Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with another chapter from the fabulous fanfic Hourglass!
As many of you probably know, finals week is either coming up for you or literally this following week...or last week! Point is, THIS week and going into NEXT week, I have my own finals to study for. I still plan on getting a chapter out to you guys every 5-7 days, but if I'm a day later than usual, you know exactly why. Thanks a bunch for understanding, everybody! :D
Replies to Reviews...
Marshman101: It's the main part of the Amalgamob. It's the center head. Soooo...that's how she has one. XD
Airas Slayer: Yes, I am pouring gasoline on my keyboard and lighting it on fire. XD What on Earth is a "tight little soda?" It sounds like something super offensive that I just don't understand myself. ^^' And YES, I HAVE TOO MANY OC'S! I didn't know what I was getting into with asking people for submissions way back at the beginning! That's why I tried to find legitimate reasons for some characters to die off...I just made the mistake of choosing Kenneth, because apparently he was a fan favorite. He's still technically around, but even so!
Dude, I could never animate something from the Glitch. It's not an easy task to make constantly-shifting, electrified black plasma move onscreen and not look overly janky. Maybe I'll animate a scene when I improve my hand-drawing skills! :D By the way, it's King Boo vs Doopliss.
Pixelized Pikale and Company: Wow, that's...such an honor to hear. X3 I tried to search up We Are The Smashers, but all I could find was a fan-made sequel to it. XD
Badgerman: A metropolis made entirely of pigs? ...maybe not my best idea. But I friggin ADORE the Mistress. I never seem to write a villain where their motivation is a revenge story, so this is a nice change for me! Also, I fixed the first mistake you pointed out, but I couldn't find the other one anywhere.
Oh, so THAT'S where you got it from...gotcha. XD
Again, guys, thanks for the support you've been giving this story! I mean this from the bottom of my heart! This one: 3 Also, I figured I would make this chapter in the middle length-wise since I gave you a super long one and then a rather short one. Seems fair, right? ;D
Now, let the story commence!
Chapter 35: Closing In
Jeff sighed and sat up from his previous position, glancing over at the short stacks of sugar cane growing a couple blocks down from him. He stared at the plant for a few seconds, struggling to form an idea of what to do next with these three ragtag teenagers he had to deal; he hadn't actually thought of what he'd be doing after he helped JB and Morgan with their own little quest, but now that she was gone and JB was still stuck to his side…yeah, he had nowhere to go. Especially after falling out of the Aether, but it was probably all taken over by the Glitch by now.
"Hmph…" he grumbled, lifting a foot and getting onto one knee, shakily standing up amidst his fatigue. "I suppose I should actually know where I am before I try anything…"
Evan, who was now sitting on a four-block rock structure placed at the other edge of the pond, turned his head in Jeff's direction and began to watch him as he took three steps towards the sugary greens and started chopping them down. After a few seconds of this, he called across the water,
"Um, Jeff? What are you doing?"
Amya stopped the work she was doing on her brand new crafting table and raised her head at the shout, also taking a moment to stare at the sudden movement occurring behind her.
"Whoa, look!" she cried, her massive grin getting a glare in return. "Jackery's still alive! Mhmheeheehee!"
"I told you, Amya, stop calling me Jackery! I was trying to be discrete from my real identity back there, but it…it worked out terribly." he ended, the rest of his sentence falling into silence.
He harvested all ten sugar cane around the pool and walked slowly over to Amya, who was just pulling her replacement t-shirt off the grid. She picked it up with the hand that wasn't protecting her front and took a few steps back.
"Hey, if you want to use it, fine by me. I only needed it to make this shirt." Amya explained, bouncing the red fabric in her fist.
JB, who was leaning back against the tree behind him and thinking about whether he'd missed any customers while he was gone, gradually got his eyes to look over at Jeff and observe from a distance. He hadn't even twisted thirty degrees before he gasped and shut his eyes, immediately jerking his head in the opposite direction upon seeing bellybutton.
"AMYA!" he whisper-shouted, reopening his eyes to stare down at the forest floor. "You've gotta warn me before you change! I already feel bad about before…"
Amya finished pulling on her new t-shirt and popped out from behind the tree she'd hid behind a few seconds ago.
"Whoops! Sorry, I thought this tree covered me up pretty well."
Jeff placed the final piece of paper in the crafting grid and shifted to a more comfortable standing position, confusion starting to set in. He'd placed the nine required slips for what he wanted to make and yet it refused to yield the item. Amya came up behind him and peeked at the recipe he was using, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.
"What're you trying to make?" she asked, looking up at him.
Jeff sniffed away the itch in his nose and replied,
"Well, I was hoping to make a map, but I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong here…"
Amya laughed out loud, startling Jeff and causing him to jump to the side. She took over at the head of the crafting table and reached over with one of her two small arms, placing a forefinger on top of the middlemost paper.
"You're supposed to put a compass in the center, ya noob!"
Jeff just barely cocked his head, making a face as he tried to understand what she'd just said. What in the Overworld was a "noob?" Amya removed piece of paper in the center and handed it to a Jeff that was deep in thought, then glanced down at her hotbar and pursed her lips.
"Let's see…okay, so I don't have a compass on me, how about you?"
At the back end of the clearing, Evan raised a fist and yelled,
"I've got a compass!"
Both of them rotated in place to look at the zombie. He did, in fact, have what looked like an oddly-colored compass clutched in his fingers. He smiled and got down from the four stone blocks, walking towards them casually.
"Okay, so this is a long story, but there was a huge fight between two of our biggest, baddest soldiers about a month ago. Apparently, one of them had stolen this compass from the Mistress, who then got it stolen from the other guard, and so that's what caused them to beat each other up day after day. One day, it escalated pretty far and they both ended up re-killing each other, so the compass just got left in one of the cells. And lucky me, I had my very first shift of indoor patrol that same day, so I ended up finding the compass and taking it for myself."
Once he'd crossed the space, he passed the dented, black and white compass to Jeff, who in turn passed it to Amya. She lifted it over the table and dropped it square in the center space. The four of them waited for a few seconds, watching the separate square for some sign of success. Unfortunately for them, and to Jeff's dismay, absolutely nothing happened. Evan crossed his arms, his bow dangling beneath them.
"Huh…well, that's too bad! …to be honest, I just took this with me so I could have a souvenir! The Mistress never EVER let us have much of our own besides weapons, so it was—"
Just before he could finish his statement, the crafting table gave a violent jolt in place and blasted out a wave of pure energy, sending each of them flying back ten blocks. Jeff landed on the ground with a painful grunt and sat up, pushing against the invisible force to see what was going on. Pulses of black and white aura issued from the wooden block, bouncing it up into the air with each. Jeff turned to see Amya struggling not to fall back into the pond were JB had landed while Evan was knocked out cold on the other side, lying eagle-spread on the rocks.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" he screamed, getting Amya to look at him.
"HOW WOULD I KNOW?! WH-WHOAWHOAWHAAH!" she shouted back, falling onto JB in the water.
A black and white glow enveloped the crafting table, expanding at a rapid pace until Jeff himself was covered in its black half. He squinted in the darkness, the powerful wind making his eyes water. Then, just as his eyelids closed shut, one last wave shot out of the block, knocking him flat on his back and eliminating the aura in the immediate area. He coughed and wheezed, struggling to regain his breath. When he did, he sat up with even more jerkiness than he had before, just barely managing to get to his feet. He shuffled over to the crafting table, which had returned to its normal state, and leaned on its edge, staring down at the new something it had just created.
"Oh my Notch…" he murmured, putting a shaking hand on the yielding square and grasping the item.
It was a map. Not just any map, however, for he could easily see the black and white shimmer than flowed through it every other second, much like an enchanted weapon, tool, or armor piece. Underneath the shiny coating was a mirror-like surface showing the surrounding area, though unlike any other map he'd seen before, this particular one showed for THOUSANDS of blocks in every direction; he could see the forest, the fallen tower, the beach that apparently sat beyond it, a distant mountain range, a VERY distant desert, and even the entire monster of a jungle behind them! As he was taking it all in, his eyes wandered to the transparent lettering that hovered above the paper.
"The Master Map…" Jeff whispered to himself.
He glanced back at Evan, who was still totally out cold.
"What kind of compass was that…?"
And then he glanced back down at the map. Immediately, something else caught his eye that wiped his thoughts clean of any confusion or wonder that remained. In the corner of the map, a strange black blot had appeared past the that beach they hadn't quite gotten to. He hadn't noticed it seconds earlier, but there it was.
"Hm…wei—"
But Jeff wasn't even able to finish his word before the map changed, silencing him. The black block grew a second time, though ever so slightly. He waited a few tense seconds, staring wide-eyed at it. Just as he thought, the smudge got bigger yet, enough where it was touching the edge of the sandy seaside.
"Um…" was all he said, his head recoiling slowly from the glowy map.
Seconds later, the blot grew again, eating away at the edge of the beach. Then he glanced across the expansive forest and to the spot where they stood. Thankfully, back when Jeff was in school they offered map-reading classes and he could tell just how many blocks he was away from something. Using any remaining knowledge he had left, he took into account the sheer size of this particular map and guessed that they were…about…
"Um, UM!" he said again, a sudden sense of urgency tugging at his stomach.
He turned on his heel and ran to Amya and JB, who were simultaneously hoisting themselves up out of the pond at the moment, and grabbed either of their hands, pulling them out with newfound strength. Amya almost toppled back into the water from the rough getup.
"Whoa, hey! What's wrong now?" she cried, staring at him.
Jeff gestured for them to both follow him as he ran along the left rim of the pool to Evan. As he was picking him up off the stone, he craned his neck back to look at the two and said,
"Listen, I'm not sure what kind of compass Evan was carrying around, but it made a map that can see way, way past the usual distance of a normal, everyday map! And it's changing by the second! The Glitch is coming from the south, I know it! We have to MOVE!"
JB's legs jumpstarted and he jutted forward, following Jeff's path and joining him next to Evan.
"Holy porkchops! I thought the Glitch was trapped in the Void!"
Jeff shook his head, gritting his teeth as he struggled to lift a lifeless Evan onto his weakened back using equally weakened arms.
"That's what being cooped up in the jungle all your life will do to you, Johnny…"
JB took Evan's legs, leaving Jeff to carry the rest of him. Amya came up behind them and jumped into view to get their attention.
"What's happening, now?"
"The Glitch is coming and we need to get as far away as possible. Otherwise we'll be sucked up and…and erased!" Jeff told her, shuddering at the thought.
Tag teaming the young zombie's weight, the man and boy duo made their way across the rest of the clearing and then hit the jungle floor, hopping as fast as they could over leaf blocks and elevating dirt platforms to run from whatever the hell that thing was that was now chasing them. As they ran over the top of a low-grown jungle tree, JB readjusted his grip on Evan's grimy iron boots and shouted,
"Wait, I know where we need to go!"
Jeff looked back at him for a split second and exclaimed,
"Me too! IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION!"
He shook his head once and shouted back against the rushing air that blew through the severely overgrown vegetation surrounding them.
"No! If it's the Glitch, I'm sure we won't just be able to outrun it! We need to go back to Matilda's house! I think she might have some obsidian we can use to build a Nether portal!"
"You THINK?" cried Jeff, a great amount of disbelief in his voice.
"It's our best chance, wouldn't you say?!"
If he was being honest with himself, Jeff knew that he didn't have any other choice but to trust him. He looked back a second time and simply nodded, giving him the signal to turn. The two of them redirected their run and bolted left, almost making Amya trip over the next block from the lack of warning.
"Hey, why'd we turn all of a sudden?!" she shouted, her hands cupped to her mouth so her voice would carry over the powerful wind.
"We're going to a friend's house!" replied JB.
Just as thankful as JB was that Jeff was trusting him, he still wished that he could've actually gotten a look at the map and seen for himself what was going on…oh well. Jeff seemed like a truthful guy.
The Mastermind sat up in his seat suddenly, staring up at the ceiling of his room as he tried to understand what was happening. He'd just felt a random burst of adrenaline smacked him right in the gut. That was a feeling he only ever had when something of his own creation was being used or damaged or abused in some way. Thankfully, he was always able to decipher exactly what was going on in a matter of seconds…now was no exception.
"The Master Compass has been stolen by someone else, has it?" he muttered, crossing his lanky arms, which had been reduced to their usual slender size. "And re-crafted?! …heeheeheehee…heeheeheeheeHEEHEEHEE! Oh, how is THAT a thing?!"
He outstretched his hand and declared,
"Ridere! Clamatis! Come!"
The black and white serpents slithered swiftly into the throne room and stood at full height for only a moment before twisting into a living staff, which the Mastermind grasped in his hand and walked out the open doorway with. He made his way across the checkered floor to the left of the two exits to his temple and strolled on out into the forest. Now that he was outside, he could hear the distant cries and yells coming from the distant clearing; Vanessa must still be training.
He snapped his fingers and summoned a Televortex in front of him, which he promptly stepped through. Deep inside the inter-inter-dimension it held, he walked casually past the floating mob of wind hands, who all waved cheerfully at him.
"Good late afternoon to you, fellas!" he said cheerfully, removing his jester hat and tipping it to them.
At the other end of the floorless space, he exited the other portal and landed on grass. Sure enough, he saw Vanessa about thirty blocks away, racing up the slime block tower with great speed and precise movements. Even with his extremely long legs, the Mastermind hadn't even reached the bottom of the spire before she was sitting at its tip. High in the air, Vanessa raised her hands and shouted,
"Ha-HA! I can't believe I'm doing this!"
He smiled at her enthusiasm…so many memories.
"Hey, Bookshelf!" he shouted, his voice resonating clearly throughout the entire area. "Come on down! I've got one more test for you before you're truly at peak physical form!"
Vanessa came sliding noisily down the slippery tower moments later. When she landed, she curled her fists and positively beamed with energy.
"What is it? Whatever it takes, I'll do it! I…I'll become the next Rexum!"
The Mastermind snickered and ruffled her hair with a Disney-style gloved hand, saying,
"Remember, you still have to do this without using your magic…or any future vision."
Vanessa's grin shrunk a little as she tried to assess what her master was trying to say.
"Er…wait, what do you mean by that? I don't have future vision. Mark had it after he fought your monster a while ago, but…"
Her eyes widened and she lifted her head, meeting the Mastermind's oddball eyes. His little scheme had worked—the one to make her guess her final task, of course.
"Oh…"
The Mastermind put a hand on her shoulder and snapped the fingers of his other, transporting the two of them back to the Temple of Day and Night. In the main room was empty except for the two of them, which Vanessa was aware would quickly be changed. Her master let go of her, setting her at the middle of the back wall and started to walk away from her, the sound of his staff hitting the floor echoing across all four faces of the room.
"Vanessa, I allowed my "monster" to give your brother the ability to see moments into the future. It saved his life more times than anyone can count…except me, obviously." he noted, and Vanessa rolled her eyes. "This time, however, you will be fighting it, only any cuts it gives you will not be giving you an extra power. They'll just be plain ol' wounds and wears!"
All of a sudden, Vanessa's confidence started to disappear inside her. She hadn't actually been asked to fight anything yet, so this challenge truly worried her. She tried to think of what Rexum did when he first faced the floaty, breezy creature. She liked to imagine that he was just as scared as she felt now. At the other end of the room, the Mastermind lifted both hands, staff in one, and shouted right at the wall.
"SUNSHADOW!" he called. "I HAVE A NEW CHALLENGER FOR YOU!"
Vanessa looked up and gasped as the spirit in question materialized in front of her, shifting constantly in its gaseous form. While its tail waved rhythmically from side to side, the two black and white eyes flashed brightly in a random pattern, glowing with an unchecked inner rage. It raised its two curled hands and let out a screech, which shook Vanessa's entire body where she stood.
"Let's see how you fare against him!" the Mastermind said aloud, slamming his serpentine staff on the woolen floor and causing the floor to ripple. "But first, allow me to arm you with something a bit more useful than just your fists!"
He twirled the twisty tool around in his hands, creating a silver tornado that blew right past Sunshadow and stopped in front of Vanessa. When it dissipated, a long, rough, lightweight piece fell into her hands. She only opened her eyes when the strong winds in the room stopped pounding on her eyelids, but when she looked down her eyes widened in shock.
It was a hand-crafted, wooden walking stick glittering with chunks of gold, measuring in at almost a block and a half in length. What quickly caught her attention was the crack at its middle, giving it the look that it had once been broken but was now mended again to carry on its original purpose. Immediately, Vanessa recognized the object for what it really was…
It was Rexum's staff.
Sunshadow soared forward with unimaginable speed and slashed at Vanessa with its black and white claws, who was hit straight in the chest and flung back twenty blocks. She almost hit the wall, but managed to slow her roll down before she did. She leapt to her feet as she saw the monster floating towards her and jumped out of the way of its next attack. She had never fought anything without magic before, let alone get to use REXUM'S STAFF! This was awwwwwwesome!
Did this mean in the future she'd be able to use her book AND the staff?! That'd be even MORE awesome!
Sunshadow nearly cut her hand off, but she was able to raise her arm before that happened and turn on her heel, jumping directly at the monster and swinging the golden oak. She landed just one hit on the spirit's center, where she recognized to be its only physical, tangible piece, and sent it flying across the room. It passed through the Mastermind, who hardly flinched at all at this, and then disappeared into thin air. Moments later, it screeched behind her and she whirled around in time to lift up her staff and block a blow.
While he watched Vanessa and Sunshadow go at it, either one just as fierce as the other, the Mastermind giggled and leaned on his own staff, squishing the two snake's heads underneath his oversized fingers. Again, he began to have flashbacks with his old friend; he could see himself training him as a young boy, getting him ready for the rather cruel and unfunny world he would soon be protecting. All the Mastermind could do at the time was teach him the power of a good sense of a humor had in the darkest of times…
The Mastermind suddenly froze as a strange waved of energy flowed through him. He didn't recognize it right away, which was instantly worrying to him; it didn't come from Sunshadow, nor Vanessa, nor whoever it was that was messing with his creations…no, someone or someTHING was outside the temple and searching for them.
He sighed through his nose and quickly conjured up an image of himself inside his own brain, picturing every last detail of his gloriously handsome figure. Once he had it perfect, he outstretched his hands and walked backwards, leaving behind a projection of himself to stand there and watch Vanessa for him. Now that he had that taken care of, he wouldn't have to raise any suspicion by being seen gone from the room by his new student.
He tossed his staff from hand to hand as he left the structure and stepped foot into the wild. He glanced left and right, scanning as far as his sun and moon eyes could possibly see in every direction, even making his head spin around backwards to get a full 360-degree angle. To his surprise, he saw absolutely nothing. When his head returned to facing forward, however, he tensed and held his weapon in both hands, bracing himself for whatever powerfully magical monster had decided to appear.
Perhaps it was one of the Glitch's old mutants? Or one of the rejected ones? Either way, he knew he'd have to take it out, because it definitely reeked of glitchy plasmatic energy. He watched in awe as the wall of trees in front of him gave a great swell, the wood pulsing beneath its bark. Moments later, a white glow appeared underneath the rough skin of the trees and pulsated again. It repeated the action several times, the glow becoming brighter at each.
"Come on out, little devil! Eeheeheehee!" the Mastermind shouted, wielding his staff at the jungle trees.
Not a second after he said this, the wall exploded with a bright light and a massive gob of white plasma burst through it, falling to the floor. Just barely, the Mastermind could make out wings crumpled just underneath it. Instantly, he lowered his staff and ran forward a couple steps, kneeling down and extending a hand.
"Good grief!" he cried, his eyes wide with astonishment. "Salutem, is that really you? You must have done some masterful work on disguising your code; I could've sworn you were one of the Glitch's hench-viruses!"
Sure enough, one of the mass's wings reached up and wrapped around his arm, pulling the entire shifting shape to a less droopy position. Now he could see the intense monochromatic blue of its two eyes and gaping mouth. This was him, alright!
"Mastermind," Salutem gasped despite not really requiring air to live. "I've got almost no time to explain myself, so I've got to try and sum it all up for you!"
The Mastermind waved his hands nonchalantly and stretched one of his two lanky arms around the blob of pure white plasma, squishing it together when he bent his elbow.
"Hey, pal, don't feel so hurried! Why don't you come on in to the temple and take a breather, huh? You can join me in watching my new trainee get the code beaten out of her by Sunshadow! Heeheehee…"
Salutem expanded suddenly, forcefully removing the jester's arm from his body. He lifted both wings and pressed them on either of his arms, almost shaking him to snap him out of his constant joking mood.
"There's no time for any of that!" he whispered feverishly. "I've been on the run from the Glitch's viruses for weeks now and I only finally managed to lose them entirely! You know what would happen if it managed to absorb me; it'd only have one last piece to acquire before reaching its ultimate form!"
The Mastermind rolled his eyes and replied,
"Yeah, the jerk would only need to grab the Arabaloca, then. But still, brother! If you lost its cronies, what's the rush now?"
"The layers of this dimension are destabilizing as we speak, Mastermind…" Salutem said, his piercing blue eyes wide with fear. "Buenomalo has resurfaced from the Void and merged with the Overworld! You've been hiding away in your jungle for far too long, for clearly it looks to be that you honestly were not aware of this occurrence."
The Mastermind raised a finger to object, but Salutem merely cut him off with a snap of his wing and continued.
"And now the Nether is leaking into the Overworld bit by bit! Sooner or later, the End as well! Perhaps even the Aether will fall out of the sky and flatten us all! By the time the Arabaloca arrives, there will BE no separate dimensions, only one disgusting mess of four others! This is all happening thanks to my counterpart's recent increase in mass, of course, and it is now sending waves of its plasma to ravage every bit of the Overworld until its dimensional fabric is completely GONE! Don't you recall what happened to that one ocean where the Glitch put its fourth mutant years ago?"
The Mastermind was barely able to keep up with the nervous wreck. He'd never seen Salutem, who, by the way, was a god-level being of regenerative and restorative power, so afraid of the future. He removed the two wings squeezing his sides and said,
"Alright, keep your nonexistent pants on! Where's the plasma waves right now?"
Salutem closed his eyes and gave a metallic-sounding sigh.
"I suppose you will see in just an hour if we do not vacate immediately. Tell me, Mastermind…have you ever had a desire to visit the Plasma Realm? Because if not, then FOLLOW ME!"
I was hoping you'd all have flashbacks to 23 chapters ago when Mason and Bailey were trying to escape the plasma waves as well...yea? Nay? Just checking!
BY THE WAY, EVERYONE! For those of you wondering about King Boo vs Doopliss, I've been working out some technical glitches with the camera movements and capturing the darn fight, so I'll be putting out another test animation with more Shovel Knight characters just to hold you guys over until the main event is up and working properly! Sound good? ALRIGHT! XD
Is it possible that Matilda still has some obsidian left in her hut? Will Jeff, Amya, JB, and the now-unconscious Evan even be able to make it there alive? Will Vanessa be beat to a literal pulp by Sunshadow? And WHO truly expected to see Salutem make it all this way without being caught by the Glitch's scouts?! Find out next time on a brand-new installment of Hourglass!
This is Pastrinator64, your fellow writer and reader, signing out!
*throws sugar bomb and disappears behind its cloud of fine white sugar*
...Goodbye for now...
~Pastrinator64 [~]