"Hey! Don't move when they look at you!"
Faces untangled and dismembered into floating arrows of sharpened viscera, courting like sliced meat into thin slivers that traced toward the heroes. The office workers were some kind of fucked-up. Each fleshy javelin cracked through the air. Electric flames crackled. The scent of boiling paint and liquid grass permeated.
"D-Don't touch their attacks! They shock through the armor!"
"Duck those and move forward," frantic shuffling was done, and the sound of a splitting, hissing watermelon came pressurized like opening a soda bottle, "but don't get caught up in the wire!"
Three bodies with blaring red lights. Malformed, diseased with the blistering, pus-filled soap bubbles leaking watery ooze onto the floor, almost entirely like oil underneath paws and hooves. Imagined like it was dipping the limbs into the first surface inch of a pool of mucus or vomit, swimming it around in circles until the noses crinkled.
"Susie, help! Noelle is caught!"
She cursed, spinning her scythe in a clumsy attempt to parry the lance sent toward her head. In pure, dumb luck, it reflected off her weapon with a sheen of well-spilled sweat and perspiration.
The workers, or whatever the signs in the offices said, were the only life left on the floor. Moistened by waves of drowning blood, shambling, jittering and choking. Oblong shards of crunchy, popping glass hurled from their cord-mouths whenever they got close. Anybody could tell, though; brittle bones that didn't fit their collared shirts, wrists and hands too small to even fit around their lance-necks.
Noelle grabbed hold of one of the tendrils. It thrashed, scaly like dried snake skin swimming with maggots of slick spots. Everything shocked her, splinters of rotted copper worming beneath her nailbeds and striking the nerve that sent her SOUL into overdrive, flashes of pain that radiated every horrible thing that had ever hurt her. Numbness, an autopsy of her face with tears crisscrossed it, and then the crocheted, engorged feeling of heat against her body. But she wasn't stupid.
It took everything to stand up and fight it, the calibrated shocks racketing her as though running her raw hand across it until it bursted.
Ralsei was at her side as soon as she broke the tether and was pushing the warm - but not scathingly hot - magic against her. She glanced up at the Darkners hunting them. The drooping droplets of dark blood slapped against the dirty floor as the fluted trunk of the amputated appendage pulled away from her pillar.
The Darkner didn't react, merely reeling back as it slammed into the socket-wrap knot that replaced their severed heads.
The other two swung. Susie shielded herself, the tendril wrapping around the shaft of the Devilsknife. She grunted and struggled to yank back, swinging and disconnecting the lance from the rest of the trunk.
"'Friendly' my ass, Ralsei. These Darkners are bloodthirsty." Susie stayed ready for the next attack. "Actually, that one's on me, I agreed with walking up to these try-harding clowns."
"They were… umm, standing very still?" Ralsei tried to defend the mistake. His voice was noticeably worse for wear. "I thought they might have just been waiting for us?"
"Damn, Oligo got us messed up." Susie quipped, smiling however grimly.
"They, they didn't start attacking us until we started moving. I thought they were friendly, too." Noelle dusted herself off. Her robes were getting more torn up by the minute in this place. The gown beneath was in better shape. She glanced around the cubicles for more enemies showing against the beige walls.
Ralsei had a thought. Kris was gone, he knew it, and that made the idea of pitching his alternative less than ideal. At the same time, Kris was the one pivotal piece in acquiescing the group's decisions. It pained him on the inside to even fathom it but… maybe, with their unfortunate absence, they could try something peaceful. Foolish as it was, he fretted that they had caused too much harm, even in this acrid world. He was still optimistic. But where would he start?
He observed what they did, thought back on what triggered them. Bloody, spattered in it, nothing there to utilize for his ambition. No impetus besides peace was seeming more bleak by each rising tide of sacrificial hits, by the sloshing hum of exertion, and tied with the foul stench of hopelessness and absence. His paws jittered as he scoured his mind for ideas. They liked their whipping tendrils, that was for certain. Electricity arcing, glass breaking. Stayed in a neat cluster swaying back and forth uncontrollably. Not in any semblance of a neat line. He narrowed his eyes. The motion could almost have been alluring with some coordination, but the quiddity of the misalignment made Ralsei's eyes hurt.
Susie had to think more tactically lately. Threw her whole thing out of whack. Another bulbous tentacle shot right through the middle of the group, corresponding with a volley of glass haphazardly sent about in flurries. Even slicing off curds of the pulpy skin did nothing but make the only active Darkner wince slightly and pause the attack, but it remained where it was and distracted enough that Susie caught a shard in her arm from the others. The pain was moderate for the penetration; she seethed and pulled it out. The electric trickled along the tendril between the three and blocked them off from each other, the wire ducking just enough to avoid true damage from her scythe, untensing at sporadic intervals. Had to be some method to the madness to fix the foreboding challenge ahead.
She minded the Darkners; they kept their range instinctually, frantically fighting and wisely splitting the group. Her lips drew back in a snarl. Damn clever assholes.
Noelle's gaze cruised over the Darkners. "Let's try, umm, connecting their wires to shock each other?"
"Nah, screw that." Susie flexed her wounded muscles. She hissed in pain. "We got magic, let's toast these tangled headphones. Who the hell do you think you're messing with?" Her magic pulsed. The scythe bent outward as she slashed, her abdomen momentarily throbbing with itching fire. The first Darkner shattered, breaking all the glass. As the tendril retracted like a livewire fishing line, the other two Darkners ventured their own attacks, lances regenerated from the earlier wounds. The world was their oyster as Noelle and Ralsei flinched and skittered. "Shit, that didn't get it!" Susie held onto her weapon tightly - thinking of the sorrow she had bogging her down - with brutal, yet lugubrious conviction.
"Connect." A Darkner whispered, voice grated and lapsing volume between straining their ears to hear the lowness and bursting their eardrums with volume.
"Signal." Another said, wrapping a tendril around Ralsei to slash at his neck. His scarf held strong.
"Bipolar." The third one grunted before coiling, then expanding with glass exploding from its chest.
"Quick! Grab their trunks, Noelle! Let's try to connect them together!" Ralsei pounced on the closest one with his robes masking his hands. Piercing tingles came through the fabric. "Susie, finish that other one off!" The purple girl didn't waste time. Sighing with freedom, she felt around for more magic to produce another bursting slash. Her face crinkled in difficulty but allotted her it, albeit, and no doubt a result of the longer adventure, from around a rock of uneasy weariness. Noelle and Ralsei managed to wrangle the necks with unrelenting grips. "Connect them now, and then we can spare them!" Noelle whimpered in pain as the shocks hit her, yet endeavored to fight them. The air sang. Susie eradicated the unattended Darkner with more magic. The seismic clap of her attack and the two Darkners connecting casted light over the office halls.
Light broke all around the corridor as the two Darkners' trunks met together. Comical bulges of electrodes pulsated and entrenched further along the wires until the two stung each other.
And then the blood evaporated. The two office workers were dressed in wrinkled, collared shirts and slacks. The faint scent of coffee sent shivers down Noelle's spine as it mixed with the neat smell of papers. The office workers paused, glanced around. One of them sighed with a voice too human, so normal that even Ralsei looked at them with wide eyes.
One glanced at the other with a curling, then unfurling motion. "We need to report this to the Director."
"We'll pay this forward, friends." The other nodded. They both readjusted each others' ties. "Just you wait." Contented, the Darkners grabbed their heads and whirled them like whips. Snap, snap, the enlightened Darkners attacked again. Susie grabbed one of the tendrils and threw it over her head, ducking.
Ralsei wished he was confused. Wished there was something to question. Everyone they ever tried to help had somehow turned on them or ended up hurt, and everyone they had harmed or threatened turned out better, somehow. His mind burned with shame, as did the fire in his hands. As soon as he could, he tried to speak.
"Please, calm down! We're only trying to help you!" He gestured to Noelle and Susie to put their weapons down. Noelle agreed readily, easier since it was never a moment away, but Susie held steadfast. "You attacked us first! We were defending ourselves. But now we can be friends, okay?" His plea caused pause in the Darkners.
"Okay, group huddle, right now." One Darkner commanded and retracted their tendril. The other one peered oddly at Ralsei before turning. "Hey. Are you thinking what I'm thinking right now?"
"These guys smell like Postie's pie?" The other one mumbled, half questioning.
"Yes, but… I meant what I'm thinking right now, that isn't that? Like, right now, right now. Immediately at this moment?" The two Darkners colluded ominously with voices much too loud for a group huddle. Ralsei faced Susie's unsure look and laughed nervously. "Besides the fact they smell like pie, and the fact that they made a mess, and the fact that they are dressed like bums. Let's not even mention that the goat one in the middle has that gaudy hat on inside the wall. Let's not mention the fact that it doesn't rain," the Darkner was maybe glaring at him, he didn't quite know with the lack of a face, but he felt the urge to hide himself anyway, "and let's move to what I'm really thinking about."
"Besides the fact they smell like pie, and the fact that they made a mess, the fact that they are dressed like bums, the hat inside, doesn't rain? What else are you thinking-" the Darkner gasped. "By the Director, they got Fred!"
"No, no, you idiot!"
"They… made such a mess on the floor with their blood and glass! Oh my gosh," the Darkner smacked their tendril like a face palm. It made Noelle queasy. "it's like a pigsty in here! Be ashamed, you runts! We are a Dark World class establishment-"
The other Darkner's chest heaved in frustration. "No! No, no, no! If they're here and the Director Interim isn't…?"
Ralsei felt Susie approach.
Susie scooted closer to the Prince and whispered, much better than the Darkners, "So, should we run or kick their asses? Heh, you know what, let's do both! Hit and run, quick and clean."
Ralsei shook his head. The two Darkners were talking well enough that he visualized potential information they would leak in their tirade. That alone convinced him to hunker down and let his haunches stay heavy on the floor. Plus, the elevator they took was quite some turns away, and he wasn't sure they could evade the Darkners fast enough unless they were more distracted. And he felt repulsed and indignant at attacking them when they could sort this out peacefully.
"Let's just be patient, okay? Susie? That's something we can… afford. A minute to think." Noelle assuaged her doubts. Truthfully, a minute to think was something she desired longingly. Kris wasn't the decision maker anymore.
"Alright." Susie said without much need for convincing. "Yeah, right. As if. When they start trying to kill us again, I'll be ready."
As the time drew further, her readiness turned, instead, to impatience as the Darkners chatted, and Susie eventually threw her arms up and sighed in frustration.
"Do we talk like this?" Her remark earned glares from the Darkners. She sneered back and spun her scythe.
"'Do we talk like this?'" The DMNT mocked scathingly. "Who is going to answer that? Seriously, who among you is going to honestly answer that? Unless you have an angel on your shoulder, do you really think your self-perception has any inkling of what you're doing - any at all - because to me, you all have stumbled into the Astrowall, all tattered and filthy, while the Director is trying her hardest to save the world- and you little shits killed Fred!" The outraged voice of the Darkner unnerved Noelle. The whole situation was already strung-up and had her feeling mentally exhausted, but the things they were saying, about the Director, about how they killed Fred, and acted like they had violated some trivial rule on top of it… Noelle felt even more drowsy and muddled. She forced herself to peel her eyes open. "When she finds you, the Director is gonna… GONNA…!"
The Darkner seemed to finally glance around the hallway.
"Hey, Polly."
"Yeah, Stimley?"
"Has… has the office always looked so dark? I mean, I get the power flickers but," the Darkner spun around and around, "why are the emergency lights on? Where is the Director? Where are the Neuros? Polly, w-what's happening?" Their voice rose octaves as the panic set in, and the Darkners began to thrash and recenter themselves while keeping track of the cubicles and halls. They stepped backward and froze. "The CAT guards? Oh, I hate this red, I do. It makes me feel exposed!"
They turned to each other and mimicked the same frantic hug. "Oh no, Ms. Lampitope isn't here! Something went wrong!" The two Darkners cuddled each other, wrapping their dendrites intimately enough to make Noelle and Susie flush. The latter looked away while the former sputtered.
They really weren't all that far inside. The elevator opened up into the dark recesses of warped drywall, the kind that still smelled with nauseous paint fumes, and held foggy air within like trapped methane gas, and the spinning red lights bathed the cubicles with the same vitriolic urgency the heroes felt as they entered. No Kris, in a room with no life, blood, when Ralsei had seen too much, death, when Noelle wanted to find the best way, and glass, after Susie had finished watching her steps on fragile, vulnerable shards like the vilest of villain threw themself underfoot with the guise of innocence. The threshold into the offices took heavy steps, like the pulsing of the SOULs taking them, b-bahum, ba-bhum, ba-bum, until they were across and into the darkness where their healthy eyes couldn't see, but the blind among them contested whether they saw eyelids or sounds, concrete things or abstract whimsies, and soon enough, the remorse, the hatred, it culminated as thickly as the dust kicked dirty across the rooms and floating like powder in the air.
The cubicles were arranged like ribs in the ribcage, all neat and tucked with orderly coordination. Noelle had walked past them half-expecting something to jump out. Susie saw them as worthless nuisances, and Ralsei did fathom them as much else but distractions from his soaring mind. He counted the broken tiles like they would reveal something inside the brown cobwebs of age that would unveil the secrets to him, an image in the dark, a meditation, on which he could make further progress to his goals; but the dark gave him no quarter. He just saw their face in every picture on the wall documenting employees of renown, Ralsei's chest tightening with the notion that none would be as glorious as the Delta Warriors could be, saving the world one Fountain at a time, but how innocuously inglorious they were with their battered and bruised feelings and likewise battered exteriors covered in dirt and stinking of alcohol and old apple pie perfume that sat so long it gathered mildew. Or perhaps that scent was the office paint rotting through metal desk legs like an amputation kick.
"We've heard some startling news. A kind Darkner told us that the Champion made it inside," Ralsei began with a comforting smile in the darkness. "Sorry but… he also mentioned that the Director was killed. But maybe he was wrong. Umm, sorry about your friend."
"Oh, Fred. No one liked Fred anyway, he never offered to refill the canteens at the 'nodes." One Darkner offered this knowledge offhandedly, which prompted the other to flap their hand in some headless nod. "And yeah, I remember the Champion coming through here. What a weird Darkner that guy was, right, with those wings. My reaction to that information is actually upset to hear, I'm restraining an explosion right now," the Darkner admitted this, rather blasé, as though expecting some shock reaction to happen when they processed the stimulus.
Susie chuckled. "Exploding is for losers. Bottle it up like a real man. Get back on your grind."
The Darkners glanced at each other.
"Uh, I'm a neuron, not a man, and that sounds… really unhealthy."
"You live like this, Lightner?"
Ralsei chirped, "Susie, I agree. We shouldn't hold everything inside. You don't want to cause your own Roaring!" His fangs protruded as he gave her a staunch expression, softened beneath the admonishment.
"Y-Yeah… I've been doing that for too long," Noelle admitted, face still peaked and blushing. "I think that's why Kris… why Kris… went as far as they did. They never talked to anyone." Her own conflicted, downtrodden expression hurt Susie oddly.
"Jeez, I was joking."
Ralsei supposed everyone was calm, then.
"Can we ask you some questions?" It was just the next logical step. They needed to understand the situation and get some insight on the Roaring Knight.
The Darkners nodded. "As long as we can ask you some questions, too."
Ralsei had one eternally burning since speaking with Oligo- no, before then, before it all happened. "The Knight came through here and killed the Director. That's what we were told. Umm. Did you see the Champion? We don't know what they look like." He started simply, teasing out what happened, wording it in a honey-voice and practicing particular word choice.
"You don't know what the Director looks like?" Ralsei reeled back. That was not the answer he was expecting, another question, sure, but what did it say, was it saying the Director was the Champion or were they just ignorant, he needed to find out, and quick, because he felt shivers.
"Not the Director, you jolt." The other Darkner slapped the questioning Darkner's arm. It sighed. "My friend here is confused. The Director referred to herself as 'the champion of our plight' a few times in her great speeches. The Champion- oh, the Champion." The Darkner stroked its… chin? "Umm, I can't really remember much. It was like as soon as I saw it…"
The other chimed in. "Everything got all sticky, like spilt glue? The memories are hazy, but there was red. Uh, lots of red."
"I think I remember fire?" The Darkner curled inward as their voice faltered. "O-Oh, and there was a sword. Fire and a sword."
"A sword? You mean the spear," the other Darkner seemed to argue. "A sword couldn't have threatened the Director. The pen is mightier, and the armor of books and knowledge is strong, so only a piercing weapon could have made her worry, since her armor was thick. Had to be a spear."
"We never got a clear answer on the Knight's case, did we?" Susie remarked glumly. "Not changing either, I guess."
The two Darkners argued about the logistics of swords and spears versus armor for a long time. They also debated whether the Knight had wings or just 'a really wide cape.' Noelle wondered if it was more angelic or more medieval.
"Um, what about the doctors?" Her voice squeaked. "A few friends of ours were… kidnapped by the Viceroy outside. I mean, I don't know, but did you see them at all, if you were conscious before while covered in… uh, blood? I-I mean, I, there's nothing wrong with that."
The two Darkners twisted at each other, sharing wordless communication. Noelle rocked on her hooves. Ralsei nodded sagely at her.
"I thought I saw Dr. Felin going toward the command center. The defenses were on again for some reason. Those people he had with him got taken by the CAT guards up there, they're probably in the brig!" Susie was not surprised there was some jail in the Astrowall. The news just made her shoulders slump. Jail meant a place to go through to find their friends. And it also meant, in a really surprising twist that absolutely no one could ever see coming, that they would have to walk through what was presumably a dark cell block filled with whatever critters the Dark World could muster to counter any possible ebullience about progress.
"And Rnd, that expensive model," the other's voice was split between angry tremors and morose troughs, "I believe I saw him going to the museum with the sharps and..." The Darkner paused. "Wait, did you see-"
"The Viceroy? I was thinking the same thing, the hermit arose from his nevermore," the Darkner joked. The smallness of the voice betrayed the disparaging and candidly weak vibrations inside the Darkner's larynx. "Even the candle burnt out. I've never heard him sing like that before."
"So, we go after the Viceroy." Susie concluded. Ralsei nodded. Time was of the essence. The alerting lights traced their figures with thick shadows. Forceful and hypercritical as it was, they had to be running low on time.
There were a few other things the heroes wanted to hear about. They first ascertained notions and ideas about the immediate area, then what other inhabitants were lurking to pour water in the thick, and where to go for the Fountain.
The offices were structured into five sections, each fit with a floor manager and countless other DMNTs - as they were called. The one they were in remained the furthest from their goal. Ralsei didn't even feel frustration at the turn of events, hearing that they had to toil. The murky swamps of obsidian and bleeding, browned mud-banks were already sour enough on his tongue, like the hard exterior of a bitter candy. Strident and stiff, the riptide of the journey mended something he had lost; objectivity, forethinking, and a righteous goal to save the world. The chilly darkness still wormed in beneath his fur and garb, icing present on the coiling licks of cavernous spaces. The next block was their closest destination. From there, they would have to defeat or otherwise pilfer a precious key, which was - mean-spiritedly - nothing at all compared to the sheer volume of everything else. After that, the museum was ahead of them, and the access to the control center where they could unlock the Fountain, and finally finish their misshapen, disfigured, and abrasive adventure. He tilted his head back and breathed softly. Finally finish this chapter…
But between here and there, he was inexplicably reminded of the behemoth CAT guards that would patrol if anyone was caught by the horrors resulting from the Director's 'last resort option,' which would certainly spell grim tidings as the truth of the matter, and then the Viceroy was guaranteed to appear to obstruct their progress. He was quite tolerant of the situation but even the unassuming setbacks could be tragic at this stage. For them, for the Roaring… for Kris.
But they would get there. He wouldn't rest until then.
His scarf felt heavy around his neck as the three of them left the DMNTs to seek a 'lymph node' for 'rejuvenation.' They would make heads-or-tails of this yet.
0-0-0
The speakers rumbled to life as the three crossed the threshold to the next block.
"Finally." The voice made Ralsei's stomach churn. "The little flies flee further into the finalization of my flight-free. Oh, Woe, but there seems to be someone missing. Say it isn't so!" The Viceroy's elated cry made his magic boil. They lost Kris, the candle knew it, and now he was mocking them for it, without even knowing why Kris had left. Maybe it was better that way, because Ralsei imagined the Viceroy's giddiness would exponentially increase with the news, as though he was goading them closer to himself, to leaving everything behind for… whatever they wanted, all of the time. "Well! Well, well, well, well! This is certainly an unexpected twist! Like a knife, twisting, gutting this alive! This simply will not do. Ah, but alas!" He chuckled. "Not everything survives! Come pass! I assure you, there's still some superficial strife to suffer. Come, approach, Lightners two, and Darkner one!"
Susie blasted the speaker off the wall mount, scorching the wall behind it. The scent of burnt nylon and rubber insulted the air, the sound of crumbling, papery flame wafted it, and it fell. Ralsei thanked her for it.
Of course, this was a place with many speakers.
"Rude but understandable!" Viceroy trilled. "Kinda funny, too. But not half as hilarious as what I have planned. You may notice, as you glimpse over the precipice, beholding the next obstacles and challenges that bare beast's teeth brutally bloodied, that you're jubilant jamboree of three will just as well jump into a junction, where the salt is tasteless on the tongue, where the sights and sounds are deafening and horrid. When you're all alone, left feeling embittered and hollow, remember this well; every action you take, every step in cement shoes underwater you tread…" Ralsei felt his insides squirming in anticipation. The Viceroy had too much time to get ready. He didn't expect this so soon, though. "I WILL BE LAUGHING MY WAXY ASS OFF AT THEM ALL AS YOU MONGRELS STUMBLE ABOUT! EVERY STEP, EVERY WOUND! EVERY GREEN POTION YOU GUZZLE-" His laughter shone through his voice like the candlelight he was composed of, although the word 'composed' was too eloquent for the utterly unhinged joy exploding from his gullet. "-I WILL WATCH YOU, I WILL WATCH KRIS, I WILL WATCH AS YOU ALL FIGHT SO HARD FOR A WORLD THAT IS ALREADY DECEASED BY DISEASE!"
"Now," Viceroy concluded, audibly straightening himself up. "Now, we emerge onto the true test. Before you is the utter pinnacle of what I have planned. A… puzzle. I like to think of it as the true presentation of life as an entirety; unfair, hard to grasp, and most of all…"
"Absolutely stupid?" Susie finished for him.
"Absolutely hilarious. You see," Ralsei felt the image of the candle burning into his head, swirling with wax over his extravagant, untouched clothing as he relaxed somewhere with an old casket-bottle of wine likely ripped during an intrusion into someone's reserve stash for romantic moments. "this puzzle, I have learned, and now I'm ready for-"
Noelle's spell hit the speaker. Snowflakes fumbled to the floor like broken pieces of a fine vase, shoved to the floor and spread like ash as she bristled, her fur shaking like it stole sentience and argued with the rest of her. Her own breathing rose to a clamor as she let out everything in a blue-tinged vacuum that sucked, sucked, sucked the life from behind it and blistered around the speaker like a stitched, swollen-red wound speckled with fungus. Her eyes dilated and narrowed like an old dog chasing its tail would slow as it aged, growing fickle, and then slowing, and then stopping as it laid down and never opened its eyes again. Right there, on the rug, with family. Right there, in the hallway, with no family. Ralsei glanced away and traced the harsh, dark imprints of the floor with his eyes.
"-your attempt to walk past," another speaker caught up, "but I'm prepared! Like the long ebb of a moon porcelain and majestic, time has passed and similar to the astronomers who studied the stars, I have learned from it. You all maintain the unbalancing predilection to pass me by, but I have a brutally devious idea, and one that I can tell you without losing the effect to boot! I admit I've been thinking about it forever and I'm making an amendment here." His voice sounded so casually lecturing, like he was some street magician entertaining an explanation of his own trick to an apprentice. Where the halls began to dim, more speakers came. "The amazing part is this; you all… made a horrible mistake."
"A mistake?" Susie blinked and puffed her lip. "What mistake?"
"You came here. You followed me. You broke past the Astrowall somehow and yet ended up separated from Kris," the Viceroy banged something in his background, the feedback crackle metallic and pinging like the brim of a water glass. "And yet, this plan I had for them, it's now improved! Ahead of you, just… eh, two or three doors from now, you will enter the main influx of all DMNTs, CATs, and Neuros Gangli your poor bodies can take. The idea was gonna be simple; you just fight through them until you're exhausted and reach the one who has the corresponding card to the door you need to open to get into the museum. Cue the big reveal that there's only five cards and I already took two to get inside." Ralsei pressed his paw against his face. The candle's voice wasn't always this grating, was it? Perhaps his spirit had just been worn down so greatly recently that, much like a shiny locket of gold, the scratches were showing too much to shine as well. Or perhaps it was like a cooked meal cooling, only to be reheated again later when things were better. "There was going to be a whole comedic segment where I would taunt and banter with you all as you slowly realize that not everyone would be able to get past the security barriers, but this is so much better! So now, let's… play a game. High stakes, high barter, high tender, mighty tension. Take a decided look over at what comes next, I'll wait." Ralsei sent a shrewd glare at the speaker before realizing the futility. His next action was under the guise of neutrality, like a gilded veil of silk around a rotted spider, or bark around a dead tree.
"Ho-lee fuck." Susie commented in awe and raw, inflamed apprehension.
But his facade broke as he saw ahead.
The crystal-clear spring water of a mountain oasis glimmered like sparkling snow precipitation as the molecules arranged in opulent gems. Sheets of glass, blackened at close distance like some desert mirage.
Five platforms, each one housing units similar to the unit they just left, suspended above a centralized level by rivets that bolted into the belly of the Astrowall. The smell instantly shifted, forcing itself thin as it scrambled between the see-through glass, the lines of computers surrounding a protective shell around a middle cortex, and the burners spinning around beneath the central platform housing the core with gradient flames like the Aurora Borealis. Each platform easily dwarfed the entirety of Castle Town, like the pure behemoth of metal with a rubbery-skeleton could snap up the town with teeth of jagged edges, each sharply whittling it down to hexagons to be hunkered onto metal stilts and held and repurposed for use. The echo was astoundingly vacant for a room with an abyssal space hovering above and below, but the soft noise of something humming and crackling with dulcet, musically muted firecrackers sounded, and he thought he heard words thrumming from the deep.
Vibrant gray metals led down, stairs extending beneath the exit at an estimate of eighteen, and each yielded precise rows of screws stamped into a sturdier frame. He had to squint to avoid seeing his reflection in the bright metal ponds; he wasn't much easier on the eyes than the putrid scent of jet fuel was to the nose. The floor was so smooth and varnished that the rails creaked as he held tight to them and stepped down, only once. Ralsei could see some Darkners ahead, walking, then pausing, then staying before turning with bright-red blaring somehow fighting the ephemeral light from the Fountain off to the right of the platforms. More glass.
He could feel the soft vibrations from the Fountain reach out and touch his paw. Hold it, and whisper. Whisper that it would be okay. It was a babble, this far off. The rail was oily.
Piquant ozone hovered just beyond the senses.
There was an alienation, a detachment, palpable in the sense that the mind could clumsily theorize the existence of it and place it roughly within the bounds of the ecosystem. They were scrupulous with their reactions; the blossoms of burgundy mixed with pale white were somehow less interesting than the Lunatics, borderline annoyances at this stage. Bloody DMNTs hordes surrounded the central platform. The quietest sigh from Susie and the glum smile from Noelle told Ralsei all he needed to know.
Knowing his allies' reactions resembled melting dark chocolate. Bitter, but good.
"The game is simple: Across the way, slightly to your right, you will find the museum. The museum leads to the control room where you can unlock the Fountain, but you would have to fight through me and the defenses. Alternatively, there's only really two other options." The Viceroy's demonic grin sunk through the speakers. "Wait. Wait for Kris to arrive and together, at full strength, you can all fight me and win, and then march home victorious. However, while this idea seems sound, I have to question… exactly how long has this Fountain been open again?" The Roaring. If they waited too long, the Roaring could happen. Ralsei's chest tightened. The candle was about to hand them a hard choice. "You could also skip all that drivel. Head straight to the control room, undo the lockdown on the Fountain's chamber, and then hurry down to it before the doors close again. It was… hmm. Eight minutes? From the control console down would need to be under eight minutes."
Ralsei wondered where he received his information. He remembered that the candle had the code to the Astrowall and could somehow enter himself but exactly how much did he know?
"At least, that's what the Champion said."
"So, I guess if we beat everyone's ass here, we can hurry up and-"
"And while you're all buzzing like blithering bees about the bulk of this blasted place, that would leave… me, and Kris, alone." Ralsei gaped at the threat. It was… direct enough to make him inhale spontaneously, and thus cringe at the taste of gasoline. "I will break them into little bits. Just like how the world might end up, should you waste your precious - and rapidly dwindling - time! Feel free to debate, observe the DMNTs' patrol patterns, whatever it could take." He shuffled. "But I do so LOVE surprises, so whatever you choose, whatever hellish swelter hath wrought down onto you swampish curs, I shall wait! IN TOTAL OBLIVIOUSNESS! To see! DE-LIGHTFUL!"
There was then silence. The speaker merely gave absence of sound, like walking away from the group with no mind about it or impetus to explain. Ralsei rubbed his paws together.
"So, we go straight for the-"
"Let's go for the museum-"
"Umm, we should wait for-"
Everyone paused. And then they glanced around, gazes dancing in outlandish quarreling, ticked with vexed aversion. Susie licked her lips.
"This is exactly what that damn candle wants," Susie alerted them. "He wants us to wait or argue, and then when we pick which fast-food place to go-to, he's gonna give us a fucking speeding ticket. Wants us to waste as much time as possible. Heh, let's go to the control room and finish this."
"Can… can we even seal the Fountain without Kris? I'm a little lost on that, I guess," Noelle admitted, staring over the leagues of enemies like peering from inside some beast's mandible, "I don't know." She frowned. "I think we should deal with the Viceroy first, uh, in, in case there's a problem with that?"
Ralsei didn't know what he wanted, really. Part of him still believed, if not in Kris then in the prophecy he had worn, then sworn off, then donned again. That part demanded that they wait for the hero; the trio, the three, the warriors of change who would save the world. That part knew what to do and felt whole.
Another part - it was so confused! What would he do? The heat of the question sweltered beneath him, beneath his fur, until he shuffled nervously and gripped his robes. Kris… what should he do without them? Without the leader, without the person who they had failed themselves. Without the person Ralsei had failed.
He understood what loneliness was. He tempered it like a hot flame for… legitimately his whole life, save the last few days. Meticulously preparing for his calling, his prophecy, that with which he vested all his efforts into. When he dreamed, it was of Kris and Susie. When he spoke, his voice rang a monologue of absence-tragedy to the harkening dark. The affection from the darkness only lectured him on what was to come, and now, facing a future both in-tune with it and diverging from it, he wished it made sense. As something hovered over Kris, something clung close to Ralsei and lied to him, or at least he thought it did. In the breadth of vast swathes of universe, certainty was orgulous and tantalizing enough for his mind to want to blot out every other circumstance.
He wasn't magnanimous when he decided to grimace his own response. Yet, he was somehow unburdened by it, the words which slipped wetly from his maw, grits packed with excogitate as his eyes lingered over the unthinking.
They turned to face him. Only a second. He could notice choleric, lopsided frowns. His hazard was that of vindication. They looked tired. His eyes drooped, exhausted of energy he never really had.
"I think we should wait for Kris." He searched them for any sign he was correct. All he unearthed was the vile sense that not even the wind knew where it was blowing.
"Stupid fucking idea." Ralsei tightened his bite, cheeks puffing out, two fatty slabs of coiled fists, sordid aggression downy with fermented, shaken, and all-in-all thickly frosted hell.
"Susie! You're no good abandoning them, even if they are bad!" It was a trap and it sprung duly well as the rest of the candle's plans.
"No. Hell no. I'm not gonna be the bad guy after seeing Kris fucking kill those Darkners." Susie spun and marched up to Ralsei. He stared her down. "You're buying into their bullshit, just like I did. You think they're gonna give us answers after lying to us from the start? God knows how long they've been an inch from slaughtering everyone around them. Probably thought of killing us before!"
"I don't… would they do that?" Noelle's face contorted in horror.
"Susie!" Ralsei reprimanded seriously. Gravely. "Susie, they're our friend. We have to help them. Even if they don't want us to," he neglected any speak about what could be called 'deserving,' "so please-"
"I've tried!" Susie shouted. Her lips drew back into a beastly snarl, showcasing every tooth with a gangly gum line around tight skin, much more like loose leather than soft smoothness.
Ralsei inhaled sharply. "How did you try, exactly?" Susie pulled back. "They attacked you when you put them into a position where they had to, didn't you? And you've been alone with them since the start! Did you do your best?" He curled his paws, whether in fear or aggravation, he didn't know. "You should have known."
Susie grabbed him by his scarves and lifted.
"Are you trying to say this is my fault?" Her spit flecked onto Ralsei's face. Despite the tasteless swill in his mouth and his rising shoulders hunched beneath gravity, Ralsei stood up mentally, steadied himself even while suspended in the air.
"You said you tried to talk to them." His voice was muffled by the pressure of his body hanging from his neck. The sludge of mucus and dust blocked his efforts. "Susie, I think you could have done more. I'm not blaming you, I just want you to realize that we… we can do better."
"Why do we have to do better? I can't control Kris. You can't either! Not me, not Noelle, not you." She clenched her mouth closed and struggled to keep it that way. "Our choices don't even matter," she spat, "when Kris sets their evil fucking mind to something. Hey, remember when I was the bad guy? You sure didn't 'fix' me." Ralsei felt appalled remembering how they… 'convinced' Susie to come back to their side. Kris really went hard on them back then. Kris really went hard on all the Darkners. "Yeah, that's the look of someone realizing they're just as stupid as the rest of us."
"Oh. Kris… K-Kris did the same thing to those Darkners, too." She looked pained and waned for a stark moment, lips and brows matching in unconscious slopes. "I, well, gosh, umm…" Her voice wavered like a plastic bag in a storm. She bowed her head, a person defeated. "I don't know what's going on anymore."
Ralsei paused. Noelle knew them the longest, this hurt her like a sharp stone to the foot with every step, it had to, he knew it, because it hurt him as they were all he ever knew in the first place.
"And what about you, Ralsei?"
What about him?
Susie had been around just as long as Ralsei; longer even when he counted the Light World and the periods of solitude she had with Kris. She had the kingly bounty of times to exert her hands into the crevice where they hid themself.
"Umm, you've had countless times to talk to them. And when we confronted them, you just threatened them instead of letting them explain."
The monster looked sorted on the matter, vinegar-stained eyes. "They had plenty of chances. Didja really expect me to just keep shoveling them chances like some goddamn vending machine? Buy me off with some stupidly good heroics every damn time I tried to help them and they ditched me, every little moment where they had a chance and wasted it, when they've had nothing but chances, their whole GODDAMN life, when I've been on the fucking streets fighting for my life since I could fucking remember!?" She was almost in berserker rage. The knots in her forehead rippled as she shook him like batting leaves off a rug. "I'm done giving them chances, not after they made it clear, not after they fuckin' made sure I knew we weren't friends, and then they made sure I didn't want to be anywhere near that murderous, backstabbing, asshole or their fucking charity armor! They fucked up those Darkners for no reason! The soldiers were just, and they, and I, I- FUCK!" She let Ralsei go. Paced frantically to the other side of the rails. Her hands stole clumps of her hair in twisted tendrils that made the faintest, lowest krek, wailing as she rented them from their follicle. "Like it ain't me, like the fucking universe wasn't here to screw me over again, when things were finally, fucking almost 'good.'" She let the scythe slam against the rails. "Ralsei, we all had fucking chances. We gave them all to Kris. Didn't matter if they knew or not. We were their friends…"
She spun, harrowed, body spindled like woven clay into awkwardness, one hand searching from a hold in the air as she met his eyes for one single moment before staring at the future laid ahead of them.
"And we didn't fuck up." Her tone almost seemed certain she was telling the truth, but behind her fierce, sparkling-ember-fizzling eyes, he saw nothing but flat astuteness. She knew what she was saying, but she knew she was implying differently, and she didn't know which she meant.
"It's… I know, Susie," he mustered up all the kindness in his being - a welling that felt simultaneously great, like a spring of bursting youth that reminded him of the awaited days for the world of sunshine to open the copse of heroes to grant him friends, and simultaneously devastating like an immediate gut-wrenching, spinning stroke of a log digging directly into his gelatinous insides, rearranging what made Ralsei, Ralsei into something different - and with that kindness and hurt, he offered sympathy and understanding.
The world itself was waiting for them. A decision now would determine not just the immediate future, but the long-standing posterity. Their plight, their prayers, their penance. The purpose of all this. Ralsei had a promise to uphold the world in perfect order, to stop the Roaring with the heroes of the prophecy. Susie's persistence was… not something he could blame, after all, her point was something easily seen and proved.
Any slower and the stand still would slough into stalemate, the glass refracting would chill over and expulse mist with no moisture, like a crawling fog that would smell faintly of cloying earth and bedrock, but Ralsei kept his head on straight.
The room ahead frightened the simple mind of time, although it came at the cost of those with semblances of intrigue directed upward, past the changing seasons of red to gold, as the autumn of the burners blurred together in tiny mesas of wetted loam drip-dripped crimson with the lights of the DMNTs.
"We're gonna get Kris back to us," Noelle settled with a nebulous gaze and the fathomless depth of boorish animation that followed obvious statements of facts.
Her hands tensed around the railing. No one wanted to plunder this moment from her, though Ralsei felt the yearning to advance deep within.
"I've been through a lot with them, y'know? We've been friends forever, I guess we drifted somewhere on the way… I remember when we all used to hang out, me, Kris, and-and Asriel, out there in Ms. Toriel's yard just watching the stars. Asriel would talk about college, which was cool and all, don't get wrong, but, but everyone was just distant already, after everything. I guess I can't blame myself for not knowing since… since we weren't that close. Then, I mean. But maybe…" She reached into the air and summoned shards of ice. "When we can… shoot magic from our fingertips, heal wounds with a few words and hope, and, and fight soldiers and enemies off like some videogame, we can… do other things, like, like, umm, faha. Save people. We haven't been doing that but… if we can save, then we can fix this."
'Save' Kris; Ralsei assumed.
Silence permeated.
"So," Susie crossed her arms. "Just need a keycard to fight the Viceroy, right?"
Ralsei's shock unbound his glee and reluctance as he hid a subtle gesture of triumph.
"There's five of these…" Noelle raised a finger. "Umm, we've already been through this one. So, do we want to split up or stay together? The other cards are in the other rooms, like. Like a puzzle!" The monster figured it out before Ralsei even bothered to think about it.
"Well, the candle had a damn point. It's been… God, I don't even know, at least two days. We better split up before the Roaring happens." Susie lifted her scythe, placed it along the small of her back, angled the blade downward, relaxing.
"At least we had a good rest!" Ralsei chirped. His magic was nearly at the pinnacle. "I think we can avoid them if we stay stealthy. Like from before, they might only see us if we enter their… light line?"
Stealth was always an option.
Noelle nodded decisively. "I think we're ready as we're ever gonna be. So, umm. Cya soon?"
Ralsei exhaled in mirth. It was clear that, of the five platforms, the two missing keycards were clearly the entrance to the museum and the first platform. Armed with the knowledge of the logistics, Ralsei dawdled, waiting for the burners to turn darker green before readjusting his hat, smoothing wrinkles from his tattered robe, and setting off toward his platform with as much inspiration in his gait as possible with everything that had happened.
First of all, he had to pass the sections of the central pedestal overseen by the DMNT wardens.
He stepped down the metal staircase and crouched, pausing to wave goodbye to Susie and Noelle as they split further away from him. Ralsei hadn't truly been alone in enemy territory… ever, so he did so with a heavy heart, beating ever so slowly, silently creeping through the open room before realizing that he could power through: It was vision, not sounds, he hoped.
The first DMNT babbled lowly as he snuck behind and past it, muttering incoherently about birds flying through the sand. Ralsei tugged at his bone sash uncomfortably as he smelled the furnace-burning-sinew scent wafting in thick clouds from the Darkner.
He stepped around the Darkner in a semi-circle as it began to turn, casting red light as the Prince hoofed it up the metal stairs ascending to the next platform.
Another office, dark as night unleashed, sledding with rampaging banging, howling beeps of computers, and the underlying sound of something slithering across the invisible depths of the bellows. He hesitated for only a moment before he turned, closing the door, stealing away the last bit of true light from the room, an absence influential on the way he rifled through his pockets to ascertain what he had. Some pie and the toy cube. Not exactly the greatest plethora of items to take into the blind underbelly swarming with infected- or otherwise unwell- Darkners. He snapped his fingers and fire ignited within.
Lanterns of billowing orange surrounded him, his own fireballs providing the only solace of warmth, of live-giving, mortality-unerring vitality he could afford; the emergency lights covered and veiled the world in shadow, and he saw… things, writhing and quailing, just beneath the ridge where he could visualize them in detail; his fur crinkled and his horns grew present, and he felt every little wave of air over them; he shone his light over the corridors and watched closely, pretending he was unbothered. Distended appendages wormed around like maggots squirming for crumbs in a cup. Veneered, the squiggles disappeared as he blinked and made no noise.
"If there's anyone out there…" he whispered softly. "It is best to stay in the corners and leave me alone."
He didn't know if the thing in the corner heard him, but he repeated it twice more at intervals, rather bothered by the sights just outside his view. Lips tightening, he kept walking through the whirring, each step slowly gaining traction until his paws were sending rippling, gently shaking waves through the floor, eyes wide and disapproving with a smooth-bore animosity against the shadows, brow plucked up in unwavering conviction, hidden behind the panes of glass dancing with the fire magic as he calmly pushed his glasses back into place.
Other tears in the water, like a foot-deep pond broken with bustle, resplendently cloistered some distance away. Ralsei closed his eyes, removing his glasses and placing them politely onto the floor. His fireballs remained. Sharp with intelligence, Ralsei knew before he confirmed it. He knew.
He sighed.
He could see in the dark competently. Would be understandably awkward not to for a creature both made of it and living within it. The red water from the lights mangled his vision, breaking his typical skills, but he recovered.
The behemoth in the far corner was like some sort of crocodile. Intermittent scales upon textureless skin, puddled with small, glimmering, multicolored eyes that focused deeply onto him from a perfect and thick ring of porcelain.
A metallic taste spread through his saliva, pausing a moment to swallow it before it distracted him.
Two long tongues, or jaws, protruded from the circle with dangling electrodes and scanner bars placed eerily separate and in no specific order, long, two of them, oscillating.
"We- I tried the easy way…" Ralsei felt genuinely regretful to be fighting this unknown enemy, in the other Darkner's own lair no less. "Umm, don't worry. I'm not going to kill you."
He stared right at it. The whirring stopped. Paws angled slightly away, he was half-pressed between a side-profile and facing it head-on, torso and legs bladed. Hands fell to his waist. Fireballs quickly sputtered out. Ralsei took a deep, relieving breath. Reminded himself that he had fight in him, if only misdirected at the moment.
The Darkner ripped its jaws open, crawling toward him on thin, IV pole legs. The intensity in his ears grew. They flapped as he tilted his head. The CAT guard paused.
The two stared at each other, recognizing each other.
"Try not to break my glasses," Ralsei chortled. "I need those to see in the light."
And then it was on.
0-0-0
Ralsei glared at his broken glasses.
"That thing was… kinda tough." Susie wiped sweat away with a neutral expression. "Felt weak just gettin' close to it."
"It was a good thing we all have magic." Puffs of cold air expelled themselves. Noelle grinned. "It was almost… like a kicked puppy when I knocked mine on its side, y'know? Just… looked sad," her eyebrows drooped, iris solemnly growing as the rest of her features shrunk. The power over life and death, Ralsei thought to himself, is not something anyone should have to deal with. The morality was cumbersome. Noelle shook her head. "Well, I was sure as heck glad when I slept it." She grinned again, graceful relief allaying her prominent teeth.
"Yes. A few spells ought to do the trick!" Ralsei chimed in. "Wish it didn't break my glasses, though."
"Umm. I could try…" Noelle extended her hand out, offering an unspoken offer to the Prince. He blinked, bleary-eyed. "I've had to fix a lot of them." She laughed. "Berdly used to break his occasionally…"
He ignored the odd sense of regret in her voice. "Well. It's best to try, right!"
"Nerds." Susie remarked, punching Ralsei's shoulder. But he could tell she was smiling as Noelle worked with her magic, mending the crack with glacius ice that beamed bright blue. And instantly melted.
"Oh." Noelle said, glancing at the burners underneath the heroes' feet. "Let's wait until the museum, fahaha!"
Ralsei giggled. "A good idea, Noelle."
She glanced at him weirdly for a moment before her eyes crinkled and she nodded, tittering some more.
He… admittedly didn't like Noelle very much when he first met her. Not that he particularly disliked her, she just… seemed neutral to him. Not one of the prophecy heroes, and somewhere deep down, beneath his ideas of kindness and heroism, he saw her as… someone closer to Kris than himself. It removed something he felt with Susie. A sense of security. Neither one knew Kris deeper than the other. But Noelle knew Kris so much better than anyone else could, to a point where he almost envied it. He felt foul. The avarice of being close to another person remained nailed into his heart from years, stretches of his entire life, spent alone, wandering, waiting. She had that with them.
But then another thought crossed his mind. Even if he was her, could anyone have seen their turn coming? She didn't know. No one knew. Ralsei was mistaken believing it was possible, he was, and somewhere inside his mind, he knew that it was a fate he was doomed to experience, to see someone you longed for fall with nothing to do but deal with the damages afterward. Maybe they would change. Maybe they could open up, like he thought they wanted to, when they realized what damage had been struck against people he presumed they cared for, and the other option made his neck tense and his scarves lay heavy on his person, because feeling like dirt at the idea of a Kris lost, alone, and afraid, was merely a shadow of a Kris who was content and happy with the present: That Kris was scary.
So, in some way, he didn't feel jealous of Noelle. In a strictly self-preserving manner.
But he supposed it didn't matter. Not truly. She was just like him. Just like Susie. They all wanted Kris to succeed and better themself, to atone for what they did, and to that end, he didn't mind the idea of befriending her. A strengthened friendship would help everyone.
Especially…
They walked through the empty corridors, this one completely dark. Ralsei lit up some fireballs as Susie focused minimal magic into her axe, lighting it up with a crepuscular luminescence, giving canny insight onto the gate as they approached.
Especially since ahead, just past the laser-grid gates with headstones of card readers plunked into the ground, they would come to the true challenge of their adventure.
Ralsei glanced to the dark hallways behind, then to the dim hallways ahead - a few skylights sent purple night into the museum, entrancing, tracing and baking the reflective strips of tape with great splendor, rendering it all, purple, deep purple, and showing them the other side. Soon, they will meet the candle, and then after, they will fight him, win, for them, for Kris, and then finally, after hours of stumbling in a fever dream, they could wake up, home and safe.
He ran his paws over the smokey-colored card he had ripped from a DMNT shortly after defeating the CAT guard. Exhaustion poured from him for a moment before he inhaled, nodded, and gave his friends a side-long look.
"Ready?" Susie questioned.
Noelle and Ralsei meet eyes.
"As ready as I'll ever be." Ralsei replied, feeding his card into the reader. The red laser gate didn't fade into nothing like he expected. Instead, a pressure washed into his hands, a sting following it shortly after. "Oww."
He stood silently. He waved his hand at the lasers. Nothing happened. He placed the card back into the reader. Nothing happened, but he felt the pressure again, despite the absence of the following sting. Then, taking a leap of faith, he sighed and stuck his hand through the lasers.
And nothing exploded.
"Umm. Okay…?" Ralsei thought it best not to question it. A leap of faith. He sent down a prayer and walked through the rest into the next crypt.
Nothing happened. Something must have answered.
0-0-0
The village was inexplicably dead. Just as the Champion alluded to. What a dismal state of affairs it must be, to be an angel in this world of suffering, to be so scarred when you're seen as so beautiful. Damaged, broken, creaking. One could pity it, even a mortal.
Two figures stood in the streets of the corpse made of creeping vines, fuelled by lymph. Incomparable to any sensation, the feeling was between small fear and brutally cold understanding, acknowledgement, and then forethought ahead. Mourning the dead was best left to after the dead were avenged. After they were saved. A caution, surely, to leave the quintessential feeling of adulation to the proceedings following a comely task.
Fingers skittered along the cobblestones, scaling heights of shingles, wood, and rustled metal scraps turned into abodes. It was nothing like their usual. Nothing like the Asylum proper. Good people were willing to step down to receive their wanted accolades, supposedly.
And if it meant serving a Champion who sought to defeat a killer, to defeat an evildoer, then one figure in particular held no qualms: promise, plight. What did it matter to her? As it called itself Promise and detailed the criminal past, Doctor Scrubs didn't sweat the details on what the Champion preached to her, much less when she laid upon her deathbed.
"Umm-eth," the poisoner's apprentice - the so-called 'Duke of Puzzles' - gazed around in mild distress, "this art the righteous floore?" At Detter's nod, he chuckled nervously. "The Champione hath said that-"
"Quiet, please." Detter ordered, book blank. She twirled her dulled scalpel, dragging it along her scrubs, her namesake, instead of the casual turtleneck she wore before. Her coat was dusted from battle and her neckwarmer was torn, but she was reviling the thought of pausing for something as mundane as a clothing change when she saw the images. "Wait here. You've served a great purpose, Duke of Puzzles, but now, this next arduous task will be dangerous. I have a masked killer to hunt." Detter's warble held no emotion. She saw the depictions of the video the Champion granted her; sculptures locked into visages of horror, people scattered, a blue bird trapped within a grave of snow. Kris. Kris and Noelle. She needed to intercept them. It was her Promise to the Champion.
If that malformed robot chassis could be blessed by heaven as a Champion of its will, then Detter presumed she could soon be higher in the chain, as well. An angel of her own.
It was her oath. Her own personal oath.