"You know, this reminds me of a curious little anecdote about spectral ethics."
Isaac took a deep breath, then started screaming again.
"Isaac. Come on. Let me finish."
"IT ATE MY HANDS, MR. SPENDER."
Face pressed against the grass, Spender frowned. "Be that as it may, one should never pass up an opportunity to learn. This is important."
"Yeah, Isaac." Ed's voice called out. "You might want to write it down. You know, with your hands. Heh."
"AGH!" He waved the nubs of his arms around wildly. "You should be dead! And I don't mean that as, like, a statement of divine smiting or anything even though I am COMPLETELY capable of that-" Eyes twitching, he tried to take a deep breath. "I mean more like how are you even breathing right now."
"Man, if I knew what was going on, this wouldn't be half as fun!"
Ed's face shouted down from its odd habitat- a large, dark purple area of skin on the front of a gigantic spirit's head. Numerous arms and legs were stuck in its flesh as well, creating a bizarre image that sometimes looked like multiple sets of eyes, when the behemoth truly had none. Thick white fur obscured the rest of its frame, and spectral energy hovered and swirled around several spikes that jutted out. The creature itself towered over the Activity Club, expelling bright bursts of energy from its fists and stomping through the field they were currently lying, running, and screaming in.
The attacks were mostly aimed at a paintbrush-wielding figure, noticeably lacking a head but apparently not having any trouble dodging and blocking the blows. Like Spender, he also was missing an arm.
"That's the spirit, Ed," Spender called out, attempting and failing to lift himself off the ground. "You know, Isaac, at least you have your legs. Comparatively speaking, you're pretty well-off right now."
"A twelve-year old's head is what's well-off right now!" Isaac seethed. "Why is no one freaking out about this?"
"Guys, check it out!" Isaac turned (and Spender tried his best) to see Ed's arm slowly reaching towards his face, stretching across the spirit's skin to stick out a finger and pick his nose.
"THIS IS SERIOUS, ED."
The white glasses seemed to frown. "Aw, chill out, spiky. My torso's got this covered." Sure enough, Ed's body wielded the paintbrush with aplomb, rapidly creating blades and projectiles out of the ink and launching the weapons towards the spirit.
Isaac's brow furrowed. "That's not gonna be enough! We need more. Lemme think- is there any way to get our limbs back?"
Spender's one remaining arm snapped its fingers. "Oh, that reminds me! The lesson. So, picture this: you're face-to-face with a Southern rockhopper penguin, and-"
"What?!" Isaac shrieked. "Mr. Spender, my hands are being DIGESTED right now!"
"Not true, actually!" Ed piped up. "I can see 'em right here! Hey, see if you can telepathically make your hands flip each other off."
About to retort angrily, Isaac paused, as the connection was made in his mind. Ed had been able to move his own hand on the monster's face, so...
"Ed, try to brace your, um, face," he said with a determined look. "I think I can still use lightning." Concentrating, he tried to conjure electricity in his distant hands, but only a faint spark jumped from one palm to the other.
"Good," Spender said, still unable to look up. "While you're working on that, I'll get back to the lesson. See, like an endangered animal, I believe this spirit is one of only a very few that can dismember limbs without harming prey."
"All of those words were terrifying and it's worse that you sound happy," Isaac hissed.
"So we must ask ourselves- is it morally right to vanquish from its current state, when this ability might not be found anywhere else in the world?"
A larger jolt of lightning flared on the spirit's face, and it recoiled in what appeared to be slight annoyance. "Got it!" Isaac yelled excitedly, but gasped when it raised a giant fist and punched its own head, flattening his hands in the process. "No!"
Spender, who had given up on trying to see the fight and was now only focusing on his teaching, raised his eyebrows. "No? I'm disappointed in you, Isaac. That was a rhetorical question, and- if I may say so myself- pretty obviously meant to be 'yes'. I mean, it's a three-story tall spirit that's trying to devour us. I'm worried you might not be treating this situation with the magnitude it deserves."
An expression of pure rage contorted across Isaac's face, and he spun around, dramatically pointing at Spender, about to unleash his anger in words- but he realized the moment was lost when he remembered he was pointing not with an accusing finger, but with an almost cartoonish saw-ed off hand stump.
"GET WRECKED, LOSER!" A high-pitched yell sounded across the clearing, and Isaac turned again to witness the final member's grand entrance- Isabel stood a solid fifty feet off the ground, careening towards the spirit on gigantic paper legs. "I'm here to kick you in the face, and make clever fighting puns," she said with a grin. "And I'm all outta puns."
The spirit snarled, raising a fist to attack with spectral energy, but Isabel quickly launched forward and spun once to gain momentum, then-
She won.
He could have sworn it happened in slow motion- she'd been flying towards her target, but mid-flight, paper from the other leg had shifted over to increase the mass of one foot. Continuing the spin, she drew back and waited for the perfect moment to bring the bulk of the paper crashing into the side of its head. Dazed, it staggered around for a few seconds, one hand still raised in a halfhearted attempt to strike back, but it didn't take long to collapse to the ground.
As soon as it did, small flares of light soared away from its face, manifesting themselves as the missing limbs- Isaac barely had time to blink before his hands reattached themselves. Glancing over, he saw that Spender had also regained both arm and legs, although he didn't seem to notice right away.
"To round out the metaphor, I'd like to make it clear that, if I happened to come upon a Southern rockhopper penguin, and it attacked me, I would have no choice but to overlook its scientific value and preserve my own safety. By murdering the penguin, I mean. Is this making sense? You get it, right?" Still lying on the ground, he paused. "Oh! My legs are back. Wonderful."
Isaac shook his head in confusion, then squinted as a shadow fell across him. "Heads up!"
"OOF!" Isabel plummeted onto his back, sending him to the dirt in a swift takedown. "What was that for?"
She smiled. "Sorry. Eightfold got tired." After stepping off his back, she flexed her knees and reached down to touch her toes. "I let her eat, like, twenty phone books in case we needed a trick like that."
"I think you broke one of my ribs."
"Izzy!" Ed hurdled Isaac's prone form, beaming as he crashed headlong into the girl. "That was the best mission ever! Oh, wait-" Spinning back to where the unmoving spirit lay, he adopted a serious expression. "And so ends," he uttered in a deep voice, "The tale of the... um... the appendigester! 'Cause he eats limbs! Nailed it!"
"I hate you all. You think I'm joking, but I'm not."
"Now, Isaac, that's a little-" Spender stopped. "Oh. It seems you've defeated the spirit. Erm... good." Having stood up, he dusted himself off and approached the others. "Now, what have we learned?"
Isabel tilted her head. "Haha, what?"
"Sorry. I meant the question for Isaac." Ignoring the boy's indignant 'Huh?!', Spender knelt down and offered him a hand. "What did we learn?" he repeated.
"I have no idea what I was supposed to learn!" he exploded, once he'd gotten to his feet. "This was completely insane! Nothing followed logic, nobody was worried, we were in constant danger, and the only reason we won was Isabel's idea that she never even told us about! It's almost like we can't count on anything making sense when we're... fighting..."
His voice grew quieter as the understanding sank in, and he dropped his gaze until he was staring at the ground. "...This is dumb," he finally said. "You're dumb."
Spender grinned. "A plus, O'Connor."