//------------------------------// // The Pit // Story: Worlds Apart: The Chosen of the Prognosticus // by GMBlackjack //------------------------------// Amy smashed a goblin made out of pure shadow, splattering it against the wall as though it were a glob of paint. The noxious goo dissipated, leaving the room empty. “Clear!” Amy called to the rest of the team. There were currently so many of them that they couldn’t fit in one room, so they were moving down in sections. However, even moving like this, they could no longer get out of the pit without moving up to levels that had already “respawned” the shadowy monsters. Luckily, Eggman’s robots had made it to the tenth floor before, and they knew exactly what awaited them. Trotting down the stairs, they found not monsters, but an exit round platform in the middle of the room that could teleport someone to the start of the Pit. “All right, do we have any wounded?” Ty Lee shouted at the group. “If you are and we can’t heal you effectively, bail!” Only one stepped forward: a squirrel Mobian who was getting very queasy at the sight of so many things being splattered. He stepped onto the platform and was returned to safety. “Nobody else? All right.” Ty Lee stretched her legs. “Who wants to go first?” “It is a good day to die!” The Klingons shouted, charging down the stairs. Amy followed, though this time she took a less active approach so she could watch the Klingons work. They started by firing their disruptors and disintegrating a few of the shadows, which this time were taking the shape of spring monsters and floating orbs. Once enough room was cleared, however, the Klingons drew their blades and began to slice the shadows in half physically and with amazing prowess. The dark orbs unleashed lasers, but the Klingon disruptors were much more powerful. The room was cleared in seconds. “I say, we may have brought too much firepower,” Eggman said, drifting down to the floor. “We’re only on floor eleven,” Amy pointed out, tracing her finger along the wall. Here, the mural was different, displaying an orange heart with stylistic images of fire, earth, water, and air mixed with structures built by the four people of Diqiu. “There’s a lot more smashing to do.” “Then we best be on our way.” ~~~ The beast with a thousand tentacles had already taken out several talking animals, and Amy had decided that was enough. With a roar of fury she dove right into its mouth, slipped past the teeth with only minor cuts to the edge of her dress. Her plan after accomplishing this was ingenious: swing her hammer around everywhere until the creature gave in. After about five swings the beast succumbed to internal trauma and dissipated into a pile of goo on the ground. “There…” Amy said, shaking her head to get the goo out of her hair. “That good enough?” “Quite,” Eggman said, not really paying attention to her but rather examining the mural. It was of Mobius, all right, with a yellow heart suspended over the Master Emerald, with the seven chaos emeralds spread out equidistantly around the room. The background of the mural was largely simple green hills, but there were occasional bursts of metallic structures. “Next!” Amy shouted, charging down the stairs. ~~~ Ty Lee disabled a four-armed muscular beast with carefully timed kicks, allowing Cortez’s ghosts to burn the immobile enemy to shreds. Behind her, Amy was already examining the mural. A green heart floated in the middle of space, with various stars and planets spread about the mural. Most interestingly, though, were the ships they could see drifting in space, matching Federation, Romulan, Klingon, and Borg designs. “This confirms it,” Eggman said, folding his hands together. “None of these nations existed when Flipside was built. These murals must be prophetic. We need to get to the bottom, find out what’s really in store for us. We’re making good progress. Egg-bots! Burn the next floor.” ~~~ Firebenders found it much easier to burn floors than Egg-bots, as it turned out, incinerating all but one monster: a massive centipede with many legs that ended in sharp barbs. It charged forward, shrugging off a hit from Amy’s hammer and a Klingon disruptor like it was nothing. One of the Klingons, however, drew his blade and drove it right into the creature’s eye, ending it. Unfortunately, the beast still got an attack off on him. Ty Lee ran to him and tended to the wound in his side that was oozing their pinkish blood. “Stay still… Oh, this is a bad one…” A Starfleet officer handed her a medical kit and she began treating the wound. “I think he’ll be fine, but he won’t be moving for a while.” “It was a glorious battle!” the Klingon laughed. “Yes, yes, we all know about your proud warrior tradition…” Eggman drifted over to the mural, scratching his chin. It showed a sky blue heart over a very detailed depiction of Aslan surrounded by animals, creatures out of fairy tales, and animals in a forest. Opposite Aslan was the lamp post. “Curious, the only one with a specific person so far…” ~~~ The dark blue heart was suspended in a sphere of rainbow power with starmen all around. Beyond that there were numerous planets, walls, and traps that extended around most of the mural, until they reached the opposing side where Rogueport’s noose was proudly displayed. “If we had come across this before they went to this world, the noose would have made us paranoid,” Eggman commented. “Well, they already finished this one!” Amy swung her hammer over her back. “Let’s get moving!” She charged down and smashed her hammer on the first enemy she saw—a cube. This turned out to be the first enemy immune to all physical attacks. It would only get worse from there. ~~~ Everyone was silent. They’d just lost their first soldier. Up until this point, they’d been able to eject them from the Pit to receive better medical treatment, but this one had been killed instantly. It had been a creature made of dark flames that burned up a talking badger in a manner of seconds before the firebenders took care of it. It was only made worse by the mural on the wall: a gray, lifeless heart suspended over a world with fanciful buildings and magical forests in the midst of being torn apart by stylized purple lightning. There was nothing for them here. ~~~ It was getting difficult to progress. The monsters had gotten bigger, stronger, and evidently smarter. Virtually every floor someone got injured and had to be treated. They had known coming in that the rejuvenating properties of Flipside didn’t apply down here, but now they were really wishing it did. Passing through another ‘break’ floor, floor seventy if Ty Lee was counting correctly, several people were offloaded due to injury. They still had the majority of their forces, but if the difficulty kept increasing like this… Ty Lee descended to the next room flanked by Cortez’s ghosts, finding the entire area to be crawling with hand-sized shadow scorpions. Ty Lee jumped back—her abilities weren’t very helpful against small enemies, but the one-way barriers between floors prevented her from retreating far enough. She had to twist around the descending Klingons and stomp a few of the scorpions herself while the flaming ghosts reduced the bugs to cinders. While it had been an easier floor than the last few, one of the Klingons had been injected with venom. Ty Lee was now carrying a medical tricorder at all times and ran to treat him, stopping the flow of poison by tying a tight knot around his left leg. Already, the limb was starting to blacken. She didn’t like the looks of that. Eggman, however, was delighted. “Finally! A mural of something we know nothing about!” he held out a hand, touching the purple heart. “This is the Heart they were supposed to get in Equis…” He pulled up his computer screen—still receiving telemetry from the surface. Frowning, he closed it. “What?” Ty Lee asked. “Nothing, my dear. The surface is just trying to think of alternative methods…” He floated back a bit, taking in the entire mural. It showed floating discs with eyes, a cold winter wasteland, a great city with colorful towers, and a dark forest filled with ominous eyes. Strangest of all, random black squares were littered around the artwork, interrupting the otherwise smooth patterns. “Hmm…” “Any idea what it means?” Amy asked. “No, I’m afraid not. We’ll need to ask Tippi about her world records to see if any of this is different from what she knows.” ~~~ Ty Lee arrived at the next mural on floor eighty-one bruised and battered. The last fight had not gone well. They’d lost several. If they had not been right next to a break floor, they would have lost many more. She’d refused transport out of the Pit, however, because she was not about to turn away when they were so close. Finally, they were getting new information. She’d continue as long as she could. Amy had gone ahead of her and cleared the room already, finding the enemies within particularly susceptible to blunt force trauma. Even she wasn’t really enjoying the endless fighting anymore. It was no longer providing her a suitable distraction. The mural itself didn’t appear to have a Pure Heart represented on it at all, but instead showed many images that made no sense. Floating orange monoliths, forests of rainbow colors, a tower that stretched upward to infinity, eyes that appeared to float in the middle of the air, and yellow cubes floating around a massive web of spiders floating among the stars. Perhaps strangest of all, the sky was brilliant pink everywhere. “Recorded,” Eggman said. “Now to continue to see if there’s anything at the bottom of this Pit…” ~~~ More than half of their forces were down or sent home when they realized that there was another mural. A heart of darkness suspended over a pitch-black castle, surrounded by the purple stylized colors of the Void. Around the castle were many angular, pointed ships mixed with crystalline structures that spiraled off until they shattered into nothing. “Ninety-one…” Ty Lee breathed. “There’s going to be a hundred.” “We… can’t stop now…” Amy hefted her hammer. “Got to get… to the bottom…” “Eight more floors,” Eggman called. “Everyone… this is going to be the hardest push we’ve made. But we have the resources! We—” ~~~ Nineteen individuals made it to the bottom of the Pit. They had started with over a hundred. There was no mural here. There was nothing on the walls at all, but there were also no stairs going further down. There was only a single, shadowy blob in the center of the chamber, pulsating with ugly, disgusting energy. Eggman, Ty Lee, and Amy led the remaining team toward the central darkness, ready to take on whatever the final challenge of this Pit was. “Oh, you think I’m an enemy?” a heavily digitized and compressed voice called. “No, I’m no such thing. I am… Shadoo. And I’m here to congratulate you! You’ve made it to the bottom of the Pit of 100 Trials!” “It’s… actually called the Pit.” Amy blinked. “Huh.” “What else could it be called?” Shadoo asked, sparking slightly. “Anyway, and now your reward!” A small console popped out of the ground, displaying various schematics and images of Flipside. “The control station, designed only for the most well-proven of heroes!” “Hmm…” Eggman floated to the console and began pressing buttons. “Yes, this will do nicely. This… yes!” “What can you do with it?” Amy asked. “I can control Flipside’s systems directly! Shields… on! Shields… off! Doors on… doors off! Yes… and there are systems I didn’t even know about down here. Light adjustment… the rejuvenation matrix… aha! Disable Pit forcefields.” He pressed a button. “We can teleport in and out as we wish, now.” “Well…” Amy crossed her arms. “We won, I guess. ...Was it worth it?” “I…” Ty Lee glanced at the few who had made it all the way to the bottom with them. “I’m not sure.” “I can definitely protect us from the Void with this,” Eggman said. “Oh ho ho ho ho! This is so worth it.” Ty Lee frowned. “You know… I think I forgot about what kind of man you are.” “It won’t matter anyway,” Shadoo said, chuckling. “Because you’re all a bunch of idiots.” Amy tightened her grip on her hammer. “All right, what kind of trap is it?” “The trap? Simple.” He created a box of shadows around them. “I’m not allowed to touch that control panel. But you can. And you’ve released the Pit forcefields! I can escape now! And everyone will know that this city is mine. It always has been and always will be…” He vanished in a puff of darkness. “...Oh dear,” Eggman said. “That’s all you have to say!?” Amy blurted. “There’s not much else to say. We have released an unspeakable evil…” “So, basically par for the course with you, huh?” “Sure, rub it in why don’t you?” “We don’t have time for this!” Ty Lee shouted. “Shadoo is on the loose! We have to warn people!” “He blocked out transmissions. I’m not sure we can do anything.” Eggman folded his hands. “It’s up to everyone on the surface.”