RAVI THE STOMPYFACE

Jun 15th 2011, 14:45 by E O Hatterpol | 1133 AU FROM SUN

The Canon smacked into the mountain of books, and for a moment all was still.  And then it suddenly burrowed itself deep into the pile, disappearing from sight.

"What the shell... ?" Makemake breathed.  We were both in bad shape, lying prostrate almost side by side in utter exhaustion.  

And then we heard a noise so deep with bass it might have shattered the Flybrary's hull with its strength.  It sounded like ten thousand elephants blowing their trumpets at once; like the raw energy surrounding a starship's engines; like a hundred thousand million books were all coming alive at once.

BWAON!  BWAON!  BWAON!

A thunderstorm of sentience rumbled from deep inside the mountain and blinding yellow-white lightning leaped from one side to the other and back again, like static electricity in a giant drying machine.  Soon, the entire starship was rumbling.

Ravi's resurrection had created an earthquake.

Captain Makemake and I watched in horror and amazement as a monster forty-twice our height rose out of the discarded piles.  He had three giant towers of books on his shoulders that were each big enough to fit Congress inside seventeen times over, two enormous legs built with books whose spines were each fatter than the oldest redwood trunk, and hands that could flatten the state of Texas in a single blow.

One hand held a hammer with enough books inside to populate all the libraries on Earth at once.  And he raised this terrible weapon aloft.

"N-no!" Makemake stammered, raising an arm to shield himself.  "N-nooooooooooooooo!"

M-M-M-MUDSTOMP!!!!

The almighty book hammer connected, smashing Makemake flatter than a sheet of paper.  The shockwave was so herculean it pushed me across the cold floor fifteen feet into some bookstacks, pushing enough dirt and debris into my eyes to blind me.  It was like watching planets collide; there could be no survivors.

The force of impact was so great it broke Ravi's hammer down into a pile of books; he had only the shaft left in his hand.  The rest was a giant pile of inert books crushing Makemake with their unspeakable weight.  

And then Ravi opened his mouth to speak.  I thought I would be overjoyed to hear my best friend talking again, but I was filled with fear instead.  His voice was no longer calm and measured as it had been before, but angry and vengeful, like the voice of a primitive god.  When he spoke, the force of his voice blew down six hundred bookstacks in all directions at once.

"WHAC-A-MOLE."