Chapter 20
I never should have said that. I heard a victorious yell from the sky, and we looked up to see Caesar flying overhead in a massive throne studded with large jewels. The throne crashed into the ground in front of us, and Caesar looked at me and my army smugly.
“I am Julius Caesar! You will also know me as your general!”
Everyone stared at him mutely, and he growled. “Commander…ah, by Jupiter. You never told me your name!”
How did I manage to get this guy to come with me again? I mean, who would go with a complete stranger to fight a war and not even know their name? Yeesh, we were both crazy.
“My name is Drake Jinx,” I replied.
His eyes widened. “The Drake Jinx that our prophecies spoke of? Is it really you?”
Oh, I was in a prophecy? Cool! “What kind of prophecy?” I asked.
He gave me a sidelong glance. “The one where you’re stupid enough to believe me. Your army is rabble! They wander around in unorganized groups. They would be easier to conquer than Gaul was!”
I grimaced. I didn’t know what a gaul was, but he was right about one thing. My army was in complete disrepair. We desperately needed some organization and order in our ranks, but I had better things to do, like sleep.
While I thought, Julius was giving my army a critical look over. He glanced at Lilly and Jenna. “Why are you two just standing around? Go, bring me the rest of my-er, Commander Drake’s army!”
Lilly pierced him with an angry glare, which he easily returned. They stayed like that for several minutes. My army watched with interest. Most of them didn’t really know Lilly, but everyone knew about her short temper and tendency to shoot first and then shoot again later.
Finally, they both stopped glaring at the same time. Lilly nodded in approval. “Looks like you did something right for once, Jinx.”
Caesar nodded in agreement. “Indeed. I take it that this is a strange occurrence?”
I groaned. Even my own generals were turning against me!
“Well, Mr. Jinx chose me, so that’s two things right! Is that a new record?” George asked Lilly.
With a roll of my eyes, I started walking over to the Grid. “We don’t have any time to waste. We’ve got to head to the next world and get our next army. We don’t know when the Unknown Man will strike!”
Lilly frowned. “I thought you said time didn’t pass in the Void?”
Blast it. I couldn’t very well tell her that time actually was passing, and the Pisces Empire might already be a pile of smoking ashes.
“Ah…I have reason to believe that the Unknown Man has the same power I do,” I lied quickly.
Lilly seemed to buy it. “Really? I thought that only one person could have the power to Leap at a time. How can he do it?”
Uh oh. I didn’t think this far ahead. Time to wing it! “Er…maybe he has some sort of power that lets him copy other people’s power?” I tried.
Then I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to know that other worlds had powers of their own. Luckily, Lilly didn’t even seem to notice. She shrugged.
“Does that mean he could reach us in the Void and attack us here?” she asked.
I frowned. “I suppose.”
I didn’t mention the fact that a battle in the Void was almost pointless since both sides could make and destroy as much as they wanted…unless he brought things from outside the void.
The possibility of The Unknown Man having the same power I did begun to seem more of an option than I had originally thought. I finally shrugged. “Look, we have to go continue building our army. Caesar, could you shape my men up a little?”
There were a few groans from the surrounding men, but Caesar silenced them with a glare. Lilly and Jenna followed me to the Grid. I gestured to Jenna. “Would you like to do the honors?” I asked.
Jenna shrugged. “How?”
“Just swipe on the planes,” Lilly grumbled.
Jenna hesitantly swept her fingers upwards, and the planes rotated rapidly. They slowly came to a stop, and I zoomed in on the plane. I chose a point about a quarter of the way down its visible timeline, and with a splash of darkness, we were gone…again.
Lilly, Jenna, and I popped into this new world inside some type of cave. It was dimly lit from cracks in the roof, and the ground was covered in mossy fuzz.
“Where the heck is this?” Lilly crabbed.
“Feel the ground! It’s really fuzzy.”
I ignored both of them and looked skyward. I could tell that what I had initially thought to be the roof of a cracked cave or ledge was actually composed of giant round circles. Due to the dim light, I could scarcely make out their colors.
I squinted up at the ceiling. My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, and I could faintly make out reds and greens above me.
“What the…Guys, look at the ceiling!” I called.
I tore my eyes away from the strangely colored ceiling and looked around the cave. All around us, large poles rose to the sky, meeting the strangely colored roof. I headed over to the nearest pole, and ran my hands over it. Surprisingly, it was slightly soft.
“Guys? We’re not in a cave,” I called.
Lilly and Jenna hurried over to where I was standing. “What do you mean?” Jenna asked.
I pressed on the pole again, and it quivered. Lilly frowned and punched it. Her fist promptly bounced off of the rubbery pole and she smacked herself in the face.
I burst into laughter. “Hey, what do you know? I guess violence isn’t the answer to everything!”
Lilly sent me a look saying violence would be the answer to getting me to shut up, and spat on the pole. Jenna smirked, but didn’t say anything.
“You know, these sort of look like really big mushrooms.” I said.
Lilly did a double take, and looked up at the ceiling again. “If you’re right, that leaves two options. Either we shrunk by a lot on this planet, or everything on this planet is enormous!”
There was a large roar behind us, and we all slowly turned towards it with dread. A massive leg slammed down a few mushroom stalks from us.
“Is that… the leg of a bug?” Jenna asked hesitantly.
“No, that’s a sign. It’s really clear to me. It says to start climbing these mushrooms!” I yelled, and leaped onto the mushroom. Lilly and Jenna jumped onto it after me, and we all started scrambling up the huge thing.
Now, I know you’re smirking right now as your read this, but let me tell you, you’ve never climbed a mushroom stalk before. And it’s no easy task, believe me. The stalk is soft enough for me to form little handholds, but the stalk constantly wiggled. Every time I let go of the stalk, it was a challenge not to bounce right off of my mushy tower of babel.
I heard Lilly cursing under me, and Jenna telling Lilly to stop complaining and start climbing faster. Suddenly, the mushroom next to us flew into the sky. The enormous mandibles of a spider poked into view, and I shuddered. This monster didn’t look the least bit like Bob…er, Jenna had.
Besides, why was a spider wandering around in a mushroom patch? Spiders are supposed to make webs.
I’ll tell you why. It’s because this spider is a Mushroom-hating-people-eating-spider. I may or may not have made that name up on the spot, but you’re going to have to deal with it. However, for purposes our mutual understanding, I shall henceforth refer to the Mushroom-hating-people-eating-spider as Big Ugly.
As we continued scrambling up the stalk of the mushroom, another mushroom hurled into the air. It crashed down next to us, and for a moment, I thought I saw a flash of light reflect off of the mushroom.
However, when I glanced back to it, it was gone. I shrugged as much as I could while ascending a giant mushroom, and refocused my attention on climbing.
After what seemed like hours but was more likely about five minutes, I reached the top of the mushroom. “What now?” Lilly called.
The mushroom directly to our side was ripped away from its earthen home and took to the s
kies.
“Ah…does anyone have bug repellent?”
Jenna sighed. “How about a coherent plan that actually involves you putting that head of yours to use?”
Our mushroom shook slightly. The spider now stood over our mushroom. I sighed. Of all the ways to die, eaten by a giant spider wasn’t the worst, but I could have done better. I mean, imagine seeing that on a gravestone! ‘Here lies Drake Jinx, eaten by gigantic spider while climbing a massive mushroom stalk.’
Yeah, that sucks. “Guys, I’m going to try something stupid.”
I could almost feel Lilly and Jenna grimace. “What?”
“That’s the stupid part! I have no idea!”
Then I leaped off the mushroom. Jenna screamed, and Lilly might have laughed.
I formed a wormhole under me, and another above the spiders head. I toppled straight through both wormholes, and found myself flying at the spider’s head at who knows how many miles an hour. Now, all I had to do was land and poke a hole in Big Ugly’s head.
I found myself slightly stuck at that first problem. If anyone had tips on landing on a spider’s head, I could have really used them in a second.
…
You think I should make a portal into some place filled with pillows and then make another one back onto the spider? That’s a great idea! But, you told that to me at one second and one millisecond. That was one millisecond too late. Therefore, I shall choose to ignore you.
I slammed into the spiders head, and all the air rushed out of my body. Several cracks alerted me to something breaking, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the spider. With a grunt, I opened a wormhole right next to Jenna’s head. I hoped she would know what I meant.
After several excruciating seconds of immense pain and agony, something poked through the wormhole. I grinned. Jenna did it! I reached into it, (Don’t ask me how I moved my arm; I don’t know either.) and plucked out a…shoe?
Blast it Jenna, I wanted a dagger, not a shoe! I sighed. Apparently, I was going to be slaying this spider the old fashioned style. Smacking it with a shoe.
I formed a wormhole inside the spider’s head. Normally, it probably wouldn’t do anything because it doesn’t exactly take space, and it isn’t sucking anything in. However, if one was to toss a shoe into your brains…
I dropped the shoe into the other end of the wormhole, and snapped it shut. The spider screamed, and skittered around madly.
Ok, another tip for you guys. If you have a few broken limbs, my best recommendation to let them heal is to sit still and try not to move them. Holding onto the head of a giant spider while it runs around in a panic is NOT what I mean. But c’mon. Nobody listens to me anyways, so why should I bother listening to myself?
I felt as if my arms were going to tear themselves out. If I had been thinking coherently at the time, I would have made a wormhole and jumped off the dying creature.
But you guessed it, I wasn’t thinking coherently. My thoughts were more along the lines of buying a big can of bug spray. The spider scrambled about for a few more seconds, and suddenly fell dead. I groaned, and rolled onto my back. I stared up at the sky, and the pulsing pain in my arms and legs slowly begun to fade. Darkness begun creeping into my vision, and my glove zapped me.
My moment of peace gone, I cried out in agony. Somebody ran up to me and peered into my vision. Oh, spectacular. I didn’t know this somebody. “Hi,” I muttered weakly.
The man stared at me. I idly noted that his long black hair looked a lot like a raven would if you stuck it in a blender. “What are you?” he muttered reverently.
I decided not to answer him. The pain was blurring my thoughts too much for me to think coherently. Then I heard Jenna calling my name, and the man looked up in surprise. In one smooth movement, he drew two massive cleavers from his back. He threw me another look of awe, and turned towards where Jenna’s voice had come from.
A moment later, Jenna and Lilly climbed up a fallen mushroom stalk that was leaning on the spider. “Drake! Are you ok?” Jenna called.
Lilly glared at the guy. “Who are you? Were you controlling this thing?” She drew her pistol.
Even through my pain, I managed to sigh. Jenna pushed Lilly’s gun hand down, and walked right past the guy. She knelt down next to me. “Drake, aren’t you not supposed to…y’know?”
I grimaced. “What else could I have done? Make something up. Maybe I had a grappling hook or something.”
She nodded. Taking a look at my arms, she shook her head. “You broke pretty much everything you could. The fact that you’re alive right now, much less coherent, is making me question your humanity.”
I grinned. “You just can’t get rid of me. Ah, can you do anything about this?”
Jenna nodded. She put her hands behind my neck gently, and there was a sudden pain. The last thing I saw was her apologetic smile.