Chapter 19: Gargaros
Around that same time in blossom heights, Mortimer Goodsight was hard at work restoring an antique stopwatch for a wealthy client. When he heard the front door open, signified by the jiggling of a bell he attached to it.
"Um, hello?" a brunette girl said walking in, followed by a lion-dog and what appeared to be some kind of Djinn.
"Well, hi there," the old watch maker said sitting up from his desk, "what can I do for ya?"
"Well," the girl said placing a pink watch pendent on the counter, "I've heard you're the one to talk to about upgrading this specific model of watch?"
Goodsight adjusted his monical, closely examining the watch's dial, "well, I'll be. I haven't seen one of these in years!"
"So you know what it is?" the girl asked feeling a little satisfied.
"Yes ma'am, this is a bonafide Yokai Watch, sure as my name's Mortimer Goodsight," he replied, "you know, I still remember the man who invented these things!"
"Wait, you do?" Katie questioned.
"Why of course, bout 60 years ago he was my errand boy! Smart kid, always had some idea he was willing to try, you should've seen the look on my face when he told me he was gonna make a watch to see ghosts!" Goodsight laughed, "now, I'd love to help you out, missy, except…"
"Except what?" Whisper asked.
The old watchmaker sighed, "I lost my Yokai screwdriver, it's the only kind that works on these things."
"So wait, you can't upgrade it?" Katie said in annoyance.
"Gee wiz, ya think he'd just tell us straight," her lion dog added.
"I mean, I know where it is, last night I got a call from the owner of a shop called Whatta Find, said I could pick it up after dark, only problem is I got this thing about going out at night," Mr. Goodsight explained, "tell you what, if you could get me my screwdriver, I'll upgrade your watch on the house!"
Katie thought the offer over, on one hand it seemed like a good deal, run an errand for a free upgrade she needed, but on the other… "well, there's a problem with that too, my parents won't let me out after dark."
The old man thought for a moment, before snapping, "that ain't an issue! You just need a sleep yokai!"
"Sleep yokai?" Katie and Komasan said in confused tones.
"Oh, a sleep yokai! The perfect solution to our night situation! Let me see here-" "whisper, you should let Mr. Goodsight explain," the butler's mistress cut him off.
"Well, it's a common ability of sleep themed yokai to turn into copies of people while they sleep! You need someone like Sandi, Whapir, Kittylumbus, Baku…"
"Hey, wait a minute, I know Baku!" the gil perked up, things were all coming together.
"Well alrighty then, I'll write down the address, just swing by tonight and I'll have your watch ready in a giffy!" Mr. goodsight finished, writing some numbers on a piece of paper and handing it to Katie.
Later that night, Katie's alarm awoke her and her yokai from their sleep. The girl quickly turned it off as to not disturb her parents, she then got out of her bed and changed out of her pink pajamas and into her normal attire.
"Let's hope this works," she said inserting Baku's medal into her watch.
"Summoning, Charming!" it chimed as pink runes burst out.
"Baku!" the tapir yokai said as the summoning song faded out, "what you need baku's help for?"
"Good to see you," Katie replied, "do you think you could… you know, pretend to be me for the night?"
Baku stood there for a moment before saying, "oh, girl meant that, Ok." Baku's mouth opened wide as it began sucking in air, a few seconds afterward, a white and blue mist began to flow out of Katie and into Baku's mouth. When the mist left, Katie suddenly felt as though she had had a full night's sleep. After about 3 seconds, no more mist came, "ah, Baku full and sleepy."
The dream eater then walked backward to Katie's bed, and in a puff of smoke she was replaced with an exact copy of Katie who hopped into the bed, and drifted off to sleep.
"Well… this is contending for the weirdest moment of my life," Katie shrugged before leaving the room.
She carefully crept down the hall, trying her best not to make a single noise. She carefully tiptoed down the steps, still attempting to stay quiet. Upon reaching the last step, she quietly walked to the door and ever so silently opened it, slipped through, and shut it.
After reading the address, the trio discovered that the shop in question was located in Shoppers road, about fifteen minutes later, she entered said district of the city. The trio walked along the deserted Flower road, all of the shops closed for the evening. But from one specific part of the isle, light could be seen. Following it, Katie walked through an alleyway to find another shop off to the side, still open. The sign above it read, "Whatta find."
Katie and her yokai butler and lion-dog entered the shop, it's interior was littered with items of varying origin, a pretty large number of them looking as if they were from an asain country, though which was circumstantial.
At the front desk was a man with scruffy five-o'clock shadow, Black hair that looked as if it hadn't been washed in days, and a purple shirt with white stripes. There were bags under his eyes, large enough to infer he hadn't slept in a while.
"Welcome to Whatta find, if ya like junk ya came to the right place," he said in a deadpan voice as Katie approached.
"Um, hi, I'm here to pick something up for a Mr. Goodsight," the girl replied as she continued to look around the bizarre shop.
"The old man's screwdriver? I was wondering when he'd come to pick it up," the man muttered before going to the drawers behind him. For a solid seven minutes he was opening drawers and shuffling through their contents, pulling out various objects then returning them with negative nods. Finally he said, "Aha, here it is."
He returned to the front desk and handed Katie a small screwdriver with a wooden handle, engraved with a symbol similar to the one on the yokai watch dials.
"Tell that old man he can come get it himself next time," the man said sitting down.
"Thank you!" Katie said as she left the store, her yokai friends in tow, "so what makes this thing different from a regular screwdriver?"
"Hmm, perhaps it has some kind of enchantment, a special element that allows it to be used on yokai technology!" Whisper speculated.
"Couldn't they just use a regular one?" Katie asked as she began hearing a beeping noise. She looked to her pendant, which was beeping as a red light flashed. Brining it to her vision she saw the dial open up reveling a red depiction of some kind of monster.
As the symbol appeared, a blast of grey smoke filled the streets as the color drained from the night. The trio heard a loud crash followed by an inhuman growl filling the air. The smoke lifted revealing the now grey and barren city.
Katie frantically looked around her surroundings, it looked like shopper's row, but was deserted, not a person in sight, and the eerie colorlessness of it all made the girl uneasy.
"OH MY SWIRLS!" Komasan yelled in fear, "What in Tarnation is going on!"
"I'M LOOKING! I'M LOOKIN!" Whisper replied searching through his yokaI-pad.
"Come on, Whisper, the world shouldn't just lose all of it's color for no reason!" his human mistress said in a worried tone.
"AHA!" Whisper exclaimed as he found the correct page, "here it is, it says this event is called-"
He was cut off by a loud boom. Soon followed by a louder one, and another, and another, each growing in volume. The trio turned to the direction of the booming, and there they saw it. A fifteen foot tall ogre, it's skin a hellish red, eyes glowing bright yellow, and an iron club in its grip.
It muttered under its breath, "Gar… gar…"
The large monster's eyes narrowed at the sight of Katie, before letting out a growl, "GARGAROS!"
Gargaros: S rank
Tough
The giant monster took swing of its weapon toward the girl, who quickly leaped back and took a run for it, her yokai friends jetting behind.
"WHAT IS THAT THING!" she frantically asked as the ogre gave chase.
Whisper juggled looking up the yokai and floating for his afterlife, "Gargaros, one of the most deadly oni in the world. Gargaros is said to be the personification of nightmares, a beast that will hunt misbehaving children until his bitter end!"
"What do we do?" his mistress asked in panic.
"Negotiation nor confrontation will work on him," the butler stated, "he's too powerful to fight, and he's known for his one-track mind!"
"Well, wut we' sposed to do?!" a terrified Komasan begged.
"RUN!" Whisper screeched.
"I coulda told you that!" the lion-dog replied.
Katie looked back, Gargaros seemed to not even be breaking a sweet. He swung once more, prompting Katie to duck, Whisper was not as lucky and was promptly flattened against a nearby building. His mistress and her lion-dog continued their flee.
The cream like Djinn pried himself from the wall before yelling, "HEY, WAIT FOR ME!"
Whisper rejoined the group only to be swatted by Gargaros again.
"This feller sure is determined!" Komasan yelled just barely dodging a swing.
Katie looked back at the raging yokai, he hadn't lost a bit of breath since they started, he looked like he could do this for hours on end! She need some kind of plan, something to distract the beast. Then she got it. She frantically pulled Dismarelda's yokai medal, "Come on out my friend, call- oh, you know the rest!"
She inserted the medal, prompting the purple runes to burst, "Summoning, EERIE!"
"Dismarelda," the blob yokai said on her arival.
Katie skidded to a halt, "Dismarelda! Can you inspirit Gargaros?"
"Sure," the yokai sighed.
At the sound of that, Whisper screamed, "NO WAIT! DON"T INSPIRIT HI-" but it was too late, as Dismarelda had already launched her aura. When the purple, mist-like aura touched Gargaros' skin, it instantly turned blood red, and began swirling chaotically.
Having seen this before, Katie immediately realized what whisper was saying, "THIS GUY'S GOT CURSED SKIN TOO!?"
"I WAS TRYING TO WARN YOU!" Whisper said showing her his yokaI-pad, "Gargaros is a relative to Plundros, which makes him the same type of Oni Damona is! Cursed skin is hereditary in their bloodline!"
"So this guy's beefed up now?!" Katie asked in a panic.
Whisper looked terrified, "not only that, but Gargaros is leagues above Damona in raw strength, meaning he is even more dangerous!"
They then saw a terrifying sight, the large oni before them was swirling his now supercharged aura. The human and her three yokai friends were frozen in fear. As he finished, Katie scooped up all her nerve(and komasan) and began to make a run for it, Whisper following.
Looking back, she saw Gargaros finish charging his attack before leaping into the air, swinging his club around like an angry tornado, until he reached the height of a skyscraper. Though out of sight, Katie could still hear the battlecry he let out, in a loud, low voice that struck even more terror into them, "IRON ANGER!"
The red oni came rushing into ground full force, burning in his velocity. His shadow appeared above dismarelda.
"Oh no, NOT AGAIN!" Dismarelda screamed as Gargaros slammed his club onto her, reducing her to a soul instantly, but that was not the end of his attack. From the point of impact, the ground began to shake, and crack. A shockwave running through the ground breaking every window and tearing the streets to bits.
When the shock wave reached her, Katie was flung into the air, only to plummet back to the ground, scraping her knees on the debre.
"AW!" she yelped as she landed.
"Are ya ok?" Komasan asked concerned.
"Ugh, I think I'll be fine," she said before seeing her bloodstained socks with multiple holes in each.
She struggled to her feat as Gargaros trudged towards them, he'd be on them in minutes and Katie was in too much pain to run.
Thankfully, before the oni could reach them, a golden light appeared behind them. Katie carefully turned as she saw an old Japanese-styled door appear, it opened revealing a figure begin obscured by a blinding light.
The figure spoke with the voice of a boy in his late teens, "through here! He can't follow you in."
Katie questioned who this person was, and why he was helping her, but she did not want to face anymore injury at the oni's hand, so she obliged. She began limping toward the door, Whisper flew to her side to help her stand. She stepped through the door, being blinded by the white light, when it faded, things were back to normal.
The color had returned to the world, and the mist cleared. Despite this, Katie still felt the pain in her legs.
"Sorry I couldn't act sooner," the same voice from before said. She turned to it seeing the figure. He appeared to be an exceptionally human-like yokai. His skin was a pale white, contrasted by dark blue hair and one visible, bright yellow eye. He wore purple garments akin to ancient japan, as well old timey sandals. The only things cluing her that he was a yokai, were the spectral serpents wrapped around his neck, obscuring the bottom half of his face. That and he was hovering a few feet off the ground, making him appear taller than he actually was(which was around her size.)
"Your legs?" he gestured her wounds and told her to approach him. She was skeptical, but he haddened hurt her yet. He pulled down one of her socks as one serpent slithered near her leg. A cyan liquid began to drip from the creatures eye, falling onto her wound. The liquid stung her, but after a few seconds, began to feel nice. He did the same to the other leg before saying, "Dragon tears. Your injuries will be fully healed by tomorrow."
Before Katie could thank the yokai, he leapt into the air and out of sight.
After a longer, and slightly more painful walk to Blossom heights, Katie and her yokai friends entered Timer's and More. she walked to the counter and slammed the screwdriver down on it.
"You have no idea what I went through to get this," she said bitterly.
Mister Goodsight examined the tool, "well your work is appreciated. I'll get to work straight away!"
She handed him her watch, then plopped down on the waiting couch. Muttering under her breath.
"We should probably try to avoid that brute in the future," Whisper said.
"I hear ya," Katie sighed, "what was with the white world?"
"Oh, that was Terror Time, it's how Gargaros travels from place to place," Whisper answered, "I'm just wondering what he was doing here."
Meanwhile in terror time, around nate's hotel. Damona left the building bringing Falsina with her, just in time to see the red oni arrive.
"What took you so long, cuz?" she asked.
"Gargaros ran into complications," the larger oni said, "younger princess come with me now."
"Seeya sis," Damona said as her sister floated into Gargaros's hand, "thanks for taking her."
As Terror Time faded from the world, Damona re-entered her hotel room, "now with her gone…"
Her glance shifted to Nate sitting across from a half frozen Swelterrier, "...we have a few questions."