Chapter 47: The Tyrant
As Curly and Malco engaged Misery, Quote was beginning his own battle. He let loose with a storm of projectiles from Bubbline, attempting to overwhelm his opponent. None of them came remotely close, as the Doctor vanished from where he'd just been, leaving the Red Crystal in his wake. It was struck by several of his shots, but suffered no visible damage of any kind. The gemstone moved through the air toward the back of the room, pulled by some unseen force to where its master had reappeared. He was hovering a yard or so off the ground, tauntingly waving a finger.
Quote tried again, this time using Spur's half-charged laser. It wasn't any more effective, as the Demon Crown caused his shot to veer off course in midair and slam into the top of a Mimiga cage. Its inhabitants squealed in terror and recoiled toward a corner, but thankfully weren't harmed. The soldier clenched his teeth; this was going to be even harder than he'd anticipated.
His brief moment of distraction was taken advantage of, as the Doctor extended a hand with the Red Crystal rapidly orbiting around it. Sneering, he released a wave of crimson energy from his outstretched fingers. The inexplicable attack spiraled toward Quote in a wide, undulating arc and struck him in the chest. He was thrown backwards by the impact but managed to stay on his feet, returning fire with Bubbline again.
Just like before, his enemy had teleported away and left the Red Crystal behind. It floated across the room once more, giving Quote an idea. He followed its path until it stopped moving, at which point he fired Spur at the empty space it was staying near. Sure enough, the Doctor reappeared directly in its path and couldn't react in time to stop the thin laser from hitting him in the stomach. For the first time, his smile faded slightly, and he grabbed at the area he'd been shot in with one hand. The soldier could see between his fingers that his lab coat was burned, but while the man had definitely felt it he wasn't significantly wounded. He stretched out his other hand, releasing a second spiral of red energy. This time, the Doctor didn't teleport again but rather stepped backwards in anticipation of a counterattack.
Quote activated the Booster strapped to his back and launched himself over the spinning energy. His ascent carried him a bit further than intended, almost scraping him against the ceiling, but he shifted his weight forward just in time to arc over the Doctor's attack and land safely on his feet. Without missing a beat, he fired on his surprised enemy with both the Spur and Bubbline and scoring several more hits on him. Before long, however, his shots were being disrupted by the Demon Crown once again.
The Red Crystal pulsed with a sinister glow, and the Doctor crossed his arms in front of himself before thrusting both of them outwards. An even larger wave of energy burst from his hands, spreading in every direction in the form of red spheres. They rebounded off the walls and cages, flying all over the room. Fortunately, none of them slipped between the bars to harm any Mimiga. Unfortunately, Quote found himself barely managing to avoid the projectiles as they streaked past him. One even knocked his hat off his head, and he felt a scorching heat brush past his face.
By the time the energy wave faded, his opponent had teleported again and was out of sight. As usual, the Red Crystal soared after him and rejoined the Doctor when he appeared a short distance to the left. Quote was ready this time, and fired off a fully-charged Spur blast as he became visible. Rather than strike the man himself, however, it instead hit the Demon Crown directly in its gemstone eye.
The Doctor let out an agonized shriek and grabbed at his head, desperately trying to wrench the unsightly blue helmet off. Its eye was pulsing with a deep orange glow, and the more he struggled the harder it seemed to grip to him. Quote didn't attack again, watching as he stumbled and fell to one knee, quivering hard.
"Aaargh… t-the power… I can't control it! Stop! STOP!"
As the man continued to writhe, the very air in the room became heavier. The Demon Crown was emitting an unimaginably powerful wave of power that caused Quote to clutch his receptors. They were screeching white noise into his head at a deafening volume, and he found it impossible to focus on anything. The soldier's head was burning with a greater pain than he'd ever felt… was this the same thing that had happened to him ten years ago, when he and Curly were facing General Miakido? He could vaguely hear the Mimiga all around them whimpering in fright, and remembered what he needed to do. Quote raised Bubbline and sprayed a cluster of shots at the Doctor. Nothing was clearly visible in that state of distortion, but he at least hoped that he could disrupt the Demon Crown if he covered a wide enough area with his attack.
It seemed to have worked, as the haze clouding his vision abruptly vanished and his receptors settled down. All was silent in the room save for hushed whispers from the Mimiga and the faint sounds of gunfire from the floor below. Quote wondered if his friends were doing okay, but didn't have much time to think about it before something smashed into the back of his head and sent him crumpling to the floor. With a splitting headache and blurred vision, he rolled over to see what had just struck him. To his horror, it was none other than the Doctor, still alive and in good condition to fight.
At least, he thought it was, but even he wasn't quite sure. The monster lumbering toward him was roughly eleven feet tall with arms as thick as Quote's torso and a pair of disproportionately thin legs supporting his upper body. His clothing was either torn outright or stretched as far as it possibly could be, barely concealing his muscle mass underneath and looking as if the slightest flex would be too much to handle. The Doctor- or whatever beast he'd become- glowered at Quote with thin slits for eyes that shone vibrant red. No trace of his humanity remained; his face was barely recognizable without his glasses, and his mouth was stretched into a gaping maw of razor-sharp fangs.
Most notable about his new appearance was the Demon Crown. Its single jeweled eye shone a fiery orange and was actively swiveling around where it sat to observe the room. Four pointed "teeth" protruded from its corners and dug into the head of its wearer, not that it seemed to cause him any pain. The Doctor clenched his enormous fists and charged, taking thundering footsteps as he ran toward Quote.
He kicked his legs back over his head, rolling to a standing position just in time for a fist to come crashing down where he'd been seconds beforehand. The soldier fired several more Spur shots into the face of his monstrous enemy, none of which appeared to remotely injure him. Shaking off the thin bursts of light, the Doctor brought up one of his arms to grab Quote by the waist. He chuckled darkly and slammed him onto the floor again, sending a fresh wave of agony through his back.
A crunching sound came from somewhere beside him, and he turned his head to see an enormous boot stamping down on Bubbline. The gun was reduced to little more than a crushed pile of lime-green scrap, completely beyond further use. Watching it be destroyed caused Quote's heart to sink; it had been such a reliable weapon throughout his journey. He couldn't mourn its loss for long, however, as the Doctor was raising his foot again, this time to crush him. He activated the Booster, which sent him skidding along the floor and out of his enemy's reach. In his rush to escape being stomped, he wound up colliding with something that made a reverberating clang behind him.
"Mister Quote! Get up, you can do it!"
To his surprise, he'd crashed into the cage housing Curly's children. They were gathered near the bars and shouting various words of encouragement. Other Mimiga around them slowly began to join in, cheering him on from their own cells and cursing the monster that had tormented and killed so many of them. Quote got back to his feet in time to see yet another ray of hope arrive: Curly was at the top of the staircase from the floor below, sporting several injuries but otherwise in good condition. She let out a gasp upon seeing the caged Mimiga and the mutant Doctor, who was snarling ferociously in response to the hateful shouts and jeers all around him.
"Quote! Are you okay?"
He wasn't, really, but he didn't want to worry her. Giving his partner a nod, he began to charge Spur again.
"Where's Malco?"
Curly pointed back down the stairs.
"I think he's on his way… he's pretty busted up from the fight, though."
"I-I-I'll be there shortly!" the robot's feeble voice rang in their receptors. "Keep f-fighting, we can't stop now!"
Quote felt a knot of concern in his stomach; Malco sounded terrible.
"Look out!"
The cry had come from one of the Mimiga nearby, and he realized the Doctor was barreling toward him with a newfound fury. He didn't react fast enough to counterattack, and Spur was knocked out of his hands, skidding across the floor. Quote, unarmed at the moment, tried to fly out of harm's way with the Booster, but his leg was grabbed at the last second and he was swung onto the ground yet again. He landed on his face this time, and the world around him became a dark haze.
"You monster!" Curly shrieked, opening fire from across the room. "Get away from him!"
The Doctor turned to face her, not fazed in the slightest by her shots, and the gemstone eye on the Demon Crown flared with a blinding light. She was thrown upwards as if pulled by strings, slamming headfirst into the ceiling before plummeting back to the floor. Landing in a heap, she moaned softly and struggled to stand again.
Malco arrived as well, with Quote just being able to see him limp up the stairs. His damage was sickening to behold, but he stood defensively in front of the downed Curly anyway. The robot raised Napalm with trembling arms and unloaded every missile left in it, then switched to fireballs once they had been depleted. Even then the Doctor forged on as if simply ignoring his innumerable burn wounds and areas where his skin appeared to have melted altogether.
Quote realized that, despite the loss of Bubbline and Spur being across the room, he wasn't entirely unarmed. King's sword was still in its sheath around his waist, having not been used for some time. He drew it as quickly as possible and propelled himself from where he lay with the Booster, rocketing toward their enemy. The jetpack gave out too early to reach the Doctor, and Quote fell onto his stomach with the sword gripped in his right hand. He was still too far away to directly attack, and even if he were to run the rest of the distance he wouldn't be able to save his friends in time. Only one idea came to mind.
"Malco! Catch!"
With a mighty grunt, Quote threw the sword the rest of the distance. It spun through the air in an arc, drawing the eyes of the stunned Mimiga watching in their cages, and passed over the Doctor's head. He could no longer see anything behind their monstrous enemy, and he had no idea if his impromptu strategy worked.
The Doctor was right on top of the pair of robots when he abruptly stopped moving with a jolt. His raised limbs slowly fell to his sides, and even the Red Crystal had ceased orbiting around him. An incomprehensible gurgling sound croaked from his mouth as the mutant took a half-step backwards and collapsed. Quote could see now that his plan had succeeded; Malco was tightly gripping the sword in his sharp metal fingers, having caught it and slashed directly through the Doctor's neck.
Their enemy lay flat on his back with his eyes and mouth wide open in an expression of shocked disbelief, staring up at the ceiling with an occasional twitch. Despite the cut to his throat, he wasn't bleeding for some reason. A red vapor poured steadily into the air from his wound, and his entire body began to wither. The Doctor gave one final gasp before disappearing in a blood-red mist, leaving nothing behind other than his ruined clothing. The Demon Crown's eye had stopped swiveling in place and was now a very dull brown in color. After a few moments, the vile artifact collapsed into a pile of dust with no additional fanfare. Without anything controlling it, the Red Crystal retreated up the staircase at the back of the room toward the floor above them.
"We did it…"
