The Automa didn't fill the city. There weren't nearly enough of them for that; the place Jacent had been brought to was a small pocket that had been transformed from dingy block buildings into the techno-organic structures that made up the Automa place of residence. There was positively too much city for how few residents lived there. In a way, it reminded him of Locksmouth... and much like in Locksmouth, he'd grabbed sustenance and set about wandering it restlessly.
It was a nice enough place, supposing one was an Automa. They didn't seem to have any issues providing for themselves, nor did they feel any insecurity. What really surprised him was how much emphasis they placed on creativity. He passed by a sculptor crafting something out of liquid-hot metal with their hands, carefully forming every little bit with gentle cooling not unlike breaths of air. The artistic machine stopped when it saw Jacent, shying away visibly.
He sighed and kept walking. Back in his heyday, he'd assumed them people no more than he would a garage door opener- sophisticated tools with a mundane purpose. He'd also assumed he was destroying them, but with the revelation of their indestructible heads, the possibility was there: were these the same robots each time? Had they endured multiple bodies, possibly many times before?
Music caught his ears. He found himself mesmerized by it, his feet taking him closer. Before he realized what was happening, he stood in front of three Automa who sang in harmony with one another, impossible sounds coming from them like digital mocking jays. Electronic instrumentation weaved in with percussive underlays while human voices cut in and out, chopped and flowing in a way that created a melody the likes of which haunted him, his chest swelling as he heard it. Then they spotted him and the tune faded. "... I-..." He stumbled, desperate to hear more. "Please don't stop singing."
"... Let's go..." one of them whispered to the others.
Of course. On how many occasions had he smashed through that very group? Probably dozens. All they knew him for was violence. It's all they'd ever know him for.
"Having trouble escaping the past?" Archimedes asked, some distance behind him.
He turned to the old-looking robot. "What do you want?"
"To live in peace, out of sight of humans. One necessitates the other."
"Is that why you were hunting down Widget?" he asked cuttingly. "She threatened your security?"
Archimedes paused. "Widget doesn't understand how much humans distrust us."
Jacent wanted to say something about it making sense, but... actually, it didn't. He had every reason to distrust robots, but the people above- what did they have to fear? "Why are they afraid of you? They don't even know you exist."
The ancient machine turned in on himself. "People above must know less, not more. You destroyed Nhilus, we froze you correctly. We now owe each other nothing."
He gave him the cold shoulder in return. "Hmph. My last meal, a protein replacement shake, and my last rites a self-righteous denial of information that will die with me."
"You believe you will lose to Grendel?" The magnifying glass refocused intently. "But you've never lost before."
Jace grimly looked aside, staring out at nothing. "You cannot lose a battle you never finish."
A long silence passed between them as ambient lights fluxed. "... You believe that anger gives you power. That the suffering of others fuels your ability."
"... That is a simple way of putting it."
Archimedes gestured out at the dead city. "I hope theirs will do the same."
He frowned. "But, they were all killed by the Sk-"
The Automa stared back at him, motionless as Jacent's eyes grew wide.
-
- -
-
The stairwell entry to Dr. Nhilus' abandoned laboratory bulged with confused people. No longer under the effects of the phantom stomper's far-reaching influence, their grey inklings receded and left them in a clamor.
"Where am I??"
"It wasn't a dream...?"
"Oh, no, not again!"
"I could see the whole thing from inside my own mind, it was just like back then..."
"Hey! It's Echelon!"
"You! Did you cause this?!"
"I thought you said it was over!" "You promised we were safe!"
Erwin looked around under the guise of Phactys, standing behind Natalie. "N-Ngh... they look really angry..."
Echelon's face glanced back at him. "Rule number twelve of superheroics: if you're not afraid of a crowd, they won't be afraid of you." She faced the throng of people and held up her hands. "Please, quiet down!" She stepped forward, putting on The Voice. "I'm sorry for the confusion, but you're safe now." Before they could interrupt, she immediately asked, "Is anybody injured?? Mhend can tend to your wounds if you have any. Those of you too weak to travel can take refuge in the climate center, while the rest of you should head to Mega Molly's as soon as you can; it's near to here and is a designated anti-inkling zone. We're working together with Police to take care of this problem, just please remain calm."
Carrie smirked back at Erwin as the very shaky crowd began looking after each other. "Rule number thirteen: if people are scared, give them something important-sounding to do."
"It looks like they're dispersing from the entrance," Widget noted, a shawl hiding her face. "We need to hurry."
-
- -
-
It was like going back in time. Plastic circuitry turned to concrete like an enormous paintbrush had spread progress over the entirety of the Automa village until it ran dry. Jacent ran toward the old, dead city, his blood pumping. The meal replacement formula tasted foul in his mouth, but he'd eaten garbage to survive; it was nothing new. Nothing mattered now except finding Grendel.
His mind wandered, even as he ran, to their first encounter. He was running then, just like now, through a rainy evening. Fourteen, no longer the amateur, no longer a stranger to the public. Kid Comet was a known quantity to the good people. The not so good ones, too, but he was no fighter of petty crime anymore. If a life wasn't in danger, then the police could guard the riches of people who had them; he had a different purpose. There were people in this world that had an unfair advantage over even those who cowardly took from others, and they were titans. Whether endowed by technology, skill or mere circumstance, they trod on whomever they wished without opposition.
That is, they would have, if not for him. All the police attention he'd 'enjoyed' before had mysteriously all but vanished the first time they'd tried and failed to contain a super-criminal. Such a containment was being attempted again that night. The cops had circled their wagons in front of the Science Center, now shooting it out with Nhiloids. Judging from the way their plasma shots slagged entire sections of their cruisers, the fight was becoming one-sided, fast. The Police Captain looked up as Jacent power-slid next to him, back to the intact half of the car. "Is Nhilus inside?"
The slightly overweight man nodded, sweat rolling down his face as he raised his bullhorn and glanced to the side. "Civilians are not allowed in! We cannot fire on unarmed civilians!" The other police heard this coded directive and ducked back down behind their squad cars, expressions mixed with fear and relief.
"I hear your directions and disregard them!" Jacent shouted, flipping up onto the cruiser's roof and leaping into the air. He comet crashed into the group of squad-firing robots and spun around in a series of kicks that sent them flying. His yo-yos flew out and felled outliers as they turned their fire inward, their firearms knocked away, their bodies slammed into cars and bricks. A flurry of toy-flinging occured, and at the end of it, the twitching robots threatened the city no more.
The captain stood up, resting his elbows on his ruined squad car and smiled, daubing his forehead with relief. His bullhorn barely angled enough toward his mouth to carry his voice. "Jacent Danger," he started breathlessly. "You're under arrest for interfering in police business." Even as he said it, he wearily gave him a half-hearted wave goodbye.
"I'm resisting arrest," Jacent said with practiced ease and a smile, shoving the double doors of the Science Center open. "Nhilus!"
On the other end of the reception area was a singular white figure. Sleek legs traveled up in trifecta with a thick tail, leading up to a figure packed with a panoply of deadly components. Fists at her sides, the new, sleek metal body mounted below an immaculate head, face framed by raven hair while two cold blue eyes looked out from parallel pits of pure blackness. Not a machine so much as a beautiful, masterfully crafted instrument. Her mouth opened, and that dark, chilling voice made itself heard for the first time ever. "Welcome, Jade Dragon."
He stared at her in confusion and indignation. "I'm not Jade Dragon."
She dropped into a stance that was alarmingly familiar to him. "We'll see."
The black sea roils under plumes of blue.
An ivory wyrm bears her will from the sky, crashing the sea beneath her.
Spring's dragon falls away to find the Southern wind, gusting into Winter's breeze. The chill is biting; he retreats to the mountain to find respite, but frost licks from under.
Jacent huffed with effort, guarding a newly formed bruise on his arm. "... You're not like the other ones. Why do this?"
She circled the black tiled floor as he did the same. "When you're made for one thing, what else is there?"
Snowflakes fall upon stone scales, but the sun refuses to let them stay, melting away down its sides.
Jacent leapt back, putting more distance between them. This wasn't the Science Center; it was a run down old bank lobby. And Grendel's face flickered in the darkness as she glowered at him, the cracks in her once pristine body just barely visible. And yet, the memory was so clear, even now. Had he said all of those things again? Had she said a word?
-
- -
-
The run down the stairs was even longer than any of them remembered it, not that moving aside to let out the odd straggler wasn't making a long descent longer. Finally, they made it into the remains of the lab, as dusty and dilapidated as they recalled.
"Man, this place is even creepier than I remember it," Max remarked.
Erwin shook his head slowly. "I can't believe that file I cracked had all those schematics on... Nhiloids, weren't they called?" He frowned. "I just can't even wrap my head around the fact that you're from that long ago, Widget. We never found any sign that pre-splice humanity had advanced this far."
"They hadn't," she replied flatly. "'Humanity' would imply that everyone got to share it. This was all the work of one extremely gifted lunatic, and his army of robotic slaves."
Natalie frowned. "I guess you guys were the slaves, huh."
She shook her head bitterly. "It wasn't as if we didn't get to talk, to be on our own and be around each other when there wasn't need of us. But... we never got to choose what side we were on. Who we fought for. What we built." Widget walked toward the main console and began running commands on it. "A lot of us still feel bummed out about it despite the fact that we totally couldn't refuse. That guilt made us dig deep underground, and we all swore together not to interact with post-splice humanity at all after Nhilus was gone." She huffed. "I messed that up for everyone, so now I'm banished."
Shelly winced. "Like, that sounds totally terrible..."
Widget nodded as loud hydraulics began moving. "It's a real bummer. But I couldn't just let Jacent die... god I hope he's okay."
Everyone turned their heads when a familiar thumping came from a familiar room. "J-... Jacent??" Natalie looked up to the doorway, hoping to see him in all his dorky red-haired glory again, trying to make a good impression. Nobody came that way, however. "... Hunh." She walked down the hall, opened the door to the cryo-chamber, and found not an overgrown child, but two very normally grown children.
Gren and Ten had incredibly old robot toy figures in their hands as they played on the floor. "Natalie!!" They both exclaimed simultaneously, running up to the wolf girl and hugging her tightly.
"I knew you would come!" Ten exclaimed.
She returned the gesture warmly, squeezing them. "You guys! What are you doing here??" "Oh boy." Gren shook her head. "It's kind of a long story."
"You can tell it in the elevator," Widget cut in, pointing to the winding hallway that lead to the shaft they'd fallen down before. A short walk revealed that a functioning elevator- clearly made to transport large machines- existed within the shaft, and could descend through the water.
The kids loaded in with the rest of the group as the lift began its journey downward. "You start, Aren. I'm too tired."
The tiger considered it. "Okay. Well, this morning we went to school like normal, but Murphy said she wanted us to look into somethin' that was going on at the beach. People kept talking about a sea monster, and nobody wanted to go near it. We were supposed to just ask around..."
"... But nobody knew nothin'! We couldn't just go back to Murphy and tell her that, so we did a lil' investigating," Gren explained, holding her fingers apart by inches to show how little their role was, and perhaps somehow by extension, the danger involved.
"So we set a trap for the monster using my tuna melt from lunch. We waited and waited and waited..."
"-And waited some more!"
"But finally the creature appeared! And we figured out that it was Nozzle! Nozzle was super hungry, but he looked a little bit really hungry, so we kinda ran away."
"But we did tell Murphy what we knew!" Gren added.
"She got mad," Ten noted in an understated tone, wincing.
The goat's eyes widened. "She got so mad. She told us to go home, so we did, buuut we kinda got a little lost. Real lost. But we ended up finding Miss Hendrix!"
"She was really nice," the tiger said with reverence. "But she told us Jacent went to her house the night before he disappeared! So we figured he probably went to the place you said you found him at!"
"It took us a while to figure out where this place was, but when we did, Aren started nerding out about all the stuff here."
"Wait, wait," Natalie interrupted. "There wasn't anybody here when you came?" "Nope, just us," Gren confirmed.
"That means Khurl and Blane only started the exodus a little while ago," she noted. "Anyway, we both went in that room, aaand kinda locked ourselves in."
"It's a one way door, and some jerk wrecked the mechanism, so I couldn't even figure out a way to work it open," Ten groused.
"So we tried to think up a new plan! But we got distracted."
"... Distracted playing with Jacent's toys," Widget noted with amusement, leaning back on the wall of the elevator.
"Those were Jacent's toys??" Aren blinked. "... Are you his sister?"
"Heheh. Nah, little dude." With a twist of the wrist, she revealed herself, much to their shock, some horror and at least on Aren's part, utter fascination. "And if you think this is weird, wait until you see what's out there." The elevator stopped, the bay door opened, and the expanse of the old abandoned civilization unfolded before them.
"Whoooooaaa..."
"This was underground??" "Unbelievable..."
Natalie stepped off of the elevator while everyone marveled at the lost city. Without warning, a pranic shockwave washed over Echelon's entire body, staggering her. "Unh..."
"What's wrong?" Carrie asked, a hand on her back.
Nat looked toward the city skyline sans sky and pointed to the tallest building. "Th-... There. We need to get there, now."
-
- -
-
A flurry of warmth blasts over the black ocean, an unseasonable heat overtaking, but it does not linger.
Grendel regarded her opponent with the patience of a predator watching its meal tire itself out. They circled one another on a missile platform, the robot somewhat ironically guarding the control panel- a job she took over for the two military guards she'd broken in her wake. "Do you need me to slow down? I'd hate to accidentally kill you because you got tired."
Jacent grit his teeth at the memory. He didn't know what Nhilus was planning at that time, he just knew that he had to put an end to it. "Don't patronize me, you garbage heap; I'm going to wrench you into twisted metal for what you've done."
She seemed unfazed, as if to point out his turn of phrase. Twisted metal? Like Widget. She almost seemed to smile a little when he flinched. A little girl, gone, because of him. It brought back memories, didn't it?
The Winter's dead silence is interrupted by a gale of unrelenting fury. Hot current meets the Northern wind and summons a violent tempest. Winter is not over. The sea is stained red.
Jacent shook, hissing with pain, blood streaked across the dead city street along with the shreds of the shirt Sam had picked out for him, spread in a trail pointing to Grendel. When he looked up, she was standing on that platform again, centuries before. "'Get mad and win?' That's the strategy?" She glowered, staring at the biggest scar on his body, one that ran front to back over his shoulder- an old memento of that battle, of his mistake so long past. "Did you forget that I'm stronger than you?"
He shuddered involuntarily, his vision fading in and out as he fought back nausea. It was too dangerous to be so vulnerable, but he couldn't keep his eyes open.
"... Hey. Dummy. Get up."
When he looked up, he saw... "Jasmine?" More memories? These even further back.
Instead of a street, or an underground missile silo, he was on the blacktop of the playground behind the orphanage, all those years ago. The scrappy girl looked down at him with her kind but fierce blue eyes and helped him up. "Jie Xian!" she chided. "You gonna let those punks get away with that?"
"They're stronger than me," he pleaded.
"Pfsh. Yeah they are," Jasmine cocked a brow, looking at the two boys across the lot who'd beaten him. "But you can't let them know that. Don't let 'em see you hurt." She ripped the band- aid off of her cheek with a grin. "Now c'mon! Let's go do it together."
Jasmine ran off toward the two hooligans. The memory faded, and in her place, Grendel walked forward insistently.
The hawk reaches for a tender morsel burrowing beneath the snow, but the snake bites instead, tossed away in the hawk's surprise.
After escaping her grasp, Jacent fought hard against her, getting in a few good hits- but at cost. He delivered a double iron palm strike with the immediacy of a man in full panic, sending Grendel across the street and into the facade of a bookstore. She watched as he fled into the air. "..."
-
- -
-
For all the times they'd been assaulted or caught off guard, one thing could be said about Natalie's crew: they were quickly becoming old hands at getting someplace in a hurry. Erwin rode on Natalie's back while she skiffed, Sam riding on Carrie's the same way- and the cat just barely managed this, despite what she claimed. Max was becoming adept at using his tongue as a kind of swinging grapple, while the children... well. They might have had the strangest transport method of all.
"This is awesome!" Gren yelled against the wind, holding onto the handlebars of Widget, who had transformed herself into a very small- even for them- but very serviceable and quick skiff scooter.
"I know!" Ten agreed, hanging onto her from the back of the too-small seat. He'd never in his wildest dreams thought he'd have an adventure like the one he'd been on! And now he was riding a robot scooter through a spooky underground city! He couldn't contain his excitement... literally, he realized with a blush. Maybe Gren hadn't noticed.
"Are you sure we should be letting them come?" asked Erwin as he hung onto Natalie.
"If Echelon really did pick up Osoth's pranic trail, then the safest place is with us," the wolf girl assured him, panting as she pumped and coasted through dirty, littered streets, empty shells of buildings looming over them in tightly packed lines the likes of which none of them had ever seen. As they closed in on the landmark that was the tallest building in the old city- a dirty pillar reaching up into the air, its purpose long forgotten- they began to spot and weave around Greys that appeared in increasing numbers. "Wait, we need to head back," she said, but they'd noticed too late. By the time they all stopped, they were effectively surrounded.
"Back off," Carrie warned, helping form a protective circle around Team Reference. "I don't wanna go through you, but I will."
"Wait." Samantha noticed one in particular that caught her eye. "Is that... Bo?"
"Yes." The Grey spoke in a voice unlike Bo's own. "The wooly one is my host. We wish to speak."
All of them looked at each other, not knowing what to expect. They'd never dealt with a situation like this before. They'd assumed Greys simply didn't have the thought power to negotiate conversations outside of a dreamscape; this was completely new ground. "... Okay." Natalie took a deep breath and tried to seem relaxed. "Do you speak for... all of you?"
"I speak for those who can't. They understand you, they just can't work the language." The Greys' impromptu diplomat seemed resolute but nervous. "Echelon. You wish to gain access to this building, right?"
"Yes, we need to get in there and stop what they're doing!" she urged.
"That will be impossible, unfortunately. Actima has blocked entry from the inside. But it might be possible to get in via Mirror Slide."
Echelon shifted her weight from one leg to the other, frustration on her face. "I can't use Mirror Slide, though, ever since you took my castle; which I very much did not appreciate, I might add."
The color-washed inkling seemed to be clutched by some manner of muted remorse... a sympathy echoed in muttered tones by the scores of others. "That may have been a mistake."
"May have??" Mhend scolded. "You've given the potential of power to a group of would-be dictators."
A series of contentious sounds uttered from the crowd. "... Actima told us that Echelon was going to grab power," she translated. "With Osoth's core deep in her castle, she could emulate the Power of Dominance and keep it far from anyone else who could use it!"
"You tragic fools." Echelon shook her head sadly. "I was guarding it so that nobody could enslave you again. And what's happened since Actima possessed Osoth's core? You've been used as a shield, herded and farmed for prana, like cattle." She held her arms out in a gesture of exasperation. "Are you ready to listen to me now?"
More murmuring, this time worried. "... We are afraid. Echelon, you ally yourself with humans. But who do you really serve: us, or them??"
The black inkling hesitated. She hadn't wanted this position. It was naive to think that she could simply destroy Osoth and everything would fall into place.
"Echelon serves Inked and Humanity both," Mhend posited forcefully despite her size.
Arus stood determined. "She believed in consensual relations at a time where all of us were uniquely feared."
Phactys nodded in agreement. "We were severed from our hosts, and they sought us out to rejoin with us!"
Koralo folded his arms proudly. "We're not parasites. We're partners."
Bo's inkling seemed unsure. "... But... you have Elite abilities. We don't have anything to offer. What if... w-what if my host decides to leave me?"
"Then that is her choice," Echelon responded firmly.
The crowd of Greys loosed an almost riotous din of very upset sounds. "I don't think they liked that answer!" Erwin fretted.
"That is my answer!" Echelon affirmed loudly. "And if that happens... you may have mine."
"... What??" It was a universal sentiment from both sides.
"That's correct." Echelon stood firm. "If your host leaves you behind, you may inhabit mine until we find someone else who is willing to host you." She took in the scene before her and realized the truth of the matter: it was time to take responsibility. "If you follow me, I will show you patience and mercy. If you choose to keep your unwilling hosts, however, I will take it to mean that you've become Humanity's enemy, and by extension, my enemy. At which point, I will show you the same mercy I showed Osoth."
The enormous mob of Greys mumbled unintelligibly at each other while the one inhabiting Bo looked unsure, turning around to listen. The conversation didn't seem intelligent or structured, yet appeared to communicate emotions quite clearly. It was almost a different take on language as a concept. Finally, Bo's occupant turned around. "... We... need time to decide."
The liquid wolf huffed. "I don't have-"
"But!" She interrupted. "We'll go back to our hosts' homes, lie dormant. A-And we've returned your castle. As a peace offering. Farewell..."
Echelon sighed as the congregation of inklings slipped away into the shadows. It wasn't what she wanted, but it was going to have to do for now.
"You did everything you could," said Arus.
"... Yeah." Natalie nodded. "Alright. Everybody get ready for a mirror slide... wait. Where's Gren and Ten? Where's Widget??"
"Oh, they left," Max said matter-of-factly. "Widget said she didn't have time for dumb alien politics and went to find Jacent. Gren 'n Ten went with 'er."
"What?! Why didn't you try to stop them??"
He shrugged. "Dude, I did! Have you ever tried to catch a scooter? It's hard!"
"... I believe Widget has everyone's best interest at heart," admitted Sam. "I don't think she'll let anything happen to them."
Natalie shook her head. No time. "She'd better not..."
-
- -
-
The railing was old and decrepit. Bolted on metal, but rusted through. Still, he held onto it, desperately clinging to the shell of a hotel balcony in the abandoned part of town. A deep grimace accompanied nausea, and they weren't just the growing pains of being fifteen. Now that adrenaline was beginning to wane, his threshold for pain dropped steadily, right alongside his morale. She hadn't found him yet. Yet. It was only a matter of time, that relentless movement spurring on her every step. No eating, no breathing, no resting... just a never ending search for her quarry.
Jacent turned around, sliding down the wall, stucco coming off of it as he hit the ground in a sitting position. He could take pain. He could take anger. But Grendel was a bottomless source of antagonism, and the problem with the fight was beginning to creep back into his mind as he sobered from his anger-fueled confidence.
The fact was, she was better than him. Faster. Stronger. And her only motivation was to fight against him, again and again. He could only be clever in so many ways... whereas she was calculating, ruthless. He remembered fondly the times when he reveled in being the one others called on for help when there was none to be had. Now... he wished there was someone he could call for.
Something snapped in half woodenly, from deep inside and below, other squatters yelling in fear as they scrambled for safety. She'd found him. A steady rhythm of relentless destruction grew louder and louder as she made it up the building. The next round was ready to begin, and his mind was already made up. "Jasmine. I know I'm not as strong as you were. I know you would've done better, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm always leaning on you. But you deserved this life more than I did anyway." His eyes opened as he stared at the door. "Help me put another monster away."
The door opened just inches from his face, that baleful stare waiting for him. "There you-"
~CRASH!~
Jacent didn't just shut the door in her face; he blew it out the wrong side of the frame, a hurricane of splintered wood chunks precipitating on the wall after Grendel hit it. She had a chance for all of her feet to hit the ground before he was on her again, raining a flurry of blows down on the hateful machine. She even took a few of them before reacting, meeting his fists with her own in careful anticipation. She inserted her foot after a few moments, kicking him away, but he spun into the force of it, his leg coming around for her head. She ducked, jabbed upward, he feinted to the left, sent an elbow her way, and the dance began all over again.
"Come on, enough playing," Grendel pressed, her gaze growing more intense. "Surely there's more to you than this."
"More than you know," he parried, taking a hard fist to the forearm that he wasn't expecting and sending his leg into her torso in riposte.
She pulled closer, giving him all he could deal with trying to escape her quick, nimble grappling. "What's the point of you?"
He frantically worked against her machinations. "W-What??"
She grabbed his hands, her unnaturally strong grip clinching down on his fingers intertwined with hers as he cried out in pain. "What's. The point. Of you," she said with absent, detached certainty. "It's to be my toy. Don't take it sexually."
Jacent brought up his leg, putting his boot to her chest. "Are you broken??"
"No." She yanked him toward herself, his hands behind her, his leg folded up between them and her face uncomfortably close. "That's exactly it. I was made to do this. You're broken."
"What?? AH!" He squeezed his eyes shut as she stepped on his free foot. She had him ensnared, a vulnerable position from which he couldn't escape- the more he tried to build up momentum, the tighter she reined him in. Until she made an offensive move, he could do nothing.
Her disquieting visage stopped being predatory for a moment, and almost reflected something vaguely human. It was almost... patient. "There are things humans do. I've watched them. They distract themselves, but there are certain aspects that define every one of them. They seek others. And then this... grouping creates more than its sum."
He grit his teeth, but didn't say a word.
"You don't do any of those things. You don't fulfill your purpose as a human. You just exist detached from anything, like a ghost, a... phantom." Her stare didn't falter for a frame. "So I've given you a purpose. You're my toy. A plaything just for me." She pressed even closer, his breath fogging the screen over her eyes. "Are you grateful?"
He struggled helplessly, though clearly not against his physical bonds. "Of course I'm not grateful, you twisted metal ghoul."
Grendel's face turned toward the side, her one visible eye still staring at him. "Hm." She gripped him painfully tight. "That's unfortunate. It's the one thing you seem to actually enjoy."
Jacent stared angrily at his reflection in the sadistic machine's face, realizing that he wasn't in that squatter's hotel, but an apartment in that dead city. Was that true? He wondered it then and he wondered it now. He wasn't smiling, but at the same time, was there anything that thrilled him as much as fighting? Had denying it done him any good? And what did a people of peace need with someone who could only destroy? It hadn't done Jasmine any good. Or Samantha. Or humanity. A litany of failures stared him in the eye; failures too painful to face, and he couldn't run away anymore.
Fine.
If that's what he was for, then so be it.
Grendel was lifted bodily by her hands, which he used to fling her into the ceiling, quickly grabbing her leg and slamming her into the floor like a sack of bricks. She flipped to her feet as he sent a right cross her way, the blow going wide and burning a scorch mark in the wall. Burn? No time to wonder.
Spring finds its valor, dragon's tail whipping up a fury.
Winter melts away, frostbitten winds fading to cover other lands. The Sun flies high into the sky.
It wants tribute.
-
- -
-
Echelon's castle had the look of a place ravaged by time. True to their word, the Greys had abandoned it completely. It was easily felt by the inkling that the castle's power- long ago bound to her own- had been used to transport others multiple times in recent memory.
"Hold a moment, friends," Echelon said as Arus reset the door barring. "Join hands while I re- anchor us to this place."
"Oh, good!" Phactys laughed softly. "I was wondering when we'd get to hang out here again!"
"It really is good to be back in the castle," Mhend agreed. "It makes the 'under' time so sweetly relaxing."
"Like, what do you mean 'under' time??" Shelly queried, overwhelmed by the entire experience. "What?" Koralo quipped jovially. "You think we're lookin' out through your eyes all the time?"
"Come to think of it..." Carrie wondered. "What are you guys doing when you're not playing spycam?"
"Dreaming," Phactys, Koralo and Mhend all said together fondly. The caramel one explained. "Unless you physically manifest us, we still exist in Canvas- but it's like being a... hm. Sort of like the way you'd envision a ghost. We sleep with one eye open, experiencing the echoes of your consciousness while still aware of what's going on with you."
"Wow..." Natalie noted with a smirk. "I wanna see an inkling dream."
Carrie sighed as their prana was synchronized with one another's, creating a baseline for the castle. "Can we hurry this up?"
"Sorry," the wolf nodded. "This place just feels so peaceful. When I'm here it's like everything in the world is just so... far away..."
"That's one very good reason why we need to get away," Echelon noted. "It seems they smashed most of my mirrors, but we still have the ones that Blane was using." She adjusted one in particular. "Now c'mon, let's get out of here."
(
o
)
They slid out of a particularly polished piece of fluorescent lighting, landing on a massive meeting table that endured the first four teenagers before buckling under their collective weight and falling to the floor with a choking dust cloud that billowed up from the stale carpet. Carrie was the least appreciative of this, immediately reaching for a medstick. "So much for the element of surprise. Why can't we ever mirror slide into a king-size bed or something?" She took a drag, looking around at the faded motivational posters featuring photogenic people in business suits looking falsely enthusiastic.
"C'mon everyone, on your feet; we don't have much time," Natalie urged, already yanking open the door and sticking her head outside.
Sam reached down and helped up Erwin with Max's assistance. "I never thought I'd appreciate being bonded with a bowl of gelatin from another dimension."
Erwin winced as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I never thought I'd see Natalie wear a thong leotard again."
"I'm not wearing a thong leotard!" Natalie responded sharply, her inked glare turning to a boyish smirk. "Echelon is. Now get a move on, I'm sensing loads of prana this way!"
They hurried down claustrophobic corridors winding wastefully, making the stairwells a grueling burden on top of all the other pointless running. They stopped in front of a pair of ominous double doors guarded by none other than Khurl.
At least, she would have been guarding it, were she not curled up on the floor, bruised and bleeding from the nostrils. "What happened to you??" Max wondered aloud. "Are rolly chairs that dangerous?!"
She groaned, seething in pain. "Blane's completely fucking lost control... whole thing was a setup... s-supposed to just raise her enough to... get the Power of Dominance, but-... nngh..." She shook in agony. "You can't let him finish..."
"Whoa, what?" Carrie frowned. "You're telling me that guy was on his own team the whole time and now you wanna stop him?"
Natalie knelt down, sighing in exasperation. "Why are bad guys only on your side once they're too hurt to help?" She dug out a pocket knife and snipped a lock of hair from the orca, slipping it into her shoe. "C'mon everyone, let's do this." She marched up to the double doors, wrenched the knobs downward and threw them open. "End of the line, Actima!"
The executive office was opulent beyond reason, stone floors rising into similar walls trimmed with gold and featuring rare, expensive odds and ends from various cultures, thrown together with no sense of taste or decor. It was greed without purpose, a glut of concentrated privilege put together for the sole benefit of someone for whom it might as well have been an outhouse. In other words, it was the perfect stage for the reawakening of Empress Osoth. A hideous translucent black beast surged with blood red marbling, breathing... or some nascent facsimile of the act. To its side, a familiar crow with bloodshot eyes looked toward the group with a crazed expression. "Hi."
Max staggered. "Dude, this is why you never go full crazy."
Blane tittered. "Oh no. Such numbers. What am I to-" he didn't finish the sentence before the entire group of inked teenagers were knocked flat on their backs, crying out and groaning.
"W-What happened??" Carrie sputtered.
The crow grinned lopsidedly. "I punched every single one of you in the face. Twice."
The cat groused as she lifted herself and Natalie popped up to her feet. "This is bullshit, I'm not gonna- UNGH!"
Natalie winced in pain from the ground once more. "Wow that is an unfortunate level of super speed. It's so much more fightable in the comics..."
Erwin noted that he had only been grazed instead of flattened. It was time for a plan. "Why would you resurrect Osoth?? You know nothing good can come of this!"
"Do I?" He sat back in a huge, cracked leather executive's chair. "Filthy insurgents can't ever know about loyalty."
The ferret motioned to Natalie. She nodded in turn. "The kind of loyalty you showed Khurl?"
"Khurl. Sarissa. So trusting. They let me walk on them to achieve this." He gazed toward Osoth's proto-body fondly as it grew more and more opaque. "Well, maybe not for this exactly, but they needn't know the purpose of their service. None do. None except her."
"Yeah, well I don't accept that!" Erwin foolishly stood, hands open and ready.
"Oh, come on." Blane knocked the ferret to the ground again, but it looked like he'd simply stood up, then sat down quickly. Erwin flailed violently, hitting his shoulder on a shelf and knocking a vase on himself. "I don't see why you're so insistent on this! If you wanted power so badly, you should have seized it when you had the chance. But you couldn't stomach it. You flinched. And that's why you're unworthy to succeed our Empress."
"Actima!"
He sighed, rolling his eyes. "What? GHMPF!"
Natalie pulled her fist back from punching him in his gob, her other hand clutching a small handful of black feathers. "Shut your big, stupid beak."
Blane looked down up at her, then Erwin. The ferret had managed to tear some away from him. "Hah, and I was being so careful, too." He clapped sarcastically, once, twice, then Natalie was knocked back to the ground, Blane standing again. She didn't stay there, blurring back up to her feet.
"What happened??" Sam asked, confused.
Nat rubbed a scrape on her cheek. "Ugh... I can move as fast as he can, but I can't see as fast as he can."
"What's the matter, Echelon?" He crowed, appropriately. "Did you forget you're not as good as, well, anybody, ever? I hope that stings. Anyway, we can do this all night, but the bottom line here iiis, yooouuu l-o-s-e..." Was he being that sarcastic?? No. No, something was... amiss! His eyes darted to the ferret, whose ink had receded around him as he shook with sheer concentration. All of them perceived a change in the way they saw time, an alteration in... reality? Or their perception of reality? It was impossible to say, and one's head couldn't help but hurt even contemplating it.
"G-e-t h-i-m..." Erwin signaled.
Natalie ran toward Blane as fast as... well, she could normally run. Everyone else stared on in slow motion as she barreled toward the crow and shoulder-checked him, sending him into a desk. He cringed and swung with a Bowie knife grabbed from a decorative display case, sinking into Echelon's flesh. The fabric of the leotard shimmered in reaction, turning the blade away before it could actually penetrate, instead giving the impression of a pen pressed into a sheet of rubber. Nat swatted his knife away, grabbing his wrist and wrenching it with her strength advantage, her biceps bulging. Blane threw angry punches at her, one of which she took on the chin, the rest getting pushed to the side as she turned, pulling his arm toward herself and slamming a fist into the side of his head.
"N-o-t b-a-d..." Blane spat out a tooth and stared up at his opponent, as crazy-eyed as ever. His body shook as he stood, glowing with an emboldened power. "H-e-h-e-h-e-h-e-h..."
Erwin finally collapsed from the concentration required, panting, and Max yelled, "He's going shaded!"
"Not quite." Without warning, the crow threw himself backward into the thrumming mass of red and black flesh, being consumed bodily, his form disappearing under it. "Ahaha! HAHAHA. TAKE ME, MY QUEEN! My bofjksdhdy isjkh yyssshhh..." Blane vanished.
Carrie stumbled, as did everyone else, when the entire room shook. "What the fuck just happened?!"
"The core! It finished, she's coming back!" Samantha grimaced. "Curse you, Dwayne!"
"Yeah, I'm gettin' outta here. Way too weird even for me." Max pulled up an exhausted Erwin and frightened Sam, darting his tongue out the open window and jumping.
"Natalie, we have to go, too," Cat pressed.
"But now Osoth and Actima are joined! Osima??" "We'll stop her! This isn't the place!" Carrie insisted.
"Sssso stupid..." Both girls stared as an all-consuming and familiar voice filled the room. "He was the reason. Near dead, but you used him to ssstrike me down... n-not this t-ti- tiiiimeRRRGHHH!"
Natalie's eyes widened even as she ran back out of the room. "Oh, no."
-
- -
-
Any abandoned place was unsettling. An abandoned carnival, however, was a special variety of disquiet. Brightly painted attractions, faded and chipped, sat in eternal disuse. The teacups would sit, unspun. The Ferris wheel would thrill no more couples. The carousel would sit in quiet repose, as if mourning the children that were too long gone to enjoy it.
The first movement it saw in centuries was not a group of children coming to partake of its whimsy one last time, but two foes for whom joy was perpendicular to their pursuits. Jacent had tried to crash Grendel into the fair grounds, but she'd used her mass to alter his momentum and throw him toward the earth instead. They ended up sprawling far from one another, but like magnets, each sought the other once more.
"Don't worry about losing," Grendel said all those years ago, her metal heels clicking on the mesh steel floor of Nhilus' satellite base. "If you do, I'll just replace everything I broke with something better." She almost seemed to smile, if that were possible. "I'll never let you die."
Jacent remembered this. The claustrophobic corridors webbing out from the circular hub, that discarded space suit on the floor behind him. That fateful day the world was going to end, and still she stood in his way, never knowing or caring what happened to anyone else. Did she even care about Nhilus? Or was it all about the fight...? His fists clenched, every muscle in his body tensing, trembling with rage until blood poured from his palms again. The acrid smell of something burning invaded his senses, but nothing could take away his focus now. He felt the power come back to him, one of a handful of times he'd ever dared to ask for it, and this time it felt like heat was radiating off of his skin.
"At last!" His robotic malefactor's face finally changed. She grinned ghoulishly, her joints lighting blue at the seams with energy. It super-heated her all at once, the cooling agent in her body emitting harder than ever before to compensate; a fog-like aura of pure cold rolled off of her entire form. "I've been waiting too long for this."
They charged at each other. More accurately, they ran a few feet before Jacent began a comet crash, red-hot flames licking off of the front of his force shield. More surprisingly, however, was Grendel, who also performed a comet crash, her overworked power source generating it as boosters from her heels propelled her forward. They met with a thunderous ~CRACK~ and split away like marbles, landing yards away from each other. They turned and met hand-to-hand, Jacent's green-on-black eyes reflecting in Grendel's own.
Spring's Dragon has found his flame. Winter's Dragon reveals her frost.
But nothing can live when the Winter and Spring are at war. The mountain crumbles under the sleet.
The lake dries under the heat.
"This is it, Grendel!" Jacent yelled harshly, blood running down his face, rage in his eyes, back then on the station, and now on the fair grounds. "Today we end this!"
The robot drew her iconic burstgun, a pistol which now glowed with the same power as the rest of her body. In its overcharged state, it produced the force shield that Jacent's torrential rain of fiery blows thudded against. Free from the flaw of necessitating motion, she could and did use it defensively, wielding it like a circular buckler. When the shield threatened to buckle itself, she dropped it perfectly into its holster in her thigh and resumed meeting Jacent's punches with her own. The one she called Jade Dragon raged like no other, his red-hot fury meeting her fist-to- fist, boiling heat slamming into cruel frosted metal. At one point, they threw the same arm, their knuckles locking, force pushing them toward each other intensely. Jacent's fist burst with blood, Grendel's plating cracking and threatening to crumble. Her face was locked in pure, unbridled joy, as if she'd never felt so alive.
His pulse pounded as he drew his arm back. "You're not even sorry, are you? Not for a minute."
He couldn't push himself any further, she realized with an open, killer's smile, half surprised beyond measure, half manic beyond caring. The oil from her various parts had boiled over, two cerulean streaks running down her cheeks as she carried that rictus grin.
"I can't believe it. Just to fight me again, you killed so many! You're worse than I ever imagined..." The unknown fire seared his flesh as it snapped to life around him, electric and uncontrolled. He barreled into her lightning-fast, slamming them both into the bottom-most carriage of the Ferris wheel and bringing the ancient ride into rotation again. The thing vibrated as he pressed her as far into the seat as possible. Centripetal force ripped the entire ride off of its rusted hinges.
Grendel returned the blow, sending them crashing into a carriage on the carousel, her maniacal laughter lost in the pure G-forces exerted as he nearly crushed her wrists in his effort to stop her from smashing his rib cage. The carousel tore off of its axis, rolling diagonally like a coin and throwing them into the air.
Jacent took frenzied swipes at his ancient foe even as the Ferris wheel- which he had unbeknownst to himself, set on fire- plowed into a tall roller coaster and sent the entire thing crumbling downward.
They crashed into a water gun game, forgotten prizes consumed in flame, the tank under the bench bursting. Grendel rose from a puddle, knocking ice that her radiant coolant had frozen from her shoulder.
The blood from his hand evaporated in midair as he pulled back his fist one more time. The park that had taken so many people and so much time to carefully craft lie in smoldering ruin. "This is our legacy, you and I." He summoned that power, that flame that consumed him, searing and burning. "And to be quite honest, I don't think this world needs either one of us..."
He couldn't do it.
The will was there, the resolve in his heart. His arm wouldn't move. He was back in the ICU. Jasmine's entire body trembled as she held his wrist in her hand. She was pale... so pale. Her flame-blue eyes burned brighter than ever, in the way a star went supernova just before the end. "No."
"But... but I can't. It's not fair. I got the body... the strength you deserved..."
She frowned. "Then." The young girl swallowed, taking a shallow breath. "We'll share it." Another breath. "You'll share it with me, won't you?
He clasped her hand in both of his. "I-... I promise."
"Good," she whispered, managing one last wry little smile as she closed her eyes. "Here comes the Dragon. I'll... never let ya... rest..."
He blinked, his eyes full of tears again. More blue eyes, these ones set in black. Grendel held his arm in forbiddance. He ripped away from her angrily. "Don't even pretend..."
"Jacent!" Echelon emerged from a bloodstained carousel mirror on the ground and burst into view, her cadre of inkling friends and their hosts appearing afterward.
"Oh, no... what did she do to you??" Sam's inked face pouted with worry upon observing the scraped, bruised, bloody and burned teenager. "Your eyes... I'm so sorry..."
Warm tears fell from those blackened eyes. "S-... Sam... You came for me..."
"G-Grendel?! No way!" Natalie observed the furious robot, even her usual machine-desensitized experience unable shield her from the sight of the thing; she was like something out of a nightmare. "Oh god, there's no time!"
She didn't even know how right she was. Only two people saw the entirety of what happened in that next moment, but all saw the result. The monstrous entity that was Osoth sped toward Jacent with clear intent, extremities out to envelope him before he even had a chance to react.
And then Grendel shoved him away. Taking his place, she was subsumed by inky blackness and murderous red, disappearing within the enormous miasma of hatred and avarice. When he saw it happen, it flashed in front of his eyes: the final moment of their fight on the satellite base. She'd been hit unexpectedly by a plasma vent, and he'd run past. "Oh no..."
"Argh! I missed?! Infuriating." Osoth pressed inward, horrible crunching sounds emitting from inside of her body. Her tendrils extended from her toward the disturbed and terrified Jacent. "You... you were the reason why I lost. You were the unforeseen variable! With you, Echelon grasped victory from the jaws of defeat, and with you, so can I."
"No!" Sam stood defiantly between them. "I don't care who you are. You'll have to go through me!"
Nat joined her. "And me."
"Keep your hands off him," Carrie snarled.
Erwin stood as well, despite himself. "D-Don't touch our packmate."
Max grinned defiantly. "You better watch out, my style's gotten even crazier!"
"Like, wow," Shelly marveled as she crouched next to Jacent, not completely committed to standing at the front. "You're so lucky."
Guilt and confusion wracked him. He'd almost made a terrible mistake. "You're right. I am." But perhaps now his mistakes were going to cost them everything. They looked so tired...
"Touching. And delusional." Osoth rose up like a tidal wave, cresting with clear intent to do exactly what they said and go right through them. "Haha... ahaha!" She set stalks down in a huge prison of pikes around the entire group. "HAHAHA. TOO LATE TO RUN N-glhk"
A beam of ice blue light cut out from the bottom of her amorphous body. It spiraled up the enormous length of her form, cutting ribbons of blackness away like rind. Grendel emerged from the top of it, falling once her rockets disengaged.
Osoth couldn't even bring enough cohesion to scream; her sliced, burned, ruined body elicited an alien, garbled sound of pure agony.
Grendel pointed her burstgun downward and shot enormous blasts of plasma in rapid succession, so much so that the sheer recoil slowed her fall and eventually sent her flying back up again.
The inkling shrieked in agony as her body was disintegrated under a mountain of heat and force. Grendel landed, Osoth's crimson core in her outstretched hand, her only expression a furious pinpoint stare into nothingness.
And then, unthinkably, she crushed it. With a clench of her fist, the very essence of Osoth was destroyed, scattered to the wind and evaporated with one last bloodcurdling scream. Grendel's eyes flickered, as if she were unable to hold back the overwhelming need to continue this murderous spree.
"Nooooo!" Actima screamed, having fallen from the scraps of Osoth's once mighty form. "Y-... You killed her! My Empress! We had a deal you stupid fucking machine and you killed her!" He stood, stumbled, then shot forward at lightning speed. Grendel remained, same as ever, having slapped him away inside fragments of seconds no one saw- it was as if she merely wished him to the ground, bleeding. "Hgh, ugh, uhhhg..."
"J-... Jacent what do we do??" Natalie asked, holding firm despite how shaken she was. How shaken they all were.
He panted softly. Wiped the blood and the sweat from his hair. Swallowed, tasting bitterness all around. Then stood up.
"Hhhhhhh..." The machine seethed a static-garbled mess, eager and furious all at once.
Jacent walked past Shelly. Past Natalie and his friends. He saw so clearly now, his mistake. "Can't speak, can you? And that's the point. A metal shoulder can carry any sin... even one that doesn't belong to it. You didn't make the Skin Plague." He pointed to the cracks- the ones he made, that day the satellite fell. "You didn't have time."
"Jacent, what're you talking about??" Natalie asked, concerned. "Oh no she's given him brain damage!" Samantha fretted.
"Ivory Dragon." He righted his posture, put one fist in the other and bowed. "Victory is yours. I concede defeat."
Grendel's eyes widened. Her cracked fists clenched, her joints glowed more brightly than ever and her mouth finally opened for the first time in centuries, letting out something terrible and broken that might once have been a voice. Her entire body screamed and trembled like a jet engine as she output more and more power in utter, indignant rage. "HHHHGHHHAASHHHHHHHH!!"
"C-... Cap! What are you doing?!" Carrie demanded.
~pop~
The robotic terror's glow died down, her power source whining as it declined, her movements stiffening as she reached for him. She froze, mid-reach, her flickering face display locked in confusion and shock. And then, it all went black.
They could all hear their own heartbeats in the minutes that followed. Samantha frowned. "... Is she...?"
"... No." Jacent cradled the locket in his hands, gazing at Jasmine's picture one last time. He carefully reached behind Grendel's horns, under her hair and placed the weathered memento
around her neck. "She was never really alive to begin with." He put an arm around Sam's shoulders and smiled fondly at her as they turned. "Let's go."
Unbeknownst to them, Widget looked on from behind the carousel, sighing wistfully. "I'm sorry..."
Gren and Ten looked at each other, puzzled by her response, but eventually shrugged and ran up to join the group again; they were delighted to see them safe.
-
- -
-
[09/12/2541
09:32
Sometimes it's hard for me to believe all the things that can happen in one day. This morning I thought the toughest thing I'd grapple with was Math, but after everything that went down, I'm exhausted.
Although Sarissa and Khurl escaped, Blane's betrayal pretty much dissolved Authoritus. Echelon removed Actima and threw him in her dungeon while Blane was put in for a Criminal Psych Eval. We won't be seeing him for a while.]
"Comfy?" asked Officer Sanders, smirking at the crow who laid on a small couch.
"Yeah." He pressed a hand against the force field around the furniture piece with a glum look. "Perfect."
[I'm secretly a little bit glad we didn't end up having to fight Grendel. The way she just up and killed Osoth like that... it still makes me uneasy. Still... that whole plan, just to get one more chance to fight? Is that really all she wanted?]
A broken doll of gears and ivory plating stood eternally in dusty blue moonlight, forever reaching for one who was no longer there.
[Jacent was in really rough shape when we found him. Thanks to Mhend, though, Sam got him fixed up. He said his powers returned, but I guess there's something wrong with them. It must be serious, because he won't let me borrow them at all.
There's something different about him ever since he came back up to the surface. I don't know exactly what it is, but he's making a lot of new decisions.]
"So!" Kelvalde smiled, leaning against the door frame of a nice little apartment- a very familiar one, in fact. "How does it feel to have a place?"
"I've never really had one before, so... it's a bit strange," Jacent admitted as he sat down on the couch, then put his boots up on the table with a little smile. "... But I think I could grow to like it."
"That's what I like to hear," the husky grinned. "I don't know what made you change your mind, but welcome to Penceworth Estates- welcome home."
"Hn." He chuckled. "Oh, and Kelvalde? I've noticed that when you take away all the holograms and furniture, this place has a very Postmodernist Asian look to it. I like that."
"Oh?" Kelvalde made a thoughtful sound as he regarded the place. "Hm...!"
[Sam was happier than anyone just to see he was safe. I was surprised she didn't want to go over to his place right away, but she said she had someone else to look after first.]
A smiling bat stood barefoot on the beach in the black of night, closing a simple picture book. "And that's how the Very Hungry Harpy was hungry no more." She smiled as a certain dreamy- eyed sea drake drifted below the waves with a happy little wiggle. "Goodnight, sweet prince."
[ I don't know what Widget's going to do. She said she wouldn't go back to her village even if they offered, but what kind of life could she have up here? And if she were found out... much less if everyone learned about the Automa... there'd be chaos. I hope she'll be careful.]
"... Are you sure you want to do this?" Blue lights stared out meaningfully. "There's no going back."
Lorna ran her hands through her hair. No time for regrets. "Tell me everything."
Widget nodded grimly. "All thought... begins with a spark..."
[And on top of all that, Echelon's finally made her choice.]
A leopard interrupted Natalie. "E-Excuse me," he said sheepishly, looking around with a worried expression as his children flanked him. "Is this where...?"
"Yeah," the wolf intuited, pointing to a line extending around the corner without bothering to stand up from her sitting position against the far wall of Gross Lee's. "Over there."
"Oh, o-of course. Thank you."
[ I can tell it's really weighing on her. But it was the right thing to do.]
Behind the grocery store, a crowd had gathered around a black inkling in a pink leotard who reached into the chest of a young frog girl and pulled out a taffy-like pool of grey. "Mirror slide!" She ripped it out and threw it into a shining full-body mirror, watching it vanish completely.
The girl panted and muttered out a weary thanks before walking back to hug her family. Echelon watched the scene impassively.
"Next."
