So I was on such a roll that I wrote 4 chapters at once. Have fun!
Chapter 31: Tearing Down the Wall
"Ipsus?!" Blahsadfeguie shouted in disbelief, Hailstorm too stunned for words. The sight of the Wall of Flesh alone was enough to unnerve Broshi as well, who brandished his sword as his heart pounded audibly. The wall stowed its advance for a moment as a malignant cackle responded.
"SURPRISED, HUMAN?" Ipsus retorted, the voice echoing a hundred times for each of its hungering appendages. "YOU CANNOT TRULY KILL A SPIRIT... IT ALWAYS REAWAKENS INTO ANOTHER FORM, HUNGRY FOR VENGEANCE! NOW, BE CONSUMED!" The wall resumed its ravenous crawl.
"Ok guys... don't panic... it's just the boss of the underworld... possessed by a bloodlusting spirit eager for revenge..." stuttered Blahsadfeguie, drawing his hammer. "We have to kill him some time or another... if we work together, we can survive... guys?"
Blah craned his head around to catch the tail end of Hailstorm and Broshi making a mad dash in the other direction. He turned around again, and one more look at the Wall was enough for Blah to make up his mind. "Don't leave me here!" he yelled as he ran faster and harder than he ever remembered running before, making an ironically bold leap over a 9-foot wide gap of lava.
"COWARDS!" screeched Ipsus from his terrifying vessel. "YOUR GUTLESSNESS MAKES YOU ALL THE TASTIER!" One of his eyes glowed for a second before emitting a sizable laser beam headed straight for Blah.
Hearing the noise, Blah instinctively jumped, the laser sailing under his feet before he landed and kept going. He was catching up surprisingly fast for his encumbrance and his unoptimal body structure for running. "Hail! A little help?" he cried to the pegasus, who nodded shakily and rose into low flight to swerve carefully into Blah's path.
Another telltale laser shot, and Blah looked back to see it was aimed at Hail this time. Blah prodded the pony with the business end of his Breaker, unintentionally creating a bruise but steering the unaware Hailstorm out of the laser's trajectory. Seeing the laser nearly singe his wing, Hail instantly forgave Blah as he came in closer with a quick swoop. Blah used the last of his leg strength to leap onto his back and the two became one unit yet again.
Broshi, on the other hand, was carving a path like there was no tomorrow (as there very well may not have been), hopping and fluttering between ash islands like a professional platformer. It was all Seraphina could do to hang on.
Hailstorm, with heavily panting Blah in tow, followed in Broshi's wake, using his wings for extra distance when necessary or when Blah alerted him to another laser attack. The four kept enough distance to avoid the Wall's extraneous mouths altogether.
"Brilliant!" Blah gasped between breaths. "Ok... Hail... hand me... your crossbow."
"My hooves are busy!" Hail reminded him. "Just reach into my saddlebag!"
"SO YOU THINK YOU'VE FIGURED ME OUT, HUH?" Ipsus bellowed as Blah fumbled with Hail's pack and the Demonite crossbow. "ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE YOU TO MY FRIENDS..." With a roaring belch, a small squad of giant red leeches emerged from the Wall's giant mouth, burrowing through ash and lava with no difficulty and gaining on them fast.
Blah fired the first bolt, already loaded, at the closest leech, but it missed by several inches. Panicking, Blah attempted to reload another bolt, but by that time a leech had found its way onto Blah's neck. "Argh!" he shouted, wrestling with the bloodsucker as it siphoned from his veins slowly and painfully. With his crossbow-wielding hand, he launched another bolt, striking another leech through the center, slowing it down but not killing it.
Broshi realized at his next glance that Blah and Hail would be overwhelmed in no time. He slowed his pace and allowed Hail to catch up with him, getting his sword ready. Blah wrenched the leech from his neck and tossed it at Broshi, who cleanly cut it in half and left the segments writhing on the ground.
Blah finally had the opportunity to load another bolt, just in time to make another shot at the final advancing leech... which missed. However, Broshi had him covered. Another well-placed sword strike left said leech to plummet into the lava, never to re-emerge.
"Yo yoshi," the dinosaur voiced, pointing at the desperately grasping mouths that were getting closer by the second.
Blah nodded, loading another bolt - Broshi would take care of the leeches, and Blah would focus on weakening the Wall's vile minions. Regaining himself, he fired his fourth shot at one of the Hungry, impaling it through the roof of its mouth, but doing seemingly nothing to stop it from approaching.
A quick estimate later of the number of bolts in reserve compared to the quantity of those gaping mouths and Blah came up with a concern. "I don't think we have enough ammo for this..."
"There's gotta be something else in that pack of yours you can use!" Hail encouraged. "It's either fight or die, so give it all we've got!"
Blah rifled through his backpack, hoping to find anything that would do at least a sliver of damage. His hand fell on something round, and his mind clicked. "Bombs!" he exclaimed, pulling one of the explosives out. He recalled he still had one from his battle with Trank that he never used, plus a few from the pots in the obsidian building. "Lift me up, bring me a little closer!" He lit the bomb.
"Wh-what?!" Hail responded. "I was hoping it wouldn't involve... oh nevermind!" Noting that this was no place to argue, Hailstorm took to the air and did as Blah ordered. The fuse of the bomb was getting shorter and shorter. When it was nearly depleted, Blah lobbed the bomb behind him as hard as he could just as a laser fired, causing Hail to duck down again. The bomb flew into a cluster of the Hungry, exploding shortly after and catching many of them in the blast. The explosion severed many of their connections to the Wall itself, but this detachment still did not stop them. They were now able to fly straight at the heroes.
"Oh God no," Blah screamed as he switched back to his lance and jabbed at one of them, breaking it apart, but there were still many more on the approach.
With a berserk leap, Broshi replaced Hailstorm in the air and sliced at the remaining Hungry, taking a few of them down at a respectable rate - but there were always more. One of them latched onto Broshi's left arm with a jagged iron grip. He winced, a jolt that awakened Seraphina long enough for her to remove the jaw with her Psychic and send it tooth-first at another. As the two collided, they gnawed on each other furiously as they fell to the ground.
"It seems their hunger transcends alliance..." Sera inferred, before falling victim once again to the demonic aura and blacking out.
"Hang in there," Blah muttered. He was proud that Sera could be useful even when crippled by an environment governed by her primary weakness. "Kick them back at each other if you can!" he updated Hail as he swung his Breaker at one of the remaining freed Hungry.
"Got it!" Hail affirmed as he glided once more, leaving his back hooves free to assault the next nearest living projectile. With equine accuracy, it crashed into another of its fellows, sending them both into a distracted frenzy.
Broshi impaled one of the last mouths, and nodded to Blah, who pulled out and lit another bomb with renewed confidence. There were still many more to go.
"I SEE A PATTERN IN THE MAKING," Ipsus growled. "PATTERNS ARE BORING. LET'S MIX IT UP A BIT! I'VE GOT MOUTHS TO FEED, AFTER ALL!" With a cackle, the veins connecting the rest of the Hungry to the Wall of Flesh all snapped at once, unleashing them all in one giant cloud. At the same time, another battalion of leeches were thrown into the fray.
"Well THAT escalated quickly!" Blah panicked again, throwing the bomb with a nervous grunt into the cloud. The explosion disabled merely a fraction of the assault, and the rest careened ahead. "Heads up! Double time, now!" he shouted, readying another bomb in the hopes he could detonate it before the cloud inevitably caught up to them.
Broshi lowered his head against the thick of his blade, mentally preparing himself for his next string of maneuvers. He needed to take them down as rapidly as possible. He sprang up, twisting his body around to face them while holding onto Sera with his free hand, he sliced at the nearest maw while he lashed out his tongue at the next nearest. The sword cut through as reliably as always, but when the end of his tongue neared the other Hungry, it clamped down upon it, sending a piercing wave of pain back through it. Wishing he could grit his teeth, he thrust his head downward, whipping the jaw into the side of the island below him, forcing it to let go and allowing Broshi to retract his sore tongue. After all this, he had forgotten to follow through with his weapon, and by the time he landed back onto the ground and resumed his run, his act had barely dented the opposing forces.
Hailstorm had to step up his flight to avoid all of the biting Hungry, jostling Blah around violently in the process. This caused him to lose hold of the bomb in his hand, and it fell to the ground, uselessly taking out a chunk of land.
Blah checked his pack - he was down to his last bomb, and the hundreds of Hungry were mere feet away, followed closely by the leeches. In an act of desperation, Blah took the bomb, bit off most of the fuse, lit the remaining stub and threw it behind him immediately, holding his shield up towards the blast. The explosion destroyed a handful of Ipsus's spawn, and Blah managed to block most of the shrapnel, but that didn't stop some of it from hitting Hailstorm and the blast itself from propelling them both unexpectedly forward.
"Ow!" Hail reacted, working hard to destabilize his flying. "Are you crazy?!"
"Crazy enough to buy us some time!" Blah answered, grabbing his lance. "And it's about to get even crazier! Turn around, I have a plan!"
"If you say so... we'll die either way..." Hail made a wide U-turn, facing the swarm, and Blah held the lance out in front, leaning forward like a true knight.
"Fist of the Milky Way," announced Blah, a crackle of blue energy transferring from him to the lance and to Hailstorm, "Meteor Joust!"
The blue energy consumed rider, weapon, and mount, focusing it on the point of the lance and creating a brilliant light. The duo's speed increased dramatically, plowing through the swarm and sending them every which way, popping any that happened to be in the direct path of the lance. But as they tore through the opposition, it was clear that Blah's target was much bigger. They were aimed directly at Ipsus's massive, bloodshot left eye. The force of the impact literally caved the wall backwards a few feet, and the lance had lodged in the organ, instilling a bloodcurdling roar from the spirit. Blah released the lance, causing the light to face, and Hail performed an about-face and kicked off of the eye, sending them forwards again.
The pain suffered from this attack caused the Wall to lose control over its minions, which all plummeted from the air, most of them sinking into the lava. The Wall flexed and thrashed as it had no way to remove the lance from its eye, and the pain only intensified from there.
"Mother of Celestia..." uttered Hailstorm, feeling practically revitalized from the excess energy, "That was incredible!"
"We're just getting started," Blah transitioned, wiping his sweat onto his sleeve and filling his empty hand with the Breaker again. "This only weakened him. It's time to drive it home."
He fired the first bolt at the Wall's uninjured eye before Ipsus could regain himself, but the shock from the secondary, lesser impact drove him to his senses. "NO... MORE... GAMES... TIME... TO DIE!" The Wall began to pick up the pace, crawling faster and faster. Another array of leeches were summoned forth, but Broshi was more than ready for them. The Hungry that did not fall into the lava came back to life, rolling and taking to the air, though there were only a couple dozen of them left.
Blah smashed them one by one, and Hailstorm returned to bucking at them when they got too close. They made sure to hit one into another as often as possible, and Sera's advice continued to be fruitful. The last of the Hungry were eliminated in no time. Broshi continued to do what he did best - he didn't dare try using his tongue again, but his sword was enough to keep the leeches at bay.
Blah swapped his hammer for his crossbow. Now, he could focus on finishing the Wall of Flesh.
More lasers fired from its good eye, increasing in frequency. Hail weaved in and out of them as usual, but he was starting to tire, and it showed in the copious amounts of perspiration all over his body. He had no choice but to go back to running on the ground. Blah, meanwhile, fired bolt after bolt at the Wall's other eye and giant mouth, but the bolts were about as effective as rocks.
"This is getting us nowhere fast..." strained Blah, on the road to exhaustion himself. He looked over at Broshi, who was arguably looking the best out of all of them. An idea struck Blah. "Hey! Broshi! Bring Sera this way!"
"Yoshi!" complied Broshi, starting to path towards him and Hail. Blah held out his hand, grabbing Sera from off of Broshi's back and placing her as carefully as possible onto Hail. He then jumped off of the pony, climbing onto the Yoshi instead. "This should save you about 100 pounds..." Blah said to Hail.
He then turned to Broshi. "Alright. Let's end this."
"THE ONLY THING ENDING HERE IS YOU, BLAHSADFEGUIE!" Ipsus snarled, hastening his pursuit. "YOU CANNOT OUTRUN ME FOREVER!"
His brain continued to tick. "Then we won't run," Blah answered, all of his confidence returned. "Broshi, slow down, let him catch up to us."
Broshi returned Blah's instructions with a quizzical glance. Hail took the words right out of his mouth: "Seriously?!"
"Trust me," Blah replied, directed at both the dinosaur and the equine. They looked at each other, and Hail, backed by the memory all of the crazy stunts that Blah had pulled thus far, nodded at Broshi.
Flashing a look from beyond his shades, Broshi pulled back.
"HAHAHAHA! SO YOU WANT TO DIE QUICKLY... WHAT A SHAME."
"Oh, the shame is that you will be the one to die quickly..." Blah answered. "Now, jump!"
Broshi kicked off of the ground once again, and by this time the Wall was moving so quickly that both he and Blah landed on top of it as if it were solid ground. Blah made sure to land near its mouth, and Broshi landed next to its other eye.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! GET OFF!" The wall pulsated as if to try and shake them, while fruitlessly continuing its rash forward march fueled by pain and voracity. Blah and Broshi drew their weapons simultaneously. The Wall's lack of extremities prevented it from doing anything about what would happen next... a series of events which are far too gruesome to describe here.
The heroes jumped off of the Wall just as the final blow was struck, enough to send it in pieces into the deep molten lava below. For a moment, the heat intensified, as did the lighting, and it faded just the same. Blah saw a sight that took him back to the start of his journey - the transparent orb of darkness that was Ipsus's true form, barely able to remain in this plane of existence. In its place was a hovering cube of dark purple brick. Blah knew that it was hollow, and certainly not empty.
**The Wall of Flesh has been defeated!**
"Impossible... You have defeated... my strongest incarnation..." stuttered the distant voice of the twice-defeated spirit of gluttony.
"Not so impossible then, huh?" Blah mocked, as the incredibly winded Hailstorm returned and collapsed on the island.
"Foolish human..." Ipsus droned, "surely by now you've realized... even now, this isn't the last you'll see of me! Once my strength is regained..."
"You'll come back, stronger than ever?" Blah questioned. "But you JUST said that was your strongest incarnation..."
"Strongest as of yet, idiot!" Ipsus coughed. "And know this: your hell is only just beginning... mwahahahaha!" With an eerie flicker, and a slight tremor, Ipsus faded away yet again. Blah didn't try to stop him this time. Villains being villains, Ipsus was legally obligated to be cryptic and to try and fill Blah's head with doubt... and in his opinion, that was a rather poor attempt.
Also, he was eager to see what fabulous prizes he had won from that boss fight. Without wasting a moment more, he grabbed his pickaxe and dug into the Demonite brick cube.
"So... guess we... conquered... Hell?" panted Hail, breathing heavily and trying his hardest to keep from falling unconscious.
"And yet we still have no clue how to get out..." Blah muttered, chipping away at the bricks. Chip, chip, went the pickaxe. Chip, chip, chip, whirr, chip, whirr, whirr.
By that time Blah had stopped mining, looking around and wondering where that strange whirring noise was coming from. It was rhythmic and sounded oddly familiar...
"Yoshi..." Broshi pointed behind Blah, on the other side of the cube. There was a color that Blah had not seen ever since he arrived in the underworld. Blue.
It was in the shape of a box. A phone booth, to be exact. It had just finished becoming fully opaque. The light on the top of it had just finished blinking as well.
"Is that..." Blah stared at the booth for a few seconds. Some distant memories resurfaced, starting a chain reaction spanning multiple synapses. "No. No way. No FREAKING way." He dropped his pick and began to run towards the box. He could clearly see the words "POLICE BOX" printed in black on white across the top of it.
The door swung open, revealing a room that was impossibly huge on the inside. A giggling pink figure bounced out of it.
"Hey guys! Look what I found!"