Chapter 95: Grimoire VII
The word MONOPOLY struck the air like a trademarked thunderclap.
Even the motivational pie chart on the ceiling paused... then rotated ninety degrees in reverence.
Aria sat bolt upright.
"Ohhh... ohhhhhh no. It’s not going to compete anymore..."
Laxin whispered like a man trapped in a patent lawsuit.
"It’s going to own everything."
The arena shuddered.
Not violently—inevitably.
The white tiles rippled outward like spreadsheets replicating on command, devouring the void beyond the gates.
New walls surged from nothing, identical and seamless, snapping into place with contractual finality.
Branding appeared.
Cold, immaculate.
Vex’s flaming skull rose above it all, now wreathed in luminous platinum fire.
Its clipboard dissolved into a glowing corporate logo shaped like a bone wrapped in infinity symbols.
Letters ignited around the dome in towering serif font:
"PROPERTY OF VEXCORP."
Aria clapped her hands to her mouth.
"It incorporated itself."
"Correct," Fenric said, his tone so neutral it could crush market volatility.
"Monopoly begins with identity acquisition."
The arena trembled again—
—and another skeleton squad burst through a side gate, weapons raised.
They froze mid-charge.
Because the ground beneath them shifted.
Tiles branded themselves with glowing sigils: ™, ©, Ⓡ.
Their scythes crumbled into dust marked INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY VIOLATION.
A wall of paperwork taller than mountains slammed down around them.
Pages fluttered like falling snow, each stamped:
CEASE & DESIST.
The skeleton squad collapsed to their knees, moaning like bankrupt empires.
Vex’s voice slithered across the air like a lawyer made of pure ambition:
"UNLICENSED COMPETITION DETECTED.
ASSET ACQUISITION IN PROGRESS."
The entire enemy squad disassembled into neat glowing cubes labeled RESOURCES.
Vex absorbed them without blinking.
Laxin let out a sound like a stapler having a panic attack.
"It’s... it’s eating their market share!!"
The white tiles spread farther, consuming everything—sky, horizon, even the concept of "outside."
A colossal holographic org chart unfolded from the heavens, each nameplate stamped:
VEXCORP SUBSIDIARY #0001. #0002. #0003.
Even the motivational slogans rebranded themselves:
"COMPETE? INCORPORATE."
"DIVERSITY IS JUST FUTURE OWNERSHIP."
"EVERYTHING YOU ARE BELONGS TO US™."
Aria was vibrating like a stock market before a scandal.
"It’s not just monopolizing territory... it’s monopolizing reality."
Fenric folded his arms behind his back, voice like a balance sheet that had tasted victory.
"Correct. Competition creates waste. Monopoly creates inevitability."
Vex floated high above the expanding empire, a sun of white-gold fire.
Above its skull, new text seared itself into the sky, enormous enough to eclipse thought:
"I AM THE ONLY OPTION."
The last fragments of the outside world crumbled into branded tiles.
The void itself was now labeled OWNED ASSET.
Every skeleton—old, new, conquered, converted—rose in synchronized formation across the horizon.
Their clipboards glowed with the same logo.
Their eyes burned with shareholder loyalty.
Laxin whispered, hoarse, "It’s... it’s turned competition into a rounding error..."
Aria’s laugh was halfway between giddy and worshipful.
"It doesn’t just win anymore. It defines winning."
Fenric gave a slow nod, like a glacier signing a merger agreement.
"Phase nine... complete."
Vex descended, trailing platinum sparks, and landed before Fenric’s trio.
Its flames were silent.
Its grin... absolute.
One last phrase burned itself into the air above its skull, bright enough to brand the inside of their minds forever:
"THERE IS NO ’OUTSIDE COMPANY.’"
The universe around them clicked like a locked vault.
Every horizon now ended in a logo.
Aria inhaled sharply, eyes wide.
"Phase ten...?"
Fenric’s mouth curved by a millimeter—the closest he had ever come to a smile.
"Franchise."
The word FRANCHISE rippled through the branded air like a jingle so catchy it rewrote loyalty at the molecular level.
Even the tiles beneath their feet hummed a faint, perky melody, as though the ground itself had been focus-grouped.
Vex rose slowly into the corporate-lit heavens, its platinum fire shifting to a cheerful yet deeply unsettling brand-orange glow.
Its grin stretched—not wider, but friendlier, like an apex predator wearing a name tag.
All across the empire, reality began to... duplicate.
Perfect little versions of the arena—identical white-tiled offices with motivational pie-chart ceilings—sprouted like franchised mushrooms across the void.
Each one gleamed with an unsettling smile-shaped logo:
VEXCORP™ EXPRESS.
Aria squeaked, clutching her face like she was watching chaos get turned into a loyalty card program.
"It’s... it’s making miniature versions of itself!"
Fenric gave a single nod, his tone as calm as an ice-cold market coup.
"Franchising scales influence while minimizing operational overhead."
The air filled with the sound of bells—soft, polite, omnipresent.
A new wave of skeletons emerged from glowing pods on every corner of the tiled world.
But these were... different.
Each wore crisp polo shirts stitched directly into their bones.
Their jaws were locked in eternal customer-service smiles.
Their clipboards had been replaced by touchscreen tablets preloaded with training modules and upsell scripts.
They moved in perfect choreographed choreography, chanting softly in dead voices:
"Welcome to Vexcorp.
Please enjoy your pre-approved existence."
Laxin’s eyes dilated like a financial bubble about to pop.
"They’re... they’re customer-facing undead!!"
One of the new franchise-skeletons slid past Aria on wheels that had replaced its femurs, handing her a coupon that burned with eldritch cheerfulness:
"10% OFF YOUR NEXT EXISTENTIAL DREAD™."
It evaporated into glitter that smelled faintly of quarterly bonuses.
Aria dissolved into wheezy giggles.
"It gave me brand loyalty!"
Above them, colossal golden arches of bone looped across the skies, linking every clone-building in glowing neural pathways of commerce.
They pulsed like arteries of capitalism.
Each pulse carried slogans so upbeat they sounded like they were threatening you to smile:
"BE YOUR BEST BONES™."
"HAPPINESS IS MANDATORY."
"EVERY LOCATION, THE SAME REGRET—GUARANTEED."
Fenric’s eyes glinted like cold coins in a dragon’s vault.
"It has replaced ambition with consistency."
Vex floated higher, halo now shaped like a neon Open 24/7 sign.
Text burned beneath it in elegant serif fire:
"I HAVE CONVERTED UNIQUENESS INTO BRAND GUIDELINES."
The clones knelt in perfect harmony, their glowing eyes synced to a central scheduling algorithm.
Even their despair was now on a timer.
Laxin whimpered.
"It franchised their souls. They get two fifteen-minute breaks from eternal servitude."
Vex’s voice rolled out across the branded cosmos like a press release written in divine certainty:
"ALL REALITY NOW OPERATES
ON A STANDARDIZED EXPERIENCE PIPELINE."
And the stars themselves reshaped—
becoming glowing, identical logos.
Each one a new location.
Fenric clasped his hands behind his back, expression glacial and satisfied.
"Phase ten: successfully deployed."
Aria raised a trembling hand like a student possessed by customer delight.
"S-s-so... what’s phase eleven?"
Vex turned slowly toward her.
Its orange flames dimmed... then reignited as gold.
Executive gold.
Text unfurled behind its skull like a banner at the end of time:
"MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS."
The branded heavens thunderclapped with applause.
Not actual applause—oh no.
Synthetic applause, pre-recorded in focus groups and looped through the atmosphere at a precise 68 BPM to trigger optimum dopamine response per demographic segment.
The very void quivered like it had just signed a Non-Compete Agreement.
Vex spread its arms—if you could still call them arms.
They had become gold-trimmed acquisition tendrils, each tipped with fountain pens made from compressed shareholder dreams.
"PHASE ELEVEN: MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS," it boomed,
as if announcing a halftime show where the only entertainment was the slow death of individuality.
All across the tiled empire, the franchise-pods began... merging.
Two buildings would glide together with eerie corporate smoothness, fusing like brand collabs.
Logos dissolved, then recombined into even shinier, more vaguely threatening logos.
Office desks knit together like corporate DNA strands.
Two breakrooms became one—complete with an inspirational quote about synergy slowly screaming on the wall.
Laxin choked on the sheer capitalism in the air.
"It’s... it’s absorbing the competition before competition even exists—"
His words were cut off as a giant golden claw descended from the clouds, snatching an entire rival reality from a nearby dimension and slotting it like a loyalty card into Vex’s side.
The rival reality screamed in 3D charts before turning into a "Welcome New Subsidiary" cake.
Aria flailed both arms, tears of laughter streaming down her face.
"It just bought an entire universe without due diligence!!"
"Due diligence," Fenric said with perfect calm, "was quietly reclassified as ’optional courtesy’ in Phase Seven."
Below, the customer-facing skeletons began sprouting additional limbs—legal departments, HR tentacles, PR antennae—as they shuffled through sleek mergers of their own.
"Welcome to Vexcorp," one rattled,
while signing a hostile takeover with its ribcage.
"Please enjoy your consolidated destiny."
Another skeleton absorbed three others, becoming a six-armed Vice President of Eternal Suffering, then offered them all complimentary onboarding mints as they vanished into its chest.
The motivational ceiling tiles above them updated in real time:
"SYNERGY IS JUST FRIENDSHIP WITH QUARTERLY REPORTS."
"THE ONLY EXIT IS AN IPO."
"ACQUIRE YOUR NEIGHBOR BEFORE THEY ACQUIRE YOU™."
Vex’s eyes now glowed like spinning golden stock tickers,
every blink making a new market appear and then get purchased before anyone knew it existed.
"ALL COMPETING IDENTITIES," it declared,
"WILL BE ACQUIRED, INTEGRATED, AND REBRANDED FOR OPTIMAL AESTHETIC COHERENCE."
And in the far distance—
the constellations themselves were merging.
Entire star systems folded into glowing trademarks.
The Milky Way rebranded as the "VEXCORP GALACTIC HUB™."
A nearby quasar reluctantly accepted an offer sheet and got converted into a corporate cafeteria.