Part 10
"Muori, impostore!" Michele shouts into the wind as the Winnebago under him rumbles over a pothole. The cityscape passes by in a blur, his fur and Wexlyn's hair whipping as they stand together at the rear of the Winnebago's roof. Fading into nothing as he warps away, Michele leaves Wexlyn alone in his staredown against their opponent at the other end of the roof.
"You don't believe you'll deceive us with that disguise while Vector is driving us, do you?" Wexlyn's voice hardly carries over the wind, the psychologist not caring to shout even in these circumstances.
"Eh, it's not like you'd remember me if I were anyone else,"
Bunny Ditto shrugs, her
Vector disguise nearly flawless, only her gooey pink feet giving her away as she keeps herself firmly attached to the roof. Not concerned with conversation, she reaches down, grunting as she digs her nails into the roof, using
Vector's musculature to peel another hole into it. Another chunk of the roof in her hands, she winds back up, hucking it at Wexlyn and grumbling as he predictably ducks.
Before she can reach down to do more damage to the vehicle, a sudden weight on her shoulder gives her a start. She tenses up as Michele walks her in the back of the head, but between
Vector's sturdy form and her true gooey nature, the cat's punch merely sinks into her like putty,
Bunny Ditto shrugging it off.
Michele goes for another punch as the Winnebago rolls over a manhole cover and bucks, but he finds the bump in the road throwing him off more than he expected. The little cat nearly falls back, flailing his arms and digging his claws into
Bunny Ditto to keep his balance as he realizes the shifting beneath his feet isn't due to Vector's driving, but instead arising from the undulations of
Bunny Ditto's head and shoulder.
Wexlyn calls out as the head of the false
Vector goes from green to pink, shriveling and retracting into
Bunny Ditto's body. Once more, Michele fades, cottoning on to the trick and beginning to warp away, but from the shimmering mass which had swallowed up the imposter's head and shoulders bursts a new head, sprouting directly off
Vector's arm. Michele yelps as the burgeoning jaw grabs him, pink goo pinning him in place as it hardens and takes on a white sheen. With glee,
Bunny Ditto bites down upon the cat with her newly-remolded snout. While she doesn't possess the raw crushing power of the real Vector, she has enough force in her bite to keep the cat pinned as her sharp teeth dig into him. While he howls and flails, she shakes him up, Wexlyn cursing at the back end of the Winnebago, frantically searching his pockets for a useful tool.
As they pass an intersection and Michele goes limp in her jaws, she lets out one mighty satisfied snarl before flicking her head, opening her jaw to send the cat flying down the street, hitting the ground and ragdolling away until he's out of view.
Michele, KO!
"Michele!" Wexlyn calls out, his anguished cry getting Vector's attention through the holes in the roof.
"Something happen up there!?"
"She's tossed Michele. Get her off of here, ASAP. We need to go back for him!" He was totally limp as he flew. Odds were that with all the blows he had already taken and that shaking… he… No, no, they wouldn't know for certain until they found him. Michele was a sturdy cat.
Bunny Ditto only chuckles as Vector growls with frustration, unspooling some of her disguise as she seeds creeping tendrils of goo out from her feet and across the roof of the Winnebago, reaching out towards Wexlyn. Cottoning on to her efforts, he pulls out the one thing he had found in his pockets, menacingly wielding a bottle of soda.
But below in the driver's seat, Vector's heart pounds with unrestrained anger, his vision sharpening at the periphery. He spots another intersection coming up, and a storm drain in the nearby sidewalk, a plan forming in his head. It could end in a major collision between vehicle and building, but he can make it work…
"HANG ON!" He gives Wexlyn just enough heads-up to drop to all fours and lie flat against the roof. Flooring the accelerator, Vector pushes the engine to its limit as he drifts into a sharp turn at 90-some miles per hour. The vehicle leans dangerously as he takes it into the turn, even Wexlyn gulping, fearing the Winnebago might topple even if he isn't thrown off. Only with some hesitation does he glance across the roof as he hears the tires squeal going into the full turn…
…to find
Bunny Ditto holding on just fine, tilting with the Winnebago itself, but keeping herself affixed to its roof with the gooey blobs passing for her feet. As he hears Vector roar, fighting against the wheel, he realizes he has but one chance, and lets his shaken can of ginger ale go. The carbonated drink, further propelled by his endless supply of soda, rockets towards
Bunny Ditto, scoring a direct hit just as the 'Bago clears the widest arc of the turn - a hit which packs such force that it tears
Bunny Ditto away from her feet.
Goop splattering against the roof, she flies off, carried away by the Winnebago's momentum and slamming into the street. Her form practically disintegrates as she ragdolls across the intersection, melting into a pink goop as her bouncing and rolling destroys her coherence. Finally, the melting mass which had been
Bunny Ditto reaches the sidewalk and melts into the storm drain, Vector's risky maneuver having paid off.
"Hooooooooooh," Wexlyn breathes out, crawling to the nearest hole and sliding back down into the Winnebago as Vector gets it under control.
"I owe you another one, don't I? I'll cover the mechanic fees."
"Thanks, it'll need it." Vector pats the dash of the now-sputtering Winnebago, easing it back down to a more manageable speed as he looks for the next intersection. They'd just make another left, and they could go back to try and find Michele landed and see if he had made it.
Puttering along at a horse's trot, the Winnebago makes the next turn nice and easy, cruising down the road as the duo start doubling back. Vector scrunches his eyes as the engine knocks and the suspension trembles, the whole vehicle wobbling as the front tires hit a manhole.
But just a second later, as the 'Bago properly passes over the manhole, all hell breaks loose.
What sounds like a cannon shot rings out, followed by a pair of thundering crashes and a scream. It happens so quickly that Wexlyn only sees a dark grey blur ripping through the floor underneath Vector's seat, a manhole blasting off with the speed of a small rocket,. Before he has time enough to blink, it tears through the driver's seat, slamming into Vector's snout for a one-hit knock out before launching the crocodile through the roof and into the sky.
Vector, KO!
He gets no opportunity to see where the manhole and his ally go, the Winnebago immediately careening to the right, jostling him as it jumps the curb and slams through a brick wall, lodging itself inside a telecommunications office building.
Down below in the sewer, the Bob-omb shooting cannon within
Big Eelser Generboom V2 stands directly upright on a much sturdier base, adorned by a pair of rabbit ears. As it shifts from a dark grey to pink, its barrel bends, contorting from a perfect hole into a cheeky grin. Drawing in the mass that made the cannon,
Bunny Ditto reshapes her base back into the rocket-feet of
Metal Knuckles which had helped her get ahead of the damaged Winnebago, kicking them into gear as she rises out of the sewer…
Back on the now-messy street above, a battered Wexlyn, thrown around by the collision, crawls out of the rubble. Groaning as he assesses his wounds, he looks up and down the street, hoping against hope to see Vector landed and recovered.
To his pleasant surprise, as he scans the area, an ally does turn the distant corner! Although,
Michele doesn't look to be in great shape himself, dragging himself across the ground towards Wexlyn.
"Michele!" Wexlyn exclaims, a weary smile crossing his face as he sees his ally has held on, but his expression begins to falter as Michele shoots him a horrid glare.
"Michele? Michele, what's wrong?"
"You left me,"
the cat answers with clear contempt despite his own weariness.
"No, that's not what happened at all," Wexlyn rebuts, genuine worry creeping into his voice at the possibility of such a major misunderstanding. He pushes himself up to his hands and knees, no longer dragging against the ground as he pushes to reunite with Michele.
"We were coming back for you. We weren't sure if you had made it, but we had doubled back to check."
"Didn't even check on me… Just kept driving and fighting…"
"Listen to me, we had to finish her off before we could come back for you safely."
"Safely? What happened here?" He gestures his head towards the wreck, towards the conspicuous lack of Vector.
A shadow crosses Wexlyn's face as he reflects on the loss of Vector, a loss he doesn't want to believe in..
"An… accid- No… A trap," he admits. "I… I hadn't considered she might have allies laying in wait, or that this area might be booby-trapped in general." As he and
Michele meet in the middle of the street, his energy flags, his morale falling. Something so out of the blue had snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory… Why? Why'd it have to happen this way? Why couldn't it have been him, if this had to happen at all?
The two exhausted allies flip onto their backs, lying side-by-side as they stare into the sky.
"Believe me," Wexlyn mutters,
"if I could have prevented this, I would have."
"It's fine I guess."
Michele stirs only slightly.. "She was just too tough for us."
With a sigh, Wexlyn lets himself go limp against the damaged street.
"I… I guess so…" What point is there to carrying on? He had lost Vector, had created a rift with
Michele, and all for no reason. All because of some trap. All becau-
Hang on. What was that
Michele had said? Was he claiming this was a victory for
Bunny Ditto?
"Michele." Wexlyn's head shoots up.
"What day is it?"
No answer comes. Right there next to a vulnerable Wexlyn,
Michele's furry body melts into a pink goo, his paw stretching out into a tendril that wraps itself around Wexlyn's neck. While he tries to claw at his new bindings, pulses of
Ditto goo travel through her body as she thickens the tendril, wrapping her whole body around his neck and squeezing like an anaconda.
A few seconds later, Wexlyn's head hits the ground as
Bunny Ditto peels herself away, the black sheep of the family falling out of the competition. Far to the north of him and the fallen Michele, a manhole and unconscious crocodile slam into the earth with force enough to leave a crater in the middle of the street, the team's run well and truly over…
Far from the open streets on which Vector had traveled, Polly Geist hovers inside the lobby wall, completely intangible as she watches the rumbling dumpster in the receiving bay out back. She occasionally flicks her eyes towards DeMorge's cane, left behind in the dirt as she had made a show of fleeing the scene in a hurry while surreptitiously slipping into the wall after turning the corner.
The rocking and shuddering of the dumpster suggests a congress of ravenous raccoons hide within, tossing trash out of its tub in a desperate bid to feed. So violent is the treatment that it receives that its metal warps, interior dents bulging out from its frame as tearing bubbles. A clangorous whooping and snarling escapes from the tub, rare howls marking triumphs in the search for food and surging Polly's nerves.
Clutching a soggy slice of pizza topped with molded fries in his mouth, soon enough Shia LeBeouf pokes his head above the tub. Quickly scanning the area for danger, he tosses his head back, gulping the slice down with minimal chomping, fries rolling down his face and chest and landing back amidst the trash. He licks the salt and cheese from his lips as he again surveys his surroundings, his shadowed eye sockets vibrating as his veins throb. His snacks had been satisfying, but now he needed flesh. He sniffs at the air, trying to pick up a scent, only catching a fading whiff of the ghostly woman who had recently begun to pursue him.
Which way? Which way? Where can he find prey? Left? Right? Within this skyscraper? A cane sparkles upon the ground. Should he attempt to use it? Should he squirrel himself away in some hiding spot and wait for prey to come? Deploy more bear traps?
Where in his mind ought be a stream of consciousness, as he shakes amidst his trash pile, a quarreling chorus of voices all attempt to steer him to their own ends. A young woman calls for him to make peace with Polly while a voice crackling with chaotic energy calls for him to go on an offensive blitz to win the tournament, seconded by a tinny voice calling for despair. Newly emergent in the cacophony, a guttural growl calls for vengeance against Bunny Ditto, while a softer, bewildered voice tries in vain to strike up a dialogue with Shia's fractured psyche. The voice of an antilogian calls for Shia to fling his near-invulnerable body off of a building in a flashy axe-chopping, while another voice demands quiet so she might consult Riotous.
But amidst this chaos, a handful of voices manage to come to some limited agreement. The posh voice of a phantom chimes in, noting a presence within the nearby wall, his assessment quickly confirmed by the output of a robotic cat, asserting a 95% chance that a being with anomalous properties is nearby. The voice of a great thief offers up an amused warning, noting she had seen exactly this trick from Polly before.
One voice among the many hears their discussions, and seeking revenge on the Brawl which had eliminated him, the would-be-Ruler-of-Everything speaks his command. As he compels Shia to eliminate Polly, his voice reverberates over all his defeated cohorts, and Shia snaps to attention, fixating on the corner of the wall.
Polly pumps her fist gleefully as Shia hops out of the dumpster and scurries her way on all fours, just waiting for Shia to try and grab the cane so she can get the jump on him… only to recoil when Shia leaps over it and swings his axe at the wall itself.
It rebounds off, its head not nearly sharp enough to pierce the metal and concrete of a skyscraper, but with the voices in his head guiding him, Shia simply tries again. Relentlessly he pounds the wall with his blade, gradually wedging grooves into it, but unable to actually reach the intangible Polly.
Quick on her feet, she zips down the wall, trying to emerge elsewhere, but with his eliminated guides, Shia matches her step for step, bearing down upon her no matter what escape route she tries. She grimaces as she realizes the bind he's put her in. She may be able to emerge intangible, but she'll have to turn tangible to retrieve DeMorge's cane, and that'll entail Shia descending upon her… Yet if she tries to flee another way, she'll be leaving her weapon behind, and Shia may well chase her off and force her to leave it for another foe to snag.
Polly Geist, master prankster slinking in the shadows, has met her match.
As Shia switches to a gun, he finds a little more success putting shallow bullet holes in the wall, rousing Polly to action as she realizes, given enough time, he might very well find some way to breach through. Realizing there may be only one way out of this, she withdraws within the building.
She finds herself looking at the massive lobby of some kind of office building, taking a quick and incomplete stock of all the furniture within. Chairs, couches, a fountain, potted plants, statues, and much more decorate the space, and a number of doorways along the walls seem to suggest the presence of restrooms and other facilities, not to mention an elevator. Already hearing a muted howl of anger through the wall, she knows she has not much time as Shia takes off, circling the building to enter through the front.
With Shia coming round, she… immediately ducks back out through the wall she had just come through, jumping in surprise as a bear trap goes in the dumping lot passes through her leg as she emerges. Ignoring it and finding her cane unguarded, she snatches it off the ground, conjuring up a sword for herself and circling the building herself. Now that she had lured Shia within, she could cut off his one route of escape and deal with him here and now!
She makes her way back around the front and enters, immediately finding a bear trap which she floats her way over. Keeping her eyes peeled for further traps, she scans the room, finding that the animalistic Shia has already torn through it, knocking over potted plants, tearing cushions off of seats, and even splashing in the fountain. His trail of destruction aside, however, she finds neither hide nor hair of him. A quick glance at the elevator shows it as still being on this floor, and the emergency stairwell door remains tightly shut, suggesting at least that the slippery Shia remains somewhere on this floor.
…but where?
So many things fill the room and so many facilities branch off from the lobby that to search them all would render her vulnerable to a surprise attack. Yet the longer she lingers in deciding where to begin, the more of a target she makes herself…
A big, open room rendered a mess by a dangerous killer… Even as she jumps at a cup of pens rolling off the service counter, the scene evokes a twinge of familiarity and nostalgia within her. Why, add a vacuum in the fountain, and colorful balls strewn about the area, and…
Her reminiscence drawing out inspiration, Polly Geist waves DeMorge's cane once more, a light shooting out of it and fading as it spreads into the air. She had tried this summon earlier in the fight, but rather than dismissed, it had been returned to the cane, a stroke of fortune preserving it for this moment.
"
Describe the state of the lobby!" Polly calls out as The Narrator manifests, knowing that the unusual entity has a knack for focusing in on the most pertinent info in a room.
"You examine the lobby," The Narrator dutifully answers. "It's in rough shape, as if someone tore through here in a hurry. Toppled potted plants litter the room, damp soil spilling out of them. The floor is slick with a great deal of water, especially around the fountain. A few couches and chairs have been tipped over or had their cushions thrown around the room. The service desks look a little neater, but some of the lighter objects on them like papers and pens have been knocked around."
"
Have any adjoining doors been disturbed?"
"While it's hard to say for certain if any of the adjoining rooms have been entered or disturbed, you don't find anything amiss with the eastern bathrooms or the western bathrooms other than some couch cushions left nearby. Damp soil clings to the door of the breakroom.The supply closet has water puddled at its base, but it's impossible to tell how recently it pooled there compared to other water on the floor. No other doors are out of the ordinary in any way."
She needs no more information than that. Immediately, she darts towards the breakroom door, flinging it open and kicking away the bear trap waiting for her within. She opens her mouth to inquire further with The Narrator, but before she can speak, the door to the refrigerator swings open, Shia leaping out at her and swinging his axe as he screeches.
Prepared for the attempted ambush, she blocks the blow with the blunt side of her blade, thrusting her weapon forward to shove Shia back. He slams into a snack table, ignoring the impact as he pushes off of the table to launch himself at Polly. Seeing his quick reaction, she holds her sword outwards, letting Shia impale himself on it, but the indefatigable celebrity simply pushes himself further down her blade, chopping through her shoulder with his axe.
She falls to her knees as she grabs at the wound, forced to drop DeMorge's cane at her feet, but Shia has no interest in the artifact, the Ruler amidst the voices in his head too concerned with revenge to care, and the many other voices too divided. With Polly crumpling before him, he takes another whack with his axe, this time going for the killing blow by aiming for her neck.
Swiftly dropping onto her back keeps Polly from losing her head, but it does allow Shia to drop onto all fours, sinking his teeth into her ghostly flesh as he bites into her abdomen. She tries grabbing her sword and wresting it from Shia's body, but with the celebrity bearing down upon her like this, she can't get enough leverage, and settles for decking Shia in hopes that getting a black eye will drive him off.
He snarls a mighty snarl and picks up the pace, beginning to claw at Polly with knives and nails, his non-stop assault leaving her no chance to turn intangible and slip away. The damage to her body accumulating, and Shia tanking every punch she can throw at him, she resorts to rolling beneath him, putting her core strength in play as she manages to throw him off. He immediately springs back onto all fours and charges in, but this time she rebuffs him with a kick that sends him sliding back across the floor.
With the two combatants both on the ground and turned on their sides, Polly pushes herself to her knees and lunges, getting a firmer grip on her sword as Shia plunges a knife into her just below her neck. Using her legs to push off of his body, she manages to draw the blade from his body, wincing through him biting the back of her hand. As he begins to kick her and draw his gun, she raises the sword and brings it down in one swift motion, cutting through Shia's neck at an awkward angle.
He howls in pain as the blade slices through him… but it's not enough, the angle making it impossible to make a clean cut. Blinded by rage and pain, he reaches out to grab Polly, only to find his hand passing through air - and not because she's turned intangible.
With Shia distracted, she had rolled away, doubling back to her cane and grabbing it. He desperately begins crawling towards her, but he can't close the distance before she waves the cane, light shooting from its tip and manifesting as three phantasmal witches. Sensing the urgency of the situation, they waste no time in calling out a spell, a brilliant pillar of light descending upon Shia, exploding outwards until it spills into the lobby and even out of the skyscraper altogether.
The searing light blinds Shia even more than his rage and pain, his body sizzling as the light burns him to a crisp, compounding all the wounds he's sustained to finally put him down. As he slips into unconsciousness, the cleaning light purges the voices from his head, giving him, at least for a brief moment, his own twisted form of peace.
The light soon faces away, leaving an unmoving, charred Shia on the ground as Polly re-opens her eyes.
Her breathing labored, Polly puts a hand on Shia to confirm he's gone, unwilling to take any chances with the durable celebrity. As the manifestation of The Narrator disappears alongside The Coven, she rises up on unsteady feet with her cane back in her hand.
She needs rest, but there's no time left for resting, not with the field whittled down to so few fighters. Knowing the others had heard The Narrator and knowing she'd do well to get out of the building before anyone could put two and two together with the light that had spilled out of the skyscraper, she staggers out of the breakroom, beginning to feel the drain of the long battle, but too close to the end to quit here.
