269 Horrors of War(4)

"I cannot believe you were enjoying his performance, Carson!" Rip shouted as she and the rest were still running.

"Come on live a little," Carson responded calmly.

"IN A WARZONE?!"

Suddenly, a barrage of fireballs hurtled towards them, exploding upon impact with the earth, and the source revealed to be none other than the Devil himself, wielding his pitchfork as he pursued them through the skies.

"HAHAHAHAHA!!"

"Can you use another bullet, Rip?!" Ramsay shouted urgently.

"Even if I did fire another round, he'll just use that 'toon force' Carson mentioned to counter it, and I can't risk wasting my bullets, so we can only run now," Rip said resolutely.

"Great."

At that moment, Rip looked ahead and saw two diverging paths leading two sides of the carnival. Without hesitation, Rip, Zorin, and Carson veered left, while Ramsey and Simmons opted for the right route.

"Splitting up, huh? Lovely." the Devil chuckled mischievously, choosing the left path and chasing after Rip, Zorin, and Carson.

After traversing for minutes, the Devil halted at the sight of a booth filled with posing mannequins, among which Rip and Carson cunningly blended in by standing still and not moving an inch, while Zorin remained hidden beneath the booth's counter.

"Hmmmm..."

As he inspects the mannequins, beads of sweat form on Rip and Carson's brows as they try their best not to break their pose.

After a pregnant pause, the Devil merely shrugged, "Probably nothing."

Meanwhile, Zorin, while hiding beneath the counter, couldn't stifle a sneeze as she encountered a cloud of dust.

"ACHOO!"

The sudden noise jolted the Devil. "Huh?!"

"Shit he knows! Abort! Abort!" Carson exclaimed, knowing they were found.

In an instant, the Devil unleashed another fireball, compelling Carson and Rip to snatch Zorin's head and leap from the booth just as it got blasted to oblivion. The pair continued sprinting across the carnival with Zorin in one of their hands until they arrived on a roller coaster and decided to seek refuge in the middle of its dizzying twists and turns. Without hesitation, they hurled themselves onto the coaster's speeding car as it ran down the tracks at full speed.

"Phew, I think we lost him." Carson exhaled, a glimmer of relief in his voice.

"Yoo hoo."

Frozen with dread, they spun around to find the Devil seated on the fourth car of the roller coaster, his pitchfork menacingly aimed in their direction.

"Jump!" Rip shouted urgently as she and Carson, burdened by Zorin's weight, leaped from the coaster just as the Devil's blast reduced their former refuge to smithereens rather than them because he is a lousy shot. Miraculously, they landed safely on the ground unscathed, narrowly escaping the Devil's fiery wrath.

"Darn it!" the Devil bellowed in frustration, his aim once again proving lackluster as he obliterated the coaster's cart in a fit of rage.

Descending from the skies, he brings out a pair of binoculars in search of his elusive prey. To his delight, his gaze fell not upon Rip, Carson, and Zorin, but instead upon Ramsey and Simmons, catching their breath beside a nearby booth.

"I see you," he hissed with a sinister grin, knowing his cat and mouth game is far from over.

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"I think we're good." Simmons remarked with a hint of relief in his voice.

"To think we're running instead of facing him head on even with Rip's support." Ramsay mused in a frustration tone.

"Believe me, Ramsey. You don't want to mess with cartoon characters. Even Spongebob Squarepants himself was able to destroy a whole universe in seconds by pulling a string."

"That is so ridiculous." Ramsay scoffed.

"That's the point."

In that moment, a blazing fireball whizzed past the duo, igniting the booth behind them in a fiery explosion as they noticed the Devil was heading towards them.

"Did you miss me?" the Devil taunted with malice dripping from his voice.

Without hesitation, Ramsay and Simmons bolted through the carnival grounds, seeking refuge within the ominous confines of a horror house, hoping to lose their infernal pursuer. However, the Devil unleashed a bolt of dark energy from his pitchfork, warping the structure into his likeness before descending inside.

In the eerie insides of the horror house, Ramsay and Simmons sprinted down a corridor filled with countless grotesque eyes that seemed to follow their every move, casting an unsettling gaze upon them. Meanwhile, the Devil's sinister appendages emerged from the walls, reaching out in a desperate attempt to grab them.

"HAHAHAHAHA!" echoed the Devil's menacing laughter that sent shivers down their spines.

Spotting an exit door ahead, the duo raced towards it, only to find themselves careening down a colossal slide instead. Axes and saws swung perilously close, forcing them to duck and weave to avoid certain peril as they descended the treacherous chute.

"This is insanity!" Simmons exclaimed amidst their screams.

Finally reaching the bottom of the slide, they dashed down a corridor lined with mirrors until they stopped at a dead end, still filled with mirrors whose reflections suddenly contorted into grotesque likenesses of the Devil.

"Peek a boo!" taunted the Devil's distorted reflection as it stood menacingly over them.

"Run!" Ramsay cried out, urging Simmons onward as they fled from their nightmarish reflection, their hearts pounding with dread in the maze of distorted mirrors.

As the Devil's sinister reflections materialized from the mirrors, Ramsay and Simmons sprinted desperately across the maze-like corridors of the horror house. Spotting a narrow pipe, they dashed into it, narrowly escaping the closing gates that threatened to trap them.

Finally reaching the end of the pipe, they found themselves back at the chaotic atmosphere of the carnival grounds, but their relief was short-lived as the Devil, now in his dragon-serpent form, soared out of the horror house and rained fireballs down upon the paths they had intended to take, obliterating any chance of escape.

"We're cornered!" Simmons shouted with panic.

With a loud thud, the Devil lands back on the ground and reverts to his original form with a malevolent smirk.

"Nowhere left to run now," he sneered.

With a flick of his trident, another fireball was fired towards them, prompting Ramsay and Simmons to leap aside, narrowly evading the infernal blast. Instead, the fiery projectile incinerated a nearby tent filled with imprisoned souls, shattering it into flaming debris and freeing the tormented spirits from their spectral prisons, allowing them to return to their original bodies.

Seeing this, the Devil was shocked beyond relief, "NOT AGAIN!"

"Not again?" Ramsay asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.

"Well, would you look at that? It appears we've come full circle back to where we first encountered those souls in jars," Simmons remarked with a wry grin. "Funny how things are working out."

With a menacing glare, the Devil leveled his pitchfork at them, "Don't forget you both still corne-"

Before he could utter another word, a jeep suddenly appeared and drove over him, cutting him off mid-sentence. The vehicle screeched to a halt in front of the two, revealing Carson behind the wheel, with Rip seated beside him still holding Zorin tightly. It seemed they had managed to hotwire a jeep from outside the carnival after their narrow escape from the Devil.

"Get in!" Carson commanded urgently.

Without hesitation, Ramsay and Simmons piled into the jeep, and Carson sped away from the chaos of the burning carnival, leaving the Devil flattened on the ground like a pancake in a cartoonish way.

"Hey, look ma! I'm roadkill! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

With a comical puff of air into his thumb, the Devil reinflated himself back to his usual form, surveying the smoldering ruins of the carnival in frustration as a result of the chain reaction from his fireballs. Carson and the others had slipped through his grasp once more, leaving him to stew in his thwarted plans, his souls were gone and his fury unchecked.

[IMAGES]

"You okay?" A Reich soldier asked as he stood beside him.

Fueled by rage and frustration, the Devil screamed with unbridled fury as he issued his commands to the Reich soldier beside him.

"DOES IT LOOK LIKE IT?! GET YOUR MEN AND ZOMBIES AFTER NOW! OR I'LL TAKE YOUR SOULS INSTEAD! NOOOOOWWW!!!"

"Okay! Okay!"

"NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!"

With a sense of urgency, the Reich soldiers and the Manglers scrambled into the Reich military trucks and chased after the group, while the Devil ascended into the sky, scanning the horizon for any sign of their escape..

"I refuse to have another Cuphead and Mugman scenario haunting and annoying me forever!" he growled, his determination unyielding as he vowed to capture these people at any cost.

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As Carson and the group sped down the road in their jeep, their primary objective was to locate the MTF team Delta-4 they came with here and aimed to regroup with them in the middle of the warzone.

"To think the devil from cuphead would show up was not what I expected," Carson remarked, a touch of awe in his voice. "It was cool though not gonna lie."

"Shut the hell up and keep driving, dummkopf." Rip snapped tersely.

"Come on, I'm just trying to lighten the mood," Carson protested, albeit sheepishly.

"We are in a warzone, Carson. We do not joke around whenever we feel like it, or leave fellow soldiers behind!" Rip retorted sternly.

"If you want to bring up about me leaving Lawrence behind in an iceberg, I totally get it, but I got even with him." Carson explained, attempting to justify his actions.

"After letting him get his chest slashed open by the Sleep Killers." Ramsay interjected with a disapproval tone.

"At least he is alive and breathing," Carson countered with remorse but also a hint of defiance in his voice.

Rip's narrowed gaze bore into Carson's as she spoke with a hint of accusation, "...I think you don't care."

"What? I don't care about the guys I work with? I totally do. Sure with Lawrence I had my ups and downs but I got even with him." Carson insisted in a defensive tone.

"But when the disaster struck him and not before that, Carson." Ramsay interjected dryly with a look of skepticism.

"I'm a straight guy and an A-class driver, and-" Carson's protest was abruptly cut short as he spotted a figure standing ominously in the road ahead, wielding a machete

"WOAH!"

In a split-second reaction, Carson swerved the car to the right, causing a violent collision with a lamppost that broke the engine, rendering it useless. Fortunately, the airbags deployed, cushioning their impact and preventing serious injury.

"A-class driving, huh?" Zorin deadpanned, eyeing Carson incredulously.

"It wasn't my fault! There was someone in the road and-" Carson attempted to justify himself, but his words trailed off as the distant sound of German voices reached their ears. "Annnnd now they're onto us."

"Let's move. Schnell." Rip commanded tersely.

With a sense of urgency, they abandoned the wrecked vehicle and fled down the streets, and the figure that Carson had glimpsed was none other than Jason Voorhees, silently observing their escape as Carson and the others couldn't notice his presence since they were in a hurry to escape the Reich.

"..."

As he plots his own deadly pursuit, he moves forward, and makes sure their blood is shed.

🎶Ki ki ki ki.....Ma ma ma ma🎶