Clown Wyrm - 29. Chapter 29 - Heads

The Mechanic grabbed Mercury and Periwinkle by their wrists. “Hey! Are you two okay? You each went rigid for a second, like you were having a fit or something.”

The two clowns realized they were back inside R’Kathlug, but the light from the dragon’s cerebral ganglia was no longer blinking, and its words were not in the clown’s heads.

Mercury focused on Periwinkle. “Norjia only had it half-right. It’s both of us. The prophecy we just heard is about both of us together.”

“What did you just hear?” the Mechanic asked in dismay.

The two clowns turned to her.

“R’Kathlug just spoke to us,” Periwinkle stated.

“He showed us the past,” Mercury added. “We really are from the past of this world.”

“And we saw how the dragon rose to power.” Periwinkle scrunched up his face and continued. “Someone we thought was our friend sacrificed us to R’Kathlug when the monster was just a baby. He gave both of us to the dragon in exchange for power. I don’t know why we were somehow jolted forward to now in the process though.”

“I think we’re supposed to take the dragon to the next step in its lifecycle,” Mercury stated. “The dragon said we were supposed to replace Domino. R’Kathlug needs both of us to access its greater magic, its cosmic magic. It’s going to consume the planet.”

Periwinkle looked up at Domino’s body suspended above them. “How are we supposed to do that?”

As if in answer to his quandary, the fleshy tendrils that suspended Domino lowered his body until he was being held upright just above the spongy floor of the inside of R’Kathlug’s pharynx. Domino’s sightless, glowing eyes stared at nothing.

“How do we take his place?” Mercury asked, having no intention of replacing Domino, and instead, she drew the Planet Smasher. With a fell swipe, she slashed it through the connection between Domino’s right wrist and the dragon.

R’Kathlug’s cerebral ganglia flashed in fury.

Cease your foolish actions! You cannot kill a god, and it is time for your ascension!

Mercury plunged the tip of the Planet Smasher into Domino’s heart, and the dragon let out a roar. The beast shook, and the three inside it fell.

The sword was still in Domino’s chest, and Mercury reached for it, but an eldritch bubble of energy appeared at the crown of Domino’s head, and it began to grow.

Mercury grabbed Periwinkle’s hand and jumped up with him. “Help me!” she shouted, and they both took hold of the Planet Smasher’s handle.

From the Mechanic’s position on the floor, she watched the bubble of energy at Domino’s head growing as if in slow motion. It produced no illumination, and the Mechanic could see through it. Time seemed to drag as the Mechanic watched the bubble expand, encompassing Domino’s head and removing it from existence. As the bubble expanded, anything it swallowed was unmade from reality.

Mercury and Periwinkle were focused on the Planet Smasher as they tried to wrench it from Domino’s body, but as the mystical bubble of unmaking came into contact with each of them, they froze, as if briefly paused in time, while the bubble grew in all directions and swallowed them out of that magical future world.

They did it! the Mechanic thought as the bubble expanded outward in all directions. They’ve undone reality!

Inside the bubble was not even nothingness, not even a void; there was only the absence of matter. Just before it touched the Mechanic, removing her from reality as well, she smiled and thought, Norjia, I’m coming, my love, and the Mechanic was gone.

The bubble continued to grow, and soon it had consumed R’Kathlug, the volcano, and the palace. It stretched farther, swallowing the outlying villages and the vast forest, expanding to the edges of Armonia and beyond. The bubble did not stop when the continent that Armonia sits on had disappeared, nor when the vast oceans that surround the landmass ceased to exist, but the terrible bubble was finally satiated when it had devoured the entire planet and its surrounding reality…

…and there was nothing.

Mercury and Periwinkle suddenly found their physical bodies in the bar at Unholy Mead. All the lights were on, but they clicked off as soon as the clowns arrived, and they heard Domino’s voice.

“Well, that was a successful opening.”

Then they heard his clomping footsteps descending into the basement, and the two sneaked to the top of the stairs. They caught a glimpse of Domino before he stepped out of view.

“Holy fuck,” Mercury breathed to Periwinkle, “he’s literally right about to Wicker Man us!” She looked down. Coiled in her fingers was the hilt of the Planet Smasher. “I’m gonna cut his fucking head off.”

She raced down the stairs with Periwinkle behind her, and Domino did not even have time to register that the clowns were wearing entirely different clothes, and their makeup was not done, as she stabbed the sword into his stomach.

Domino wheezed, and his mouth gaped at the air like a fish, but no words came out.

Mercury screamed as she pulled and swung, yanking the blade from him and slicing through his neck.

Domino’s head thudded to the floor of the basement. His body fell to its knees and collapsed sideways, and his blood gushed and pulsated from the hideous wound. It flowed toward the hole in the floor with the plank of wood that concealed the hatchling god.

“We stopped it,” Mercury declared. “We’ve stopped R’Kathlug. “We’ve stopped it all.” Her shoulders sagged, and the sword dropped from her grip and clanged to the floor.

Then a shrill and terrible shriek rang out from beneath the wood. R’Kathlug was drinking Domino’s blood. The plank rattled and shifted, and it slid into the hole.

Mercury and Periwinkle could not see down into the cocoon, and they cautiously approached, but there was no sign of R’Kathlug.

The hole was empty, and there was a crack at the bottom of it leading deep into the earth.

“We… we stopped it, right Periwinkle?”

He leaned over and peered down the hole, but there was no sign of the beast.

“I hope we didn’t just cause something worse.”

The End?