The armored guy that fell through the portal was shaking in his sleep and had been for a few hours. Carmina said that his body had been running on fumes for close to a week, and any sleep he'd gotten in that time was less than what was required for his body if he slept at all.
"What do you think kept him up?" Frisk asked Carmina, making shapes with some roots in her hands.
"Stress, battle, more of those monsters like the one chasing him," she listed off. "I can only guess, but he's ready to collapse from dehydration and lack of food. As far as I know, the only thing keeping him moving was fear and adrenaline. You can see the result of using those as a crutch for too long." He suddenly arched his back in the dust, screaming in a very strange way, and began flailing about. Argent formed patterns above his prone body and tried to enter his suit, but it blocked the red mist from invading him.
"Should we restrain him?" Sam asked, wondering (along with everyone else) what was going on.
"He could hurt us or himself if we do that," Guts said. "Frisk, suspend him above the ground with vines but don't restrict his movement." They wrapped his torso and gently cradled his arms and legs, lifting the man until he wasn't touching anything. They continued screaming, seemingly in two tones at once and at a higher pitch than one might expect. Carmina gestured to a spot on the side of his helmet, and the others watched as the argent began carving symbols into the metal, working everywhere at once. None of them recognized any of the writing. One prominent and repeated figure was a pointed double helix, and they were left to wonder what it was. After a few minutes, the argent dissipated, and the man's screaming died away along with his jerking. When he went still, Frisk put him back on the ground and Carmina checked on him.
"He's alive, and appears to be more stable than before," Carmina reported. He groaned and sat up from his place on the floor, holding his head and swaying. He looked up and jerked his head around to look at everyone, drawing a weird looking gun that had three lasers shining from the front of it and jumping to his feet as he scrambled away from the middle of the group.
"Where am I? Who are you?" he demanded, breathing quickly, and trying to look everywhere at once.
"Calm down, we're not the ones you should be worried about," Sam said, gesturing with her hands for everyone to give him some space. She recognized paranoia when she saw it. "I'm Samantha, that's Guts, Joseph, Carmina, Frisk, and Chara. You jumped through the red portal, remember?" He nodded slowly, still stiff as a board but slowing his breathing. "Right now, you're in the actual, very real hell, and at the moment I'd gather that you're safer here than you were a few hours ago." He barked a hoarse laugh at her, lacking mirth and sounding near to insanity
"Hell?! Listen, this isn't hell, that fucking Necromorph outbreak on Tau Valantis was hell! While we're at it, the Ishimura and the Sprawl were hell! If this is some kinda trick to get me to save the universe again, count me the fuck out, okay? I've gone through that shit three fucking times, and I'm done! No blackmail, no single person left alive in the entire universe could make me want to 'keep fighting the good fight,' got me?! I don't even know why I was still fighting… did you say a few hours ago?" he stopped mid-rant, confused. When he noticed his suit, he looked at himself in a panic and raised his gun again. "What did you do?!"
"Nothing, the red stuff that's floating around called argent carved that into your suit not twenty minutes ago. You were thrashing around and screaming like two people in the same body," Sam said, hands raised in a placating manner. "Look, whatever happened to you or whoever you think we are, we have no clue what's been going on. Calm down, and we can talk, alright?"
"You sound just like everyone else that's ever tried to get me on their side, or were trying to 'help' me," he said, growling. "I don't buy into your bullshit!" Before he could begin firing on the six humans (and one flower), Frisk suddenly restrained him with vines, yanking his gun away and forcing him to sit on the ground. He struggled like mad, shouting obscenities and garbled nonsense. A sudden clang split the noise in half, leaving silence. Guts had smacked him, and he'd immediately shut up in favor of staring at the furious warrior.
"Shut. Up," Guts growled. "Shut your goddamn mouth. You're worse than a woman I used to know, back when she was still a bitch. If you don't shut up, I'm going to split your fucking body in half, skull to ass, in one swing. We're not the enemy, we don't come from wherever the fuck you did, and we're not going to take any more of your shit." The man nodded, some survival instinct telling him to listen to Guts. "Good. Now answer the fucking questions."
"What do you want to know?" he asked, paranoid but in the moment.
"Let's start with names. I've introduced everyone here, so what's your name?" Sam asked.
"Isaac Clarke, engineer, a survivor of three Necromorph outbreaks and destroyer of Markers."
"Necromorphs?" Joseph asked. "What are they?"
"The product of the Brethren Moon's influence through the Markers," Isaac explained. "They program human minds, make them insane, and then change them into Necromorphs. Corpses are changed into rotting monsters, men women and children. The Necromorphs make more corpses, and add them to their numbers. The only way to kill them is through dismemberment, hack off their limbs or destroy enough of their bodies and they'll die."
"Sounds awful nasty," Guts said. "How'd you destroy Markers?"
"I got lucky. When the Marker signal programmed me, I fought my way back out of dementia and dragged an understanding of them with me." He pointed to the double helix symbols on his armor. "They look like this, some of them as big as a human, while others can be as big as skyscrapers."
"Where'd they come from?" Frisk asked.
"There was originally only one on Earth, a black Marker, but the Government made more since they thought they produced infinite energy. They're just conduits though. They're like radio antennae, interpreting signals from the Brethren Moons so that they can affect intelligent species."
"Why do all of this?" Sam asked, curious about the plots of these things.
"Their end goal is Convergence, taking in as much organic material as possible and forming another moon. A long time ago, they tried to do it to an alien species, but they figured out what was happening and froze their planet solid along with their moon, stopping it halfway. It was intended to destroy the moon, which I managed to finish doing with the help of their tech. Other than that, the only way to kill a moon is to destroy the black Marker that started the epidemic. Nobody gets a happy ending and comes back from being a Necro, you're dead and then you're twisted by the signal to suit their needs."
"Almost sounds like the eclipse," Guts said, thinking back to the official worst day of his life. "A token of a higher power dropped into a world, activated, and then a sacrifice that forms a new being. You've got moons, I had Griffith and the Godhand."
"I'm still not entirely sure I haven't hallucinated all of this, dementia and all that," Isaac said. "I could be getting eaten by a Necro right now and I wouldn't know it."
"I might be able to fix that," Frisk piped up, speaking for the first time. "If you trust me with your head, I could possibly rewire your brain and fix your dementia."
"How?" Isaac asked, disbelieving. The roots that suddenly sprouted from her hand freaked him out. "What the fuck?"
"I can do this thanks to Flowey," Frisk said, answering his unasked question by pointing to the flower's face growing above her ear. Isaac had just thought it was a hair clip. "He grew roots throughout my body, and we share space in my head. We were talking over fixing your brain while you were flipping out." Isaac was obviously uncomfortable with the thought of someone messing with his brain, especially someone who looked like they were halfway to being a Necro, but a glance from Guts silenced him, and he gulped down his own fear.
"Just, ah… be really careful, okay?" Frisk nodded, and walked to Isaac's back, placing her palm against the back of his head. He felt a sting on his scalp, which numbed soon, and then he felt something squirm. He fought against the instinct to rip out the thing invading his skull, fidgeting as the child tried to fix him. He saw patterns at first, then his left eye began twitching, and he began to bleed from his nose. "Okay, what's going on back there?!"
"I can't help that, even as thin as these roots are they're still making bridges between brain cells and your body doesn't know what to do with the messages. Keep still, I'm almost done," Frisk said, pacifying the engineer.
After a few more symptoms that ranged from goosebumps and swelling tongue, Frisk managed to find the problem. His brain was arranged in a pattern somehow, cells cut and moved around in odd ways all over. They fixed and moved the cells around for a minute, and then retracted their roots. Isaac leaned over and vomited when Frisk finally got all of the roots out and touched the back of his head to check for blood, only a spot was left to prove that anything had invaded his mind.
"Are you better now?" Frisk asked, but got a finger held up in response. The engineer wiped his mouth, and then looked around at everyone. The distrust was still there, but the overwhelming fear was gone.
"Yeah, I think so," he said, looking down at the symbols on his armor. He could read them, but they didn't make him hallucinate anymore. "Nothing seems to be wrong at least… thanks, kid."
"Technically, she's older than you and me put together," Sam stated, making Isaac look at her with confusion. "It's a long story involving time travel, leave it at that." A roar interrupted her, and Joseph cursed.
"We've stayed here too long, we have to go," he said, everyone arming themselves.
"Wait, you weren't kidding when you said-" Isaac said to Sam.
"Yup, hell. Move your feet," Sam interrupted, following everyone else as they began running. Demons that crawled over rocks and jumped at them were shot to bits or slashed to ribbons by the more experienced fighters as they ran. Isaac managed to kill a few demons with his weapons, but he was more focused on keeping up with the others. Chara defended Frisk from any demons that got through the line of men and women ahead of them, gouging out eyes and throats with her knife and keeping as close as possible to Frisk, who was also doing a good job of lashing demons with Flowey's roots and puncturing various organs at once.
They stopped running when they reached a facility that had most of its wiring exposed, limiting the demons' mobility and allowing the ragtag group to funnel their enemy into a decently well-defended spot. Frisk laid traps into the walls and ceiling, ensuring that they wouldn't be surprised from those directions. Isaac laid down mines by the doorways and made a lattice of explosives around everyone, a minefield that demons would have a tough time crossing. They finished just in time, the demons swarmed in.
Screams and blood spilled from the roof and walls, gallons of red proving Frisk's efficiency, as the unholy monsters blew themselves apart in the explosives set by Isaac. Carmina cast powerful spells, and anyone with a gun was firing into the tsunami of enemies.
When most of the mines were used, Guts and Joseph sprung into the fray, ripping and tearing every demon they could reach. Sam focused her fire on the demons around the two, supporting them with covering fire. Chara broke rank and dashed out to join them, knife in hand and a smile on her face. She was as fast as the other slayers, but so small and precise that demons didn't even see her before they were dead.
"Chara!" Frisk shouted, doubling her efforts to wipe away the demons converging on Sam, Carmina, and Isaac.
"Don't overdo it, she's fine and we can handle this," Sam said, Carmina nodding in agreement. Frisk couldn't hear her very well over the noise and grew more concerned about her sort-of friend. Vines and roots shot out from the kid's body, wrapping up limbs like muscles and armor, protecting their torso with layers of bark-like tendrils. Thorns sprouted from the living suit, turning Frisk into a living weapon and giving them claws, and they too sprang away to fight in the thick of the demon swarm.
Frisk was seeing red. They recognized this feeling from their time in the genocide runs: bloodlust. Their eyes turned as red as their vision, and a wide grin spread across their face. They laughed with glee as they stabbed into every new demon and sucked out their blood, draining their strength and giving it to themselves. It was familiar in a way, killing things for strength was no foreign concept to Frisk after all. They realized that despite their pacifist nature, they'd missed doing this, and now had no reason to hold back from slaying true monsters, not the innocent population of the Underground. They became more ruthless and fought like the demons around them. Flowey felt this change in Frisk and shuddered at the thought that he bonding with Frisk was the cause of it.
"This isn't your doing, Asriel," Frisk said in her mind, using his real name. "These demons aren't like the monsters we know. They kill, and conquer, and destroy any world that they invade. It's not a death penalty to them, it's defending everyone who would be killed without our help."
"I get it," Flowey replied, "I really do… but you still seem… off. Since when did you enjoy killing?"
"Since I was given something to kill without consequence," Frisk grinned,"and when I realized that fact. Can you make a single excuse for them?" Another skull was popped, a jugular was speared, a chest was left with a gaping wound. Flowey decided.
"No, I can't."
"Then I'll continue to enjoy this." Frisk suddenly shouted to everyone else. "Get down!" Vines covered in thorns whipped out in all directions, spearing demons that didn't manage to dodge the attack. They began to spin, drilling into the kebabed demons, and then were spun around the room like a hurricane, showering everyone in demonic blood. The demons were all dead.
"Nice finisher, kid," Guts complimented. "Good to see you've gotten over that pacifist bull."
"I've been over it, I only just learned to enjoy some quality demon slaying." Frisk was clean of any blood and used their roots to soak up what was splattered on the walls and on everyone in the room. "Plus, demon blood tastes like hot sauce." They licked their lips, "… mmm, spicy." Curious, Joseph removed his helmet and licked his bloody finger. His eyebrows raised.
"Well, whaddya know?" he said, replacing his helmet. He looked around at the room they were in. "This isn't a safe place, too many ways for demons to get in."
"If they fight anything like Necromorphs, I agree," Isaac commented. "Vents, engineering passages, anything big enough to fit through, they'll kill you from." He looked around as well. "Then again, we might be able to use it."
"What do we do?" Carmina asked.
"I just need scrap metal to fill in the holes, I have an electric welder in this suit. Find me a lot of scrap and I'll make this place safe," Isaac explained, getting nods from everyone. He turned to Frisk. "I may need your help holding some of the metal in place, so stick close for a while." They gave him a thumbs-up. "And if there's anything around here that can do micro-scale work on electronics I might be able to create some weapons."
"He was a good choice after all," Guts said to Joseph, receiving a grunt of agreement.
Hi everyone. I know that I've slowed down on updates with all three of my stories, but things have been going on, and I'll likely get even more delayed during the holidays. This is going to be the first year in forever that I haven't worn a costume for Halloween, so that's making me el depresso. I'm working on three different chapters at once for all of my stories (one each) and so you may see new updates for those pretty soon. Aside from all that jazz, I hope you continue to read and enjoy my stories, and I'll keep trying to figure out how to use a keyboard enough to make coherent sentences. Later!
