I descend to within a few feet of Otto. “The White Angel has the Frannies,” I yell.
“Go to the stage,” he says. “Rescue them and get out of here. Help the children.”
“What about you? You can’t pin this on me,” I say.
“Save them!” he rumbles, sensing the encroaching cycle spears.
I flap out of traffic to the stage. The White Angel twirls out of the labyrinth, wings shimmering. He holds the Frannies and my bicycle in his arms. He takes footing and tosses the Frannies toward the three forms -- all of them ass dolls. An ass doll picks up my bike. The two others suction-cuff a Frannie in their lower ass, holding them prisoner.
The White Angel is the first to see me coming. He twists his wings to form a pale umbrella. “Silence!” he cries.
Otto halts in the very center of the labyrinth. Ass goblins hit their brakes. They don’t even need to rotate into formation. They’ve already got him surrounded. Despite his goblin crushing, Otto has ruined everything for all of us. His armor cracked and broken, there are too many ass goblins for him to handle. A thousand brain tires screech, then nothing, no hoots or disgruntled mutterings. In the distance and above, gunfire. Apple gore oozes down the walls.
“Let us go!” the Frannies say, but the moment isn’t right to bail them out. Not yet.
The White Angel turns up his palms. “The essence of life is war,” he announces. “So what is the value of a life lived and lost in battle?”
“It is the value of toys,” the ass goblins say.
“And what do toys bring us?” the White Angel says.
“Toys bring freedom! Toys bring freedom!”
“If toys bring freedom, and war possesses the value of toys, then what is war?”
“War is freedom! War is the essence of life!”
I watch Otto, wondering why he stopped bulldozing goblins. What is he waiting for? Then I catch myself. What am I waiting for? Why am I not saving the Frannies? No right time exists, not even for the things we must do. If we fail to act -- even if we choose the wrong action -- we’ll be slaughtered like the apples. Otto is absolutely correct. We have to fight. Life isn’t about survival. It’s about choosing.
“Before the battle proper, we must offer up a sacrifice,” the White Angel says. In swirls of rainbow voltage, his wings light up. A green and red swastika blinks off and on amidst purples, oranges, blues, and yellows.
The ass goblins lift their heads and howl, “Adolf! Adolf! Adolf!”
The White Angel spreads his wings. I go Shit Slaughter. Without taking notice of me, he reaches for a lever built into the stage. I run toward him, arms extended. The claw attached to my left hand tears through his wings as they clap together, as he depresses the lever. And the roof retracts.
The underground labyrinth rises. It halts level with Auschwitz Square, destroying all of Toy Division’s factories. Swastikles collect on the dead buildings. Children are corralled beside the two ships. They wear swastika blindfolds. Ass dolls stand in a circle around the apple platter, rectal guns raised. Ass goblins ride from the labyrinth, pedaling through icy slush. It is all very theatrical.
I start to back away from the White Angel, but he catches my hand and pulls me close to him. His face spreads into a jagged grin that shows no pain. It is rounder than the sun.
His breath clouds around my noseless face like rotten, buttered fruit as a third ship -- a fraction the size of the other two -- zooms out of the fog and lands onstage. “Someday you will understand why I am this way,” the White Angel says.
He tosses me aside and staggers toward the ship. A lone ass goblin steps backwards out of the ship. This ass goblin is naked and has the biggest, most wart-infested ass I have ever seen. Green cheese oozes from eight sausage-length nipples that sag from his sunken chest. All over its body, pimples explode like pus-infused stars. Flies swarm in a crown above its head. Even from a distance and with my poor eyesight, I see its mustache.
“Adolf!” the Frannies scream.
Adolf and the White Angel bow, then engage in a slapping war. After whacking a lot of chocolate cake out of each other, the White Angel and Adolf scoop up handfuls of cake and shove it up the other’s ass. They embrace. This must be how ass goblin leaders shake hands.
“Adolf,” the White Angel announces. “With these mutant inheritors of Auschwitz, I welcome you back from your sex odyssey. Without further adieu, may we witness how they play in combat?”
“Intolerable, despicable,” Adolf says.
The White Angel ruffles his wings. He gestures toward me. “What seems to be the problem? That child is half ass goblin.”
Having been absent during our transformative days, Adolf appears angry and bewildered. We are not the children he used to murder, not anymore. “I see the ass goblins have degenerated into weak, stupid creatures in my time away.”
“They have always been stupid,” the White Angel says. “Given half a chance, my prototypes will provide a bridge to even stronger, purer ass goblins. And when we venture on, they will ensure that Auschwitz becomes more brutal, filled with more toys.”
“We will see about your mutants… in a three-way battle!” Adolf flails his arms and stomps his feet. “I declare, my stupid, loving slaves, it shall be the ass goblins versus the ass dolls versus the children! The strong must earn the chair they sit on if they want to drink at my table. No more fucking toy business! No more fucking freedom killings! The final conflict has begun!”
Despite being unsure what fucking means, I understand Adolf’s message. And I decide I’ve heard enough. I scramble for the Frannies. Mesmerized by Adolf, the ass dolls restraining them fail to notice me. I uppercut one of them and follow with a left hook to the other. My arm sinks into her upper ass. The first doll springs to her feet. I rip my arm free and yell at the Frannies to move. The dead dolls’ rectums slacken enough for the Frannies to pull free. I never wanted to pick this battle, but it’s too late. I’m here, squaring off with a doll who must die.
She scissor kicks and misses. Frannie 2 steps between the ass doll and I. She bends over, twisting her butt in front of the doll. When the ass doll reaches for her, the toilet toad pokes out of Frannie 2’s rectum and coils its tongue around the midsection between the doll’s two asses. The doll falls in half.
Frannie 2 grabs hold of my wings, throwing me off balance as a figure waddles toward me. Before I can react, Adolf clocks me in the jaw. I stagger and swoon over the edge of the stage. He throws a few more punches but none of them connect. I hopscotch sideways along the cliff until I regain my balance. Frannie 2 slips and falls. “Wahhh!” she screams.
The White Angel tackles Adolf and smothers him beneath his ass. He poops on Adolf’s mustache. Adolf starts to yell in protest, but then breaks into laughter. He rakes his claws through his mustache, smearing the bile. “Fucking kill! Kill for freedom!”
Frannie looks terrified, but she manages to crawl in my direction. I scoop her in my arms and flap my pink furies. As we descend, I remain as close to the stage as possible. Below us, the dolls and goblins battle. They’re drunk on war, emitting fouler odors than ever before. Hopefully Otto can fend them off.
We reach ground level, the ruins of Toy Division, as the Shit Slaughterers pedal forth. Barbwire ropes fly out of their bicycles. The ropes coil between the dual asses of dolls and slice them in half.
The ass dolls spread into a half circle, each firing two rectal guns. The heads and asses of Shit Slaughterers explode. These ass dolls are cutting down the cyclists like it’s target practice. A few children remove their blindfolds and attempt to flee, but they’re cut down. The others fall to their knees and bow their heads. They’ve been submissive so long, they forgot how to rebel or act for themselves.