Me: last chapter of this part of the story!
Mushra: you know, no one would blame you if you never went on to the next one—that is if she even writes it, she can't focus worth a-
Me: SO, read, enjoy, and let me know what you think! If there's anything you want me to consider for the future of the story ahead (ideas just from reading this, or if you were a former reader of Shinzo Date, then maybe an idea of something from that you might have wanted?), feel free to comment with ideas! I can't promise I will apply all, if any, just depending on what I already have planned, but I would love to include like I did in the previous series! Again, enjoy!
Mushra: so demanding…
Chapter 14—Return or Rebirth?
"RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!"
"Looks like those bugs can really scatter…" Hyper Mushra states, watching them for a moment, before he leaps after them, catching a few that had been in the last group that had stirred them on and he pierced them through. Of course, they'd entered a town by now, and many were debating fighting or fleeing. Those with wings already did.
Hyper Sago marched forward searching, looking for any sign of the girls or somewhere they could be, Xavier and Hyper Mushra taking down the foolish enemies around them. He entered one of the bigger buildings that was still stable enough and searched through it. Other than finding a few flies that leapt out the window, nothing. No sign of the girls.
Marching back out, he caught sight of another surviving centipede coming their way. Glaring, a strike of blue energy sparked from him, and he threw his hand up, summoning forth an aqua dragon, which he rode straight for the centipede. The dragon collided with the bug, chomping at it as Sago leapt upon its back and carved his blade down its back until it went limp.
"Are we even sure they're here anymore?" Xavier asked as he joined the other men, the three of them having no battling to really do anymore, as it seemed the instinct was now only for flight. Xavier looked around at the fleeing adversaries as he continued. "They would be fighting harder if the girls were here, surely…"
"Apparently you don't realize how intimidating we can be." Hyper Mushra pointed out, and he led the march from there, keeping his eyes wide open.
Xavier followed, still wondering how worth it any of their efforts were anymore. If they didn't find real answers soon, he would be turning back.
"Come back, COME BACK! YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR COWARDICE."
Up ahead, the statement seemed to come, and Hyper Mushra and Sago looked to one another, a look in their eyes that said they recognized the voice. And then, out of one of the buildings, came the frazzled Dr. Parasite. He seemed to be angrily searching for the previous inhabitants of this village, before he set eyes on the three humanoid Enterrans staring him down.
"Eh…" he was completely frozen. Before he started nervously laughing. "Ehe…hehehe…" with a short wave, he suddenly began running.
"Funny. He seemed to run slower from the maggots." Hyper Sago commented before he chased him down.
The other two men caught up to the water Enterran as he kicked Parasite to the ground and then put the blade of his weapon to the bugs neck. The doctor was nearly hyperventilating at this point, seeming freaked out, panicked. His eyes shot back and forth, like he was looking for and escape route, and then he looked back to the men surrounding him.
"You're not going anywhere." Hyper Sago assured him angrily, as Hyper Mushra even pointed his spear at the Enterran.
"Now tell us…what have you done with the girls?"
Dr. Parasite said nothing.
Mushra's blade pushed more against the bugs flesh, and other than a squeak, it earned nothing.
Even Xavier came forward, and there was a shift of earth above Parasites head, a slab of rock ready to be used. "Do you want to be squashed, bug?"
He just stared them down, before smirking nastily. "…I won't ruin my good work…"
Work? The three men looked to one another. What work could he be put up to? Or was it his own work, self-applied? Xavier suddenly began glaring him down.
"…I remember…you helped that reptile change us, didn't you?" Xavier asked him, and the bug just smirked wider but did not answer. "Have you done the same to them? Reversed them; why?"
And it was only briefly, then, that the group of them heard a high-pitched squeal of some sort. They couldn't recognize if it was bug, machine, possibly one of the women, or something unknown. They didn't wonder for long, as soon they had more to wonder and worry about.
Off in the distances, a few buildings down, there was a sudden explosion, loud and great. Black smoke billowed heavy and high, though smaller smokes followed, creating a strange smoke cloud stretching into the air.
The three men knew what that had to be, and they were broken out of their frozen fear by the cackling of Parasite, who still lay on the ground. No words, simply laughter that grew and grew as he crawled out from under the weapons. Soon, the laughter had become cackling.
"That's IT." Hyper Mushra stated, grasping him by the nape of his neck and dragging him along as the three of them hurried to the explosion. Ahead, they saw remains of a building, but no rubble around it, though few blackened or burned bits. Where concrete flooring once was, it was all gone—now, there was only a great square hole, rubble piled within.
That's when Hyper Sago spotted a hand in the faint, lingering glare of one of the lab lights.
"They're in there!" he stated leaping down into the rubble as he began doing all he could to move it up, off, or around, Xavier climbing down to join him as Hyper Mushra took Parasite by the front of his coat and raised him off his feet.
"What have you done to them?" he demands to know from the bug, glaring him down.
"Careful, Sago, some of the rubble is still burning hot…what even happened here?" Xavier asked as he worked.
Hyper Sago coughed at some of the strange dust in the room. It drifted slowly, and its varying shades and thickness were unnerving; thick greens in the corner, light and thin purples around them. "We need to get to them fast, and get them out of here—there are strange smells, and I don't trust being around them long."
"If they're even still alive…" Xavier stated, and the other two ignored.
"Oh, they surely survived, I promise you!" Parasite stated cheerfully, though still trying to wriggle out of Mushra's grasp.
"What does that mean?!" Hyper Mushra shook him.
He only received further laughter from that.
"Mushra, I see them! They're all under this cave in here." Hyper Sago called, when he spotted a foot. He struggled to get a big slab upturned and then on its other side. Xavier helped him with the next. Soon enough, they had uncovered tools, shattered and colorless crystals, and scattered glass. Xavier shoved off many more slabs and found a shattered tube…one that sparked now and again.
"Careful." Xavier stated, taking smaller but still somewhat heavy slabs and toss them across the room.
"Are they burning as well?" Hyper Sago asked, picking up another big slab carefully.
"No." Xavier shook his head, and came to help Hyper Sago, looking to him. "…Freezing."
Confused, Hyper Sago didn't take that as any comfort—the rubble still burning hot from the explosion, he could understand. But freezing? Could it have been mixed chemicals? They were just uncovering a leg and another, separate foot, but chose not to pull and instead, continue to uncover.
There were dismembered robot arms, even animal limbs of sorts, none they had seen like that before. Syringes as well, broken. The more Hyper Sago witnessed this, the more it enraged him to image what the Doctor had been doing. The Doctor who was simply smiling down at their progress, until Hyper Mushra would shake him.
Having removed the smaller slabs, the two men worked together to remove the remaining few slabs; one, two, and then three. They had to be careful not to step upon the broken glass or blasted metal of what seemed like tubes. Stepping back, they observed the cluster of bodies underneath.
There was an unfamiliar woman, in clothing much like what the men had grown used to the girls wearing; a black and white t-shirt and black pants, dirtied, worn, and torn. And strangely, the color of her clothes were able to accent her hair—the black strands seemed to whiten at the under-layer and tips further down the strands. Winter lay by the girl, her hair grown a bit more in layers and a strange shade around her eyes and across her temple, almost like a stain across her skin…and clawed nails. She and the other woman both had them. As did Jaden, who lay beside and toward her sister. But where her hair was once a near-black brown, it was now a deep, blood red. Behind her lay Heather on her back, clothes, like the others, ruined and worn through the experience. And set in her chest…was a stone. As was with the other women, though in their shoulders instead, evidence of scaring around them but it seemed to be healing.
But the most notable abnormality around them…was the state of the ground and ruble they touched. Around Heather, there didn't seem to be much, though the earth cracked in strange vein paths, faint smoke coming from the cracks. Around Jaden, the ground seemed singed. Around winter, the ground seemed frosted. Around the other woman, the ground was singed and cracked.
"What…has he done to you…?" Hyper Sago uttered, as Xavier only stared, taking a step back. But after a moment of going over the confusion of why the state of the room could have possibly come from them, and being worried and angered as to why that could be, Hyper Sago set to checking on each of them. "Xavier, check that they're breathing."
The other Enterran did as the warrior said, and began with Winter as Hyper Sago began with Jaden, and then went to Heather, Xavier going to the stranger. They were all breathing and Hyper Sago set to trying to wake them.
But the two men jumped when something crashed into metal behind them with a yelping noise. Behind them, Hyper Mushra landed after he had tossed down Dr. Parasite, and he stood over him now, his spear summoned once again and aimed at the bug.
"What the hell did you do to them?" he demanded to know.
He laughed, the laughter growing until the spears blade was put to his throat, forcing his neck up and he swallowed, still slightly smiling.
"Enough! I want answers, or I WILL have your card instead!"
Finally, bursting as if he couldn't contain his joy anymore, and looking madder than he ever had before (especially with his bug eyes wide and wild), he said, "I have created what those puny humans of the past couldn't perfect! Couldn't even fathom!" he cackled and then continued in a rush. "They created a new race, the histories say, but they were fools, FOOLS, ehahaha!" he sat up then, not caring for the scrap from the blade that earned him. "They could have given the power to themselves! And that is what I have done! I have made glorious hybrids! My beautiful creations, ehahaha! My hybrids, they have rebirthed into a glorious new life! Glorious, glorious, GLORIOUS!"
Mushra: do you think he drinks the chemicals?
Me: probably.
Mushra: do we squash him in the next story?
Me: I'm not at liberty to answer that.
Mushra: do we get to know where that alex chick came from?
Me: I'm not at liberty to answer that (actually, alex will be returning, so don't worry WrittenAtLast, she'll have more personal time soon!)
Mushra: Hmm, do I still have those epic phoenix wings in ultra hyper form?
Me: omg, dude, your new ultra hyper form is so—shoot, I'M NOT AT LIBERTY TO ANSWER THAT.
Me: We will be returning soon! Look for the next story in the To Love Enterra series!