Glitches Ad Infinitum

Chapter Three: Magma Pits Without Safety Railings

Far beyond the desert sands there stood a coliseum in the distance surrounded by red and black air that could only be described as ‘blood fog’. Two men dressed in silver robes braved the mists, holding their cloaks against the thick winds.

A large, imposing stone coliseum stood above them as they paused for only a second. A sign above the entrance said ‘Blud Quombat X: The Reckoning Revengence Reconciliation Revival Remix’ arena. They entered with little hesitation. Inside gave way to dozens if not near hundreds of ninjas, robots and robot ninjas scrabbling for stadium seating and clutching crumpled tickets. The two men sat down towards the back rows and watched the spectacle unfold.

“Finish him!” a loud and over-enthusiastic disembodied voice shouted inside over the sound of an unseen but still very noticeable mass of drunken cheering.

A man dressed in a set of yellow ninja gym jams stood with his arms straight down at his sides. His head was twirling from side to side like a freshly lobotomized track star doing his best impression of a spinning tea cup ride.

Molten lava bubbled from the hellish pits in the background and foreground, the backdrop of many eyes watching with glee and unsatiated bloodlust.

Stepping over the many discarded bleach white skulls strewing the rustic metal and fading concrete floor approached a large man standing in front of the dazed yellow ninja. He was smiling with sharpened monstrous teeth as he stood head and shoulders above the ninja.

His body was overly-muscled with his prominent man-tits exposed with only a pointless spiky single bandoleer draped across his torso and a large red loincloth covering his junk. He also had four arms, all of them greatly feared as mortal enemies of the home gym model as he flexed for the unseen cheering crowd.

“Is that him?” one of the silver-hooded figures asked the other. “The spark is definitely responding to him” the other responded, whispering intently through the roaring crowds. “They’re cheering for him… but he really doesn’t look like a Hero”.

“Doesn’t matter, he’s a potential Glitch and he needs another Hero in the Pawns”. “What if the Grinning Man gets to him first?” the first one asked with concern.

“If it comes to that then we simply retreat, forget this ever happened”. “Gre won’t be happy about that” the other pointed out. “Again, if it comes to that”. “We still have a job to do, no need to immediately resign ourselves to failure just yet” the first one spoke.

“And what if he doesn’t want to be freed?” the second one asked. “If he fights it won’t matter, this whole place is practically a tinderbox of Glitches at this point anyway” the first one responded.

“Besides, everyone wants to be free”. “But what if the Bishops broke this one?” the other one asked. “I mean, this whole place, it’s a pretty weird system”.

“I think he might be trying to corral these people into apathy” one of the men said, speaking over the massive, incredibly loud crowd. “They don’t seem very ‘apathetic’ to me” the other chuckled. “I didn’t say he was succeeding”. “I know, you were just being cautious”.

“Regardless, we’ve wasted enough time as it is” he said after a brief pause. “Let’s inform Gre, tell him it’s the big guy”.

The two hooded men walked away from the balcony and headed towards the exit. Another figure leaning against the stadium seating shot a single glance at the hooded figures.

He dismissed them as soon as they entered a crowd, seemingly disappearing from sight and even memory despite their bright silver clothes clashing with every other patron surrounding them. The two men left the monster to do his job.

The massive four-limbed creature still in the arena flexed his arms to the sound of the continuing cheers. He shot for the stars with unparalleled glee as he swiftly grabbed the dazed ninja by his shoulders. The monster’s over-sized hands easily wrapped around his arms as he lifted the dazed man clean up from the ground.

The monster held the ninja above his head, smiling for the noisy stadium as he held the man in place with two arms gripping his leg and head respectively. The other two arms were stretching out both of the ninja’s arms like some kind of standing sentient torture stretcher.

He gripped his hands tightly, smiling through sharpened teeth before giving a big indescribable roar. He pulled the body of the ninja apart like a messy wishbone.

The ninja did not scream, at least not out loud, he really couldn’t react fast enough anyway. He didn’t even struggle, not having anymore limbs to struggle with tended to deflate any sense of defiance.

His stumpy holes where his arms used to be now poured with sprays of bright red blood. Tiny chunks of fractured bone and organs fell to the ground like candy from some sort of meat piñata. The beast shook the body almost clean and dry of any remaining insides.

The monster let the limbless shell of a torso fall to the ground in front of him. It flopped to the cement like a wet towel soaked with fruit punch before the beast used his equally over-muscled legs to step on the discarded body stump.

He tossed the limbs into the waiting lava as casually as one would toss a paper cup into a dumpster. He swiftly kicked the torso with smiling enthusiasm into the doom pits as well, watching it melt with a monstrous smile.

“GeorgeO wins, Phatality!” the announcer stated in his usual over the top voice so close to the microphone you could practically feel his spittle. The monster gave another throaty roar of triumph.

He waited as the crowd’s noise soon faded into a quiet glowing. His eyes darted from one end of the lava catwalk or how ever one would describe the hellish health and safety code violation spectacle in front of him, to the other.

He roared and grunted again; pounding his chest and eagerly waiting for his next victim only to soon discover nothing of the sort. He roared again, loud and boisterous before finally being silenced by the announcer.

“He’s gone, GeorgeO, no more Voiceless waiting for a retry right now” he said before the monster coughed and cleared his throat with a sudden sigh of relief.

“Oh, finally” GeorgeO exclaimed with a surprisingly posh and clear accent before walking out towards the end of the catwalk. He turned to the foreground to see a discarded sinking coffin rested within the lava. GeorgeO knew the crowd of spectators had left their seats by now and headed for the exit as the bloodshed finally ceased; he didn’t want to keep them waiting.

GeorgeO placed his hand upon the cross carved on the coffin before reaching into his loincloth to pull out a large sweat covered key. He inserted the key before pushing it forward and opening the coffin revealing a large hallway.

There were many people, ninjas, robots and weird one-dimensional monster dudes all lined up along the sides with smiles on their faces.

GeorgeO walked along the hallway, another man at the entrance soon stopping him before handing him a towel. GeorgeO draped it over his massive shoulder and casually smiled.

“So, how’d I do today?” GeorgeO asked as he stopped along the sides to see a young impressionable ninja minion with childish sparkles in his eyes holding out a picture. It showed GeorgeO standing over a large heavy metal album cover esque mountain of bones and blood, flexing.

“Twelve consecutive wins, hard difficulty, four separate bodies” the man following GeorgeO explained as he signed the young ninja’s picture. “Can you sign that to Bud?” “I mean, my real name’s Smoke’ems but, I’d like to, you know, um” the young ninja stuttered with a subtly nervous fanboy’y expression upon his covered face.

“Of course, anything for a fan!” GeorgeO smiled. “Oh thank you sir, I just loved your match today!” Smoke’ems exclaimed.

GeorgeO smiled back even as the wienery voice of the fan grated the ears of anyone unfortunate enough to not be deaf at the moment. “You sure showed that ninja what for, I can’t believe you won so effortlessly!” he continued to annoy, GeorgeO simply smiling as he contemplated what to write.

“Who said it was effortless?” GeorgeO asked. “Don’t assume it wasn’t a challenge, you don’t get where I am today without practice and hardship” he speechified.

“Yes of course, I know that it’s just, my matches are always so much more difficult compared to yours, I don’t think I could ever be as strong as you, GeorgeO!” the fan smiled as GeorgeO continued holding himself in great restraint.

“You’re my Hero, GeorgeO, I just…” the fan simply stated before looking away out of sudden embarrassment. “Alright, alright no need to gush”. “‘To my friend Bud, keep on fighting, your Hero, GeorgeO!’” he wrote, reading aloud the words with a boisterous and friendly tone before finally moving on. “Wow, I won’t forget this, you really are a Hero!”

He stopped for a few other eager fans along the hallway as the man who handed him his towel followed him closely. “The crowd’s loving the Phatalities” the man pointed out, GeorgeO half-paying attention to him as he continued to sign his name on various merchandise and memorabilia that his fans eagerly shoved in his face.

“I thought they would, I call that last one the ‘TorsOwned’”. “I’m thinking about patenting it actually” he said, signing a novelty drink cozy covered with fake blood on it as he did.

“Very good, sir, I’ll have the Zombie Robots in the legal department write up official documents for you after the next match” the man stated. He pulled out a pen and pad as he walked, scribbling down notes in a subdued manner.

GeorgeO soon made his way to the end of the hallway, a small door aligning several others as the crowd of swarming fans soon dispersed with time and forced distance. He could see just out of the end of the hallway a single person hidden in another crowd of fans. He was dressed in a silver and white hooded robe.

As soon as GeorgeO tried to focus on what he looked like he disappeared. The memory of the figure seemed to resonate in his mind slightly like a nearly forgotten dream but he was soon drawn out of his daze as he reached his changing room.

He swung open his door, his heart dropping as he noticed a single man sitting with his hands neatly folded upon a blank card table. The man was dressed in a black and red vest, tie and pair of shades. He bore an unnaturally large and unsettling toothy grin and a head completely free of anything resembling hair.

“Oh, chief… um… how…?” the man holding the clipboard beside GeorgeO failed to spurt out a half-finished question. “Leave us” the man requested. The man holding the clipboard looked at GeorgeO briefly in a worried manner before simply walking out the dressing quarters and shutting the door.

“Have a seat please; oh it’s so wonderful to see you again!” the suited man exclaimed with a joyous and yet unsettling presence.

His smile was bright and unfaltering, a forced grin unnaturally large covering nearly half of his entire face. His hands were gloved and black, the leather smelling faintly of blood, detergent and gunpowder with a glowing black spark irradiating from them.

GeorgeO tentatively sat himself down in the spare seat, meeting the man’s covered gaze. The man stroked his own completely bald head with his leather glove. “Um…” GeorgeO attempted to speak, the words fleeing in terror into the safety of his inner throat as he failed to express himself.

“I saw your matches today, oh how exiting they were!” the man continued to smile. His mouth was almost gaping and monstrous like some kind of Demonic horror puppet with an unhinged jaw.

“The crowd loves you, they always do”. “Been years following these repetitive set-ups and yet they still keep themselves entertained with you and more importantly, distracted!” he continued. GeorgeO was trying desperately to keep his composure as he responded. “Um…” he failed to speak again; the words simply would not free themselves.

“But I think I speak for everyone here at Blud Quombat when I say that maybe you’re over-doing it a bit!” the man spoke. GeorgeO finally worked up the balls to respond with a hearty “What?” instead of a meekly ‘um…’ for once.

“I feel that this meeting has been a long time coming, a very long time coming…” the Grinning man spoke, catching himself with an almost forced and robotic gesture as he placed his open gloved palm in front of his smile.

“I’ve been informed that the respawning Voiceless you have been facing for the past twelve matches has switched to ‘easy’ after his last defeat”. “He’ll be climbing the ranks in the tower challenges again soon enough and he’s heading for you to be his next boss fight!” the man explained, still forced and cheerful.

“I don’t quite…” GeorgeO once again tried to pathetically interject before being interrupted by the Grinning man. “Understand that we still need you in this… unstable state, despite the dangers”. “But regardless the Voiceless has grown… frustrated” he continued.

“Challenge can only entertain your betters for so long” the Grinning man explained with continued forced jollity. His tone never wavered even as the news seemed to bring a strong sense of anger, unheard and certainly unseen but felt nevertheless.

“Entering the challenge tower with ‘easy’ is never a good sign; it shows that they’ve stopped having fun…” “Isn’t that why you’re here, to make sure they have fun?” the Grinning man asked gaining only contemplative silence in response. “Even with that activated though to give the Voiceless his deserved advantage I still fear he won’t be able to defeat you in a fair fight anyway”.

“So what I need you to do is to simply let him win this time” the Grinning man explained. “I’m sorry, what?” GeorgeO asked, his balls said to have grown three sizes that day. “Did you not hear me!?” the man smiled. “No, I heard you, sir” GeorgeO quickly apologized, confirming that three times zero was still zero. The Grinning man leaned forward, his smile reflecting GeorgeO’s nervous expression as he spoke.

“I’m not asking you to understand, you aren’t meant to, none of us are”. “I fear that you may be spending too much time… well, for lack of a better expression ‘being alive’” he explained.

“I mean, the last boss we had to… deal with, he didn’t go quietly, oh no”. “And believe it or not I’d like to avoid such unpleasantness if possible”.

“That’s what happens to our kind; the longer we live the more we have to lose”. The Grinning man’s smile finally faded slightly as he removed his glasses revealing two pure black squares where his eyes would have been.

“We live only to serve them, entertain them”. “But when we become the ones who need entertainment… well, things get so needlessly complicated”. He stared across the table, never blinking, his blank cube shaped holes holding nothing but endless darkness.

“How much time do any of us have left?” he asked, his voice distorting slightly from his once cheerful demeanor. “Our duty is to make them happy… keep them in the dark to just how broken we really are…” his voice was a scratching and breathless in tone.

“But even with that looming fear you can only remember so much, only care so much”. “You don’t know what it is to simply… be responsible”. “This system I’ve put in place, everything here; the stadium, the fans, it’s all meant to keep everyone in line”.

“I have my boss and you have yours, our one universal law”. GeorgeO leaned back from his ill-fitted foldable chair out of fear, the Grinning man leaning in ever closer until he was practically lying on the card table.

The Grinning man’s gloved hand began to spark with disturbing black lightning. GeorgeO could feel his very being, his memories, everything he ever was simply begin to slip away. His soul was holding onto a cliff’s edge with slippery fingers and a wormhole pulling him to the bottom.

“You still know who’s in charge, right?” he asked, GeorgeO failing to respond as he swallowed his own stunning fear. “RIGHT!?” the Grinning man screamed, his smile still prominent as GeorgeO quickly responded in sudden shock “Yes, the Bishops, sir, I know, I’ll cooperate I swear!” he cowered, his eyes turned away and his body shaking and sweating all the while.

“Good, I knew there was a reason I still liked you…” the Grinning man spoke as he reverted back to his default monstrous expression and the black lightning disappeared. He slumped back into his chair before soon standing himself up. “Very good… very good indeed” he exclaimed with a satisfied exhale before heading for the not too distant exit.

He stopped at the door with his hand still and gentle wrapped around the knob, using his other hand to place his black out sunglasses back onto his bald head. “I’ll be watching the fight, GeorgeO, I expect a spectacular and entertaining match with an appropriate ending”.

“I know it may not be pleasant but I’m sure the fans won’t mind the loss”. “The Voiceless must be satisfied and the audience knows who their true owners are” he said before finally opening the door. “Remember; always make sure they have fun”.

“Toodles!” he said before walking out of the dressing room and closing the door behind him. The gentle click of the lock shuttered GeorgeO’s heart as he felt the cold sweat race down his forehead.

He breathed heavy and clenched his fists. For a moment he thought about smashing the cheap furniture but there was little rage he could work with. There was a small, subtle white spark on his hand, he covered it and sat alone.

An alarm screeched, hidden underneath a signed fan-art poster of him on his wall. It was a garish bit of anime-y nonsense that he nevertheless kept up with the finest folded duct tape. It was always staring at him before a match, this time it hurt to stare back.

The buzzer rang again, the unmistakable signal of a soon coming match, the very moment he could pinpoint when his own heart stopped beating. He reluctantly walked towards the exit before turning the door knob and moving into the hallway.

He breathed deep for a moment before being suddenly stopped by a hand placed gently upon one of his four arms. “Don’t throw the fight” a voice spoke. It was a man; a faded, slightly lower tone like someone imitating someone else to fool no one.

“Just keep quiet and listen to me” he explained, GeorgeO doing exactly what he said. The mysterious man grabbed GeorgeO’s hand, the white spark gaining brightness and power as another aura met its path.

“We’re taking a great risk even being here, glad to see it wasn’t a blind chase” he spoke. “Who are you?” GeorgeO asked to which the man responded “someone like you, someone who’s always wanted to be a Hero”.

“Answer me this, this one simple question”. “Are you really going to throw the fight?” the man asked to which GeorgeO responded only with unsure silence.

“Do you want to at least live a little longer?” the man asked another question. “I… I’m not…” GeorgeO said. “I just want a straight answer” the man requested. “Then give me a straight question” “Who are you?” GeorgeO asked. “You’ll find out if you don’t throw the fight”.

“I have my orders, I have to throw the fight” GeorgeO said. “It doesn’t matter what I want…” “Why?” the man asked. GeorgeO seemed perplexed by that statement. “It’s such a dangerous word, but also an unavoidable one, always remember that” the man continued, his tone becoming slightly childish as he went on.

“Look, I really can’t stay long, never know when a nosey guard might get curious about that newly formed ‘hazy memory’ of his” he said, the white spark glowing brighter afterwards. “Regardless of what happens tonight always just keep that word in your head…”. “If you’ve ever wanted to know what it truly feels like to be a Hero, I can show you”.

“You’re not making any sense” GeorgeO said, noticing the white spark on his hand begin to burn with ever intense power as he did. “…And you’re pointing it out…” the man’s voice became subdued and a little smug as the glowing finally faded.

“Throw the fight and you can finally leave this place”. “What if I don’t want to leave this place?” GeorgeO asked. “Well… stay then, you won’t last very long, and you’ll never know what it’s like to be a Hero, but you will know what it’s like to be a corpse”.

“Look, whatever you decide just remember that you’re not alone, the Pawns are willing to make their move tonight” he said, his hands soon disappearing from GeorgeO’s arm as his voice faded.

“Fight and we’ll help, die and you’ll never hear from us again”. “Make your choice, we’ll be watching…” GeorgeO swiftly turned himself around only to notice nothing but the dark hallway in front of him. GeorgeO looked perplexed as with a third sudden ring he heard the buzzer from his dressing room echoed across the hallway.

The match was about to begin. The audience and Voiceless were waiting impatiently within the Magma Pits Without Safety Railings.