Merchant and Leon were taking a breather and was talked for a small bit on the other side of the door, Merchant was sitting on a table and Leon, a chair, the only light coming from an open window high above.

"So seriously, what was that thing?" Leon asked "No idea, probly some sort of creature, Stranger" Merchant replied

Leon shook his head and rubbed the back of his head while leaning forward in the chair "Well whatever it is, we'll obviously find more of them" Merchant hopped off the table and gave Leon a thumb up "we'll be just fine" he assured Leon. Leon was slightly confused, as anyone should be, so many question buzzed in his head, but instead of staying and thinking about them, he shook them out of his mind, and searched the room, finding only a few TMP rounds in a drawer. "Well we'd better move on, any questions will eventually be answered anyways" Leon opened another door which led to a ladder down into a cellar. Merchant walked into the door and down the ladder, Leon followed, taking a hanging paper lantern, and put it in his attache case. Merchant rolled his left sleeve a bit above his wrist, which had a bangle that was a bright blue, and adorned on it were many round gems, that were a darker blue.

Leon curiously looked at his wrist "What're you doing?" Merchant shrugged "Lookin for problems, Stranger" Leon chuckled "What kind of problems?" Merchant turned around to look at Leon and replied "Just thought I'd be findin myself" He chuckled but stopped chuckling, as the dark blue gems started to glow purple "Get ready" Merchant warned, but it was too late, as a large brown tendril burst out of the wall, only close enough to lightly graze Leon on his chest, making him fall back. Leon reached up to Merchant who helped him up "Shit, what was that? some sort of wet plant thing?" Merchant shrugged but didn't let go of Leon's hand as he ran, who ran along side Merchant. They went down the cavern cellar halls and rooms, until they found a large metal door.
Merchant pushed Leon to the side and jumped to the opposite direction as several pylon-sized spikes sped out of the ground at them, putting a hole in the door. as soon as the spikes hit the door, Leon looked behind them, where there was a large, wide, thing with multiple skinny limbs which either ended in a spike or a set of claws, and it's jaw was split up with very sharp teeth, it was also brown with tints or purple. Leon got up and aimed his TMP, but Merchant put his hand on the barrel, pushing it down, Leon could have sworn he smiled aswell, but that was unclear since his coat always left only his eyes to be seen. The abomination chittered and growled, sounding slightly hollow, as it rushed at the duo, but it was too slow, as Merchant had backflipped onto it and punched into it's head and, to Leon's and the creatures horror, he ripped it's brain out, it was a dark purple, and the creature frozed, it's yellow eyes going completely blank.
Merchant took out a blue lump of metal and tossed it into the hole, and patched the hole with a bangdage, then jumped to Leon, who laughed mervously, and slowly got up, "so is it dead?" Leon asked

Merchant chuckled "Even better, Stranger!" Merchant snapped his fingers and the creature pounced onto Leon, who screamed like a little girl "AAAAAAHHH! GET IT OFF ME!" but all it was doing was drooling on it and dipping it's head at Leon, as it had no tongue, or anything similar. Merchant whisteled and it jumped off and burrowed into the ground, the hole dssappearing seconds later. Leon looked over to Merchant and asked "what was that all about?"
Merchant replied "He's gotta eat, Stranger."
Leon shook his head and opened the door, breathing in deeply as he stepped out into the dry air of a windy canyon outpost, walkways made of wood, hanging above a black pit. Merchant sighed "Such memories..." he breathed in again, and sniffed a bit then turned to go down a path. Leon followed and smiled, hands folded behind his head, he breathed in and thought about his orders, which he couldn't remember for some reason, all he got for trying was a headache, which made him rub his forehead.
Mad for being betrayed by his own head, Leon saw the door he used two parts of a key to open and asked "how are we going to open that without the key?" Merchant replied "I'm goin to make the key, Stranger" and he clapped his hands. A blue orb coming out of his hands, shining brightly behind Merchant, for a few seconds and then it faded as the orb dissappeared, leaving a key in the shape of a blue hexagon.
Leon looked around "where's all the people, or atleast the guys in black? I'm starting to miss them... I guess"
Merchant replied "my pet took care of 'em"
Merchant put the key into the door and opened it, Leon followed through the door.

They found themselves near a bridge and past it, they saw a shiny, twitching mound of flesh with what looked like large, slimy flower pedals, and in the middle of the whole thing, a smaller tendril reached out, sticking itself into the ground repeatedly, making gross, slurping noises "What the fuck? I hate this place already!" Merchant laughed and slung an arm around Leon's shoulders "Hahahahahaha! Don't worry, Stranger, my pet is takin care of it!"
Soon enough, they saw Merchants 'pet' quickly moving around it, dodging it's attacks, and dove for it, but got smacked into the gorge the bridge goes over, growling and yowling in furious rage as it descended into it's own dark hell. Leon looked at Merchant and chuckled sarcasticly "Lets get Gardening!" Merchant nodded and clapped his hands, and quickly created a two-handed claymore which had red runes that glowed, and it had a blue hilt and a white blade, with which he replied "You distract it while i slice it's only lethal part" Leon giggled and took out his TMP and began to shoot it in small bursts, once it's tndril began to burst from the ground, trying to attack and stab him, he dodged each atack, but it tired him greatly, there was something purpleish gray that wasreally sticky, it seemed to cling to his boots only enough to make moving difficult. He aimed at the flesh flower, and held the trigger, until his clip was spent, and paused for a second before resuming, while dodging attacks. Meanwhile Merchant, was slowly trudging into range so he could jump up and slice it's tendril, but it was no easy task, the purplish-gray carpetting was making it even harder to move for Merchant as he had heavy packs to deal with, also not to mention he had boots, instead of Leon who had just normal shoes, ut eventually after Leon had spent a good three more clips, Merchant jumped up onto one of the fleshy petals, and closed his eyes before quickly bounding to another petal opposite him, slashing the tendril in two.

Merchant jumped off as the petals all slumped down, seemingly dead, he landed next to Leon and said "Lets keep going" Leon smiled and walked calmly towards another bridge, while Merchant was busy being sucked hard to the ground, Leon looked back and giggled to himself, and turned back and picked up a surprised Merchant "W-What are you doing?" Leon chuckled warmly while carrying Merchant to the bridge, off the purplish-gray slime, and said "Well i thought it would be nice to help out a fellow comrade" Merchant looked down at the ground, smiling under his coat.
Leon put him down and stretched his back and moved on, Merchant followed behind and looked at his bracelet, which was glowing Red, he quickly grabbed leon and threw him back, where a green spike flew at his head, Merchant dodged by tilting himself out of it's way, and looked ahead, seeing a snake-like monster with a large body and blades for hands, which was purple and brown.
Merchant smiled and threw his sword at the snake beast, stabbing it through it's shoulder, making it try to burrow into the ground, but since it's arm was practically sliced off it dug into the ground using it's one arm, and slowly went under, Leon got up and ran to it, and kicked it in the head, sending it falling over, taking out his blacktail and shooting it three times in the head and then took Merchants sword out of it's arm and sliced it into three pieces. Leon smiled and walked over to Merchant "that was fun, here's your sword back" Leon patted him on the back and they both got on their way.

They went down on the path and found a couple of men in black, who they greeted with a thrust punch from Merchant, and Leon just simply ripped his arms off, saying afterwards "I always wanted to do that" as an excuse. they went into a tunnel and found some houses, which they cleared of only six black cloaked men, and went to the larger one, and stood on either side of the door, hearing into it, they heard someone say "Son, let me go, I know you don't want to do this" Leon stepped in front of the metal door and kicked it open, they both went through a front hall, then a livingroom, and found a surprisingly high-tech room afterwards, with a large circular pad-like thing, that had a young guy in the center of it, not Luis, but someone else, he had a leather vest, scruffy hair and beard, blue pants and fingerless gloves, aswell as a belt that hung from the right hipto his left thigh, and he was hogtied, but propped up by crates and his knees mostly, at least allowing him that much.
Merchant walked up to the entrance of the little room, an electrified fence. there was a man in purple inside, using the control panel near the pad in the small room "shoot anywhere here and you'll always hit him"
Leon, out of habit raised his Blacktail at the man in purple and said "whats your name, zealot?" the man looked towards Leon, the face was one covered in worms, no flesh was seen "I am no pathetic zealot, human or no" he went back to the controls "as for my name, you can call me Osmund" he finished with the controls and stepped onto the pad, pulling a nearby lever, he smiled like he usually did at Leon "i enjoyed last time we met, let's hope we never do" and with that Osmund and the man dissappeared in a flash of black light.

Merchant walked to the fence "in order to proceed we need to touch the fence" Leon walked to the fence as well "what will that do?" Merchant looked at him "we'll obviously be at the right place" and he put his head on the fence and was shocked, but fell back unconcious, Leon shrugged and did the same, falling back, dead asleep.

Leon dreamed about three things while he was knocked out.
1. Five people; one female, two males, an alien, and a deformed human 2. one of them looked to have strange legs, and another to have wings of bone.
3. they were all in the backdrop of a world in flames.

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