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Chapter 23
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This was the last chance.
Having sent both Dreamers elsewhere, any hope of defeating Monopoly lay in the hands of these neanderthals, my son, and the vague hint I had been given from a living puddle of non-branded flexible sealant. So not fantastic odds, but that hasn’t stopped my poor decision making before this.
Anyway, I refocused my vision around the sight of Cordax, sitting up, with his knees drawn to his chest, staring blankly down the wall. I tried to turn my head, but unfortunately there was a hand gripping the lower half of my face which prevented me from doing so. I could only see the light reflecting off of it into my sole visible eye which betrayed its owner’s identity.
No room existed behind me for the owner to still be attached, however. And the rest of the arm appeared to be wedged into the gash in my chest, almost as if the Chronicler had reached through and grabbed my face.
The alien limb did not stop me from standing up, however, and as I did so Cordax’s eyes snapped to me, slowly bringing the rest of his head around. “I heard it happen.” He feebly replied, the screen housing his eyes buzzing momentarily. “He wasn’t like this when I met him. He wouldn’t just do this to people.”
Oh, sure I could have chosen to look to the right, but then my question of “What are you on about now?” coming from a place of deflecting trauma and serious discussion by being overly sardonic would have been completely avoidable, and we can’t have that. The almost annoyed silence that proceeded out of Cordax’s mouth as he looked back towards the darkness convinced me to turn my body to face the horror he had been mulling over this whole time. “He was there when I needed a friend.” Cordax quietly continued as the slightly reflective blue blood was illuminated by the light behind my vision. “We met on accident, in april. He needed help with work, he said. I met someone for him, we met again at the diner.”
“Lives were lost because of that. His was the latest.” He glanced down at a small bit of the Chronicler, which lay shining at his feet. “He looked like that giant from a while ago, and he seemed nice. That’s the trouble with nice people - they die. Sometimes, it feels like being nice is the last thing you’ll ever do, because the moment you do some monster rips you into tiny pieces with his bare hands.”
“And stomps you to a pulp.” I replied, ripping the hand off my chin and pulling its associated arm out of my chest. It was just enough forearm to still be considered one. “You’re mostly right about nice people, except it’s only the nice ones who die. The real rotten ones can last forever.”
“Yes.” I replied to the unspoken question directly implying that I qualified for that description. “I don’t like competition. Or people who try to kill my son. If you’re ready, let’s go break him in two.”
“Don’t we need more people though?” Cordax asked. “There’s so few left. I don’t think we stand much of a chance.”
“Oh, there’s always hope.” I replied, turning around and raising my chin at the approaching form of Renner, flanked by a few silhouettes. “If you look in the right place, you’ll always find it.”
“Well, maybe, if you look in the right place and react fast enough.” I ground out the words as I slowly pushed myself out from the wall I had been slammed into, leaving a very decent crater behind. Renner’s armor shifted away from the arm it had bulked up. “I assume that was for… Now let’s see…”
Nobody interrupted me as I mock counted the number of possible offenses on my fingers. “I don’t believe I have toes, so we’re gonna have to stop at ten. Now that it’s out of your system, are you ready?”
“You’ll get more later.” Renner clenched his teeth in reply. “But yes, we’re ready. Where did Eilrach go?”
“Oh, he took Monopoly, and…” Cordax blinked for a moment. “I don’t know. I was a bit shocked by the…” he swallowed hard and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the splattered remains. “Maybe he went up?”
“Um, what are you all doing?!” AI’s voice sounded from the darkness down the hall, a small light suddenly appearing. “We’re running out of time! Move, move, hurry!”
Renner moved forwards, grabbing Cordax by the collar and swinging him over his shoulder. “Grab Ghid.” He glared at the dark floor a few steps into the blackness, and jumped down a well-concealed hole in the floor.
Looking up at Krelikan, as the feeling of his eyes burning a hole into my head had been quite apparent for a little while, I locked eyes with him, returning his intense focus towards me with as much of a flat glare as I could muster. “I thought you’d be taller.”
“I thought you’d be competent.” I grumbled back.
Feeling the ground disappear from beneath my feet, I folded my arms at the revelation that he was lifting me by the back of the collar with his stupidly long arms. “Are you sure you’re Ghid? I mean, you’re just so small and…”
Even after all this time, I still get offended at the height comparisons. “Maybe that was the point, you mechanical moron.” I wonder if my eyes lit up when I said that, having realized I had a whole new subject for my whimsical insults.
“Fellas, we don’t have TIME FOR THIS!!! ” AI roared. “Everyone could be dead at this point so would you MOVE YOUR REAR ENDS DOWN THE HOLE IN THE FLOOR ALREADY?! ”
Obviously Krelikan’s artificial mind recovered from the shock of the noise faster than I did, my brain only catching up to circumstances quickly enough to utter “Jerk” at AI as the descent began. “I had a plan early on to reserve our heaviest hitter in case something went wrong. I mean, after I was filled in on what’s been happening with that Monopoly character, I got really worried! So I had our secret weapon hold back until the time was right, when we’d lead him to him and- lead Monopoly to the other guy, you know what I mean, right? I hope I wasn’t too confusing there-”
“RRRGH SHUT UP Al NOBODY CARES” I barked at him just before Krelikan’s feet hit the floor. His suspension was pretty good, as I couldn’t even feel the impact, and AI silently floated alongside with an injured attitude.
“You serious? Al? You’re calling him Al??” Krelikan whispered towards me as he bolted forwards, surrounded by darkness and the ambience of brick crunching under his feet.
“Obviously. Look, it was that or call him what the rest of these imbeciles call him.” I replied. “And you’ve met enough of those circus freaks to know you haven’t come close to seeing the worst ones.”
“Uh, I take back what I said before.” He replied. “Without a doubt, you’re Ghid.”
“Right, so… Al, where are we going?” I inquired of the silent orb floating alongside my wooden mask. “We can’t run around in the sewers forever.”
“Feels like it’s close,” AI responded. “It’s just a little… Left! Turn left, it’s here!”
Right as Krelikan skidded against the brick to make his sharp turn, Renner’s hand pulled him further into the shadows and hissed out a shhh. The sound of metal being beaten was mostly smothered by the walls of the sewer, but not enough to obscure what had happened.
“In we go. Stay alert; this is our best chance.” Renner hissed, creeping forwards towards the light peeking around the bend. Wrenching myself from Krelikan’s grip, I scrambled up towards Renner, sticking very close to his side as we each peeked around at the violent scene.
Evidently there had been quite the scrap. All the shoddy furniture which had been bolted to the walls and floor had been ripped to shreds, with only a handful of the electronics surviving. In the middle of the room, with his fingers griped tight, knelt Monopoly, crushing the engine block head of Eilrach with his bare hands. The slow pressure was enough to squeeze directly through the steel, and he exhaled a deep sigh after confirming the curved slab of metal was far too minimal for Eilrach to properly inhabit as a body.
No sooner had his limp metal form been dropped on the floor than my attention was suddenly drawn towards where I came from, as the whole party began to move towards the scene - including Winger. Quickly halting his advance, I pointed back towards the darkness with a vicious coldness, and he, fairly taken aback, softly relented, returning to that shadowed corner without a word. I would apologize later, I thought, after I ensured my son would not die at the hands of this monster.
“Dream:” Renner coldly spoke, causing the weary Monopoly to whirl around and face the party, framed in the entrance to that small underground room, with the only gap in the lineup quickly plugged by my arrival. There was a tangible resolution in the air, even as an tacky black substance slid down the opposite wall. “WILD CARD.”
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