Humans in tanks. Like fish, like pickled ham. Wide eyed, unfocused. They don't speak. Mouths flapping soundlessly. Like pale pink slugs in polos and khakis and dresses, staring at the three that don't belong here.
Ninten can't look at them for too long; it makes him sick. Ana's nails are digging into the vulnerable flesh of his forearm but he doesn't tell her, because he understands. Lloyd shuffles behind them. Teddy is still in the hospital, hovering somewhere between life and death. Maybe he's better. Maybe not. Nobody knows.
Ninten doesn't want to think about Teddy now. Not here. Not when he can hear them. All of them. Whispers in the cold stone cavern.
who is it who is it what are you we help they're here they're here monsters monsters run children where are they please god save us save us save us
Ninten grips Ana's hand, and she squeezes his. Tightly. Enough to cut the circulation in his wrist, but he doesn't care.
we'll save them, he tells her. i promise.
i know, she replies.
Lloyd glances over at the tube nearest them. Cringes when its occupant looks up at him through the greenish haze, burbling.
He can't help but think of Luke Skywalker, floating around in the bacta tank in that one scene from Star Wars. He sniggers at the absurdity of it all.
The other two don't acknowledge him. This realization is what snaps Lloyd out of it.
"Uh, guys? I think Giegue is further ahead." Ninten and Ana continue to ignore him. He frowns. "Hey. Guys." He grabs Ninten's arm, pulls. Ninten stirs. "Come on," says Lloyd persistently. "We're almost there. Just a few more steps."
Ninten and Ana don't respond. Lloyd holds himself together. He's done it before, he'll do it again. Someone has to be the straight man. He lets out a shaky breath.
"I don't know what you two—" he begins, but Ninten hushes him sharply, bat in hand. Lloyd is about to wish he was blessed with their psychokinetic abilities, because then maybe he'd have an idea about what the heck is supposed to be going on, when Ninten moves forward, slowly. He's tense, arms poised to swing.
"There's something else in here with us," he whispers. "Bad."
Lloyd still doesn't completely understand what's wrong until Ana raises her hand, wielding a compressed ball of psychokinetic fire. And he sees it, a rough outline in the orange glow.
A solitary tank, connected by hundreds of thin, spaghetti-thin wires. It's far more menacing than the other, smaller tanks in the cavernous chamber. And inside this tank is...a shape. It's far larger than any human Lloyd has ever seen. Pale and hulking, yet somehow graceful. Its body is smooth, underlain with muscle.
Lloyd is just wondering if they're going to have to fight it when the thing stirs. It uncurls. Ninten cries out, drops his weapon. Clutching at his head. Ana is running to his aid. Her hands raised, Lloyd hears her call out something like PSI Block, and a veil of pinkish light falls over Ninten's body, then herself, then Lloyd in rapid succession. Immediately, Lloyd feels safer, somehow, warmer. Ninten freezes up, gasps, as if free from some trance. He's shaking, dark eyes wide and confused.
"Ninten? Are you okay? What happened?" Ana asks, all in a frantic rush. She's holding him upright. Ninten nods shakily. His skin is shining with sweat. She exhales, relieved. "You think you can stand? Teleport?"
"M'not leaving you guys," Ninten mumbles insistently. "That thing, in the tank, it's not Giegue, but it...it got in my head and..." He shakes himself. "We need to leave, now."
"Okay," Ana says, turning to Lloyd. "Okay, Ninten, we're gonna get you out of here."
She looks up at Lloyd, dead serious. He takes one armpit, she takes another. They pull Ninten to his feet and start moving back towards the cave's entrance. Lloyd reaches for the plasma gun at his hip, palms sweaty. He finds himself wishing he had something with more of a kick. Explosive, maybe. Well, maybe not with all these innocent people in splash range.
He's drawn out of his thoughts by a loud CRACK and Ana's scream. Lloyd tears his gaze away from Ninten, who's still semi-conscious, and back to the large tank. The creature within is glowing like a neon sign. Bright, ghostly green in the liquid. There's a fracture in the glass like an ugly spiderweb, distorting its image.
Another crack, and the glass gives way. The creature tumbles out onto the floor like a newborn baby, saturated in life-preserving tank goo. Crumples to the ground in a puddle of the stuff, motionless.
"Oh my god," Ana says faintly.
The creature stirs. Gurgles. Back arched, shoulders hunching. It rises, supported on claws bigger than Lloyd's own body. Its head tips up, and two ears unfurl from its head, sticky with the fluid from the tank, ridiculously large. Its eyes light up like ornaments on a Christmas tree.
It rises to all fours. Staring at them.
Lloyd feels his heart stop for a second. Or two. Fear squeezes the breath out of his lungs. He wants to slap himself awake.
"Freeze it," Ninten mutters feebly. Ana and Lloyd both tear their eyes from the monster staring them down to him. "Ice. It's still waking up, freeze it, Ana—"
A flash of light, blinding them. Lloyd feels the sensation of the psychic shield melt away, returning to the cold, damp atmosphere of the cave. Ninten howls in apparent agony, hands clapped to his head. Ana screams his name, Lloyd rips his gun out of his holster and aims it at the creature, now advancing on them.
"Do it, Ana!" he shouts. "Freeze it!"
Ana whirls around, her kind face a mask of terror and rage.
"PSI FREEZE γ!" she roars. A cascade of ice and snow erupts from her shaking hands, a miniature avalanche. The monster shields its body with broad, flipper-like arms as the blast hits it. The minds of the people around them are jumbled and deafening with terror, incomprehensible. Even this creature, this horrible thing, has a single, solitary note of surprise in the cacophonous mess of voices. There's no time to waste. "SHOOT IT!" Ana commands.
Lloyd figures he shouldn't argue. He takes careful aim with the plasma gun. Fires.
The beam goes clean through the partially-frozen monster and it screams, in a way no monster has ever done before. Lloyd grits his teeth and runs right at it, firing with deadly precision. He cuts off its arms with the laser, runs half a revolution around its hulking form and shoots apart a leg.
"C'mon!" he shouts. "It's outta commission! We need to make a run for it!"
Ana won't be swayed. She's never looked this angry before. She's running towards the two of them, boy and creature, with nothing but intent in her blue eyes.
She grabs the creature's face without explanation and freezes it solid before it can so as much snarl. Keeps going. There's a sickening, wet snapping sound, and the ice is splattered with black fluid.
The creature stops struggling. Slumps to the cold floor and is still.
Ana doesn't stop using her powers. She keeps blasting the corpse until Lloyd grabs her by the arm, shouting: "It's over! Stop it!"
She flinches when he touches her, like they're sharing an electric shock. Turns around, and he's amazed to see tears in her eyes. She lets out a tiny sob and claps her hands over her face, shaking with emotion, covered in dark blood. Lloyd stands there like an idiot.
"Hey, Ninten?" he shouts, awkwardly. "Are you okay?"
Ninten is just now staggering to his feet, moving towards them.
"Yeah, Lloyd, I'm fi—" He stops when Ana throws her arms around his body, knocks the wind from him.
"Sorry," she manages, "ohmigod, I'm so sorry, I don't know why I did it—"
Ninten can only hug her. Stunned. Lloyd doesn't know what he should say, either.
"So, uh. What the heck was that thing?" asks Lloyd after another awkward moment.
Ninten just shrugs.
"I dunno." But he won't look at Lloyd when he says it.
Lloyd is nice enough not to ask. He's got an idea of his own, anyhow.
A/N: So what if Gyiyg/Giegue/Giygas cloned himself and created a powerful, psychic, mind-influencing abomination?