The Shot That Ended the World

The black paint. Deanna backed away, her eyes full of terror. John Newman... the weird boy who- it’s him-!

The Wardens didn’t catch Deanna’s fear; both now struggled as a righteous anger filled them. Laksha Singh did not anger easily. Moira had seen her decisively butcher a Gorbachev; Tricia had seen her try to do so again and shortly after seemingly putting down a maniac Slayer. Laksha was not a warrior guided by anger, or even spite; her righteousness was of a casual, if unerring, brand upon the world around her.

So it struck Moira when the Warden of the Spear stepped forward, naked save for her spear... and joined Moira in producing a golden halo of light around her head. Moira marched, emboldened, to join her father at the center, and the Warden only paused to put a hand before Deanna who suddenly sprung forward as if to try and protect her father.

“We’ll protect him,” Moira promised. Deanna, whimpering, only nodded as she carefully retreated, bare feet aching from stone shards and hot casings underneath, towards the bushes along the side of the courtyard. Her eyes stayed on John... and her body quaked as she recalled the feeling of his voice.

You tried to cast read mind on Laksha, but she resisted!

“Stop,” John insisted, “this is between me and your Lord over here. He started this, and I’m going to-”

Laksha’s eyes flared with gold. “That’s not how the Order works, love.”

“John, this will prove nothing; the Order is not my father, or even us Wardens,” Moira explained in an even voice, “the Order can’t accept such-!”

Laksha began to pass Lord Brighton when his hand shot up. He met the potent Warden’s baleful gaze without hesitation. “He has challenged me.”

“Sure has,” Laksha agreed with a wavering cheer, “and he’s being a little cunt about it, too.” John blinked at that. “But if all this was just a pissing contest between you two... well, the Order can’t wait until one of you runs out of piss, now can it? We’ve already got a containment crisis so far.”

“I only ask that you respect this duel until its end-”

“People are hurt, dead, or worse. This is bigger than your egos now, General.” Laksha backhanded William’s hand upwards.

Laksha’s unarmed strike deals 193 damage to Lord Brighton!

Moira rushed forward, but so did Laksha towards John. William remembered the Rose and followed suit, charging faster than even the Warden of the Spear could manage; he ducked twice, plucking undrawn swords from the sheathes of downed Knights.

The Order was closing in on John. <Take out any leftover or incoming forces.> “Everyone else, focus on Moira-” John’s orders barely left his mouth before Laksha was upon him, her axe of a blade bearing down to chop at him while Lord Brighton circled around with inhuman speed. John erected tunnels on either side of himself; Lord Brighton had reflexes enough to avoid Laksha’s spear as it jutted out of the portal. No one was surprised at this point; John’s finesse with space was too well-documented. Carefully, they continued their dance as they tried to open the Gamer to some fatal wound.

Moira had fallen behind, and neither member of Collide, nor Galley, would let her catch up. All three charged at full speed, to which the Warden had a classic answer. ”By the light of the Lady!” The shield screamed a blinding flash of radiance into Travolta’s eyes... but Rave’s eyes briefly turned to light as she anticipated the classic prayer, and Galley remained unphased by magic. Golden shields bashed together as Moira’s charge was halted, and her massive warhammer, already rising to punish the pink-haired rival, was met at her wrist by a merciless haymaker from Gallows. Travolta, still blinded, charged just left of the brawl before he slowed and realized he had missed. Moira eyed the blow to her arm in shock. My shield, it didn't even move... is it because she's Soulless?!

The summons did as they were told, and quickly so: Fairy and the succubus flew upwards towards the plane as men and women began to parachute towards Brighton Manor, each with their own plan on how to “take out” the fools; Alysha and Greenpaw made a quick, small mess of the soldiers once Tricia, from across the battlefield, shattered their guns to pieces.

The Gorbachev continued to position herself near, but behind, John; the other Gorbachev, gun drawn as he watched the absurd and rapid portal show, waited for some kind of opening to do his job.

John’s Eye caught Lord Brighton in time to strip away his damned “Memory,” but that meant that John still fought an old man nearly twice his level and dual-wielding swords. Laksha was surprisingly easier to handle: despite her incredible stat line, John could still perceive her enough to keep up with her blows; unfortunately she still had enough reflexes to not stab or slash an ally, as much as John tried to **** it.

But the portals were getting costly. Fuck it, take the gloves off.

A massive tunnel, some twenty feet wide and 240 mana in cost, opened beneath Laksha’s next step. It swept John as well, as he had planned, and both fell through into the sky a mile above the Manor. Lord Brighton’s swords were barely prepared to try and cross John’s neck when they exploded near the hilt. Behind the old Lord, Tricia’s Eyes continued to shift and flicker around her body. Her breath caught when the old man turned to regard her, but his did not. “You have blossomed into an incredible woman, Miss Gorbachev. Pray... do not waste this growth on treachery.” Her forehead’s eyelid cycled as she felt a mix of fear and... shame? Her Eyes slowed their variety as her emotions came undone under his pitying, dangerous gaze.

Behind him, the tunnel shut just as Laksha’s spear nearly made it back up.

Overhead, Laksha teleported the spear back to her as the wind whipped her hair and bare body the whole way down. She tossed the spear as best as could be managed with neither ground under her feet nor a calm wind as the air rushed past; her attempts were shockingly accurate to John, forcing him to employ yet more portals as he shunted her spear a mile to the west.

Sovereignty: You have no authority over Laksha’s Return of Rhongomyniad spell!

Cursing, John found he couldn’t prevent the spear from returning to her grip.

She raised the spear for another toss... until John became a bunny.

Laksha blinked. Greenpaw, stunned, blinked back. She resumed her throw and impaled the air that was once a rabbit.

Down below, Greenpaw was conveyed back to roughly where he had been in front of the Manor, alongside Alysha. He was back to facing off with the half-naked butler, the fiend he owed a rematch, while John blinked between Tricia and William. The wily butler had, disgustingly, vomited up yet one more chain weapon: a pair of silver balls joined by several feet of thin and round silver links. The entire thing reeked of magic and bile, and one or the other kept Alysha from webbing them still; with Greenpaw returned, there was enough of a pause for Reginald to manage one good hit on the elf, striking a plate on her thigh and leaving half-melted carapace in its wake.

The silver didn't glow with heat... yet Alysha felt as if she were struck with pure fire as pain burned up her leg. "They're e-enchanted," she managed as she swallowed the pain. Greenpaw readied his daggers anew, unsure of how to finish the fight.

Reginald continued to spin the orbs in wide orbits, leaving barely any gap for a ranged attack. "I must say, fighting without these things in my stomach leaves me feeling so limber... now then. Won't you let your master know that only his surrender will save your illusory lives?"

Behind the whirling silver and butler proper, peeking through layers of broken walls, remained two pairs of terrified, but determined, eyes. The pair that crackled with flashes of white on black muttered nearly beneath the din of the melee, "Spider queens and vicious lots? Dooo youuu have a cleea-heear shot?"

"I gawt a whole parade of bullshit between me and the girl, and you're talking like this is easy!" Vincent complained as he continued to steady the gun near the wall edge, ready to flash it only when he had his moment. "Plus we'll never 'ave it if these cunt portals keep popping in'n'out!" More and more, Vincent suspected he'd need to take two lives today. He eyed the melee that continued to develop, barely visible to him as a Warden in a robe fought three unarmed maniacs.

Moira's left ear hummed where Galley had boxed it, and a dropkick to her back while her shield guarded against Rave's fistful of hard light left her yelping as she rolled on her shield and quickly sprung up to block Rave's continuing barrage. The pink-haired devil tried bashing Moira's shield away with her own once more, but Moira had enough of that; with a twist of her body and her miraculously conserved backup warhammer, she bashed the shield down parallel to how it seemed strapped to Rave's arm; the **** was too much for the latter to hold on as the shield was sent bouncing away on its edge.

"Hey! I was going to pawn that-!"

Rave bent backwards as the warhammer whizzed overhead... and Travolta's clothesline was met by the automatically spun-about shield as Moira was nearly **** to the courtyard floor.

"The Lady Stands!"

A pillar of light screamed down on the three of them... and though both Collide members grunted in pain, neither seemed too injured by the radiant light. They're not demons, or really even evil... but Lady help me, I need to beat them before something happens to-! Moira's fears were confirmed twice: first by seeing John reappear near her father, and then by Galley suddenly catching her flank and drawing blood with a fist up the Warden's face.

CRIT! Your Serpent’s Lunge deals 1,803 subdual damage to Lord Brighton!
Your quickcasted Serpent's Lunge deals 901 subdual damage.
Your quickcasted Serpent's Lunge deals 901 subdual damage.

Lord Brighton grunted as he felt fingers, like knives, jab at his back. John had to stop it there; he had to conserve his mana if he was going to be able to deal with the Wardens, too. Lord Brighton tried to recall the Rose, but John's Eye was upon him. "Surrender and leave us alone!"

Lord Brighton's hands missed John's neck by centimeters. "Surrender, and I'll promise you all your lives!"

Tricia, upon seeing John's back, hesitated as she thought of the horror she was about to commit... but Lord Brighton's hand caught the Gamer's sleeve, and her resolve turned to hateful ice.

Tricia's Eye of Hate deals 580 unaspected damage!
Tricia's Eye of Hate deals 580 unaspected damage!
Tricia's Eye of Hate deals 580 unaspected damage!
Tricia's Eye of Hate deals 580 unaspected damage!

New, future scars exploded all along the offending arm, causing it to release John... or so Tricia believed until the fist balled up to backhand her in a sudden lunge.

Lord Brighton's unarmed strike deals 283 damage to Tricia!

The damage was minimal compared to her overall health... but John couldn't read the message. "You mother-!"

CRIT! Your Serpent’s Lunge deals 1,803 damage to Lord Brighton!
Your quickcasted Serpent's Lunge deals 901 damage.
Your quickcasted Serpent's Lunge deals 901 damage.
CRIT! Your quickcasted Serpent’s Lunge deals 1,803 damage to Lord Brighton!
Your quickcasted Serpent's Lunge deals 901 damage.
CRIT! Your quickcasted Serpent’s Lunge deals 1,803 damage to Lord Brighton!

Bones and flesh cracked and popped under the sudden, uncensored wrath of the Gamer as his hands blurred into ever-repeating portals just before him. Lord Brighton's body shuddered with every blow that randomly landed anywhere along his back, neck, and limbs.

But he was alive... and he wasn't done. He surged forward... and grabbed hold of the Gamer's wrists. His fingers squeezed with enough **** to break most men's wrists, and John grunted as the pain traveled up his arms to wrestle with his anger.

-92HP
-113HP

"There'll be no more of that-"

Laksha's spear shrieked as it neared the battlefield, ready to strike down into the middle of the courtyard. John spotted it seconds before it would land; his bet on a few more rounds of combat before the Warden would need rescuing had suddenly become an arrogant fancy. "You're right," John hissed as his hands continued to ache, "you're not going to hit Tricia ever again."

The Spear's wide blade struck into the courtyard stone... and passed clean through.

Laksha teleported as she felt it hit what she presumed to be land... and found herself holding a bloody spear nearly ten feet from where Lord Brighton and John had just been severed.

CRIT! Laksha's spear throw deals 8,492 damage to Lord Brighton!

Lord Brighton's hands fell like dead spiders from John's wrists. Lord Brighton's own wrists vomited blood in spurts following the clean cut of Laksha's hallowed weapon... after it had passed through a tiny tunnel that ran perpendicular to Lord Brighton's arms. Laksha now held the spear from its path and, looking back, filled with rage at being used. Lord Brighton, stunned by the sudden loss, was incapable of avoiding the tunnel that opened beneath his feet and dumped him back towards the house. Reginald, readying to strike, jolted and pulled his weapons out of sync before they could hurt his Lord.

There. Greenpaw launched his daggers at the **** wrist; one sliced the thumb, but the other caught it and pierced through thin bones and thick veins alike.

Reginald grunted a brief scream as he tried to keep a guard with only one of the orbs, but a quick blast of web at the wounded arm spun him about, confusing his defense. Alysha unleashed the remainder of her mana-web, anchoring the butler to face indoors before she slashed his back and healthy arm, finally causing him to drop his weapon. Quietly she shoved him to his knees and began spewing webs over him from her wrists, imprisoning him, while Greenpaw readied for some offensive from the handless threat that just appeared before him. Shockingly, the old man struggled to stand, maimed as he was. "Stop it! You are ruined; you cannot fight-" A brutal toe kick to the chin quieted Greenpaw's worries. Alysha spun about, ready for her own rematch... until Lord Brighton began his handless sprint back towards John.

Vincent blinked at the exchange as he shook his head. "'Go to America, they've got more tits than brains, it'll be fun,' they focking told me. Everyone here is screwed in the-"

"The target!" hissed Penelope.

Vincent looked for Tricia... and saw her half-obscured by the Gamer as he faced Laksha. His head was turned. Her attention was on Laksha as well. No one seemed to be moving right away... and Vincent opened his Eye as he began to vibrate the bullet in the chamber. Right, 'nough of this crackpot play.

Moira struggled to heal herself and also keep a defense up as the three brawlers surrounded her.

Lord Brighton continued to run towards John, his mana too spent to remember the Rose and hurry the situation, blood trailing from his hands as he went.

At some point, perhaps when her father's hands had been severed, Deanna had fallen into a quiet horror from where she hid in the bush.

In another bush, hidden among the leaves, Yui Decker, a bookish reporter for the Abyssal Audit, continued to sweat bullets as she wrote feverishly and prayed that the madness continued to never ignite or target her hiding spot.

John took in the menacing halo of the naked Warden with an almost eager grin. "Looks like you'll need to heal him," taunted a satisfied-looking John, "unless you want to tell Moira how you let her father bleed to ****."

Laksha glanced between her two enemies and watched as Tricia's Eyes of Hate began to re-open, ready to thwart her atop what John presented.

John smiled. Tricia swayed back, somehow alarmed-

A slice opened alongside Tricia's forehead as a vibrating bullet spun through where her head just was... and now barely across the front of the same. The bullet continued on its path; it would not end it for a few more hours, at least, as it sunk to the center of the Earth. It would hit no other target until then. But Tricia was the second thing it had hit.

Overhead, as Fairy and Uulosootas wrapped up knocking out the parachuting Knights, they very nearly acknowledged each other's strengths before both vanished.

Greenpaw and Alysha had begun chasing after Lord Brighton, but their steps died as both popped out of existence. Rosa and Durr, still strapping the Knights down for when they'd eventually wake, didn't finish the last knots before ceasing to be.

Tricia slowly turned... her breath quaked. She couldn't feel the blood pooling from her flesh wound, even as it swelled the bodysuit just underneath her permanent third Eye. She couldn't hear anything... except the single gunshot she had heard. Her pupils dilated... and all the world seemed to fall away as she looked through where John's right eye had surely been.

Gamer's Body has beedsfsfU^ERffdfd.

John didn't read the pop-up... because the right side of John's face exploded, along with a quarter of his skull, in a spray of blood, bone, and brain. His body didn't move, at first; for Tricia, nothing seemed to move, except that all of her summoner husband's minions suddenly vanished. The bullet had traveled faster than sound; John couldn't hear it until it was through him. His back was turned, his portal-opening had briefly ceased, and Tricia was very nearly in position to be a casualty if he managed to dodge. It had been, to Vincent, a clean win-win: either the main barrier to accomplishing the mission was destroyed or the target herself was. The former would have to do, for now.

As it should be. As I knew it would be.

Vincent lined up his gun again. He had to hurry, after all, and his Eye opened to vibrate the bullet anew.

Tricia caught sight of Vincent... and her Eyes all closed, save the one. Her regular eyes looked down to John... to the man she married, to the man she doubted, to the one she wanted to talk to, to discuss what "love" really could be, what it really was, and to try and express all her worries and all her fears and all the emotions that welled inside her in a mad, chaotic whirlwind that necessitated everything, everything, everything, and calculated and compounded inside her as no logic could bring back John Newman, no spell could stop ****, no mercy could remove the remains of that man's skull that stuck to her body in its spray, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing-!

The Eye lid cycled... and cycled... and exponentially sped up as grief and hate and regret and terror poured out of Tricia Gorbachev for the impossible loss, for the **** of... of...

"Good night, sister," Vincent whispered... and his bullet sang out as it rocketed towards Tricia's face.

The Eye cycled a thousand lids... and then, as the bullet neared, as the bullet who would speak to nothing save flesh came so close to flesh... the Eye... my Eye... opened... and I looked upon that primitive missile’s feeble mimicry of my Truth, a pitiful shred of black floating upon the wind, divorced from the divine, sucking void of my being, and just as like all the rest of the blasphemous misery of this "reality," this cruel, humorless illusion through which I've floated for too long...