Previously on Top Victor: Coil-Head's white feet (toenail-free), Jester's white feet too (no time to inspect the state of his pedicure), a Thumper venting its anger by slamming its fists against a cabinet to reach a little girl playing king of the hill; and Victor getting his bones and ribs shattered by a furious ticket inspector upset that he did not have his train pass.
Like the episode of some bargain-bin Netflix series, Victor would have preferred the last episode to be nothing more than a waking nightmare.
At least that would have made sense, considering the Jester had been showing up in all his nightmares these past few days.
He would have preferred that, but no. The worst part was that he could not even pinch his own arm, since he could not feel his arm anymore.
"Pinch my arm."
That might have been the kind of order he would have given his Jester a few days ago, but not anymore. He had grown since New York, not in height, but in maturity.
The Jester pinched him.
'I wasn't dreaming after all...'
Everything would have been so much easier if this had all been a dream.
Either way, there was only one thing left for him to do now: cheer Olivia on from the corner of his eye.
A quadriplegic riding a Jester versus a killer with a shovel in her hand and a bag full of weapons at her feet. Sure, the Jester probably counted for one Victor and one Olivia by itself. Still, Victor had more faith in Olivia than in his system-tamed Jester.
He had tried loosening the leash earlier, and the result had left a lot to be desired.
So Victor watched, his gaze caught somewhere between helplessness and hope, as Olivia pulled from the bag at her feet not an assault rifle or a rocket launcher, but a grenade.
There was something absurd about seeing Olivia in her bright orange suit, brandishing a shovel in one hand and a grenade in the other.
That absurd feeling faded the moment she opened her hand.
Not the one holding the shovel. The one holding the grenade.
This was not the kind of story that ended well.
The grenade hit the floor with a metallic clink, then rolled for a few seconds. It managed to travel several dozen centimeters before coming to a complete stop against what looked like an electrical generator. The abandoned machine was not about to make things worse, but now the grenade sat halfway between Victor and Olivia.
All it would take was for Olivia to have underestimated the grenade's blast radius for Victor to be thrown from his mount and over the rail.
The Coil-Head, which had remained still until now, began twitching again, and Victor's eyes kept darting nervously between the creature and the grenade.
For almost three full seconds, Victor could no longer hear the creatures just a few steps away.
Then, with a click, the grenade activated.
Pshhhh.
A thick cloud of smoke poured out of it. Within seconds, Victor could barely see a few centimeters ahead of him. He now had to keep watching a Coil-Head he could no longer see.
'At least I can still hear it if it starts moving', he thought, just before he felt a pair of hands grab him around the torso like some sort of fish.
Staying perfectly still had already been agony, so Victor could not stop a cry of pain from escaping his lips, the sound muffled by his suit.
Fortunately, it was not the white hands of a monster but the warm orange of a familiar suit. Victor could not even see Olivia's face through the smoke. He felt the girl's arms tense, using every bit of strength she had and then some before finally managing to hoist his body onto her thin shoulders.
The change of mount had lasted barely two seconds, but time had never been on their side.
The Jester had started winding up its music box, and worse, the Thumper had stopped slamming its head against the cabinet, the sound of its heavy, uneven footsteps drawing closer.
Victor did not know whether the creature could see through the smoke or whether his cry of pain had given away their position. Either way, Olivia had no intention of staying in the room long enough to find out.
She sidestepped the Thumper's charge, then bolted for the hallway they had used on the way in. The Coil-Head tried to follow, but Victor gave everything he had to keep his head turned in what he hoped was the right direction.
Both Olivia and Victor knew it was only a temporary solution.
The Thumper had started accelerating behind them, and the Coil-Head's silhouette could be seen at the far end of the hallway through the smoke. They had, however, lost track of the two Jesters, one still winding its music box with obvious delight and the other watching with open jealousy, unable to play with the crank on its own. Despite her short stride and Victor's weight pressing down on her shoulders, Olivia managed to gain several meters, not slowing for even a second as they neared the turret.
They were in far too much of a hurry to wait for the perfect opening.
Victor could hear Olivia's breathing through her suit, strained but controlled. The girl was already struggling to maintain her pace.
CLACK-WHRIIING
The turret's barrel swung toward them with the speed of a piranha scenting blood in the water. Olivia pushed herself even harder. The turret took less than two seconds to open fire, but Olivia had momentum on her side. In a mad dash, she covered the last few meters and dropped into a slide, slipping beneath a rain of bullets with their names on them by the thinnest margin. The turret tried to track the intruders who had dared ignore it, but only the sound of bullets ricocheting off the floor echoed through the complex.
Victor could only hear his heartbeat.
His head had slammed into the floor during Olivia's slide hard enough that even his suit could not absorb the full impact. In his current condition, it did not change much, except that he could no longer hear the Thumper charging behind them or the Jester's music box.
He could, however, still barely keep his eyes on the motionless Coil-Head at the far end of the hallway. The creature was a constant problem, but not one as immediate as the gaping maw only a few steps behind them.
Using the momentum left of her slide, Olivia sharply turned left. Like some local football player trying to defend against Lionel Messi, the Thumper kept charging in a perfectly straight line, only turning back after several seconds with a roar that would have frozen Victor's blood if he had still been able to hear it.
Olivia did not seem concerned. She kept running through the maze with one goal only: putting as much distance as possible between them and the Thumper. Even if her athleticism was exceptional for someone of her age and sex, she had seen with her own eyes the speed that creature could reach.
Even counting the Jester and the Coil-Head, whose top speed she had not been able to observe, the Thumper was without a doubt the fastest monster she had encountered.
At least, it was the fastest in a straight line.
As she raced through the maze-like corridors, Olivia tried to turn at every intersection she "could". Some led to dead ends, while others opened into the deeper, unexplored parts of the complex. The first would mean a death trap, with the Thumper tracking them down. The second would wipe out any chance of survival. Once the Jester's music box was fully wound, no one would survive the Jester if they were still inside the complex.
Still, Olivia did not always have a choice, and she was soon forced to turn into a dead end the group had already explored. With the Thumper continuing to gain on them, she needed time to catch her breath and find a solution. The dead end was not ideal, but it had a door, and that door might help her buy a few seconds. The room beyond it was a stairwell with no way out. Using a cabinet to block the door for a moment longer might have been an option, if only the room had not been empty. After a quick glance around, Olivia decided to shut the door behind them and climb the few steps leading to the upper walkway.
Once upstairs, she lowered Victor to the ground to recover and used the few seconds she had left to decide what came next. Desperate as the situation was, Olivia had no intention of abandoning Victor, not unless she had no other options left.
Speaking of options, she pulled a walkie-talkie from the only pocket on her suit and switched it on without hesitation. Doubting herself would take time, and time was running thin as two familiar sounds drew nearer to the door. The first was a heavy, uneven noise growing faster by the second, while the second sounded more like bands of rubber snapping tight and slackening again in a frantic loop. Despite the Thumper's lead, the Coil-Head had caught back up in the blink of an eye, sealing their fate that much tighter.
"**We're going to need help. Two monsters chased us into a dead end near the entrance. Victor is badly hurt, and I have to carry him on my back. Follow the creature's cries and get here with shovels as fast as you can. I'm going to try to break through.**"
Olivia had kept it short and clear.
"**We're at the entrance. We are on our way.**" Nathaniel replied at once through the walkie-talkie. Olivia slipped the device back into her pocket without turning it off, then hauled Victor onto her back again. A long, painful groan escaped her before she finally managed to steady him and make sure he would not fall during what was about to happen.
At the same time, the Thumper smashed through the door, sending it flying into the wall on the far side of the room. The creature then let out one of its thunderous cries, its eyes locked on Olivia's, its legs ready to charge up the stairs and grab the one who had caused it so many headaches.
After all, smashing into half the walls in the maze was as painful as it was humiliating.
Meanwhile, back with the Jesters western's cowboy duel.
One Jester kept playing with its crank so much that the other had turned green with envy. It would have loved to wind up its own music box too, and playing with its crank gave it a pleasure unlike anything else. But its master had stopped it before it could finish winding it, when it had been so close to the end, so close to glory.
Too close to accept it.
Why did he get to play with his crank all the way to the end and not me?
Its master was unfair, but he was still its master, and it, a poor harmless little white cubic box, could not take out its anger on him.
It could, however, redirect its rage onto the thing that had been taunting it for a while now.
With its little white hand, the Jester grabbed the other one's crank in mid-turn. And as if that were not enough, it put all its strength into stopping its movement.
The Jester could feel its opponent boiling with rage and outrage at the gesture, but what could it do to stop it? The two Jesters were exactly equal in strength, and neither could overpower the other.
The other Jester struggled as best it could before realizing its efforts were pointless. Now it glared with hatred at the one who had seized and desecrated its crank.
It was its crank, ITS CRANK!
If its opponent wanted to stoop to dirty tricks, then it would use dirty tricks too.
With that resolve, the Jester grabbed its rival's crank and began winding it.
Victor's Jester watched helplessly as the last notes of its music box played, feeling something inside of him surge.