MADMAN APOCALYPSE

An elliptical portal with rainbow-colored edges appeared on a side wall near the boss. Bee quickly backed away, to allow my ability to do whatever it was going to do. Given that it seemed entirely random, neither of us knew what to expect.

The sound of a horse, or rather, someone imitating a horse, came from the other side of the portal and the Director halted in the middle of throwing his spear to figure out what was happening.

Meanwhile, Bee came over to my side, squashing all the black Labrador-sized tarantulas that dropped from the ceiling to attack us.

“Are you okay?” she asked, in-between the crunch and splat of every slamming strike of her spirit fists.

“You need to throw me,” I told her, while I tried to twist my noodly right arm around and get the balloon gauntlet’s valve into my mouth.

Suddenly a figure burst from the portal. It was a knight wearing a silver suit and riding a steed, except, the knight was clearly a unicorn based on the cloven ‘hands’ and ill-fitting helmet. Worse yet, the ‘steed’ was just some naked guy on all fours with a saddle and harness strapped onto his body, as though he was partaking in some fetish play…

“Halt, my beautiful steed!” said the unicorn knight in a thick British accent, before dismounting the saddle.

Two puffs of rainbow smoke came from its ‘hands’ and faded away to reveal a lance and a shield glued to the hooves.

“I shall slay this wretched monster and free the princess!” the unicorn announced, before charging at the Director.

The spider looked very annoyed and, in response to the strange knight, dropped his spear and shield, spinning four double-edged spiderweb swords into his hands instead. The human steed immediately began fending off the tarantulas as well, using his legs and teeth.

The unicorn and the spider Director met in a clash of weapons, but the knight was clearly outclassed, though he kept releasing puffs of rainbow smoke to transform his lance and shield into other weapons mid-swing, confusing the boss.

I finally managed to get the valve into my mouth and began filling Brock with air. Every breath and exhale made my skull squelch, which was a supremely-uncomfortable sensation.

“I always knew you was a freak, Gamby!!” Brock said excitedly.

“Shut up,” I mumbled around the valve.

Bee was standing in front of me, the floating fists starting to dissipate and dozens of crushed corpses around her. Instead of firing off the fists as bombs, she let the ability fade, only to trigger it again.

As I was pumping air into the gauntlet, I was also using the muscles of my left arm to punch the air, building up the counter for my Pow ability.

“Are you okay?” Bee asked, as she lowered her big ethereal fists down to pick me up. “It looks like you’re having a stroke.”

“I’m more worried about what happens when he regains his normal bone structure,” Panda commented. “His legs have tied a knot with themselves after all.”

“I’m fine,” I said, pushing the valve out of my mouth with my tongue. “Now, toss me!”

Bee carefully picked me up with both of the spirit fists, before balling me up and pulling back the spectral limbs like a pitcher.

“Here we go,” she said.

In the same moment she swung her arms forward, the unicorn knight was impaled by three of the Director’s swords, turning into a puff of rainbow smoke and disappearing. The human steed shrieked in fear and quickly galloped back into the portal, which closed after it.

“Now, where were w—?” the Director was about to say, just as my balled-up body came right at him.

I tensed up the muscles in my hand to trigger the Sea Urchin Ring, which then quickly covered my right arm in the black spike carapace, simultaneously releasing the tension in my leg muscles like I was springing out of a crouch, in order to trigger SPRING_HEEL.

My balloon fist, which was located between my knotted-up legs and pointing in the same direction as my ass, hit the Director right in the face, while all four of his swords impaled me.

“Pow!” I yelled.

ACTIVATING SCRIPT: Math.pow(Punch)!

Number of Punches recorded in fight: 11

Calculating 11 to the power of Punch

…

…

…

Calculations complete!

A blinding light exploded blossomed outwards from the impact, vaporizing the Regional Director and the entire back wall with not a single mote of ash left behind. A backwash of heat flowed across the corridor and Bee dropped onto her stomach as it washed over the ceiling and walls, flash-frying the few remaining tarantulas.

I fell to the ground, landing just on the precipice of the exposed Dungeon Barrier, while blood leaked from the cuts of the Director’s swords. Though it seemed as if I’d been impaled, my jelly bones had actually helped me avoid any grievous injuries by allowing my body to coil around the weapons.

“Is it just me or was that not a ton of damage?” I asked.

WARNING!

A GREAT GAME ADJUDICATOR HAS BEEN SUMMONED!

CEASE HOSTILITIES OR BE VAPORISED!

VACATE THE LANDING ZONE IMMEDIATELY!

“Well, there’s your answer,” Panda replied, as a pink landing zone lit up in front of where I’d fallen.

Bee ran over to me and grabbed onto my left foot, which was poking out from the ball I’d been shaped into.

“I want to talk to Breezy as well!” she exclaimed, just as the dimensional being manifested over the screaming tapestry.

This time, unlike the previous two occasions, she was spared from being time-frozen.

The upside-down pyramid arrived alone, no creepy homunculus companion included. It looked down at the heap of tangled spaghetti limbs I formed and blinked in apparent surprise. Then a beam of black energy shot from its eye and hit me. I was immediately untangled and levitated upright into the air, though I could feel how my bones were still jelly.

“Thanks,” I told him.

MY MANAGER IS STARTING TO ASK QUESTIONS, GAMBIT.

OF MY LAST FIFTEEN VISITS FOR THIS ENTIRE REGION, SIX HAVE BEEN BECAUSE OF YOU AND TWO BECAUSE OF THIS NEW ABILITY OF YOURS.

I BELIEVED THE LAST SOLUTION WOULD HOLD, BUT YOU JUST DEALT 1132 DAMAGE. NORMALLY, I WOULD NOT HAVE MADE SUCH AN OVERSIGHT, BUT I UNDERESTIMATED THE POWER OF MULTIPLICATION.

“Sorry, Breezy.”

I WILL HAVE TO TAKE IT FROM YOU, AS IT IS CAUSING TOO MUCH OF A STRAIN ON THE SYSTEM.

“Wait! I have a different idea on how to fix it!” Panda insisted desperately, clearly not wanting to see me robbed of power.

“What if you just divided his Punch with eight or something?” Bee interjected, before Panda could make his proposal.

“That’s actually a much better idea than what I was thinking,” he remarked.

THAT IS NOT A BAD IDEA, THOUGH I WILL INCREASE THE NUMBER TO 10.

IT WILL LOOK LIKE THIS:

‘Math.pow(Punch)’ x

Evolved Ability

Evolved from the ‘Math.multiply(Punch)’ Passive.

By uttering the word ‘Pow!’ before a punch, the number of punches performed since the start of the fight are raised to the power of Punch divided by 10.

Restriction: one use per fight

“Exactly!” Bee said. “Try and calculate some scenarios of the kind of numbers it could involve and you’ll see that it won’t lead to any absurdly-high numbers.”

“It’s a lot less damage though…” I moped.

“Do you want to keep your ability or not!?” Panda asked me, immediately taking Bee’s side.

THIS OUTCOME IS FAVORABLE.

I DO NOT ENJOY TAKING AWAY ABILITIES GRANTED BY THE SYSTEM.

THANK YOU, ALL-MOTHER’S CHOSEN, FOR HELPING RESOLVE THIS CONUNDRUM.

“Yay!” Bee celebrated. “And you’re welcome, Breezy!”

I WILL RETURN TO MY OFFICE NOW AND REASSURE MY MANAGER THAT THIS SITUATION HAS BEEN RESOLVED.

“See you later,” I told him.

THOUGH I WOULD HOPE THAT YOU DO NOT FORCE ME TO VISIT YOU AGAIN, I KNOW SUCH A THING IS INEVITABLY IN YOUR NATURE.

UNTIL NEXT TIME…

And then the Adjudicator was gone. As he vanished, the magic levitating me in the air disappeared as well, and I flopped back down onto the floor in a tangle of limbs.

“I think he’s starting to really like us,” Bee commented, while pulling me away from the Dungeon Barrier and trying to untangle my limbs. She seemed happy to have been able to participate in the conversation this time.

While I lay flat on the ground, relaxing all my muscles in an attempt to not curl in on myself again, she went over to loot the wisp from the Director. She shared the pop-up with me:

Leftovers of Regional Director ‘Ghe-tj-tj-tja’:

‘Tarantula Wig’

‘Observer’s Eyeball’

‘Regional Director’s Big Red Button’

400x ‘GAME Coins’

“That Big Red Button is probably the thing your Benefactor wanted us to find,” Panda said.

“Let’s get the loot and take the elevator back up before we use it,” Bee advised.

“Good call,” I said. “But, erm, can you drag me to the elevator? I still have a few minutes left of this.”

Bee seemed to have no trouble dragging my limp body, and in fact looked like she was having a lot of fun with it.

Once we were back inside the metal box, she pressed the button that would take us back to the lobby, making sure my legs weren’t crushed by the doors as they closed. While the music started playing, she leant back against the wall with a contented sigh. She pulled out a wrapped piece of red candy and threw it in her mouth, dropping the wrapper on the floor.

Panda looked at her suspiciously. “What was that?”

“‘Blood Red Candy’,” she replied. “I looted it from the Scion.”

“What does it taste like?” I asked.

“Beef stew.”

“Can I have one?”