(Content Warning: contains language and some more violence than previous chapters. Also contains parts that may hit BL1, BL2, BL3 and BL9 on the Blacklist, going off of the Wiki.)
Despite its ironclad shell, the Virginia’s deck was still wooden planks tightly packed together. The entire entourage of bits from earlier was scattered across the deck, and if anything there looked to be more of them. The Agents portaled in, hidden by the shadows of the staircase leading up to the helm. Even then, a couple of bits were an arm’s reach away from them, more than close enough to notice them if they glanced.
At least for the time being, the bits were all too distracted to notice - most of them were enacting stilted slice-of-life scenes concerning their specific gimmicks, and those who weren't were staring off into space or out into the open waters.
For a moment, it looked like Molly had zoned out completely, staring blankly into space. Then she blinked, shook her head a little, and looked at John. She held up her charge list in one paw, pointing at the crowd of Suvians with the other.
“We have enough charges to do the Duty,” she whispered. “Ready to stop them?”
John didn’t know what ‘the Duty’ was. He nodded out of habit, before realizing it might not have been the best idea. Molly immediately turned and strode to the center of the deck, by the mast of the ship. Hopping up on top of one of the supply barrels stacked around the flagpole, she cleared her throat.
Despite the cough being incredibly quiet, every bit stopped talking and moving at once. Then, slowly and in perfect unison, they turned to face her head on. A wave of stares met the two Agents.
Another oversized sweatdrop appeared on Molly's face. She averted her gaze into the chargelist and began to read.
“Okay, everyone listen for a moment, please! In the name of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, you’re all charged with the following:
“Taking up so much space with character profiles, breaking time to infodump the profiles everywhere, bringing non-canon powers and tech into Narnia, having weak personalities, some of you having no personality at all, claiming to be rebels when you don’t act like it…”
Molly lowered the charge list, only to notice all the staring Suvians. She clutched her list a little tighter to her chest. “Um… and in general being awful excuses for heroes. And helping a Suvian. Any questions?”
“YOU DON’T BELONG HERE,” the bits replied in droning unison.
“Oh, gosh.” Molly crouched down and slipped off to the deck, placing the barrel between the Suvians and herself. Then she turned to her partner and called, “Okay, Mister John! Now you can do your thing!”
A moment passed as John processed those words. Then realization set in. He tensed beneath his armor, and his hand drifted towards the holster of his energy rifle. He unslung the weapon and aimed it at the bits, clicking off the safety. The Suvians in front of him, noticing the sound, turned robotically and crouched into battle stances of their own, an eerily united wave of movement that rippled across the deck as more and more of them noticed the armored giant.
There was a moment of silence.
Then, in the back, one of the bits screamed, “KILL IT!” And the horde charged forward, John breaking into a run to meet them.
The absurdly top-heavy ‘cow girl’ from earlier was the first one to reach him, arms outstretched in a very poor attempt at a tackle. Almost casually, John took a single step to the side. Already precariously balanced and unable to change her trajectory, the bit barreled past him before tripping and crashing forward. She tried to get up, struggling under the weight of her massive chest, but found herself pinned to the deck by her own proportions.
Deciding she was no longer a threat, John turned to fire a salvo from his rifle, blowing another incoming bit to cardboard chunks. Liquid glitter sprayed out over the deck like a macabre rainbow.
Meanwhile, Molly was lost in thought behind her barrel, double-checking to make sure she didn’t miss a charge. WIth a quiet splat, a small glob of wet, pink-on-red glitter landed on the paper. She blinked, peering over her cover in time to see John throw a dead bit into another group charging at him, scattering them all like bowling pins.
“Mister John! I’m sorry, but could you watch your, uh…” A gunshot rang through the air, and Molly scooted back as a cardboard arm bounced off the barrel, sending it rocking. “Maybe you could try to be less messy, please? Thank you!” She popped back down, shook out the charge list, and went back to checking.
Molly’s words were just audible enough to show up as subtitles on John’s HUD. He didn’t get the chance to read them, however, as he raised an armored gauntlet to parry a lightning-infused punch from one of the bits.
The bit was panting, huffing, its strongest blows not doing anything as it backed John up against the helm under a storm of blows. All of its strikes were parried or outright tanked, not even smudging John's armor. Then, in a blur of movement, its head exploded in a cloud of cardboard and glitter. John drew his glitter-stained fist back and shoved the body away, adding another husk to the growing pile around him.
The next enemy to approach was one of the less cardboard Suvians - Samuel Hunter, the edgy swordsman. He stood in front of John for a moment, hand against his sheathed katana’s handle. With a finger, he popped the handle up an inch.
In a flash of light, he suddenly stood behind John, katana outstretched from a move made too fast to track. With a spinning flourish, he lowered his blade into its sheath, but not quite all the way. Eyes shut, letting out a breath for dramatic effect, he let his katana drop fully into his sheath with a quiet click.
The loud sound of a sword slice rang through the air behind him, and all was silent. The bit exhaled, eyes closed, satisfied. He knew no one could withstand the blade that could shear through molecular bonds—
A hand gripped his shoulder from behind.
“wha—”
John lifted the bit up and slammed him through the wooden deck in a storm of dust and splinters. When the dust cleared, only the bit’s legs stuck out of the floor, slightly twitching. His katana quivered next to him, jammed into a plank of wood nearly up to the hilt. John's armor wasn't even scratched.
Reaching down, John pulled out the katana, whirled it around, and threw it across the deck - another bit fell to the floor, compressed glittery slime spraying out of its cardboard body.
A splash of glitter hit Molly's charge list, which she had lifted up as an impromptu shield. “Mister John, please! It’s not easy to focus like this.”
This time, John managed to read her words off his helmet HUD. He couldn’t help but feel a touch of guilt - an unfamiliar feeling, seeing as he had spent the last decades of his life with little more emotion than rage and bloodthirst. There was something about the experiences of the last hour - had it only been an hour? - that was drawing out parts of him he didn’t know he had, thoughts long-buried after a life of salvage and slaughter.
Then he was driven out of his wandering thoughts as a bit grappled him from behind, driving a golden knife towards his neck. The blade shattered against his armor in a rain of shards, and John took advantage of the bit’s shock to grab it and throw it straight up into the air.
At the apex of its impromptu flight, a rifle blast tore a hole straight through the bit’s chest. As the body fell, John followed up the shot with an armored punch, tearing further into the glitter-filled cardboard husk until he was wearing the monster like an oversized, macabre glove. He turned, using the body as a shield to block a salvo of energy blasts from a bit wielding a high-tech rifle not unlike his own.
John charged forward, his cardboard shield decaying piece by piece as blasts tore it open in chunks. By the time he had closed the distance, the last few shots had to be blocked by his gauntlets held up in a defensive guard. The gun-toting bit didn’t even get a chance to scream as nearly half a ton of armored giant slammed into it, sending it flying off the deck.
Even before the body made a splash, John turned after an alert from his HUD - three more of the bits had crept up behind him.
John’s fist punched straight through the first’s cardboard torso, spilling the liquid glitter inside to the deck. As the body fell, John turned and drew his rifle to shoot off the legs of the second bit, who was too lacking in individuality to even make a sound as it died.
The third bit actually managed to get in a blow, slamming what looked like a warhammer made of lava-veined obsidian into his helmet - it shattered on impact, shards of rock flying everywhere. John promptly grabbed the stunned bit, lifted it up by the throat, and slammed it to the ground hard enough that its cardboard body split open on impact like a pinata full of soggy glitter.
The smell of wet cardboard was beginning to fill the air. The deck was littered with cardboard bodies and wet globs of red glitter. The bodies were already beginning to pile up in a large heap.
John continued to fight the horde, punching, grabbing, headbutting. He was running out of clean room on the deck to place his feet, and he found himself adjusting every step so that the cardboard corpses he trod on wouldn’t put him at a disadvantage.
Soon, he found that the Suvians were hesitant to approach him, standing around him in a wide circle. John scanned the dull, expressionless faces of the closest ones, patiently waiting for any of them to make a move.
“You insignificant fool…” A low, purring voice came from behind him.
John turned to see who was speaking. It was that psychic mockery of split personality disorder - another of the Suvians with enough substance to be more than a cardboard pinata. A feral grin stretched across her face, eyes glinting that floodlight-bright red.
“Your mind is an open book, and I…” The bit paused, her eyes widening. Her grin fell off her face and her bright red eye-lights flickered out. “No…”
Holstering his rifle, John began to approach, heavy boots shaking the wooden deck with every step.
"Why can't I read you? *WHY CAN'T I READ YOU?"* she screamed, the veins on her forehead looking dangerously swollen.
John kept walking. One bit ran up to him, napalm gel in one hand and a lit torch in the other. Without losing stride or looking away from his original target, John grabbed the bit by the neck and threw it up into the clouds. A second later, there was a muffled explosion, and bits of cardboard rained down on the deck.
"I'LL TEAR YOU APART FROM THE INSIDE OUT!" the psychic yelled, though her voice peaked from stress. She took her hands, clenched them into fists, and slowly wrenched them outward as if stretching a roll of taffy.
John kept walking. He kept walking as the world around him was twisted, wooden planks cracking and splitting, the space around him warping.
The bit began to visibly panic, arms waving wildly, the ship itself twisting and breaking to throw itself at the approaching man. Glitter began to ooze from her mouth, her nose, even her eyes as she pushed her body to the limits.
John kept walking. Pieces of the ironclad hull, torn off for use as telekinetic projectiles, shattered against his armor.
“Stop it! I WON’T LET YOU WIN!” The bit gave one more defiant scream, and the air itself compressed. It tried to crush him with telekinetic force, pressing in on all sides like a vice, slowly lifting him up into the air.
However, years of pushing back against the reality-bending abilities of Invaders in his own world had well prepared John for cases like this. These powers were familiar, and it was almost a comfort as that knowledge settled into his mind. He clenched his hands into fists and flexed his arms, pushing outward against the monster’s own power.
The cardboard bit screeched, trying to fight as its glitter-fueled power was pushed back, reality warping back into it. John snapped his arms out, the power forcefully shattering - overwhelmed by the backlash, body rippling with the force, the bit let out one more scream and exploded into a forceful blast of glitter and vapor. Several nearby bits were sent spinning through the air like ragdolls.
Yet another non-cardboard Suvian swaggered forward - yes, swaggering - to such a degree John actually didn’t shoot it immediately. It was the ‘anime pervert’ one, actual ooze dripping from its mouth as it approached. In its hands it gripped a warbling blue ball, which it dropped to the deck at John's feet.
This Suvian, another of the ones with more than the bare minimum of substance, grinned at him with its sleazy grin. "Do you know how it feels to have every molecule in your body ripped apart?"
John stared. The Suvian stared back, then gestured at the slowly growing ball of energy between them. “Well, now you will.”
The warbling sphere exploded, the force pushing John a step back. For a moment, the world flooded with blue as a wave of color washed over it, and then it was gone.
The color was gone, and so was the Suvian - it hadn’t moved far enough from its own explosion, as the only parts left of it were a pair of smoking boots. Before John could fully register the humor in this, another voice rang out from behind him.
“Ara, ara! You’ve fallen into my trap!”
John turned to see another of the more substantial Suvians, this time a busty kimono-wearing kitsune who looked extremely out of place considering the canon she was in.
“Ara, ara,” she repeated. The Suvian let out a haughty laugh, putting a hand over her mouth. “That idiot may have blown himself up, but he made for an excellent distraction!”
With an overdramatic flourish, she reached into her concerningly generous cleavage and pulled out a katana that was far too long to reasonably fit in there. It was ornate and golden, with heavy gemstones embedded all over its hilt.
“It’s my turn to play, and you’re trapped in my GOD AURA! You obey me now.” She waved a hand, and a few black sparks appeared in the air, illuminating a shimmering orb of mist that surrounded John and herself. “Now. Take your gun and shoot yourself in the head.”
John stared at her, expression unreadable under his opaque visor.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear the first time. Listen to me, take your gun—”
John took another step forward, and the Suvian's eyes widened.
“No - that’s unfair!” she yelled, raising her katana to point at him. “This is my god aura! No one can disobey me in—”
John lifted his rifle, now fully charged, and shot her in the head. Before the husk could fall, he grabbed it by one shoulder and hurled it in the way of an incoming ball of rainbow-hued energy. On impact, the body exploded into scraps of scorched cardboard with enough force to rock the entire ship. Still crouched by the steps, Molly squeaked and nearly dropped her charge list.
The bits kept coming. Watching John get swarmed by more and more Suvians, Molly tried to remember how many bits had been on the ship originally. Was it in the fifties? How many new OC volunteers did the fic take? As she watched the pile of broken cardboard and glittery sludge grow high enough that it looked like John was fending off the horde on top of a DIY volcano, even a hundred started to look like a massive lowball.
John, in contrast, couldn’t care less about numbers. He was simply fulfilling his purpose of killing monsters, and he would go through with it until there were none left around him.
A loud scream broke through his concentration, so air-shatteringly loud it demanded his attention. Behind her barrel, Molly squeaked and curled up into a ball, paws held tight over her ears.
John turned towards to face the Suvian the screams came from. This one was Colette, the main Suvian's love interest, her mouth open wide in an unending, unbreathing howl.
Her screams warped the air itself, making it look like the world was consumed by a violently wobbling glob of clear jelly. Its sheer force made it a struggle for John to stay standing. Cardboard bodies crumpled and dissolved beneath his feet, only making balance more difficult. He could hear the wooden planks of the deck behind him creaking and snapping in indignation as the Suvian’s screams intensified.
He began to walk forward. Seeing this, the Suvian screamed even louder, mouth opening even wider, eyes becoming even more piercing as their pupils shrunk to tiny blue dots. John ignored her reaction, making progress through the mountain of bodies.
Step by agonizingly slow and measured step he moved, but even when he had made it within arms’ reach of the Suvian, she didn’t try to run away, only screaming loud enough the ironclad hull of the ship cracked in protest. Her mouth stretched wider, inhumanly so, looking more like a snake's than anything resembling a human's.
Pushing through the pounding noise, John reached through the rippling curtain of air at the hazy silhouette they came from, managing to grip the sides of the screamer’s head. His arms flexed, his gauntleted hands shoved inward, and a second later the headless bit slumped to the ground, its deafening screech muffled by the remains of its own head forced into its hollow imitation of a chest cavity.
Looking around, John counted less than a dozen bits still standing - only a few more left to deal with. None of them seemed willing to approach, even as he drew his rifle and shot another one clean off the deck.
"Mister John! Mister John, help!"
John swiveled around, gun at the ready. Molly was running across the ship as fast as her tiny legs could carry her, one of the Suvians - the giant, hungry one - lumbering after her with arms outstretched. “Food! Food!” it chanted.
John aimed his rifle and fired, blowing a hole in the Suvian’s shirt, but the cardboard-like skin underneath looked barely scorched. However, it did get the giant to stagger, before slowly turning to stare at him instead.
“...You interrupt food,” it said. “NOW YOU FOOD!”
"Thank you, Mister John!" Molly squeaked, before crawling behind some barrels to hide. John couldn’t respond even if he wanted to, as his attention was drawn to the monster lumbering forward, a look of childish anger plastered across the giant Suvian’s face. It began to march up the hill of dead bits, glaring at its new target standing on its peak. Wet cardboard crunched and squelched under its feet as it went.
At similar heights and body shapes, both giants shaking the deck as they approached each other, the two looked like they would be evenly matched. The Suvian swung first, giant cardboard fist clenched, a 'diamond-shattering' force behind it.
John caught the fist with his own hand, then squeezed. The fist crumpled into a glittery mess the shape and size of a crushed soda can. The bit roared, and its other hand shot out, clasping over John's visor. It attempted a crushing of its own, but John didn't seem to react at all, his armor not even giving slightly.
The giant Suvian was so focused on trying to crush John's head, roaring in rage and agony, that it didn't notice as he reached for his holster and drew out his rifle with his own free hand.
The rifle shots hit their marks, blowing apart the Suvian’s legs. While not as cardboard as some of its bot comrades, the giant was still clearly hollow and filled with nothing but glitter. It fell onto the mountain of its fellow bits’ corpses, screaming in eerie autotune, arms flailing in an attempt to pull itself upright. Its writhing sprayed glitter across the floor and over John's visor. As John rose to his feet, wiping the mess off his helmet, he raised his rifle and aimed at the now-prone monster, only a pinkish silhouette through his blurry vision and glitter-stained visor.
As on Earth, there was no reason to torture or taunt monsters. It was inefficient and pointless, and would delay the satisfaction of a demon unmade. He fired another shot at the red-lined shape's head, and its stopped writhing.
On the windowsill, Molly squeaked and jerked away as a splash of glitter hit the barrel she was tucked behind.
And then the ship was silent. All around him, the Agents could only see dead or dying bits and Suvians (and one simply pinned to the deck, but the effect was the same).
"Is that… it?" Molly asked tentatively, poking her head over the rim of the barrel. "Are we finished with the Duty?"
"S-s-stop right there, p-p-please!"
"Never mind," sighed Molly.
One more Suvian stood on the helm overseeing the deck, flanked by two bits so cardboard they looked like faceless mannequins dressed in concerningly revealing sailor's wear. For a second, her face looked like a sickly-sweet mask of innocence, matching her earlier, stuttering tone. Then it curled into a snarl and her eyes lit up red, casting a glow over the entire deck.
“GRANDMASTER!” the Suvian screamed, slamming a button on an elaborate watch she wore.
There was a twinkle in the sky, and a shadow formed over the deck. The two remaining bits behind her didn’t react in time and were crushed as an enormous Bob Semple tank dropped from the clouds, crushing the helm down to the deck, rocking the entire boat and nearly sending Molly flying off the side. She was barely able to grip the handrails to avoid going over.
“Sweet Cheesus!” she squeaked as she took in what had dropped onto the deck. “Is that a tank?!”
”IT IS A TANK!” screamed the watch-wearing Suvian, now the last of her crew standing, laughing as she leapt up and into the open hatch in the tank’s top. It closed shut after her, and her laughter became muffled. While the treads had slammed straight through the wooden deck, the gun turret still stuck out the top. It swiveled, displaying a massive, heavy railgun on its weapon mount.
"DISOBEY AND DIE, BAKA!" the Suvian screamed, and the elaborate gun of the Ubertank lowered to point straight at John.
With no hesitation, John held up one armored gauntlet and plunged it down the nozzle, up to the elbow. There was a small click from deep inside the tank.
For a moment, everything was quiet. Even the waves seemed to still for a moment.
"What," came the muffled voice of the Suvian. A low rumble began to fill the air.
Molly had gone for cover the moment the tank had aimed at her partner. She barely managed to dive behind her familiar barrel hiding spot and fold down her ears before a billowing explosion rocked the entire boat. There was a cacophony of wood shattering and metal snapping, and she was bounced around her hiding spot like a stuffie in a washing machine. It was only after the initial echo faded away and reality had stopped shaking that Molly dared to peek over her barrel.
Scraps of metal rained from the sky, and the deck was covered in the glittering, flaming ruins of what once was the Ubertank. A massive, smoldering crater sat straight in the middle of the ironclad ship. Molly thought she could hear water gushing from blasted leaks deep inside the hole. She hoped the ship would at least stay afloat for a few more minutes.
John turned to face her, soot-covered arm still outstretched, the remnants of the tank's cannon covering it like a bracer. The orange light and falling embers from the fires behind him made him look like a wraith. It was a shockingly cinematic scene, all things considered.
“Are you…” Molly coughed to clear her throat. “Are you okay, Mister John?”
John pulled the tank cannon off his arm and let it hit the deck, where it collapsed into scraps of smoking metal on impact. He looked back up and shrugged, content. After all, his job was complete. All of the bits were either dead, overboard, or otherwise unable to fight.
Molly seemed satisfied at this, pulling out her charge list to show to him. She tapped her pen against the paper.
“Well, I double-checked and we’re all good with the bits!” she chirped, putting her list away again. “Didn’t miss a single charge! Now the only thing left to deal with is—”
There was a loud, drawn-out creak. Both Agents turned as a trapdoor behind them, nearly invisible at first due to how it blended in with the planked deck, flipped open. Brock, the lead Suvian, looking groggy from sleep, emerged from belowdecks. A handgun dangled at his side.
“What’s happening here? A party wasn’t on the script…” Then he noticed the mess on the decks. “...What the fuck.”
John fired his rifle, and the Suvian exploded in a spray of glitter.
“Wha - Mister John!” Molly looked at the new stain on the deck, then back to him. “We had unique charges for him! It wasn’t time yet!”
John looked at her. He lowered the still-smoldering barrel of his rifle, letting it point towards the deck. Despite his face being completely hidden behind his visor, he managed to look confused.
“I…” Molly weakly waved her chargelist. “To be honest, I don’t know what to do now—”
A geyser of glittering void erupted from the deck, shooting up into the atmosphere with a tremendous blast that made the air ripple like waves. Molly squeaked and made for her barrel again. John raised his rifle and fired at the geyser, but to no effect. A booming voice blasted through the air, smarmy yet rage-filled and echoing.
“YOU KILLED MY FRIENDS! MY PARTNERS!” It roared, the ship cracking from the force of its shout. “YOU WILL NOT GET AWAY WITH THIS!”
The geyser slowed to a halt, its spray of black gunk falling down and condensing, before shifting into a more glittery, ghost-like appearance. Becoming a flash of glitter, the Sue-wraith grabbed John, carried him off the ship and into the sky, back towards Narnian mainland.
Molly was left on a silent ship, only corpses (and a single bit still pinned) surrounding her. Trying to bite back panic, she pulled out her RA, opened a portal, and scrambled through.