I had bigged up the kid a lot in our talks. I had told him he was my knight, my soldier, he had asked what ranked, I had said sergeant, he asked why not captain, I told him sergeants were way better because they understood what was really up. He asked me if I loved the smell of napalm in the morning, and I again wondered who was letting him see all these really age inappropriate films.

I said yes of course, because napalm smells great. Like fuel oil, gasoline, and detergent, mixed with the burning flesh of my enemies.

I had told him the crude, old, tatty jacket we had looted from some poor victim was his body armor, his flak jacket. I think that's what saved us.

I activated clear thinking, giving myself a minute of thinking time, and scanned my stats.

I had 26 stamina. Enough for two and a bit seconds of boosted physical stats with ninja body. I had drug fueled strength and 18 strength. With my rather small frame that was a lot of strength. Boosted up 50% it was 27, which was pretty far along human limits. I had three quests, each for 25 perk points. Survive Pennywise, save my brother, defeat Pennywise once and for all. It'd work.

I shot away from Pennywise, his head burning and stinking, my face sticky with his blood. I felt unsteady inside, rocked by what I saw, but with my pulse pouncing I could ignore that for now. I called up my minimap, and quickly worked out how to get to the well house, the closet exit. I ran. I ran really fast, probably faster than any runner on earth. At least for a bit.

I stepped over a rock, and tumbled over.

Dex check 16/15 succeeded.

I reached my hands out, and though they burned, turned the fall into a flip, landing on my feet. As I did so, a bright light rushed out from behind me, blue, zooming through the air. It hit the roof above my head, and instantly shifted into a massive form. It's head still burnt, as the thermite ripped through it, so I could see. Boney skin, a long tail, a long head like a fish. A tongue sticking out, with a mouth on it.

Alien. The acid dripped down from it onto me. That acid could rip through ships. It could have ripped through me. But Georgie believed in his armour. Believed that he could survive this, trusted me. His jacket burnt and sizzled. I twisted it off, letting the acid melt it and the cave floor and darted away. Pennywise darted at me, and I twisted to the side as he slammed where I had been, shaking the tunnel with his weight.

I got a look at him. Pennywise. 156?1/2000? Hasiajx error failure.

Then my interface bugged out. I rammed my spear at him. I had many nightmares about Alien when I had first seen it. I had just been three. But, years of them, lots of bad movies, alien vs predator, and online roleplays inside such things had ended my fear. Georgie had some fear, but not much.

The cold iron spear sliced into the bones. Inside his chest the cold iron melted- but I had no time for that. With a quick burst of chakra speed, taking me down to 11 stamina, I dashed off, snapping the end of the spear away.

I was at the bottom of the well. I needed to get to the top. I didn't know parkour, and there was an angry alien after me.

Easy. I had planned for this. I took my now cold ironless bone fragment, with a little chunk of cold iron fixed at the end where I had snapped it off, hooked my long belt, made of a lot of items of clothing carefully tied together for just this reason, hooked it into the metal hook I had stolen from some old toy at the end, hopped out of the rope, activated drug fueled strength and the +10 strength bringing me up to 33 strength, and hurled it up near the edge.

It rammed into the weakened concrete and stone, affixing, my very crude grappling hook a success. My druggie strength included some secondary, boosted durability powers for items. It was great. Grabbing the end of the rope I started to run up the well.

6 seconds left.

A moment later, I heard a smashing sound. Bleeding acidic blood, face still burning, Alienwise (my nickname) charged at me, running up the well like I ran along walls. I swung, avoiding a swing of their razor sharp tail that would have decapitated me, and ran around the wall, getting around them. I swung my foot, still boosted from the strength perk, and kicked Alienwise in the head, knocking them off their grip. They fell down with a thud as I ran up.

I was out of it. 5 seconds left. I could-

Pennywise was standing there at the top, grinning, more visible in the light, head still burning, chest still bleeding, his orange hair scorched, his makeup bubbling in the heat. Oh yeah. He can teleport. He grabbed me by the neck and slammed me down on the ground, hard enough to make my brain rattle. I tried to punch him, but he grabbed my arm and overpowered me with brute strength, easily overcoming me, even when I added my chakra. My stamina ran out.

I slipped a hand out, and I drew an uzi out of my inventory. I pressed it to him and opened fire, sending a thud thud thud of bullets ripping through his chest, loud enough to burn my ears. He laughed and laughed as the blood dripped out of him onto my chest.

Two seconds left. I didn't have anything left in the tank I- I dropped one more point into wisdom, and activated enlightenment.

Gamer interface, hard shut down.

I felt the power rush out of me. My enhanced strength, my skills, everything. It was like a sore muscle, overworked. It needed time to heal. Perhaps in time I could summon it, but not any time soon unless... I was spent.

But I still had an idea.

"Sewer clown." I said. "Why are you out of the sewer?" Pennywise leaned down, and licked my face, tasting his blood, clearing my eye. I looked up at him.

He looked horrific. Burning, melted, but grinning ever brighter as he leaned over me.

"I sense a bit of it. A spark. You're not sure you're gonna win. You hope but… that fear is delicious." He said.

He flicked his tongue about, as though he was testing a delicacy, trying to identify where it was from.

"That old world? Well. Maybe while you're gone I'll visit there. Find your momma, and pappa, and just eat them up. If you do ever get home, they won't be there."

I felt a flood of hate, and just a little bit of fear, as he held me down, easily overcoming my now, just the strength of a child. I needed to stay cool though. Stay cool.

"But my house isn't near a sewer. What happened to the rest of the circus anyway?"

He leaned in. "Blown right away. A storm blew the whole circus away, and me. And it will blow me right to your home" And he stuck his tongue out into my eyeball. I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my eye. I screamed and shook and I held the pain on me. My mind was burning, but I could shield Georgie from this. I took it all on myself, all the pain. I buried myself in it. I felt myself loosing control.

I was so tired. That deadlight, that light. I felt so small. Cold.

I was out. My eye so bad. I wanted to scratch it. I couldn't see anything.

Then Georgie came back into the seat. I felt Pennywise lick Georgie's other eye, and I could see again. Pennywise could kill my family. I was powerless to stop it. It hurt…

"You lied! You're not a real clown. You're a fairy. Fairies can't lie."

Pennywise looked surprised for a second. "I'm not a fairy. I am..."

Georgie spoke, more enthusiastic now. "Yes you are. You're a shapeshifting ancient horror who uses a friend form to lure people in, feeds off emotions, is wounded by cold iron. You're a fairy! And you lied. You can't lie."

"I..." He said. And Pennywise gulped. Then he flopped down, and vomited black blood onto the floor, again and again.

I mentally cheered, as my eye burnt. He had figured it out. Fairies can't lie! And he thought Pennywise was a fairy. The weight of Pennywise on us was heavy. Georgie struggled and struggled, but he couldn't lift him.

"Peter. Peter. I need you. I can't do it." He said. "I'm trapped. He ate my eye. I can feel you. I need you." He said, panting.

There was a phrase. Running on fumes. I wasn't running on fumes. I was running on empty. My world was a burning mess of pain as I subsumed myself in the pain of my ripped out eye so Georgie could function, and my gamer power muscle was really badly torn. Maybe there was a drip or two of oil left, but restarting my power was gonna do major damage to it, just as forcing a car to start with no fuel would damage it.

But, him eating me would also damage me.

"This is for lying, fairy scum!"

Gamer interface… collapsing.

I bought the upgraded gacha perk and summoned a common cold iron nail. Then, grasping it in my fist, I power struck up into the deadlights. My fist rammed into Pennywise's gut, slamming up into the hole I had ripped through him into the deadlights. I felt a wet burning sensation on my hand. He slammed off me, ramming into the ceiling, and collapsed down, very broken.

Critical hit! 3!0? damage done. Breakdown. Immin-

The burning got more intense. As Georgie got up, I did not fade into darkness, but faded into agonized burning pain, every inch of my soul tortured and flayed.

I forced out two last words.

"Blue… pill." Cocaine.

And then four more. "Fuck you… sewer clown."

Round two. Pennywise eyes victory, but lies drag him down. Next chapter he'll be off to go far away for a while. Any suggestions for cool Stephen King things he can loot are appreciated.

Pennywise has a really OP power list. Teleportation, mind control, super strength, super durability, lots of stuff. He's a scary dude. But so is my fist.

Dragonbornthesam. He could get something like it, but higher rank abilities can break lower ranked abilities. Poison maniac does something similar with poison, giving him higher than average resistance above gamer's body.

Mistersnx. Thanks, he tries.

JakewJElliot. I was thinking of having him speed run a few different worlds sometime. That could be a fun one for that. And yeah, I try to do new horrors. He

IncognitoMinerals. I hope you enjoyed it.

Thorison1080. Sorta? Gamer interface overrides them sorta, but it's not working very well now, so he has a chance to get his old memories and skills back.

Crimsonsylvan. Prototypes have psychic powers as well, so they'd be pretty resistant to fear effects and dream stuff. They can talk to each other and resist talking and do lots of mind fuckery. Prototype zombies are mega op. And yeah, if he became a full prototype he could rip through every Saw movie easily. Someone who can bench press tanks isn't scared by a trap.

Arkyong. Clown is punched now, I hope you are happy.

Soda-fiedPsycho. Jigsaw would probably win against Pennywise, because he's psychologically very tough and physically better at combat than him, and he's very observant so he'd spot weaknesses. That said, as shown, Pennywise is a powerful dude. He can regen, shapeshift, teleport, do lots of stuff. Palpatine would definitely crush him though. That dude is strong. And, sadly he does not have a katana perk.

Watermelonninja. That's just responsible parenting. How can your kid be safe without extreme firepower?

Toobad69. Yeah, it's good to go back to roots. There was some of his greater powers here, with some extreme bursts of speed, but in the end it was childhood naivety and belief that crushed Pennywise. And a fist.

Sillythoughts. Many fun universes, and I think most are on the lists. Gremlins is also a possibility, but probably for speedrun time. And thanks for cool story things, I'll check them out.

Come back next time as the next phase in his plan to exploit the Stephen King multiverse begins.