The Brothers Crunk (10 page)

Dethbryte grows larger and larger, until she is as tall as THE BLITZ itself. She throws her hands in the air and howls a deep, guttural roar. The wind from her breath nearly causes Reynold to fall to his death, but Vandenboom quickly grabs hold of his arm, saving him from doom. Reynold looks up at Vandenboom in awe, surprised at his savior.

“
Divey?” Reynold asks, hoping Vandenboom’s skin will suddenly split and peel back, revealing his brother underneath, perfectly intact. But that doesn’t happen. Instead, Vandenboom slings Reynold toward the remaining wall at the back of the room and motions for him to get down.

“
Get under the desk. You’ll be safe there,” Vandenboom says. Reynold nods his head, grabs the ostrich, and kneels down under the desk. His heart is pounding so hard in his chest that it actually makes him physically uncomfortable. He looks out from the side of the desk and sees Vandenboom walking away.

“
Hey!” he shouts. Vandenboom turns around. A knot forms in Reynold’s throat. “Thank you.” Vandenboom nods, turns back around and begins hammering buttons on the controller inside his forearm. Reynold’s eye wells up with tears as he crawls back under the desk. This is the first time Reynold truly feels as if he is never going to see his brother again. He wraps his arms around the ostrich and sobs.

Vandenboom huddles with the rest of the Devils. “Remember, we must stick to the plan. No matter what happens, Dethbryte must go down.”

“
You got it, boss,” Krebb says, looking around the room for objects to load into the chamber of his weapon.

“
We’ve been through the depths of hell and back again. Our cards have been dealt in a fixed game . . .” Vandenboom says, “but tonight, we’re the ones dealing. Give her hell, Devils!”

The Devils cheer and raise their weapons high in the air. Dethbryte screeches and whips her tongue around the building; her eyes light up like a tropical storm.

Vandenboom lifts his forearm and taps in the rest of the cheat code. His body instantly begins to tingle with electricity. His bones pop, shift, and extend, contorting his body into an even more grotesque and giant creature than he already is. The strength he feels is tremendous.

TWENTY-TWO

TOKYO CITY LIGHTS

The pink cherry clouds are beginning to turn a much deeper red. They hang against the black light canopy of sky making Tokyo look like hell on earth. Giant mutant versions of Vandenboom and Dethbryte stand facing one another, waiting for the other to make the first move, like some old-timey western duel.

Dethbryte’s tongue whips at her sides in a motion so soft and delicate it’s almost hypnotic. Her eyes are a kaleidoscope of colors—each one fading into the next. She holds out her arms in front of her body and wiggles her fingers, as if typing on an invisible typewriter. She whips her tongue from left to right, licking her sides faster and faster. Pink saliva paints the city.

Vandenboom stands calm. Even as her saliva pelts his face, he doesn’t flinch. He watches closely as she sways, the way she moves, looking for any signs of aggression or strike.

Then it happens.

Dethbryte whips her tongue at Vandenboom, lashing wickedly at his chest. He catches her tongue in his fist and begins wrapping it around his forearm. He uses his other hand to remove the crossbow from his back harness and fires three arrows simultaneously right into the center of her flabby bread basket. She howls and rips the arrows from her stomach.

Vandenboom’s fingers twist and his skin splits apart, revealing the steel drill hidden beneath. Dethbryte’s tongue gets caught between the grooves and wraps around the drill so tightly it ceases to spin and whines loudly. Black smoke rolls off the hot metal. He jerks back on his arm. The purple muscle of her tongue splits partly and blood sprays out of her severed veins like water hoses.

Dethbryte scrambles to save her tongue, clawing desperately at his face and chest. Vandenboom shoves his fist into her mouth and grabs her tongue by the root. He jerks his drill-arm back again and severs the tongue completely.

“
Yyyoo boosaarr!!” she yelps, wrapping both of her slimy hands around Vandenboom’s fist, trying to loosen his grasp on what is left of her tongue. He pulls her close, so that they are looking at each other eye to eye.

“
Blitzkrieg Industries has single-handedly destroyed the planet. Lives have been wasted and forgotten. Innocent lives!” Vandenboom yells. “You created us to be nothing more than killing machines—and that’s exactly what we are. I can’t sympathize for what I am about to do to you. It’s not in my blood. This all ends now!”

“
Yyyooo rrriiiggghhh . . .” Dethbryte mumbles, “hhiissss ennnnss noooww, bblllaaaahhhh!” Electricity bolts out from her eye sockets, firing one-hundred million volts directly into Vandenboom’s head. His muscles contract and tremor as the electricity rides throughout his system. The skin on his face begins to bubble, liquefy, and drip off his skull like melted butter.

“
Nooo!” yells Krebb, as he watches the mayhem from inside THE BLITZ. He jams his fingers down into the chamber of his KREBBOOM and pulls the trigger. Thousands of short, stubby fingers go hurdling through the air, pelting her in the face, but doing nothing more than annoying her.

Dethbryte grabs Vandenboom’s wrist and digs her fingernails into his forearm, ripping the NES controller completely out of his body. The veins in his face and neck swell and his head begins to tremor violently. His long dagger teeth flip outward and sink quickly back into his face, causing his forehead to cave in and his body to suck up into his neck. Reynold stares in disbelief as Vandenboom—his brother, Divey—implodes and shrinks back to normal size. His body seems to hover for a second, momentarily lost in space, before gravity drags him down to the ground like a hungry beast.

Reynold runs out of hiding, grabbing everything in sight—staplers, lamps, paperweights—and throws them at Dethbryte. Tears glaze over his eye, blinding him. He collapses to his knees and sulks. His journey is over. He has failed his brother.

The Devils launch a full attack on Dethbryte. Gluum holds out her hands in front of her and closes her eyes. From each of her fingertips shoots black webs, looking like an extension of her fingers themselves. The webs sling through the air, gripping and sticking to Dethbryte’s fat belly like tar. Inside the blackness of the webs swirl tiny nebulas, stars, and galaxies. They swirl together so rapidly that tiny black holes form and begin to suck in all that surrounds them. Dethbryte feels an uncomfortable sensation in her gut, as if her innards are slowly being sucked out of her body through a plastic straw. She digs her fingernails along her belly flesh, ripping away the super sticky black web, which then attaches itself to her fingers. Gluum continues to fire her black webs at her, even though she knows Dethbryte is far too massive for them to really have any other effect than to simply keep her distracted.

Krebb loads everything he can get his hands on into the chamber of his KREBBOOM, but nothing really seems to be too affective.

“
I need something . . .” he mumbles to anyone who cares to listen. “Something metal . . .” Vega unsheathes his katanas, the first things he thinks of, and offers them to Krebb. Krebb shoves the tip of the blade into his KREBBOOM and pulls the trigger. Hundreds of little three inch razors rip into the atmosphere, slicing deep into Dethbryte’s side. She shrieks in pain, trying to bat away some of the shots with her hands. She moves closer to the building behind her and rips a giant satellite dish from its rooftop, using it as a shield. The razors deflect off the dish and come hurdling back toward the Devils.

Gluum shoots streams of black web, trying to catch the blades, but most of them slip through. Vega’s shoulder and T-Dakk’s foot, which luckily doesn’t have any feeling, each take a hit. Reynold’s left leg is also injured as one of the blades slices through the tendon just above his heel.

“
Shit!” Reynold yelps. He wraps both of his hands around his ankle, applying pressure. Blood spurts out from between his fingers in substantial gushes.

Krebb removes Vega’s katana and tosses it aside. He frantically searches for something else to fire. Suddenly he remembers the item he had stuffed into his leather sack, just after they had broken into the building—Qoser’s cue-ball eye. Originally he had brought it more as a good luck charm, but with its weight, it may be exactly what he needs.

Krebb loads the cue-ball into the chamber. He wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and cracks his knuckles.

“
Let’s hope I don’t scratch,” Krebb mutters to himself, taking aim. Dethbryte sways back and forth so quickly it is hard to get a clear shot in. Tiny lightning bolts fly out of her eyes and what’s left of her tongue begins to flick in and out of her mouth rapidly, like a snake. She’s readying her attack.

Sweat beads up on his forehead, collecting and streaming down into his eyes. He does not flinch.

He pulls the trigger.

A cue-ball forms and fires fast into the night sky. Krebb follows it with his eye, but loses sight of it after only a second.

The cue-ball crashes through Dethbryte’s skull with such force that it shatters the bone and splits her face completely in half. Blood, bone, brain, and saliva gush out of her face like a geyser, raining down fast on Tokyo. She screams like a warthog that just ate a trough full of broken glass and disappears into the depths below.

Reynold can hardly keep his eyelid open. It gets heavier the more blood he loses. Krebb throws down his KREBBOOM and helps Vega, who is still struggling to remove the blade from his shoulder. Gluum helps T-Dakk wrap his wound with a piece of cloth.

Reynold kneels on the floor, his hands slowly slip from his ankles as he becomes too weak to apply pressure. His blood pools around him. Bright white flashes like a strobe light in his eye.
White. Sky. White. Sky. White. Dethbryte. White.

Dethbryte is again standing tall beside THE BLITZ. Her split face is now nothing but a hole surrounded by blood and gore—completely unrecognizable. Out from the hole, her esophagus, gurgles a string of indecipherable speech. She pounds her fists down against the building, causing the floor to collapse from the vibration.

White. Sky. White. Sky. White.

Vega throws one of his katanas like a dart. The blade splits the air and buries itself in the neck flesh just under Dethbryte’s chin, severing the Power Glove cord. Dethbryte’s body shudders and implodes, much the same as Vandenboom’s body. She takes one final breath before her body splatters on the city street below.

White. Sky. White. White. White.

TWENTY-THREE

THE RED RAIN

Purple is gone now, as quickly as he came. The people, we stand in the red, red rain. The blood of the wicked is blood all the same. Together we stand in the red, red rain. Together we stand in the red, red rain. Together we stand in the red, red rain . . .