Hardman's Bar

By Hadrian Howell (Hardman)

Chapter 40

The entire team went with me as I dropped Cassandra off at Dr. Light’s house. There were questions, of course, and we told Dr. Light pretty much everything that had happened, so he agreed to keep Cassandra safe there while we dealt with Hakushaku.

As we left the Light household, something occurred to me.

“Do we even know where this guy is?” I asked.

“I’ve got a good lead,” Shadowman said simply, leading the way.

We moved in silence, following our leader to the opposite edge of town from Skull Fortress to a small clearing in a forest about two miles out of town.

“This is it,” Shadowman nodded.

“What is?” Topman asked.

“This is where we’re supposed to be.”

Geminiman looked around. “This doesn’t look very… well, like anything.”

“It isn’t the woods, Gemini,” Needlegal spoke up. “Look at the ground.”

All eyes traveled downward, and there, in the grass, drawn with blood, was a circle. One I recognized.

“Aw, dammit.”

“What is it, Hardman?” Topman asked me.

“It’s a summoning circle. I recognize it from when those brats burned down my bar…”

“Isn’t that why you don’t have fire insurance?” Magnet asked.

“Pretty much,” I sighed.

“So, wait, we have to use this thing to get to wherever Hakushaku is?” Geminiman asked.

“Exactly,” Gauntlet nodded. “Any ideas?”

Geminiman grinned. “Yeah, I’ve got one.”

So saying, he kneeled down and placed his hands on the ground, and started muttering under his breath in a language I didn’t understand. The circle began to glow.

“Am I missin’ somethin’?” I asked.

“Geminiman’s always been pretty good at this magic stuff,” Topman shrugged. “Might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.”

The glow of the circle intensified as Geminiman continued to mutter. After a while, his voice began to raise, although his words didn’t become any clearer. An energy started to course through the air, like some kind of airborne sugar buzz. Suddenly, there was a crack and a flash, and we were somewhere different.

Stone walls and floors gave the room a dungeon-like feel, although the archaic presentation of the room was ruined by a glass window that gave us a clear view of the Earth below.

“We’re in SPACE?” Magnetman asked. “How’d we get up here?”

“Don’t things like this always end in space?” Needlegal asked in general.

“Yeah,” Snakeman said sullenly, “and with the heroes running against time to escape the falling space station after the great evil is defeated.”

“Let’s not dwell on that, shall we?” Sparkchan said.

I was still confused about something. “Gem, what’d ya DO back there?”

My twin-terror ally made a show of brushing the dust off his hands. “Well, the circle led here, so I hijacked it.”

“What, like magically hacking a teleporter?”

“Pretty much.”

“Neat-o,” I nodded.

“Let’s just get a move on,” Shadowman said, showing us a door out of the room we’d found ourselves in. “Bets are the easy part is over.”

Aside from the fact that we happened to be in orbit around our home planet, the structure we found ourselves in gave the feel of a very gothic castle. Motionless suits of armor lined some of the hall ways we traveled through, each holding a large halberd, standing at a quiet attention. We came to a grand, carpeted staircase, with a massive set of wooden double doors at the top, and a tremendous tapestry over the door that was a deep red, and very plain except for a swirling pattern that took up the center.

“Anybody wanna bet what’s behind door number one?” I asked as we scaled the stairs.

“We’ve killed him before, we can do it again,” Topman said.

Snakeman and I opened the doors and the team filed into the room as a whole. This was a massive circular chamber, with stained glass windows, hard wood floors, and a long red carpet that went up another set of stairs on the other side of the room, and an old enemy standing there at the foot of those stairs.

Mesmerman smiled, like always. His real-life form was nowhere to be seen.

“Ya just dunno when ta die, do ya?” I growled.

“Now, now, Hardman,” that cold, high voice sliced through my brain, “Are you upset because I messed with your little friend?”

“I’m BEYOND upset.”

“Well, it can’t be helped,” he chuckled. “She did want so badly to fight along side you. She really does like you, you know, in that sick sort of platonic, sisterly sort of way.”

“I will laugh for a week STRAIGHT when we finally kill you,” I snarled.

“Easy, Hardman,” Snakeman said. “He’s just messing with you, like he always does.”

“No,” Shadowman shook his head. “He’s beyond messing with us. He’s insuring that no matter what happens, he gets to come back to life.”

Mesmerman’s head threw itself back as laughter echoed through the chamber. “Bravo, Shadowman, bravo. Figured out my little trick, have we?”

“What’s this nut job talking about?” Magnetman asked. I was a little confused too, as was Geminiman, who made this known.

“It’s obvious,” Needlegal said, rolling her eyes. “He gets all his power from Evil Energy, and I bet he’s found a way to gather it at all times, whether he’s actually alive or not. So all he has to do is provoke hate and malice and he gets to keep coming back.”

“Indeed!” Mesmerman laughed. “I am well and truly immortal, Maniacs! I’m the foe that you cannot kill!”

“Wonderful,” I said, a real smile breaking out across my face.

“What?” Mesmerman asked, his laughter cutting itself short.

“That means we get to keep kicking the crap outta ya!” I grinned.

Shadowman smiled. “Let’s get him!” he shouted.

We all charged forward, a wall of angry machines charging toward what was really just an illusion. That illusion kind of sagged with the realization that he really didn’t have any way of standing up to us.

Got to give him credit for trying though. His scythe appeared in his hands as Topman approached, crashing into the floating pieces of Mesmerman at a high speed. The holographic Master flew backwards, actually bouncing UP a few steps before Shadowman was suddenly on top of him, pinning two of his arm pieces to the stairs with Shadow Blades and giving his head a healthy kick.

At this point, Mesmerman split up, literally, his free pieces whipping around the room at lightning speeds while his head and torso floated above it all. The scythe still whipped around dangerously in the maelstrom, and glance off me twice before Geminiman and Geminiman grabbed it and held it down, while Geminiman started to line up a shot with the Gemini Laser.

A foot came out of nowhere and slammed into Geminiman’s gut, making him double over, but not really hurting him. Sparkchan fried the piece with her Spark Shot and I caught the other one as it tried to literally kick her butt with a Hard Knuckle. Magnetman had taken out some of the magnetized bullets from earlier and, keeping a good distance from me, started them whipping around in his own small maelstrom, completely destroying three of Mesmerman’s pieces. Needlegal’s efforts with her Needle Cannon pinned another two pieces to the carpeted floor.

Mesmerman’s head and torso shouted in pain as a Shadow Blade sank into his back, and a piece he sent at terminal velocity at the leader of the Maniacs went right through him.

“HA!” Mesmerman shouted in triumph as Shadowman slumped to the ground.

And then there were Shadow Blades everywhere, pinning all the remaining pieces to the walls and floors, and sinking into Mesmerman’s eye. The body and head fell to the ground with a final thump at Shadowman’s feet. He smiled.

“Just a hologram,” he smirked.