Chapter 12
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You were suddenly awake.
Instantly your hand shot up and grasped the slender metallic neck of the figure bending over you, but he slithered out from your iron grip just as quickly as you had grabbed him. Two venomous red eyes glared down at you from the corner of the ceiling, basking in the shadow of the room.
“Do you mind not killing me right as I try to wake you up? It would be appreciated.”
Your mind quickly raced back over the information you already processed thus far. It was dark and it had previously been bright enough to see and operate. You had been hit by a thirteen ton steel column after it collided with Zero and Eilrach. The air still smelled like sardines, so likely Eilrach’s foul mist had not dissipated on its own. Likely Cordax had stabbed a fork in an outlet or done something else incredibly inane and overloaded the ancient fuseboxes in this decrepit-
“We’re safe to talk.” Zero murmured, cutting in on your thoughts.
You started to retort, but you quickly ran over every scenario in which Zero would have been forced to betray you and not kill you in said betrayal and came up extremely empty-handed. It couldn’t hurt much more than you already were to discuss how things were so far. “You weren’t successful.”
“No.” Zero replied in a stealthy manner, keeping his voice low. “I wasn’t able to activate it due to the number paradox. The coder is a prime number, which makes sense that he’s obsessed with it. Any tampering and you risk literally destroying that universe.”
“Continue.” You muttered, hoping he would hurry it up and get to the point without literally saying everything so someone eavesdropping could figure it out.
“The final terminal is inside a safe bunker immune to any of the effects of the blast, and you could simply wait for the cooling system to activate on its own… If I hadn’t been surviving off the rations inside this last month.” Zero murmured. “Who sent you?”
“Can’t say that.” You said, becoming considerably less relaxed. “It wasn’t him, though. A third party became interested after your group was sent, and I went with the recon group.”
There was a sudden rumbling which began conveniently at the end of your sentence, and the floor cracked open, dropping both you and the green whatever-he-was into the room below. You landed flat on your back with a massive thud and Zero landed on one foot in a graceful motion - which also revealed that he was missing his other leg. Evidently the impact of the impromptu weapon hadn’t left the party unscathed.
Something moved out of the darkness, something which Zero instantly bolted at, tearing at the mysterious object with his clawed fingers. Only having one leg was more of an annoyance than a handicap for him. The object he was tearing at slowly drifted into view, an ominous green glow surrounding it as a low growl emanated from its middle. It was… A person, if a normal human could stand having its torso turned into a cube. The figure was wearing a gas mask on a head which drooped back across its shoulders. Your anatomical knowledge kicked in and immediately labeled it as a serious spinal fracture in between the shoulders, with likely decomposed muscle.
The strange - and also floating, should have noted that it was floating - figure suddenly thrashed about, throwing Zero off for only a brief second, as he instantly kicked off the wall and slammed back into the figure. The limp neck shattered from the impact and sent the head flying into your open palm, allowing for closer inspection which revealed the gas mask was very atypical. 1000-P30 was printed on the side, and it was filled with barbs and spikes so as to intentionally scar the wearer.
…Well, it couldn’t hurt to put on. And you clearly didn’t care about there having been a dead body inside it as you shook the skull out from inside it and slapped it on your stupid, glowing head, intentionally ignoring the smell of Eilrach wafting from the inside.
Oh gosh, it’s so dark in here.
Wait… There’s suddenly no light. It wasn’t exactly a full glow, but you were fairly certain before you put this on you were able to see. Hang on. Were you… Viewing two locations at the same time?
Zero’s figure darted in front of your vision over what was literally a blank wall two inches from your face. Yes, you were viewing two separate locations at one time. Hang on, there was an orange light off to the side. You turned to look, but the second view turned at a different speed with an uneasy shakiness, then… Proceeded on its own to the light.
Okay, NOW it made sense. You were looking through someone else’s eyes, likely another undead puppet of Eilrach’s influence, as it shambled about. Except none of that made any sense so ignore your previous thought.
The light became brighter suddenly, and after rounding a corner the mysterious puppet saw a huddled figure in a puffy coat, toying with a lighter, quietly whimpering out calls for Monopoly or Pakari or anyone who might be-
Oh for crying out loud it’s CORDAX.
The lights flickered enough to show a location incredibly familiar - the bottom of an elevator shaft, with a broken elevator at the bottom. Cordax turned around and declared verbally that he had noticed the ominous floating puppet which you had no idea what it looked like by screaming at the top of his lungs; a noise which you were certain you heard with your own ears as well as the ears of whatever-this-was.
Which meant he was nearby, which meant he could be reached before he passed out from fright, which means move now. You forced yourself to focus on the fight occurring right in front of your nose, run towards the wall, kick off it, and grab the floor of the room you previously crashed through. And then as you pulled yourself up the stupid puppet began talking which definitely wasn’t going to be an irritating distraction.
“CORDAX.” It hissed as you tripped over a piece of the floor you really should have seen. “WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME TO DIE HERE?”
“N-No!” Cordax scampered, fell, and began crawling backwards into the elevator. “I don’t know who you are and you’re creeping me the heck out, so stop it!”
“DID YOU REALLY FORGET ME?” The floating entity hissed as you again tripped on something you would have otherwise been able to avoid. “THE ONE WHO BROUGHT YOU HERE, WHO PLANNED THIS WHOLE ORDEAL? I AM-”
“ARE YOU EVEN PAYING ATTENTION?!” The figure howled, swooping down to Cordax’s face as the latter vibrated in terror. “I WILL RIP OUT YOUR INTESTINES AND HANG YOU BY THEM AND THEN YOU WILL BECOME… LIKE ME! YOU WILL BE REBORN UNDER THE CROWN OF EILRACH, ETERNAL AND UNDEFEATABLE!”
You were seriously getting tired of tripping over every little thing because all you could see was Cordax getting teary-eyed. “YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING ON YOUR OWN; YOU NEED YOUR BODYGUARD TO PROTECT YOU! WELL HE ISN’T HERE ANYMORE; WHAT DO YOU INTEND TO DO? STICK YOUR KNIFE IN MY THROAT? I’M INVINCIBLE!!”
Cordax immediately followed up on that and you instinctively dodged the attack. The puppet was cackling and muttering unintelligible words about being right or something and you figured you had just about had enough of this. Watching long enough to see Cordax enter the fetal position, you ripped the gas mask from your face and threw it into the darkness. That was a trippy experience.
Distant chatter and the fact that you almost bolted right off a ledge and down into the factory floor indicated that you were now in the room you had previously fought Eilrach in. A shrill cackle was echoing from the elevator shaft, and thanks to your vision being restored you could identify the soft blue glow coming from your head as a light source, which helped. There was a sudden violent shout from the elevator shout which continued on for a solid ten seconds accompanied with the sounds of bone being broken and fabric torn, and by the time it ended you were halfway down the shaft.
Only at the last minute did you realize you would probably land right on top of Cordax and awkwardly tried to swing your feet out, which resulted in you rolling both your ankles when you hit the bottom. The massive thud shook everything in the room, and you wished you had a lip to bite down on as you knew walking was going to be a rather painful experience for the next… Two days probably, when Cordax’s violet coat caught your attention.
With a concentrated effort to not scream as you stood, you took two of the world’s most painful steps towards him. He was five feet from the elevator huddled over what had previously been a person - grey withered skin, practically zero muscle, a shock of white hair affixed to the scalp, and a blue winter coat so small Cordax would have had difficulty putting it on. The stranger was completely beyond being human however, as its chest, stomach, face, and anywhere easily recognizable as a human being had been turned into ground beef; torn to absolute ribbons and smothered in very thick bodily fluids which ran like sap, and everything was covered in something resembling wet sand which aside from being dark crimson was also splattered in spots across Cordax’s body… But his fingers were coated with it.
You and Cordax stayed silent for almost a full five minutes, the very distant sounds of the previous battle being the only noise. You silently slid your hands into your pockets while Cordax remained sitting on his knees, with his palms facing the ceiling and his fingers frozen in tension, as he took deep, shaky breaths. Finally he inhaled a normal amount of air and looked up at you.
You offered your hand.
“Who was he?” You quietly asked as your partner in apparent crime slowly returned to his feet while supporting himself on your hand.
Cordax said nothing, wiping the sandy material from his fingers and zipping his coat up. He walked back into the elevator shaft, looking up at the cables.
“…No one in particular.”