Chapter 42

Fisting Monsters

I looked through my body’s eyes. The monster was on her way, the footfalls absolutely rocking us all. But the people of the crowd were in a sort of trance like state. As long as we kept a grip on them I didn’t think we were in any danger of them running or the ground rumbling making someone fall out of sync. But, a lot of this was pure assumption so what the hell did I know?

I waited a little longer, until the monster was a little less than a minute from us. Then I went back into my energy and recalled my training.

Basically, this was like lifting something, too. I needed to visualize what I wanted and will it into existence. Just, with this, I also had to guide the energy more because so much of it wasn’t mine and none of them knew what I wanted. So, I was kind of mentally sending out the image to the brains as I made the formation. The more they saw the image the easier the energy became to mold.

Stephen’s energy swiped the side of mine. He was ready. I swiped back and, together, we let our energy streams meet in the middle. This had been the trickiest part in training. Because the natural reflex is to take on the energy for yourself but if we did that we would spiral out of control and brain fry almost a hundred people.

So, instead, we put up blockers near where we met, slowly channeling more into the middle so as not to overwhelm either of us. It was difficult, both sides of our rivers wanted to eat the other for itself. But we fought it back and, with my guidance, our energy formed the hand.

My side of it completed first, the right half of a left hand, bright blue and bubbling with energy. Stephen siphoned his until he formed his half, a bright yellow glow, strands of energy flickering around the edges of it.

I wished I could have just stared at it for a while, it was so damn cool, But we had other worries. The time we could keep it up was less than fifteen seconds now and the monster was almost upon us. Her eyes suddenly didn’t have much interest for me, as she eyed the giant hand.

If it scared her, she didn’t show it. She just roared and aimed her fist down, rightfully knowing that if she took us out the hand would go with us.

We willed the hand into a fist, where it closed violently, sending orbs and energy trails flying. Then we reeled back and sent the fist pounding under the monster's chin.

The force of the blow knocked her whole body back, the hand that would have crushed us all was jerked up and away from us. But that wasn’t the end of her trouble. We opened our fist, and grabbed her whole head.

She roared and thrashed about but our grip was firm. She tried bitting but to no avail, our energy just burnt her mouth. My body’s eyes watched as both Stephen and I’s physical hands went out in front of us. We held it there, gathering our energy and intention… and squeezed.

The giant hand compressed on the monster’s head, caving it in. She screamed and, suddenly, it wasn’t a monster roar we heard, but the girl at the heart of all this trouble.

In our grasp, was the psycho bitch herself. The caved in head was full of vines, wrapped and wound all over her body, despertly trying to hold her into place. But it was no match.

Our hand slowly made progress, beginning to pull her out a centimeter at a time. I could feel everyone’s hope rush though their minds, into us, empowering the hand ever further.

Just when it seemed like we could not be stopped, the monster grabbed at its face with both hands. The second they touched, they split apart, becoming hundreds, thousands, of vines. They wound themselves around the girl and forcefully pulled her back, an inch at a time.

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We tried to gain the upper hand again but it just wasn’t happening. Stephen’s time was about to run out and mine would follow shortly after. And with our advantage gone, the united brains were not nearly as gungho in believing we could do it. We were losing, we had just seconds to work with and the entire thing was unraveling before our eyes.

The monster’s face took form again as the girl almost completely returned to her spot inside the head. But we still had a grip on her, our hand was pulled inside the face, vines starting to wrap around us. The monster grinned, knowing what we all knew.

We were about to lose.

From somewhere behind us, mid sized objects flew over our heads and landed uncomfortably close, between us and the monster’s feet. Before I could even react, the things exploded. I stayed standing and kept everyone's minds attached, but it was a struggle, they were pulling back. The hand’s form wavered a bit.

I looked for the source of the explosives and found them, running up on either side of our crowd: the masked men. Fuck. I was hoping they would just leave us alone and let us win, but now they wanted to sabatoage the whole thing out of spite!?

More explosives flew over us, going even higher, and nailing the monster in the face. The sxplosions went off, taking out chunks of the monster’s face.

Oh my God. They were helping us.

The leader of the masked men came up the middle of the divided crowd. “I don’t know what the fuck you all are doing but keep fucking doing it.”

He raised his hand and more explosives flew.

I grinned, not about to let some rando show us up and save us all last minute. I gathered my minds, they were rejuventated by the masked mens appearance and they were ready. The hand coursed with energy, maybe more than ever before.

The explosions kept going, at the monsters feet and her head, more and more vines being torn asunder. All of our minds, united as one, pulled as hard as we could and instead of inches, we pulled in whole yards. The vines desperately tried to puil the girl back in and push our hand away—but it just wasn’t happening. Not this time.

I could feel my MP draining. Stephen’s had to be close to empty. This was our final stand, our one hope.

I screamed and in unison everyone else did as well, just one huge crowd, screaming their heads off as we mentally pulled. The explosions hit at the monsters feet, burning away its ankles and it fell back, screaming in pain.

It was the last we would hear of the monster. As we yanked again, one last time, and the girl emerged. Her screams continued as the creature fell apart without its power source. It returned to vines as they fell apart, shriveling and dying as they gathered into a massive pile. They withered and thrashed, fighting until the very end.

"You stupid fucks!!" The girl yelled. "You haven't won! I'll destroy every last one of you! Just you fucking—"

With the last of our energy, we squeezed the girl. Her screams hit the highest point, and then she exploded, gore flying out everywhere as our hand broke apart.

I wanted to lose my mind celebrating—everyone did, I could feel it—but I forced that down and carefully guided all the energy back to their rightful owners. After I returned the last bit of energy, I felt a wave of exhaustion hit me and I toppled over onto the ground, breathing heavy.

But… we’d done it. We won. The Interverse confirmed it.

[ Congratualtions! The 99 have beaten the 1%! All 99 Users will advance to the next round of the tournament, and get a special bonus when you get there. Look forward to it! ;) ]

There was a silence, as everyone compossed themselves, coming back to being control of their minds and bodies again. Likely all of them taking a moment to read the same notification that I was.

And then it hit. The first shout went up and soon the entire crowd joined in. I wish I could add my voice to the fray but just the thought of it made my stomach whoozy. I could barely hold my head up off the ground. I caught sight of Stephen, he was in a similar way, maybe a little worse off. I flashed him a thumbs up and he returned it, weakly. But he was smiling.

I started to crawl over to him but Angelia appeared beside me and looped her arm underneath mine. “You crazy weirdos did it! Ugh, you’re really heavy. Oops, no offense.”

I laughed, not offended at all, glad for any extra help. I put more effort into it and we managed to get me up to my knees and over beside Stephen. He looked up at us from his vantage point on the ground.

“Do I really have to stand? Laying is so much nicer," he said.

“We can lay after this. Don’t you want to speak to your adoring audience one last time?” I asked with a smirk.

I offered him my hand and pulled him up and, with all three of us, we got him up to his feet, just barely.

“Strugglers!” Stephen’s voice boomed across the crowd. Everyone looked up, mid cheers, awaiting one hell of a final speech. Instead, Stephen said, “Nap time,” and completely collapsed.

We tried to hold him up but the instant dead weight toppled us all onto the ground. But it didn’t matter. He could have said the worst speech ever, messed up every word, stammered his way through, and they would have eaten it up. This was no different. The crowd went absolutely wild.

I fell back completely, getting comfy on the ground. The split second before I passed out, I saw words appear:

[ Quest Complete! Level up! ]

But, for now, like Stephen said… nap time.