Black Friday: 2nd Annual One-Day-One-Shot

[Coryn]

Part 2

        And now back to the story.

        A thick mist had rolled in out of nowhere, and the streets were clogged with dark shadows and the glowing red eyes which lurked within them. Once pristine and well groomed, the city's parks had become deep, forbidding forests of imposing trees and gnarled roots. MangaRaiders was undergoing a most unnatural and unwanted transformation, and it most assuredly had everything to do with the eye.
        Lego hit the pavement after another assault on the pinwheel eye. He had thrown Pub-tan's bottle of death into the thing's pupil, but instead of exploding as hoped, the bottle just disappeared into the blackness. Lego didn't know if this was a good or bad thing, but successive attempts with ever more volatile cocktails had only produced the same result. Either the eye was disappearing the bottles to dimensions unknown, or it was going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning. The moderator couldn't say, but for now he needed a new plan.
        Lego scanned his surroundings. He had landed in a side street of the Artists District. Off in the distance he could hear Coryn's ever deepening voice babbling on. The scientist had been growing taller and thinner as the night went on. The last time Lego had seen Coryn, his fellow moderator had grown to be taller than a lamp post, his eyes shining like a pair of horrible lighthouse beams through the mists. Recalling that image sent a chill down Lego's spine. Hopefully taking out that eye god thing would turn Coryn back to normal. Lego didn't want to deal with him if Coryn got too much bigger.
        That thought aside, new plan time. Lego rushed back to the pub in hopes of finding its patron tan. On the way there he witnessed all sorts of horrors. Raiders were being harassed by vampires, Frankenstein's monsters, mummies, and creatures from the black lagoon. Fortis had infiltrated and stolen control of an army of skeletons. It was no longer clear whose side he was on. Fro's hair had been lit on fire by a demented clown, which brought Lego great joy. A guest specter was being eaten alive by rabid wolfmen, which turned Lego's stomach. Robin was being assailed by goblins. Operative was being carried upside-down through the air by ghosts. Lego even saw mighty MR-tan in combat with a shadow version of herself that knew her every move. Truly a Halloween extravaganza freak show was being visited upon MangaRaiders at the behest of pinwheel eyeball. Classic horrors, both real and metaphorical had been brought to life to torment the city's fine residents.
        But all of this terror was not the worst of it. No, what chilled Lego all the way to the core was not the cast of universal monsters he had to deal with, or the deepening shadows, not was it the ever growing Coryn. It wasn't even the floating eye itself, which Lego could swear was getting closer as the night grew long. No, none of this compared. What scared Lego, really scared him, was that he was seeing more and more sets of pinwheel eyes on the darkness and the mist. Raiders he had known to be strong willed earlier in the night were succumbing to the eye's mysterious power. Perhaps they had lost their respective battles. Perhaps they had just stared too long at the massive pinwheel in the sky that their eyes would come to reflect. Lego could not land on a satisfactory conclusion for any of it, and he was not sure that he wanted to. With a mental note to not look directly at the eye and a prayer that none of the newly possessed would turn against him as Coryn had, Lego pressed on. At least, he thought, none of them had begun stripping. It was a slight bit of reassurance, but it did bring up troubling questions as to how Coryn ended up exactly how he had.
        Lego slid to a halt outside the pub. A shotgun blast emanated from within, and he rushed inside to check that all was well. He found Pub-tan having just put down the last in line of a pack of severely decomposed zombies. Lego sighed with relief, and propped the door back up the best he could to at the very least dissuade any would be bad actors.
        The bar was scattered with bottles familiar and unfamiliar. All of the novelty party bottles were off the shelves, and all of the regular bottles were out of storage. There were also bottles written in strange scripts and languages which Lego did not recognize, and bottles unadorned by any markings whatsoever, being differentiated only by size, shape, color, and material. Pub-tan was already back to mixing various as Lego approached the bar.
        "It's looking rough out there." Said Lego. "Acid isn't going to work. That thing just keeps stealing the bottles away, and it doesn't seem to care even if I hit it ten-thousand times. We need a new plan."
Pub-tan paused in her work and sighed. "I was afraid you might say that, but I've come prepared. All of the bottles on the table now should explode if you hit them hard enough."
        Lego blinked a few times to make sure his head was clear and he was hearing correctly. "You realize that I'll be in the crossfire then right? You know, right in the center of the explosion? You wouldn't put me in such immediate danger would you Pub-tan? You wouldn't right? Right?" Asked Lego with pleading eyes. Pub-tan's side-eyed stair told him all he needed to know. She would put him in clear and present danger after all. "How heartless… " moaned Lego.
        Pub-tan said. "I have faith you will survive. Somehow you always do. Now, start with this end," she pointed at the side of the bar farthest away from the door, "and work your way to the right. You'll be ending with the big-boy." Pub-tan pointed to a plastic handle bottle that glowed and electric blue.
        Lego's eyes grew wide. "Why don't I just start with that one?! It's huge! What's in it?"
        Pub-tan shrugged and said. "It's just an empty bottle of cheap vodka I refilled with Coryn's bone juice or whatever it is he's claiming it is these days. I would have sent you with the flask, but I don't know where the bottom of that thing is, and if I did you might end the universe or something. Who knows."
        Lego, not in on the details of Coryn's arrangement with Pub-tan, just had to grin and accept what Pub-tan was telling him. "Alright alright! Less world ending bottles first, most world ending bottles later. You better hope I die doing this! If not I am going to guilt trip you for soooo many free drinks later!"

        Back in the sewer system, Mahlua and Vacant had reached their destination. A square room where two streams crossed was apparently the place to be. An arching bridge connected caddy-corner from one pathway to the other, and it was there that Mahlua had staked her claim. Sigils were drawn all across the space, symmetrically extending outward from the highest point of the little stone bridge. Mahlua went straight to the bridge, and began making her final preparations. "Usually I would have more time to do all of this but we're going to have to make some rough and tumble exceptions."
        Vacant looked around and put on a brave face. "Yeah… magic, how hard could it be?"
        Mahlua looked at him incredulously. "You're going to do sweetie. Just… start clearing my supplies out of the room. I need to start cleansing out the space so I can do my work. This is going to be weird enough with some ancient god butting in on my feed."
        Mahlua dropped to the ground and started charging up. Purple energy flowed through her tattoos, and lightning arced down her arms. A new feeling took hold in the air as Vacant picked up bags and chalk and reference books. He realized that all of this time he had been afraid of the giant bleeding pinwheel eyeball. That, of course, had been and still was a very reasonable thing to be afraid of. But now that Mahlua was falling into a trance and doing her full witchy thing, Vacant could feel centuries of his screaming English ancestors telling him to fear the witch! Burn the witch! Burn! Fear! Burn! Fear! Burn! Fear! Burn! Burn! Burn!
        Centuries of English ancestors be damned, he was getting the hell out of there! His arms burdened with Mahlua's stuff, Vacant got clear of the room as a lightning wreathed Mahlua began moving towards the the dead center of the bridge and the room. Whatever was about to happen, it was going to be impressive. Vacant chose this moment to close his eyes and huddle behind a pillar, so our omniscient narrator will be taking over.
        As Mahlua reached the room's axis and Vacant cowered, the earth shook. This time not from Coryn's massive, ponderous steps, but from Mahlua's magical energy pressing itself against the bounds of reality and MangaRaiders' infrastructure. Lighting crackled and sputtered out from Mahlua's feet as she stepped into the central circle. Bolts connected from her position to specifically designed sigils on the walls. These lit up, and in turn branched out like a creeping vine to connect over a dozen other sigils each. By now the room had become an echo chamber of lightning and magic. Anything not physically connected to Mahlua was at risk of vaporization, so it was a very good thing that Vacant had gotten clear when he had the chance.
        Now, in a more perfect world, Mahlua would have left Pub-tan's Halloween bash about twenty minutes before she was due to appear on stage and present her costume. She would have done the cleaning up herself, then began the first stage of the ritual. This was the point in which she would phase herself back into through gaps in the brick work of the sewer and the stone work of the pub's store room. From there it would be a short trip up the stairs and onto the stage where she would rematerialize with a dramatic flourish. This act would leave a connection between what she was doing above and what was still going on below, keeping the spell going. The energy taken from being watched and observed would then feed back into the ritual, and by the time of the finishing move, the second part of the spell would trigger. Mahlua would be encompassed by magical energies, and they would spontaneously transform her outfit right before the audience's eyes. She would then finish her presentation wearing the character's updated clothing from her appearance in the flash forward at the end of episode thirteen.
        It would all be so perfect, but alas, it was not to be. Now, deep below the pub's stage and her destined place upon it, Mahlua overcharged the ritual. She would phase up to the pub and update her outfit all in one. But if all went to plan she wouldn't just land on the stage. No, she would be going straight to the top baby! No stopping on the plebian floors! This electric elevator is headed straight for the penthouse suite! One phase, one killing blow for one giant eyeball eyesore!
        Hi-ho silver.
        The ritual reached its zenith. Mahlua shot off like a rocket, but the sudden change of plans lead to a miscalculation. There would be no stopping for the lower floors, sure, but there would also be no lower floors after she passed them by. First went the roof of the sewer, then the pub's storeroom floor, the barroom's ceiling, Pub-tan's dresser, her bedroom ceiling, and finally the roof of the pub itself. If you were watching from a third person vantage point, you would have seen a purple flash of light followed by a streak of lightning shooting into the sky. Higher and higher it flew. Mahlua passed all but the tallest buildings in MangaRaiders, she then eclipsed Coryn's new height, and finally cleared MR Tower itself. Now there was nothing between her and the pinwheel eye itself. By now it felt so close. Was so close. Mahlua couldn't miss. She slammed into it right in the center of its big dumb pupil. It was wet and viscous, and was disgusting to the touch even for a being currently made entirely of energy. The eye pushed in, deeper and deeper. As deep as Lego's mighty guitar had driven it or Pub-tan's largest alcohol bomb. But Mahlua could drive it no further. The eye flexed back out, and the sudden reflection forced Mahlua back into her corporeal form. The witch was launched back the way she came. A moment later she slammed into the stage of MR Pub. Thankfully it was a sturdy construction, so it did not give. Mahlua bounced up and down a few times, and by the time it was all over she was splayed out flat.
        Everything hurt, but slow recognition was coming that she had an audience. Pub-tan and Lego were already gathered in the pub, Lego's hand mid-grab on and alcohol bomb. Vacant was clawing his way up from the hole Mahlua had created to the sewer below. With her adoring fans in mind, Mahlua drew herself up into the sexiest pose she could manage given the broken bones. "Never forget… who's the most extra B-I-T-C-H on this rock…" said Mahlua before promptly passing out.
        When Mahlua awoke a few minutes later, all had gone quiet. The power was out in the pub, whether that was due to what she had done, or due to the pinwheel eye, she didn't know. The room was lit by candlelight, but Mahlua could see that the front door and the windows had been barricaded. Pub-tan, Lego, and Vacant were gathered at the bar, scrawling notes on napkins. They were too engrossed in their scheme to notice her waking up, so Mahlua dragged herself back to her feet and made her way to the bar. "What's the situation."
        Pub-tan poured herself a stiff drink before answering. "Best Lego can see from here, everyone else has succumbed to the eye's will. No word if they're turning into hundred meter tall skeleton monsters like Coryn has, but safe to assume; yes."
        She down the drink, and Lego took over. "Vacant thinks he has a plan."
        Vacant said. "I do have a plan! And hold onto your bottoms, because it's a good one! It's like this, see…" he motioned towards the various napkin sketches. "That big eye thing is what's powering Coryn, and also taking over everyone else in the city. And earlier when Pub-tan shot Coryn in the face, that thing screeched. So I'm thinking then, if we hurt Coryn enough, maybe it will kill the eye."
        "Coryn's gone full titan." Lego said. "And a shotgun to the face didn't stop him when he was small. What are we going to do now that he's huge?"
        "Well…" started Vacant. "I couldn't help but notice Mahlua is in some fancy new digs after all that magic mumbo jumbo of hers. I was thinking maybe she could magic us up some fancy armor and weapons to take him down? Late stage power up in the third act this thing?"
        All eyes turned on Mahlua, who gave the prospect a thought, and then shrugged. "I can try something. But I need everyone to get on board with a lot of things really quick. That ritual wasn't designed for extras. I can't give you a clear answer on what's going to happen."
        It was agreed that partial credit was better than no credit, so the chance was one they were willing to take. The four raiders dropped down into the sewer, Mahlua made some last minute adjustments in her sigils, and the ritual process began anew. The extra participants were moved into place. The sigils were lit, the lightning flared, and bolt of energy erupted from the fissure.
        This time though, this time things would be different. The bolt of lightning was huge, and instead of impacting the pinwheel eye, it shattered and branched out. Two trunks of lighting shot down, two to the sides, and a ball formed above it all. A rough bipedal figure had been formed, but it lasted in the air for only a moment. There was a flash of light, and two weighty feet slammed into the ground. Where once a stick-man stood, a hulking warrior boldly posed. This half man, half robot, all solidified lightning energy fighter stood as tall as MR Tower. It's face was scarred with stitches. It wore a cowboy hat atop its head. A guitar was slung around its back, and a frilly black dress adorned its chassis. It was the ZOMBIE COWBOY ROCKSTAR GOTHIC LOLITA BATTLESUIT (Z.C.R.G.L.B. or Zucurglub for short). And within its chest sat the four control chairs, in which the four heroes of themselves found themselves.
        "This is the dumbest thing that's ever happened to me." Said Pub-tan with a deadpan humor. Indeed, for a site devoted to anime, giant mecha battles came up surprisingly little. Now that one was actually about to happen it was a little hard to process.
        More difficult to comprehend, was that as soon as they placed their hands on the controls, the raiders gained a sense of intuition about what their fellow copilots were thinking. With every movement they made, the others followed in time perfectly. There was no lag between them, even though they lacked any direct sense of being in another's mind.
        "Whatever you do, don't think if anything perverted."
        "Too late…"
        "Damn it!"
        "Enough, everyone needs to calm down right now! Coryn's noticed us."
        It was a true statement. The hulking mass of.Coryn Sken was leering at them. The scientist had become nearly unrecognizable. He was as tall as the Z.C.R.G.L.B., and had grown almost completely skeletal. The faintest traces of muscle could be found before stretched tight skin. His clothing, such as it was, had mercifully grown with the rest of him, but even if it hadn't, the thick mist billowing from his mouth would have provided some form of modesty salvaging coverage. Words still came from the moderator's mouth, but they were so distorted by the enlarged size of his throat that they came out as deep groans. The Z.C.R.G.L.B. pulled up its fists into a right stance, and Coryn charged.
        The giant's first blow went wide, and the Z.C.R.G.L.B. landed a strike in his gut. They pushed around each other, Coryn's flailing arms lashing out indiscriminately and landing blows as much on the Z.C.R.G.L.B. as innocent buildings. The mecha's pilots were careful to avoid MR Tower itself, but collateral damage could not be avoided. For a while the two opponents just stood and went toe to toe for a while. Blow for blow they matched each other. It wasn't clear if Coryn felt the pain, but Coryn's attacks were wreaking havoc within the Z.C.R.G.L.B.'s cockpit. Panels exploded from the walls, wires dangled from the ceiling. It was a shoddily designed mecha from four very tired and very different minds. Things were going to be a little off, but this is ridiculous.
        "We're not getting anywhere!" Shouted Mahlua.
        "Use the ax!" Cried Vacant.
        "What ax?" Asked Lego.
        "The guitar! Hit him with the guitar!" Demanded Pub-tan.
        The Z.C.R.G.L.B. reached over its shoulder, and this to it brought the giant robot sized guitar down on Coryn's noggin. The deformed raider was sent toppling to the ground, and  pilots of the Z.C.R.G.L.B. celebrated in the control center. But this was only a moment's elation. The pinwheel eyeball still hovered in the sky, and there was no sign that it was going to do anything besides that for quite some time. Coryn was already getting back on his feet, so it seemed the battle would continue to the bitter end.
        The Z.C.R.G.L.B. swung it's guitar in a horizontal arc. Coryn ducked and slammed a fist into its face. Next the raiders feinted with another swing of the guitar, but in fact were aiming for a kick to Coryn's ribs. The giant bounced along on one foot until he could regain his balance, at which point he hammered both fists into the Z.C.R.G.L.B.'s shoulder. By now the damage to their creation was too large for the raiders to ignore. For being a giant mecha, this thing sure was held together with a hope and a prayer. It was time for the finishing move. Coryn broke into a dead sprint go the
        Z.C.R.G.L.B.. Purple energy flared around the body of the Z.C.R.G.L.B.'s guitar. With the last of its power, the Z.C.R.G.L.B. swung up, smashing the giant guitar into a million pieces against the bottom of Coryn's chin. In a shower of wood and metal Coryn was launched into the air, and straight into the pinwheel eye looming above MangaRaiders. This time there was more than enough force to do the trick. The force of the guitar's strike and that of the giant it helped create impacted the eyeball, and it exploded in a torrent of blood and ectoplasmic viscera. Coryn's gigantic body burst apart to, and the Z.C.R.G.L.B. caught the regular sized Coryn which emerged from the R-rated display of gore. Normal Coryn was still in his underwear, but the raiders could see through their view-screens that he was back to glowing his normal electric blue. With a sigh of relief from all involved, the Z.C.R.G.L.B. dispersed back into the magical energies from which it had arisen. The four raiders fell back to solid ground, Coryn unconscious but in tow. They had vanquished the strange god, and all was right on MangaRaiders, at least for a little while longer.

        "So…" slurred Coryn, back in the present. "That's the story of last Halloween. It was a hell of a good time."
        "Yeah it was!" Agreed Vacant, a fresh cup of druel in his hand.
        It was a moment of much revere and enjoyment until 3.0 decided to open his mouth. "No it's not!"
        "What?" Asked Coryn.
        "That's not what happened last year!" Reiterated 3.0. I should know, I reported on it! You stayed the same size the whole night and there was most definitely no monster of the week style mech fight!"
        Vacant turned towards his other human companions. "Come on guys! Back us up here! Dev! Echo! Set the radio man straight!"
        "I'm sorry Vacant." Said Echo while sipping some tea out of a paper cup. "I'm not denying that there was a weird eyeball in the sky and that Coryn got possessed, but the second half of that story was pretty much all made up "
        The look on Coryn's face dropped from a happy drunken smile to a frown. "What are you saying?"
        Devola cut in. "I think she's saying you two are drunk on helicopter fuel, and forgot have of the details of this story as you were telling it. What happened to the bone juice bomb? How did everyone else who got possessed fair? This thing is full of plot holes."
        "Processed helicopter fuel!" Shouted Vacant.
        Coryn said. "Well alright then! Admittedly things got pretty off the rails there, but you can't blame a pair of guys for trying to make things interesting. Now! If you will excuse me, I need to take a bio-break."
        Coryn rose to find himself the bathroom, but was stopped by Devola before he could get too far. "Wait a minute, I'm still unclear about why you were in your boxers the whole time."
        Coryn shrugged, and started back on his way to the restroom. "I was ironing before the party. A little portal experiment I was running on the kitchen counter went bad and the pinwheel eye got through. Just the wrong place at the wrong time." The scientist disappeared from view, leaving everyone with an unsatisfactory conclusion to that particular mystery. But that was how things were some times. Not all mysteries have grand reveals. Sometimes they're nothing more than the wrong place at the wrong time, or getting caught with your pants down by an ancient god. Life's funny like that, especially on Halloween.