Blood.
It dripped from the cracks and holes among the metal walls of the hellish pit.
A spectrum of a bloody rainbow coated the floor Delta walked upon, sickly greens mixing with deep crimsons and vibrant blues, the pungent stench enough to have made Delta vomit upon entrance, her boots squelching in the rotting liquids of death.
Like the maze before, the room seemed to stretch out for miles into infinite oblivion, nary a soul to be felt in the shadows.
Unknown to the Octoling, under her very feet lay the amalgamation of a million lost souls – Johnny, waiting and plotting for his next meal.
Delta questioned herself – what was she looking for? For now, all she could to answer that question was to continue further in. From under a grate, Johnny popped his head out to examine Delta...the thousand voice mind filled with ideas to take her. But for now, he slipped back under cover.
Delta grabbed her rifle off her back, a loud KER-CHUNK echoing through the darkness as she loaded one of the few bullets she had been supplied with into the chamber, her stance lowering as a cold chill washed over her, a low hum resonating in the air.
Suddenly, the entire bloody floor unified into a glowing purple that illuminated the room, revealing carcasses and skeletons of all varieties strung from an unseen ceiling, Delta taken in awe at the sheer size of some of them – her entire body wouldn't even come up to the heel of a handful, but their rotting flesh, the blood coated bones, all nullified any sense of wonder from the girl as soon as it came.
Suddenly, a low rumbling echoed through the darkness of the void. Delta gasped and readied her weapon, aiming among the inky blackness of nothing. The rumbling turned to a crackling, throaty noise, scuttling steps approaching from within. Out of the blackness, a large, bipedal lizard emerged, covered in pale yellow and deep purple scales with a glowing green eye. As Delta's shining purple ones met the shining green, both of them stood completely still, simply observing the other party, the creature releasing curious grunts. Delta responded with a nervous gulp and shaken breath...what was this thing? The question permeated her mind.
The two were both taken aback by a sudden pulsating noise echoing throughout the shade, the creature immediately recoiling in pain, releasing strained shrieks into the air as it writhed around on the floor, coating its body in the glowing purple liquid.
From within the darkness, numerous red lights appeared, pin prick black dots among them, all glaring directly at the writhing creature.
In a flash the creature was suddenly back up on its feet and screeched right in Delta's face. With a terrified shriek, instinct took over the girl's body and she blasted the lizard's head to smithereens. Its body crashed to the ground, lifeless as the ear-splitting shot echoed into the dark, the spent casing splashing into the glowing purple at their feet.
A few moments of silence passed, the red lights simply observing in the back. Another pulsing sound echoed, the creature's body twisting and contorting as it was pulled back to its clawed feet by some unseen force, the blood, guts and bone slowly reforming into its fully reformed head. Once the creature's head had fully reformed, it lunged for Delta, only to be smacked aside by a colossal pillar of black goo. Looking over her shoulder, Delta only saw a red eye look into her very essence as Johnny jumped over her and smacked his entire mass into the creature, his head forming with his jaw opening to a level Delta thought impossible for anything, the ungodly beast's roar screaming and echoing all throughout the abyss of the Metro, meandering in the misty despair.
The lizard responded with its own roar, Delta scrambling off as the beasts began circling each other, guttural, primal growls crackling in the air.
Johnny bellowed as he lunged for the beast, which responded in kind by smacking him away with his tail, splatters of the inkblot scattering among the purple floor, seeming to glide over its surface. Unfazed, Johnny resumed his vicious assault, grabbing the lizard with a giant claw and sending it flying in Delta's direction. The Octoling bent over backwards at an angle that surprised even her, briefly making eye contact with the lizard as it sailed over her, its pupil dilating as it stared into her. The purple splashed around as the lizard smashed into the ground, twisting and turning back up to its feet and charging at Delta once again, her body locking up as a cold wind went over her skin.
Then everything went dark.
On the outside, Delta's eyes turned jet black with only a single white unified pupil and iris among the darkness that filled her. With no hesitation or hint of mercy, she aimed her rifle at the beast, loading another bullet and firing it the instant the chamber closed, the creature releasing a shriek of pain as the bullet tore into its arm. Marching forward, Delta's lungs remained still as pure instinct drove her forward, another KER-CHUNK sounding as the bullet casing was dispensed, replaced in but a second, another tremendous BANG shocking the air, followed by a primal screech of pain. From a puddle of bubbling black, Johnny watched with intrigue and fury as his kill was tormented by bullet after bullet, Delta's cold, dead expression unwavering.
The same purple liquid that covered the floor seeped out of the wounds of the sickening creature, the sight of its continued existence only sending further instinct to kill through the body of the Octoling. She placed the muzzle of the rifle right between the eyes, exasperated gasps rolling out from between the bastard's teeth.
The screech that came from Johnny as he reformed his several feet tall, muscular body only got the reaction of a shifted gaze from the Octoling, a tremendous, yet somewhat squelchy, hollow THWAK resonated in the air as Delta smacked her first into Johnny, sending him tumbling back to the ground. Delta's rifle slid off the neck of the creature she'd just finished torturing, scraping off a few loose scales as it was dragged over them. Slithering toward the shared prey in the form of an eight legged beast, Johnny roared with vehemence of hatred rife in his eyes. Her white dots of irises now reduced to the size of pin pricks, Delta's rifle shot up in an instant, blasting Johnny to dozens of pieces with a well placed shot right into one of his eyes.
Silence fell as the echo of the gunshot vanished into the void.
Delta nonchalantly returned to the downed lizard, but – she didn't finish it. Loading the rifle with the repeated hollow KER-CHUNK, she just watched the downed creature in raw silence.
The pulse sound echoed once more.
Not waiting less than a fraction of a second, Delta immediately began firing once more as the force tried to pull the lizard's body back together, but each consecutive blast only shattered its body to more bloody pieces. The lizard's head was smashed to an uncountable number of bone and brain matter after Delta had unloaded what her body told her was a suitable number of bullets, the pulsing sound fading into the darkness. The beast was still. Fallen, defeated, it finally had no unseen force from which to draw its own continued life.
And everything came flooding back to Delta.
Falling to her knees from the sheer barrage unto her senses, her breathing became ragged and shaking as her eyes went from their abyssal black to her pure white and rich purple. Her gun hit the ground with a hollow THUNK as Delta's hands clutched her face, her shoulders rising and falling with her fearful gasps for breath, the fresh smell of her rifle's smoke lingering in the air around her.
Elsewhere…
Hefting a chunk of metal as large as a house with just one arm, Rem casually tossed it aside into the endless drop below the devastated arena, the beaten and eviscerated metallic remains of the Octo Stomp Redux lay strewn around the middle of the ink covered arena, the oil that seeped out of the tank in the middle of the arena mixing with the luminescent green.
"Anything!?" Rem called out to her sister.
Ix poked her head out from behind the largest chunk of the Octo Stomp – its torn off face that sparked with wires, a mixture of liquids pouring out from where its eyes should be "I'm not feeling anything, Sis!" She shouted back, lightly tapping the devastated weapon's face. With a loud, echoing groan it began tipping over backwards until it smashed into the ground with tremendous force, shaking the arena to its core, anything hanging too loose from the walls and ceilings succumbing to the power of gravity.
Groaning.
The ears of the sisters pricked up as the groan washed over the platform, creeping up their back like a spider and penetrating their heads, unnerving even two of the strongest people in the hellscape. Gently yet cautiously walking to Ix's side, the pair observed the chunk of metal that once lay next to the tank of oil that leaked its fluids into the painted floor. The groaning was joined by wheezing, muffled screams hidden among the noise of the dead.
Ix gently approached the metallic chunk, knocking the back of her hand against it...it was hollow, to an extent. The pair exchanged a glance before giving each other a concerned nod.
Ix ripped off the front of the container, throwing it aside with ease.
The sight of which it held made both women's skin turn the palest of white, their bodies turned cold with sweat forming almost immediately. Rem's fingers trembled, Ix's legs shaking to a point of almost buckling underneath her as she staggered away from the sight within.
Rem spun around as fast as she could, squatting down with her hand slapped over her mouth. Her vision blurred with the tears that filled her eyes, her breathing turning to heavy, wheezing gasps. Ix sprinted over to her, stumbling on her way – she grabbed Rem in the best hug she could, their eye contact telling each other all they had in their head.
The abyssal black
The ominous glow faded into nothing among the purple blood...ink...whatever it was, Delta didn't care. A few minutes of fearful sobbing had passed since her senses overloaded themselves – it was so...dark…
And the sound of monstrous breathing her reminded her she was not alone.
Grasping her rifle, she scrambled to her feet as fast as her mentally and physically exhausted state would let her, eyes dashing about to try and spot the one thing that she couldn't see.
"Hah...hah...ngh, come on…!" She gasped, hefting her gun up and aiming forward. She was met with dozens of red eyes staring back at her, Johnny slithering forward into the unexplainable circle of light that surrounded Delta. His humanoid form had been substituted for that of a mass of tentacles as black at the abyss that surrounded them. Delta's finger began to squeeze down on the trigger of her rifle, Johnny leaning back slightly to begin his process when the stand-off was interrupted by the purple liquid flashing back into life, a the section between their feet starting to bubble, but that only lasted for a few seconds before a cold mist washed over the surface of it all, icy particles forming over Delta and Johnny's legs. The liquid began to harden before flowing into the spot between them like it had never frozen in the first place...into the form of a glowing purple gem.
No hesitation or holding back, Johnny swiped the thing up in one of his tentacles, where it sank into his liquid skin, the top of the glowing gemstone poking out the top of his limb. The same pulsing sound suddenly shot through the air once more, Johnny released a feral screech as a purple light radiated off of his body, his eyes fading away into nothing as his liquid self rippled and shuddered, electricity sparking over him with his jaw open at a near one-eighty degree angle. His screech reached an ear splitting crescendo before he exploded into a mass of purple and black energy, Delta immediately blinded by the blast.
…
…
…
Delta awoke to an odd smell, a smell that she had never felt before, but whatever it was, it was a good smell. As her vision became clearer, she could soon make out the silver box of a train that screeched around the metro...and a few more. Dozens, actually, but most of them seemed heavily damaged, save for the one closest to her.
Slowly turning her head to her left, she was jolted fully awake by a white fox mask with red accents staring right at her, the mask's wearer giving her a confused head tilt, his hand reaching up for his hand, which is when he realized the presence of the mask, placing his hand on different spots before easily removing it.
Marcus chuckled as he revealed his face "Did I scare ya?"
Delta hastily nodded.
"Ah, sorry, kiddo. I forgot I even had it on – I found it when I was out looking for supplies." He then gestured to Delta's other side "We found some more food, too – enough to make something edible."
Delta looked to her right, on top of an oddly clean plate lay a hastily made cylinder of meat resting in a fluffy looking...bun, was it? She didn't care what it was, in an instant she wolfed the whole thing down, Marcus' eyes going wide as the hot dog disappeared into Delta's stomach "Wow..." He followed up with a whistle "You must've been hungry."
Delta then looked down at herself – there wasn't a sign of the purple, bloody mess that had coated her earlier "What happened?" She questioned "Before all this I was-"
"We washed you up." Marcus shrugged "Well, when I say we, I mean Ix washed you up. She was the only one who could find a working shower before that stuff took you over."
Delta gasped "Took me over!?"
Marcus nodded "There were traces of Johnny in that purple mucus you were caked in – Cumber estimated it'd take you over in 2 hours if we weren't fast."
Delta slowly nodded, remembering the last seconds of what happened before the purple eruption "...I found him again."
"Johnny?" Marcus quizzed, to which Delta nodded "Mmm...I see...where is he now? He clearly ran off again if you're still alive."
"He exploded."
"Exploded?"
Delta gave another nod "The bloody purple stuff on the floor turned into a stone, when Johnny tried to pick it up, he exploded – I don't know what happened after that."
Marcus didn't answer, instead standing back up, muttering to himself "Shit shit shit shit shit..." over and over and over "GIRLS!" He yelled out "GET OUT HERE!"
"WE'RE NOT DONE, YA PRICK!" Ix shrieked back.
Marcus growled before yelling even louder "JOHNNY'S GOT A GEM WITH HIM!"
Silence.
Until both Rem and Ix came crashing in, both dripping with water "He got what!?" They yelled in unison.
Deeper into the darkness
"You idiot." A shadowed figure stood above Johnny, the beast's red eyes now turned a luminescent purple "I asked for the girl, not the stone! She needs to get those!"
Johnny responded with an angered gurgle.
"Johnny, we have an agreement, respect it or I'll make you part of the next batch!"
Johnny hissed.
"Use it how you see fit for now, but you're going to need to get rid of it eventually. We both know those things can't hurt me."
Johnny huffed, then slithered away into the drains of the hellscape once more, the shadowy presence turning around to face a glowing collection of vats and cases, many of them filled with liquids and others – filled to the breaking point with all kinds of sea creatures, begging for release from the corpses and death.
"First, the Sanitzation, and now..." Their massive smile reflected the cyan light of one vat, a purple light shimmering in the darkness "The Purification."