Soulforged Dungeoneer

While I wore Merry's earring, we'd discovered, I could not only power the abilities that it gave me with my own mana, but Merry could use the connection to restore her own. That was critical for the... well, let's be generous and call it a plan, shall we? The plan that I had for this bastard.

Merry resized herself up to human standard, deploying her four rings and sword emblem, and I saw Bo's face fall. No doubt, he thought that I was revealing my disdain for him by tagging in an inferior partner, and from a certain point of view, yes... but also, that wasn't the point of it. Merry's musical support had been as much about boosting me as anything, but with Bo now seriously trapped by the Vampiric Cloak, my only intention with the music was to suppress him as much as humanly possible, magically and psychologically.

And there was only one song that came to mind to accomplish that.

I clapped my hands together and started to shimmy my hips, loathesome music spilling from nowhere as though summoned from my will, as I split my focus, trying to keep the music going as best I could, while putting everything else I had into suppressing Bo from the inside, with the Cloak, and from the outside with Merry's musical earring.

Merry left her bro to it. This had never been plan A, but it had been plan B after they had discovered that she could recharge her energy by becoming part equipment. From a certain perspective, that's what she was now, to the system--and that meant that if she did manage to beat Bo, it was really Jay who did it, in all the important ways. And... if she was careful, she could also borrow a portion of Jay's skills, though it took active effort.

So she'd split her time so far between continuing the magical effect, and also trying to analyze the bastard. Jerry's use of the Cloak had been more ruthless than she'd ever seen him be; she'd worried he wouldn't be willing to use it on another human, but this was different, and once he was entirely clear that his life was still in serious danger, he hadn't hesitated. Now, the Heretic Knight was probably down to half his strength and speed--maybe the restriction was less, but especially if Jay could pull off the musical miracle he seemed to believe he could, she might have a chance.

So she focused only on the fight.

The enemy Knight's face was unreadable behind the mask, but his posture had become sloppy. Merry moved forward, aware of how she was at a disadvantage in terms of speed and power, her eyes and mind focused on every sign of movement from the guy, but--despite all logic--the man simply didn't move even as her sword flashed out at his chest.

He let her hit him, and he was clearly astonished when the weapon actually bit into flesh, Merry momentarily putting destruction aura into the blade to sharpen it, the skill stinging her arms and hands. She retreated, forcing herself back and keeping an eye on him, but Bo's responses were dulled.

His eyes returned to Jerry, who Merry knew was grinning madly, trying not to laugh, as he finally got to the opening verse.

We are no strangers to love

You know the rules and so do I

A full commitment's what I'm dreaming of

You wouldn't get this from any other guy

I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling

Got to make you understand

Merry could practically feel the enemy's heart sinking into his feet, but--perhaps because of the effects of the Cloak--it hadn't turned to rage yet. She knew that it would, in time, but she had to take advantage of the moment.

She flexed the telekinetic power in her four rings--the bracelets and the anklets--to throw herself at Bo, and she managed to nail him straight in the eye with her sword, the power of Jerry's Assassination skill flaring through her and the blade like a bolt of lightning, one that carved a painful line through her body as it went. Bo, too, screamed and flinched back, now firmly shaken from the trance of being completely disregarded by the first worthy opponent he had met since... well, who cares.

As Bo stumbled and finally wrapped his head around the need to fight the fairy in front of him, Merry's blade was already aiming for his other eye, but as a slash and not a stab. It wouldn't be as powerful, but if it landed...

Never gonna give you up

Never gonna let you down

Never gonna run around and desert you

Never gonna make you cry

Never gonna say goodbye

Never gonna tell a lie

And hurt you

Bo was able to bat her sword away, even with all the restrictions pressing down on him, and Merry pulled her body away using her rings, trying to stay out of range. She could tell that he was dealing with some sort of psychological shit that she didn't care about, but now that he was at least paying attention, her job got a lot harder. Still, she held onto the blade, and when he set a stance again, she pulled a pair of her rings in and sent them out as a ranged attack. The Heretic Knight pulsed something, hard, and a wave of energy shot out, knocking the rings away, but... but Merry could tell that wasn't really his focus.

The Knight took several steps back, and despite it all, despite the music pressing down on him and Jerry's Cloak tangling up inside of him, he managed to bring one emotion together with crystal clarity, something that Jerry had only managed to muddle his way into, before.

In his rage, Bo reached inside himself, finding the controls for his own Dungeoneer's Key, and placed his hand on the sharp-toothed engine's throttle, edging it forward, then forward more.

Jerry's song faltered for a moment, but he managed to keep working at his role, though Merry could feel his humor fading through their link. They all knew what this meant, and internally Jerry also tried to reach for his own controls, just to try to match the more powerful man's pressure.

Then, the Heretic Knight jammed his engine into full throttle, and the entire realm shivered.

Merry wasn't one to be completely at a loss, but this was different. The Knight's engine appeared physically in the air behind him, a long cylinder with a spinning, toothed mouth on one end, the inside of the mouth glowing brighter and brighter as the teeth spun up, arcs of electrical power tearing off of the sides, an ever-increasing gout of flame emerging from the other side. Merry would never--never--have suggested that Jerry go all the way on his engine, because she could sense how even a little bit of extra energy had torn his body and mind to pieces.

Now, she watched as the heretic knight's body twisted, like snakes were crawling underneath his skin, except that whenever a snake passed and his skin retracted, the skin fell into a hole where the snake had traveled. She stared, some part of her imagining the same thing happening to Jerry--power passing through his body that was so great, it vaporized his flesh as it went, leaving only empty holes where there should have been a person.

Merry almost didn't dodge, but it took the man so long to channel that power, costing him so much in terms of flesh, that she was able to recognize the pattern, and grabbed Jerry's Blink skill, teleporting herself out of the way as the Heretic Knight threw what looked like a punch, but which was really an energy blast.

This time, it was clear that the world actually shifted in the wake of his attack, but it wasn't only that. When Merry dared look, she found that not only was the Dungeon erased where he had been throwing his fist, but there was a gap in the fake-sea-sky that exposed the abyss beyond. Around the edges of that gap, the invulnerable pure-black annihilation stones, the ones that were supposed to destroy anything Dungeon related that touched them, were shattered and pushed out of place, their deep blackness flickering to a mere dark gray.

Jerry didn't need prompting to re-enter the fight, after that, the music vanishing like the wind, and he smashed his sword against the Heretic Knight's neck, but it was his sword that broke. That... didn't matter, not for Jerry; he summoned another and smashed it into his neck again, and then another, and another, and another.

The knight turned towards him, and Merry knew that she was low on options. So she cleared her throat, and spoke as clearly as she could.

"Yuebing Bo."

There was a weird sense, all of a sudden, of the Fairy Queen behind him, standing imperiously and frowning at her. Merry ignored her for the moment, even though she knew she couldn't afford to, not really.

"That is your name, Bo." Merry's voice had a quality to it that she knew was ringing through space. It was something she had been warned about--something that had been in the pile of things she had been given when she first woke up, in that Fairy Crystal. Something that she had felt implicitly a ton of times, whenever she had come close to saying the wrong thing on accident.

A fairy had to be very careful when they spoke a creature's true name, or there would be consequences.

The knight stopped, and the Fairy Queen frowned at her, but leaned down and whispered into his ear. "It doesn't matter any more," Merry could hear her whisper. "You belong to me, now."

Merry let her voice ring out, knowing that it still carried the sound of his Name. "There is freedom, here."

The Fairy Queen turned, and bit by bit, piece by piece, Merry could feel the Queen's presence shifting from a single bit of thought projected at a distance to something more akin to an avatar, item fragments and bits of raw magic collecting in the space. "You cannot steal him from me," the Fairy Queen said, and Merry could feel the woman's power starting to invade the Dungeon around them.

"I don't have to," Merry said, quietly, knowing that she really, really shouldn't have touched on something owned by such a power. But... she pointed to the Heretic Knight's body, knowing that it proved her point very clearly.

What was left of his body, anyway.

After enough of of the Dungeoneer's flesh and bones had been consumed, his skin had started to char, wrinkle, and shrink, and yet even standing still, caught in a moment of terror and confusion, he still didn't let go of his engine's power, and cable-like lightning snakes still tore through underneath the wrinkled mass, now glowing and venting sludge and smoke whenever they found a tear or a hole burned through skin. Moment by moment, what remained of... of Bo, the Heretic Knight, the Slave Dungeoneer, was shrinking.

The Queen hissed, and reached for his hand, but somehow, Bo fought her control, just for a moment longer, letting more and more of himself evaporate and tear apart. She tried again, and just for one moment longer, he resisted. But then she flexed her will, and his engine retreated, all its power sealed, and Merry watched as the sudden reversal made the engine itself crack, those same lightning snakes suddenly burning the shining metal of the engine's shell, fissures appearing across it and venting blinding spikes of impossibly intense mana.

Because, Merry knew, that's what it was--it was what had consumed him. This was what it looked like to have power you couldn't control, when it was given to you by the Labyrinthine Star.

Jerry stepped up, placing his sword on Bo's neck, but his eyes met the Queen's, a look of challenge on his face. "You've lost," he said. "You can't get anything more out of this. But I want what's left of him."

The few shards of magic that the Fairy Queen had sent along swirled, her power blinding like the sun, and Merry had to look away. "I will give you nothing."

Jerry nodded, and Merry could tell he was terrified, and forcing himself to bluff. "Exactly," he said. "He is nothing. Look at him; he doesn't even have magic. He punches things, and now his soul is a scorched mess. Don't tell me that you still have something to gain from this."

The queen snarled, and moved forward, the act giving the impression of a giant pair of jaws ready to snap down on Jerry, only held at bay by a whim. "This isn't about him," she hissed. "This is about me. I am a Queen of the Fairies, and he has insulted me, and my honor."

"And you intend to, what, punish him more than this?" Jerry gestured to the smoking wreck of a human being in front of him, still keeping his sword at the man's neck. "Letting him leave, making an example of him, that's worse than turning him to smoke and gore. I... I mean, I genuinely cannot imagine him being tasty the way he is right now."

Merry couldn't help it. She started to laugh, for all that it made no sense. It wasn't... it wasn't that Jerry was or wasn't right. But this was all so... him. He was insane, standing in front of the world's greatest powers and arguing with them because he thought it was right. Despite it all, despite how clearly outclassed he was...

The Fairy Queen turned to look at her, and Merry found her head being forcibly turned to stare back at her, found her thoughts being read, and then the woman blinked. In that moment, she had burned power just to find out what Merry thought was funny... and now she knew. And Merry couldn't help it; it just made her laugh more.

Jerry was insane, but that was the only reason why he'd had any success in this stupid, mad world.

"Fine," said the Fairy Queen, and Jerry was clearly surprised and confused, but Merry... somehow, she understood. "But I require one more sacrifice, to make things even."

An unseen bit of magic suddenly flexed, like a muscle a hundred miles long, and suddenly, there was a Fairy hanging in the space just outside of the broken hole in the Dungeon, along with a desk, a desk that Merry recognized from the Fairy Dungeon beneath. This wasn't a fairy she and Jerry had met, yet; it looked young, with only a couple items on it, but it wore black clothes and a black mask over its face.

"Defeat this child, and you can have your broken wreck of a man back." The Fairy Queen gestured at the desk, and suddenly, there was another scream from... somewhere. Jerry frowned, recognizing what it had to mean, and after a long moment, the Fairy Queen turned, and snatched a flying body out of midair as it came hurtling in from somewhere in the distance.

Her mouth split open, a mouth that continued all the way down her neck and into her torso, and she consumed the dying, screaming human in a single bite, her body stitching back together as her "mouth" closed.

Her hunger apparently satisfied, the Fairy Queen turned to the... fairy ninja? "Either bring this creature back to me, or die," she hissed, pointing at Bo's still-living remains, and Merry felt the Queen's presence leave.

And then the Queen was gone, leaving her, Jerry, Bo, and... a ninja. A fairy ninja.

The fairy ninja looked around, confused, then suddenly set a stance and drew a sword, charging at Jerry. Merry, sensing him starting to wrestle with his Vampiric Cloak, returned to normal fairy size, teleported in front of the creature, and stabbed it in the face.

Jerry was a good guy, she knew, but he would try to capture the fairy, and they were going to have enough problems with the person he'd already intended to save. Merry withdrew the sword, then swung again, only to find that the ninja had vanished.

"Where--"

Jerry sword suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and Merry saw it was sticking out of the Fairy Ninja, the other fairy's sword not far from Merry's own face. She blinked, backing up, but Jerry was there, placing two fingers on Merry, as much to reassure himself as her.

"Guess they can turn invisible to other fairies," he said, and with a simple flex of his will, tore the other fairy in half. A sound grabbed Merry's attention, and she noted the desk had also ripped apart. "Seems like a dumb choice to send that against me, but... whatever?"

Merry let out a breath, resized up to be Jerry's size, and wrapped him in a big hug. "Fuuuck," she said into his shoulder. "That was fucking scary, Jay."

Jerry laughed, but returned the hug. "Yeah," he said. "But it's over."

A voice, interrupted, a voice that was... awful. "It's not over," it said, and it sounded like... well, it sounded like Bo now looked. It sounded like a person with flayed skin and burned vocal chords, like a melted puddle of human that remained alive. "Kill me."

Jerry turned, and walked over to the guy, and knelt down. "You're still alive in there?"

"Just kill me," he repeated.

"Sure, but first," Jerry flexed his will, and a contract appeared in his hands. "I need you to sign this."

The creature looked at him, then the paper. "Why?"

"What do you mean, why? Weren't you listening?" Jerry, with a laugh that betrayed how he was definitely insane right this moment, suddenly stepped back and belted a song, off-key and without accompaniment, into the shattered wreckage of the boss room, shaking his hips aggressively.

Never gonna give you up

Never gonna let you down...

Both Merry and Bo let out pained, disappointed sounds, but Jerry only kept singing.