13/13/13
Chapter 8

“The Scandinavian Templars did what!?” Shouted Ptolemy.

“Uh, they released a virus that turned all the remaining Mundanes in their districts into plant-like lifeforms. Apparently, it’s part of their plan for a ‘Greener earth’?” Said the Seraphim equally baffled.

Ptolemy just stared at the report, dumbfounded.

Sadly, the floor below that one was made of sterner stuff, so it would seem that trick was a one-shot deal. This next floor contained four barrels welded to the floor, all containing either liquid fire, liquid lightning, liquid nitrogen, or radioactive sludge.

Both kids looked up at another bloody scrawling above.

What Tutorial would be complete without an armed combat demo?

Alright, Red. Since Tyrone is ‘physically challenged’-

HEY! Shouts Tyrone indignantly.

-Don’t interrupt Tyrone, you know it’s true-

“Okay, creepy.” Thought both kids simultaneously.

-Yes it is. Anyway, this part will mainly focus on Red’s combat prowess.

And don’t worry, Convection Schmonvection! This stuff is a special brand designed to only hurt when touched. But enough of that, bring on the color coded minions!

The two kids quickly turn around as a loud clicking sound can be heard-

ZAP!

Followed by several flashes of light that spawn numerous, inactivated, mechanized soldiers. All of them colored either blue, red, white, or green.

Tyrone’s eyes widen and analyzes this whole scene. “Color coded...” He quickly turns to Red. “Quick! Fire beats red, lightning beats blue, ice beats white, sludge beats green!”

But just as quickly as the triumph came to his eyes, it vanished into despair.

“Wait, but we have no weapons to dunk! And you can’t touch it- I could, but let’s be honest. You really are the fighter here. I’d-

BEEP!

Both kids grow pale as the machines begin to activate and advance.

Red groaned. “Sorry again!” She shouts as she grabs Tyrone and holds him like a billy club.

Tyrone eyes widen in horror as she runs him to the barrels. But he nods in resignation, understanding it’s their only hope. “Be gentle.” He whimpered. Red only had enough time to nod before she dunked him into the fire.

Thankfully, the robots were slow in moving and even slower in wit. Their flat heads made Red feel like she was playing whack-a-mole.

This would be fun, if not for the fact she were dunking her best friend in goo that would kill anyone else, and using him to hit killer robots.

Meanwhile, things were very disorienting for Tyrone. He knew by all ‘real’ logic, that he should be dead, but instead, the fire simply felt like he was in a mild sauna. The liquid nitrogen felt like a faintly cold dip in the ocean. The lighting merely felt like someone was tickling him. and the radiation irritated his skin a bit and he was slightly itchy, but other than that nothing serious. And hitting the robots? Like a light, playful slap, nothing more.

Trusting Red completely to handle this, Tyrone took this opportunity to think on the implications of what he’d learned. He was invulnerable. He was like a superhero. He let that sink in, it was all so surreal, but... but now that he thought about it, it made sense.

Tyrone’s life flashed before his eyes, that time a bike messenger knock him down, the time a baseball slammed into his face near Yankee stadium, the time he was bitten by a rabid clown...

All those times he SHOULD have felt pain, but didn’t. All those times he hadn’t given it much thought for various reasons. Either he in too much of hurry to buy that new videogame to care, or he was too busy wondering how much money he could get for the ball to buy a new videogame, or even trying to hide the fact that the clown made him pee his pants.

The question was, what did it all mean for him? Where did he go from here? Why did he have this power? Where did it come from? Where did his father come into all this? Why was that strange monocled man doing all this? Who, what, where, when, how-

My word! It’s like a bloody washing machine in his head right now! Let’s leave him to his ponderings. What’s Red up to?

....

“DIE! DIE!” Screamed Red as Robot lubricants drenched her bare body-

....

Meh, nothing exciting happening here. Let’s see if Tyrone is done being silly yet-

....

“All these questions, so little answers. So much crazy, weird danger. I should be terrified, dispairing, petrified... so why do I feel so alive?” Wondered Tyrone to himself.

ZAP!

Tyrone was broken from his musings as another robot zapped his way down. This one was three times bigger than the others and equiped with a sword and cannon.

Suddenly it burst out laughing. “HA! HA! Quiver in fear puny meat sacks! For I, Robo-MECHA-OMEGA-ULTRA-HYPER-MEGA SUPREME shall bring the-

SMASH!

SMASH!

SMASH!

Taking advantage of his monologue, Red ran over and bashed him over the head with her flaming Tyrone. And she didn’t let up smashing him for even a second.

When the robot was finally dead, she panted in exhaustion. “(Gasp) Whoa! Man! ‘Free action talking’ really is overrated!” She lampshaded excitedly as she tried to calm her rapidly beating heart, while also making sure she had a firm grasp of Tyrone’s legs so she didn’t drop him on his head. She quickly looks around to see if there were more robots to fight.

Tyrone also tried to help look...but stopped at the sight of Reds body. Even upside-down she was breath-taking. The sweat trickling down her figure, her chest heaving up and down as she tried to steady her breath, her-

“DUDE! Worse time to get ‘excited’ ever!” Teased Red while laughing. A mortified Tyrone quickly covered himself.

An exhausted Red giggles. “Two hands covering ‘that’ is kinda overkill don’t you think?” thought Red to herself.

SHOOP!

The door to the next level opened, derailing that thought. “Wait, what?” Asked a flustered Tyrone, suddenly.

Red however was already running to the next floor, Tyrone still held under her arm like luggage.

“The French Templars have reported in.” Stated the Seraphim.

Ptolemy groaned. “Let me guess, they turned their people to monkeys? Converted their euros into stinky cheese? Ground up all the art in the Louvre into wine?”

“Uh... no. Actually, they’re just keeping the peace. They’ve taken control and have successfully pacified their nation.”

Ptolemy looked at him surprised. “Really? They’re not doing anything crazy?”

The Seraphim shook his head. “Aside from mandatory replacement of the government, installing martial law, a curfew, and rounding up all the new magical’s to be recruited(To clarify, nowadays- for the most part -any magical who is found, is ‘recruited’ by the Templars who control the district they are currently in. This involves being given the ‘choice’ of either joining the Templars or going under a lifetime of house arrest- the severity of this can be increased to imprisonment or death if the magic user has committed heinous crimes- And by house arrest, I mean living forever separate from your old life in one of the hundreds of secret gated communities that Templars and their families call home…so make of that what you will.), they’re not doing anything drastic.”

Ptolemy looked confused, then nodded. “Uh... well, good then. Yes, good to hear! I’ll... I’ll just go now.”

And he walked over to Alax, all the while completely confused about why he felt so let down all of a sudden.

They ran down the corridor-

RUMBLE!

Tyrone sighed. “Is it me or have the constant rumblings kinda lost their threat? Red nodded. “Yeah, the first dozen times I was scared, now it’s kinda just meh-

CRASH!

They look behind to see a giant boulder rolling toward them! “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” Shouted Tyrone smacking his own head as Red once more scooped him up. Fortunately, a few minutes ago. Tyrone swallowed his pride and designated Red as the ‘Carry me like luggage and run whenever were in trouble’ person.

“Never tempt fate!” Shouts Tyrone. “Rookie mistake! I- “LESS TALKING! MORE NOT DYING!” Interrupts a panicky Red.

She quickly jumped through a doorway on the side of the hallway-

BOOM!

When the dust clears, Red turns around to see the door blocked by the boulder.

“Dude, seriously?” Says Tyrones irritated voice beside her. Red turned around and saw the source of his annoyance.

It was a toilet. Specifically, it was a rusty, fecal-stained toilet, that was actually growing mushrooms from its murky depths. And above it were several bloody scrawling’s:

No tricks here, jam this toilet and your way to the next floor is assured.

P.S. Tyrone can’t drown in non-magical liquids.

Red turns green in disgusted horror. She turns to her friend. “Uh, I’m sure we can replace another-

“No! There’s no time! With my luck, we could have another death trap or robot ambush any minute now. Just... just make it quick.”

Tyrone says that last part while desperately trying not to vomit. Red also barely swallows her vomit, but nods. Grabs him-

CRACK!

And then slams his head right down in the toilet and flushes-

FWOOM!

Which causes a pipe to crack. Filling the room with foul water. Red desperately kept her head above the water-

WHOOSH!

Which became a vain attempt as a whirlpool inexplicably formed inside the room, sucking both of them into the next floor.

And so that’s how they ended up on the next floor down. They were both waterlogged, banged up, filthy, and smelly.

Red groaned as she lifted her aching body up, she took one look at the chainsaws, buzz saws and flamethrowers that were clashing together in the hallway in front of them in a deadly crescendo-

“Nope. Not doing this. Hang the consequences, were leaving!” Shouts Red as she grabs the equally exhausted Tyrone and drags him to the wall.

“You know, you could at least ask instead of letting me delude myself into thinking I’m just an overgrown piece of luggage.” States a resigned Tyrone.

Too tired to respond. Red simply resolves to add this to the increasingly colossal pile of things she needed to make up to him and-

CRASH!

And started banging Tyrone against the wall like a pick-axe. Finally, she broke through, looked through it. And let out a holler of triumph as she saw that they were only five floors from the ground. Quickly putting Tyrone under her arm to carry, she carefully steps out onto the ledge in front of the hole.

“Okay, it won’t be easy. But we should be able to eventually climb down to the sweet, wonderful ground! Filled with baths, clothes, food, and-

RUMBLE!

Reds eye twitched, where once was only five floors...was now a hundred...The building had literally grown!

Now, Red had been through a lot that day, and the fact that she’d been able to- mostly- take it in stride showed how strong she was. But at heart she was only human, and a human can only handle so much...

GAAAAHHHHH!!!

Screamed Red as she began to bang Tryone randomly against every object she was close to.

In accordance with FCC guidelines, many of the following words will be replaced by nonsense.

Stupid Skraggers! (Clorp) you! (Blorg) upon your household! Skrag you sideways! (Flipped) off on a bucket of (wurrbles)! You (chim-chong) son of a (plumbis)!

I-

BANG!

Slams Tyrone against the wall.

-HATE-

BANG!

Slames Tyrone against the railing

-THIS-

miss

-SHI- Wait, what?”

Babbles Red uncomprehendingly as the now very familiar feel of Tyrones legs was no longer there-

It’s then that she sees that her hands are empty, as well as the increasingly small dot that was her friend falling away from her.

Her mental breakdown complete, she simply fell into a fetal position and wept.