by Paul Vayro
Chapter Forty One
"Exposed pipes are the next big thing in interior design, apparently; especially the large, rusting style, supposed to be industrial chic." Bettina continued to relay her home fashion knowledge to the mission focused Dandara. "Dripping is an added feature, but of course for that you need an equally classy receptacle to catch them in, a porcelain unicorn bathing in a lake perhaps."
The pair continued to wander down their designated corridor. The hospital nature of their surroundings had ended abruptly and become more sewer-like in design, only without the obligatory three feet of water and rats. The dimensions were also vastly bigger. Its circular nature could hold two double-decker buses, one atop the other, with ease.
"Maybe you should tell the bad guy his base is incredibly fashionable. It may serve as compensation after we foil his mission." Dandara's mind was solely on their objective.
"I'm sure he knows. In my humble experience these megalomaniac types are highly vain. It's what drives them to chase such achievements."
"Are you saying people are driven to megalomania because they want the nicest house in the street?" Dandara stopped walking to give her full energy to accentuating her point.
"Strictly speaking the average megalomaniac wants all the houses in the street, thus eliminating the competition, but I think if you extract the base emotion behind such behaviour you'll find I have a point."
"Well thank you Bettina Freud." Dandara returned to purposeful walking.
"Maybe we could do a spread on this place when we get our chat show?" Bettina already had a feature in mind: Baddy Base-Overs.
"What's that?" Dandara raised her hand in a manner suggesting they stop. Peering into the darkness a trickle of sound emerged, followed quickly by the stirring of movement. The heroes scuttled forward to hide behind an industrial sized horizontal pipe.
"It's them." Dandara whispered as clarity emerged from the darkness. Two figures could be made out. It was the maiden leading the still blindfolded Hugo. Laughter could be heard between them.
"Should we shout Hugo, let him know the danger he's in? He may kiss us as thanks." Bettina's libido spoke.
"Maybe we should follow them first. See where they're going." Dandara's suggestion was definitely more sensible, although lacking in personal reward.
The heroes continued to follow the pair around several dank corners at a pace most would consider frustrating, until the henchman and ultimate hero stopped to face a wall. Dollop reached out a fair hand towards a door and gripped the handle firmly, stopping before pulling and turning his head towards the heroic pair.
"Has she spotted us?" Why Bettina thought Dandara could answer such a question was beyond anyone.
"I hope not, but she's only small. I'm confident we can take her down if we need to." Dandara avoided the easy sarcasm.
"She might be small but what about the lizard thing that's inside the dress?"
"Now isn't the time to bring up confidence depleting practicalities."
The sound Dollop had heard grew until the two crouched ladies also picked it up. A scuttling noise approached from behind, causing the duo to turn.
"Fayre, is something wrong?" Hugo sensed something occurring.
"Not at all, just struggling to find the key within all these folds." Dollop remained focused on the tunnel while fluffing his dress to maintain the pretence. It didn't take long for a series of shadows to join the sound he'd heard.
Dandara and Bettina didn't have the cognitive skills to work out what was going on and comment on it at the same time. It had been such a ridiculous few days they were both permanently bewildered. By the time their brains had realised the shadows were Bobby, Jam and The Magwanvu sprinting past, Team Tranquil had already strayed into the grasp of Dollop.
"And who may you be?" Dollop still sent out an intimidating glow, even from within the maiden's dress. Team Tranquil stopped immediately.
"We're.......very.....tired......surveyors." The Magwanvu tried his cover story for the second time.
"At least it's not another terrifying creature." Jam took as much solace as he could from the situation.
"You smell like heroes to me. So I'll ask again...." Dollop's henchman instincts over-rode his sense as he reached around the back of his dress and tore his disguise in half, leaving the shell of Fayre Maiden as a puddle at his feet. His humongous frame flexed as he repeated the question. "WHO ARE YOU?" The intimidation level increased to somewhere beyond 'leave the country in panic'.
"Well that's ruined everything for me." Jam had no solace left to hide in.
"Is anything I say going to avoid me getting punched?" The Magwanvu accepted the inevitable.
"Dollop, let me." Sandbag arrived on the scene, removing excess dust from his body with little more than a flex of various muscles.
Hugo's curiosity could not be quelled with a simple don't worry. He peered from beneath his blindfold. The first sight to strike was that of his beloved maiden as nothing more than deflated skin. The second was the imposing Dollop nearby. The sharp intake of breath sucked anything smaller than a boulder towards him. Confusion rushed forth, poking his mind and searching for the keys to the memory that had been clouded by the peace compound. Stumbling around the truth began to trickle back. Hugo held his head and slid against the wall, trying to understand the flood of thoughts and realisations that rushed by.
Meanwhile Team Tranquil cowered between Dollop and Sandbag.
"I have unfinished business with these five." Sandbag stepped forward, rolling up an imaginary sleeve as he approached. "It hardly seems fair, us two against these five. You should have brought a couple of armies, fellas."
"Make that seven." Dandara stood from behind the pipe. Bold but plan-less.
"Why would you do that?" Bettina wasn't impressed but stood slowly, still remonstrating. "We could have stayed hidden and worked out a plan. Now we're just going to get battered."
"Heroic impulse?" The apologetic tilt of the mouth didn't make up for it.
"You use that far too often as an excuse."
"Seven it is then." Dollop agreed to take on the two ladies. It was something to do.
Hugo however had other ideas. He'd been piecing together the clues. The seemingly violent nature of Fayre's demise had broken the peace spell and now reality flooded back like an unwanted waterfall, mocking his naivety further with each returning drop. He recognised Sandbag from the hill he'd been captured on. He'd been duped by the two beasts, but why did they have to kill his beloved. It became too much for the ultimate hero. His intervention would be the first instalment of a payback that would never be settled.
"Nooooooooooooo." Hugo let out a cry of anguish to the ceiling. His fists clenched and eyes burning through the tears, locked firmly on to their vengeful bounty. The two henchmen could only turn in shock.
Hugo wasted neither time nor the element of surprise and ran straight at Dollop. The kick to the chest caught the monster off guard, before taking him off his feet and slamming him against the wall. The cave dented on impact, spewing chunks of lining on to the floor. Sandbag threw a reactionary punch straight at Hugo's face. The hero moved to the side, catching the offending arm as it sailed past and redirecting it and the rest of the henchman's imposing momentum towards Dollop, with some added impetus from the hero. Sandbag flew towards his cohort, striking the same wall head first.
"Find yourselves a safe spot. I'll deal with this." Hugo directed the other heroes. The two guardians of evil stood and reset themselves. The lycra clad chunk of good couldn't resist a mini speech.
"For the first time in my life I'd found a soul that understood me. One that wanted to share my being, and you've stolen her future happiness from us both. How could you see such perfection and only think to destroy it?" Everything was aimed at Dollop. He had a monologue of his own to reply with.
"I didn't destroy her. Look deep into my eyes and see the soul behind my face." Hugo stared at the panting Dollop with a rage he never thought could exist. The soothing gaze
that faced him reached into the heart of the hero's aggression and stroked, bringing it down to mild temperance. It was an effect only one pair of eyes had ever been able to achieve. "You recognise me don't you? Admit what your heart sees before it." Dollop could see Hugo's confusion.
Hugo's mind battled the thought, the notion. How? Why? How again, it was a very pertinent question? Had the beast eaten her soul? It was the only explanation other than a truth beyond reason.
Dollop continued to mock.
"It's okay to speak. After all you are the ultimate purveyor of truth. Say what you know, what you see to be the only answer: that I am your beloved. I am your Fayre Maiden." Dollop smirked with the immeasurable pleasure of a life's relief. Irrelevant of what happened next he'd won.
"LIAAAAAAAARRRR!" It was too much for Hugo.
"I didn't see that coming. You never see anything coming. You'll see my fist coming in a moment. That doesn't change the fact you never see anything else coming." The Magwanvu reverted to type under stress.
"If Hugo can love that then I must have a fairly decent chance." Bettina gestured towards her more feminine qualities.
"You wouldn't try and make this up would you? I mean it has to be real." Jam still couldn't be sure about reality.
Hugo punctuated his wail by leaping forward. Sandbag tried to protect Dollop only to be dismissed with a swiftly broken wrist and knockout blow. Dollop took the opportunity to grab the hero, locking the pair in a grapple of strength. Face to face they wrestled for an advantage.
"I opened my heart to you and all the time you were laughing behind that mask." Hugo's knee found Dollop's ribs.
"I never laughed in your face, even though it would have been so easy." A head-butt returned the compliment.
"Not to my face. You were too much of a coward for that. You made a fool of me." Hugo swung Dollop nose first into the wall.
"I'm no coward. For centuries I've waited for this meeting; festering my hatred for what you did." Dollop's knee contacted Hugo's jaw.
Hugo pulled Dollop's head close, speaking in a low, menacing tone. "What could I possibly have done to you?"
"You gave me this scar." Dollop lunged forward biting Hugo's one remaining nostril clean off. The hero leapt backwards in pained shock, blood trickling down into to his mouth. The remaining prosthetic nostril struggled to stay on his face. Dollop continued.
"We have faced each other from opposite sides of the universe's battle between good and evil for a time measured in the lives of planets. A battle fuelled by hatred of everything the other stands for, yet seeing you these past few days I've grown beyond such hatred. I now know the man behind the hero and I found something I never expected to see." The pause allowed everyone to question what the henchman had seen. Jam considered providing an answer before realising he'd forgotten the question.
"You and me are the same person, separated to fight without purpose. Cast to opposite sides by society and its aesthetic judgements, set on opposing paths towards our destiny. My eyes have truly been opened and now I see there's only one path, a path where we will never meet again. I thank you Hugo Cortizone. I thank you for showing me who I truly am and setting me free from the confusion that was my life. I only hope you too can one day see the truth."
Hugo listened intently, panting as he did so. Dollop could see the words seeping in to the hero's mind and making sense, and so the henchman continued. "Be honest with yourself if no-one else. What drives you to chase down evil at every turn, to relentlessly pursue dastardly behaviour wherever it rises? Where does the drive come from? The anger needed to hunt? I think you know it comes from deep down within your unsatisfied soul. We know you are the greatest hero. I had to hear the evidence spouted in that garden for long enough, but who is the man without such labels? You can destroy as many evil empires as you need but that lost feeling will never leave you, not until you can face yourself and accept you never wanted everything you are and stand for. You're living the life others have imposed upon your bulk and jaw-line. None of it is truly you. Tell me I'm wrong."
Hugo fought the words that tried to settle as sense in his mind. He'd expected the usual scrap with a number of twists and turns before his eventual victory. Henchmen weren't meant to spout monologues. It wasn't even part of the syllabus at Evil University. Hugo did what any man would and ignored all emotion and sentiment. Burying such ideas at the back of his mind he churned them straight in to anger, replying with his own one liner. "The only thing I hate is hate itself."
Nobody pointed out that this meant absolutely nothing. There wasn't time. Hugo pushed Dollop away from him then bound forward forcing all annoyance through the sole of his foot, then forcing the sole of his foot in to Dollop's chest. The henchman flew backwards with such ferocity that the entire side of the cave landed on he and Sandbag. The roof quickly followed. Hugo could only watch, a tear attempting to well behind his eye before being sucked into his emotion's unspoken memory. It came partly from the truth in Dollop's words and partly from losing a love he'd never known before. Maybe Hugo did hate the man he'd become.
Shaking off the sentiment he covered it with default heroic action and turned to the two teams.
"It's not safe here. We must leave." Hugo pointed further down the tunnel as the way they'd come from became blocked with falling debris.
"That was spectacular Mr Cortizone." Bettina introduced herself with a fluttering of the eyes and a compliment. It was the standard Hugo greeting.
"It was nothing, just doing my job." The hero choked slightly on the words, his belief waning. Peace and a new dawn had been snatched away from him, and he'd buried the one person that could console him under half a cave. "We must continue until the fight is won. It's our duty, as heroes."
Hugo spoke the words for himself as much as the fawning group. Turning back he peered through the dust at the pile of rocks. Only a loving whimper made it from his lips. The rest of the heroes continued into the darkness unsure where they were going, only Jam didn't know where they'd just been.
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