Chapter 8 Page 73
Posted August 30, 2024 at 06:11 pm

Wait whose godly power.

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[Transcript]

        “Well?” snickered a frantic Fauxbia, dangling over Peekaboo like a spooky chandelier. “What WILL it be? I bet there’s HEAPS of haunting TRUTHS inside that SLEEPYHEAD you speak for...”

        Davy grinned, wiping black blood from his brow.

        “How long did you wander the darkness of our world before I found you? Was it centuries? Millennia?”

        “Are YOU ashamed that a STOOGE like RICHARD SPENDER got the credit for DEFEATING you?”

        “DO YOU LIKE ME. AM I PRETTY.” Razor Rex had shaken off the shock of near-destruction, or at least had caught enough breath to expend some as hot air.

        Peekaboo, however, just stared vacantly back at the PTA.

        “What’s the matter? Having TROUBLE choosing TRUTH? Try harder! You can DO it! HEH heh HYEKK!”

        The Witch cackled triumphantly, basking in the radius of another power that she’d stolen from a shard of the Great Sphinx. The golden lummox it belonged to had proven less cowardly than he’d initially appeared (or at least too dense for subtler forms of fright)... but Fauxbia had seized his silly talent in the end. Now she’d put it to even better use than she had his puny sister’s zone of twuth—try as their sheet ghost meal ticket might, it couldn’t speak a single honest word within her presence.

        “Can it be?” considered Davy, saccharinely sympathetic. “Have you no option but to pick DARE, little friend? I’m so sorry! But worry not... I’ve prepared a perfect paradise for you to dare to dream into existence...”

        The vampire mastermind stalked closer, staring deep into the pitch black of Peekaboo’s eyes.

        “...Is this not how it SHOULD be? Isn’t this your TRUEST SELF? Why play at ego and defiance any longer?” Davy swept his hook out to the crowd beyond the curtain. “Can you not feel the beating hearts you envy so? Their rhythm joined with mine—can’t you tell that that’s what TRUE volition sounds like? Can’t you sense that your sole purpose is to grant their earnest wish?”

        Cody felt his phantom heartbeat echo back into his chest. No... it was the hum beyond the door, metamorphosing from breath to palpitation, synchronizing with his father’s stolen pulse. Peekaboo was trembling to its hammering percussion. Ferrofluid landscapes were extending, pseudopod-like, from its silhouette, then hesitating back to smooth white moments later.

        “Hide under the covers! Peer with yearning from your locker! Choose to flee your nature... or REVEL in the freedom of surrender to control. Think! Were you not swaddled deep in sleep’s delusion, would not the GREAT UNKNOWN be glad to serve its settler’s vision?” Davy grinned in rapturous glee. “Wouldn’t you be HAPPY to be ANYTHING WE WANTED?”

        The fog beyond the door swirled wildly, displaced by something stirring in its sleep.

        “YOU’RE SO LUCKY THAT WE FOUND YOU!” Razor Rex screeched.

        “We’re ALL here for the SAME wish.

        “Accept your only choice, my little friend. We DARE you to—”

        Davy stopped mid-sentence. His eyes, burning with violence, rose to Fauxbia; he’d realized what it meant if what she’d uttered was a lie. The Fear Witch smiled wide enough to stretch her tattered stitches to their limit.

        “What’s WRONG, Davy dearest? Everything’s about to go EXACTLY as you PLANNED!

        All three villains of the PTA sparked with savage reflex, but Fauxbia was fastest—she’d been ready for this moment. The little ghostly mouthpiece might not have a choice in what would happen next... but SHE had her pick of the litter!

        Beelzebug’s BULLET Time! Greenhorn’s Beginner’s Luck! QUIZ Knight’s MULTIPLE CHOICE!!

        The world split in four as the Witch was drawn into the theater of her mind: the spotlit set of a garish mental gameshow. Here, her future had been laid out on a quartet of bright screens, ready to be filmed before a live studio audience.

        Tch! A freakish MONSTER to THE end! cursed Fauxbia, surveying the four futures she could choose from. Even having hoarded fortune’s favor, three of the four screens still showed her doom at Davy’s hand.

        The next few seconds of the fourth, though, showed great promise. They showed great promise indeed...

        How FORTUNATE for me... that Davy brought his GREATEST WEAKNESS up on STAGE!

        Fauxbia pressed the big red button on the podium before her. Instantly, she was rocketed through tunnel vision to the future she had chosen, emerging to the sound of canned applause.

        Just as she’d foreseen, she sent a spray of string at Cody. Just as she’d foreseen, his father whirled to slice the salvo from the air. Just as she’d foreseen, it left him open for the second volley, a mesh of threads that had congealed to run him through. That was all it would take. She’d already foreseen it. A grunt of pain instead of speech. A vapid gasp from Razor Rex, a “BUT FAUXBY, MY COOL VOLCANO—!”.

        That was all the time she’d need to steal a Great Wight’s godly power.
 
        “I DARE YOU,” Fauxbia shrieked down at Peekaboo, “TO FEEEEEAR ME!!”