Apocalypse Reset: My Crab Can Heal the World!

Osmond leaps into the air and thrusts his staff forward, a beam of purple plasma striking the ground where Barns was standing a split second ago.

Barns flips through the air to dodge the attack, shooting a water blade at Osmond as he lands on his feet.

Osmond swings his arm aggressively in the air, releasing a pulse of energy. Barns' water blade evaporates away long before reaching its target.

The demon readies another attack, launching a triple-beam of homing missiles. With perfect timing, Barns slashes through each of the beams, dissipating their energy.

Osmond flies above once more, floating just out of reach. His coat flaps as a cool breeze begins to pick up.

The demon lord looks over to his horde and the Adventurers battling them. The horde has been contained on either side of the hedge maze. The Adventurers are trying to hold a narrow line on each side, ensuring they only have to face a few monsters at a time.

As he watches the battle, he sees a man wielding many blades cut through a pack of ten in mere seconds, catching the falling blades out of the air and swinging them as he dances across the battlefield.

"Over here, buddy!" Barns shouts, shooting multiple water blades in Osmond's direction. The demon flies out of the way. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Osmond begins to charge up a powerful attack. Purple energy cracks through his skin as even his eyes glow with violet light. The orb at the tip of his staff resonates with the power as it reaches a breaking point.

"Demon Art: Thunder Thrust!"

All of the light in the universe seems to gather in the orb - the only illuminated object in a world of darkness. And yet as soon as the orb flashes, it expels a beam of brilliant crackling light directly at Barns.

Barns braces himself for the attack with Harden Body. The light reflects off of him and into the fountain, blasting it into a thousand pieces. Barns takes no damage from the attack, but once the five seconds from Harden Body expire, he suddenly drops to his knees.

"Wha-" he gasps, crashing into the stone floor. Every nerve in his body lights on fire. He tries to move but his body doesn't respond. An intense pain wraps around him like barbed wire and he convulses from the pain.

"Like that one, do you?" Osmond laughs, landing on the ground in front of Barns. "It's Maria's favorite. Sure. I know all about your little crab defenses. But what good are they with magic that doesn't cause physical damage, only pain? Hmmmm?"

He kicks Barns while he's down, demonic strength coursing through his legs. The hero goes flying several feet into the air, crashing hard into the remains of the destroyed fountain.

"Agh!" Barns keels over in pain. He realizes he didn't feel any of the pain when he was using Harden Body. Was it possible...

Barns activates the technique. Suddenly, he feels nothing. Quickly, he climbs to his feet, wasting precious time. He only had five seconds of invulnerability. He had to move quickly.

Four...

It took him a second to get up. He doesn't have time to think. He has to move.

Three...

Barns dashes through the air with inhuman speed, hurtling toward Osmond with his blade in hand.

Two...

The demon is only just reacting to Barns' sudden assault. He raises his staff up defensively in front of him, panic alight in his glowing purple eyes.

One...!

Barns' blade is inches from Osmond's throat when the hero falls, completely limp. He lands face down in front of Osmond.

Four...

Barns starts counting down again. In five seconds he could use the technique. At this distance, five seconds was enough time to deliver a killing blow.

"As if I'd let you do that again."

Right before Barns' five seconds have completed, he's thrust into the air. Four pillars erupt from the ground, and from each a purple ribbon flies out toward Barns and wraps around him. The ribbons tighten, completely restraining him in the air.

'Damn it,' Barns thinks to himself. 'Right now I can't even use Rebirth Flame. This is bad.'

"If you beg me, I'll let the humans live out their pathetic little lives. Or, if you want to be a bitch about it, I'll kill you and then every single last one of them."

Barns can't do anything, and the pain still rips through his body. He does the one thing he can do - spits, as far as he can, in Osmond's direction.

Hope seems lost until suddenly, Clancy bursts onto the scene. The powerful King Crab unclips his cannon and himself through the air on a stream of bubbly foam. Clancy lands with a thud in front of Osmond and raises both claws up.

"CLANCY BARNACLES PACKAGE DEAL!" Clancy clicks, his pincers going out of control.

"You think I'm afraid of a crab!?" Osmond shouts, hurling a purple beam at Clancy.

Clancy catches the energy blast in midair with the tip of his claw, reducing Osmond's entire attack into a tiny glow like a firefly and dropping it to the ground.

Osmond's eye twitches, his breath uneven. 'What the hell kind of power is that? Maria didn't say anything about this!'

Clancy shuffles forward slowly, his claws in a defensive position in front of him. His spiderlike legs have no trouble traversing the broken rubble, and his mouth quivers with foam.

Clancy's unyielding purple eyes meet Osmond's. The two stare into each other, their souls laid bare.

Clancy had never seen a human (or demon) with purple eyes before. Eyes like that reminded him of his family, and his days growing up as a small crab...

...

"CLANCY. CONSUME."

Clancy gobbled up the starfish handed to him by his mother, a stoic hermit who wore a frilled pink apron. Just then, Clancy's father arrived home.

"I'M HOME."

Clancy's father stared blankly at his wife. The father had purple eyes, like Clancy. His mother's eyes were a lovely black color.

"WELCOME HOME."

"HUSBAND CRAB. CONSUME."

The hermit hands over another starfish. It was Mr. Clancy's Dad's favorite. The family is happy.

...

Clancy snaps back to reality and realizes the weight of his flashback. Not all family members have purple eyes. Osmond, a bad guy, had purple eyes. Barnacles, a good guy - the best guy, truly - had blue eyes.

Feeling revelatory, Clancy clanks his claws shut threateningly and then charges at Osmond.

The demon uses his magic to try and knock Clancy off course, but the crab's hard shell is impervious to the attack. Clancy reaches out.

'ENVISION BLUEBERRY' Clancy thinks to himself. His claw opens slightly. Just enough. He reaches for Osmond's neck...

Just then, the water that feeds the fountain turns on - but there is no fountain to collect it. A jet of water bursts from the ground and knocks Clancy off course, sending him skidding away. Osmond is blasted with water and shuffles back.

He braces himself to attack again before noticing he's soaking wet. His one weakness - the lightning powers he commands are just as likely to zap him if he's standing in water. And the fountain water continues to gush out at a rapid pace, soaking the area.

Osmond grits his teeth. 'Damn it,' he groans to himself. He decides the best course of action is to flee - he and Maria would have to handle this together. The crab was more than he was ready for, but Maria could handle him. After all, Maria couldn't be harmed by any physical attack.

Clancy scuttles to each of the four poles, snipping the ribbons and freeing Barns.

The hero lands on his feet, free but dejected.

"Thanks, Clancy. I owe you big time." He smiles, but there's a pit in his stomach. He was so confident that he'd be able to handle Osmond, but he couldn't. Clancy had to step in - and that meant the Adventurers were struggling against the horde.

The fountain water continues to gush forth, more and more. With the inner-workings of the fountain demolished, there was nothing to regulate the flow of water or send it back - and the drainage system was blocked by rubble. This whole plaza was going to flood.

'But maybe that's a good thing,' Barns thought to himself.

"Hey! Clancy, put some foam in the water!"

The crab spittles into the fountain water, and his foam begins to spread out on the growing pool. Like bubbly soap, the churning water begins to fluff up with cleansing foam.

Clancy realizes what's happening, and squirts a jet of thick yellow liquid into the water. That begins to froth up even more. It's the internal fluid he generates that he mixes with water vapor to make foam - in its concentrated form, it would have enough 'oomph' to froth up the entire area, given enough water.

The water expands and expands, turning the stony plaza into a foam pit. It grows so much and so quickly that Barns and Clancy have to run away to not get caught up in it.

"Nice," Barns says, watching the foam storm from a bit further away. "Hey, the Adventurers Guild will be fine. If they hit trouble, they can run into that foam pit."

"TIME TO KILL EVIL WOMAN?"

"Time to settle this, one way or the other. Come on, Clancy. It's showtime."