CHAPTER XXXVI: The Devil's Machine
"So, you finally got here, Pig's Butt!"
Ness looked up into the dark, gray sky. The voice had spoken from nowhere. The group had walked north for about twenty minutes, and had come across a thick layer of shadows in the path.
"Pokey," he sneered at the familiar voice. "Are you Giygas' pawn now?"
"Quite the contrary, actually," The voice continued. "He is my puppet, you idiot, and I'M the one pulling the strings. I always thought I was destined for greatness, and here I am, on the verge of dominating the world--with my very own bio-weapon, the Cosmic Destroyer Giygas!"
The shadows cleared, revealing Pokey's face pressed against a bubble-like window. The window was sticking out of a spider-shaped armor unit, with huge claws and multiple cannons. He grinned. Behind him was the face of the enemy.
Giygas.
He was huge, a mass of scrap metal and pulsating brain matter. Tendrils of flesh whipped around it, and an unearthly cry filled the air. At the center of the fluctuating mass was a huge, tan metal sphere where the image of Ness' own face was portrayed. His hand tightened around the handle of the Legendary Bat.
So it's all boiled down to this, Ness thought grimly. A year and a half of battles, of adventures, of discoveries, and it ends with two enemies facing one another. We've never met each other, but our hatred spans worlds.
Giygas! I'm gonna take you DOWN!
Then come, if you dare, a voice--evil and horrid--echoed inside his head. I am waiting, Chosen, and on this day I shall bathe in your blood!
Ness slowly readied the Legendary Bat. Pokey's heavy armor moved him in front of the young hero. The young man dashed just as Pokey's left claw came down, but Ness caught the bulbous metal appendage with one hand. He tightened is grasp, his fingers digging deeply into the steel easily.
"What the...?" Pokey started, but didn't finish.
The armor must have weighed at least ten tons but Ness, surrounded by a wave of sheer psychic force, swung it as if it were no more than paper. He hurled it around his head a few times, and slammed it into the ground, where the metal legs lay twitching. Inside the window, Pokey was staring with an amazed look on his face.
"How..." he said. "How did you get so strong?!"
Ness nodded to his friends, and charged his hated enemy. With a yell, he raised his weapon, and leapt into the air.
Those hideous tentacles whipped out to meet their charge. Poo and Paula were slashing them in half as they flew through the air, and Jeff was forming a veritable shield of laser blasts as he fired at them, his aim impeccable. Ness blazed past them, going straight for the window of his own face.
"Eat this!" He yelled, swinging down. Before he even touched the window, however, Giygas attacked.
It was so powerful, that they couldn't even comprehend the true form of it. All that happened was a psychic shock, and a feeling of excruciating pain and impact. Ness spun through the air, arcing widely, and hitting the ground with a loud thump. Paula was sent streaking straight into the dirt, and Poo bounced off a cliff, and slammed down on his face. Only Jeff managed to dodge the attack, and he pointed straight at the window, firing a single, deadly blast from the Gaia Beam.
The blue laser hit a strange, black sheen, and reflected back at the bemused young man. The blast hit him in the arm with such impact, that he spun wildly, then hit his ribs on a rock. He struggled to rise.
Ness, rose as well, coughing, and holding his chest. That attack had been hugely powerful! It was beyond anything he could ever understand!
"Well," he panted. "If physical attacks won't work, then we'll have to try a psychic attack! Ready, guys? On three!"
Paula and Poo stood as well, looking a bit worse for wear, but they nodded eagerly. Paula was suddenly surrounded by a bright yellow aura, and Poo's was bright white. A flame of impossible, innocent blue surrounded Ness, and he brought his hands back.
"One..."
Giygas' tentacles grew back slowly, coming towards them like a lion stalking an antelope.
"Two..."
Jeff knelt to the ground, setting out a Multi Bottle Rocket, and pulling out a lighter. He pointed the rocket towards Giygas, and set the fuse aflame.
"THREE! PSI ROCKIN' GAMMA!" He threw out his hands.
Poo fired as well. "PSI STARSTORM OMEGA!"
"PSI THUNDER OMEGA!" Paula screamed.
"Take this, you jerk!" Jeff yelled as the three bottle rockets that formed the Multi Bottle Rocket fired forward with tremendous destructive force.
Huge stars of energy orbited the two intertwining beams of energy--one red and blue, the other golden--, and those were circled by three huge bottle rockets. The tremendous attack tore up an astonishing amount of ground as it wailed towards Giygas. They all struck at the same point: the window of Ness' face.
A huge explosion rocked the Tunnel of the Past, flaring outwards in a giant shockwave. Ness shielded Paula with his arms, and Jeff and Poo hid behind protrusions of rock.
Poo stood quickly, readying the Sword of Kings. "That can't be the end of it!" he yelled. "Giygas wouldn't fall that easily!"
Paula clung to Ness, her eyes on the mass of flames that Giygas had vanished into--a mass that was rapidly fading.
And then, they saw it--that same black sheen was over the window that was silently agreed on as Giygas' weak point. Scorch marks were on a few of the tentacles and metal, but otherwise...nothing. A shock of dismay ran through Ness, nearly driving him to his knees. He resolutely held his feet.
"Not..." Paula began, a hint of hopelessness in her voice. "Not even a scratch...are we so weak...all our powers combined...that we can't even put a dent in Giygas' defenses?"
Relinquish your foolish crusade, that evil, hollow voice declared in Ness' mind. Let go of this pointless battle, and submit yourselves to my dark rule.
And Ness almost gave in.
Almost.
Clenching one fist, he rose to his full height. He gripped the Legendary Bat in his other hand, energy flaring up the length of it.
"NEVER!" He screamed in defiance. "I'll never give in to you! You're nothing but a stupid pile of brains and guts! We haven't even begun to fight, and you'd better get ready for the fight of your life!"
This time, Giygas spoke physically, the voice coming out in a series of dying-animal squeals, and roars of evil rage.
"I am the Darkness!" Giygas moaned. "I will take this planet, and consume the souls of its people! But you...you, Chosen Ones...will be my greatest glory!"
The formless attack came again--stronger this time. The first blast took Poo and Jeff to the sides, and left them chewing dirt and blood. Ness shielded Paula with his own body, then threw her away from the attack. He stood there, waves of raw, invisible energy railing against him, tearing small lines in his clothing and skin. Then he saw it--something like a heat wave in the summer that you see at the end of an asphalt street, but wailing towards him at an impossible speed.
It wasn't the cuts that hurt so much, it was the sheer impact. As the wave struck him, he was thrown from his feet, flying through the air. With an angry grunt, he slammed into a cliff face, about seventy feet from the ground, showering his friends with small chunks of rock and dust.
He looked down, weakly spitting out a wad of blood from his mouth. He fell from the cliff face, free-falling to the ground, too drained to stop himself. He hit the ground with a sickening thump. His friends ran over to him.
"Are you okay, Ness?" Jeff asked worriedly.
"Yeah," he growled, trying to stand. Poo helped him up, while Paula checked his wounds in a motherly fashion.
"PSI LifeUp Omega," Ness whispered to himself, feeling the healing energies flowing through him. The blood stopped, but the cuts remained. He gazed up at the window of his own face, then gasped in realization.
"POO!" he yelled. "I have an idea! Go up there, and attack that window, or eyeball, or whatever it is! And pray that this works!"
"But," Poo started. "That shield..."
"Just do it!"
"All right, then...YAH!"
The young Dalaamese prince leapt into the air, ready to slash with the Sword of Kings. He plowed through the tendrils, slicing and slashing the evil tentacles when they came too close. Finally, he reached Giygas, and brought the bright silver blade down.
As usual, the blade struck the dark shield protecting the window.
Suddenly, Ness was there, as if from nowhere. The tentacles around him disintegrated at his very passing, and he slammed his bat into the window as he sailed past. It cracked a little, and Giygas let out a huge, unearthly scream. Poo kicked off the shield, and backflipped over to his friends.
"I knew it!" Ness grinned, a serious, yet joyful look on his face. "That shield has one flaw--it can only defend in one place at one time! So, if we attack all together, we should be able to beat him! C'mon, guys...get ready! Jeff, keep the rest of those flippin' tentacles off of my butt. Poo and Paula, we'll run in and strike whenever we can...got it?"
"Great idea, Ness," Paula smiled, winking at him.
"A pleasing plan, I must say," Poo laughed. "Let us execute it immediately!"
Ness nodded, and they all leapt into the air.
But their leader never made it. A black fireball had hit him square in the back. Poo and Paula halted, hovering in the air.
"Keep going!" Ness growled to them. "Don't worry about me!" he struggled to get up, turning around.
Pokey, in his mangled spider-armor, grinned at him, one of his cannons smoking.
"So, Ness," That fat, ugly, snub-nosed face said to him. "Can't take the heat?"
"I can take all of it and more!" he shouted, launching himself forward. Pokey swung one claw, knocking the Legendary Bat from his hand. It hurled away, imbedding itself in a pile of rock. His claws reared up then, striking down at Ness' unprotected face with such speed that nobody watching would have been able to see them.
And yet, not one of them touched the young man. The only thing Pokey saw was the gray blur of his claws, and Ness' face. After a moment, though, he noticed a tan blur in front of his foe's face.
He was blocking every attack with his forearms!
One spider leg swept low, but Ness jumped shortly over it, then ducking under the claw that came up to meet his face. He was balled up in the air, and the second claw was directed straight towards his gut.
But he had vanished. Pokey looked around frantically.
"Oh, fat boy..." His voice said. "Behind you!"
He never saw Ness--all he heard was the cracking of fist against glass. He was flying then, spinning through the air like a spider-shaped Frisbee. He screamed, the rolls of fat on his cheeks waving as he did so. With a resounding crash, he hit the side of the monstrosity that was Giygas.
"I...have...to...get out..." He mumbled weakly. "Must...shut off the...Devil's Machine..."
Ness wasn't paying any attention now. He was rocketing towards Paula and Poo as they took turns slamming the window with their weapons, the cracks growing more and more. The Legendary Bat flew into his hands as he soared, and he flipped in the air, pointing the blunt end downward.
With a crashing noise, the tip of his baseball bat sank deeply into the sturdy glass of the window, and into the fleshy substance beyond. Ness tensed his hands around the handle, charging his mental powers into it. Bright blue flames streaked down the wood, and into Giygas' inner being. The evil Destroyer wailed, it's voice nearly popping the ears of the four heroes.
A burst of shrapnel flew from the shattered window. Ness grabbed Poo and Paula by their waists, and landed next to Jeff. They all ran away from the exploding form of Giygas, dodging explosions as he tentacles combusted spontaneously. Jeff tapped Ness' shoulder as they ran.
"Do you think this is it?" he shouted over the din. "Do you think we got Giygas?"
"Let's hope so!" He shouted back, flashing a thumbs-up.
But unbeknownst to them, Pokey had crawled from his armor, and was making his way to an organic-looking, pink switch near the base of the exploding Giygas.
"The Devil's Machine," The weakened youth sighed, and pulled the switch.