Chapter 67: Cleanup Operation
On the blood-soaked lawn, now littered with dismembered corpses and scattered limbs, Brian's eyes were filled with pure terror.
This horrifying scene of carnage was even more disturbing than the worst hallucinations he'd experienced during his most intense drug trips.
Fortunately, Chris and Stewie walked over at that moment. After untying Brian from the pole, Chris motioned for him to stay quiet, then stealthily approached the Armitage house's front door.
The trio—two people and one traumatized dog—peered inside and saw an utterly bizarre scene unfolding.
Peter, covered in dried blood and sporting multiple bruises across his face, stumbled out from the basement, only to be spotted immediately by Missy.
Missy had been desperately trying to find an angle to rub through the ropes binding her to the chair, planning to escape the town and later seek revenge on Lois—or at least survive long enough to see another sunrise.
However, before she could make any real progress sawing through her restraints, she heard Peter's distinctive whining and cursing.
"Oh, son of a bitch! Dean, you goddamn psycho, what the hell was that about?!" Peter cursed at Dean's corpse—which he apparently hadn't noticed yet—then crawled up from the basement on his hands and knees.
As soon as Peter emerged and realized Dean wasn't in the house, he prepared to storm outside and find the man who'd attacked him.
It absolutely wasn't Peter's style to get beaten up without retaliating.
Dean had knocked him unconscious and left him in a creepy basement—Peter swore he would beat that bastard so badly he'd spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Maybe break both his legs. That'd show him.
Just as Peter passed by the study where Missy was trapped, she—who'd been waiting desperately for any opportunity—immediately activated her psychic powers to their maximum capacity, hypnotizing him with her words: "Hey there, Peter! Be a good boy and come help Mommy untie these ropes, okay sweetie?"
Peter's mind was about as complex as a toddler's. Normal people could trick him into doing literally anything with the promise of candy or chicken nuggets, let alone genuine psychic powers that could directly interfere with brain function.
So, facing Missy's extreme psychic manipulation, Peter immediately fell into a deep hypnotic trance. His eyes glazed over as he said happily, "Okay, Mommy! I'm coming right now to help!"
Seeing Peter successfully hypnotized, a desperate thought flashed through Missy's mind: she might actually be able to use this obese moron as a weapon against Lois.
But before Missy could even begin formulating a preliminary plan, she felt the ropes binding her actually tighten, wrapping around her torso two additional times.
Missy looked down in disbelief and saw Peter staring at the end of the rope in his hand with a confused, cross-eyed expression, then walking in circles around the chair repeatedly like a dog chasing its tail.
"What the hell are you doing?! You complete idiot!" Missy screamed in frustration.
Seeing that Peter had not only failed to free her but had somehow made her even more tightly bound, Missy immediately erupted into a stream of creative profanity.
If she hadn't been absolutely certain that Peter was indeed hypnotized by her psychic powers, she would've thought this fat bastard was deliberately screwing with her for revenge.
Upon hearing Missy's angry scolding, Peter immediately squatted on the ground and burst into tears like a scolded child. "Waaaah! Mommy's yelling at me! Mommy's mad at me! I can't find the end of the rope—I can't find it anywhere!"
Looking at Peter's absolutely disgraceful behavior, not only could Missy barely stand to witness it, but even the two people and one dog watching from the doorway felt overwhelming secondhand embarrassment.
Chris said in a mock-sympathetic tone, "Man, it must be really tough for you guys having such an incompetent father and master."
"Fuck off! He's your father too," Stewie immediately retorted sharply. "At least half your DNA comes from that blubbering idiot. If we're going to be embarrassed, we're all being embarrassed together. Don't think being a transmigrator gives you immunity from this humiliation."
Brian, hearing this casual conversation between the two brothers—combined with everything he'd witnessed about Chris's dramatic transformation over recent months—immediately had his suspicions confirmed: this guy was definitely not the original Chris Griffin.
However, thinking about how his current life was substantially easier and more comfortable than before Chris's personality change, Brian wisely decided to ignore this revelation entirely.
Not my circus, not my monkeys, Brian thought. As long as I keep getting fed and walked regularly, I don't care if he's possessed by aliens.
While the three of them continued their whispered commentary, Peter—under Missy's increasingly frantic instructions—stopped crying and squatted back down to attempt untying her ropes again.
After several minutes of fumbling, Peter finally managed to undo the first knot. Missy immediately praised him with forced enthusiasm, "Yes! Good boy! That's exactly how you do it, Peter! Keep going!"
"Yay! Mommy Missy praised me!" Peter exclaimed excitedly, waving his hands in the air like he'd just won a prize at a carnival.
Then he lowered his head to work on the second knot. However, this one was significantly more complicated, and Peter quickly became frustrated and impatient after just a few attempts.
Watching this pathetic scene unfold inside the house, both Brian and Stewie couldn't take it anymore. They couldn't let Peter continue being this absolutely idiotic—it was simply too embarrassing for the entire family.
They both turned to stare at Chris with expectant expressions, their gazes clearly implying that Chris should go in there and extract Peter immediately.
Being stared at like that by one baby and one dog, Chris raised both hands in surrender. "Okay, okay! Stop looking at me like that. I'll go get Peter right now before this gets even worse."
The commotion Chris made while entering was immediately noticed by Missy inside the house. She hurriedly commanded with what remained of her psychic power, "Peter! Kill the intruder! Attack him now!"
"Huh?" Peter, who'd been struggling with the rope knots, looked up in confusion. Then he noticed Chris walking into the study with a purposeful stride.
Peter suddenly seemed to recall something absolutely terrifying. He began trembling violently all over and actually tried to hide by shoving his head underneath Missy's chair, between her legs.
"No, no! I don't wanna! He hits way too hard! Last time he punched me, I couldn't sit right for a week!" Peter whimpered pathetically.
Looking at Peter's terrified reaction, Missy finally got a good look at who'd actually entered—it was Chris, the teenage son who should still be unconscious from the massive dose of sleeping medication.
She was completely dumbfounded.
Because if she remembered correctly, Peter was supposed to be Chris's father, so what kind of severely dysfunctional family situation would lead to a grown man being absolutely terrified of his own fifteen-year-old son?
What Missy couldn't understand even more was that she distinctly remembered Chris drinking that beverage spiked with enough Ambien to knock out a horse. He should still be unconscious for at least another six hours.
So how the hell was he not only awake but apparently completely unaffected?
What kind of freakshow family is this? Missy thought with growing hysteria.
Chris noticed the confusion and dawning horror in Missy's eyes and approached with a friendly smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Don't overthink it, Mrs. Armitage. As a villain in what should've been a straightforward horror movie scenario, even though you've been somewhat enhanced by existing in the Family Guy universe, you still don't even qualify as a third-rate threat.
So, let me send you off to whatever comes next. Otherwise, when my mom gets back here, your ending is going to be substantially worse. Trust me—I'm doing you a favor."
Completely unable to understand what Chris was actually saying, Missy didn't bother trying to grasp his specific philosophical implications. Instead, she instantly activated her psychic ability to maximum output, blasting it directly at Chris's brain with everything she had left.
However, this psychic power—which could reduce ordinary people to drooling vegetables—felt like nothing more than a gentle summer breeze to Chris. It wasn't even remotely comparable to the metaphysical malice he regularly sensed from the Grim Reaper itself.
At least the Reaper's attention made Chris feel a distinct prickling sensation across his consciousness. But this mental interference originating from a mere human psychic couldn't even stir the slightest emotional reaction.
Chris placed his hand gently on top of Missy's head, and with only slight exertion of pressure in her increasingly terrified eyes, the moment his five fingers came together and closed into a fist—
CRACK.
The gentle psychic breeze that had been blowing through Chris's consciousness instantly ceased to exist.
Then, a small blue light—visible only to Chris—floated from Missy's cooling corpse directly into his own body, making him feel as if his mind had become noticeably sharper and more focused.
Huh. So that's what absorbing psychic energy feels like, Chris thought with mild interest.
Meanwhile, Peter—still kneeling pathetically on the floor—remained in his anxious, hypnotized state, apparently unable to snap out of it even with his hypnotist now deceased.
However, Chris had considerable experience dealing with Peter's various mental states. He casually kicked Peter's substantial backside, sending the fat man—still clutching the chair he'd been using as a shield—flying across the room to crash against the far wall.
After several loud, painful wails and the sound of the chair splintering, Peter finally regained full consciousness.
If that technique worked for Hawkeye getting mind-controlled by Loki, Chris reasoned, it'll definitely work for Peter getting hypnotized by a dead psychiatrist.
Looking at the groaning, complaining Peter struggling to his feet, Chris said matter-of-factly, "Let's go. Mom's on an absolute rampage right now, and we need to make sure she doesn't leave this town's boundaries. Otherwise, she's legitimately going to end up in prison—or worse, a government black site."
Peter looked at Chris with a bewildered, slightly concussed expression, not understanding most of what his son had just said. But knowing that Chris's temper had become significantly more volatile and violent since his mysterious personality change, Peter wisely didn't ask any questions.
He hurriedly struggled to his feet and followed Chris's determined stride toward the exit.
It wasn't until Peter stumbled outside and saw that Brian and Stewie were also there waiting that he relaxed considerably, his shoulders visibly dropping with relief.
After all, with other family members present as witnesses, he could at least be reasonably confident that Chris wouldn't just straight-up murder him in front of everyone.
Small mercies.
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