In The End (a PeteZahHutt fanfiction)

Chapter 9

The song for this chapter is "Ready Aim Fire" by Imagine Dragons. There is a place to start listening in the chapter.

I stared at the cyborg before me. It can't be Nooch, but...how? What?! And the corruption??? "Nooch?" I asked again, unable to think of anything else to say.

Nooch smirked and replied in a voice that didn't sound quite right, "Oh, Nooch is gone. Some of his memories and skills stuck, interestingly. I didn't think that would happen."

"Uh...what?"

Ryan activated his comm then and said, "Coming up on Nooch's base now. Did you find that mob?" His message shook me out of my stupor, and I realized "Nooch" had inched closer to me while I stood there like an idiot. I took a cautious step back up the stairs.

Thankfully I had my comm linked to an ear piece, which meant "Nooch" couldn't hear Ryan. The grayscale version of my friend continued talking, unaware that backup was on its way. "I have to hand it to Nooch. I never knew how much information he had crammed into that head of his. I wouldn't have made it out of The Nexus without him."

I casually scratched at my wrist behind my back, bumping the unmute button on my communicator in the process. I kept a close eye on the corruption, and it (he?) didn't seem to notice. No matter how much it looked like Nooch, I kept reminding myself it wasn't him. "So, if you're not Nooch, why exactly are you in his vault?" I asked, knowing the others would hear me.

Sure enough, Ryan, Choco, and Kenny started spouting off questions, but I focused more on what the corruption was doing and saying. I did not want to meet the same fate as Mat, whatever that fate was. "Nooch" smirked as he studied me. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Well, that's informative, I thought sarcastically. I decided to try a different question. "Why are you destroying worlds?" I asked, as much to tell my friends who I was talking to as to get answers.

"Why do I destroy worlds?" He laughed, throwing his head back almost exactly like Nooch would. "To be fair the first one was an accident." He looked back at me, this time with an evil glint in his eyes. "Rip CrazierCraft, huh?"

It took me a moment to process that. CrazierCraft imploded months ago. We'd only been tracking the corruption for a few weeks. How many worlds had been ravaged before we knew there was a problem? Wait, he's the reason CrazierCraft collapsed?! My eyes widened as that finally clicked, and he smirked.

(start song here)

Kara had spent a lot of time in CrazierCraft; she was only off world then because of a relative's birthday. If the corruption, or whoever this was, had gone to that world any other day, Kara would have been caught in the collapse. Between that thought and knowing this creature was the reason one of my best friends was gone, something snapped. I found myself moving before I'd mentally decided what to do, and I took a swing at him with my axe, yelling and leaping back down the steps I'd climbed. He raised a very familiar axe to block my blow as if it were nothing. He had my best axe from this world, but there was an odd grey sheen to the diamond weapon. My blow barely phased him, and I wondered how something made of smoke could be so solid. I took a few more swipes at him and he danced back out of reach, occasionally taunting me with a feint of his own. Once in the middle of the stone brick room, we began to circle each other. I blocked out the sound of my friends, focusing on the battle at hand.

I didn't know I was in trouble until I saw the staircase over Nooch's shoulder. He was between me and the only exit now. My momentary pause was apparently what he'd been waiting for. He rushed me then, and I barely got my axe up in time to block a crushing blow. The force of the impact nearly splintered my axe's handle, and I knew instantly that it wouldn't hold up to another such attack. My rush of anger ebbed as I hurriedly put distance between us. That was a skull splitter hit. It dawned on me that he had at least some of Nooch's knowledge of how weapons and armor enchantments in this world worked if he could use that skill. He'd baited me with that CrazierCraft jab, and I fell for it. Now I was cornered and badly undergeared.