Snuggles The Symbiote
So I clear through the horrible demon-octo-horse Paladin and stomp through to the next area, where I get attacked by a sword nun and a witch nun. I kill them, ride an elevator-altar up to what I'm pretty sure was an insane asylum based on the fact that a lot of the fluid-sack brain tumor heads were ranting insanely and/or wearing straight jackets, fight my way up the frickin' maze this was, backtracking all the while because of course there are lever and elevator puzzles, and I'm pretty sure that there was supposed to be a friendly NPC in one of these rooms, and eventually, I manage to make it outside into this garden with a bunch of tumor-headed giants that screamed at me, summoned meteors, and kept fucking respawning...
Eventually, I ended up in a clock tower with a lady in a monster hunter outfit slumped in a chair... Clearly, I was supposed to wake her up and talk to her, but... They wouldn't put two boss fights back to back, would they? Not in a game that didn't seem to have a way to rest or save... But Arcade's thing was that his traps and scenarios had to be fair. He wanted the challenge, not just the kill, so he wouldn't have made this simulation harder than the game it's based on and from what I could tell this was a horribly difficult and very unfair game that was meant to make you scream and curse.
Still, right now I was in a closed room that didn't have anything trying to kill me, so before I did anything I leaned back against the wall and slid down. I get tired so easily and I'd been running around and fighting more in the last... Half-hour? Then I usually did. I needed to rest for a few minutes and...
Just as I started to doze off, the lady in the chair suddenly jerked awake and sat up. She started saying something but I didn't hear it.
Because I was busy yelling: "Oh come on! I didn't even trigger anything!"
Snuggles The Symbiote
Ten-foot arms made of wire and sinew ending on beachball sized hands with oversized scalpels for fingers grabbed at Grace, threw her around and tore at her flesh, inflicting pain upon her that was less than that of her transformation and thus certainly less than her victims suffered but still pretty bad.
Bonesaw, the part of her that Grace hated about herself, had twisted into an embodiment of every bad thing that she'd ever done when she was Riley. Those monstrous limbs met at the torso of a woman sized barbie doll whose head had been replaced by a steel ball with Bonesaw's flayed face pasted against it. Dangling from that torso was a bundle of wires, organs, and a giant version of her reinforced spine that was far too large for the torso leading down a good twelve or so feet to a mini-van sized version of one of her spider-boxes, completely with giant scalpels, syringes, scissors, and bone saws tipping their legs.
Nothing Grace did could hurt Bonesaw. After a few minutes, she started to think that maybe... Maybe she should just let Bonesaw kill her. The only person who cared about her was Ashley, and honestly what could be more just than if a killer was taken out by an embodiment of their own sins? Besides, every one in two worlds knew who she was. International law said that she couldn't be held responsible for her crimes, but if the PRT was interested in the law she'd never have been kill-ordered in the first place.
At least that's how Ashley explained it.
Either way, she didn't have a future. Trying to be normal after all of this would just waste everyone's time and cause a lot of heartache
"Kid," the Little Yellow Box said as she was thrown into a wall. "Don't go there. That way leads to the Darkside. By which I mean depressing and poorly written fanfiction."
"Why though? I deserve this. Ashley's the only one who doesn't think so."
"That's because Ashley comes from a world that knows that doing bad things doesn't make you a bad person," the box said. "One where optimism isn't dead. You know she's afraid of needles?" It continued. "Absolutely terrified. Comes from having spent a year having her bodily fluids siphoned out for illegal medical experiments." Well, didn't that make her feel a million times worse than she already did? "And after that, and after what you did to her, she still sees the good in you. Why do you think that is?"
"Becuase she's bat-poop insane?" Grace muttered. Honestly, it was getting to the point that she barely noticed that she was being thrown around and torn apart.
"Because there's good inside you. You can choose to be good... I'm gonna seem like a huge hypocrite saying this, but there's no such thing as a full-time hero. To paraphrase an alternate universe version of a certain Russian, there are only four or five moments when you're a real hero, and to do that you have to make a choice. To save a life. To help a friend. To spare an enemy. Just now, when you said that you don't want to kill anymore. That you want to do something constructive? That was one of those moments."
Grace scoffed. And coughed up a little blood.
"No, seriously. Jack turned you into a monster. It's hard to really change who you are, but you've already taken the first step. You've turned your back on everything you've ever known becuase you learned it was wrong. There are plenty of people who'd call it heroic and honestly, it's the hardest part. Now you've just gotta keep walking forward. One foot in front of the other, just like in that one Christmas Movie."
"They're not gonna let me change," Grace said. "The whole world knows who I am and what I did. There's gonna be people calling for my head and the PRT's gonna give it to them to cover their own butts."
"Fuck them," the box said. "Anyone who doesn't think you deserve a fair shot is someone who doesn't understand nuance or that someone who commits a crime can also be a victim. The PRT isn't gonna piss off the immortal eldritch abomination who can set souls on fire and knows all the horrible crimes that their leader committed and that immortal eldritch abomination happens to have essentially declared herself your best friend."
"Maybe it'd be best if she didn't have to choose between helping me and alienating the people who can shut down her chances of being a superhero?"
"Yeah, that's not your choice to make. Now, one last thing: those people you hurt? The ones that are still alive? If you die here then the only person who knows how to fix them dies and they're stuck like that forever. If you feel so bad about what you did then the best way to atone is to fix as much of the damage you did as you can."
That... Grace hadn't thought about that. She had no idea how many people would agree to it or if the PRT would even give her a chance, but... She couldn't give up until she knew for sure that there was no way to help the people she'd hurt.
As Bonesaw slammed Grace into the ground, the little box finished. "Also, it'll make Ashley cry and we both know that you'd hate that."
Grace pushed herself up and glared at her horrifically modified cybernetic doppelganger with a defiant smirk... Only to realize that she wasn't alone with the manifestation of her dark side anymore.
She and the monster were now surrounded... The best way that Grace could explain it was an army of eight-foot-tall teddy bears. giant teddy bears that had very obviously been stitched together from the bodies of other teddy bears, with mismatched button eyes and patches of blue on an otherwise brown face and four limbs that were all different colors and... Actually, the left legs kind of looked like they came from a Raggedy Anne doll.
And each bear had a cartoonishly large bundle of dynamite strapped to their backs, the ends of the wicks sparking.
Bonesaw laughed. Not giggled. There was no mirth in this, it was a cackle of pure sadism. "It's been fun, Riley," she said, "but we really should end this. So, would you kindly... DIE FOR ME!"
The bears surrounding Grace all began running towards her at once.
"Oh, come on," the box said as Grace closed her eyes and braced for impact, "they gave her Alice's spell? ...Well, I guess it's kind of appropriate."
There was no escape. She'd just have to take it and hope... "No! I Want to live! I deserve to live!" She hadn't meant to say that out loud, but...
Her ears rung with the sound of a dozen simultaneous explosions but... She wasn't hurt.
"What?"
That... That was a good sign. She opened her eyes and saw that the Little Yellow Box wasn't so little anymore. It was big enough to be a wall and there were two more of them shielding her from Bonesaw's attack.
"Kid," the box said, "a little tip: she's only as strong as you let her be. She's everything you hate about yourself, but you're stuck with her because she's a part of you. The more you hate yourself and reject who you used to be, the harder she's gonna be to defeat."
...That was some Freudian horse poop.
"Yeah, this game runs on a mix of Freudian and Jungian psychology and Tarot symbolism. I'm just telling you how to get out of here."
A pair of cards appeared in Grace's hands. Tarot cards depicting a face in the sun and a skull in front of a door. The Sun and Death. One was vitality, happiness, and success, the other was ending, begins, change, and growth.
"...How do I know that? I never bothered with this stuff before and... What?"
"We're in a Tarot themed game, I gave you a reading. Your old life is over, your new one's beginning, it's gonna be different, but you're gonna succeed in your attempts to change for the better and you're gonna be happy and live your #bestlife. I know that, and it's not some mysticism garbage, I know it becuase I believe in you. Ashley believes in you, and between you and me? There are dozens of realities where Riley Grace Davis escapes from Jack Slash's control, overcomes his abuse and becomes a good person. Even Riley Prime managed it. And for as many people there are who hate you for what Bonesaw did, there are also a bunch who'll be happy for you to get out from your abuser's influence and be good despite what you've done before."
Grace didn't want to believe it, but... She could feel in her bones that as far as the box was concerned, the box was telling the truth.
"So, let's get out of here... All you have to do is let me into your heart and then say..."
Grace felt a warm presence around her, like someone who just wanted more than anything to keep her safe from this cruel world. With gentle hands, it guided her and made her hold out her arms in front of her and then, going with her gut she crushed the two tarot cards, causing them, and the Giant Yellow Boxes, to shatter as she said "PERSONA!"
From the Shards of the cards emerged a presence that took shape before her. A figure not unlike an unarmored samurai, dressed in a black hakama and kimono top and... Wait, how did she know what those were called? And he held a pair of fancy, modern-looking katanas. And on his hands were black and red gloves, and on his head, he wore the mask of...
"Wait, you're that Deadpool guy," Grace said, confused.
"Close, but no. Come on, you know me. You were messing around with my organs a few weeks ago."
Grace blinked. "No. Bloodbath killed you."
"Yeah, well," Clonepool said with the expression on his mask changing to imply a smile, "my original self used to date the Grim Reaper. My healing factor's not as strong as the original's so I couldn't come back from that, but I was able to call in a favor to make sure a little girl in a really bad situation wasn't left there alone becuase I can't not help a kid in need."
Grace's eyes widened as she realized that Ashley wasn't the first of her victims to forgive her and want to help her.
"No! You don't belong here! Don't interfere!"
"You can't stop me," Clonepool said back to Bonesaw. "You're manifesting though the tech here. You're hardcoded to be limited to acting like a Shin Megami Tensei boss while I am manifesting through ghost bullshit and can do anything that my demented weeb mind can think of. Case in point: Screw Persona, let's take a second to do a Bleach RP."
He dropped his swords. As they fell, they flipped so that the tips of the blade hit the ground first... except that they didn't hit the ground but slid through it seamlessly while leaving a ripple, not unlike a rock landing in a pond.
"Bankai: Great Golden Girl."
(Clonepool's note: Normally that would be in Japanese but the Author isn't fluent in Japanese enough to give this one a name. Also, he thought that this translation note gag was funnier than asking around for help. Also, alliteration)
The hospital maze melted away into a featureless black plane with a floor like crystal, the concentric circles from the rippled began pulling together on the far side of the plane, behind Bonesaw, and from the ground emerged a one-hundred-foot-tall colossal Beatrice Arthur dressed like a Buddhist Nun who, moving with a speed that someone so large shouldn't possibly have been able to manage, crushed the monstrous Bonesaw underfoot like a bug.
There was a bright flash of light and the room was back to normal, the giant woman gone.
"...What the heck was that?" Grace asked with a blink.
"A Big Lipped Aligator Moment," Clonepool chirped cheerfully. "Don't think about it too hard, it'll never be mentioned again after this. Anyway," the ghost-clone gestured to the blue dress wearing child crumpled on the ground, moaning, "you've still gotta deal with her. The ball's in your court now, I can't give you any more help with her, so..."
Grace looked at the pained Bonesaw. The version of her that she saw in the mirror every day. The part of her that wanted to kill her or drag her back to being what Jack made her into.
"You're never gonna be rid of me," she said between pained gasps.
Grace took a deep breath, exhaled, and then stepped forward to her doppelganger.
And then, she lifted her up and gave her a hug.
"What? No, what are you doing!" Bonesaw shouted, confused.
"Following Ashley's example," Grace said. "I'm stuck with you. You're part of me. I can't change that, but I can change how I feel about you. So I forgive you. For hurting me. For trying to drag me back to what I used to be, I forgive you. And I love you."
"No, no, no!" Bonesaw shrieked. "You don't get to..." Whatever she was going to say was cut off as she faded from existence.
A glowing gold gate, like the one that brought her here in the first place, appeared, but before she stepped through she turned back to look at Ghost Clone Pool, who was himself fading.
"Wait," she said concerned. "Are you leaving, are..."
"Relax kid," he reassured, "that line about welcoming me into your heart wasn't just me playing along with the theme here. I'm basically your guardian angel now: someday you might not see my advice-giving boxes as often as you used to, but I'll always be there for you if you need me. That's a promise."
And then he was gone. With conflicted emotions, but still feeling more at peace than she had been... Ever, Grace walked through the gate.
And immediately started shivering. She needed warmer clothes.
She noted that everyone was here in this old, cold town... Except for one person.
"Where's Ashley?" She asked the others. That at peace feeling was suddenly replaced by a sinking feeling in her stomach.
Snuggles The Symbiote
"Just fucking great," I said as I drove the blade of all-love through the chest of a murderous fish-man. At this point, I was so far beyond angry that the god-damned Hell-Mark turned all the way back on. Mania lived in Philafreakingdelphia and I didn't know her real name. How the Hell was I supposed to find her to get it suppressed again? "I manage to get past psycho-flaming blood lady and now I'm in fucking Innsmouth! As soon as I kill Dagon, I am so giving Arcade a Penance stare!"