Queen's Gambit Chapter 11

Chapter Index

Love in plastic (Berdly)
1
https://pastebin.com/TKjKcqVe
2
https://pastebin.com/dDw2ti92
3
https://pastebin.com/2FRWC9jj
4
https://pastebin.com/vJ67iw7N
5
https://pastebin.com/88fCetw0
6
https://pastebin.com/Dj46NYUK
7
https://pastebin.com/DmandfKg
8
https://pastebin.com/2qAE3pbm
9
https://pastebin.com/YFvjUjeu
10
https://pastebin.com/s3Q8nruN
11
https://pastebin.com/MQeRHGWJ
12
https://pastebin.com/pgcGWuRZ

_____________________________

Love in Plastic

Chapter 11

The Antlers

_____________________

In a half-burnt spa filled with half-drenched plastic corpses, Kris Ralsei and Berdly remained in place dumbstruck over the antics and the exit of the same person that both owned this entire district but also willingly handed it over and murdered his own customers while he was at it. "You know, Berdly..." Kris slowed down quite a bit once he was done putting out the last few fires. "...I'm starting to think Pilot and Jandsome really are the same person."

Berdly couldn't resist swinging his head back a little before leaning in his classmate's direction. "Oh really? Whatever in the world makes you think that?"

"Well, Sam called him Pilot and he said he was disguised, and I always somehow had this feeling Jandsome never really wanted us to find Pilot. Actually, I always sort of suspected something like that earlier already."

Mostly while trying to keep Pluma from seeing all the bodies, Berdly began leading her back to the casino. "Oh really? Did you now?"

"I wasn't thinking about it too much, because I wasn't sure it was the case at all, but yes."

Berdly maintained his balancing act of maneuvering around all the bodies while trying to keep Pluma close and not looking at them. "Why don't we ask him that when we get back to hi-" He was cut off mid-sentence by a massive rumble that shook the building. "Oh what is it this time?"

Pluma cowered together in his arms. "Berdie! I'm scared!"

"You've got every reason to." he snapped back at her.

"Berdly..." Ralsei shook his head at him. "You're supposed to tell her that everything's going to be all right."

The bird screeched at Kris' delusional friend. "Does anything here seem all right to you? This is all about as far away from all right as I can think! I feel like crying for Mom and Dad like a little kid at this point, but they're off on an island across the ocean having tea and crumpets for all I know. Why, Kris! Why is all this happeni - what?" He outright fell over when the place shook up right again.

By the time he had gotten up and the four of them made it back to the empty restaurant, it all shook one more time. And this time, more strongly than before. Berdly realized why and pointed to one of the kitchen doors. "It came from there!" It wasn't quite as long-lasting as the earthquakes from the explosions earlier. Much more of a sudden shake, as if something was crashing against the wall on a grand scale.

As expected, even behind the doorframes, the kitchen was separated into multiple rooms filled with the utilities needed to supply the entire building's worth of guests.

Cracks along the pillars that lined the morbidly deformed outside wall, made it very clear that that outside wall wasn't supposed to be bent towards the inside the way it was. The cupboards above it were broken, their doors hanging off of what little was still intact enough to keep them there. The same cracks also went along the outside wall, which as they just noticed, didn't have any windows.

Sam must have planned to kill all his guests sooner or later from the very beginning. It figured that of course he wouldn't want there to be windows they could escape through. And after rushing from the first kitchen to the next, they noticed the pattern and quickly understood what was going on. Giant, dome-shaped inward dents were visible in various places.

"The wrecking ball!" Berdly shouted. "They're trying to tear this whole place down!" Now that they were expecting the next crash, it didn't take them so much by surprise when it came. They were prepared and made their way back into the hall fast enough. At the end of it, stood Jandsome with his hands on one of the two stationary weapons they had set up.

Several of the bear traps in the front room were missing and the rams hung down with blood on the solid front ends. The brawlers had continued to try to get in.

"You're hearing it too, aren't you?"

They all caught their breath when they stopped next to him. "We're feeling it. They're going to come from both sides. Even more if we just run further back."

Now with this voice back to normal, the way Berdly knew Pilot sounded when he wasn't pretending to be someone else, the hopeless jester spoke up. "This is it. We aren't going to make it out of here, are we?"

Out of the blue, Kris pointed right at him. "You're actually Pilot, aren't you?"

Berdly rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. "When I said 'when we get back to him', I meant when we're not two steps away from getting shot at from all sides."

They were all quiet for a moment, and in that time, the jester's shoulders gradually dropped, he sighed and took off his fool's cap, reverting his face and the colour of his skin to that of the man they were searching for all this time. He stepped away from the turret and sat down with his back to the inside of the doorframe. Pluma's face lit up and with a wide open beak, it only began to click then. "Scott! We found you! We finally found you! Now everything is going to be okay!"

Pilot was so deep in resignation, he didn't even bother to correct her on his name. Pluma latched onto his arm and he dismissively ruffled the feathers on her forehead. "Yes. Yes you found me. Not that it makes a difference now."

Kris pointed at the foolscap he had thrown onto the floor. "Does that thing have some kind of voice changer?"

For a moment, Berdly covered the side of his face with one hand. "No, it's because it..." Then he figured something out. While the voice changing thing was probably coming from this vague omnipotence Pilot had while wearing Jevil's cap... "Wait...it does! Kind of!" He walked up to the spiritless man and gave him a slight kick with the tip of his shoe. "Hey! We're not going to die here! Put that cap back on!"

For a moment, his attempt at rallying Pilot failed. "What do you mean?"

"Just do it!"

He obliged. "But why?"

"You said you can do basically anything with this cap right?"

Pilot stared at the much less shaken up bird, still with little idea of where he was going with this. "Yes...why?"

After Berdly explained to him what he wanted him to do, the runaway pilot nodded. The teenagers and Pluma took quite a few steps back. What followed was going to be very loud. With a voice so intense it shook them up, the jester turned to the entrance hall and began to scream into a megaphone. "WHAT ARE YOU IDIOTS DOING?" He was speaking in Don Gatore's voice, but slightly distorted to make it sound like he was speaking not through a megaphone, but a low-quality loudspeaker.

"THIS IS OUR OWN PROPERTY YOU'RE DEMOLISHING RIGHT THERE. IF YOU'RE NOT HOPING FOR A NEW PAIR OF CLAY BOOTS FOR YOUR BIRTHDAYS, YOU'RE GONNA BACK OFF RIGHT THIS INSTANT!" He paused and all five of them remained still for a while. Staying still. Listening. But there was nothing. No tremors, no crashing, no rumbles.

The brawlers had stopped trying to tear the wall down. Upon giving it enough time to make sure, the source of the Don's voice shrugged. They might as well use this to further help with escaping this place. "I MIGHT YET FORGIVE THIS LITTLE SLIP-UP IF YOU DO AS I SAY! MOVE A LOT FURTHER BACK AND HUDDLE TOGETHER! THE CLOSER, THE BETTER. The moment of truth on how far they could take this was coming closer.

Pilot dismantled one of the turrets and carried the gatling gun with his bare hands to bring it through the foyer. It worked. A few dozen metres away from the entrance, the brawlers had formed as narrow a crowd as they could given their numbers. All they had to do from here was stand apart and fire straight at them.

With their weapons loaded and released, Ralsei and Pilot each fired a long salve right onto them and hit most of the brawlers that were in the very front. As soon as they noticed what had happened, the rest of them abandoned their friends and ran for their lives. "AND STAY AWAY!", the jester shouted still with Gatore's voice.

While the prince went ahead to pacify their wounded enemies and loot their pockets, the others formed a circle to discuss what to do next. "We have to rescue Janice!" Pilot was a lot more confident all of a sudden. Letting the cat out of the bag in front of more people must have been a relief. "As long as there's any chance of getting her out of there unharmed, I have to try."

"If we just chase after them right now, we'll run into an ambush."

"You know..." Kris tipped on Berdly's shoulder. "We just were in kind of an ambush a second ago and we're still alive. We'll think of something."

Berdly's eyes narrowed. He didn't like Kris' careless optimism, but he had a point. They had gotten themselves out of a lot of seemingly deadly pickles by this point. What ever Don Gatore threw at them couldn't be that bad either.

"HELLO? IS THIS THING WORKING YET?" Coming closer from the distance between the rows of formerly beautiful, but now burning and melting ruins, they could hear the Don's voice. Distorted from speaking through a loudspeaker, just as Pilot's was before, except that he wasn't the one talking.

A van came driving their way and stopped when it was just on the square and close enough for them to clearly hear what the Don was saying. There, it stopped with its left hand side and one of said loudspeakers pointing right at the five of them. From the same source came the timid voice of his secretary. "Not sure, Boss. Can you try saying something again?"

"HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO SET THIS UP? I DON'T PAY YOU FOR THIS INCOMPETENCE!"

"You don't pay me at all, sir."

"I DON'T PAY YOU FOR BACKTALK EITHER!"

"Hearing you loud and clear now, Boss."

"FINALLY. ARE ALL VEHICLES IN POSITION?"

"Yep. You say anythin', every corner of the city's gonna hear."

"SO LISTEN UP! I'VE BEEN HEARING THAT THE LIGHTNERS HAVE BEEN IMPERSONATING ME. THEY CAN COPY MY VOICE! FROM NOW ON, ANY INSTRUCTIONS YOU HEAR ME GIVE - IF THEY DON'T INVOLVE THE WORDS 'KILL' AND 'LIGHTNERS' AT SOME POINT, THEY ARE TO BE IGNORED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!"

He cleared his throat. "THAT SAID, LIGHTNERS. I KNOW YOU'RE LISTENING. I DARE YOU TO COME HERE! YOUR LITTLE FRIEND IS SAFE AND SOUND, CRYING IN AN EMPTY CELL IN THE DUNGEON RIGHT UNDER CITY HALL!"

"Why is there a dungeon right under the city hall?" broke out of the bird.

"It's the Dark World, there's no point in asking these kinds of questions."

"YOU BETTER TRY TO GET TO HER FAST, I CAN HEAR THE SOBS FROM UP HERE! GO AHEAD! TRY TO BE SMART AND FIND SOME WAY AROUND MY GUYS! I'VE GOT SOMETHING SET UP THAT CAN MOVE AROUND FREELY. IT CAN'T BE STOPPED BY WALLS, NO SNEAKY WAY OUT OF THIS ONE. IT WILL CATCH YOU ANYWHERE YOU MIGHT GO. YOUR FRIEND WON'T BE IN A STATE TO GET YOU OUT OF THIS CITY WITHOUT THE GIRL. SO THE ONLY WAY TO THE LIGHT WORLD, IS THROUGH ME! WHATEVER YOU DO, YOU HAVE TO COME TO CITY HALL. AND IF ALL ELSE FAILS, IF MY BOYS CAN'T TAKE YOU DOWN, I WILL FACE YOU AND DO IT MYSELF!"

They tried approaching the van, but its driver made sure to keep a safe distance. When they came closer, it turned around to start driving down the road within the upper city. Every time they moved in a little closer, it sped up to move a little further ahead. Eventually, they wound up following it along the path the brawlers had fled in.

Past all the now burned and broken ruins that were once big, luxurious single family houses. Some used to be tall enough to reach the ceiling of the upper city's enclosure. "AND JUST IN CASE YOU THINK YOU'RE SNEAKY AND TRY LOOKING FOR SOME EASY WAY OUT, LET ME SPEED SOMETHING UP THAT I'VE BEEN WAITING TO DO FOR A LONG, LONG TIME NOW."

He cleared his throat again and took a deep breath before continuing. "ATTENTION, TO ALL BRAWLERS WHO HEAR THIS! THE RECONQUERING OF CANYON CITY IS REACHING IT'S CONCLUSION AT LAST. THE LAST MAJOR PART OF IT IS BACK IN BRAWLER HANDS! AND THE MAJORITIES OF THE SHARES OF EVERY SINGLE BUSINESS SECTOR IN THE CITY HAVE BEEN TRANSFERRED - ALL IN A PERFECTLY LEGALLY SOUND MANNER OF COURSE - OUT OF THE HANDS OF OUR OPPRESSORS AND INTO MINE. OUR UPPER HAND, OUR GRASP OF THIS CITY IS NOW SET IN STONE. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR ANY MORE. THERE IS NO MORE NEED TO HOLD BACK."

Oh god, if all this before has been them 'holding back', what were they going to do if they weren't holding back? "NO MORE NEED TO PLAY NICE, NO MORE NEED TO SPARE ANY LIVES. NOW THAT THOSE CLICKERS AREN'T IN A PLACE TO FIGHT BACK ANY MORE, WE CAN DITCH ANY TALK OF COEXISTING AND GET RIGHT TO KILLING THEM."

"GO AHEAD. NO JUDGE WILL FIND YOU GUILTY NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO. THEY HAVE ALL BEEN SWAPPED TO BE FELLOW BRAWLERS. ALL THE ONES THAT HAVEN'T, KNOW DAMN WELL WHAT I'M GOING TO DO WITH THEIR SPINES IF THEY SHOULD HAVE THE GALL TO SO MUCH AS APPROVE A WARRANT, LET ALONE RULE ANY OF YOU GUILTY OF A CRIME! NO MORE HOLDING BACK! FLIP THEIR CARS, SMASH THEIR WINDOWS, KICK IN THEIR DOORS! FILL THEIR MEN WITH LEAD, BREAK THE NECKS OF THEIR WOMEN AND CRUSH THEIR CHILDREN'S SKULLS UNDER YOUR BOOTS. FIND EVERY LAST MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD THE CLICKERS HAVE AND KILL THEM ALL!"

"THEN WHEN THERE IS NO CLICKER BREATHING ABOVE THE CARNIVAL, FORM TEAMS, TAKE DOWN THE BEARS THAT GUARD THE CARNIVAL AND THEN KILL EVERYONE DOWN THERE AS WELL! MAKE THEM ALL SPEND THEIR LAST WAKING MOMENTS CURSING THE DAY THEY CHOSE TO SPARE OUR LIVES! HOW'S THAT, LIGHTNERS? WANT THIS TO STOP? THEN MAKE IT TO CITY HALL ALIVE AND FACE ME!"

"This person really has some anger management issues." To Ralsei it was surprising, to Berdly not at all. Of course he couldn't wait to get some homicidal action where he could put those gatling guns he always carried around to use. Berdly was too lost in figuring out whether Gatore was genuinely angry, or whether being like this was just his nature as a living action figure, to notice his classmate pulling out his phone.

Along with it, he pulled a large folder out of his little leather bag. By the time he took note, the human was already dialing some number he looked up in that folder. "Hello?" The person on the other end immediately picked up and from Berdly could hear even from where he stood, that they were seething as well.

Kris struggled to calm the grimy voice down. "It wasn't me, it...there's me, Ralsei, Berdly - my classmate - yes, the other one. And a guy that's dressed up as a court jester. We're in the upper city right now. Okay."

Kris took a step back, stretched out the phone to keep it in everyone's earshot and put the other person on speakerphone. A gnarly and furious sounding voice came out of it at once. "I heard everything! What the hell have you lightners been doing? You were supposed to prevent a war in the streets, not start one!"

Berdly just gave Kris a questioning look. "It's commissioner Brigham. The chief of the police here...I think."

"You think? Seriously, some almighty lightners you guys are." What kind of miracle was he expecting from them? They were just a bunch of teenagers. "Now tell me what the hell is going on and if it wasn't you, why exactly our mayor is holding speeches about killing all of us!"

Pilot stepped closer so he was in a better place to speak into the microphone. "It's Janice! She made a deal with the Dealmaker and then the Dealmaker killed everyone there and invited the brawlers to take over."

The angry commissioner stuttered upon hearing the very first words. "Pilot...Pilot? is that you? Where have you been? We've been looking all over for you!"

"This isn't important right now! The entire upper city is in ruins and everyone in it is dead! The inhabitants, security, everyone. The mayor has Janice! I'm going after him! I need to get Janice out of there at any cost!"

"What about the lightners? D'they agree to tag along?"

"She's my everything. I didn't really understand why she put herself in danger for so long just to find me, but now I do. I'm going after Gatore with or without them. Will you send me some reinforcements? Tech assistance? Any help would be a start."

The police chief sighed and took a moment to consider it. "I'll see what's possible. But I'm not making any promises. Listen. Old mayor used to have a pet dog. Dog's dead now. New mayor tried to eat it when he took office, but the dog house is still there on the right side of the garden unless Gatore demolished that as well. If anyone I send makes it to you, they'll be hiding somewhere around there, got it?"

The relieved jester's eyes widened. For the first time ever since they met him, he was hopeful. "Yes! Thank you! That's all I ask!"

"Yeah. You're welcome. And Pilot."

"Yes?"

"Good to have you back." He hung up right after that. Understandable, they must have been under siege more or less since the moment Gatore held his speech.

They fell quiet for a few seconds upon ending the phone call. Pilot took a deep breath, tensed his arms and clenched his fists. Then he raised his head again and looked at all three of them. Kris, Berdly, and Ralsei. "Lightners. I have to do this with or without you. Nonetheless, tell me, will you be at my side with this?"

"Of course you can count on us." Ralsei immediately looked to Kris, who put away the phone, stepped a little closer and gave him a thumbs up.

Berdly joined them, albeit with narrowed eyes. "It's not like we got a choice, right?"

A smile crept up Pilot's face. "Thank you. Now let's not waste any more time! We have to press forward!" He gestured towards the road they were following in pursuit of the van that had retreated completely by now and began marching ahead. "City hall is right this way." They had to hurry. They could hear it. They could feel it. The buildings to both sides were on fire, everything in and on them that could burn, was burning.

The toxic stench the evaporating plastic made for, burned itself into their nostrils. The walls were torn in by the same equipment the brawlers had tried to tear down the Dealmaker's Den with. They must have brought a lot of it when they arrived. Some of it was still there, the vehicles attached to them long abandoned.

Occasionally, they spotted one of them looting one of the dead men, women and children that used to live in these extravagant residences, but whenever they did, the brawler would stumble and soon run straight away from them. Especially if Ralsei released his rifle to prepare to fire.

In the distance, from beyond the walls of the upper city they could hear the sirens of the confused policemen's cars, they could hear the screams of the innocent inhabitants and the gunshots that quickly put a stop to the screams. The smooth, flat metal wall didn't ward off the sounds. It resonated with them and made them more audible than otherwise.

The city was burning, people were dying by the second, and they were all made very aware of it every second. Pluma was so scared, she was cowering and grabbing onto Berdly's side all by herself.

They occasionally ran short stretches, but they had to make sure they kept their breath and were ready to fight any time. Then, they arrived at another blown-open gate and wall, craters and dents in the metal casing around the upper city showing that similar explosions blew up this opening as they did at the Den. Immediately upon passing the craters, the upper city went on outside of the metal confines.

A tall brick wall warded off the rest of the city. It wasn't in the metal box, but it was still part of the upper city, as they could guess from the pattern of the long and wide, flat tiles that made up the square. Except that the square seemed a lot wider than what the tiles covered at first. Then, upon actually standing outside, where they could see the sky, Berdly took a few moments to get a grasp of what was odd about their new surroundings.

He went to where the tiles of the square ended, but where the square continued, and only then did he really grasp what he was seeing. The area wasn't really flat and wider than the square. At least, it wasn't built that way. At the ends of the square, began the open and ruined underground basements of various buildings that presumably used to stand there. A lot of the rubble-filled holes they had become were flooded with water from broken pipes.

And the bricks that stuck to the borders of those basements gave him more of a picture of what had happened here. There used to be houses everywhere here. Something ripped all the walls off down to the basements and pushed them away to the wall between this place and the rest of the inner city. And the giant heap of rubble must have been what was left of them.

With more of an idea of how this district probably used to look, it was clear that this square was actually a very wide promenade straight towards the wall. Opposite to it, with the remains of curved railings to both sides, led a humongous staircase further and further up a hillside. So far away from here, he could barely make out more, was a fence and a dozens of metres wide clock tower. Its walls could only be seen in a grim shade of brown against the dark world's nigh-lightless sky. "There!" That was where pilot pointed next. "City hall is that way!"

"Stop!" When they were just about to head towards the stairs, two figures came out of hiding. Two beavers, and if the species wasn't enough to tell, the plastic plates that mimicked the fur they were supposed to have removed any doubt that those weren't brawlers. They wore police uniforms as well, but except maybe for a pistol in a holster to each one's left side, they weren't armed.

Instead, they carried large briefcases with them. "Get down!" One of the beavers' gestures being directed their way made it clear they were talking to Kris and the others. Once both groups met up and retreated into a corner with a wall's worth of rubble warding them off from the rest of the open area, the beavers caught their breath and calmed down. "That was a close one! Blue skin, no fur, you're the lightner, right? Orange feathers, then you must be the other two."

"Yes? And you are..."

"Brick and Brack. We're from the precinct right behind that wall over there."

"You're the reinforcements Brigham sent?"

Both beavers smiled awkwardly and their heads sank down between each one's shoulders. "I think you had better file us under tech assistance. We don't really do field work."

The bird tilted his head and gave them a more stern look. "Wait, what kind of tech assistance."

The beavers exchanged a quick glance. "All-round as long as it's hands-on. Depends on what you need done. Security systems? Weaponry?" For the time being, this was good enough. He wasn't sure what rules applied in a magical city made of building blocks. And in the ruins thereof, allies were hard to come by anyway.

"So what are we hiding from?"

The two strangers began trembling again. "The mayor's got choppers patrolling the sky above city hall."

"Choppers? You mean like helicopters?"

"Yes! Police choppers. Two of them and armed to both sides each. If we were to head up to the gardens now we'd all be goners."

"Since when do the brawlers have police choppers?"

"The mayor confiscated them when he sued us over a parking ticket."

Berdly started to see a pattern here. Then again, if lawbreakers were put in charge of how the law was applied, what else could he expect? "You heard the mayor loud and clear, he wasn't bluffing. If we can't think of something to deal with those choppers, your chances at getting to the mayor are pretty grim."

"I'd say they're pretty grim already." The clicking sound off to their side announced a weapon that was pointed at them. The person holding it was the eel the mayor had come to the upper city with.

Berdly wasn't even surprised or scared. More than anything confused. He gave the eel a questioning look. He didn't even bother to look for his eyes, he just stared at that sideways strand of green hair on his head. "Deandre?" Kris was surprised that he remembered his name. "Aren't you going to run away like the others?"

Indeed albeit slowly and while still pointing his weapon at them, the eel was walking backwards ever so slowly. "Not gonna lie. I kinda do feel like runnin'. But I got backup." Then he stopped. Everyone stopped. An awkward silence settled in. The eel cleared his throat and fumbled around in his leather jacket. With phone out and having instant-dialed some number he recently called, he repeated himself. "I said, I've got backup." The more time passed, the further he backed off and the more nervous he got, until eventually, he just hissed at Kris and the others and ran for it. "What's keepin' ya! Get a move on, they're right below the stairs!"

The curious group finally stepped out of their little corner. The ground shook ever so slightly. It was so slight, they could only feel it with their feet and only if their shoes were planted straight onto the pavement. Then the tremors came closer. And at a much faster pace than the mayor's steps earlier. As if there were more legs marching. No, galloping.

Then the area around them did shake a bit and with a rumble loud enough to fill the entire square and the cleared-out properties around it, the brick wall burst open and an entire, pretty wide segment was outright broken out of it and pushed inward. It was being pushed by a creature with a thick coat of brown fur and an awkward-looking roundish face. It was the moose they had heard of.

The creature stood as tall as most of the ruins used to be before they were torn down and wide enough to match it. It pushed the piece it had broken off a little further with its antlers and then raised its head to flip it over and let it fall onto the ground, causing more tremors and propelling a current of dust away from it. "Woah! Simmer down there, big guy!"

A person sat on a wide bench, attached to the back of the moose through solid metal cables that were wrapped around its neck, front legs and antlers. It was one of the very first brawlers they met ever since they fell into the dark world. The shark with the mohawk, except that the had ditched his city costume completely. No hat, no jacket. Just a shark dressed like a biker.

Two more metal cables were arranged to be in reach of the shark's arms, which he held onto and tried to use to guide the animal. With negligible success. When he tried pulling on both, the ceature just raised its head and shook it. "Hold on, big guy! The lightners are right over the- woah!" He tried pulling its head in Berdly's direction again, but his guidance was only met with rejection.

A wild animal wasn't so willing to be steered by whoever thought to sit on its back. "That's it, you stubborn animal! You made me do this! I'm gettin' out the zapper!" The brawler stuck his hand in an unusually long pocket attached to his leather trousers and pulled out a lengthy metal stick with two more thin rods at its end. The rods flared up with a visible electric current flowing between them.

As soon as the animal would let him, he climbed up the back of his bench and struck the moose's back with the charged end of his little device. The effects of the current being channeled into the beast could be seen throughout its motions. It spurred it on into a sudden rage in which the brawler lost control of it for good and it began charging straight past Berdly and the others' little hideout, through the outside wall of the city and dragged a lot of rubble along its path.

The shark was barely able to hold onto his bench and was only hanging off of its side by one arm by the end of it.

"Wait, that's it, follow me! Quick!" Berdly had an idea and waved for everyone else to follow him. With his arm wound tightly around his sister, he ran back into the metal box as fast as he could, with everyone else following him. "That brawler's having problems steering the moose. And the metal is harder to get through than the blocks outside. Being in here buys us a little more time."

The two policemen took a little longer to follow them, and they needed more time to catch their breaths when they arrived. Pilot and Ralsei approached them. "So, what kind of tech assistants are you exactly?"

They were both still wheezing, but one managed to answer. "Anything. We're flexible mostly. Doors, bombs to blow up doors, firearms, security systems, tools to disable security systems...we're ignoring the mayor's regulations, so we can build whatever we want. Anything you want made and that could be useful, we can probably make. So where's Pilot exactly? I heard you found him."

Pilot took that as his cue to take off his fool's cap, if only briefly to show them who he was below it. "Oh, now I get it."

The prince raised a finger. "Whichever path we choose, we need to get to city hall. So we're going to have to do something about those helicopters. Can you make something that can take them down?"

"What, like a weapon? A gun?"

"Maybe something bigger, something that can take down a vehicle."

"So a bigger gun. Which would be a cannon."

"This city is a bit too advanced for cannons, do you have something a little less..."

Berdly stepped in to finish his sentence. "Dated. Do you have something less dated. More modern. Something more in line with cars, electricity and so on."

Both tech assistants scratched their chins. And their buck teeth. "Hm...we'll see what we can make."

After making sure they still had some time, Kris joined them as well. "Berdly I'm not sure what you're expecting. There's nothing here to make any weapons with."

One of the beavers smiled. "Oh I wouldn't worry about that." He pulled a building block, with its connecting segments laid bare, off of the torn down wall of one of the many destroyed houses around them. "We can make pretty much anything even with these. We just need an idea what."

"Right, while you figure that out..." He and Kris went back to be a little closer to the exit to keep an eye on that shark trying to get the moose under his control. "Whatever they make, to use it properly or get it up those stairs, we'll have to deal with that moose first. So what's the plan, Kris?"

The human had no discernible expression on his face whatsoever. "I have no idea."

"What do you mean you have no idea. Weren't you supposed to be the leader here?"

"Berdly, this is your toy box, not mine. You know more about any of this than I do. What is this moose?"

His classmate sighed. "It's a plush."

"Why is it here?"

"Because reasons - look. Okay, so it's a plush, right? What happens if you squeeze a plush?"

"Nothing."

"Right, it reverts back to its form the moment you let it go. The filling and the way its sown make it sort of elastic. So of course the police shooting it like I suspect they did, isn't going to do anything. If all I've seen of the dark world and how it works is any indication, any attacks we throw at this thing aren't going to accomplish much."

"Kind of like with K. Round."

"Who?"

"The checker piece. Susie wouldn't stop attacking it even though it would just heal itself back up and make itself even stronger every time."

"Mindlessly attacking any big thing that comes her way. Yep, that sounds like Susie all right."

"You know, she's usually not that stu..."

"Yes she is, Kris. Yes she is." He clapped his hands to bring the two of them back on-topic. "Now, moose. How do we deal with it. Can't be beaten with physical force, but..."

They spent a few more moments watching that brawler try and fail to take control of the creature, and all his attempts only leading to it jumping around and trying to shake him off all the more. "...but, it still acts like a wild animal. Like an actual wild, non-monster moose. Moose aren't afraid of confrontation, anyone that provokes them they just impale with their antlers or trample with their hooves. But they are afraid of a threat they can't impale or trample."

"Like what?"

"Fire. Fire-fire. Burning fire. Pilot!" He waited for their friend to come closer before he went on. "I'm going to need you to magic up a few things with your cap."

"And what exactly?"

"A very big heap of firewood and something that can push it around. Think construction."

"All right, shouldn't be too difficult." The jester stepped further towards the hole that was the exit and shouted back at all of them: "Everyone look away for a second!"

The beavers needed Ralsei to encourage them to just listen and followed suit, but other than that, everyone quickly closed their eyes or looked the other way. By the time they looked back at Pilot, he was sitting in a big yellow loading vehicle with the ordered heap of wood already scooped up and ready to push wherever the vehicle went. "Okay. How is that weapon coming along?"

Upon looking back, they noticed that the tech assistants had long gotten to rapidly assembling something big using nothing other than building blocks ripped off of the surrounding ruins.

"Right, now we just need it to burn and we're good to go. It's best if it's already on fire when we move out so we can scare the moose away in one big move."

"Need a light?" By the time he faced Pilot, the jester was already holding a lighter his way.

"Thanks. Pluma, stay with Ralsei." His sister obliged and walked over to watch the beavers assemble what seemed to be some kind of vehicle. By now, outside, the brawler had gotten the moose to turn around, but it only dashed right past their location again. Now it was in a position to drive it further inward where it wouldn't come back to them too soon. He held the lit flame against some of the wood and once it started burning, quickly stepped back.

"Okay, let's go!" Kris, Berdly and Pilot hastily climbed onto the back of the vehicle and squeezed into the driver's seat. Luckily for them, the jester knew exactly which controls to flip how and they were quick to hit the gas and pursue the animal with their mobile bonfire. It immediately switched from its attempts to shake off the shark towards running away from the fire. As soon as they had chased it far enough for it jump over an intact part of the wall, they got out.

"Berdly! It worked!" Kris pointed at three far-apart locations in opposed corners of the open area. "Now we need more fires there, there and there. Actually all around. The more, the better." As if of one mind, they simultaneously covered their eyes for the fool's cap to work and sure enough, more piles of wood appeared where they needed them.

Kris summoned his sword and impaled one burning log of wood to carry it over to another one of the piles and set that one on fire, and repeated it until every corner of their square and the flattened area around it was outfitted with a huge fire to ward off the beast. A ring around this whole place, with plenty of space within it to move around multiple vehicles if necessary. Now this was the last place in this city that moose would want to go to.

"Now then!" They hurried back inside the big metal box to find that the beavers's work was finished. But what they found prompted a more perplexed reaction than they first thought necessary. "What? Isn't that a bit overkill?"

"You wanted something bigger that isn't a cannon. I'm assuming the coast is clear." Before them stood a mobile set of heavy artillery. Two large rockets - homing rockets hopefully - mounted onto a truck that the beavers got into while Ralsei kept Berdly's sister out of the way.

They built an artillery set out of rubble from broken houses. While still driving outside and eventually parking in the very centre of the square, one of the two continued to shout their way: "This is perfect. Lots of room. Thanks!" They got out of the vehicle while the others followed, and proceeded to make adjustments on a console they had built onto the side. "We can lock onto them and have two secure shots, one for every chopper, but only if we get a clear shot. We can't do it from here. Either we have to get a bit further up there, or they have to come closer."

Berdly tilted his head. "Hm, so we're going to have to lure the - hey, stop!" Before he could go on, Pilot was already running up the stairs with a big, presumably bullet-proof police shield on his back. "What are you doing?"

He only briefly stopped to answer. "Not being a coward any more."

Mere seconds later, right outside the fence they could barely see from here, entire salves of firecrackers soared into the air and exploded into multicoloured patterns and ducking sideways out of the searchlights that chased him, the jester came running back downstairs with the pursuing helicopters' gunfire closely following his steps. "We got a lock on them!" the beavers announced.

With the push of a few more buttons, both rockets launched, one after the other, and headed straight for the helicopters. And they both struck them and caught them in loud, fiery explosions. They all took cover and could still feel the force of it. "Targets destroyed, both of them! We did it! Now go get'em, lightners. We're out of here. City needs us!"

Scared as they were, seeing as they were trembling since the very moment they first met those two, they were enough of a help this far, so Kris and the others understood them backing out now. "Good luck, Pilot!"

The five people remaining waited for a few moments until the last bits of burning debris rolled down the sides of the staircase. Then they started making their way up the stairs. Finally, things were moving forward and looking a lot better. At least Berdly thought so, until his whimpering sister, led up the steep steps by his hand, pulled at him. She didn't want to continue. When he turned around, she spoke up. "Berdie! Berdie!"

"What?" He stopped and kneeled down to level with her. "What's going on?"

"Berdie, don't you hear it? You have to wake up!" She looked scared. And something was going on with her.

"Hear what? There's nothing to hear, the explosions are over. It's time to fetch Ja- Debbie!"

"No! The buzz! You're gonna be late for school! You have to wake up."

He grabbed her tightly by both shoulders. "Pluma? Pluma what's going on?" He started seeing what was happening, but it was too weird for him to believe at first. She was sort of becoming...transparent. He could see the stairs she was standing on right through her. "What buzzing? Pluma, talk to me!" She was being silent, and looked a bit absent. And more and more, she was vanishing right before his eyes. "Pluma? Pluma!"

With uneven breathing he could see through her jacket, she nigh-whispered. "Wake up, Berdie. Turn it off. Wake up!"

Then she just disappeared completely. "Pluma? Pluma!" He couldn't feel her shoulders any more either, he was grasping thin air. Now his heart began to race even more than it was from rushing up these stairs and all the things that had been happening lately. "Oh no, Pluma! No! No, no, no, no, no, no! This has to be some weird dark world thing!"

His head aimlessly turned from place to place as if he was looking for something, but he was really just scrambling for something to not make him panic even more. He was frantically darting around and hyperventilating as it was. "Waking up! She was talking about waking up! Pilot! Infobadges! Do you have any infobadges?"

Infobadges. Those little red badges that allowed you to ask the nigh-omniscient infopage a question. He needed one right now. He had one hope. A hope that was keeping him from completely freaking out for the time being. While the jester was still looking for them in his pockets, the hyperventilating bird turned to his classmate. "Kris! Did Pluma tell you anything about how she came here? To the dark world I mean?"

Kris remained mostly calm in all this. "I'm not sure if she had any idea how, if I'm honest."

"Nothing about any closets or portals or falling way down or..."

"Nope. She didn't really think about it. I think she couldn't remember how." Okay, that gave his hope a little credence. But he wasn't going to calm down until he knew for sure that she was fine. "The most she said was that she flew here with Janice, but she never said how she got to where she met her."

Having found where he stashed them away, the jester placed one on the floor, pressed his finger onto the surface and stepped back. As expected, the weirdly-dressed parrot appeared right above the badge. "Hello. I am the infopage. Do you have any questions I can help you with?"

"Yes. Do li - can you dream your way to the dark world - as a lightner?"

The page took a second to register the question and then responded with a calm that didn't match the overall air at all. "Albeit an uncommon occurrence, for as long as any records available show, lightners have always been able to travel to the dark world within dreams." Immediately upon hearing this, Berdly closed his eyes and took as deep a breath as he could. His suspicion was right. Pluma wasn't in danger. Perhaps she never was in the first place.

She was dreaming the whole time. "Detailed records on what conditions apply to this phenomenon are sometimes hard to interpret due to lightners - at least at first - often getting confused for darkners due to their visual similarity to a lot of darkners. But several common patterns emerge. Most notably, they have a strong tendency to neither be aware that they're in the dark world - possibly for lack of knowledge about the dark world's existence - nor the fact that they are dreaming."

"Though there is variation from lightner to lightner, they usually appear to be in a kind of trance state in which they outright refuse to think about things that might confuse them and usually pertain towards whether or not they're dreaming, such as how they arrived in their location. In fact, the location within the dark world that they arrive in is determined by what thoughts and desires shaped their dreams in the first place. One key example that comes to mind is..."

"Okay, that's all I wanted to know, let's go!" The situation they were in warranted feelings like fear, concern, and a paranoia warranted by the constant possibility of being attacked from any angle at any given moment. But Berdly didn't feel any of these things any more.

With Pluma awake and back in the light world, one big worry was off his chest. So above all else, he was relieved. "Pluma talked about a buzz. She meant my buzzer. My alarm clock is going off back at home and she can hear it. She never was here to begin with." Once they were at the fence that surrounded the humongous garden with the tower atop city hall almost at the other end of it, they stayed in hiding for a while. "Kris..."

He waited until he was sure he had the human's attention. "Are we dreaming, too? Is this some sort of dream?"

"Well for a start, I couldn't hear the buzzing and I don't think you did either. Besides, he said if we dream our way here, then we don't think about how we came here."

"I remember coming here after I fell into my closet."

"I remember the same thing. Speaking of your closet - "

"No!" He wasn't going to have this conversation now. Now was the time to settle down and explore the garden that lay atop the stairs. Janice was waiting to be reunited with Pilot. And Kris, Berdly and Ralsei had a fountain to seal.