Okay, so here I am, a dog-human hybrid with a dream of being a mob boss, a title only held by the world's greatest criminals, fighting a gangster wearing a giant tuxedo to save a half-lizard, half-human girl.
Up to speed? Good. Because it only gets stupider from here.
"LIKE MY SUIT, DOG?!" Spanks shouted from the top of his giant suit.
"Eh, I've seen better," I said, pointing at my very own suit, which enraged him for some reason. Why do I say this? Because he raised his giant hand to strike.
Before I could even react, his hand crushed me right into the ground, which sent shockwaves far and wide across the city, and well, damn...
It was fucking painful!
"So, was it all worth it, you idiot?" My conscience said as it floated around my broken body. "You barely know these people, but look at the attack you just took for them! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
He was right, though. I was stupid. I couldn't even help them if I wanted to...
But this was it. I could feel my consciousness fading...
That is until I saw Maria's face...
Such a scared little girl...
Relying on me to help her out...
Help her dad out...
Help her whole town out...
Why was this so familiar?
Then I saw it again...
The vision... Or was it a memory?...
The forest, the man who looked just like me... He was fighting an army of monsters...
And losing?!
But he was still fighting. For what, you ask?
For me.
Those monsters wanted to kill me...
I looked at myself and saw I was weak and scrawny...
I was a weakling...
But this guy, whoever he was, still tried to keep me safe from those monsters, despite losing badly!
I don't know what that vision meant, but I knew one thing! I was going to save Maria from Spanks.
And maybe I'll change my outlook on weaklings...
I got back up and faced Spanks, and although it hurt like hell, I was ready to duke it out!
"WOW, YOU'RE REALLY NOT IN A HURRY TO DIE, AREN'T YOU?!" Spanks then raised his arm again, and I prepared for another strike until...
He tossed me high up into the air and shot one of his arms into the air!
I was trying my best to get a hold of myself, but my wounds had other plans! I was losing boatloads of blood, and it was becoming harder to even see Spanks flying at me at full speed...
Or the giant arm flying at me from behind!
But that didn't stop me from unleashing my ultimate attack!
I punched Spanks's fist, and the shockwave could have been seen for miles...
But both of Spanks's enormous fists crashed into me on both sides and sent me crashing right back where I was, leaving a giant sinkhole in the wake of the damage!
Damn... did I really just lose?
Spanks reattached his arm and landed back down to see Maria running into the hole to look after me...
"Spike! NO! I'm so sorry I put you through all this! This is all my fault! If only I wasn't so cowardly! If only I took the chance like my voice said..."
"Hey k...kid! C'mon! It's only a lit...tle scratch! I... I'll be fine, alright!" I stammered as I noticed Spanks approaching.
"WELL, THAT WAS FUN. BUT IT'S TIME TO DIE! GET AWAY FROM MARIA! I WANT TO GET RID OF YOU FOR ALL THE TOWNSPEOPLE TO SEE!"
"NOOO! I'm not going anywhere, you asshole! This guy risked his life for mine, and I won't let you hurt him!" Maria said and held onto me tightly.
"FINE! HAVE IT YOUR WAY, YOU GREEN BRAT! I'LL JUST HAND YOUR BODY OVER TO YOUR 'DADDY' AS A GIFT!"
That's when he raised his hand for another attack...
This was it... Maria and I were about to die...
And that damn feeling of nostalgia came back...
I was going to have another vision until I heard it...
"NOOOOO!"
Farmer leaped in front of us and blocked Spanks's way. He was absolutely ready to die if it meant protecting his daughter.
"You want them dead?! You want to see me suffer?! Why?! What did I do to you that makes you hate me and my town so much?!"
But Spanks merely grabbed Farmer and raised him to his face...
"Daddy!" Maria shouted, but just when he was about to help him...
"No, dear, stay right there! I'll be fine!" Farmer shouted at her, and she reluctantly obeyed her adoptive father.
"AWWW! HOW CUTE! A FATHER READY TO SAVE HIS DAUGHTER! IF ONLY HE WAS SO SERIOUS ABOUT SAVING HIS SON!"
"H...how did you know about my...no... Sam?!"
"NO! NOT SAM! SPANKS NOW! YOU DON'T GET TO CALL ME THAT! NOT AFTER WHAT YOU DID, YOU..."
"I'm so sorry, Sam! I didn't mean to..."
"Sam?! What's going on, Daddy?" Maria asked her father.
"GO ON, 'DADDY'! LOOKS LIKE YOUR DEAR OLD DAUGHTER DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT YOUR FORGOTTEN SON! HOW ABOUT YOU ENLIGHTEN HER, EH?"
"I... I'm sorry, Maria... he's right, it's time I told you... The real reason I left Podgea..." Farmer began...
"I was, as my name suggested, a humble farmer in Podgea with my wife and son, Sam, before it became the no-man's-land it is now... But when it did, my home was one of the first to fall."
"CONTINUE, YOU OLD FOOL! YOU'RE GETTING TO MY FAVORITE PART!" Spanks shouted.
"It was a happy life. Sam was as cute as a boy could be and the best son a guy could ask for, and my wife was no different. I thought that my life couldn't get any better. I was right because when Podgea fell to the forces of the Capoes, the current rulers of Capo Initiative, my house was destroyed. I survived the wreckage, but my wife didn't. I tried to look for my son, but..."
"LIES! LIES! YOU DIDN'T LOOK FOR ME! YOU LEFT ME THERE TO DIE! IT WAS HORRIBLE! THE DARKNESS, THE HORROR OF IT ALL. I WAS GOING TO DIE! BUT I DIDN'T, AND I CRAWLED OUT OF THE RUBBLE ONLY TO SEE MOM LONG DEAD AND YOU LONG GONE! I CHECKED THE NEXT HOUSE TO SEE ANOTHER YOUNG LAD DYING UNDER THE RUBBLE OF HIS OWN HOME. I WASN'T GOING TO LET HIM DIE TOO AND SAVED HIS LIFE."
"ONCE I PICKED HIM UP, HE SAID HE FORGOT HIS OWN NAME, SO I CALLED HIM MY NUMBER 2! THEN TOGETHER, WE MADE A PROMISE TO PUNISH YOU FOR ABANDONING US, YOU DISGUSTING EXCUSE FOR A FATHER!!"
"Please, son, I tried my best to look for you for days! I was devastated when I couldn't find you!"
"NOT AS MUCH AS I'M ABOUT TO DECIMATE YOU RIGHT NOW!" Spanks said with his voice so loud it could be heard for miles. Then he raised his ginormous cloth hand above the one holding Farmer and threatened to crush him as he was being held still.
As he was about to crush Farmer, all I did was laugh hysterically.
"AND WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?!" Spanks said to me in rage.
"Well, you just called the man ready to risk it all to save his daughter, who, may I remind you, isn't even his biological child!"
"Yeah! Daddy's been the best dad ever and doesn't deserve all this! Please let him go!"
"LET HIM GO?! PLEASE! IT'S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME TILL HE BETRAYS YOU TOO! AND I'LL BE DAMNED IF I LET THIS DEADBEAT LIVE ANOTHER SECOND!!"
And as Spanks said this, he quickly lowered his hand to squash Farmer, and that was it...
Farmer was dead...
Well, he was supposed to be...
Maria watched Spanks's giant hand lower onto Farmer but was distracted by that damn voice again...
"You have to kill... if not, Daddy will die!!"
Maria tried to resist its influence...
"Let it all out, or lose everything!"
Or else it would happen again...
"Destroy the asshole!"
Just like her old home...
Then, just a second before Spanks crushed Farmer, his hand stopped moving.
Why, you ask?
Because he wasn't in his giant suit anymore...
His giant head, where his actual body was supposed to be, fell off his body
...Or should I say, ripped off...
And who did that, you ask?
It was none other than Maria...
Or was it?
The torn fabric where the head had been attached revealed not the expected neck, but a continuation of the suit material, now ripped and frayed. The massive body, no longer animated by the small, shriveled head, slumped to the ground with a resounding thud.
Silence descended upon the town square, broken only by Maria's ragged breathing. She stood there, small and trembling, the torn piece of suit fabric clutched in her hand. Her eyes, wide and unfocused, stared at the fallen giant.
Farmer, still held aloft by Spanks's now-lifeless hand, was gently lowered to the ground by Maria. He rushed to his daughter's side, embracing her tightly. "Maria! What… what did you do?" he stammered, his voice filled with a mixture of fear and awe.
Maria didn't answer. She just stared at her hands, as if she didn't recognize them. The voice, the one that had haunted her, urged her again, Finish it.
But Maria didn't move. The voice, for the first time, seemed weaker, less insistent. She looked at Farmer, at the relief and love in his eyes, and then at the townspeople, who were watching her with a mixture of fear and hope.
"I… I don't know," she whispered, finally breaking the silence. "I just… I just did it."
The crowd erupted in cheers. They had seen Spanks's cruelty, his power, and now they had seen his defeat at the hands of a young girl.
They didn't care how it had happened; they were just grateful it was over.
I, however, was still trying to process what I had just witnessed. Maria, this seemingly timid girl, had just decapitated a twenty-meter-tall clothes monster. And she didn't even seem to know how she had done it.
"Spike," Farmer said, approaching me. "Thank you. You saved us."
"Yeah, well," I mumbled, still trying to wrap my head around everything. "Looks like I had some help." I glanced at Maria, who was now surrounded by the townspeople, all wanting to thank her.
"She's… different," Farmer said quietly, following my gaze. "She's always been different. But… she's also strong. Stronger than any of us could have imagined."
He was right. Maria was different. And maybe, just maybe, that difference was what had saved them all. Maybe it was the same difference that had saved me in that vision, or memory, or whatever it was.
The crowd began to disperse, the celebration winding down. The immediate danger was over, but the town was in ruins, and they had a long road ahead of them to rebuild.
As I watched them, I thought about Maria, about Farmer, about all the people in this town. They were weak, in a way. They were vulnerable. But they were also strong, in their own way. They had survived, they had endured, and now they were ready to rebuild.
And maybe, just maybe, I had been wrong about weaklings. Maybe it wasn't about being strong or weak, but about what you were willing to fight for.
I looked at Farmer, who was now walking towards Maria, his arm around her shoulder. He looked tired, but he also looked proud. He had lost his wife, he had lost his son, but he still had Maria. And that was enough.
I smiled. Maybe I still had a lot to learn. Maybe being a mob boss wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Maybe… maybe there were more important things in life.
But that was a story for another time. For now, there was a town to rebuild, and a girl who had just discovered a power she didn't understand. And I, Spike Dogtooth, was going to be there to see what happened next.
The End... FOR NOW.