Chapter 16: The Final Battle
Six popped out of the subtunnel last, and joined her eight teammates out in the clearing.
They stood in a meadow in a field, underneath a beautiful blue sky. A river meandered nearby, coming down from a nearby hill. A series of majestic mountains stood off in the distance. The blades of grass rustled slightly in the gentle breeze.
On top of the nearby hill was a tiny little ramshackle hut. Puffs of smoke could be seen coming out of the ceiling's chimney.
Suddenly, the front door opened.
There stood the man himself, silhouetted against the light. Tim.
He walked around to behind his house, and disappeared from sight as quickly as he had appeared.
Suddenly, at the foot of the hill, an absolute horde of Constructs suddenly appeared, making their way over to the heroes. All of them, every single one they had ever seen.
Mr. Peterson cracked his knuckles. "It's time."
Bendy nodded. "It sure is."
"We can do this, guys." the Player said, fighting to keep the quaver out of his voice. "Ready?"
Freddy, Mr. Peterson, Bendy, Mama, Baldi, Cuphead, Six, and Frisk all nodded.
"Then let's go!"
And the nine of them charged against the oncoming horde.
Right before the two groups made contact, Six snapped her fingers. Inexplicably, all of the Constructs immediately dissolved into ones and zeroes, broken apart. Six promptly collapsed from the strain.
Everybody stopped for a moment and stared in awe of what had just happened.
Suddenly, the zeroes and ones picked up off the ground of their own accord. They swirled around and around and around, mashing up against one another, and just as quickly as they had been destroyed, the army of Constructs had been reborn.
"Ridiculous," muttered Baldi.
Clearly, they had all been weakened, however. The lines of code that made up the monster occasionally appeared, sometimes even falling out and disappearing.
"What are we waiting for? Attack!" yelled the Player.
And so they did.
Mr. Peterson and Baldi, the fighting unit that they always were, swung both of their weapons at the same time with all of their strength. Their combined blows battered the entire army of Constructs backwards by several feet.
The Constructs tried to get back on their feet, only to be shoved aside by a wave of pizza, then drowned in Cuphead's wave.
One enterprising Construct dodged the previous attack and charged headlong at the party.
Suddenly, five Tattletails appeared out of nowhere, latched onto the monster, happily chewing away at it. They ate and ate and ate, lines of code being swallowed, until it was gone in a surprisingly quick time.
Working together, the team battered away at Constructs, who, due to their poor mobility, seemed unable to get a single hit off. Coordinating their attacks, they would each attack the same Construct, as though they could read one another's minds. The unfortunate enemy would quickly die.
Suddenly, a daring Construct took a flying leap and landed on Mr. Peterson, clawing with vicious abandon. Rivulets of blood ran down the poor man's face as he screamed in pain.
"No!" Frisk jumped forward and bashed her stick into the Construct.
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Inexplicably, the shot did much more damage than expected, annihilating the Construct in one hit.
"You got 50000 EXP and 1 gold. Your LOVE increased!" chirruped the box suddenly in front of Frisk. She watched in horror as her LV immediately shot up to 19.
"I was so hoping you'd do that. Let's have some fun, shall we?" came Chara's voice, much stronger now.
The blue on Frisk's sweater flickered to green.
"No! I won't let you," said Frisk, and it turned blue again.
Bendy vaulted over to Mr. Peterson and began to heal him, only to see that Frisk was now apparently talking to herself, waving her stick around madly through the air, wandering away from the field of battle.
Even with their determination kid unfortunately occupied, though, the team proved to be remarkably efficient. The Constructs constantly gave off their terrifying cries of pain as they writhed under the onslaught, unable to fight back without facing a concentrated field of fire.
Somehow, with everyone working together, it worked. The last bit of a Construct flaked off into ones and zeroes and died, the abomination disappearing from the face of the Earth. Not a single member of the team had a scratch on them.
The Player looked over at Frisk, who was now screaming incoherently while bashing her head against the ground.
"Is she all right?" asked the Player nervously, looking from her to Mr. Peterson.
Suddenly, she stopped. Very calmly, she got up, and opened her eyes.
They were still blue.
The Player breathed an inward sigh of relief.
Suddenly, slow clapping.
Tim stepped out into view to face the party. "A masterful performance! A no-hit on the first try? Absolutely amazing! I knew you guys were powerful. Who knew just how much?"
Everyone glared hatefully at the man who had meddled in their lives.
"But where's that darling girl who was with you? What was her name, Monika? What happened to her?"
That was the breaking point for the team. They yelled and attacked Tim as one.
Inexplicably, Tim jumped over all the projectiles sent his way. The man had the agility of a Mario brother.
Everyone watched, shocked, as he landed gracefully on top of Mr. Peterson's shovel, grabbed it out from underneath him, and, in midair, threw it back at the Neighbor.
Everyone dodged out of the way and began to surround Tim, attacking him as they went.
At a dead sprint, Tim ran right over to Bendy and did things the simple way. He punched the ink demon in the gut.
POW. Bendy's eyes widened in cartoon fashion at the blow. It must have hurt a lot more than it looked.
Now Tim was grabbing at the ink that made Bendy up, grabbing and twisting and clawing at it, and throwing it at the ground. The demon began to shrink as his life essence was torn out of him.
Bendy yelled and punched the man back, straight into his face, covering his eyes with ink. Now it was Tim screaming, blindly groping around.
It was Baldi's ruler that cut right through his neck. Bright red blood dripped out as Tim's lifeless corpse dropped to the ground…
Rewind, rewind…
Bendy yelled and punched the man back, but he was already in the process of dodging, backflipping away from Bendy and right onto the shoulders of Baldi, who had been running over to help.
The teacher swung his ruler up at the hitchhiker. Tim, already anticipating the move, caught his wrist and squeezed it.
Baldi's eyes widened as more and more pressure was added to his wrist, but he couldn't break free. Suddenly, it broke with a sickening crack.
Baldi switched tactics, running around and trying to shake Tim off, but he held on like a bullrider. Projectiles sailed through the air towards him, but he somehow dodged them all, even deflecting a few of them into Baldi.
Tim squeezed his legs together, and Baldi's thrashing increased, becoming more desperate.
It was no use. The teacher's neck snapped just as easily as his wrist, and he collapsed to the ground.
Bendy began to heal Baldi, shooting that magical ink from afar.
Tim grabbed it and pulled, and suddenly Bendy was flying through the air as if he was caught by a lasso, yelling at the top of his lungs.
The heroes began to back away from Tim, trying to avoid his attacks, widening the circle even as they rained death on him.
Mama suddenly got a lucky hit as she threw and exploding Tattletail. It missed its mark by a few feet, but Tim was still caught in the explosion afterwards, shrapnel shredding him. He screamed in indescribable agony as the metal dug deep into his skin…
Rewind, rewind…
Tim jumped and rolled out of the way of the explosion, and charged right at the closest attacker. Freddy.
The brown bear threw microphones, each perfectly poised to hit Tim, but he dodged them in perfect sync. Realizing what was about to happen, the animatronic tried to run away.
Tim was too fast. He slammed an elbow into the robot, sending him crashing to the ground, and began to beat him senseless.
POW. POW. POW. Freddy stopped moving, crumpled on the ground.
Mr. Peterson cried out in fury and recklessly charged forward, swinging his shovel like a maniac, the fall of his hero impairing his logic.
At the last second, Tim got out of the way, leaving a foot behind for the Neighbor to trip over.
He obliged, flying several feet through the air, his shovel wildly following behind him.
Tim caught it, and with one swift thrust, buried it through the Neighbor.
Mama roared. It was a sound that had previously frightened the Devil. She sprang through the air, lunging towards Tim recklessly.
He stepped to the side, feeling the whoosh of air as Mama passed, and saw her land on her side a short distance away, unable to get up.
He casually walked over and crushed the toy under his foot.
Cuphead threw several cards into the air, and he suddenly turned golden. He charged towards Tim, blasting away at will.
Tim ducked and dodged and weaved, and yet one of the blaster shots still hit him. It felt like someone had punched him in the gut. He doubled over and barely got out of the way of the next several attacks.
Eventually, Cuphead returned to his normal state, the last vestiges of gold fading away. He sudden looked stricken.
POW. Tim kicked him square in the chest, and the unfortunate cup went flying, the liquid flying out of his cup.
Bendy charged forward, his transformation to his large form now complete, roaring as he ran towards Tim.
Thinking quickly, the man dashed over to Cuphead, who was still recovering, and dumped all of the liquid out of his head and onto Bendy.
Whenever the stuff came into contact with the ink, it steamed and shrunk until suddenly, Bendy was the size of a mouse. Tim punted him across the meadow.
The Player realized that things had suddenly taken a bad turn. He took control of the knight on his screen and guided him forward towards Tim, unsure of what he could do.
Tim pointed a finger, and inexplicably, the knight stopped. Frozen in time.
The man shook the dust off his hands and looked around, admiring his handiwork.
Freddy still lay on the ground, sparks flying all over him, badly smashed. He feebly raised his right hand as if to try to throw one last microphone.
POW. Freddy closed his eyes and didn't open them again.
Yes, Bendy had shrunk to the size of a mouse, but he was still fighting, still throwing globs of ink, pathetically tiny as they were.
POW. Bendy became a smear of ink in the grass.
Cuphead staggered to his feet. Barely hanging on. He got up and began to fire, the weak peashooter blasts flying through the air oh-so-slowly.
POW. Cuphead's head broke apart and fell on the ground in three pieces, clacking. His cartoon eyes faded until they began dark, hollow sockets, nothing more than normal silverware.
The man turned. Only one left.
"Come on, Frisk," he taunted. The girl shook. He drunk it all in, all the pleasure, all the triumph of his revenge. "Just give me your soul, and all of this will be over," he said laughingly.
He took a step forward.
Quick as lightning, she brought up the menu. It's two options, "Continue" and "Reset" still there, as always.
"Frisk, don't you dare -" the man growled.
She pounded the Reset button for all that she was worth.
As the world began to fade away and the two of them felt an otherworldly tug in their guts, Frisk managed a laugh.
The man was furious. "I'll be back!" he yelled. "I'll remember! I'll learn from my mistakes, and I'll be back!"
Frisk looked back at him, dead in the eye. "So will I."
And the world disappeared.