-Moon Cell-
Now anything that actively use offensive magic may not be allowed to target anywhere near the vicinity of the Chrysomallus. In fact it doesn’t matter what the magic is, it now bans all uses of any magic anywhere in the ewe’s general direction to all programs and classifications.
-Moon Cell Realm, Midgar Basement Region, Outside Unknown Facility, Shanty-
I be pulling myself partially from the water in a region with a lot of empty cages… that be making me entirely uncomfortable as I be hearing explosions be going off nearby.
Reaching up to the side of my head as I be pulling myself out of the water, I felt... nothing? Those gills were definitely being there a second before and I be summoning a dolphin I’m going to call Horizon, he be eating up a lot of my magical strength. The large cost on my magic is being the normal for me, a lot of things I can be doing will become easier over time. Eventually I will work up the stamina to be doing even more! Summoning Horizon will be no different, even if I can’t be doing that right now.
I remember Pom be pushing me as she is taking a major blow to the head. She didn’t want me to be getting hit, but I think I be getting knocked out when I hit the water? At least I am not being too hurt. So do I just be following the sounds of the explosions to be finding her?
Still didn’t know what be going on, but I be surviving underwater for more than ten minutes, a certified pirate I be for lasting more than a full eight. Either I died or I was being a creature of the water… but I’m a goat? What manner of being I am didn’t matter, I be needing to help my friends.
Pulling myself fully from the water, I saw Krosser and Pepper fighting off a mechanical EP with guns on its arms up a rocky pathway towards the facility. It had similarities to those cool Magitek Armor things.
They were sticking close to it, but be avoiding its melee attacks. Krosser be focusing on the smaller floating machines raining projectiles around them from above.
The walking machine that be looking something like that magitek armor stuff Pom be riding around in, it be trying to get a bead on them with its arms and those be looking like some nasty rapid fire cannons on it.
They were sticking too close to the thing for that to happen and Pepper be slashing it up fiercely with blasts of electricity following her attacks that be disabling it every now and then. She is trying to destroy it before it can be doing too much to them as it be stomping or lashing out with its arms while wildly firing around it.
Taking my cane scythe up I be running towards them, can’t let my friends be fighting alone right?
“Grand Cleave!” I yelled as I raised the scythe high, leapt forward and brought it down swiftly with as much force as I could be putting into it. The cutting force tore straight through the machine diagonally starting from the left side of its grill and be going all the way to what had to be the right side of its fuel tank on its back.
I watched as it split into two halves before it exploded violently, this be forcing me to back away and then the flaming parts stuck around instead of turning into dissolving cubes. Everyone be avoiding the explosion easily enough as my two bipedal friends be moving away with some hasty rolling from when they be seeing it sparking.
“Shanty good to see you’re alright after that nasty fall, see told you hitting the water wouldn’t make her drown.” Don’t be knowing about that Krosserdog, but it be good to see friendly faces and I would eventually want to be knowing.
No longer worrying about the larger enemy machine I just be tearing through that Peppercat had weakened a lot before I showed up, I watched as Krosserdog be finishing off the three remaining floaters in several highly accurate shots from his arm rifles.
“Where are we going from here? We could circle around the outside of the facility, I think I saw where the two halves of the skiff fell around the edges of the facility.” Peppercat then narrowed her eyes. “We could also go straight through the facility or search around inside it for the others.”
“That be sounding more like my speed, I want to be part of the raid and Pom is likely being in there already!” I be hearing Krossderdog sigh.
“Come on Krosserdog, we’re in this for the long haul remember!” Peppercat stated vibrantly while pumping a claw.
“While I can understand why you’re the loose cannon I got paired with. It’s like you and Metabee share a single computation between you.” Krosserdog, not be saying no and he be forming up with me and Peppercat.
“So I’m a little aggressive!” Peppercat motioned us towards an entrance to the facility. “Let’s go sniper mutt!”
“Are you going to be alright Shanty?” Krosserdog asked as he turned to me, he be noticing something up with me.
“Yeah, I’ll… I’ll be being fine, let’s move and gather up with everyone we can be finding.” I be concentrating on the here and now as I went after Peppercat before she be getting too far ahead of us, I could be worrying about other things later.
“Hrm…” Krosserdog be huffing and then following after me as I looked back at him.
-Inside the facility somewhere, large platform at the top of a staircase near the prison block, Pom-
“Enemy detected entering from the caged experiments sector and… what?! Second detection near the prison block, Coward you better not have let them get by you!” That was Cruel I believe. Poor Elise, having to deal with two parts of her personality that are a bit too... boisterous... that's a nice word for it right? It also sounded like our friends were trying to find us.
“Pom, above us!” Dolly was the one that gave me the warning and Dormarch was already moving for an attack as I exhaled and dodged backwards as a pair of loud circular saws slammed into the ground where I stood.
As the machine stood up it was staggered by a Wild Bark from Dormarch causing it to become stunned. I closed in and slapped it with two magic claws across the grill damaging it a bit and quickly jumped back several time to dodge the three sweeping attacks of circular saws that came at me quickly. It looked like an automatic living EP version of a Magitek Armor, which means we needed to deal with it quickly if it was going to be a big problem.
“Are those snakes… never mind, I’ve got them!” Dolly called out as she threw the stone bone to cause it to bounce off a purple snake head and it blew apart as she leapt to catch the bone on the rebound and blocked another trying to bite her with her skateboard. She blasted it apart with a point blank Momentum Bark. “Got some drones Dormarch incoming, help me with that while Pom deals with the big one.”
“Can you handle it mom?” Dormarch asked as I faced off against the machine with the whirling saws.
“Yeah, I just need to get into the right mindset…” I didn’t refine some of my abilities for a short while just to falter now.
While I did not like the idea that I could go lethal, I had to do it to save us some pain and suffering further on and a fluffmancer using their wool or fluff lethally was… absolutely terrifying for anything facing it. It would also be putting me on a level similar to what Paprika is absolutely capable of.
Dormarch moved off to help Dolly and our Zealot friend stayed out of the way with the supplies and was trying to avoid getting too close to the melee machine I had to deal with.
The machine lunged forward bringing its right arm into an overhead slam and I was paying more attention to the fact that its left was preparing for a sweep as I took in some air.
I hopped to the right avoiding the circular saw coming down from above as it rebounded off the floor and then it used the rebound to pivot and bring its left arm around in a swing as it extended the arm.
Exhaling, l leapt forward onto the extended arm avoiding the spinner saw as it tried to retract at me and then leapt towards the top of the long yellow body of the machine itself.
Brining back my left hoof and forming a triangular blade of wool above it, I stabbed the scoop like blade straight down into the top of the machine before the rest of my hooves even touched down on the body.
The wool blade was assisted by the magical claw effect I added in to help it dig into the metal of the machine, said machine started swinging around violently trying to shake me off of it, unfortunately for it, it was already too late to dislodge me.
Forcing my wool to stretch out and expand from the point where the wool blade had pierced the machine. I could feel the thousands of threads filtering through out the machine monster like blood veins, the strands started to vibrate violently and swirl about inside the machine damaging it heavily and it started getting jerky in its movements.
To finish it off, I ripped my wool free as I kicked off of it and the machine toppled over. The destroyed smoking pile of metal promptly exploded seconds later sending bits of itself everywhere. I covered my face and only got lightly pelted with blunt chunks that didn't, luckily enough, pierce me through.
Given that it didn’t dissolve… it wasn’t a program? Strange. At least having its insides ripped up by my wool being pulled out of it violently worked like a charm.
I didn’t lose any wool at all, not a lot of magic used either for the amount of damaged I just caused. At least the metal on that machine wasn’t very thick or else my wool wouldn’t haven’t been able to pierce as deeply as it did. Such a move would not work on a thickly armored target and that’s what Bark Breaker would help with.
I thought of the terror I could bring to a biological beings by doing the exact same thing to their insides with but a single strand of wool and made myself a bit sick at the thought of actually having to do that eventually to Elise. I didn't know her very well, but I didn't like what I saw in her eyes that were reflected in my own.
Created that particular stab and destroy from the inside method based on how I dealt with the Eaters using the paralance back in Mare Melum. Holding back was not something I should do, but I was still wary of utilizing the paralance and I’d rather utilize an acceptable amount of force, which at this rate was as much as I could out of my cute little backside… I still had my principles.
Still… I was going to have to kill Elise eventually and in an insanely fast manner. Hopefully my plan would work and it wouldn’t be too painful. Elise seemed like a nice naga, despite her living form of Dissociative Identity Disorder from a massive amount of trauma possibly being a big fight.
“We lost a Sweeper and a Cutter to them in such a short amount of time already, what are these guys?!” Cruel grumbled loudly. “Then again if they can injure behemoths without killing themselves… activating all the drones, crawlers and every sweeper variant available!”
“Keheehee- Fun?” Crazy stated out loud over the system that allowed their voices to be heard throughout the facility.
“No Crazy, not fun, get up here now or I’ll rip out your own teeth and stab your own eyes out with them! Don’t make me think of even worse things to do to you! Coward, slither your scaly butt up here for the command center with Crazy quickly or else I’ll torture Crazy even worse for your incompetence! Those behemoths are causing a lot of damage to the facility and I don’t want to have to revive your pansy ass if they get to you, they are doing far more damage than the intruders currently are! You best be prepared for a fight intruders, since we’ll give you one!” Cruel stated that last bit as a direct challenge to us. Also I noted that she said she’d torture Crazy for Coward’s incompetence and Crazy actually sounded like she enjoyed that kind of thing, so really it confirms some of my thoughts about Elise’s personalities being protective of her. “Sending all Shooter Machine and Piler models of Sweepers after the behemoths Crazy unleashed in the facility, they are tearing our PLANTs up and the whole facility apart! All other machines are to go to the last known locations of the intruders closest to them and attack immediately upon spotting any!”
Dormarch was dealing with the flying drones with guns by either teleporting up to them with Search Hunter and clawing them out of the air or hitting them with Wild Barks close up, they couldn’t move fast enough to get their guns on him before he took them out. The bladed ring the small drones were partially using to fly couldn’t move into position quickly enough to slice up my fast boy, but I noted they could angle themselves to protect against melee attackers that didn’t have weapons. They looked like they would fly into you with the spiraling blade if their guns were cycling.
As for Dolly, she was sliding around on the floor and bashing through the various purple snakes that showed up in single decisive blows, they tended to pop in puffs of smoke and not dissipating cubes or chunks of metal. The snakes were trying to lunge and bite at her, but she was staying far too mobile for them to tag.
I think I saw a triangle moment, when Dolly suddenly grabbed one of the lunging snakes by the tail and started to whip it around violently to wipe out the twenty or so snakes still encroaching on us. She did so while spinning rapidly while spewing magical sparkles off herself and balanced on her left hind leg in a stylish manner.
Being somewhat proud of those two, I stayed next to the Zealot protecting him from any physical up close attackers as he could hardly defend himself as well with one arm encumbered. He protected me with his shields from any projectiles fired by the drones by proximity alone. The smaller enemies had been quickly dealt with by Dormarch and Dolly working in tandem without the larger magitek based machine, but there were more on the way according to what Cruel said.
Didn’t have an idea as to how many of those larger ones I can actually take down and any more than one of those saw machines would be endangering not only our Zealot, but also Dolly and Dormarch. I’m also sure there were more dangerous variations than circular saws, Moon Cell had thrown a lot of mechanical EPs at Castle Alexander and there was also the fact that Midgar had powerful enough cannons to cross the entirety of the plains to hit the castle.
So I was expecting more guns to show up from here on and my wool still wasn’t going to stop bullets, at least the drones Dormarch dealt with were slow to aim at you before shooting.
“Let’s get a move on, up and out!” I called as Dolly and Dormarch finished the last purple snake thing and a flying drone. I got us all moving up some stairs, while sending a glance at the Zealot holding our healing supplies. “Are your personal shields doing alright?”
“Cheese House!” The zealot said while nodding.
“Mom, while we’ve got a moment I want to ask something, why did you give one of the Reviver Seeds to Elise?” Queried a concerned Dormarch as we moved up the stairs together with the Zealot bringing up the rear. “She can already resurrect from what we’ve heard.”
“If we get into a fight with Elise and the two other parts of herself, we’ll want to kill them first before we take out Elise.” I wasn’t going to say much more than that, but I had a theory I was working on and Elise possibly dying for it would help a lot. What did it say about me that I was going to once again maul someone to within an inch of their life in an attempt to save them? Wouldn’t be different from what I did with Smolder at any rate, just a little more complicated. “If Elise can’t help herself and has to resurrect the other parts of her soul in an involuntary manner, then we’ll need to deal with them almost all at the exact same time. Which will require three lethal blows in short succession or simultaneously, Elise has to be the last one taken out though. I have a hunch that her resurrection ability has some limitations and I’m banking on that.”
“Hm… I think I can see what you’re going for mom, but will that even work? The ressurection ability certainly hasn’t helped Elise previously.” What Dormarch was bringing up was the fact that Elise could already resurrect herself, as in she couldn’t functionally die. Except she had to have died at one point to even have parts of her soul called up as Moon Cell's servant, so her resurrection ability wasn't impossible to overcome. She couldn’t functionally escape Moon Cell either, at least not without our help. It’ll be a one shot in the dark chance, since I’m unwilling to use any more reviver seeds on Elise if it doesn’t work the first time. If Elise has the Reviver Seed, then that’s all the setup we needed when we get into a fight with all of her later. Doubted we could actually avoid that fight now. “Plus that would only be possible if we run into all of her in one place on the way out, which she is already doing for us… now do we want to go after them directly or just find a way out and make them eventually come after us?”
“That’s the question sweetie.” I mean we’re not trying to find Elise and her others at the moment, if we want to fight we could have just taken Elise with us and force her other two selves to come after us. I didn’t want to traumatize Elise any further than she apparently already had been by kidnapping her, that would have brought up bad memories.
“I’m a little more concerned that Pom is planning to kill someone, that’s actually alive, on purpose.” You’re not the only one concerned about it Dolly, my chest is clenching at the thought.
Killing someone on purpose for a convoluted reasons while trying to make sure they come out of it alive afterwards required a bit of forethought. Thankfully I wasn’t around to be responsible for Gilgamesh, but in this situation I knew I would be directly responsible for Elise dying for a second or two.
We didn’t have to do that thing while we were here in this facility, we’re just trying to get out and up to the ground floor of Midgar City. If we had to go through Elise to do it… I’d be upset, but at least I’d understand why we would have to and we could possibly get it over with sooner.
“I’m hopeful that the Reviver Seed will work differently.” Or at least that’s what I’m placing my bets on considering what the seeds have done for me so far despite how rare they are.
We came up to a corridor and had to duck out of the way to the walls on both sides of the entrance as a series of shots whizzed past us from a machine down the corridor as it moved forward. Inside the corridor was another two legged machine, but instead of saw arms it had two rapid firing guns and there were some four legged things crawling along the walls and ceiling.
I was on the right side with the Zealot and on the left was Dormarch and Dolly.
“What do you suppose those four legged things are?” Dolly asked before a shot, among the thirty or so that went flying at her, deflected off her helmet and made her yelp as she fell out of sight of the machine and off to the side. Dormarch immediately helped her back up onto her paws. “Agh… I’m... I'm okay! Thank goodness for nearly indestructible skateboard helmets...”
“Dolly, please be more careful.” After my comment I turned and looked to the zealot. “Stay here.”
"Big Boss, I serve!" Rolling my eyes at the zealot, I placed my hooved on the wall.
Clambering up the wall, I poked my head down to look into the corridor to see the bipedal machine quickly coming this way with the four legged smaller machines crawling forward ahead of it as a vanguard. I pulled back as several shots aimed upwards at me.
Dolly took that moment the two guns were firing at me, to lunge forward into the corridor and go sliding forward really fast while holding her board as a shield against the smaller four legged machines.
Said small machines fired burst of lightning energy from their eyes at her or tried to lung and stab her with their legs, Dolly avoided two of their blasts and blocked the others and went between the large bipedal machines legs.
"Hey, junk bots, spotted and spry right here!" Drawing all their attention to herself, Dolly put herself into a braced defensive position behind her board.
As the large machine tried to turn around, Dormarch teleported forward and clawed apart one of the four legged crawling machines.
That’s when I used Dancing Flame to burst forward equally fast and clawed apart the crawling machine to Dormarch’s right and then we crossed each other’s paths with me leaping over Dormarch heading for the next two crawling machines.
Dormarch clawed his apart with several swipes and I clamped the golden wool of my right leg onto the last one.
By that point the machine had turned and started firing on Dolly who was already braced behind her board to take the shots as the bipedal machine approached her. Couldn’t let it reach her as she couldn’t move while bracing against shots coming down on her like that.
With a powerful swinging heave I threw the four legged flailing machine into the back of the larger one where it exploded and released a volatile shock of electricity. This caused the larger bipedal machine to get stunned for a bit.
Running forward while inhaling and upon exhaling, I leapt to the ceiling, kicked off with all four legs and rammed two blades of wool downwards with my front legs as I dropped onto the top of the machine.
Spiking out my wool into the machine, I quickly kicked off of it backwards with my hind leg while detaching the paralance from myself in the air, grabbing it and then swiftly opening it in the direction of the machine as I landed to bunker myself in place.
Dormarch teleported behind me and Dolly moved into a protectedposition as well. I was rocked by the explosion from the gun armed machine, but it didn’t knock me over or hurt any of us as the paralance took the full brunt of it.
“Mr. Zealot come on!” The Zealot came running down the corridor as we came up to a cross section and there were more of those four legged machines clambering along the walls, ceiling and floors. We decided to take the path they weren't actively coming from. “Let’s keep moving.”
-Inside the facility elsewhere, Shanty-
I be dodging a flames spewing from the bipedal machines two arms and be getting beneath it.
“Bouncing Blades!” Being in my position, I hopped while spinning and be bouncing off the machines underside into the floor and continued to rapidly bounce between the two until I tore up large chunks of the machine with my rotations, then I be braking off the attack to kick off of the smoke spewing thing with all four of my hooves.
Once I be landing, I be quickly forming barrier of water from a canteen as it exploded. The barrier is being good enough to block the shrapnel from the explosion and I swiftly placed the water back into the canteen.
Nearby Peppercat be putting her body between another bipedal machines left arm and body, that one be having saws and she put her feet into pushing until the left arm snapped and broke. She still managed to keep clinging onto the machine that could no longer stop her from flooding it with lightning without its left arm.
“The larger ones aren’t programs... which is odd because the smaller ones definitely are!” Krosserdog was dealing with crawlers and drones in equal measure, the shots from his arms might not be faster, but he taking down more than me or Peppercat could. I moved to help Peppercat when Krosserdog said something that had me worried. “Does anyone else hear that?”
“A little busy, keep shooting Krosser!” Peppercat still hadn’t finished off the two legged saw machine, but she did manage to rip off the left arm entirely at this point.
A roar was heard and a nearby wall tore open and a large horned purple lion roared as it smashed one of those large bipedal machines it had impaled, a green one with gun arms and a rocket launcher on top like Metabee, with its claws like it was made of mushy dumpster fruit.
“Pepper be getting off that thing and run!” I shouted as the monster be looking at the other large machine she was trying to deal with. I was already running myself and didn’t want to be facing the purple lion thing, especially not after seeing Krosserdog’s shots be bouncing off it as if it was being entirely impervious to them.
“MeowrrRRR scary beasts!” Peppercat yowled and ran by us on all fours as the large one armed machine started getting torn into tiny bits of metal by that beast.
-Third hidden group, Shine-
“So that’s how you know Jeanne’s father?” Snake asked as we snuck through the facility in a fairly spacious vent.
“Yeah, he helped nurse me back to health, we became decent friends afterwards.” I was sliding along in the shadows as I talked and we both froze as a roar drew our attentions to what was happening below the grate we were moving on. “On that note, I think I prefer more stealthy solutions to outright direct violence.”
“I get that.” Snake said after a moment of freezing waiting to see if that roar had been for us.
We stopped and watched as a machine fired a short ranged spike forward from its left arm as it hastily backed away from a beast, its right arm was a mangled mess of sparking wires and machinery. The attack mildly damaged one of the several purple lion like beasts we've seen running around.
Even the legendary Pokémon of the sun, Solgaleo, would have quite a time fighting one of those purple things. Said purple skinned monster wildly tore apart their surroundings with raw muscle, not caring if they went through walls or messed up the surrounding architecture to collapse it on themselves. It didn't apparently phase the beast for long.
We watched as the monstrous horned lion seemingly ignored getting a small hole in its neck from where the melee weapon struck. In fact it simply bit into the machine to rip and tear apart the machine with its teeth and a claw in a brutal display and the followed explosion didn’t even scratch the beast and made me shudder.
“Let’s keep moving, our mission is to find everyone and either help them get them back to the skiff or cause as much damage as we can to this facility to escape when someone inevitably sets off the alarm to lock it down.” Snake muttered to me and I nodded and continued forward. “I’m glad that they can take care of themselves, unlike some of the people I dealt with on a regular basis.”
“Hopefully Sami will have the skiff fixed by the time we get back.” That or they could bring it to us if we’re in trouble, this facility had a lot of broken windows for a place that was underground and there was something of a feeling of being dilapidated. Ghost types tending to like quiet, old places to explore and there was a feeling of this place being quite old and lots of bad things happening here. that brought about a thought in my mind. “How did you die?”
“In a surprisingly peaceful manner, considering all the war zones I ended up in. In a time I thought I’d at least die on a battlefield somewhere.” Yet here you are Snake, an oddity that snuck into helping us somehow. “Now follow my lead.”
-???, coming up on an intersection, Pom-
“So, are we lost or what?” We might as well be Dolly.
“We are doomed.” The zealot stated sagely while nodding still carrying the supplies.
A Crawler, the little four legged robots that spew lightning, was torn apart by Dormarch’s claws and turned into a pile of evaporating chunks. He was really saving his evolutions for more dangerous fights and he was still quite strong as a Dalmamon.
“Mom, can we just go in the direction that those Search Snakes, that Elise obviously generates, are coming from now?” Well it wouldn’t be too hard to do that Dormarch.
“I… I just… I really don’t want to see Elise again so soon…” So we’ll just keep avoiding the directions the majority of the Search Snakes are coming from, those purple snakes weren’t very dangerous.
“Hey, I get it, you and her share something of being an anxiety riddled mess, only you don’t have that whole mental issues coming to life thing like cerise does.” Cerise is the color for a deep red Dolly, not exactly far off from Elise's name though. Also Dolly wasn’t wrong in Elise having a personality similar to my own and that’s why I can sympathize with her somewhat. Only I can’t tell what Elise has been through entirely and I’ve been having a pretty nasty year, misery does reckonize misery at least, I still don’t know how well I would be able to empathize with Elise’s position of having come back to life inside a collection of realms run by an omnicidal magical computer with half her soul under its control and little no friends to speak of. “Also you have a thing for scales and she was a nice shade of purple.”
I didn’t understand computers very well in the context we were dealing with them, but the reason Moon Cell wanted me dead and feared my continued existence was as obvious as the golden wool taken up my front legs. The fact that it uses magic as a primary means of assault, I was very much a wandering monkey wrench for it that could really cause major problems… and I already was given the counter invasion force has made it this far.
“While no, I do not quite have an active dissociative problem... beast mode aside. I do have mental issues though and hers sounded quite dishearteningly worse than mine.” Still could flip out and let my beast loose to perform well above my capabilities and how I dealt with a mind controlled Smolder, it wasn't pretty and it had been fairly painful. I turned and raised my right leg to rapid fire ten Thousand Spears. The air jets that burst out had a slight golden hue because of my wool, said jets of air easily tore down a few oncoming flying drones and it’s nice to see that my fire rate has improved as far as Thousand Spears with my wool was concerned, most of my wool based abilities have improved really. “I don’t know if I’m ready to kill someone directly, plus she seemed friendly…”
“For someone who had untold amounts of highly unethical surgery done to her for her abilities and whoever Sumeragi were they caused her enough damage to functionally split her soul in the attempt to steal or use her powers to their own ends. I'm kind of a walking medical scanner Pom, there are some things I wished I didn't know about her when I looked at her." Dormarch stated quietly with his darting eyes looking about for more attackers. "Yes I’d agree that she was somewhat friendly, but don’t you want to get it out of the way?”
We stopped short of entering the intersection we had been coming up on. I was about to make a suggestion when a Flamer, a fire spewing version of the large bipedal back away rapidly through the intersection past us and was being chased by a Behemoth.
Sweepers apparently just had guns, Cutters had circular saws, Shooters had missile launchers and guns, Pilers had piston powered melee spike weapons with grenade launchers and Flamers were basically just walking fire spewing nightmares to run into in corridors. Thus far we’d avoided most of them, they all share the same design aesthetic and only the weapons were different.
We waited for a second and then I motioned us forward straight through the intersection, as we did so I saw the front half of the flamer get torn apart and it continued to try and burn the Behemoth down. The Behemoth simply picked up the poor machine and started to shake it apart violently. The physically focused monstrosity looked fairly resilient to burning and was basically ignoring the constant face full of flames it was getting.
“Let’s put some distance between us and that thing.” I didn’t hear any complaints from Dolly or Dormarch as something exploded not too long afterwards. We continued on our way and didn’t go in the direction the Behemoth came from or where it was going, as there could be another one down that way and honestly they could be anywhere in here with us.
- Elise-
I slithered around the horizontal pole, grabbed a vertical pole and slowly swirled my way towards the base to see Cruel battering Crazy with her fist. Crazy didn't fight back and kept giggling happily.
“Did you bellow for me Cruel?” I asked nonchalantly as possible as I had taken the quickest path to get here.
“Yes our craven Coward, I did. Now that your useless waste of space for a backside is here, I can finally put the facility on lockdown and maybe seal off some of those Behemoths from causing more trouble.” It was nice that there were no behemoths on the way here.
“Keeheehee, slumber party, we’ll make them sleep with the vicious!” You were already vicious enough Crazy, you’re the one that let the Behemoths run wild on the facility.
I would ask why we are even partially working with the guy that got us killed in a previous life, but Moon Cell has Cruel under its control and it barely controlled Crazy.
“Stop thinking thoughts of dissenting against Moon Cell you coward, you wouldn’t survive a minute of us tearing you apart anyway and isn’t that why I exist in the first place? Just because you couldn’t handle a little pain and suffering and needed me to exist to pull your lame backside out of the fire and kill most of the scientists and armed guards?” It was why you indeed existed Cruel and it was sad that I even needed to bring you into existence. “You’re not even nearly brave enough to do whatever you want like Crazy is, you can’t even save yourself you useless pathetic worm!”
Yes and Crazy is only half a mind at the best of times.
Cruel glared at me and I cowered away from her.
The outer doors to the entire facility shut and several screens came up. There were actually three different teams of intruders in the base now, the rabbit and gourd quickly disappeared from sight as soon as the alarms started blaring.
“Darn it! It’s far worse than I thought you idiots, we lost a majority of combat strength thanks to the PLANTs your dumb idea destroyed Crazy!” Cruel slapped Crazy harshly and Crazy doesn’t seem to mind, some would say she never had a mind to begin with and I knew otherwise.
Crazy just smiles and sighs happily at the claw marks and the light bleeding going on from her face as she nuzzles up to Cruel while chirping happily.
“Cruel… I have to ask… why couldn’t you fight off Nova’s control? I understand why Crazy possibly couldn’t, but why couldn’t you if you’re so strong?” In response to my query Cruel summoned a knife and stabbed Crazy in the chest.
Not me, never me, just Crazy, always Crazy, she’s always going after Crazy with pure malice.
She slid the knife down from Crazy’s chest to her belly pulled out some intestines and started to strangle Crazy with them while smiling sadistically. Crazy seemed to be enjoying the immense amounts of pain she had to be in as her weak insane laughter would have you believe.
“Does this answer your question Coward, Crazy was far too weak to resist and do what was needed for us to survive and she got herself killed before she could resurrect the dominant personality, ME, and we died from it!” Yes, but… that didn’t answer my question Cruel.
“Why couldn’t you resist Nova?” There was a pause. Nova was long dead and thankfully Moon Cell didn’t or couldn't bring him back, but it still lingered in my mind how we… no… how I gave into Nova’s whims with little resistance. Even if it was Crazy that was the one that gave in... she was still me. “Why did we let Nova make us revive them? Why couldn’t we fight off his control Cruel? There's three of me.”
Cruel finished strangling Crazy to death and then made her way over to me slithering slowly with a lot of anger in her eyes.
“Resurrection…” I intoned meekly, immediately bringing Crazy back from a rather highly volatile death.
Afterwards Cruel reared back and slapped me harshly. It was odd that there were no claw marks on my face or bleeding when she did so, when she would so readily hurt Crazy without a second thought.
“Because we were too weak to make Crazy strong enough to resist him Coward!” The slap from Cruel brought on a lot of stinging pain to the left side of my face and I was sniffling a bit, but I hadn't looked away from her malicious gaze. She wouldn’t make me bleed like she did Crazy. “We were all too weak to save ourselves, its best that we just continue being puppets for the glorious Moon Cell and do it’s bidding in killing the ewe it hates so much.”
Cruel admitted to being weak, but she was strong enough to continue resisting Moon Cell to the point that she still wouldn’t do any lasting harm to me. Was she my confidence as much as the nastiness in my heart as Pom suggested?
“Now if you’re finished being the most insignificant thing in the room.” Or the most important part to you Cruel, ‘you’ wouldn’t exist without ‘me’. We were one and the same. “The intruders need to be dealt with and their fortress torn down. I’m the strongest among us so I say we start killing all of our enemies and maybe we can have some fun with causing the mass genocide if Moon Cell sees fit to make us his major enforcers!”
“If you’re so strong, then why did we let the lemming put us underground… again?” He was the reason we went through such torturous experimentation when it was found out we had the power to resurrect.
“Shut Up!” Cruel raged at me, but she didn’t lash out. “That lazy lemming will get what’s coming to him eventually... somehow... don’t know why Moon Cell even summoned his lazy butt! Waste of a servant summon if you ask me and I’d choke him to death with my bare claws if I didn’t think Moon Cell would tear us a new one for trying to hurt… an… ‘ally’, no matter how detestable the little rat is! I’d even literally eat him alive if I had the opportunity!”
Nice way of stressing the word ‘ally’ to the limit Cruel.
“I would agree with actually doing that.” I said flatly, as the reason why I was kidnapped and experimented on was sitting on high in a tower enjoying himself and here I was once again in the depths where the my enemies are friendlier than the allies I had.
I haven’t had any food in a while and I’m a living being compared to Cruel or Crazy, can’t exactly die of starvation if they keep bringing me back.
I don’t know much about the guy that killed Crazy before she could revive us during our last fight with that lightning hero, but I’m glad he managed to stop the pain of living if only temporarily.
“Keeheehee, he would look nice rather nice with a red neck tie and being spit roasted after putting a smile on his throat!” Crazy seemed to be as cheerful as ever at hearing the idea of dealing with the one that led to me having these problems. She even waved a knife around in the air to imagine how it would even be done while humming merrily.
I was never a hero at all, I was a kidnapping victim, a painfully experimented on prisoner with no anesthesia as they kept me awake through the torture of being cut open multiple times and stabbing scalpels into my forehead. I became a captive puppet for a complete madman afterwards with a world domination plot that thankfully never succeeded.
I didn’t say ‘sorry’ nearly enough times to that lightning hero...
“Coward, you better put up a fight if they manage to reach our room or so help me I will make you suffer before we are all taken out!” Unfortunately Cruel wouldn’t just let me sit on the side of the field while watching her and Crazy go to town on whoever showed up.
I silently wished it wouldn’t be the blue eyed lamb, for she already knows what suffering was like. I could easily see it in her eyes and yet... she still sounded so hopeful for a monster like me.