexandria, Eidolon, or Legend probably had a freaky sex dungeon somewhere, but right now, Taylor had bigger squid to fry.
“Principal, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked, in a tone of frankly admirable forced calm.
The woman sighed, evidently recognising that Taylor wasn't in the mood.
“I heard that you turned down the opportunity to be in the play.”
Taylor twitched.
“I don't like school plays.”
“I know, you mentioned before,” Hastur said, steepling her fingers. “But I really think you should reconsider. You are a perfect fit to be Cassilda, and that little red-haired friend of yours is ideal as Camilla!”
“The one who goes mad and kills herself at the end of the second act's first scene,” Taylor said, voice flat.
“Exactly.”
“I'm good.”
“But Taylor, this is the school's biggest production in years! Your father and Nyarlathotep will be there, and everyone who matters in Brockton Bay and beyond as well! We'll be airing it over four hundred channels!”
“And they say there's nothing on TV nowadays...” Taylor grumbled.
It was a testament to the mess her life had become that she could look a Great Old One in the eyes and be sassy. That or it was her continued lack of sleep and the fact she was having to watch Brockton Bay slip into insanity and madness.
“Well, we do need to spread the Yellow Sign across the world, and anybody can enjoy a nice play!”
“I don't want to perform,” she said, resolutely.
“Such a wallflower...” Hastur sighed, dramatically leaning further back in her chair so that it teetered precariously. “Honestly, you cannot hide away forever, you're much too adorable for that! And with sis making Mayor, she'll be a shoo-in for the state governor, maybe even the President! You'll need to get used to attention when she gets into high office, there'll be countless big events full of delicious canapés and photoshoots!”
Dear god no.
Just the notion would give her ulcers.
Taylor ended up missing the first class of the day because 'auntie' Hastur was so determined to spend time with her.
Mr. Gladly still gave her one-hundred and ten percent on today's test.
The doorbell to the penthouse rang with the sound of hundreds of screams, ritual incantations and the sound of a supernova being born.
Somehow, the combination of these sounds combined into a tune disturbingly similar to 'All I Want for Christmas.'
Taylor, who had been tilting the Necronomicon one-hundred and sixteen degrees clockwise to try to make the hallucinatory images stop advancing towards her as she tried to read, glanced to the side.
Strange, who was coming to visit at this hour?
Probably one of Nyarlathotep's brainwashed fools from City Hall again.
Or maybe Hastur had gotten drunk again and was coming to remodel the kitchen again. And Taylor had only just managed to find the right ritual to dispel the portal to the ever-reverberating abyss that had replaced the waste disposal unit!
So it was with a certain resignation that Taylor made her way to the gigantic front doors and opened them to reveal---
A scowling teenage girl or young woman in a black dress, with bright blue eyes, light blue hair and multiple tentacles, all of which were twisting and coiling irritably. A black crown sat on her head, placed between large, gelatinous eyes or globules of glowing protoplasm.
The young woman was shorter than Taylor by a few inches, and stared intensely up at her.
"... Good evening, Cthulhu, want to come in?” She stepped aside while holding the door. “I assume you're here to see Nyarlathotep?”
"Yes."
Cthulhu took the step, and the door closed behind them. In the perpetual gloom of the entrance hall, one could see purely by the light coming off the nightmarish abomination beside her.
"I think she's currently busy with my father, but we're having dinner later so they might be in the kitchen," Taylor explained in a monotone, lacking the energy to feel the normal paroxysms of terror or anything like that.
That, and she had a secret weapon to deal with the girl-shaped abomination this time.
Not any sort of grand ritual or spell.
Although she knew a few of those.
The two of them walked in silence through the labyrinthine penthouse, passing horrors and treasures in equal measure.
At one point, they passed a mantelpiece, and Taylor glanced at a particular decoration.
There, on a plaque, was the head of Leviathan, four eyes still frozen in the expression of shock and alien terror. They'd been stuck like that ever since Cthulhu spat the Endbringer's head onto the Boardwalk like an owl disgorging a pellet of rodent bones.
'Fucking weakling,' Taylor thought, glowering at the trophy. 'One look at the cosmic horrors and the formerly invincible Endbringer gets scared, I've been dealing with it for weeks.'
"The PRT been causing trouble for you again? I heard they declared you an S-Class threat a few days ago," she asked to keep the silence from growing too painful or awkward.
"They're small. I just crush them when I need to," Cthulhu replied.
Silence resumed.
Truly, Cthulhu was to conversation what the shotgun was to the duck population.
So Taylor didn't bother continuing from there, and continued to lead the way.
If there was one symbol of the illogical, stupid changes to the world ever since she first found, opened and made use of the Necronomicon, it was Cthulhu.
The child of Nug, guardian of R'lyeh, and creature destined to someday awake and destroy the world... was an internationally recognised celebrity and hero in many parts.
It turned out that all that you needed to do in this world to be acclaimed was kill an Endbringer and have a cute teenage girl form, it seemed... and wasn't that latter part a damning indictment of the world?
Hell, Japan had declared the giant, part-man, part-dragon, part-squid monstrosity to be an 'honoured and respected friend' because she had avenged Kyushu!
Like, read the writing on the wall, people!
There were even plushies of the monster's humanoid form going around! Although Taylor was pretty sure that Nyarlathotep was behind those, seeing how the woman had gotten her the super-limited edition one that now sat, with pride of loathsome place, on her bed.
It was so fucking ludicrous that Taylor still hadn't decided, weeks later, whether it made her want to laugh or cry.
In the present, the two of them reached the kitchen.
In the oven a chicken was cooking under a bright purple light, another of Hastur's 'improvements', and various vegetables were being prepared by a team of chefs. A team of chefs who immediately bowed and celebrated their arrival, as if the two of them were royalty.
Ignoring them, Taylor marched over to the fridge, opened it, and grabbed her secret weapon.
Turning, she offered Cthulhu a Jell-O pot.
The creature looked down at it for a moment, then back at her, before wordlessly taking it.
Apparently, unspeakable eldritch abominations from beyond the stars were susceptible to processed sugar just as much as humans were.
The sweet treat mollified the hungry civilisation destroying Great Old One for another few minutes.
Long enough for Nyarlathotep to stumble in, a cocktail in hand and rosy blush to her cheeks
“Aha, Cthulhu! We weren't expecting you!” she said in a rush.
It was amazing how one moment the woman could be a cult-leading Outer God, and the next she was a fumbling girlfailure caught off-guard by their guest.
Behind her, Taylor's father strode, wearing an easy smile.
“Evening, Cthulhu, are you staying for dinner?” he asked, ignoring the monstrous, multidimensional shadows of Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep being cast on the walls that reflected their true forms.
Taylor still had no idea whether her father was a victim in all of this who had been drawn in by the eldritch charisma of the various abominations in her life... or if he was shockingly adaptable and just along for the ride.
“... I'll stay if there's pudding.”
“Wonderful! I'll let them know to set the table for a guest.”
And like that, her father was gone.
Taylor reached up to rub at the corners of her eyes.
"And I'll ask Hastur whether she wants to come around as well! A proper family meet up, it's been a month since you were last over, Cthulhu!" Nyarlathotep declared with the forced enthusiasm of a suburban soccer mom whose child was threatening to vomit on the carpet.
Taylor and Cthulhu ended up waiting in the enormous living room.
"So... why are you here, exactly?" Taylor asked as she set out her homework on the table and got started.
It didn't matter how much work she put into it, all of her teachers would give her full marks, but still. It was the principle of the thing.
"I wanted to know when we'll destroy human civilisation," Cthulhu replied, without a hint of awareness of irony, even as she benefitted from the proceeds of said civilisation.
"... How about never?"
The star-spawn glared.
It wasn't very effective.
She looked a lot like a small puppy like this. Taylor kind of wanted to reach out and pat her head. She resisted the urge.
"We were here first, they should have already scoured this world of life," Cthulhu grumbled with all the grumpy energy of a small child deprived of a treat.
Taylor passed her another Jell-O pot, one she had been hiding in a pocket in case.
"Sure, but I'd rather live my life without being rendered down to organic paste by unspeakable abominations," she said as Cthulhu opened it up and began eating. "... Why are you guys even here anyway? Nyarlathotep won't say, and Hastur always gets this grin on her face when I ask," she inquired. If nothing else, she would probably be able to get a straight answer out of Cthulhu.
"Goldie is here, his species is especially delicious. He managed to seal us off from this world, but then you called on Nyarlathotep. So now we eat."
Oh, Scion.
That guy.
In all the madness that had taken over of recent, she sometimes forgot that Scion and Parahumans existed; especially since the PRT left town.
They were on attempt fifteen at walling them in.
The last attempt failed when half the construction crew suddenly disappeared into the Dreamlands. At this point, Taylor was pretty sure that Hastur was deliberately messing with them for her own amusement.
"... So what's the problem with Scion, then?"
"Nyarlathotep doesn't like things like him, says they ruin perfectly fun civilisations by giving people powers."
Scion caused superpowers?
Well, that was a new one, Nyarlathotep and Hastur had managed to keep that one rather close to their chests, hadn't they?
Speaking of which---
"I'm here! Good evening, little sis!" Hastur entered with her normal bombast, glancing sharply at Taylor as if to make sure that she was unharmed. Upon doing so, her shoulders visibly sagged in relief, and then she flounced over to Cthulhu and began distracting and chattering with her.
If nothing else, it let Taylor focus on her homework.
... Honestly, her life really was pretty messed up, wasn't it? Sitting doing homework while the two unspeakable entities discussed ending the world and why it shouldn't be done.
Someday, she'd find a ritual to send all these star-spawn back to their home dimension!