SO I GUESS I'M CONTINUING THIS ONE FIRST OFF has a really weird way of pulling me in when I want it the least HAHA
Oh well, the part that matters is I'm writing something, so not all hope is lost. Also, oh wow, I ship Batter/Player so hard, but I still really want this to be platonic here, but hhhhhsfhjldgkdfhjdslfg I love the ship so much I'm getting off topic
ENJOY
Batter faltered, the Spectres thankfully still not acting. Why was his Player laughing?
"It's a turn base system? That's... Great!" She exclaimed, still laughing slightly. "Alright!" She pulled out some gloves from her sweater's pocket, tugging them on smoothly, and suddenly, everything was moving.
Batter's legs moved of their own accord, dancing out of the way as the Spectres moved in, though they would hardly be able to do much but knock him over like that. His bat lashed out at one and Batter could feel a smile tug at his lips. His Player defiantly knows what she was doing, even if this wasn't how he normally fought.
The Spectre he hit wasn't taken out, but it didn't live long as Batter jumped back from the fray, gaining just a moment of movement. Player released the Batter's controls in order to lift her right hand, Add-on spinning uncontrollably. It widened and shrank quickly, releasing a pulse that speeded towards the Spectre, finishing it off when it hit. One down, seven to go. Player and Batter exchanged a smirk.
With one eye open in real time, Player was able to use the controls of the game, and use them to manipulate the Batter in real time. It was a method she had quickly found playing a turn base strategy game, finding that it was much safer for her partners if she kept an eye on both. Lacking reaction time caused a lot of casualty among the Players.
And so, Player controlled Batter outside of the turn base system, knowing after her many experiences that the turn only kicked in when real time had openings for attack. He danced around the enemy, muscles lax in her puppeteer strings unless striking, which happened quite a bit more often than it would have if the Spectres didn't turn their backs to go after the Player. Or to be more precise, the Add-ons.
With a dull thunk, the last Spectre evaporated into a thick, black mist, just like the others. The first thing Batter did was rush to his Player's side, anxious of her well being.
However, his concern appeared to be unnecessary. A grinning player dashed forward to meet him half way, compliments and praise for the fight and his passionate words that called it forward on the tip of her tongue before she saw the tenseness of his jaw.
The large white hands grasped her shoulders, and she blinked in wonder as he seemed to look her over for injury, even though he himself was merely bruised from the blunt force of these Spectres. The man seemed unable to find what he was looking for and relax for it, lifting her wrist to look at the lazily rotating white ring around it.
There didn't seem to be any damage to the ring either, though it was dulled slightly and faded in certain places. Player knew, looking at her menu as she blinked, that Alpha had taken damage instead of herself, but it seemed Batter didn't know she couldn't take damage in-battle while he was still standing.
"So it fights with us..." The greyscale man loosened his grasp on her hand, making her hold back a sigh of relief. His grasp was bruising when stressed, it seemed. Thankfully the little yellow box behind them would deal with that before he realized. "That's practical."
Player shifted her hand in his lax one, taking hold to drag him to the box while laughing at his words. "That's one way to put it that I've never heard before." She'd heard 'weird', 'dangerous', 'useful', but never 'practical'. And it was all of the above, but practical just sounded so funny coming from him. At least, she thought it was. "But it is! We'll probably get another one of these at some point, too.
"Anyway, that went really well Batter!" Player smiled up at him, squeezing his fingers before turning to the box to feel the almost magic-like feeling of its healing washing over them. "I've never had someone relax so fully into my controls before; it makes things go so much better not to fight over it." She didn't see the pale grey flush over his paper white face, as she closed her eyes, allowing her system memory to write out their progress thus far. It would show itself as a journal when she returned home.
Batter licked his lips as Player's mind left to deal with their data and the supplies that were in her subspace bank. The stilling of her shoulder, not even raising and falling for breath, was a little odd, but nothing compared to other things in this world of his.
Now that he had a moment to stand still, he found himself restless. It already felt like ages since he'd been alone, and though her body was still there, Batter felt her absence. It had only been a few hours, but...
Before he could really think about it, life returned to the Player's form and a wide grin spread under the rim of her hat as she turned to her partner. "Alright, let's get going!"
The Batter nodded, taking the lead as they moved further into the mine, Player's eyes blinking shut to see the map before she leaned forward with a groan, pressing her forehead to the Batter's back. "I knew it, the whole place is going to be a maze; let me take the lead, okay?"
She wasn't, however, given the lead. The man was far too paranoid to let her turn corners first, so while he stopped let her catch up, he still took a step ahead of her. Player was amused, but if he was going to do that all the time, she'd have to teach him not to bother.
Thankfully, the maze wasn't too complicated, though Player's displeased squeal at the sight of the Spectres inside was loud enough to make the productive Elsen they found scream. Severed heads were never her... favorite thing.
Standing in front of a chest near the way they came in, Player had flipped a card in her hand confusedly. "A joker?" She asked, her brow furrowing under the cap. No one had told her anything about a joker card having significance. In fact, the Batter looked just as clueless as her. But it was in a chest, so it had to be of some importance... right?
Pocketing the card, the pair soon forgot about it, and it wasn't long before they found a ladder. At Batter's hesitance, Player sighed fondly, her feeling bad for the teasing before rising again. Before he could say a word, Player started to pull herself up first, not wanting to be, and figuring Batter not wanting HER to be, alone in the mines with the Spectres.
More green metal, green fences, green buildings, and white plastic rain met her at the top, and she was glad she hadn't unzipped or removed the hood of her sweater. Crouching near the opening, Player waited for Batter to emerge.
Looking up at him from her place on the ground, the woman marveled at how tall he really was. The greyscale was something she wasn't used to, even with how many places she'd been, and how pale she was. Her pale pink was nothing, even tan looking compared to his paper white.
When he offered his hand, she looked at it for a moment, marveling the fingers, long and thinner than her own, white yet not unhealthy looking, with no veins and not too many protruding bones. Yet as she reached up and grasped at it, it was both hot and cold, almost like someone with a fever after an ice bath. And if she focused a bit more...
She was standing before the thought finished, but even his crooked smile couldn't distract her enough to interrupt. She released his hand, wondering why it felt like there was something pressuring him under his skin. However, she didn't ask. If he didn't bring it up, it would either be a plot point later, or something that was... somehow normal here.
Still, she eyed him from under her cap, wondering if he was okay. A tilt of his head in her direction let her know he noticed. "Let's get going." She deflected with a smile, shaking her head minutely.
Batter hesitated just a moment. Asking questions hadn't resulted in anything negative so far, so he figured one more couldn't hurt. It's not like it was a complicated one. "Is everything alright?"
Player just kept walking, touched he was concerned with anything other than her physical wellbeing. "I'm fine, Partner. Just... if you're ever in any pain, tell me, okay?"
"W-What?" He couldn't reply before another voice cut in, familiar as the Elsen's wheezing voices were. "hhhhh... Did you... come from the, uhm, smoke m-mines...?"
"Yes." Batter answered shortly, taking long strides to stand protectively next to his Player. She shot him an amused smile, noting how he would stand half a step ahead of her.
"But... But, hhhh... B-but there are loads of Spectres down there..." The Elsen seemed to search for a reply of some sort, and Batters answer had Player smother a laugh, leaving it to him and his one word answers.
"Yes."
"A-are you a Spectre?"
"No."
"Then who are you? Have you been sent by the queen? Or by Dedan?"
"No."
"But... but... but... you still know how to fight the Spectres? You... hhhh... you could destroy them?"
"Yes."
"Oh. That... That, um, would b-be great... We... We have... uh... Spectres in our big barns."
Player perked up. Mission 2 of Zone one, she assumed. They hadn't finished with the mines yet, but this was along the way, so it probably needed to be done now.
"Barns?" Batter asked, as monotonous as usual. Player couldn't hold back a fond smile, grasping Batter's sleeve. His even tone, she knew, would likely be a comfort when the game got more intense.
"Ahhh, uh... yes. Uhm, you're in the metal farmsteads of-
Player quickly closed her eyes, watching the images pass by her screen, hand going lax against her partner's arm.
- Pentel, the eastern part of Zone one. Our works consists of cutting livestock in two and extracting metallic boulders that were contained in the cadavers. All the poor quality metal is discarded, forming the ground we walk on. The rest gets purified to make tools and other objects with. Some of it is also put into crates and sent to the other zones, So they have tools and soil as well, I suppose... As the first of four elements, it's an important element. Because without metal, people would have nothing to walk on. They would sink and drown.
Player blinked rapidly when the explanation was over, lips pursed. They cut cows in half and took metal out of the corpses... that was... just as odd as the smoke, and much more unnerving.
"There... and thus we have, uh, Spectres in the large barns..." Her brows furrowed. What did that have to do with what he just told them? 'The barn where we keep the cows' would have been fine, right? She shook her head. Right, every game needed some way to insert exposition.
"I must purify the mines first." Was Batter's response to it all. It made the Player laugh quietly.
"It's alright, the Barns shouldn't take anywhere near as much time as the entirety of the Mines, and we'd just have to backtrack afterwords. How about we do this first?" You looked up at a similarly shaded face, and after a moment, he nodded his ascent.
"Ah! Ah! Great, thanks! The, uh, Queen's inspector is going to a-arrive... hhhh... a-any moment." Final boss. Player laughed to herself. Queen's inspector had to be a boss later... and the Queen might be one after him. Maybe mini-boss and area boss? Not enough information to decide just yet. "T-the barns are dir-rectly to the... uh... right."
Player nodded, smiling kindly at the Elsen, before taking Batter's elbow, guiding him to the left, rather than the right. The Elsen watched confusedly as they left, but Batter just followed, getting used to her area searching quirks.
"If it takes anymore than an hour, we can leave, okay?" The blond tilted her head back to look at the man as she released his arm, expecting and trusting him to follow her. "We don't want to get too distracted, or well, we don't want me to get too distracted."
There was nothing much of interest, the northern path blocked off, and the building currently lacking anything of interest other than a pair of cows and some Elsen. She did, however, note a somewhat putrid scent in the air along the northern path. Blood. She pursed her lips, nose crinkling in displeasure, but didn't say anything, remembering the Elsen mentioning that they cut cows in half.
The Yellow box was a heaven sent, easing the bruises and weariness from purifying the Mines. The Batter entered first, Player not far behind, bat gripped tightly, and one eye closed in preparation. Though tense, nothing came out and attacked them right away, and on the screen behind her closed eye, Player saw the message and relaxed the slightest bit.
There are/is 5 Spectre(s) left in the barn
"There's only five in here, it seems." She stated as soon as the message was read. "Shouldn't take more than 20 minutes, right?" Player nodded to herself, taking confident steps into the barn in search of their targets. And 'target' was an accurate word for it.
As opposed to the rather violent Spectres in the mines, these ones, looking much more like the first she'd seen than the others, seemed to try and avoid them, if possible. However, they were slow, and Player didn't even need to don her gloves and take over the battle. Batter was fine, bashing the ghostly impurities while she used Alpha to ward off the odd white bubbles of sound they created.
The last, in the basement, was blocked off by a sad, simple little slide puzzle, and quick work was made of it before they completed purifying the barn. Player's brow furrowed as they stood there, pausing at the edge of the pad that would take them back to the entrance. Usually there would be some sort of... difficulty after a mission like this. A mini boss feeling fight, perhaps?
Still, she shook her head at Batter's inquiring look and stepped on the circle, feeling herself being transported with a gust of wind and a stomach turning turbulence. Player figured she should be grateful there wasn't anything hard right now.
Her optimistic train of thought stuttered to a halt as she gazed out of the doorway. All she saw was the long, jagged toothed face of a monster of a man, and she flattened herself against the doorway, mentally begging Batter to hurry up and teleport up.
She knew she shouldn't, and Batter knew she wouldn't, but in the following moments, it was extremely difficult for her not to run out and... do something regrettable.
Aaaaaand there we go. A little on the short side, but hey, I got to where I wanted to get with this. Dedan and Zacharie in the next one!
