Genocide City Zone Act I
"Oryx my king and friend… I have news for you… it seems you would lose your sword sometime… no I cannot tell when, I do not know if it is a mere defeat or your demise… but I do know this, the sky is trying pervert your sword logic… isn't this interesting?"
[H Ghost]: Sushi girl back there surged with… light… that the light would even… well up against us in such massive quantities… please tell me you think you know we might be doing something very wrong… have done… very wrong things.
[Harley]: Too late now… for such things and me… we'll just get the kid back home… then we'll worry about… ourselves… or maybe I should go hop off a cliff… you go… find another guardian to work with…
[H Ghost]: Don't give up on yourself yet… I know you're really still you… despite…
[Harley]:Gggh…
[H Ghost]: It's not just you… something's really wrong… like the time and space around us feels… not hostile… but… malevolent… if I had little hairs on my skin like you… they'd stand.
[Harley]: Ill will… It's like being in a Hive base… or Vex place… but somehow you don't have their… Hivey or Vexy feelings… you really just know something… is wrong… even the Sol edge… it feels… when I put that heavy ammo synth into it… it's like… not mine anymore… what was Oryx's sword called?
She chanced upon a water cooler but instead of taking a cup to drink, slashed open the plastic container, letting it spill all over the kid and lapping up whatever did flow into the kids mouth… the water was very warm, though given they had just entered Hotland… this was no surprise.
[H Ghost]: Into the lab in front of us?
[Harley]: Yeah, the kid's gonna be roast if we keep standing above this lava… ghost…
[H Ghost]: Yes?
[Harley]: I can feel things… going wrong after that surge of light earlier… it's now wearing off… I… I'm afraid… we're a long way from the tower… both in time and space…
[H Ghost]: Just try to hold on… there's little we can do now but stay this course… anybody who could have helped us probably won't now…
Harley: And… she wasn't wrong, I'm a long way from home, surrounded by things I've turned into enemies… and my friends… where are they now? When?
There had been a force field blocking her from proceeding to what looked like an elevator… so she had little choice but to try the lab door… which opened to her, surprising… with all that had been said and done, she certainly would have deserved to be locked out… she noticed one monitor that was trained on her.. and walked on… past a pc with illegible scribbled post its all over, a fridge… and to a rectangular robot, that looked far more primitive than the city's frames… it was holding a mic for some reason… and in front of a rather unexplainable hole in the wall.
Mettaton: Oh there you are. You ugly little creature. You've made quite a name for yourself.
Harley:… Yeah. I'm not proud of it.
Mock applause… Harley began to feel a wish to attack this machine in front of her.
Mettaton Such infamy…! I'm impressed. Oh yes. If you're looking for Alphys, she's not here. While you were busy doing your, ahem, thing… she was running around evacuating people to safety. Now they're in a place where you'll never get them.
Harley: Good…
Mettaton: Deciding not to fight you. My my, she really is the only smart one, isn't she?
Harley felt the child step forward… she didn't entirely disagree… sure, they only had a flimsy toy in their hands… and the robot was certainly made of metal… but yet…
Mettaton: Oh, how sassy. You're just itching to get your hands on me, aren't you? Well, toooo baaad. This world needs stars more than it needs corpses! Toodles.
Mettaton fled with speed one could not imagine a single wheel could accelerate to, let alone so fast.
[H Ghost]: If I ever get the chance, that might be a nice Chasis…
Harley:… still hung up over the Fallen Sabre huh?
[H Ghost]: When the news broke, we ghosts have been sharing scans of it… don't we deserve better than a mere Shank since we are capable of doing so much more?
Harley: Well, maybe you can have it when I'm done with its occupant… and use it to… stay far away from the… *sigh* abomination your guardian is becoming…
She pulled the handcannon off her back…
Harley: … The devourer wants… to eat…
[H Ghost]: I thought we tamed that thing! Are you…
Harley: Thought… but I suppose… we didn't… and no, I'm not… may never be again… I… want to… kill…
Harley's ghost had been with her as a guardian since resurrection… before the FWC experiment, Harley was a mostly silent, determined guardian that was strong, swift and brave… the newest always were… then came that FWC experiment with her past life memories from the accursed Vex devices and Clovis Bray machines… found near where she was raised back to life as a guardian… it was often exasperating to be with her thereafter as she became kooky, unfocused… but yet somehow still competent and often succeeding because of obeying instructions issued by others with more situational awareness… with occasional bouts of silence resembling the first few months after resurrection… however she rarely undertook a solo operation since then… right now… the guardian she was attached to reminded her far more of the former state… but as she melded back into Harley and kept silent… she prayed to the traveler for the latter to return… and something to help with the bastardization happening to her beloved guardian.
Encountering the royal guard… didn't end well, they weren't anywhere close to Undyne in ability… there was a playful sadism in that fight… it wasn't a fight… it was like a cat, playing with the mouse that had long since lost hope of escaping… A futile struggle waged by valiant subordinates to avenge their captain… who was already defeated despite being a far superior combatant.
Muffet was probably the biggest fool… having had a readymade escape route and instead electing to take part in direct physical combat… one rose left where she turned to dust, which Harley stomped and twisted her foot on… Ghost actually somewhat found some poetic karma in her demise, Muffet's mistake was one of contempt, arrogance and ignorance… fitting in a post mortem way…
That didn't change that the child's blue and purple striped shirt was now tinged a very morbid grey… dust of the dead that it seemed nothing could ever hope to wash off.