Chapter 3: A Personal Reality
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Samus Aran felt cool, hard metal beneath her, heard low electronic buzzing, saw a gentle light through lidded eyes… Before she opened her eyes she internally remarked to herself that this was becoming a bad habit of hers.
With a mild groan she parted her eyelids to look into that gentle light, finding it housed in a clean, sterile ceiling of white. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw two things. One, her power suit sat in a chair as if it were a person, concerning just for the fact that somehow, someone had been able to remove it without her acquiescence. Two, there was another figure waiting, right there at the side of what she could only assume by now was a hospital bed. The fact that this other wasn't paying enough attention to notice her waking was opportunity enough to observe both this figure and the room she was in.
Her initial assumption was correct, mostly. A hospital, she was not likely in. An independent medical chamber? More likely. The slab she was laying on was levitating about two feet above a pedestal in the floor, putting her at what would roughly be just over waist high on herself. The room was circular, and filled with many, many separate machines of… unknown function. But considering the injuries she knew she had taken from Jacob's forcible ejection of her involvement they had to be quite advanced. Without her scan visor she couldn't currently know anything more.
Moving on to the new figure… they were A, obviously robotic given the faintly glowing pink, pupil-less eyes, the segmented, delicate, metallic fingers, the shaped, rigid bowl-cut of their "hair," the unnatural configuration of the heels, the clear lack of clothing and the stark distinctions between various areas of synth-skin. B, clearly intended to be female, given the overall feminine structure of the face. The small nose, faintly plump lips, long artificial eyelashes. The overall, wide-hipped… curvy body structure. And C, bafflingly, designed to be obese. Large to a degree similar to Jacob, but in wholly the opposite direction of physicality. Off the top of her head, and lacking her Scan Visor at the moment, she could not fathom why someone would build something like that.
It was at this point the robot, no, gynoid, noticed her, and let out a quiet squeal of delight while bouncing once on the spot before speaking in what was only a lightly synthesized voice. "Ah, you're up! Fantastic!" At a speed that belied the robot's girth they approached and leaned against the edge of the 'bed.' "You feel ok, right? No lingering aches whatsoever? Because if there are I'd be happy to help you work them out." Unable to deal with the incredibly upfront approach she couldn't get a word out in time, and the gynoid hopped to another thought immediately. "Oh! Jacob will want to know you're up. Here, let me call him…"
At the same unreasonable speed the robot crossed the room towards what seemed to be the chamber's only door and started keying numbers into a white and blue number pad. Ten digits exactly, judging by the musical notes, before a slow, sequential buzzing filled the room.
Jacob's voice, electronically distorted, came into the room. 'Hang on…" There was a gunshot, some kind of reptilian creature screamed in life-ending agony, and the man returned to the line. "Y'ello. What's up?"
The gynoid spoke, still using that same enthusiastic voice. "That woman you sent us is awake, what did you call her, Samus? She's sitting up on the med bed."
Another gunshot, another beast likely roared its last. "Fantastic! I assumed Sammy…" A pause. "Dammit, sorry, Samus… was made of tough enough stuff to survive." A crash, metal splintering. "I'm on speaker, right Silica?" After a brief confirmation by the robot Jacob continued. "So hey, Samus, I guess I'm apologizing for screwing you over, again. Just me trying to fix a mess that I made for myself, and the universe, I guess. That's done with now, I'm sure of it. Your evil clone ran off once I splattered my evil clone across the floor, Agon has been saved, and right now I'm traipsing through the most vile swamp I have ever set foot in." A pause. "And I do have to qualify that with 'swamp.' Happen to come across some Nurgle cult territory and phew, smells you did not think could exist they're so wrong."
She silently rolled her eyes at what seemed to be the obligatory outside-of-understanding quote.
The man continued. "Anyway, more importantly, as I said, horrible swamp. No reason whatsoever for you to drag yourself out here so soon after, ah, recovering. So! As, again, my way of apologizing, take the day off! My entire Personal Reality is open to you. Have a real, home cooked meal. Take a nap in an actual bed. Get a massage." 'Silica' perked up immediately after Jacob said that, and stayed so as Jacob continued. "Seriously, you want the massage. Silica was literally DESIGNED to give out the best massages." There was a splash, some more animal shrieking, and more gunshots. "So, yeah, you have fun. I'll check back in after I've beaten every bit of candy out of this loot piñata the Luminoth call Torvus. Jumper out!"
The call ended and Silica turned to look at her expectantly, speaking up after about five seconds. "So? What would you like to do first?" The gynoid began gently gesticulating. "We have a very nice hot tub…
A snide voice in the back of her head remarked, 'it'd better be a really big one.'
"… It's just around time for lunch. I could take you to a bed, I mean, you'd have to borrow one of ours but I'm sure no one would mind. Or…" The gynoid's delicate fingers twitched noticeably. "We could go right to the massage?" A pause, and a gentle, deeper tinge of pink touched the robot's face. "I'm sorry, I realize I must sound very pushy right now. I can just see all those knotted, tense muscles and I, it's part of my core programming no matter how much I grow beyond it."
She stayed silent, not out of disdain, though her brain did come up with another snide remark better left unspoken. She stayed silent because, she had no idea what to do. "Day off?" "Relax?" She didn't need a hand to count how many times she'd done that. And now she was basically being told 'no, you, relax for a whole day.'
Although, she glanced towards her power suit, maybe she didn't have to? Swallowing a tiny lump of anxiety at her current situation she opened her mouth. "And, what if I just wanted to leave?"
Silica gave her a dejected look, grinning awkwardly. "Ah, yes, well, about that…" The gynoid bashfully ground the point of one high-heeled foot into the floor. "I'm afraid Jacob's the only one who can open the portal in and out of the Reality. I, suppose you could try calling him if you really don't want to stay…"
She felt a small pang of guilt at this display, alongside the flat irritation at the notification that she really didn't have a say in this matter, apparently. Jacob had sounded quite adamant over the communicator. And given how much he'd tried talking her ear off just to get her to talk back, he was probably more than stubborn enough to stick to his declaration. She was, aggravatingly, being forced to "relax."
Sighing softly, she stood up. "Fine." Her stomach, as if responding to the statement Silica had almost just made, growled loudly. "Lunch would be ok."
Visually pleased as could be, Silica beckoned her towards the door of the chamber and opened it with her other hand. And it wasn't three steps away from the table she could see out, and, more importantly, around… really nothing that special actually. It looked like little more than an archaic warehouse, albeit one crammed full of giant hunks of metal which she assumed were vehicles on account of treads and wheels.
Silica must have been paying attention, because the gynoid freely commented. "Ah, the Warehouse? Yeah, you get used to it after a while considering the artistic discrepancy between the rest of the Reality. I mean, I don't understand even the slightest bit how it works. I don't think any of us do. I think it's just a thing between Jacob and his…" The robot visibly thought hard. "… Patron? Benefactor? Jacob's always just called them 'the eyeball."
Normally she was quiet, now she felt she had a good reason to be. Chatty as Silica seemed to be, maybe she could actually learn something valuable while she was stuck here. Something about, put bluntly, what in hell Jacob was. What this place was. Where and how Jacob became so powerful. The immediate thought to pop into her brain was 'why do you care?' And she found that she couldn't answer definitively one way or the other. Did she want to understand his power to fight him? To match him? Some combination of the two? This situation was new to her.
She followed the gynoid into a separate area accessed through a door to the right, maintaining her silence, while Silica yammered on. "… And I can't wait for you to meet everyone else. I mean, naturally we were all curious about you, what with you being the first person Jacob's even mentioned in passing since he's been, well, where you are. Everything else he's told us or we've heard has been some variation of 'they're trying to kill him' and 'now they're all dead.' Just imagine our surprise when…"
In seeming direct spite of her genuine curiosity, Silica had drifted away from Jacob's nature, and she found her attention moving to other things, like the interior of the building she was being led through. Despite her inexperience with such things, the words that primarily sprang to mind were "comfortable" and "opulent." In direct contrast with the medical chamber she'd awoken in, this place was replete with soft, warm colors in several shades of brown wood. The deep burgundy carpet she walked upon partially ate her feet. The lights were just bright enough to show everything off, but not enough to glare. And the majority of the furnishings had what looked to be gold engravings and accents. So, on top of being hilariously powerful, Jacob was also wealthy? That seemed, excessive, for some reason.
At a somewhat louder volume, Silica spoke up and drew her attention again. "And, here we are at the kitchen."
Setting her gaze again to examine the room itself, she was forced to pause when a particular scent hit her nose, a very, very good scent. Something… Well, she honestly had no idea. She hadn't eaten "real" food since before she'd joined the Federation military. Ration blocks and dehydrated things that kept forever. This smell by itself? She felt her apprehension towards her forced "day off" softening, just a little bit. Secondarily, as her eyes searched for the source of the smell, her gaze fell upon another woman.
This new woman, blonde, with a head of lustrous gold cascading down her back that looked outright sculpted, turned first her head for a momentary regard, and then her entire body. "Samus, yes? So happy to finally meet you." A warm, amused smile lit her porcelain face. "Well, outside of a coma, at least." The heavyset blonde curtsied lightly. "I'll save Silica the trouble of introducing me, I'm Lusamine. On behalf of myself and the others, welcome to Jacob's 'Personal Reality." A smooth gesture towards the rest of the alabaster appointed kitchen. "I'd happily introduce everyone else, but you just missed them. In fact I was just about to put lunch away." Lusamine grinned lightly. "I imagine Silica wouldn't have brought you here if you hadn't expressed an interest in it."
She nodded once, mutely. She figured at this point she didn't need to say anything, because this Lusamine seemed to already know. That would be disconcerting, but, something about just being in this other woman's presence was soothing, welcoming… Maybe it was a rude thought to have, but if she were in her power suit right now she would be scanning Lusamine right now. Well, her and everything else. Maybe that was the point of getting her out of it in the first place? That she wasn't trusted? That… hurt the tiniest bit. Then again, she had shot a sleeping Jacob in the face out of complete spite, regardless of if it had done any damage or not.
Lusamine had turned back to what looked to be an archaic, gas-burning stove and the steaming pot upon it, speaking as she slowly stirred whatever the fragrant contents were. "Although, I suppose you might have caught me at a bad time. This isn't our usual fare but, given that I wanted to do something with leftovers…" The blonde laughed, a sound akin to pure crystal. "I do understand that the larder is functionally infinite, but tossing everything when we're done with it just seems so wasteful." Some brown, chunk-filled liquid was drawn out into a white bowl. "I hope you're fine with beef soup." Another short laugh. "Don't tell me you're a vegetarian now and break my heart."
With a short wink that filled bowl was slid onto the counter in front of her, and Silica pulled a chair out for her. Feeling rather pressured now, she sat down and picked up the spoon provided.
Planet Aether: Torvus Bog
Jacob slogged his way along through the rain and the muck, bound for the 'undertemple' area of the bog, running through a little checklist in his head of the stuff left to claim in the area, and the things that weren't there, on account of Samus not losing them in the first place. Like the 'Boost Guardian.' Couldn't kill an empowered Ing and acquire the Boost Ball if there was no floating Boost Ball to empower the Ing in the first place. Not that it would matter even if there was, he didn't have the 'base" model and he had no interest in acquiring it. As far as he was concerned, Samus could have all of that Morph Ball-related stuff. He'd stay in his "blow everything the fuck up" lane.
He smirked to himself at the thought. "I wonder if the Luminoth will have anything to say when they all pop out of their pods and find that Torvus and Agon have been practically razed of animal life. I mean, by this point I've probably killed enough Grenchlers to render the species non-viable." He cackled out loud, enjoying the way his armor distorted his voice, and that same voice reverberating off the walls of the tunnel he currently occupied. "Do I go for the genocide?"
He laughed again, fully aware internally that he sounded like a psychopath, more like a Chaos Space Marine than a typical, stoic, champion of the Imperium. He was in good company for that, though. Considering that Samus wanted the same thing for the Space Pirates. Difference being, he actually could wipe out the Grenchlers, what with them only living on one planet, and not having the rudimentary sense of self-preservation to run the fuck away and hide when a walking apocalypse was intruding on their turf. And in regard he could somewhat fairly attribute that moniker to both Samus and himself, the former obviously at a lesser degree. She had to shoot a Grenchler in the back to actually hurt one, for instance.
He paused for a moment, curiosity spiking as he wondered how exactly Samus was faring with her 'encouraged' day off. He was certain that his Reality was not lacking in any conceivable amenity, save a gym, but it was actually a question of whether Samus was going to be a stick in the mud or not. Mrs 'super serious' and what not.
Resuming his inexorable forward march he brought a hand up and tapped the side of his helmet, calling in to the extra-dimensional space via pure BS-magical Jump fiat. "Hello, anyone listening?"
There was a moment of suspense offered by the ring-tone before someone on the other end of the line picked up. "Jacob?"
He smiled, just hearing the sound of her voice enough to lift his mood. "Solei, how's my cuddle-bug space-elf princess?"
A short giggle answered his quip. "You should know by now; just another day in paradise, lounging the day away by the pool." A small rustle of silken fabric and the low creaking of a beach lounge carried over the line. "That girl you sent us is quite the character."
He rolled his eyes as he walked into the elevator. "You don't say?" He laughed at his own sarcasm. "Do elaborate, I'm curious how she's handling being forced to relax, especially in your company."
As the elevator began to descend Solei began her account. "Well, Lusamine's gone off to manage her business. But before she did she got to serve your guest a nice, wholesome lunch. Said Samus just about moaned at the first spoonful." The elf princess paused for a long moment. "Vanessa's being quite the broken record trying to get our guest in the pool, but that's not going very well. Offered her an old suit and everything."
His brain sparked with an amusing, if probably stupid question. "Could Samus actually swim?" Her power suit was obviously too heavy for it, but she'd never, to his knowledge, entered water without that armor on… Heh, when he went back to pick her up he'd have to needle her about it, see if it got a reaction. Still, he found it unlikely that with all that advanced Chozo-warrior training, swimming hadn't been involved at one point or another.
Turning his attention back to the conversation, as he literally had nothing better to do right now, he spoke. "What's she doing now?"
Solei answered. "Just sitting by the edge of the pool, knees up to her chest. Though now that I look closely I think she might be listening to what I'm saying."
He smirked. "And you're probably right. Space-bird DNA augmentation would probably cover advanced hearing." The elevator reached the bottom. He walked forward and kicked the next hatch open. "Maybe you should give her an out. I'm guessing she's uncomfortable with the 'comparisons.' You don't plan on nodding off in bed anytime soon, right? I bring it up because you objectively have the fluffiest sleeping arrangement."
Solei voiced her approval with a slight giggle, and a comment about how Silica would probably take it as the perfect opportunity, before hanging up the phone on her end and leaving him in the dingy, damp depths of Torvus all by himself again.
He walked up to the edge of the landing at the top of the shaft, looking down into the murky water below. "Let's see; giant crocodile fish, long underwater tunnels, a really big crocodile fish, Gravity Booster…" he paused to 'hmmm' loudly. "Are the Power Bombs going to be down there? I don't think Samus had those when she originally lands here…" He took a moment to consider the potential uses. "Fuck it, might as well check. And if they are there I guess I can chuck Power Bombs like baseballs without the Morph Ball." He brought a hand to the front of his helmet and mimed pinching his nose. "Geronimo!"
He dove right into the water, feet first. If anything living happened to be in the way, it wasn't going to be alive for much longer.
Personal Reality:
Samus Aran quietly followed the woman who had introduced herself as 'Solei' out of the pool area and back into the little maze of opulent corridors Silica had guided her through only a little while ago. Though at the moment she wasn't focused on the decoration. She was, instead, trying to not stare. The pointy-eared women was, very insubstantially attired. And it wasn't that she didn't understand that it was swimwear, but… why?
Her gaze betrayed her, and her eyes fell to the shiny yellow bit of… dental floss that was swallowed by the other woman's wide, slowly swaying butt cheeks. Solei was undeniably, and apparently unabashedly, plump. But even taking that into consideration Solei's proportions were excessive. And those same proportions were covered by an amount of fabric she felt wouldn't amount to a single hand-span. The underwear she wore once in a blue moon with her casual attire was more substantial. This comparison was fueling an unfamiliar feeling in the back of her head that, burned, was maybe the right word.
Solei stopped and spun about on her high-heeled feet, gesturing to the door immediately to her right. "Here we are. You go on in and make yourself comfortable." A broad, warm smile. "I'm sure one of us will be by in a little while to check on you."
She mumbled a barely audible 'thank you,' slipped into the room, and closed the door before her eyes, or more specifically where they were wandering, got her in trouble with these nice, if strange, people. 'Safe,' so to speak, her gaze turned to the room… and just about burned out of her head at the sheer level of pink lain out before her. Pink and lace, and ruffles. There was a giant, stuffed bear clutching a heart in one corner of the room. The bed was covered in square, slightly shiny throw pillows… The sheer contrast between the hallway and this room hurt. But, again, these people were being nice to her for no apparent reason other than Jacob asking them to. So she had no floor to stand on when it came to complaining.
She looked back to the bed, paused for a few moments to try and visually appraise it, and mumbled to herself. "I guess, that's why I'm in here."
She took the four steps necessary to reach the bed and leaned over to test the give, and was forced to let out a small yelp of surprise when there was so little resistance her testing hand just kept going and going… she fell face first into the eye-gougingly pink mattress. And, wow, as much as it felt like the bed was trying to eat her she couldn't say it wasn't comfortable. But as far as 'falling asleep' was concerned, she didn't particularly feel like it. She had just come out of a coma, after all. She'd had plenty of "rest" for quite a while. But, at least the temporary solitude would be nice. She could get a break from-
A knock on the door, one distinctly metallic. "Samus?"
She grumbled morosely into the pillow, waiting exactly five seconds before responding as she knew she had to. "Yes?"
Silica opened the door, partially leaning in. "I hope you don't mind, but my sensors assure me that you are in no physical or mental state for sleeping. And I just thought I could help out with that."
She paused for a moment, struck by the novelty of her being the one on the receiving end of an invasive scan. Otherwise, she didn't really have a particular objection to what Silica had been trying to push since she awoke. Apart from awkwardness. Still, she supposed it was the least she could allow to be accommodating on her end. Silently, without moving too much, she gesticulated her consent.
Silica approached, joy etched into her synthetic face. "Oh thank you, it's stressful for me seeing other people stressed." Despite the futility of the gesture, the gynoid cleared her 'throat.' "Just a fair forewarning, my hands and fingers are thermally regulated for maximum relaxation. You may feel both heat and cold at various points ahead."
She didn't have much time to contemplate the statement before a feather-light touch burrowed into a spot between her shoulder-blades. Almost instantly she felt her body going slack, so much so she momentarily had a flash of concern that she'd been injected with a paralytic. But, she could still move… Just, right now she didn't want to…
*Author's Note: I've been sitting on this for a little bit, on purpose or not I'm not sure. It's funny, I have the perfect image of how this story plays out given the Jump Document I used to structure this, but it gets jumbled and muddled when I'm trying to put it to text. Hilariously OP protagonist doesn't help. Lol, but that's Jumpchain for you.*