Chereads / Antique(WN) / Chapter 23 - The King's Edge

Chapter 23 - The King's Edge

Woah, I thought the lobby and the VIP floor were ritzy, but this is another level! The tower's roof is busted wide open! I couldn't notice from all the way on the ground, but the top is shaped kinda like a funnel, amplifying the stellar scene above. The mirrored floor makes it feel like we're walking with the moon and the stars! Even the boy is looking around in amazement. I'd love for Miss Melanie to come here with me after we kill Bianca. It'll be so romantic. 

Like space, the floor is huge and empty only inviting us, the stars, and one other group onto it. An elevator at the edge of the wall has four guards dressed in some tight sparkly onesies stationed at its base. It rises up to a viewing booth hanging near the top of the funnel. The viewing booth has a small railing, but nothing to hide the three people on top of it. 

Two more goofy guards and a woman draped in a thick, fluffy, pitch-black dress sitting in a sparkly throne. A rope of intertwined rainbow hair slacks from her head onto the floor and her dark lipstick reflects the colors in the sky. A sunhat with a rainbow circling the rim makes a halo around her head. Her sharp nails look like they click and clack together whenever they move. I bet using her phone is pretty hard with those. 

She snaps at one of the guards who hands her a megaphone and clicks it on. "Arrrrthuuuur!" She says in a long drawn-out voice. "So you've abandoned your recalcitrant ways and come back to mwah!" 

"She talks funn- Ow! Don't kick me Arthur!" 

"I've missed you so much, Bianca!" He shouts, "I think about you every night! I've been a wreck without you!" 

"It's a little hot for a dress that big..." I'd be drenched if I was wearing that right now.

 

"Vilma!" Arthur snaps. 

"I would never let the weather dictate what I wear," Bianca says. "That's so... stodgy." 

"That's so what?" 

"Vilma. Quiet." 

"Sorry." 

"Arthur my dear, if this is about continuing where we left off the last time we were together, I'd be thrilled to lay with you another night." 

"You went for someone like her?" 

Instead of yelling at me for talking again, his eyebrows rise and his lips curl oddly, the same look Miss Melanie says I give her when I forget to do something she asks of me. "I was young and just getting my footing in my business. It's not my proudest decision." 

"What was that, Arthur!" She yelled. "I can't hear you from down there when you speak so soft!" 

"I said... that's exactly what I came here for!"

"And you brought these two because..?" 

"They're bodyguards! Just bodyguards." 

"The child is a bodyguard?" 

"Yeah, I'm not too thrilled about it either." 

"I wouldn't think you'd be the type to employ children or bodyguards. Where's the hardened young man I met years ago? Or maybe this has to do with your partnership with Melanie? Is she that inept that she's giving you children as protection now? Ohohoho!" 

Inept!? I'm not sure what that means, but nobody laughs at Miss Melanie! "Hey! Watch your mouth when you talk about Miss Melanie!" I shout up to her. 

"Vilma, shut up," Arthur whispers, trying not to break eye contact with Bianca. 

"I don't give a shit how important you are, you don't get to talk about my future fiance that way!" 

"Arthur, can you keep your dog in line? She's giving me a migraine." 

Arthur opens his mouth to speak, but whatever he is thinking of saying doesn't come out. Then, after another try, a silent sigh crawls out his mouth, and the words he finds follow behind. "If you'd just listened, this could have been a hundred times easier. But, we're already at the top so I guess we can drop the act. Vilma you-" 

"Finally! Enough talking!" I sprint for the door leaving shattered glass under my feet with every step.

"Vilma wait, the kid!" 

"Keep him safe for me Arthur! Love you!" 

"Boys!" Bianca blares. "Shoot that animal before she ruins more of my floor!" The disco guards pull up their shiny sequenced shirts, gripping their hands around pistols ready to kill me. 

But that doesn't stop me as I- Wham! Before they know it I'm already on top of them and one goes down with one swing of my right hand. It feels great to not hold back! 

The other three point they're shaking hands towards me and unload their magazines into my body. They're relentless, blasting bullet after bullet into my skull. They riddle my chest full of holes, every one of them trying to break through me. Gunsmoke begins to fill in between us, blocking our views of each other. But as their guns start to click, the smoke clears and there's nothing left to hurt me with, I watch the color drain from their faces when they see I'm still standing without a single scar. 

"Miss Melanie made my muscles out of iron and my bones stronger than steel! Nothing can kill my love!" My palm cracks open one guard's jaw, and my left hand grips the shirt of another guard. 

"Woah, hey wait!" He cries as I slam his back into the floor, splitting the stars under him and knocking him out cold. All the while, a lone guard's new bullets wash off my skin like rain. 

Oooh, this feels good! I never get time like this to flex the one thing I can do right! Miss Melanie's so good at keeping herself out of danger, she barely needs me! But that's gonna change after today! 

"Now come here!" The last guard shakes beneath me, his gun dropped to the ground. He's light as a twig when I pick him up and bring my face close to his sniveling eyes. "Do I need a key for the elevator?" 

"I... you... uh..." Ew, the snot's running into his mouth. I guess I'll just bust the door in if it's locked! 

"Alright. Bye, bye!" I launch the poor guy like that sport in the Olympics where they twirl the big ball on a string, and he bounces off the floor a handful of times before lying motionless on the floor. 

That was a good warm-up, but there's still stuff I gotta do up here. I approach the elevator door, ready to crack a hole through the fancy gold exterior. 

"Vilma! Do your job!" I turn around to ask what Arthur meant by that and see that more afroed, flashy suit-wearing guards are piling out the elevator door we came from. Oh no, the boy needs my help! 

I take off back to Arthur and the kid cowering behind his legs as the guards ready pistols and shotguns aimed at both of them. One of them looks at them and then back up to Bianca. "Um, Ma'am!" He shouts up, "Did you want us to shoot the kid down here too!?" 

"Yes, fire! Kill them all!" She shrieks. 

The one guard shrugs and everyone else blindly complies, opening fire on my best friend and the ticket to getting Miss Melanie to like me. Arthur grips his hand around his hilt, but before he can pull his sword out, I put myself in between them and the wall of lead. The shells tickle my skin and trickle onto the floor until familiar clicking sounds play in front of me. 

"Are you alright?" 

"Vilma... wait for my directions next time. You running off could have gotten the kid hurt." 

"Is he ok?" 

"As okay as any kid would be in this situation. He's not hurt at least." 

"Great!" If nothing bad happened, then I did the right thing! 

I turn to the new set of guards and the moment I do, I see them all visibly wet themselves. One of the guards makes a break for the elevator, and his friends hastily follow him away from me. 

"Where are you going? You can't run!" I sprint after them. 

"Vilma, do your job and watch the kid! This is not my responsibility! Where are you going!?" 

"I'll be back! Don't kill Bianca until I'm done with them!" 

"Close close close close CLOSE!!!" One of the guards screams while furiously slamming the control panel. 

"Come back here!" 

Just as the doors are about to meet and shut me out, I barge through them like a battering ram. My arms pry open the mangled metal as the elevator starts its descent. My giant body squeezes inside before it can fully leave, and the guards are now trapped together in a cage with me. They all stare up at me, legs shaking like little babies, and I make their fears a reality when I start crushing skulls.

They're all so tiny and weak, why don't I just get rid of all of the guards in the whole tower? Then there will be nobody standing in the way of me and Bianca! And when I kill her, Miss Melanie will have to love me! This is it! I'm going to get my first girlfriend!