i haven't been at it for a while, so this is the last chapter that's already been written, and therefore this is the last update before i bother writing anymore! but its a long-ish one.
i thought of an idea, listen to any raytunes music you have (preferably a hoodlum battle of some sort) while you read. actually i think that was someone elses idea somewhere...but do it anyway. it might make it more enjoyable.
CHAPTER 16 – A Cold Welcome
“Oh yeah” the Magician said as though the situation
wasn’t a disaster. “The pirates aren’t here, so the Hoodlums have moved right in. Although you’d think they’d have the whole mountain covered in cloth by now.”
Grolem 13 was ahead of them struggling to fend off waves of Armaguiddon Cruisers. Despite the rain, the hoodlums had obviously decided to go on a raid for the mask, which would be a good healthy power source for André. Not even the lightning created by Grolem was deterring them, but the newly arrived trio was determined to change that.
Three simultaneous blasts of energy disabled three cruisers in an instant as the three fired their respective attacks. Between them and Grolem, the Armaguiddons stood no chance, however they were the least of their problems. At that moment, a massive balloon-boat arrived, and on it was a large squadron of hoodlums including a few hecklers. Raising his staff into the air, Alkos took out a number of Hoodlums by creating a small meteor storm. However, it was no use against the massively bulky armor of the hecklers, and many hoodlums survived due to Hoodoo shields.
Angered by this, Alkos leaped at one of them, shielding himself from their shots with a Knaaren energy shield (Rayman was envious of the Knaarens’ ability to create shields, and they were practically invincible even without them). Upon Impact, the Hecklers armor was dented noticeably but still intact. Alkos then kicked at the hoodlum in frustration. It would have sent someone like Rayman flying, but the Heckler’s weight stopped it from going more than a few centimeters.
Meanwhile, the Magician was struggling with the Heckler that he had decided to duel against. After dodging a volley of shots, he found that his opponent had advanced upon him, and was caught in the Hecklers painful grip. Barely able to move, he managed to wave his wand around and suddenly, the hecklers armor fell apart as though the nails holding it together just completely disappeared (because they did). The heckler dropped the magician from shock, and in his confusion, a second spell caused him to suddenly inflate, and then drift into the sky.
Rayman however was in trouble. He had absolutely no way to get passed the Heckler’s thick armor. After a quick seconds thought, he began powering a large fireball, while his adversary advanced upon him. Just as the Heckler pulled his firing chain, Rayman threw the fireball directly at the ground between his feet, the explosion propelling him into the air. Beautifully timed, he then grabbed onto the back of a cruiser that had zoomed past, the Armaguiddon suddenly started spinning out of control due to the sudden addition of weight, and by shifting himself with skill, Rayman successfully managed to make the cruiser fly at the Heckler, jumping off a second before impact. The resultant explosion assured that he didn’t land on his feet, as well as completely obliterating the black lum’s heckler costume.
Alkos roared as a volley of shots hit him square in the face. It barely hurt, but the fact that it hurt at all added to his already extreme fury. The heckler had gotten him really frustrated, but he decided to put an end to that. Throwing his staff aside, he used both hands to lift the Heckler into the air. With another roar, he tossed the Heckler in a manner that made it look easy. In its trajectory, it hit several other hoodlums. Even the hoodoo’s shields couldn’t prevent the hoodlums from being rocketed over the edge. However, the Magician accidentally stumbled into its path causing him to go over the edge with the armored hoodlum.
On reflex, he reached out frantically and found a grip on a hanging icicle. Barely able to hold on, he looked down to see what awaited him when he fell. However, it wasn’t the distant ground that he was scared of. What he saw was particularly frightening, and also made him wonder. Looking back up, he found himself face to face with the blue pyramid that was Grolem 13’s head.
Expecting a painful punch followed by a long fall, the Magician was surprised to find himself being placed back on one of the icy platforms by Grolem’s hand. He then looked around to see that the hoodlums had all been defeated, but he knew there was a greater issue.
“Rayman! Alkos!” He called to the others, “The Pirates are here, they’re going into the mines, which means that somehow they know about the items of power!”
“But wouldn’t they rust?” asked Rayman.
“They’re zombie henchmen, so I don’t think they mind. They’re already pretty rusty.”
“So!” It was Grolem who spoke; his voice was loud and sounded powerful, almost godlike. “You come for the mask!”
“Y-yes” stuttered Rayman “B-but it’s t-to save the world!”
“Yes! I believe you this time!” Grolem answered. “I apologize about our last meeting, but my duty is to prevent the theft of the mask! If anyone else had claimed what you did, and I believed them, what would have happened?! But indeed, your saving of the world has enabled you to gain my trust!”
At this, he summoned a small whirlwind, which he directed at the icy growth that surrounded the mask. The ice disappeared, and the mask was lifted by the wind and transported to Rayman.
“Take it! And be quick to your destination!”
As Rayman took the mask, the wind was redirected so that it was over the edge of the platform.
“This will assist your journey by taking you down safely! Quickly, jump in!”
All three hesitated, as they were skeptical. The Magician opted to disappear into his hat and teleport down there, and Rayman decided his helicopter hair would be more reliable. Alkos however was left with no other option, and knowing that not much could hurt him, grabbed his staff and jumped in. The whirlwind span him around, making him dizzy, and then suddenly dropped towards the ground rapidly, but slowed just before the bottom. Alkos jumped out to see that his limbless companions were waiting for him.
“Thanks.”
“Come on!” the Magician ordered. “We can’t let them get that orb!”
The trio ran into the tunnel, but quickly found themselves in total darkness.
“Anyone got a way to light this place up?” Rayman asked. Immediately, the area became intensely bright as Alkos and the Magician both made the ends of their staffs emanate a glorious golden glow, making Rayman feel redundant and inadequate. “Uh… good work guys.” He said glumly.
The Magician, who seemed to have a very firm idea of where they were going, led the way with determination. The other two followed without, although it seemed to them that they were going in circles. After a few minutes of walking, Rayman stopped suddenly. “Hey Guys! Can you hear that?”
Alkos and the Magician stopped to listen. Sure enough, they could hear the faint sound of a distant engine. It was however, coming closer, and as it did, it became clear that some Armaguiddon cruisers had decided to zoom into the mines. The sound of several explosions confirmed that they didn’t have a very good source of light, but it was still worrying. “How does everyone know it’s here?” the Magician said aloud, but to himself.
While listening to the cruisers, none of them noticed the Zombie Henchman that had followed the bright light straight to them, until it breathed a poisonous gas that propelled itself towards the three with a loud “Shhhhhhh”.
Rayman turned just in time to dodge the attack and quickly threw a punch at the newly arrived enemy. The Zombie fell apart upon impact, but had reassembled itself in a matter of seconds. “What now?!”
As if to answer him, a blob of a reddish gooey substance came out of nowhere and struck the Henchman in the face and splattered so that it covered his entire face. In an attempt to remove it, it put its hook to its face; however this only resulted in getting its arm stuck to its head. A hail of blobs then covered most of the zombie, and as it fell, it found itself completely stuck to the ground, unable to get back up.
It was then that a limbless figure with a big gun revealed itself from the shadows.
“Renk!” Rayman exclaimed happily.
“I feel out of place” Alkos complained under his breath.
“What’s up people! What did I miss?”
“What kind of weapon is that?” Rayman asked.
“This is my Goo-Gun.” Renk answered simply. Just then, an Armaguiddon zoomed around the corner, but a single shot from Renk’s gun took care of it; the cruiser’s engine obviously didn’t agree with whatever the gooey substance was. “Come on, let’s go get that orb thingy.”
The Group took off into the mines, increasing their pace as they had had to stop.
“So,” Rayman began, “This Goo-Gun. Explain.”
“Well, it’s a non-lethal, multi-purpose weapon that I invented. But when I say ‘non-lethal’, it still hurts, and it has been known to, uh, suffocate some people. And it’s a good anti-vehicle weapon, engines really don’t like it, so it’s excellent against pirates. Except the zombies, they’re always a pain.”
Right on cue, another zombie appeared, but it suffered the same fate as the last.
“AS you can see, it’s really sticky. The only thing I know of that can unstuck it is another thing I invented for that exact purpose.”
Rayman jumped as something whistled past his ear. Looking behind him, he saw a five-pointed shuriken embedded in the rocky wall. In front of it, a cloud of dust appeared, revealing a ninja henchman.
“Oh yeah” the magician said, “They can get in here too.”
“And it seems they’ve gotten a weapon upgrade!” Renk said, “Shurikens are much more suited to a ninja. More stealthy.”
With that, he fired the goo-gun and the ninja exploded.
“There could be heaps in here!” Rayman exclaimed.
The group kept running until they found a wide section of the mines filled with Zombies and ninjas. Immediately, they were fired upon by the pirates, but not before jumping into action. Within seconds, the zombies had all already been forced to reassemble themselves, but the ninjas were using their ability to disappear cleverly.
Rayman avoided a cloud of poisonous gas by jumping to the left. However, before he could react, a shuriken sped through the cloud and hit Rayman in the side of the stomach, embedding itself near his kidney.
Rayman roared in pain. Wincing, he pulled the shuriken from his torso, as the Magician rushed over. A quick spell stopped the blood flow, but he was in too much of a hurry to do much more. Clutching his side, Rayman leaped (painfully) back into action, taking a ninja by surprise and knocking its head clean off.
But then, to make things worse, a barrel pirate, expected to be the first of many, entered the room. It fired a bolt of electricity at Alkos, but his Knaaren resilience meant it resulted in little more than a slight sting. Annoyed, he fired a flame at the barrel, causing it to go up in flames.
“What?” Renk shouted, “You can make fire?”
“Yeah. And?”
Renk fired a volley of blobs at the ground so that it made a trail across the doorframe that the pirate had entered through. “Shoot at that!”
Skeptical, but obedient, Alkos launched another fireball from his staff at the sticky trail. It immediately caught fire, making a firewall in front of the doorframe. “The Goo is very flammable,” Renk explained. A second barrel pirate emerged from the flames, but said flames had encased it, and it was quickly destroyed by the overwhelming fire. A number of others followed through, and all suffered the same fate. Now they just had to deal with what was in the room.
Several zombies were totally stuck to the ground, but there were still a lot standing. The ninjas were nowhere to be seen, but it was assumed they were nearby. Rayman, still clutching his side, was dueling against a zombie. Not fully able to defend himself, he took a hook to the face, but luckily, it was barely hanging on, so only hurt a little. Letting go of his wound, he painfully began powering both fists. The first knocked the zombie apart, and the second launched a massive fireball at the remains before they could reassemble. The pieces were blasted into even smaller pieces, so that the zombie was now beyond repair.
Meanwhile, Alkos struggled against several ninjas who kept teleporting behind him when he tried to attack them. However, one was suddenly destroyed by what turned out to be a heavily damaged Heckler. Next to it were two hoodlums; one with a barrel of water, and the other with a barrel labeled ‘Goo-Remover’. “How did they get –“ Renk began, until a communication device beeped indicating that someone was trying to reach him. He picked it up and put it to his ear and listened. After he had received the message, he threw the device to the ground in frustration, smashing it. “They invaded one of our bases and took everything!”
It was obvious that the substances in the barrels had been used to pass the firewall. And because of that, the battle suddenly became a three-sided fight for the orb. The Heckler, some other hoodlums and most notably, endless hordes of Grims entered the room, and the battle really began.
Renk found himself in close combat with a Slapdash and a zombie that was unusually intact – only its weapon was disabled, although it had been heavily rusted. Throwing his goo-gun aside, he had opted to battle with a large knife that had chainsaw teeth around it – another of his inventions. Ducking a large boxing glove, he shredded the bottom of the hoodlum’s costume, causing it to fall over, but not before the glove struck the zombie’s head off. Then, he picked up his goo-gun and destroyed a ninja that was about to attack Rayman from behind.
Rayman instinctively ducked, and the explosion propelled the ninja’s torso over his head, and into the Hoodlum he was fighting. He then set about destroying the Grims, knowing they could change this battle in an instant if left unchecked. The slow zombies however, suffered terribly from the explosive swarm, and before long there were none left, despite their attempts to reassemble.
However, it seemed to Alkos that the ninjas just kept coming. He struck two down at once with his ferocious claw, only for them to be replaced seconds later. Roaring in frustration, he began to spin rapidly like how Reflux had done against Rayman. This took a number of ninjas by surprise, and also took out lots of Grims.
But looking up, the Magician noticed that there were now more ninjas than ever. Shurikens were flying around everywhere cutting through the ranks of Grims and narrowly missing the evasive Rayman. Renk had been hit in the foot, but was still retaliating with his goo-gun, while Alkos had been hit several times. His clothing had been somewhat shredded, but the Knaaren itself had only suffered minor scratches; the shurikens couldn’t even draw blood from him.
But then, the ninjas all suddenly disappeared. It was then that they heard a high pitched maniacal laugh. In one of the doorways, a Grim was standing holding a massive bomb; not a Molotov cocktail like the others, but a massive bomb larger than Rayman’s torso, let alone the Grim itself. But more notably was the fact that the fuse had almost run out.
Everyone panicked; the black lums all left their costumes and flew off screaming. Alkos put up a shield while Renk and the Magician found a small crater and dived into it, suffering pain from the Grims that were also in there. Rayman found a crevice in the wall and squeezed in. Half a second later, the bomb went off.
The explosion was unbelievable. The four companions were almost deafened by what sounded like a thunderstorm inside their heads. The shockwave alone thrashed Rayman about in his crevice, causing his wound to hurt unbelievably and start bleeding. Alkos, even with all his strength, was thrust against the back wall, and it was only a spell from the magician that stopped him and Renk from being forced from the little trench.
The fireball held incredible heat; even though, Rayman wasn’t touched by it, he was painfully burnt and his hair caught fire, as was Renk’s and the Magician’s hat. Even Alkos, despite his shield and his natural resilience, felt much pain, and the force of the explosion had broken his leg, and snapped his staff in two.
After the explosion, dust blinded them all for a few minutes, and all that could be heard was the sound of each other’s coughing and moans of pain. Finally, the dust settled, and the Magician looked up to review the situation. The remains of the zombies and the hoodlum’s costumes were simply gone. Rayman was bleeding from his stomach, and Alkos was visibly in pain, with his leg bent the wrong way. His trust in his resilience and his shield had failed him, and he had come off worse than the others.
But what caught the Magician’s attention was that the tunnel – which he knew was the only way to the orb – was blocked, as the explosion had resulted in a heavy cave-in. “Nooooo!” he screamed. Limping, he ran to the stones blocking his way, and tried to move them. At first he tried with his hands, then with magic. Neither worked.
“Come on! This is the only way to the Orb!”
The others had gotten up; Rayman had stopped bleeding, but was clutching his side, and Renk had stuck Alkos’s staff back together with goo so Alkos could use it as a crutch.
“Come on! We have to get the orb!”
“but if we can’t get it,” said Rayman, “neither can they.”
“But…but…” but before the magician could make any excuses, the others had already left.
End of Chapter
Question 14: Why is the magician so desperate to get the orb? The question, if not answered soon, will be answered in the next chapter, so hurry!
