Um… hehe… ok,ok I know it's been like FOREVER since I last posted but this chapter turned out to be way longer than I thought and I didn't want rush it and it end up coming out like poop and just the general insaneness of just about EVERYTHING so ya #thestruggle lol ;) Ok so here finally is just about longest—and in my personal opinion the most epic—chapter I've written yet! XD hope you like it!
"It's somehow creeper than I remembered." A certain cartoon mouse stated a bit warily as he and a certain cartoon rabbit pulled up to a certain rocket station.
"Well, you can probably thank the Mad Doctor for that." Oswald sighed as the two mounted the steps.
"This is all kind of strange though...I mean don't you think we'd have set off some sort of alarm or trap or something by now?"
"Yeah I've been thinking the same thing, there's definitely something fishy about this place but I mean it's not like we just sit around waiting for an invitation can we?" the toon rabbit replied as they reached a rusty door that seemed to have been hastily screwed back into place as it had fallen off his hinges recently.
"Well, here goes nothing…"
(Flashback…yes another one, I know I know… please don't kill me! This should be the last one though I promise!)
I had been almost a month now or at least she thought it was month it was getting hard to keep track of time. She honestly didn't know what to do anymore, she couldn't find a way to break through the chains that always had them tethered to the rough cell wall, in between passages on her way to the dreaded lab she was always escorted by at least one beetleworx and well the lab…she didn't want to think to think about the lab any more than she had to…she knew nothing even remotely related to her salvation lay there. Ruby began absentmindedly stroking Penny's velvety fur as some feeble means of comfort; it seemed kind of pathetic in this hellhole now that she thought about it. She felt a twinge of pain in her forearm and looked down to see a chard patch of charcoal grey that was starting to spread in unsettling black webs originating from her chip. She sighed trying to ignore the pain and continued stroking Penny's fur. Thankfully the Mad Doctor had of yet to use it on fragile kitten and Ruby hoped to make sure it stayed that way. Her brooding was interrupted by inevitable entrance of a beetleworx here to take her back down to the lab. The teenaged rabbit groaned as she got to her sore feet and the misshapen mechanical beast unchained her form the wall. All the while Penny did not so much as stir, she seemed absolutely spent. Ruby shuffled along the ominous stone walls she had grown to know only too well until her guard finally stopped, jerking roughly on the chain clamped around her neck as they came to a halt at the door leading to their destination. Toon and machine entered to said evil scientist hunched over a table mixing together a variety of fowl looking green liquids in a small laboratory that seemed to have an entire wall dedicated solely to a large glass window that peered into another room accessible by a rusted door plastered to one of the walls.
"Ah, 17X…you're late." He began irritably, "Haven't been the giving the beetleworx trouble again have we?" Ruby said nothing and just stood there giving her feet a forceful glare at the beetleworx's departure as her whole body tensed in preparation for what was to come.
"Now is that any way to treat your master?" Again Ruby replied with nothing but her rigid silence. "Tsk tsk my dear I thought I taught you better than this." Her captor continued reaching into his coat pocket for she knew to be the dreaded remote. "Perhaps you need reminding of your manners hm?" His finger now hovering precariously over the remote's trigger.
"No wait! P-please!" Ruby gasped suddenly finding her voice only to lose it again in an on slaughter agonized screams. When the Doctor had finally had his fill of her agony she attempted get back up from her knees clenching her middle in suppressed agony (she better now than to collapse on the floor completely).
"Now isn't that better?" He said reaching for the door Ruby now knew only too well. He smiled menacingly "You know the drill." And indeed she did unfortunately. They had started the radiation about a week ago. He had finally been able to get the thinner into a sort of radiated gaseous state and well, you fill in the blanks… it hurt, a lot. Ruby shuffled in place and idly fiddled with nothing in her hands until the Mad Doctor grabbed her roughly by the arm and threw her inside. Dim lights came on at her entrance as she stared hopelessly at the reflection of her beaten and sunken face in the two-way mirror that served as a point of observation for the Mad Doctor. Then it stared. She heard a shrill hissing noise coming from the vents as her undoing came through, almost appearing to circle her, like a loin stalking its prey. It twisted around her weakening form in knarled venomous trendles, choking her, striking her, she fell to her knees and let out the tortured screams she could hold back no longer. It felt as if her skin had shrunk a size or two and was now stretched painfully across her thin bones as it began to crack and dry up. It stung her eyes mercilessly bringing forth a steady flow of unwanted tears and burned dry inside her throat until she fell defeated to the floor and curled up in fetal position as the world went black.
Her body felt stiff, tense and fragile against the rigid stone floor. She felt the hard iron shackles clamped back around her wrists, digging painfully into her flesh as she became aware of the fact that the air had been roughly forced out of her lungs. Ruby gasped and coughed as another vicious kick connected harshly to her stomach with a sickening crunch. "There goes what's left of my rib cage." She thought hopelessly.
"I said GET UP! You worthless scum!" The Mad Doctor spat coldly as he roughly yanked her back up by her chains. Ruby let out a pained yelp as she cradled her bruised and cracked ribs with one hand and feebly attempted to ward off whatever the Mad Doctor had in store for her next with the other. He grabbed this arm and forcefully jammed a piercing syringe up through her precariously permeable capillaries and drew back an unnaturally dark blood with smooth passing streaks of green. She fell back to the floor with a hard thud and racket of clanking chains as the Mad Doctor proceeded over to a waiting microscope to examine his latest specimen. "Yes…" He murmured noiselessly mumbling to himself. "Yes, I believe this one is almost ready…"
"R-ready for-r *cough* wh-what?" Ruby managed to choke out.
"I do not recall giving you permission to speak." He retorted inevitably making his way back over to her in menacing strides as he reached back into his coat pocket for the remote. "But," He continued pulling her back up by her chains and placing the remote back in its pocket, "Since you asked…" He dragged Ruby over to another door she had failed to notice in her tortured haze and forced it open with a straining heave and unwilling screech of stone against rusting metal. It was pitch black inside so the first thing that hit her was the smell, like a brick wall. It was an almost painstaking array of rotting intoxicating fumes that burned her nostrils almost as bad as the radiation had, she would have pinched her noise shut, that is, if her hands hadn't been serving the all-important purpose of keeping her ribs together. As her eyes adjusted to the shrouding dark she began to notice a dull—but noticeable—green glow coming from certain places around the room and strangely enough a peculiar squelching sound beneath her feet. She then became aware of rather shapeless shapes making their way into her vision through the obscuring shadows, principally a particularly dense mass of black sticky webbing cross work right in the… "Oh no please no this can't be real no, no..." It was then that she became aware of what she was looking at. The entire room, every inch of it from floor to ceiling was covered in a thick black sludge she knew could come from none other than the Blot himself. In came down from floor to ceiling, and ceiling to floor in some places creating an ensnaring web of toxin all originating from the center where an unrecognizable creature hung beating grotesquely as rejuvenating concoctions pulsed through its webbed veins and into the mass of black slime.
"Wha-what the…" Ruby breathed horrified at the scene displayed harshly before her.
"What? You didn't actually believe the Blot could be killed did you?" The Mad Doctor sneered viciously.
"But-but that's not… it can't be…"
"Oh but it is!" He continued excitedly, "Just look." He cupped her chin in his gloved black hand and forced her to look back at the terrifyingly surreal scene before her. She scrunched up her eyes like a child and hopelessly tried to shield herself from the image she knew would probably scar her for life. "You see," the mad scientist began, "After your so-called heroes 'defeated' the Blot with their primitive fireworks and saved the day!" He snickered the last part with a sarcastic awe, "…everyone was all 'ding dong the witch is dead' I suppose, oh but not dead no, not dead at all…" he threw up his hand in a vague jester and began to pace manically behind her. "No not dead you see, not all of the blot was destroyed in the explosion and broke off into weaker blotlings, so since blotlings are just drippings straight from the Blot himself I gathered up enough of these in the highest concentration possible to form the magnificence you see before you." The Mad Doctor strode over one of the pulsing black veins that criss-crossed the room and stroked it almost fondly, it was unsettling to watch. "Now this is of course is only a temporary living situation, it will soon be strong enough for a proper body but until then…" He pulled back and abruptly and closed the door quite literally in her face as her nose collided solidly with the concrete and was crushed as a waterfall of blood began to spew out profusely from it. Ignoring this he held her face uncomfortably in his hand and went down to eye-level with her. "It will need a host body."
"Wha-what?" Ruby whispered with what was left of her quaking voice, jerking back out of his grasp and steadying herself against the wall, she was having trouble standing on her own and had a aching feeling that she had twisted her ankle on the way in. "You mean you're…you're going to…that, that thing in-inside…"
"Yes well that is, assuming you survive…" He drummed to himself.
"Sur-survive…" Ruby took another step back.
"Well yes it is quite a grueling process… but there is always your little friend…" The Doctor continued threateningly.
"YOU STAY AWAY FROM HER!" She shouted with as much fire as she could muster.
"Oh? And what if I don't, who's going to stop me? You?" He came over and swung his hardened boot up into her ribcage. She screamed and fell to the floor in a gasp of escaping air. "Pathetic." Ruby weakly pushed herself up by her arms and managed to get on her knees; she clutched her middle and tried desperately to suppress the flow pained tears trying to make their way out. "Although I must admit she's not my first choice, fresh and easy to imprint on but most likely much too weak to survive such an ordeal but in the event of a…complication she'll do. Psychologically she's defiantly prepared anyhow."
"Psychologically? What do you mean—?"
"Oh didn't I tell you? I'm surprised you haven't noticed by now, clever girl like you. My you're losing your edge." He now sat in a grimy swivel chair he had turned to face her. Ruby growled low in the back of her throat.
"Not that that has had anything to do with the poison you've been shooting up my veins." She thought darkly to herself as she managed to get into an almost upright position leaning against the wall.
"Well if you're just going to sit there playing dumb I will elucidate." He got up from his chair and began to pace the length of the room. "Well the Blot feeds off of fear and strongly negative emotions and if you haven't noticed you and the runt leave and arrive to and from you cells at relatively the same time."
"Yeah, so…" What little color was left in her paling face drained out completely as the pieces finally fell into place inside her fading mind. "You…you mean, you've been making her watch…" The Mad Doctor said nothing, merely staring at her with a look devilish prevail on his shadowed face. "YOU MONSTER!" She lunged at him in a fevered rage which he easily sidestepped, stepping onto her chains and causing her to fall unnaturally on her twisted ankle and land painfully on her now already extremely sensitive ribs. An anguished cry of pain escaped her lips which had been stained an unnaturally dark red by the blood still running from her nose.
"Monster?" He sneered kneeling down and jerking her head up roughly so that the two met eye-to-eye. "Oh, I'm not the monster here…but you will be, soon…and what will become of your precious little Penny then?" The Doctor continued his voice naught but a whisper now, "Tell me…how you plan on protecting her from yourself?" He cackled letting her fall to the floor once more where she weakly attempted to at least hold up her upper body with her quivering arms. Shallow breathes ran in and out of her lungs like suicide runs her whole body was shaking almost uncontrollably, she had never been more terrified in her life. Her thoughts ran faster than the blood still dripping from her nose.
"No matter what he does to me I would never hurt her, never, never, I could never…r-right? No I would kill myself first, can't let him hurt, can't make me, never, never…" She wasn't ever sure if her mind was coherent anymore, she tried to take a deep breath which hurt her broken ribs. "Got to get it together I can still do this, I can still save her…" By the time the beetleworx came in to take her away her breaths had become a bit more even and the foggy haze of a plan—an exceeding desperate plan but one nonetheless— began to take shape in her muddled consciousness. The horribly distorted contraption walked her back down the hall, they had almost reached their destination when Ruby used up what little energy she had left and kicked one of the beetleworx's legs out from under it with her good foot. It let out a strange ear-piercing shriek and nicked her arm as went down sending a spray of blood on one of its metal appendages. Another one of its rusty blades came at her, she knocked it painfully away and it broke off landing on the floor with an almost inaudible clang before the beetleworx yanked back on her chains and had her quickly back in its clutches. It then quickly stuffed her back inside her dingy cell and slammed the door. Ruby sat with her back against it breathing heavily and tried to ease the pain in her chest. Her whole body was tense as she slowly loosened up her strained muscles enough to slowly peel open her left paw. It was bloodied and had a large gash slashed along the length of it and inside its palm rested the rusted blade that had fallen from the beetleworx. Penny was still asleep on the floor…funny she said that as if the kitten had been there the whole time when she knew now where she had really been, she still couldn't believe he had made her watch. Now that she thought about it he probably had her on something to knock her out so that the only time Penny saw her was….Fighting back the fresh wave of outrage that had started boiling up inside her once again she scooted over to the unconscious kitten and felt her arm for the Doctor's chip implant. "She probably won't even feel it." She tried counseling herself "Yeah, until she wakes up…" She looked down at the blade in her hand and then back at the slight bulge in Penny's arm. "I'm sorry sweetie…"
TADAAAA! Ok EXPLAINATION TIME! Ok so in case it wasn't clear Ruby is going to cut the chip out of Penny's arm so that she can break her out without ya know exploding and stoof (I'm a terrible person, I know), and she didn't do it to herself because uh, one she's not unconscious that would hurt like, a lot and two she's not sure how much of the Blot is already inside her and is afraid she might end up hurting Penny because of it. Also the whole thing with the Doc "making penny watch" was basically this: Whenever he did those horrible experiments to Ruby with the radiation stoof he brought Penny out and made her watch it all happen since she was too weak to actually have the process preformed successfully on her. Although he did do a few minor experiments with Penny and the thinner ( which is one of the reasons why she was always knocked out, that and the fact the this way Penny could only ever see Ruby at her weakest and so that Ruby could never comfort her). So yeah, oh! And review to let me know if you peeps what a chapter or at least some kind of brief explanation on Penny's escape, if I do though that might extend the flashbacks for another chapter or two since this one was already going to have to overflow into the next one (sorry!) don't know if you guys care, I was planning on just skipping it anyways but I'm cool if you guys want to know. So let me know what you want, "we the people" and all that majority junk YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND! Lol ;) so send me reviews. I LIKE DA REVIEWS! XD