Cottonmouth

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

Nemo raised his hand. "I've got you covered there, buster." He spoke, breaking his standing silence. He got up and positioned himself so that Felix was standing on the opposite side of a big table out in the middle of the room. "Good thing I planned for this in advance." He whispered, likely to himself. Nemo then began to pull various items out from his inventory. He placed what appeared to be some sort of title card on the table made out of folded cardboard with sharpie marker writings. The card read The Big Paragon Adventure by Nemo and Pals.

Nemo removed the card and then pulled up a cardboard backdrop with a crude painting of the docks they begun their mission at drawn on. From behind that he then used his magic to telekinetically raise up five small doofy looking wood marionette replicas of their team, fitted with small scale clothing and faux fur hair. All in all, they were pretty well made.

"Alright, so first we were at the docks, trying to sneak into Seidon's ship." Nemo started, jiggling the string marionettes to make them look like they were doing a sloppy walking animation. "But then, two guys from the dock showed up and were all like. Hey I'm walkin here! You're not gettin' on this ship, badabing." Nemo pulled up two more marionettes, replicas of Logan and Boslan from the docks. He exaggerated Logan's accent greatly.

"So we were all like. We're gettin' on that ship, badaboom. And got into a big fight." Nemo caused the two groups of puppets to collide into a ridiculous looking slap-fight. Eventually the two adversary puppets puppets went limp when he dropped their control sticks, and were dragged "off screen", signalling they had been defeated. A much cleaner representation compared to their actual grisly deaths.

Nemo took the puppets off the table and changed the backdrop to a large cardboard cutout of Seidon's ship. "Afterwards we all snuck onto the ship by hiding out in a shipping container. But apparently our hiding skills weren't as good as we originally thought, and we jumped out of the box and were all like. 'Surprise!'" On cue, Nemo pulled their puppet group out from behind the display. The only change being that Nemo and Raiya were now brandishing small scale katanas. Afterwards he pulled out an apposing group of puppet Seidon, Caspian, Lori, Roy, and the Tao Twins.

"Seidon was all like, Arrrrrgh, get off me ship you scallywag! You're not getting me treasure me hearties, yo ho!." Nemo once again greatly exaggerated Seidon's accent. "And we were like, yeah, we're totally getting that treasure, and you talk with a stupid accent too." The two groups of puppets then got into another slap fight, this one even grander in scale then the one that came before. Nemo began to add comical punching and sword fighting sound effects as the marionettes fought.

First puppet Nemo and Raiya defeated the Tao Twin puppets, and they were dragged off stage. Followed by Roy being slapped into submission by Zuri, Travis, and Zoey. Puppet Travis delivered the death-slap before marionette Roy was removed from the stage. Then puppet Nemo and Raiya defeated Caspian when Nemo swung his replica sword to pop off puppet Caspian's wooden head from his body. It rolled off the table and landed by the couch Raiya was laying on.

Nemo leaned over the cardboard cutout and replaced his small scale sword with a tiny replica of his rifle. "Then I was like, hey Travis, watch this sick ass shot. Bang!" Nemo recited, jerking his puppet to make it look like his rifle had fired when he made the crude sound effect. This apparently killed the puppet Lori, as her puppet body fell limp before being removed from the stage.

"So then only Seidon was left, and he was like, oh no, my crew and stuff, is like super dead, Arrr!" Nemo continued, forgetting to use the fake pirate accent until the end. "Blackbeard used a big magic attack on us, and we all dodged it besides Zoey, and she was like. Ow!" Nemo then flicked his wrist, causing the controlled marionette stick to violently swing around and overhead smash the Zoey puppet onto the table. The force of the impact caused the wooden puppet to explode into pieces that abruptly shrapneled throughout the room, possibly hitting some of the members of the group. "...and then died." Nemo added, confirming her fate if the display wasn't good enough.

"We fought Captain Morgan for a while, but then-" Nemo paused the slap fight, moving in to replace his rifle with a miniature revolver. "I shot him a bunch of times." One would of thought that Nemo would just do some more sound effects, but apparently he had some room for more production value in this performance. The small pistol was actually functional and rigged with blank rounds. He fired five off, causing small blood filled squib explosives placed in the Seidon puppet to go off, making it look as if his body was being riddled with bullets like in an action movie. The whole scene was a surprisingly ridiculous recreation of the act.

Nemo had the puppet Seidon fall to it's wooden knees. "It looked like Captain Kidd was down for the count, but it would be foolish to think it's that easy." The puppet Seidon looked up from his kneeling position. "I may die, but I'll make sure you all die too, so I can kill you all again in the afterlife or whatever too... arrr." Puppet Nemo fired off one more shot from his mini revolver, causing puppet Seidon's head to suddenly explode into a bloody mess. Thankfully most of the fake blood was caught by the cardboard backdrop. Nemo then drug the headless Seidon off the table, causing a morbid blood trail in the process.

Nemo took all the puppets off the table and replaced the backdrop with cardboard ocean waves. Followed by a cardboard cutout of the ship with the group on it. Nemo moved the cardboard ship to make it look like it was floating on the waves, as well as shifting the backdrop to make it look more animated. "Unfortunately, before we sent Davy Jones back to his locker, he unleashed his pet fish against us." Nemo made a few wacky sounding groans to signal the arrival of the kraken. A far cry from the terrifying real deal they had experienced earlier in the day. Suddenly, large cardboard cutouts of the monster's tentacles emerged before behind the waves. They began to repeatedly smack the ship.

"We tried our best, which was basically doing nothing, but the sea was all like, whoosh, whoosh! Whip a whip a doo!" Nemo started, making sound effects for the immense storm they were facing at the time. He whipped the boat all around, even upside down to display their struggle. "And the monsters was all like, bang, bang, BANG!" Nemo added, making sounds every time the tentacles hit the ship. "And sadly, we sunk like a rock." He finished, pulling the boat under the waves and out of view.

Nemo discarded the current props and changed the background to the sandy beach they awoke on. He laid their puppets bodies limply on the table. "Thankfully, we washed up on a beach, and were not eaten whole by the sea-beast." Nemo rose the marionette's controllers up, causing them to spring back to life. The only change in the group was that the Raiya puppet was now missing it's jacket. "We walked into the heart of the jungle, sure that this was the island the paragon rested upon." As the puppets comically jingle walked across the backdrop, Nemo switched the beach out for the jungle with the temple's entrance.

"Finally we reached our destination, which required us to operate an ancient device to open the doors and gain entrance to the paragon's resting place. But, in a wild turn of events, it was revealed that the doors were actually working for the Arcanocracy, and it was one huge ambush." Nemo then revealed puppet Father Galvadon. It was a spitting image of the church member, except for the part where he had replaced his gold mace with an old timey walking cane and gave him a long black curly mustache and top hat. "Myah-hah-hah! It is I, Father Galvadon. I've come to stop you rabble rousers before you give us any more trouble, see?" Nemo perverted his voice so that he sounded like a vintage vaudeville villain.

"I was all like, you guys go on without me and I'll deal with this guy, even though he might kill me because he's super tough and specializes in both my weaknesses. And Raiya was like Yeah, don't care at all, loser-kun."

Nemo paused for a moment, sniffling sadly from his position before continuing. "So I was like... Okay... and then got into a big fight with Galvadon." Nemo explained, sounding audibly depressed. Nemo had the two puppets charge each other slowly and engage into a downtempo low-energy slap fight.

Nemo's "fight" with Galvadon faded off to the side as the remaining group entered the temple. He replaced the backdrop with the inside of the temple. "Travis, Zuri, and Raiya went deep into the catacombs, finding none other than Father Stockton waiting for them inside." Nemo explained, dropping his sad voice. He then revealed puppet Stockton and placed him on the table. For the most part, Stockton looked like his real life counterpart, but with a giant oversized cranium to house his clearly massive brain.

"I wasn't there to hear how the battle started, but I'm pretty sure it went something like this." Nemo coughed slightly to adjust his voice. "Hey guys, it's me, Father Megamind. My brain is the biggest in this whole room, so every move you can make I've already planned for in five different ways. Bow before me, or I'll be forced to use my mind magic against you!" Nemo said in a nasally nerdy voice.

The puppets then collided in another slap fight. But instead of slapping back, the Stockton puppet raised it's hands up to the sides of it's temples. Nemo began to emit humorous electric buzzing sound effects. Apparently this was what "mind magic" sounded like.

"Eventually, thanks to Travis and Zuri, Stockton's mystifying mind magic was disabled. He collapsed to his knees, unable to fight back now that his only offense was taken from him. But before Raiya could deliver the death blow, I returned from my battle with Galvadon, victorious." The Nemo puppet walked back into frame, beaten up and bloodied, clothes ragged and waving his revolver wildly. After reaching Stockton, the marionette Nemo exclaimed "Die!" and point blank shot the church puppet in it's massive head. After the blank round went off, the large head of puppet Stockton sprung a leak, steadily squirting fake blood all over the table. It fell forward and face planted on the stage, continuing the leak until the head had shrunk down to a normal size.

"Apparently this made Raiya-" Nemo moved in, placing stickers on puppet Raiya's face to give her angry eyebrows and an unhappy mouth. "-really mad."

Nemo switched the background to the final throne room of the temple. With puppet skeleton Croft and a mini paragon on the other side. The group approached the artifact, with puppet Travis splitting off and getting closer. "Finally we were met with the object we had come all this way for, but the paragon was in a precarious predicament, so Travis stepped up to nab the artifact." The puppet Travis creeped closer and closer to the gem, finally getting into arms reach. He extended his wooden arm out to grasp the paragon, and as soon as he touched it the skeleton spoke.

"Don-"

Before it could say any more, puppet Travis quickly removed the paragon, causing the skeleton to wheeze and explode into fine dust before it could speak any further. The grey bone powder coated puppet Travis thoroughly.

"And so there we were, standing with our second paragon, victorious in our search. But this victory was short lived, as it turned out that the entire island was actually a fake island generated by the paragon at the request of Captain Croft in his dying moments. And now that Captain Croft, barely alive through the paragon, had perished without his lifeline. The island would perish with him."

Nemo switched the background to include the black hole they had encountered before. "A big scary void hole opened up, slowly sucking us all up as well as the island." Nemo moved the marionettes and jingled them in front of the cardboard anomaly. Nemo began to emit various goofy wails as they were pulled into it.

After changing the background back to the moving waves, Nemo plopped their puppet doubles down into them. "After that ordeal, we returned to the ocean. Thankfully with no sea monster still in sight. Raiya, of course, was panicking. Oh no, we're all going to drown out here in the sea! Ahhhhhh! We're doomed!" Nemo jiggled her puppet rapidly as they cried out in fear.

"Thankfully, I was able to create a raft for us to float on, and then Travis disabled the paragon's manawaves so we could send out a distress signal. That's when you came in Felix." After placing all the puppets into a plastic boat, Nemo brought out "Puppet Felix."

Puppet Felix, in reality, was a fat clown marionette with a small nametag that said "Felix" on it. Either Nemo had ran out of marionettes to use in his performance, or still held some form of grudge against the arch-magi for locking him up in Mamertine for so long. Puppet Felix waddled across the waves slowly, accompanied by bass low tuba noises every step. "Hey guys, it's me, Felix. I've come to rescue you. Step inside my fun portal to return to my magical castle." Nemo supplemented Felix's actual voice with a Barney the Dinosaur like impression. He then honked his clown nose at the end.

Nemo dropped the wood controllers to all the puppets, letting them rest limply on the table. He stepped back and rested down on his comfy chair, satisfied. "And so yeah..." Nemo crossed his arms confidently. "That's pretty much how it happened."

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

Nemo lifted himself up from his seated position. "Sorry Felix, you missed the battle. Shame, Travis had quite the impressive skirmish with a skeleton too." Nemo commented, hiding his sarcasm the best he could. Nemo flipped his fingers upwards towards Raiya, using a light telekinesis to levitate her up. He caught her just as she reached the apex of the spell and started to fall.

After walking through the portal, Nemo was greeted with the sight of their cabin's living room. However, for Nemo the well illuminated space wasn't all that favorable over the view of the dark seascape. He initially squinted as his eyes slowly adjusted to the light, the brightness truly irritated him to the core. Nemo walked over to the couch and abruptly dropped Raiya onto it's cushy confines, an action entirely lacking the tenderness he had shown to her in the past. It was likely that her harsh words against him earlier had at least temporarily extinguished his camaraderie towards her. "I trust you can take care of yourself from here."

Nemo looked down, seeing his soaked boots. He let out a sigh, pulling them off and returning them to his mana-inventory. Nemo went to work on his body next, smelling awfully like salt-water still. This wasn't the first time he had gotten himself unintentionally soaked, and over the years he had perfected small spells to clean himself in a jiffy. Nemo walked over to the bathroom and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Within a couple minutes he returned, fully clean and dry, now wearing his plush pink robe, pajamas, slippers, and usual accessories. He sat down on a chair and waited silently.

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

"Allow me." Nemo replied, lifting his arm up and checking his gold manadial. "Everything seems to be in order now... lovely job, Travis." He complimented. Nemo tapped the dial to bring up a holographic interface. He maneuvered through a couple screens before poking his finger in the air to press one of the incorporeal buttons. A slight beep was made before the device sent a call to Felix back at their base.

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

Nemo let out a deep sigh of relief when he heard Travis' status update on his firearm. "It'll survive the bath, but I might have to tend to the wood-grain at a later date." Nemo replied. Before he could plan on the matter any further, Raiya brought him back to the more pressing matter.

"We might die, but I doubt the ocean is going to be what claims us. Well, seeing how you do with water, maybe it will get you... but not me." Nemo replied, raising one hand out of the water and speaking a single work incantation. "Mutatio." Immediately the water a few feet away began to stir. It rose up from the sea and began to form into the shape of a basic boat before solidifying into a black unidentifiable substance. After finishing, the makeshift boat plopped down into the water, revealing it was indeed buoyant.

Nemo swam over and heaved himself on board first before pulling the exhausted Raiya in next. Thankfully there was just enough room for everybody. He waited for his other team members to climb in before addressing the group. "Before anybody asks, no, I don't intend to row us back to shore." He announced before turning to Travis. "Felix would have a hard time locating us with this paragon, but Travis here is more than capable of taking care of that problem already, aren't you?" He asked.

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

What awaited Nemo and the group once they crossed into the sphere was both visions of pitch black and a tingling cold feeling as they floated weightlessly through the void. Nemo began to wonder if he was still alive as the dark drew on past the twenty second mark. Suddenly, out nowhere, he was hit by the abrupt audio of the sea and the feeling of wind on his pale skin, followed by blurry vision slowly returning. However before it could, the weightlessness was ended when he crashed into the cold sea. Although for Nemo the cold wasn't much of a drawback, it was a much more welcome feeling compared to the jungle from before.

Nemo swam back up and breached the surface of the water. By this point his vision had returned, and he was graced with the sight of water in every direction. It was getting dark now as well, he could no longer spot the sun in the horizon.

Nemo looked back, seeing a distorted space in the air about twenty feet up. Seconds later Zuri popped out of it and landed in the sea, followed by Travis, and finally Raiya. Nemo remembered their earlier encounter with water and quickly began to swim over. By the time he reached her position, she clearly wasn't above water anymore. Nemo submerged himself and found her sinking. He quickly swam further down and hooked an arm around her midsection and paddled back up to breech them both above water.

Nemo remained silent, only breathing steadily to calm his body and paddling to keep them afloat as he plotted his next move. "Is everyone alright?" He asked, breaking the silence as he thought. "...Is my shotgun alright too?" He added after a few moments, sounding genuinely worried.

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

Nemo shuffled back after losing traction on the ground and sliding forward. "Well... the last thing Samuel Croft was doing before using the Paragon was sinking. If an lush island was his fantasy land, one would expect land was something he was surely lacking in his final moments." Nemo replied. By this point the dark navy orb had grown twice as tall as Nemo himself, and with width to match. Parts of the stone wall began to tear off and get sucked inside from the sheer pulling force it had gained.

"But, I suppose there's only one way to find out, huh?" He asked, looking at no one in particular. Nemo glanced over to Travis. "Whatever happens, please keep a good grip on the paragon... and my shotgun as well." He said, before letting out a laugh and sliding forward. The pull of the orb caught him even more the closer he got, causing Nemo to slide-skate even faster with his boots across the floor and right into the waiting magic orb. He disappeared immediately inside.

The black hole soon increased in size more rapidly now that it was feeding off from the walls. Within seconds it would become too much to bare anymore. Fighting the pull was futile.

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

When Travis turned back to the group, Nemo had a notable goofy smirk on his face, signaling that he was holding back a laugh. Apparently Samuel's final stand had tickled him. However his pleased expression suddenly dissipated when he heard a stir coming from the corpse.

"What have ye done? Without that... we're all doomed... Witho-" The skeleton uttered before suddenly being cut off. It's blue life-essence in it's eye sockets flushed out, instead replaced by a darker glow from within it's chest cavity. Sammy's clothes seemed to suddenly get torn and sucked in, revealing a solid ball of navy energy. Next his ribs cracked and collapsed in on themselves, dissipating into the void. Soon his entire body had imploded into the energy ball, slowly increasing it's size until it started to devour the surrounding wall and throne.

Nemo himself began to feel the pull of the magic anomaly, causing him to begin to backpedal away from it. "The trees out there, did anyone else notice something strange about them?" He asked. "They weren't real. Not a single speck of mana lurking within. It's why he's the only thing that's aged here." He elaborated. "The Paragon has been generating this whole island. It must be one giant fake construct imagined by Samuel in his dying breath, and now that he's gone... the whole thing is collapsing in on itself." By the time he finished Nemo had a hard time still backing up, feeling like he was fighting against a heavy hurricane. He nearly tripped on the body of Rutger sliding by before being devoured by the bonafide black hole. "Watch out." He muttered.

At this rate it seemed like the only way out was in.

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

As Travis began to remove the Paragon of Fantasia from the skeleton's bony grasp, strangely, a force began to pull back.

"Let go of me jewel you son of a biscuit eater." A incredibly raspy voice emitted out from the skeleton. It leaned forward, tilting it's head a revealing a slight blue glow from within the corpses eye-sockets. It seemed the paragon was still keeping Samuel alive all these years. "Sam" pulled one of it's arms away from the paragon and retrieved a flintlock pistol from it's coat. "Take this you scallywag!" He spoke before pulling the trigger.

The fear of death was immediately snuffed out when instead of a fiery blast, a small puff a black smoke shot out from the pistol, followed by the bullet rolling out of the barrel seconds later and harmlessly falling to the floor. Apparently the gunpowder wasn't well preserved over the years. "Hah!" Samuel exclaimed after a few moments of dead silence. "Take that!" He added with a raspy wheeze-filled chuckle. Apparently that outburst was too much energy for him to expend, as the right part of his jaw suddenly broke and unhinged, leaving it hanging. He then dropped the used weapon and placed his hand back on the paragon, using whatever remnants of muscle he had left to hold on.

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

Nemo kept silent for a few moments after Raiya's whispered. Finally he broke the silence. "So... does that mean I get a third strike, but wont make a fourth? Or I wont get the fourth because I'll be dead?" He asked, dumbfounded. It was at that point Travis opened the door and turned to them.

"Of course we are." Nemo replied, breaking away from Raiya and walking over to the opened entrance. "Another lovely job Travis, you're a daisy for this one." He noted before looking through to the other room. What waited them was seemingly a giant empty stone room, save for the torches to light it and the occupied throne at the other side of it. Sitting atop a marble seat was a very decomposed skeleton. Nearly all remnants of flesh had rotted away. At this point it had more cobwebs than biological material left. The only other things decorating the body were an aged brown pirate outfit, some gold jewelry, and the large shiny navy jewel it was still clutching in its skeletal hands. Judging from the mana-waves emanating off it, it had to be the paragon they had come all this way for. The body clearly belonging to late Samuel Croft.

"There's the birthday boy." Nemo commented, pausing for a moment. "Well... I'm not touching that thing. So there's that."

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

Nemo didn't make a reply at first. His expression didn't seem to give away what his reaction was either. He let out a slight sigh before speaking. "No... no, I think those three things are much too grandiose, even for me." Nemo replied, resting his hands in his pant pockets. "I just don't want to see you do anything you'll come to regret, Raiya. You still have the chance to have what I never will. I don't want to see you waste that. Heaven knows I did, and there's not a day that goes by I don't think about that. I don't think that sentiment makes me a knight, or a king, certainly not a god." Nemo finished.

"I've never killed anyone that didn't have it coming to them, but there is a vast ravine separating people like Felix from people like myself in regards to how tastefully or compassionately they deal the final blow. That trait is certainly a heavy one in discerning a person from a beast." He explained. "How about a story?" Nemo then suggested, seeing that they'd be waiting for the door anyways.

"Back in eighty-three there was a man named Rolando Massimiliano Tucci. He was a famous Italian track and field star, distinguished chef, and less known to the public, an world renown assassin. Rolando was known for his speed, he could eliminate a target and be miles away before anybody even noticed. People used to call him 'Rapid Roland.'" Nemo remembered with a small smirk at the end.

"One day, either for the sake of a contract, or just for the sake of furthering his own reputation, Rolando made an attempt on my life. Clearly he wasn't very successful, but neither was I in capturing him. He slipped away, and thus began a rather long feud between us. Every time I'd come close to wringing my hands around that weasel's neck he'd find a way to escape. And that really began to rub me the wrong way. His knack for finding a way out of every one of our encounters nearly drove me mad." Nemo paused, settling down from the repressed irritation he was resurfacing. "He knew he couldn't beat me, so it became his mission to try to to annoy me as much as possible. He had no manners, and that's something I absolutely couldn't allow."

Nemo paused once more, this time his tone shifted darker before he continued. "So... when I finally did catch him. I didn't kill him, no, not at first. Instead I treated him to a nice dinner instead. One where we could finally work out our differences. I made sure this time he wouldn't escape... I amputated his legs, Raiya, skinned and roasted them with choice spices. It took some convincing, but we both enjoyed the meal with a side of braised cavolo nero and a bottle of Nebbiolo. I thought it was clever. Olympic sprinter chef eats his own legs."