Malphegor

PIG Ch. 28

"Huh? You're telling me you can't make this thing any smaller?"

Marco stared miserably at the half-palm-sized recorder in his hand, then glanced at his colleague in the tech department.

"Steven, you're the most capable tech guy in the ...

PIG Ch. 27

Riiiiip!

The paper bag split cleanly in half. Marco pulled out a glass bottle with a red label and set it on the equipment division's beat-up workbench.

"I don't really drink. You guys want some grappa?"

"No. We don't to...

PIG Ch. 26

Marco floored the gas pedal and sped back to the precinct.

As expected, the building was still brightly lit. When he stepped into the lobby, he found that none of the veteran detectives had managed to escape, every one of them sat slumped in...

PIG Ch. 25

On the way back, Alan sat in the passenger seat while Anna sat in the back watching the kids. The patrol car sped off the Narrows and pulled up beside the gleaming golden arches of a McDonald's in the Burnley District.

"Here." Marco pulled o...

PIG Ch. 24

What should he eat for lunch?

It was a harder question than it should've been.

By the time Marco walked out of Bob's office, it was already past noon. He had more than ten grand sitting in his bank account, technically, he should treat...

PIG Ch. 23

"Beautifully done!"

Bob couldn't stop grinning the entire ride back. The moment they stepped into his office, he cut a cigar, lit it, and took a long drag.

"That bastard." He jabbed the air with the hand holding the cigar, as if poking...

PIG Ch. 22

Swoverld stared at the cooperation order spread flat across his desk, then looked up at the GCPD officer standing in front of him, this recent name that kept popping up in departmental briefings, and felt his temples start to throb.

The offi...

PIG Ch. 21

The exhaust pipe let out one last puff of black smoke like a dying sigh. With a harsh clattering screech as the gears jammed, the G20 finally gave up and died on the road.

This was within expectations. Marco dialed the precinct's tow truck n...

PIG Ch. 20

The cold wind in Gotham's western suburbs swept through the bare hedgerows. Marco pulled his gaze from the distant spire of Wayne Tower piercing the clouds and looked at the faded, worn letters on the sign beside the gravel path.

Private Pro...

PIG Ch. 19

The fountain pen scratched across paper, leaving behind a beautifully written cursive signature.

Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot.

Cobblepot and Bob stood together in the lobby of the East End Precinct, raising the donation contract for t...

MPCW Ch. 10

The spider never got its hoped-for survival scenario.

The moment it landed in that boat, its fate was sealed tighter than a jar of pickles in a Russian grandmother's pantry.

Alexei stood over the corpse, staring at the mess he'd made. ...

MPCW Ch. 09

The third wolf corpse was a problem.

Not just because Alexei didn't have enough XP to assimilate it, but because leaving a fresh corpse sitting around was asking for trouble.

Even someone who'd never set foot in wilderness knew the rul...

MPCW Ch. 08

Somewhere deep in a forest that definitely wasn't on any map. Okay, that was obviously a lie, there was a map.

Anyway, it was past midnight, day six.

Alexei reeled in his line as a handful of experience orbs flowed into him, pushing hi...

MPCW Ch. 07

After cleaning up the claw marks and wood chips scattered around the back of his treehouse, Alexei finally went inside to tally his gains from the all-night fishing marathon.

One night. 113 experience points total.

Going from level 0 t...

MPCW Ch. 06

The bobber floated on the surface of his infinite water source, rising and falling with subtle ripples.

Alexei stared at it without blinking, his eyes starting to water from the effort.

In the game, fish would create visible splash eff...

MPCW Ch. 05

Day three of being stuck in a fantasy death-forest, and Alexei woke up on a hard wooden floor.

His hunger bar was still full, since he'd respawned and immediately passed out last night without bothering to do anything productive.

He du...

MPCW Ch. 04

Alexei was a man on a mission. Well, a teenager on a mission. The point was, he had a goal: sleep in a bed tonight instead of on a hard ground like some kind of medieval peasant.

Time was ticking, and he wasn't about to waste it.

He sp...

MPCW Ch. 03

The third time Alexei respawned at his spawn point, staring at his empty inventory and completely reset state, he made an executive decision: fuck the spider.

Not literally. God, no. He meant strategically.

"I'm not running away," he t...

MPCW Ch. 02

As the last drops of life drained out of him, Alexei felt something grab hold of his consciousness, an invisible force that yanked his soul out of his dying body like someone ripping a plant out of the ground, roots and all.

The sensation wa...

MPCW Ch. 01

This is more of a test. If you kind of enjoy it, let me know, so I can decide whether to continue.

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Morning sunlight filtered through a canopy so thick it could've housed a small city, scattering broken patch...

PIG Ch. 18

Marco carried a jar of brodo up to the third floor of Gotham General, whistling softly under his breath. Behind the old CRT monitor at the nurses' station, a middle-aged nurse leaned out.

"Morning, Marco. What'd you make this time? More of I...

PIG Ch. 17

Clang... clang... clank...

The Chevy's door was jammed. Marco yanked on it three times before it finally gave way. Inside, Darnell was slumped in the passenger seat, one hand loosely gripping his Glock, barrel pointed at the floor. ...

PIG Ch. 16

The roar of an engine came from behind them, the direction they'd originally come from. Marco's head snapped around just in time to see a Dodge pickup barreling down the street, its bed modified with a welded tripod mount. Sitting on that mount, l...

PIG Ch. 15

I'm a second-class officer of the Gotham Police Department, not some goddamn superhero. When trouble hits, you call for backup. What am I supposed to do, handle it alone?

Marco had just shut the car door when a tearing screech, foll...

PIG Ch. 14

The van belched black smoke as it shot out of the East End precinct parking lot. Three Toyota Crowns followed behind, heading toward the highway.

Darnell gripped the steering wheel absent-mindedly, glancing at his partner. He hesitated, then...

PIG Ch. 13

Alvarez walked over with two men, his face completely blank. One was Cuevas, the leather-clad carjacker with shoulders like a linebacker. The other was the chronically unlucky demolition expert, Ian Hagrove.

"Hey, this guy looks like he's ab...

PIG Ch. 12

This life was getting impossible to live.

He'd woken up that morning feeling like he could take on the world. After all, he'd just gotten back from Metropolis yesterday, called the landlord and finally got the heating fixed, and then, right ...

PIG Ch. 11

After leaving the precinct, Marco didn't waste a second. He drove straight to the slums, practically dragged Waylon out of that rotting apartment, and hit the gas before anyone could ask questions.

The seats and suspension on the Chevy G20 w...

PIG Ch. 10

"Ugh... fuck... fuck..."

Marco slapped one hand over his face and let out a string of groans while the other fumbled blindly across the nightstand. His fingers finally closed around the phone that was blaring like a car alarm, and he angrily...

PIG Ch. 09

"Four boxes of ammo, two hours of range time. Fifty-eight dollars."

Marco pulled out a few crumpled bills and slid them across the counter. The range cashier took the money without looking up, tapped at the register with grease-stained finge...