6. Babyband #2
We peddled back, watching Veren expand. I watched Sanna, expecting her to transform as well. Instead, she hopped on Veren’s growing body, gripping an indigo bridle that had extended from the hellish mount.
We gawked at the abomination of technology and beast before us.
Zhu snorted.
I was relieved to have him at bay and glad to have Naoma and Boyband at the ready.
Kuni.
I glanced back. Naoma stood before him, a white aura pulsing around her.
“You seek to know what you cannot comprehend with such feeble minds,” Sanna said atop her mount.
The thing that had been Veren crept forward.
Her arms and legs had split lengthwise, expanding with the swell of blue light.
Seeing her–it–now, I took in what looked like a human stretched into the shape of a spindly arachnoid.
Her head had expanded and split, leaving her violet lights where her eyes had been and a deep indigo abyss glowing in her tunnel of a mouth.
Shredded clothing had fallen around her.
A familiar dark aura pulsed around both of them, but more vividly around Sanna.
Zhu, is this anything like the therapist?
“I feel its false light.”
Is that a yes? I’m not going to have another vision of a family I never had, right?
I jumped out of the way as one of Veren’s legs stabbed the ground where I had stood. A black hole remained where she had missed me.
Boyband had done the same. Kuni cried out as Naoma jumped with him to the side with a graceless landing, pulling Kuni to the ground with her.
I readied my agility mod and burned by Bite reserve. I jumped up, expecting to land on top of the mount with Sanna. My jump was no higher than that of a typical man’s, yet my reserve still burned.
Zeg. I had forgotten about our mod blocks.
Rather than try to smash me with a leg again, Veren peddled back and opened her abyss of a mouth.
Colors pulsed. Light within the end of that tunneling mouth grew brighter.
She seemed taller. Looked kinder.
Zeg, what is happening?
“Focus, bakuh.”
Do you understand?
“Your mind is frail, just as it was when facing the therapist.”
He was right. The sensation was oddly similar, but I did not feel the dread of an incoming dream. I was not entering a new world, but one was entering mine.
Naoma was a frightened young girl, not the Neon Idol, but a young girl dressed in a knockoff costume.
Boyband looked the same, but as old as Kuni, the only one who retained stern determination as we all looked up at the giant robotic spider centaur and her joyous face. A royal warrior rode on her back with a jeweled crown and a staff she pointed to call a charge.
The glorious creature galloped towards Boyband, who ran laughing with hands in the air. He looked back, pointed a taunting finger, but was tossed across the room before he could say anything.
His body hit the wall and confetti shot out of his mouth upon impact. Rainbow drool dripped out of his wide smile.
Naoma and I looked at each other, laughed, then saw Boyband was laughing harder than the both of us.
“Focus!” Kuni shouted.
What was his problem? Didn’t he want to play?
“Frail mind.” The image of a stupid pig was stuck in my head
“Shut up!” I yelled. The stupid bossy pig was bothering me.
“Ascend and you shall overcome such cognitive assaults.”
“I don’t know what your saaaaying, so shut up?”
“What did you say?” The warrior queen walked closer to me on her big spider friend. I liked the big thing, but she kind of scared me.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean nothing to–”
“That does not excuse your punishment.” She was getting closer and didn’t look like she wanted to play.
“But I’m just a kid!”
Boyband still coughed confetti and looked like he was tired because he was sitting.
“I don’t get this game!’ Naoma said and stomped her feet. “Why are you just playing with the boys?”
“Stop!” Kuni shouted. “This isn’t a game!”
Sanna laughed. It wasn’t the good kind of laugh that made me want to laugh too. I was confused. Why was she laughing?
“You want to play, girl?” Sanna moved her giant spider to walk up to Naoma.
“Hey!” I shouted. I stomped my feet like Naoma. “Are you going to tell her the rules without me?”
Sanna looked over her shoulder, whispered something that I couldn’t hear into the spider robot’s ear, then the spider lady kicked me.
It ticked. It tickled a lot and my head felt funny when I bounced off the wall. The wall looked bouncy but didn’t really feel like it. I coughed out confetti just like Boyband and my head felt fuzzy. Still, I could see one of the legs grab Naoma like a snake.
“Owie!” Naoma whined. “That tickles too much! Please!” she laughed. “Please it really tickles!”
“Stop!” Kuni grabbed the leg with both hands, really strong, then his eyes lit up. He turned gray like a snake but he kinda looked like a fish. Was something wrong with him? Yellow flashes shot out from his arms and the spider lady’s leg exploded.
She screamed and ran back as the leg that was holding Naoma broke into pieces like building blocks.
“Let’s make her confetti, too!” I said, wiping away the rainbow running out of my nose.
“Yeah!” Naoma laughed.
“No!” Sanna said, then made her spider lady run at us, but she moved weirdly without one of her legs.
“Use me,” the pig man said.
“What?”
“Now you, bakuh!”
My hands turned into big black claws.
“Wow!” Naoma said.
Uh oh. The spider lady was running at Naoma.
I was supposed to be a hero, right? I didn’t know why, but something in my head told me. Was that the pig man? No, he was stupid and didn’t make sense.
The spider lady kicked Kuni before he could do anything then leaned down to suck Naoma in with her giant mouth.
I scratched her with my claw, but it didn’t hurt her.
She lifted her head with Naoma trying to jump out of her mouth.
I saw her jaw start to stretch, but just before she could swallow my friend, she screeched again, dropping Naoma onto a table. Rainbow ooze started to leak out of her arm where she hit it.
I looked back at her to see why she was being such a baby. Boyband stood behind her, still coughing confetti, but he had a big glowing staff that had chopped off half of two of the spider lady’s back legs.
She walked back with only five legs, so I swung my claw at one of her legs, breaking it into a bunch of building blocks that flashed a myriad of colors.
I thought she was going to fall over with only half of her legs left, but she moved faster. Her legs moved to cover the gaps so instead of three on one side and one on the other, there were four in good places that helped her stay up.
She hit boyband with the back of her body, throwing him back against the wall. Naoma ran with white glowing hands, but the spider lady kicked a chair in her way and knocked her over.
The spider lady turned to me next. I coughed out some confetti and didn’t feel like playing anymore. The tickles were starting to hurt.
I ran away, but I wasn’t that fast.
She was catching up as I got closer.
Boyband’s staff flew in front of me, just missing the spider lady. She stopped to look angry at Boyband for a second but kept moving after me.
I hid behind a couch but knew that it wouldn’t stop her. I was stuck.
“No more!” I shouted. “I don’t want to play anymore!”
Sanna laughed, then yelled and looked back.
Naoma had a giant white snake head and bit onto one of her legs.
She tried to flick Naoma off, but my friend held on tight as the spider lady waved her arm in the air.
I ran to hit one of her other legs, but she smacked me with her head before I could reach it.
The tickle didn’t feel good anymore.
Naoma was still hanging on.
The lights flashed. One of the hanging ones exploded, then another.
I looked over to see Kuni touching some metal box on the wall. He was flashing like before.
Naoma still held on, but the spider lady was more scared of the flashing blue lighting bolts that came down from the ceiling. One of the bolts hit her in the head, making her look dizzy, like she took a fix.
“Run for the legs!” Kuni yelled.
The spider lady tripped. Another bolt hit her as she tried to stand up, knocking her over again.
Before I could ask what he meant, I saw Boyband already running to break another leg.
Naoma did the same.
The spider lady couldn’t stand, so I ran for her head.
“The neck!” the pig man told me. I didn’t want him to boss me around again, but I thought it was a smart idea. Black light claws grew from my hands. I climbed up her broken body then slashed the spider lady’s neck until her giant head.
Rainbows exploded, but I couldn’t watch for long. Sanna jumped on me and slammed me to the ground. She started to tickle me and rainbow drool fell out of my mouth.
My eyes started to go black. My head felt funny. I laughed. She was tickling me too hard.
I wanted to sleep. Maybe that would be good. I was a hard worker and my mom liked it when I napped.
My body shook. The tickling stopped. Sanna wasn’t on me anymore. I looked up to see her shaking on the floor as Kuni continued to shock her.
Zeg. Tickling? What was I thinking? The warrior queen was Sanna.
That was it. The playful spider lady was a chromatic demon, one that had once called herself a PTA member.
Veren’s mechanical corpse had been torn into pieces and thrown around the room.
She no longer looked like a giant toy, but her shape held true with broken legs scattered and sparing with blue light.
“Holy zegginn’ balls.” Boyband was catching his breath. He no longer looked like a child. The rainbow and confetti I had seen now showed itself as blood splatters around the room and on his body.
Kuni stood with a foot on Sanna. “I shocked her good, but she’s still alive.”
“Kill that–”
“No!” Naoma shouted.