by GR Griffin
Fleck stood still as they weighed up their actions. What would Sans do in this situation? Tell a bad joke regarding bats? A bat joke, even? What did the pitcher say to the bat? Batter-up.
Ba-dum pish!
Fleck needed to do this the Fleck way. They give it their best shot. They pointed at Barb with both hands, smiled seductively, wiggled their eyebrows and said that she had a nice tail end.
Barb went red in the cheeks. “Oh, Fleck, that was one mighty shot… toward my heart. That’s so sweet of you.” She took aim with the tranquiliser gun. “Get in line.”
Three more spits of the gun indicated three more darts heading toward Fleck. The human reacted quickly, driving their foot down onto the handle of a metal tea tray, flipping it up into their hands. They grabbed it shielded themself against the shots. The dart ends created small indentations into the metal that were visible on the underside. More shot headed their way and Fleck batted them away with ease, reliving brief memories of blocking Undyne’s hail of spears.
They took a wild gander and guessed that she was not looking for a date.
Barb followed up quickly as an opportunity presented itself. She aimed with the other gun and fired, striking the centre of the tray with an electric bullet. Thousands of volts discharged outwards, blowing Fleck back several feet. On their back, the electricity surged into their body, taking effect immediately. Pain. Nothing but pain filled their senses as they lost all control of their body. The intensity was unlike anything they had ever experienced, and they survived against the god of hyperdeath. They could not think, could not scream, could not breathe, could not let go of the tray. Their body jerked and twitched on the floor.
Barb allowed her arm to fall, watching as the target convulsed. Already, her hunt was over. “That was a lot easier than I thought it was gonna be. Gotta say, I’m a little disa—”
All of a sudden, the monster to her left – the one who was impatient to board – jumped from his seat and shoved her aside, knocking her onto the bench opposite. “Outta my way,” he barked, making his way toward the incapacitated human, “I taking them to the castle! I want the money!”
After landing sideways on the seat, Barb reached up and pulled herself up on the headrest. She peered over just in time to see the monster standing over Fleck, reaching down for them with his bare hands. “No, no, no, no wait!” Barb reached out. “Don’t touch—” Too late. The monster seized the child by the tray in their hands, attempting to pry it away. Bad move. “…that.”
The hairs all over his body shot on end as the current passed from them onto him. His legs collapsed on him. He crashed to the floor, his claws around the tray as he fell, pulling them out of Fleck’s paralysed grasp. As soon as they lost their grip on the tray, their functions returned. Their palms were numb like nobody’s business, a plastic fork dug into their back. They gasped in mouthfuls of air. Fleck willed their limbs to move, then willed their body to get up.
Tensions rose all around. The steward had curled up into a ball on her seat – being a hedgehog helped in that respect. The pair behind Fleck crouched down, hoping that the next shots do not come their way. The gentleman did absolutely nothing but sit there and wait.
“Time for the big guns,” Barb decided as the human child, against all odds, rose to their feet. She reached behind her back and slung out the bazooka. Pressing the butt against her shoulder and flipping out the target reticule, she took aim.
Everything happened at breakneck speeds for Fleck. They had seen this before… they were certain of it. She had one eye closed. Her head cocked to the side. Fleck glanced out the window and caught a pole as it darted past. The moment had no presented itself, the time was not now. But soon…
Behind them, the pair were whispering amongst themselves. “This is crazy,” the lady of the pair, nearest the window, conceited. “We have to make a break for it.”
“Just stay where you are,” the other warned. “We’re safe as long as we stay low.”
“We won’t be for much longer. We gotta get out of here!”
The moment was fractions of a second away. There was a slight bump in the track. The carriage shifted. Barb swayed to the right. “Try this on for size.”
The lady pair jumped out into the aisle, giving in to hysteria. “I’m going!”
Now! Barb pulled the trigger. The bazooka-shaped weapon launched its payload straight at the child’s direction. The ambassador of monsters saw it as it hurled toward them, moving to the right. They threw their body to the left, pushing their hands down to catch themself on the floor. The oversized slug expanded outwards as it scathed their head, revealing ropes reaching out with shrill, thin fingers. It struck the one who tried to make a break for it, mummifying her from head to toe in thick rope. She collapsed to the floor like a beached whale as her limbs were forced together, her cries jumbled.
Barb looked over the aiming sights with shock. “How did…? Impossible! No one has ever dodged that shot before!” She tossed her beloved weapon aside and opened fire with both guns, unleashing a torrent of sleep-inducing darts and paralysing bullets. Fleck dove for cover behind the nearest seat on their right, avoiding the incoming fire.
Barb ducked down and fired shots under the seats, expecting them to be there like last time, only to hit no target. To her surprise, Fleck scrambled over the headrest. She threw the barrels of her guns up, hoping to catch them in the leg, and instead heard the mechanisms click dry.
In the pause of action, a voice echoed on the speakers overhead. “Ladies and gents, we will be entering the Shattered Zone in ten minutes time. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts until the crew advises you when you can safely remove them. Thank you.” Obviously, the one talking was oblivious to the happenings in that car.
“You hear that, kid?” Barb asked as she pulled a fresh clip of darts off her belt and slid it into an slot on that wrist-mounted weapon. “Things are about to get rocky around here.”
On the current bench Fleck had landed on, there was another metal tray resting on the side. They were all the same, metallic with a rimmed edge and two neat little handles. Its shape reminded Fleck of a flying disc, like the one they and Sans were playing with moments before they got abducted.
It gave them an idea.
Barb took a clip of charged pellets from her opposite side and inserted it into the other gun with a satisfying click. “You don’t want to be here without a seatbelt, so do yourself a favour and come quietly.”
Fleck moved to the edge of their cover, holding the tray in both hands, readying it. Through the ruckus of wind and the whimpers of those who had survived incapacitation, they made out the stomping of high heels, approaching. They visualised how tall she was and the distance, they only had a split-second and one shot to make this work.
Taking a deep breath, Fleck leaned out. The bounty hunter was ten feet away, her arms pointing forward. They knew where they were aiming. Fleck threw the tea tray at her like a Frisbee. Barb saw it coming at the last second and raised her arms to block it. The protruding handle struck Barb on the underside of her left forearm, breaking the buckle on the tranquiliser gun. The impact sent it flying across the floor, screeching to a halt beside Fleck.
There was a moment of clarity between the two as the human was an arm’s reach away from the weapon. A metal cuboid with a fitted barrel, fitted on a leather wrist strap. The combatants made eye contact as they both knew what this meant. The gun was full with a fresh magazine of non-lethal stingers. If Barb had no qualms in using it, then neither did Fleck. They moved first, diving for the gun. Barb reacted later, firing shots at their direction. Fleck rolled sideways across the floor, dodging the bullets. They spotted what they assumed was the trigger – a lone, silver ring where the index finger would be. They aimed and pulled back on the ring. The gun recoiled.
Barb acted fast. She grabbed something from her belt and threw it down at her feet. An explosion of smoke surrounded her as the first darts began to fly, followed by the
crashing of glass. Fleck got up as the smoke cleared and found Barb to be missing; a broken window the only clue to her whereabouts. The carriage went quiet.
No sign of the Barb the Bounty Hunter anywhere. They could not see her, but that did not mean she was not out there. A true predator never lets their prey escape.
Within the span of a few minutes, the orderly carriage had turned into a warzone. Two open doors and a broken window letting the heat out. Utensils scattered all over the place. The conductor buckled up at back, now slumped into unconsciousness. The steward curled up. Two passengers sprawled on the floor – one twitched from the aftershock and the other wrapped with rope. The smartly-dressed man up front had budged purely to put their seatbelt on.
“I think you should get out of here,” the chatty, talking kettle said to the human as he picked up his mummified friend and placed her back in her seat, taking a minute to strap her in. “You’ve done enough damage for one day. Do we have anything to cut these ropes with?”
Reluctantly, the steward stretched her arm out from the safety of her quills, pointing down at his feet. “There’s a knife right there.”
He glanced down and found a disposable plastic knife, used for slicing through soft potatoes and hard carrots. With a disheartened grumble, he picked it up and began work sawing a rope with the serrated, two-inch long edge. “This might take a while. Probably be half way through by the time we reach our stop.”
There was no time to lose. By remaining in the passenger car, Fleck was a sitting duck for when Barb returned. They moved through the dystopia, passing the unfazed gentleman at the front – all buckled up and ready for whatever awaited at the Shattered Zone. Fleck never bothered to ask what that was. A detail that they would soon regret in five minutes time.
Opening the door to the second car revealed a gleaning galley, all clean and up to scratch. The smell of many ingredients rolled into one mass of stink. Everything was made of metal. The number of dents on every surface suggested that more than cooking went on in these parts. At the far end, four monsters were strapped into foldout seats on both sides of the exit. Two wore uniforms similar to the steward one car back, the other two wore the white aprons and mushroom cloud hats – complete with chinstraps – of the cooks.
“This is a restricted area. No passengers allowed here.” the steward closest to them – a grey figure with big red eyes and a small mouth – informed. Fleck’s response was to disregard his advice and bolt onward. “Are you deaf? I said—”
“Wait!” interrupted the chef opposite. His brown fur, black snout and rounded horns were that of a deer. His gut bulged against his seatbelt. “I know you – you’re Fleck! The human who got away from the castle.” His accusations were ignored by those they were aimed at as they passed between them and exited the kitchen car.
The second steward, a humanoid body with a clock face who did not like to late in any sense of the word, shot the chef an untimely glance that was easy to tell. “A human? Here? On this train? And at this hour?”
“We should alert the authorities,” the first steward suggested.
The chef looked belligerent. “No way, I’m not letting those petty crooks get all the glory just because they hide behind that big bad ruler of theirs.” He fumbled with the seatbelt buckle before managing to unclasp it. As his liberated belly sagged, he expressed a gratifying sigh, then made for the kitchen. His assistant looked on in silence as he pulled open a draw and began stuffing carving knives down the pockets of his apron. “If anyone’s going to capture that thing, it’ll be me.”
“Dom, don’t. It’s not safe.”
The chef, Dominic, reached inside a cupboard and pulled out a large, black pan with a rubber handle. The bottom was plastered with burn scars while the inside held crispy remains of the veal cooked from two days previous. Fake, of course. He span the cooking instrument in his hand. “Forget this job. I’m off to become a millionaire.”
Fleck climbed the iron steps to the next car, which was a tanker. They had to pass over the connector below – the rattle of metal against metal over the rushing ground, the one thing keeping the cars together. It felt like it could break at any given moment.
There was a catwalk that spanned around the cylinder. The grated flooring was so thin that even they, a growing child, were too big to fit without moving sideways. Battling the airstream, they hugged themself against the curved metal and held the rail for support with one hand and the gun they took from Barb in the other. The metal bar was like a block of ice, freezing the skin on their palms. The tanker sloshed away, whatever inside sounding like treacle; the contents a mystery, probably for the best. As they looked out, they realised just how close they were to the island’s edge. Up ahead, the train was approaching steep crags and the tunnel that passed through them. The bounty hunter could swoop by at any moment and take them down with a well-placed paralysing bullet – so they better be quick.
The kitchen car opened again and the disgruntled chef stormed out with his weapon of choice in hand. He stomped out so fast he almost tripped over to an unfortunate demise. He climbed up onto the tanker platform in a single step and edged around the corner, braving the wind that attacked his dark eyes. There was Fleck, skirting across the walkway, taking it one step at a time. Going around was out of the picture, but…
Dom scaled atop the tanker, where the wind was at its worst bit the vantage point was at its best. He refocused on Fleck as they neared the next car, unaware of his presence. No way would he allow such an easy opportunity to pass him by. Not in all his four-hundred years of making bad decisions.
He clasped the handle of a carving knife and closed one eye as he aligned the tip of the blade with the human. Dom did not always used to be a railway chef. He started as a proud member of Sweet and Sour before they had to let him go, on two separate occasions, on both sides of the kitchen. Who would have thought they had two separate recruitment policies? After which, he scored himself a job as a sushi chef for some place that he can’t remember the name of, then as a baker, then pastry chef, and then… He’s been a cook in pretty much any and all lines of cuisine imaginable. “You’re mine,” he whispered to himself. Confident that all his years of working with knives has perfected his craft. Fleck would soon see his point.
He threw his arm back and forth in quick succession, sending the knife spinning. He watched as it windmilled toward Fleck, who had their head turned away. It was a clean throw, the best he has ever achieved. It span directly toward them. He was killing a human child, but in his defence, at least they would not suffer.
A howl coming from another direction pierced their ears. A black figure zoomed through the air. Barb aimed and fired, striking the knife as it was two feet away from Fleck. They snapped their head around to catch the glisten of the blade as it bounced against the hull and slipped between the gratings, never to be seen again. They saw the deer in the white apron up high and scuttled for the next car.
Barb and Dom grunted at the same time. They were hundreds of feet apart, Barb still in flight and Dom on the tanker, yet they glared at each other with such velocity they could see the glimmers in their eyes. Competition. Exactly what neither of them wanted right now.
Dom did not want some washed-up head-hunting kid who was big a century ago and whose main job nowadays is to collect tabs on unpaid drinks to take this away from him. Stay out of this, you.
That was the perfect moment to capture Fleck, that bullet would have ended this chase, but this idiot chef made Barb adjust her aim at the last second. My target. My claim. My job. Not yours. Stick to fish and chips.
Barb banked back around and flew back toward them, her spindly wings carving the skies. Now with two people to deal with. She needed that target, but she did not need some middle-aged monster stealing her job. Besides that, capturing Fleck alive was her goal, and he endangers that. She brought her arm up, not aiming at Fleck, but at Dom. The chef found balance on the rumbling canister and found the balance to bring his frame up. A
s he awaited the incoming retaliation, he caressed the brim of his frying pan. Untrimmed nails trembled against the grain, and pieces of food got caught under them.
Barb pulled the trigger, unleashing a stream of lightning. Dom saw the shots coming from a mile away. He thought they moved slower than molasses with two sprained ankles. He battered them away, the rubber handle absorbing the shocks.
Fleck stepped onto the next car – a flatbed. Crates and pipes spaced out along the sides and strapped down excessively. The two were distracted behind them, but it would not be long until they remembered who they were fighting over. The next cars in the conga line were similar to the one they were on there, the entire train a metal centipede that stretched for miles. They made a break for it.
Dom blocked another shot to shoot a look at the child, getting away. He reached for his boning knife and hurled it. The throw was good but off mark, it struck a crate beside them. Fleck dove behind a pile on poles opposite. This gave Barb another chance. She swooped in and took aim. Fleck was wide open.
The roar of the engine drew Barb’s eyes forward. The face of the crags metres away and rapidly approaching. Barb shot Fleck an irritated glance before banking upwards, shooting into the sky. Dom dove onto his belly and made himself as flat and as skinny as he could. The train screamed as it entered the tunnel. Nature’s light was cut off and replaced by pulsating orange streaks above. The change in air pressure wreaked havoc on Fleck’s ears.
Another lucky break for the human. Using the disorientating cover of darkness and light, they crawled their way across the floor, feeling their way around the obstacles. Dom let out exerted sounds as he crawled his frame off the top without touching the tunnel ceiling.
Up ahead, blinding white light hurt Fleck’s eyes.
They exited the tunnel.
Fleck could not believe that they were still in the Outerworld. The Shattered Zone served as a horrid reminder to the true extent of the civil war – what could have been, what should never have been conceived. The Empire had not been formed back then, and despite the centuries of peace, the monster population were still naïve strangers to these lands. During the civil war, the Obelisk – the source of this world’s power – was the highlight of many discussions. Thoughts, theories, ideas that the same power that supported the lands and supported their lives could also be harnessed. They succeeded… to some degree. Of course, while some endeavours yearned fruit, many died on the vine, and a rare few exploded from the roots up. One of these experiments, conducted so long ago, was to weaponise the Obelisk and turn it into a tool of devastation. The Shattered Zone was the end result.
