Flumpty got up, his hardened black body somehow cracking despite no longer possessing an eggshell. Turbulent amethyst fires of thyme were visible within. Something’s... burning within me, Bill. I can... feel it. Bill nodded, the flames within his bricks burning brighter and hotter. YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN. BUT DON’T, WE’RE NOT REPEATING THAT JOKE. COME ON! Bill and Flumpty charged at the Gatekeeper, summoning a hot rod from flames. Armed with a raging cylindrical engine, a paint job of Illuminati propaganda, and doors connected to a battery supply, it screamed towards the center of the fight. The driver and passenger bailed right as the hot rod crashed in a brilliant explosion. Landing with a roll, they then tackled Interrobang, with Bill throwing combos of punches to rival Rumble McSkirmish and Flumpty stalking in the shadows. Yet Interrobang dodged every blow with frankly inhuman reflexes. A single kaleidoscopic punch left another crack in Flumpty’s body, but he just laughed, springing back up and kicking Interrobang in the face with a party hat. Visions of clowns danced through Interrobang’s head, and he fell backwards. Bill looked at the Logic Gatekeeper carefully as it prepared its next attack. I’VE GOT A PLAN, FLUMPTY! KEEP MASON BUSY! Flumpty nodded, whistling with his unhinged skeletal mouth. Apparitions drifted into view from the heavens — shades of Flumpty’s friends, disfigured by thyme as he was. Birthday Boy Blam, Grunkfuss the Clown, the Beaver, and all the rest formed a menacing line of horror. Hello, Jeff. I want to play a game, Flumpty said with a chuckle. From behind his glasses, Interrobang rolled his eyes.
Bill floated around the Logic Gatekeeper leisurely. Every time the Gatekeeper’s targeting systems locked onto Bill and fired a barrage of lasers, bullets, bombs, and what-have-you at him, he’d phase out of time and reappear somewhere else. Bill seemed to be investigating for some kind of weak spot, but there were none that he could concern. MAYBE I JUST HAVE TO THINK... HARDER! Bill unfolded his body, turning into a spinning octahedron with a single blazing eye of fury. He rotated across the field, firing bricks and demonic flame rapid-fire at the Gatekeeper. Though his antics seemed to confuse it and its Descendant-based weaponry, the Gatekeeper’s three eyes lit up with white flame before long, and it spoke a single name. Bill froze, shunted in two-dimensional space as projectiles surged towards him from all sides like an UNDERTALE battle. Bill quickly tried to manipulate his form to dodge the invading legions of projectiles, but they kept on coming and they don’t stop coming. Concentrating intensely, he called upon the white fire within him. He felt an intense stab of pain, but the Overseer’s light counteracted the Key to the Universe. Bill felt a white haze creeping at the edge of his vision, but he chose to ignore it. The three white lights had given him an idea. HEY, YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT! He called out to the Gatekeeper, laughing. GO ON, SAY ANOTHER NAME! THIS TIME, MAKE IT CHALLENGING, ALRIGHT?! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW EASY LIFE IS WHEN YOU CAN PLAY GOD.
The Gatekeeper’s vertex shuddered, white light flooding it as the three eyes in its helmet lit up once more. Bill’s eye closed, and he laughed as he envisioned himself swirling through the limitless intangible possibilities of reality. A chandelier swinging through the ceiling of an author’s pen, with each plot thread a light. When he opened his eye, he was in the head of the Gatekeeper, having become a fourth light on its face. The other three looked around with confusion, but Bill cackled, forming spider-esque limbs in the dark and ripping apart a huge chunk of the armor’s helmet. Warning sirens blared out around the Gatekeeper as Bill scuttled away, concealed by his black body and his closed eye. His color returned as he juggled the piece of armor in his hands. LOOKING FOR THIS? He then turned away, fiddling with the machinery intensely and attaching it to something. COME ON, COME ON, THIS HAS TO WORK... The Gatekeeper, now sensing Bill as an incredibly dangerous threat, levied even more powerful weapons. Plasma destabilizers, greater railguns, holy mackerels. We’re breaking out the big sci-fi guns now. Literally. Right before they fired, Bill let out a YES! as a single low, metallic note rang out from his immediate position. Immediately, Bill turned around, holding identical copies of the Gatekeepers’ guns. They fired just as the Gatekeepers’ did, the beams cancelling each other out with a resounding ding. Both Bill and the Gatekeeper were blown backwards, Bill’s guns changing back into an object wrapped in shadow. Bill cackled, with the Gatekeeper not seeming to understand what he was planning.
Bill blinked his eye, which turned into the shockwave cannon from the Tripod. It fired a beam of australium that intentionally went wide, but the Gatekeeper perceived it as a threat regardless, retaliating by turning its lower arms into Infinity Blades — the Godmodder Killers. Bill laughed, as he suddenly gained two Infinity Blades. The weapons met with another resounding clash that cut across reality, with the Logic Gatekeeper flying back again. Cracks began to splinter across its glossy surface, and it rumbled in complete anger. The Gatekeeper’s arms then turned into raging bonesaws that surged with blue energy — that of an Ubercharge. Bill responded in kind, gaining a red Ubercharge. The resulting orchid fusion created a ball of power that exploded violently, blowing apart one of the Gatekeeper’s lower limbs. Its eyes glowed, and it tried to speak some kind of name, but with a portion of its head gone, the Gatekeeper’s eyes flickered and sputtered, and it was unable to process anything. Bill retaliated, his bricks turning jet-black as he rose to an absurd height, sending spinning swarms of tetrominoes to carve through the Gatekeeper. The suit of armor tried to dodge, but it was hit several times, with one of the blocks knocking off a jet engine. The Gatekeeper fell closer to earth, and Bill flew downwards with the intent of one final shot — the upper end to his triangular body pointed right at the Gatekeeper’s chest, deadly sharp.
Thinking fast, the Gatekeeper raised its right six-fingered hand in defense. Bill barely had time to change course. A hint of gold metal, and before anything could be processed, Bill had the Right Hand of God as well. A strong arm was with his right hand, and the two met with divine fury. Bill’s pyramid bricks began to seriously crack and strain under the pressure, the white fire within him raging even higher. His body flickered with events yet to pass. And the Gatekeeper’s cracks intensified even further, smoke and fire curling from its head. Bill’s left hand, free from the fight, held the shimmering contact lens of existence. I... MAY NOT BE ABLE TO WEAR THIS, BUT... I CAN USE IT AS A BRASS KNUCKLE! Another hint of brass, and the lens was coupled with Mobster Kingpin’s brass knuckles. The fist of fury was sent flying at the Gatekeeper, who caught it with his left hand. The signs of damage accelerated in both combatants. It seemed like the end of the road — a stalemate that would end in two deaths.
Yet, a furious cry rang out from the far end of the battlefield. A lone figure jumped up the Gatekeeper’s back, holding a shining hammer of heat in his hands, and swung it down with all his might. A clang rung through the Ends of the Earth as the Gatekeeper’s head folded in on itself, seared to a perfect one million degrees as it bubbled down its neck. The power core at its vertex began to falter, and the Gatekeeper’s hands slackened. Bill laughed excitedly, his eye swirling with the power of a black hole as he fired a singularity straight for the Gatekeeper. The suit of armor cracked and shuddered, its limbs twitching and straining as they were sucked through the event horizon. Soon, the entire body was being pulled through and twisted into spaghetti. Bill, with his flaming hands, wrenched the power core out from the machine, toppling backwards as he held the device that trapped Flumpty’s duplicate in his hands. As the Gatekeeper crossed the point of no return, its horrible screams echoing through the field, the black hole destabilized and shrunk to a tiny dot.
And then there was nothing.
Bill turned to look at the final Godmodder Decoy, who had broken his Banhammer with that last strike. He panted heavily and grinned. “
Meanwhile, Flumpty’s gang rejoiced with jubilation, for they had just beaten Interrobang in a game of competitive 52,000,000,000 Pickup. Their absurd tower of playing cards stretched to the ceiling, wavering slightly. Interrobang clapped out of fairness.
Bill coughed dead pixels, his body displaying static, followed by what seemed to be a very large explosion. I CAN HEAR YOU, EGGHEAD... BUT MY VISION’S GETTING A BIT FUZZY. I... I THINK I’M GOING TO THE GREAT GEOMETRY IN THE SKY, FLUMPTY. I THINK I’M FINALLY READY. Flumpty slapped Bill, knocking his bowtie off accidentally. He put it back on.
Ampersand howled, cyan letters assembling themselves from randomly appearing hieroglyphs and broadcasting themselves into the minds of everyone present. Bill visibly winced. ЫОУ ДАРЕ ТУРН ЫОУР БАЦК ОН ТХЕ СЕРПЕНТС НИНЕ? ЫОУ ДАРЕ ФОРСАКЕ ТХЕ ИНТЕРПУНЦТ ЛЫИНГ ЮСТ ФЕЕТ ФРОМ ЫОУ? ЛЕТ УС ТАКЕ ИТ. НОW. Interrobang sighed, adjusting his stellar shades.
Yet nothing happened. Through it all, Bill retained his form, he still held on despite the white flame eating away at more and more of his body. Indeed, it seemed to be doing much more damage than anything the Superiors threw at him. Lozenge screeched, throwing Bill down to the ground and hounding on Hard-Boiled Flumpty, who managed to wrench his duplicate out of the power core. This incarnation of Flumpty’s eggshell was horrendously cracked and horribly mangled. His eyes vibrated intensely, and his mouth was trapped in a perpetual frown. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper, and he had to hold on to Hard-Boiled Flumpty for support. Yet when he saw Bill, with white flame leaping out of him, White Flumpty let out an ululation of epic proportions and bowed down to the ground faster than anything. “WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND MASTER THY KINGDOM COME THY WILL BE DONE,” he shrieked. Bill seemed to barely register this, but the Advanced Superiors’ heads, which now resembled atomic explosions, seethed with thoughts of heresy. Interrobang was barely able to hold back laughter. Hard-Boiled Flumpty looked at Billy with steely determination, turning to his duplicate. You must take your Master and eat Him. White Flumpty turned to Hard-Boiled Flumpty with tears in his eyes. “Wh... what???”
Hard-Boiled Flumpty pointed at Bill, whose body was destabilizing even more with every second. The nine Superiors were slithering in a circle around the Sacred Vertex, preventing anyone from leaving. He spoke again. Your Master is dying and decaying, consuming the very body that contains Him. The ultimate act of service you can do for Him is to take Him from this husk, save the form He is corrupting, and sacrifice yourself to ensure peace. Bill looked up, trembling. EGG... N-NO... I CAN HOLD... THE... P-POWER... I CAN... I... Hard-Boiled Flumpty gnashed his teeth, snapping at White Flumpty. NOW! A kaleidoscopic haze crept into Flumpty’s vision as he experienced the true ramifications of being immune from plot. Here, distanced from Fiction, he was at the edge of eternity. He saw everything that ever was and ever could be, trapped in anarchy. He saw White Flumpty, Bill, the Interpunct, and the line connecting them all. With fire in his eyes, Hard-Boiled Flumpty pointed at Bill, who began to levitate in the air. White Flumpty hungrily eyed him, and with shaking legs, he stumbled over to the triangle. His arms reached out, and with a pull of immense strength that didn’t fit at all with his fragile nature, he tore the Interpunct out of Bill’s soul. There was a vast pop as reality seemed to fit back into place, and everyone within the Gate was knocked backwards. Everyone present besides Interrobang and the two Flumpties turned away at the sight of the Interpunct. It was too holy, too pure, to be stared upon by the naked eye, no matter what dimension it was aligned in. The dot represented power throughout all planes of reality and unreality.
All of existence flowed both into and outside of it, from the summit of the tallest mountain to the bottom of the lowest valley. From every abandoned laboratory festering under decaying salt to every lush forest full of teeming life to every gleaming metropolis containing polluters and laborers. From universes whose bubbles have long since popped, to ruins skirting the outside of the void, to restaurants trying to get by, to trains trying to pass through, to every bubble yet to be blown by the vast machine called an author’s mind. From the most complicated fractal to the most basic shape. From every extant idea purged by writer’s block to the most simple tropes and cliches. From gods to modders and everything in between. It all comes together at the end of a sentence. White Flumpty held this symbol of unrestrained power in his hands for several tantalizing seconds. The weight of existence weighed on his nonexistent shoulders. He could edit reality in any way he wished, in any format. He could do anything. Yet Flumpty only felt like doing one thing with truly unlimited power.
He swallowed it whole. Exactly ten seconds later, on the dot, he exploded into one trillion pieces. The remnants of his eggshell were virtually dust. His egg white and yolk, held together despite the force of the explosion, bubbled and boiled away over the next several seconds, leaving behind absolutely nothing except whispers and murmurs that ascended into heaven and were never heard again. The Advanced Superiors finally shifted their forms back into a proper three-dimensional space, their necks cracking and their heads twisting as they assumed humanoid bodies. They adjusted their suits’ collars and polished their nametags, stepping forwards to examine Bill and Hard-Boiled Flumpty. Bill’s body seemed good as new, completely untouched by the horrors of the Interpunct and Metatron’s fire. He touched himself over and over, as though he couldn’t believe it. I SENSED A GREAT DISTURBANCE IN THE NARRATIVE... AS THOUGH AN INFINITE ARRAY OF IDEAS WERE SILENCED IN UNISON, AND THEN SUDDENLY CRIED OUT WITH LIFE. DID ANY OF YOU FEEL IT?
The Advanced Superiors forced cheesy fake smiles onto their faces. “Yeah,” Lozenge said. “You could fucking say that.”
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