Last Pasta Standing 2: Union and Reunion

Chapter 5: A Bit Too Real

I followed the rolling head down the basement stairs.  What awaited me wasn't expected.

"Hmm..." I said, "I was wondering when the real challenge would arrive..."

Down the stairs of the basement,  awaited me a grand, burning hellscape that spouted lava springs from lesions like thirty year old boils.  Gigantic mountains of unidentifiable, red stone crowded the great valley where I was standing.  The mountains all seemed to lean in at the tips like a ribcage as though they too wanted to observe my trials.  I was so caught up in the majesty of it all that I almost forgot about the head.  Surely it was leading me to my next trial.  As I followed, the time seemed to slow as the scenery changed from a hellscape to some sort of...void-scape.  Red stone was replaced by dark blue soil, lesions of lava with irregularly large mushrooms, and mountains with dead drop offs on either side of me.

I followed that head for the longest time until finally...it stopped.  I looked up in front of me and dropped my jaw.  Towering above me was a grand castle that looked like it was made entirely of glass.  An opaque glass, though, with a tint of amber stain.  It vaguely reminded me of Toby's glasses.  Suddenly, I heard a loud noise from just behind the grand draw bridge leading to the castle that reminded me of a flood or tidal wave.  The bridge lowered, and a huge mass of darkness came flooding out of the main gate.  In the few seconds I had to react, I decided that I would try out my new wings.

It turns out that when you wake up with a pair of dragon wings, you also wake up with the perfect skill to use them.  I soared straight into the air with such speed that I wasn't prepared, and nearly got whiplash.  I hovered there, calibrating myself to this newfound strength, and noticed that the dark mass had reached my original location, and was now rising into the air with as much speed as my own. I flew as fast as I could strait into one of the upper chambers of the castle.  Of course, the only way past the walls of the castle were through them.

CRASH!!!

It was a hallway.  Rooms lit by small, magic torches lined each wall on either side.  I came across a smaller door than most that was marked with a plate on the door.  Upon it was inscribed "???"  Of course, when I saw that, I opened the door out of sheer curious reflex.  I am not comfortable sharing what I saw in that room.  I immediately closed the door with a slam, and blocked it with my body.  Panting in shock and fear, I saw that the door directly across from me was much more interesting.

I approached the much larger set of double-doors, and read the inscription on the plate above it.  It read "666".  I stared at it, and told myself "I have a very bad feeling about this..."  I then consented that my gut was never right, and plunged strait through the doors.

My gut was right.

Through those doors was the grandest throne room that I have ever seen before or since, in real life or otherwise.  Sitting upon the throne, however, was someone not so grand at all.

The throne room was grey-toned with hints of blood red and that amber color, and the carpet was made of gold that hurt my eyes when I looked at it.  I scowled at the sight of Zul'Goth sitting atop that throne, stirring feelings of contempt and revenge; then I saw the cages hanging above him.  In said cages were my friends.

I shook from rage before managing a question I had been waiting to ask for a long time.

"What have you done to them?" I asked Zalgo.

No answer.  The eldritch horror simply laughed as two guardsmen at the foot of the collosal chair readied their weapons.  They looked like what happened to my mom; dead black eyes, hivemind-like behaviors, and a grim determination on their faces that didn't seem to be their own.

"What did you do to them, you MONSTER!!?!???!!!" I repeated.

He only laughed harder and louder at my blatant and angered ignorance.  "You should look at yourself, boy," he said, "I would use a different name if I were you."

"Answer.  The question." I demanded, seething with unspeakable rage.  I could feel tears rolling down my face.

He kept smiling; as though he considered my suffering and anguish amusing.  He probably did, now that I think about it.  "I don't know what is more hilarious, mortal; that you can't see it, yourself, or that you actually think you are intimidating.  Look at them boy.  What do you think I did to them?  Sat them down for ice cream at the happy shop?  LOOK at them!  I have destroyed them!  I have broken their minds, and now their will is mine."  He grinned wickedly.  "They always were," he said, raising his hand, "All they needed was a little persuasion..."

I watched helplessly as Zalgo snapped his fingers, and dark tentacles crawled up to the cages.  Hope reached out to Toby from her cage as Toby simply squirmed around like he was having a seizure, and probably was. Jeff struggled like a disparate animal, and sounded like one too.  Seeing all this, I felt what I came to recognize as the activation of my powers, but this time, it was amplified by undescribable numbers.  My emotions were racing everywhere, but most prevalent among them was rage.  No one hurts my friends.  No one.  Shouting this, I lunged at Zalgo in an attempt to give him the same fate as his minion, but it didn't work so well.

Mid-launch, I froze in the air, as though I was in suspended animation.  I couldn't move a muscle!  Zalgo waved his finger at me.  "Tsk, tsk, tsk..." he said, "I don't think you're ready for me-" Suddenly, time froze.  My thoughts were running faster than a supercomputer, and my muscles felt as though they were about to burst.  I had one job, and I was not going to fail them.  I had to save my friends.  Breaking free of the magical bonds, I raised my left hand.

Stopping suddenly as time moved forward once more, Zulg'Oth was interrupted by a bolt of lightening.  In a flash, a large hole appeared in his chest, and the glass wall behind his throne had shattered.  As I dropped to the floor, I glared at his cursing corpse, and said "I don't think your ready for me, abomination."