♧♧♧ POV Mr. Stupid (a.k.a. Kingler) ♧♧♧
Waking up after being knocked in a fight was never pleasant, but this time it was even worse than usual. As soon as I regained consciousness, I instantly realized I was neither on the sand of my beach nor on the seabed where I lived with my family, but rather in a place I knew very well: The Corphish Cave.
At any other time in my life, no matter how distant, I wouldn't have minded waking up groggy in my beloved cousins' house. I would have felt quite comfortable, in fact. However, the memories of the previous day shone like the dawn sun in my head.
We'd… no, I'd screwed up. I'd underestimated my opponent, and there was no doubt in my mind that I and mine were going to pay the price.
The incessant bellowing of the now Crawdaunt made that clear. I didn't need to open my eyes to know who it was. That smart-aleck voice was unmistakable, it didn't matter that he had evolved and was giving the speech of their lives to my three strongest subjects…
Something inside me twisted a little when I heard him speak in that state. I was surprised that the Phantom had managed to poison him so much.
He'd always been the closest Corphish to us, considered almost a brother. He shared our views and spent almost more time with us than with the other Corphish; he was practically one of the family. I should have suspected something after he went a whole week without speaking to us, but I thought he'd finally gotten a girlfriend, not… this.
Now I could only regret not having realized it in time.
Looking back on the battle, there were many other things to regret. I didn't feel bad about amputating his claw; it would grow back in a few days. The pain was temporary, and my noble goal justified it. What I'd done to that Wingull, on the other hand… I wasn't particularly proud of it.
I sincerely hoped he was okay, as I didn't believe the bird deserved to die in that fight, no matter how dirty his mouth was. He didn't deserve to perish like this, tricked and confused by a malignant spirit in a stupid and senseless battle, being reduced to a mere collateral damage.
I also knew I couldn't blame them; not him, not the Pelipper, not the Corphish and not the Crawdaunt. That Ghost must have used her malevolent powers to manipulate them all, brainwashing their heads and turning them against us. The island was in danger again, a much more insidious one than in the past, and it seemed only I saw it.
Only I could save them all.
Pretending to remain unconscious, I began to think about what I should do. The main problem was the Beach Nightmare, obviously, but I had to find some way out of my captivity first. After that, I had to regain my strength, free my subjects, neutralize the Corphish and Crawdaunt, restore their sanity, and finally, eliminate that cursed evil spirit once and for all.
Having Yezalel's help would also be invaluable in carrying out my duty. She had proven herself a fierce warrior in the battle against Jellicent and his relentless Frillish hordes. I was still very young when that happened, just a tiny Krabby that had just hatched. More than 90 years had passed since then, but the image of the Guardian slaughtering ghosts like they were nothing was forever etched in my memory.
She had avenged my family and saved my life; I owed her everything. I was ashamed to have to rely on her once again, but I feared that, as strong as I'd become over time, I still wasn't powerful enough to handle this on my own. I had already tried and failed, now I could only swallow my pride and ask for help.
Cautiously opening my eyes, I assessed my situation. I was in a corner of the bedroom, tied with my back against the wall. My exoskeleton showed a fracture where the spawn had stabbed me with her spear, and my energy reserves were at their lowest, but overall, I was in pretty good condition.
Much better than I expected after all that, at least.
Much better than I desired, even.
She had ignored my plea to die honorably in battle for some reason. I didn't know what evil plans she had in mind by leaving me alive after saying she would kill me, but I would make her regret that decision.
In front of me, a little farther away, were the Crawdaunt and the three Krabby he was scolding, with everyone gathered around them. It pained me to see my cousin in that state, so unhinged and rotten by the Ghost, although it could also have been a blessing in disguise at that moment.
Everyone was paying attention to him, and no one even had noticed I'd woken up. It was the perfect distraction.
Looking at the scene, a plan began to take shape in my mind. After cutting the ropes that bound me and burrowing into the ground with Dig, I could go to the pantry to regain my strength and then escape the cave. After that, I would head to Yezalel's domain and request her help, discussing the details with her and leaving the decision-making to the Guardian due to her greater experience with such matters.
The plan was simple, but I'd been shown that complex plans weren't my thing. To pull this off I'd have to be quick, because even if they were distracted in this moment, I had no doubt that they would notice my absence in minutes. I'd also have to be stealthy, or my plan would be foiled before it even began.
Fast and quiet, two things I wasn't, but I had to make it work. Everyone's well-being depended on me, and this time I wouldn't fail.
I would never gonna let them down again.
Wrapping my right claw with a Razor Shell, I sent a small blade formed by water from my dactyl, just durable enough to cut the ropes that restricted me. I wasn't an expert in that technique, but it seemed that no one had noticed the snap of my bonds as they broke, so I must have done it right.
Once free, I didn't hesitate for a moment to sink into the rocky floor of the cave with Dig. Using that move was always weird. My vision was useless in that state, forcing me to use my weak energy sense as a guide, but it wasn't unpleasant. It reminded me of swimming in a way, except on land instead of in the sea.
As quickly as I could, I headed to where I knew the pantry was and emerged among the barrels filled with berries. It seemed they'd already moved everything back into place. I felt a little bad for having made them move all that from the chamber my brothers had dug to the pantry again, but I was planning to offer to do it myself once the problem was solved.
It's a shame that would never happen now.
Nibbling on several Sitrus Berries at a time, enjoying their invigorating flavor running through my mouth, my eyes fell upon the small tunnel that my loyal subjects had formed. It was tiny, I wouldn't fit in even as a joke, but I was struck by the overwhelming amount of elemental energy I could sense on the other side.
I didn't know what it could be, but something like this could be very useful in my mission, and I still had some time before my escape was discovered.
With my stomach satisfied and much of my stamina restored, I sank almost my entire body except my head into the ground with Dig and followed the tunnel. The passageway was long and uneven, clearly something hastily made and intended for temporary use. It was barely the thickness of a barrel, so I had to be careful not to make too much noise, since the slightest sound sure would resonate throughout the entire cave.
Luckily, the path wasn't long. At some point it widened too, allowing me to walk normally, and what I found at the end captivated me. It was a vast chamber, filled with gems embedded in the walls. The ceiling glittered like a starry night sky; the entire cavern exuded an overwhelming and wondrous aura, as if just standing there would replenish my energy reserves in seconds.
Everything was beautiful, everything seemed perfect. I would have loved to stay and admire the view a little longer, since it was certainly mystical, but there was a small problem. Right in the center of the room, the manifestation of my worst nightmares stood contemplatively.
She was just there, throwing a gem and catching it in the air with one hand and rubbing her chin with the other. While she repeated these gestures monotonously, as if trapped in an endless cycle, she muttered unintelligible but surely evil things.
Everything about her inspired fear.
Her appearance had changed; she now wore a strange armor made of what looked like fur (probably from her previous victims), though, luckily for me, it didn't seem very resilient. Her presence, on the other hand, was much more frightening than the one she'd emitted just the day before.
Much more dangerous.
She wasn't more powerful as such, not much at least, but her power was much more under control. If in our first battle it seemed like she was about to explode at any moment, now it seemed she had completely dominated that overwhelming, overflowing energy and made it her own.
How the hell had she managed to do that in less than a day? What kind of monster was I up against? I could almost hear some kind of music starting to play at the moment I stepped foot in the room, and I didn't like it at all.
Fortunately, it seemed she hadn't spotted me yet. I still had time to retreat and flee elsewhere, perhaps review my pla—
"Well, well, well. Look who we have here," she said mockingly without even turning around, making my brain stop and my legs tense up. "The gilipollas got away, what a bad boy~. You see, I'm kind of busy right now and I'm in a pretty good mood, so just go back to the dorm and let Pincitas scold you for a while. He deserves every win he can get, poor thing."
"Wha- What are you doing here, Ghost?!" I exclaimed after recovering, hiding my trembling as best I could.
Had she discovered I'd escaped? In such a short time? For that, she should have been in the cave from the beginning, watching me. But… that couldn't be possible, right? I would have noticed her gaze.
"Uh? Oh, I'm just collecting my reward for fixing the 'missing pantry' problem," she explained in what seemed like a calm voice, though I could hear the condescending tone in her words. "Too bad about that, by the way. You didn't have to do all this. If you wanted to keep me away while you had your crab rave with Mr. Krabs and the others, all you had to do was point at the cursed ship on your beach and I'd go headlong."
The cursed ship? What did that old wreck have to do with all of this?
As if reading my mind, the Phantom stopped playing with the gem and slowly turned around, revealing her malevolent, somewhat unnatural smile alongside her mocking 'eyes'.
"I would love to investigate that ship; it must be full of interesting things. Besides, before Mr. Stupid decided to screw everything up, I was about to finish my raft and begin my adventure. Now that it's ruined, I figure I can at least rebuild it from scratch with parts I find on the ship, or maybe even find a decent lifeboat and save myself all the work."
"So you want to get off the island, huh?" I asked rhetorically, my mind racing. "Your goals are broader and much more ambitious than I imagined. Are you planning to dominate the world?"
That seemed to hit the spot, as the Ghost blinked and started laughing.
At first it was soft, slow. An amused snort. Gradually, however, her laughter intensified, culminating in a great, hysterical cackle that could only be described as evil. Her eyes glowed a sinister crimson at their core, burning like only a pair of fireballs could, and her slightly unnatural smile transformed into a saw-tooth grin that nearly split her face.
She was finally showing her true colors.
"HAHAHAHA! World domination? Yeah. Right. Of course. That's totally my goal," she stated, owning up to her crimes. "What are you going to do to stop me, Mr. Stupid?"
"Exorcise you, indeed," I replied with a resolve I didn't feel, ignoring the way she had called me and preparing myself for the impending fight that I knew I couldn't win.
"Really? Go on, try it if you want," she said in return, spreading her arms in a mocking pose. "I'll even let you give me your best blow. After all, the last time you tried it, it didn't even tickle me~."
That last sentence seemed to break something inside me, as all the doubts and fear I felt vanished like waves on the sand at the beach. Fear naturally gave way to rage. That insolent Ghost was having fun at my expense, having already ruined my plans once, and never in my long life had I felt more humiliated.
Channeling all the Water-type energy I could into my large claw, I formed the beginnings of a Crabhammer as I charged at the monster, zigzagging at full speed. I'd learned from my mistakes. Guillotine wouldn't work on her for some reason, so I just had to use my next best option. That little swings I performed as I approached also allowed me to enhance my already devastating attack with Swords Dance, hopefully resulting in a critical hit that would end this farce in an instant.
Faced with my terrible attack, one of the most powerful I had ever unleashed, the confident Phantom simply raised her slender arm and… stopped my blow in its tracks?
All the energy I'd poured into my claw also began to flow toward her, like raging rivers swallowed by the sea. Much of that energy disappeared into the bottomless pit that was her soul, but the rest began to reinforce her already thick layer of defense, leaving me dumbfounded.
How was that possible?
"Hohoho. Bad luck~," she laughed in a sing-song tone, gripping my claw with unexpected strength. "Well, so this is one of my abilities, huh? I guess getting Dry Skin by evolving after all those experiments I made makes sense, though I'll have to confirm the details of its effects later… Anyway, now it's my turn."
"Your what?"
Without letting me react, the evil creature released me and raised her fists, starting to give me a real beating. I tried to defend myself by putting up Protect barriers wherever I could, even though it seemed useless. Her speed was terrifying, but not as much as her accuracy. No matter how I moved or how I tried to counterattack, her blows always landed at the right time and place, nullifying my efforts.
It was almost like when I played with the little ones…
"Ora ora ora~," The monster shouted with each punch she threw, wearing a grin as she continued to repeat what I assumed was an insult. "What's wrong, Mr. Stupid? Can't you keep up?"
Seeing that hand-to-claw combat was as useless as in our last battle, I backed off a bit and began bombarding her with the ranged variation of Razor Shell, a new move I'd invented and named as Aqua Cutter. This proved to be even more useless, as she absorbed my lethal water blades without further ado, and the balls of spectral energy she threw in retaliation were almost as devastating as her punches.
Obviously, I didn't give up. I kept moving through that macabre dance, reinforcing my defenses with Harden, dodging what I could and using Protect on what I couldn't, trying to buy time to find a solution.
Nonetheless, to my horror, time was not on my side, since the monster was adapting. Her spherical projectiles changed into arrows in some point. Somehow inexplicably, she also imbued them with the same ineludible quality her punches possessed, making them incredibly annoying.
Things could not continue like this, or I would be defeated again.
Desperate, I'd wanted more than once to approach the walls, looking to grab one of those Water-type energy-infused gems or simply flee with Dig (since the exit had disappeared), but a cyclone of sand immobilized me every time I tried, culminating with the Giratina's spawn launching me into the center of the room with a throw that seemed deceptively simple.
It wasn't long before I was exhausted. I was at the end of my rope, completely exhausted, while the Ghost seemed even more energetic than she had been at the beginning of our 'fight'.
"Well, are you going to give up now?" she asked for the umpteenth time, giving me a bored look while chewing on a purple gem. "I'm not going to lie; this is starting to get boring and quite pathetic. I don't want to knock you out, since I want to teach you, but you don't seem to be learning anything, which makes this way more tedious than it should be."
"Teach me what? You're not my master, monster!" I exclaimed, standing up with renewed determination only to be thrown to the ground again in seconds.
"To teach you that you're not the center of the world, fool," she snarled with a grimace, her eternal smile fading a little. "What do you aim for by not giving up? Do you want to evade responsibility for what you've done? To run away like a coward forever?"
"What are you saying? I didn't do anything! It's all your fault!" I stated the obvious, earning an annoyed snort from the Phantom.
"See? That's precisely what I'm talking about. What part of this is my fault, exactly?" she began, without giving me time to reply before continuing to speak. "You're the one who disturbed the peace on this island. You're the one who plotted to kill me without even having met me or learned my name. You're the one who started a fucking war in my house. You're the one who hurt everyone you consider family. You're the one who almost killed my best friend. So, I repeat: what part of this is my fault, you fucking moron?"
Breathing heavily under her intense gaze, doubt began to gnaw at me. Was what she was saying true? Was I the architect of my own disgrace?
That… that wasn't true. That couldn't be true.
It was obvious she was trying to manipulate me, just as she had done with everyone. Surely this was how her brainwashing method works: first wounding the body and then disturbing the mind, exploiting the weakness to establish her curse.
I couldn't deny it was effective, but she would need something more to break me. I hadn't lived this many years just to surrender like that.
She would need much more to bendmy spirit.
"You're lying!" I yelled tenaciously, refusing to give in to her yoke. "You're trying to brainwash me, just like you've done with everyone! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO TURNED EVERYONE AGAINST ME! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO—"
My honest outburst was cut short by just her gaze, petrifying me.
Her smile was completely gone, replaced by a grimace of disgust, and her blazing eyes stared at me as if I were a particularly repulsive insect. Those same eyes were what petrified me, giving me the feeling that the Phantom could see my soul… and maybe something more.
"Alas, you are doomed beyond anyone's ability to save," she shook her head, disappointed. "It takes courage to lie to yourself like that, or maybe just the opposite. I don't know, I'll never know."
"What do you mean?" I managed to stammer.
"Do you want to hear something funny? At first I didn't know what punishment I should give you, or if it was even my right to give you one in the first place. However, now I have it clear," she continued, without taking her terrifying gaze off me. "You're incapable of seeing anything beyond your own misery; you're so wrapped up in your own ass that you can't see the harm you cause to others. You don't regret anything. You don't even consider that you've done anything wrong.
"That being the case, I think you need to at least experience some of that harm in your own flesh. You know, forced empathy, to give it a name."
While trying to think of a retort, with my brain racing for its life, a sharp sting shot through my left shoulder. My mind couldn't register the pain; it happened so quickly. I could only feel my defenses breaking like waves against a breakwater, and before my disbelieving eyes, I saw my large claw detaching from my body, falling to the cavernous floor with a dull crunch.
I didn't have time to scream, I didn't have time to beg for mercy.
A simple blow with the spear she'd just formed from her shadow was enough to dismember me, such was the difference in our power. Ironically, the situation reminded me of when I'd done the same thing to Crawdaunt, but now the roles had been reversed.
Without giving me time to process what had just happened, the Ghost swung her black bone spear once more, this time at my chest, aiming for the crack she'd left the day before. Red blood splattered the claw onto the ground. My already shattered defenses couldn't even soften the blow; my hard shell split like a ripe berry.
And then, the pain came.
Unbearable would be an understatement. Her spear burned like hellfire against my tender flesh, yet was as sharp and insidious as ice. Pure suffering coursed through my body, spreading from the wound in my chest through my arteries. Phantom pains from a limb I no longer had clamored for my attention. What felt like a thunder coursed through my veins and nerves, sending cries of alarm to my addled brain, which was slipping into unconsciousness with every passing second of this agony.
Was this the end for me? Was this how my life would end? With a bad joke followed by the most overwhelming pain I'd ever experienced?
"How is it? How does it feel to suffer the same thing you did to Pincitas? How does it feel to suffer the same thing you did to Cap?" the monster whispered in my ear, stepping on the base of the spearhead and plunging it deeper into my guts.
"Ro-… Rot in hell," I spat, gathering my last drops of energy to perform a Hydro Pump, stained red from being soaked with the blood in my mouth, which did absolutely nothing to her.
"Not before you, asshole," she replied with a sadistic smile. A mysterious light glow in her petrifying eyes while my consciousness faded in the darkness. "You're old, aren't you? I see you've accumulated a lot of potential over the years, even more than Cap. It would be a shame not to make the most of it, and I suppose it would also be a somewhat poetic form of retribution."