not even a mouse | round iv

[Pollock]

He feels the queer sensation of weightlessness. 
And then he is gone again. In and out. He hears a savage clangor — bedlam, barely discernible and mixed with high pitched voices: “Put him here! Get ready!” “Where am I? And where are you bringing me,” He means to ask, but instead mouths lazily in interrupted bouts of lucidity. “What is going on?” 

The boy can no longer feel the sharp sting in his thigh. The sensory receptors around the deep, black bite are necrotizing. He simply feels a heaviness in his limbs, and slowly he is becoming aware of the sluggish thud of his pulse. He can feel it everywhere! Hear it everywhere! The true rhythm in his body, it is like his heart pushing tar around his body.
And it is tiring. So tiring.

“We must do it now. Stop the Malevolence from overcoming his body… ready?”

The teenager blinks. The watery quality of his vision squeezed away like tears, and with some clarity he sees he is in a small stone room surrounded by six small, gaily-garbed men. They are raising their hands, palms pushing towards him. He struggles a bit, it is wild panic of confusion, but finds he is immobilized. But by what he cannot be sure. Whether by their magic or by the quickly fading energy in his muscles, and he is powerless to do anything but remain limp. He turns his head to the right, and there is Horace, his face a mask of intense concentration…


And then the elves touched him, placed their hands on his legs and arms,
He heard a small hum-ing sound, and felt a shudder: signs of their charms.
The boy watched Horace for as long as he could, but suddenly the room filled with light.
Bright, white light! Like the center of a star! And for a moment he forgot it was night,
Forgot that there was a war, and his body filled with a strange and comforting warm.
And then it grew stronger. Warmer and warmer, until it is no longer a star but a storm.
A wild solar storm! When he opened his eyes, he thought he saw fire crawling up the stones,
But that was just an illusion! A mind trick! Besides, he realized the lightness of his bones!
The now regular pump of his heart, and he propped himself up on this elbows and all around…
Oh, what a sight! What a horrible, awful, wonderful sight! The room fill of a silence so profound,
And on the ground around him, in heaps of red and green clothes were six jolly guys,
Their faces gaunt, and their small eyes now dark; all white and grey in untimely demise.


Pollock pushes himself up on his rear, scrambling back like a crab, until his back hits rough and cold stone.”Wha-” He lifts up his hands, maroon blood creasing off in dry flakes. Had this come from them? He hadn’t done anything… not that he could remember. He hadn’t moved, or said a word. He presses his back and hands against the wall and slinks up, looking around the room — devastation in one clean, bright moment. How? He reaches back mindlessly and touches his left shoulder. It is no longer sore, or swollen. Smooth and easy, he rolls them both out and smiles to himself. 

Then he feels a tug, every cell in his body being forced inexplicable and improbably through space and time. And when he feels right again, he inhales sharply to fill his lungs. He does not feel ill, nor unsettled. It is a smooth transit this time. He looks up and he is in an oddly mechanized room. It glints and sparks with the bright, colourful flashes of magic and fire. Acrid smoke rises through the air to the ceiling, dim light filtering down through it from a large skylight above. His ears are overwhelmed by the humming of great machines, the clang of blows off their metal skeletons and in front of him a tall, green man yelling wild directions here and there, flicking his fingers and producing dark waves. “You killed at least six of my men,” The voice growls low, but the boy can heard it perfectly. He takes a step forward and leans in. “That is not easily excusable,” the Grinch turns around, his face contorted by that wide, ear-to-ear grin. He takes his free hand and thrusts it at him. Pollock is knocked back, and he feels a vice grip around his wrists and ankles.

“Let the boy go!” The great thunderous boom of Saint Nick on the balcony opposite. 
The room flashes with white light.

“Oh, but don’t you know, Claus?” He smiles sly, his voice full of wicked humour. And he thrusts his hand towards the edge of the balcony, and Pollock along with it. “The boy has felled at least six of your men, too!” He lets out a great laugh, and from across the way Pollock can see a searching look on the rosy man’s sweaty face. “It’s true! Oh how horrible. Why don’t you tell him boy? Why? See Claus. The thing is, this boy doesn’t seem very fit to take up any side, does he? I thought maybe he’d be for some fun, and you thought maybe he’d be your saviour. Well, it seems we were both wrong! Instead he is rather… indiscriminate.”

“Is this true?”

Pollock stares straight across. Of course, it was true. But how? He did not know. So he only nods, his face dark and impassive. The Grinch jerks him back and with his other hand sends out a black, dense cloud hovering in the center of the room. “Tell me.” He hisses, pressing their faces close together.

“I… I. I don’t know… They were. I think they were trying to heal me. One of your little dogs bit me. And, they just touched me. And. I don’t know.” And then the Grinch laughs. An amused, hearty laugh. He drops the hand possessing the boy and stares at him with those wide, headlight eyes. 

“That is coooold boy. Even I must say. To take the lifeforce of those trying to save you. Positively corrupt!” He turns back to the edge of the balcony, and summons Pollock with a flick of his finger. The teenager follows. “Okay then boy. So you fancy yourself so inclined to dark power,” Pollock moved to contradict him — he hadn’t done it on purpose, “So… naturally disposed to it. Well, you seem a great fit!”

Pollock looks at him, and shrugs both his shoulders, “I guess… I guess I just don’t have it in me.” There is a hint of sadness, maybe, in his voice. A boyish grasping for something better, before something inevitable takes hold. How could he wield good, just powers, if his body had so readily counteracted such things without even thinking?

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong boy... But, no mind. It doesn’t matter. You took some of my soldiers. And there will be payment for that once this is all settled. But until then, boy...”


The Grinch placed his cold, green hand on the middle of the boy’s back,
“Why, I have something for you,” The Grinch hissed, and he gave a sharp smack,
Pushing Pollock’s belly against the railing, his face came in close and he smiled,
His breath smelled of onions. “Nobody ever realizes how giving I am. Unfairly reviled,
I would say.” His voice was full of a faux self-pity, and he drew in closer still, his fingers curling,
“But isn’t this just what you wanted?” And He gave a shove, and down the boy went hurling.


Pollock hears only his screams for a long moment, but as he closes his eyes tight, he wonders if he really is uttering those noises? More likely or not, the shrill terror is in his head. 

He tries to test it out and finds his voice tightly stuck in the back of his throat. Then he comes to a swift stop, knocking some air out of his chest. Slowly unhinging one eye, and then opening them both he finds himself hovering above the fray… Could he be… flying? He tilts his head up to try and look for the Grinch, but instead his eyes catch on the torn, magical bodies. Dark and light. “I’m tired of Hell, Claus. It’s really nice up North though…” He hears the Grinchy scream. And it becomes clear. “That sly, green bastard.” Pollock thinks, his eyes still locked on the swirling, thrumming objects of condensed power. He feels no particular affinity, he realizes, to one half. But is filled with a staggering desire to consume both.

‘You?’ Comes back the hollow, unfriendly hiss, ‘how very rich, my boy...’

He shakes his head, pressing his left hand against his temple. “Not now!” He bellows, and he shoots up in the air, uncontrollable speed and trajectory. He squeezes his fists tight and wills discipline into his body. It feels unnatural to be in the air, wholly unfit for such an ignoble wretch… And then he begins to plummet. Falling around blasts of weird, foamy magic, before landing hard but relatively controlled on his feet, pressing both hands into the ground as well, halved over into a crouch to absorb more of the shock. Had it not truly working... not even here?

He looks around him. Elves and gremlins are swarming each other. Engaging in firing magic and the gnashing of teeth and claws. The din of violence rushes him. He cannot tell if it is pleasurable or nauseating, but he thinks he can smell blood above the sweat. Strange, black blood and the more alike red, metallic tang. It was half familiar, half sickly alien.

He ducks. 

His muscles are full with alertness and blood. A spells races over his head, and he turns to look at the source. There is a squat, red-clad elf, twitching his fingers and sending errant sparks at a dodging gremlin. He hates the both. Pollock raises his hand, chaos compelling a haphazard approach to his first test drive of these powers, but it is obvious in its bias. From the firing synapses of his brain, down his arm and through the ready tilt of his fingers comes an electric pulse. It releases into the air, and he can feel his own power, drinks it — for the first time in his life revels in the potential of his own flesh. The gremlin squawks, and then its muscles jerk hideously for a second. 

And then he grows big. 
He grows big in every way until he is the size of a large grizzly bear. The elf’s eyes narrow as he he looks at Pollock, but before he can retaliate, the gremlin grabs for him with impossibly long, knobbly fingers. He throws back his head and jibbers, echoing and thunderously loud, and squeezes the life and viscera from the foe’s body. The teenager laughs, looking at his fingers again before thrusting them at another gremlin. This one grows large, and it tests out the new capabilities. Its enhanced anatomy. It swipes at the machine towering in the middle of the room and knocks a thick, steel pipe from its place. Steam whizzes out, hot and angry.

‘Don’t get full of yourself boy,’ Phina wheezed sickly into her son’s ear,

His he let out a wild scream again, “I have more power that you ever had here.”

A heavy, perverted laugh fills his ears. ‘That is is my point,’ she muttered,

He opened his mouth to respond, to retort... but instead he only sputtered,

A wordless garble of noises. Inside he filled with powerful doubt and self-hate...

What did that mean? He wondered, pinching his arm, “Don’t fall for her bait…”

He could (technically) fly here. That’s more than she’d ever given him. And here he could manipulate, with ease, the world around him. He could control the make and state of everyone. And then he blinks, realization filling him with the first real, unabashed clarity since this whole night started… 

He was not here for Santa. Or The Grinch… or Christmas, or even his dam… He looks up, watery brown eyes transfixed. A singular purpose. I’m here… for… that. Because with that he could be whole. He could be feared, he could be… But to get to that…

Oh.
His narrow and thirsty eyes turn to the balcony above where the Grinch was near toppling over the railing and yelling commands… He has to play it smart. He has to play his game. That is what this has been from the very start, right? The boy raises his hands above his head and with a downward sweep feels a familiar friend take his flesh — safe and protected. Invisibility. (
The things he had seen! The places he had been, and the things he had did!)
 He feels a strange nostalgia, and the memories are clear in his mind. This had given him such freedom in another life. Where his mangled body had held him back from things he was so close to being capable of of, this… This had set him free. 

And so it does now, filling him with invulnerability. The boy moves around the room, manipulating the bodies of gremlins around him — bigger-ing them here, and growing natural armour on their heads there. He builds and army; reconstitutes someone else’s. And it is far superior. He could not stop the battle with the quality of his voice. He has never been a public speaker. But he could overwhelm one side, grind this all to a halt with creations of his own fashioning... If he could eliminate the North… he could…


The machine shuttered. Shivered and let out a great bellow of smoke and noise,
And from its bowels came strange and ghastly figures — formerly known as toys.
Now they were mangled and mutated. Burnt and spilling out at a blinding rate.
Some, he noticed, were still pure. Forms that were meant to be. Pristine in state.
It was the hunched and disfigured creation he felt compelled by. The boy reached for one,
And then he realized, as he looked over the object in his hand, the fun had just begun!


Pollock turns it over and over in his fingers. 

Once, maybe, it was meant to he a bear. Or perhaps a dog. Now it lacked a legs, and an eyes, and one of those hard, plastic noses. He drops it, and with a touch it shifts and breaths. He watches as it animates and grows, and when it it done… Oh! The beauty! The mighty feeling of godliness! 

The thing was hunched and burly. On its back paws standing up, well over six feet tall! What it lacked in an eyes, it gained in a massive, gaping hole! And where its front leg should be, blood dripping from the melted, brown fur. It turns an angry and profoundly sad eye to him, it’s nose gone from its face as if slashed clean off. The boy raises his hands, and the bear roars a melancholy, powerful voice. It turns and limps off, joining the fight. 

He finds another, and another — an impossibly lumbering earless, hairless wolf; a robot with sparks spitting out here and there where it should have been complete; a fat, oblong brown creature with strange rigid limbs, digging into a doorless room in its back and sticking blinking eyes where their should be a nose. But by then the elves had caught on, turning untouched toys into clean and well-polished living things — an armoured horse, like that of an old carousel; a supple, lean tiger; a six-foot long dragon, whirling through the air with snapping jaws.

But they seem fewer and far between, these perfectly formed toys. 

Maybe because of the swell of dark magic in the room, or maybe a simple case of malfunction in the cogs and processes of the unattended machine. On the ground floor of the workshop, the throng of giant and lumpy creatures seem to overtake the bright, gleaming charge like a crashing wave. A hurricane wind; the eyewall of a great, strange storm. He smiles, watching it unfold in blood, both silvery and red; good and bad, and he feels attached to the fates of his offspring only as long as their numbers held in his favour. Each of them only as important to his as their part in his success.

There is nothing more to do. No more toys to fill with life and purpose; no more gremlins in need of bigger-ing just yet. Those of nature size would fight or perish, he could not arm them all. Or did not care to.

The boy moves like a ghost to the iron, spiral staircase. He creeps up with care, stunning or disintegrating elves as he goes, to not attract too much attention. 

He is drunk now. Full of misfiring instincts and bravado. He stumbles with whiskey-courage to a standoff — his powers tingling. Who knows? He had only just begun! Perhaps they rival even his! 

When he gets to the top there is Grinchy, hurling words at St. Nick. “The power of what I’m willing to do Santy… oh you can even come close old boy. He is hampered by the goodness, you see,” The Grinch yells the last bit over his shoulder, meant for Pollock. And he nods, crawling forward slowly, still unseen. 

“You’ve done well down there.” The green man hisses, his back still turned to the boy, still sending missiles of magic across the way. “I can feel it. Old Claus knows it too.” The white bobble on his ‘Santa Claus’ had wiggles to the other side and He sends a humongous blast from the palms of his clammy hands. Like a detonation of explosives, it reverberates through the stone and metal room. Dust and large rocks fall from the roof, and many creature fall back from the blow. (He hears the spooked whiny of a horse somewhere far below.) 

Across, the other side balcony has been split and cracked. It hands at an angle precariously. Santa Claus, down to a white undershirt and red pants held to by suspenders, hold desperately to the shuddering bright half.
Pollock licks his lips.

“Very smart. To turn the toys. Inspired. I am surprised, but I suppose it takes a wretch to make one. You’d think you’d have some sympathy…” He laughs, and turn his green headlight eyes to the boy. 
He knows where he is, without a doubt. Through the veil of invisibility, the Grinch is look right at the boy. 

“But you underestimate me.” The Grinch clucks sadly, his hands still pressing out before him. They twitch and the opposite balcony shudders and grinds, Santa Claus looking like a captain tasked with deciding whether or not to go down with the ship. “I can feel what you are after. I can see into your heart, boy. And it is bold. Did you really think it would be so easy?” The Grinch moves one hand from the ying and thrust it at Pollock. He crumples to the ground, invisibility snapping off his body painfully — he is exposed. The Grinch flicks his finger in a curl, and it pulls Pollock towards him. “Did you really think it possible?” 

He moves his hands down, long index finger extended until it points to the boy’s thigh. “I told you, you would pay.”He fills with the crushing sensation of unabated pain. Pure and hot. He screams, this time it rings from his lungs out and agonized.

There is contempt in his voice.
And maybe some pity.

The Grinch points his finger at the boy’s left arm, and it snaps. Loudly and cruelly. It snaps in a million different places, bent and limp. Sharp bone pressing through the soft, human skin.
“You can’t do what needs to be done here, boy. This place is  tenuous at best.”