I knew he’d do it.
He’d sacrifice himself and turn one of the biggest monsters in the world into an even bigger one, if that was what the price of protecting me was.
I had to stop him from agreeing to it.
“You want to know what I was doing?” I found it hard to yell, since the tongue was constricting me again. “I was buying time!”
The other Bandits started looking around. Sipher looked bored and Whisper looked like it was a good thing I wasn’t on the ground.
“Buying time?” Sipher motioned around. "For what?”
I hoped that Rix would be able to improvise something. “For THIS!”
Nothing happened.
The other Bandits started laughing and Sipher shook his head. "Boy, stop wasting my time.”
“No! I’m serious! My timing was just off! I was buying time for…” I looked around desperately, trying to figure out where Rix was. "THIS!”
The other Bandits started laughing at me louder until a snake rose up behind one of them. It had one head, but two bodies branched out of its neck. It put the whole head of one of the Bandits in its mouth. Its body wrapped around the Bandit as its teeth began tearing the doomed outlaw apart.
“Glima!” Sipher motioned with his hand and pulled the bald woman off of the back of the Royal Frogian. “How are you doing this? Stop it!”
“It is not me!” Glima tried to lift herself up, but her tattoos were glowing, holding her down like metal chains.
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Lightning crackled as a slime rose up ten feet tall. While its body was gelatinous, it had a very distinct bovine face and the claws at the end of its two very flash arms looked very sharp.
Whisper dashed towards it and reduced it to ash.
A snake with the head and front legs of a cat slithered towards the Bandits while a scorpion with the body of a rat and wings swooped down from the sky to attack one of the other low level Bandits. The Tier Fours and Tier Threes started trying to play keep away, but soon anyone who was not at least a Tier One was dead.
Sipher pointed at me. "Trent stop this now or he’s dead!”
Trent held up his hands. "I’m not doing it.” He looked at Hye.
The sandy brunette shook his head. "I have no idea how to do that.”
Trent turned back to the Bandit Leader. "It’s not us.”
Sipher looked down at Glima. "Who is doing this!?”
The bald woman shook her head.
Another floor boss appeared, then another.
“Glima!” Sipher squatted so that he could scream in her face. "Do something about this!”
The tattoos stopped glowing and she was able to move again.
Glima nodded obediently as she stood up and reached into the pocket of her decorated brown robe. She began patting herself down, then looking around the ground.
“What’s wrong?” Veins bulged on Sipher’s forehead as his anger level rose.
“LOOKING FOR SOMETHING?”
Everyone who wasn’t busy eradicating floor monsters turned towards the RV. Rix was sitting on the side of it with her legs hanging off. She held up a worn brown book.
“Give it back!” Glima picked up her robe so she could run, but Sipher stopped her.
“I need that book!” Glima tried to get out of Sipher’s grip.
“You know… While we were fighting the monsters for the last week, I noticed something. They didn’t have real cores.” Rix opened the book and began twirling her knife in her left hand. “But there are real cores in these pages.” She stopped at a page. "Royal Frogian…” She held the book up towards the monster that held me. "Looks right.”
Rix laid the open book on the RV next to her. "I wonder what happens if I break this crystal…” She stopped twirling the knife.
“NO!” Glima struggled against her captor.
The redheaded Shooter stabbed the page. Smoke puffed up and the monster holding me vanished.