Grisly Hornet

Flash fiction for Jon T's PROMPTMANTEAU this week.

Jon T, a fantastic writer linked below, did a thing a while back where he created a prompt generator that smashed two random words together to create a writing prompt. This story was written based on one of those generated prompts: “Grisly Hornet”. Now, a few months on from when this story was posted, the PROMPTMANTEAUs have stopped, and the title and content of this story doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense without the context that it was coming from a randomly generated place. I’ve added this preface for new readers coming upon this story, so that perhaps its content will make a little more sense if you know that it was written to cater to a randomly generated prompt.

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Henchman 347 and Henchman 562 stood staring at the abomination splayed out on the bloody operating slab, mentally preparing themselves to drag away the corpse of their sixth failed experiment that day.

“I don’t know, man. I don’t think there’s any way to make this work,” whined 562.

He made eyes at 448 in the corner hoping she’d help him make his case, but she was slumped head in hands at her desk in front of a computer screen displaying the diagram of their latest monster.

347 leaned forward to pick a small wing out of the corpse’s fur, pulling with it a bit of stale, bloody flesh, “Failure is not an option.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that. But, c’mon. This is impossible!”

347 wheeled to face him and threw up the trademark salute of Lady Hawkmoth’s army, “Nothing is impossible for our Dark Lady.”

562 craned to meet face-to-face with the squat science officer, nose assaulted by the smell of corn chips and aftershave, “Whatever, dude, save your promotion fishing for someone who cares.”

“How dare you speak to me that way! Consider yourself reported for insubordination!” 347 raged.

562 threw up his pointer finger, “First of all, we are the same rank,” then his thumb, “And B, do you really think Janice in HR will pull herself away from the bottle long enough to file it?” Then he pinched and wiggled 347’s nose.

“I will not hear this slander of my lovely Janice!”

“News flash, my guy, she doesn’t even know you exist! C’mon, 448 back me up on this,” but the frazzled woman was unreachable.

She scrolled frantically through each of their mistakes. Wasp head on bear body; pointless. Bear head on wasp body; way too top heavy. Bear claws on wasp; couldn’t fly or even swipe the claws. Wasp stinger on bear; little stinger too hidden by fur and fat. A wasp with the instinct to scratch its tiny back on trees; that was just to blow off steam. And now wasp wings on bear body; which went as well as to be expected. 448 lit a cigarette and reclined desperately in her office chair.

“I don’t have to take this from someone with a Bachelor’s Degree in Zoology! Now get back to work to fulfill Her Ladyship’s wishes, you lazy good-for-nothing!” ordered 347.

“Oh, I’ll get back to work alright!” he grabbed a scalpel and brandished it with a serial killer’s grip, “Let’s get to slicing,” he dug the blade into the creature’s flesh, “Let’s get to dicing,” hacked again.

He went wild ripping apart the beast, climbed onto the slab to tear out viscera with his bare hands, coated himself in blood and guts and cackled like a madman.

“W-what are you doing? Stop that!” 347 tried in vain to pull 562 off the slab.

A personal assistant of the Head of Research and Development burst into the lab panting and wheezing, “Guys, I’m so sorry. Apparently, there was a typo on the work order you got sent.”

“Ah, fuck me!” screamed 448, launching her cigarette across the room, and 562 finally understood why someone would want to become a supervillain.