Chapter 11

chapter eleven Three days later, it's nearly Battle Royale. But A LOT happened in three days. A quick list: Dirk sulks and sleeps—nothing else. Something's seriously wrong. I train a bunch—and I fail a bunch. My life is not the epic training montage I had in mind... Quint studies the tail—and gets tail guts everywhere. There's now a semipermanent layer of goo on the toilet seat, and let's just say, that toilet has seen enough. June locks herself in her room, fully focused on figuring out how to turn video game Wi-Fi into a "find the humans" apparatus.

Also, Rover is cute. Super cute. As usual. And then, at last, it is REAL-LIFE Battle Royale time... The Town Square is kinda like the game's lobby—we're all gathered around, decked out in full Last Creatures Standing gear. And by gear, I mean... weird junk. We have gone MAXIMUM LEVEL in the costumes and skins department. We're posing with radical gear so we look cool. During the game, all tools and

weapons will be hidden in LOOT CRATES! We'll be battling in Duo Mode—teams of two players, facing off against one another, and the last team standing wins! I suggested duos so that I could partner up with Dirk... 'Cause that's the real point of this game: finding out what's bothering my buddy. When your friend is hurting, that's serious biz. And if it's gonna take the fog of war for me to pick his brain, so be it...." PLAYERS, LISTEN UP!" Quint shouts as he leaps into the rules. I sort of zone out, because it's all standard battle royale stuff. But there are two big exceptions: #1: LOOT CRATES: Quint-made weapons, like football launchers, NERF cannons, etc., have been hidden in LOOT CRATES across town. Vehicles, too! Find them and use them against your foes! In a video game, the loot crates just sort of spawn randomly. Sadly, we don't have random

loot crate spawn powers—so we got Biggun to place loot crates and vehicles all over town. And the #2 big important difference: GOOSLIME. Just like a video game, when a player is out, they're out—no faking! But we needed a way to make sure no one cheated. I mean, we've all played flashlight tag with that one kid who totally gets caught but is still somersaulting around like, "Nope, you missed me! Nope, you didn't see me!" That kid is the worst. Don't be that kid. Thankfully, Quint came up with gleaming, glowing goo-slime! When he first explained it to the monsters, he sounded like a late night infomercial host...

Goo-Slime. Every weapon is loaded with it. If you get hit, the substance will slow you down and stop you in your tracks. So you're effectively out. Quint put Skaelka in charge of goo-slime weapon assembly. So, for the past three days, the monsters were holed up inside Joe's, doing a Santa's workshop thing. I can only imagine how that went...

I NEED THREE HUNDRED GOOSE LAME WEAPONS-AND I NEEDED THEM. YESTERDAY I glance over at Dirk—I see he's struggling. He's sort of staring off into space, not blinking. I can't wait any longer to make him better, so I elbow Quint. "Time to get the show on the road." Quint lifts his multipurpose remote above his head and bellows over the crowd, a feverish grin crossing his face as he flicks a toggle and—