Chapter 15 - The Undead Warlord

This match represented the point of no return. Eavesdropping the rabbitmen had put Kuno in a difficult spot. ‘These aren’t NPC’s… They aren’t even animals… They’re just like us – just like me.’

But back in Terra Two, people get forced to do heinous things all the time. Maybe this was one of those times? Although he didn’t choose to be here - he was now. He had already fought a couple of enemies; he had already burned one alive, even. The stress made Kuno pinch the match into two pieces. He quickly grabbed another out of the matchbook.

He gritted his teeth in frustration. The impasse infuriated him, since he never had to deal with this kind of thing before. What annoyed him the most was the restriction of freedom. ‘Why do I have to listen to these thoughts!?’ he thought. ‘They are the enemy – I don’t even know them – they aren’t even human… not literally, at least. I eat meat all the time… I don’t think about that at all – I slay my enemies in video games – take their loot – sometimes they had worked years for that stuff…’

He put the matchbook and match closer, about to light it: ‘Fuck it. This is life. This is me.’ With a dreadful moment of silence – one that would change the course of his life, he dropped the match.

The two rabbitmen left at the camp had just finished their chores, going into JD’s tent to let him know they were leaving.

‘JD?’ one asked.

‘JD!’ JD replied, reading a comic book with a pair of thick, round glasses on his beak. ‘Are you guys done?’

The rabbitmen nodded, humming: ‘mhmm. We’ll be leaving now.’ JD waved his white feathered hand to gesture them farewell. He turned the page of the book, his eyes growing upon seeing it. ‘QUAH!’ he shouted, shocked to the hollow bone – ‘They put a gooseman character in the Duckmania: Duckboy Chronicles comic!? This is ridiculous!’

He was quite displeased seeing a gooseman. The duckmen, JD included, had many bad interactions with goosemen, to the point where they were all filled with prejudice. ‘Damn geesers,’ he would call them often, always messing up his pond with their geesery. The feeling was mutual, and the only upside to there being a gooseman character in the book was that he was the villain of this arc.

JD balled his hand into a fist, waving it in the air as he read about the villainous deeds the gooseman was planning to do. ‘Oh boy, do I hate geese! QUAH – always doing the thing with their things – and the thing. Don’t forget about the thing, JD. QUAH! And the QUAH – the QUAH! QUAH!’

The anger corrupted his mind as he swung his head from left to right, furiously speeding through the book. If he listened closely, he might’ve heard it, but JD didn’t listen often, let alone closely – so the faint cries for help went unnoticed. He did, however, hear footsteps from outside his tent – but it was probably just one of his subjects and he had more important matters to take care of.

Just as he heard the shifting lumber of the extinguished campfire, he reached the finale of the comic. ‘Quah! Get him, Duckboy! Get the Gooselor, that son of a goose! You got him cornered!’

And he sure had – Duckboy had hit the Gooselor with a swift uppercut, knocking him on the ground in his secret wooden shelter in the forest. ‘Your geesery has gone on for too long, Gooselor!’ Duckboy said with a puffed up chest.

‘You tell ‘em Duckboy!’ JD thought, the tip of his beak touching the paper.

‘If you were anything but a gooseman, I’d have shown you mercy. But geese suck balls, and this world is too small for both our kinds!’ Duckboy said, with JD standing up and chanting: ‘Ducks! Ducks! Ducks!’ in his mind. Although he shared the Soji Empire with the goosemen, he would rather die than fight beside one. The Empire, knowing this, keeps the geese and ducks far-far away from each other, the hatred for each other so hot it could vaporize an ocean.

‘Please, Duckboy! I’m a mere dumb goose. I agree, duckmen are way better in every way there is!’ the Gooseler pleaded as he cried his heart out.

Duckboy pitied the Gooseler. He didn’t choose to be the inferior bird, and Duckboy knew that. With that, he gave a deep sigh and left the shelter.

‘Quah! NO! You weakling!’ JD thought. ‘He’s lying! Never trust a gooseman, you fool!’

The next pages showed the sorrow of the Gooseler as he lay there and regretted his actions. With his head between his knees, he sat, utterly defeated – to the point where JD almost felt sorry for him.

Then he put his head back up with a menacing smile as he said: ‘Syke! The only thing I regret is failing to poison the water supply to the ducklings orphanage – you naïve idiot! The Gooseler will return!’

‘QUAH! I KNEW IT!’ JD thought. ‘I QUAH-QUAH KNEW IT!’

But he wasn’t the only one who knew – because immediately after JD turned the page, the shelter was instantly set to fire. ‘Oh no! No-no-no!’ the Gooseler said, seeing Duckboy smiling from the window.

‘Ducknation forever…’ he whispered as he walked away – the Gooseler burning alive in the high blaze of the shelter.

JD stood up and put both fists in the air: ‘Yes! Alfred J. Quack can sure write a story!’ he said out loud. ‘Burn! Burn, you quah!’ as he kept repeating to himself: ‘burn-burn-burn.’

The tent he was in began glowing as smoke emitted from the windows. ‘Burn! B-… QUAH!’ he said, finally realizing his tent was on fire. ‘Fire!’ He looked around him, searching for the most valuable thing he could salvage.

He ran up to the framed picture of his late mother and grabbed the Limited Edition Bikini Duckgirl figurine right next to it. Seeing he still had an empty hand, he also grabbed the extra accessories that came with it and ran out of the burning tent through the back. A second after he got out, he said: ‘JD, you idiot!’ and ran back in to embrace the comic book between his arms and ran back out again.

When he turned around, he saw the whole camp had been set ablaze. ‘Woah,’ JD thought – not giving a fraction of the care he should. ‘I’m gonna have to take a cut off their salaries…’

He held the items close to his chest, the heat of the blaze warming his face. ‘Sorry for all of this,’ he heard someone say from behind the burning tent he was in.

‘It’s okay, they’re just tents. I got all the important stuff with me,’ JD said without even questioning who was talking to him.

From the flames he revealed himself, arduously dragging two rabbitmen by their collar. ‘Now I just gotta deal with you, and then the frogs,’ Kuno said, covered in sweat and still naked from below.

‘QUAH!’ JD said, surprised by Kuno’s entrance. Here, in his empire, during his party’s working hours, JD, the duckman, had come across a human. This could only mean one thing – one thing he had yet to figure out.

‘You’re naked!’ JD shouted.

Kuno smiled, placing the rabbitmen at the trunk of a tree – away from the heat of the flame. ‘You know, that’s the first time I got the classic reaction people should have.’

‘Most people are tiny brained – JD is big brained,’ JD said.

Kuno already got a hunch of JD’s character, since he’d been listening from above the other night. That being said, he still expected him to be more freaked out about the situation.

‘JD, I’m here to-.’

‘JD!’ JD said, interrupting him.

‘…’ Kuno waited for him to continue, but JD just stared through Kuno, like his mind had gone numb. ‘What the fuck…?’ he thought.

‘Yes, JD – I’m here to fight with you,’ Kuno said. Although it would be wiser to have prepared a trap – Kuno knew he had to be in difficult situations to level. ‘I need to go beyond what I am,’ he thought. ‘This guy is the leader… I need to develop an offensive ability instead of all the mobility and utility I have.’

JD casually walked up to the tents and said:

‘Water Gun.’

Kuno jumped to right, startled by the sudden spell his opponent used. JD opened his mouth and a jet stream of water ejected out of it, extinguishing the fires Kuno had started. Seeing this, Kuno farted in the air and used a Dung Cannon on JD to start the fight.

‘Huh!?’ JD said, turning his stream to the cannonball.

Using the pressure he shot it with, together with gravity, Kuno’s attack overpowered JD’s Water Gun – hitting him right in the open beak to plug his faucet.

‘QUAH!’ he murmured as his head shot back, but since his Water Gun had slowed its momentum down, the cannonball did little damage to JD. He spit out the shit, closing his mouth to rinse it with his water – still having his figurine and book in his arms.

Kuno, still in the air, shouted out:

‘Dart Fart!’

Unleashing a series of farts to zigzag through the air, approaching JD at unpredictable angles with tremendous speed. He cocked his leg back and upon reaching the still startled JD, kicked him in the back of the head at full force.

‘QUAH!’ he shouted, his head wiggling like a bobblehead, followed by: ‘Please wait – just a second!’

‘Why should I!?’ Kuno said. ‘This is a serious fight!’

‘My collectibles…’ JD answered with tears in his eyes, like he got caught having pissed his pants in kindergarten.

Kuno landed, closed his eyes and waited for a second with JD having his back turned to him, hunched over his belongings. Kuno kneeled down to JD, in the most genuine way he could. JD turned his head, seeing Kuno in this sudden state, thinking: ‘Quah…?’

‘I apologize with the deepest regret a man can feel,’ Kuno said with his face in the dirt. ‘Never had I ever displayed such dishonorable behavior in my life. Not even my enemies deserve this kind of treatment – a war crime of the highest degree. Please, let’s place your items in a secure spot before we continue.’

His words touched JD, seeing someone finally understood what he felt. ‘You are forgiven, naked boy,’ he said, continuing to extinguish the fire until all but a gentle smolder was left. Kuno waited at the border as JD placed his valuables in a safe space among what had been left of the camp.

‘Let’s go to a different location,’ Kuno offered. JD nodded and followed closely behind him as they walked deeper into the woods.

‘Naked boy,’ JD said.

‘The name is Kuno.’

‘The name of what?’ JD asked.

Kuno gave a hearty laugh. ‘Good one,’ he said, although JD had no idea what he was talking about. He pointed at the pants Kuno had wrapped around his waist. ‘That’s not how you wear those,’ he said, genuinely trying to help him out.

‘It is when I have to fight. I don’t want to blow a hole in them,’ Kuno answered, stopping in a semi-open spot in the forest. ‘I shouldn’t go too far, in before he leads me to allies I don’t know about.’

JD wasn’t planning anything like that at all. He merely thought: ‘Blow a hole in his pants during a fight…? How scared can one be of violence…?’

‘This is far enough – get ready, JD,’ he said.

‘JD was born ready!’ he proudly replied. ‘But you are not ready – not for JD!’ he moved twenty feet away from Kuno and spread his arms out.

‘How confident you are,’ he said. ‘I beat all 24 of your rabbitmen without getting a scratch. Think you can give me a worthwhile fight?’ Kuno smiled, only now feeling proud of his achievement – but the bitter aftertaste of his victory ruined his mood rather swiftly.

‘JD never lost!’ he said, smiling as he bent his knees, eyes locked on Kuno.

‘There’s a first time for everything,’ Kuno said, jumping in the air and using a Dart Fart just like before. JD followed Kuno’s sporadic movement attentively. – his gaze snapping from one place to the other. Kuno could feel JD wasn’t fazed by his speed. He had a hunch, but still needed to confirm it. He dashed over JD, and just as he expected – JD’s neck turned upside down, still having his eyes on Kuno.

‘This guy can freely move his neck and head…’ he thought. ‘I won’t be able to hit him with anything impactful if he can see it coming… let’s do something about that.’

‘Poo-Poo Gatling Gun!’

Combining the speed at which he traveled through the air using his Dart Fart, with the rapid fire of his pellet sized shits, granted him a most dangerous combo. He aimed for the eyes, but there was no way he could be that accurate whilst moving like this. Hundreds of bullets flew across JD, and although he was impressed, still managed to gracefully evade everything in a ballerino fashion. He threw his arms out, gave a spin, and bowed – but kept himself within a small area. Humming to the song of hellfire, Kuno played him.

♫ ‘Quah – Quah quah quah – Quah quah – Ducknation forever.’ ♫

‘Damn, he’s good,’ Kuno thought, annoyed at the fact with how little effort he evaded the fastest thing he could produce. As he kept on firing, he decided to mix in a Dung Cannon in between his attacks to get JD to move. ‘Dung Cannon!’ he shouted, but when the attack reached – he did something completely out of Kuno’s expectations.

He sidestepped the cannonball, let it hit his hand and spun to cancel its momentum. Then, with the ball in his hand as he still dodged the bullets, threw it at Kuno with a spin – hitting him in the stomach, causing him to crash into a tree and barely manage to land without breaking a leg.

‘H-Holy crap!’ he thought, trying to regain his breath with his back against a tree trunk. ‘He threw that much faster than how I shot it at him…’

JD pointed his finger at Kuno with his chin up high, and a prideful sneer on his face.

‘HAH! Never challenge JD, the Undead Warlord at dodgeball again, naked boy!’