Gold-flecked eyes, blood and empty gazes. Where is everyone?

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Chapter 9: Setting Sail For… Grand Geode

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Kid woke up with his chest quite literally open.

It spoke volumes about his existence that this wasn't the strangest set of circumstances the Grim Reaper had woken up in.

He was laid neatly on a smooth metal surface that was cold to the touch. He felt a number of cables attached to various parts of his body, causing him mild discomfort. His eyes were closed yet his eyelids were a bright red color; some sort of strong light must have been aimed his way. There was also the small matter of his insides feeling breezy.

"Fascinating," a nasally high-pitched masculine voice came from Kid's right-hand side. "Its anatomy is remarkably similar to a human's."

"Truly," a second voice, soothing, cold and feminine, added. "For a star to look like this..." a pause. "Perhaps it's a youngling, recently hatched."

"If that was the case ma'am, shouldn't we have found a core where its heart is?" the first voice remarked. "Or any other light-emitting structure of that kind? Instead…"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. There is much we do not know about Judgements."

"It can't be dead, can it?"

"No. The Machine told us that it is active-"

There was more back-and-forth between the two vices. Kid's Soul Perception confirmed that there were only two souls -blue, human yet something was off- in his vicinity, with more souls a distance away from him.

Kid suppressed an urge to frown. If he kept playing dead and let the two talk he could get an inkling of the situation he was in. His body was strangely numb, which meant that any damage inflicted on him so far was either minuscule or very grave. Comforting.

He remembered… the Spartoi had ended up in an abandoned boat in a strange, lawless, and chaotic underground sea. From there they had visited an alternate Victorian version of London where they had set off for a number of locations. Last thing Kid remembered was that they were sailing South.

"Yes, but what's it doing here?" the nasal voice asked with exasperation. "In the Neath?"

"Perhaps it fell? Maybe at Aestival?"

"Is the hole there even big enough for a human to fall through, much less a-?"

"Perhaps it hatched here," the female voice murmured.

"But the Eggs need light. That's how we know it's safe to keep them around in the Neath," the high-pitched voice said with increasing alarm. "If that's not true…"

"It does not matter. The Machine will protect us," the feminine voice said with conviction. Kid sensed the smaller soul, the one belonging to the high-pitched voice, cease its erratic quivers. "Now, is there anything we can harvest from it for the Machine?"

"I am not sure." Something poked at Kid and he had to gather all his willpower not to flinch. "Any parts we remove for extended periods of time decomposes into an unknown black liquid."

Ah, so that newfound feeling of lightness Kid sensed had a reason behind it. Grave damage it was. Great; healing was going to be a pain. He already wanted to reach out and scratch his entire torso.

"Give me any samples you have nonetheless. I will present it to the Machine and it will guide us."

"May its light burn bright-"

Kid stopped listening after that.

The light. He remembered it. Burning bright and angry.

They had sailed South. Very, very south. There was light and Kid felt it again, and it took him a few moments together himself and when he had everyone was gone and something had gone straight for his eyes and Kid's mind had gone hazy-

The others. Liz, Patty, Maka, Black Star, Soul, Tsubaki, Kim, Jackie, Kilik, Ox, Harvar, Fire, Thunder.

Where had everyone else gone to? He had to get to them-!

Kid extended the reach of his Soul Wavelength as far as it went and silently cursed. He didn't have Maka's clarity, the ability to specifically search for a soul and pinpoint its location unless it was dyi-

"Its mouth moved," the high-pitched breathed.

"Your ears!"

Their voices were followed by sounds of frantic movement, as if scrambling for something.

Deciding that any sort of cover he had was blown, Kid opened his eyes, slightly narrowing them until they adjusted to the bright light.

He made out two forms, both of them facing away from him and putting on what looked like… oversized earmuffs?

What?

Kid tore his gaze away from them and looked down on his chest, wanting to confirm his suspicions. Surely enough, his chest looked like something straight out of an 80's slasher horror flick, bloody, torn and all that jazz. Overall, it was not very pleasant to look at. It would be even less pleasant when it would eventually heal. The part where the nerves reconstructed themselves was always the most annoying. Hold on, this wasn't important right now. He had to-

"Ah," the man said, straightening his back as if attempting to regain some amount of composure. "Awake I see."

He and the woman stood over Kid, hands behind their back, completely serious despite the ridiculous oversized accessory they wore. The man had a hunch and wore a bloody lab coat, while the woman was clad in a deep red gown, her blonde hair caught up in some elaborate hairstyle. Both their eyes were yellow. Well, parts of them to be more precise. Flecks of gold danced around their pupils, moving as if they had a mind of their own. The woman's flecks were the most prominent, having overtaken most of her eye's native blue colour.

Kid was getting distracted again. He had to-

He tried to get up the table but encountered some resistance. He looked down at his body again, disregarding the gory chest and focusing on his limbs.

Hs hands and feet were bound by… something. Something writhing, made up of hollow and fluorescent metal disks that harshly brushed against Kid's skin, like a clockwork mechanism reimagined by H. P. Lovecraft.

"I suggest you do not struggle," the unnamed man said with a hint of arrogance in his voice. "These restraints have been designed by the Machine itself to contain Judgements-"

Kid didn't know or care what a Judgement was and why these people thought he was one. What Kid did know what that he was a Great Old One and that he could cut through these restraints as if they were tissue paper.

Which he promptly did.

Much chaos ensued. There were a lot of shouts and running and Kid might have punched and kicked several people on his way to leave the building he had woken up in. Cables and parts of the restraints were trailing behind him while doing so, having embedded themselves in him like the needles of a vengeful cactus.

Outside was even brighter than the building. The area seemed to be built inside some sort of compound. The crystal-covered ceiling glimmered with false-light, and every street and alley was filled to the brim with lampposts. The people there looked ordinary enough for this Universe's standards, save for their gold-flecked eyes and the way they ran after Kid the moment the Grim Reaper entered their line of sight.

Kid quickly amassed a large following and his mind was racing. He was still using his Soul Perception to comb the area for familiar souls as well as avoid the horde behind him, not to mention that some of these cables still attached to him were itchy-

Kid was still pulling things off him when he stumbled upon a familiar face.

"Liz!" He felt a smile come to his lips when he recognized her face and she looked safe and sound, with no wounds on her person, and wasn't that just great?

Had he unconsciously headed her direction? No matter, they had to find the others and leave-!

Kid pulled her hand to run but she didn't budge. Frowning Kid looked back and his stomach -or whatever parts of it had regenerated by now- lurched painfully.

Liz didn't respond to him. She hadn't responded to him at all as if she didn't recognize…

Kid looked back again. Liz looked at him as if Kid was a stranger. Her eyes were flecked with gold.

This was bad. This was very, very bad, this was catastrophic and he had to do something-

The crowds that ran after Kid were catching up to him. He was running out of time-

At that point Liz punched him, and Kid didn't let go of her wrist even when she landed on him, as if trying to immobilize him.

"Liz!" Kid yelled as she used her free hand to wrap it around his throat, "snap out of it!"

This, of course, did nothing because yelling at people to not do something was rather ineffective, especially when they weren't acting like themselves and why was Liz like this?

Did that light they had encountered done this to her? To everyone else? Why had Kid not suffered the same fate? Did he have immunity? The two humans standing over Kid when he had woken had talked about stars and Judgements and a Machine…

"Dawn Machine Waking!" Kid recalled a voice from a few days ago. It if was the same Machine, then what Kid had sensed…

Maybe this was like the Madness and Liz had fallen prey to it. Whatever control she was under, if she resonated with Kid then maybe his Wavelength could undo the damage, but he had to make sure not to use too much because he was a full-fledged Grim Reaper now and Liz was a human-

The teen collapsed and Kid held her close. She would wake up any minute, she had to-

Blue eyes blearily opened. There was not a trace of gold left in them. "Kid?"

Kid let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. There was moisture in his eyes which were definitely not tears because Liz was alright and what reason would he have to cry?

"Wait, why are you naked?!" Liz yelled and got off him, a furious blush on her face and Kid couldn't help but laugh.

It was possible, in all that excitement that was Kid rushing out and dragging all sorts of cables and wires along with cries of 'impossible' that he may have forgotten the fact that he wasn't wearing any clothes. Clothes were a concept of human society and while Kid managed to fit right in with little trouble, emotional times like these did make him forget the finer details.

He hastily summoned his cloak and deftly wrapped it around his frame. "Long story."

Liz seemed to accept that with a frown since she had gone wide-eyed when gave a closer look at Kid's torso. "Wait, are you bleeding-?!"

"There it is!" A voice called and the two turned their heads towards it.

A crowd roughly in size of one in the concert of a moderately-successful rock band was standing a few meters away from them. Everyone had their gold-flaked eyes fixed on Kid as if eyeing a predator ready to attack.

"Kid," Liz said in a dangerously even tone. "What the fuck-?"

"Run!" Kid yelled and got to his feet. From the corner of his eye, he saw Liz transform and grabbed her Weapon form as he ran through the alley, not even bothering to look back. He had to find the others-

"How the fuck did we end up here -I remember being on that goddamned boat-!"

Liz's rant was cut short when Kid exited the alley. Both cursed when they exited to face another large crowd, this one armed with guns and swords and whatever else could pass as weaponry if one squinted hard enough.

Of course, a large armed crowd wasn't the actual reason why kid and Liz had stopped dead in their tracts. They had faced worse, much worse. The actual reason was a sole person, her yellow-infested eyes narrowed as she held an array of cutlery between her fingers in a rather intimidating manner.

"Patty!"

Kid looked back. More people approached from the alley.

They were surrounded.

"I can't shoot Patty," Liz growled, to which Kid agreed.

"You won't have to," Kid said, and ran straight into the armed crowd, who were momentarily stunned by the unorthodox tactic. This gave Kid enough time to approach a particular member and call her name in a desperate voice. "Patty!"

The girl seemed to come alive and ran at Kid, cutlery ready. Their battle was short-lived.

A spoon did get embedded deep in Kid's thigh, somehow, but then he used his free arm to grab Patty and hold her tight, drawing an anxious breath as he summoned his Soul Wavelength once again.

"Huh?" A groggy Patty said moments later. "Sis! Kid!" She said with a cheerful yell and transformed. "Sup guys?"

"Patty, thank goodness," Liz said with heartfelt relief. Her reflection sobered when she regarded the rest of the people gathered around them. "One down, a bazillion to go."

"Not quite," Kid said in a low tone, his jaw clenched. He had mostly healed. The haze that clouded his mind was gone. Kid was feeling very clear-headed and upon the sight of a brainwashed friend, rather angry.

The area darkened, the false-lights fading from the roof as if its crystals had gone hazy. The air became still. Dark shadows danced around Kid's frame, some merging back into his cloak while others snapped at the crowd with dark cackles.

"Don't take another step," Kid warned them, coating his voice with a hint of existential dread like Father did in his rare moments of fury. "Return my friends or I will raze this place to the ground," the Grim Reaper finished with complete sincerity.

Kid could do it. The only reason he hadn't done so yet was because the rest of their group was somewhere in here. No to mention that he had to know why and how these people had gotten to them so he could ensure it wouldn't happen ever again. It was a desperate gamble, a sort of mutually assured destruction. Kid hoped these people, no matter how brainwashed, had enough self-perseverance to not do something incredibly idiotic, i.e. attack the Grim Reaper.

"Enough!" A voice called from the crowd. After a few moments a woman in a red gown, the same one that had been present when kid woke up, stepped in front of the crowd. "We did not mean any harm-"

"Bullshit," Liz cut her off. "You assholes brainwashed us!"

To her credit, the woman didn't even flinch at Liz's acidic tone. "The Machine… apologizes," the bright-eyed woman hesitantly said. "It did not know you were already under a Law." She gave Kid a curt nod. "I am a Sequencer of the Machine-"

"I don't care," Kid cut her off coldly. "Where are the rest of our group?"

"They will be here shortly," the Bright-Eyed Sequencer said with a grim expression.

"How 'shortly'?" Liz said, mocking the woman's posh accent.

"They are already on their way. The Machine will relinquish its control," the Bright-Eyed Sequencer said, and her expression became morose. "Unfortunately, it saw how you undid its influence."

That word again. "You are referring to the Dawn Machine," Kid stated. "What is it?"

"A Star," the Bright-Eyed Sequencer immediately said, as if in a haze. "A Judgement," she continued in a low voice. She took a step towards Kid and the sisters, who tensed but did not attack. Yet. "Why are you here?" the woman asked. "Why is a Judgement in the Neath-?"

There was that other term again, Kid noted with a frown. Judgement. Faint recollections reached him-

"Hey, we didn't ask to be brought here in your freakish Universe." As always, Liz expressed their shared frustration better than Kid ever could, if not in the most eloquent way.

The Bright-Eyed Sequencer narrowed her eyes. "Then you were brought here against your will? By whom?" She looked away in thought. "The Bazaar is not on good terms and the Masters are too low on the Great Chain of Beings… I suppose it could be one of the so-called Gods of the zee, always interfering-"

Kid rolled his eyes. "I don't care what politics you have going on," he wasn't sure how appropriate it was to call Godly power-struggles politics but at that point in time, the Grim Reaper simply could not care less.

"We can guide you home if you so wish," the Bright-Eyed Sequencer said without pause and Kid stopped. Going home was what they wanted to do since they arrived in this law-forsaken place.

"Oh sure, because you are so trustworthy," Liz drawled. "Hey Kid, I can't wait to follow the advice of these bozos that brainwashed me and my sis-"

"You do not want to be here. The Machine does not wish for you to be here," the Bright-Eyed Sequencer stated. "Our interests are the same. Why not cooperate?" She looked behind Kid and the Grim Reaper followed her gaze. Using his Soul Perception, he detected the souls of his compatriots approach them. "We already are."

A long silence starched among them. Kid still had Liz and Patty trained at the Bright-Eyed Sequencer and wasn't about to stop doing so anytime soon. But, he had to admit, he followed her logic. They were cooperating so far…

"You will leave us alone," the Grim Reaper demanded. "If any of your people attack us again, there will be consequences."

The Bright-Eyed Sequencer nodded. "Of course. Our forces have already been notified to leave your ship undisturbed."

Kid paused. His expression was still hostile, though he slowly lowered Liz and Patty. "How do we leave the Neath?"

The Bright-Eyed Sequencer let out a small smile. "You must go North, to Avid Horizon. It is the gateway, after all." She gave Kid a respectful bow. "With the Incantation and your power, you can enter the High Wilderness and join your kin."

Kid frowned. "What Incantation?"

The Bright-Eyed Sequencer frowned. "Shouldn't you already know?"

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Kid stared at the Grand Geode as their ship left port. A few residents were gathered there as well, staring back at their ship, the Bright-Eyed Sequencer being most prominent among them.

True to their promises, the rest of their group had been brought to Kid and the sisters safe and sound, if not a bit disoriented. After stopping Black Star from 'kicking everyone's ass', their group had quickly made it back to their ship and undocked in record time. Maka had retreated to the Captain's quarters and the air was sober among them. No one wanted to talk to anyone.

Kid had been standing at the back of the retreating ship and watched the Geode, like a guard dog sizing up potential intruders. He would do so until the island was out of sight and then he may stay a bit longer, just to make sure. He would make sure the Dawn Machine and its people never dared to lift a hand against them ever again-

Around him, the wind picked up. A particularly strong gust came right under the ship, and its hull deflected it right to where Kid was standing.

The gust picked at Kid's cloak which at the time did obey the laws of physics, meant to appear billowing for dramatic effect. A considerably big part of it was lifted, like a skirt. Kid felt the air pass between his legs. All parts of them.

The next seconds passed by very, very slowly.

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Feedback for individual chapters is cherished.