Chapter CXCIV: Plot Twist 1 – Chimeishou ~Kyanosa
If a mostly dead demon commissioned for outright destruction and chaos
by the nonexistent younger and more powerful brother of Satan can giggle,
Grimace sure did when he found the Spectrum's
fuse box. It had taken whole chapters of wandering, false checks, searching for
his staff, and avoiding the other people on the train, but it had been worth
it. He'd finally found the quickest and dirtiest way to sabotage the motion of
the train, simultaneously giving him freedom, confusion with which to work, and
a perfect shot at his mortal enemy, Yoshi6400, which was weird considering that
6400 didn't know it yet.
"Ah, yes!" Grimace pointed in the air, remaining immobile
except for his mouth. "Finally, I have found the source of the Spectrum's
power supply, the power that runs the Spectrum!
Now I will remove fuses haphazardly with the intent of disabling the Spectrum
and then I will go through the Spectrum
and kill my archenemy the good guy Yoshi6400 who is a passenger on the Spectrum! Haha!"
Suddenly, Shinsei Aku
and Mazzic appeared in the doorway, which was handily
the only way in or out of the room. Shinsei pointed
at Grimace.
"Hold it right there, demon!"
Grimace looked at Shinsei. "Ah! It is the
guard who was guarding me!"
Shinsei still pointed. "You should come along quietly and leave the fuse
box alone so that we do not have to hurt you any more than we did when we hurt
you before!"
Grimace pointed back. "You did not hurt me when you hurt me before!
I faked the damage so that you would take me into a car of the train with one
car that has the source of the Spectrum's
power its fuse box!"
"But now we will hurt you and bring you back so that we can put you
back in the cell where you were before but guard you more closely this time so
that you will not escape again like before!"
Mazzic looked between then two. "What in God's name are you two
doing?"
Grimace broke out of Speed Racer mode, grabbed a bead from his necklace,
and hurled it at the doorway. Instantly, a glowing green brick wall appeared,
filling it totally. "Now nobody gets in or out. The only way through is to
combat me without reinforcements!"
Mazzic shrugged. "Good."
He launched himself at Grimace. Unfortunately, in the initial tackle, he
smashed Grimace into the fuse box anyway.
Chaos ensued.
* * *
Alone in the engine room, control room, or whatever of the Spectrum, Omega was moderately surprised
when all of the lights went off, then on again dimly. So was everybody else,
but he was piloting the infernal thing, so it worried him a bit more. Since he
hasn't done anything for a while besides gaining a mortal enemy, 6400 walked in
and started a conversation. "Dim."
Ah, 6400. You know you love him.
Omega fiddled with some switches. "Looks like the main power's down
for some reason. As much as I don't want to, it'd probably be best if we
stopped for a bit instead of continuing on some ramshackle momentum course. At
least until it's fixed."
6400 nodded. "I'll tell the others. People are wondering."
"Lessee...there are three planets to which I can drive this thing
on its backup generators. Which looks the best to you?"
"Try the green one."
6400 and Omega turned around. Not six feet from them stood Orson, short
guy of the Twilight Council.
He smirked at them. "Don't be alarmed, this is only a projection of
me. I can't hurt you and you can't hurt me."
Omega titled back in his chair. "And you're here why?"
"This issue with your power I noted as you passed by. I happen to
have a smaller dwelling on the planet I mentioned. Since you are momentarily
incapacitated, I propose that you land there for a bit. I have a score to
settle with a few of your passengers, and I would like to accomplish this
before certain other members of the Council try to extract their individual
revenge."
Omega sighed. "I'm wary about handing over valuable team members so
you can kill them more hurriedly than otherwise."
"One of them is Kyanosa Canopus."
"Oh. Then by all means, take him."
"Unfortunately, he would not accept such a challenge without his
friends, Kaye Glenwater, Mazzic36, and Joshua Renil. Thus I am inviting all four to one massive
four-on-one melee. The rest of the Spectrum
and its passengers will remain unharmed, and I will alert you the moment it is
over so that you may get on your way."
6400 leaned closer to Omega. "Are you trying to limit our
numbers?"
Omega looked back. "If memory serves, Kyanosa
beat Orson before alone using his angel thing. This shouldn't take long if the
odds are even more in his favor."
6400 sighed. "Let me get him."
* * *
That is largely how, two minutes later, Kyanosa
was Helicoptering his way
from the landed Spectrum to an
unknown structure five miles away, with Josh hanging from his ankles and Kaye
flying beside them. I was going to start the chapter here, but the backstory version makes so much more sense.
Josh looked around the night sky. Yes, it was night. And the planet
seemed largely made of green Earth-type forest, in case it matters.
"So we'll know it when we see it?"
Kyanosa nodded, though nobody saw it. "That's what he said."
"So what do you think it is?"
"Dunno. Could be a giant tree, an island,
a volcano, some ruins, a huge crater with a fallen warship, Vegas..."
Kaye pointed forward. "Or it could be that well-sized castle."
Everybody looked ahead, at the well-sized castle.
Kyanosa looked at her. "You bother me sometimes."
"I know."
All three landed in front of the drawbridge, looking about for Orson.
Josh admired the moat. "Should we be expecting any traps?"
Kyanosa was about to say something when
{Like all the villains in Dragonball
Z?}
[Sure.]
"Nah, I think we're good." Kyanosa
reverted to his parasol and, holding it like a cane, walked across the
drawbridge. Kaye and Josh shrugged and followed him.
Even the first room of the castle was massive. It stretched at least
four stories high and looked some fifty yards square. The windows were small
and high, the walls were a light grayish-beige brick, and the stone floor had a
red carpet from the entrance to the second door, on the opposite wall. In front of this door stood Orson, the real one.
"Oh, good you came," Orson grinned maliciously as the door
swung shut behind the trio, locking audibly. "Now we can have our real
fight. I expect you to be as...um...where is the boy in the red coat?"
"Mazzic got stuck fighting some
demon." Kyanosa smiled and pointed at himself
with his thumb. "You'll have to settle for us."
Orson nodded. "That can be arranged." He held up one hand,
leaning on his cane with the other. Three small, pink balls formed on the ends
of three fingers, then floated in front of him. "Now, let us begin."
The pink balls shot towards the group, one to each person. Kyanosa, caught unawares in his pose, was instantly hit by
his. The ball shoved him up and against the wall, then expanded into a dome
that totally encased him in a highly effectively energy barrier five feet above
the ground. Kaye quickly tried to put a shield in her ball's path, but as magic
often has properties nobody expects, the ball swerved around the shield, went over
her, and, forfeiting her crazy high Dexterity for the sake of the plot, hit her
in the back. She ended up caught in a dome on the floor just tall enough for
her when she sat. Josh, on the other hand, had put the incredible majority of
his stats into speed. He ducked his ball and rolled, handspringing through the air and shifting to the side in
mid-air to avoid it a second time. He landed and ran toward Orson, energy ball
hot on his heels.
Orson didn't even flinch as Josh approached him. He did, however, get a
bit wary when Josh pulled out his dagger, so he brought his cane up in a block.
Being the master of the game that he is, Josh ducked and jumped to the side,
kicking the back of Orson's knee as he passed. Orson fell back into Josh's
other foot, which propelled him forward and right into his own spell. A third
pink dome formed around Orson, who was laying on the ground moaning.
Kyanosa pumped his fist as high as his barrier would let him. "Alright
Josh! Now, it's my turn!" He tried to think of an attack that would dispel
the shield around him, while Kaye was already working on her own counterspell.
This is all well and good, but if it continues like this, there wouldn't
be any Plot Twists. It would be Fight Scene. So let's
mix things up.
Everybody remembers Kyanosa's
mind from Where You Put Two
Ships, right? It's the large floating
disc with blackness all around, on which rested one grey sphere and two people
with different hair colors. During the above, Kyanosa
(black hair, formerly Tuesday) was in the sphere while
Kyanosa gaped. "You're
kidding. We're a team! You don't abandon team members."
"We are a team where this body is the
leader. The others would listen to us. Have Josh fight alone."
"Why?"
"I plan on getting him killed."
"You're high."
"Dragonball Z, as
you mentioned earlier. Cell Games. Orson is Perfect
Cell and Josh is our Gokou. We use him to get Orson's
fighting style, which has to be different from last time if he's challenging
us. It also includes finishing moves. Once we know how he works, we can then
make short work of him."
"No. There is no way I'm offing Josh just
for strategy. I stand by my peeps, yo."
"Look, all that matters here is the
victory! That's why we're here, so we can win! We have a perfect opportunity to
get the best victory possible."
"The best victory is the least injury to
our side!"
"The best victory is the most damage to the
other side!"
"You know, screw you. I have the body and
I'm helping Josh."
"No you're not!"
Unluckily, it also meant Kyanosa
was stuck outside the sphere. All he could do was watch as
She looked at him. "What?"
"Don't join the fight just yet. Let Josh do this for a bit."
Kaye was quizzical. That's an SAT word. Though it was very
uncharacteristic of the black-headband Kyanosa to opt
out of a fight, Josh did seem to have things very much under control. Also, if
Josh kept up the offense, Orson's utter lack of defense wouldn't let him get
out any attacks. Thus there was no reason for extra shielding, which put Kaye
out of a job. It made perfect logical sense, despite the fact that there was
little reason not to help Josh. And it wasn't that freaky personality,
either. It was Kyanosa. Pile all this on top of the
fact that she was still a bit tired from all that Jioballing,
though the medal was nifty. Reluctantly, she stopped casting whatever spell she
had and watched Josh from inside the dome.
Josh nodded, watching Orson slowly pull himself to his feet. He was
tossing his dagger from hand to hand, ready to move in and deal mad crazy
damage once the pink shield disbanded. However, he was not ready for Orson to
suddenly jump ten feet in the air, shattering the shield, and fire a red beam
at the ground. A wave of fire began to expand from the spot at which the beam
had hit the ground, washing over the area. Kyanosa
and Kaye took some confidence in their own barriers, but Josh immediately spun
around and took off, hoping to outrun the attack. The fire followed him foot
for foot right up to the wall. Josh glanced over his shoulder, slowed for a
second, letting the fire literally lick his heels, then bolted to the wall. He
took a mighty vertical leap and rebounded off the wall, somersaulting at the
apex and just barely sailing over the wave. He landed neatly in a kneeling
position as the wave smashed into the wall, disbanding.
Orson grimaced slightly, then smiled at Josh. A
blue aura began to form around him, solidifying into a spear of ice above his
head. With as little warning as he could muster, Orson spun, grabbed the spear,
and hurled it at Josh. Now Josh is great with speed, and as such he knows how
to compare the speeds of different objects with reasonable accuracy. In the
instant that it took for the spear to travel the length of the room, Josh knew
that there was no way we was getting away from it. Instead, he fell back on an
old technique used by his mentor-of-sorts in that particular department. In the
blink of an eye, Josh reached into his pocket and whipped out a revolver,
firing from the hip. The bullet and spear met in midair, shattering the latter
into thousands of tiny ice fragments that dropped harmlessly to the floor. Now,
think of Orson as point A and Josh as point B. Line fragment AB is the same as
line BA, right? Thus if the bullet hit the center of the spear, it would take
the same path to point A as the spear took from Point A. Orson was slightly
miffed when he felt the bullet pierce straight through his arm.
Orson gritted his teeth and sunk slowly to the ground, holding his cane
in his bad hand and his bad arm in his good hand. "So you're fast. You’ve
managed to get away from two of my attacks so far. That's-"
Josh spun his revolver around his finger twice and pointed it at Orson. "Nothing to it."
Orson's face lit up with rage. "How dare you! You never interrupt
somebody when they're taunting during a fight! Even if it takes whole
paragraphs in a split second, there's always time for a full taunt!"
"Not in the real world, lefty. Learn how to fight before teaching me."
Orson suddenly decided against telling Josh his thought patterns, which
is how everybody else does it. He knew that Josh was fast enough to avoid any
more attacks that came from far away, so it was time for something
closer-range. Orson pointed one finger at Josh and muttered. Above Josh, out of
his range of sight, a yellow ball began to form. Before Kaye (remember,
The Twilighter (I've started four of my last
six paragraphs with the word "Orson") grinned as the energy crackled
over Josh. He abruptly stopped grinning when Josh stood up, glowing a funny
shade of yellow. And he was just displeased when the electricity turned into a
bright white flash, blinding everybody who wasn't ready for it, yet left Josh
glowing.
Orson (there we go) gaped at Josh. "What...what happened? That
should have hurt."
Josh cracked his knuckles and shot across the room like a real bolt of
lightning, smashing an electric-enhanced fist into Orson's jaw. Before the Twilighter could hit the figurative dirt, Josh zoomed past
him, bounced off the wall, and delivered a kick to the small of his adversary's
back. He followed up with a perfect duplicate of Orson's electric spell,
shocking the demon into next week and leaving him a smoking heap on the ground.
Kaye looked worriedly at Orson, thinking hard. He looks down. Then why is his mental energy still
strong...and rising...
Pretty proud of his tricked-out self, now Josh found a bit of the urge
to gloat. Before he could get the chance, however, the entire room went pitch
black. Glowing in the dark due to his aura, a very confused Josh was the only
thing even remotely visible. A stock evil laugh echoed through the room, and
just to be safe, Josh shot a lightning bolt at where he had last seen Orson.
Unfortunately, he wasn't there any more.
In fact, he appeared sitting on a high windowsill, glowing vaguely grey.
Then he was on
The arena came back into focus, showing Orson standing quite unhurt and
Josh trying to get back up, his yellow aura gone. Orson took this moment to
dash forward and smash his cane into Josh's temple, then his shin, followed by
the upper arm, other shin, rib, rib, rib, and pate. Low on
Toughness, Josh quickly crumpled.
Orson tipped an imaginary hat at him. "Darkness
Poison. It's very devastating to a free-spirit goodie like your friend
here. Now, if you'll excuse me." Orson spun his cane and pointed it at
Josh, telekinetically picking him up and holding him in the air. The demon
levitated until his shoulder was at the same height as the floating Josh's
neck, then pressed the end of the cane against his
forehead. Josh's eyes flickered open for a second, but his body refused to do
anything else. Orson grinned as his cane started glowing with more black
energy. "There are many shades of black. Unfortunately, you can't take any
of them."
Kaye quickly began working on her old counterspell,
convinced that Josh was totally out of backups. She rushed through it,
stumbling over a word in her haste, but she was too late regardless the instant
the started the last word, Orson fired his Shadow Blast clear through Josh's
head. A red splash appeared on the wall behind Josh, glowing black for a second
before beginning to drip. The human slumped, then was released from the
telekinetic hold and dropped to the ground.
Kaye screamed as the shield shattered around her and she careened at
Orson, who had turned around to investigate the noise. He smiled and snapped
his fingers, filling the entire room (save for the inside of the protected Canopus' dome) with a green mist. Despite her clear intent,
Kaye coughed and began to feel very ill, dropping to her knees and putting up a
barrier to black any more mist.
Orson tapped on the barrier with his cane. "Very
nice magical barrier. Not even I can get past without more effort than I
can currently muster. Unfortunately, you only covered physical and spiritual
attacks. No shield can block those and mental simultaneously. Thus a mental
attack is in order." He pressed a finger to his temple and blinked at
Kaye, who suddenly fell to the side and doubled over. The shield disappeared as
she lost her focus on reality in general. Orson picked her up telekinetically
and pointed the cane at her again. "No use in using more energy. You're
wasted enough."
In my character's head (you remember him), Kyanosa was observing everything
totally aghast. "Hurry up and get out there! One is bad enough, but two? And these two?"
I think the word that best described Kyanosa at this point was "seething". He pounded
on the barrier with both hands before trying his mighty metal shoes, but only
succeeded in shaking it a bit. "Get..." Fueled by the astral version
of adrenaline, he backed up "...out... " to the farthest edge of the
disc and ran "...of..." straight at the sphere. About five feet from
it, "...my..." he jumped in the air, putting the full force of his
charge and considerably anger at the mercy of one flying fist.
"...HEAD!"
Years of watching anime had served Kyanosa well. When all else fails, one ungodly emotional attack
will solve everything.
The sphere itself splintered into dozens of
glass fragments, flying all over the disc. Kyanosa
kept moving, leading with his one hand, and ran it directly into the center of Canopus' face. The white-haired young man, caught utterly
unawares, flew backward and right over the edge of the disc. His counterpart
hit the ground and rolled, looking for the sphere to take the body.
"Great. I killed it. Frick, now how do I use the body?" He stood up.
"Maybe...reaching out with my mind...
Kyanosa blinked and looked around, finally spotting Orson with a very hurting
Kaye. He quickly pulled out his Giant Laser and fired it at the dome, hoping
that his most powerful attack was good enough for the job. Sure enough, the
yellow beam cracked the energy shield in two. Distracted by the noise, Orson
spun around and dropped Kaye, watching Kyanosa drop
to the ground. The human activated his Fire power, turning his hair bright red
and his clothing various shades thereof. "Round
two."
"Short fight." Orson suddenly appeared behind Kyanosa, poking his cane into the back of the boy's neck.
Before the demon could fire another Shadow Blast, Kyanosa
ducked and rolled forward, winging a fireball at Orson. The latter jumped over
it, and brought the cane down to Kyanosa's head, but Kyanosa knocked the weapon aside with a well-placed metal
foot. He tried for a follow-up kick, but Orson had jumped in the air again,
this time hurling an ice spear at Kyanosa. Kyanosa melted it into water in mid-air, but the force of
the throw kept the water going until it splashed on Kyanosa,
knocking out his Fire power.
Orson retrieved his cane, then stood, breathing
audibly. "You're not using your
Kyanosa whipped out his yo-yo. "Variety is the spice of life."
The other snapped his fingers. "Right!
Life! I totally forgot!" Orson chuckled and pointed at Kyanosa,
forming another yellow ball over his opponent's head.
Kyanosa quickly switched to his parasol and opened it over his head. "Try
again."
"Oh, I'm not hitting you." Orson grinned as a lightning bolt
shot down from the ball, bent ninety degrees toward Kaye, and, once it was over
her, shot back down. She twitched when it hit her, and moved for a second, then slumped again when the energy turned into light.
Kyanosa glared at Orson. "Hey! Stop it! You're fighting me!"
Orson smiled softly. "Bring out the Archangel, or I'll do it some
more. I do have a supply of stronger shields at my disposal. I'll just lock you
out."
At the risk of being sexist, something I try to avoid as much as
possible in my writing, Kaye was in no position to defend herself. Despite high
Willpower, she had been subject to one of Orson's strongest attacks while she
was sick. Orson only needed one attack to kill Josh, so there was no doubt in Kyanosa's mind that he could do it again. Reluctantly, he
turned on his
Orson smiled, then aimed his cane at Kyanosa. What happened next was far too embarrassing to
detail fully. A largely inept Kyanosa tried to take
flight, accidentally ran into a wall, and became subject to a full volley of
weaker Shadow Blasts by Orson. Add to that the ensuing cane beating and further
dark magic, and Kyanosa was a puddle on the floor in
a solid minute. Orson walked briskly over to his nearly unconscious opponent
and chuckled. "You see, boy, I have found the weakness to this power. That
is why I wanted a rematch. I knew I could capitalize on your light-type. It's
actually quite sad. Well, for you." He aimed the cane at Kyanosa's forehead. "Say hello to your friend for
me." He powered up the cane.
I would like to take this opportunity to point out Orson's terrible
misfortune in choosing something dark for his finishing move. As soon as a dark
attack that power began to manifest that close to Kyanosa,
his white amulet from Chapter 167 started glowing. Orson shielded his eyes,
trying not to look directly at the artifact.
"What is that? A barrier spell? An
auto-heal? Second Wind? Could it...is that dark energy
coming from...dammit."
Ramming is defined as "striking or driving against with a heavy
impact". It's one of the strongest words I know to describe the force of a
blow. Still, what came out of that amulet didn't ram Orson. It teamed up with
other rams and positively flocked Orson. A grey-colored fist careened out of
the amulet and flocked Orson hard enough that he flew across the room, through
the back door, and out of sight down the next hallway.
Kyanosa looked up, vaguely making out the shape in front of him. It was
definitely tall. It was colored purple and black. Its eyes were obscured. And
it definitely had a scythe. A big scythe. He blinked.
"Am I dead?"
A deep, reasonably commanding voice echoed in his ears. "Nearly, yes. Give me a moment."
A green aura clouded Kyanosa's vision, ad in a
second he was back on his feet, chipper as ever. He saw the back of the new
person over near Kaye. "What's going on?"
The figure stood up. "It's way too late to help Mister Renil at this point. Miss Glenwater
can be helped, but she needs a bit of healing and some recovery time. Judging
by her Mana and Willpower, her system and magic will clear out any damage done
within a short span of time."
"...what?"
The figure looked at Kyanosa. "By
visiting the underworld, you have gotten a bit of that aura on you. By experiencing
it personally solely in an effort to see me, I've done you a favor. I'll give
you one revival. You can deal with that while I get these two somewhere
else."
"...what?"
The figure sighed. "I'm saying that if you get killed, I can revive
you once. Two lives should be more than enough to off Mister Orson in the back
room."
Kyanosa grinned. "Hey, thanks. I was hoping I wouldn't die before I got to
try out some of these powers. I owe you one."
The figure watched as Kyanosa ran past him and
deeper into the castle. "Yes, yes you do." It picked up Kaye,
gathered Josh's body, and disappeared in a flash of green fire.
A hand reached over the edge of the disc,
followed by an arm, and finally followed by a white-haired young man. He
pointed at his black-haired twin. "Game on."