Triple your bet

'All right then,' Flabber started, 'let's make this Flabbericious.' He morphed into a kind of circus master and cracked his whip. 'In the one corner we have Les and the Crustaceans. With their abilities they can bring drawings to life. And that's about it. Nukus is mega, which might be a benefit, but they have lost their ally Vilor.'

'I'm still here, you know,' Vilor remarked, while tapping the bars of his little cage.

'You make it sound like we're losing, which we are not.' Meganukus gave Horribelle a decisive nod. She knew what it meant: they were going to pull through with this and give it their best. She felt that good old battle rush again that she was definitely going to miss. If they weren't going to fight the borgs anymore, then how should they boost their skills later? Maybe, she thought now, she could still fight Nukus from time to time, just to stay in shape. That would do.

'And in the other corner, there's the Beetleborgs, Astralborgs and Roboborg. And the Astral sword, coins, axe and all of that gibberish, in short, very epic!'

'Psssst, Nukus,' Les started. 'I have a few tricks up my sleeve from jail. Here's a doodle I got from the trashcan. This sword can maybe defeat Roboborg if you manage to find his weak spot. It's just like in Shadow of the Colossus. Except that you have to stick this in his heel.'

'Traces of banana on it, I wonder if it'll turn out slightly misshapen,' Nukus stared at the paper and nodded. 'Let's find out.'

'Three, two,' Flabber started.

'Wait, wait! Since we're in an obvious disadvantage here,' Les interrupted, 'would it be okay if I throw some drawings at the ground already so we have at least some monsters?'

'Well, going by your overall excessive, tactical disadvantage,' Flabber morped into a lieutenant, 'I would say, go for it, soldier, and give it your best. There, yes, good, it's on the ground, spread those drawings a bit, spread them! Come on, I don't want six monsters in a row on the field! Ready, set, three, two, one, Flabber them!'

The monsters materialized, all of them scary hybrids with exceptional qualities. A hedgehog with canons; a cat-toad with poisonous tongue; something that sang songs; a bear-fox thing, and a woman. Yes, a woman. She had a snake like skin and little snakes for hair. But all in all she was quite… sexy.

'Hot damn, was that sexy villain drawing in there too?!'

'My femininity was just shattered,' Horribelle looked at the other female angrily. 'Thank you, cartoonist, thank you!' She prepared herself for the purple Beetleborg that came at her.

'Wow, those boobs are a bit unnatural, aren't they, Les? Your anatomy was never your best skill when it came down to -'

'Shut up, ART!'

The fight started, it was crowded, nice and slightly more epic than the previous one. Flabber cheered everyone on while Mums and Fangs were dancing out on the porch.

'Go, Horribelle!' Little Ghoul yelled. 'Kick that Beetleborg where the sun don't – Yeah, that's excellent!' Frankie was still taping everything desperately for Wolfie, and because he'd grown tired of carrying the camera, he had placed it on top of his hat. It looked pretty bizarre, but he could now move his hands eagerly again.

'Horribelle, could you distract the silver -'

'Hopping to it!'

Les was drawing on the side lines of the field. The singing monster wasn't doing much good, except that everywhere flowers started to grow slowly. He made some new weapons. Nukus materialized some of them, but they weren't much help against the Beetleborgs. Especially not now that they morphed into their Spectra state, which was even more mega than Meganukus.

'Catch,' Nukus cried out, throwing new axes towards Horribelle. She ran towards them, but the purple Beetleborg beat her to it. 'If you want them, come and get them!'

Meanwhile, the sexy villain was seducing the golden borg who wasn't even fighting anymore.

'What's that seductress doing?' Art cried out to Les.

'I'm not sure. She traps men like a spider in her web and I think she makes them commit suicide eventually.'

'Oh. What?!'

'Is there a way to defeat that tramp, Lester?' Flabber called out. 'I think Drew is already aiming his sword at himself…Yep, he is. That's gotta hurt. And that too. Wow!'

The silver Beetleborg came to his aid, but also got ensnared by the snake woman.

'As I always say, when you want a job done right, let a woman do it!' Horribelle said to Nukus, it had become a small catch phrase of theirs. She insisted on using it every time she beat him to something. He was afraid to tell her that after five times, such a remark is worn out. She seemed to like this one an awful lot and might take it very personally.

'Hello, Horribelle to purple Beetleborg. 'I'm using this awfully horrible motto of mine to give you a hint that doesn't quite seem to come through. Woman. You. Go!'

'Oh!' And Jo ran off to give that villain a taste of her own medicine.

'Uhm, Horribelle,' Les started, 'if Jo's a lesbian or better yet, potential lesbian when she finally hits puberty and discovers sexuality, we have got ourselves a big problem.'

'She's ten! She can manage!'

'Being ten didn't prevent my sexy villain to ensnare those young boys, did it?'

'I hate you, Lester. And you're more of a perv than I'd imagined,' she hissed. 'The thought that you made us slowly starts to scare me.'

'It also explains a lot,' Les nodded.

The purple Beetleborg could luckily hit the sexy villain a few times and finally destroyed her altogether with help of the other two, who had awakened from their trance.

'Snake woman, totally, not sexy, help,' Roland muttered.

The battle went pretty fast from that moment on, until Les drew up a new big robot on the spot, that they materialized. The Beetleborgs called for Roboborg.

'I want the Astralborgs here too,' Les spat, 'let's see, if we put these drawings on top of each other we'll create such a goofy monster they'll have to call for help.'

'Good plan, cartoonist,' and Nukus immediately materialized the heap of doodles.

While the two robots were battling, the Beetleborgs called for the Astralborgs. It wasn't that necessary, but something that shoots flames ánd spits water at the same time can be considered a nasty foe.

'Dragonborg!' Little Ghoul bounced.

'Little Ghoul,' he waved.

'Marriage,' Little Ghoul muttered as a kind of unconscious conclusion, envisioning fantasies none of the male monsters would like to see. Sexy villain would've surely been no match for them. Little Ghoul let out a romantic sigh.

'Triple your bet, triple your bet,' Mums waved with a hat. 'If you think the Crustaceans will win, scribble it down here, and this is for the borgs.'

Frankie tossed in another coin, almost causing his camera to tumble in.

Meanwhile, at the battle field in front of the house, the hybrid-multiple-drawings-monster added gushes of water to Vilor's cage, and then some fire. It apparently did the trick because the bars melted and Vilor managed to break free.

'Finally, I'm free! I'll have my revenge on all of you!'

The Astralborgs, who were just fighting the hybrid monster, broadened their scope to Vilor. He was being punched back and fro like a sand bag. Eventually, Vilor decided to flee.

'I've just realized it. Dying is not fun. Being punched is not fun. I hate fighting.'

'What, you can't just flee?!' Dragonborg shouted.

'Watch me! I'm going to start a life outside of these stupid battles. I think I'll go live in a lake and frighten people, maybe the one right here in Charterville, and perform innocent monster actions at random. Or I'm going to do something else, oh, I know! Work as an artist myself at a freak show and beat the hell out of people like the Fortunes with my own special performance art! Now that's artistic! They love fish guys at freak shows, you know, the ones with fins between their toes and such. Wait till they get a load of me.'

'So what, after annoying the hell out of everyone and nearly killing Horribelle, you are just switching careers?' Nukus asked.

'Yes.'

'I hope you make very less money and at some point, feel a lot of guilt for what you put us through. We were basically family, you runt. And family doesn't kill each other.'

'Well, my crazy-psychopath-monster-mistake then,' said Vilor. 'I hope I'll never see you two again so I'll never have to apologize! Bye!'

'Wait, Vilor, would you really have…?!' Horribelle asked him, unable to pronounce kill me, or slaughter me, or forced a knife down my throat.

'Goodbye to you, too!'

'Runt is an understatement pur sange,' she hissed.

After that, the battle didn't continue much longer. The Astralborgs defeated the devious hybrid-multiple-drawings-monster and the Beetleborgs the rest of the bunch. Les didn't want to draw much more, because he felt slightly desperate after seeing so many of his one-minute creations being flushed down the drain. So they decided to wrap things up.

There was much rejoicing.

'Well, so everyone except for Little Ghoul gets dough,' Mums summarized. 'And, what?! Art?! You placed a bet on your brother's monsters!'

'I was trying to be nice! It seemed like a good way to make up with him. And he was always better in character development and exceptional skills than I was.'

'Now there's a confession for you,' Flabber laughed, clapping on Art's shoulder.