Kim Pine's Precious Little Knives

Chapter 19

"Whew! Holy cats, I thought I'd never get through that Rubik's Cube..."

My hand came up to push into my face. Not that it really mattered; I could barely feel it. "At least I could kinda help with that one. The other two gates were... yeah, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Kniv-"

"Enough," Knives panted as she wiped the sweat from her brow on her striped scarf. It was pretty weird that she was wearing it in the middle of summer, but I had a feeling it was kind of part of her 'battle outfit' or something. "Didn't I... tell you that I'm... doing this for both of us? Not just you?"

"But watching you stare into the mirror... man, I thought you were gonna turn into that other reflection of you with all the purple buffalo in the background..."

The sweet smile made my pulse race. Somewhere. Not in the body I was in within my body, but the body outside of my... body... this is really annoying to explain, as I have just realised while trying to do so. Point is, seeing her smile makes me smile, too. "Anything for you, Kim Pine. Serious and mysterious."

"Alright, alright. Just try not to get killed or then I'll be really hacked off."

The thing I still couldn't figure out was how I guessed all of this so accurately. Probably something subliminal about it; there's no way it was a coincidence. But everything, the three gates, the rhino and warthog, the high-walled chambers we had to fight our way through, came to pass exactly as I snarked in a would-be joking tone. If I made it a reality by saying it... man did I fuck myself royally.

At this point, Knives and I were at the top of a ledge that ran the entire circumference of a round room, closer to the ceiling. It was over a dozen meters to the ground, and another three or four up to the ceiling from where the walkway was positioned. Once she flipped down into that pit, it would be her against the sixteen-eyed monster that stood between us and the final chamber. Maybe we would luck out and it wouldn't really have a laser cannon in its chest, but after everything I'd seen, that felt like a pretty horrible bet to take.

"We don't even know that getting past this thing will be worth the effort," I whispered. "What are we going to find in the sub-chamber? How is it gonna help me at all?"

"Dunno. Just... okay, should I use the save point? Because the room already locked behind us, and if I need some kind of item that we didn't find on our way here..."

"Right, I know. Like, do we really wanna have to go through the gates all over again if we don't use it?"

"Yeah." Glancing back at the closed-and-shut door, then over at the spinning, glowing book that floated above a magic circle on the floor, she flashed me a huge shrug. "I think I can take him, but like, you're right; do we lock down how far we've come, or give ourselves a way to double back for power-ups?"

Facepalming, which didn't do much since I could see through my hand, I sighed, "Whatever. Just please be careful?"

"Okay. Here goes nothing..."

Knives walked over and touched the save point. Now we were committed. Once the glow faded from her skin, she gave me a thumb's up before leaping down to land in front of the beast.

Watching her at work is like watching Russian ballet, only with green blood spraying everywhere. Darting back and forth, hiding behind pillars to dodge the worst of its needle attacks, and then hopping out to slice it up as much as she could. It smacked her around a few times, but she was doing some pretty decent damage... until it got her with the laser cannon. Then she was fried to ash, and there as nothing I could do...

But wait for her to respawn at the save point. I was a ghost; I didn't affect anything, other than to talk to her and give her ideas.

"Whoa, did... that really happen just now?"