Older-Art realized that they were now inches from the ball of rainbow-colored energy that marked the entrance to Earth 55,777. The energy was no longer frozen in place.
“What’s happening?” Older-Art screamed, even though he already knew.
God-Art glanced down at him and grinned. “Earth 55,777 is finally unfrozen. I can finally finish what I started all those years ago.”
And with that, Beverly guided them into Earth 55,777. Older-Art closed his eyes as they passed the threshold. When he opened them, he wished he had kept them closed.
The trio appeared about a dozen feet above the tallest building on this planet-spanning city. They immediately began falling toward the rooftop of this building. In the intervening moment before hitting the roof, Older-Art glanced around to gain a bearing on his surroundings.
The rooftop on which they were about to crash was the top of the B.I.T. headquarters. Off to the side of the rooftop was a mammoth neon sign that spelled out Olympus. Crashing against one another in the air nearby were the pink and blue bears, their raging fight creating in their wakes both destruction that demolished entire buildings and rejuvenation that repaired entire buildings. They zipped across the wanton violence of the battlefield and approached the Olympus building.
The trio of God-Art, Beverly, and Older-Art crashed in a heap onto the roof. God-Art immediately untangled himself and leapt to his feet. Beverly scrambled around him until she perched on his shoulder. Older-Art used his arms to push himself up into a seated position. He tried to gather his feet underneath him, but no matter how hard he willed his legs to move, they refused to cooperate. The terrifying sounds of the cosmic bears locked in battle grew closer.
God-Art turned to Older-Art. “Get up, you fool! Our prey will be within reach in a matter of seconds!”
Older-Art frowned. “I-I-I can’t! My legs! They’re not working!”
God-Art sighed. He trudged over behind Older-Art, grabbed the mortal by his armpits, and hauled him up onto his feet. “There!” screamed the god. “There’s a time and a place to be lazy, and it’s not now!”
God-Art let go of Older-Art. Older-Art’s legs immediately and unceremoniously collapsed beneath him. He cursed. God-Art cursed.
“What’s wrong?” screamed God-Art.
“I! Don’t! Know!” Older-Art screamed back.
God-Art stared at Older-Art’s midsection for a moment. The god’s eyes glowed neon green. Then they faded back to their normal black voids. “Hmmm,” he said. “Seems your spine is broken. Gimme a sec, and I’ll get you healed right up.”
But Older-Art never received the opportunity to give God-Art a sec. The door to the rooftop burst open. A man nearly twice as tall as God-Art emerged from the door. The man wore a dull blue toga, had a horribly crooked nose, and had a beard that dangled down past his waist. His hair was bound in a ponytail that fell over his shoulders and reached all the way down to his hips. His legs were crooked and jagged, and he hurried forward with immense limps each time he took a step.
Older-Art recognized the man as Hephaestus, the High Commander of the B.I.T. Hephaestus’ left arm dangled from his shoulder, skinny and undersized. His right arm bulged with muscle and carried a weapon that Older-Art recognized from his younger days: the onyx saber upon which the bears had been imprisoned when Older-Art first encountered them on Earth 1,000,000. It had been re-forged and looked exactly like it had on that fateful day so long ago.
“Intruders to my land! Be thou members of the Blue Army or the Pink Army, it matters not. Hephaestus has spent too long frozen in time and is filled with rage! Thou shalt join thy comrades as I send all of thee to meet my brother, Hades!”
God-Art cursed. Hephaestus raised the saber high and readied to attack. The sound of the warring bears grew louder.
Older-Art stared down at his feet. Death was approaching from all sides, and he could do nothing to escape it.
Chapter 38
CALLED BACK
Everywhere Ginny looked, she saw corpses. Corpses and debris. Corpses and debris and wrecked ships. Corpses and debris and wrecked ships and scorched earth. Corpses and debris and—there! Her pink blob, less than a quarter-mile away.
The blob was just as she had left it when time had become frozen following her final battle as the Pink One’s Right Hand of Destruction. The blob had been in the process of regrowing and was only about a dozen feet tall rather than the kaiju-sized proportions it normally occupied when Ginny was encased within it. Ginny could see her own corpse floating inside the blob. Her corpse was being held together by the pinkness, because it had been ripped in half by Drillbot and had a hole through its head the size of one of Drillbot’s drills. Ginny shuddered.
Near the blob, the pink and blue bears flew. Time was moving normally once more, so they crashed into one another. Their snarls echoed across the battlefield. Dread overwhelmed Ginny, and she knew she should not have returned to this place.
Ginny felt something hard and pointy nudge the back of her shoulder, just above the jetpack strapped to her back. She realized that she had not moved since appearing on this earth, for her terror at seeing the pink blob had hypnotized her into immobility. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Drillbot behind her. He gestured across the street to where the rest of the Landing Crew had crossed. They all stood waiting for her. She nodded.
She stepped away from the wreckage of the building beside which the Landing Crew had appeared. She sprinted across the street, careful not to trip over random debris from toppled buildings or roll an ankle on the plethora of holes that had been ripped across the pavement. When she and Drillbot reached the group, Alex pointed toward the roof of the adjacent building. The perspective from here did not allow her to see it, but Ginny knew that atop the building glowed red neon letters that spelled Olympus.
Alex wore a helm over his head and armor over his marigold uniform that made him look like an ancient Greek warrior. He said, “On my mark, engage jetpacks. Ready weapons and set to permanent devolution. The B.I.T. High Commander is not to be harmed, but all other hostiles are fair game.”
Ginny’s mind briefly flitted to the picture of Hephaestus, the B.I.T. High Commander, from the briefing dossier. She frowned. He was a horridly ugly god with long hair and one shoulder so much larger than the other that she wondered how he ever stood upright without toppling over.
Alex strapped over his ancient-looking helm a device that made him look like he had tied a coconut bra around his head, with a shell covering each ear. An elbow nudged Ginny in the side.
Normal-Art leaned over and whispered to her, “What’s that thing?”
His breath smelled terrible. She sighed. The horrible stench could only mean one thing: that he must be on one of his oft-repeated rebellions against what he deemed “the vast dental conspiracy.” During these phases, he would claim to anyone who would listen that dental care was a sham and that there had been no dental care for most of human history, and thus dentists and their industry were nothing but fear-mongers using threats of cavities and gingivitis to earn profits from the uneducated masses. Based on her past relationship with him, however, Ginny knew these dental rebellions always coincided with periods when he felt too lazy to brush his teeth. She shuddered—yet again wondering how she ever spent so long in a relationship with him—and replied, “It was in the briefing dossier, if you’d have taken the time to read it.”
Normal-Art stared at his feet. “I read most of it. But, y’know, I skipped a few pages here and there. When it got boring.”
Ginny sighed. “It’s a listening device. He’s listening to what’s happening at the top of the building to ensure it is clear for us to set a trap to flank God-You.”
Alex removed the listening device from around his head and turned to the group. “Now!” he shouted.
Alex reached down to the two handles sticking out from the sides of the jetpack, both of which were curved to end in front of him for easy access. Each handle had a button on its end, and as Ginny r
ecalled from the briefing dossier, pressing both together would launch you straight up. Pressing the left button would power only the left engine and thus steer you right. Pressing the right would power only the right engine and thus steer you left.
Alex pressed both buttons and launched into the air. 29333 immediately did the same. Bagoo—who needed no jetpack—flew into the air after her, followed by the three-dozen Purple Shirts and Normal-Art. Ginny shrugged, grabbed her handles, and jammed the buttons down.
Her stomach dropped all the way to her toes. She launched straight up, faster than she had ever launched before—well, aside from her experience in the Obelisk Orb decades ago with the dwarven-dictator-version of herself. She squealed in excitement.
But as she passed the thirty-story mark, the excited squeal shifted to one of terror.
Something wrapped around her right ankle. She glanced down and screamed. The pink blob had stretched a tentacle from blocks away and grabbed her. She felt it calling to her inside the recesses of her brain. It demanded she return to its enveloping madness.
“No!” she cried. “Please! Not again!”
She jammed the jetpack’s buttons down harder than ever, hoping to provide enough power to escape.
But it was to no avail. The blob was stronger than the feeble jetpack strapped to her back. It pulled her toward it like she was a fish caught on the end of a line. She felt the ligaments in her knee being torn apart, but she did not stop trying to fly away.
She looked over at the blob. Even though it was no longer the building-sized blob it had been throughout most of her time in its grasp, something about it being condensed down into a more concentrated form made it seem even more hateful. And as it pulled Ginny closer, it shrank down to the size and shape of a teddy bear. It dumped onto the ground the mangled corpse of Ginny’s past-self, making room for current-Ginny. Terror filled her heart.
Ginny heard a voice in her head. Pink words formed above the pink blob-bear, spelling out the words appearing in her head like they were word balloons from a comic book. Return to us and restore our covenant. You shall be our Right Hand of Destruction once more, and your home reality shall be allowed to continue living until it is the last reality in the Multiverse.
“N-N-Never!” Ginny cried. “You can destroy my earth all you want. But I’m done!”
Tears fell from Ginny’s face. She pulled her Time-Phaser from her holster and fired it at the blob, but the blob opened a hole in itself, and the devolution blast passed through without touching it. Ginny continued firing until the weapon overheated and she had to stop. The blob opened hole after hole in itself, and none of the Time-Phaser blasts ever came close to connecting. It continued pulling her toward it. She could not stop it.
The pink words continued appearing above the blob. If Ginny will not resume her place as our Right Hand of Destruction, then we shall consume her life force and transform her into our puppet. And then we shall use this puppet-Ginny to destroy her home reality as soon as we finish destroying the B.I.T. home earth. That shall be her punishment for breaking our covenant and abandoning us.
The pink blob-bear’s mouth opened wide. Ginny could not stop from being swallowed. She would become the thing she hated once more. She had no choice.
Yes, give in. Your friends have abandoned you. There is no hope for you. There is only you and the Pink One, and together, we shall wreak havoc on the Multiverse.
Dread filled Ginny’s heart. The damned blob was right. It was hopeless. She gave up. She powered down her jetpack.
As the pressure was relieved in her leg and she began being reeled in toward the blob at blinding speed, she heard a buzzing in her ear. She wondered why the jetpack’s engines were still rumbling now that she had shut them off.
Chapter 39
A SACRIFICE BACKFIRES
Drillbot watched the rest of the Landing Crew as they activated their jetpacks and launched up to the top of the Olympus building. As usual, he had volunteered to take the rear to protect his more vulnerable companions. For a moment, he wished that he had brought Henry along to keep him company. But alas, after ensuring proper medical treatment had been conducted on the friendly gourd, he had left the gourd on his nightstand to keep him safe.
Ginny was the last of the Landing Crew to launch. As soon as she did so, Drillbot leapt into the air. He had received no jetpack, which was fine with him. He had no hands to operate the controls, and he was likely too heavy for one to work on him, anyway. He stabbed a drill into the side of the building about two stories up. He took a few milliseconds to steady himself and then swung himself upward, once more stabbing his drill into the side of the building at a point two stories higher.
Just after Drillbot made his seventh leap, he noticed something pink flash into view. It was a thin, pink tendril. It was zipping through the air faster than the B.I.T. jets that were flittering around in the atmosphere high above. It wrapped itself around Ginny’s ankle just when she was blasting past the thirtieth story of the Olympus building. She squealed. Drillbot cursed.
This time, when Drillbot stabbed the side of the building, he did not continue leaping up its exterior. Instead, he scanned the horizon to follow the pink tendril to its source. He telescoped his eyes to get a better view. The pink blob that had formerly enslaved Ginny had shrunk itself into the size and shape of a small pink bear. It looked like a twin to the cosmic pink bear that was engaged in battle with the blue bear above the city. The blob had dumped Past-Ginny’s corpse onto the ground, the corpse’s flesh rent asunder with multiple drill-shaped holes—holes that Drillbot had torn into it during their final battle decades ago.
All the memories Drillbot had of this earth flashed through his processors. He watched Ginny Rex die within his mind’s eye. Rage threatened to overwhelm him. But before he could lose control, he flushed the memories from his processors by running a search function that filtered out all negative memories. He shook his head back and forth, regaining control, and then focused on the scene occurring below him.
Current-Ginny was screaming as she fought against the tendril. Drillbot frowned his version of a frown. He had forgiven Ginny for the actions that she had committed while she had been possessed by the Pink One. She hated herself for what she had done. And now the pink blob was about to force her back inside itself, presumably to become the Pink One’s servant once more.
Drillbot sighed. According to the briefing dossier, he was supposed to be the Landing Crew’s heavy hitter against God-Art. But he could not abandon Ginny.
Drillbot’s engines roared. He leapt from the side of the Olympus building. His wheels spun as fast as he could make them go. He crashed wheels-first against the ground and rebounded high into the air, flying in the direction of the pink blob. After a few more bounces, his wheels were solidly on the ground. He raced toward the blob.
He reached it just as Ginny was about to be pulled into its maw.
“[whir] No!” Drillbot screamed.
Drillbot watched as Ginny gave in to the inevitable. She powered down her jetpack.
Drillbot was a mere thirty feet away. He dove at the bear-shaped blob, his drills held straight out in front of him. He aimed his dive so that he would fly over Ginny. Judging by his current speed, he expected to enter the bear’s open maw before her, allowing him to rip it asunder before it could swallow her and once more invade her consciousness.
The blob had stretched part of itself into the air and was using it to create sentences, allowing it to communicate with Ginny through balloonish pink words. But the bear-shaped blob must have sensed Drillbot coming. The pink words floating above its head shifted, now spelling: Never mind, Ginny. It seems you shall not be our Right Hand of Destruction this day.
The blob lifted Ginny at the last second. Drillbot was in midair. He had no time to shift his aim and no time to stop his drills. He ripped Ginny in half as he dove through her.
“[whir] Nooo! Drillbot did not – CLACK – did not intend to do that!”
D
rillbot’s momentum carried him into the bear-shaped blob. Shame at what Drillbot had just done to Ginny overwhelmed him, and as it did so, it overrode the filter he had placed on his memory banks. Memories of his past experiences with the blob flooded his processors. Images of Ginny Rex being disintegrated flashed to the forefront, and his rage at these images overpowered all his other emotions. He screamed and stabbed. The bear-shaped blob formed tentacles with ends shaped into blunt instruments. It whacked him across his impervious hide.
Drillbot and the blob stabbed and pummeled one another. With each combatant impervious to the other’s attacks, the fight was a stalemate. But each continued attacking the other, anyway.
But then Drillbot’s rage moved aside long enough for his processors to send an idea coursing through his system: his hide had been made impervious during his service to the Blue One. Nothing was getting in. And that meant nothing could get out, either. Even though he and the beast were too evenly matched to kill one another, he could use this stalemate to his advantage and prevent the pink blob from ever killing anyone else ever again.
He engaged his internal protocols to open his front torso compartment. And then he used his mighty arms to stuff the pink blob inside himself. It resisted and fought, but he pushed and pushed, and when he finally managed to wrestle it in there, he forced the door shut and engaged his internal protocols to lock it. He then erased from his CPU any commands that would allow it to open.
He felt a beating inside his torso as the blob lashed against his insides. His vision in his right telescopic eye winked out. He ran a program to understand what had happened, and he discovered that the blob had begun wedging itself into his internal gears and rotors and engines, and it was ripping apart his systems from the inside.
Drillbot glanced over at Ginny. Both her present and her past corpses lay lifeless on the ground. Though the past-version filled him with rage, the present-version’s corpse filled him with remorse and sadness. He glanced over to the spot where the left half of Ginny Rex’s body had battled the reanimated right half of her body before she had been disintegrated by past-Ginny. He longed to touch Ginny Rex one more time. More remorse and sadness filled him. He slumped his shoulders and waited for his inevitable end.
And Now, Time Travel Page 33