Chapter 63:
Bind it, Fleshbag!
For me, the third time was definitely not the charm. The ghost fully understood it was my helmet that caused his attacks to bounce off so he came at me way lower, set to cut me in half at the stomach. I did all I could think to do and dropped to the ground, bringing my head down faster than I fell. I managed it. The ghost's claws slammed into the fishbowl and my head was jerked all around as I spun out of control and spun backwards.
I landed on my back, sliding to a stop as the ghost came after me, not dissuaded at all. His clawed right hand came for me, stopping seconds from ripping me to shreds. My saviour was the girl, she’d abandoned her empty laser canon and replaced it with a beam spear. She’d run forward, completely unseen by the monster and myself, and lunged her spear up into the ghosts chest. His mouth exploded with a green goo, going everywhere. I’d never heard of ghosts that bled but if it meant that we were dealing damage, that was enough of a good thing to outweigh the grossness of it.
“Suck on this, you ugly motherfucker!” Rocket Launcher was back, his namesake in tow, ready for take off. He didn’t bother to give us a chance to run away and he mashed the trigger.
“You idiot!” The girl yelled. She recalled her beam weapon and fell back as fast as she could.
I tried to do the same but to my horror the ghost grabbed my ankle. I looked back to see the ghost's body tear apart. That should have been a good thing but it wasn’t caused by the missile. His body was just making a hole for it to travel straight through harmlessly.
But that wasn’t even the worst part. The ghost spun and grabbed the rocket with its free hand, grinning like mad, as it brought it back around, detonating on the ground right in front of us.
I did everything I could to survive. I bent my head forward, covering as much as my body as I could, but since the ghost still had my leg I couldn’t protect all of it. I used as much MP as I could muster and sent it all rushing to my lower half, putting up as much defense as I could manage.
But it wasn’t enough. The explosion went off and I went flying and I knew I hadn’t walked away unscathed. My body collapsed a ways away from the explosion and my vision flashed red, alerts going off inside my head.
[ DANGER! Health is extremely low!
HP: 10/100 ]
Ten health. I don’t think I’d ever been left with such a small sliver. And in a fucking No Respawn Zone no less. Was I going to die here?
I looked around, the other two were similarly in a bad way, but nowhere near ten fucking HP. But neither of them looked ready to continue the fight. Rocket Launcher dude was collapsed in a pile, his butt up in the air, looking like a cartoon dog who’d just been hit with a mallet or something. And the girl was sprawled out face first, unmoving.
The ghost didn’t bother with another dramatic smoke reveal and just blew it away at once. He hadn’t escaped the attack undamaged either, but he was in considerably better shape than us. Even in high spirits. He coughed, spraying more ghost blood, but then his face broke into a huge grin.
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As usual, the big bad only had eyes for me. He floated toward me, passing harmlessly by the other two, taking his revenge slow.
I’d like to say my mind raced with ideas on how to fight back. Making battle plans right up to the end, never once giving up… but that’s not true. I was terrified. More than I’d ever been in my entire life. For all intents and purposes, this ghost might as well have been the grim reaper himself. He gave off the scent of death, his whole being primed to wipe me out of existence.
Not for a few seconds after a Game Over. This was for real, FOREVER, and I had done nothing worth being remembered for.
Shit. That was the last thing I needed to be thinking of before dying but that’s where my stupid brain went. When I should have been fighting back, it was giving up, fighting against ME.
I’d led a worthless existence. Struggling, at the bottom, overwhelmed by options. Now, at the end, there was just one option left, one inescapable finale: death. Maybe that’s what had been in store for me right from the beginning. My mom, too. Except she knew it, embraced it.
And now it was here for me.
The ghost reeled back, preparing to tear the last 10 points of health out of me.
#
But the ghost and I forgot about something. A guy, to be more accurate, and the big beam sword he wielded. He appeared, like a messenger from heaven, the light of the sword vanquishing the darkness, around us and in my own mind. I latched onto the light, my fighting spirit rushing up as the swordsmen slashed the ghosts left arm completely off.
The stump the cut left became a geyser of ghostly gore as the spector gave his worst scream yet. But there was no moment of triumph–the monster cut that as easily as the swordsmen offed his arm. He swung his other arm around and sliced up the swordsman’s side, cleaving off a large chunk of it. He cried out, replacing the ghost’s screams.
I reached out toward him, wanting to help but knowing there was not a damn thing I could do. My heart ached for him even further as he actually reached out his hand toward mine.
The ghost ended that, tossing the sword wielder aside like he was rotting trash. I watched his body fly over and hit the ground, skidding close to the ring of fire where the ghost had disposed of all its other play things.
I pushed myself up to my feet. I was near death, had given up all hope–but that guy’s display woke me up. I would go down fighting, no more awaiting death feeling sorry for myself. If I was dying here, the fucking ghost was going with me.
The spector eyed me, hate and rage in its eyes. I’d damaged his teeth and made him look stupid and his arm was gone. I could tell that he now pinned all of that on me. Even if I could escape this place, he would follow me to the ends of the Interverse to get his revenge.
“Well, fucker, come on, then,” I spat, putting the intent to kill in my fists, holding them in a battle stance.
The ghost didn’t make a big show in return. He was done with all that, just ready to tear me in half. He dived for me, again trying to make sure he dodged my helmet.
I screamed, letting my energy lash out from my hands as my power held him back. I formed two giant mental hands and pulled at him, attempting to cut him in half before he had a chance to do it to me first.
As I looked at the thrashing spector, its remaining hand slicing through the air, desperately trying to get to me, I was filled with my own anger. Anger that this fucking thing was going to be what killed me. Some fucking ghost in the machine, something I think everyone thought was just a ghost story from the early days of technology based on an even further removed concept from Earth, never fully proven.
I wanted to squeeze it, wring it of all the green blood that gave it life. I wanted… to bind it.
My mind recalled what the giant skull had said right before the world went to hell: “Bind it or die.”
The mask’s blue flames returned, roaring to life with such intensity that I almost lost my grip on the ghost. In my vision, a little tiny version of the skull mask was there, talking to me, and I knew that, had a third person been there to watch, they would have seen the mask on my face moving along with it.
“Looks like you’ve started to figure it out, Fleshbag! Shall we bind it?”
I didn’t know what that meant, what–
“You probably want to know all the details, well, guess what? There’s not time for that. So let me make this extra simple for your Interverse rotted brain.”
A message popped up in my vision.
[ Bind the ghost?
Yes/No ]