A few days had passed, and I just woke up, today would be the day. Talia had stuck around, and she seemed to be warming up to me and Haley. She even talked about Lory’s dad. As I got up, Lory and Haley were still asleep. Abby did not eat someone, for as far as I know. I did visit her hideout from time to time. Funk and I had been growing a bit closer, messing around, making stupid jokes. He lov32es beer. I got geared up and packed my bag, then I woke Haley up with a kiss on her cheek.
She yawned and stretched, “Hello, dad.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“Mom is more gentle.”
I sighed, “Of course.”
I walked over to Lory and gave her a kiss. She smiled, and her tail wiggled, “Good morning, my love.”
“Hello darling. The airship is leaving today.”
She yawned, “Is that why you are up early?”
“Yes, I’ve got pickles for you, I even made that wrap.”
She shot up, “Oh, yummy!”
“And, I made an omelet for Haley.” They immediately went to the desk and started eating. I sat on the bed, “I am aching to get that artifact, close the hole, and then face the void!”
After we were geared up and all had breakfast, we went to the hanger. Bella had made some trial runs, one epicly failed and almost destroyed the airship. Funk quickly came our way, and somewhat late, Abby. Bella walked over, “It is done! We can fly! Get on board.”
We all shrugged and did so. Bella took the wheel, I have no clue how boats or airships work. The hanger opened up above us, and then everything started to shake. Slowly, the airship rose into the sky as the propellers above us started spinning and energy got transferred throughout the ship. Lory took my hand, “Here we go, into the sky.”
Funk chuckled, “As long as we don’t go as high as Alice.” We all had to laugh about that.
“Yeah, since we have not heard anything from her, she is most likely dead.”
As the airship came above the hangar, we saw Paul, Talia, and other people wave at us. We all waved at them and then the airship slowly continued to ascend and moving towards, wherever the hell, we were going.
Soon the airship soared through the cloud. Haley looked at me, “Wow, dad, do you see this?”
“No, I am blind.”
She chuckled, “You have one arm, not one eye.”
“No, Alice had one eye.”
Haley chuckled, “She never saw it coming.”
I smiled as I looked at the scenery. Funk stood next to us, and Abby joined us. “This is just, amazing.”
“Abby?”
“Yes?”
“How are you doing?”
“Oh, I am fine.”
When we looked down, we could see the void cloud. Abby gasped, “We can fly over it?”
I shrugged, “It appears that way.”
We just enjoyed the view and breeze until Lory called out, “Look, a giant floating island!”
“Yeah, that must be where we are going, and it is fucking huge. I believe it will take longer to travel from one side to the other, than we did to travel a circle of what is left of this reality.”
Funk grinned, “Indeed, our travels are nothing compared to what we would have to hike through if we landed on the other side. I see mountains, forests, ice regions, volcanos, even a desert. I hate deserts.”
Abby chuckled, “Luckily, Bella will be landing us at the dock near the capital.”
Out of the clouds came another ship, it looked more like a pirate ship. “Bella!?”
She called back, “Yes, I see it, let me handle it!” She started firing the cannons. The pirate ship took some hits, but it fired cannons at us, we got hit and the ship shook. When I got up, it flew next to us. Some kind of monsters were on them. They looked like monsters from the ocean. Some of them looked like starfish, others were full of jellyfish, some of them were covered in barnacles. However, they were humanoid, and they wielded swords and axes.
They started jumping towards our deck. I called out, “To arms!”
One of the barnacle humans came my way, it looked just like a human, it probably once was. I started trading blows with the barnacle man. On the other ship, I saw some kind of captain, I could not properly look at him since I was too busy with fighting. He yelled out, “Take the purple haired woman.”
“Oh fuck, Lory, keep Haley safe.” She nodded while trading blows with a humanoid that had a jellyfish on his head. Funk and Haley were dealing with starfishes. Abby, on the other hand, had dodged aside and just stood there.
I leaned backwards and saw an axe fly over me, then I used the force of coming back up to decapitate the barnacle man. I ran over to Haley, but a humanoid covered in rotten wood stopped my advance. As I hacked my energy blade into him, it got stuck. We heard our cannons fire again, but the pirate ship did not seem to mind. I drew my gun and fired at the wooden man. The bullets just bounced off. “Well, you are a sturdy one.”
As I leaned aside from his sword coming at me, I put my gun back and punched hard enough to shatter his wooden hide, and probably break a few of my fingers. There was an opening, I smashed my hand inside and ripped a lung out. Then I threw the wooden monster aside. From the pirate ship, I saw giant octopus monsters appear, they had plenty of tentacles. As I ran towards Haley, suddenly the captain stood in front of me and slammed me down and put his boot on my chest. When I looked at Funk, he got occupied by at least six starfish.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Haley’s leg got grabbed by one of the tentacles of the octopuses. Lory ran her way and I started firing magic beams at the octopus that had grabbed Haley.
I tried getting up, but the captain monster like figure kept me down. I shot a beam at his face, and it just bounced off. Haley got covered in tentacles and slowly dragged to the open jaw of the octopus. Suddenly, I shot a red beam at the captain. The voice inside of me focused energy and made me fire that strange red beam. The Captain grunted, letting me slip for one moment.
I rolled aside and made a leap towards Haley and grabbed her. The captain came my way and Lory rammed him aside, they rolled away. Haley fired energy beams at the octopus, but it just grew three more tentacles that started wrapping around us. I wanted to grab my gun, but I seemed to have lost it somewhere. The octopus started dragging us away, it wanted to take us to the pirate ship. “Abby, fucking help me.”
“I can’t.”
“Just, do whatever the fuck you need to do.”
“I am not certain, if you will accept me for who I am.”
“Abby, we are about to be octopus food, currently I don’t give a fuck if you turn into a motherfucking horse.”
Haley grunted as she tried to fire more beams, but tentacles wrapped around her arm. I looked at Haley, “Calm down.” She looked at me. “Yes, just like that, if this thing is going to kill us, we both die. Just keep looking at me, Munchkin.” She nodded. “Alright, don’t try to fire randomly. If Abby can’t help us, we need to fire at the exact right moment, together, to make our energy mingle.”
Haley took a deep breath as tentacles started wrapping around my neck. We suddenly heard an ungodly roar. Everything seemed to freeze. “Haley, now!” She nodded and we both stretched our right hands towards the open octopus mouth that had already dragged quite a bit of mine and Haley’s legs into its open maw. Then we both fired a dark beam and the octopus and its tentacles launched away, Haley and I were covered in slime, but I helped her up to see the captain jump back to his ship.
A purple alien, with thick skin, and pumping something black through its vein picked up a barnacle man, and the alien opened its jaw and swallowed him whole.
The alien shot dark tentacles and grabbed three of the octopuses, then it opened it jaw and swallowed them up. It seemed like a black hole or something. Others tried to run away, the wooden armored man got his head chomped off, and then the rest swallowed up. The alien walked over to the railing and shot dark tentacles and soul like orbs, got drawn to them. The alien roared at them. The captain started barking orders, “Get us away now! This being is protecting the purple haired maiden.”
The captain started shooting huge energy beams mingled with something unknown. The energy beam was at least five times the size we could conjure, it took out one of the propellers, the worst part, it did not even seem like he was trying yet. The alien looked at the propeller falling almost on Lory. It jumped over to her and grabbed the propeller. Lory ducked under the alien. I ran over there with Haley in tow. “Lory, are you fine?”
She nodded, “Just plenty of cuts and scrapes.”
We saw the pirate ship fly away, and our ship started to slowly crash down. When I looked at the pirate ship, I saw the name, the Flying Dutchman. I called out, “Bella, can you land us?”
“Working on it, this will be a painful crash landing.”
Funk walked over, limping, “What the fuck is going on.”
The top part of the alien pulled back, to show Abby’s face. “Are we safe?”
Haley, Lory, Funk and I just stared at her. Abby sighed, “If you dislike me now, then I am fine with that. I saved your hide. Yes, this is Mimic, yes, he is inside of me, yes he is a parasite. No, he does not control me, we both have full control and hand it over when needed. Yes, we both like to eat weird things. It is something that kind of goes hand in hand. Why is he purple, well, why don’t you ask him?”
“I uhm, why are you purple Mimic?”
An alien head appeared next to Abby, but it is attached to her, “Because, I dislike black.” Then it disappeared.
Bella shouted, “We can make it to the edge, barely!”
The ship started leaning sideways. I grabbed something while smoke came out every part of the airship. “Abby!?”
“Yes!?”
“I don’t dislike you, just don’t eat people.”
“I only ate one person and I spit him out. It is just this urge I have.”
I sighed, “We are busy with dying, can we talk about this when we aren’t busy dying?”
Lory called out, “The whole ship is leaning to the side, I can see the giant island under us.”
I grunted, “Damn, I can’t hold on.”
Funk looked at me, “Come on Steve, just a little bit more.”
I got a considerable flare of pain in my right arm and I had to let go. “Lory!?”
She looked at me falling down. “Steve?”
I could feel myself falling fast, when I am going to hit the ground, I’ll be a Dutch pancake. I had an ace up my sleeve, but, should I use it? Panic set in, making my mind go blank. The ship slowly disappeared into the distance as I fell down, I saw a blip come for me. Abby seemed to be heading straight for me, she used energy to shield us from the loud noise of falling down. “Steve?”
“Not dead yet.”
Abby came very close, “I am sorry for this, there is no other way to save you.”
“What?”
She shot dark tentacles around me and purple goop gathered around me, it felt as if I got shrunk down and then things turned to black as the goop surrounded and absorbed me.