Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen Ruination Alorezak. When we reach the Town Square, it's chaos. The battle unfolds in the streets, on the rooftops, on the ground, and in the air. The Winged Wretches attack while the King Wretch circles high above, watching his minions. If this was, like, Star Trek, the King Wretch would be like the mother ship and these Winged

Wretches would be his sentinels of badness. Bardle greets us with sword in hand. "Jack!" he growls. "I smell evil on these beasts." I nod. "The King Wretch is a servant of .e...c.. These are his soldiers." ".e...c..." Bardle snarls. "Then we must—" Before he can finish his sentence, a flash of movement cuts through the darkness. And then Bardle is gone! Plucked from the ground by a Winged Wretch! "Bardle!" Quint cries out. The Winged Wretch circles, its talons snap open, and Bardle is dropped onto the Town Green. The ground shakes. I watch the Ridionculous Radical Triumph Trophy topple from its place atop the statue and crash to the grass beside him. The trophy. The games. I wonder... And as I wonder, another Winged Wretch scoops up the monster Gwif and hurls her into Joe's Pizza. The building nearly crumbles. I've seen this before, in the vision. This is how it begins. And I know how it ends, too. With everyone

inside Joe's Pizza: destroyed. Everything we've built replaced by devastation. I cannot let it come true. What if there was another way? Not the first vision, where I do what .e...c. tells me and I'm rewarded with kingly respect and a kick-butt throne. But not the second vision, either, where I disobey and my punishment destroys everyone I care about. What if I could come up with my own vision for the future, something the King Wretch never showed me? Maybe the solution is in the trophy and what it represents. Monsters and humans, being awesome, side by side....

Everyone Fight like these are The MONSTERS VERSUS HUMANS. ALMIGHTY ULTRA-IMPORTANT TOURNAMENT GAMES Play to win together Amid the chaos and combat, I catch the eyes of a few monsters. Are they really about to take orders from a nasally voiced little kid with a Little League bat? Skaelka raises her ax high and roars. "You heard the boy! Do as he says! We shall decapitate this big beast!" Bardle is rising, using his sword to stand. "Jack and his friends stopped .e...c. once before!" he shouts. "Together, we will do it again!" I take a deep breath, look to the sky, and holler, "TOURNAMENT GAME: DODGEBALL!"

At once, everything that isn't tied down is thrown up. Splintered park benches hurled at the winged beasts. Lamp posts fly like javelins! I watch a trash barrel explode against the side of a Winged Wretch. The monsters howl in pain. "TOURNAMENT GAME: KICKBALL!" I bark. The park's water fountain is drop-kicked into the face of a diving Winged Wretch. It explodes in a blast of stone and piping. I whirl around as I hear a voice call out, "I prefer chopping!" It's Skaelka—she's leaping from the roof of Simard's Roast Beef and chopping at a Winged Wretch. She lands atop the beast, grips the monster's hide, and brings her ax crashing down in a heavy chop. The Winged Wretch howls, corkscrews through the air, then plummets into the street in an eruption of pavement. Skaelka hops off, grinning. "Not decapitated!" she barks. "But a start!" "TOURNAMENT GAME: HUMAN TOSSING!" one monster yells.

Wait up. Hold on. Did that monster just say, "Human tossing"? Huh? No. NO! "I meant the other games!" I cry out. "Not human tossing! No tossing of humans!" But it's too late. Biggun has scooped up Quint. My buddy is a bony little human missile about to be fired into the sky. I cry out, "DON'T!" and manage to throw myself onto Biggun's arm just as he hurls Quint. Quint flips through the air and flops onto the Town Green. "Sorry, Biggun!" I squeak out. "Quint's not made for tossing! He's delicate!" As I hurry to Quint, I spot a metallic glimmer: the Ridonculous Radical Triumph Trophy. The shiny glint of the razor-sharp tip gives me an idea... "Dirk!" I shout. "The trophy! Muscles, please!" In an instant, Dirk is there, lifting it. Skaelka appears, helping to hoist the trophy high. "To the tree house!" I shout. "If we can knock the King Wretch out of commission, then his army of Winged Wretches will leave us alone! Maybe? Hopefully? I mean—that's how video game boss fights work!"