Pocket Slime

“Octo-bar!” Cal stood and kicked his seat back, then he tossed away our table for extra dramatic effect. “How dare you invade this world? I shall purge you from it, Warlock of Fall!”

“C-Cal the Barbarian!?” Octo-bar’s face flashed with horror as he clutched tightly to clumps of gell-oh. “No, not you! Why are you here?”

“It seems I have been summoned to stop the likes of you!”

Octo-bar's nerves peaked, but his devious smile quickly returned.

“Well, seeing as you're here, I may as well continue my mission to cause chaos that will leave the world in ruin!”

Slime monsters bubbled up and increased their mass, growing much larger as they consumed plants and whatever else they could find around them.

“Not if I have anything to say about it!” Electrical energy jolted around Cal and he stomped his foot, sending a shockwave of static out that caused everyone’s hair in the food court to stand up straight.

The onlookers around the court decided to whip out their phones to record the action.

“Oh god, my phone won’t start up…” said a panicked man in the crowd.

“Mine won’t either!” A woman screamed. “How are my followers going to get constant updates of my life and validate my existence now?! Ahhh!”

“No! This is the end of the world!” shouted another guy as he grabbed a chair and threw it through an electronics store window. “Out of my way, losers!”

The guy jumped into the store and started stealing anything he could fit in his pockets. The store manager came over and threw a Moukia phone at him.

“Ouch!” Shouted the man as a brick phone struck his head.

“There’s a front entrance, idiot!” Shouted the manager. “We have insurance on the items, not windows!”

“Oh, I’m sorry…” said the thief before he had an epiphany. “Wait! I can sue since you threw that phone at me! Muhahaha!”

“Oh no!” shivered the store manager. “Not a personal injury lawsuit! I’m powerless!”

By that point, this whole section of mall descended into pure anarchy once they realized the store managers couldn’t do anything to stop them. People were storming through shops and kiosks destroying and stealing whatever items they wanted. Fights broke out over T-shirts. Mothers abandoned their children. And men were battling it out to the death over designer shoes and sporting gear.

Meanwhile, Cal, Octo-bar and I were all horrified by how quickly this all went down. It took them no more than two minutes to turn this place into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The only thing left to wander about the war torn path were the yapping chihuahua toys from the little animatronic kiosks that nobody ever bought from.

*Yap Yap Yap Yap!*

“W-what just happened?” I asked, completely confused. “Their phones fried, not their brains!”

“Are you sure those devices were not their brains to begin with?” Cal suggested, which was probably more true then it should have been.

“I’m jealous of how much chaos those simple devices caused,” Octo-bar laughed. “Perhaps using slime is the wrong path.” He turned back to Cal. “No matter. I’ve come here to build my army, and now my slimes have ripened!”

Now that I was getting a good look at Octo-bar, he looked exactly like a bully from my younger years who was always so mean to me. He’d take food off my plate and throw it into my face. Then his friends got into it too for a little while.

I turned them into lords of slime in my story, because I had a core memory of gell-oh going up my nose and causing me a headache.

While Cal stood ready to fight, I hid behind him for safety.

“I see princess Aurilia has come to this world as well,” Octo-bar said as he noticed me. “I shall defeat you and imprison her!”

“You will do no such thing!”

Cal blasted in and readied a thunder punch on Octo-bar, but the warlock tossed slime onto the field and it caught Cal’s fist. The slime started to grow and pulled my man in deeper to its jelliness, but Cal’s fist exploded with electricity.

Another slime tried to flank him. It split into two and caught him from behind. Cal tried to increase his power, but no amount of electricity was overcoming the ever growing slimes.

“This is bad!” I shouted. The slimes were closing in on me too now.

*Yap Yap Yap Yap!*

The chihuahua made its way into a perfume store and overloaded on all the electricity in the air.

*BOOM!*

The explosion ignited all the broken bottles of perfume on the ground and caused a raging fire in the store. The mall sprinkler systems kicked on. Little droplets of water rained down all over us and got everything wet.

The slimes started to melt in the water, and they just became sludgy puddles on the floor.

“Hmm, that was easy,” I smiled.

“W-what the heck?” Octo-bar looked baffled. “Ah, come on. What magic did you use to make it rain inside?”

Cal didn’t waste a second before rushing in again and striking Octo-bar, but his fist was stopped in its tracks by a sticky armor that protected the warlock. He was stuck!

The villain sent in an attack of his own noticing Cal's opening, but Cal grabbed him and threw him down into a puddle, which freed my hero!

Octo got back up and they traded fists. The warlock was built just as big as Cal, so he put up a mighty fight. But Cal knew he had an advantage...

“Thunder and rain go together so well!” static crackled around Cal as he charged a lightning strike.

“Wait!” I stopped him. “The electricity might shock me through the water too!”

“Ahh!” Cal hesitated and was hit in the face by Octo, then the bad guy got momentum with a series of punches and kicks.

Cal caught his breath and dodge a left fist, then a right. He returned a swing of his own hand in and slugged Octo in the jaw! But as Octo fell to the floor, he reached into his tattered coat and tossed gell-oh into Cal's eyes.

“Pocket slime!” Octo shouted.

“Grr…” Cal grunted. “It’s up my nose!”

I grit my teeth, knowing how awful a sensation that lime scented headache really was. “How devious! You haven’t changed since middle school, Octo-bar!”

Cal tried to clear away the slime with the sprinkler water, but the warlock laughed and got some dirty shots in on his gut. Cal fell to his knees, wounded and unable to catch his bearings. But even still, I believed in him. He wasn’t done, he couldn’t be!