"Susa-no-O-no-Mikoto!" Rod Roddy's voice had a shrill and malicious quality to it; a drink from the well of madness that spun your wits in a wide circle so violently that you might never recover. "Come on down! You're the next meal on The Price Is Right!"
Gwydyon's lip curled in disgust. Nothing was more dishonorable than teaming up with someone in the name of evil. He and Susa-no-O were excluded from that by virtue of their shining independence, their masculine heroic faces, their charm and above all their willingness not to kill women after sleeping with them. Gwydyon was convinced that, were he not standing on the verge of being devoured by a many-tentacled octopus born of hell's infernal flames, Susa-no-O would have agreed immediately. This was going to require a degree of teamwork that they had not yet practiced, at least not in the way that was commonly accepted as training for a swordfight. Susa-no-O, he was sure, could focus on the Dehodroan. That would leave Melichor, 'Bob Barker', to Gwydyon. The Welshman had to gather his courage, focus on the task at hand and finally make Bob Barker pay for the lives he had ruined.
"Go ahead and kill it, then!" Gwydyon shouted.
"G'head and whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!" Susa's statement was interrupted as the tentacles hurled him into the air; more of them exploded out of the announcer's booth and presumably his good friend was fighting for his life among the rafters of the studio or being torn limb from limb.
"That looks like it sucks," Melichor intoned, almost as though he'd forgotten Gwydyon was there.
"Time to die, Melichor!" Gwydyon snarled as his answer.
The two of them danced then; an oft-practiced series of steps which had never been fully choreographed. Bob Barker had the fluid grace of a dancer and the cruel malice of the most hardened general. So that when blades of flame sprang to life in his hands Gwydyon was hard-pressed to keep those flicking tongues from charring his skin. Cooking him while he was still alive. Melichor seemed to be enjoying that possibility. Flames were wrapping around the building, working their way into the rafters now. Gwydyon hardly noticed. He looked so goddamn heroic as the clash of swords stormed through his shoulders and into his chest, each time Welsh steel met Hades' damnable inferno given form. Sparks fell like rain. Their combat was to the death; it was primal, the birth of a new star.
Until Gwydyon drove three and a half feet of the aforementioned Welsh steel through Bob Barker's chest.
Nothing happened. Melichor did not bleed, or show any sign of pain. Only that jagged smile.