The remainder of the Labyrinth was just as straightforward as the rest of it was, only there was vegetation all over the place compared to the rocky, sandy stretch of before, and the walls were a smooth red compared to the rocky and jagged brown from before. The area was as inhabited as the Sand Zone with fiercely territorial creatures, only they were accompanied by machines as well. There were small clusters of some kind of dark-blue insect lacing the ground in various areas; whenever they were approached by anything, they'd send out a small flock of like-appearing bugs to swarm the offender and drive them off. They learned to keep their distance from those colonies after Quote had a particularly difficult time trying to deal with one of them.
There was another type of creature – mostly spherical with a pitch-white body and a featureless face, containing only a set of kind, blue eyes. They always traveled in groups of six, with one of them being several times the size of the others and acting as a 'mother' for the others, which surrounded their alpha protectively. The mystical creatures floated gently in the air and never made an aggressive or sudden movement, as far as they could track; a pod of six would come across another, and they would pass each other by as if they hardly even noticed one another. Curly had taken a keen interest in them particularly: she considered their appearance and behaviour adorable.
Jarring them both was the sight of more Gaudi in this area of the Labyrinth – they both clearly recalled one of the earlier Gaudi saying that they never really had a desire to move the boulder and explore deeper into the Labyrinth, so it was surprising to see more of the giant cockroaches roaming the area. Even more surprising was when they reacted aggressively to the two explorers, biting and chomping and tackling whenever they could: the only visible difference between these Gaudi and the earlier Gaudi was how these Gaudi had an odd blue tinge to their skin, but something about them made them very unfriendly and inhospitable; total opposites of the creatures they were acquainted with earlier. It was almost painful to have to gun them all down.
Machines lined the uneven walkways of the advancing Labyrinth: only one type of machine, but there were plenty of them everywhere. A large fan with a single orb in its centre, with a light-blue casing on either side. They were still active, although they appeared dusty and corroded from time; this part of the Labyrinth was pleasantly cool from so many of them active all over the place. Quote theorized that they were left over from the war a decade ago, much like the X-shaped tank they fought earlier. Without the fans, the corridors might have gotten unbearably hot to work in, so they were installed while the soldiers moved in and made their way through. Although he doubted they expected them to keep running ten years later.
Most peculiar about the new area of the Labyrinth were eggs: dozens upon dozens of eggs lining the grounds and ceilings of the corridors, clustered into groups of only four or five at a time, but each egg being almost as big as the Gaudi. They were a gorgeous sky-blue with cloudy patterns on their shells, giving Quote his first real idea of what the sky might actually look like. The only thing large enough to possibly lay those kinds of eggs were the large, white 'ball' creatures that glided above them, but even then they didn't look like they procreated by laying eggs. They didn't take the inhumane approach to find out what was inside by prematurely breaking one open, either: Curly criticized the idea was 'disgusting' and 'barbaric', so Quote was left to his imagination.
They were both kept decently busy with the violent wildlife of this area of the Labyrinth; Quote took the opportunity to practice his skills with the sword some more: he knew he was a gunner before a melee fighter, and he would probably never get to King's level of expertise, but it was worth getting the hang of anyway, just in case he found himself without either of his alternative weapons. He was having an easier time getting used to its weight and swinging it around with more precision than when they fought Balrog after a while.
Curly was coming along quite well with her own gunplay: Quote offered to lend her the machine gun while he works with the sword, but she declined anyway, knowing that she'd have more control over the Polar Star and would be a greater help with it instead. She was jumping as high as he was, and her practice with her landings was coming very cleanly. Her aim with the Polar Star was more or less perfect, only missing the rare shot now, and she was running and weaving as quickly as he was. She admitted that the feelings were all vaguely familiar, as if she always knew how to fight the way she was, and had only forgotten it until recently.
Another thing this area of the Labyrinth had that no other area of the Labyrinth had was water. At first it was only the occasional puddle , rarely reaching up to their calves, but as they proceeded further into the maze, the water would appear more and more frequently and would continue to increase in depth, until it reached well over their heads, which they usually had to cross. They both found that they sunk like stones in the water; no matter how much either of them tried, they couldn't swing their arms or kick their legs hard enough to rise higher than a few feet in the ponds. Quote had a difficult time with the water – he couldn't stay under for more than a handful of seconds before feeling uncomfortable and feeling the need to get his head over the surface again. Curly had no such problem, though: she had some kind of device attached to the back of her neck that activated whenever it was wet. It caused a protective air bubble to envelop her body, allowing her to breathe under the surface of the water. He didn't quite understand the science behind it, but, she was perfectly fine staying under the water for far longer than he could, so he accepted that it worked.
At the end of the long, winding Labyrinth was another door, much like the wooden one leading into the chamber with the giant boulder. Quote was practically salivating at the idea of the end of the Labyrinth being just beyond the door, and wasted no time in replacing his sword and flinging it wide open, allowing himself into the next room, Curly close behind him. The room was very small – smaller than the chamber. The colours of the stone all over the room reminded him of the very first cavern he was in when he woke up: a pale blue with black walls, and no obvious source of light. There was another wooden door across from them, leading even farther in, but between the two doors was a tiger's head, maw agape with all of its finely-chiselled teeth all on display, welcoming anyone who would willingly walk down its throat. The head had a surprising amount of detail on it: the nose, the eyes, the ears, even the fur was taken into account as they were carved out of the stone. It was a perfect recreation of the face he had seen so long ago: everything about it was just as he had remembered it. It was almost eerie how similar the two were. The only difference between them was that the tiger's head here had a barred-off entrance, stopping them from proceeding down its throat.
"Are we still in the Labyrinth?" Curly asked, stepping in front of Quote, looking the room from floor to ceiling over and noting all the changes between this room and the corridor they were just in. The drastic change between the sceneries dizzied her for a moment. There was nothing living in this room, so she had holstered her Polar Star while she looked around the area.
She noted the two other exits to the room: the wooden door just across the room, and the tiger's head leading in a different direction in the far wall to her left. She walked up to its mouth, walking without difficulty past its teeth and a short distance into his open maw. She rattled the bars that blocked her passage, trying to find some way to open the path so they could continue. Quote stood behind her, wondering if she was gaining any headway, when she returned from the mouth, looking rather disappointed. "We can't get through here," she hummed despondently, already heading towards the opposite door. "We'll have to keep moving ahead."
He was interested in finding out what it was that was keeping the island afloat: he recalled a Gaudi telling him that the island's secret rested somewhere in the Labyrinth, and they must have been getting close to whatever it was, judging from the sudden change in the atmosphere. As he wondered what could it could have been – possibly a giant machine of some kind? Or, more likely, some kind of magical force that defied explanation? Was it an item he could lift and take with him? Was there no secret at all, and the mystery of the floating island would forever remain just that? Curly had left him alone in the room while he thought, leaving the door open for him to follow.
The following room was even smaller than the one they just left, although the far wall and lowered ceiling were clearly man-made: the far wall was solid steel, and the ceiling above them was grated, allowing them a view of what was above them. A small elevator was to their left, allowing one of them to rise to the upper level where a monitor was stationed; there were several wires and cords running all through the walls from different locations, with some of them hooking straight into the computer above them. In front of them was a steel shutter, shut air-tight, barring a simple giant red number one painted on it. The water was pooling around their ankles, and, to Quote's relief, was not rising.
Curly looked the shutter up and down, trying to find a way to keep moving forward. The shutter was thick and locked tight, not even allowing a breeze through. What could it be trying to keep out – or in? "Weird place, huh?" she asked over her shoulder when she heard Quote's footfalls slosh through the water below them. "I wonder if this was some sort of base or something. Do me a favour, will you, and go to that computer up there? See if there is some way to open this thing."
Quote nodded to her, seeing the elevator built for just one in the corner. It was a pretty simple design: a small square platform with a wench underneath it attached to a small series of pulleys that allowed it to raise and fall with the press of a button on its raised control panel, showing only an 'up' and 'down' button. He pressed the 'up' button, and, with some unsettling screeching noises as the rusted gears tried to bring themselves back to life; the crusted, mouldy ropes twirling and moving just behind him, the platform jolted forward as it finally broke from the ground, and rose slowly and unsteadily into the air.
A nerve-racking ten seconds had passed as he was brought above the grated ceiling above Curly. Just to his left was the monitor she was talking about; it listed several different commands, such as contacting someone (but it did not say who) and regulating the water level below them. The one he was interested in, though, was the command asking to open the shutter below them. Using the arrow keys to highlight that one specifically, he pressed the 'Y' key once, and below him, the shutter coughed and buzzed to life just as the elevator had. It lifted from the ground, revealing the sharp indent it had pressed into the ground from being locked so tightly to the floor for so many years. The caked, dead earth was instantly flooded with the little water on the floor.
Beyond that shutter was another one about five yards away; no larger or smaller, locked just as tightly, and adorned with a giant red two. "Hey, Quote, can you unlock the next one?" she asked loudly, to carry her voice all the way up to him. He looked down at her, watching her walk past the freshly-opened shutter and was waiting patiently in front of the next one. On his level, in the same direction, was another monitor. Unlike the first, it only had one command on it, asking if he wanted the shutter below opened. Again, he pressed its own 'Y' key, and the corresponding shutter below opened.
This continued for two more shutters, each marked three and four in giant red numbers. The fourth shutter seemed to catch on something just as it got to the top, but it was still more than enough for them both to squeeze through. The fifth shutter was twice as large as the other four, and was painted with a much larger, black five. Something was being kept just behind this last shutter, and whoever put them there was determined to keep it in there. "Just shutter after shutter," Curly bemused, knocking on the steel block like a door, as if she was expecting someone to answer. "All this security makes me wonder what's down here. It's exciting, don't you think? We could be onto something big, here. Bigger than big. It just makes me want to get past these shutters faster!"
Quote was following along above her, coming up to the fifth and final monitor: it was resting against a giant concrete block, sealing whatever was inside firmly from the outside. It asked the same thing as the other four monitors, although it came with the warning that the shutter will close again if it detects any seismic activity within its protected chamber. But there was a slip of paper resting next to its keyboard. Curious, Quote picked it up, looking it over. It had three, powerful little words written in clear pencil lead on its backside: don't do it.
"Hey, what's the hold up?" Curly yelled, looking up. Quote had hesitated when he read that slip of paper, giving him a very clear suggestion on whether or not he should press that one little key. All the security wouldn't have been constructed for nothing, after all. Maybe the Gaudi that told him the rumour wasn't telling him everything he needed to know. "Are you okay up there?" Curly asked, sounding a bit nervous. "Is everything alright?"
Quote knew the smartest thing to do would be to listen to whoever left the message and turn around, never to find out what was beyond that final shutter. Whoever this person was, he would have known what he was talking about. But there were no other options available for them to take: there was nothing particularly available to them between the security shutters and the column he saw Professor Booster fall down, and there was nothing between there and the warehouse. It would be a day's walk to get all the way back to the storehouse and all the way back here, and, with the Doctor in possession of those flowers, they couldn't spare that much time. He had no more missiles to use to blow up the grating in the tiger's throat to proceed down there, either. There really was no other clear option for them.
The shutter moaned as it began to lift its heavy self into its slot above it. A good foot or two of solid metal and concrete began to shunt into the ceiling, revealing to Curly the room it and the other four shutters were protecting, and, potentially, putting the whole island at risk over releasing whatever was kept inside. "Whoa," Curly gasped breathlessly as she beheld the enormous chamber the final shutter was sealing. "Quote, hurry and get down here! You gotta see this!"
Quote dashed all the way back to the first monitor and pushed the 'down' button on the small elevator. Having finally broken into its work again, the elevator ride was much smoother and quicker on the way down, and within moments, Quote had caught up to Curly in the giant room beyond the fifth shutter. The ceiling reached as high as he could see. The walls were an opaque black, offering no visible detail, so he couldn't tell if they were as rocky as the walls in Grasstown or plated metal or what. There were several raised platforms in the centre of the room, and the floor dipped down a story or two, revealing that half the room was actually flooded. Robots – much like themselves, but of all shapes and sizes and designs – were everywhere, many of them missing limbs or heads, and all of them dead and offline. Some of them were still grasping onto their weapons.
Off in the far distance of the dome-like room was an enormous…something. It had no precise shape to it; it was like a giant egg, half wedged into the far wall, covered in a thick, green moss. It had an opening on its one visible end, shaped like an obscene, toothless grin that lead further into its form, only revealing more featureless darkness. It was nearly as large as the room it was in, and surrounding it were five other designs just like it, only considerably smaller. It was totally dormant, and given the moss covering it, it was probably dormant for several years.
Curly had already shown herself into the room and was looking over the corpse of one of the fallen robots on top of one of the raised platforms in the centre of the room. "Look," she said in awe when Quote finally caught up to her. She was gently running her hands over the broken and rusted remains of the robot, as if they were simply injured rather than dead and just needed some fixing. "This is a soldier from the surface. Like us." Quote knelt down next to her, inspecting the robot himself. It looked nothing like either of them: it was extremely dark and gritty, and lacked any positive aesthetic to it, as if it never had a skin or shell. All of its teeth, although dulled and chipped, were clearly visible, and it had a thick neck and bony head; nothing like either of them. It did, however, have two receptors over where its ears would be, exactly like them.
"It's all banged up," she continued. He could see that. "There's a ton more like it all over the place, too. They're all over the floor and all over these platforms…what on Earth could have…?" She paused as she thought what could have possibly done something like this. "Not a Mimiga," she said, surprising him; he didn't know that she knew about the red flowers. "To do this much damage is beyond what a Mimiga is capable of, even in their frenzied state."
As if responding to her voice, the robot they were kneeling in front of slowly clicked and buzzed. A single spark flung from its skull as one of its eyes managed to light up in its socket. "Is it still alive?!" she asked excitedly. If it could speak, if only for a few seconds, they might be able to learn what had done this to an entire platoon of soldiers.
It made no visible movement, but they could clearly hear the mechanical gears and workings on its insides shift into life. Another spark from its skull, and a recording began to play from inside its head and out its unmoving mouth.
"My name is General Bracket," they heard a raspy, exhausted voice say through the low-quality recording. They could hear something like shouting in the background of the recording, along with gunshots and explosions, and an unsettling roaring noise from something they couldn't determine, "and these are my last instructions to anyone unlucky enough to find themselves in this pit of the Labyrinth. Team Nine is annihilated. We couldn't destroy the target before it totally overwhelmed us. Our bullets and rockets bounced off it like it they were nothing. Our current forces–" A loud explosion rocked the recording as Bracket was cut off, followed by more yells and curses from other soldiers in the background, followed by more gunshots. "Our current forces were insufficient. After only a few minutes, I ordered the shutters closed; I knew we weren't going to be able to stop this thing." Both of them watched the motionless robot and listened to its recording, horrifyingly gripped to its every last word and sound. "If you're listening to this," he continued as the roaring of whatever was in the recording grew louder and closer. His breathing was audibly quickening and his tone was becoming panicked. "Then get out! Close the shutter and retreat! Retreat! Retr–" Another loud, dull explosion filled the recording before it suddenly stopped, filling the giant room with a chilling silence.
The room began to shake terribly, as if the very walls around them were trying to collapse in and crush them. The water underneath the platforms began to roil and throw and the loose rocks from the ceiling began to jar and plummet, raining down on them both from all sides. A fierce vibration coursed through the floor, unbalancing them as the platform began to sway and creak, its legs beginning to protest underneath the sudden strain. Just as the last monitor promised, the final shutter immediately slammed closed, locking them into the air-tight dome.
"What's happening?!" Curly panicked, searching for something stable to grab onto. Quote was scanning the room as best he could, trying to find the source of all the commotion and damage.
A loud wail erupted through the air behind them both; a low, animalistic cry that reverberated their bones and rippled the water underneath them with the sheer bass in its voice. It sounded like the roar they heard in Bracket's recording, only considerably deeper and a little more muffled. They both turned away from the closed shutter to see what had caused the noise, and there floated the enormous egg-shaped moss-covered stone that was half-wedged into the wall. Its entire form was dislodged from the wall, revealing its behemoth mass, easily larger than Arthur's entire house all by itself. In its one grin-shaped opening were eyes: a dozen light-blue eyes that each individually moved and blinked, roaming all over the room in search of whatever awoke it. Its five look-alike miniature parts were all awake as well, each of them circling its larger counterpart protectively, much like the white creatures they had seen earlier in the Labyrinth. The smaller creatures only sported two individual eyes instead of the many the larger creature in the centre had.
It floated forward in the air, letting out another low howl as it continued to search for a target, or for a way out. Its huge body easily crippled the platforms and scaffoldings laced in front of it as it ran them down. As it moved away from its plug in the far wall, water came flooding into the room in a massive torrent, rising the water level drastically quickly until it was already up to the raised platform Quote and Curly were still recoiling on.
The beast continued to float forward until it caught a glimpse of the two robots picking themselves up on the platform just in front of it. Each of its eyes locked firmly onto their location as it let out another roar, and suddenly its five miniatures began to float into place; all five of them faced forward while the larger beast shut its opening, hiding its soft and vulnerable insides. All six of them neared closer, the water level rising.
"Move!" yelled Curly simply, launching herself at Quote and sending them both into the water below. They narrowly missed an odd projectile fired by one of the five smaller creatures that soared towards the platform, splashing harmlessly onto its old, spent flooring.
The air was knocked out of him when Curly tackled him, robbing him of valuable oxygen as they plummeted into the water below. An air bubble emerged around Curly the moment her head went under, protecting her from the harsh, cold water, but Quote was left scrambling for the nearest shore to pull himself back above the surface, which was quickly climbing out of his reach. Curly drew her Polar Star and began firing at the hardened underbelly of the enormous beast – although the weapon worked fine under water, each shot harmlessly bounced off its durable hide, not even nicking off any of the moss that grew on it. She continued firing: with the shutter closed behind them, their only hope was to fight this thing, well aware that Bracket had an entire team and he still failed.
One of the five smaller creatures submerged itself, pursuing them in the water. She quickly changed targets and began firing into the eyes of the creature; it got off its own one shot before forcing itself to close its eyes in recoil from the fiery pain. The weird projectile – perhaps some kind of fluid, or maybe a bone or something – glided through the water with impeccable accuracy. Thankfully for Curly, the thick water slowed the shot down considerably, giving her enough time to jump away. The air bubble managed to give her increased mobility in the water as well, easing her movements and reflexes.
Quote, meanwhile, pulled his machine gun from his shoulder as he jumped towards the shutter, which was the highest natural point in the room, and trying to jump back onto the platform above him to get above the water. But he missed his leap, the water being too heavy for him to reliably move through, and even if he had, the water had totally flooded the dome: there was no way he was going to be able to breach the surface anyway.
Concerned over his air supply but aware of the more immediate threat, he pulled his attention towards the beast, picking a spot on its approaching body and firing his unlimited clip into its hide. Like Curly, he had no luck; the shots barely managed to phase it. But its eyes were open and they were within his range, so he quickly changed him aim and fired into the opening in its side. Just as the first few shots connected, it made another roar – apparently unhindered by the water it was totally submerged in – and the five smaller beasts took a defensive formation, quickly responding to the offensive with their own.
Curly began to draw back, her aim always trained on at least one of the six creatures that had its eyes open. She pulled back to Quote, who was still firing at the larger one, although his aim was beginning to slip down as his vision wavered from having gone without air for longer than he was comfortable with. Two of the smaller creatures fired their own shots again, one for each. Curly saw hers coming and evaded it effortlessly; Quote saw his coming, but didn't have the energy to push through the water fast enough to evade it, and was hit on his right shoulder from the blast.
He put all his strength into lifting the machine gun again to resume fire, his oxygen-starved mind beginning to waver, when the room was suddenly drained of all its water. It lowered just as quickly as it had risen, and it continued to sink until it was shallower than before the beast had awakened through a drain located under the ridge that the shutter was on; apparently it only opened to drain the water when the pressure reached a certain level. Quote took several deep gulps of much-appreciated air, feeling his strength return to him and his eyes refocusing. Why did he even need oxygen? He was a robot. He could understand creatures like Mimiga and Gaudi needing it to live, but he couldn't immediately think of any good reason why he would feel any type of asphyxiation at all.
The eyes on the central beast were still open, though surrounded by the five smaller ones. Curly was below them, drawing their attention with her own onslaught, allowing Quote a sizeable opening to strike. The beast hovered just above the raised platform, and simply faced forward; perhaps it was too large to manoeuvre around like the little ones could, and that played well to his advantage. As quickly as his reflexes could, he leapt easily onto the raised platform and dashed straight for its eyes, his machine gun firing all the while, and it responding with more wails and yells. Taking a chance, he made another leap, aiming straight for its opening. Just as he left the ground again, he dropped the machine gun while simultaneously reaching for the sword with his right hand; he lifted his feet to land on the lower rim of its opening, and made an outward slash straight from the sword's sheath the moment he was in range, across each of its wide-open eyes.
It made an impressive bellow as the blade drew across its eyes; the sheer volume shook his vision and caused more rocks to dislodge from various parts of the surrounding walls and from his proximity, it cost him his hearing for a short while. The beast moved and swung all around violently in an attempt to shake him off; with no grip or precise footing, Quote slipped off the beast's eyelid and plummeted to the hard ground below, his sword gripped tightly in his left hand. Curly was just below him and saw the very bold attack, and ceased her fire on the beast long enough to jump up and meet him halfway, catching him firmly in her open arms.
They both came back down with a hard crash; Curly was unused to the weight, and she hadn't been working on her landings very much anyway. They were both fine, though: she placed him back on his feet and they both immediately returned to attacking the creature, Quote putting his sword back into its scabbard. It was still roaring and trashing about from the hit, and the five smaller creatures were hovering around it in confusion, trying to decide whether to defend or attack.
They both dashed back to the platform to take advantage of the chaos – Quote was basically unarmed anyway without his machine gun and no missiles, and his machine gun had fallen on top of the stand. Curly was keeping her eyes and aim on the beast, working the trigger on the Polar Star for all it was worth, scoring a few decent hits on some of the smaller ones but not managing to get a clear shot on the larger one. They both leapt onto the high stage, under fire from some of the smaller ones that had the sense to attack.
Just as Quote was within arm's reach of his machine gun, the larger beast let out another roar – Quote's hearing hadn't totally returned yet, so he didn't really mind the noise, but with the roar came a powerful gust of wind generated from its hollering maw, lifting them both clear off their feet and flinging them to the opposite wall. Both of them hit the steel shutter with their backs, but they were both fine, if a little stunned. The machine gun was thrown from the wind with them as well; Quote managed to get it back into his hands before it slipped back down to the bottom floor.
Just as he positioned himself to begin firing again, the room began to fill with the water once more. It quickly sank the room up to the platform again, but seemingly stopped there for the moment instead of deluging the entire dome again. Thankful that only his feet where getting wet, Quote resumed fire right alongside Curly. The larger beast had closed its eyes again; they concentrated their fire on some of the smaller creatures that were still firing their own shots.
The two separated as they dodged some of the smaller shots, returning the fire seamlessly. Curly waded back into the water, the shots from the Polar Star breaching the surface and sailing right into the monster's eyes from the safety of under the surface. Quote instead took to dancing on the ridge just in front of the steel shutter: he wasn't too attached to the idea of going back into the liquid, and the monster was too close to the platform for him to risk using it. The offence from the smaller monsters weren't that difficult to avoid anyway, and he was having an easy enough time handling them from there.
The beast opened its eyes once more, and Quote quickly shifted his aim towards it again. He could see that Curly saw it as well, and she had adjusted her fire accordingly. Coincidentally, the water began to rise quickly once more, drowning them all for the second time faster than Quote realized as the level reached all the way to the very top of the room. The beast, undeterred, focused all of its eyes on Quote, straight ahead of it. For the first time, it launched its own shot among each of its smaller iterations; its shot was considerably larger and moved a good deal faster than the others, ripping through the water towards the smaller robot. Quote saw the shot coming clear enough this time and swam as quickly as he could to his right, in an effort to dodge the blast. He was successful – the attack hit the steel shutter full-force and caused a small explosion around it, sending him soaring through the water, surprised but otherwise unharmed. The steel shutter held fast: a large blast mark on it, but otherwise, there was hardly a chip missing from its incredible frame.
He couldn't tell which way was up for a moment as he was sent head-over-foot through the water from the blast, and he wound up landing on the floor of the room on his side. Pulling himself up to resume his fire, he saw that the beast had turned its attention towards Curly, who was still firing. Two of the smaller creatures kept their focus on him, sticking close to the centre creature but keeping their fire up on him all the same. He didn't have a clear shot on the larger beast, so he returned the fire on the smaller ones, lifting his machine gun to his shoulder through the heavy water and pulling the trigger.
The larger beast was firing several of its own volleys at Curly, each shot making a resounding explosion as they collided with the walls and floor. Curly was fine, though; the water slowed down its own shots excellently, and thanks to her device, she was having little trouble moving through the water herself and was making for an extremely difficult target to hit. For every shot the beast fired, she would return with a dozen of her own, and while not all of them were making direct hits, they were wearing it down.
Four of the smaller creatures kept up the pressure on Curly, while the larger one, realizing that she was too nimble to hit, changed its own aim towards Quote. The moment it showed its 'face' to him, he kept up the fire, scoring hit after hit with his own weapon into its eyes; it returned the fire, shooting twice in his direction. He managed to dodge the first fine enough, getting thrown through the water just like last time, but the second hit a little closer: it was no direct hit, but the shock from the blast knocked the wind out of him and in the water, he needed all the oxygen he could save. He inhaled reflexively, gulping a mouthful of water straight into his system.
He could feel the water beginning to drain back through the grate below the shutter, and he realized that he only needed to hang on for a few seconds more before he could breathe again. His hands still gripped tightly to his machine gun, he raised the weapon back up to resume firing, getting off several shots before one of the smaller creatures managed to get him in the legs. Another unintentional inhale, and suddenly the surface of the water could not lower itself fast enough.
He crawled through the water, dragging himself across the craggy ground with his left hand while keeping up the fire with his right. The aim from the smaller beasts were unspectacular, managing to miss him by a fairly large margin, but one of them just needed to get a little lucky. To say nothing of the larger one, which didn't need to be very accurate to rip him to shreds. Within seconds, Curly was at his side, intent on providing cover but instead just focusing all of beasts' firepower on one spot. They both kept fighting, pulling their triggers ceaselessly, their nerves wracked as shots were landing all around them. Quote kicked his legs, feeling the pain coarse through his body as he did. He tried to signal to Curly to run somewhere else, to divert its fire again, but her back was to him, keeping her arms up and her locked into place as she kept firing.
Just as his vision began to darken, the water level finally receded low enough for him to stick his head above the surface and take in several, very necessary deep breaths of air. He coughed awkwardly several times, heaving up the water he had swallowed, feeling it run back through his mouth and spill back into the lake.
He looked up to see that the larger beast was beginning to fire again. His legs were still working, but it caused him too much pain to try and pick himself up to start running. Curly remained stoutly by his side as she kept up her attacks, but if she didn't get out of the way, she'd be easily caught in the blast too. He didn't know what to do. He wearily raised his machine gun again with only his right hand, and tried firing into the beast one last time, his aim unsteady and his arm aching with each shot fired. Only a few shots met their mark; everything else either hit its sturdy shell, or missed its body entirely.
It fired its shot, the enormous blast erupting from its open space and roaring through the air towards its two targets. Curly realized her error now, but it was far too little too late. The moment the blast was fired, she turned around, kneeling down over Quote's body, and braced herself for the impact, shielding his body with her own. They both closed their eyes, waiting for their explosion.
They heard the blast burst midair, and could feel the shock of the explosion ripple their clothes and hair, but…they were otherwise fine. They heard the familiar roar of the beast erupt and languish through the air, as if it were in pain. They both opened their eyes – Curly turned around and Quote looked up to see the beast again: it seemed unhurt, but between them and the beast was Misery, hovering in place with her wooden rod extended just in front of her, glowing an odd off-blue. Her dark blue hair and green shirt fluttered from the breath of the beast's holler, and she was 'standing' upright.
"Did she just save us?" Curly asked to Quote, too surprised to believe it. She really thought that they were about to bite the dust that time. He was just as astounded as she was, and didn't have any answers off the top of his head. "Did you just save us?" she yelled towards Misery.
Misery looked over her shoulder, her staff held in place. She was concentrating hard in keeping the beast, and each of its five smaller children, frozen, and her expression was maddened and twisted to reflect that. "Tch," she snapped, turning back towards the beast, not answering Curly's question. Quote guessed that she didn't intend to save them at all, and she just happened to melt directly into the path of the beast's projectile. Lucky for them, either way.
"Those kids better be safe!" Curly yelled, suddenly very indignant towards Misery. She sounded madder than Quote had ever heard her, but he couldn't see her face from his angle. "If I find out you've done anything to hurt those kids, I swear, I'll–"
"Oh, shut up!" Misery yelled back, her focus still on keeping the beasts in place. "Who do you think you are? You're no mother! You're no parent! You're just a robot! A dumb, blonde robot!" Quote suddenly felt very vulnerable, lying underneath a very scorned Curly with a pistol. He wasn't sure if he'd rather keep fighting the beast instead. "You don't even know what this is, do you?" Misery kept goading. Curly offered no response. "This is what I hate about robots," she said to herself before raising her voice once more. "This is the heart of the island! The lifeblood of the land! The core of the apple! If you kill it, the island will fall to the earth. Is that your plan? Your grand scheme? Or did you just come into this room and started shooting the first thing you saw? You're imbeciles! You're fools!"
Melting into sight just above the beast was another; Quote didn't recognize him at first, but he recognized the white coat that went to his ankles; those glasses that glinted in the light; that poor disposition; that dark complexion; and that gaudy blue helmet with the red jewel he wore. It took him a moment to realize it, but the Doctor was right there, hovering just a little way away. In range of his machine gun, too! He began to thrust and squirm under Curly, managing to shake her off as he began putting all his strength into standing up. He ignored the pain in his legs as he pulled himself to his feet, standing tall as he prepped his machine gun.
"Misery, what are you doing?!" the Doctor yelled, sounding perturbed, but his giddy grin said that he was very excited about being so close to his goals. "Bring the Core to the laboratory at once! There's still time; it can still be salvaged!"
Quote steadied his aim, eyeing the Doctor down the sights of his machine gun. The Doctor hovered in place, making his shot easier. His legs wavered in pain, taking his total concentration from stopping the man before there could be more scenarios like the storehouse, but with steely determination he kept the human-like monster in his eyes and pulled the trigger.
The glow around the wooden rod in her hands intensified as she began a low, menacing growl which turned into a loud, powerful yell. A blinding flash emanated from first the rod, then her entire body, and then the beasts' bodies, filling the room with a stunning white light that caused both Quote and Curly to shield their eyes in response. He didn't see the first shot land on the Doctor, and with the flash, his aim was quickly brought down to the ground. He didn't know if he managed to get him, but as soon as he could open his eyes again…
When the dizzying murkiness left their eyes from the flash and they could see again, they were both alone. None of the six beasts were there; Misery was gone; and, worst of all for him, he didn't know if he even managed to hit the Doctor. The room was as silent as when they first entered it, and just as dormant.
Before they could come up with some other plan of action, or even a way out of the room, the water level rose drastically fast. At first the level was only a few feet deep at its farthest, but before they had a chance to run, it had already risen back up to the raised platform in the centre of the room. Quote took another deep breath just as his head submerged; the room sunk into the water at a frantic pace, and, having nearly drowned three times in this room alone already, the sight of the water hitting the ceiling yet again caused him to panic. He had a feeling that even if the gutter drained the water, the intake would be too much and it wouldn't be able to keep up.
Clipping the machine gun back to his shoulder as quickly as he could through the thick fluid, he turned back to the steel shutter: their only way in or out. Curly was right behind him as they ran back to the heavy, thick door, to help figure out a way to open it.
Pulling himself up to the ridge, his first instinct was to pound on the door with his fists. Maybe there would be some mechanism or protocol in its systems that would recognize that a person inside needed to get out; especially since there were no longer any 'seismic activity' within the dome, and the beast was even gone to boot. So, he hoped that there would be something, like some sensor or camera or something, which would realize that and let them out.
Curly was to his right, looking for a button or a lever or something that could open the door from the inside. She wasn't quite as panicked as he was, since she was relatively dry in her bubble and she hadn't had to worry about air ever since the water first rose over their heads. And she couldn't really sympathize with him anyway: they were robots. They shouldn't need oxygen to live, right? She mostly only wore her device for the increased mobility, believing stoutly that air was unnecessary.
Quote was growing more and more desperate with each pound on the door. "Quote," Curly called, her voice garbled as the sound travelled through the water, but it was still legible enough to him. "Why are you so upset? Let's just think this thing through, and we'll find a way to open the shutter. There's gotta be a way." Quote turned to face her, his eyes running wildly across her face in a blind panic, as he motioned to his mouth with his right hand. A flurry of bubbles escaped his face as he opened his mouth, in an effort to tell Curly that he needed to breathe. "Well, I figured it was over air," she said calmly, not understanding his urgency, "but we're robots, right? We don't actually need to breathe to function. We should be okay, just as long as we don't over-exert ourselves."
Quote shook his head in vehement disagreement, turning back to the shutter. He dropped to his knees and thrust his hands into the soil below the shutter, digging through the dirt and pushing away the rocks and pebbles in a rushed fervour. "Quote?" Curly asked, growing worried over his actions. Was she wrong? Did robots need to breathe to function? She had been making the breathing motions when she woke up, mimicking the young Mimiga that she fostered to seem more tangible. She noticed that he 'breathed' as well whenever he needed to move quickly, like the fight they were in just now. She remembered a contest her four kids had, where they challenged each other to hold their breath for as long as they could, and she won in a landslide – going for hours without taking a single puff of air. She doubted he had done something similar, but surely he must have realized that he didn't need to do it, right?
He backed away from the door when he noticed that trying to dig his way out was pointless: the steel wall continued underneath the dirt, going down for who knows how far. Robots don't need to breath, Curly told him, and he chanted that sentence over and over again in his mind. We should be okay. We don't actually need to breathe. Then why did he feel such a basic need to get to oxygen as quickly as he could? Why did he feel like he was drowning if he had no lungs to fill with water?
He unclipped the machine gun from his shoulder and, aiming from the hip, he pointed the barrel of the gun at the shutter and pulled the trigger at point blank range. Curly jumped away in surprise as the sudden volley of shots rang from his weapon and into the door; each small beam of light that shot from the gun hit the shutter with all the force they could manage as he stood there and just held the trigger down. He really hoped it would work, temporarily forgetting that if it were that simple, the beast probably wouldn't have still been locked in here.
His vision began to waver as he stood there, largely unmoving as the gun fired and fired into the wall. "Quote!" Curly yelled to him, hoping that her voice would carry over the 'fweets' of the gun and through the water well enough for him to hear her. If he did, he didn't acknowledge her; he kept gunning down the immoveable wall with the last of his air, desperate to burst through.
His vision clouded considerably, and his head was feeling light while his throat felt tight. His aim was constantly wavering left and right as he continued to unload his clip into the door, until the machine gun began to click instead of fire – while the clip was limitless, the gun was still either overheated or too waterlogged to continue firing. He didn't notice, though; he stood still, his arms still waving left and right as if he were still shooting. His eyes looked far-off, like he wasn't all there, not even registering that his outburst hadn't so much as left a singe on the door. Without another thought, he collapsed forward onto the dirt, his body giving out and his mind blanking. He dropped the machine gun, each of his limbs going limp as he fell. He didn't hear Curly call out to him one final time before the world disappeared to him.
He awoke to the feeling of his own breathing. He was face-down in the dirt, his chest heaving slowly and calmly with each inhale and exhale. His eyes were heavy and his mind was fuzzy; the memories from the past hour or so were broken, only recalling bits and pieces at a time. He remembered walking through the Labyrinth with Curly, and fighting Balrog, and coming across some fortified base at the end of the journey. But after that, things became unclear.
He slowly brought his hands up to his sides, and his knees underneath his body. His chest felt very heavy, and his throat was very scratchy and sore. His legs were cramped, as if he had been doing a lot of running and jumping before he fell unconscious. Just where was he, and what was he doing?
He lifted his head, trying to survey the area he was in. He was lying in front of a steel blast door that was opened just a little over halfway; more than enough to walk under. His vision was very blurry, but not because his eyes were unfocused: he was underwater. The water, while decently clean, caused his line of sight to blur after only a short distance. He remembered something about the water causing him to panic, but…what for? And why could he breathe so easily?
He looked to his side, and there, also lying face-down in the dirt, was Curly; her long, wavy blonde hair was floating up and away from her head in the water. She was facing away from him, and she wasn't moving. The Polar Star he had traded her was holstered soundly in her belt down her right thigh.
The moment he realized her situation, he took a look around the room – a giant dome, reaching several stories straight up, with a raised platform in the centre of the room. Other robots were strewn all over the floor, deactivated and looking rusted from years of inactivity and water corrosion. There was an enormous hole in the side of the far wall, as if it was housing something until only recently.
It only took him a moment before he remembered the fight with that enormous, mossy beast and its five smaller children. He remembered Misery saving the day, if unintentionally, and the Doctor appearing, that smug, satisfied look written all across his face. He remembered panicking from the sensation of drowning and pounding on the door with all his strength to get it to open before he blacked out.
He felt along the back of his neck, wondering if Curly did what he thought she did. He felt a small device latched onto his metallic skin, humming away silently as it powered his pocket of air surrounding him. She really did give him her breathing device when he was unconscious. She really did give her life for his. How long was he out? How long has she been out?
He reached out towards her, grabbing her left arm and slowly turning her over. Her eyes were closed and she still hadn't moved an inch since he woke up…but underneath her eyelids, he could see that her eyes were still moving frantically back and forth, as if she were having a dream. She was still alive! If he could be resuscitated after being under the water for so long, maybe, if he moved quickly, she could be saved as well. He had to at least try.
He looked around the room frantically, looking for something he could use to perhaps secure her to himself with, or at least tow her so he had both his hands free. Among all the rusted remains of the robots, there wasn't a whole lot of any particular interest at all. Scrap metal, stones and pebbles everywhere, some cut wood and iron making the scaffolding…
Among his looking, he found an old, mouldy rope wrapped around one of the scrapped robot's outstretched arms just a short walk from where they were. Picking up and carrying Curly piggyback-style, he moved in closer to examine it: there was a good deal of algae and mould and moss growing on it, but it was rather lengthy, and it was the best thing the room had to offer in terms of any kind of rope or tool to use to help him move Curly. It had a metal hook on one end, and a clasp on the other. It might not be that strong, but it was the best thing he was probably going to get.
He unwrapped the rope from the robot (it seemed more like it was caught on the arm than secured), and, setting down Curly briefly, carefully cleaned the rope of any excess algae before wrapping it around his waist and across both his shoulders, then doing the same to Curly's torso. Strapping her back onto his body, back-to-back like he was carrying a knapsack, he clipped the metal hook and clasp together across his chest. She thankfully weighed less than he expected – or he had just gotten stronger from lugging around so many weapons for so long, but either way, she didn't feel too terribly cumbersome. Gently bounding on his feet slightly to test the strength and buoyancy of the rope, he headed back towards the steel shutter, satisfied that the rope will do the job long enough.
The walk back to the room with the tiger's head was thankfully uneventful, with each of the five steel shutters still wide open for him to walk through. The door leading back into the Labyrinth was closed, and despite his strength and his efforts, the door wouldn't open again. It wasn't locked, but the differences in pressure between the room he was in and the room he was trying to enter were too much for him to muscle through. Perhaps for the best, considering there wasn't any place for him to walk back to except for more and more Labyrinth.
He was going to head back into the dome room to look for another way out, when he peeked down the throat of the tiger's head. The iron bars that impeded their way last time were gone, seemingly ripped straight from their posts from the sudden onrush of water: their rusted bases, on the ground and the ceiling, were still there, showing jagged edges of metal as if they were torn straight off. This direction was as good as any; he walked down the tiger's mouth to see where it would take him. He idly wondered about the gunsmith he found when he first awoke, and feeling a little guilty about taking the Polar Star from his shack.
The water quickly began to pick up, and he was being pulled down a set of rapids before he had a chance to stop and take it slowly. He kept himself upright as best as he could – less for himself and more for Curly – with his hands digging into the narrow walls on either side and his feet getting pulled planted in the dirty mud, slowing his movement. There was very little light, forcing him to feel his way along the walls whenever there was a bend or a drop in the waterway's arteries. A short slide down a steep drop in the footing, and he knew there was no way he could return to the fortified base if he needed to. Undaunted but just hoping for something to be on the other end of the path, he pressed on.
Aside from constantly having to keep his balance and his pace steady really doing a number on his stamina, he was progressing fairly smoothly down the tunnel. The odd water currents would occasionally confuse him and mess with his sense of direction, especially since he couldn't see, but there was only one way to go, at least. After what felt like hours (to his arms), he came across a small, sheltered plateau in the waterway. On it there was another door, and an artificial light-source beaming from its one glass window. Just who could build a home in the middle of a waterway like this? Was this more doing from his predecessors in the war a decade ago? Well, he wasn't going to ask questions: with some effort, he managed to pull himself up onto the plateau, bringing them both out of the cold water. He could really use the break.
Turning the old brass knob and pushing on the rotted door revealed the year's old cabin in the hollowed out wall. From the looks of thing, it hadn't seen a visitor since the day the war ended: cobwebs everywhere; old wooden panels were old and rotting away, creaking and splintering menacingly under his footsteps…it was in a pretty sorry state, but he was impressed that the bed and the bookshelves – still stocked from top to bottom with books of all kinds – were still standing upright. The quilts on the bed were even set.
There was a computer in the corner of the cabin, the light from the monitor giving the artificial glow that he saw shining through the window on the outside. There was some text on it, but it wasn't important to him right at the moment. When he saw the bed, his first thought was to take a rest, and let his weary limbs relax. He hadn't really had a chance to slow down since the warehouse in the Labyrinth, and that seemed like so long ago. He carefully untied Curly from his back and laying her down on the left side of the bed first, and, coiling the tow rope around the bedpost, he took the right side, allowing himself to relax for a moment.
He couldn't fall asleep – he wasn't especially surprised – but when he pulled himself out of the soaking wet bed just an hour later, he felt in tip-top condition, like he had slept days. Another perk of being a 'combat android', he guessed. The bed's frame and the mattress's springs managed to shoulder their combined weight, even after years of degradation. Curly, however, hadn't made a single movement since he set her down: not so much as a twitch of the finger, but her eyes were still moving under her eyelids. He clung to his hope that she was still alive, and that she could be brought back safely, but he didn't have a lot to base his claims on so far.
He wasn't quite ready to leave the cabin just yet. The glow of the monitor finally managed to hold his attention, its text still displayed prominently in the centre of its screen. It was just a single line of letters, but it couldn't hurt to at least read it. You know, it read, as if it were talking to him directly, I often recorded what I learned in that notebook… A notebook? He glanced over his shoulder, at the bookcase standing on the other side of the single room. It would be an obvious place to put a book, but a more pressing question would be why he should care. That line of text could be ten years old, for all her knew.
He looked back at the screen, half-expecting the words to be different. They weren't, so he decided to humour himself and at least take a look. He might find something useful or at least entertaining; Heaven knows he could use a laugh after everything that's happened to him in this cave.
He rifled through the shelf, running his fingers over the various spines of the books, reading their titles and deciding whether or not they might be of interest. It was mostly non-fiction: a few documentaries and encyclopaedias, along with specialized books on various things like the plant-life on the surface on the Earth, and another on the animal-life on the floating island. One small book managed to catch his eye, wedged inconspicuously between two larger books on human health and hygiene. It had a ringed spine, like a notebook. Pulling it off the shelf and dusting off its cover, it had the simple title Research Recordings written in plain pencil across its top. This must be the book the computer wanted him to find.
He opened the book to the first page – a table of contents, amusingly. He flipped through some of the pages, keeping his finger just behind the cover as a kind of bookmark, and noting that each page was numbered. Whoever wrote this book was very tidy. He looked over the possible topics: there were entire sections devoted to Mimiga; the Gaudi; the Core of the island; the war from a decade ago, and so forth. That last one had a particularly interesting subtopic, though, regarding the combat androids that had been developed on the surface. Suddenly reminded of his lack of definitive identity, he decided to give it a read.
Flipping to the listed page, he was surprised to find extremely detailed drawings and diagrams of the inner workings of the common combat android. Each gear and sensor was listed by number among several drawings taking up several pages, giving him an extremely thorough explanation of his own body. Most of it just flew over his head, though, using too many big words for him to follow along when he tried.
A few pages into the subsection, and he found about half a page explaining to him the combat android's functions while submerged in the water. Suddenly he was very interested in this notebook. There might be a way to fix Curly in here!
'Surface-developed robots have limitations on their operation underwater,' it read. So far, so easy to understand, compared to the rest of the book. 'If they are submerged for too long a period, their system automatically shuts down to avoid a short-circuit.' Well! That revelation hit him like a hammer: it explained why he needed to get to air despite not even needing to breathe. He didn't know if it was a string of programming code that gave him that basic survival instinct, or if he developed it himself, but either way, it explained why the idea of drowning was so serious to him. 'The following pages will contain instructions on the proper method of caring for a flooded robot.'
He flipped the page, and on both pages, there were more extremely detailed drawings of combat androids. One for a male model, and one for a female; there were more differences than he thought. He skipped the male instructions and read the female ones instead, keeping his eyes glued to the diagram as he read along. The first few instructions were fairly straightforward: check for movement under the eyelids, and leave the body out of the water for at least forty-five minutes to see if the damage is slight enough to repair itself before doing anything drastic. He read on, looking for the actual instructions on how to drain Curly. It seemed complicated, but the instructions were detailed enough for him to understand and follow along…
As he kept reading, his expression grew more and more surprised and nauseated with each passing sentence. The fourth- and third-instructions-to-last were the most risqué. He had to do what? To her what?! And the water came out of where?! He raised his eyes from the notebook, looking Curly's body over, trying to steel himself for what was about to be necessary. He wasn't sure if he would even trust these instructions if he had to do the procedure to himself. 'When the water has been dried via the aforementioned procedures,' the notebook continued after the necessary steps, 'the system will automatically begin the rebooting process.'
He looked back at Curly, the instructions on how to drain her of the water playing over and over in his mind. He blinked hard, feeling sympathetic towards himself as he walked towards her, the notebook still in hand so he could follow along with the steps as he went. This was going to be very messy.
The procedure was fairly short, lasting only about ten minutes as he drained Curly. He followed the notebook's instructions down to the letter, and it seemed to be telling the truth: by the time he was done, there was water everywhere. The bed, the floor, and worst of all himself were all drenched in it. Immediately after he was done and Curly was busy 'rebooting' herself, he left the cabin in a hurry to vigorously wash his hands in the stream passing just outside the door. Even after his hands were spotless, he just couldn't wash the dirt off them.
Resigning from the stream in the waterway, he sulked back into the cabin to see if Curly was awake yet, and that he didn't do what he did for nothing. Sure enough, Curly was wide awake, sitting up on the bed, looking a little tired but otherwise just fine. She looked befuddled at first, but when she saw Quote standing at the door, she was suddenly elated.
"You're alive!" she yelled ecstatically. Quote was just as relieved and shared the sentiment; the moment he realized she was fine, he forgot all about the procedure he had just went through, and practically leapt onto the bed to embrace her. A little queasiness was a small price to pay to see Curly okay. She returned the hug in full. "Oh, I'm so glad you're okay," she said softly as they held each other. "That was a real spook back in the Core room. I almost didn't think we were going to make it." They pulled away from each other, so she could speak to him eye-to-eye. "Once you fell unconscious, I couldn't think of anything else that might work…I'm just glad my air tank worked liked I had hoped."
Quote shuffled himself off the bed, to give her more room. "I'm sorry to have worried you, Quote," she said sadly. "We were in a tight spot, and I knew you'd have a better shot at stopping the Doctor than me. I figured, it would have been better for everyone if you went on ahead instead. You've seen how I use a gun, after all." They sat for a moment, just enjoying the fact that they were both alive and well in this dusty old cabin in the middle of nowhere.
"Um," she said meekly, reaching down to the foot of the bed and pulling up the notebook. Quote kept it by his side as he went over the instructions, to make sure he didn't screw it up. "I read the instructions in this book. On how to drain a robot of water." He turned away, suddenly very guilty and unable to look her in the eye. "Yeah, I wouldn't be able to look at you either if I were in your shoes," she said, feeling hot in her cheeks. "But thanks." He continued to evade her stare.
Without another word, she fell back, her eyes shut. He became worried for a moment – what if something had gone wrong? Was she 'short-circuiting'? He picked up the notebook again, quickly skipping to the end of the procedure to see if this was normal. 'The reboot process normally takes some time to complete,' it read. 'If the subject regains consciousness for a moment before resuming the process, this is normal behaviour and you should not attempt to repeat the procedure.' Well, that was a relief, at least. She was going to be fine.
He looked out the only window in the cabin, towards the waterway just a few steps from the door. They had to keep moving, he knew. The Doctor had the red flowers, and now he has that 'Core' to work with. They couldn't spend a lot of time idling – he had already wasted an hour recovering himself. He didn't want to push Curly too hard, especially in her condition, but every second counted.
He picked up the tow rope from the bedpost and proceeded to gently tie Curly to his back, exactly as he had before. It was really bearing down on his conscience to keep her moving – the least he could do, after saving his own life so selflessly, was to let her keep sleeping. But knowing her, she'd say something to the effect of Oh, I'm a tough girl. I'll be fine! Let's go show that Doctor whose boss! And while he agreed that she was strong, he was worried he was still pushing them both too hard.
When he was finished securing her in place and clipping the rope back onto itself across his chest, he left the cabin and slowly dropped them both back into the running water. The device on his neck quickly hummed to life, enveloping them both in a protective air bubble that sealed them both from the water. Going back under the surface of the cold, clear water, he restarted trekking down the tunnel of water, unsure of his final destination.
The tunnels continued down further into the island, their general behaviour no different than when he first began. Very little light to go by, with constant bends and drops in their movements. They were still narrow enough for him to plant his arms and legs in firmly, allowing him to slowly navigate his way down the chute. Curly hang limp on his back, but would occasionally give an affirming wriggle or movement in her sleep to tell him that she was fine.
As he continued down, the walls began to get mossier, and the ground under him slippery; only once so far had he lost his footing, but he was able to balance himself before the force of the tide took him away. He was worried over the inevitable steep drop in the path, or when the walls grew too far apart for him to grasp, and they both would be sent down the torrent without a hope. As if being taunted, the walls seemingly disappeared from his grip after a particularly sharp turn, and his boots were lifted straight off the ground as they both began to tumble and crash down the heavy rapids.
Quote grasped onto the clasp of the tow rope with his left hand, bent on keeping the hooks together and Curly strapped to his back as they both somersaulted and pirouetted down the tunnels. With his right, he reached out blindly and wildly, grasping at nothing in an attempt to slow their extreme descent down the water. He would slap and punch the walls, floor and ceiling in an attempt to grab onto something solid, but the odd time he did manage to wrap his fingers around something, it would immediately give the moment he tried to resist the flow with it.
Each time the tunnel took a turn, he'd try to predict the direction and sharpness from how the water sped up and moved around him, so he could take the brunt of the hit against the wall, protecting Curly with his body. An easy left, and he'd feel along the wall with his stomach painfully as they rounded the soft corner; a hard right, and he'd turn himself so he'd hit the wall with his left side, badly bruising his arm in the process, but protecting Curly well enough. He found himself upside-down for a sudden dip in the slide, however, and he harshly hit his head against the floor from the buoyancy. He blacked out before he could even register the hit, their bodies ravaged ceaselessly against the rough walls of the tunnel before the clasp on the rope finally came undone.