Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with another chapter from Hourglass!
Well, look at that! I actually got the next chapter out in under a month! :D But seriously, I've been tryin' to get these done the best I can. For anyone who's subscribed to my YouTube channel, I'm really growing and uploading on there, so...you know that I'm still alive, at least. Still, I gotta remember my ultimate goal: end this before 2017. I'M GONNA DO THIS, DANG IT!
Replies to Reviews...
Marshman101: Well, thank you! :)
SansThePunnist: A long time ago I would've argued with you and got defensive, but...yeah, I agree. The problem is that I gave the heroes too much time to quest, is all. So I've been trying to figure out how exactly they'd spend said time in a productive matter. Considering this is the last free night they'll get before they face the last Unforgiven Spawn, I figured it was actually justified for once that they'd have some fun. But, like, there are still a lot of things (a LOT, man) that I wish I could/could have fixed. Now all I can do is bring it to a great, dramatic end. An ACTUAL end, not a cliff-hanger for another sequel.
Airas Slayer: Dude, THANK YOU. Your legitimate care, concern, and interest means more to me than anything else. :) I mean...heh. Y'know, I kinda answered your question in that PM, so...ya. Enjoy the chapter, bro! ^^
I only wish I could've gotten this out yesterday. Then I could say I made two chapters in one month. XD
Now, let the story commence!
Chapter 49: The Waste of Time
Norman sat down with a definitive breath on top of his cobweb block, a bit of his smile still remaining after his friendly scuffle with Bailey. Now that they had gone through the first three sets of fighters, it was time for the second round: Astrid vs Sabrina, Sabrina vs Norman, and Norman vs Astrid. Whichever of two of the three of them won the most battles would brawl each other in the third and final round. He had to admit he was at least the tiniest bit excited!
First up, of course, were Sabrina and Astrid. Normally, he would've immediately pictured the win being taken by Astrid, though she had a bit of a bad habit of not using her Block powers in battle, so that might be just the edge Sabrina needed. As the battle was approaching its start, Norman took a glance up at the sky. Ever since Queen Enderdragon was taken by the Glitch, he hadn't had the privilege of being able to just gaze at the stars. The moon was the only remaining celestial body, like a white puncture wound in the otherwise black space above, giving their little stadium some natural light. He looked forward to the end of the quest when he'd get a chance to stargaze again.
But for now, he could enjoy himself in this rare moment of harmless brawling.
"He's approaching our dimension, Farixz. Please, I beg you to put a mental bond on me; if Firzon appears and acts as cocky and foolish as ever, I'm not sure I'll be able to hold myself back!"
Farixz, from atop his spotless throne, hardly moved his diamond-shaped eyes to look at the younger Spirit. In a tone of serious disapproval, he said,
"I expect you to be able to, Serisdo the Second! As one of the Spirits In Between, is it not your duty to help maintain balance among every dimension in existence? I'd think you were above petty quarrels with your brothers!"
Before Serisdo could formulate a response, Farixz rose up from his throne and raised a wing, adding,
"In addition, you yourself possess enough knowledge of the near future to know exactly whether I will grant you a mental bond or not! So why is it you ask me in the first place?"
Serisdo let out a sigh, turning away from Farixz and slowly floating towards the northeast hallway. As he was exiting the throne room, he murmured,
"Perhaps this is due to the stress that comes with the several details I actually do NOT know. We're nearly to the climax of the final chapter, Farixz. I fear that even my visions won't be enough to save all the lives that will be lost in less than a week's time. You of all people should know how unpredictable my flash-forwards are…"
With that, he left Farixz, Froace, and Thorvon together in the room. He swiftly made his way down the antechamber until he approached the broad doors at its end. So distracted by his own thoughts, he merely phased right through instead of bothering to push them open. He was greeted with the calming sight of a thousand colorful, gleaming hourglasses that made every face of the room. Farixz had placed the real Minecraftian timekeeper in the center of the room on a silver marble table, making it easier for them to check on the heroes' time limit; sometimes it was difficult to find a specific hourglass considering the staggering number contained in this one room.
With his nonexistent vocal chords, Serisdo made a sound of relief. There really was something calming about this room, though all these billions of years later he had yet to figure out why. His ribbony eyes folded together to signify their close, allowing him to fall into a serene darkness for just a few seconds. Totally calm, mind-clearing silence followed—a rare bliss in his position…
"Good LORDS, Serisdo! Are YOU behind this madness?!"
Serisdo snapped to attention, wings stiffening as he whirled around to the sudden shout. Just as he expected, there hovered Firzon the Fifth, finally back from his self-extended vacation. Unlike his flowing, feathery brother, Firzon's spiritual body was comprised of thousands of little moving pixels, his wings crumbling at the tips. With the few facial features the Spirits possessed, Serisdo could still tell how upset Firzon was at the moment.
"Firzon!" he declared, trying to remove the venom from his tone. "You're finally home!"
Firzon the Fifth blinked, two tiny squares in his eyes moving to signal a sarcastic roll.
"Ah yes, home. This appalling, blank, dreary patch of white stuck inside a much larger patch of white. It's a good thing we're all silver, otherwise I might truly go insane from the sheer bleakness of this place."
A pang of annoyance hit Serisdo in the chest, though he quickly dismissed it. Instead, he kept up his act of warm welcomes and said,
"Well, perhaps when…we're all home, we can redecorate the palace! But now we—as in your brothers and I—have a few things to discuss as the Ultra and Great heroes' time is coming close to ending."
Suddenly reminded of his outburst from earlier, Firzon rushed forward and flew right by him, coming to an abrupt halt in front of the center hourglass. Absolutely horrified, he held his wings over it, shaking slightly.
"Time, right! As I was about to say; why is the 64th out of place?! Everything was organized and stacked in such a flawless pattern based on ancient African color theory!"
Serisdo darted to the other side of the table, sliding his wings underneath Firzon's to stop him from grabbing it.
"Farixz wanted it left out so that we would more easily be able to check what time we had left, brother. It will be returned to its original placement in less than a week, I promise you."
Firzon shook his head, slapping away the pair of ribbony limbs holding him back.
"Now that I know of what's been going on all this time, the last thing I need is yet another cause for stress! Let's simply return it to its rightful place and I can summon it whenever the need arises…"
Firzon's choppy wings lowered to gently grasp the coffee-colored wood of the timekeeper, but was cut off suddenly when a metallic bubble appeared around it, bouncing him back with quite a kick. He winced, folding his wings around his torso and declaring,
"What?! Is this Farixz's doing, Serisdo? It certainly looks to be!"
Serisdo nodded, trying stubbornly to not let himself get aggravated.
"Ah, yes. He thought it would be best to bubble this one in case you, well…I understand how avid of an artist you are, but sometimes it can get…unreasonable."
That was it; that last word was all he needed to be set off. Firzon's wings shook with anger as he absorbed the near-insult, staring deep into his older brother's eyes.
"You think so, Serisdo? You think my love for the arts of the universe is…unreasonable? UNreasonable?"
Serisdo felt a bit of defiance pulse through him, causing him to fold his wings tightly in the face of Firzon. He hovered over the table and settled down in front of it, putting himself between him and the one thing that bothered him most. Firzon rose a couple inches off the ground, moving closer to Serisdo.
"Serisdo, let me have another look at that hourglass; bubble or not, I'm going to move it back to its proper place! Something as important and delicate as a Magic Hourglass can't simply be put up for display!"
Serisdo the Second extended his two wings and folded them behind him, every individual ribbon folding together around the figure.
"Why don't you consult Farixz?" he said, his tone more spiteful than he realized. "Before you yourself break something, I'd get his permission to move them!"
Firzon's body shuddered in place, pixels blipping in and out across his whole body.
"Why would I need to ask Farixz for permission to move any of these?! He was the one who allowed Froace and I to create the room in the first place! It's my natural right to place the pieces as I desire!" he spat, eyes morphed into pixelated white flames.
Serisdo too rose into the air, exceeding his brother's height to gain the upper hand this time. With a snappish wave, he declared,
"Firzon, I just do not think this is the best time to be worrying about miniscule details like the placement of a single hourglass! Of a near INFINITE amount! We need to talk to Farixz about the approaching six days!"
The two of them just stared at each other for a moment, both fuming; one of their spiritual bodies shifted rapidly, jerking this way and that in a fashion similar to that of the Glitch, while the other stayed tense as the string drawn on a bow. Finally, after almost ten seconds of total silence, Firzon spoke.
"Move out of the way, Serisdo…"
"I can't."
"And I can't have this room tainted! It's the only piece of art I have left! If you don't move, I'll—"
"If don't move," cried Serisdo, raising his wings irritably. "you'll try and move me by force! That's what I've been referring to with your unreasonable nature, Firzon! Being the creator of all creative thought and artistic wonder does not just excuse you to obsess over the tiniest of details! You really are going to end up breaking something if you keep going like this!"
Firzon let out an angered growl of sorts and threw up his limbs, his figure giving a violent twitch as he finally lost it.
"ENOUGH OF THIS! I'm going to break YOU if you do not let me move that very hourglass THIS INSTANT!"
Firzon jutted forward, phasing right through his brother and then rematerializing, turning solid just the right moment to knock Serisdo from behind and send him a good distance across the room; even the smallest of shoves was like that of a giant when it came from a Spirit In Between. Firzon's wings curled over the bubble, forming sharp points that he hastily jabbed into the bubble, wincing at the burning sensation that pushed him away. Serisdo, meanwhile, whirled around and regained his stance, flying forward and throwing his arms around his brother, pulling him back with all his might.
"It doesn't matter, Firzon! Just LEAVE IT!" he shouted, having difficulty removing him from his place by the table.
He, Farixz, and Thorvon had all been exhausting their magic since the first defeat of the Glitch, exactly the same time as when the other three left for their long vacation. Given this fact, Firzon had far less trouble resisting Serisdo's pull. Still, with the searing pain of Farixz's bubble around that hourglass, it was hard for him to keep his stance.
"SERISDO! Leave me be, you imbecile!"he retorted, pixelated body fluttering and twitching in place.
All of a sudden, Serisdo heard—and felt, for that matter—a violent pop as the protective sphere around the 64th Dimension hourglass broke apart, causing Firzon to recoil backwards on top of his older brother. A light-filled, blurry, vehement struggle occurred there on the ground, either one trying to immobilize the other. Just as Firzon was about to leap up from the floor and grab the coveted timekeeper, Serisdo extended every ribbon and on his body and caught him by the flowy, cloak-like base of his body. He was torn out of the air and whipped harshly onto the floor, which was proceeded by yet another toss as Serisdo spun around, targeting the double doors as he let go. Firzon screamed with rage as he hurtled towards the entrance, blasting right through the doors and skidding down the hall. Almost immediately, though, Firzon materialized in front of him and lunged, grabbing his wings and lifting him off the ground.
"Firzon, NO! You're so much better thNGH!"
A sharp blow to the middle sent Serisdo flying across the room. He tried to slow himself down midair, but the sheer power behind Firzon's attack was too much to stifle. He painfully tumbled over the glossy floor, cracking the wood on many a timekeeper as he went. He grimaced, lifting his head shakily and staring across the room at his brother as he hungrily lifted the Magic Hourglass with twitching wings. Almost instantly, Serisdo felt a chill run through him.
"WAIT, PLEASE!"
Serisdo felt a sudden burst of energy inside of him, forcing him to a vertical position hastily before he shot forward with wings outstretched.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
In one blurred motion, Firzon raised the hourglass high in the air and swiftly chucked it to the ground. It shattered upon impact, emerald green particles exploding across the floor around them and sinking in between the cracks.
A collective scream occurred amongst the heroes of Minecraftia as the earth around them shuttered violently. As Norman fell from his block in the air, his eyes were bewildered by the most unusual display. Like their world had been flicked by a godly finger, the sun and moon spun out of control, switching from daytime to nighttime in a matter of seconds, repeatedly. He stopped himself with Shatter's magnetics just before he hit the ground, but was immediately dizzied by the changing sky and fell to the floor awkwardly, closing his eyes.
"What the hell is happening?!" cried Astrid, shielding her eyes with the flat of her sword.
Serisdo slid painfully through the shower of celestial glass, watching as Firzon curled backwards and cackled a pitchy, blood-curdling laugh. While gazing in horror as the sands of the hourglass, a black pulse appeared in the corner of his vision, the room turning cold in an instant. A single patch of plasma hovered across the room, making a beeline for the main pile of diamond shards underneath the broken hourglass.
But before he could do anything to stop the evil spirit, a blinding beam of energy sped over his head, completely incinerating the virus before it could touch a single grain. Before Serisdo's eyes, the hundreds of thousands of fine diamond bits suddenly rose out of the floor and swirled together around the center mound, bits of glass rising up as well. He glanced upward to see both Farixz and Froace approaching the scene, Farixz with his wings wide open and Froace moving his in a conductor fashion. As the black ash from the rogue virus settled on the ground around them, sizzling away on every surface it touched, Serisdo rose to a stand and shook himself out of his haze.
"WHAT HAPPENED?!" thundered Farixz, lowering his wings and towering high over Serisdo with a furious glow.
Serisdo was speechless as he watched Froace repair the hourglass, putting together more pieces with each fluid motion. Very unsettlingly, however, once the last remaining shard had been put together, the Magic Hourglass remained shattered at the very top, a noticeable number of diamonds missing from inside it. Completely ignoring Farixz's question, Serisdo bent forward to stare at the timekeeper and muttered,
"What happened to the rest of the diamonds?"
"That virus; the one put inside of Firzon!" replied Froace, falling to the ground and picking up his limp brother. "It corrupted the missing particles, I know it! I conjured every single one of them and…and I can feel them burning into nothingness as we speak."
Serisdo turned desperately to Firzon, who was holding his head and shaking it in a feverish manner.
"What happened to the 64th Dimension, then?! That was the REAL hourglass, not like the replica we gave to the Ultra Hero!"
Then, as sudden as the flickering world lights had appeared, the sky itself slowed to a halt, landing right on the brink of a new sunset. All of a sudden, Norman recognized the violent vibration that was shaking his Blockpack, which he quickly removed. Looking inside, he found that the Magic Hourglass had fallen to the bottom on its own, dislodged from its square in the inventory. As he reached down to touch it, the shuddering also slowed itself until the timekeeper had stopped.
The first thing he noticed after that—in a very unnerving moment—the little clock that hovered above it had been wrecked. The code that made up each number twitched in place, barely able to show what their time remaining was. When it did decide to stay still, Norman got just enough time to read the timer. The feelings that dropped into his stomach the next second were of indescribable fear; it could only be heard in how he spoke next.
"O-oh my…oh my God…ohhhhh no. This is bad, this is bad! This is REALLY bad, everyone!" he murmured, his words getting louder as his realization grew. "Everyone, come here! I-I don't give a damn if you hurt yourself when you fell, you need to COME HERE!"
Hastily, the other six members gathered around Norman; one by one they succumbed to the dumbfounding feelings of dread as they each got a good look at the timer. While it had just shown them that they had six days, eight hours, and nineteen minutes, now it read something different.
03:08:19
Farixz seemed to be focusing very hard now, likely watching the heroes closely to see how they were dealing with this wasteful tragedy. He paused for many tension-filled seconds before finally looking at his younger brother. He paused yet again to organize his thoughts, and then replied,
"With those grains lost, it appears that the timeline of the 64th Dimension has lost 72 hours from its total existence. Normally this would mean very little, as 72 hours could go unnoticed in the grand scheme of a whole dimension, but…now when we have, or—sorry—had roughly six more days left before Arabaloca would reach Minecraftia, that miniscule timeframe has been cut in half; Arabaloca has jumped part of its path to the dimension and will reach it instead in…" Farixz continued, though struggled to get his words out. "…in about three days time…goodness, Serisdo, I…it started out with juvenile mindtricks from the Glitch, but now it's gone as far as putting one of its own viruses inside a Spirit. I just…"
He couldn't seem to go on from there. Serisdo suddenly was able to share the feelings of powerlessness that Farixz was being forced to experience that very moment. Now that the Glitch had gained the ability to turn them into marionet puppets, essentially, they had lost their control of the situation. For all they knew, the beast had already planted another virus inside of Sycallion and was just waiting for the heroes to retrieve him. It was all so…unpredictable.
And being able to predict the future had been the only thing Serisdo could hold on to in times like these.
Well...shit. That's legitimately not good at all! The very moment they get some time to relax before the last big trip, something terrible happens and now it's a hurry yet again! I remember back when the Glitch just messed (quite literally) with Farixz's mind for some cheap laughs.
Will the heroes be able to rescue Sycallion the Sixth before their three days are up? What will this final Unforgiven Spawn look like? Will Firzon be able to recover after being bugged by one of the Glitch's cronies? ...will I be able to actually meet my end goal for this zombie of a book?! Most of these questions will be answered in the Chapter 50 of Hourglass!
(I can't believe it's reached 50 now. This is insane, you guys. XD)
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 [~]