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Chapter 20
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“Okay, actual answers time.” I said to my retriever. “What the heck is going on? Why is there a giant lurching about? And why are you stretching my coat out?”
Renner was still carrying myself and the yellow kid Cordax by the collars, turning down alleys and jumping fences, all in an attempt to evade the massive figure looming above. He stopped for a moment, holding his breath as he crouched behind the shadow of a house, as the lumbering step of the massive creature slowly passed us.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, and because they stopped making idiots with handles.” He exhaled, turning sharply to me. “If I could find Ghid again, I’d just about ring his neck to get some answers as to why he’s sending these monsters after us. Who was that Photez fellow? Why was Ghid torturing him?”
I started. “Get Diero back here as soon as you can.” I grumbled, slowly returning to my feet and feeling my poor collar. “Have him fire one of the Eilrach bullets.”
Renner gave an expression which seemed to convey the absurdity of the command as well as the confirmation that he had suspected since I burnt Monopoly’s home to the ground. It switched to concern when he saw that I was walking away. “What are you going to do?”
“Get his attention.” I pulled my collar tighter and glanced back at the anodize airhead. “Try to hurry Diero along.”
I heard him shout the command for Wild Card behind me as I entered the middle of the street. The massive figure up ahead turned in surprise, then lumbered ominously towards me until its massive ‘feet’ were only, um… Feet from me.
If only there was another system of measurement I could use. Alas, there is none. What a pity.
Hm? What? Doth mine imaginary ears hear the question of the dear reader, wondering why I chose to emphasize the word feet? Not for all those bat-brains on the Boards, I assure you. No, it was because the massive colossus was comprised entirely of Dreamers, all snarling, hissing, probably angry because they had to be feet and not something cool like eyes or hands.
The massive head of the Dreamer conglomerate loomed downwards until the glowing eyes comprised of hundreds of Dreamer eyes illuminated a circle around me with an ominous yellow glow. I pulled out a cigarette and, standing on my tiptoes, was barely able to light it from the flame of one of the hundreds of eyes.
“Thank you.” I mused, puffing at the cancer stick. “You’ve no idea how much I wanted one while trapped in that hole with Cordax.”
There was a small disturbance of dust behind me, and the resulting shadow over my head told me Diero’s stupid hat had arrived, and hopefully the deadsperado was safely in tow. “Light 'em up, cowboy.”
I ducked down as cowboy fired two shots at the fiend, green smoke puffing out of his revolver. The massive entity barely flinched, but a number of the eyes suddenly turned green and began gargling ominously, prompting the others to break their form and attack. Soon the entire giant had fallen apart, turning into a very angry pile of punching and kicking. The Sonus fellow had somehow approached during this, and shared a brief whisper or two with Renner before igniting into a white-hot molten rage and casually walking directly into the pile of Dreamers, eating through them like a hot knife through butter.
The four of u- No, no, Me and Cordax and Renner and Diero stood there for about five minutes watching this occur, or at least we di- ME and CORDAX and RENNER did, because Diero snapped his fingers in realization and walked off after a couple seconds, only returning near the end with that angry rectangle in his arms.
“This is quite monotonous.” Said the Sonus lower half creature as he stood in place and let the ravenous Dreamers pile on top of him only to be melted away into nothingness upon contact. “Is there any way one of you could assist?”
“Dream: WHIRLING IRON.” Renner said, waiting for Diero to go through the whole flame eyes thing. “Help the guy out, this is taking forever. We’ll be at the former observatory.”
He then grabbed me by the collar and began dragging me back in the direction of the heap of former building. I shrugged at Cordax’s expression of disbelief, prompting him to follow behind us until we had reached the base of that mountain of rubble. A sustained glare from Renner told Cordax he was better off searching through the rubble for something useful, and he trudged off to one of the few remaining portions of the structure which still stood.
“You seem to know a great deal about what’s going on. Probably more than anyone else here,” He spoke hurriedly, writing something on another one of his scraps of paper he seemed to never run out of. “Give this to Diero when the time comes.” He folded it and jammed it deep into my coat pocket. “Please. I don’t have anyone else.”
I confess to being a bit taken aback by the sudden gesture, and I wish I had been given the time to recover and respond, but Cordax stole it away by reappearing in what appeared to be an incredibly oversized suitcoat. “Hello gentlemen,” He mused, adjusting the collar through an incredibly long sleeve. “I found this thing in what’s left of the entrance. You like it?”
“Get the heck out of that right now.” Renner hissed. “Do you realize where that’s been?”
“No?” Cordax said, looking at me for some kind of reassurance.
“Ghid.”
“Oh. Oh eewww” Cordax wriggled out of it in repulsion. “Yuck. I’m going to need a shower after touching that… uh Anyway, what have you ladies located? Anything?”
“Wherever Monopoly is, it must be relevant to the mission I paid him for.” I rambled, not really knowing where he could or would be at this point, but it seemed like the next best bet. “Did he meet you at the cider factory, or was it somewhere else?”
“Weellll,” Cordax tapped his chin, Renner giving me a slight glare for some likely justified reason. “First he said to meet him at this diner called Fifty’s, I think it was more of a sixties diner if I’m being honest, and then we literally walked all the way to a train station and-”
“I’m going to signal Diero.” Renner said, turning and scrambling up the rubble mound. “Both of you get ready to move.”
I watched chromeboy get taller and taller until Cordax punched my shoulder. “Look, look.” He undid the buttons of the suitcoat and revealed a folded set of clothes crumpled up in one of the sleeves.
“Hm?” I glanced, doing my best to appear uninterested, knowing immediately what it was. “Those seem a bit big for you, kiddo.”
Cordax rolled his eyes with a groan and unfolded a large, absurdly puffy coat from the sleeve. I faked having a violent start at the sight of it to sell the illusion that I was shocked and awed at seeing Monopoly’s coat again. “It’s Monopoly’s coat.” Cordax explained. “And these are his pants, and I have the shoes in the suit pockets, and here are his gloves in the other one… Tott, do… Do you think he-”
He looked about suspiciously before leaning in, either trying to be secretive or for effect, I couldn’t tell. “DO YOU THINK HE WAS GHID THE WHOLE TIME????”
There was a sputtering growl, and dust kicked up in front of the two of us, saving me from having to respond to such a ridiculous question. Diero grinned as he hopped off the somehow still functioning but thoroughly battered wheelless bike. “Say, Tater Tott, I was wondering if you could fill me in on something.”
Seeing as Cordax was visibly dying for the opportunity to stuff the coat back in the sleeve of the suit, I decided to take the bait. “I can’t help it if you’re getting senile and forgetting things, Diero. Or are you just out of the loop?”
Diero frowned for a moment, but the thought of his question made him grin maliciously once again. “We were in Monopoly’s house a while back, and then something happened, and I ended up in the street. Now,” He lowered himself down to wrap one arm around my shoulders and stick his irritating chin in my face. “You wouldn’t happen to remember what went down, do you?”
“I’m surprised you forgot.” I shrugged, slipping my hands into my pockets with as casual of body language as I could muster. “I thought I saw something in the flames, so you went to go look at it. But after you stuck your head into the fire for a couple moments, you just passed out. You didn’t have any eyes anymore and it was super weird.” I gestured with one finger around my eye socket as his sinister expression shifted to one of confusion. “Well I started dragging you towards the door, but just as I got there the house fell down on top of me, and I had to kick my way out of the debris. You should time your amnesiac naps for when I’m not in peril, if you can.”
Diero had begun to look away in confused acceptance of the situation when the last comment swung his head back with a scowl attached. I shrugged with the hint of a smile in my eye and elbowed him off in time to get clotheslined by Renner’s descent. “Sorry, uh, it’s time to go everyone.”
“I’ve never been in a vehicle before!” Sonus gleefully clapped his hands, something I wish I had never seen in conjunction with that disturbing skull. “Along with a gigantic list of things I was incapable of partaking in. Where are we going?”
“Fifty’s,” Renner said as he motioned for Diero to pick me up and hop on. “Cordax, let’s hope you left a generous tip.”
“Ahahehaheh heh ha,” Cordax said as he tied the improperly folded and extremely lumpy oversized suitcoat around his body. “Well, we uh… Definitely left. I mean left a large impression, I mean a good impression, yeah.”
“Yeah.” He jolted as Diero grabbed him by the collar, pausing momentarily to look suspiciously at the suit before climbing aboard.
I pulled the collar of my coat closer to my neck. Today was a bad day to be alive.
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