by Unce, Bo
At the same time the death machine had reached the middle of the dance floor, the music reached a crescendo.
"Ka-leem-bo-geeeee-sus! Ka-leem-bo-geeeee-sus!" chanted our unseen audience. While that phrase didn't exactly roll off of the tongue, it somehow fit the rhythm that was thudding palpably through the immense underground room.
Suddenly, Limbozer moved. No longer was the iron suit rigid and erect; now it flexed fluidly and seemed to ripple with life. Limbozer's arms and legs flailed about and he stumbled around in a circle, but did not fall. Judging by the frightened and confused look on his face, Limbozer was neither in control of, nor understood, what was happening to him. Looking beyond him to Makayla, I could see she was operating some kind of compute-pad looking device while grinning at her clumsy metal suited messiah.
"Yes, yes!" Makayla screeched, madly. "Now arise! And, take your place on the Limbotron!"
Limbozer's lurching became less erratic and he seemed to be regaining control of his ambulatory movements.
"I... I can... move again!" he exclaimed, triumphantly. "I can... walk again!"
He froze; a crazed smile spread across his face.
"I can... limbo again!"
He quickly turned and gracefully bounded towards the lethal contraption that Kesley had hauled out: the Limbotron.
"What the fuck is he doing?" I was baffled. Was his love of limbo that strong? I began planning my actions from the very moment when I regained use of my limbs. I didn't have to wait very long.
There was a twinge of a sting at the base of my skull and everything changed. The suit no longer provided structural support. All of the weight of my body came to rest on itself and I realized that while I was much farther from dead, I was nowhere near healed. Tendons and bones that had been frantically mending themselves strained and bowed at the pressure put upon them.
"Damn it!" I cursed my luck. So much for the plan where I run over and beat the shit out of Makayla on my way out of this hell hole. I was going to need a new idea.
The club music was deafening now and while I struggled to maintain my footing, I could see that Limbozer had reached the Limbotron and was climbing inside. Looking more closely at the large device, I could see that all of the deadly instruments were positioned around an open shaft of sorts. Limbozer seemed determined to make his way into that shaft.
As I watched him climb inside, movement from the shadows caught my eye.
"The girls... they're all still dancing," I shook my head at the realization.
After stumbling to my stubby knees a couple of times, I managed to find stability standing. I proudly glared at Makayla, who was not looking at me at all. She was transfixed on the Limbotron, which had begun to move in an ghostly, automated fashion.
I clenched my fist. Did I have enough strength yet to confront Makayla? Surely she had some means of rescinding my mobility in that compute-pad she was holding.
"Think, Preston," I furled my brow. "Think!"
"Help, Preston! Help!" TK's pleas pierced my mind.
"TK! What happened?!" Now was not a good time.
Unfortunately for my focus, she did not respond. What was happening to her? I remembered that the last thing she had told me was that she was trapped in an underground chamber with hundreds of slovenly men. I had to get to her!
I needed help.
"Jesus Cleveland!" I thundered over the thumping club sounds.
Feeling a surge of power in my body, particularly my right leg, I knew what I had to do.
Necessity, being the mother of invention, guided my hand in the selection of an impromptu projectile: the frozen cadaver of my best friend, Marcus Aurelius. With the strength of one thousand chubby toddlers, I deftly punted Marcus' rigid form at Makayla. He went skidding across the ice with deadly accuracy and bowled my target over along with twenty or so of her pledges behind her. As she fell backward, the compute-pad she had been holding flew out of her hands and onto the dance floor between us.
Desperately, I awkwardly galloped towards the discarded device.
"Noooo!" I heard Makayla exclaim from the shadows.
Another three steps and I jumped on top of the compute-pad. I had intended to elegantly roll back to my feet, compute-pad in hand, but instead face-flopped onto the floor with a defeated thud.
"Oh, no, you don't! Get him! Stop the music! Get him, sisters! Get him!" Makayla commanded hysterically.
I had different plans. My supernatural strength surge now fading, I struggled briefly to get to my feet. Thankfully, the surgipod suit was still steadily and rapidly healing my pulverized body. Clutching Makayla's compute-pad, I began to hobble back towards the giant metal door that had been the gateway to this whole fucked up sub-terrestrial scene.
"P!" I stopped dead in my tracks at the sound of Marcus' voice. "Ay, yo, P!" His voice sounded very close, but different: tinny.
"Marcus?!" I shouted in all directions. "Marcus, is that you?!"
"Ha ha, I tol' y'old bitch ass bes' be callin' me Koochy, sucka! Hell yea, boy! Dis dat Big Kooch! Dat one an' only! I stuff dat pussy wit' cheetos, ya hurr me?" the disembodied voice returned.
I realized it was coming from my hand. The compute-pad! I held it up to my face.
"Marc... Koochy!" I teared up, I was so happy to hear his voice. "You're alive?! How? Where are you?"
"Ay, slow down, son," the compute-pad chastised me. "Man, you some kinda bussa ass bes' friend, P. How you thank I goan be dyin' an' shit? Mothafucka, I hacked death! Pwnd dat dam boney bitch! Unnnnghhh!"
"You wha..." I didn't have time to finish the thought as suddenly I was attacked by an avalanche of lithe white girls. Thankfully, I managed to hold onto the compute-pad, my only connection to Marcus. Also, fortunately, my iron suit shielded me from their girly punches and kicks. They continued to dog pile on top of me as I crawled, abated but unbeaten, towards the exit.
"P!" I could hear Koochy yelling at me from the compute-pad in my gloved fist. "Ay, P! Where my body at, yo?"
"Now's..." I grunted under the growing weight of the women stacking on top of me. "...not...a... good...time!"
Becoming frustrated with how my progress was slowing, I rolled to my side and shifted into high gear. My iron fist shot out sharply to the left like a thrown piston and crumpled the beautiful face of one of the cloying, clawing girls closest to me. It burst like a fruit punch balloon, and now there was blood on the dance floor.
"First blood!" I exclaimed loudly, to my own surprise.
The killing came easily after that point. The girls were unarmed and unarmored, and I slaughtered them mercilessly with the power of my surgipod-enhanced metal suit. The irony of this healing machine being used to deal so much death was not lost on me and I chuckled as I plunged the harsh corner of the compute pad into the gums and teeth of another, now sorrowful, sorority sister.
"Preston! Preston! Ow! No! Stop it!" I heard TK's protest stabbing into my brain, interrupting my murderous flow.
"Ay, ay, yo, P! Don' be leavin' my body and shit, P! Dat's my shit, dog! Ay! Ay, ya hear' me?" Koochy gurgled from the now-bloodied compute-pad which I continued to use as a bludgeon.
"Shut up! Shut up! I'm almost... there!" I grunted and crushed the spine of an unlucky pledge.
"Hashtag TTYN, you dick!" she lamented as her last breath of life left her lips. I realized this was the girl that had tried to start a friction fire with my wang as the tinder. I wished I could kill her again.
Finally, I had thrown off enough of my assailants to get to my feet. I rose from my knees and dispatched a few more girls before reaching the giant iron gate that I had been limboed under mere hours ago.
"No! He must not escape!" Makayla, whom I had forgotten entirely, cried out from the other side of the club. I was surprised I could hear her bitching over the DUM-shh-DUM-shh-DUM-shh of the club music which was pummeling my ear drums.
The gate was too big for me to move. Frantically, I began searching for some kind of controls. The barrier looked entirely analog.
There were no visible buttons, switches or control panel of any kind.
"Koochy!" I remembered my techno-wizard friend in the palm of my hand.
"Yo, dog!" Koochy responded immediately. "Jes what da fuck you 'bout over dere, son? Dat shit sound cray cray, boy!"
"Can you... hack this door or something? Fuck, I'm stuck! I've got to get to TK!" I pleaded with the compute-pad I held while a pack of ravenous co-eds drew closer to me. They would have already reached me, I realized, were they not hip-hop dancing their way to me. It was actually quite an impressive routine and I found myself wishing I were here under different circumstances. "Marcus, help!"
"Ay, so, hell no I cain't hack dat damn do', fool!" Koochy ridiculed me. "Ol' dumbass, how you thank I be goan do dat? I ain't no damn wizard ass negro!"
"You hacked death but you can't hack this door?" I asked incredulously.
"I'll hack yo' punk ass, how you like me now? Unnnghh!"
"What? Koochy, Marcus, someone - help!" Glancing back over my shoulder, I could see that I had only seconds before rejoining battle with the dancing girls.
"Ay, yo, P!" Koochy continued. "Son, yo ass is da key! You goan have ta get more juice in dat dere suit, ya hear' me?"
"That sounds hard!" Usually I could delegate my way to success. "No really, Marcus, I need you. Please help me hack the door!" I yelled frantically.
"I ain't no damn wizard ass negro! I'll hack yo' punk ass, how you like me now? Unnnghh!" came the reply from the compute-pad.
"Huh? Didn't you just say that? What the fuck?" I asked.
"Uhh. Damn, P. I scraight fo'got to tell yo' dumb ass," Koochy explained. "My personality centa be runnin' on a local network of shit-ass compute-pads. Dese things don't even got no gold trim, they just be like 'white bitch compute-pad 1', 'white bitch compute-pad 2' and shit. I be runnin' slow and I ain't even blunted!"
I pondered this in stunned silence as the group of large-breasted co-eds danced towards me. Why were my problems always piling up all the time with no resolution?
"Most of my hackin' skillz be in a backup in the clud, you gotta hook me up wit' some mo' shit befo' I can be a propa hackmasta," Koochy continued.
"Fuck! You're not even your whole self in there? So I'm talking to the most useless part of Koochy?" I asked.
"Sheeit, son, I AM da' best part! Dat's all you need, homie! I got built-in speakers and shit, lemme lay down a dope beat, some chessboxin' music muthafucka! Now fight dem bihhs! You got 99 bitches but they ain't no problem, kid!"
A sick syncopation of drum hits and tinny bass lines came from the compute-pad in my hand. With each beat, the dancing girls bobbed up and down, their tits and asses jiggling in time. In time...
"Wait!" I exclaimed. "I got it! Koochy, give me some controls on the music!"
A DJ-style visualization appeared on the compute-pad with an overlay of a spinning record. It wasn't as sophisticated as the universally standard DJing compute-pad peripheral that I'd grown up with in high school computer science class, but it would do. I channeled my inner Koochy, cocked my head to one side and rubbed the digital turntable back and forth with two fingers.
"Fool you ain't scratchin', you look like a god-damn compute-pad perv! And I be in dis compute-pad! I ain't been touched 'n rubbed like dis since I shit in Mooks!"
With each scratch of the beat, the dancing girls stutter-stepped. Despite Koochy's misgivings, my plan was working! Their frenzied motions to match my improvised staccato beat were slowing them down. One of the girls popped and locked so violently that her own titties smacked her in the face and she went down hard, like a sexy bag of bricks.
Wikka wikka wikka wikka! My fingers were getting tired on the virtual record, but I saw that the girls were even more tired and falling into exhausted heaps on the ground.
"Yes!" I shouted. One problem down, a few more to go. I wasn't going to get torn apart by a squad of dance-crew hotties, my surgipod-encased dick was healing from that toothy blowjob... things were looking up!
"That was a god damn nice trick you pulled there," boomed Limbozer. I turned to see his perfect face projected on the side of the Limbotron. "If only Jeff, Dios bendiga su alma, had known..."
His gorgeously masculine visage turned to look at Broman.
"Why didn't you think of that? Is it too god damn much to ask that you use one of your shriveled little god damn brain cells once in a while?" Limbozer continued. Now back in his element, the Limbotron, his commanding stage presence was in full effect.
"Bro! I mean, boss!" Broman backpedaled. "Look, let's just get out of here! I don't even see Makayla, since this midget guy started wrecking shop she probably went back to cry in her room. Now's our chance, bro!"
I imagined Makayla scurrying around and stashing her Limbozer posters into a fanny-pack and posting something with a hashtag, then probably organizing a candlelight vigil on the steps of the dance hall for her fallen pledges, then maybe drinking some Snapple. God, what a bitch, I thought.
"Get out of here?" Limbozer bellowed. "You WOULD want to get out of here, you god damn pussy."
Broman stood up straighter and angrily flexed his pecs in response.
"Bro, I ain't the one who was crying every night," he muttered.
"It has begun!" Limbozer announced, ignoring Broman completely. His face on the Limbotron screen looked enrapt, as if he were completely one with his art. "Kaleeemmboooo!"
My surgipod suit responded to his call and marched itself towards the Limbotron.
"Makayla is an insufferable cunt, but she's right about one god damn thing," Limbozer said. Laser drills started whirring and sparks showered from the massive machine. "There can be only one. Come, join me in the Limbotron!"
My suit continued walking on its own accord. Makayla's compute-pad was still wedged firmly in my grip.
"Son, yo ass is da key! You goan have ta get more juice in dat dere suit, ya hear' me?" repeated Koochy, redundantly.
"Dammit, Marcus, speak English! What do you mean? Hey, why can't you control this suit?" I demanded as I continued to walk inexorably forward.
"Ay, P, I done tol' you. My shit running on E, ya hear' me? Like, my shit so slow it make a damn turbografix sixteen look like a mu'fu'in' 'rari, kid! Errrrrr! Screeee! Unnnghh!"
"I can't stop walking towards him, Marcus. Fuck me!" I frowned severely at the many instruments of destruction gleefully whirring on the looming Limbotron.
"Looka-chere, boy. First thangs first. Yo ass gotta whip tha shit outta that sucka ass 'Boza lookin motha fucka. Den we goan juice dis hea suit, ya hear' me?" the compute-pad conveyed Koochy's voice to me.
"Alright, Marcus," I said. I had a list of tasks now and I needed to work off of the backlog. TK was waiting for me too but I had to get through this first, then I could mark this task complete and my boxes would be green.
"It be Koochy, P! Damn son!"
"Focus!" I told myself. My suit was now clambering into the open shaft at the center of the Limbotron. Inside, I saw Limbozer waiting for me and doing stretches in his metallic suit. The suit seemed like it was almost designed to make his already limber body even more flexible.
I'd faced a lot of enemies in showdowns before, like Kaley, Clarabelle69, and Blue, but I didn't know what to expect when facing Limbozer. This was a living legend! Throngs of women supplicated to this amazingly handsome man. He had built up a following of devout disciples that even exceeded my own in number. He had been close to death and resurrected by a surgipod, as had I, and he also performed miracles on the dance floor while my miracles usually involved jenkem.
Who was the true god here? Could my holy name even save me this time around?
My exo-suit finally stopped its travels and I faced Limbozer at the bottom of the shaft. An array of dangerous-looking weapons studded the walls around me and gave the arena a claustrophobic feeling. I stared into the soulful eyes of the social media superstar and my heart skipped a beat.
"Welcome, impostor," Limbozer announced. "Welcome... to MY doma
in!"
"Get 'im, boss!" shouted Broman from afar. "You got this, bro! Fuck yeah! I love you. No homo!"
"The prophecy will be fulfilled!" screeched Makayla from somewhere else.
"Bitch, shut up!" Broman fired back.
Control of my suit was given back to me and I stumbled around. I tried to touch my toes in order to stretch in preparation for whatever physical acts were needed of me, but I failed miserably.
"Let us begin! The rules are as follows," Limbozer began. He looked at me appraisingly and then shook his head with humor, as if retelling the Limbotron rules amused him. I listened attentively since I'd never done this before. "Choose a limbo height and succeed, and then your opponent must do the same. We continue until there is one left alive. Now, choose your limbo bar. I choose the gigawatt laser!"
Broman cheered from up above, and a swelling of applause came from a number of girls who'd recovered from their dancing and encircled the arena to spectate as their dreamy hunk performed his specialty.
I looked around at the walls. "Uh... I choose..." I looked frantically for something that wasn't too deadly. My eyes passed over bandsaws, razor ribbons, flaming fusion rods, tubes of killer bees... "I choose that broomstick!" I declared.
"You are a god damn moron," Limbozer said. "That's not one of the limbo bars, that's some trash the janitor left behind. How are you going to kill me with a broomstick anyway? Fucking amateurs... You have forfeited your right to first limbo!" More cheers came from above.
Limbozer strutted around, his face beaming as he soaked up the adulation of his fans. The gigawatt laser flicked on and sliced across the area between us, emitting a bright blue glow. Heat radiated from it and the air sizzled and popped.
"Lower! Lower!" Limbozer called. "Lower!" The laser dipped to within a foot of the floor. "Lower! Hahahaha!"
Holy shit, I thought. There was no fucking way I'd make it under that!
"Damn, P," Koochy said from the compute-pad. "Dis Bozo guy ain't no fuckin' joke, son. World-mutha-fuckin-champion!"
"You're not helping, Marcus!" I shouted.