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Chapter 24
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My eyes faded briefly. I knew I didn’t have any time to waste, and yet I just had to see if it had happened the way I intended. Looking up in the cold, I saw a retreating figure light into flame, disappearing quickly amidst the countless lights.
This was all in a fraction of a second, mind you, but even with such a small amount of time spent there, almost a full minute had passed in the battle. Diero was only now arriving, stepping into the room with a serious lack of awareness for what was happening, brandishing his gun in a wary manner. He was immediately knocked to the floor, and pushed his face up just to glare angrily at me.
I mean, I assume that’s what it was for, since he’s such a decent, caring fellow like that.
His eyes quickly traveled to his creased hat, prompting a vicious scowl and an attempt at jumping to his feet, but Monopoly’s body slamming into him dropped him to the floor again. To Renner’s credit, he was putting up a much more serious effort this time around, the armor shifting into various forms to keep Monopoly as far away from him as possible. Krelikan was bouncing off the walls and ceiling, never staying in one place too long as he peppered the puffy coat of his opponent with blasts of ammunition and the occasional swipe of a sinister blade.
“WHERE IS HE?!” Renner bellowed at the rest of the group, who mostly stood in the doorway and watched or, more likely, hid further away and tried not to look. “YOU SAID HE WOULD BE HERE!!”
“I WOULDN’T CALL EVERYONE HERE- Whoops, hold on.” AI replied, his spinning, disorienting light projections directly around Monopoly’s spherical head pausing briefly while he made some adjustments to his voice. “I WOULDN’T CALL EVERYONE HERE IF I-”
“SKIP IT, SPARKY!!” Renner shot back, his legs armoring up for a super-powered kick to get Monopoly away from him. “JUST GET OUT AND GET HIM BACK BEFORE THINGS GO SOUTH!! WE CAN’T DO THIS FOREVER!!!”
Without another word, AI flew up through a small pipe in the ceiling, unknowingly barely avoiding the massive grip of his overwhelmed opponent. “DREAM: WHIRLWIND!!” The iridescent idiot bellowed out, prompting Diero to shoot to his feet, roar, and spin his solitary handgun with its bluish flame so fast it carved a wheel of energy from the blazing barrel.
Oh, hey, I managed to fit one more in there. I guess I’m not out of good names for that anodize airhead, after all.
Anyway, Monopoly seemed to have thought of just about everything, as Diero’s advancement was intercepted by the big lug’s own head, which he gripped in his palm as he smashed it into Diero’s face, his free hand gripping the skeletal simpleton’s forearm and forcing it aside, resisting the pain of the revolver digging slightly into his arm. Renner moved in with as much armor bulked up as he could, but he was just a fraction of a second too late, as he forced Monopoly aside just in time to watch the Dreamer drop the distance to the floor.
Monopoly’s hands quickly swung about and gripped the sides of Renner’s head, not wasting the opportunity to close the distance between himself and the metallurgic muttonhead. The armor began bulking up as best it could, but Monopoly kept the pressure on, tightening the metal around it until it began to buckle and bend from the force. Renner finally pulled back, allowing Monopoly’s fingers to crush a very thin helmet instead of his own fleshy head, and the distraction allowed Krelikan to hop on the muscular masher’s back and stab down into his shoulders with his concealed blades.
It didn’t work, of course. Monopoly’s upgraded body was simply too durable, and the blades skidded right off. He didn’t appreciate even more damage to his swiss cheese coat, however, and jumped towards the ceiling, smashing Krelikan into it. Krelikan responded by holding on to the posts of his neck, and as the pair came back down he threw them apart with all his might, ripping the villainous figure halfway down the middle.
A sudden and unfortunately short-lived stillness came over the room suddenly, broken only by the constant sputtering of black fluids from the newly-created gash in Monopoly’s upper torso, as it seemed that perhaps additional violence would simply not be necessary - that somehow, Krelikan had just accomplished the impossible. But I knew better, mostly because if this dimwit in chrome could manage concocting miracle armor in that faraway place, the infinitely more creative Monopoly could concoct something far more devious. As the mangled body of this ignoble foe slowly swayed, I could sense what was about to happen, and moved from my position of relative safety in the doorway to help minimize the damage.
Running up just as Monopoly’s arms began to move, I jumped through the gap in his torso and kicked with all my strength at Krelikan’s head, causing him to stumble backwards into the wall. It was the surprise rather than the force that was successful, but as I feared, I was simply not fast enough. Monopoly’s arms reached across and pulled the opposite sides of his torso, stitching the thing together by pressure alone.
And with my right arm trapped in the middle of it.
Krelikan, emboldened by his success, reached for the prongs of Monopoly’s neck yet again, but he quickly spun about and caught the arm of this variegated vahki. I do not know if he intended to rip it off or otherwise cause harm, but the opportunity was never had, as Krelikan’s arm immediately disconnected at the elbow and emitted a seriously powerful electric shock - the Tott puppet was made of wood, and I felt it travel through my eyes. It was enough to stagger him, and to make him drop the arm.
Renner took the opportunity to bulk up his fists and drive them towards the back of Monopoly’s knees, but as he dropped his oversized hands flew over his shoulders, catching himself in a backwards roll over Renner, quickly letting him snatch his ankles as he finished the roll. If you recall, I was behind Monopoly’s back, and it was not a fun experience.
Renner instinctively bulked up his ankles in reply, but Monopoly was counting on the motion. Slinging Renner upwards against the wall, the armor had to quickly relocate its resources to not only his ankles but also his head and neck to prevent his being hurt, and then back down with even more force he was swung, forcing the armor to adapt even more. Flipping his legs forward, the dazed Renner was only barely aware of his now almost exposed chest, the armor having relocated so many other places, as a lightning-fast fist rocketed towards it.
What had happened before must have been a holographic farce, as the actual action of Monopoly punching through Renner’s heart was much more visceral and intense. Bone splintered and shattered in all directions as his ribs exploded, the room vibrated with the horror of his cry. Even from my not very advantageous position, I had not seen so much red in the air since I went to an italian restaurant and- okay, that’s a story for another time. It’s not relevant to this circumstance that the waiter mentioned marinara and I replied yo mamanara.
Anywho, if people were mad before they were downright furious now. Those who were scared got even more terrified, and I think all of us were at least little bit terrified. Renner’s body wasn’t the mechanical marvel it had been before; now it was flesh and bone, albeit somewhat less than it was a moment ago, with this miraculous machine serving as armor overtop. The anticipated action of the armor forcing an artificial heart in the place of the missing one was taking too long, if it was happening at all.
With that I had tolerated just about enough. I cut and severed all my ties from the numerous masks I had inhabited across the city and even behind that cursed dark wall, from every mask I could depart from, to concentrate my being into one primary place. It was a little difficult consciously controlling a thousand Dreamers all at once, and I felt the consequences of it in the massive Dreamer fight, but right now there was one body to worry about and one thing that mattered above all else.
“Is he dead?” The gun spoke, for the first time since the fight began. I glared at the firearm in Diero’s cold grip; the skeletal sofa spud was having a very nice nap right now, and who knows when he would wake up on his own. No one gave any verbal reply, but as Krelikan revved his internal components to really lay on the heat, I knew I had to act so he didn’t get slaughtered.
Pulling as hard as I could, I suddenly threw myself downwards with all my force, and Monpoly, whose body my arm was still solidly embedded in, flailed as his center of gravity suddenly shifted. I planted my feet on the ground and bent my arm as best I could, hopefully dislodging some internal organs and whatnot. It didn’t seem to move at all, but it must have done something , as Monopoly grunted with pain and thrust his hand to the side, the blue orb comprising his head flying into his open palm. He returned it to the space above his neck and threw his arms in front of his body to avoid the impact of Krelikan, who flew in with all sorts of blades going off in all directions.
His coat even more shredded, Monopoly punched through the onslaught of weapons and collided with Krelikan’s glowing face, knocking him back successfully. He darted forwards to follow up, but staggered with a groan as I contracted my arm as best I could. Krelikan moved in again, Monopoly clobbered him with an open palm slap that knocked him across the room.
I tensed again. If there was any chance I could get to his heart and shut it off, it might stop the fight then and there, I thought. But unfortunately I never got the chance to test that theory, as Monopoly’s next move was to reach both arms behind his back, grab at my torso, and pull.
A sickening crack must have followed, but for me the motion sent the world into a tailspin. Those of you who have attentively followed this for a while may recall I was skewered a while back by a very unfriendly giant, or perhaps multiple giants depending on who you ask, and this left a massive gash that ran clean through my body. Monopoky gripped this and ripped it in two, separating my head and right arm from everything else in one fell swoop.
At that point in time I had struggled to hang on thanks to the impaling, but now after collecting everything I could spare, it was barely enough to keep holding on to that pitiful wooden form. The rest of it was useless; I had no other option but to stay where I was, lodged in that psychopath’s chest cavity.
The tarlike substance had accumulated under the carpet during the fight, and was now oozing back up the wall a little. “Ghid!!” Cordax cried, having seen the remainder of my Tott body fall, and Monopoly, who was turned almost enough to see the black material mingling with the brick, faced the cry he was so familiar with.
“He’s dead. Or at the least, he’s dying, Cordax. Now tell your friends-”
Oh, comedic timing, how I love thee. Out of the partially ascended charcoal-colored sludge a massive sword emerged, skewering straight through Monopoly’s lower back and right out his stomach, and the hand that held it was shortly followed by the rest of that one armored Ghid, with Jethryn hot on his heels.
My weary eye caught Jethryn’s mortified expression at the fate of Renner and gave him a serious nod in reply even as the armored Ghid lifted his decapitated head to his open throat and growled out the retort,
“What part of Endless do you fail to grasp?”
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