Splash.
Splash.
Splash.
Miles had stopped calling out, ears strained against the quiet.
Those sticky wet footsteps, barely audible over the gentle trickling of purifier flowing from street to deserted street, building to empty building, the click of door handles as he opened one identical room after another, the gentle flutter of Ulnah's wings as she flew behind him in dutiful silence.
Nothing.
Nobody.
The dull worry gnawing at his stomach increased.
Where were they?
A dull rumbling shook the earth below. Miles paused, frowning. Earthquake? Some reaction to the purifier?
There was nothing more. Miles walked on.
Had it been the eclipse? A blood moon while he'd been in the depths of the catacombs?
One of the "real deal" outsiders come to lay waste to everyone in his absence?
The door to the pit room lay open, its interior shadowy even compared to the struggling light outside. There was no sign of any damage from before.
No sign of where Dante had sacrificed his life to "banish" him to safety.
Had the others jumped down to escape? There was a certain hope if they were underground, right?
Another tremor ran up his legs, putting his fur on end. Miles lingered a moment, door splintering in his grip before he turned and kept walking.
At least the oppressive aura of the corruption was fading to a different kind of oppressive aura, the enforced brightness of the hallow, shining rainbows arching through the air in the distance. Odd how he hadn't noticed them before, but perhaps the unusual was to be expected in madworld?
Miles walked on. With the bottomless pit providing a drain for the purifier its spread across town had stopped. He left green footprints on grey. Definitely going to need to make more sinks. Low priority right now. Finding everyone was most important at the moment. Finding anyone.
"You shouldn't be here." A familiar voice called out in sing song tones.
"Cherry?" Miles turned towards the voice.
"Hello, Fiona." The pink haired human was leaning against a wall between two buildings, grinning. "But you really shouldn't stop to chat with me. She's already seen you, after all."
"Who?" Miles glanced around. "Cosmo? The two rabbit girls, are they safe? Have you seen them?"
"Hm? Nobody else around but her though?" Cherry shrugged. "I'd tell you more, but... Well." She laughed. "I'll be in trouble if I say much more than goose, goose, duck."
Miles dropped. A metal ball scythed through the air where his head had been, blades clicking back into its thick metal chassis as it bounced off the stone floor.
A sphere from the eclipse. And… its friends?
Miles glanced around. There were dozens now, floating out from broken rooftops and empty alleyways he would have sworn were empty when he checked them before, loosely surrounding him in a circle in the sunlit sky above.
Cherry was nowhere to be seen.
Well, that was probably for the best, actually. Nothing like a target rich environment and no risk of collateral damage.
Miles flicked his wrist. A blazing skull screamed from his palm, spinning in place in the air before him. Crackling lightning bolts lanced from its hollow eye sockets at any sphere that ventured close, igniting them in violet flames on contact.
It had been worth catching up on his reading after all, even if his head was growing increasingly crowded.
Slipping away from the alleyway before the skull could dissipate, Miles slipped out his "Prism" rapier, now forged to his size and its once shining blade now tempered a deep midnight blue using the grim material of the reaper's scythe. A quick slash neatly bisected half a dozen orbs with a flash of technicolour light and flame that extended far beyond the blade's actual length and he was free, clear of their encirclement and soaring up into the open sky.
Nothing too menacing. Now he was clear he could easily fly out to the jungle and-
The ground below disappeared into a gulfing chasm full of whirring blades and jagged metal teeth. Jaws over five times his size clamped down at him as the mechanical monstrosity hurtled up into the air, trailing a serpentine form behind it. Crimson laser beams blasted after Miles as he dodged aside, fired from a series of robotic eyes built along the metal worm's seemingly endless coils as it plunged back into the earth, carving its way through stone like it wasn't even there.
Miles dashed into it, Prism flashing fast enough to leave an afterimage as one rainbow blade after another sliced straight through the robot and out the other side, chasing his target effortlessly through stone. He landed on its flank, racing along its body, blade tearing through laser eyes before leaping clear once again, the deep gouge along its surface was swiftly dragged into the depths. A few of the eyes burst free of the worm's damaged surface, taking flight. A moment later a whirring chainsaw mounted an arm of metallic bone thrust up through the unharmed surface of a building, sparks flying as the teeth glanced off his armour without quite connecting.
"Oh come on!" Miles flew higher as a familiar skull face surged up from the earth below.
Mr Skin, only this time clad in glittering metal bands riveted onto bone, glowing red orbs replacing its endlessly dark eye sockets, four metallised arms topped with deadly machinery and cannonry. The sky was filled with projectiles and laser eyes from worm and skull, whirling spheres of blades charged at him from all directions with almost absolute silence.
"Aren't you normally more talkative?" Miles spun in midair, slicing another wave of spheres to pieces. Silence was replaced by the chattering of-
Oh no.
Miles wrapped his tails around himself, dropping from the sky as his flight mechanism became ablative armour.
The mechanical teeth bombs hidden in the spheres all detonated as one. The shockwave ruptured his eardrums and the blast shredded his tails. He slammed uncontrollably into a stone roof a moment later, blood spattering its flat surface.
This wasn't... normal.
Miles flicked his wrist to loose another stationary defence skull, scrambling out of the way as Mecha Skin fired a bomb the size of his head from one of its "hands". The ceiling vanished behind him, the lightning from his spell loosed fresh teeth bombs from his aerial attackers. He leapt, rolling on impact as the roboworm erupted from the floor, barely passing over his head.
Teeth bombs that didn't break the stone, regular bombs that did, and two robots that ignored that stone anyway. The rules weren't even consistent.
Momentarily shielded from above by the massive worm's body, Miles downed a bottle of honey, wincing as his shredded tails reformed partway before pouring the dregs over himself. Enemies were supposed to be tied to their environment, teeth bombs and blade spheres showed up in mutually exclusive celestial events, all the "real deal" he'd encountered so far had either showed up at night or in response to some external trigger - the butterfly, the flower - not roaming around in the middle of the day pack hunting together. It was as though their only shared trait was that they were mechanical-
Oh no.
A crackling green energy whip snapped around Miles' ankle, yanking him out from beneath the roboworm and slamming him into the far building hard enough to crack the wall.
"Oh, Zeena." Miles groaned.
Powerful enough to handle herself against most enemies she faced, yet sedentary by nature, Zeena sequestering herself in town had been only natural. And given her natural Zeti mastery over technology any mechanical horror that this world had thrown at her had only bolstered her arsenal.
But no matter how strong she was in this place, there was one thing that Zeena, with her lack of exploration of this hostile environment, had no defence against.
"Mghri... ah'n'gha."
The horned maiden floated in the middle of the street, surrounded by a swarm of the floating red eyes and blade spheres. Once green skin was now a glowing yellow, once yellow eyes blank empty white orbs blazing with inner light.
The Hallow had claimed her completely.
And he'd sent his companions to meet her.
Miles grimaced, straining against the crackling energy whip that bound him. Zeena raised her other hand like a conductor, sending a wave of blade spheres towards him, clicking emanating from their metal shells. Mecha Skin launched another explosive shell at him, metal grin unchanging as it loomed above.
Now. He flicked his fingers out, sending his grapnel into the side of the roboworm passing behind him. There was a brief competition between the thousand tonne mechanical monster and the eighty-four pound Zeti before she was yanked along after him, skipping across the surface of the street like a pebble across water. She passed through the explosion meant for him with an incoherent cry of rage.
"You should- ah!" A laser bolt burnt off his ear. Miles flicked a damaged tail to send the other end of his grapnel into a neighbouring coil with a grunt. "Probably let go! It's going to be a bumpy ride!"
He yanked on the chain to drag himself out of the path of another shot. Zeena yelped in pain behind him, the energy coil released as he slammed into the side of the worm once more, groaning as his tails spun into life, propelling him backwards as he slipped out his rifle, spraying a torrent of flaming pellets into the metal skull spinning towards him before tossing a skull of his own out to greet it. Mecha Skin burst into three different colours of flame as it slammed through his magical projectile and into the worm that was his momentary platform.
"Psh. The real one didn't burn. You're just a cheap copy." He stabbed at it with Prism, lances of light slicing through its jaw and into the worm beneath him, a fourth flame engulfed the mechanical skull, metal plating warping in the inferno.
The worm split into chunks beneath him without warning. Miles barely had time to yelp in surprise as his foothold disappeared, sending him tumbling down to the ground once more in a splash of green, surrounded by hunks of twisted metal scrap. His helmeted head clanged against the stony surface, ringing between his ears. How far had he been dragged?
Keep moving.
Miles launched his grapnel, pulling himself sideways across the street as a kamikaze blade sphere detonated behind him. Their numbers were thinner now, at least. Just a few more left, along with the Mecha Skin, now sprouted spikes and spinning towards him like a buzzsaw, and Zeena.
Wait, where was Zeena?
A claw smashed through the wall beside him, tearing through the metal of his breastplate and slicing into the flesh beneath. Miles wrenched himself free in a spray of red, leaving a chunk of himself in her grip as he bounced across the road. The giant skull slammed down into the space he'd been held just a moment later.
Of course. Miles splashed a bottle of honey over his wound, coughing up lung tissue. Blood mixed into the purifier at his feet in lazy spirals. He might not have any electronics for Zeena to disrupt, but she was still far stronger than he was.
And his tails were still in tatters, too damaged to fly. He rolled them across the purifier soaked ground as he heaved unsteadily to his feet.
A blade sphere came close. Miles punted it into the wall where it fell still. No teeth bomb in that one. Where was she? Skin was visible again, still spinning as it hurtled towards him. Miles stumbled to the side as it rolled past, slicing off a handful of spikes with the Prism before falling to his side, dizzy from the blood pouring freely from his open ribcage.
Blade sphere. He sliced. It detonated, sending him skidding across the floor, the Prism blown from his fingers. Wait, no. He stared blearily at his smoking hand. His fingers were probably still with it.
"Ah'n'gha."
An energy whip snapped out around his shoulder, yanking him upright. A bolt from the Mecha Skin's laser cannon lanced into his armoured boot, engulfing the entire limb in sizzling heat.
Sad. Miles stared dazedly at the radiant Zeti floating above him, glowing as she was with that soft inner light. She'd probably be delighted with how pretty she looked right now if she'd kept her mind.
He flicked his purifier soaked tails towards her like a whip. Zeena shrieked as the spray of green liquid became green skin wherever it landed. The energy whip faded. She tumbled down to the floor after him, clutching at her face.
Until she hit the pooling purifier below. A convulsing foot cracked into Miles' jaw as she writhed, every movement covering her in more of the green liquid. Miles crawled away as best he could, wheezing breaths not enough to sustain him, already dim sunlight fading further.
"Ah, much appreciated, Harbinger." Skin's smug satisfaction rasped from his own lips.
Miles flinched, turning to stare up at the metal skull still grinning down at him with deadly purpose, saw blade swinging down in a wide arc. He just needed another few moments for his mojo to recover-
A rainbow flash sang through the sky, splitting the saw in two. Miles dimly saw a fluffy white tail above him, frantic cries as someone shook him, Ulnah's face peering down at him from a very long way away.
Nothingness claimed him.