The Grand Battle II! [Happy End!]

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

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The curtains parted. Galus and Gestalt found themselves no longer in a meadow, but upon the gently creaking deck of a ship. The schrotgolem was interrupted from his curious inspection of the set by the marine bursting out from the doors under the aft deck. He had lost his helmet somewhere in the scuffle between scenes, but had substituted it for a rather dashing, if downright ridiculous, pirate hat. His cardboard pistol had also been replaced, this time with a plywood rapier, painted silver. He waved this around in mock anger at the suit of armour quietly smoking by the mast.

"uh... Get back to work! Unless you, uh... be admitting to mutiny, in which case you can, uh, walk the plank!"

The golem was formulating a reply, but then considered an implied rapport between the pair would just delay the much-anticipated fighting. Gestalt was just about to raise the machine-gun when he felt the prickle of discontent from the crowd and lowered it. Lurking suspicions were coalescing in the golem as it worked its mind around what the change in scenery entailed - in this case, that brush with the stone revealed to Gestalt the nature of the world, and age, this scene had been set in; and the wooden set's attempt to recreate that. Gestalt was uncomfortably aware that guns didn't belong on this stage - nor, for that matter, did a futuristic suit of power armour. With this in mind, the schrotgolem raised the Sunset's arms in a placating motion and backed off the stage, where the Stage Director was pre-emptively uncrossing his arms to shove the golem back on.

"A sssszwooord." No surprise registered within the cloud of smoke; the Stage Director merely shuffled through a pile of props at his feet, whipped out a wooden cutlass, handed it to the golem with a dismissive wave, and took another drag on his fuming cigar. Gestalt did not return the way he'd exited; instead looking around for a ladder to the lighting rigs, locating it, and ascending. The Stage Director (and Vyrm'n, who was still at his side) watched wordlessly as Gestalt manipulated the hulking suit up the ladder; neither making any comment as costumes bounded by, disembodied, towards the doors onto the main deck.

Galus strutted about on stage, managing quite well to take into his stride the piecemeal crew that was bumbling about on the deck, despite their odd appearance - one corsair was a ventriloquist's dummy Maxwell would've found familiar, another was a stickman made of garden implements with a bandanaed mallet for a head, still another was one of the suits of armour from the last scene, refurbished with white shirt and straggly beard. The Urisian was starting to get some idea what was going on, and did his best to fill the role of the harsh captain, beleaguering his unfeeling crew. Despite the grumbling seeds of boredom beginning from the crowd, Galus kept the fruit at bay, until he heard a worrying groan from above. He glanced up, to see the Sunset's iron bulk swinging down on a rope.

"MMUUUUUTINNY!" bellowed Gestalt, as the schrotcrew drew weapons and took sides. Galus easily ducked beneath the killer pendulum, which completed its ark, released the rope, and landed adroitly upon the poop deck to whoops and cheers from the audience. The whole ship lurched violently, prow thrusting into the air - despite the elegant landing, Gestalt was still landing on a floating ship with a several-ton suit - nearly knocking Galus off his feet, the Urisian having expected the floor to stay stable. Recovering, he whipped out his rapier and dashed through the melee, to take down the ringleader.

Gestalt was understandably distracted, despite the bolstering support of the audience; orchestrating both sides of a whole fight and paying attention to the Sunset's suit was a considerable challenge. Luckily, Galus' first strike was easily parried; the wooden blades clanging with a pleasant metal bite. More crew on each side of the mock-battle fell as the golem prioritised increasing concentration upon its duel with the Urisian; the balance between believability and ensuring Galus' safety was testing the limits of Gestalt's finesse. The earlier cheering and clapping of the spectral crowd faded as the pair quieted save for the clash of non-existent steel, and to Gestalt's distress he realised the silence was not a tense one, but polite interest that threatened to spill over into further derision if something drastic didn't happen.

"Ugh, what're they doing out there?"

Vyrm'n was generally ignoring the terse commentary of the Stage Director as it muscled its way out around his perpetually-smouldering cigar, though she was wondering the same thing. She could excuse Galus' incompetence, perhaps, but what was the problem with Gestalt? The shadow's confusion was interrupted by the Stage Director pointing her towards the stairs which led below the stage.

"There's a hatch from the brig, try shake things up a bit. Or something."

Vyrm'n needed no second invitation. Slithering with a new, guiltless purpose, it slipped around more mountains of scenery until it found the hash of light that shone through the grille into the ship's brig. Above, the shadow still perceived golem and Urisian, locked in their pantomime battle. Vyrm'n crouched, before leaping bodily into the plywood bars. They stood no chance against the oncoming shadow, and the Faceless leapt onto the stage to a splintering crunch, further upstage from where the other two contestants were sparring. Galus didn't even have his helmet; this would be too easy. The shadow slithered up the rigging, flowing into the crow's nest as it swayed far above the deck of the ship. Somewhere out there, Vyrm'n could hear the crowd muttering. In a fluid motion, it tipped itself out of the nest and hit the deck beside the pair with a second crunch, this time of the floorboards breaking. Galus turned as the shadow rushed forward to grab his arm; his initial reaction to reach for his absent gun cost him as the shadow subjected him to maximum centrifuge as it swung him full circle and tossed him into the crowd, right over Gestalt. The schrotgolem was too busy trying to figure out how to salvage this development, plot-wise, to catch Vyrm'n before she leapt into the shocked crowd and barrelled up the rows of seats to catch the dazed Galus. Before she had climbed halfway, the darkness juddered as a blistering clip of machinegun bullets tore into her. The shaking darkness did not need to turn around for Gestalt to know it had her attention. The screeching, vacillating voice function said with as much deadly seriousness as it could muster,

“Youuuuu aaarrrgh ruuuuuiniing the ssshzsshow.”

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SpoilerTen days since the last post, so I think this is fair game. I'm thinking about how I could move people around to suit my nefarious schemes, so if you don't get a word in edgeways here, I'll just take that to mean you're not too fussed with my plans to destroy you all

If you've got an understandable problem with that scheme of things, at the very least post in here saying you had plans. Or something. I'm not that mean.

Will probably edit this in the next few days if I read over it and something about it is just making my eyeballs burn. I seem to be doing that more and more...