The Tattoo Summoner [System Apocalypse]

Chapter 24: Wit's End


The van scraped Tanya's shoulder as she slipped past, rust flaking off onto her jacket. She winced but didn't slow, keeping a hand on Ishita's back as she darted ahead.

The main road yawned before them—wide, broken, and soaked in that same oily mist. Shapes loomed through the gloom.

Tanya spun out onto the pavement and stopped dead.

The monster was bigger now. Bulked. Its limbs were thicker, more confident. Still twitchy, still wrong, but each movement had gained weight. Like it had found its rhythm. A drummer of bones and bile. Its mask dragged a crater in the ground behind it like a broken anchor, and from its chest the vines pulsed and twisted—blacker than black.

Olena crouched near a burnt-out sedan, cannon arm smoking, reloading with a motion that looked more like a spell than mechanics. Boris was beside her, wrapped in gleaming chain, one arm bloodied but still swinging the hellhound's leash. The beast itself was halfway between poodle and predator, its eyes a mass of embers, hackles risen like jagged wire.

Mrs Eceer stood between them and the monster, coat billowing as if summoned by the wind alone. Her hands moved in a blur, geometric sigils flaring gold then vanishing like flashbulbs.

A shriek echoed. The beast lashed out.

Three barriers cracked in unison. The sound was like ice shattering inside Tanya's skull.

"Bloody hell," she muttered, sword already in her grip. It buzzed faintly—a chainsaw purring at the edge of sanity. The metal of the Nissan's metal quivered down her arm.

"Ishita!" Tanya barked. "You with me?"

Ishita nodded, jaw tight, hand glowing faintly where it wrapped Fahad's. The kid didn't speak. He was pale, eyes wide, shadows licking at his fingertips like dogs begging for scraps.

Ishita patted Fahad's shoulder. "Stay here babu, teleport away if you need to."

"We run in on three," Tanya said. "We're the backup, yeah? One. Two—"

Fahad vanished.

"Bollocks!" Tanya leapt forward.

The air snapped. Fahad reappeared ten feet ahead, crouched in the middle of the street. The monster's gaze didn't even flinch toward him—too focused on Olena's next blast.

"Come back Fahad!" Ishita shouted, her fence post dragging sparks as she charged.

Tanya joined her, and for one stupid second, it felt like a charge. Like a film scene. Like maybe, just maybe, they weren't going to die in a pool of horror film guts.

Then the monster noticed them.

Its head snapped toward Tanya—no eyes, no mouth, just that awful single socket, leaking vines, like thoughts made flesh. It turned, fast.

Tanya's eyes flicked between Fahad up ahead and the monster. Should she stop him? Was she even able to?

Mrs Eceer shouted, "NOW!"

If the monster's distracted, he'll be safer.

Tanya stopped thinking and dove towards the monster.

A shield cracked in midair, gold shards flying like glass grenades. Ishita screamed—high and raw—and swung. The fence post rang off the monster's leg with a clang, like striking a bell made of bone. It staggered.

"Fahad…Get back!" Ishita yelled again.

Fahad reappeared right beneath it.

He grabbed a leg. Shadows coiled. "Go back underground like plants are supposed to!"

The monster bellowed. Not a sound, a pressure—like a migraine with claws. It thrashed, and the shadows swallowed Fahad up. He sunk into the floor, limbs flailing above him. It spat Fahad out twenty feet away, crumpled near a bus stop.

"No!" Ishita ran to him, palms out ahead of her to touch him just a moment sooner.

Tanya turned back and swung.

The sword bit into the creature's back, carving through meat and root and god-knows-what. It shrieked like TV static in a blender. A clawed fist came for her head.

The tattoo moved first.

It pulled at her brain and she interposed the hit like it was muscle memory. She remembered doing that move in the alleyway to keep a monster back. The punch hit it midair and stopped, vines recoiling like burnt paper.

"Nice one, Phantom," Tanya panted.

The sword began to hum louder. It wanted more.

"Tanya!" Olena shouted from the other side. "You missed the party!"

Tany didn't have the brain space for a quip back. She dodged another strike. She wanted to summon Assistant but her Vitality was still so low. How would she get through this fight?

She saw Fifi under the monster's body, shackles raised as she lunged towards the monster's flank.

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Pausing got her hit. A claw lashed her shoulder. She staggered back but not enough to avoid the sharp pain altogether.

Olena fired point-blank. Right through the side of the mask.

Black sludge erupted. The mask cracked wide. Something beneath moved—red, wet, hateful.

Boris threw his chain like a whip, wrapping it around the monster's leg and yanking. It buckled, then roared back onto its four limbs. Fifi ran round to its other side, coiling it even tighter.

Tanya dropped beside Ishita, backing up to catch her breath and give Fifi and the chain time to work. "Is he—?"

"He'll live." Her voice was trembling. "But he's out."

The hellhound barked, low and angry. Boris whistled and Fifi ducked down from her place chest to chest with the monster, Olena fired and for another moment, the world through Tanya's eyes was all white.

Mrs Eceer stepped between them, hand pressed to her temple. Her coat was torn at the sleeve, the gash flowing from the fabric down her revealed skin in a single slash.

She looked at Tanya, eyes burning with restraint and too many equations running all at once.

"This is not working," she said. Her voice was tight, clipped. Still calm. "We need more."

"Got any big spells tucked in your boot?" Tanya coughed.

"No," Mrs Eceer said, deadly serious. "But you do."

Tanya blinked. "What?"

"A Blink of an Eye," she said. "We need something new, so make it."

Tanya stared at her.

"I don't think we can kill this thing yet," she continued, wiping the blood from her face with a hankie from one sleeve. "But we need to injure it enough that it leaves. I used a Restricted Question. It's a Boss. It brings monsters to life in the vicinity. If it goes, we kill the monsters here once and they stay dead."

The monster raised its head and bellowed again, splitting the night like a scream from the earth itself. Fifi backed away and Mrs Eceer turned to leave.

"But—I don't have enough Vitality—" Tanya stammered.

Mrs Eceer jogged back over to Olena and Boris, already drawing new barriers in the air with her fingers.

She looked over her shoulder. "Then figure something out," she said forcefully. If it had been anyone else, Tanya might have heard it as desperation, but from Mrs Eceer it sounded like belief.

Tanya didn't wait to argue. She turned and sprinted across the road.

The monster's claw came down like a falling tree. Its sludge-like bark was slime-coated, and wide enough to flatten a lamppost. She threw herself sideways, boots slipping on cracked pavement slick with soot and monster ichor. The claws smashed into the concrete inches behind her, blowing dust into her back as she hit the curb hard, rolled, and stumbled upright.

Behind her, Ishita shouted, "Tanya!"

"Get Fahad!" she snapped, glancing over her shoulder..

Ishita was already moving, scooping up her son with both arms as the boy blinked dazedly at the chaos. She sprinted, her sari and the bottom of her jeans dragging ash, her face set hard. They followed Tanya through the broken door of the tattoo parlour.

Inside, it was cold and quiet, the sudden stillness disorienting. She slammed the door behind them and shifted the bookcase back to block it with trembling hands.

Tanya ripped one of the higher planks off the barricade to see better. She wasn't going to do a tattoo in the dim light of through those small battlement holes. She saw Fifi rotate around but Boris was shorter. They seemed to have moved to defend both the shop and fight in one fell swoop.

The sunlight illuminated the familiar tattoo chair and sofa, ink trays, and empty gloves still crumpled in their boxes—it was surreal. The shop hadn't changed, but Tanya had. Everything outside was bigger, and now she was here in her place like some cartoon character bleeding into the real world.

Ishita lowered Fahad gently onto the floor in the back hallway, where it was darker and cooler. He was conscious, but not speaking—eyes glassy, breath shallow.

"He's scared," Ishita said. "But not too hurt."

"Thanks to you," Tanya said, pacing. Her side screamed where the claw had clipped her earlier. She pressed a palm to it and winced.

"We're safe for the moment," Ishita added, though her eyes flicked to the door as if she didn't believe her own words.

"We won't be if I don't bloody make somethin' soon."

Tanya yanked open the drawers for ink and found her tattoo gun where she'd left it on the side. She snatched it up and felt a strange pang in her chest. This would either get them out of this or be the last tattoo she did.

Her free hand skimmed across scattered designs taped above the bench. So many were useless. Old work. Practice. Beauty pieces. She didn't need artistry. She needed impact.

"What if I can't draw fast enough even with the Ability?" she muttered aloud.

"You saved us last time," Ishita said gently.

She shook her head. "I had most of me Vitality back then. I'm at 2 right now. Can't even summon Assistant without more drain." Tanya tapped her wrist where Assistant lay beneath the skin. "It wouldn't stay out even if I summoned it. Too risky."

"I could help."

Tanya blinked. "How?"

"I can't give you power," Ishita said, wringing her hands. "But... if it starts hurting you—if you start to crash—I can take that pain. Maybe keep you up longer."

Tanya stared at her for a second, heart pounding.

"You'd let me use you as a battery?"

Ishita nodded once, solemn. "If it keeps them alive out there—yes."

Tanya exhaled slowly. "Alright. Not yet, but... we keep that in the pocket, yeah?"

They were both silent for a beat. Only Fifi's gnashing teeth outside and the faint sound of battle filled the room.

Tanya turned, using the blank wall as a background to dig through her Tattoo Menu. Portraits, animals, plants, words—the grid of images filled her eyes.

"Okay. Let's think."

She swept a blank pad onto the desk before her, looking between it and the options.

"Fire?" she murmured, seeing a candle tattoo she'd done for a woman who lost her son.

She sketched a rough shape—an inferno-wrapped blade, bristling with arcs of destructive force. "Nah. Unreliable. Too wild. I torch the lot of us if it twitches."

She saw a gun and blade back to back and flipped the page. "Big weapon? Something massive."

She drew it, long and jagged, with a core of raw steel and overlaid glyphs. But her hand stopped halfway down. "It won't be more effective than Olena's arm at level 1"

"What about speed?" Ishita offered gently. "Wings?"

Tanya tapped her fingers in rapid rhythm. "Yeah, maybe. Pull it off the others. Make it chase me."

She scribbled fast, a pair of feathery wings sprouting from stylised shoulder blades.

"But that means summonin' Assistant too. He has to help me design it or I won't be able to reach." She paused, her pen poised in the air. "These are all big ideas. I don't have time to train this so it needs juice put in. Probably need your help… if that will even work."

"If we have to," Ishita agreed.

"Shoes, then?" Tanya tried again. "Speed boots. Somethin' enchanted. Lightning in the soles."

Another sketch. They looked like something between platform shoes and Converse.

She paused. Looked up again. "Anythin' temptin' it away is a risk. We don't even know what drives these things."

A sound cracked through the window like a splitting tree.

A scream.

Olena.

Tanya bolted toward the battlement holes of the front window. Ishita was close behind.

The street outside was Hell.

Olena was down—kneeling, smoke pouring from her cannon arm, eyes wide with fury and desperation. Fifi was still standing over Boris, her body hunched protectively, one foreleg trembling.

And Mrs Eceer was soaked with blood. Her shield spell flared weakly, flickered, died.

The monster was already lunging.

"No." Tanya dropped back from the window, breath shallow. "System—Restricted question. Tell me every fuckin' weakness of that monster. I want to know how it ticks. I want to know how to take it down. I want to know what drives it. Give me all the fuckin' information and give it now."

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