Post by bobsnicket on Feb 21, 2009 22:06:13 GMT -5
Chapter 18: Secret of the Room
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{5} The Behemoth
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Moments after the four challenges sent by Master had been vanquished, the rounded quarters of Final Destination, without warning, jerked into motion and floated back toward the center. The victors readied themselves for whatever came next, and Master awaited them silently. Finally, after several extremely long, drawn-out seconds, Final Destination was reformed once more.
Master did not look happy.
His pretense of civil friendliness extinguished, the swirls of purple substance flared angrily around the man, somewhat of a visible display of his emotions. His grip tightened around the Smash Rod; the sphere at the top of it was now only filled about a third of the way with the blue gas-liquid.
The Smashers and the other survivors noticed this.
His perfect teeth were clenched. “THAT…is enough…this has gone on for too long; my victory has been prolonged farther than I deem adequate. You powerless mortals have evaded defeat for the last time! I…even I…grow weary of this game. And now, I intend to end it.”
E. Gadd, keenly observant as always, whispered to Kirby. “I may be wrong, but I believe the amount of blue substance contained within that sphere signifies how much power he has! It’s possible that we need only endure until his powers are depleted…”
“Ha ha ha!” Master had apparently overheard the professor’s hushed words of encouragement. “You think attempting to exhaust the Smash Rod of its power will allow you even the slightest chance of prevailing against me?” He held out the magnificent golden rod before them. “But you do not even know what this is! This…is more than a mere power source. It is the scepter of ultimate authority in This World, and whoever holds it possesses sole sovereignty over our lands. It was another dismissed idea brought up by someone in the team from my dimension. However, by exiling me and my ideas to the Nintendo Universe, they unknowingly sent with me every other rejected idea ever to be concocted, including this.” The sunglasses flashed at them, and Master’s lips stretched in a cruel smile. “Would you like to know which of your friends were rejects?”
“Stop right there, sir!” Professor E. Gadd’s surprisingly resonant voice pointedly refrained from calling him Master. “Now, you either give back everything and everyone you’ve taken away from us and leave this land forever, or we will destroy you! You decide.”
Master glared down at the short leader below him. “I will finish my explanation prior to ending this so you may grasp the full extent of your cause’s hopelessness, little scientist.
“The first third of the Smash Rod’s energy has been used gradually over the past six years, allowing me to split my identity between the Hands and oversee the growth of my armies. The second, recently departed portion, as you can now see, was spent in arranging this climactic moment we are now experiencing, and in bringing forth the four challenges I presented you with. The only reason so much of its strength was used is because of the complexity of creating Giga Bowser in his enormity out of that pathetic Koopa. So, as I am to now demonstrate…” The blue sphere began to glow brighter. “…you can hardly comprehend how easy it will be for me to kill all of you with this much potency at my command. THE END HAS COME!!!”
Another blinding white flash was produced by the tip of the Smash Rod, setting up for another change of setting. This time, however, the change was mind-boggling, for their surroundings were not the only thing to change.
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In place of the boundless darkness: a rotating, cylindrical chasm of glowing green, blue, and red tiles, the colors separated into sections which reversed direction with each change. The chasm swirled about them so speedily at times, and jerkily at others, that it was impossible to tell whether one was falling down or ascending up it. A truly dizzying feeling.
The platform of Final Destination was nowhere to be seen; the eight Nintendonians found themselves devoid of a surface to stand on. It followed, then, that while Gadd, Kirby, Meta Knight, and Mewtwo were not troubled by this shift, Mario, Dr. Mario, Link, and Ness found themselves suddenly groundless. And since the environment seemed neither to pull them down nor up, they were in a state similar to open space, with nothing to push them one way or the other. This was a very difficult position for the latter four, so the professor took it upon himself to use a special magnet on the hovercraft to pull them aboard. Therefore, what remained were Mewtwo and Meta Knight flying solo (although both were injured) and the remaining six grouped together in the scientist’s small vehicle. Not to mention the horrid, colossal thing in the center.
What first caught one’s eye was, well, its eye. A huge, disturbing eye the size of a Christmas tree, colored a reddish-purple with only a black slit for a pupil. No blood vessels or eyelid—just strain marks around the black similar to the Eye of Sauron.
Although many of those present had faced creatures with enormous eyes before—Mario, Link, Kirby, etc.—nothing compared to the penetrating, savage gaze of the transformed Master’s eye.
Sprouting from the back of the eye were two massive, leathery black wings, like that of a bat’s, which could most likely envelope a house with their vastness. The only other feature of Master’s reincarnation was the two skeletal white arms with four equally bony fingers each, the two fleshless hands curling in and out in an eerily similar motion to Master and Crazy Hand.
This time, there was no lecture, no roar, no hesitation from the transformed exile. No time to wonder at their surroundings or let the terror of their enemy’s appearance sink in.
Beating his great wings, Master lashed out at the hovercraft, intent on tearing it apart with his skeleton hands.
Those inside retaliated in defense, doing the best they could to hold the Behemoth back (which it shall be referred to as). The Marios hurled Fireballs and Megavitamins at the eye like there was no tomorrow—which, if they lost, might very well be true. Link shot arrows—fire, ice, and normal—at the same target. Ness used PK Thunder repeatedly, the professor controlled the craft and fired red lasers, and Kirby, at a loss, did nothing, but was prepared to help when needed. From behind, Mewtwo sent Shadow Balls, grunting as the wound on his shoulder burned with each toss, while Meta Knight seemed to be creeping up stealthily behind the Behemoth, waiting for the most opportune moment.
The eye seemed to flash a slightly lightened hue with each attack, so damage was certainly being done. What wasn’t certain was whether at this rate, enough damage would ever be done to deplete the Behemoth’s life force, which likely would be a very high amount. The Adversary Analyzers, oddly enough, had ceased to function within this bizarre, surreal cylinder.
The Behemoth appeared, for a while, to be held back by the constant stream of projectiles, and as long as this seemed to be working, the survivors would never cease. But it folded its gigantic wings over the vulnerable center, and then all further projectiles simply bounced off the black appendages. Sprouting from below the encased area of the wings, a swarm of bat creatures, identical to their creator except for their size, burst forth in all directions. The baseball-sized eyes came in every color of the rainbow: red, orange, green, blue, indigo, and violet. They would have been little more than a nuisance to the Smashers except that from their eye slits they produced small beams of burning energy with the color of the beam corresponding to the eye’s. Often, the multitudinous array of colors got mixed up with the spinning surroundings. The Behemoth, meanwhile, remained enfolded within its wings.
One could not ask for a more chaotic situation.
As the bat creatures reached them, the hovercraft’s occupants fought them off determinedly. All of them bewared the multicolored beams as well as the tiny ravaging skeleton hands which tore at their faces, cloths, and hair. Mario executed Mario Tornadoes and reflected beams back with his yellow cape. Dr. Mario stuck to his Megavitamin-throwing, fending off the swarm with the same skill he applied to fend off the Viruses back home. Gadd had a harder time, being as defenseless in close combat as he was, but despite being singed and scraped in many spots, he managed to punch in a combination on the control panel to call upon the lightning rod, which zapped some of the abominations with the stored green electricity. Link slashed at them with the bent Master Sword like Keese, but because of the difficulty of using such a deformed weapon, he also suffered from several beam hits. Ness applied a wide variety of yo-yo tricks which spun through his legs, under his arms, and over his head. As often as he could, the boy also activated a PSI magnet whenever possible to recover from the fight against Aparidley. Kirby, perhaps, was the most prepared this time. After sucking in and swallowing one of the creatures, Beam Kirby (with a red-yellow jester hat) rotated chains of spherical lasers above him like the propeller of a helicopter, taking out dozens of enemies with a single revolution.
Meta Knight, shouldering his injured wing like it was nothing, made his move. Diving gracefully below the Mini-Behemoths coming his way, he came back up where the Behemoth’s eye was still vulnerable even within the folds of its wings: the underside. The winged warrior stabbed his golden blade into the shiny reddish-purple jelly with vigor.
Mewtwo, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the headache accompanying his wounds to cause all Mini-Behemoths in the vicinity to explode grotesquely from a mind-shattering Psychic attack. Finding the pathway clear, he moved closer until he spotted Meta Knight’s stunt. Eager to return some of the pain Aparidley had excruciated upon him to its sender, Mewtwo focused his telekinetic powers on the golden sword, and with an intended jerk, shoved the blade with his mind deeper and deeper into the eye’s interior. Ignoring the Behemoth’s colossal reaction, he kept pushing it through until it penetrated through the other end.
The Behemoth unfurled its wings in widespread agony, the black pupil narrowing as it shook with pain. Unfortunately, now that such a deadly blow had been inflicted on it, Master’s reincarnation became so reckless and vengeful that it no longer gave heed to its own survival. The winged titan suddenly began shining with all the colors of the rainbow, its previous features now shimmering into the conflux of mesmerizing brilliance. From what the heroes could tell, it was about to fulfill its words as Master—the end has come…
Self-destruction. Only this would surely be exponentially worse than Krackorock’s or an Electrode’s. It would kill them all.
A preliminary ring of kaleidoscopic energy pulsed in all directions. It billowed inescapably through the heroes, tossing them all head over heels and filling every spot on their bodies with an indescribable sting, like a wasp sting that strikes everywhere, and lingers tortuously afterward. So tremendous was the pain that it was beyond screams; it was all they could do to hold themselves together with whatever willpower they had left.
The hovercraft did not have the willpower of a living being. The surging ring of rainbow force incinerated the machine, generating a terrible explosion which hurtled the six occupants into the open space.
It was the worst, most unbearable moment of all their lives.
And the Behemoth continued to shine brighter. It was going to do it again, except bigger. Fatally.
Just before the Behemoth was able to bring about the end, a shining yellow light shot forward from the Hero’s Bow at the direct center of the eye. The Light Arrow glimmered effulgently with the endowed magic of the Triforce of Courage, and just when all was about to be lost, pierced the shimmering, suicidal Behemoth.
Everything shattered around them: the ever-stretching cylinder of spinning tiles, the remaining bat creatures, the Behemoth itself.
As was beginning to happen more often than seemed reasonable, the scene changed yet again in a flurry of color.
TO BE CONTINUED...
