LNH20: Post-Metal Doomcore #4: "The Duel Named Choice"

[Drew Nilium]

LNH20 presents:
POST-METAL DOOMCORE!
Featuring VioletCuckoo of the MaybeMACs!
S01E04: "The Duel Named Choice"
by Drew Nilium

====

Now that all the gorgeous lady adventurers had gone off to storm the dungeon,
Emily Q. Smith felt the social anxiety fading and the depression slipping into
its place. Okay, no, she was going to stave that off as long as she could, and
it would start with cleaning up this place--

A knock came at the door. Or, some other weird thing could burst into her life.
She felt the anxiety bubbling back up, but she squared her shoulders, took a
deep breath, and opened the door...

It was Taurea, the adorable monk girl, with a slightly strained but still
cheerful expression on her face. "Sorry, could I use your bathroom again?"

Emily let out that breath. "Sure."

Taurea zoomed in with a "Thank you!" and disappeared into the tiled room.

Well, it was a slightly encouraging thought that they hadn't decided she was
entirely disgusting and unfit to hang out with. Even tho that was clearly,
itself, an anxiety thought.

Emily sighed, leaning back against the mantel, and reached for that little toy
car again - found it missing. Great. She looked out the window; with difficult,
stale feelings swirling in her gut, even this sunny day looked gray and dull...

Wait, this wasn't a depression-induced synesthesia. The light coming thru the
window really had gone gray, and... thick? Was that a thing light could be?
Well, if it was, it was.

And in front of the window was sitting the toy car, a chunky little thing in
black and purple chrome that she liked to feature in shots because it was so
distinctive. It seemed to glisten in the light of some undimmed sun, like a
sloppily-composited shot from a low-budget TV show. And then, suddenly, it
began to unfold, lifting, spreading, becoming a toy-sized humanoid figure
stretching out their arms!

"Greetings, Emily," said the figure, strain evident in their voice. "I am
VioletCuckoo. It's good to finally speak to you. I've put everyone within this
apartment in a time bubble, but it won't last long, so we must hurry."

"Hurry!?" said Emily, taking a confused step backwards, glancing at the window,
the door. "What-- hurry and do what?"

The bathroom door opened and Taurea ran out, smoothing down her robes. "Emily,
there's something-- oh! It's coming from *you*, little guy!"

"Correct. An enemy is on its way, but I will explain. As you have no doubt
surmised, I am-- nnngh--" The little robot folded back into the form of a car,
just for a moment, and the sky shimmered blue; but they expanded once more, and
it went back to gray.

"Apologies," they said, tension in their voice like the tension in their body.
"Taurea, I am like you, a seeker. Among the MicroMACs, there are few who ponder
the great mysteries. To study them, the MaybeMACs sent ourselves into seclusion,
as you have, Emily Q. Smith."

"That's, well, that's not exactly..." she stuttered.

"I know. It was not entirely our choice either. But regardless, we looked
within, and found a great power that took a lifetime to master--" VioletCuckoo
made a sweeping, dramatic gesture-- "the Dvandomforce!"

Taurea gasped! "You mean the mystic power known as Davechokon!?"

"Just so! And with-- with-- arrrrh-- ngah!" It seemed the drama had been too
much, and the sky turned blue and the light turned quick and there was a
pounding on the door, big, loud and brutal, and another pound, and the wood
splintered--

GreatCanary snapped back into place. "Quickly-- Emily-- with the Dvandomforce,
you too can transform!"

"Wait--" Emily was taken aback. "Like, *me* me?"

"Emily, I have been observing you for months." The little strip of blue that
must've been their eyes was focused right on her. "You are a beingness like
none I have known, in all my great battles, all my intense training, and all my
dramatic standoffs. You are comfort and you are safety like I have never known."

"I, I mean..." The words tumbled out. "Sure, I'm *comfortable* and I'm *safe*--
but I'm also lonely, and bored, and depressed *all the time*!" She was vaguely
aware she'd started shouting.

"...then maybe," said Taurea, "what you needed was someone to share that
comfort and safety with. A risk worth taking."

"..." She shouldn't. She shouldn't. She shouldn't she shouldn't
sheshouldn'tsheshouldn'tshe--

--she had to. She was immediately, horribly aware that she was sick down to her
soul and she needed to do something--

"--transform... how?"

"Give me your hand." When she put it down before VioletCuckoo, they climbed
into it. "Now, speak the Dvandomforce, and as hard as you can, slam me into
your heart!"

This was going to be a really stupid way to injure herself. But she took a deep
breath. "DVANDOMFORCE!" She put all the force she had into the slam and she
felt it enter her heart and the words blazed out-- "MORTALMASTER!"

There was something that lay folded at the bottom of her soul and it burst open
like an origami flower and she bloomed with radiance and warmth, and around her
folded armor that was the soft tan of apartment walls and old computer cases,
accented with black and purple chrome, a panel in the center of her chest
shining like an old incandescent bulb.

Time returned to its flow, and the apartment door finished its explosion. An
enormous form, like a neon fever dream version of a werewolf, pushed its way in,
growling with menace, big claws ready to rend flesh!

Emily could feel VioletCuckoo whirling in her heart like a spirit dynamo, and
she could see the edges of where her world and the monster's didn't meet, the
witch's darkness enshrouding something within, and she longed to meet it...

She yanked down the huge thrift-store painting of an anchor that she'd gotten
just to have something on the walls, and brought the heavy frame down on the
monster's head.

It fell to the floor and the growling stopped. Emily sagged to her knees, her
energy all running out at once, and the armor dissolved, VioletCuckoo falling
to the floor.

"whooooooa." Taurea's eyes were wide like the moon. "That was so-- hey, wait a
minute..."

She knelt down next to the wolfy thing, whose head was completely askew. Emily
squinted thru a yawn. It hadn't felt like she'd broken its neck or anything...

But when Taurea pulled on it, the head came clean off, revealing a human face,
dazed and confused. "...fwungh?"

"A guy in a costume?"

====

The evil sorceress pounded her fist on her pondering desk. So, this whelp of a
woman thought she could foil-- Viatrix, Grand Witch-Queen of High Fantasy
Adventure!

She had thought that the MicroMAC would interfere with her plans - even altered
from Van Domelen's carefully worked out designs, their hard SF-based nature
could interfere with high fantasy, opening a door to scientific explanation of
the magical. But suddenly it disappeared, and this seemingly normal girl was
wielding a generic power that struck at the very core of her role as a villain!

Somehow, this "Emily" had undone all the enchantments Viatrix had placed on her
mind-controlled servant, reducing her majestic sorcery to the level of a cheap
Halloween mask! What kind of strange narrative was being imposed? Perhaps
something that could overthrow even the Master of Dugeons, even the mysterious
manipulator that lurked in the shadows below? A thrilling thought-- a dangerous
thought!

Viatrix reached out, caressing the face of the girl in the orb. "Emily Q.
Smith... what *are* you?"

====

Drew "doing two big homages here" Nilium