Fantasy Online Polynya

by Harmon Cooper

  “Konoshlava doka duchaka!” Zaena grits, bearing her teeth.

  “Prepare my ghost limbs to die … ” The ink shadow considers this for a moment. Two fingers form in the air and he snaps them together. “Damn, girl, that ain’t a bad idea! A winner takes all fight that pits one of you against ya homies.”

  Hiccup gasps. “You mean ... Frenemy?”

  The ink shadow snaps his smoky fingers again. “Yeah, that’s what it’s called – Frenemy. My bad for forgetting the name. Thought it was something like Friend Killer. Shit, but you right, Frenemy, that’s what we’ll play.”

  “Take Marbles!” Hiccup points his mechanical finger at Ryuk. “He’s our strongest!”

  “Frenemy?” Ryuk asks, glancing between his guildmates. “Don’t volunteer me!”

  Hiccup continues, “Trust me, pal, you’ll want to go with Marbles here. Real tough guy over here.” He steps behind Ryuk and pushes him towards the ink shadow. “He’s the strongest of all of us, believe you me. I was just joking earlier. He’s built as fick under that emo hood of his.”

  The ink shadow’s semi-visible face contorts. “Damn, you think I was born yesterday, playa? Nah, I got bigger plans.”

  The ink shadow moves over to FeeTwix just as Zaena steps in front of him with her blades drawn.

  “What the hell is going on?” Ryuk asks Hiccup, who still cowers behind him.

  “Frenemy. It’s the fickin’ worst game, kid,” he says as the ink shadow sizes FeeTwix and Zaena up.

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Choose the wolf!” Hiccup shouts. “He’ll be the easiest to kill,” he stage-whispers to Ryuk.

  “Shit, sorry, goblin, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, well, you ain’t gonna fool me twice.” The ink shadow laughs. “Y’all fools ever heard that one? Anyway, I got my choice. The commoner with the blond hair.”

  With that, the ink shadow lifts into the air and torpedoes into every open orifice on FeeTwix’s face.

  Wolf barks like crazy. Zaena grabs the Swede’s hands, trying to drag him away.

  But the force is too great.

  FeeTwix yanks his hand away, his eyes murky black as he turns to his guildmates and drops into a battle stance.

  “We’re so ficked,” Hiccup laments.

  (0)__(0)

  “Kill me and y’all can pass,” FeeTwix says, his voice suddenly the ink shadow’s. “But if I kill y’all, then you got to restart at the beginning of the catacombs. That’s a long ways away, trust that.”

  Ink Shadow FeeTwix does a series of back flips and a few aerials that even the showboat Swede wouldn’t perform in a real battle. Once he has some distance, he tosses his double-bladed sword aside and begins scrolling through his list.

  “Hiccup, cover Zaena! I’ll lay down some distraction. Wolf!” The canine looks over to Ryuk. “Um, just hang on a second!”

  Ryuk fires the rest of his black molten mag at FeeTwix’s feet to lay down some cover.

  “Damn, boy, best be careful with that gat!”

  Debris kicks into the air; in the time it takes for the dust to settle Ryuk already has another mag loaded and ready to go.

  “Liz, we’re going to need you here!” Hiccup says as his largest shield, his scutum, materializes in front of him.

  Zaena swallows hard and gets behind Hiccup, just as a large wave of metal unhappiness berates the Mitherfickers.

  Ratatatatatata!

  Ryuk hits the deck as the bullets chip away at the bleachers.

  “Damn! Never shot one of these before, shit’s got some kick!” the ink shadow says in his syrupy voice.

  Ratatatatatata!

  His Marble Gun up, Ryuk empties his mag in FeeTwix’s general direction. Meanwhile, Hiccup charges forward, bullets pinging off his huge shield. Zaena hunkers down behind him and Wolf has raced to the outer edge of the area, hoping to come around back.

  “I see how it is! Y’all ‘bout to die!” FeeTwix switches to a weapon that sounds even crazier than the one he was just shooting.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  The ink shadow laughs, his voice filling the arena and nearly drowning out the sound of gunfire as it ricochets off Hiccup’s scutum.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Hiccup shouts over his shoulder, sparks flying over him. “Marbles, get the ficker!”

  “Trying to!” Ryuk goes for a mag of sword marbles, hoping to get off a tonsil shot or something equally gruesome that will end the fight before FeeTwix can get to any of his mutant hacks.

  “Hold your fire, Marbles!” He keeps his weapon trained on the possessed Swede as Hiccup comes in charging with his biggest shield.

  The shield connects, Hiccup goes over with it, and Zaena flings herself into the air with her ghost limbs. She comes down behind the Swede, and folds backwards at the waist to avoid the swipe from a giant ax made of cobbled together gears.

  Seeing an opening, Hiccup goes in with a tomahawk. He swings down, FeeTwix blocks just in time, and for a moment, the two have a standoff to see who will give first.

  My turn. Ryuk’s Extreme Focus warps his vision. Suddenly, there’s a reticle on the back of FeeTwix’s head, and with a steady breath out, he mentally fires two sword marbles.

  FeeTwix pivots at just the right time and the two sword marbles go straight into Hiccup’s back.

  -116 HP! -134 HP!

  “Yeeeeeeooooooy!”

  “Damn, y’all some stupid motherfuckers!”

  The momentum sends Hiccup stumbling forward and he’s nearly decapitated by FeeTwix only to be rescued at the last minute by Zaena, who throws him a good fifteen feet away with her ghost limbs.

  “Fick!” He smacks his back into the stone barrier that surrounds the arena grounds. A healing potion instantly appears in his hands. He falls to his side, and nurses it like a baby with a bottle as he watches Zaena zip around FeeTwix with all four blades.

  “Argh!”

  He gets a hit in on Zaena that cuts through her armor. She hits the ground and uses her ghost limbs to scurry away in regroup.

  Come on. Ryuk is just about to fire off more sword mags when a shoulder mounted grenade launcher forms next to FeeTwix’s head. “Shit’s about to get real! Just squeeze the trigger, right, cuz?” A wicked grin spreads across the Swede’s face as tendrils of smokey liquid drip down his cheeks.

  “Fuck!” Ryuk shoves a gravity marble into his mouth and leaps into the air. He hits an invisible airlane and jumps to another just in time. The blast sends splinters of stone into the air. Ryuk is only in the air for a moment longer before the gravity marble loses its juice.

  -39 HP!

  Not a graceful landing, but Ryuk recovers quickly, watching as Wolf leaps into the air and tackles FeeTwix. The two roll around for a moment.

  Bang! Bang!

  The Swede manages to get one of his shooting irons out and fires two shots directly into Wolf’s belly.

  “Wolf!” Hiccup shrieks. “That’s my ride!”

  The dog howls, and FeeTwix is just about to finish the job when Zaena hurls two of her blades at him.

  She missed? Ryuk think as one of the blades barely nicks his left cheek. She can’t do it!

  FeeTwix touches his face, examines the blood, and flicks it away. “Damn, girl, can’t kill ya man, can you? Guess he gonna have to kill you.”

  The Swede’s bowie knife mutant hack appears in his hand and quickly bubbles up his arm, forming a cannon easily the size of trash can opening. Using his other hand to stabilize the bioweapon, FeeTwix aims the biomatter weapon at Zaena and smiles. “Bye, Felicia.”

  “Zaena!” Ryuk shouts as the blast tears through her, completely disintegrating her body.

  Instakill!

  Ink Shadow FeeTwix turns to Ryuk now with his other mutant hack, the bow hack. “You just gonna sit there and take ya licks, or you gonna face me like a man?”

  Before Ryuk can even get his weapon up, the Swede’s mutant hack has morphed into a full-fledged triple barrel mega blast
er covered in writhing green veins and bits of drippy biomatter.

  -215 HP! Critical hit!

  FeeTwix falls forward to one knee. He coughs, blood dripping from his mouth.

  Ryuk has to blink twice to see Hiccup behind the Swede, his jagged toe knife gripped tightly in his mechanical hand. His face filled with remorse, but determined to end the mayhem, Hiccup grabs FeeTwix by his blond hair, tugs it back to expose his neck, and finishes the job.

  Instakill!

  The Swede falls forward and the ink shadow lifts out of his body, his head hung low.

  (0)__(x)

  “Damn, y’all, I was just tryin’ to have some fun.” The ink shadow sulks until he is, well, a shadow of his former self. An inky foot forms and he kicks at the ground. “Fine, whateva, y’all win. That backstabbing shit is some straight up bullshit, though.”

  “I’ll show you some ‘straight up bullshit,’” Hiccup growls.

  FeeTwix sits up and rubs his eyes, which have flashed blue. They turn black again just as a respawned Zaena gets to him and helps him to his feet. A healing potion takes shape in FeeTwix’s hand and he offers it to her. As she drinks it, he grabs another and he throws it back.

  His eyes go wide, the cuts on his face start to heal, and soon, he’s smiling, his cheery self again. “Sorry, babe,” he says as they embrace, “didn’t mean to kill you back there.”

  “You saw it?”

  “I was possessed, watching it all. That’s some heavy stuff. Don’t hold it against me.”

  “I’d never.” Zaena turns her nose up at the ink shadow. “I know whose fault this is.”

  Hiccup goes with two healing potions, a Hopkins’ and a generic one. He takes a sip from each, cringing at the flavor of the generic one. “We really need to get some more potions, maybe some more of those Cherry Apollos. You guys are drinking too much. And why the fick are you still here?” he asks the ink shadow. “Be gone with you!”

  The ink shadow lowers his head even further. “Damn, for reals y’all, this is the first time I lost in, shit, at least a thousand years. At least!” He throws his finger into the air and increases in size only to shrivel up as soon as he started.

  “Them’s the ropes, fickhole, now if you don’t mind we’ll be getting the fick out of these catacombs.” Hiccup tosses the generic healing potion over his shoulder and jams his tongue into the grenade-shaped Hopkins’, hoping to get any last drops. “Damn good stuff.”

  Wolf hobbles to the right of Ryuk and sits on his haunches. “You want some potion, boy?”

  “Ah, don’t waste that … okay, at least give him a generic one.”

  “FeeTwix, got a dog bowl?”

  “Yeah, a nice one.” A tin bowl appears in the Swede’s hand. He sets it before Wolf and Ryuk pours the potion in. Wolf sniffs it once.

  “Yeah, it’s generic, just drink it, Fido.”

  He obliges and the wounds still on his side heal up.

  “A game of Three Cards?” the ink shadow suggests. “What you think, pimp? If you win, well shit, I’ll give you all the treasure of the catacombs, I’m talking everything from the bling to the killer legendary weapons.” He grows in size as the spirit of gambling returns to him.

  “A game of Three Cards?” Hiccup nods his head.

  FeeTwix walks over to the goblin and places an arm around his shoulder. “That’s not the best idea, now is it?”

  “Pfft! All the treasure in here, Twixy, did you not hear the fart cloud?” Hiccup’s eyes flash rupee signs. “There could be so much! Fick this quest and the Shinigami. We could buy our own floating continent!”

  “That’s right, playa, Three Cards. Let’s do this shit.”

  “Absolutely not.” Zaena says so firmly that everyone turns to her and cowers away a bit. “There will be no more gambling. You may point us to the exit; that’s all.”

  “Point? Damn, girl, you really is harsh. What kind of gracious host would point?” A grin spreads across the space where the ink shadow’s face should be. “I will lead you there myself!” He sluices away joyously, completely at odds with how disappointed he was just moments ago. “Don’t worry, y’all can trust me.”

  “Fickin’ poofty-ass mitherfickin’ jolly boy octo-squirt over here thinks he can just blow some smoke up our puckered bungholes and everything is hunky funky dory. Fick that! I’m not going anywhere he goes!”

  FeeTwix: Ryuk?

  Ryuk: What’s your map say? Is he heading in the right direction?

  “I’m waiting!”

  “Yeah? Why don’t you fick off to whatever sinkhole you seeped out of!” Hiccup growls.

  “For once, I’m with the goblin,” Zaena says.

  Wolf stands and barks.

  “Smart fickin’ dog!”

  FeeTwix: He’s headed in the right direction …

  “Why should we follow you?” Ryuk calls to the ink shadow. “You tried to kill us.”

  The ink shadow is suddenly behind Ryuk. Wolf freaks out and snarls at the living shadow.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” the ink shadow asks.

  “Fick no!” Hiccup starts to make his way over to them, reconsiders it, and grabs his toe knife from its sheath.

  “Shit gets lonely down here, y’all. I’m terribly lonely.” The ink shadow is now close enough that Ryuk can make out the outline of a deformed old man hidden in the ghastly being’s murkiness.

  “Woe-is-me, huh? Can you guys believe this mentally deranged dotard?”

  The ink shadow raises his chin. “Man, I’ve spent a long time in these catacombs waiting for some fool to come along that I could actually communicate with.”

  “Why don’t you leave, then?” FeeTwix asks as he approaches.

  “We all got jobs, pimp. Me? I’ve been tasked by the Sage of Gotha to guard this here arena. No need to start tripping; ain’t no more surprises. Just being neighborly, that’s all.”

  Ryuk looks from FeeTwix, who’s nodding and livestreaming, to Zaena, who has her arms crossed over her chest. Messages appear on his dashboard.

  FeeTwix: Fans are saying to go for it. A few are offended by his accent, but they’re dealing with it. I mean, seriously, who doesn’t like Snoop Dogg? Dude is a legend!

  Zaena: This Snoop Dogg, as you say, just possessed you and killed me.

  FeeTwix: But you’re back now, right? No biggie, babe!

  Hiccup: Twixy, you’re a dumbfick. Marbles, don’t you dare agree to letting that Gutenberg orgasm lead us anywhere. Say it with me: EXTREME. VETTING. This is why Tammy backstabbed us. You didn’t let me vet her.

  “So what’ll it be, homies, we doing this? I ain’t got all day.”

  Ryuk glances one last time to his guildmates and back to the ink shadow. “Fine, but no funny stuff.”

  Hiccup slaps his mechanical hand against his forehead. “You’ve got to be shitting me, Marbles! Have I taught you nothing?”

  The ink shadow struts forward like a drum major. “All right, y’all, follow me!”

  As the ink shadow guides them across the arena, he launches into an explanation of the history of the catacombs. “Shit, I’m gonna be straight honest with y’all, these here catacombs were started way before the monarchy was in place. The eastern quadrant, that is. The western quadrant, our current one, this shit was built later, like way later.”

  “The catacombs go all the way to the east?” Ryuk asks, as they move into a corridor with stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

  “That’s right, lil’ homie. Them catacombs to the east turn into the sewers beneath Waringtla, stinky as fuck in my opinion. Glad my ass ain’t over there.”

  “Waringtla? That’s the giant city, right?” FeeTwix asks. “Some of my fans were telling me that I should enter a tournament there … WAIT A MINUTE! The dots have been connected! Is that the same tournament you were telling me about, the one that Quantum Hughes cheated?” he asks Zaena.

  Her orange eyes narrow. “Yes, your hero cheated, and through his cheating, he bested Queen Renata, the Thulean head
of state, but she was only a princess then. Still, it was a despicable act. You should never look up to this type of man.”

  “Agree to disagree, babe, Quantum is a legend!”

  The ink shadow pauses to consider the name. Finally, he shrugs it off. “Never heard of no Quantum Hughes; must not be that big of a legend.”

  Hiccup snorts. “If it sounds like Thuleans are sore losers, it’s because they are. Hey! Hands off the hair, Liz!”

  As they come to another chamber, the ink shadow grows in size and scares off an approaching group of imps. “Little fuckboys, if you ask me. Can’t tell y’all how many imps I kill on a weekly basis. Them fools breed quick,” he says as they move into the chamber. “But back to the history of the catacombs, ‘cause I can tell y’all are interested. Anyone know who built this shit?”

  “Don’t care, but I agree with you on imps. Those little naked fickers are always down for an orgy.” Hiccup yawns. “That’s it, I’m taking a load off. Wolf, get your ass over here.”

  “Thuleans built the catacombs,” the ink shadow says as they move into a wide path that slopes to the right. Odd faces are carved into the walls, their chiseled features accented by the torchlight.

  The smell of brimstone makes Ryuk’s nose twitch. It’s the first time he’s smelt anything aside from stale air since they entered the arena space.

  “Thuleans built this?” FeeTwix asks. “Interesting!”

  Zaena smiles at him.

  “While they might be cool now, the first Thuleans, called Thules, were straight warring with their dragon ancestors. And dragons ain’t no one to fuck with. Tired of having their villages burnt up, the Thules built the catacombs on Polynya to stop the dragons from attacking them. Boom. Problem solved. Dragons ain’t goin’ underground, feel me?”

  “I feel you!” FeeTwix announces.

  “Um, yeah cool. So the Thules joined with the Saiduka giants of Waringtla to build the catacombs, which as I told you, stretch all the way from the east to the west coast. But it was started in the east.”

  “Hold the fick up.”

  Everyone turns to see Hiccup mount Wolf, who doesn’t seem to mind that the only thing separating him from the goblin’s poop chute and frequent wind tunnel is a thin layer of fabric.