Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with another exciting chapter from Hourglass!
GOOD TO BE BACK! XD Thanks for being patient with me, everybody! As I said earlier, I've been gone for over two weeks because of service trips and family vacations and whatnot, so I've been away from FanFiction for the most part. However, I HAVE been writing over these breaks in my notebook, so that's why it's possible that I'm even getting this chapter out to you today! I always do get the best ideas when I'm far away from home. ^^
Replies To Reviews...
Marshman101: Dude, Ben is the EVIL one! The virus! ADRIAN is the actual good guy here! Ben was put inside of him since the beginning and has forced him to do a ton of terrible things! ...I hope you're not rooting for Ben, because then you're just as evil as I am when I write chapters like, well...this one here. Heheheheheheheh...
Just a heads up, this chapter is actually half of what Chapter 41 was originally going to be. Since it ended up being so long, I decided to split it into 3,000-ish word segments rather than a 6.5k nightmare of a chapter. Sound good? Alright!
Now, let the story commence!
Chapter 41: The Last Tower Standing
"Before we get back to fighting this boss," began Kelsey, eyeing Baal Reincarnate with a look of apprehension, "can I say something kinda weird?"
Norman cracked his neck and back, still wincing after his awkward landing. He took the needed time to look at her and respond,
"Yeah, what's that?" he said, getting to his feet and walking along the ruptured, crumbling sea of swine to retrieve his weapon.
Kelsey stayed on the ground, rubbing the head of a wounded pig lying in front of her. She pursed her lips, letting out a slow breath through her nose before continuing to talk.
"Well, whenever you see to be in trouble, I get this image of Mark in your place and just sorta…I dunno, I just do whatever needs to be done to save you, I guess. Like I said, it's really weird and so I apologize for, um—"
"No, it's okay!" Norman interrupted, spotting the wooden handle of his spade a second later. "I'm not the most empathetic of people, especially after all the things that I've seen over the years, but…when it comes to instinct out of pure love, I've still got it in me. My children are both gone, possibly forever, but I still have those feelings of protection for them all the time. Every hour."
He bent down in place and gripped Shatter's non-deadly end, wrenching it out of the pinkish floor.
"I know just how much you love him, Kelsey." Norman laughed, shouldering his spade and turning around to face her with a joking smile on his face. "Sometimes I even think that you love him even more than I do!"
Kelsey chuckled lightly along with him, still slightly embarrassed but pretty much soothed out of it. She glanced over at the monster once more, groaning through clenched teeth as she caught sight of the faces of so, so many innocent mobs all scrunched together. She'd never seen so much suffering at one time and it was truly…disturbing.
"Y'know, I'm wondering now…" she muttered, steadying herself with a spare pickaxe Norman had given her a minute ago and standing up. "In the middle of all this, while we're on the outside fighting Baal Reincarnate, do you think any of the people who got lost…I mean, like Auconi and them; do you think they just got eaten and are literally inside it as we speak?"
Darcy was the first to reach the skull; he poked his head through the opening in its floor and glanced around at all the expanding emptiness of the inside. Its cranium was a cubical room of pure skeletons, all the walls, the floor, and the ceiling being constructed of thousands of fused mob bones. When he looked straight up, he saw that the spinal cord they were climbing gradually slimmed out near the top until it stopped completely in the center of the room. Sitting on top of it was a cluster of four electric blue blocks that glowed and pulsed, filling the entire room with a cyan light. With a single grunt, Darcy lifted his armored self up out of the hole and took his stance on the warped floor, eyeing up those four center blocks with interest.
"So that's the bugger's brain, huh? Bit of a numbnut, this one."
Auconi was next to enter the cubic chamber. He too took a moment to look up at the hellspawn's miniscule brain and couldn't help but snicker a little.
"Well, what do we do now? Mine out those blocks and kill the whole monster? Just like that?"
He equipped an iron pick from his hotbar and started to make his way back to the spinal cord—technically the brain stem at its higher end—and gained a satisfied look on his face.
"Alrighty then! For once, I'll make an exception and not question a good thing!"
When he hopped back onto the center structure, a sharp yelp was heard from below him.
"HEY! Watch where you're going, Auconi! There're still two of us down here!"
Carol slowly raised her head out of the hole and gave the new room a suspicious look around.
"What is this place?" she muttered, using her long arms to lift herself out of the crevice; this would have been made so much easier if she wasn't wearing Auconi's diamond chestplate.
Sabrina was the last of the four to make it up inside the hellspawn's skull. She was shivering in place while she stood, her arms crossed, her legs snapped together, and her teeth chattering ever so slightly.
"It's ridiculously drafty up here…" was what she had to say. "Like and old house…"
"It's fine!" called Auconi, who was now just a couple blocks from the hilariously small brain overhead. "Once all of these blocks are gone, Baal Reincarnate will just flop over and die! Then we can walk right out with no problems, one more demon down and just one left!"
As he scaled the final bone block needed to reach his goal, he added,
"I'll sure be glad to get out of this hellhole…"
Sabrina took a glance around the place, her feelings of paranoia from earlier suddenly increasing.
"Um, you guys?" she piped, rubbing her arms in an attempt to warm herself up. "Does anyone else feel that?"
Carol's eyes shot down to look at her best friend, instant fear in them as she said,
"F-feel what? You mean that feeling that death is just around the corner?"
Sabrina shook her head and replied,
"No, besides that. There's this vibration in the air, but I don't know where it's coming from. It's really making me nervous right now…"
Darcy walked up next to her, his diamond chestplate in one hand and his beige jacket in the other; his underclothes had been reduced to a mere t-shirt as of fifteen seconds ago.
"Heh! Chickie, I'd say that vibration was comin' from inside of you, seeing as how badly you're shivering! I'll start sweating like a hog if I keep wearing this, so how about you grab it instead?"
He pulled open the folds of the jacket and helped it arm by arm onto Sabrina, gifting it to her in a moment of pure gentlemanliness. Auconi tried to ignore the good deed and focus on his immediate task since he knew he'd just get jealous if he kept watching. Carol, meanwhile, put on an expression of realization and said,
"Hm, wait a minute…Sabrina's right, there's definitely something in the air in here."
By now, Auconi had positioned himself on top of the brain and was crouching over it, his pickaxe on his right shoulder and ready for digging.
"I feel it too," he declared, his voice echoing throughout the room, "but I'm positive it's just the Unforgiven Spawn's natural movement causing it. We are wandering around inside of a living, breathing, 50-story, on-the-move creature, after all!"
As Darcy was putting his chestplate back on, he froze halfway into the right sleeve. His eyes moved this way and that, totally alert; something had caught his attention.
"Auconi, mate…" he said, staring up at the brain blocks under his partner's feet. "Those blocks…that brain's been getting noticeably brighter. And that vibration, at the same time, is making itself pretty clear in the room! You wanna getting hopping on those blocks, or what?"
Atop the pillar of Wither bones, Auconi let out an airy sigh. When he was finished with said sigh, he lifted his pick and shouted,
"Sure thing, Lava! Like I said, after these are gone, we can hop right out, er whatever…"
Auconi's came down in a blur as he struck the block. Then he did it again and again and AGAIN, adding cracks with each motion. Simultaneously, every impact made on the block increased its luminescence tenfold, suddenly making the entire room all too bright for any of them.
"What in the name of Notch is up with these blocks?!" cried Auconi, using his free hand to shield his eyes.
Then, without any warning whatsoever, a powerful wave of energy flew out from the platform at all sides and swept Auconi right off his feet. He let out a short yell in his surprise and soared through the air, and then a painful grunt when he hit the unforgiving floor. Everyone but the briefly-incapacitated Auconi let out their own gasps of shock and horror when they saw what had just popped into existence on top of the Unforgiven Spawn's brain.
In the midst of his careful watch over Norman and the Discarded girl, Ben's eyes lit up suddenly. Then he left a bright, broad, mischievous smile cross his cheeks.
"Ah, I see…" he murmured, shooting a glance skyward at the fleshy, muscly, monster next to him and snickering briefly. "It looks like the heroes working on the inside have found Baal himself…I wonder how they'll fare against him?"
An abomination standing six blocks tall, wide, and long had appeared above them. It was an amalgamate with twelve hairy, spindly spider legs for a base and a torso made entirely of giant heads. It was one third toad head, one third cat head, and one third goblin head. Above this triplet was a boss tag that read "Baal."
A boss inside of another boss. How meta!
Bossception?
"Urgh…the real Unforgiven Spawn." Darcy grumbled, holding his arm out to protect Carol and Sabrina while he shielded himself with the flat of his sword. "This giant around us's like it's shell, then! Bloody fantastic defenses, I've got to say!"
Carol gulped and murmured,
"Uh, does that mean we gotta kill both bosses?"
Just then, Baal's goblin head unleashed a blood-chilling shriek and he coiled down into a pouncing position. Instinctively, Darcy grabbed both the girls and half-shoved them towards the hole in the center of the room, shouting,
"Girlies, get down! Keep yourselves out of trouble, right?"
Baal sprung forward on a moment's notice and tried to crush Darcy, who leapt out of the way just in time and started running in a circle around the room.
"Auconi!" he called, glancing over his shoulder to watch the demon that was following him. "Get off your fat date and start hacking away at the brain while I keep Three-Face here distracted!"
Baal's cat head snarled and snapped at Darcy's heels while he ran, making him occasionally jump. At one point, Darcy made a quick motion to point backwards without even looking and drenched the beast in a wall of magma. Auconi, meanwhile, had just regained his senses after having them all knocked out and sat up from the floor, hazily glancing around at his environment.
"Hmmm, whu…? Darcy?"
Darcy shot an eye up at the health bar following Baal closely and was pretty irritated to see that his lava attack had done absolutely nothing to the monster.
"Ah, so it's fireproof! Guess that makes sense for a hellspawn…" he grumbled, spinning in mid-run to slice one of the goblin head's fangs off; thankfully, this proved effective and Baal lost 10 hp. "AUCONI, DESTROY THE DAMN BRAIN, YOU FRUIT LOOP!"
Auconi shook his head and got back on his feet, repeating the shake again and again to wake himself up. His eyes eventually settled on the luminous blue blocks sitting atop the Wither bone spire. He shuffled towards it for a moment before giving his head one final wobble and breaking into a sprint, now fully conscious.
"Alright, I got it!" he exclaimed, watching Darcy's movements out of the corner of his eye.
With a grunt of effort, Auconi made a bounding leap over the hole in center-floor, momentarily startling a curious Carol—trying to nose her way into the spotlight, of course—and grappled onto the monstrous brainstem. Darcy, meanwhile, took advantage of his athletic ability and ran up the wall for three steps before jumping right over Baal's several noggins. His landing was a little rough, but he was still able to continue sprinting before Baal could tear him limb from limb.
Down inside the entry hole, Sabrina and Carol watched the ongoing progress of the boys with bated breaths, the two of them totally unsure of how to react to their current situation. As Baal passed them by, Sabrina sighed through her nose and murmured,
"Y'know, I'm suddenly remembering something from my Comparative Religions class..." Carol gave her an odd look. "…oh, not from here! I mean before we were sucked into this stupid game. Anyway, we had a project on Christian-aligned demons and I got…well, whatever that thing chasing Darcy is supposed to be."
Carol let out a short squeak when one of the hellspawn's spidery legs noisily scratched the block next to her head. She whirled around to look down at her and crouched on top of their platform, saying,
"Yeah? So, what's your point?"
"On Wikipedia, it said that the demon Baal can only take its original physical form if it consumes a being of pure evil. Somebody so nasty, so full of anger, that it could have enough fuel to come alive again. That's the only reason we can even see it right now, since Baal is technically just a spirit. Although I'm not sure how it got this giant outer shell thingy…"
Carol raised both her eyebrows and replied,
"Who do you think, besides the Glitch, is so mean-spirited that they'd allow a fucking demon to resurrect itself?!"
"CRIKEY, THAT'S DISGUSTING!"
Suddenly, a distorted kind of burp sounded not far from their position and an entire human skeleton tumbled down into the hole with them. They both girls let out involuntary shrieks of terror and shoved the slimy pile of bones off of them, letting them tumble into the darkness far below. Then, and rather unexpectedly, a single stick fell into their hole and bonked Carol's uncovered noggin. Only a couple of seconds after they'd watched it disappear, they ever so slowly lifted their heads and stared at each other with wide eyes; it was at this moment they both came to a realization.
"So THAT'S where Al went…"
"Wow!" Norman whisper-shouted, glancing over at Kelsey with an incredulous look. "Is that what actually happened? This Raven character sounds like a serious, um…something I shouldn't say."
Both of them laughed lightly—albeit awkwardly—at that last statement. Kelsey let out a brief sigh and returned her gaze to Baal Reincarnate; it had passed them by and was about ten blocks away now.
"We should really get back to fighting this thing, don't you think?" he noted, leaning on Shatter.
Kelsey huffed through her nose, her apprehension setting in once again. Still, she couldn't ignore their quest any longer, and so she started to get her bearings as she was getting to her feet.
"Yeah, we do." she replied, gritting her teeth. "And I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be!"
When she stood up to join her leader, she grinned and added,
"Thanks for talking—and, um, letting me ramble—about Mark. I'm just, y'know…really ready to see him again."
Norman nodded, beginning his confident stride towards the Unforgiven Spawn in front of them.
"Me too…"
The second that Kelsey took a step towards Baal Reincarnate, Ben jabbed his pointer finger straight at the ground underneath her and grinned wickedly. Norman, who'd only taken ten steps, whirled around after hearing a piercing scream of agony come from behind. He was shocked to see Kelsey on her hands and knees, her new sword dropped to her side and her helmet tipped over on the ground. Kelsey suddenly let out another cry and tried to scramble forward; when Norman ran over to help, he spotted a corrupted pig with its teeth clamped over her entire foot, boot and all. Immediately, he took aim with Shatter and destroyed the mob with a single pulse.
"Oh my God, oh my God, oh…oh my…my…" Kelsey gasped, gazing in pure shock at her foot as it dissolved into code. "…what's happening…?"
Norman set his weapon down next to him and got down on his knees, hurriedly raising Kelsey's limp torso off the ground so no more of those pigs could bite at her back. He leaned over and felt her head, shaking her lightly to keep her alert.
"Kelsey, you're going to be fine! Y-you just need to keep breathing and keep your eyes on m-me; don't close them, alright? Just stare r-right at me, I'm going to fix your…" his sentence slowly fell apart when he saw the plasma had already reached her lower leg, her entire foot erased from existence. "…your, um…j-just hang in there, okay?"
Across the sea of viral swine, Ben snickered at Norman's feeble attempts at comforting Kelsey. So inexperienced, so unprepared! Goodness, this was SUCH a satisfying setup!
"Now then!" he declared, clapping his hand and frying pan together. "Time to tip the scales!"
His cold eyes focused unwaveringly on the lone building that stood next to the handicapped heroes and added,
"Or in this case, the tower…"
He raised all ten of his fingers to the swinescraper and promptly began to lower them, instantly unsticking it from the ground and letting it fall. As Norman struggled to keep Kelsey from going unconscious, a chorus of ear-shredding squeals made him jump. He jerked his head upward right before the giant shadow covered him and Kelsey. He took a sharp intake of breath, momentarily frozen in fear as he realized he was about to be crushed. He quickly broke out of his paralysis and jumped to his feet, Shatter gripped in both hands. Right as the building was about to bury the two of them in with the pigs, Norman sent out a powerful wave of electromagnetism, coating the entire structure in a silver glow and pushing it back up.
"That's right, Norman!" said Ben, curling his fingers into a fist and turning it slowly, putting even more force into toppling the building. "Try and return the favor, why don't you? Be a HERO!"
Norman was greatly surprised to see Shatter start to shake in between his clenched fingers. His teeth scraped together harshly as he began to struggle and he forced his weapon forward, shooting out an even heavier stream of energy from its tip.
"NGH!" he grunted, pushing harder yet to keep his stance. "What is happening here?! It feels like the Glitch itself is pushing on the other side! I can't even get Kelsey out in time, can I?"
He glanced down at her for a split moment and felt his stomach drop. She was staring off into space with gaping eyes, shallowly gasping for air as the corruption spread up her calf.
"All of a sudden, this looks really bad…if only I could get Bailey's attention, but who knows where she is now!"
With no other visible options, Norman had no choice but to continue fighting for his and Kelsey's lives under the thumb of the Glitch
At least, who he thought was the Glitch.
Would you guys say that Ben is like a mini-version of the Glitch? Thanks to his master's corrupted methods of...corruption (whatever, I'm terrible), Ben has finally realized why the Glitch does everything it DOES! Now he knows the sheer joy of seeing loved ones die, homes being burned, and other sadistic practices that are deemed by society as cruel. So, yeah! Shrink the Glitch a little, give it its old form back, and you've got Ben! TA-DAH!
Where was I going with this...?
Will Norman really sacrifice Kelsey in the end to save himself? Will Darcy and Auconi succeed in their plans to topple the Unforgiven Spawn by destroying its brain? And does ANYONE actually feel bad that Alexander ended up getting eaten? (probs not, lol) Find out NEXT chapter 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 [~]