Chapter 18: Gate, or Great?
A/N: I promised that updates would speed up over the summer, and I HAVE DELIVERRRRRREEEED--
Ahem. I'm sorry you had to see me like that. I'm just a little excited about this chapter, is all. By the end, you'll see why ;)
Keep in mind that this is a shorter chapter. It's a little somethin' for y'all to snack on, because the next one may take a while. It's (finally) Kirby's first meeting with the rest of the cast, after all!
By the way, when I say "short", I mean probably my shortest yet, so sorry if you were expecting something longer. This is mostly comedic relief, however, and I figured, after these past few action-packed, angst-fueled chapters, we could use a chapter centered (almost) entirely on wholesomeness before we get back to the mayhem.
With that said, enjoy!
"So. Matter Mode, huh?" Tuffy whispered to Kirby with a small smirk. "Yep," Kirby whispered back. "It happened when I became so determined to do what my Matters were telling me that it was all I could think about."
Kirby, his three counterparts, Jonathan, Nancy, Mike, Will, Lucas, and Max were all gathered in front of a row of freezers. The Kirbies sat on the floor, against the bottom of the small shelf of refrigerated lunch meat Mike and Will sat on the edge of. Jonathan and Nancy were standing off to the side; so were Lucas and Max. El sat in front of the open freezer doors, cool mist rolling out in barely visible waves and cooling her back.
The ambient humming they generated--a stand-in for her usual static--helped her mind project from her body and search for Dustin, who had called for help on Mike's supercom, apparently trapped in Starcourt. To take away her physical sense of sight--in order to further enhance her mind's eye--she had a blindfold with the design of the American flag on it tied around her head.
In his exhaustion, Kirby had automatically dropped his Spear ability while unconscious shortly after the group's arrival at the store, and a few minutes later, Lucas' beloved bandana, which he thought he'd never see again, had reappeared from thin air, just as Kirby had described when he'd first explained what happened to the things he swallowed to gain Copy Abilities.
"So I just have to focus on... friendship... and I become super strong?!" Tuffy whisper-yelled excitedly. Kirby gave him a disappointed frown. "Tuffy, if you're only in it for the power, I don't think it'll work."
"Shhh," Mike shushed the both of them. They both shut their mouths, having nearly forgotten El needed the space around her to--except for her ambient noise--be almost completely silent.
Right on cue, there sounded the hissing crack of a soda can being opened, and Max shushing the culprit with a whispered "Quiet!"
All four Puffballs perked up and snapped their gaze toward said culprit: Lucas, sipping from a soda can. If any of them had pupils, they would be dilated in a very feline manner. Kirby was especially excited by the presence of the soda, as he noticed the can had the same design as the one he'd drank from Max's fridge four days prior.
Which was, of course, delicious.
As the Kirbies watched Lucas sip from the can and poured all their willpower into resisting their instinctual urge to Inhale it, Mike whispered "How do you even drink that?"
All four Kirbies snapped their heads around and upward, where Mike and Will sat just above them. Even the timid Greeny looked offended when they all whisper-demanded in unison, "How could he not?"
Mike and Will both looked unsettled by the utterly blank expressions on the Puffballs' faces.
"How can I drink it?" Lucas asked. "Because it's delicious."
"What?" Mike and Max whispered in unison, as if the idea of a soda they personally didn't care for being enjoyed by someone else was completely foreign to them.
To the Kirbies, the idea of any soda not being enjoyable was completely foreign, so in response to Mike and Max, whispered their own confused, "What?"
"It's like Carpenter's The Thing," Lucas said. "Huh?" Keeby asked with a tilted head. "What thing?" Greeny asked. "It's a movie," Mike muttered dismissively, likely much more focused on coming up with a retort toward Lucas.
Regardless, Tuffy deadpanned, "What's a movie?"
Mike looked down at him, appeared to consider explaining the concept, then apparently decided arguing about soda was far more important, as the eventual dismissive shake of his head and wave of his hand suggested. Tuffy scowled in response to being so casually dismissed; ego no doubt bruised.
"Anyway," Lucas said with a dismissive hand-wave of his own that visibly further irked Tuffy.
The adults are talking, here.
"The original is a classic," Lucas said. "No question about it. But the remake..."
Lucas proceeded to take a long, loud slurp from the soda, pinkie finger extended upward as if he were drinking a much more proper beverage. Mike looked on in extremely visible disgust, while the Kirbies watched dreamily, imagining having some for themselves.
When he finished, Lucas let out a satisfied sigh, before smacking his lips contentedly.
"Sweeter... bolder..." Lucas said, before whispering the last part, "better..."
"You're insane," Mike whispered in disbelief. "No, he's not!" The four Kirbies simultaneously said with perhaps a bit too much volume. "Thank you, my fellow little soda connoisseurs," Lucas said with a grin and an appreciative nod. "You little traitors!" Mike whisper-hissed at the Kirbies. "So you prefer the original Thing?" Lucas asked in their defense.
"What? No," Mike said, sounding confused by the seeming change in topic. "I'm not talking about The Thing, I'm talking about New Coke."
Must be the name of the soda, Kirby thought as he and his fellow Puffballs watched the resulting back-and-forth between Mike and Lucas, heads moving back and forth rapidly between the two as if they were watching a tennis match.
Nancy, Jonathan, Max, and Will seemed amused at the way the four Puffballs moved their heads back and forth in sync as they watched the argument, though most of their attention was diverted to--with sharp glances and head-shakes--subtly trying to get the two boys to calm down before their volume--steadily rising from whispers to normal indoor voices--broke El's concentration.
"It's the same concept, dude," Lucas argued, annoyed at Mike's persistence in arguing over a silly difference in preference between the two of them.
"Uh, actually, it's not the same concept," Mike sneered back in a mocking tone.
"It is the same concept!" Lucas hissed.
"No, it's not," Mike shot back, his self-satisfaction at getting a rise out of Lucas making his tone far calmer.
"Yes, it is!" Lucas full-on yelled.
"Hey," an annoyed El said softly, yet forcefully as she yanked her blindfold off.
Everyone went dead silent. Even though they hadn't had much part in the argument, the Kirbies felt just as embarrassed and ashamed as Mike and Lucas did.
"Sorry," Mike said.
"Sorry," Lucas echoed, wearing a sheepish half-cringe, half-grin expression.
"Sorry!" The four Puffballs cheerfully chorused, though just as embarrassed as Mike and Lucas. If one looked closely enough, they would be able to see that the natural, ever-present blushes on both sides of their faces had brightened considerably in color.
El merely stared intensely at all of them, seeming like she was still deeply annoyed by the disturbance.
"Did you... find him?" Mike awkwardly prodded after a few moments of silence.
El stared back.
"The movies?" Lucas asked in disbelief a short while later, as everyone filed out of the convenience store. "Dustin's so freaked out about the Gate he decides to go watch a movie? Yeah," he scoffed, "makes total sense."
Tuffy, with Lucas' support, had Inhaled the contents of the entire fireworks display he'd knocked down earlier and, by putting a few in each bubble, managed to store all of the numerous fireworks in the mere five bubbles available in his Copy Palette.
When Zero arrived, he planned to end the fight before it started by mixing all the bubbles at once to get the Crash ability and, as Lucas had phrased it, "Nuking" Zero with it.
Kirby liked the idea; Crash would definitely either weaken it down to nothing or take down Zero's new body altogether in just one shot (not that the Crash ability would allow for a second if the first didn't work).
What Kirby didn't like was the fact that Tuffy was the one holding that kind of power. Kirby loved Tuffy, but he was just like Dedede: impulsive and reckless when he got too excited.
And Tuffy tended to get really excited around fire and explosives.
The Crash ability could work and take down Zero without obliterating El and the other Humans, or simply injuring the other Puffballs, but, just like with Fire and all other abilities, Tuffy would have to employ an incredible amount of concentration and self-control to make everybody but Zero immune to it.
And even if he didn't already have self-control issues around explosives, Kirby doubted Tuffy, caught up in the frantic moment, as a Puffball often was when they resorted to using their one-shot-only Crash ability, would be able to concentrate enough to only hurt Zero with the ability.
For now, though, their current plan would just have to do.
Didn't mean Kirby had to like it.
The four Puffballs had grouped up with their usual Humans: Greeny with Will, Tuffy with Max, Keeby with Lucas, and Kirby with Mike. Kirby sat at the back of the group, on Mike's head rather than his shoulders, like his fellow Puffballs were with their respective Humans. He was maintaining his balance easily despite his precarious position, nubs crossed and pouting.
"I don't like this, poyo," he grumbled.
"So you've said," Tuffy said from up ahead on Max's shoulder at the front of the group with a smug smirk and a wink that produced a literal yellow star.
"Mmmmaybe he's right, T-Tuffy," Greeny muttered uncertainly. "I-I mean, you know how you get around power..."
"Bah!" Tuffy waved him off. "Puh-lease, guys," he said. "You're making me look bad in front of the Humans," he whispered in a comically loud volume while gesturing to said Humans, most of whom only raised their eyebrows at his apparent cluelessness to the fact that they could literally hear every word he was saying. Especially Max, since Tuffy was hanging onto her shoulder and was literally right next to her ear.
Max rolled her eyes. "Well, sorry, Kirby, I tried to tell them."
"And you're positive he said "Gate" and not "great"?" Max asked El. "Yeah, like, "This movie I'm watching is great,"" Will said. "Sounded like "Gate"," El confirmed. "I think we should check it out, regardless," Kirby chimed in. "At this point..." he said, shuddering at the memory of Zero's horrific new puppet, "...I don't wanna take any chances."
"The Gate being open again would explain why Zero's even able to control that monster in the first place," Mike said. "If it was still closed, he wouldn't be able to connect to it, right?"
"Yeah, Nancy said. "We just have to shut it again."
"Then the monster dies," Will finished.
"Hurray!" Keeby shouted with a raised nub, causing Lucas's head to flinch away from the yellow Puffball shouting right next to his ear.
"But if not, we always have Tuffy's Crash-thing!" Max said with sarcastic cheerfulness.
"Keep mocking our plan Max," Lucas said. "Keep mocking it. I wanna hear you say it again, because you keep doubting us. You keep doubting us!"
The conversation continued as the group walked out the door of the convenience store and into the warm summer night that awaited in the parking lot, heedless to the fact that Kirby was starting to tune out of it. Kirby looked up at the plentiful stars, then back down at Mike's hair, almost as black as the sky housing those stars. The rest of the conversation grew muffled as he retreated into his thoughts.
"Ridiculous," Max dismissed. "Tuffy? We're gonna prove 'em wrong, right?" Lucas asked.
Kirby's expression grew blank as he looked down at his nubs.
Unbeknownst to the others, Kirby's nubs lit up as he focused on the urge to preserve this. To preserve this banter. To preserve his friends and their bright hopes and brighter personalities.
"But if not, we always have Tuffy's Crash-thing!"
If Kirby's nubs were hands, they'd be clenched.
Or Matter Mode, he thought.
Billy Hargrove, or, more accurately, the body of Billy Hargrove, stepped into Bradley's Big Buy, shoes crunching over shards of glass--glass from the glass door, broken when--
THE GIRL. THE PINK MONSTE--
Billy Hargrove was not a good man. He had done so much wrong in his life--hurt so many people, his shitty little sister among them.
And now, he was paying for it.
Billy Hargrove was not a good man, but he never wanted this. He never wanted to... to...
God. Fuck.
He didn't want this. Didn't want to be the puppet of some... some... insane god. He didn't want to watch, helplessly, a passenger in his own body as it was used to bash, and tie, and kill, and flay--
Billy Hargrove was not a good brother. He would never--would never--speak such blasphemy aloud, but he did lo--care for--Max. If he ever got out of this... he swore to God--swore on his life--that he would be better. No more bar fights. No more drinks. No more being a shitty, overprotective dick of a stepbrother who walked around with a chip the size of Montana on his shoulder. There would be no point to that, because now he knew.
There were things out there that were just bigger than him. And that was that. He couldn't be the tough bad boy anymore. Fuck, he--he didn't even give a flying fuck, anymore. His shitty dad's bullshit about "being a man"?
After this? That meant jack shit. It was a silly, puny, unbelievably stupid and pointless Human construct in the face of something so much bigger. Before its bloody, one-eyed gaze, all of Humanity and its silly little concepts and traditional values lost meaning. It put so many things in perspective for Billy. He wasn't tough. He wasn't strong. He. Wasn't. Shit.
He was just a sad shell possessed by the limitless power of a cosmic god of darkness, no more than an extension of the being itself.
He would be better--if he ever got out of this. And if--God forbid the worst happen, but--if Max and her little friends got out of this... he would do better. He would apologize to the Sinclair kid. He would... would... fuck. He'd apologize to everyone he'd ever wronged; even the fucking classmates he bullied in elementary school, for fuck's sake. If they all made it out of this alive.
He really hoped that girl--that El and the little marshmallow the monster--ZERO--hated so much, the only two that could stop him... he hoped for everyone's sakes that they knew what they were doing.
He knew. He knew he wasn't this thing's first victim--first vessel. He knew now that Byers' little brother was the first--the first in this world. Zero hadn't given him any information during his possession; nothing except for whatever slipped through due to the hive mind. Visions of tunnels, of vines, of monsters...
But Billy saw so much more.
That little pink blob of lard was more than he looked.
Billy knew Zero's inner thoughts. Will had been a child at the time of his possession. Damn near pure--he had been a good person.
But Billy?
Billy had darkness in his heart. Darkness that this swirling, watchful entity fed off of. It made it stronger. It leeched the fucking misery right out of him and converted it into more Dark Matter to add to its mass, making it stronger.
And the stronger it got, the more control over him it had.
With Will, letting him know Zero's history of losses to the forces of good would have given him enough hope to fight back. Zero's possession of Will had been weak. That was why it had taken him so long to assume full control. He couldn't afford to give the kid any more strength to fight back than he already had.
But Billy didn't stand a chance. So Zero left that channel between their minds open, letting countless memories flood into his brain and swirl before his eyes as he choked and bashed and punched and tied and sacrificed before Zero's avatar.
Billy saw countless planets--worlds consumed in darkness. Billy knew countless things. Billy knew about Matters, Voids, Kirbies and Zeroes. Puffballs and Destroyers.
A star-shaped planet with two rings. An important place from Zero's past two lives. Kirby--the little pink thing that he now knew he had hit with his car that night an eternity ago--holding a wand topped with a heart--fitting--and firing love and gratefulness at Zero. He felt the agony of positivity, felt as Zero resorted in desperation to hurling his own blood at his foe--to gouging his own eye out to finish the fight; a fight he inevitably lost. Before that, a rainbow-colored sword Kirby wielded against a remotely-controlled piece of Zero, just like the one piloting him now. It was a swordsman.
Billy saw a blue penguin of all things that seemed to have been Zero's favorite vessel before Billy. Billy saw a tan, waddling creature with two yellow feet. Billy saw another Human in that strange other world, a girl with the power to bring paintings to life. A girl Zero possessed twice.
Billy wouldn't have thought it possible; Humans in other universes. Humans with powers in other universes. But his whole situation at the moment was impossible, and the girl that Zero hated, Eleven, she had powers and was from this world, anyway.
Billy saw a heart-shaped planet, home to--yes--literal Fairies. He saw their prized artifact, the most potent weapon ever used against Zero--a very special crystal. He saw three Dark Matter drones controlled by Zero pursue the painter girl, the penguin, the fairy, the waddling creature, and Kirby across planets in a frantic race to be the first to reassemble the crystal Zero had shattered in a desperate attempt to buy himself more time.
He saw as Zero, reborn as Zero Two, experienced death for the second time at Kirby and the Fairy's hands, with the help of the crystal. He saw as he awoke once more, reborn, but weakened considerably and trapped in a new world of darkness and rot and fear that predated even him by aeons.
He saw as Zero learned to combine his Dark Matter with the organic material already present in that world. He saw as these experiments gave rise to a new Dark Matter Race. He saw as one escaped thanks to Eleven; saw as it kidnapped Will Byers in an attempt to bring Zero a new vessel, a spy through which he could conquer the new world he'd found outside the dark one he'd awoken in, only for the boy to thwart and escape him with his quick thinking and the gun that had been transported to that world with him.
He watched as Zero failed, watched as he tried to spread and finally succeeded in possessing Will anyway, but still failed and was left trapped to fester in rage and obsession and a lust for vengeance after El had closed the Gate on him.
He watched Zero capture him; watched his last memories as a truly free man replay from an outside perspective.
The hollow, Dark Matter-stuffed body of Billy Hargrove knelt in an aisle, seeing medical supplies and bloody gauze scattered about. With two fingers, he swiped congealed blood from a larger puddle on the floor.
Time and exposure to the air wasn't the only thing that had thickened it.
The fluorescent lights flickered around Billy Hargrove's body, responding to the presence of the otherworldly thing puppeting him. Billy Hargrove's bo--ZERO--brought his two blood-covered fingers close to his face.
Pupils dilated. Black-tinged blood vessels expanded like the vines of the place that trapped his full being as he sensed the presence of his essence in the blood. It had gone just as intended. He'd failed to kill the girl, but with a piece of himself inside of her--
Finding her and finishing the job would be no problem.
Billy Hargrove sincerely hoped Kirby knew what he was doing, because it wasn't just Billy he had to deal with, anymore; nor just Zero. After the new power Kirby had displayed at the cabin, Zero had made Billy a little partner.
Zero remembered each and every one of his hosts; and memories had power. And the memory of Zero's old favorite? Billy hoped the pink cream puff could overcome it...
"HEAH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH..."
Because it seemed to have a long-standing grudge against him.
A/N: ;)
If you enjoyed (or didn't) please comment and tell me what you enjoyed (or didn't...)!
I hope you did enjoy, and I will see you all...
Next time...
