Chapter 12: So Close, Yet So Far...
His vision was beginning to come back to him. For a time, he could only see black. Soon, however, the blackened sight was fading back to his normal vision so he could witness the white calm of the Void around him. As his eyes readjusted themselves, he started to get back on his feet. Though he stumbled to-and-fro, he managed to stay on his feet. A hand grasped the goose egg on the back of his head. After rubbing it for a bit, Rialto shook his head until his vision was fully restored.
In a flash, Rialto remembered why he fell to the ground in the first place. He jumped shortly in a startle and raised his fists, nervously glancing around for any Eaglets or other Blobs that might be nearby. He didn’t see any. His hands lowered and he walked normally, but Rialto kept glancing around occasionally to look for a surprise attack.
Up ahead he saw the edge of the Cavern, its grey mountain tops contrasting the Void’s pure white. But, from inside the Cavern, something stuck out and pointed to the sky. Rialto thought he knew what it was, but was reluctant to believe his own observations. Knowing that it was faster than walking, Rialto flapped his bat-like wings and darted just above the ground as fast as he could to the Cavern. He reached the edge a few minutes later, and stumbled to a stop. He swore aloud when he saw up close the tail of a crashed lear jet.
“No, no, no,” he repeated to himself as he slid down the rocky slope. Rialto gritted on his feet down the emergency exit -which had been busted open- on the plane’s side. Rialto nearly continued falling away, but was jerked back when he snatched the side of the doorway at the last minute. Immediately, he swung himself inside the titled fuselage. Once inside, he scampered around like a spider to examine the interior.
Shit, no... Rialto thought to himself.
Illidon didn’t get them, did he?Persistent, Rialto climbed over each row of seats, checking each for some sign of life. But each time, there was nothing. Rialto’s fear only intensified each time he saw bloodied seats or the same red substance on the plane’s floor. At a point, he even fell into the plane’s cockpit, but was fearful again when he found only more blood.
Rialto had all of the impressions of the blood locked in his mind. He began to fear for the worst. He was clueless as far as what to do next. He had to sit down. The way the plane was angled (nose towards the ground), Rialto was able to sit almost flatly on the back of the pilot’s seat. Once seated, the Brawler dropped his stress-filled head into his hands. And, to his surprise, Rialto could feel his eyes water.
He brought his hand down for a minute. Down in the crevice of the plane’s nose where the control panel met the busted windshield. A book. Rialto jumped down and spread his legs against the corners of the windshield to prop himself up. He bent down and turned over the copy of
The Hunt for Red October.
Rialto took the time to briefly flip through the pages, and he noticed a clip-on bookmark about 20 pages from the end of the novel. Now Rialto definitely knew that these Brawlers were in Illidon’s grasp. If they exited on their own, there would be no way that Rageblood would leave a copy of Tom Clancy behind, especially if he was this close to the end of the story. And Rialto would know better than anyone. They’ve been a Brawler duo in the fight against Illidon for about 8 months now. He could recall the times they needed to retreat, but Rageblood had to run back into the chaos to save
Ghost Recon or
The Teeth of the Tiger.
“Damn.... what now?” he said to himself briefly. This was said just before Rialto went to his own world. Legs dangling freely. Hands in lap. Staring at nothing. Face blank. Drops of water rolling down each cheek. He thought about what was coming next. All he could really picture was himself living in solitude for the rest of his life, unable to find any of his friends, looking over his shoulder every single hour of every single day.
But something far off broke his concentration. Rialto noticed the clanging sound and looked to its general direction. His sad demeanor seemed to subside, and Rialto had the instinct to race to the noise. Which is what he did. After grabbing Rageblood’s book, he dropped through the hole where the plane’s windshield once was, ignoring cuts made by pointed glass. Once out of the plane, Rialto shot out his wings like a parachute and flapped them as hard as he could to get into flying mode. But he didn’t shoot high above the Cavern. He flew up just high enough so he could lay along the Void-bordering edge. He took a few steps after he hit the ground so he could hide and peer from the cover of a pointed stone.
At the Cavern’s edge, about 50 feet in front of him, Rialto saw a plate of the Void rise up. A metal block jutted from the white ground, rising much like an elevator in its shaft. Apparently, this was exactly the case. The block of metal continued to rise up, making that clanging sound Rialto heard before, until the box was risen to about the height of an average-sized man. Rialto’s brow lowered when he saw two Bodyguards cautiously stepping out of the shaft.
Again, instinct took hold of Rialto. He spun around the sheltering rock’s edge and emitted his own war cry as he charged forward. The Bodyguards heard him immediately and turned to face their attacker. As soon as their spears would reach, the Bodyguards started to pummel Rialto with all of their power. But one of Rialto’s abilities -a shield that covered his entire body- kept the spears from stabbing him right in the heart. Shield raised, Rialto continued to charge forward with glowing radiation in his hands.
Rialto used his wings to perform a sort of gliding-leap onto one of the Bodyguards. He released his shield and used charged radiation shots to knock one Bodyguard to the ground. As fast as he could, Rialto took the downed Bodyguard and used it to block the spears of the other one. After a few shots, Rialto took his Blob shield, threw it at the second Bodyguard, and spat buckets of fire onto them both. One’s right arm melted away, but the other only showed charred marks. As the melted Blob regenerated itself, Rialto angrily shoved a hand into the head of the charred Bodyguard. One glow of radiation later, and its head exploded as a mallet would explode a watermelon.
While that one was regenerating itself, Rialto took the same hand and slammed its knuckles into the side of the other Bodyguard’s head. Rialto used both hands to fire as much radiation as possible at the same Bodyguard in a machine gun fashion, continuing a vengeful scream as he did so. A satisfaction was shown on his face when Rialto watched his victim melt.
But the surviving Bodyguard, the one whose head was blown off not too long ago, was back; his regeneration, however, had turned him into a form about a foot shorter that its original height. Rialto sent it spiraling end-over-end when he shot off a large beam of radiation, shooting it about 10 feet away from him. Rialto took this to his advantage and leaped on top of the little Blob. He used his legs to stand on and pin the Blob’s arms to the ground. A quick angling of the head and hands, and Rialto started to pump both radiation blasts and his breath of fire into the Bodyguard’s torso. Rialto was so distracted by the fireworks display in front of him, he was still launching his attack when the Blob finished its dying melt. It was only in a brief moment when sanity interrupted Rialto when he decided to check on the Blob’s well-being. Frankly, he was rather impressed when he saw the black puddle of Blob on the ground. Rialto, then hunched over, straightened his posture. He breathed heavily as he was staring down his kills.
In a flash, though, Rialto remembered the elevator car. He turned his head behind him to see that it was still raised. He gave a last-minute glance for anyone following him and ran into the elevator car. He had no idea if this elevator ride led to the underground shelter or not, but what else was he going to do? Might as well check it out.
*****
Rialto’s elevator car noisily hit the bottom of the shaft. What was first in his sight was a mess of cots on the dirt floor in front of him. Most of them had been either pushed to the room’s edge or knocked over. To Rialto, it seemed as if some of these cots had been cleared away in order to make a path for people to walk through.
“Hello?!” he called to the room. HELLO?! Is anyone here???”
Rialto looked to the far end of the room and realized the three doors there, one of which had been shattered into splinters. Rialto was quick to rush to these rooms first of all. He looked into each one, but didn’t look into each small room for too long. The most he noticed were boxes of supplies. That was it, though. He found no evidence of Brawlers or civilians in any of the rooms.
Rialto began to walk back to the elevator when he felt a burning. He moved his foot slightly and immediately let out a screech of pain. Rialto’s foot jumped into his hands and he noticed how the charred body part was giving off smoke. Immediately, Rialto looked down to see what caused his injury. He immediately regretted it. At his feet, creating a blackened frame in the dirt, was Ray’s Sunbolt. Rialto started to reach down to pick the instrument, but its insane amount of heat warned him otherwise.
“...damnit.”
Rialto heard that clanging noise again. His vulgar mouth said something again when he noticed how the elevator car was rising to the surface again. Rialto’s eyes and head were darting in all directions in a search for hope in the situation. It took him a bit, but he noticed the long hallway that was at the opposite side of the wall next to the elevator shaft. Without thinking, he spread his wings again and was gliding to get down to the hall’s end, which was a rather large cul-de-sac-like room.
When he plopped his feet to the ground, he could hear voices behind him. Mainly the voices of squealing Blobs. But also echoing were the voices of Brawlers.
“...and another thing: you’re a jerk,” he heard a voice say.
“Stop crying you big baby,” said a very familiar voice. “It won’t be so bad! You got all your friends in here!”
“Bite me, you furry freak,” said the first voice again.
“‘kay.”
There was a bit of a crunching noise.
“YEEEOW!!! What'd you do that for?!”
“Hey, you asked! Heh, heh, heh!”
Now there was a third voice.
“Balto, down there.”
Rialto turned back in horror to see that McJesus was pointing directly at him. Soon Balto-Boy came into view, holding back a chained MadGamer. Blobs stood behind the entire group.
“Hey, good call, McJ,” said Balto-Boy.
“Rialto! Run!” shouted MadGamer.
Rialto spread his wings out, readily taking the advice. Just as he was about to take off, he felt a woosh of red, hot wind slam him into the wall behind him. The impact Rialto made left a crumbling dent in the room’s wall. Rialto’s back stuck to the wall for a moment, but gravity soon took hold and his face hit the concrete.
This time, though, Rialto wasn’t dazed. He was quick to push himself up to his feet. He saw that McJesus was going to set off another explosion, but a hailstorm of radiation shots kept him from doing so. Blobs rushed forward, but Rialto fired as many shots as he could to keep them from rushing forward and at him. Rialto had never fired this many shots at once. And his strained, sweating face was showing it.
In the corner of his eye, Rialto caught a glimpse of a door in his room. Still firing the rounds down the hallway, Rialto was gradually strafing to the door. He continued firing until he had scooted far enough that the door’s knobs was in arm’s length. Then the radiation blasts stopped. Rialto quickly spun to pull on the door. Lucky for him, the door was unlocked. Rialto stepped into the door as fast as possible and slammed the heavy thing behind him. Balto-Boy, McJesus, and the Blobs ran into the room just in time to see Rialto supposedly escape.
“Ha! We got ‘im now!” Balto-Boy shouted excitedly. “He won’t get far now!”
McJesus showed a sudden bust of realization on his face. Balto-Boy and MadGamer both noticed how McJesus was dumbly staring.
“What’s your deal?” Balto-Boy asked.
“I remembered,” said McJesus as he turned to Balto-Boy. “Rialto has fire breath as a power!”
Balto-Boy wasn’t convinced. “So?”
“The jail cells and shackles are made of metal...” McJesus said in an annoyed tone.
Balto-Boy sat there for a second pondering over what McJesus was saying, looking as if his eyes were rolling to the back of his head in the search for ideas. A cocky-looking MadGamer had apparently gotten what McJesus was saying, but he waited for Balto-Boy to figure it out on his own. Balto-Boy soon caught on.
“Aw, shit! Let’s go! Get him, get him, get him!”
On cue, McJesus and the Blobs mobbed through the doorway. Balto-Boy was following them in the back, dragging MadGamer across the floor by his arm chains.
*****
Long ago, Abigor had finished eating Balto-Boy’s food. The finished plate was now hidden in the cell’s corner. That dreadful silence that was once mentioned was filling the jail hallway again. There was the hint of murmuring within each cell. Most of it came from the cell that held the Sawyer Triplets. Aria, as usual, was much quieter than her sisters. Amira and Amy were the ones that made the most noise within their private conversation.
A a quick and far-off slam caught the attention of many of the Brawlers. At first, they suspected that Balto-Boy and McJesus were back from the hunt. They were curious again when they noticed the fast running sounds that came after. Another slam and more running. The Brawlers were whispering to each other, some from across cells.
Then, slam! The door to their hallway slammed open. Rialto was dashing through their cell without even realizing what people he was passing. He was a couple inches from leaving this hallway, but he finally stopped when they all shouted his name.
“Oh my god... you guys are alive!”
“Yeah!” he heard ZigZag call. “Now get us the hell out of here!”
Without a word, Rialto rushed to the closest cell, which happened to be where Abigor was staying. They could see that Rialto was breathing in to blast out his fire, but he stopped when he saw Abigor. He gawked at the 4th degree burns, his melted patches of stoney skin, and his painful breathing. He looked like he was about to die.
“TODAY, RIALTO!!!” Zarth shouted to snap him out of the trance.
“Um... right...” Rialto said in shock.
The fire breath was starting up. Rialto’s dragon fire was able to melt the cage bars lickity-split. Brawlers backed away from the flames and watched as the giant steel poles were dissolving to the floor. Rialto made quick work of each bar, and soon there was a long hole where segments of bars once were.
“...guys.... move...” Abigor panted.
The other three Brawlers in the cell stepped aside. As they did so, Abigor stood with a shoulder lowered. From the back of the cell, he ran at the damaged barred door as fast as he could with chained feet and what little space was given. Rialto was a distance away when Abigor shot the damaged bar ends out like bear-trap teeth. Abigor didn’t get through on the first time, though the first run’s damage was unmistakable. After bouncing off of the damaged wall, Abigor was quick to bound on his feet and run back at the wall. Cheers were heard when Abigor finally shattered the cell’s door.
“‘atta boy, Abigor!” Rialto shouted. “Now turn around!”
Rialto jumped around Abigor and fired breath on to Abigor’s arm and leg chains. This literally took a few seconds, and Abigor was finally able to move about freely. He enjoyed it despite the fact that there was pain with each limb movement.
Rialto was about to Sigmund, but Blobs busted through the door. Bodyguards and Biters jumped around the door’s entrance. But they were unfortunate to have Abigor free now. He was quick to leap up and squash the small Biters with his giant frame. Bodyguards were shooting their spears into him, but Abigor’s rocky structure simply deflected the little projectiles off of him. A swung arm destroyed a Bodyguard instantly. A flying fist was enough to reel back the other.
A Cracker jumped on to Abigor soon after. A free Sigmund shot like a bullet to smash into the Cracker. Its long range limbs were virtually useless as Sigmund was beating the thing to death.
“I got ya, Zarth!” said Rialto. His breath was warming up yet again, when the opposite door bursted open. Rialto turned to see that a Pulper had made its wall into the narrow battlefield. Rialto turned back to free Zarth, but the Pulper’s gigantic hand clutched to Rialto’s whole waist and pulled him away. Like a skipping stone, Rialto was hurled by the Pulper as hard as it could. Abigor lurched forward a bit when Rialto’s body crunched into his shoulder blades. Abigor spun back to see Rialto curled out on the floor unconscious. Abigor then saw the Pulper running at him.
Nothing could hold back Abigor now. His face scrunched up in a pissed-off fashion and he tackled the Pulper to the ground. The Pulper reached and prodded to get a hold of Abigor, but its grasping hands were knocked away by Abigor’s fists. Brawlers cheered and screamed when they saw Abigor get both of his hands onto the Pulper. They cheered even louder when Abigor dug his fingers in and tore out chunks of the Pulper as if it were a giant cake.
An explosion stopped Abigor’s rage on the Pulper. He still wore that angered face when he turned to see McJesus pointing a smoldering hand at Abigor. Also behind him, it seemed that MadGamer had been knocked out and Balto-Boy was putting a reluctant Sigmund back into chains.
Abigor grabbed what was left of the Pulper with both arms and chucked it at the traitor Brawler behind him. McJesus shot off another explosion so the Blob would explode into pieces and fly past McJesus entirely. Abigor, still in his blind rage, started to run at McJesus with all of his might. Behind him, Virus and Zarth hobbled to Rialto to try to wake him up. But in the next hallway, out of view of many of the Brawlers, Abigor was fighting on his own against two of Illidon’s main cohorts.
Abigor had McJesus pinned to the ground and was readying a fist for him. Balto-Boy managed to stop him when he clutched on to his head and fired off aura rounds into his face. Abigor stumbled off of McJesus and grasped for the little furry beast. Abigor finally got a hold of the excess skin on the back of Balto-Boy’s neck and threw him down the hallway. Balto-Boy bounced off the wall and his knees hit the ground. McJesus launched more explosions at Abigor while he was swinging arms back to him.
In the back, Balto-Boy’s aura glove was glowing in a flame-like color. Behind the brawling McJesus and Abigor, Balto-Boy was changing rapidly. His height changed from under 6 feet tall to more than 7 feet. His lanky body was becoming large and buff. His normally-neat fur was becoming ruffled and greasy. His teeth bore a yellow color and foam was falling from his mouth. And his normal eyes were glowing red and strongly resembled small flames. With the transformation complete, Uber-Pissed Balto ran to destroy his current opponent.
McJesus saw the furry monster run in his direction and dived out of the way. Abigor looked up just in time to see Balto-Boy shoot an uppercut into the bottom of Abigor’s jaw. As Abigor was still looking up because of the impact, Balto-Boy found the time to jump up and slam both of his legs in a kick to Abigor’s chest. Behind him, Zarth and Virus had just awoken Rialto. Abigor knocked him back out when he fell on top of him.
“Abigor, you klutz!” Zarth shouted at Abigor.
But Abigor ignored the insult and charged back at Balto-Boy. He shoved McJesus aside and locked fists with Balto-Boy. The frustrated Brawlers had hands clasped and fingers interlaced as each on tried to shove back the other.
As Balto-Boy and Abigor were in their lock, the door behind them opened to show Spawner and Nurse entering the room. The came in as a baffled McJesus was shooting off explosions back at Abigor in order to get the beast off of Balto-Boy.
“What the hell happened here?!” Spawner shouted.
“The bitches got out, bitch!” Balto-Boy replied without looking back in a scruffy voice. “You two bitches do something!”
No more was said after that. Nurse pulled out an instrument that was essentially a drill combined with a syringe. Spawner created a pair of shackles -one for arms and one for feet- in each of his hands. Just as the two did so, Balto-Boy brought his hands back so he could have an opening for a punch. Abigor took this to his advantage, though, and smashed the heel of his hand into the side of Balto-Boy’s head. Both Spawner and Nurse had to jump to the side to avoid the hairy cannonball. Soon after, Nurse and Spawner were caught into the action.
McJesus fired off explosion after explosion to gain Abigor’s attention. He took the bait and spun around to smash his fist into McJesus, but missed and hit the ground. McJesus dodged by leaping like a pogo stick into the air and to the ceiling. Abigor’s fist has gone into the floor and was now stuck in the ground. While he was trying to pull it out, McJesus was falling to the floor and firing off explosions like machine gun fire. Abigor finally pulled out his hand and grabbed McJesus to smash him to the floor.
But when Abigor turned to McJesus, his back was exposed to Nurse and Spawner. Nurse dashed forward like a track runner and jumped to Abigor’s back. She took her drill-syringe and stuck it into Abigor’s spine. All around, they could hear the noise of the syringe digging into the mass of rock. Meanwhile, Spawner had dived to the floor in an effort to get the foot shackles on Abigor, but the feeling of the syringe had a flinching foot kick him away. As all of this was going on, Balto-Boy had reverted to normal, though some bruising from Abigor still remained. He had dashed past the action with his own pair of shackles in hand. Balto-Boy kicked Zarth and Virus away from the unconscious Rialto and watched as they bounced along the floor. As they were away, he chained Rialto’s hands behind his back; Balto-Boy’s eyes were gleaming with a bit of a morbid happiness.
Abigor had since shaken Nurse off of his back and was giving off a massive roar. His eyes were fluttering, and Abigor was stumbling around aimlessly as Nurse’s potion was taking effect. The massive roar Abigor let off was transforming gradually to a sort of loud yawn. As he finished this one off, Abigor loudly fell to the ground. Spawner was quick to get the other set of shackles on to Abigor’s hands.
As he did that, Balto-Boy had finished trapping Rialto in both pairs of chains. Zarth had a desperate attempt in mind. He dashed a shoulder into Balto-Boy as hard as he was able. But Balto-Boy was able to put a stop to that with a simple gloved backhand.
“That’s enough of that!” he yelled at Zarth while he hit the ground. Balto-Boy then pinned Zarth with a foot to the neck.
“Nice try there, but you guys aren’t going anywhere as long as I have anything to say about it!”
Nurse was panting near the collapsed giant that was Abigor.
“So... so what hap... ened?”
Balto-Boy kept his foot on Zarth’s neck as he turned around.
“Rialto, the little runt. He got into the shelter and found his way in here.”
“You guys didn’t have him chained up or anything?!” Spawner asked.
“Well, excuse me if he’s sneaky, alright?!”
“I thought we got all of them off the plane!”
“Rialto wasn’t actually on the plane, foo!”
Alright, alright, shut up,” McJesus finally said. “It doesn’t matter. We got it under control. Let’s just get these guys to a new cell.”
“And beat the freaking shit out of them later...” muttered Balto-Boy.
McJesus started to respond.
“You know we don’t ha-”
A buzzing noise cut him off. It came from all four of the renegade Brawlers’ belts. It came from a set of pocket radios each Brawler had. McJesus picked up his and the others could hear his end of the conversation.
“McJesus... What does he want? .... Why can’t you tell us now? .... No I’m not questioning anything, I just want.... fine. Balto, Spawner and I will be there shortly... because one of us need to guard the halls, now we’ll be there soon.”
McJesus hung up on the caller and looked to the Brawlers around him.
“That was Webster. It said Illidon wants to see us.”
“And it wouldn’t tell you why?” Spawner asked.
“No. Says he...” -he whispered lowly so the prisoners couldn’t hear- “says he doesn’t want the captured Brawlers knowing about it.”
“Goody... I love Webster,” said Balto-Boy sarcastically. “Gah... well, I’m sure this” -he gestured to the wrecked hallway- “doesn’t have anything to do with it. Let’s just go and see what’s up...”