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With a warm bubble bath, scented candles, some light music playing, and a new book, Lara was quite ready for a relaxed evening in her hotel suite, but the phone rang. She set her book aside and fumbled for her phone, accidentally dropping it into the tub. She wiped the suds off and didn't recognize the caller it identified, but she still knew who it was, "Hello?"

"Hi, Lara, it's Elza."

Lara wasn't quite used to one of the immortal Transcendents calling her on the phone like a regular person, but Elza never followed expectations. "Oh, hi. Just relaxing a bit. Asmod's people have the bunny cube and the Doug." She laughed. "With such power in their hands, they might be unstoppable."

"Good. Things are moving along nicely."

"What exactly was the point of all that?" Lara dared to ask.

"If I don't tell you that, then whatever happens I can claim to be exactly as I planned." She laughed a bit. "Anyway, there's a lot of people running around involved with this; best everyone just knows only her own part."

Lara settled back into the tub. "Well the whole train thing was certainly a surprise. I think you nearly broke that simpleton's brain."

"Things have barely started to get rough for him, I assure you."

A lot seemed to be being laid on someone so useless, but Lara had trouble feeling sorry for someone who made so little of himself. "So what should I do with the millions?"

"I don't care. That's ultimately inconsequential. Spend it if you feel like it. Just make sure you're ready to help our other operative if needed."

"Will do. Any idea on the time frame for this next step?"

"That, right now, is up to external forces."

* * * *

Loch felt pain. It was about the only thing in this universe he cared about; all else he hated. He even refused to take any sort of physical, three-dimensional form and limit himself a puerile way. Still, he was required to have at least something to identify himself within this world, so he made his craft with which he could hover over the humans. He crafted it of darkness and created nearly formless creatures to populate it. His goal was to give the humans nothing solid they could hold on to in their mind's eye. With nothing to grasp, when humans would think of Loch they would think of whatever they feared most.

Fear was a more subtle pleasure than pain, but that was about all he had lately. It had been a while since he was last given a human to play with, to test how many of its nerve endings he could activate before its mind collapsed on itself. He had gotten better at keeping the mind awake no matter what physical trauma he would induce, but it would always break in the end. Then the vegetable would be sent back to the rest of the humans, and then they would try to imagine what were the tortures that would cause such a thing. And then there would be the fear.

The fear had begun fade, though, as the humans realized just how much the rules of the other Transcendents restrained his grasp. So he took extraordinary measures -- one's that he himself detested -- to let the humans know he can still reach them. Torn limbs and blood was less mysterious than he would have liked, but it served its purpose. He could see the fear of him rising again.

Now Serpine had given Loch a new mission. He never cared for her and her proclivity to take human form or her ambitions with this world, but she knew at least how to give Loch what he needed for enjoyment. The mission he was given was once again to get some device -- though Loch could still not understand how anything physical in this world could have any importance to them -- but this time she knew where it was. Loch would need to lead a physical army once again because of the limits on him, but Serpine guaranteed him that this conflict would involve humans under no protection from any Transcendent. They had severed their ties with their rulers, and thus they would be Loch's to do with as he pleased.

Had Loch a mouth, he would smile.

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Hellbender Take Two
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