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That looks painful, spontaneously combusting like that.
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Makes me hungry.
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I’m hungry
I should eat some pizza goldfish
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Imagine eating goldfish that you’ve feed pizza so that it will taste like pizza
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–
Chapter 10
–
I want to punch Frank Sinatra for this.
The skies above were still black and impenetrable in spite of the ascending height, and Diero was laughing or something, but the roar was so violent and so loud that I could not discern anything he may have been spewing. He could also have just had his mouth open. With his head shaped the way it was, I did not always know for certain what his emotion was.
Well you can bet your breakfast that my emotion was a desire to kick him in the teeth for allowing this to happen. I could practically hear them shattering in my mind; such a satisfying, visceral sound as the shards flew every which way. Was I so livid and rancorous because I was on a missile climbing towards the stars? Hardly so.
I just knew it was a long way down.
Slightly elating, however, was the rocket suddenly breaking through the clouds, instilling a silence which cut above the roar of the engines, which… I still do not know how to describe it. It was louder than anything in the moment, but lacked any sound whatsoever. It was a stillness and a silence which could be felt, a wordless wonder boldly harmonizing its wonder, a noiseless thunder trapped above the clouds, only heard by those who cross that veil. One day in the future I wish to re-experience that splendor, of rushing towards the unforgiving sky and breaking through to the majesty of the night.
Every star gleamed downwards, every celestial body looked me in the eye, and spoke unwritten words of castigating abasement to my pride and ego. Who was I, in that moment or any other, to bear the honor of looking at the stars, and take it so for granted? I am a speck in the universe, and the universe bends its will to my own for no reason other than my comfort.
Sorry, I should stop talking about my musings. When I think of certain things for too long I morph into a renaissance philosopher, only slightly less dead. Of course, I can’t expect to hold on to life if I keep throwing myself into situations like this one.
Looking back down at the rocket, I was dragged kicking and screaming back to reality as I read the words AGM-131 SRAM II emblazoned on the side of the device. This was a nuclear air-to-surface missile which had somehow been launched from ground level despite its purpose being in-air launch, and therefore could not contain enough fuel for a proper trajectory.
The very second I thought of that factor, the flame suddenly died. Oh, what a lovely day it is today.
I felt a shift in weight, and Diero’s head rushed past me as he buckled his chin into his stomach. Then he whipped his heel downwards with enough force to cut the side of the rocket open. The silvery warhead gleamed from the light of the stars, tumbling out of the missile with ease. We- Urgh, HE and MYSELF and the ROCKET and the WARHEAD were all still traveling at about the same speed, so him finding the time to wrap one arm around the warhead as best he could was not an issue.
Going down was.
At a certain point we lost inertia while the rocket kept going, tilting enough to assuredly land quite a distance away from out shattered remains. As we began to fall I felt that horrible creeping sensation again, and I wrapped my limbs around Diero’s torso, much against my will. Seeing this, he laughed heartily, and I was too concerned to crush his throat in for it. It was very cold up there, but his body managed to be colder still, utterly inhuman and alien to feel. No warmth, no moving skin, no sign of life, yet vibrating with mocking laughter and poking me in the face with his now freed hand.
After I silently endured the untold terror of falling for a few seconds, the clouds below gave way to my frightened form, and I found myself in the dark and gloomy world I had left behind so easily. The tip of the tower suddenly appeared in my vision, and we were right on course to fall past it when - and please assume the fullest of disappointment on my part - an explosion of Diero cousins burst from the ruined glass ceiling, tossing both R and Jethryn into the air.
Diero angled his body back, grabbing the top of his hat as he slowed ever so slightly and allowed his compatriots to catch up. The Diero cousins were catching up, too, so before long it was a blaze of glory, guns going off mid-flight and Diero cousin bodies flying lazily through the air towards the ground far, far below.
“YOU SHOULD JOIN US MORE OFTEN!” Jethryn shouted over the wind. “THE AMOUNT OF TIMES THAT THE BOSS JUMPS OFF OF TALL THINGS IS INCREDIBLE. HE’S REALLY A FAN OF HIGH FALLS!”
“SHUT UP!” Chromeboy shouted back. I hadn’t noticed before, but he was visibly uncomfortable as he swatted away the Diero clones. “I"M NOT A HIGH FALLS FAN!”
“FOR SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T LIKE HIGH FALLS, YOU REALLY LOVE-”
I had seen it coming. A large beam, jutting out of the tower, one of many which had once been the frame of the structure. I had seen it rising up from beneath these falling flunkees, knowing who it would impact if they all remained still. And I deliberately said nothing.
No, I’m not sorry. These morons threw me off of an impossibly tall tower twice in under an hour, even though I expressly communicated I really hated falling.
The beam hit Jethryn and ripped him in half, with the sickening reverberation of steel echoing through the hollow building, as both his body segments spun violently. Diero seemed mildly concerned, and chromeboy didn’t seem concerned at all, but instead hollered “THAT WAS CLOSE, JETHRYN! GROUND’S COMING UP SOON; LET’S GET A MOVE ON!”
“FINE, FINE!” Jethryn’s upper half noised. “DREAM: HAWKFLIGHT!”
There was a brilliant flash of light, and his, um… What I assumed was his butt now had a pair of massive feathered wings comprised of white flames. This lower half moved about in freefall from person to person, collecting the party, with Diero being the last to grab on. Then it spread the wings, slowing the fall slightly, before diving and swooping horizontally, away from the ground, and what seemed to me like inches away from impact.
The next moment, there was the repeated thudding of a countless amount of Diero clones slamming into the ground behind us- ME. Me and the freakshow; we are NOT US. No wait we’re not We either, why did I say that? If I keep considering my potential union with this noisome coterie I’ll have to commit seppuku, but I don’t have any giant crabs handy.
That’s called a joke. You’re supposed to laugh at it.
What do you mean you don’t get it?
The party came to a casual stop with me in tow, still frozen to Diero’s ribcage if he had one. I took a good look at Jethryn and his two pieces, starting somewhat when I saw a head emerging from his lower half’s inside. It was a skull, rock-like in appearance, much like Diero’s, but considerably larger and longer with a drawn chin and tiny eyes. Whereas Diero appeared as a very angular, comical distortion of the typical human skeleton, this one was positively inhuman in its exaggeration. It looked about with a quiet hiss, extending a bony neck from the cradle of its shoulders, seemingly unsure what to do next while being incredibly threatening.
“All right, off.” Diero broke in upon my thoughts rather sternly. “I get that you’re a wimp, but you make for a horrible duffel bag.”
I pried myself free of his side, and stepped to the ground… And instantly collapsed. That was strange. I tried to stand up, and managed to get on one foot, when I noticed my hands, my feet, my entire body was shaking violently. I focused on calming myself, but nothing even partially worked. It was so bad the dust under my foot and knee was being kicked up by my trembling.
“You all right, Cordax?” Jethryn’s upper half shot a sidelong glance at me, his lower half simply looking at him with the same I’m-going-to-kill-you-and-rip-out-your-intestines look he gave everything. I doubt he had any sort of facial capability outside of that serial killer stare. “You look rough.”
“No, I’m fine,” I replied even as my body went scrambling into the dust in front of me. “Um. I’m… Help me up.”
Diero grabbed me by the collar with a look of antipathy, but it changed to one of stupefaction when he felt my entire frame shaking about like a… I can’t think of an example. Like a thing that shakes a lot.
“I’m perfectly fine,” I said as I weakly raised my hands in protest, revealing that I very much wasn’t. “I really am, I…”
I looked down at the ground. I was perhaps three inches from it. I was terrified for my life. My vibrating limbs snapped upward, trying desperately to find a hold on Diero’s arm while my head refused to break away from that distant, distant ground. Diero dropped me out of protest, sending me back to the earth below in a sprawling frenzy of dust.
“Are you… Alright?” Chromeboy said, slowly approaching and looking cautiously down at me. I tried to respond, but only a choke came out. I was hoping to call him an anodize airhead again. I looked up as best I could, trying to glare at him, but my head trembled too much to do anything.
I couldn’t voluntarily move. I don’t know if it qualified as a true panic attack, but my body felt frozen in a constricted state, pulling the joints in and out, my neck sucking in and tightening, my fingers tensing and locking. I was immobile.
I really didn’t like falling.
–
9 Likes
Imagine not eating pizza goldfish
5 Likes
I’ve always thought this would be fun.
3 Likes
he’s BEEG again, and about time too
Imagine eating pizza
It wouldn’t be so bad if it only happened once but since it loops it’s continuous
I’d do it my way
4 Likes
ok I guess Jethryn is hawkflight
Bruh
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oh duh
I knew that
You’ll have to take that up with your parents
too much lore
it would take too long
Dangit I already made the most recent post on the quotes topic.
1 Like
Jeez, we’re on chapter ten already, but the story hasn’t nearly reached its climax yet… that’s gonna be long.
Yep. Imagine simply going Your Way just to get kidnapped by some Strangers in the Night, who then Get Themselves Under Your Skin, do Somethin’ Stupid and Fly You to the Moon on a nuclear missile… That’s Life…
Almost like nobody theorised about that over two weeks ago (me) and no akaku-wearing gentleman confirmed that theory under two weeks ago (Ghid)
*happy mad scientist noises
Remember when I theorised about Jethryn being six cats or Cordax holding Good Guy?
I actually was onto something!
That makes this Jethryn character even more confusing: the lower half is probably a user, the upper half is also a user, but this character as a whole is Hawkflight.
That’s cheating, Ghid, you can’t make a character out of three users! It hurts my head…
Anyways, I just noticed something: a certain rectangle-shaped vahki (or was it a vahki-shaped rectangle?) seems to be completely absent from the current events, even though chromeboy took him to the tower, and the poor lad doesn’t even have legs to walk away, so I wonder: was that intentional or did you just forget about his existence?
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[sad rukah noises]
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My Kind Of Town.
If only I could also reference Full Moon and Empty Arms but Diero’s arms had a nuclear warhead. Speaking of, Diero, you’re holding a nuclear warhead dude, might wanna be more careful.
It Had To Be You.
Okay, I won’t. But I’m Not Afraid to.
Dear me, where could he be? I have High Hopes we’ll see him again, though.
The, uh… The Best Is Yet To Come.
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I eat it.
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