by Simon Archer
However, the armor wasn’t the enemy, the Baron was. We didn’t need to strip the armor if we could have just killed the Baron while he was in it. Impact or no impact, I could have roasted him alive with the fire shots or, better yet, frozen him to death with the ice blasts. His perfect turtle shell would have become his coffin… unless the reflector reflected that, too. That’d just have been a waste of our time, and we’d have been more and more tired as the fight went on. Dodging was exhausting.
Or, even better, the charm could have been used against him. We could have gotten him over the balcony, and he’d reflect off the ground, bouncing just as high as he fell. He’d be stuck bouncing forever as long as the charms were working. That one was risky. I had no idea how powerful these charms were, and an elephant weighing as much as two elephants carrying two baby elephants would have created quite the impact. If the charm prevented the Baron from bouncing, we’d have had a giant crater on this island full of my Wolves in what would have become my keep. Also, he would have been alive still, and I wouldn’t have won the right to all of his stuff. And also, it meant losing out on the Baron’s reflection charm, and that was too good to pass up. I had plans for that.
We stood by the balcony opening, which at this point was more like an outcropping of the stone platform with the missing walls and ceiling when I got an idea. Like most ideas I had, it was as risky as it was crazy and as crazy as it was completely untested. How did this unstoppable force do against an immovable object?
“Hopper!” I yelled out the window. “Get up here!”
“Calling for help, pelt lord?” The Baron made another swing over his head, cracking down on the ground below us, which had a lot of fissures at this point. Maybe the whole tower had to be a lost cause. “Have I proven too much for you? Are you really so pathetic that you cannot die without the meager comforts of slaves? Or are you so selfish that you cannot bear to part with this life alone?”
“The first one,” I said, looking around myself for where all of the cracks were. This tower was going to collapse with a few more mace smashes. If he fell with it, that might have worked out in our favor, but call me paranoid, but that was just asking for a ‘dramatic rise from the rubble unscathed moment to show that everything is hopeless’ that I wasn’t sure was worth the trouble of staying within mace-range for that long. For now, I was just checking to see how this small battlefield was going to fall apart if that were the case.
“Oh?” The Baron took a small step back, thrown off by my curt answer. “You’ve actually given up on fighting me? You really have resigned to your fate? I thought I was taunting you with my remarkably intelligent jabs at your pride, but you are already broken.”
“If that’s what you want to think, I won’t judge.” I kept careful track of all of my footsteps. This place was a minefield of loose floor stones.
“That is what I think, pathetic pelt.” The Baron walked up to us, staring down from his helmet at his enemies. “You do not realize how dull you really are if you thought for even a second that I was going to let you go after everything that you’ve done. A true noble would have been demoted to gruntwork, or even pardoned, were I so inclined. A lowborn slave gets no such chances. There will only be consumption and death. In that order. You have no hope.”
“Nonsense, there is plenty to hope for,” I spoke with a lighter, calmer tone. “You’re strong, you’re smart, you’re funny, you’ve got all the goods. You’re a firecracker. Don’t let a little thing like this get you down, my friend. When a door closes, a window opens. There’ll be more chances.”
“I don’t…” The Baron slumped his shoulders, no longer preparing himself to swing his maces. “Are you appealing to my mercy? Is that what all of that means?”
“I’m not trying to control you, or push you into a decision you’re not willing to make.” I kept up my nonsense. “You are a free spirit, and I cannot change that. Your will is your own, and it would be foolish of me to think that I could make it mine. Your feelings are valid, and I’ve taken them for granted for far too long with my self-centered actions. I’ve let you down, and I know that now. I’ve broken your trust, and it won’t be an easy thing to fix. I’m sorry that I’ve put you in this position.”
“What are you doing?” Tinker whispered to me as she dangled in my arms.
“By the Hunter’s corpse!” The Baron laughed again, forcing me to gag at the sympathetic reflex of the choking sounds. “Is this your attempt to swear fealty to me? In your final hours, you actually hope that I will be merciful to you. You’re quite scared of being eaten, aren’t you? Do you wish to take Timberpine’s place amongst my pack? The arrogance of a lowborn pelt thinking that the power he’s gained for himself thus far has earned any respect from me. I detest the fact that you’ve gotten so far as a slave. It makes us look weak.”
“I understand that you’re upset.” I kept talking, kept the conversation going, all the while stepping out to the balcony as carefully as I possibly could. “This is a very tense time for everyone. We’ve all been through a lot, and it’s worn us down. Made us irritable and prone to outbursts. Things were said that maybe we didn’t mean at the time. Or maybe we didn’t want to say it the way we did. We’re hurt. We’ve let these tough times break us down and disrupt our unity. Our relationships are all suffering between all of us. But we can still make it right. We can start the healing today.”
“Seriously, what are you doing?” Tinker whispered, much louder and higher this time, like a teapot whistle.
“What does that mean?” The Baron puzzled at my words. “What are you playing at? Are you just trying to make a fool of me?”
My mom was an avid fan of those self-help doctor shows when I was growing up, and I’d sit along with her as we watched old reruns. Never thought it’d ever have saved my life for one second before this moment. Although, it didn’t look like it was going to for much longer.
“It’s how the healing begins, my friend,” I answered, still in my TV doctor voice. “Tell me what’s wrong. Help me help you.”
“You know, I’m actually glad that you came to my city, pelt.” The Baron tensed his shoulders, preparing to swing those maces again. “Keeping Timberpine in line was a hassle, but you will be easily disposed of.”
“You seem to have a deep hatred for this Timberpine person.” I put the barrel of my pistol against my nose. Do not do that at home. And keep your finger off the trigger unless you’re going to fire. “You’ve said a lot of things about him during our time here. What if I told you that Timberpine was with us and listening today?”
“What?!” The Baron pulled his maces off the ground, poised to fight. “He’s alive? You’ve been working for him this whole time! Oh, the nerve of that dog!”
“Why don’t you come on out from the back, Mr. Timberpine?” I gestured with my hands towards the stairs. “Tell us how you feel about what’s been said today.”
“I’ll kill you, Timberpine!” The Baron spun around to the stairs, stomping toward them as he stormed towards them with heavy, floor-cracking footsteps. “You’ll never take this city away from me! No one can! I am His Gloriousness, He Who is Beyond All in Thumperton Port…”
At that moment, Hopper finally portalled into the scene, right next to Tinker and me. I took a massive sigh of relief.
“Jesus Christ, finally!” My head fell as I shook off all of the TV doctor vibes off of myself “I’ve been stalling the Baron just waiting for you to get here.”
“Ooooh!” Tinker said as I let her go from my arms. “Stalling! That makes more sense, sir. I couldn’t even begin to make sense of what you were saying.”
“Neither could I, Tinker. Neither could I.”
“I’m sorry I’m late, my lord.” Hopper curtsied. “I was stalled myself by some guards and climbing with portals is trickier than it looks.”
“Speaking of which,” I started to mention, “Those tiny portals with the static--”
“… Toothback-Blurgerturger, and you will remem
ber your place, cripple! I will--!” The Baron eventually noticed that no Timberpine was coming up those steps. “Where is he? You did say he was coming, right?” When he turned to us, he noticed the new member of the team standing there. “What the hell is this?”
“Her name is Hopper, you beach ball,” I said, pointing to her. “She’s the reason I came here to your city to take your stuff. And this is Tinker. She’s actually the bunny that was in your generator before I took her out. I’m sure you don’t mind. After all, she already was one of mine.” Come on, big guy. One angry mace slam was all I needed or even a foot stomp.
“She’s not yo--” The Baron’s mental gears clicked and whirred until he finally got it. “The miscount! You switched her with one of mine.”
“Only to break her out at the risk of life and limb, sure!” I taunted. “Timberpine is the one who outfoxed you there. I just took her out again. So, you know, the generator’s empty now. And fairly… broken beyond repair. Woopsie! Hope you weren’t using that.”
A bellowing roar came out of his mouth as the Baron raised his maces in the air, shaking them with the violence of his rage. As the maces came crashing down, they cannoned into the ground, folding stone slabs upwards under their weight. The floor cracked and crunched, the fissures finally giving way and fully breaking.
“Should I get us out of here?” Hopper frantically requested of me.
“Hold up on that.” I denied her. “If we start falling, sure. Right now, make a teeny tiny portal underneath the Baron for me, if you please.”
“I can’t picture what it looks like, my lord.” Hopper put her hands up to her mouth and lifted her shoulders. “They don’t solidify unless I can see where it is in my mind’s eye. I’m sorry, my lord.”
“Hm.” I gave her a big bottom-lip look of ‘Wouldja look at that?’ in light of the new information. “Ah, well. Could you do it when the ground gave way?”
As soon as I said that, the ground gave way underneath the Baron, stone bursting and shards flying as the giant Wolf fell down through the floor. The great beast howled, turning forward into a spiral of limbs in the air and crashing through every floor on the way down. The stones his body crashed into shot downward, cracking the floors beneath the Baron before he even reached as they bounced off the armor in his freefall.
“Nevermind that now, Hopper,” I said, looking down the hole. I walked back to the edge of the balcony to look at how the battle was going. Pretty good, from what I could see. Still, a few of my boys were getting surrounded by guards, so I picked off a few in the bigger groups with my pistol. Still eerie to shoot a completely silenced weapon.
“Sir, the tower’s collapsing!” Tinker climbed onto my back, already prepared to hop some portals. “Can we please leave?”
“Almost,” I told her. “We’re close, don’t worry.”
“When?” Tinker breathed out as she clung tighter to me.
“Just a second, we’re waiting--”
“To what, die?!” Hopper panicked. Quickly after, she took a big breath and regained her calmness. “What are we waiting for, my lord?”
The tower cracked, and underneath us, the balcony shifted forward a bit as we all struggled to keep our balance. The piece of tower we were on slowly tipped forward, no longer held in place by the rest of the structure. I took Hopper by the shoulders, shaking my head at her as she freaked out. Just then, the metal noble’s roar funneled through the broken tower, piercing through the air as the Baron bounced off the last floor of the tower. Looked down, I could see the eye slits of the Baron’s helmet looking up at us.
“Now, he’ll follow us down.” I took Hopper by the waist as I jumped for all three of us. “Get us to the main courtyard down there as fast as possible.”
As we fell, Hopper opened portals in front of us, skipping chunks of our fall time with every jump, until we were at the ground in no time. The last two were on the ground itself, both pointing upward as we fell in one and fell out of the other, canceling the momentum of our fall as I landed on the ground for the three of us. The battle still raged on, though I could see we were definitely winning it by far.
“Hopper, get ready.” I directed her as I muscled through the pain in my legs. “Tiny portal right under the Baron as he falls.”
“Not a big one?” She asked me as I was looking up to see the Baron already falling down to us.
“Teeny tiny.” I restated myself. “Very static-y.” I shot two keep guards with the shotgun as they got too close to us.
She obliged, looking for the spot the Baron would be. Once she found it, she made the little dot about an inch wide appear twenty feet in the air, with crackling purple energy and mist flaring as she crinkled her hands. The second portal sat to her side, facing away. The Baron fell down upon the lightning spot in what would be the moment of truth for my plan.
The truth was grosser than I was expecting or wanting. Just like when the Baron bounced before, a part of the Baron bounced again. A small cylinder of compressed Baron shot out of him, metal plating, leathers, and flesh all scrunched up like a little sausage. The meat rocket flew high into the air, causing many onlookers to miss the second hollow Baron meat tube to shoot out from below. Bouncing back up from the ground, the Baron passed through the tiny portal again, only from the actual portal side this time. The portal edges caught the armor, making the tube, and the rest flew out the second portal, splattering into the ground next to the pieces of the meet tube. The Baron tried a howl of pain in his flight upwards, but only managed a burbling splatter as the portal removed pieces of several necessary organs.
“Ew.” Hopper removed the portals, shuddering down her spine as she walked over to me. “Did you plan for that?”
“Half,” I told her, still staring at the messy, bloody carnage I orchestrated. “I did not plan for the meat pieces to come out.”
“That was pretty smart, sir.” Tinker kissed me on the cheek as she slid down my back. “Very creative portal shenanigans.”
“Ah, crap, you know what this means?” I said to my girls. “Hopper’s the one who actually killed the Baron. She’s the new Baron now.”
“What do you mean, Lord Hank?” she yelped. “You’re my owner. I’m a part of your household. Anything I do would be considered an extension of your actions, just like your hand.” She pointed at my pistol. “It is like saying that your pistol is the rightful winner of the duel with Timberpine.” She smiled at me. “Besides, I like serving you, Lord Hank. That is what pleases me.”
“Can’t argue with that, I guess.” I laughed as I put a hand to her cheek. It was a fair point. Having this kind of role meant taking all of the responsibility that came with it. That was a heavy burden to hold, owning the actions of another life. It’s not something I’d wish on anyone, but I’d gladly take for her, or any in my household.
“Do we know if he’s dead?” Tinker asked. “Maybe they’ll see you take the killing shot if he’s alive.”
“Yeah, we should check.” I looked up at the Baron, now falling back down. “He’ll keep bouncing forever if we don’t stop him. We’ll sandwich him between two portals.”
“Will that work?” Hopper looked up with me. “I can’t make a portal big enough to fit him, and the edges may not be static-y or hot enough to cut through him.”
“But with less surface than the ground, it should slow his bounce a bit,” I reasoned. “You’ll have to keep making portals on the fly until you can get him caught. Just put one over him to billiard him into the pocket. Keep him close to the ground when you trap him.”
“Yes, my lord,” Hopper said as the Baron crashed into the ground, bouncing off his white forcefield again, but this time capped by a portal as she recreated another one, lowering the ceiling of the Baron’s bounce every time.
“Um, sir?” Tinker tilted her head down and looked up at me. “I’m sorry I wasn’t as useful in fighting the Baron as Hopper. Next time, maybe, I can make more charms to--”
“Hold up, honey,” I said to
her, grabbing her cheek. “Who told you that you were not instrumental in this fight? I didn’t. You were absolutely essential in making this all happen.”
“I just took a useless charm off his head.” She looked down at the ground. “Hopper was so useful that she’s technically the one who killed him.”
“First off, there’s a little bookish Wolf we’re all forgetting.” I lifted her face up to look at me. “That Scribe noble probably had more than just those sleeve-guns to worry about, and you took him out in one hit. Do you know how much hassle that saved everyone? We could have been fighting the big guy and some techy gunslinger at the same time. One of us definitely would have been shot, maybe even dead.”
“I was just doing my best to serve you, Lord Hank,” Tinker told me, leaning into my hand. “Was this fight easy for you? It must have been. You were so calm.”
“That’s called a full-circle panic, darlin’.” I swooshed a finger to represent the circle. “It’s what happens when you’re so overloaded with things to worry about that your brain can’t handle it, so it just throws all of it in a corner where it can be ignored with a fake calm. I was panicking like a chicken with his head cut off on the inside.” I picked her up and gave her a kiss on the lips. “Part of being a person, I guess.”
“Was it like that with Timberpine, too?” Tinker said, returning a kiss to my lips.
“Almost, but his fight was more annoying than anything.” I put her back down. “The cyclone thing was scary, but when he was just rolling around town, I had already won. I just had to go about keeping him down long enough to prove it. The crumbling tower and giant wrecking balls were a bit more of an issue for me. I like my bones.” Tinker giggled at that last line.