Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with a slightly late chapter from Hourglass!
Yes, I'm aware it's been a week. In the grand scheme of things, that probably isn't too bad. Considering my past record with this book, it's REALLY good! XD But seriously, I'm working as hard as I can to churn out as many chapters before I'm gone on my two-week vacation...away from FanFiction. My dad's just recently decided to push us kids to find productivity in every day we live this summer, so...sometimes I don't have the choice to stay and keep writing. I think my goal now is to finish before next school year! Now THAT is achievable!
I suppose that's enough time for ten more chapters, eh? Might end up being fifteen, actually...something in between, how 'bout it? ;)
Replies to Reviews...
Airas Slayer: Honestly, I'd be TERRIFIED of a wolf whisperer! I imagine getting eaten by giant spiders or shot to death by skeletons would be the absolute worst, but to me there's something especially horrifying about being ripped apart by vicious, rabid, man-eating wolves... *shudder*
Marshman101: Oh, you just wait and see... *evil laugh*
Pixelized Pikale and Company: Actually, a few days ago I stumbled upon the channel that uploads all those Undertale remixes. XD I liked most of them, but the Bonetrousle one was kinda meh. My utter FAVORITE piece of electro swing is called "Cosmorot" by an artist named Dunderpatrullen. PUH-LEASE search it up on YouTube! I'm telling you, it's the greatest music on the Earth.
And hey, thanks for making that effort to catch up! Hopefully, with me being away for a whole week now, I've given you some more time! ^^'
Now, let the story commence!
Chapter 39: Terrifying Inside and Out
Tens of pigs soared through the air in every direction as the ground beneath them exploded violently, a deafening amount of squeals filling the air. In an aura of silver, Norman and Astrid rose past the surface and hovered over to a piece of the road they hadn't yet broken. When they landed, Norman looked over at her and said,
"It's a good thing you spotted that secret room, Astrid. Shatter feels SO much nicer in my hands than that Wither sword I stole."
Astrid nodded once and then pointed off in the distance, her finger shaking slightly.
"Norman, now's not the time to be talking about that! You need to check this thing out!"
Norman turned his head in the same direction she pointed and immediately felt his jaw drop. Stumbling forward, one slow step at a time, was a beast that he could only describe as a physical culmination of every living person's nightmares. From a distance, it was a walking 150-block-tall wall of different shades of red, brown, black, and green. When he took as close of a look as his eyes could manage, however, he was horrified to see that this mass was made up completely of glitching mob parts. Heads, feet, and torsos of different mobs were all stuck together on its throbbing body, keeping it in a permanent shapeless form. On the outer rim of his vision, he spotted its boss tag floating high above it.
Baal Reincarnation. HP of 4,000.
"Oh God…" Norman murmured, his stomach churning at the sight of it.
Just then, the goliath lifted itself up and revealed two stubby legs beneath its sickening figure, letting out the same amalgamation of sounds he'd heard underground, only this time it was amplified as it bounced off of the many swaying pink structures around them. It reared as it let out this horrible cry and suddenly extended two more stubby arms from either side, both of which came forward and broke apart the two buildings that stood in its way.
Pigs all the way from a hundred blocks down came flying at Norman and Astrid, causing Norman to raise Shatter in front of him and create another magnetic barrier. As each of the hogs bounced off the shield, he saw a tiny spark of broken code emit from the impact point. He watched these shards of white fall to the floor and sizzle away on top of the other pigs who remained cemented in the road, still unable to flee for their lives.
"That explains how all these pigs have been keeping together." said Norman, letting the magnetic shield down when the last of pig passed them. "Only an admin's command could've made a city of pigs possible! It does look like somebody broke through it, though."
"NORMAN, WATCH IT!"
Suddenly, Astrid's arm came into view in his vision and her body collided roughly with his, knocking them both five blocks across the road and onto the street. Just a couple ticks later, a large vendor cart block smashed into the ground where they had been standing, scattering even more frightened swine. Norman and Astrid both got up off the ground and steadied themselves, raising their weapons at the mob monstrosity that was lumbering in their direction. After finally taking all of its grotesque splendor, Norman turned to Astrid and asked,
"Got any ideas on how we should approach taking out its 4,000 hit points? Its 2,000 hearts of health?"
Astrid took a sharp intake of breath, showing that she—for once—wasn't really confident about entering a fight with another Unforgiven Spawn.
"I dunno!" she shouted, shrugging uselessly. "I just wish I hadn't lost Bailey and Kelsey and Carol and Sabrina! It'd be nice if Darcy, Auconi, Adrian, and Al were also here, because then it'd be…what, it'd be ten of us against this thing instead of just us two?"
Norman was about to question her on the last time she saw the others, but then something else from her response caught his attention.
"Um, who are Carol and Sabrina?"
"OHMYGODIDON'TWANNADIEEEEE!"
"Carol, quit screaming. You're kinda scaring m—"
"SABRINA, WE'RE SO SCREWED RIGHT NOW!"
"Would you chickies just STOP yammering, already?! You're givin' me a real knock on the head with all your shrieking! I promise you'll all be just fine as long as Darcy Lava's 'ere to keep ya company!"
"Darcy, just stop. This is not the time!"
The four misfit teenagers had only just come awake inside the belly of the beast a minute ago and one of their members was already cracking from the freakish visuals. The inside of Baal Reincarnate, they'd unfortunately found, was a twisting, turning labyrinth of muscly, mob-faced tunnels that went on and on and on. It was almost like the inside was designed specifically to corrupt the minds of any unlucky souls who still found themselves alive inside the monster.
Auconi had been the first to wake up; the moment he caught sight of their prison, he unearthed his diamond sword from his hotbar and sliced open the wall of monster bones that was keeping them imprisoned, woke up the others, and proceeded to lead them all into the following exit tunnel. Unfortunately, there legitimately seemed to be no end to the maze, and so they just continued to wander onward.
"I'm freakin' out, guys. I'm really freakin' out! I'll never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, eh-HEVER unsee this shit!" Carol whimpered, wincing as one of the Creepers embedded in the wall next to her let out a hiss. "I thought I was already too messed up to be phased by anything, but THIS IS JUST TOO MUCH AND I JUST CAN'T—"
Sabrina grabbed her by the hand mid-run and squeezed it, halting her words.
"I'm scared too, but I'm not about to give up and die like this…that would be the suckiest end to anyone's life…" she said, putting on as comforting of a voice as she could muster. "Ugh…this is just like a nightmare I had a few nights ago…"
The four of them exited the skinny hallway after a sharp right turn, entering a much larger chamber. The faces of the room were similar to the last, the place positively coated in misplaced mob pieces. In the center of the room, however, there hung a massive pole of ebony blocks that let off a black dust at every rumble that went on around them. Darcy walked up to the unusual structure and placed his hand on it, brushing off some of the dark particles with his finger. And then he…tasted the stuff.
"Darcy, what in the Overworld are you doing?!" cried Auconi, waving his sword.
Darcy spat the black powder out of his mouth and turned to the others, muttering,
"See this, mates? These are all bone blocks. Wither bone blocks, in fact!"
Auconi crossed his arms and replied,
"Bone blocks, Darcy? C'mon, those are just—"
"Mods?" he interrupted, grinning slightly. "Yea, they are. But honestly, we've seen a billion oddball things on our journey together; why're you questioning any of this now?"
Darcy turned back to the column of murky blocks and knocked on them lightly, adding,
"We're all still alive, aren't we? If we want to get out of here and still be kicking, we're not gonna have any chance of getting out through the tunnels. If we can find a way to kill this bludger from the inside, we might just be able to escape with our lives!"
Carol let out a short sob behind them, holding Sabrina's hand even tighter than before. Almost painfully so!
"We might live?" she whimpered, shaking her head and staring through the dead sockets of a Creeper skull below her. "Oh my God, this really is it…"
Auconi, on the other hand, felt his heart jump slightly at the word "kill." He stepped forward a bit and nudged Darcy's side, grabbing his attention.
"If this is the route we're really going, then I sure wish that Kirby and Hugo were still around. I can only imagine the looks on their faces when I came back hauling the carcass of…hell, never mind! I'm not exactly sure how I'd drag this whole beast out to show them. Anyway, what do you think we should do, exactly? Go up or down? Brain or heart? We've got two choices!" he said, letting himself consider the options as well.
Darcy glanced skyward at the hole that surrounded Baal Reincarnate's dusky spinal cord.
"I say up!" he decided aloud, and gripped one of the jutting bone blocks above him. "There's a direct passage if we go up, plus we can at least see what's hurling for us!"
Auconi blinked once. Then twice, and looked over at Darcy as he started to climb.
"Hurling?"
Darcy just rolled his eyes and continued to ascend, saying,
"What's coming up next, you fruit loop! Come now, that was some pretty simple lingo I just spat there!"
As the cocky Australian started to climb, so did Auconi. These bone blocks had lots of little divots in their natural structure, making it just easy enough to climb on. He could do without the disgusting black soot that had instantly dried up his palms and face upon contact, but that wasn't really something he could control. Once he was three blocks off the ground, he remembered their other two party members and looked down over his shoulder, gazing at the two shaking girls still waiting silently below. After a brief moment of staring, he said,
"Y'know, I'm not at all like Darcy. I'll tell you this right now: either you die scared, secluded, and surrounded by a bunch of messed-up monster faces, or you come with us and die fighting! Hey, we might even have a small chance of survival after we're through in here! …but whatever, it's your choice!"
With that, he continued to climb the spinal cord. Just one more block up, he stopped again and suddenly felt a tiny bit of remorse. He removed all his armor but his grandfather's leather boots, tossing the other three diamond pieces down at their feet. This made both of them jump, though not as high as when a pair of iron swords clattered off the skeleton's ribcage lying in front of them.
"You guys need it more than I do!" he called, returning to his ascent up the ashy structure. "If there're any more monsters up ahead, you won't be able to distract them with cleavage or cute bellybuttons. So, I'd better cover up!"
Norman and Astrid approached Baal Reincarnate with confidence, their weapons at the ready. Thanks to the city's code being broken, a cluster of a four hundred pigs or so would come hurtling at them every ten seconds, a building being destroyed the moment the Unforgiven Spawn laid a misshapen limb on it; Norman would simply swat in the flying formation's direction, effortlessly scattering the animals out of their way as they trekked forward. In just a minute, they were less than fifty blocks from the base of the slug-like abomination.
"Remember, Astrid," he said, tapping her lightly with Shatter's spade. "Until the others show up, we just need to keep chipping away at its health. As long as it can't regenerate like Revelation's Horse could, we should be able to do this! Are you ready?"
"If it's the only way…yeah, I guess I am!" she replied, giving a sad little chuckle. "Oh, boy! This is gonna be a long fight!"
With just twenty blocks of space left, they both leapt into action. Norman slammed Shatter's head into the ground and rocketed up into the air, soaring over a hundred blocks over the ground and landing heavily on top of the Unforgiven Spawn's shoulder. He stabbed his spade into the floor of mob flesh and punctured it, sending a magnetic shockwave that blasted through the top layer. He dodged a flying array of bones that came out of the hole, proceeding to jab just a few blocks away and open up another crack it its exterior.
He repeated the process five more times, each strike of his more forceful than the last. The seconds he felt like his limbs needed a brief break, he shot a glance skyward, checking its health bar. He was shocked to only to see a few pixels' worth of the purple disappear.
"28 damage after that?!" he cried, eyes widening. "Then its defense has got to be almost six or—"
Norman was interrupted as something grabbed onto his leg and started to pull him to the floor. Instinctively, he whirled around and speared Shatter down below, hearing an unidentifiable mob let out its last breath. Just as he looked to see what had grappled him, a much larger limb wrapped around his armor and tugged aggressively. When he turned around this time, he saw a twitchy Ghast tendril extending out of the living floor.
He responded immediately, slicing it in half with an effortful grunt. Soon, all different limbs and jaws were unearthing themselves from the goliath's shoulder, all attacking him with the little energy they still possessed. Considering the entire boss was a scramble of these, Norman quickly discovered that there was an insane quantity of things trying to make him one with the monster. Even so, he continued to be as destructive as he possibly could, stabbing, jabbing, and smashing with all his might.
Stranded on the ground, Astrid repeatedly bounced forward and backward, slashing at the base of the monster as it half-crawled half-slithered onward. She tore through one mob piece with each swipe, disintegrating a couple wiggling Creeper feet, an Enderman head, a Shulker shell, and the swollen eye of an Elder Guardian in her first twenty seconds. She had to be equally as careful as Norman was being, making sure that she too was on her toes so as not to be steamrolled by the beast. Still, as she looked up at the boss tag far, far above her, she could see no difference being made by her own efforts.
"Man, this thing is DENSE!" she shouted, jumping back again as Baal Reincarnation crept forward. "Maybe if the others were here, it'd look like we're making some legit progress, I mean seriously!"
She let out a surprised cry as one of the pigs underneath her bit her ankle, tripping her up and almost causing her to get crushed by the oncoming monster. As she regained her balance, she thought,
"C'mon, you guys! Where are you?!"
Serisdo the Second paced the hourglass-covered floor at a quick pace, shaking his head simultaneously as he tried to come up with a worthy excuse for Froace. The Ultra Hero released him two and a half days ago and yet he had the audacity to not show up right away at the Palace of 0. And now that he could feel his younger Spirit brother's presence approaching his home dimension, it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to not become angry and act irrationally. He had certainly warned Farixz of his ill intentions upon Froace's return, so hopefully their eldest could help him when he lost control.
"Hellooooo, brothers! I have returned!"
If Serisdo had teeth, he certainly would have gritted them.
With the sweep of one ribbony wing, he twirled around and headed for the silver double doors at the front wall to the room. He was greeted with a very short hallway in his transition past the doors, which he advanced upon slowly. As he allowed his inner turmoil to really sink in, he ever so slightly made his way to the next set. He stopped before the gate and folded his wings, sighing heavily and bowing his head.
"Stay calm. Calm…no emotion…"
He lifted his pair to the handle-less doors and pushed them open lightly, entering the grand throne room. Immediately, he was greeted with the sight of Farixz at the base of his towering chair, hovering silently in place as he watched Froace approach from across the room. Their brother's wings were extended far to either side, leaving him void of any antagonism as he glided toward Farixz.
"Farixz! I am so glad to see you after all these years!"
Farixz stayed where he was, replying softly,
"Likewise, Froace…however, I truly would have preferred it if you just heeded my earlier calls and returned when I first asked you. Perhaps all the simplistic, mindless joys of the 64th Dimension have blinded you, for the Glitch is at yet another point of severe advantage at the current time. It has only two items left to claim before it can assume its final form and continue on its destruction of the universe. If we cannot at least direct Arabaloca away from Minecraftia, then it will only have Salutem left to consume!"
Froace let out an airy sigh and lowered his wings, simultaneously slowing his approach.
"I know of its current plan of action, Farixz. The virus's dimensional shopping list has never truly been far from my mind." he responded, staring down at the floor. "All the lights, the women, the money…I thought it could distract me from it all. I figured that, after what Serisdo said about our future efforts being worthless in the end, it did not really matter where I went or what I did. In my mind as well as his, we had already lost."
Serisdo almost flinched upon hearing his name spoken aloud, but he suppressed it. Instead, he continued in his forward motion and made his presence clear, gathering the eyes of both Spirits and interrupting Froace's moment of regret.
"Farixz, Froace…I should have you both know that the Ultra, Great, and spare heroes have begun their fight against the second Unforgiven Spawn. The sorceress Maria; one of her own monsters has found its way to New Pork City and taken in Baal's spirit. From what I can see, several of the members of their previous party are separated, some of them even trapped within the hellspawn."
Just as he'd finished his last sentence, Thorvon the Third burst open through a pair of doors behind the thrones. He glided briskly around them and cleared his throat upon reaching his own seat. He settled down in it softly, everyone's eyes on the creator of all emotions as he made himself comfortable. Folding a bubbling pair of wings beneath his chin, he looked around at each of them and declared,
"What's this all about the Unforgiven Spawn?"
Farixz, who currently sat at the same level as Thorvon, turned to his brother and said,
"Serisdo has just informed us that the heroes are fighting Baal Reincarnate. This beast, however, appears to be much more than just Baal was alone. He has entered the body of another amalgamate by the name of Amalgamob: the special creation of a certain Minecraftian necromancer. With this new body, it may be too much for our heroes to handle. By my calculations, there is an 86% chance that they will all succumb to fear and disable before the behemoth is killed. I am especially fearful for the Discarded…something strong within me has told me that the Glitch's spy will be claiming another life within the next few hours."
Thorvon gained a look of alertness and near grief, leaning toward their eldest and replying,
"You're absolutely sure about this, Farixz?" his brother nodded in response, only deepening the fear inside him. "Well then…which of the four Discarded that remain do you suppose it will choose?"
Farixz turned away from Thorvon and took a moment to stare down the expanse of the grand room. Along his gaze, he noticed that Serisdo and Froace were both staring at him with baited breath. As terrible as this possibility was, they were very much prepared to hear his answer. After five more seconds of pure silence, Farixz set his wings down in his lap and muttered,
"The one whose hands are frigid like ice but carries with her a heart warmer than any other."
Look at that last line...just think about it. ;) Huehuehuehuehuehuehuehuehuehueh! I'm such a terrible person. XD
Will Norman and Astrid be able to make a mark on Baal Reincarnate's surprisingly tough exterior? Will Carol be able to stop herself from passing out inside of the monster? And will Serisdo ever be able to forgive Froace for all the reckless behavior in his past? Find out NEXT time on 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 [~]