Chapter 37: Behind Enemy Lines
What, Quote wondered, could be through that simple-looking door? Minions of the Doctor, as the first line of defense? Balrog or Misery, ready to give them more trouble? Curly, miraculously alive and with that sweet, encouraging smile of hers ready to greet him and Malco? A group of frightened Mimiga in need of rescue?
His last guess was the most accurate. There was one Mimiga in the small storage room through the door, but he scurried away behind a stack of metal crates before the soldier had a chance to identify anything specific about him. Theirs was a difficult and dangerous mission, but something about such a lackluster entrance had diminished any sort of "heroism" to it, not helped by Malco loudly asking from behind what the holdup was.
Quote shook off the thought. This was no time to worry about his own image as a hero. He didn't even care about it much; doing the right thing seemed to come naturally to him. Glamorizing it was selfish and- more importantly- a waste of time.
"D-d-d-don't kill me!" the terrified Mimiga squealed in a male voice that was almost unfittingly deep for that species. "I'm really a human who got transformed by magic! Honest!"
"We aren't here to hurt you," Malco replied as he walked in through the door. "We're trying to stop the Doctor. You can come out, friend."
Peeking his head out from behind the crates, the creature's face was illuminated by the room's one lightbulb. Suddenly Quote believed his story of being transformed artificially, as while he clearly wasn't human it was a stretch to say he even looked like a Mimiga. His head was too vertically long, he had almost no snout to speak of, his ears were twice the proper length, and a pair of oddly thick black eyebrows were furrowed suspiciously on his forehead, clashing against his otherwise snow-white fur. Strangest of all was what appeared to be two thin whiskers extending side to side from just below the middle of his face.
"You're not killer robots? You scared me half to death when you barged in here!" he fumed.
"Sorry about that. You say you were transformed?"
The odd-looking Mimiga nodded with a scowl.
"One of the Doctor's new lackeys gave me this wonderful body. Her name's Misery."
"Quote! She did this to that Sue girl as well, right?"
Before he had a chance to reply, he was cut off by the small creature.
"Momorin's daughter too?! I had no idea… oh, I should introduce myself. My name is Itoh. I was with the exploration party that came here to study this island. Once the Doctor found that damned crown of his, he decided to start performing experiments on Mimiga. His henchwoman turned me into this sloppy excuse for one out of a need for more test subjects, but I managed to hide. I've been stuck in here ever since."
"Kazuma and Professor Booster are waiting at the bottom of the wall," Quote replied. "If you can somehow get down to them, you might be able to escape on the dragon they have."
Itoh was clearly surprised at the news, but for some reason he clutched at his stomach and groaned.
"I'd try to, but I have a crippling fear of heights… ugh, I don't know why I wanted to come to this floating island in the first place."
"It definitely seems counter-productive," Malco chimed in, "given your alleged phobia. But there are more pressing matters at hand. Do you have any advice for us in our fight against the Doctor?"
The former human put a paw to his chin in thought.
"I've been hiding in here for so long that I don't know for sure what's going on. Something to do with flowers, and making an army… your best bet is probably finding Doctor Momorin Sakamoto, Sue and Kazuma's mother. She's much braver than I am; I'm sure she'll have an idea. Only problem is, I don't know where she's hiding. Sorry I can't be of more help."
Quote, during the conversation, had taken to inspecting some of the metal crates. One was packed with what he assumed were Itoh's food rations, another had been converted into a makeshift shelter, and the third- surprisingly- was full of missiles.
"Malco, can your new weapon be loaded with these?"
"Of course. Its primary projectiles are explosive fireballs, but standard missiles will also suffice."
"Help yourself to them," Itoh offered. "If there's anything else you need, you know where to find me."
After reloading Napalm, Malco bid a short farewell to their newfound ally and proceeded through the storage room's other door. He and Quote entered into an utterly gigantic cave, constructed with multiple levels of wooden platforms with dirt-filled slots to grow as many plants as was possible with the allotted space. The plants in question were unfamiliar to him personally, but judging by his friend's disgusted expression he knew what they were. Seemingly endless rows of blood-red Demon Flowers sprouted before their very eyes, tended to by an alarming number of Mimiga slaves. Dozens of the furry creatures milled around the makeshift farms with various tools or entire bags of flower seeds.
"The Doctor seems to have gathered everyone on the island here. What should we do, destroy these flowers?"
Quote looked out at the workers with a troubled expression.
"No… see how careful they're being with them? It looks like they're actually enjoying this. They must not know what the flowers could do to them."
Malco saw what he was talking about. The Mimiga in the distance were tending to their twisted crops with a shocking amount of fondness. Some were even singing to themselves as they continued to plant or monitor a series of automatic sprinklers arranged throughout the area.
"That's horrible..."
"Come on, let's find Momorin first like Itoh said. She might know what to do."
The door they'd entered through was tucked behind an alcove in the cavern wall, so the pair was able to slip into the Plantation without drawing attention to themselves. They walked behind one of the rows of sprouting flowers and came face to face with a trio of Mimiga planters. Strangely, they shot the two robots suspicious glares and didn't acknowledge them further. Even when Malco attempted to question them to get a better grasp of their surroundings, he was ignored.
"Who knows what kind of things the Doctor's been telling them about us?" Quote whispered to him. "If they trust him that much, we might not be able to get any help from them."
They moved on, keeping a low profile to avoid a new threat in the area: humongous golem-like creatures which stood at least ten feet tall, closely monitoring the Mimiga. Draped in tattered green robes and apparently comprised of dark orange stone, they might have been mistaken for statues if not for their occasional low grumbling noises. Their bulky forearms made Malco nervous; just one punch from the beasts looked like it could destroy them both. The quiet sentinels had no visible emotions with their vacant expressions and pure white eyes, which seemed to follow the robots as they skulked around the fields. Fortunately for them, the giants made no aggressive motions at all.
"Friends are in short supply here," Malco remarked in a quiet voice, "but maybe if we can find the residents of Mimiga Village they could offer some form of assistance."
Quote was admittedly at a bit of a loss on what to do next. Doctor Momorin Sakamoto, according to Itoh, was hiding somewhere in the Plantation, but he didn't know where to even begin looking. Malco's advice sounded the most reasonable to him for the time being.
Continuing to walk, they soon came across the source of the sprinklers' water. A massive lake sprawled across an entire quarter of the cave's floor, constantly provided with fresh water by a pipe in the wall, emptying out into it with a steady stream. The reservoir was filled with aquatic plants, and he could make out fish lazily swimming, oblivious to all the troubles of the Mimiga race.
Speaking of which, one of the creatures was sitting alone at the water's edge, holding a fishing rod. His clothes and fur weren't covered in dirt like the others they'd seen, making him especially distinct. The Mimiga heard their approaching footsteps and turned to face Quote with an unassuming glance.
"Hey there. You here to fish too? They're not really biting today, but that's never stopped me."
"No, we're busy at the moment…"
He shrugged and cast his line out into the water.
"Suit yourself. Wait a sec, have we met before?"
Thinking back, Quote remembered that they had indeed spoken in the past.
"Yeah, now I remember you!" the Mimiga said with a grin. "You were asking about Sue back in the village. Nice to see you again, even if we are stuck here. Did that witch Misery zap you up here too?"
Malco answered first.
"We climbed up from the side of the island. You're the first person here to actually speak to us, you know."
"Makes sense to me. The Doctor's been telling us that we need to grow these red flowers so we can fight back against an invading army of 'killer robots.' I don't really buy it, but I can't say anything or else I'll get locked up with the others."
He reeled in his line a bit before continuing, gesturing to Quote.
"Besides, you're a robot but you seemed like an alright guy when I met you back in the village. I didn't start panicking like everyone else here."
So even this Mimiga had been able to tell what he was before he could. Wonderful.
"You mentioned 'others,'" Malco pressed. "Who do you mean by that?"
"The rest of us from Mimiga Village. Jack, Mahin, Sandaime… I think Sue's in there too. They openly resisted the Doctor, so he threw them in jail without a second thought."
While Quote only recognized Jack and Sue out of the names he'd said, that information was a very good start for their mission. If anyone were to know the location of Momorin, it would most likely be her daughter. He was about to leave to find the jail, but Malco didn't seem to have finished his questioning.
"What are you doing out here? Aren't you forced to work on the farms?"
"It's pretty easy to slip out under the noses- or lack thereof- of those Drolls guarding us. For all their strength they aren't too bright. Farming's boring anyway, fishing is way more exciting. Just you, your wits, and the strength of your arm-"
As if on cue, the Mimiga yanked upwards on his rod and drew a sizeable fish out of the water. He tossed it into a bucket beside him and cast the line out once more.
"Finally, a catch. As I was saying, you also never know what you'll find down here by the reservoir."
Anxious to get a move on by that point, Quote turned to leave again before a final comment caused him to freeze in his tracks.
"A little while ago someone weird washed up here. She fell out of that pipe in the wall and wound up in the mud nearby. I'm pretty sure she was also a robot, since she had pure white skin just like you."
Suddenly he was very interested in hearing what the Mimiga had to say. Quote spun around to see the small creature had an amused grin.
"Where- where is-" he sputtered, his desperation presumably clear.
Still chuckling to himself, the fisherman pointed towards a barely-visible door hidden behind a rocky pillar on the other side of the lake.
"I didn't get much of a look at her, but I did see some guy in a green robe dragging her that way. The way he was moving her, she seemed pretty banged-up. Wonder if she's okay…"
Quote blurted out a hasty "thank you" before sprinting as fast as he could toward the door. Stopping just short of kicking it down, he flung it open with his heart racing. The only feature of the cramped room was a worn bed, but that was irrelevant compared to who was laid out in it. Her chest rose and fell lightly with her breaths, confirming that Curly Brace was indeed alive. A sense of utter euphoria spread through him, but it diminished drastically as he got closer.
The damage was almost too much to believe. Her skin had been torn in several spots to reveal frayed wires and plating underneath, one of her arms was bent in what was certainly the wrong direction (with her legs not being in much better condition), and countless scratches and ugly black bruises lined the rest of her body. From behind her messy hair, her deep blue eyes opened to get a look at him. Quote would have been surprised if the anguish in his face at her condition wasn't obvious; seeing her in this state was utter hell for the soldier.
And then, in a soft croak of a voice, she finished him off.
"Who… are you?"