"Maybe it was a gift, I don't crockin' know!" The Life-Guard exclaimed.
"Presumably your great-great-grandkids or whatever signed the contracts on your behalf, or maybe you're senile, and your legal guardian signed for you. It's like I said. They don't pay me to use my lil grey cells. They pay me to stop wrinkle old codgers like you from drowning in the paddling pool, and bust up the creeps who slip out of the illusion before they can spoil game for everyone."
"Pfft. The better question is: who isn't running CotA 3?" The Croc tipped its squinting head towards Shion.
"You want to learn more about CotA 2? Try asking you buddy over there--" The Life-Guard shot a fat finger in Ouka's direction.
"Go give him a pat on the back while you're at it. Without him and his shitty friends... well, the 'trilogy' wouldn't have turned out like this, lemme tell ya."
"Mechanical? Mechanical? MECHANICAL?" The Crocodile bellowed. "Does
all this look mechanical to you? Go fuck yourself, mech-o-boy! This body?" His fingers squeaked and wailed as he ran them up and down his torso.
"This is all 100% geniun---"
POP
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The Life Guard flocked to the Bartender's side. He placed to chubby, trembling over the hole that now scarred his brother's side, desperately trying to plug the wound.
"You're losing a lot of air here! I gotta apply pressure, I-I-I--"
"It's too late, Inflatable-Life-Guard-Crocodile... my time...." The Bartender wheezed, touching his friend's cheek for one final time.
"My time has come..."
"No! No! I refuse to accept that! Don't give up on me! Not yet! Please!"
"Memorize my face... old friend... I don't... I don't..."
"I won't forget you, Inflatable-Bartender-Crocodile... I'll never forget you!!"
"Thank you... Thank.... Just because I gotta die... don't mean that I gotta... fade... away..."
PPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTT
The balloon went limp in the Crocodile's hands. He pulled to rubber up towards his chest.
"He died doing what he loved... threatening our patrons... His body might have been hollow... It might have contained naught but air... but he had some much heart... by Croc... he had the most heart outta all of us!!" Tears squeaked down the Life-Guard's plastic cheeks.
"HE HAD HEAART!!"
"Clearly..." Forge slowly approached the Crocodile, his palm outstretched as a sign of peace.
"Clearly this is a very intimate moment between you and your.... dead... crocodile... friend. My friends and I--" Forge bit his tongue.
"My collogues and I--" He revised.
"We never meant for this to happen. We never wanted this... air-shed. We'll take our things and we'll--"
"NO!" The Crocodile tightened his hold over the plastic corpse.
"You don't get ta walk away from this!" The rest of the resorts Crocodiles started to close in, their stubby fists raised high.
"I warned you... us Crocs are a proud people! You don't get ta hurt one of our own! You don't have that right! Ya gonna pay! Ya gonna pay for every cubic inch of air!!" A sea of green rubber rushed in like a rip tide. There were hundreds of Crocodiles. Hundreds of hundreds, each as heartbroken as the next.
"Needless to say, violence was not the best course of action..." Forge muttered, retreating further into the bar until his back struck another Champion's.
"You know... I've seen some crazy things in my time... Aliens. Demons. Zombies. Hell, I thought I had seen it all... but this? This exists outside the realms of rationality and possibility... I never thought it would end like this. I never thought I'd meet my end at the hands of an army of plastic crocodiles..." He drew his weapon once again, ready to go down fighting.
"I'll look forward to getting to know you all on the other side--" His side-eye glared at Josuke.
"Well... some of you, anyway..."
View attachment 8963
"Now let's see how many of these creeps we can drag down to Crocodile Hell with us!!"
@Lucky @Atomic Knight @Takumi @Capri @Yun Lee @Jeremi @Gummi Bunnies @Crunch @Minerva