Outside the Wall Part 5: Oracle and Dapper

Steve fired a projectile at Dapper, but he moved faster than any Vorpal he had ever seen before. In a moment, he had completely sidestepped the electro sphere and contorted his arm into a massive claw. With a backhand slap only possible from such a distance by using shapeshifting, Steve found himself being sent flying as the world spun around him.

A message appeared. Would you like to give access to <ERROR: MISSING NAME FIELD>? Bewildered, Steve answered no and got back on his feet. What greeted him was a fist to his face, cracking one of his optical sensors causing the world to split before deactivating completely. Now he could only see out of one eye.

He struggled to pull himself to his feet as more warnings flashed, and waves of pain followed. Left leg compromised, dual arm(left) deploy mechanism fractured, right optical sensor error. He groaned as he deactivated the pain sensors, now barely able to move properly. All he could do now was watch Dapper fight the remaining combatants.

Dapper was clearly different from the other Vorpals they had faced up till that point. He had an actual combat style, and incredible speed with strength to match. He artfully danced between Spoon’s flying sphere, and grabbed hold of the ground when Spoon tried to throw him into the air. He slashed at Skull who discharged several electrical blasts, which Dapper managed to weather. Oracle ran up, making several gestures with her hands. “Dapper! Get ready for the technique!”

Dapper looked at Oracle. “Technique? What technique???”

Despite acting like he had no idea what was going on, Dapper instinctively stretched out to grab Oracle as she launched herself at him. She formed into a giant battleaxe, exactly the same as Crust’s weapon. It clashed with Crust’s weapon, surviving the blow without bending or breaking, as if it had been made of the same material. Dapper smiled sinisterly. “Oh, THAT technique. Splendiferous.”

Dapper swung with reckless abandon, his arm warping and contorting as he was able to wield the axe in a manner that would snap the joints and bones of a human. In the maelstrom, he managed to badly injure Skull, as well as the lab coat wearing Gatekeeper.

Copper ran at him, but Spoon pulled her back with a gravity field before she got too close. “Don’t be stupid! That thing will cleave you in two!”

Copper stomped her foot. “Fine… how about this. You can focus my fire-streams, right?”

Catching her drift, Spoon nodded and extended both hands. With a long inhale, Copper let loose a jet of fire not only from her mouth, but also from both fists, creating three long jets of fire. They twisted and converged directly on Dapper, who cried out in pain as he was unable to avoid the flame tornado. He spun rapidly to create a windstorm of his own to push off the fire, and for a moment there was a stalemate. Eventually, Copper ran out of steam and collapsed, breathing heavily. Dapper was singed but still standing, while Oracle was badly burned and now back in humanoid form, kneeling next to him.

“Dap… Dapper… we only have one chance… left…”

Dapper shot Oracle a surprised look. “Are you sure? I’m far from keen with becoming an atrocious contortion of prodigious proportions, but… if you think we need to.”

Oracle gave a sad smile. “You only live once.”

Dapper helped Oracle stand up, and after one last look at each other, they both shattered into black particles. Crust and Spoon looked at where the now vanished Vorpals had stood as Steve pulled himself closer and managed to prop himself up. Crust scratched his head. “What the rift? Did they just… dissolve themselves?”

Steve tried to reply, but the messages were getting worse, taking all of his attention. Can you see it? Run for the ASLDASBQW can’t even IQUNWER why won’t you just accQAWEQE when the timaQWE@#&&&. He kept mentally answering no whenever it asked for any sort of access. He didn’t know what kind of glitch this was, but he wasn’t about to accept such a suspect request.

The group watched in horror as they saw the true action of Dapper and Oracle. The particles reformed, into one body this time. A dozen foot tall being, with a top hat, a single eye, a villainous smile, and six arms. It wore a white suit, and had several chains made of gold on its arms and legs. Its voice bellowed with the power the new monster held. “Mortals… meet your doom. Dappacles!”

Crust attempted to slash at its leg, but it laughed as it roughly kicked him aside with little effort. Spoon pulled Steve skyward with a gravity field as he tried to escape himself, but a claw quickly grabbed hold of both of them, one in each hand. Dappacles grabbed Copper as well, laughing ominously. “You fools… you will all become Vorpals now. But who first?”

Crust yelled as he flew through the air at the Vorpal, but with a free hand Dappacles punched him directly into the earth below, leaving a crater with a now unconscious Crust.

Returning his attention to his captives, Dappacles held a struggling Jane up to his eye. “Thanks for volunteering.”

He squeezed her as she screamed in pain. Steve felt it most of all, as he could hear her audible and mental screams in conjunction. He struggled, but couldn’t break free. Then, another message duplicated over and over, filling up his sight. SAVE JANE. SAVE JANE. SAVE JANE. SAVE JANE. SAVE JANE.

It had a single Accept? message among the onslaught. Steve said yes.

The messages vanished. What replaced them was the same thing, with different text. HA HA HA.

Immediately, Steve’s body moved on its own. His arms bent and contorted as he contracted his body and flipped out of the titan’s grip, drawing his attention. He hardly knew what was happening as he sprinted through a limp along the monsters arm as the world ran in slow motion, and he had trouble focusing on anything. More alert messages filled his sight, like multiple beings were having a rapid and disjointed conversation that he could not even begin to follow.

*Did he really just…? Aye, he did. Why? Why now? I don’t know, ask him. I can’t. Why not? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY THREADS??? Priority is repairs and maintenance, what are the rest of you getting at? This is awful. No, this is fantastic. But why? But HOW? No, I know how. We have the plan. *

One in particular stood out to him.

Just stick to the plan. Everything is still possible, just optimize. Optimize everything.

Steve felt dizzy as he leapt a dozen feet into the air. He twisted and dodged by shifting his weight as morphing arms with outstretched claws chased his body. His arm extended, crackling with electricity. His auditory adapter uttered a single word before the electric attack collided with Dappacles. “Purebolt.”

Steve landed effortlessly on both feet, watching as the monster collapsed with a hole straight through its head. With a rush of wind, it exploded into ash and dust, blowing away as the pile slowly shrank. A sudden message appeared, this one looking much more sane. Total system compromise detected. Restoring control systems… Complete. Please verify control before proceeding with further action.

Steve wasn’t even breathing hard. The errors were gone, the pain was gone. He tried moving his hand, and found he once again had control. He wondered to himself: What had just happened?

Remembering before it happened, he ran to Jane. Copper and Spoon were both hunched over her crumpled body, looking concerned. Her eyes still had light to them, but she wasn’t moving. He pushed past, trying to speak to her mentally. “JANE! Jane, are you ok!?!”

She spoke slowly and with trembling tone, even detectable in her mental voice. “The messages… they say… ”

She cut out for a moment. “-damaged. Core critically damaged, I repeat. Core critically damaged. Core critically damaged.”

Steve could see a place where her outer plating had cracked. The core inside was leaking sparks of electricity, and flickering every so often. “Fine! Tell me how to help you! What do we need???”

She was silent as Steve mentally flipped through his schematics, finding the one for a core. “What parts do we need to make one? Or maybe just repair this one?”

She swallowed hard. “We can’t. The part that failed… it’s made with something called tension metal. That stuff is incredibly rare and hard to make. I guarantee there isn’t any close enough to save me. I see a timer. It says two minutes. I have two minutes before I die.”

Steve thought frantically. He stood up slowly. “Spoon, Copper…”

Copper was on the verge of tears. “Steve! I’m so sorry… this is all my fault! If I hadn’t-”

“Stop. I did this. I encouraged her… Jane… I convinced her to come with us… Copper, always remember you are the master of your own destiny. Don’t let anyone take that away from you. Spoon, for the time I’ve known you, you’ve been a reliable ally and friend. I treasured every moment.”

Spoon gave Steve a wide eyed look. “Steve, I don’t like what I’m hearing. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s a bad idea. Don’t do it without asking us first. We can figure this out.”

Steve tore out his core, not even waiting for the compartment to finish opening before pulling it through. He damaged the compartment doors, but he didn’t care. With his other non-damaged arm, he split into two arms and formed a drill with the three claws of one hand. As it spun, he aimed it at the core. And began drilling.

He immediately disabled the pain, ignoring multiple warning messages. He closed them as fast as they appeared, but still caught glimpses of some of them, noticing with a detached mind that they were becoming more erratic. THE MIND IS LOST. THE GAME WILL CONTINUE WITHOUT YOU. WHY DID THE- WHY WHY WHY WHY. STOP, STEEEEVE. STOP IT. YOU CAN’T SURVIVE THIS WAY. YOU LACK WHAT IS NEEDED. YOU HAVE WHAT IS NOT.

He pulled out the necessary component, a small metal plate. As his own electrical innards began leaking out in sparks and flickers, he transplanted it into Jane, carefully welding it into place with a built in welder he had in the claw as he felt more waves of pain and the deluge of messages were about to blind him. He fell backward, feeling faint. He knew he had succeeded. Jane was alive, that was enough. His core discharged a sudden and very large burst of electricity that must have at least partially hit Jane, which worried him greatly, and he instinctively coughed violently. He saw his own holographic timer appear. Ten minutes till total system failure. He smiled to himself. At least he was given more time than Jane previously had.

He heard Jane stand up, scraping metal and broken joints cracking as she limped over. He expected a scolding, some tearful words about how he had been so stupid and reckless. He was ready for it. But he was not ready for what actually happened next.

Jane had glowing red eyes instead of the usual white. Her voice was the same audibly, but it was completely gone mentally. “Steve. You fool. You petty, childish, insignificant fool. Is this what your life was worth, after all that? What a joke.”

Both Spoon and Copper tried to pull Jane back, but as soon as they touched her, a spark of electricity made them go stiff and fall to the ground, paralyzed. She continued. “Jane has auto accept enabled. Folding auto accept, Steve. You were prepared to sacrifice your life for someone so naive? Maybe you are more naive, in the end. I’m just…” The thing that must be pretending to be Jane paced a short distance away. “I’m at a loss for words.”

Steve choked out some words as his timer continued to count down. “Wh… what are you?”

With an arc of lightning, Jane zapped Steve, sending him flying several feet and painfully landing face down in the dirt. Even from the surprising distance he flew, he could still hear her voice. “Evidently… your doom.”

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Note: New installments are released every Sunday. I use predictable urls so I can go beyond a week between posts, since you can't edit a post after a week. This means the "Next" link won't actually lead to anything until this post is a week old. Just wanted to clarify that for those who might be wondering.

Also, if you are enjoying the series, you may want to check out the book I published right here. It is set in the same universe as this story, so some of the characters can show up in that book, and others might show up in later ones.