He was a snake of a thing, clinging to the dark as if poised to strike.

I should elaborate that he wasn’t literally a snake person. Since we already met one possible snake person with Fogwarth’s late sister I didn’t want to confuse anyone. This person just acted in a way I’d deem as “Snakey.”

Our lantern barely illuminated his shadow, but I could make out some things from the trickles of light that made it to him. A dark robe, black or a charcoal grey, like the walls in the kitchen of an ex-girlfriend I had years ago, hung loosely off of the rail thin figure. Torn bandages seemed to dangle from his hands and face like some kind of extra from that Mummy movie, and he seemed to drag some long object along behind him; it rubbed the stone and earth with the sharp echo of metal as he tugged in to follow. His eyes were still too shadowed, and what little else I could see were also just bandages.

Whoever this was had to be injured in some way, given the sluggish movement and… well, bandages. But it was what he said that had me nervous. Whether this guy was weakened or not, he spoke with the conviction of someone who knew me; or at least knew of me.

“Yeah?” I answered, sword held out at the ready. “And where the Hell should I be, Mumm-Ra?”

ThunderCats reference. Sick burn. Though I suppose I could have gone with Shishio from Rurouni Kenshin for more of a deep cut. Then there was the ‘Return the Slab’ guy from that Courage the Cowardly Dog show…

No, Barry! Focus!

“Back home, Resurfaced,” he answered. “Back on your Earth. Far from Palea. You should not be here, Barry Ashton.”

The cold, blistering grip of fear held me in its grip. My name, my real name, seemed to echo off of every wall of the knee cavity. My mouth felt dry, my voice rattle to escape my throat.

“Goomba,” I said, not letting my eyes stray from the shadowed, cloaked figure. “Any idea who this is? Any idea what’s going on?”

I looked over after Goomba failed to respond, only to see an odd sight. The mushroom familiar was stiff and hard, as if it had lost its sentience altogether. No eyes, no mouth, just one gigantic lump of a mushroom without so much as a wiggle of life.

Oh no…

“Goomba?! Goomba! Hey! This isn’t funny!” I shouted, flicking my eyes from the figure to the mushroom in rapid succession. “What happened?! What the fuck did you do?!”

The being was silent as it stepped close in long, slow strides. He once again resumed his clap, ragged hands smacking together again and again. His robe dragged along the ground, tattered and torn, calmly brushing the moss and dirt below. As he stepped I could see the torn and bloodied bandages of his feet drift along behind him. But the being never looked up, never revealing its full face from behind the dark shadows of the hood.

I stepped back, keeping some amount of distance between us.

“Foggy?! Ak?! Aero- ah, never mind not you. But literally anyone else?!” I shouted. None answered my call.

“Your party is indisposed, Barry Ashton,” he said, his tone mocking me. “The Toadstool Lord is as much a home as it is a prison to those that know him well. On this day, I have chosen the latter.”

“How do you know Goomba?” I asked. “What did you do?!”

“We did not know him as Goomba, as you say. He was merely a toy of Vacel. A shelter when we needed a roof, a barricade when we needed a wall. The Toadstool Lord was a fool gifted to us all as a token of our… endless, eternal bond.” The being huffed, letting out a resigned chuckle. “We were the fools, Barry, and we dissolved like sandcastles in the rain.”

“Gee, how fucking beautiful,” I answered, stopped my back step and preparing to attack. Clearly this guy meant business, and I was ready to open shop. “Listen, Amumu, I’m done with this nonsense. Everyone is always throwing some kind of weird past at me, that doesn’t even involve me, and expecting me to just go along with it. Well, let me tell you that I don’t give a rat’s ass about your damn eternal bond or whatever. I’m just trying to get through this fucking corpse, get rid of this stupid debuff, and move on with whatever life this is!”

“Ah, I see. You have not yet discovered your truth, Barry. You do not yet realize why you have come to our world, and how it came to be. The blurred barricades of betrayal that each of our party had come to hide behind have brought you here. Vacel may have been the smartest of us… even with his eventual fate.”

I grew agitated as we both stopped moving, only about six or so feet between us. I kept myself prepared for a fight, while the robed man seemed completely relaxed. I didn’t buy it, I’ve been in this world long enough to realize when some shit is going down. Not to mention the whole trope of a cloaked villain speaking nonsense but becoming pivotal to the story and all of that stuff. Nope. I was getting whatever answered this guy had to give, one way or another.

“Yeah? And what do you know about me? About how I got here?” I asked, reaching forward with my sword as I spoke. “What are you babbling on about?”

“Babbling?” He answered, raising a hand to his chest and cocking his head. “He did say you would be feisty all of those years ago. Now look at you, look at all that you are. Vacel does have a sense of humor, does he not? Well, I suppose it matters not. You have come here, to this place of all places, and have made my work far easier…”

I could sense it, the subtle motions of his body and the absorbing of ambient mana all around him. I knew something was coming, and I barely had time to brace myself as a long serpent made of a thorny bramble ripped out from the ground right before me, its brown thorns easily half the size of my body. I jumped aside, narrowly missing being crushed by the thorn-coated snake as it arced up into the air and collided back to the earth, burrowing deep inside. I tumbled, regaining my footing a moment later and noticing the wooden monster was already growing black and rotting away, shedding pieces of itself to fall into wet clots on the moss below.

See? Told you this guy was up to something.

Perhaps it was the small percentiles of expertise I now had, but I had a slightly better idea of how to conduct this battle. Before the mummy guy could try anything again, I casted the [Entangling Rose-Hips], wrapping his legs in some thorns of my own and preparing my next skill. To my astonishment, the guy took absolutely no damage from the thorns and didn’t get immobilized by them at all. The rose-hip stems merely sloughed off of his legs like loose twine.

“Oh, God dammit,” I said, casting my sunflower next.

Yellow petals bloomed, energy coalesced, and a mere second later the blast of light energy carved a path to the figure. The guy simply side-stepped the broad beam, defeating the whole purpose of my combination attack. Shit. Still, I didn’t let up. I charged forward, my pillar of popping fire berries coming up next and sprouting from right behind him. It twirled, heat radiating off of its mass as red berries began to burst with sparks of searing flame. This seemed to get his attention, and he quickly moved to escape the radius of the flames.

I met him blade first right at the edge of the affected area.

It was a horizontal sweeping slash, one I was sure would slice a good chunk from his midsection. Without missing a beat, he summoned a shield of thick thorny wood from out of nowhere, blocking the attack in its track. I pulled the sword back, taking a step away to avoid any counter hit before noticing that the shield immediately began to decay just as the throned serpent had. It wa strange, but whatever power this guy had seemed to only last for a second or two at a time.

He coughed, then chuckled again.

“Is this all that you have to offer?” The guy spat on the ground, his saliva turning into some kind of tiny thorny bush before melting into a pool blackened rot. “Where is it, Barry? Where has the old fool placed it?”

“Huh?!” I grunted, watching my cooldown timer click down until my rose-hips were nearly ready again. “I don’t know who or what you are talking about! Now back off!”

I cast the rose-hip bush, watching it have no effect once again as I charged in with the blade. This time I used a thrust, lunging ahead only to be countered by a tangled sword made of slithering vines coated in needle thin thorns; Whoever this guy was he really liked his thorns. My blade was easily swat aside, and he countered me with a slash to my berry side, rending off skin with the hair-like needles and causing me to leak blood and juice. I screamed from the pain, feeling the area burn with agony as I backed away. I pressed a hand to the wound, coming back with a slick glove of both red and dark blue.

Stolen story; please report.

Once again his conjured thing turned to black and fell apart, and he coughed even more. As he coughed his hands moved, once again summoning the large thorny serpent.

This time I was ready. Or should I say we were ready, as little scrappy climbed up the side of our opponent with practiced easy, leaping to his shoulder like a trained ninja before battering his face with combination punches. The small -2s and -3s weren’t much, but they were just what we needed for a distraction. His conjured wooden snake went wide, battering the cavern wall and dissolving into more black goo on impact. He tried to swat Scrappy away, but the orchid ally has grown quick and scurried along his back to avoid a hit before rising to the other side for a few more jabs.

I didn’t let my wound distract me, even as my health had dropped over 10% just from the single hit. I rolled forward, as a blueberry should, and popped up with another slash that caught him in the leg. Ragged obsidian carved into the meat of his thigh, and he tried to get to me while also disoriented from the featherweight world champion himself; Scrappy. Once again I didn’t wait for a reaction as I lunged out, only narrowly missing a piercing blow when he summoned another of his thorn shields. This time I shoved forward, pushing to penetrate the shield and knowing it’ll just decay in a second.

The wood fell away in rotten chunks, and the blade landed true. Obsidian tip broke into squishy flesh for multiple inches, and the trickle of blood ran the length of the blade to coat my hand.

“Let Goomba and the others go! Stop whatever hold you have on them!” I shouted, wrenching the sword for maximum damage.

He grabbed the blade in his hand, stopping it from twisting or from going deeper. With a bellowing shout he called on more of his strange thorn powers as thorned vines spring from all around him in a barrier like dozens of thin octopus tentacles. They threw Scrappy off and he landed several feet away, instantly losing nearly half of his health pool. I took several of the vines up close, dropping about 15% or so as I staggered back. Blood and juice leaked from the holes I was now littered with, and I could see I got a [Bleeding] debuff that was sapping me for an addition -2 health per second.

I wanted to use my new healing ability, but I was afraid to waste it so soon. Scrappy still had some fight left in him, my sunflower was off of cooldown, and I was still over half of my full health. I wasn’t out of the battle yet.

“Foggy! Ak! Can you hear me?!” I shouted, getting back into a fighting stance.

A muffled sound came from the petrified mushroom stalk, along with the soft pounding of fists on the fleshy wall.

“Sir berry!” I heard from inside of Goomba’s stalk. “Sir berry! We are here! Hold on!”

“Your allies will not escape,” he said through a cough. “The false eighth lord is not weak, even if he is a moron. His walls are nearly impenetrable, especially for a weak party such as yours. Now, I ask again, where is it? Where has Vacel hidden it?”

“W-What? Vacel?” I asked, readying my abilities for another barrage. “What does the dead guy have to do with this? I’ve never even talked to this big ass God!”

“Do not lie to me, Barry Ashton! I know the truth!”

This time he lunged at me with a summoned thorn spear that looked like a massive harpoon. I barely dodged it, nearly taking it full force if it wasn’t for the instant decay. I lashed out with a sloppy swing, missing the cloaked figure but sending him off balance. With that I simultaneously cast the rose-hips and the sunflower, with the beam landing a glancing blow that managed a brief paralysis. Not wasting my chance, I charged forward with a battle cry that would wake the dead and landed a diagonal overhand slice that ripped a line from his shoulder to his stomach, unleashing a flow of blood to coat my sword.

His blood splashed to the ground, writhing into twisted bloody thorn bushes for brief moments before melting back into crimson pools. Scrappy was also back into the mix, back on his shoulder in a flash with a blizzard of hooks, straights, and jabs like he was Muhammad Ali in the twelfth round.

Before I could finish it, I was blasted in the chest, or face, by the full brunt of another large thorn serpent. This time he had summoned it right in front of me, pushing me up and sending me flying backward into the cavern’s wall. I fell to the ground, covered in the rot from the thorn snake and watching my health sink down to just under 30%. It was a massive blow that absolutely fucking wrecked me, and my berry insides felt like a sloshing smoothie. I worked to push myself up, receiving the notification that Scrappy had died again as I did so.

The cloaked foe approached, and as he did so the wounds leaked the fresh blood in a trail behind him. He cackled as he loomed over me, ready to land a final blow.

God damn it, Barry. God damn it! You were so close… Why? Why are you so weak? The one time I had fought without my allies and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be the one to save them. Now what?

I pounded a fist to the ground, pummeling the muddied moss below and cursing myself. The cackling only intensified, causing the beast within to boil upward like a frothing cauldron. The rage came, it warmed me from within, and just as the bleeding man over me summoned another of his thorn spears I allowed it to take over.

“Hope… hope you’re ready…” I grunted as the transformation began, my berry skin rippling and my body busting into its Tony the Tiger form. “For… for a full serving… of tiger berry crunch!”

Yeah. I should have said something better. Hindsight is tricky that way. Then again I guess I could just lie and tell you I said something better, but that defeats the purpose of this whole thing. So… no. I said that.

My tiger berry form shifted our dynamic in an instant. I was now looking down on him, my body easily double the width of his own with its piles of muscles and fur. I felt the anger burn my insides like a car engine, and I roared so loud it threatened to shake the entire knee cavity around us. My opponent back-stepped, a highly bewildered look coming across his face as he was met with hundreds of pounds of tiger berry.

I shot forward, muscled tiger legs propelling me like a German torpedo and claws extended outward towards him. He tried to block, raising a much larger thorn-covered shield that I tore to shreds with a single slash. My momentum caused me to bowl him over, sending us both down to the moss with me on top. I raised both hands in the air, balling them into fists and slamming them down in wide haymaker punches that would have made Scrappy proud as all Hell. The first punch landed and I flashed a tiger berry grin as the -41 bloomed up.

“And here’s another!” I shouted as the left hand came down for -36. “Three spoonfuls of tiger berry make up one complete daily ass-whooping!” The third punch landed for another -35.

I don’t know why I went with cereal puns. I just did it. Honestly I probably said even more, but my tiger form was far too ragey for me to think clearly.

Before the fourth hit to land I was catapulted off of him, two summoned serpents this time slamming into me at once. The damage was minor, barely taking off another 5% due to my muscled tiger body, but mixed with the injuries I had already suffered I was definitely not feeling my tiger berry best. I landed flat on my back, taking another few moments and breaths before pushing my way up to attack the guy again.

As I stood I heard him coughing again. This time we fully locked eyes for the first time as his hood fell. His face was fully bandaged with the bandages themselves sporting stains of all kinds like a Pollock painting; a reference for in case you are an art buff. His eyes were dark and deep set, his hair was matted strands of brown and gray that stuck out through the bandages. For a moment we just stared at one another, waiting to see who would attack next.

“I won’t… I won’t let you claim that which has always been mine, Barry Ashton…” He said, his shoulders rising and falling with deep breaths. “You are unworthy… It has been and always will be my birthright…”

“I don’t know what you’re even talking about!” I roared back. “I don’t want your shit! I don’t even know who you are!”

As he spoke I watched closely, seeing him casting some sort of spell with his other hand. I was prepared for it, whatever it would be. This wouldn’t be the end for dear old Barry.

“You have put up a better fight than I would have imagined. Be proud of what you have accomplished on this day…” To my horror and disgust, I watched as thin thorny stems sprouted from the ground and wrapped him entirely. Each thorn carving into his flesh and poking into his robe. Even worse, the stems slid into the wounds where I had cut him with my sword, appearing to heal him.

Oh no. Oh shit!

I charged again, not going to let my only minor advantage be taken away. This time when I lunged he seemed ready, sending a first serpent my way that I managed to slide under followed by a second that I side-stepped. The third one I was completely unprepared for as it came up from directly below me when I was a mere foot away from him, launching me up and off of my feet. The serpent also managed a half-ass bite before dissolving, causing another sliver of my dwindling health pool to disappear.

I crashed down to the ground and took even more damage. My tiger form clock was also running low and I barely had any time left with it. Through it all I could hear the muffled shouts of my team, still trying to get outside of Goomba’s impenetrable walls. I turned to face the being, only to find that he was now covered in thick wooden armor, littered with the thorns and complete with a spiraling crown of jagged vines.

He looked rad as fuck.

“I never would have dreamed that you would cause me to use this much power, Barry,” he said, his voice low and hollow as it reverberated from his wooden armor. “My strength is not what it once was… not since my tools were stolen from me… I can barely maintain this form as it is. Yet it will be more than enough to end you right here and now. Goodbye, Barry Ashton. This time I pray that you will not be resurrected.”

The thorn-covered knight raised a hand, and in it grew the largest sword I had ever seen. It was nearly the length of his entire body and wider than Foggy’s beefy leg. He held the sword in two hands after it formed, a tangle of roots and vines coated in the thin needles like the one he had raked against me earlier. He stood at the ready, preparing to strike just as I got back to my feet. There was only half of a minute remaining in my tiger form, and I looked on at my opponent with the realization that it just wouldn’t be enough.

“This sword is a shabby replica of what was stolen from me… Yet it will be your end, as it was always meant to be…”

Then, just as he took his first step to charge at me, an enormous mist fist seemed to come out of the air itself, bashing the warrior in the face and sending him stumbling. The fist was followed by a body, completely formed of mist and standing at a height that rivaled Goomba’s. The figure looked like a lurking, giant monster that was completely made of a thick, dense fog with two glowing fog light eyes. It had no mouth, no discernible features at all, and it almost looked like a Lovecraft version of that big marshmallow looking guy in Big Hero 6.

“We meet again, berry friend of my brother,” a spooky voice crept out of the shadows.

The horror eyeball guy had arrived.