Epithet Erased, page 3
“But do not fret, my loyal minions! I have not forsaken you! Nor have I given up my dream of becoming the Number One Villain of all time! For you see . . .” He turned dramatically to face them. “I have decided to start my own villainous organization! And you are all invited!!!”
“What’s it called?” asked Flamethrower.
“I don’t know.”
“What does it do?” asked Spike.
“I don’t know yet.”
“How will you get funding?” asked Dark Star.
“I don’t know that either. So!” he clapped his hands on his hips triumphantly, “Are you in!?”
The minions leapt to their feet and cheered.
There was never any question.
The Banzai Blasters organization was an openly malicious, bald-faced pyramid scheme that preyed on teens going through a rebellious phase and disenfranchised divorcees going through their mid-life crisis. People mostly joined the Banzai Blasters just so they could say that they were a part of something.
Giovanni’s minions were the same way when they joined. A gaggle of directionless jerks trying to find something, anything in life to get excited about. They had expected to spray paint a few walls. Steal some bikes. Littering. Loitering. Lil’ bit of lootering. But that was about it. And that’s probably what would’ve happened if they hadn’t been placed in the same squad as Giovanni Potage.
Giovanni wasn’t their leader at first. In fact, the management hadn’t assigned them a leader at all. The upper ranks of the Banzai Blasters only cared about making money which meant that all of their attention was spent on newbies who looked like their continued monthly membership might turn a profit. Captains and higher-ranking members were only assigned to recruits with a lot of promise. Apparently Giovanni’s gang didn’t make the cut.
The rest of them made fun of Giovanni at first. He insisted that his Banzai nickname be “Hotshot,” but instead the group settled on “Creampuff” to mock him for bringing a tray of homemade pastries to their squad’s first meeting as a way to say hello to his new teammates. Still though, they had to admit that they tasted great.
Whenever the group was in danger of settling into that “standing around in a parking lot and doing nothing” flavor of teenage boredom typical of a Banzai Blaster squad, Giovanni would light a fire under them. He came up with schemes, gave them goals to work towards. Midnight snack runs to the gas station turned into elaborate heists. They had show-and-tell nights where they would see who could steal and present the strangest item. Winners got star stickers. One time, they snuck into a convenience store and replaced all of the gas station hot dogs with cattails from a nearby pond.
It was undeniably stupid. But it was fun, and it gave them stories to tell. And that was all they really wanted.
Giovanni had so many ideas for things to do that following his plans became second nature. Dark Star jokingly called him “Boss” and the title stuck.
In time, the minions had fallen in love with their charismatic doofus of a leader (some of them very literally). These kids weren’t loyal to the organization, they were loyal to Giovanni. And they would follow him to the ends of the earth.
“ALRIGHT, THEN!” Giovanni slapped the table with a triumphant grin. “We’re a team again, boys! And we’ve already got our first SECRET MISSION! It’s got two deadly phases. Behold!”
The group grinned back and forth at each other. Giovanni spread a hand-drawn blueprint across the table. “This mission is scheduled . . . for THIS FRIDAY!”
The cheering stopped.
“Huh? What’s wrong?
“Uh . . . ‘This Friday’ as in . . . this Friday, this Friday?” Ben asked.
“Yes, this Friday, this Friday. Why?”
“. . . Can we move it?”
“NO we cannot ‘move it’, Ben! The deadline is Friday! That’s what it says on the blueprints!” He pointed to the blueprints. The word FRIDAY!!! was circled in big, red letters. Underneath the words OR YOU DIE!!! had been added in smaller letters for clarity.
“But . . . Friday is my big cheer competition,” Flamethrower frowned. Giovanni gasped. They’d all bought tickets! How could he have forgotten!?
“I am. SO. Sorry. New phase of the plan: Phase Zero. Someone needs to stay behind to film Flamethrower’s cheer meet so I can watch it later!”
“I can do that!” Ben raised his hand. “I’m already at all of his practices. I’ve been acting as a stand-in for the enemy team so they’ve got someone to jeer. They call me the jeerleader.”
“Good, gooood . . .” Giovanni wrung his hands together evilly. “As for the rest of you! Phase Two of the plan requires transport! Car Crash, are you available?”
“I’d love to, man,” said Car Crash, speaking from a cell phone they had propped up on a table on an old pizza box, “But after crashing our sixth and final family car, my parents grounded me for the rest of my foreseeable life!”
“Bummer! Dark Star, how about you?” Giovanni asked.
“I’d have to ask my mom first . . .” said Dark Star. Everyone collectively groaned. Ugh. Dark Star’s Mom.
“Ughhh, forget it,” Giovanni wilted. “Your mom over-researches EVERYTHING. It’ll take weeks before we get the okay and we’re on a deadline! Pfeh. Bureaucracy. How ‘bout the rest of you?”
“Sorry Boss,” Spike replied, “But word on the street is that the goose that stole my sandwich last spring is back in town. And I’m not letting that web-toed bastard walk away until I get what’s mine.” She punched her leather-studded fist into her hand and cracked her knuckles so hard it sounded like shattering ice.
“Ok, that is acceptable,” Giovanni said. “Because as we all
know . . .” He raised his hands like a conductor. “No matter what any corny four-o’clock-special like Ztreet Zmartz tries to tell you . . .”
“Revenge is actually awesome,” the minions chorused.
“. . . actually awesome.” Car Crash echoed, delayed by chat latency.
“Crusher? How ‘bout you, are you free?”
“ALWAYS BOSS.”
“Great! Phase One of this mission requires a chef. How are your baking skills?” Crusher banged his fists against the table.
“I CAN MAKE CEREAL, PROVIDED IT COMES IN A BOX.”
“What about cookies?”
“I WILL LEARN FOR YOU, BOSS.”
“No, no, that’s no good. The art of cookie-baking takes YEARS to master, and we only have a couple of days. You’ll have to man the home front on this one.”
“OKAY I WILL KEEP THE TREEHOUSE WARM FOR YOU, HONEY.”
“Hmm . . .” Giovanni mused. “It sounds like most of you will be indisposed for this mission. Very well! Go about your business! For now, your first assignment is to think of a cool new name for our organization!”
Giovanni’s boys began excitedly chatting amongst themselves and shooting ideas back and forth for their new bad guy group. Their leader turned dramatically towards the entrance of the treehouse and gazed out at the suburban landscape before him.
“This might be more difficult than I thought . . .” he mumbled. “But there’s still a chance. After all . . .”
“I still have one minion left to ask. . . .”
Prologue - The Rabbit Knight
GRAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOAAAR!!!
A thunderous roar echoed across a blood-red sky.
Otherworldly pink clouds exploded into mist as the shockwave of sound tore through them. Peals of white lightning criss-crossed the heavens like spiderwebs. Then . . . a massive figure rose in front of the sun . . . A colossal, reptilian monster, standing ten—no, a hundred stories tall!
Nothing ran from the creature. This was a dead land, silent and black. The plants and animals had burned away long ago. Nothing left now but the harsh stone of scorched earth, jagged and obsidian. A forest of petrified spires that might’ve once been trees stretched out towards the sky like hands reaching for salvation, crying out for some last, futile chance at mercy.
Perhaps, today, their calls would finally be answered.
A lone figure strode through the iron forest. A knight, covered head to toe in a suit of perfectly polished silver armor with a sword to match at her side. Her outfit practically glowed against the black velvet landscape. Each clink of her metal boots resonated like a melody in this songless land.
She put a hand on the hilt of her blade and called to the creature.
“At last . . .” she said. “After ten long years, my crusade has finally ended.”
“THAT VOICE . . .”
Something spoke. From everywhere and nowhere at once.
A voice so deep and ancient that it seemed the very earth itself was speaking with her. The monstrous pillar that blocked out the sky rotated until a single, blood-red eye appeared, shining down on her with hatred.
“YOU . . . YES . . . I REMEMBER YOU. THE ‘RABBIT KNIGHT’, WAS IT?”
The thing laughed. A horrid, reeking, guttural laugh, like a rancid cauldron about to boil over.
“HAVE YOU COME TO AVENGE YOUR TINY VILLAGE? . . . TO ‘SLAY’ ME?”
“I have.”
“HAH! MANY BEFORE YOU HAVE TRIED . . . AND ALL HAVE MET THEIR FATE BETWEEN MY FANGS AND MY FLAME . . . YOU SHALL BE NO DIFFERENT.”
“Not so, Dragon,” the Knight said. “For I have grown strong in the many years since we last met. I have traveled far. I’ve gained the king’s favor. I have single-handedly made my way through these Scorched Lands. And I have brought with me . . . the Sword of the Eclipse.”
The Knight drew her blade, slowly and with purpose. The moment the hilt left the scabbard a bright light radiated from the sword. It was unspeakably beautiful. The weapon was split in two colors down the length of the fuller: one half as white as pure snow and the other a black so deep it seemed like a hole in the air. She leveled the sword at the Dragon.
“HAH HAH HAH . . . IT HAS BEEN MANY YEARS SINCE I LAST LAID EYE UPON THAT BLADE. BUT . . . FOOLISH RABBIT . . . THOU MUST KNOW THE LEGEND? THE SWORD OF THE ECLIPSE IS USELESS IN THE HANDS OF A MERE MORTAL. TO STRIKE A FOE WITH IT IS TO CAST AWAY ONE’S OWN LIFE! NO . . . THE SWORD’S TRUE POWER CAN ONLY BE WIELDED BY A LUNARIAN . . . A DWELLER OF THE MOON . . . AND THEY WERE WIPED OUT CENTURIES
AGO . . . I SAW TO IT MYSELF . . .”
The knight smiled.
“. . . Not all of them.”
Suddenly, she cried out! A cry of power! Peals of brilliant moonbeams shot out from the slits in her visor, spearing into the dark landscape. Everywhere the moonlight touched, flowers bloomed. Grass grew a bright vibrant green, as if to defy the dead land around it.
The knight’s aura flared around her body, adding a second protective layer on top of her armor. The aura extended beyond her head and two long appendages wisped past the edge of her helmet, forming a pair of majestic rabbit ears.
“My father may be the one who taught me how to wield a sword, but THIS! This is the gift my mother bestowed upon me! My mother’s secret bloodline technique! That’s right . . . I am . . . half Lunarian!”
“AN ECLIPSE LUNARIAN!?” the Dragon recoiled! “NO! IT CANNOT BE! IMPOSSIBLE!!! THEY ARE BUT LEGEND! NOTHING MORE THAN A MYTH!”
“They will say the same of you once you have been slain! Now come, beast! Come and face your demise!” The knight held her shining sword at the ready.
“NO . . . THE PROPHECY! COULD IT REALLY BE TRUE?!”
“I see fear in your remaining eye, Dragon!” The Knight grinned. “What’s wrong? Does it remember? Does the sight of my sword remind you of that day? When my mother stole your other eye before you killed her!?”
“SILENCE, GIRL!!! I WILL NOT DIE! NOT HERE! NOT NOW! NOT EVER!!!” With titanic force the Dragon swung its enormous body down to glare at the girl face to face. No longer silhouetted by the light of the pink sun, its horrendous form was plain to see. Its left eye had long since burned out, but the right seared with red fury. A single coal in an ancient hearth, crimson and hellish. One last ember that hinted at the roiling fire deep inside the monster, the fire that had turned what was once a paradise into these Scorched Lands. The fire that had robbed so many of their families and their lives. The fire that all in this world knew to fear!
The fire of the dreaded S’more Dragon of the Scorched Lands!
Horrid to look upon!
Awful to taste!
Any sweetness that it once had burned away long ago in the bonfire of its belly. Now it sneered out at the world with hatred from underneath a crusty, ashen armor. Its chocolate scales, once tempered and shining, were now dull, dotted with white fat bloom like lichen on a dead tree. The cracks between its scales pulsed and glowed like a lava flow and smoke poured from its mile-long spine like a steampunk skyline.
The Dragon lowered its head and roared at the knight. Its graham cracker maw filled with horrible dripping marshmallow teeth that morphed and melted as it spoke.
“I WILL ROAST YOU . . . I WILL BURN YOU LIKE THE REST OF YOUR VILLAGE FOR YOUR INSOLENCE!” It sneered and exhaled a burning hatred against her armor.
The Dragon hoped that the girl was scared. It could not see her unfazed smile behind her visor. She had waited for this day for too long to be scared of anything anymore.
“Rejoice, Dragon. For I am merciful! And though you do not deserve it, I shall grant you a kindness! I promise to end this in one blow!”
The Rabbit Knight held her sword aloft and pointed it straight at his belly. However, she was not holding it by the hilt. She had lifted the blade by the pommel, the far end of the weapon. It was massively heavy, but she held it with ease. A testament to her unparalleled strength.
The Dragon’s crusty eye squinted. This was no swordsman’s
stance . . . No, the way the Rabbit Knight held her weapon was far too dainty. She outstretched her free hand into the empty air ahead of her.
“Secret Lunarian technique . . .”
The fingers on her free hand spun around in a flourish, and with a—snap!—a spark of iridescent light twinkled between her fingers. She brought her hand down in an arc and drew a brilliant rainbow through the air. She brought her arm behind her, then above, then all the way back to the front in a perfect circle, linking the ends of the rainbow together in a vibrant ring. The moment the circle was complete, the rainbow shimmered, solidifying from transparent color into an arc of solid light. She grabbed it with her free hand . . . and then drew the Sword of the Eclipse back towards her chest with the other. As she did, a second rainbow sprouted off of the ring and nocked itself into the pommel of the sword. She pulled it back like a drawstring on a bow!
She wasn’t going to slash the Dragon with the sword . . . she was going to fire it like an arrow! The name of her attack rang out against the pink sky:
“Mochi Moonbow!!!”
“THE MOCHI MOONBOW!? N-NO! THAT’S THE ULTIMATE MOVE!!!”
“That’s right! This is the end, Dragon!” The knight grinned as her auralike rabbit ears flared with power. “This is for my village!”
. . . ori . . .
“NO!” the Dragon cried, suddenly seeming much smaller than before. “P-PLEASE! I DIDN’T MEAN IT! HAVE MERCY!!!” It put its chocolate paws together in a pleading prayer, but the Knight could not be swayed! She pulled the drawstring.
“This is for all the lives you’ve stolen with your flames!!!”
. . . Lori! . . .
The sword was pulled back as far as it would go, but the Knight wasn’t done yet! Her aura surged in a series of sparkling white flourishes, flares, and dancing crosshairs. She would put everything she had into this attack! The moonbow shook. It’s string quivered with enough power to launch a skyscraper! This would be the final blow!
“And THIS is for my family who you burned!!!”
. . . Lorelai!!!
An echo punched into the fantasy.
The Rabbit Knight winced. Her bow faltered.
Ugh! C’mon, no . . . not now!
Something was wrong. The air of the Scorched Lands rippled, as if the sky was just a reflection in a pond that someone had poked. Then, without warning, Molly Blyndeff stuck her head through an opening in the air.
“You were s‘posed to do the dishes!” she said. “Now I’m not gonna have enough time to make dinner and do my homework!”
“Uggghhhhhhhhhhhh!” The Knight groaned with her entire body.
Her stately posture evaporated and the sparkling power dancing through her bow flickered away like a dying flashlight. The Rabbit Knight speared her sword into the ground in frustration and lifted her helmet. She tossed it to the floor in a tantrum and it shattered into sparkles like a falling star.
“You are SO annoying!”
Lorelai Blyndeff.
Molly’s freckle-faced older sister.
Seventeen years old and an absolute brat.
Her green eyes were almost like Molly’s, but just a little bit wrong. The younger sister had a quartet of dots in her iris arranged like holes in a button, while Lori’s trio of eye-dots danced in a triangle, bottom-side-up—a radioactive warning label. Her hair was the color of burnt caramel, dotted with honeycomb highlights that came together in a trio of blonde locks sticking out from the front, combed back into rabbit ears.
The teenager glared at her little sister. She had come here to yell at her again. That was all she ever did. Ugh.
Molly’s epithet could be used to make things quieter or to simplify them by “dumbing them down”. A volume dial to defend against sensory overload. Lorelai’s epithet, ☆Augment☆, was sensory overload incarnate. Where the younger sister could make things quiet, the older sister could make them louder. That said, Lori’s ability to manipulate noise wasn’t the problem. The real issue was her ability to augment reality.
Ever since she was little, Lori could make what she called “Dream Bubbles”. They were a sort of pocket dimension, and inside each one was an entire world where Lorelai could manifest whatever she wanted. High fantasy castles, carnivals, ice cream parlors, you name it. So long as she could dream it, she could create it, and little girls are very creative.
