Arc II, Chapter 66: Sparks Fly

I didn’t have time to mourn Carlyle. The Die Cast, far removed from its original purpose, was not sated by the death of the eldest Geist. It wanted more.

Kimberly and I scrambled back over the fence toward the exit. The air was thick with smoke.

The Die Cast followed.

Its tropes held clues on how to beat it or at least how to survive a little longer. I knew it could outspeed us to a new shooting location. On that note, we were good. This whole place was likely one shooting location, if I were to guess. He wouldn’t get a Hustle boost as long as we were here.

My strategy? Find a way to slow him down and then get far enough away for the scene to end and First Blood to officially have passed. We would get a reprieve then, however minor.

That was all well and good, but how would we stop this thing? He was bigger than me and built like a truck (and that wasn’t even counting the metal parts). The bad luck aura was the real problem. Anything could fail. Anything could become a deadly weapon in its vicinity.

Anything. A gun, a fence, a… golf cart.

I barely heard the whir of the electric golf cart as it whizzed through the artificial streets, dodging obstacles and building up speed.

Bobby was at the helm. He must have gotten his dogs sorted out.

As he got close to the Die Cast and it turned to see him, Bobby’s eyes got wide, and he lost some of his conviction from the effects of the aura. Still, he put all his effort into keeping the gas pedal down, and then, with his last bit of bravery, he jumped from the seat.

Interestingly, I had played around on an electric cart like the ones on the movie studio lot. Unlike their gas-powered cousins, they didn’t really maintain speed when the accelerator was not compressed. I half expected the cart to slow down to a dull jog before it hit its target.

It didn’t. The cart slammed into the Die Cast and took him off his feet, pushing him away from us and into the wall of a nearby brick house, which crumbled.

The crash was loud and filled the air with dust and debris. The Die Cast was covered in bricks, to the point that I could not see him.

Bobby didn’t have a great Savvy stat. He had spent his stats elsewhere, so that wasn’t why the golf cart plan worked. What Bobby did right was give Carousel something to work with. Gale Zaragoza had a trope that made his actions more cinematic and explosive, but as the golf cart began spewing white-hot molten globs as its battery burst, I realized that things like “getting hit by a golf cart” must have counted as an action.

He had a weakness.

Another point for the Wallflower.

Bobby was still recovering from his run-in with the concrete sidewalk he had rolled onto when he left the golf cart.

I ran to help him up.

“I was looking for Mr. Geist,” he said as he got to his feet.

“He’s dead.”

Bobby nodded, “Yeah, I’m not surprised. What is that thing?”

Oh, right, horror movie banter. He was a clueless side character.

“A mistake,” I said glumly.

That should help rehabilitate my character a bit. Admitting guilt is a great first step. The second step was surviving long enough for the audience to remember you.

As Gale Zaragoza’s undead body started throwing bricks, timber, and a golf cart off of himself, I realized that would be easier said than done.

I expected Gale to roar or something. He didn’t. He was silent as the grave. His mouth was basically welded shut, so that made sense.

“Kimberly,” I said. “Run. Get out of here!”

I tried helping Bobby forward. Only then did I realize he was Hobbled from his fall. His knee cap stuck out funny.

Our best shot was if Kimberly left. She was a main character, a truly innocent person who got wrapped up in all of this.

If she were gone, there was a good chance we might go Off-Screen. An even better chance, thanks to my Offscreen Death ability. If I could just take this fight Off-Screen, I might have a chance at getting away. The enemy would still pursue me, but it would be different. I had learned that with the Grotesques. They stopped being larger than life Off-Screen. There was no other way to explain it.

I had to believe that was the way forward.

We couldn’t go Off-Screen, though, unless Kimberly left, if even then.

“Just leave us!” I screamed.

I was rehabilitating my character so, so well.

It might have worked, too.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Kimberly leaves, and I “die” Off-Screen. It could have worked out well.

The Die Cast had other plans.

He picked up the golf cart and threw it into a treehouse that was in a plaster tree near where Kimberly was standing.

The crash was louder than a lightweight cart would merit. The fake tree wasn’t held down by much, apparently, because it fell over, peeling up a fake grass as it did. Its treehouse broke apart and created a debris field of pallet boards and plywood from which Kimberly had to back away.

The treehouse had Christmas lights as decorations. The power was out to the building, but those lights were lit. When they became a tangled mess on the ground, they started sparking.

This was too frustrating. It was almost as if this entire building was designed to make this Chase/Fight scene as difficult as possible.

Kimberly couldn’t go over the debris field. That was surely a good way to get electrocuted.

As it walked toward her, I leaned Bobby up against a stop sign and took off toward the Die Cast.

I grabbed a brick from the wall that had fallen. It was rubber or foam of some kind. Of course, it was. This was a movie set. The realization that the falling bricks I had heard had been a real-life sound effect caused by the Die Cast’s cinema trope almost made me smile. Almost.

I threw the foam brick at the Die Cast. It clanged off the creature’s metal fixtures as if it were made of actual brick.

The Spirit of Vengeance could target everyone. Anyone could die. Unlike most enemies, it didn’t pick a target and kill it before moving on. It could pick any target.

A player could defend his ally with nothing but bravery and a foam brick. Normally, you would need a trope to make an enemy truly target you on purpose.

“It’s my fault you’re here,” I said. “I didn’t think the curse was real. I don’t know what I thought. I was just angry, and I did something unforgivable. Take me and leave her alone.”