YTSK II: Chapter XXXVII

In Universe Date: 26 December 2021

Dragon Historian torpedoes through the sky, the recoil of the Kamehameha guiding him towards the squad's plane. Within the blink of an eye, his body pierces the hull and he finds himself in the presence of Zed.

Shocked, Zed exclaims: "DH! You're alive!" DH screams: "I NEED THE BIOLOGY TEXTBOOK, NOW!"

Tenax approaches DH. "Here's the biology textbook, sir!"

"Good work Tenax. I will now be leaving the plane in order to descend to R'lyeh. I know we agreed we'd attack as a team, but I feel it's too dangerous for you people to follow me. I will be going solo."

Tenax salutes. "Godspeed, DH. We'll stay here on the plane, where nothing can possibly harm us."

DH prepares to leave. However, in a stroke of astronomically bad luck, a meteorite hits the plane, and its left wing is destroyed. The plane now rapidly descends to the ocean.

Zed: "Darn, the devil's beatin' his wife!"

"My bad, shouldn't have tempted fate", Tenax exclaims.

DH grabs Tenax and Zed by their clothing and rapidly begins running to the cockpit, where he punches the window open. He then throws the rest of the squad out of the plane before taking a dive into the ocean himself.

While the squad is in freefall, the plane violently falls into the ocean, creating a monstrously large splash, its noise forming the plane's dying roar.

DRM, Tenax and Zed all have their fall broken by the ocean. However, DH smashes into the ocean as if it's concrete, his oil-covered body refusing to gently sink into the water and firmly staying on top of it. As this happens, his throat unleashes a shrieking howl of pain: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!". His body then lays atop the water as if it were entirely solid. To relieve the pain, DH puts his hands on his back and moans 3 more times. Just as he begins to recover, the tides created by the plane's massive splash wash over him, propelling his oil-covered body into the air yet again. And again, DH falls on his back. Ever steadfast, he collects himself and stands up again. He'll stand up as many times as he needs to.

The rest of the squad swims towards DH. Zed speaks: "Hey look, DH has become Jesus Christ. He can walk on water!" DH scoffs: "Shut up, can't you see this is serious!?" Tenax questions DH: "What do we do now? We can't swim in place forever." DH gives a thinking expression for 10 seconds. "We're going to stick with the original plan. I'm going to rest for 2 minutes to recover, then all of you will enter my forcefield, and then we're going to descend to R'lyeh. I expect that Yan should be in R'lyeh right now, and if I'm reckoning the teleportation cooldown she has left correctly, we can catch her before she tries to leave. Tenax, do you still have the biology textbook?"

"Да!", Tenax exclaims while showing off the biology textbook.

"Good", DH answers.

As Tenax swims to remain in place, he thinks.

"Alright, this is it. The final battle. In a matter of minutes, we will descend to R'lyeh and deliver justice to Yan.

*...well, it won't be "we", it'll just be DH fighting against Yan on his own.*"

Tenax looks at the biology textbook in his hand.

He thinks. "*It's ridiculous, really. Yan impersonated me, stole my presidency, dishonoured my nation and religion, and I'm going to let my janitor take revenge for me? Why, because he has superpowers? Screw this, I am going to do this myself. I don't need superpowers to kill Yan, only this book and good aim. Then Yan will be slain, and I will bathe in my glorious, successful revenge.*"

DH speaks up. "Alright, I've rested and recovered. We can begin now."

He raises his hands, and a shimmering blue energy begins to swirl around him. With a shout, he releases the energy, forming a protective bubble. The forcefield crackles with power, and the icy water outside hisses against its surface.

"Get inside!" DH commands, allowing an opening to form in the bubble.

Tenax, Zed, and DRM swim through the gap, which seals behind them. Inside, the air is warm and dry, and the forcefield hums with a comforting energy.

"Nice work, DH," Tenax says, catching his breath. "Now, let's get to Yan."

"Right. Hold on tight," DH replies, his face set with determination.

He positions himself at the center of the bubble, cupping his hands together and drawing in energy. The air around them begins to vibrate as he gathers his power. With a shout of "Kamehameha!" he unleashes a massive beam of energy upwards. The force propels the bubble downward with incredible speed, the water outside a blur of dark blues and greens.

"Hold on!" DH shouts, his voice echoing slightly within the bubble.

As the Kamehameha beam blasts upward, the bubble shoots downward into the depths of the ocean. The transition from the chaotic surface to the serene, dark depths is almost instantaneous. The sunlight rapidly fades, replaced by an ever-deepening twilight.

Meanwhile, Yan is in her lair. Several minutes prior, she had teleported from Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcano and back to R'lyeh in order to continue her fight with DH, only to find that he had disappeared. She had noticed a puddle of oil near her lair's exit, and surmised that DH must've used oil to exit after finding the double door. To try and salvage something from this battle, she is now looking through satelite imagery to try and find the squad's plane, but fails to do so.

Just as she prepares to give up and return to the Videomapistani parliament, her aquatic radar picks up four lifeforms rapidly descending to the ocean floor. Yan quickly surmises it to be the squad.

Meanwhile, the squad continues the descent through the ocean.

"How deep do ya reckon we have to go?" Zed asks, glancing around nervously.

"R'lyeh is supposed to be several kilometres down," Tenax replies. "But with this speed, we should be there soon."

The water outside the bubble grows darker and darker, the sunlight completely vanishing as they descend. Bioluminescent creatures flit past, their eerie glow casting fleeting shadows on the bubble's surface.

"Look at that," DRM whispers, pointing to a colossal shadow in the distance. A massive whale glides past, its enormous form moving gracefully through the water.

"Focus, everyone," DH says, his voice tense with concentration. "We're almost there."

The pressure outside increases as they descend, but the forcefield holds strong, keeping them safe and comfortable inside. The ocean floor comes into view, a jagged, rocky landscape covered in strange, ancient structures.

"There it is," Tenax says, his voice barely above a whisper. "Yan's lair."

The sunken city of R'lyeh sprawls out before them, a maze of crumbling towers and twisted spires. At the heart of it all stands a massive, ornately carved double door, half-buried in the ocean floor.

"We need to get closer," DH says, adjusting their trajectory.

The bubble descends further, landing gently in front of the double door. DH allows the lower end of the forcefield to dissolve. They stand on solid ground, the ancient doors before above them.

"How do we get in?" DRM asks, examining the door.

"These double doors are designed to keep the lair dry," Tenax explains. "There must be a mechanism to open them from the outside."

Zed spots a panel hidden among the intricate carvings. "Got it," he says, pressing a sequence of symbols. With a creaking groan, the doors slowly part, revealing a dry corridor beyond. Once inside, DH dissolves the forcefield to conserve energy.

The Squad moves cautiously inside, the air growing warmer as the doors close behind them, sealing out the ocean. They creep through the dimly lit halls, the oppressive silence weighing on them. Finally, they enter a vast chamber, its ceiling lost in shadow.

At the far end of the room stands Yan Xishan, her eyes glowing with an unearthly light. Her presence fills the room with a palpable sense of power and menace.

"Welcome back DH," Yan says, her voice echoing through the chamber. "I see you've brought your friends."

As the Squad readies themselves for battle, the tension in the room crackles like a live wire.

Yan continues: "I guess you're here to finally pledge your allegiance to me. After all, you agreed to join me if your final flash failed to kill me."

DH scoffs. "No. I am here to kill you."

Yan chuckles. "I see you're not one to keep to your promises. I suppose you've must learned a lot from Juq!"

In a rare display of light-heartedness, DH decides to humour Yan. "Well, it was actually you who broke the promise, since you interupted my attack by dragging me off your face, even though you promised that I would get a free attack."

Yan bursts into laughter. "I guess you have a point. Oh well, I know I promised you that we would fight to the death. Are you ready for another round?"

DH looks at the biology textbook that Tenax is hiding behind his back. "Damn right we are."

Tenax then speaks: "Alright, let's do this." He then starts running: "YAN! YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO VIDEOMAPISTAN! DEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUS VUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULT!!!!!!"

Yan is confused. Tenax can easily be shot dead before he can come in striking distance, and even then he would be unable to hurt her - she briefly wonders if he's some sort of diversion.

DH screams: "TENAX, YOU FOOL! YOU'LL DIE! GET BACK HERE!"

Yan then notices the book inside of Tenax' palm, and surmises that Tenax must have impulsively tried to charge at her on his own to kill her with the biology textbook. She raises her hand to shoot a missle at Tenax.

When Tenax sees Yan raise her hand, he jumps to try and dodge the missle. The missle explodes underneath him, shredding his legs and propelling him towards Yan. His body lands 10 metres away from her.

Yan laughs. "Another moid down."

A dark orgasm of pain writhes through Tenax' body. He lies on his chest, with his lower body bleeding profusely. But, he still lives - and, just as importantly, he had managed to cling onto the biology textbook while being flung through the air. As he looks at the floor and at Yan, his mind starts to calculate the trajectory that the book needs to traverse in order deliver the killing blow. Shortly after, he raises his right arm together with biology textbook. Once he is ready, the throws the book at Yan with all his power.

Guided by Tenax' aim, the book travels through the air, on collision course with Yan. Within the blink of an eye, the book hits Yan, striking her face with all the force that Tenax could muster.

Then, the unexpected happens. The book, having lost its momentum after hitting Yan, falls to the ground, with Yan having taken no damage.

DH screams. "NO! NO! THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! YOU SHOULD BE DEAD!"

Yan cackles, delighting in DH's confusion and frustration. "Oh DH, did they never tell you not to judge a book by it's cover?". She picks up the textbook and opens its contents, revealing pages filled with letters and numbers. "You fell for my trick. This is a mathematics textbook!"

"But... how? What happened?"

"Did I forget to tell you, DH? My mistake. I am very sorry. To make up for it, I will now explain what happened to the textbook..."

Yan takes a deep breath as she prepares to narrate.

"After I entered the plane, I examined all the belongings owned by your little squad. At one point while examining one of your bags, I discovered a biology textbook. I figured that you must've discovered my weakness, and in order to prevent you from exploiting it, I put on my gloves, picked up the biology textbook - with the gloves preventing the textbook from touching my skin - and went to the plane's toilet, locking the door before teleporting to my lair. There, I went to a lava-powered incinerator and opened the hatch before throwing the biology textbook into it, thereby destroying it. Then I printed out the cover of your biology textbook, and limed it onto a mathematics textbook that I had on my bookshelf. Then, using satellite imagery, I found your plane and teleported back into the toilet room. Then I unlocked the door and put the mathematics textbook into the bag where the biology textbook once laid, completing the deception. It is very gratifying to know that you all fell for my little lie, leading to Tenax' now-imminent death. Oh Tenax, you poor soul. Any last words?"

As Tenax lays on the ground, he looks at Yan, anger gleaming in his eyes. Since his torso was torn apart by the explosion, his blood soaks the floor. His nervous system sends shrieks of pain that permeate his mind. As Tenax reflects on his lies made in service of political goals, his war crimes, and the sheer amount of human suffering that he is responsible for, it dawns on him that his chance to heaven is slim. However, as his thoughts move in search of solace, they quickly approach a silver lining. Tenax musters the last of his energy, forcing his dying lungs to inhale the air so that he can voice a final statement of defiance. Once he is ready, he delivers his last words through a mouthful of blood, ensuring he speaks each one with shivering, sanguine clarity:

"I hope that... god sends me to hell... so that... when you follow me... I can spend the rest... of eternity... watching you BURN!"

Tenax' last word is also his last breath. As it sighs out of his mouth, so too does his soul leave to face god's judgement.

*To be continued...*