How to get rid of Telemachus

I skidded to a halt just outside of the store. I wasn't sure how, and I wasn't sure why, but I had the fortune of stopping myself just before I would have impacted my entire body into a gigantic pile of black slime. I leaped over it and landed on a mall railing, looking down towards the food court where a mass of people was roiling about in confusion. Steve cowered in a corner of the candy shop, the proprietor squealing her protests. "Get out of the mall. Everybody leave. Now!" I shouted, when, as luck would have it, another mound of toxic crud flew from the food court area, directly at my head.

I hurled myself off the balcony, through a cookie stand, and ran towards the source of the trouble, ripping a plank of wood out of a bench so as to have something besides my hands to attempt to slow down whatever it was. The crowd from the food court was running the exact opposite direction from me, it felt like a massive human wall was trying to block my progress, so I jumped at a nearby column, and propelled myself over them with a well timed kick to the wall.

I congratulated myself on how I was handling my new abilities while I sailed effortlessly above them, and... then I noticed what they were running from. Some worker in a "Yummie Chicken Taco" uniform had sprouted some tentacles of his own, in addition to growing some twenty feet tall and oozing black fluid out of every pore in his body. The only way I recognized his uniform was because, for some reason, the patches on the outside of it stayed on top of his skin, while the rest of it had melded with him.

"I am Telemachus," it bellowed. "No you're not! You're nametag obviously says that you're Barry!" This probably wasn't the wisest thing to say to a gigantic black beast that could kill people with hardly a fore or afterthought, but hey, what else was I gonna tell him? Telemachus/Barry certainly didn't appreciate it, he tossed a series of black orbs at me that covered the distance between us in a frighteningly short amount of time. I jumped back up to the second level of the mall, and threw my plank at Barry's 'head' while all the orbs detonated at their respective points of contact with the ground. A tendril snapped out from Barry's side, grabbing the board and snapping it into pieces. The little pieces drifted slowly to the ground as Barry crouched in preperation to leap at me. The orb that had detonated nearest the supporting column must've damaged it more than just superficially, because when Barry/Telemachus shifted his weight like that, the ground underneath me began to rumble and the whole of this section of the second story tilted towards the food court. Barry made his move, and I was already sliding towards him. I tried to roll out of the way, but to no avail, as he landed, pinning the left side of my body down with part of his heel. It felt like someone was standing on top of hot coals that had been dumped all over me. I grabbed onto the nearest balcony railing and pulled myself out, dipping into my jacket for some more Glass Monkey and wondering why it hadn't turned me into a monster yet. Barry's tongue whipped out, froglike, and snagged a bit of the stuff from my hand (Shit, that can't be good). "Mmmmm... Pitiful whelp. You cannot contend with Telemachus, I have eaten much of the food you call Glass Monkey." "Oh yeah? Well so have I!"

I shoved another handful into my mouth, turning to run as Barry jumped overhead, sending down a copious amount of tendrils to slow my progress. I dodged them with a speed and skill unheard of by common account, and made my way towards the pet store. (My luck was holding, there were gerbils everywhere). I grabbed two big handfuls of the little things and started to stick them to my legs, when Barry landed right in front of me (No time to wait, I guess...). My left hand put another on my left leg as my right whipped one over my head towards Telemachus. He threw an enormous dollop of goop at the thing, detonating it directly in front of me. Black sludge exploded in every possible direction, worst of all, into one of my eyes. I flailed and staggered back, yelling the vilest of profanities as I heard... sirens. Without thinking about it, I jumped to the roof, and wiped my eye clean. Barry followed suit. All the police cars in the county must've been sent to this disaster area. Half of the officers were out of their cars, with guns drawn, and one of them with a megaphone called out, "Come down here with your hands up. Your mall vandalism is all over now boys." I guess the angle at which they were at prevented them from seeing that Barry/Telemachus was 14 or so feet taller than a human. Barry let out a mad howl, and started running towards the officers. "You guys need to run. NOW!" I shouted as I leaped after Barry, ripping two more gerbils off of my legs. The police tossed us both a round of impotent gunfire. The bullets went through Telemachus, and they riccocheted off of me. We crashed on top of a van, with me landing on Telemachus's back. I jammed a handful of gerbils into him, and they blew little bits of Telemachus all over the place. Unfortunately, Barry must've eaten a lot more of that stuff than my little Steve, because as soon as it'd been blown away, the black goop rejoined itself to form a protective shell again (C'mon! What do I have to do to just, go home tonight!).

Well, the police certainly looked pissed. I wasn't exactly sure what I should've done at this point, so I jumped down, and picked up a police car, yelling, "Just get out of here! You can't stop this thing!" Sometimes people are just too hard headed for their own good. The police officers didn't go anywhere, and then Barry was up and going. Faster than I could react, he'd picked up six police officers with his appendages and was holding them up in the air. "What will you do to help these members of your pathetic human race?" "Ummm... well..." I held up the police car in one hand, wondering what I was going to do...

to be continued