...a bewildered, then immediately frustrated Jens plopped onto the floor of the hall. "Goddammit I'm not dead! Shit damn Christ!" he raged. He was more fraggled a figure than ever, a little bloody, a lot smelly, and even more hairy, so much that you'd think he was a werewolf or something.
Ralf just stared blankly, but Ralf immediately tapped into his memories of his original self and filled with a rage of his own. "You... abomination before the Lord. You're still alive."
A slight touch calmer now, Jens replied, "Yes, that's exactly the problem... who are you?"
Ralf puffed up and answered, "Raymond Eawest, agent of our Lord, nominally in the service of his blessed nation the United States of America, dedicated to the elimination of impurity and sin, slowly if I must, quickly if I can... You won't get away this time. Any last words?"
Now significantly calmer, Jens explained as if to a small child, "That's precisely the problem. I thought I'd already uttered them back there in Bavaria! The wormhole seemed to be working, my entire self started fading away, and now... this! Damn it!!"
The other Ralf helpfully offered: "Do you know that singer Danzig? He told us just now on the TV screen that the Gate Destroyer had awoken. He was very scared. Then he just... disappeared. Everyone did. Nobody left here now but Ralf, and me – Ralf. And you..."
"...Jens. I know Danzig very well." Jens, tapping instinctively into newfound power gained during his latest ordeal, then emitted a force field around him that effortlessly blocked the furious blows that Raylf had begun fruitlessly attempting to throw at him. For all Raylf's pomp, he was irrelevant for now. Jens had seen much in his years and knew that, even without the field, Raylf's assaults still would not have ended him, and so he did not wish Raylf ill, think ill of him, or even comment on him.
Immediately after putting up the field, he realized the true meaning of Ralf's words. "The Gate Destroyer. The Gate Destroyer! This is terrible. He must have disrupted the wormhole – I was trying to un-be in one, you see – and I'm positive he'll have disrupted much more. I'm not lucky I made it out alive, but you certainly are. He's a being of pure harmonics, and he lives on a plane of pure harmonics, not on ours. I've never met him – fortunately for long years he has indeed been sleeping – and I never wanted to, but I don't see much choice. I'd rather not go alone, but there aren't many people alive who can help me much. Still, you won't be useless if you understand sound... this seems to be a studio? The part of the plane where he resides is called the Tone Mountains, and naturally we'll all be travelling by sound. Fables speak of some who've whistled their way, but it's smarter to take instruments. I guess that won't be a problem. But maybe we can find some of your friends before we go so it's not just us? If they understand sound as well, that is. I don't mean to be unkind, but anyone else will do best to stay at home."
Raylf had gone by then from fury at Jens to fury at his own inefficacy to exhaustion to acceptance. Moreover, it sounded like this abomination would end itself in the mortal sin of suicide if he would just help it meet its goals? So be it.
"I don't know much about sound, except for church hymns, but take me anyway - this Gate Destroyer seems to be of the devil, and when something's of the devil, I fight it. Give me a chance... you sorry abomination," he said, forgetting all diplomacy.
Ralf was very confused by now, but it sounded like this hairy guy in a tacky suit wanted him and Ralf to go on an adventure of sound to fight evil, so why not? "Sounds like we know what we need to do, guys. I don't know about finding any of our friends here, though. But I'd sure like to. Why don't we split up in three directions? That always worked in Scooby-Doo."
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