“Fuck!” Ryuk shoves a gravity marble into his mouth and leaps into the air. He hits an invisible airlane and jumps to another just in time. The blast sends splinters of stone into the air. Ryuk is only in the air for a moment longer before the gravity marble loses its juice.
-39 HP!
Not a graceful landing, but Ryuk recovers quickly, watching as Wolf leaps into the air and tackles FeeTwix. The two roll around for a moment.
Bang! Bang!
The Swede manages to get one of his shooting irons out and fires two shots directly into Wolf’s belly.
“Wolf!” Hiccup shrieks. “That’s my ride!”
The dog howls, and FeeTwix is just about to finish the job when Zaena hurls two of her blades at him.
She missed? Ryuk think as one of the blades barely nicks his left cheek. She can’t do it!
FeeTwix touches his face, examines the blood, and flicks it away. “Damn, girl, can’t kill ya man, can you? Guess he gonna have to kill you.”
The Swede’s bowie knife mutant hack appears in his hand and quickly bubbles up his arm, forming a cannon easily the size of trash can opening. Using his other hand to stabilize the bioweapon, FeeTwix aims the biomatter weapon at Zaena and smiles. “Bye, Felicia.”
“Zaena!” Ryuk shouts as the blast tears through her, completely disintegrating her body.
Instakill!
Ink Shadow FeeTwix turns to Ryuk now with his other mutant hack, the bow hack. “You just gonna sit there and take ya licks, or you gonna face me like a man?”
Before Ryuk can even get his weapon up, the Swede’s mutant hack has morphed into a full-fledged triple barrel mega blaster covered in writhing green veins and bits of drippy biomatter.
-215 HP! Critical hit!
FeeTwix falls forward to one knee. He coughs, blood dripping from his mouth.
Ryuk has to blink twice to see Hiccup behind the Swede, his jagged toe knife gripped tightly in his mechanical hand. His face filled with remorse, but determined to end the mayhem, Hiccup grabs FeeTwix by his blond hair, tugs it back to expose his neck, and finishes the job.
Instakill!
The Swede falls forward and the ink shadow lifts out of his body, his head hung low.
(0)__(x)
“Damn, y’all, I was just tryin’ to have some fun.” The ink shadow sulks until he is, well, a shadow of his former self. An inky foot forms and he kicks at the ground. “Fine, whateva, y’all win. That backstabbing shit is some straight up bullshit, though.”
“I’ll show you some ‘straight up bullshit,’” Hiccup growls.
FeeTwix sits up and rubs his eyes, which have flashed blue. They turn black again just as a respawned Zaena gets to him and helps him to his feet. A healing potion takes shape in FeeTwix’s hand and he offers it to her. As she drinks it, he grabs another and he throws it back.
His eyes go wide, the cuts on his face start to heal, and soon, he’s smiling, his cheery self again. “Sorry, babe,” he says as they embrace, “didn’t mean to kill you back there.”
“You saw it?”
“I was possessed, watching it all. That’s some heavy stuff. Don’t hold it against me.”
“I’d never.” Zaena turns her nose up at the ink shadow. “I know whose fault this is.”
Hiccup goes with two healing potions, a Hopkins’ and a generic one. He takes a sip from each, cringing at the flavor of the generic one. “We really need to get some more potions, maybe some more of those Cherry Apollos. You guys are drinking too much. And why the fick are you still here?” he asks the ink shadow. “Be gone with you!”
The ink shadow lowers his head even further. “Damn, for reals y’all, this is the first time I lost in, shit, at least a thousand years. At least!” He throws his finger into the air and increases in size only to shrivel up as soon as he started.
“Them’s the ropes, fickhole, now if you don’t mind we’ll be getting the fick out of these catacombs.” Hiccup tosses the generic healing potion over his shoulder and jams his tongue into the grenade-shaped Hopkins’, hoping to get any last drops. “Damn good stuff.”
Wolf hobbles to the right of Ryuk and sits on his haunches. “You want some potion, boy?”
“Ah, don’t waste that … okay, at least give him a generic one.”
“FeeTwix, got a dog bowl?”
“Yeah, a nice one.” A tin bowl appears in the Swede’s hand. He sets it before Wolf and Ryuk pours the potion in. Wolf sniffs it once.
“Yeah, it’s generic, just drink it, Fido.”
He obliges and the wounds still on his side heal up.
“A game of Three Cards?” the ink shadow suggests. “What you think, pimp? If you win, well shit, I’ll give you all the treasure of the catacombs, I’m talking everything from the bling to the killer legendary weapons.” He grows in size as the spirit of gambling returns to him.
“A game of Three Cards?” Hiccup nods his head.
FeeTwix walks over to the goblin and places an arm around his shoulder. “That’s not the best idea, now is it?”
“Pfft! All the treasure in here, Twixy, did you not hear the fart cloud?” Hiccup’s eyes flash rupee signs. “There could be so much! Fick this quest and the Shinigami. We could buy our own floating continent!”
“That’s right, playa, Three Cards. Let’s do this shit.”
“Absolutely not.” Zaena says so firmly that everyone turns to her and cowers away a bit. “There will be no more gambling. You may point us to the exit; that’s all.”
“Point? Damn, girl, you really is harsh. What kind of gracious host would point?” A grin spreads across the space where the ink shadow’s face should be. “I will lead you there myself!” He sluices away joyously, completely at odds with how disappointed he was just moments ago. “Don’t worry, y’all can trust me.”
“Fickin’ poofty-ass mitherfickin’ jolly boy octo-squirt over here thinks he can just blow some smoke up our puckered bungholes and everything is hunky funky dory. Fick that! I’m not going anywhere he goes!”
FeeTwix: Ryuk?
Ryuk: What’s your map say? Is he heading in the right direction?
“I’m waiting!”
“Yeah? Why don’t you fick off to whatever sinkhole you seeped out of!” Hiccup growls.
“For once, I’m with the goblin,” Zaena says.
Wolf stands and barks.
“Smart fickin’ dog!”
FeeTwix: He’s headed in the right direction …
“Why should we follow you?” Ryuk calls to the ink shadow. “You tried to kill us.”
The ink shadow is suddenly behind Ryuk. Wolf freaks out and snarls at the living shadow.
“Can I tell you a secret?” the ink shadow asks.
“Fick no!” Hiccup starts to make his way over to them, reconsiders it, and grabs his toe knife from its sheath.
“Shit gets lonely down here, y’all. I’m terribly lonely.” The ink shadow is now close enough that Ryuk can make out the outline of a deformed old man hidden in the ghastly being’s murkiness.
“Woe-is-me, huh? Can you guys believe this mentally deranged dotard?”
The ink shadow raises his chin. “Man, I’ve spent a long time in these catacombs waiting for some fool to come along that I could actually communicate with.”
“Why don’t you leave, then?” FeeTwix asks as he approaches.
“We all got jobs, pimp. Me? I’ve been tasked by the Sage of Gotha to guard this here arena. No need to start tripping; ain’t no more surprises. Just being neighborly, that’s all.”
Ryuk looks from FeeTwix, who’s nodding and livestreaming, to Zaena, who has her arms crossed over her chest. Messages appear on his dashboard.