Authors note: After a little thought, I've come to a descision: from this point onwards, chapters/scenes may change POV's for a bit, so from now on, the character's POV you'll be reading from will be stated with their name underlined and in italics to show that. I'm not sure how many characters I'll show a POV from, probably not many, but still, I'm hoping I Can pull it off.
Yayaka
The journey to Pure Illusion was nowhere near as smooth as it was going through Asclepius' portal. Back then, we'd just take a few steps, and there we were.
Here, it felt like we were on a merry go round, that was going at a hundred miles an hour, and we were desperately trying to hold on.
I completely understood why Nyunyu had taken my had as well as Toto's, and why they were both holding mine so hard. I probably would have been flung off, alone, into the far reaches of some distant world if it wasn't for them. It's really weird not having Yuyu here with us though... Her gauntlet would have had no problem keeping hold of all of us, and we'd be fine for sure, but still, Yuyu didn't quite seem to want to come with us, and we couldn't make her...
Suddenly, all the chaos came to a halt.
Everything stopped.
I finally opened my eyes.
An army of shooting stars were racing through a deep night sky, above a land scattered with thin, pointed mountains, as if it was a forest of stone. The land was earth the colour of sand, with streaks of purple dust, which would catch the wind and shone as it danced through the empty spaces.
Pure Illusion...
We made it!
"Have a look at this, guys..." I said, in wonder. Hell, Toto and Nyunyu may well have already been taking in the sights, but this place... I've been to a ton of different worlds before, but it's been a long time since I ended up in one where my eyes were captured by the sheer beauty of this strange dimension. There was no mission this time for amorphous, and there never would be again.
We were free to explore as we wished.
Yuyu's missing out. She might not have cared about this place at all, Toto and Nyunyu might not be too fussed either, but I was just so... man, I don't even know. Pure Illusion just has so many marvelous worlds, each of them places that so many people on Earth would never know about, and I was one of very few people lucky enough to be able to come here. I really wish cameras worked in Pure Illusion, this'd be a great place to take some photos, I could take them back and show Yuyu.
I need to take Cocona here one day.
"Hey, Toto, do you think you can save these coordinates?" I asked.
There was no beep from his headset, and no reply from him at all. That's odd. It wasn't like him to not respond. Maybe he is as marveled by this place as I am after all... Maybe Toto liked fantastical scenery or something.
"Toto?" I tried saying his name again, as I turned to look at him, and my fear spiked.
He wasn't marveled by the scenery. He was kneeling on the ground, a hand to the scar on his head, and he seemed to be having trouble staying awake. His breathing was heavy (I guess I was so entranced by the place I didn't realise until now just how loud it was), and his body was shaking. Nyunyu didn't seem too concerned (she could have been for all I knew, I have yet to learn Nyunyu's body language and how she expresses emotion) and just stood there watching him.
"What's wrong, Toto?" I dashed over and knelt next to him as quickly as I could. His eyes flicked to look at me, and he tried to speak, only to manage a grunt and hissed from pain. My fear gave way to anxiety.
Our ranged attacker and medic is down.
I had no knowledge of first aid (probably should have done, but Asclepius never bothered to teach me, amorphous kids probably have different biology to normal kids anyway, there was no guarantee anything I tried could work), and didn't really know what to do. It was probably a miracle that Toto never seemed to get hurt on any of our previous missions when we worked for Asclepius. Heck, even if he was up and about enough to deal with his own injuries, Asclepius prevented him from diagnosing himself with anything, never giving his eyepiece access to that information.
His eyepiece! Maybe we could contact Yuyu and Hidaka back at Flip Flap, maybe they'll know what to do...
"Toto, can you contact home with this?" I asked him, hoping he was at least in okay enough condition to help us out. No such luck. He tried to move the arm that was supporting his head over to his little visor, but doing so caused him to lose balance and collapse on the floor. The impact of him hitting the sandy earth caused his bag to open and for the contents to spill out. I could only really make out a scrap of fabric (I'd guess a spare school uniform), and a tiny gleam of light reflecting off the surface of something else, buried amongst...
Crapping hell, Toto, how many Hole devices did you take?!
Literally, I probably could have reached into his bag and kept clawing out handfuls of the damn things. The two things that weren't Hole devices were completely buried in the mess. I was momentarily stunned by the sheer number of them before I realised: I'm literally looking at hundreds of ways back home.
I grabbed one, and tossed it to the ground. All it did was clatter as it landed. Why didn't that work? Was it a dud? I tried another one, and the same thing happened. And again.
"Why isn't this working?!" I angrily asked, before throwing one as hard as I could across the landscape. It was picked up on the wind, and was lost amongst a cloud of the dancing purple dust. A part of me hoped it'd land and that the dust had somehow managed to activate it and get it working. No such luck. I was about to shout a curse, when I remembered I was in the presence of a child. A child made by Asclepius...
"Hey, Nyunyu, do you think you could take a look at those? See if you can get one working?" I asked. Nyunyu raised a hand and said 'okay!' before rummaging through all the devices all over the ground. In the meantime, I leaned over Toto, and tried to move him carefully, seeing if I could work out what was wrong with him exactly. His wound hadn't opened up, like I thought it had, and there were no blatant causes of pain otherwise. Internal? It must have been. But why? He seemed fine before we came here...
Is it something to do with the world? That was a possibility, but me and Nyunyu weren't affected if that was the case. Some weird allergy? I would have thought Asclepius would have removed all the possibilities for allergies when they created their artificial humans...
Hearing him struggling to breathe was getting painful for me, even though I was just listening to it. It was then that I remembered a piece of equipment we had that was very seldom used, heck, I think it was only used once, and by Yuyu, when she was trapped under a frozen lake. I rummaged through the pockets of Toto's weapon belt, until I pulled out one of the emergency breathing masks Asclepius had given us, and awkwardly tried to fit it around his head. I fumbled a little, it didn't help my hands were starting to shake, but eventually managed to get it on over his nose and mouth. Toto's breathing seemed to ease up a little, and his eyes flicked to me as he gave a slight nod of 'thanks', before his eyes closed. I was about to freak out, but I saw his chest rising and falling. He's fine... for now. In about 10 minutes I'd have to pass him my breathing mask, and after another 10 minutes? Well, I'd have to hope Nyunyu had one too, or that we had a way back home by then...
"Nyunyu, any luck?" I turned my attention back to her, and saw her holding a Hole device, turning it over in her hands, investigating thoroughly, but it seemed she knew as much about them as I did. That or, like the rest of most of our equipment at Asclepius, it was made specifically for the person using it, so only Toto could bring us back home. Although saying that, at the yuri-hell-school, Yuyu had managed to activate my visor and help get her arm working again... But going by how Nyunyu seemed as clueless as to what to do with the Hole device as I was, I'd begun to think maybe she didn't have the twins' talent for mechanics after all.
Toto's hurt. It's just me and Nyunyu here. We're stuck in Pure Illusion, with no real way to contact home, and no Hole devices either...
How the hell did Cocona and Papika leave Pure Illusion when they wanted to?
I tried to think back to all the times I encountered them when I worked for Asclepius, and remembered one time in the yuri-hell-school, when they were both struggling to open a Hole to get back. They were both scared... So, it should have worked, as they were both feeling the same? ...Damn, that wasn't any help. Another thought I had then was that maybe they still weren't quite close enough, or they struggled with that, so they couldn't get back home...
What if Cocona and Papika arrived here? They could probably take us back. Hell, they'd probably have no trouble doing that. They're a couple now, and they seem pretty damn close...
((Switch with me))
No! I can't think about Cocona! I'm not going to switch! I'm not!
((I can save you. I can save all of you.))
SHUT UP!
I slammed my fist into the ground, and an orange-brown glint from my neck caught my eye. The dragon egg necklace... I was still wearing the thing. I'd forgotten it was even there...
I turned back to Nyunyu, and saw those big owl-eyes watching me. Eyes the same colour as the gem on the necklace. I'm not alone here. Nyunyu is with me. We can work a way out of here together.
"Nyunyu, is this your first time to Pure Illusion?"
"Yep!"
"Did Asclepius teach you anything?" I realised that my question was probably pretty vague, but I didn't know what to ask specifically. Even then, any answer she gave could have been helpful.
"Nope!"
...Any answer except that one at least. Frag...
I was about to speak again, when a rumbling growl shook the ground. And now there's a potential monster attack. Great.
"Nyunyu! Put Toto's stuff back in his bag, we gotta get moving!" I gave my command, as I tried to put my arms around Toto to drag him along with us, as he was in no condition to move himself. Sorry if this hurts, Toto, but we don't really have a choice here!
Nyunyu obeyed, trying to gather together all the stray hole devices, and as she did so, I caught a glance at the item that gleamed beneath them, that wasn't his school uniform. Is that a photo? I could just about make out a lot of people, a school photo of his class? I found it easy to pick out Toto in it, his red eyes a huge giveaway. They weren't quite looking at the camera though, and seemed a tiny bit more focused on the person on his right.
Nyunyu had just managed to stuff it into his bag before the wind picked up, becoming a harsh, howling gale. My eyes were getting dry, fast, and the dust was becoming blinding, to the point of I could barely see an arm's length in front of me. I cursed Hidaka for keeping my visor, as it would have been really damn helpful now. I'd be able to pick out all the points in the landscape with its green wire-frame mode, it would keep the dust out of my face...
I nearly ended up in a coughing fit when I inhaled. I got down close to the ground, trying to keep my face out of the way of the dust, as I scrabbled around in my pockets for my own breathing mask. Sorry, Toto, but I'm not gonna make it either, if I don't use mine. I put it on my face, and took a deep breath. My throat still felt tickled a little from the dust I hadn't managed to expel, but I'll just have to put up with that for now. I've just cut down Toto's survival time if we don't get out of here-
Crap, what about Nyunyu?
Just as I was about to sit up and ask her if she was ok, a thick metal ring sailed in a curve a foot from my face, a blue light shining from it, forming a screen as it did so. What the...? I followed the trail of light with my head until it came to a stop. Nyunyu was standing there as if she'd just thrown something... Nyunyu's weapon... I forgot Nyunyu even had one, I've only seen the thing a few times, and as far as I knew, all it could do was hover (okay, you could probably smack someone around the head with it pretty hard if you wanted to), so seeing it able to do this was... unexpected. Asclepius always gave me the impression that they firmly believed 'the best defense is a good offence', so the fact that they'd created a weapon for Nyunyu with a feature like that was pretty weird to me.
I guess I won't complain though, the barrier was a dome around us, and it kept the choking, blinding dust out. Now we just have to work out what to do.
"Nyunyu, is this barrier mobile? Can you move it around?"
"Dunno!"
Although I was tempted to try and experiment, see if that was a possibility, I didn't want to disturb it too much in case it somehow broke the barrier. This could be the first thing of its' kind Asclepius made after all, my speed booster was experimental and kept shorting out, I don't wanna risk messing this up too.
...But what else could we do here? There was no telling how long this dust storm would last, it could have been two minutes, it could be five years. I'd just have to hope the barrier lasted. I debated whether I should remove my breathing mask as we had protection from the extreme weather, but if something happened and Nyunyu's barrier went down, there might not be enough time for me to put it back on. I doubted these things had an 'on/off' feature, they probably just activated whenever they were put on someone's face and continued to provide oxygen until it ran out.
"Damn it!" I cursed, slamming my fist into the ground again. We've barely been here five minutes and we're already in danger this bad! Why couldn't Hidaka just let us join up?!
Thinking about Hidaka made me look back over at Toto. His eyes were closed, and he was still breathing. I had no idea if he was even concious any more. I looked at his eyepiece again. The only hope we have is to try and contact Flip Flap... I hope I can get this thing to work...
Yuyu
Couldn't walk across thin path. Scared. Might lose items. Not mine to lose.
'You don't have to come if you don't feel up for it'. Yayaka's consideration for others. Not the first time. 'And the twins... I know they're not exactly normal, and they were just made to get the amorphous, but... I want them to experience all those things, like I did. They've been with me and kept me safe for all these years, and I never really payed attention to them until a little while ago... Asclepius created two kids like me, real human beings, and just shoved us all into the same situation. 'Get the amorphous, so we can rule the world'. Toto and Yuyu never even got a chance to be real kids.' Away from Yayaka. Dimension within Pure Illusion. Trapped with Cocona and Toto. Saw Yayaka and Papika. Could lip read. Her speech was genuine.
She cares.
'We can go together another time.' Yayaka's promise. Go to Pure Illusion together later. Would like to.
'Why don't you try and get on Hidaka's good side? Show him how my visor works or something. Maybe help him fix one of his robots'? Yayaka's command. Currently obeying. Find Hidaka's workshop. Return through corridors.
Papika's robot in path. Tripped. Fell. Pushed self back up. Cast taken damage. Arm ok otherwise... As much as can be. Defective... Hate bad arm. Couldn't go with them. Maybe for the best.
Arrived at Hidaka's workshop. Still examining Yayaka's visor. Poking. Prodding.
"Why won't this thing turn on?!" He yelled, arms in air. Slightly amusing. I smirked, then approached, face blank. He didn't notice me. Not for a while.
"Amorphous child! If you're part of Flip Flap now, I command you to help me with this!" Loud, shouting. Annoying. Yayaka said to help him. Get on good side. Should obey. Took Yayaka's visor from him. Used it before. Linked it to my arm. Removed backpack/arm with some difficulty. Hidaka watched eagerly. Curious. Unfolded arm. Thin, squashed can became thick metal arm. Good. Useful. Stored items, books and clothes, fell out.
Connected the two, arm and visor. Yayaka's visor reacted. Activated.
"Bound to Asclepius. Usage permitted only by them. Can scan. Pick out detail. Receive message-"
"Hey! Hello? Anyone there?! Yayaka calling Flip Flap, wanting to speak to Hidaka or Yuyu! Can you hear me?" Yayaka's voice! Nice to hear... But from Toto's eyepiece...
"Danger?" I asked. Most likely conclusion. Frowned.
"We're caught in a dust storm. Nyunyu made a barrier, but we don't know how long we've got. Toto's... he's... Can you guys get allergies? There's something wrong with him, he's basically asleep and he only has a few minutes left on his breathing mask." Sheer panic in voice. "We can't get the Hole devices to work! We can't get back!"
Toto-onii-chan... Yayaka... Need help.
Technology needs amorphous and power in Pure Illusion. Toto is amorphous... But damaged. Unable to help. Nyunyu is amorphous, but Hole devices unresponsive. Not enough power? Yayaka can transform with amorphous. Generate power. Best solution.
"Yayaka, transform."
"How can I do that?! The amorphous in my weapon belt is dead, I don't have any amorphous I can use!"
"Toto is amorphous..."
"He's sick, Yuyu, what if I accidentally make him worse?"
Faint smile on my face. She cares. Smile gone. "...Nyunyu is amorphous"
"What if I hurt her too?! Yuyu, I-"
"Yayaka, emergency situation. Only solution." Wanted to sound urgent. Couldn't. "Risk one death? or make three certain?" Harsh? Yes. Necessary? Also, yes. Brother... Sister... Yayaka... Can't lose all of them.
"Transform," trying to persuade her. ...Unsuccessful?
Pause.
"Flip flapping!"
After that, sound cut out. Silence.
"Yayaka?" no response. Why? Visor still on... Toto's eyepiece failure? Hope that's only failure... Can only wait.
Can only hope.
Yayaka
I wasn't only hesitant to transform because of Toto's condition... ((switch with me...)) I was hesitant to think of Cocona. What if something happened to me when I transformed? What if I lost control of myself? I can't let that happen. Cocona's made her choice. I can't take that away from her!
"Yayaka, emergency situation. Only solution. Risk one death? or make three certain?" Yuyu's monotone voice came from the other end of Toto's eyepiece. I could understand what she was getting at... But... I really didn't want Toto or Nyunyu to die…
…But what if I pulled power from both of them? tried to balance, or even it out?
And that was when I came up with another idea: Could I somehow get Nyunyu to help Toto? Could I act as some sort of connection between them to try and transfer power?
Would it even work? Probably not, but this was probably the best way to get out of this place alive with everyone else.
There's more than one solution Yuyu… I hope.
I grabbed Toto's shoulder, and reached for Nyunyu's hand (her only response to me doing so was to stare. Her head twitched a little, like a bird. Maybe she was confused. Sorry, kiddo, no time to explain!)
Cocona is precious to me, my most treasured person… but I treasure these guys too. And I want to make it back home, so I can see Yuyu, Papika and Cocona again. I need to make it back to the people I care about the most!
((Switch with me…))
Tempt me all you like; I'm not giving in! I can do this myself!
"Flip flapping!" I yelled it as loudly as I could, using my desperation in an attempt to try and bolster my voice, and try and get Nyunyu and Toto's amorphous-made bodies to react to my battle cry. Come on! This has to work! It has to!
The blue light from the barrier seemed to grow weaker, and for a second I worried, thinking Nyunyu's barrier had finally crapped up on us… But when I saw the green light glowing around me, spreading onto Toto and Nyunyu, that worry felt dumb. Power coursed through me, a lot of it too. Much more than I would have liked. Direct it to Toto somehow!
I tried to focus my mind, and closed my eyes, picturing all the energy that was gathering in my body, as if it was water pouring into a bowl. Carefully, I imagined myself pushing the water away from me, trying to get it to fall on Toto instead.
Come on… This has to work!
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a 'pop', and almost released my grip on the two amorphous kids, but managed to hold on, even though I'm pretty sure a glass shard just sliced across my fingers. That was enough to make me open my eyes though, curious as to what that was exactly.
Looking at Nyunyu, she seemed to be focusing pretty hard herself, staring at Toto, as if she could somehow read my mind and knew what I was trying to do. Her eyes and hair seemed a little brighter as she did so, my transformed eyes must've been glowing pretty brightly to turn her hair that shade of gold. Or maybe that was probably just a side effect of being an amorphous kid and having your power activated. Either way, that wasn't the important thing here.
Turning to Toto, I saw his eyes were open… and his left eye was no longer covered by his eyepiece. Must've exploded from a power overload… Although Toto's probably most useful piece of equipment was gone, I smirked. If he's sick or tired, a power overload can't be too bad, right? He's awake! This has to be a sign it's working!
"Toto! We need a Hole, fast!" I wish I didn't need to use so many words to try and get across the situation we were in, and tried to use the absolute bare minimum I could without being too vague. Good thing I did too, literally the instant I finished speaking, Nyunyu's barrier broke, and we were swarmed by the windstorm of purple dust again. Nyunyu covered her mouth and nose with her free hand as best as she could. I didn't need to worry as I had my breathing mask on… Well, I say that, it wasn't long before I had to close my eyes, or risk getting blinded. I'd guess that Nyunyu did the same.
I hope Toto can figure something out. Can he see past all of this? I wondered briefly if his processing power was so good he could actually see each individual grain and be able to tell you where all of them were going.
I tried to take slow, deep breaths, in an attempt to calm myself down. Toto can do this. He's better now. He can save us all. I just have to believe in him.
I felt something small spark in me then. A little warmth in my chest…
A connection.
It was a surprise, and I kinda zoned out and forgot where I was, as I tried to work out where this newfound connection had come from. It felt a little familiar to me… similar to the one I had with Papika and Cocona when we used the mecha in Pops' world. But this time, I think I was linked to Toto.
"Hole open!" Toto's voice bought me back to reality. He must've grabbed my arm that was on his shoulder, as I felt something grip it lightly, before giving a sharp tug…
We landed with a harsh thud on the floor of Asclepius' base. Annoyingly, despite the white clovers that seemed to cover almost every other square inch of the building, the Hole device had dumped us in the one place there wasn't a single soft landing to be seen: my bedroom... well, there was one part of my room that could be considered a better place to land, but even the softness of my bed was questionable.
Okay, it would have been softer than this, but still... It was then that I had another thought: Toto's hurt, and he had just as bad a landing as I did.
I immediately jumped to alertness all over again. Where the hell is Toto? Not too far from me was the answer, which I was pretty thankful to learn. He appeared to be out cold, which was a little worrying, but he still seemed to be breathing, which was the main thing. I didn't want to remove the breathing mask, just in case it was the only thing keeping him alive. I was a little hesitant to go up to him and try pick him up, but I had no idea of his condition, if he'd recover right away, or if he needed help, but I remembered Yuyu saying there was a machine somewhere in the Asclepius building that could heal him. Hell, it fixed up his scar, so if there was something wrong with Toto, I guess at least we'd landed in the best place possible to try and fix him.
We should take that machine back to Flip Flap with us if we can... I'd wonder about using the tunnels Asclpius dug underground to raid Flip Flap's base in the first place to transport it there, but Flip Flap could have blocked them back up or something. Either way, I shouldn't be thinking about how to get the machine there, I needed to find the damn thing first.
"Nyunyu, there's a machine in this building that can heal him, any idea-"
"Here!" Nyunyu was already rolling in some sort of device that looked like a hospital bed with some kinda dome-helmet and another beeping machine connected to it. Nyunyu just about managed to wheel it through the doorway to my room, and pushed it against the wall. I tried to lift Toto up onto it, first having to drape him partially over the edge, before I could shove him on completely.
"Nyunyu, get this thi-"
"Shut up! Nyu don't have to tell me!" came another interrupted reply. I was a little tempted to yell at her for talking back to me like that, but I'll let it slide, as she was probably as worried as I was, and we were both snappy because of it... or I'd guess that's what Nyunyu was feeling, the only change her face made in all that time, including when she was moving the healing machine in here, was her mouth moving to speak to me. If she found the bed heavy to move despite her small size, she showed no sign of it. I'd wondered for a second about Toto's stuff, whether it'd been taken with us, but I saw a second bag on Nyunyu's back in addition to her own...
While Nyunyu was pressing buttons and adjusting Toto so he was lying down on his back, rather than his side, I noticed something had changed in my room... I hadn't missed any white clovers when I looked around before, my bed was all still in one piece, but there was something that should have been on my bed that was missing. Where the hell did my jacket go? I opened up a pocket on my weapon belt and stuck a hand in, feeling the fabric that belonged to a clone of the item that should have been sitting on my bed. Did it disappear because of this one? I've seen a couple of movies before where a time traveller goes and meets a past/future version of themselves, and it messed with the time stream, so in an attempt to fix the mistake, one of them would have to die... Can that happen with objects in Pure Illusion?
...We're not still in Pure Illusion, are we? That thought made me frown. It wouldn't be the first time one of Asclepius' Hole devices crapped up on us and sent us to another part of Pure Illusion, rather than back to Ascelpius' base and it wouldn't be the first time I've been in a place in Pure Illusion that was a replica of home either... I stepped out into the corridor, and my boot crunched lightly against the puddle of plantlife that was a result of Mimi's attack. Much like the outside of the building, the inside of this corridor looked like it could have been a part of some ancient jungle ruin, rather than a part of a high-tech research facility. But the sound of my foot making contact with the clovers suggested this was the real world: It was a soft noise. It didn't echo through the corridor, like it would have done in another reality. I felt a bit better about that, but I still wanted to double check that we were back in Asclepius' base on Earth. I mean, if we weren't it wasn't quite so bad, because even if it was a replica, it still had a machine that could fix Toto, so he'd be able to get us back out anyway, but still, Toto didn't have his eyepiece to confirm any more where the heck we were, or where we'd end up if a Hole was used.
The amorphous kids are safe, and Yuyu made it to Hidaka ok... But if this is still Pure Illusion, then I shouldn't be able to transform.
I walked back into the room, put a hand on Nyunyu's shoulder and tried to think of all the people I'd want to protect.
"FLIP FLAPPING!"
...
Nothing. No glowing light, no power that came with transformations.
Yeah. We're back. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"What are nyu doing?" Nyunyu asked. My relief became embarrasment. I just yelled out a nonsense phrase for seemingly no reason... Wait, does Nyunyu not really know what happened back when I tried to use the amorphous power in Pure Illusion? I would have thought Asclepius would have told her something like that... But if I turned my back on them, and they lost their faith in me, why would they trust someone else with the knowledge of that sort of thing? ...Were they worried Toto and Yuyu could change sides too? I thought again about how Toto had planned to go to Flip Flap when Asclepius was gone. Yeah, I guess I can see why Asclepius never told Nyunyu about any of that...
"I was trying to transform," I explained. "When you're in Pure Illusion, if you have the power of amorphous and you think about some-" I almost said 'someone you love', but those words were difficult for me to say, like I tried, but all that came out was silence, as I stuttered a little as I stumbled over them. Papika explained it to me differently. What did she say? "Something you treasure, or even someone, then..." Then what? I wasn't entirely sure what happened or how it worked myself, "...you can transform." I felt a little lame that was the only way I could answer, but that was pretty much all the intformation I knew. "But yeah, I did that so I could see if we were still in Pure Illusion, or if we made it back home and... we're home."
Nyunyu continued to stare at me with her big owl eyes. She didn't blink once during my whole speech, and showed no real reaction to what I was saying. I'd guess she was listening, but I had no way of knowing. Right, move on from that conversation. "How's Toto doing? Can the machine fix him?"
Nyunyu looked back over at Toto. "Toto-onii-sama will be fine. Just gotta wait!"
That's good news at least. We've probably only been gone a minute or two in the whole time we were in that other world, so I guess at least if anyone at Flip Flap was worried about us, they wouldn't have to worry for too long... "...But if something like that happens again, we need to take that machine with us. Your biology has to be different to a regular human's, and if that's the only thing in the world that can give you guys medical attention, it's not gonna do any good staying in here, if we're all a part of Flip Flap now." I wondered for a second why Yuyu didn't destroy the machine along with all the other technology in Asclepius' base. Maybe she knew that this thing would come in useful in the future... She wouldn't have been wrong... and I guess we couldn't really have taken it with us back then, not without getting a lot more attention than we already did talking across the middle of town. Four kids with a weird hospital bed? Yeah, that'd raise questions...
"What're nyu talking about?" Nyunuy's voice knocked me out of my thoughts and back to reality.
"Huh?"
"Nyu were saying we need to take the machine with us!"
"I did?" I hadn't realised I'd spoken out loud at all until she mentioned it... but it's a good thing she did, because I think I just came up with a solution to that problem: "Yeah, we do... Hey, Nyunyu, Asclepius dug a hole to Flip Flap's base to raid it, right?"
"That's how I got there!"
"Any idea if they fixed it back up?"
"Not a clue!"
Crap. If it's been blocked up again, that could be a problem... Well, there's only one way to know what happened there, "in that case, I guess we should go check it out. Moving Toto wouldn't upset the healing process right?"
"Shouldn't do!"
"Okay. Let's go then"
The wheels of the hospital-bed machine squeaked as we wheeled it through the roughly hewn tunnels Asclepius dug under the city. They used some sort of drilling machine apparently, but where that went exactly, I wasn't sure. Maybe Hidaka discovered it later and scrapped it for parts, or maybe it was made to self destruct when it reached its destination. We didn't see the thing at all, and the only evidence such a thing was here at all was the fact we were literally walking through the path it made. Heavy tracks were pressed into the ground, maybe permanently. There was enough space for the bed to be wheeled along the middle without having to have it bump up and down everywhere, which was lucky I guess, as I was pretty sure we couldn't have transported this thing underground without somhow making Toto worse by him being bumped along everywhere. I was walking a fair distance ahead, keeping an eye out for any potential stray Asclepius robots that might've been lying around. We encountered none.
Eventually, we came to a tunnel that was outlined with concrete and metal, rather than raw earth. There were a couple of large boulders at the end, and what looked like a busted up bank vault door, which I recognised. Okay, they didn't block it up. Good to know.
I was a little surprised as I stepped out into the newest tunnel that the tire tracks from when I followed Papika's robot Buu, and Nyunyu's set of footprints from when she was a part of the raid on Flip Flap's base, were still here, undisturbed... well, apart from the fact there was a third set, mine, that was now a part of it...
You know, now I think about it, it worked out that all my original footprints were still there. When I followed Papika's robot, I was leaving Flip Flap's base, so if we followed them the other way, it'd take us back there. Or to their medical room at least. It might still be kinda hard to get to the main base from there, but still, we had a direction to go, and that was good enough for me... But wait, Buu was built here. Being a robot, he must have come from the main part of the building... Even if it lead to a robotics room, surely there was some form of communications between there and the main base... or even if we just flat-out ran into him, that'd work pretty well. Even if he went through a vent to get here, Nyunyu might be small enough to fit, and I could stay with Toto.
But what if the medical room would be the better option? I don't know it Toto needed his eyepiece to tell him what sort of medicine to use, or if he'd need any at all, even then his eyepiece was gone, and even if it wasn't he'd have no information on himself anyway...
Crap, which way to go...?
Nyunyu had caught up with me, and watched me as I paced up and down the corridor, trying to decide which set of tracks to follow. It was then that I heard a sharp 'BEEP' come from their direction, and saw a blinking light on Toto's breathing mask. Almost an instant later, Toto started to cough, and his body writhed a little. In a bit of a panic, I rushed over and tried to remove the mask from his face, while also trying to detach my own. AFter what felt like way too long, I succeeded, and put my breathing mask over his face. It only really had a couple of minutes left, but Toto settled down, and even then it helped answer my question. I cursed myself for even hesitating.
Medical room. Flip Flap have to have something in there that can keep Toto going.
"This way!" This time, I grabbed the side of the hospital bed sorta thing, and helped Nyunyu. Hell, I should have been doing this in the first place, I'm the fast one after all. I hoped Nyunyu could keep up with my pace, because we ended up going pretty damn fast.
The instant I passed through the doorway, I started yelling. "HIDAKA, YUYU, SALT, SAYURI! MEDICAL ROOM! EMERGENCY!" They had to have speakers in here, or microphones or something. I doubted they'd be as paranoid as Asclepius and bug every room in here, but there had to be communications of some sort throughout a base as big as this, despite how few people are actually here. They have to get the message. They have to.
It was probably barely a couple of seconds since I sent that message, but time felt like it'd stretched out impossibly thin, to the point of even taking a breath felt like it would have taken a week to actually do. I was somewhere between wanting to smash everything in here, in impatience and worry, and being frozen in place, desperate for someone, anyone, to help Toto, and fast. I knew my breathing mask had only a minute or two on it at best, and every second that passed would be another towards the possibility of Toto not making it.
When someone finally arrived, it was... unexpected. Or at least I didn't really expect Toto's saviour to arrive in the form of a small yellow robot with a helicopter propeller on top.
If I was in any regular state of mind, my first thought would have been, they sent Buu? Really...? but right now, I didn't care that they sent Papika's robot, help was help.
Please tell me he can actually help.
"Toto's having trouble breathing" I wanted to say more, or even yell at the poor robot, but time was important here. The faster I could get the message across, the better.
I've never really gotten a good look at Buu (or TT-392 as everyone else at Flip Flap called him) before. He was shaped mostly like a yellow cereal box that was flat to the ground, that wheeled around everywhere. It had a wide cone-like... lid? on its back. (I'm not sure if it's a lid or detachable, but its got hinges at one end). Its head was on the end of a thick cable, that was able to wiggle around and support it's half-cylinder head, able to aim it in any direction. Three antennae stuck up from its 'head' and, there was also a flat round screen on its face, which could slide along the front of it. Its 'eye' I guess.
Buu's eye flashed to an exclimation point upon seeing the three of us, and became a question mark as it looked over Toto. Then it 'blinked' and returned to a blue circle, and with an alarmed sounding 'Pyu!' it began to rummage around the cupboards in the room.
"Me too!" Nyunyu said, copying the yellow robot, and searching cupboards and things by herself. Would she even know what to look for in here? ...Wait, why aren't I helping look for something, too, if this is such a desperate situation? Cursing myself, I began to rifle through all the cabinets in the room. There weren't many, and I almost ripped the doors off a couple of them in my urgency to find something, anything, we could use... not that I knew much about medicine, I could have passed ten things that would have been useful and not even realised it, but still, Toto needed help, now. As long as those cupboards were open, someone else could see something that I missed. If it made Toto get better sooner, I was completely fine with that.
"Pyu!" The excited noise came from Buu, who'd managed to dig out a metal cylinder, I'd assume was an oxygen tank. Or maybe gas that'd knock someone out. I had no idea. One end of it was connected to a clear mask which would fit over someone's nose and mouth, which suggested it could be something useful at least, and I'd assume Buu would know the sort of thing we'd be looking for. As long as it helped Toto breathe, and kept him alive until further examination could be carried out, that's all I cared about right now.
I gave Nyunyu a command to remove the mask from Toto's face so I could swap it with the new one. There was a moment of worry as Toto took, what sounded like, a pretty painful breath, before I gave him the replacement mask, but he settled down again after the exchange was complete.
At least we have time now... Hopefully he can get better again, now we're back home...
A few seconds later, Hidaka burst into the room, kicking the door out of the way, causing his lab coat to flap out behind him, and knocking his glasses askew. He was carrying a cardboard box full of various pieces of equipment, and looked around quickly, trying to find a space he could put it down, and buried his hands in it, searching for something.
"What the hell took you so long?! Toto could have died in the time it took you to get here!" I shouted, angry. For craps sake, this is an emergency!
"TT-392 was closest." Yuyu was the one who'd spoken. She was looking into the room from behind the doorway. She stood motionless, arms by her side (well, her bad one still in its cast), the only thing about her that betrayed the fact she was terrified for her brother was the fear that widened her eyes a fraction.
I took a deep breath to calm down. Hidaka sent Buu ahead, because he knew the situation was bad. I shouldn't have yelled at him. He's a guy in a lab coat, sure, but he's not a part of Asclepius. When I was injured and taken to this very room, Cocona was holding a flower pot that looked like a robot's head. Sure, it was creepy as hell, but he didn't know me, and he made me a 'get well' gift... It's a lot more than Asclepius have ever done for me.
That reminded me... I still had to thank him for that. And even then, what did I tell Yuyu earlier, when we had to leave her behind? 'Try and get on his good side'... Well, if we're gonna be working together, I should probably be doing that myself.
"Hey, Hidaka...?"
"I'M WORKING HERE!" He yelled, finally pulling out a tool (some handheld scanner at a guess), and approaching Toto to examine his condition. Fury filled me upon hearing his voice, dismissing me, when all I wanted to do was apologise for being mad earlier and to thank him for the gift he gave me. He's just another scientist in a lab coat after all... Man, I'm sick of this...
I figured it'd be a good idea to get out of his way. I didn't know much about Hidaka from what little I've seen of him, but one thing I was pretty sure of, was that you shouldn't bug him while he's working on something, unless you're helping him. Since I knew nothing of mechanics and medicine, I doubted I'd ever get along with Hidaka, or not any time soon at least...
I was alone as I left the corridor and tried to find my way back to the main area of Flip Flap's base. I didn't really know where the heck I was going, but as I walked along, I noticed a series of large holes in the wall, all pointed in a single direction... Towards the medical room. Must be from Asclepius' attack... Yuyu punched all the walls down. I hadn't noticed any holes in the medical room itself though, so I guess they fixed that, but not all these other holes. Well, it looks like they just lead to other corridors anyway, and Asclepius is gone, and there's no other organisations that know about Pure Illusion as far as we know, so what'd be the point, right? Even then, there's not many people here, it'd take a long time to fix...
"Pyuuu?" I looked down at the source of the noise and saw Buu looking up at me questioningly... or his eye was a question mark at least, and his 'head' turned to the side a little. I wasn't really sure what the heck he was doing here. Did he know I was upset with Hidaka?
Regardless, I won't complain that he is here, after all, "I have no idea where I'm going in here. Can you take me to Sayuri or Salt?"
"Pyu!" Buu's eye became a blue circle and he led me away from the amorphous kids and Hidaka. As he guided me through the building, I began to try and map out where I was in my head and where to go... it made me feel a little sad doing it. The last time I needed to do this was when I was trapped at the yuri-hell-school with the twins... Me and Toto spent our time walking around, and he tried to get me to learn my way around and where I was going...
He helped me out back then. I'm not sure we would have been able to get to the clock tower and escape otherwise if he hadn't made me memorise all those places... Now he's hurt, and I have no idea how I can return the favour...
I almost stopped in my tracks, as an idea I've had for a long time began to play in my mind.
Well, I can't help with healing... but there is something I can do. He should be fine now that Hidaka's with him, but he's probably not gonna be able to go to Pure Illusion for a while... but that won't stop him from having fun in the real world. I might have to sneak him out, but screw it. Toto and Yuyu never got the chance to be real kids thanks to Asclepius. They deserve to know what it's like, and what they're missing out on, and they might never get the chance again if Flip Flap keep sending us on Pure Illusion research missions.
As soon as Toto's able to, I'm gonna take him, Yuyu, and Nyunyu out into town, and have some damn fun.
Authors note: Not quite where I wanted to end this one, but I had no idea where else to end it. I've had a few ideas for things that happen in the real world with everyone for a while now, a couple of ideas amused me to the point I was smiling for no real reason on public transport, and may have gotten a few funny looks for doing so. Well, when they're written, I hope they amuse you as much as they amused me. The next chapter will contain those ideas, and is also an absolute monster of a chapter at around 20k words AT LEAST (I debated moving the latter events to another chapter entirely, but... I don't know, I'll they'll work better as a super-long chapter, split into parts). The latter half of the chapter is the one that amused me so damn much (and would be even longer, but I've decided I've had to cut scenes and maybe post them in a seperate fic) and when it's posted, I hope you'll see why. I'm not sure if I'll post them on the same day or not, I'm still deciding that honestly (partly because I'm still writing the latter half of chapter 4, but yes) I hope you enjoy it when you read it, and also that you're liking the story so far.
NOTE/POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING: I wrote this chapter before the Covid-19 outbreak/pandemic. I feel I should give a fair warning now that Toto's breathing in the fic doesn't get any better. I don't know if I need to label it as a trigger warning, but just in case, I shall do so. One of my friends has ended up catching Covid-19, and it sounds horrible to deal with. They're ok at the moment, thankfully, but still. I've been finding it hard to accept that one of my friends is sick with it, and I very much hope they get better. I apologise if it seems insensitive to people to have written something like this, or upsets anyone who reads this. If you know anyone who's sick, I sincerely hope they get better too. Stay safe, wear a mask, and wash your hands!
