Kaiju- Battlefield Surgeon

by Matt Dinniman

My foot hit something solid. A monster, incredibly close, squealed. How’d it get so close? I thought they were all the way below. The truck-sized beast twirled and snapped as I lifted my legs. It latched onto something, though, and started ripping. My whole body started to sway back and forth.

  I managed to get the knife back into its sheath at my waist. I couldn’t cast spells, but I could control my grappling hook. I switched on my shield and then selected the flamethrower attachment. I couldn’t cut myself free, lest I fall. I didn’t dare shoot my hand out to grab anything else. The roof of the womb was directly above me, and they were right below me. I kept the flamethrower ready in case I needed a weapon.

  The world jerked, and the flap of skin holding my head started to slowly unravel. I felt myself twisting and lowering at the same time. I was about to drop.

  And then, before I could deselect the flamethrower and switch to my grabber, I did drop. But I only fell a couple feet before I crashed on top of a solid, wet, angry mass of slug rat who went absolutely berserk the moment I touched him.

  Yes, cutting the sac of amniotic fluid could easily be considered one of my stupidest moves.

  It paled in comparison, however, to what I did next.

  I was blind. I was in an enclosed space. I was surrounded by hairy and angry monsters. And I shot my flamethrower.

  Here’s an interesting fact. The amniotic fluid of the guardian Colo Colo is quite flammable.

  ***

  You have died 21 times.

  “Blackjack,” I said as I respawned. I looked at the ceiling of my base. The sign that read Home Sweet Home was the only adornment. I need to put more decorations up there, so I have something pretty to look at when I come back.

  I was laughing, but I couldn’t remember why. Which made me laugh more.

  I returned to the cockpit and eased myself into the chair. I didn’t initiate control.

  I gave myself a moment. I did this thing when I died now. Dr. Metcalf’s disassociation theory. It worked, sort of. I was getting good at it. The problem was getting out of that zone. It was getting more and more difficult to ease back into sound thinking once I returned.

  I looked up at the fleshy ceiling of the cockpit. I still felt like I was falling, spinning in the fiery abyss. It hadn’t seemed like two minutes and twenty seconds. It felt like much, much longer.

  “Hey, Shrill. Zagan, if you’re listening, I’d really like to talk to you,” I said. He didn’t answer. “Your child is dead. So is Lamashtu. Raguel and Jeremiel are gone. Paskunji isn’t dead, but she’s out of the fight. A bunch of your brothers and sisters are down or dead. Beleth, Vinea, Paimon. I forget the rest. It’s a fucking slaughter.”

  The world rumbled.

  “Look,” I continued. “I don’t know if this helps or not, but I’m sorry how it’s turned out. I know what it’s like to lose someone. And to hold a grudge. Christ, man. It’s partially my fault. But there’s someone else who is even more responsible. I’m going to try to make it right. Or maybe there is no right. You know, after something terrible has happened? We spend so much time trying to fix things when we just need to accept that they’re broken and they’ll always be broken. But there is justice. I guess that’s what I’m going for. Justice. And to do that, I need your help. Fuck, you’re not listening, are you? Raguel said your mind is goo. You and me both, brother. But I need you. Do you think we can work together?”

  A tentacle lowered from the ceiling. A large, blinking eye stared at me. A dripping mouth opened.

  “Who kill? Baal? Kill Baal?”

  “No,” I said. “Not Baal.”

  Chapter 72

  Days without food: 2.

  “Christ, Duke,” Clara exclaimed when I teleported into her base. “Where the hell have you been? I was about to go knocking on Baal’s door without you!”

  I looked at Clara for a long moment. I thought of everything Jenk had said.

  I wanted to say so many things. I wanted to throttle her and demand answers. I couldn’t. Not now. No matter what the truth was, I needed her. I desperately needed her.

  I saw genuine worry and concern there.

  Deep breath. Deep breath. I felt myself ease.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’ve been keeping in touch with Banksy. I guess he hasn’t told you.”

  “I can’t go out there,” she said. “The air in hell is poisonous to celestials. I hadn’t thought about it until I poked my head out. I think Raguel was dying the whole time he was fighting.”

  “Huh,” I said. “I had no idea.”

  “Anyway,” I said. “The Shrill and I are about to cross into hell. I wanted to zap into here and give you a head’s up. I want you to get yourself a skill called Jaw. I got access to it when I hit level 50.”

  “You hit 50? How? Was it the potions?”

  “Yep,” I said. “The potions. Anyway, the skill…”

  “I know what it does,” she interrupted. “I already have it, and it doesn’t work on Banksy.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said. “But I’m glad you have it.”

  Jaw only cost 1 skill point, and it only had a single level. It had a singular purpose: it allowed one to understand what a controlled guardian was saying. I couldn’t imagine how the skill was useful in the single-player version of the game, though I suspected there were some scenarios where you could get NPCs to drive some of the kaiju. In the co-op version, it allowed me and Clara to talk to one another while we were the Shrill and Avvinik.

  “What about Jenk?” Clara asked. “Has he been causing trouble out there?”

  “He’s a level 1 groundling,” I lied. “There’s nothing he can do.”

  She nodded, thoughtfully. “So you, me, and Banksy, then? The three of us against Baal?”

  I grinned. “Let me bring the Shrill over, and I will explain it all.”

  ***

  “We are two days without food, so if this doesn’t work, we’re fucked. You realize that, don’t you?” Clara/Avvinik said after I explained the plan. “We’ll have to start over!”

  I still heard the speech as grunts and growls. It translated the words at the bottom of my screen like I was watching a movie with subtitles.

  “It’ll work,” I said, waving a tentacle. When I spoke, the words came out of all my mouths. I didn’t know how to not make it work like that. As a result, the words boomed, louder than I would like. “The clues are all there. It’s a secret path, a secret ending. I know it. We can’t beat Baal, and we can’t negotiate peace, not without an angel. It’s the only way.”

  “We can wake up Paskunji,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “First off, I won’t be able to for another couple days.” I knew that soon, a black sprout would bloom out of the guardian’s chest, and once that happened, one could pull it and set the guardian free. That was the last thing we needed right now. “And secondly, she will not negotiate. You did not see the cutscenes, and I did. I know her. Paskunji is the worst of the lot. I truly believe this is the only way.”

  “Duke,” Clara said. The panther’s eyes were wide with fear. “This is crazy. This is a game, not real life. You can’t just make this stuff up as you go along. These are NPCs, not real, living creatures. There are rules, a set path one has to follow to win. It’s not going to work.”

  Banksy: He’s coming.

  I grinned at Clara. I felt the hundreds of mouths across my bulk curve into a rictus smile. “If it’s not going to work, someone hasn’t told him yet.”

  “Told who?”

  I lifted a heavy tentacle and pointed at the towering form of Baal as he lumbered toward us from across the landscape.

  ***

  A thorn-covered, hulking figure walked before Baal. He was comparatively short, a minor hell guardian at best, no more than fifty feet tall. Count Fronz. He’d delivered my invitation, and Baal was coming out to meet us.

  An army of taurisians and a handful of minor guardians marched behind their leader as he approached, a carpet of ants compared to h
is size. He lumbered slowly but steadily toward us.

  Baal looked much like the painting in the worm surgeon mausoleum. He was a black and red-skinned humanoid figure, twice as tall as the Shrill. While not quite as big as Miftah had become, he cut a menacing presence. The bull-headed beast towered, moving like a living tidal wave of death. The well-muscled monstrosity stood upon satyr legs, similar to the ones I now had. He wore no clothes except a ragged loincloth. His pectorals bulged comically, looking more like breasts than muscles. Each nipple was pierced with a metal circle the size of a Ferris wheel. A pair of smoking bat wings hung upon his back. I imagined if spread out, he’d have a wingspan of almost a mile. He dragged a flaming morning star, a building-sized stick with a chain attached to a spiked ball. The ball wasn’t perfectly round, but oblong-shaped and lumpy. I had the distinct impression the weapon was a repurposed meteor. The hunk of rock was almost as big as Paimon’s colossal hammer. A single hit from that thing would split me in half. Hell, it looked as if it would split the very world in half.

  Emperor Baal

  Rank 1 in the demonic hierarchy. The leader of the underworld.

  May be evoked for binding purposes only. Requires Evocation level 5. May only be evoked by Radiant or Viceroy race.

  Has two forms: Hell Emperor and Fallen Angel.

  “And you wanted to fight him,” I muttered as he approached.

  “I don’t know how you’re so calm,” Clara said. “If he kills us now, we are dead. Like dead dead.”

  An hour passed before he was close enough to speak. As big as he was, he moved slowly, deliberately. Almost painfully. The crown over his head blazed, twice as bright as any of the others. Baal paused at the mangled form of Paimon on the field. The hell guardian had shrunk upon death. Baal took a knee and gently lifted the tiny, dead creature. Baal held his head to the sky and howled, a heartfelt, mournful lament. He looked at me, hate in his eyes. I felt myself involuntarily shuffle back.

  Just as I was about to say what I’d been practicing in my head, I was ripped out of direct control. I stumbled back in my chair, surprised. What the hell?

  “Your child did this,” Baal said. “Your child killed our brother.”

  “Yes,” I heard the Shrill rumble.

  My menus paused, much the way they did in the rare cutscenes. Tension rose as I watched the interaction through the screen. I was hoping to talk to the demon into joining forces with me. If this cutscene ended with us fighting, we were fucked.

  Baal carefully placed the dead form of Paimon on the ground. Paimon’s body was like a grain of rice in the demon’s hand, and it plummeted to the rocks as he turned his palm. The emperor turned toward the nearby body of Lamashtu and Miftah, huddled on the ground in an embrace. He reached for the dead fallen demon with a single finger, then drew back.

  “So much loss. So much pain,” he rumbled.

  Count Fronz, in his thorn carcass form shuffled forward, pointing up at the Shrill.

  “Where is Duke? Where is the worm surgeon?”

  “Inside,” the Shrill thundered.

  “I will speak with him,” Baal said, standing to his full, terrifying height.

  The ceiling tentacle dropped. “Direct control,” it grunted.

  I nodded. My hands shook as I pressed the button to reinitiate direct control.

  I once again took the form of the Shrill.

  Avvinik had moved to be right next to me. The mighty panther trembled in fear. Banksy did the same, sliding to my left. The wave of demons and hulking minor guardians moved to surround us.

  I looked at the enormous demon. “I am here,” I said.

  “Do you have the authority to negotiate peace?” the emperor of hell said. “You are nothing more than a human.”

  “No. No, I can’t,” I said.

  Quest Failed. Celestial Quest – Broker Peace Between Heaven and Hell.

  Shit. I hope this next part works.

  The demon hung his head for a moment. The army encircling us bristled.

  “I am tired,” Baal said. A pause. “I am tired, and I am old. All I have fought for is lost or dead or dying.” He lifted his arm, indicating the horde of demons and minor guardians surrounding us. Many of the minor guardians, I saw, didn’t have crowns blazing after their names. These weren’t just the royalty, but the people. The children of the damned. “All I have left is what you see. My family. I just want to take them home. But if I can’t do that, then why are you here?” He raised his hand holding the chained meteor, as if preparing to strike.

  “I cannot negotiate peace,” I said, lifting a tentacle, pausing his attack. “But I can do the next best thing. I can lead you home. All of you. I know the way.”

  ***

  I held my breath. Baal paused, as if considering.

  Please wait…

  He lowered his weapon.

  When the celestial quest first appeared, it had come with glowing, golden letters. This new one came with even more fanfare, but the words were made of fire, and they encompassed the entire screen.

  Hell Quest – Break into Heaven.

  All efforts at peace have failed. The world burns, and hell overflows.

  The damned, and their children, flee. They seek redemption, as we all do. And in the end, the very end, all roads lead home, in one way or another.

  Lead Baal into Medina and break open the gates to the heavens.

  Reward: You will win Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Clara said.

  “That’s the understatement of the day,” I replied.

  Chapter 73

  “Someone once told me that King Vinea is the one who originally broke open the rift,” I’d said to Count Fronz in the moments after I’d freed him from his lantern. “Were you there? Did you see him do it?”

  The caterpillar had crawled up the side of the open-top container, easing himself onto the lip, as if afraid it was a trap. He looked down over the edge, his head waving back and forth.

  “I saw him do it the second time, lad. I was right there. He’d had help the first time. It was actually Jeremiel who got it started. He’d opened it up to let Zagan out. But Vinea figured out how to make the hole, uh, bigger.”

  “So, I have this spell now,” I said. “I stole it from Miftah. It’s called Rend Dimension, but the details are a little light. I do know it takes twenty minutes to cast, and that it uses a heck of a lot more soul power than I have. It’s meant to be cast while one is in hell, but I’m not going to be in hell when I cast it. I’m going to be here where soul power is at a premium.”

  The worm nodded. “That’s the spell. Here’s the thing, mate. You can’t just cast it anywhere. Each world, each dimension has a point where the threads connect. If you want to punch open a doorway, you gotta cast that spell at the conjunction. We couldn’t even find the conjunction point until Jeremiel opened it up to let Zagan out. But after the first war, it got closed up tight. But the point is still there. It’s always there. Like a pinprick in reality. So Vinea cast the spell, opened up the hole, and a few weeks later we blew it open.”

  “So if I know where the conjunction point is between this world and the celestial one, I can cast that spell, and it will open up the gate?” I asked.

  “Sort of,” Fronz said. “It’s not like a big bang, and then there’s suddenly a rift. Usually the hole is small, sometimes tiny. Like small enough for someone my size to go through. And sometimes it only pops open for a second. That’s why only a few demons came through when this all started.”

  “How does one blow it wide, make it like the rift?”

  The caterpillar waved about anxiously. “It’s actually quite simple, mate. Once enough stuff that’s not supposed to be here comes through, it basically causes a quantum paradox. And a quantum paradox causes an explosion.”

  “Like putting too much water into a balloon?” I said.

  “If you say so, mate,” Fronz said. “When we opened it up this most recent time, a few demons came through. T
hen a few more. Then more. Then boom.”

  I’d missed the early days of the season. The thing had already been rent wide open when I got here. But that made a sort of sense.

  “Okay, so in order to break open the dimension into heaven, one needs to do the same thing? To get enough stuff through?”

  “That’s right,” Fronz said. “But the celestial realm is a special place since it’s basically the source of all this. The connection between here and heaven is both more fragile and much more stout. I suspect when you open the gate, it’s only going to open for a second or two. And the hole will be small. And then it’ll be a while, a week or two before you can open it again.”

  “Well, shit,” I said. “How much would have to get through to blow it open?”

  “That’s the fragile part, mate. It won’t take much. About a guardian’s worth of foreign material will make it happen.”

  “I need to get an entire guardian in there?” I said, thinking hard. “Okay, so if I have someone like you with me, and we jump in together in the second it’s open, all you need to do is transform into your thorn carcass form, and it’ll work?”

  “Nope,” Fronz said. “At the celestial place, everyone only takes one form. And it’s whatever form they are when they get there. So if I go in as a caterpillar, I’m staying a caterpillar. And I ain’t going in there with you as a damn caterpillar. Have you seen my other body? It’s way cooler, mate.” He sighed. “Baal promised me I could be a thorn carcass as I walked down the celestial path. That’ll make them angels shit their breeches. I was gonna walk right up to the Creator and say, ‘my father was an angel name Sytri. He died because you didn’t want me to exist. Well here I am, grandpa. What’re you gonna do about it?’”

  “If a guardian or demon can’t transform, and the gate will only be open a second, what can I do?”

  “It’s a puzzle, mate. Oh, and you can’t evoke us, either. Evocation doesn’t work in heaven. You can ask the viceroy guildmaster about that one.”

  “Shit,” I said again. “There’s no way to do it, then.”

  “Not with that attitude there isn’t,” Fronz said. “Look, mate. You’re a good lad. But most importantly, you’re a smart lad. If you’re anything like Bernadette, then I know you’ll come up with something.”