by Ramy Vance
The clicking stopped.
Instead, there was the sound of cracking dirt, of earth collapsing on itself, of a massive explosion and screams. The grimpons scrambled.
Suzuki tried to make out what was happening in the pandemonium but it was too dark. The grimpons’ bodies had lost their light, and they had scattered into the darkness. All that Suzuki could see were sparks far too close to his head, his ears deafened by the sound of grinding.
There was a flash of light, and Suzuki’s body was suddenly free. He fell to his feet and looked up.
What he saw almost made him scream. Chip was standing over him, but she was not as she ought to have been. The right side of her face was nearly obliterated, her skin barely hanging on, and underneath, a series of gears and lights were shining brightly. Her left arm had been ripped off. Pieces of cable snaked out of her shoulder blade like multicolored tendrils. Her right arm was even harder for Suzuki to comprehend. The skin had changed. Up near her shoulders was regular skin, but the farther down her arm you looked, the less like skin it seemed to be. It appeared metallic, but it was flaking. Instead of a hand, Chip’s fingers converged in a smooth light canon. It looked like something pulled out of a science fiction story. It had an elegant, swooping oval design that broke apart and reconvened around a singular, glowing blue light.
Chip’s hand smoked as she aimed at Suzuki’s feet. She fired once, clearing away whatever had been keeping Suzuki captive. “Get off your fucking ass now!” Chip shouted as she whipped around, her left eye practically bulging out its socket, the skin around it glowing with an odd blue hue, as if there were only gears and cables beneath her epidermis.
Suzuki jumped to his feet. He didn’t bother looking anymore at Chip. Whatever the fuck was going on with her, this wasn’t the time or place to try and figure it out.
Chip grabbed Suzuki, her eye now popping out of the socket and hanging from a cable. “Where the fuck is everyone?” she shouted. Her voice sounded completely different. All her vocal ticks were gone, and her voice was much deeper, almost inhuman.
Suzuki ran over to Beth and tried to pull her out of the mucus cocoon. “What are you talking about?” Suzuki shouted, aware that the clicking from the grimpons was beginning again. “No one—”
“They should be on my tail. The Horsemen and your guys. I was broadcasting my signal. They should—”
Chip was cut short as something tackled her in the dark. She screamed as she rolled over and fired off two shots of blue plasma that lit the cavern for a brief moment, illuminating walls covered with grimpons, their mouths hanging open, their tongues vibrating back and forth as their bodies undulated against the smooth cavern walls. The Grimpon king was standing beneath them, his arms outstretched as his tongue lolled out of his mouth, the hairs on his tongue growing longer and waving as if a breeze had blown through the cavern.
Suzuki reached for his ax. There was nothing. He pulled down his HUD frantically to check his inventory. He had left it somewhere, or it had been taken from him. Then he remembered.
A grimpon tackled Suzuki and they both went rolling. Suzuki was barely able to get to his feet as the grimpon’s legs and arms thrashed about, trying to wrap Suzuki in a deadly embrace. Instead, Suzuki punched the grimpon in the face and held it down by its neck as he raised his other hand and thought of his ax. He gritted his teeth and hoped this was going to work.
Across the cavern, there was another crashing noise. Suzuki looked over, still holding the grimpon down.
There was a hole in the cavern, one the grimpons were quickly running away from. As the dust settled, José and Diana were illuminated by the occasional bursts of yellow light coming from the scattering, scampering grimpons. José screamed as he beat his ax to his chest, his silver armor sliding over his body as it materialized, a helm cobbling itself into existence, its ram’s horns swooping down nearly to José’s back. At José’s side, Diana stepped forward, waving her wand as she floated off the ground, three cracks of lightning flying it in an awesome display of passive magic. “Suzuki, is that you?” Diana shouted.
Suzuki pulled himself to his feet and slammed the heel of his foot into the grimpon’s face. He felt a sudden urge to lift his arm and open his hand. As he did so, he felt the weight of his ax, slamming into his palm, which he instinctively closed before he brought his ax down on the grimpon’s head. “Who the fuck else would it be?” Suzuki shouted.
“Where’s Sandy? Where’s Stew?”
Suzuki left the grimpon’s corpse and went to Beth. “No idea,” he shouted to Diana as he hacked Beth out of the cocoon. “I’m honestly surprised to see you guys here.”
Beth fell into Suzuki’s arms. He held her up for a second before slapping her across the face, causing her to instantly snap awake. “Come on,” he said. “We need you up now.”
Suzuki put Beth on her feet as she tried to blink the haze out of her eyes. She slapped her HUD and her armor shimmered onto her body, a short sword and buckler conjuring themselves into her hands. “What am I killing?” Beth sleepily asked.
“Whatever the fuck isn’t human.”
“Good enough for me.”
Beth leaned forward as if she were going to fall back asleep. Then she bounded forward into the darkness as the lights of the grimpons flashed sporadically. There was a loud screech and a grimpon’s body flew across the room, landing at Suzuki’s feet, its head removed from its body. “Am I killing all these motherfuckers by myself?” Beth shouted.
Suzuki threw himself into the dark, following Beth’s voice. He had no idea where she was. The cavern was too dark. Other than the occasional flashes of light from the grimpons, Suzuki had nothing. He turned and felt something against his shoulders. He reached out and took hold of it. The skin was soft and slimy. Suzuki raised his ax and brought it down on the thing’s skull. “Hey, could I get a little bit of light in here?” Suzuki shouted. “I don’t want to ax anyone accidentally.”
From the darkness, “Working on it!”
Suzuki stumbled and felt something grab him. He raised his ax, but a callused hand reached out and pushed back his palm. There was another flash of yellow light. Suzuki saw José, his helm covered in blood, his sword in one hand, a grimpon at his feet, its sickly appendages twitching in death. José’s helm disappeared, and Suzuki could see his face. José was beaming. “Now this is a goddamn scrap, ain’t it?” he exclaimed.
The lights went out again. Suzuki felt José move past him, then there was another body, its fingers around Suzuki’s throat, casting him to the ground.
There was a flash of light, this time from a bolt of lightning landing at Suzuki’s side. Diana floated past him, three grimpons grasping at her as dozens of grimpons crawled across the ceiling like roaches fleeing the light. Diana waved her wand, sending the grimpons closest to her flying through the air. Then she spoke with a deep voice, so deep that Suzuki could hear it in the core of his being. A gust of wind flew through the cavern, lifting a handful of grimpons into the air where they hung for a few seconds before their flesh burst into flames. They fell to the ground but didn’t stop burning. The flames spread across the bodies of the dead so that there were bonfires all throughout the cavern.
Suzuki turned, catching a grimpon running past him and sending the creature flying, instantly bursting into flames. Then Suzuki knelt and ran his fingers over his ax so that it glowed brightly. He shone it in the cavern of madness and death as José leapt across the room, tackling the grimpon king. José drove the creature to the ground, both of them skidding across the dirt as the king struggled to its feet, its ass shaking violently as four legs burst out of its rectum, its chest swelling and cracking open at the sternum, four or five bones pushing themselves through the gap in his chest cavity. The bones protruded and snapped open, the head of an old man forcing itself out from behind the bones, his jaw dropping open nearly three feet. A slithering stinger unfolded from his mouth. The main head of the king clattered his tongue as he swiped at José with his shovel-like h
ands.
José dodged the grimpon king’s stinger as the king fell to the ground on all its legs, breaking its back so that it stood as some scorpion abomination, its two mouths clicking and clacking, its legs scuttling forward as the horde of grimpons massed behind, their eyes beaming yellow light while the bodies of their brethren burned.
Suzuki called his ax back to him and leapt through the air at the grimpon king, passing José and slamming hard into the king’s massive body. He drove his ax deep into the monster as the grimpon king slapped him off. Suzuki fell to the ground. He looked up and rolled to the side as the king tried to puncture him with his legs. Suzuki tried to get to his feet when he saw another body flying through the air onto the grimpon king.
It was Beth. She was jamming her sword into the gap in the king’s chest. The king was screeching, backing up against the wall, his arms flailing as his stinger snapped against Beth’s neck repeatedly. Beth screamed and raised her shield to block the attack.
Suzuki scrambled out from under the grimpon king’s feet. He jumped onto the monster’s back and brought his ax down on his neck. The cavern lit up from another flash of lightning. Suzuki could see Beth’s face clearly, covered in black and green blood, her eyes alight with the thrill of the fight. She raised her sword in the air and brought it down with enough force to send the grimpon king stumbling backward as Suzuki chopped at the monster’s main head. “This one is ours, Suzy!” Beth shouted.
The grimpon grabbed Suzuki, tossed him into the air, and slammed him against the ground. His main head slammed into Beth, who fell next to Suzuki. The grimpon king reared up on his legs and screeched.
Suzuki jumped up and helped Beth to her feet. He picked up her sword, raised his hand, and called his ax back. “This one’s ours,” he agreed.
Beth and Suzuki rushed the grimpon king. Beth went low, sliding under his feet, cleaving off two of his right legs, causing the monster to topple to the side. Suzuki went high, soaring through the air, landing on the king’s chest, using the king’s secondary head to climb higher until he was staring the grimpon king in the face. He raised his ax, and with every fiber of his body called lightning into his blade. The ax burst into a flame bright enough to light the entire cavern. Suzuki plunged it deep into the grimpon king’s head, yet he didn’t stop there. He pulled out his ax and then went for the neck, hacking at the king’s throat as if it were a piece of lumber.
The clicking stopped. There was only the sound of the ax tearing skin, of steel piercing flesh.
The grimpon king’s dead body fell to the ground. The Horsemen, Beth, and Suzuki cloistered around the body as the mass of remaining grimpons swarmed the walls and ceiling. Diana cast another bolt of lightning that lit the cavern in a bright flash of whiteness, illuminating hundreds of grimpons running over each other, pushing between the other’s arms and legs just for the chance to tear any of the MERCs apart. The MERCs clustered closer together as they raised their weapons, preparing for what looked like it could be their last stand.
Suzuki held out his hand, and his ax flew from across the room into his palm. José and Diana were at one side, Chip at the other, launching blast after blast of glowing blue plasma. Beth was pressed to his back. He could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she slammed her sword against her shield, shouting at the grimpons around them.
Beth reached back for a second and touched Suzuki’s cheek. It was enough to distract him. He turned to face her. She smiled, wiping blood and chunks of flesh from her face. “So, this is how we’re going out? Shame the whole party—”
There was a sound like a person blowing up a balloon and then letting all of the air out of it. Everything in the cavern pulled forward for a second before being blown back. Suzuki struggled to get back to his feet as the contents of the cavern spun around, the whole world going upside down for a second, righting itself, and then flipping once more.
The cavern was no longer dark. It was bright as day.
Sandy was standing at the end of the cavern’s tunnel. Her skeleton still stood out, but it was draped in vines, in blooms and blossoms, a crown of cherry blossoms resting on her brow. She held Stew in her arms. The earth around the opening in the tunnel from which she came was covered in grapevines. the grapes bright purple and ready to burst. As she stepped forward, the ground beneath where she floated burst open with life. Grass grew and flowers sprouted and opened their petals to a sun that they perhaps would never know.
The grimpons ceased moving. They turned their blind eyes toward Sandy, who was beaming light that haloed her ivory skull as she turned her skeletal grin toward them. “Never split the goddamn party,” she whispered.
Tendrils exploded from Sandy’s body. They wrapped up the grimpons, snaking over them with an intelligence far beyond Sandy’s body or her understanding of magic. They gripped the grimpons and lifted them into the air as flowers and foliage sprouted around the cavern, a blinding light still ushering forth from Sandy, who was now covered in a blanket of grass, flower petals falling from the ceiling all around her.
The grimpons screeched, their tongues clicking uncontrollably until Diana raised her wand as Sandy raised her staff. Diana touched her wand to one of the grimpons, and a fire spread across the cavern, setting each grimpon aflame.
Silence reigned in the cavern. Only the sound of burning flesh, the soft wheezing of last breaths taken slowly with agony. Sandy walked past the burning bodies, her body aflame and bright like some saintly maiden of death long forgotten within the annals of mythology. Without warning, the flowers covering her body curled up and turned brown and dead. The ashes floating around her drew to the bone and solidified as flesh, and her skin returned. She fell to the floor in a heap of her own robes, her breathing shallow. Stew slipped out of her arms and dropped to her side.
All around the Mundanes and the Horsemen lay the bodies of dead grimpons. The only smell in the cavern was that of blood.
Suzuki ran to Sandy and sat her up. Her robes were gone. She was dressed just as she would have been back on Earth. Beth came up and knelt down beside Sandy as Stew murmured in his sleep. “Is she going to be okay?” Beth asked.
Diana knelt beside Sandy, taking Sandy’s head into her arms. She checked Sandy’s pulse and then listened to Sandy’s heart. Finally, she looked up and smiled. “She’ll be okay. She’s just tired. Give it an hour or two and she’ll be back up, which is saying a lot. I’ve never seen a display of raw magic like that before. Ever. And she’s going to bounce back from that.”
José wiped the blood off his swords as he smiled and patted Suzuki on the back. “You Mundanes never fail to disappoint.” He looked around at the dead bodies that littered the cavern. “Maybe we should take a breather. It looks like we might have some catching up to do.”
Suzuki nodded as he surveyed the damage. Taking a breather was probably a good idea.
Chapter Thirteen
It took the Mundanes and the Horsemen nearly an hour to clear up all the bodies. They mostly worked in silence. It was easier than talking. Suzuki had noticed that he often needed some decompression time after a fight of that magnitude. The fear of dying and the rush of life wasn’t something that he could easily put into words. Sometimes it felt good just to rest with the knowledge of his own mortality. That, and he never really felt like much of a conversationalist when he was picking up decapitated heads.
Suzuki was methodically looking through the grimpon corpses for something specific.
The king.
It took him a bit longer than he had hoped: the dead all seemed to blend together. He did eventually find the king, and he propped up the grotesque, cave-dwelling creature to take a good look in his eyes. Both sets. When Suzuki was satisfied, he chopped the head off and returned to the fire the two parties had slowly gathered around, leaving the other pyre of bodies to burn unwatched.
José and Diana were sitting together and talking quietly. Beth was still tending to the bodies. Sandy and Stew were sleeping together, their backs lean
ing on each other’s, both of them snoring loudly. Chip sat across from them, staring into the fire, her bad eye still hanging out of her skull, staring down at her missing arm. She sighed and kicked at the fire.
Suzuki came and sat next to Chip, placing the grimpon king’s head next to her. Chip looked up from the fire, her bad eye flashing bright blue. Her other hand had returned to normal and she picked up the grimpon king’s head, staring into its dead, cataract eyes. “Now that’s a nice souvenir,” she murmured. “You planning on keeping it? Would make a proper ashtray. Speaking of that, you don’t smoke, do you?”
Suzuki shook his head.
“Damn it,” Chip said as she tried to get to her feet. Suzuki could hear the gears beneath her body grinding. Something sputtered, and she sighed and sat back down. “Be a sweetheart and go get me a cig from José, would you?”
Suzuki nodded and went to José. “Chip wants to know if you have any smokes?” Suzuki asked.
José reached under his armor and pulled out a small wooden cigarette case. He handed it to Suzuki and leaned in close so that only Suzuki could hear him. “How’s she doing?”
“I don’t know. How the hell can you tell? I mean, what is she?”
“No fucking clue.” José sighed. “We found her batshit out of her mind in the woods years ago. She’s been with me ever since. Never seen her get this trashed before.”
“Does she need replacement parts or something?”
“Don’t know. She keeps what she does to herself. Never seen her lose an arm before.”
Suzuki thought about walking away and not saying anything. It wasn’t any of his business. Then he turned back to look José in the eyes. “Someone needs to reach out to her. You need to talk to her.”
José shook his head. “We’ll talk soon enough. Get your shit together soon. We gotta figure out what our next move is going to be.”