Re: The Grand Battle II! [Round 5: Value City Mall!]
07-16-2010, 11:19 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Sruixan.
With the ever-helpful benefit of hindsight, Maxwell was starting to wonder whether or not he'd done the right thing. Had he been far too reckless, charging off like that, showing such selfishness and snobbishness? Galus, bless him, was no bright spark and if it had needed one to discern the origin of the undead roaming the mall, maybe it needed one to take that line of thought a step further, to think; if everyone can be reincarnated, why not the person whose death is responsible for it all? The epicentre of the karmic explosion would perhaps have even gained more life than those surrounding him. Whatever, Samuel was dangerous. Galus was, presumably, walking straight towards him.
A far-fetched whim reminded him that Clara and Konka were capable creatures; three on one would be far more likely to ensure Galus's continued existence. But the unshakable truth of the matter was that, before long, somebody had to die. It was the way things worked nowadays. As pessimistic as his perspective was right now, Maxwell didn't like the idea of dying. As the only thing keeping Vyrm'n sane, snuffing it seemed awkwardly irresponsible somehow. Gestalt, being something more than the sum of his constituent parts, was unlikely to perish without some serious effort, despite his current, seemingly fatuous state.
So that left Galus. How many ways could he die? Maxwell didn't like to think about it but, being the scatterbrained soul he was, let a couple trickle into his mind. Most of them involved Samuel and various ineffable tortures, none of which served to ease his worried conscience.
Still, on the flipside, running away, however rash it might have been, gave Maxwell some alone time. There were no distractions now; the corridor connecting the mall to the atrium was silent, with the undead that once occupied it having long since lurched into the more fruitful main concourse, and this relatively tranquil environ was a welcome relief. Admittedly, it made thinking those unsettling thoughts about death and doom far easier; perhaps, Maxwell mused, he would have been better off staying in the thick of it, where distractions were aplenty, all thanks to Samuel's last will and testament…
Maxwell wasn't actually all too bothered about his destination. As long as it was reasonably secluded from the potent wrath of Samuel, he was quite happy. The entrance to the Atrium, though, was far too wide to barricade without some angry mob putting their collective minds to it. “Practically sealed off†was perhaps an understatement, applying only to the apparent lack of any other exits from the cylindrical chamber. There were a couple of mats in front of a suspiciously flat section of concrete, though. They were garnished with the gloopy remnants of greeters, identifiable only by the flyers protruding from the sludge, hints that somebody, naming no names, didn't want anybody leaving the arena by conventional means.
There was a staircase, though. The centrepiece of the chamber, it coiled around an elevator, presumably one that was exceptionally out of order. It looked a tad precarious – the passage of time had tarnished the handrail and crumbled a couple of the steps, but an inquisitive mind is an unstoppable force, especially one wishing to get as far out of the way of things as possible. But first…
-~-~-~-~-~-~
The unhurried pace of Konka Rar was beginning to get on Galus's nerves. The necromancer seemed overly content, untroubled by Maxwell's warnings, having dismissed them as the fabricated excuses for a coward's retreat. The genius's friend didn't share this attitude, however; he knew full well that taking him lightly was probably not the best idea he'd ever had. On the other hand, the prospect of some proper armaments was too good to resist; surely things could only get easier for Maxwell and himself if they were able to retaliate when the zombies attacked?
Or, for that matter, Gestalt or Vyrm'n. Not that that was the real reason for his desire for weaponry at all, obviously.
It was perhaps a tad irksome that the Weaponporium happened to be down the same side-route as Grocer Delight once was. Most of the irks were tiny little trifles; the smell, for example, of the fetid aftermath was easily filtered by Galus's helmet and Konka Rar really didn't mind it (it was reasonable to assume he had some conditioning as a result of previous nefarious exploits, but Galus didn't dare ask). Any fires still burning were doing so in the main body of the store, so their heat from a distance was more than tolerable. The streams of slurry now flowing from the ruins were easily traversable, if one didn't mind sacrificing a little dignity, a bit of their pride and, above all, the continued cleanliness of their clothes. Some curious yellow liquid was now seeping up the pilot's left leg, causing some slight discomfort, but the promise of a reward for his suffering made it bearable.
For a bit, anyway. One problem that was certainly non-trivial was the inescapable fact that the entrance to Galus's idea of heaven was now buried under a insurmountable barricade of fallen rubble and debris.
One of the windows was left uncovered, though, displaying tantalising pieces of engineering perfection; Galus didn't bother to read the labels, but everything just looked amazing. The shop, sealed from the outside world, had kept the copious collection of guns in near-mint condition; every barrel glistened, every bullet gleamed; every trigger was teasing him, daring him to pull them. No repercussions. No unfortunate consequences. No money to be paid.
The window, then, had to be broken. It was, naturally, the only way in. Galus had, by his count, three bullets left in his rifle. Two more than he would need.
Stepping back, oblivious to the snarky articulations Konka Rar was spouting, he took aim and fired.
Had he stopped to think about it for a moment or two, he might not have had to witness a spider-web pattern shimmer across the reinforced glass. He wouldn't have to see his bullet shudder to a halt, embedding itself firmly in the window. The security curtain wouldn't have dropped. The alarm system, weathered by time, would not have let out a feeble drone that gently bumbled down to a mere buzz, then to nothing at all, as if to signify the futility of his endeavour.
“Well done. That was almost inspired.â€
Furious, the last two bullets were fired, but they could not fracture metal. Two holes, though present, were not enough to allow anything useful to pass through. Galus could only weep as the wails in the foyer grew louder once more.
-~-~-~-~-~-~
Crazed by the plague of Conscience, Vyrm'n's attack on the resurrected Samuel had something of a side effect; maybe it was unforeseen, maybe not. Across the bridge that spanned the two contrasting minds, a mindset was shared. As a consequence of the connection, Samuel's half-there brain was given a view of the world it had never seen before; Vyrm'n's view, where every atom blared its story to those who cared to listen, where every speck of matter sang their own little tune. Any form of life, however meagre in comparison to the real deal, became to him a brilliant beacon, its clamours unparalleled by anything the world of the inanimate could create.
It blew his mind. Literally.
But of course, unable to process the convoluted cacophony reality had suddenly become, his brain gave in. Having but the ragged remains of his brain to process it, there was no way he could make sense of it all. Total overload occurred.
Not before, however, he passed it on. The karmic link between him and his undead creations was enough of a bond to handle it and, with no conscious caretaker to stop it from flowing, the song at the heart of reality rushed through. Every zombie in the mall with more than half a brain suddenly saw their world transform before them for no apparent reason. To those who still held on to the majority of their grey matter, however loosely, the orchestra of the real world began to play.
-~-~-~-~-~-~
Standing agape, Konka Rar could hardly express how the despicably moronic act he'd witnessed had affected him. This man too was a buffoon; his survival to this advanced stage of the competition must have come luck alone. Or, perhaps, those who died before him were even more brainless than the sobbing mess before him. He wasn't sure that was possible, to be frank, but nothing could surprise him.
The caterwaul from behind him was getting curiously loud. Taking a backwards glance, it became apparent to the necromancer just what sort of situation he'd gotten himself into. A whole horde of zombies, assumedly unsettled by the gunshots, was presently beginning to lurch into action, pushing their way down the corridor. Their numbers were frighteningly impressive; it was almost as if half the mall was coursing towards them, flooding their inconveniently narrow path, so cramped that limbs were becoming entwined as they moved forwards in alarming unison. Many at the front of the rabble seemed to be screaming, jaws unchecked, hands or fingers cradling mouths in desperate attempts to keep their only means of expressing their agony functioning. Others were covering their ears with whatever miscellaneous appendages they happened to have (some not even their own), trying fruitlessly to block out the rising din. They should, Konka Rar noted, take a page out of Galus's book; curled up in an approximate ball, ignorant of the chaos around him. Something had snapped within him, most likely, with his failure to storm the shop before him having been the final straw. The lich found such lack of composition pathetic, but right now he had other things to do, rather than admonishing a broken soul…
His foes were, despite their natural slowness, encroaching fast; hundreds of bodies shoving from behind were pushing their counterparts towards their two targets. In a sickening moment of revelation, Konka Rar realised there were simply too many to fight; dealing with the sheer number of foes in front of him would require some rather advanced magic, spells he wouldn't have the time to form in the moments between now and the deluge reaching him. Backing up wasn't an option; the debris behind him stopped that. Neither, he considered dryly, was fleeing; the blithering idiot he'd attached himself to had led him straight down a cul-de-sac on that fools' errand of his.
A fear-fuelled scan of his surroundings, though, presented one opportunity – a lone doorway, once used by mall staff to access the backs of the stores selling refreshments to theatre patrons. Gestalt's explosion had tactfully removed the door, which would have been otherwise impenetrable behind the mall's security system. A moment's hesitation, though, would seal it off; Konka Rar was going to have to run very fast if he wanted to get through the opening before the brainless blockade surrounded it. Not enough time, he justified to himself, to inform the skulking Galus of his only escape route.
And so, trying his hardest not to show terror out of habit alone, the necromancer fled for his life, leaving the doomed man alone.
-~-~-~-~-~-~
During the competition so far, however you wanted to look at it, Maxwell had done a lot of rather peculiar things. Most of them made sense to him, if not to an outside party, trying to make sense of actions dictated only by the whimsical notions of a capricious mind. There were a lot of other things, though, that even he hadn't really understood. Not because of why he did them, but merely the fact he was doing them at all. Picking through the rancid corpses of shopping mall greeters, hunting for a clue he considered vital to unlocking one of the enigmas this battle to the death had posed to him, was not something he had really ever intended doing under even the most pressing of circumstances.
He found a leaflet, still reasonably readable, advertising Electromagic's extensive catalogue. Not that he was interested in buying, of course, but the prices were grabbing his attention on a regular basis. They made him set one thing in stone; there was indeed a good reason why the silly-looking squiggle, crossed through with a single line, had adorned so many of windows that he'd seen in the arena.
Returning that to the pocket he'd found it in (courtesy in a situation like this, far from being a frivolity, was to Maxwell a necessity), he resumed his search for a very particular thing. He had several hunches concerning quite how all the contestants spoke the same language, how all the signs he'd seen had been comprehendible, and though he had one he was sticking to, it wasn't proving one of them correct that he so desired to see a certain phrase for. Rather, it was merely to confirm to himself that some things, no matter how hard the Observer might have tried, would doubtless remain beyond his power to influence.
There was also the tiny glimmer of a hope that, by some leap of coincidence, it might explain something else that had been nagging him since he'd seen it written in the Cabaret's diary…
“Um…â€
Engrossed in his pursuit of proof, Maxwell hadn't noticed Clara sneak up on him. The nun was quite astonished at what she was seeing. Maxwell, previously quite sensitive, was rifling through the possessions of the dead with seemingly no acknowledgement of his actions.
“What are you doing, dear?â€
“Oh, don't mind me. I have a rather insatiable desire to know which, as you can see, has led me to grope the bottom of the barrel somewhat. I'd explain, but I doubt we have all day, let alone all week. It's complicated.â€
And there, in the locked embrace of a long-dead soul, was a flyer, advertising (ironically, to Maxwell's mind) a local circus troupe. Though the first word of the phrase was last behind a thumb's remains, it was there.
Were this a perfect world, he would've spun right round, explained his findings, received some reward and recognition for his work and gone back to his research. Instead, though, as his eyes left the exclamation mark on the blood-soaked paper, his ears were opened to a disturbing noise:
“…ahahaharharhahaghgahrarghgaahahaharg h…â€
Put on edge by the sudden nature of the sound, Maxwell's neck almost snapped as he shot glances round the Atrium. Clara and him were quite obviously alone. Though it made some sense, to say that their innocent conversation had triggered a reaction from a nearby zombie, such a theory made no sense if there were none of the buggers about…
“…this cannot be happening to me!â€
Between the mixed bursts of manic laughter and cries of agony, those few words were barely decipherable. Clara patted her tome and browsed the corridor; there were only a couple of zombies at the intersection and all these were heading down towards the theatre.
“…why do you not praise me? You should be my minions, but…â€
Maxwell and Clara looked at each other in light bemusement as the effable commentary abruptly gave way to primal screams once more. As Maxwell rolled his eyes, a crescendo in the cries reached its peak and a noticeable bump was whacked into the exposed duct behind him.
“HAIL me! Stop your scrrreaaaaaaaaams! You are all too loud for you master; be SILENT!â€
Irritant scratching, bone against metal, screeched in the duo's ears below, before the thrashing died down and the Atrium was silent again. Maxwell seemed rather content, as if he'd merely witnessed a common occurrence with an everyday explanation, whereas Clara continued to quiver noticeably. She didn't dare ask; the afflictions of the truly undead, though perhaps interesting to study for oneself, were right now the last thing she wanted a lecture on.
“Well, that was pretty curious. Makes sense, though. Still, let's leave it to one side; I say we have a staircase to climb…â€
Too late did Clara remember what she had really wanted to ask the genius about; the subtle motion she'd seen in the theatre doorway as she'd sought an explanation for his earlier glance that way, shortly before he'd stormed off. Maxwell had bounded off towards the stairs with a spring in his step, one that didn't stop as he reached them, translating into scaling them two at a time.
She remembered her previous considerations of Maxwell's personality and sighed. She reached out for the handrail, gripping it perhaps a tad too tightly…
-~-~-~-~-~-~
Galus's grip on his knees was starting to make them throb gently, but he honestly couldn't care. He could hear a constant drone, the amalgamation of several hundred howls, each one the only output of a broken brain, but this only made him more determined to shun the world around him. He'd always been made aware that the unexpected should be prepared for; combating multitudinous difficulties was an inherent part of a space pilot's work and overcoming them was practically the job's description. Somehow, though, this battle had been beyond the unexpected; the sheer impossibility of the situation he was in has been gnawing at him for some time now, but his streak of resourcefulness had kept it in check.
But now, as the undead legions approached, he'd had enough. As much as he was accustomed to having everybody out to get him, this conflict had been overwhelming. He couldn't count the number of times he'd had a near-lethal run-in; Samuel, Vyrm'n, Gestalt, even Maxwell in his own particular way; all of them had tried to bring about his demise. Even his own brain had gotten in on the act; how stupid had he been, plugging his last bullets into a foolish cause? When one's own mind has turned against you, how do you deal with that? It seemed impossible to come out on top. Now he had incurred the seemingly unstoppable wrath of the mall's zombies, he was screwed.
Still, he could feel his combat knife pressing against his suit, a lump on his side he'd tried to leave unacknowledged. He might be dead to the world in more ways than one, but he could try. Why not?
Trembling violently, he willed himself upright, uncrumpling the body he'd resigned to an unavoidable fate. As he stood there, amidst the dying streams of putrid gore, his arm continued rising. He held his knife in a death-like vice. The helmet he'd been issued long ago was at last removed, every square inch of newly exposed skin dyed red, the consequence of a potent mixture of anger and exhaustion.
As the first wave of zombies reached Galus's perch amongst the rubble, he let his knife fall.
-~-~-~-~-~-~
And then, a world away, a silhouetted figure surveyed his discovery. He stood atop a folly; a tower that served no other purpose than just existing, to make the mall a part of the city skyline. A skyline the man who laid eyes upon it knew he couldn't possibly recognise, but found familiar all the same.
Tainted with the dull red glow of sunset, concrete pinnacles surrounded him, each a testament to their planet's engineers. So what if they were presently crumbling, having been denied their upkeep for years on end? They were there, reaching out to touch the cloudy sky above. Overgrown creepers had wrapped their tendrils around them, spiralling upwards to catch the light. It wasn't quite on par with the desolate scenes movies tended to paint of post-apocalyptic cityscapes, but the link was there, captured forever in the mind of the only living human in the whole of this world.
The cessation of the rhymic tapping of Clara's approach told him that she was similarly affected by the ruination before her. Awestruck, she let the silence continue, as it had seemingly always been and would continue to be when the contestants were spirited away. She didn't like to think about what was going to happen to her.
In the gravity of the moment, she didn't notice Maxwell pull a tattered logbook from his pocket, one of its corners slightly charred, courtesy of the Labyrinth Field, another still damp, courtesy of Destructo World. Cabaret had only ever made two entries into it, in the short time he'd been its keeper. The second one was hardly even an entry at all:
So my plan is:
1: Find that weird guy, Maxwell, and give him my stuff. He's intelligent enough to use my mask, no doubt. He was trying to tell me something earlier in front of a strongman's tent. What on Earth did he mean when he said “who is us� If I get the time I'll ask him about it
2: Go back to the arcade an
Despite being unfinished (Maxwell could only assume that its untimely ending was a indication of when he'd showed up), it was in fact rather revealing. Coupled with the leaflet below, it allowed him to put a name to the dead world that now filled his vision and, by association, his mind; the world the strongman had been lifting, with its continents in a curious configuration that he hadn't recognised.
Earth.
With the ever-helpful benefit of hindsight, Maxwell was starting to wonder whether or not he'd done the right thing. Had he been far too reckless, charging off like that, showing such selfishness and snobbishness? Galus, bless him, was no bright spark and if it had needed one to discern the origin of the undead roaming the mall, maybe it needed one to take that line of thought a step further, to think; if everyone can be reincarnated, why not the person whose death is responsible for it all? The epicentre of the karmic explosion would perhaps have even gained more life than those surrounding him. Whatever, Samuel was dangerous. Galus was, presumably, walking straight towards him.
A far-fetched whim reminded him that Clara and Konka were capable creatures; three on one would be far more likely to ensure Galus's continued existence. But the unshakable truth of the matter was that, before long, somebody had to die. It was the way things worked nowadays. As pessimistic as his perspective was right now, Maxwell didn't like the idea of dying. As the only thing keeping Vyrm'n sane, snuffing it seemed awkwardly irresponsible somehow. Gestalt, being something more than the sum of his constituent parts, was unlikely to perish without some serious effort, despite his current, seemingly fatuous state.
So that left Galus. How many ways could he die? Maxwell didn't like to think about it but, being the scatterbrained soul he was, let a couple trickle into his mind. Most of them involved Samuel and various ineffable tortures, none of which served to ease his worried conscience.
Still, on the flipside, running away, however rash it might have been, gave Maxwell some alone time. There were no distractions now; the corridor connecting the mall to the atrium was silent, with the undead that once occupied it having long since lurched into the more fruitful main concourse, and this relatively tranquil environ was a welcome relief. Admittedly, it made thinking those unsettling thoughts about death and doom far easier; perhaps, Maxwell mused, he would have been better off staying in the thick of it, where distractions were aplenty, all thanks to Samuel's last will and testament…
Maxwell wasn't actually all too bothered about his destination. As long as it was reasonably secluded from the potent wrath of Samuel, he was quite happy. The entrance to the Atrium, though, was far too wide to barricade without some angry mob putting their collective minds to it. “Practically sealed off†was perhaps an understatement, applying only to the apparent lack of any other exits from the cylindrical chamber. There were a couple of mats in front of a suspiciously flat section of concrete, though. They were garnished with the gloopy remnants of greeters, identifiable only by the flyers protruding from the sludge, hints that somebody, naming no names, didn't want anybody leaving the arena by conventional means.
There was a staircase, though. The centrepiece of the chamber, it coiled around an elevator, presumably one that was exceptionally out of order. It looked a tad precarious – the passage of time had tarnished the handrail and crumbled a couple of the steps, but an inquisitive mind is an unstoppable force, especially one wishing to get as far out of the way of things as possible. But first…
-~-~-~-~-~-~
The unhurried pace of Konka Rar was beginning to get on Galus's nerves. The necromancer seemed overly content, untroubled by Maxwell's warnings, having dismissed them as the fabricated excuses for a coward's retreat. The genius's friend didn't share this attitude, however; he knew full well that taking him lightly was probably not the best idea he'd ever had. On the other hand, the prospect of some proper armaments was too good to resist; surely things could only get easier for Maxwell and himself if they were able to retaliate when the zombies attacked?
Or, for that matter, Gestalt or Vyrm'n. Not that that was the real reason for his desire for weaponry at all, obviously.
It was perhaps a tad irksome that the Weaponporium happened to be down the same side-route as Grocer Delight once was. Most of the irks were tiny little trifles; the smell, for example, of the fetid aftermath was easily filtered by Galus's helmet and Konka Rar really didn't mind it (it was reasonable to assume he had some conditioning as a result of previous nefarious exploits, but Galus didn't dare ask). Any fires still burning were doing so in the main body of the store, so their heat from a distance was more than tolerable. The streams of slurry now flowing from the ruins were easily traversable, if one didn't mind sacrificing a little dignity, a bit of their pride and, above all, the continued cleanliness of their clothes. Some curious yellow liquid was now seeping up the pilot's left leg, causing some slight discomfort, but the promise of a reward for his suffering made it bearable.
For a bit, anyway. One problem that was certainly non-trivial was the inescapable fact that the entrance to Galus's idea of heaven was now buried under a insurmountable barricade of fallen rubble and debris.
One of the windows was left uncovered, though, displaying tantalising pieces of engineering perfection; Galus didn't bother to read the labels, but everything just looked amazing. The shop, sealed from the outside world, had kept the copious collection of guns in near-mint condition; every barrel glistened, every bullet gleamed; every trigger was teasing him, daring him to pull them. No repercussions. No unfortunate consequences. No money to be paid.
The window, then, had to be broken. It was, naturally, the only way in. Galus had, by his count, three bullets left in his rifle. Two more than he would need.
Stepping back, oblivious to the snarky articulations Konka Rar was spouting, he took aim and fired.
Had he stopped to think about it for a moment or two, he might not have had to witness a spider-web pattern shimmer across the reinforced glass. He wouldn't have to see his bullet shudder to a halt, embedding itself firmly in the window. The security curtain wouldn't have dropped. The alarm system, weathered by time, would not have let out a feeble drone that gently bumbled down to a mere buzz, then to nothing at all, as if to signify the futility of his endeavour.
“Well done. That was almost inspired.â€
Furious, the last two bullets were fired, but they could not fracture metal. Two holes, though present, were not enough to allow anything useful to pass through. Galus could only weep as the wails in the foyer grew louder once more.
-~-~-~-~-~-~
Crazed by the plague of Conscience, Vyrm'n's attack on the resurrected Samuel had something of a side effect; maybe it was unforeseen, maybe not. Across the bridge that spanned the two contrasting minds, a mindset was shared. As a consequence of the connection, Samuel's half-there brain was given a view of the world it had never seen before; Vyrm'n's view, where every atom blared its story to those who cared to listen, where every speck of matter sang their own little tune. Any form of life, however meagre in comparison to the real deal, became to him a brilliant beacon, its clamours unparalleled by anything the world of the inanimate could create.
It blew his mind. Literally.
But of course, unable to process the convoluted cacophony reality had suddenly become, his brain gave in. Having but the ragged remains of his brain to process it, there was no way he could make sense of it all. Total overload occurred.
Not before, however, he passed it on. The karmic link between him and his undead creations was enough of a bond to handle it and, with no conscious caretaker to stop it from flowing, the song at the heart of reality rushed through. Every zombie in the mall with more than half a brain suddenly saw their world transform before them for no apparent reason. To those who still held on to the majority of their grey matter, however loosely, the orchestra of the real world began to play.
-~-~-~-~-~-~
Standing agape, Konka Rar could hardly express how the despicably moronic act he'd witnessed had affected him. This man too was a buffoon; his survival to this advanced stage of the competition must have come luck alone. Or, perhaps, those who died before him were even more brainless than the sobbing mess before him. He wasn't sure that was possible, to be frank, but nothing could surprise him.
The caterwaul from behind him was getting curiously loud. Taking a backwards glance, it became apparent to the necromancer just what sort of situation he'd gotten himself into. A whole horde of zombies, assumedly unsettled by the gunshots, was presently beginning to lurch into action, pushing their way down the corridor. Their numbers were frighteningly impressive; it was almost as if half the mall was coursing towards them, flooding their inconveniently narrow path, so cramped that limbs were becoming entwined as they moved forwards in alarming unison. Many at the front of the rabble seemed to be screaming, jaws unchecked, hands or fingers cradling mouths in desperate attempts to keep their only means of expressing their agony functioning. Others were covering their ears with whatever miscellaneous appendages they happened to have (some not even their own), trying fruitlessly to block out the rising din. They should, Konka Rar noted, take a page out of Galus's book; curled up in an approximate ball, ignorant of the chaos around him. Something had snapped within him, most likely, with his failure to storm the shop before him having been the final straw. The lich found such lack of composition pathetic, but right now he had other things to do, rather than admonishing a broken soul…
His foes were, despite their natural slowness, encroaching fast; hundreds of bodies shoving from behind were pushing their counterparts towards their two targets. In a sickening moment of revelation, Konka Rar realised there were simply too many to fight; dealing with the sheer number of foes in front of him would require some rather advanced magic, spells he wouldn't have the time to form in the moments between now and the deluge reaching him. Backing up wasn't an option; the debris behind him stopped that. Neither, he considered dryly, was fleeing; the blithering idiot he'd attached himself to had led him straight down a cul-de-sac on that fools' errand of his.
A fear-fuelled scan of his surroundings, though, presented one opportunity – a lone doorway, once used by mall staff to access the backs of the stores selling refreshments to theatre patrons. Gestalt's explosion had tactfully removed the door, which would have been otherwise impenetrable behind the mall's security system. A moment's hesitation, though, would seal it off; Konka Rar was going to have to run very fast if he wanted to get through the opening before the brainless blockade surrounded it. Not enough time, he justified to himself, to inform the skulking Galus of his only escape route.
And so, trying his hardest not to show terror out of habit alone, the necromancer fled for his life, leaving the doomed man alone.
-~-~-~-~-~-~
During the competition so far, however you wanted to look at it, Maxwell had done a lot of rather peculiar things. Most of them made sense to him, if not to an outside party, trying to make sense of actions dictated only by the whimsical notions of a capricious mind. There were a lot of other things, though, that even he hadn't really understood. Not because of why he did them, but merely the fact he was doing them at all. Picking through the rancid corpses of shopping mall greeters, hunting for a clue he considered vital to unlocking one of the enigmas this battle to the death had posed to him, was not something he had really ever intended doing under even the most pressing of circumstances.
He found a leaflet, still reasonably readable, advertising Electromagic's extensive catalogue. Not that he was interested in buying, of course, but the prices were grabbing his attention on a regular basis. They made him set one thing in stone; there was indeed a good reason why the silly-looking squiggle, crossed through with a single line, had adorned so many of windows that he'd seen in the arena.
Returning that to the pocket he'd found it in (courtesy in a situation like this, far from being a frivolity, was to Maxwell a necessity), he resumed his search for a very particular thing. He had several hunches concerning quite how all the contestants spoke the same language, how all the signs he'd seen had been comprehendible, and though he had one he was sticking to, it wasn't proving one of them correct that he so desired to see a certain phrase for. Rather, it was merely to confirm to himself that some things, no matter how hard the Observer might have tried, would doubtless remain beyond his power to influence.
There was also the tiny glimmer of a hope that, by some leap of coincidence, it might explain something else that had been nagging him since he'd seen it written in the Cabaret's diary…
“Um…â€
Engrossed in his pursuit of proof, Maxwell hadn't noticed Clara sneak up on him. The nun was quite astonished at what she was seeing. Maxwell, previously quite sensitive, was rifling through the possessions of the dead with seemingly no acknowledgement of his actions.
“What are you doing, dear?â€
“Oh, don't mind me. I have a rather insatiable desire to know which, as you can see, has led me to grope the bottom of the barrel somewhat. I'd explain, but I doubt we have all day, let alone all week. It's complicated.â€
And there, in the locked embrace of a long-dead soul, was a flyer, advertising (ironically, to Maxwell's mind) a local circus troupe. Though the first word of the phrase was last behind a thumb's remains, it was there.
Were this a perfect world, he would've spun right round, explained his findings, received some reward and recognition for his work and gone back to his research. Instead, though, as his eyes left the exclamation mark on the blood-soaked paper, his ears were opened to a disturbing noise:
“…ahahaharharhahaghgahrarghgaahahaharg h…â€
Put on edge by the sudden nature of the sound, Maxwell's neck almost snapped as he shot glances round the Atrium. Clara and him were quite obviously alone. Though it made some sense, to say that their innocent conversation had triggered a reaction from a nearby zombie, such a theory made no sense if there were none of the buggers about…
“…this cannot be happening to me!â€
Between the mixed bursts of manic laughter and cries of agony, those few words were barely decipherable. Clara patted her tome and browsed the corridor; there were only a couple of zombies at the intersection and all these were heading down towards the theatre.
“…why do you not praise me? You should be my minions, but…â€
Maxwell and Clara looked at each other in light bemusement as the effable commentary abruptly gave way to primal screams once more. As Maxwell rolled his eyes, a crescendo in the cries reached its peak and a noticeable bump was whacked into the exposed duct behind him.
“HAIL me! Stop your scrrreaaaaaaaaams! You are all too loud for you master; be SILENT!â€
Irritant scratching, bone against metal, screeched in the duo's ears below, before the thrashing died down and the Atrium was silent again. Maxwell seemed rather content, as if he'd merely witnessed a common occurrence with an everyday explanation, whereas Clara continued to quiver noticeably. She didn't dare ask; the afflictions of the truly undead, though perhaps interesting to study for oneself, were right now the last thing she wanted a lecture on.
“Well, that was pretty curious. Makes sense, though. Still, let's leave it to one side; I say we have a staircase to climb…â€
Too late did Clara remember what she had really wanted to ask the genius about; the subtle motion she'd seen in the theatre doorway as she'd sought an explanation for his earlier glance that way, shortly before he'd stormed off. Maxwell had bounded off towards the stairs with a spring in his step, one that didn't stop as he reached them, translating into scaling them two at a time.
She remembered her previous considerations of Maxwell's personality and sighed. She reached out for the handrail, gripping it perhaps a tad too tightly…
-~-~-~-~-~-~
Galus's grip on his knees was starting to make them throb gently, but he honestly couldn't care. He could hear a constant drone, the amalgamation of several hundred howls, each one the only output of a broken brain, but this only made him more determined to shun the world around him. He'd always been made aware that the unexpected should be prepared for; combating multitudinous difficulties was an inherent part of a space pilot's work and overcoming them was practically the job's description. Somehow, though, this battle had been beyond the unexpected; the sheer impossibility of the situation he was in has been gnawing at him for some time now, but his streak of resourcefulness had kept it in check.
But now, as the undead legions approached, he'd had enough. As much as he was accustomed to having everybody out to get him, this conflict had been overwhelming. He couldn't count the number of times he'd had a near-lethal run-in; Samuel, Vyrm'n, Gestalt, even Maxwell in his own particular way; all of them had tried to bring about his demise. Even his own brain had gotten in on the act; how stupid had he been, plugging his last bullets into a foolish cause? When one's own mind has turned against you, how do you deal with that? It seemed impossible to come out on top. Now he had incurred the seemingly unstoppable wrath of the mall's zombies, he was screwed.
Still, he could feel his combat knife pressing against his suit, a lump on his side he'd tried to leave unacknowledged. He might be dead to the world in more ways than one, but he could try. Why not?
Trembling violently, he willed himself upright, uncrumpling the body he'd resigned to an unavoidable fate. As he stood there, amidst the dying streams of putrid gore, his arm continued rising. He held his knife in a death-like vice. The helmet he'd been issued long ago was at last removed, every square inch of newly exposed skin dyed red, the consequence of a potent mixture of anger and exhaustion.
As the first wave of zombies reached Galus's perch amongst the rubble, he let his knife fall.
-~-~-~-~-~-~
And then, a world away, a silhouetted figure surveyed his discovery. He stood atop a folly; a tower that served no other purpose than just existing, to make the mall a part of the city skyline. A skyline the man who laid eyes upon it knew he couldn't possibly recognise, but found familiar all the same.
Tainted with the dull red glow of sunset, concrete pinnacles surrounded him, each a testament to their planet's engineers. So what if they were presently crumbling, having been denied their upkeep for years on end? They were there, reaching out to touch the cloudy sky above. Overgrown creepers had wrapped their tendrils around them, spiralling upwards to catch the light. It wasn't quite on par with the desolate scenes movies tended to paint of post-apocalyptic cityscapes, but the link was there, captured forever in the mind of the only living human in the whole of this world.
The cessation of the rhymic tapping of Clara's approach told him that she was similarly affected by the ruination before her. Awestruck, she let the silence continue, as it had seemingly always been and would continue to be when the contestants were spirited away. She didn't like to think about what was going to happen to her.
In the gravity of the moment, she didn't notice Maxwell pull a tattered logbook from his pocket, one of its corners slightly charred, courtesy of the Labyrinth Field, another still damp, courtesy of Destructo World. Cabaret had only ever made two entries into it, in the short time he'd been its keeper. The second one was hardly even an entry at all:
So my plan is:
1: Find that weird guy, Maxwell, and give him my stuff. He's intelligent enough to use my mask, no doubt. He was trying to tell me something earlier in front of a strongman's tent. What on Earth did he mean when he said “who is us� If I get the time I'll ask him about it
2: Go back to the arcade an
Despite being unfinished (Maxwell could only assume that its untimely ending was a indication of when he'd showed up), it was in fact rather revealing. Coupled with the leaflet below, it allowed him to put a name to the dead world that now filled his vision and, by association, his mind; the world the strongman had been lifting, with its continents in a curious configuration that he hadn't recognised.
Earth.