The ink shadow wipes inky tears of laughter from his cheeks. “Can’t say I disagree with the goblin, this fool really needs to step up his game. Shit’s straight pathetic, feel me, playa? Look at your raggedy ass.”
Hiccup shakes his head at Ryuk. “Oh, I feel you there. Fick, I’ve been trying to encourage ball droppage since I met the poor bastard.”
“Shut up!” Ryuk fires three shots at the ink shadow, who slinks out of the way just in time.
“Damn, boy, that’s how we gonna play?” The ink shadow pulls an arm back and swings it at Ryuk.
-100 HP!
Ryuk is tossed backwards into a pile of bones, almost as if his legs were lassoed from behind. Wolf growls and snaps his teeth.
“Boy, you ain’t faster than me,” the ink shadow says, his voice growing serious. “Aim your weapon again, fool, see if I don’t strip your soul from your body and use it as a goddamn wipe for my ass!”
The ink shadow’s visage moves from sinister to jovial. “Now where were we? A game of Natty Dread, huh? Nah, that ain’t my thing, man, I told you fools. Besides that, my Wheel of Dread is broken as fuck.” He thinks for a moment. “Don’t y’all worry, I got a game we can play, playas, your canine too.”
“So it’s a game you want then?” Zaena asks.
The ink shadow shrinks in form, disappears into the arena floor, and then lifts up from the ground directly in front of the Thulean. “The Thulean likes games, huh?”
“No, nor do I like pathetic pissants like you.”
“Fick yeah, Liz, tell that fickered fick twat!”
“Konoshlava doka duchaka!” Zaena grits, bearing her teeth.
“Prepare my ghost limbs to die … ” The ink shadow considers this for a moment. Two fingers form in the air and he snaps them together. “Damn, girl, that ain’t a bad idea! A winner takes all fight that pits one of you against ya homies.”
Hiccup gasps. “You mean ... Frenemy?”
The ink shadow snaps his smoky fingers again. “Yeah, that’s what it’s called – Frenemy. My bad for forgetting the name. Thought it was something like Friend Killer. Shit, but you right, Frenemy, that’s what we’ll play.”
“Take Marbles!” Hiccup points his mechanical finger at Ryuk. “He’s our strongest!”
“Frenemy?” Ryuk asks, glancing between his guildmates. “Don’t volunteer me!”
Hiccup continues, “Trust me, pal, you’ll want to go with Marbles here. Real tough guy over here.” He steps behind Ryuk and pushes him towards the ink shadow. “He’s the strongest of all of us, believe you me. I was just joking earlier. He’s built as fick under that emo hood of his.”
The ink shadow’s semi-visible face contorts. “Damn, you think I was born yesterday, playa? Nah, I got bigger plans.”
The ink shadow moves over to FeeTwix just as Zaena steps in front of him with her blades drawn.
“What the hell is going on?” Ryuk asks Hiccup, who still cowers behind him.
“Frenemy. It’s the fickin’ worst game, kid,” he says as the ink shadow sizes FeeTwix and Zaena up.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Choose the wolf!” Hiccup shouts. “He’ll be the easiest to kill,” he stage-whispers to Ryuk.
“Shit, sorry, goblin, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, well, you ain’t gonna fool me twice.” The ink shadow laughs. “Y’all fools ever heard that one? Anyway, I got my choice. The commoner with the blond hair.”
With that, the ink shadow lifts into the air and torpedoes into every open orifice on FeeTwix’s face.
Wolf barks like crazy. Zaena grabs the Swede’s hands, trying to drag him away.
But the force is too great.
FeeTwix yanks his hand away, his eyes murky black as he turns to his guildmates and drops into a battle stance.
“We’re so ficked,” Hiccup laments.
(0)__(0)
“Kill me and y’all can pass,” FeeTwix says, his voice suddenly the ink shadow’s. “But if I kill y’all, then you got to restart at the beginning of the catacombs. That’s a long ways away, trust that.”
Ink Shadow FeeTwix does a series of back flips and a few aerials that even the showboat Swede wouldn’t perform in a real battle. Once he has some distance, he tosses his double-bladed sword aside and begins scrolling through his list.
“Hiccup, cover Zaena! I’ll lay down some distraction. Wolf!” The canine looks over to Ryuk. “Um, just hang on a second!”
Ryuk fires the rest of his black molten mag at FeeTwix’s feet to lay down some cover.
“Damn, boy, best be careful with that gat!”
Debris kicks into the air; in the time it takes for the dust to settle Ryuk already has another mag loaded and ready to go.
“Liz, we’re going to need you here!” Hiccup says as his largest shield, his scutum, materializes in front of him.
Zaena swallows hard and gets behind Hiccup, just as a large wave of metal unhappiness berates the Mitherfickers.
Ratatatatatata!
Ryuk hits the deck as the bullets chip away at the bleachers.
“Damn! Never shot one of these before, shit’s got some kick!” the ink shadow says in his syrupy voice.
Ratatatatatata!
His Marble Gun up, Ryuk empties his mag in FeeTwix’s general direction. Meanwhile, Hiccup charges forward, bullets pinging off his huge shield. Zaena hunkers down behind him and Wolf has raced to the outer edge of the area, hoping to come around back.
“I see how it is! Y’all ‘bout to die!” FeeTwix switches to a weapon that sounds even crazier than the one he was just shooting.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
The ink shadow laughs, his voice filling the arena and nearly drowning out the sound of gunfire as it ricochets off Hiccup’s scutum.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Hiccup shouts over his shoulder, sparks flying over him. “Marbles, get the ficker!”
“Trying to!” Ryuk goes for a mag of sword marbles, hoping to get off a tonsil shot or something equally gruesome that will end the fight before FeeTwix can get to any of his mutant hacks.
“Hold your fire, Marbles!” He keeps his weapon trained on the possessed Swede as Hiccup comes in charging with his biggest shield.
The shield connects, Hiccup goes over with it, and Zaena flings herself into the air with her ghost limbs. She comes down behind the Swede, and folds backwards at the waist to avoid the swipe from a giant ax made of cobbled together gears.
Seeing an opening, Hiccup goes in with a tomahawk. He swings down, FeeTwix blocks just in time, and for a moment, the two have a standoff to see who will give first.
My turn. Ryuk’s Extreme Focus warps his vision. Suddenly, there’s a reticle on the back of FeeTwix’s head, and with a steady breath out, he mentally fires two sword marbles.
FeeTwix pivots at just the right time and the two sword marbles go straight into Hiccup’s back.
-116 HP! -134 HP!
“Yeeeeeeooooooy!”
“Damn, y’all some stupid motherfuckers!”
The momentum sends Hiccup stumbling forward and he’s nearly decapitated by FeeTwix only to be rescued at the last minute by Zaena, who throws him a good fifteen feet away with her ghost limbs.
“Fick!” He smacks his back into the stone barrier that surrounds the arena grounds. A healing potion instantly appears in his hands. He falls to his side, and nurses it like a baby with a bottle as he watches Zaena zip around FeeTwix with all four blades.
“Argh!”
He gets a hit in on Zaena that cuts through her armor. She hits the ground and uses her ghost limbs to scurry away in regroup.
Come on. Ryuk is just about to fire off more sword mags when a shoulder mounted grenade launcher forms next to FeeTwix’s head. “Shit’s about to get real! Just squeeze the trigger, right, cuz?” A wicked grin spreads across the Swede’s face as tendrils of smokey liquid drip down his cheeks.