Final Chapter
The Red Dragon's jagged face turned sour upon seeing the people who would soon outnumber it. Even the White Fatalis, standing as fearless as ever in the distance, seemed unhappy to see us pesky humans unrelentingly resisting the invading monsters.
"You've marshalled a greater force to your aid… very impressive…"
The death of the Black Fatalis should be enough to demoralize Smaug, right?! Wrong! Rather than mourning its death or be spooked at the sight of our prowess, the Red Dragon crawled to the Black One' corpse so it could impale its chest and swallow whatever energy still remained in it! I looked up to the Alatreon furiously shaking its head before continuing to battle the White Fatalis with Velkhana's assistance. I spotted Brian at a faraway corner, too busy tending to his friend's injuries. For a moment I thought I saw his head bowed down in despair, as if bitterly acknowledging the loss of the person he was checking. Brian then snapped up and grabbed his longsword. I was about to join him and asked the name of that friend of his who passed away, but he suddenly made a mad dash while taking out something that looked like a grenade…
"I would advise you not to play with it…"
The longsword guy saw what I didn't; the Red Dragon stood right above a puddle of oil leaking from an upturned car!
Unaware that it was right where Brian wanted it to be, the dragon opened its mouth, charging itself to sear the man with the longsword with its laser when the grenade was thrown off. It's a cascading effect; the grenade soon went off, blowing up the car next to the dragon, causing it to lose balance and crashed into a building next to it, which then toppled and buried the monster in a big pile of rubble.
The Crimson Fatalis, too busy fighting off the multitude of hunters and soldiers swarming all around it, eventually stopped trying to fight fair and unleashed a firestorm, a big wave of yellowish fire that burned so brightly it blinded everyone who saw it. All those people who managed to survive the onslaught of monsters at the beginning of the battle… I saw the Crimson One furiously toppling still-burning debris in its frantic search for any survivor of its firestorm attack, savagely clawing and biting those whom it caught.
Movement from the pile of rubble stole my attention and the Crimson One's.
Please let it be the end... Please let it be the end…
"Look at you all, so convinced of your imminent victory… Or is it? You are all walking to your deaths… Even if you win the fight, what makes you think everything will return to what they once were…?"
Of fucking course not! Whatever hope we kept in our collective hearts evaporated away when we heard it talking still.
Blue lines of (un)earthly energy surged from beneath our feet, fuelling the monster once more.
Fuck, the bastard wouldn't go down no matter what! The four of us who could continue fighting recoiled internally as we witnessed the thing rising from the pile of rubble, its horns, scales, and claws regrowing once more. I immediately did a headcount to see who were still standing before cursing quietly. Two of us were dead already and two others were out of commission. Reinforcements eventually got bogged down by the last of Smaug's monster army which got crazier and crazier the more blood they spilled. What the hell were we going to do then?
We ought to blow the machine, there's no other way. If our reality had to be erased altogether, so be it; anything's better than handing our world to the Red Dragon.
The White Fatalis lobbed balls of lightning like an elephant splashing mud everywhere. Hunters unfortunate enough to be within the attack's deadly range suffered severe burns as the lightning balls exploded and shook the ground with residual electric charges. Even the armored vehicles had to stop advancing for a while.
A poor guy with a javelin landed with a loud crash near me. The Red Dragon charged up a devastating attack to obliterate the tanks in one shot. Knowing that I had only one chance to disrupt the attack, I snatched the javelin from the now-dead guy and approached the monster. I threw it as hard as my muscles let me to the monster's open jaw.
Smaug's eyes widened as it realized it was firmly impaled in the mouth. It thrashed around while clutching the javelin with its foreclaws to try and pull it out. More shots fired by the tanks, hitting the panicking Red Dragon in the head and scored a lot of damage. While it did dislodge the sharp javelin out of its jaw, the damage was already done; the dragon was bleeding uncontrollably from the mouth and in its terrified state it couldn't concentrate properly to heal. Bright laser surged in its mouth as it attempted to retaliate against me and the tanks, but then the dragon coughed up blood, interrupting the charge and forced it to involuntarily unleash a huge blast of energy, damaging everyone including itself.
I felt myself flying and spinning through the air until-
"AAAAARRGGHH!"
Shit, I think my leg was broken.
I propped myself up with my elbows so I could see the injured leg. My left calf was twisted to the inside and so was my left foot. I tried to move the ankle a bit only to receive a terrible pain, nearly sending me into a sobbing wreck. Amidst the sheer pain of the injury, I heard Graham calling to me. Thank God I wasn't hallucinating as soon as I saw him crouching near me and examined my leg. He unzipped my boot and rolled the pant leg up as gently as he could, unfazed by the noisiness of the raging battle around us.
"Listen, Luke or whoever you are, we got to fix the leg somehow, we have to pop them back in. You can't go anywhere like this!"
"No, no, I can't…"
"I'm sorry, I really am, but there's no way I'm leaving you here. Randy's dead and Brian is nowhere to be found. It's just us now!"
"Wait! Please don't…" I plead with him.
"I don't care. Take a deep breath and hold it. On three! One, two…"
When the count reached three, I was too busy screaming in pain as Graham fixed my kneecap and calf bone. I wanted to see how badly my leg was, but Graham proceeded to twist my ankle back in place, this time without counting and I screamed again, louder than before. The only reason why I stayed awake was the hammer guy carrying me on his back as far away as he could from the rampaging White Fatalis, being left on its own as the Red Dragon couldn't recover fast enough.
"Stay with me, Luke… some dudes are loading powerful explosives into the chamber where the weird-ass computer thing is. We can still do this! We can still win this battle!"
I simply nodded, still reeling from the pain.
I opened my eyes to see no more than ten soldiers, bruised and battered and in some cases wrapped in bandages, carrying boxes that could be the explosives Graham mentioned.
I hopped passed the ruined entrance of the college's building on my healthy leg, trying not to burden my ally too much as we lag behind the weary folks, themselves burdened by the cargo they had to bring along. Down we went, deeper and deeper into the compound's restricted area where only those with special permission was able to enter back before all this madness happened. Noises that nearly deafened us before now faded away, little by little, as Graham carried me down into a corridor that was once barred off from the rest of the complex.
Now I wondered; what were the staff doing here? Why was this place cordoned off?
The answer revealed itself at the end of the corridor. It was an underground laboratory, spacious enough that my old house could fit comfortably in there, filled to the brim with machinery that I'll never be able to figure out what they were for. Graham put me down on a chair as he coordinated his plan with the soldiers.
"This is it. This is the supercomputer people have been talking about lately."
"Woah! In any other day, I'd be super excited to see it closer, but…"
But whatever this freaking college created, I believed it was a computer in name only. Cables, red and blue and green, ran back and forth to deliver immense amount of energy from those power supply thingies to the CPU units stationed at the corners of the spacious lab. Wide monitor screens, whether with or without buttons, broadcasted images both strange and familiar, flicking from one image to another so quickly my eyes began to hurt from trying to see them all. And then there was a slender circular machinery at the center of the chamber which, judging from electricity surging within it, could be some sort of portal.
Was it the portal that connected our world to the Monster Hunter universe? Was it where the creatures and Elder Dragons emerged from? By this point, I decided to assume that Clarke's Third Law was in effect; any sufficiently-advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
The weary men and women moved to place their cargo near the CPUs; military-grade explosives capable of leaving a wide crater in its place. It might not be able to kill off all the monsters still alive around here, but as long as the machine went down, that's all that mattered.
Graham carefully set up a detonator to ensure all the explosives went off at the same time. I slowly stood up from the chair and approached him while eyeing the object.
"Hey. If you want, I can take care of this by myself. Your people need you more than I do."
"Are you sure about this?" Graham's eyes narrowed, suspicious of my decision.
"I'm 100% sure," I nodded firmly.
"Once you press the button, there's no turning back. No second chance."
"I know. I have no plans to go home anyway."
It's a lie. I wanted to go home and apologize to my remaining friend. I still deeply regretted my less than pleasant parting words with Will. Would he ever forgive me for being a dick before I left? Maybe he would, but it's all wishful thinking on my part. Maybe he wouldn't care anyway.
Deep bellows echoed from above. The soldiers picked up the pace while Graham, knowing that the battle above wasn't over yet, handed over the detonator to me and pat me on my shoulder before departing the chamber. Those who were done setting up the explosives also left, hoping to buy more time before everything went down in flames. Soon, I was alone in the lab, with nothing but the detonator and my final thoughts.
"You dare…? You would try to erase us forever by destroying this… thing you've spent years creating…?"
The Red Dragon must've figured out our plan.
"Doesn't matter. I know I'm not coming home one way or another," I answered in my mind.
"Fool… Self-sacrifice is naught but the choice of a cornered prey, backed to a wall and has nowhere else to run…"
"Well, at least I get to bring you down with me!"
I could tell the Red Dragon wanted to rebuke me, and so I pressed the button anyway.
A massive blast rocked the laboratory, and I once again found myself thrown to the back of the room. But it wasn't the explosions that I've been waiting all this time…
The portal machine thing flared up with strange bright light after the bombs exploded. Electricity ran amok around it as the thing became overloaded both by heat and by too much power, frying the monitor screens and CPUs surrounding it. Now short-circuited, the machine groaned and sparked brightly as I felt everything spun and slowed down all over me.
My whole body was too damaged, seared by the fiery blast that sent me crashing to a wall, and I felt multiple bones breaking inside me. I was beyond saving by this point. There was nothing left to do but to accept my fate.
I'm sorry, Will.
"YOU RODENT, YOU WORTHLESS AND PITILESS LITTLE RODENT…! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME…?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY MINIONS…?! WAKE UP! WAKE UP AND FIX ALL YOUR MISTAKES! I WILL HAVE YOU ND&PW183NZ!#$111O W91!3SI3 21ME93 UD$W3?!ALLIJEL&%AIDNM 102ZD[!?$#DLD0 74BEHDN?&& BSA!1WJDF MSF09E #!?SA111111111-"
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