A/N- So in a lot of shows there's always that one goofy episode you're not really supposed to take seriously 'cause it's mostly just nonsense. Like that one time in Hellsing where Alucard talked to the spirit of his gun and it was just Bruce Willis for some reason.
I still don't know what was up with that. But anyways this chapter was largely inspired by that.
Recursion Error
Episode 101 - We're holding these synapses together with spit and gum
Livin' the life. Keeping it all together. Wasn't easy but he was managing, somehow. He was doing it. Keeping it all together.
"Gebuhh..."
Goddammit.
"Ah, for the love of..." The loud slap that resulted from Sorun slapping his own face echoed across the infinite, dark expanse he was standing in. Because right there at his feet was Sorun. Flat on his back and drooling like a moron. Eyes completely clouded and looking off in two different directions. "They hit ya with the hard stuff, huh?" Sorun mumbled to him as he crouched down to look at him. This happened every time he got drugged off his gourd, and who was left to run the brain in the background when he was down and out like this? Him. This guy.
Wasn't the worst job in the world but for the last ten months it'd been the most stressful one in existence. Sorun shook his head, standing up away from Sorun and pacing away a few meters as he held his chin in thought. "Alright, guess I better go check the systems, make sure nothing burns out like last time." He grimaced. Something always, always had to go wrong whenever one of these misadventures happened, whether it be a morphine overdose, or mushrooms, or a drunken spell, or that fucking purple coconut. Never failed, absolutely never failed to break something and who had to be the guy to fix? Him. Of course it had to be him because who else was gonna do it?
Once more Sorun crouched down. There wasn't exactly a floor he was standing on - just more nothingness. That said he'd been around long enough to be able to feel out where the hatch was, so after some fumbling he'd managed to find the small groove among all the nothing he was standing on. With a swift upward motion of his arm the hatch was lifted. Where there was once nothing there was now a square hole floating next to his feet that lead down into a metal-lined tunnel. To one side of the square chute was a ladder, which Sorun grabbed onto as he began to lower himself into the metal tunnel. He stopped halfway, turning over to Sorun who was still drooling on the metaphorical ground over there.
Sorun pointed over at him. "Don't worry, buddy, I'll get it all sorted in a jiffy."
There was no response aside from unintelligible gibberish from Sorun.
"... Alright, good talk." Breathing out while shaking his head Sorun ducked fully into the tunnel while closing the hatch over his head. Darkness completely enshrouded him until he'd pulled a flashlight and turned it on. The conditions honestly weren't much better with such a meager source of light, but it was something to work with.
He continued to move down the ladder, often stopping at a random juncture to inspect the walls of the tunnel he was descending. Inserted into the wall were electronic widgets, softly humming from the electric current running through them as random, colorful lights blinked on and off on them all. Sorun didn't care much for what the random sequences of light meant - the important thing was that they were on and blinking in the first place. Cognitions could take care of the rest as long as nothing was outright broken.
Eventually the bottom of the metal shaft had been reached. A nearby valve had to be turned to engage the manual hydraulic system that opened the hatch below him, which he'd dropped out of the moment it was open. He'd dropped into the new room, with the hatch he'd just fallen through located within the room's ceiling. It was, upon first glance, a "control room" of sorts. Clean metal walls with linoleum flooring along with ample lighting. Computer monitors lined the room, with larger, refrigerator-sized computers pushed up against the walls - giant bundles of cables jutted out from the computers and fed into ports located along the walls. There was one large, metal door and another smaller door on the side. Above the larger main door was the word "Hypothalamus" alit in red block letters etched into an electrical box.
Nodding his head, Sorun shined his flashlight around. Everything seemed in order much to his relief. Stuff was on and nothing was smoking or, worse, on fire. Hated to see that. Admittedly this was one area of the brain he was most worried of since he'd never seen the effect of Mobius-brand anesthesia, but it all seemed in working order.
"Yep, yep, mhm, ah-huh..." He mumbled to himself, looking all around the room and seeing not one thing out of place. Even the giant lightbulb in the direct center of the room, the main fuse of this facility that ensured it could even work in the first place, was bright and shining. If that was the case then maybe he was worrying over nothing and-
The lightbulb winked out.
"SHIT. Again!?" Every time, every goddamn time. Grumbling incoherently to himself Sorun marched up to the lightbulb, flashlight gripped tightly in his hand as he looked it over. Along the way he started to see the problems arise, how the displays on all the computer monitors were starting to glitch out and how the overhead lights were starting to flicker. He stopped in front of the burned-out bulb with an intense frown, trying his first line of defense: whacking it with his flashlight.
Thunk!
Nada. The bulb was still out. He tried his second and last line of defense: he kicked it.
THUNK!
Nope.
"Ugh, now I gotta get a replacement..." Sorun lamented. He breathed outwards, reminding himself it wasn't the end of the world and this is why they had surplus parts in storage. Wasn't like this was the first time, anyways, he just needed it to go as smooth as all those times. So he'd left the room, hearing the pneumatic doors close with a soft hiss! behind him as he gazed out to the familiar, brightly-lit hallways he'd grown so accustomed to walking. If memory served right it was somewhere down this hall on the left...
After a few minutes of walking he'd found it. Storage and Maintenance. Said it right there on top of the door. The sight made Sorun's mood lighten a bit, because of all the cognitions he'd made to keep things together while he was gone at least this one was the nicest one to be around. And they hadn't broken anything as of yet so that was always a plus.
Upon entering the door he was greeted to a very different room to the previous. Where the last room had been a control room this one was more akin to a warehouse. Past the lobby area where a front desk, an office door behind that desk, and some nearby chairs sat, there was a vast room with shelves. Shelves that reached so high towards the tall ceiling their tops could barely be seen, shelves that expanded out so laterally he couldn't see an end to the shelves whether he looked left or right, and shelves that reached so far back there was no telling how far one would have to walk to reach the end. A daunting size to the uninitiated, but really this was one of the smaller rooms in the brain. Good thing, too, because the cognition Sorun had run this place was short. Also not too fond of the dark, which was why he'd had to re-install new lighting to make it practically look like daytime in here. And then painted the ceiling to look like the sky - with how far away it was it was practically the real thing.
Wasting no time Sorun walked up to the front desk and rang the little bell sitting on it. In the back office he heard a small crash, followed by the sound of small, pattering feet running towards the door. It was flung open, though due to the desk obscuring his view Sorun only saw a hat with cat ears jutting out of the top dart out from beyond the door. Arms covered in brown garb placed themselves on top of the counter to lift their body up to see over it. The face of a human child with yellow cat eyes and purple hair popped up from behind the counter, with the eyes widening once their owner saw Sorun standing beyond the counter.
"Sorun! You're back!" A large smile broke out over the child's face upon seeing Sorun. And then they'd let out a high-pitched laugh when Sorun reached out from the other side of the desk, grabbed them under the armpits, and lifted them up and over the desk while holding them up above Sorun's head.
"Hello, Niko." A small smile grew on Sorun. One of the few cognitions in that place that were too innocent to not be nice. It was still great to have someone he could leave on their own and not worry about, and his day was a bit brighter with them around. "I need a new fuse for the hypothalamus."
"Oh, again?" The smile Niko wore fell off and their body went limp, which prompted Sorun to set the small child down on the ground. "What happened this time?"
"It's just the surgery thing, Niko, it's nothing to worry about."
Niko's expression brightened back up. "Does that mean afterward you'll get to stay!?"
"I don't know. Hopefully." Sorun looked towards the desk, frowning a bit when he remembered how tall it was in relation to Niko. "Niko, why do you have a desk that large? I can get you a smaller desk."
"Oh, no, it's no trouble!" The small cat-like child began waving their arms, making the sleeves that were too big for them flap about. "You don't need to go through all that trouble really the desk is fine-!"
Sorun snapped his fingers. The desk disappeared in a white cloud of smoke, and when the smoke dissipated a smaller, more fitting desk for Niko was in its place. "You have a smaller desk now," he said to them. "Why did you have that in the first place?"
"Er, um..." Oh, they looked nervous now for some reason. They'd looked grateful for a second there with the new desk but now they just looked a bit awkward. "Um, Morgana said it'd be better for everyone if we all used the same equipment. Something about... efficiency through uniformity of the workplace? I didn't really get it."
"Ah-huh." He might have to make an extra stop during this visit. "The fuse?"
"Oh, sure! Wait right here!" Niko scampered past Sorun and into the actual storage area of the storage room, disappearing into the labyrinth of shelves within. Another point towards Niko - Sorun didn't have to wait long as they was back five minutes later with a large, glowing lightbulb held in both hands.
"That was fast," Sorun complimented.
"Yeah! We replace this part a lot so it's really easy for me to find it!"
"... I see... Hey, wanna come help me screw this fuse in?"
"Boy, do I!"
Huh?
"Huh?" Sorun squinted. A lot of doors to the more important sections of the brain were locked, but this lock was... not at all how he remembered it. He remembered a standard lock you'd need a normal key for. A key everyone carried. This, this thing he was staring at right now, was not a lock with a normal keyhole.
No, what he was staring at was an electronic screen bolted onto the side of the door leading into the room he'd just left ten minutes ago. The hypothalamus. He needed to get in there so he and Niko could install the new fuse, but when he'd tried to open the door it didn't budge.
"Niko, what is this?" Sorun asked.
Instead of answering immediately Niko looked down and kicked at their feet. "... One of the new biometric locks," they shyly answered.
"Biometric? What? We had normal locks, what- what happened to the normal locks?"
Niko didn't look up at Sorun when they answered. "Morgana took them out..."
"Okay, now I'm definitely visiting him." Suppressing an annoyed groan Sorun shook his head and rose his left hand up. "Okay, so what, I just press it against the screen like this-?"
Something probably not good happened. When he pressed his hand against the electronic screen on the door it flashed red and let out a loud, blaring sound. Niko had jumped in fright at the noise, and Sorun's scowl had only deepened.
"Didn't work, huh?"
"Morgana said only people with administrator privileges can unlock the doors..."
"What? I'm literally Sorun's conscience. Why do I not have admin privileges?" Now he was starting to suspect somebody was fucking with him. Specifically Morgana. A bubbling anger was starting to grow. "For the love of- this is why I just gave everyone a key, to avoid nonsense like this..."
"U-uh, maybe you used the wrong hand?" Niko suggested. They were finally looking up at Sorun with a smile that tried to be helpful, but the yellow eyes were intensely nervous. "Try the other hand!"
It wasn't gonna work, but Sorun wanted to make Niko feel like they were helping. So he sighed and tried using his right hand this time. To no surprise, the same thing happened. It flashed red and blared at them. The door was still closed.
Niko made a dejected sound. "Oh... m-maybe your hand's dirty and it can't read it right?"
Sorun glanced down at his hand. It was pretty much pristine - not a fleck of dirt or grease to be seen. For Niko's sake he wiped his hand off on his pants and tried for the third time. And just like the other two times the lock yelled at him. And then, in a new turn, a synthesized, female voice droned out to the both of them:
"Due to three repeated failures this door has been locked down for a period of seventy-two hours. Your attempts have been logged. If you are having trouble please contact your administrator for assistance. Thank you and have a wonderful day."
Well now the anger was just starting to boil over. The screen winked out and turned into a dark gray glass slab that didn't respond no matter how many times Sorun hit it. It really was locked out. "Oooohh... ooh, I'm, I'm starting to get pretty mad now..." Sorun mumbled out, furiously rubbing a hand across his forehead in a vain attempt to quell the growing migraine he had.
Niko jumped, looking up at Sorun with a startled and worried expression. "Sorun? Don't get mad. Please," they pleaded. The words somewhat had a calming effect on Sorun. He'd began to breath less heavily and his head wasn't pounding as hard, but he was still trying to melt the door open with a glare. "Maybe we can just visit Morgana? I'm sure he can fix this!"
"Fix, yeah, I'll do some fixing alright..." Sorun chuckled out, a manic look growing in his eyes. It caused some visual confusion on Niko's part, and also made them take a step back as they continued to look at Sorun with concern. It made Sorun blink as he took in the reaction, after which he cleared his throat and did his best to straighten out his appearance. "That is to say, uh... yeah, totally, Morgana can fix this. He better fix it or I'll fix him..." Sorun grumbled under his breath and he turned around, gesturing for Niko to follow. Then he stopped upon realizing something. "Wait, which way is his office again?"
"Oh, it's this way!" Niko ran a short distance past Sorun, and then turned around, waving at him to follow while the other hand still held the giant lightbulb. "Just come and follow me! It's real close by, you'll see!"
Sorun did so. He did so with his hands shoved in his pockets and with a grim look on his face as he thought over how hard he was gonna berate Morgana, but he still followed Niko all the same.
If nothing else the door to the administrator's office was quaint. Unlike all the pneumatic door that sealed off various sections of the mind this door was just a straight-up normal door. Even had a frosted glass window with a little "administrator" sign hanging off it. With how this trip had been so far Sorun half-expected a laser forcefield with automatic turrets mounted everywhere, but if Morgana kept one thing grounded, it was the door to his own office. He had half a mind to just kick it down and storm in but Niko was right there and he didn't want to accidentally get a splinter in their eye.
Speaking a which. Niko. Sorun turned towards the small child with pursed lips. He had some very choice words for Morgana that couldn't be said within the vicinity of a child's ears. "Hey, Niko," he began, taking a knee so the both of them could be at eye level, "I gotta go in and have a chat with Morgana, m'kay? Just gonna be a minute or two. Do me a favor and wait out here."
Niko looked apprehensive at the idea, rocking back and forth on their feet with an unsure expression. They were clutching the lightbulb hardly in their hands as they asked, "You're just gonna talk, right? Promise you won't yell at him?"
He wanted to yell at him so goddamn bad. "Niko..."
"He's just trying to do the job you gave him," they weakly argued. "I know he hasn't done that great a job but he's managed to keep this place standing! Even if he is annoying sometimes..." they muttered out. "So please be nice. He's trying his best and you promised to not yell."
He did no such thing, but Sorun knew if he pointed that out he'd just disappoint Niko, and he had enough to worry about with that weighing on him. So he sighed, and then reached over to pat at Niko's hat between the ears. "Won't yell," he promised. "Gonna give him a stern what-for, though."
Niko nodded, which prompted Sorun to stand up and make his way towards the door. Fortunately he found that the door was unlocked when he turned the knob, which should have alleviated some amount of anger but didn't, and he swiftly entered the room while closing the door behind him.
The office on the other side of the door was large - in fact to Sorun's eyes it looked way larger than the last time he'd been here. It was basically the size of a small penthouse with nothing to show for it. Just a carpet and a plant in the corner. And, of course, the giant desk pressed up against the back wall which was just a giant window that gave a nice city-wide view of the town behind the office. And of course, him, the one sitting behind the desk. The source of Sorun's ire. The black and white, child-sized cat person with a head so disproportionately large he looked like a living bobblehead. Filling out paperwork behind the desk with such an intensity that he didn't even notice Sorun enter the office until he'd cleared his throat.
"Hey, Morgana, it's your boss."
"Ah!? What!?" He looked up, large blue eyes blinking in a panic until they'd locked onto Sorun, who'd moved in front of the desk. After that came the chuckling - the nervous-sounding chuckling and the uneasy grin Morgana had quickly grown while he tugged on the yellow scarf he wore. "O-oh, hey, Sorun! Didn't know you came back! Something the matter?"
"Actually, yeah, Morgana, there is." Sorun slammed his palms on the desk and leaned over it while staring Morgana in the eyes. "As it happens I'm fucking pissed off at you at the moment. Do you wanna take a guess as to why?"
"U-uh..." With how hard Morgana was tugging on the scarf it was almost like he was trying to strangle himself with it. "No? What happened?"
"What happened is that Sorun's in the middle of the surgery and out of it 'cause of the drugs so I came down here to look around, you know, do a li'l maintenance check," Sorun said. "And wouldn't you know it the fuse to the hypothalamus burned out again. Which is a problem because the body's gonna be in a coma until I fix that. But guess what, I can't fix it 'cause some dumbass replaced all the locks with this biometric shit and I put the lock in a security lockdown trying to get in."
In a shocking turn, at least to Sorun, Morgana's expression shifted to anger. He even pointed one of his tiny paws at Sorun and yelled an accusatory tone, "Well why didn't you come get me instead of trying to brute-force it!?"
"Because it's my brain. Because I shouldn't have to go to a cognition to get permission to enter a piece of my own fucking brain, Morgana," Sorun replied in a scathing tone. "For fuck's sake, man, I gave you the administrator position just to hold the fort down while I was up in the surface thoughts, not to reorganize the whole security infrastructure! I used normal locks and gave everyone a key for a reason! To avoid problems like this!"
"I changed it out because that's not a security system! That was you being too lazy to make an actual-working system!" Morgana argued. "With all the different abilities you've seen people possess out in reality we have no way of knowing if there's someone out there that can invade minds, so sorry if I went out of my way to make your mind just a little more secure!"
"I'm aware there's a tiny risk of mind invasions, Morgana, that's why I made the one-to-one recreation of the USG Ishimura sitting in that one corner of the subconscious! If anyone ever invades I'm just gonna kick them in there!"
"And what happens when that's not enough!? What happens if you kick some invader in there and it's not enough to deter them!?"
"I feel like it's enough. There's a cognition of the Darkness Devil walking around in that place." Sorun shook his head. "We're getting way off track, look, is there any other annoying security features you put in I should be made aware of? Am I gonna walk into the subconscious and find out you changed the entire layout of the city? What am I getting into here, Morgana?"
"You have absolutely no right to be mad at me." Morgana hopped up on top of the desk and crossed his arms while meeting Sorun's glare with a steely gaze of his own. "When you gave me this job you said, and I quote, 'Morgana I'm leaving you in charge while I'm gone 'cause you're one of the most responsible cognitions I made. I'm not expecting miracles, just, just please make sure the place doesn't burn down while I'm gone.' End quote." He spread his arms out. "As far as I can see this place is still standing so if you have any complaints I'm all ears."
"We're possibly stuck in a coma for three days 'cause you locked me out of the hypothalamus," Sorun reminded him.
Morgana crossed his arms. He looked disappointed. "Do I really need to remind you time doesn't move at the same pace here as it does in reality? We're fine," he deadpanned. "And I didn't lock you out. You decided to hit the same button over and over for some reason even though it wasn't working."
"... You and your logic," Sorun grumbled. "What about Niko's desk, huh? I saw you gave them way too big a desk."
"Is this seriously what you're so upset about? Locks and a desk?"
"I just don't like you making all these changes, Morgana! It's my mind! I'd like it if you'd at least consult me on all this stuff before doing anything!"
"How am I supposed to consult you when you spend all your time on the surface!?" Morgana asked in a tone matching Sorun's volume. "I've been working my tail off making sure the whole subconscious is working smoothly and this is the thanks I get!? This isn't easy, you know! I'd certainly feel a lot better if you stopped by more to help with some things!"
"I can't, Morgana, and you know why? It's because the last time I left Sorun alone for two seconds he almost killed a kid! You know how hard that would have come back to bite us if I didn't manage to talk him out of it?" Sorun sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. The mere memory of that day made him feel exhausted. "Look, just answer me this: are we really locked out of the hypothalamus for three days? And as you answer I want you to keep in mind I can delete you with a mere thought and the locks would go away with you."
"You're not gonna delete me. It'd make Niko cry and all the other cognitions would resent you," Morgana said. "And we both know if you were serious you would have done it already."
"... Please just help me. Are we locked out or not?"
"... No, we're not," Morgana muttered out after the tense moment between the two passed. "There's a side entrance we can get in through that's accessible through the memory banks. They're locked too, though, so we'll need to deal with that."
"Good enough." Sorun gestured for Morgana to hop off the desk. "Alright, come on. We'll go there and-"
"I'm not in the weekly rotation, I can't unlock them," Morgana cut in.
"The. What?" Sorun paused mid-step, and the pivoted completely around with wide, glaring eyes. "You're kidding me. You're not kidding me," he realized when he saw the straight look Morgana was giving him. "Are you se- you didn't- the temp admin can't even open these locks, Morgana, why!?"
"Because every cognition is keyed into the locks but they're programmed to only accept one cognition's handprint. Who gets accepted changes to a new random cognition that gets rotated weekly," Morgana explained.
With both hands shaking, Sorun gestured towards Morgana while moaning out, "Why would you design it like this?"
"It's supposed to be an extra layer of security!"
"I messed something up making you, I really did. Ugh." Yeah, the migraine was coming back. Or at lease imagining he was. It made Sorun groan out and rub at his forehead. "Okay, fine, whatever, who do we gotta go get to unlock the stupid fuckin' locks?"
Morgana's answer didn't come out as words. What came out was an extremely displeased sound, and a narrowing of his eyes as he glanced off to the side in what could only be described as a look of absolute derision.
"Oh, only one person in here can make you make that face," Sorun observed. "Why do you hate him so much? You're both black and white cats; I thought it'd help you get along. You know, be a good conversation starter."
"Sorun, no one gets along with him. Nobody at all." Morgana's voice quivered as he said that, and the face he wasn't making go away. It wasn't a quaver from disgust; it was from pure exhaustion. "Are you sure you don't just want to wait? The locks rotate tomorrow."
"He's really not that bad, Morgana," Sorun sighed out with a shake of his head. "Ah man, his workplace is in the dead center of the city... alright, whatever, come on." He gestured to Morgana once again, who made a resigned sound and jumped off the desk to follow him. "I'm changing all the locks back when I move back down here. I swear, I coulda made Tom from 'Tom & Jerry' and he woulda done a better job at this than you..."
Morgana didn't respond to Sorun complaining under his breath, but he did hear a disgruntled huff from the mascot cat following him around. He rolled his eyes and didn't comment on it as he opened the door to the office to step out into the hallway. He saw Niko standing nearby; it brightened his mood a bit. But only a bit. The lock thing was still upsetting him.
It's not as if he didn't see the logic. On paper Sorun would even admit the idea had some merit. But then these situations happened due to all the needless confusion and he just... ugh. He really needed to come back down here on a permanent basis to sort things through.
"Morgana! Hi!" Niko jumped up a bit and waved one of their hands at the cat following Sorun.
"H... hi, Niko." Morgana didn't sound particularly enthused when he greeted the child and only managed a half-hearted wave while wearing a forced smile.
"Hrm?" Niko had immediately locked onto the fact Morgana seemed to be in a dour mood. And then they looked up at Sorun, wearing a frown that stopped him dead in his tracks. "Hey, he looks sad! You yelled at him, didn't you!?"
"N-no," Sorun stammered.
"I wouldn't say he yelled. More like threw a tantrum," Morgana informed from behind Sorun. There wasn't a snicker or anything of the sort that followed but Sorun could hear the growing grin that was on his face. "You know how he gets. Mad over stupid stuff. Honestly, I don't know what he'd do if we weren't around to keep him in check. And to think he's supposed to be the most responsible part of the mind..."
"You're really milking the fact I don't want to deal with the consequences of obliterating you, huh, Morgana?" Sorun thought out as a grumpy pout formed on his face. It wasn't as if the cat was wrong. The fallout from such a thing just wasn't worth it. And frankly he just wasn't willing to do it, even if he'd never admit it to Morgana. Or any of the cognitions. It'd be like killing his childr- no, he wouldn't go as far as to call them that. Like killing his sibli- nope, not that either.
...
His roommates, it'd be like killing off his roommates. That he created. And at this point he was too used to them.
"Alright if we're done with this we gotta go take the elevator down to the subconscious proper," Sorun informed the both of them, trying his best to keep things moving. "Unless you put a lock on that, too, Morgana, in which case we're kind of sunk."
There was a sigh from behind him. "No, Sorun, I didn't put a lock on the elevator. I'm not an idiot."
"Ah, that's great. In that case you can call our ride on the way down."
The ride down the elevator was uneventful save for the phone call Morgana had made on the way down. Niko had kept to themself. Sorun had stared out the glass wall rushing past them as the elevator descended, looking out into the city. To any outside viewer who'd never seen it in person it'd just be some random city to them. To Sorun it was the hometown he'd grown up in. Mostly. For the most part. He didn't exactly have intrinsic knowledge of the place's layout despite living there for sixteen years of his life so it wasn't the most faithful recreation. But it was still somewhat accurate as long as one didn't venture too far from the city center, after which it just became a random, chaotic winding of buildings that stretched on and on.
There was also the fact the sky was a perpetual dark purple. No sun, no stars, no nothing. There was the occasional flash of red lightning racing through the wrinkles comprising the purple sky-ceiling, though. Wrinkles that were only visible when that occasional flash of light illuminated them for a split second.
It wasn't a bad place as far as subconsciouses worked. Then again Sorun had never seen anyone else's, so maybe he was a bit biased there.
With a light ding! the elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened to let the three off the circular platform that'd carried them down. The elevator had let them off at a street corner of the city. Nobody in any of the streets as far as Sorun could see looking around, but that was normal. Most, if not all, of the cognitions were inside doing something or other. All except one - the one who'd just honked that horn that blared out into the streets.
The three of the looked to the left towards the sound. A black sedan was tumbling towards them - literally. It was rolling towards them, end over end, sometimes turning over midair and flipping on its side over and over as it approached them. Despite the chaotic nature of the car's approach, the way it was flying towards them as if it were suffering some perpetual accident causing it to constantly fall sideways, it wasn't suffering the least bit of damage despite the constant battering, nor were the three watching it surprised at all at the car's turbulent approach.
And then, at the car's ten meter mark, its position switched. Instead of tumbling end over end it had righted itself. Four wheels, perpetually on fire, made contact with the concrete streets and left flaming lines in their wake as the car spun. Spun and spun and spun, around and around directly towards the three who watched with bored expression. At the five meter marked the car stopped spinning. It was drifting now, the flaming wheels screeching from the friction on the streets, and not in the least bit because each flaming wheel had tiny human skeletons chained to them.
Finally, the car had adjusted its position one final time when it'd reached the three. It'd turned at the last second, and in the same beat stopped right in front of the three, the driver's door and back door facing them. Sorun was the one to move, walking forwards towards the driver's door and then stopping a short distance away from it.
The window to the driver's side rolled down, and a head popped out. Upon first glance it would look like the face of a human woman with creamy-white skin and dark hair falling past her shoulders. Of course, looking closer it was clear to see she wasn't human at all. From the light amount of fur lining her cheeks, jaw, and chin, to the glowing red eyes with cat-like pupils, to the two glowing, yellow gems jutting out of the top of her head that were shaped like cat ears. And from here Sorun could clearly see that the hands gripping the steering wheel were black-furred cat hands with claws jutting out of the fingers. He didn't pay attention to any of this. He simply waved at her.
"Hey Kasha. Thanks for showing up on such short notice."
"Mrow-mrow!" She gave him a happy nod and enthusiastically nodded up and down. "Mrow. Mrow mrow-mrow?"
"Oh, yeah, we need a ride to Wernicke's."
Immediately, there was a shift in Kasha's demeanor. The happy smile she'd worn was instantly wiped away, replaced by a fusion of a sneer and a disgusted grimace. It was clear that the very mention of the destination in question caused her great distress, and the sight made Sorun throw his arms up.
"Oh my god, you too!? Guys, come on, he's really not that bad!"
"He is, Sorun. I told you nobody likes him," Morgana sighed out. He'd opened the door in the back and let Niko climb in the back seat first, and then said, "Really, I'm not sure why you go so far to bat for the guy."
"... Just get in the car, man." Morgana shrugged, but did as he was instructed and hopped in the back. Sorun maneuvered around the car and sat himself in the passenger seat next to Kasha, and then immediately looked down at the gear shift stick between them.
Currently the stick was in the "stop" position, with the "fast" position above that and a third position that just had a picture of flames above that. Kasha had already gripped the stick with her clawed paw and moved it up to the position with flames on it.
"Not that one, Kasha," Sorun said.
"Mrow." With a nod Kasha moved the stick to the final position above the one with the flames. This one had a skull and crossbones on it.
Sorun shook his head. "No, Kasha, normally I'd be fine with it but Niko and Morgana will throw a fit. And you know he will, too. Just put it on normal."
"Mrow..." She looked disappointed, but even still she'd moved the gear shift stick to the "fast" position, which was about as slow as she was willing to go without outright stopping. From behind Sorun had heard two sighs of relief, and when Sorun glanced up he caught Morgana mouthing a thank-you to him in the rearview mirror. He tossed him a thumbs-up in response as Kasha peeled out and began racing down the street.
With a sigh, Sorun sunk back in the car seat. Felt like the first time all day he'd been able to sit back and relax after everything that'd been going on. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose when he realized he hadn't even inspected all the areas he'd been hoping to, that he'd been stopped at his first stop and had to take this major detour just to swap a busted fuse. He was probably gonna have to bring him along too if there were any more locks along the way, and knowing Morgana there would be. He'd be annoyed and probably complain Sorun's ear off the whole way. Sorun's only defense against that was that since the body was unconscious right now he didn't have much to do anyways but that excuse didn't have much rope and he was already dreading what was to come. This is why he just gave everyone a key...
As the city rushed by them Sorun glanced out the window. And then he blanched. A lot of the city looked... bad. Buildings were cracked, windows were shattered, and these were just the details he was managing to glimpse at as they all rushed past him. Only half of the traffic lights Kasha was driving past and ignoring were actually on. The streets were cracked and every once in a while the car would jump after running over a pothole.
"Mrow-mrow..." Kasha made a sad sort of noise at the state of the city around them. Niko had shuffled uncomfortably in their seat as they clutched at the seatbelt holding them, the lightbulb sitting besides them and secured with a second seatbelt, and Morgana made a sigh as he watched out the window. As much as he could, at least, with his short stature.
"... Subconscious has seen better days, huh?" Sorun quietly remarked. In his defense it'd been in worse shape in the past. Not by much but still worse. The stress induced by hell, that absolute void they'd been stuck in after death, had nearly and irrevocably shattered this place. And everything that had happened since had been a fluctuating case of things getting better and worse. Lately, though, it'd been toeing that line. That dangerous line they'd only gone close to during the stay in hell.
They'd come back from it. Sorun would make sure. He'd managed before and he'd manage again.
"M-Morgana's been doing a lot to hold the place together," Niko sadly muttered out.
"It hasn't exactly been easy," Morgana commented from the side. "I've had to put out a lot of fires."
"Yeah. I know it's been rough." Sorun grimaced. "And, Morgana... perhaps I was... maybe... overcritical of my previous assertions-"
"You mean the part where you said I was doing a terrible job?" Morgana asked.
"Yes, that, look I'm sorry." Sorun turned around in his seat so he'd be able to face Morgana, who looked towards him. "I gave you a pretty impossible job and everything that's been going on with Sorun in reality hasn't been making it any easier, I get that, I really do, but-"
"But nothing, you need to come back!" Morgana snapped. "Putting all of us in charge of everything is only putting a band-aid on the problem because you're the only one who can run all this stuff at the same time! Everything around here is breaking down more and more and eventually there isn't anything we're gonna be able to do about it!"
"Morgana, you know I can't, you know I need to be there with Sorun because otherwise-" Because otherwise he would have killed that evil Miles and when all his friends found out this place wouldn't have recovered. Because otherwise he would have kept living in denial of the problem of their body dying off. Because otherwise he would have killed Dimitri out of spite for the world and they would have lost possibly their only shot at some kind of cure, at some kind of way to stabilize his mind. "I... look. I got it all set up, alright? After this surgery everything'll... everything will be fine. I can come back down here and set everything right like before. I won't need to be next to the guy twenty-four/seven. I can... I can fix this. All of this. We're gonna fix all this, I got it all set up. Just need a bit more time." He faced back forwards and ran a hand down his face. "Time and a new stupid hypothalamus fuse..."
Things would be fine. Like how things were when Sorun'd been brought back to life... before Earth happened. Like how he'd fixed things after before fucking Enerjak and the future fiasco happened. Like how everything had been fixed again before this new problem. It was gonna be fine. He was gonna fix it. It was his job to fix it.
Morgana gave the back of Sorun's seat a sad look as his ears flattened. "Sorun..."
"It's fine. I'm not..." He breathed out and shook his head. "I'm not mad about the locks, okay, I've just been under a lot of stress and... look don't worry about it, alright, it's all gonna be fine."
"Mrow-mrow-mrow..." He felt a pressure on his left shoulder, and when he looked Sorun saw that Kasha had put a comforting paw on his shoulder. When he looked towards her he saw her giving him a sympathetic look. "Mrow, mrow-mrow mrow mrow mrow mrow-mrow."
"Thanks, Kasha. I'll be fine, don't worry." He gave her a small smile, but then gently took her hand off his shoulder. "But keep both hands on the wheel, there's a child in the car with us."
"Mrow." She gave him a sheepish grin and put both hands back on the wheel. And then her eyes dramatically widened when she looked back ahead. "Mrow!"
Her cat foot slammed down on the car's break, instantly driving it to a halt. Niko and Morgana grunted when they were pulled back against their seats by their seatbelts. Sorun, who hadn't been wearing a seatbelt, flew forwards and shouted out when his head impacted the windshield, causing the entire thing to crack.
"Agh, son of a... baker who's financially well-off..." Sorun grumbled out as he sat up, rubbing at his head. He mumbled an apology to Kasha and snapped his fingers, causing the windshield to repair itself. Then he pulled his hand away - no blood. It resulted in him giving Kasha a thumbs-up, who smiled in return, and then he turned to the two passengers in the back. "This is why you wear seatbelts..." he chuckled out, pointing at his head. Morgana had just rolled his eyes while Niko gave him a worried-filled half-smile.
"Please be more careful, Sorun," Niko told him, though the worried look was slowly bleeding away into relief.
"I'll try my best, Niko."
The worried look was coming back on Niko's face.
"Alright, now then!" Sorun flung the car door and stepped out. Before them was a library. One large and tall enough that it was a veritable skyscraper. A sign hung above the main entrance way that read "Wernicke's Language and Comprehension Center". Below that entranceway was a large stone staircase that lead up to the doors. A... very cracked stone staircase. In fact there were more than a few sections of the steps missing. "Ah, boy..." Sorun mumbled out as he leaned back into the car. "Alright, I'm gonna go get him. Anyone wanna come with?"
"No."
"Uh-uh."
"Mrow-mrow."
"That's... okay, fair enough." Shrugging, Sorun ducked back out of the car and closed the door behind him. He looked back up at the crumbling staircase, trying his best not to notice all the cracks lining the building's surface, and shook his head as he began to make his way towards the stairs. "Here's hoping he ain't gonna be too cranky..."
Neat. If there was one, single word to describe the interior of Wernicke's Language and Comprehension Center it was neat. Clean, immaculate, even. Not a single speck of dust to be found anywhere. Unblemished olive wallpaper around every corner without so much as a wrinkle anywhere to be seen. Dark grey carpeting that was so clean it, bizarrely, didn't look much like carpeting. And every time Sorun ducked into a new room after roaming the hallways he'd see filing cabinets so perfectly lined up and so meticulously organized it all started to just blend together.
Remarkably it was the complete opposite of how the building looked on the outside. All crumbly and whatnot. But the interior, it was spotless. If this building was based in reality Sorun honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was clean enough to produce microchips in it. Even the air tasted clean. Too clean, actually. Kind of burned his nose the more he focused on it. Was vaguely lemony-scented.
"God, what, does he just douse the whole building with cleaning solution? Does he flood the halls with it?" Sorun wondered as he ducked his head into another room. Empty. Just more filing cabinets. "Where does he even get it all from? Where does he find the time?" He looked into another room only for this one to be empty. He sighed. This would be the sixth floor he'd searched by now. "Where even is he?"
Seventh floor now. For every stair Sorun had to climb he got more and more annoyed. And even more annoyed with every room he looked in only to see it was empty.
"This is getting ridiculous. Mordecai!" Sorun shouted out. He stomped down the hallway and opened up another door. Empty. Again. "Are you serio- Mordecai! Mordecai, where are you!?"
Okay! Eighth floor now! At the rate this was going Sorun was genuinely considering setting the building on fire to smoke the guy out. He could fix it in time. Sorun wouldn't even wake up until the damn bulb got replaced so he could take his time.
"Mordecai, you in here? Mordecai?" Nothing. Just another empty room with filing cabinets. "Ugh, that's it, I'm... hey, wait."
After traversing down yet more hallway he'd come across another room. On first glance there wasn't anything out of the ordinary with this door compared to all the others, solid oak construction, frosted window, standard stuff. Where most rooms had signs that read "vocabulary index" or "enunciation codex" or that one mostly-empty room simply labeled "foreign language lexicons" this one had a sign that simply said "processing" above it. More importantly than that he could see a silhouette sitting down from this side of the glass.
"Finally," Sorun thought as he approached and opened the door. This was apparently a mistake as the second he did so paper flooded out of the room. Long, thin strips of paper that coiled around Sorun's feat in a high enough volume it rose up to his ankles. When he trudged his way into the room he saw that it was more of the same within. The source of the paper was obvious when he noticed the large machine in the middle of the room continually feeding out a single, long strip of paper. There was a small desk it was feeding onto but due to the sheer amount of paper it'd outputted it was just spilling everywhere now.
"Ahem." A voice clearing their throat drew Sorun's attention to the man sitting at the larger desk near the paper-spitting machine that was overflowing with even more paper and office equipment. The cat man. The black and white anthropomorphic cat man sitting at the desk. At this point it was basically a normal sight for Sorun but where this one differed from a Mobian was that the bodily proportions were more in line with how a human's would be. And he had a black three-piece suit on. Sorun had yet to see any evidence to such a thing existing on Mobius. Or if it did that a Mobian would actually wear it.
There was also the fact Sorun had never seen a Mobian with such an unfriendly expression that Mordecai usually wore. It was his default expression. He wasn't wearing it right now. He was sitting at his desk and glaring at Sorun with a borderline-murderous expression.
"He's under substance abuse again, isn't he!?" he accused. His green cat eyes flicked over to the machine that was still spitting paper out. "I know he is, so don't even try to deny it. It's only whenever he's in one of these ridiculous situations the processing center gets inundated with these inane, incoherent ramblings you label as thoughts!"
"Yeah, wouldn't you know it but, and this amazed me when I found out Mordecai, they put you under with anesthetics before they do surgery on you," Sorun replied in a dry tone. "I think it's 'cause otherwise you'd die of shock from all the pain, but I dunno, I'm not a medical professional. I don't know these things. I just have secondhand knowledge from mom."
The white eyebrows that contrasted with the black fur on his face sans mouth knitted together in frustration. "And did the thought of giving me any sort of warning even once cross your mind? Perhaps to allow me the opportunity to shut down the language processing unit attempting to drown me in unintelligible garble? Have I not told you on multiple occasions every time Sorun's reduced to a state he's unable to string two words together the thoughts don't cease and I am forced to process these fatuous speech requests?"
With a blank expression, Sorun reached down and picked up a bundle of the paper. There weren't any words on it, nor even letters. It was just a continuous series of dots.
"I don't know, Mordecai. I think there's something here."
"I am in no mood for sarcasm."
"You never are, but on a serious note," Sorun said, turning the paper over for Mordecai to see, "this is literally nothing. What are you complaining about?"
"Aside from the fact the task of unraveling this inextricably tangled mess before us falls to me while the nigh-inexhaustible processing machine continues to add to my growing woes?" Mordecai rose a four-fingered hand up to adjust the spectacles he wore. "I actually did have to process garbled gibberish for a time once the anesthetics took effect before they suddenly stopped. Would there be a particular reason for that?"
"Fuse to the hypothalamus burned out," Sorun answered.
"Of course it did. It seems to happen whenever one of these 'episodes' happen." Mordecai glanced down at his desk. All the paper there made some of the muscles in his face twitch, and he almost moved to brush it all aside before he sighed, seemingly gave up the prospect, and took his glasses off to wipe them off with a handkerchief. "I would also like to submit my third request for you to snap your fingers and make it so that I am no longer reliant on corrective lenses."
"That wouldn't be accurate to the character."
"I see. In that case please note that my appreciation for your unceasing and unwavering devotion towards accurate portrayals of fictional characters is still wholly absent." He placed the glasses back on his face and looked back at Sorun. "As an aside I've a right to take umbrage with my given task. Every time Sorun has a thought that he wants to translate into physical speech I have to read and approve the requests. All the requests. And I certainly don't need to remind you of the indolent and contraction-filled lingo that makes him sound akin to a street corner hoodlum, do I? It's especially vexing considering we all know for a fact he could use grammar that makes him sound like a civilized man and yet I'm forced to sift through this dreck."
Sorun rubbed at the back of his neck as Mordecai glared at him. "Yeah, I've been trying to ease him back into the habit of using the fancy words, but he's still not a hundred percent comfortable living on Mobius," he said. "It's hard for him, you know that."
"I don't care. MY stomach turns every time I'm forced to process a new iteration of the word 'ain't'." He actually shuddered in his seat, shaking his head in an attempt to do away with a bad memory as his eyes drifted over to a window. "More importantly I feel this is work that could be handled by others while my talents could be utilized elsewhere."
"Oh, here we go again," Sorun muttered out with a shake of his head. "For the last time I'm not transferring you over to the parietal lobe-"
"Why not?" Mordecai snapped out in frustration. "This position is barely a step above blue-collar labor, and anyone could do it. Meanwhile the position of managing the section of the brain that handles math and equations is manned by an unqualified, incompetent-"
"Neco-Arc does a WONDERFUL job of handling Sorun's math, you are just JEALOUS you didn't get the position!" Sorun shouted while pointing an accusing finger at the cat man.
"She can barely juggle numbers together in her head, let alone mentally formulate the simplest and most mundane of equations! Meanwhile you have someone with actual mathematical talent on staff and yet-"
"Gimme the quadratic equation."
Mordecai faltered. The argument he was about to make died in his throat and he blinked in confusion. "Pardon?"
"The quadratic equation man, come on, it's super easy," Sorun said. "Math afficionado guy like you will get in a snap, come on, give it to me Mr. Math Man McGee."
"I-I don't..." Mordecai slowly exhaled. He rose one his four-fingered hands to adjust his tie and said in a slow, even tone, "I don't see how me failing to memorize a single, obscure equation is in any way an accurate indicator of my mathematical ability."
"Obscure? It's a basic formula used in algebra." Sorun grinned again and rose a hand up. "But alright, alright, maybe that was mean of me, I came in too hot with a hard question like that, so I'll give you a simple one. The Pythagorean Theorem. Give it to me."
Mordecai stared. He stared at Sorun with an indignant expression and refused to so much as open his mouth.
"The Pythagorean Theorem, Mordecai, come on, they teach it in middle school geometry. Easiest equation in the world. Hit me with it."
"... I don't know it," Mordecai bitterly admitted.
"No, you don't, and you know why?" Sorun tapped at the side of his head. "Because you're a cognition based on the memory of a character Sorun read in a webcomic a few years ago. You're not the actual character. You're a scrap of memory I wove together and gave autonomy to so you could run this place while I was living up on the surface, which means you only know as much math as I know, and I only know as much math as Sorun knows, and Sorun doesn't know what the Pythagorean Theorem is because he forgot that shit MINUTE ONE after graduating middle school!" He let his hand drop back to his side with a short breath. "I'm not saying this to put you down, I'm saying this so you realize everyone in this place, including you, is equally bad at math. So it really doesn't matter who I put in charge of the math center."
"She sets fire to the building on a bi-daily basis," Mordecai dryly informed him.
"She used to," Sorun corrected, "which is why I made Cait Sith the safety inspector. Place hasn't been on fire since. He's been doing a really nice job."
"Yes. He is. In the parietal lobe." The cat man gave Sorun a pointed look. "So well, in fact, he's solely preoccupied putting out fires in the parietal lobe while the rest of the subconscious falls apart at the seams. I'm assuming the bits of detritus that no doubt fell on your head while ascending the front stairs to the building was a good enough sign as to the state of things down here?"
Those outer walls had been pretty crumbly. It'd took him a couple minutes to shake off all the dust and bits of rock in the lobby. Sorun hoped Mordecai wouldn't notice the mess he made. "I'm working on it, Mordecai, okay?" Sorun sighed out. "We just need to make it past this surgery and we're golden. Little bit more patience, 's all I'm asking. Morgana can put out all the other fires meanwhile."
"Ah yes. Morgana. Whom you put in the managerial position." He sneered at the mere mention of the other cat's name, scorn clear in his voice. "I fail to see what he did to deserve that position."
"He was the only cognition I trusted to have the responsibility needed to carry the position out."
"And I'm not?" Mordecai sounded offended. "I'm not responsible?"
"... I mean arguably more so but-"
"Then why-?"
"Because you're the only one I trusted to do this job," Sorun impatiently interrupted. "Okay? Sorun may be terrible at math but he's great at grammar, as much as he refuses to admit to anyone despite how hard I've been pushing. And that kind of translated into you since that was a part of your character's thing, hell, he admired you for it, it's one of the only reasons the memory was strong enough for me to actually make you," he explained. "So I needed you to organize all the vocabulary in his thought cabinet and sort out his grammar, and honestly, Mordecai, this is one of the only places I've seen that isn't on the verge of collapsing. You're doing such a good job that Sorun over in reality still has completely coherent speech and by god has that been a big help. So I need you here. Like, I really need you here to keep doing what you're doing because you're the best person for the job and I need someone to keep this place running until I can come back and just do it all myself."
"... Yes, well..." Mordecai's demeanor didn't outright shift, Sorun wasn't sure he was capable of wiping that scowl off his face, but he did sit up a bit straighter in his seat and his voice did take on a lighter tone. That had to mean something. "I suppose, given the circumstances, that can be an understandable explanation. Resource allocation can be a difficult job and I don't think you've done an outright terrible job-"
"Also Morgana's position requires him to talk to everyone and he's more approachable than you," Sorun continued. "You're a wet dishrag. No one likes you."
"The opportunity to end it on a high note was there. You let it slip between your fingers on purpose just to spite me." He glanced down at his desk. During the duration of the conversation its surface had become overladen with more paper, making Mordecai's ears flatten down. "Why did you come here to begin with? Did you need me for some particular reason?"
"Oh, right. That. Yeah, the biometric locks Morgana put in are queued into your signature this rotation and I need your help to get into the hypothalamus to swap the fuse out."
"Ah, of course. The infamous security system. I should have known." Mordecai sat up from his seat and carefully pushed his chair in. Sorun noticed he was making a rather concerted effort not to look at the desk that was slowly being buried by paper. "As it happens I'm of the opinion that a diversion is in order and wouldn't be opposed helping with a small errand."
"Oh yeah, sure, 'course. Work'll still be here when you get back, right?"
Mordecai's eyes narrowed. "Yes," he breathed out, taking a few moments to painfully exhale. It was a sound akin to a man breathing his soul out. "Let's go."
"I've enough on my plate, Sorun. You're cleaning the lobby once this is done."
He'd noticed all the dirt Sorun had dragged in. It was going bad. "I will, I will..."
"Honestly, I'm overburdened enough without having to clean up after you. I already keep my workspace spotless and the least you could do is respect that by not tracking filth in through the door," Mordecai continued as the two descended the steps to the building. Ironically the discussion was making the cat man more animated than Sorun had ever seen him, and part of him was fascinated with the display he was witnessing as a result. "I don't think it's that much to ask for: mutual respect and consideration for peers."
Peers was stretching it given their relationship, but Sorun would let it slide. "I already said I'm sorry and I'd take care of it, man, what more do you want from me?"
"Much. But I won't waste my breath." They'd reached the bottom of the stairs. In front of them was Kasha's sedan, flaming skeleton wheels and all, and upon noticing the vehicle Mordecai's face wrinkled in displeasure. "We're to use her services as transportation then...?"
"Hey, Kasha's the best driver down here," Sorun said. By virtue of Sorun having little to no driving skills, but he didn't think Mordecai would appreciate that little factoid. "Also Niko's in the car so could you calm it down with all the snipes?"
Mordecai looked towards him with a flat expression. Really his normal expression. "I've better things to do than insult children."
"Yeah, but Morgana's in the car, too."
"Ah." Now he seemed to understand. One of his hears flicked and his black and white tail swished behind him as if irritated. "That's a considerably more difficult task."
"Ugh, man, look I know you don't like kids, and I can sympathize, but can you just cool it for an hour? One hour? That's all I'm asking for."
With a hum of consideration, Mordecai looked back towards the car. "I'm willing to acquiesce provided you convey to our driver she's to act with some modicum of care behind the wheel while transporting us," he said after a moment of thought.
"She knows, Mordecai, she knows. It's why she has the stick shift set on the 'fast' setting."
Another ear flick. "That doesn't fill me with as much confidence as your tone suggests you think it does."
"Look, just wear a seatbelt and you'll be fine. C'mon." Sorun turned back to the car and made to approach it. He'd made it three steps, and then paused when he realized he didn't hear the clack of Mordecai's loafers striking the concrete next to him. He turned and saw that the cat man was still staring towards the sedan, but now with narrowed eyes. He looked like he was trying to puzzle something out.
"Sorun," Mordecai began. His head turned towards Sorun, and suddenly his didn't look so pleased by something. "Where does Kasha come from? Her memory, I mean. What character is she based on?"
Sorun perked up before answering. "Oh, she's a boss from 'Nioh 2', which in itself was based off Japanese folklore. The game took place in Sengoku Period Japan so it really leaned into yokai folklore for enemy design. The game itself was a hit, one of Team Ninja's best products they ever produced with a combat system that revolutionized the entire genre with its intricacies that nobody else was ever quite able to replicate-"
"I couldn't care less about the extraneous details," Mordecai interrupted. "I'm interested in why a character from the Sengoku Period is driving a sedan. I didn't realize the Japanese were so advanced they'd manage to invent automobiles in the 1500's."
The accusatory tone he'd suddenly taken had forced a grimace upon Sorun's face. "I, uh... well I had to give her something to drive people around in because two big wooden wheels weren't gonna cut it."
"I see." Mordecai adjusted his spectacles as a frown settled on his face. "So what you mean to say is you breached the integrity of the character by giving her a vehicle."
"I took a few artistic liberties, so what?" Sorun defended.
"Artistic liberties!? I'm condemned to congenital eye defects because of your insistence on preserving the image of the characters you based us cognitions on, but you'll freely hand Kasha a vehicle without so much as a care in the world! I demand an explanation for why she gets your 'artistic liberties' but I do not!"
So he'd been caught. Sorun really did think he'd be able to keep it up longer than this, but the jig had to end sometime down the line. He sighed out and rubbed the back of his head while thinking on how to smooth this over with Mordecai, and shortly thereafter realized he couldn't. So instead he asked, "Okay, you want the honest truth, Mordecai?"
"I quite literally just asked for that exact thing, yes," Mordecai dryly responded.
"Yeah, I guess you did." Long time coming, he supposed. With a completely straight face, Sorun admitted, "I just like to mess around with ya."
Oh, he didn't like that answer. No, Mordecai looked very displeased by that answer. In fact this was probably what an angered Mordecai looked like. The fur on his tail was standing up on end and his face was so angered that his lips were peeling back, exposing his fangs. And his eyes. They were widened to the point the lids were quivering and the pupils were extremely narrowed.
"I'm partially blind and that's funny to you?" he hissed out. "Do you know what life is like being dependent on these cumbersome things on my face?" he continued, pointing at the glasses.
Okay... maybe he had a point. Because now Sorun felt bad, especially with that look Mordecai was giving him. And in hindsight maybe keeping a man crippled for laughs wasn't his... no, yeah, running that statement back he just now realized how horrible it was this thing he'd been doing. "Alright, fine. It wasn't tasteful, my bad," Sorun said, snapping his fingers, "but I still want you to wear the glasses around me. Consider it a work uniform."
Mordecai blinked. That furious expression went away in a flash and he'd blinked a few more times. And then he removed his glasses and glanced around, blinking even more. "... I'm not thanking you for undoing a mistake," he finally said, replacing the glasses back on his face as he regarded Sorun with his usual scowl. If anything at all had changed he wasn't showing it.
"Yeah, that's fair." Honestly it was a way better reaction than Sorun was hoping for, if a bit anticlimactic for how quickly Mordecai just accepted his new reality. But honestly, with him Sorun couldn't be too surprised. "C'mon, car's right there."
Wordlessly, Mordecai marched right alongside Sorun until they'd reached the actual car. From there their paths diverged: Sorun went over to the side of the car to get into the passenger seat while Mordecai situated himself in the backseat with the other two. When Sorun had sat down and - after making sure to buckle his seatbelt this time - closed the door, he looked in the backseat and immediately noticed the tense atmosphere back there. Niko was looking the exact opposite direction of Mordecai, Morgana had his arms crossed and was glaring at Mordecai, and Mordecai was glancing at Morgana through the corner of his own eyes. Kasha was keeping to herself and already pulled out onto the road, though her claws were nervously tapping at the steering wheel.
"Mordecai," Morgana greeted. His tone was cold and didn't at all sound inviting.
"Diminutive mascot," Mordecai greeted back in a bored voice before looking ahead. The greeting made Morgana growl in anger.
"Hey, what'd I say?" Sorun snapped, looking back at the both of them and pointing. "Quit it, both of ya. I'll take Niko out with me have Kasha turn the stick shift up to max with you two in here, I swear I'll do it. We're gonna have a nice, smooth drive over to the memory banks without any arguments or insults or anything."
The threat seemed to have some effect, as both black and white cats instantly snapped their eyes forwards without saying another word. Sorun continued to stare at them for a few seconds, and then pointed at his eyes with both fingers, and then used those same fingers to point at the two cats before finally moving back into facing forwards in his seat. He glanced to the side and saw Kasha looking at him, with her hand on the stick shift.
He considered it. Genuinely considered it just to mess with Mordecai and Morgana. But Niko was there, too, and he couldn't do that to them, so he mouthed a "no" to her.
Kasha made a grumpy pout and faced back towards the road.
"Alright, we made it to the memory banks," Sorun sighed out in relief. Honestly a miracle considering they'd managed the whole trip without anyone saying a word between each other, but that may have been more because he pretty much threatened them. Mordecai in particular had been unusually still the whole time, and even during the elevator ride and the short walk here they'd been silent.
He had a feeling it wasn't gonna last, though, because now that they'd finally made it here the real work began. Before them was a metal door that simply read, "Memory Banks". He turned back to the three behind him; Kasha had driven off after dropping them off to do whatever she did in her spare time. Thrill riding, most likely.
"Okay, so due to events completely outside my control the main door to the hypothalamus is locked so we gotta cut through the memory banks," Sorun explained. Morgana rolled his eyes with Mordecai glancing at him in confusion out of the corner of his eyes. Niko merely gave an enthusiastic nod. "Shouldn't be too difficult."
"If I may, I've never been to this portion of the mind before," Mordecai interjected. "What should we expect to find inside?"
"Oh, it's a giant labyrinth of filing cabinets," Sorun said. "That'd be bad enough usually but due to the neural structure of the human mind the layout of that place constantly changes. I tried making a map one time but gave up. Fortunately there's a service hatch we can take to circumvent all that."
Morgana hissed. "Ah... yeah..."
"I love these sounds you're making, Morgana, they're certainly not filling me with a sense of dread and anger," Sorun said in a chipper tone as he turned to Morgana.
"Uh..." Bobbing his head, Morgana slowly began to look down as he mumbled out, "we don't... have that service hatch anymore. I took it out."
Sorun laughed. "Nah, you wouldn't do that, Morgana. Not with so many things at stake. Things important to you. All hinging on the fact you didn't that the service way out. There's no way."
"Sorun-"
"No no no no, I don't think you're understanding how much you're putting on the line with this-"
"It was a security risk!" Morgana shouted, looking back up at Sorun. "Half the reason that place is a maze is to make it so intruders can't find what they're looking for and to make it so they can't navigate it to other sections and the service hatch made that redundant, so I took it out!"
Okay, so he wasn't joking. He really did remove the shortcut Sorun put in. Exhaling roughly through his nose, Sorun did his best to quell the growing anger he felt while mentally reminding himself Niko was standing right there. Rubbing at the bridge of his nose, he muttered, "With every word Mordecai comes closer and closer to taking your job, Morgana, I hope you know that."
"Do you mean that?" Mordecai asked, ears perked up. "After everything you said at Wernicke's?"
"The thought's crossed my mind," Sorun grumbled. "Ugh... fine. Fine! We'll just-" he threw his arms up, "-cross the maze! They're my memories, too, so I'm probably the only one who can." He spun around and walked towards Niko, and then crouched down so they could meet at eye-level. "Niko, uh, this next part's gonna be a pain and I think you've gone through enough, so why don't you just hand my the fuse and I'll take care of everything from here. Take the rest of the day off. Go get some ice cream."
"Oh, uh... okay. If you're sure." Hesitantly, Niko handed the lightbulb to Sorun, and then stepped back a bit while adjusting their hat. "Are you sure everything's gonna be fine? You know," they continued, eyes darting towards the two cats standing nearby, "with them?"
"... Hey, don't worry about it." Sorun patted the child on the shoulder. "Just go enjoy the rest of your day while I fix everything. I promise it'll all turn out fine."
"Well... okay! If you're sure!" A big smile broke out on Niko's face as they whirled around to wave at the other two. "By, Mr. Morgana! Bye, Mr. Mordecai! Please get along while I'm gone!"
Neither of them made so much of a sound as the cat child ran between the two of them and scampered off behind the corner. They didn't even turn to look at him go. They just stared at Sorun with blank expressions. As soon as Niko was out of earshot Morgana was the first to speak.
"Okay, so can I go, too? 'Cause you only need Mordecai for this and-"
"Oh hell no, it's your fault we're on this carousel of madness, you get to suffer along with us," Sorun bitterly exclaimed, shooting him a sharp glare. It caused Morgana to make a resigned sigh and hang his shoulders. "Now," Sorun continued, spinning around to the door, "let's get going before I act on my desire to turn Morgana into a plush toy and give him to Niko to play with. Or Kasha to strap to the front of her car."
"Is this going to take long?" Mordecai asked, utterly ignoring the way Morgana froze up and how his tail completely straightened out. "I have work quite literally piling up as we speak."
"I don't imagine so, no."
5 hours later
"You lied."
"In my defense it was a statement made in ignorance." Sorun's head thumped against the metal cabinet wall he was sitting against. He breathed out and made an exhausted sound, because at this point the drain was starting to feel real. Mordecai was sitting across from him in a similar position and in a similarly disheveled state. "I thought it'd be easy."
"Well, it wasn't," Mordecai stated matter-of-factly. There was a bitterness to his tone that was hard to miss, but at this point Sorun just didn't care enough to acknowledge it. "I suppose in some twisted point of view this is a fortunate turn of events. By now I won't even be able to enter the room it'll be so overflowing with paper. You've rendered me incapable of doing my job."
"Just burn all the paper. It's not like Sorun's gonna be up for a while, anyway, he ain't talking," Sorun suggested. "I wouldn't have even noticed if you'd slacked off and not did anything, Mordecai, I don't see why you're so insistent on this. Just don't do the job when it doesn't matter."
"It's because I have professional integrity, something I would hope Sorun's conscience would hold but am continually seeing evidence to the contrary."
"Hey, I do a great job."
"This isn't a great job." Mordecai scoffed and turned his head up at Sorun. "This is a woeful display of incompetence that has lead to the deterioration of Sorun's subconscious, not in the least bit due to your failure to properly allocate personnel to their proper stations. No, sir, this is not at all a 'great job'. This is mismanagement at its finest. I won't even mention the coma."
"We're still early enough everyone still thinks he's under from the drugs. For how long it's been they're probably not even halfway done with his surgery." He was reasonably sure of that, at least, which was why Sorun wasn't overly concerned with how this was going. At the end of the day this was still faster than waiting for the lock he'd locked out to come out of the three-day shutdown, but damn. This was going nowhere fast.
Humming, Sorun glanced around. There wasn't a ceiling to this room. Nor even an end for how far he could see past all the cabinets surrounding them. Just an infinite expanse of black with overhead lights hanging off of nothing illuminating the entire space. The cabinets themselves weren't traditional cabinets. They were continuous cabinets that stretched out into ten meter-high walls that stretched and turned into corridors that turned and terminated at random junctures. A true maze. One they were stuck in.
Idly, Sorun's eyes wandered over the surface of the cabinet Mordecai was leaning against. It was covered in small doors with various labels stuck onto them. Memories. Memories and memories and more memories. Some cabinet doors were bigger than others and some sections of wall were more numerous than others with cabinets. He could see how it was irritating Mordecai, who kept glancing around at the cabinets. The way his mouth would twitch and make his whiskers bob up and down, the way his eyes kept quickly kept glancing around. The sight was practically making him anxious and he'd had to suffer it for hours.
"This organizational system is atrocious. It doesn't even look like there is a system," Mordecai said. "Do you just haphazardly toss memories wherever they may fall and leave it at that? How do you ever find anything?"
"The human mind is a chaotic thing that can't be neatly organized, Mordecai. I do the best with what I got," Sorun said. "Usually navigating this place to pick out individual memories is as easy as a snap but only the main ego Sorun can do that. And with him out I can't borrow that ability like I usually do."
"He can't even come down here and you need him conscious for that?"
"No. I can do it if he's sleeping or unconscious. He is neither of those right now. The dude is out from the drugs." Sorun ran a hand through his hair. Just another struggle in the day of the life of being Sorun's conscience. "But I can kinda... feel my way around. The layout's never static but there is a sort of 'order' to the way all the memories are lined up. Just not the conventional kind of order you know. It's like a loose thread I've been following."
Mordecai's white brows furrowed. "That makes no sense."
"It's not a thing I can put into words, it..." Sorun held his hands up in an attempt to gesticulate some sort of explanation, but then sighed out in failure and let his hands drop. "Look I can feel it out, let's just leave it at that. Broadly. Not clear enough I got a map in my head but it's something, and I'm telling you, we're close."
"You said that an hour ago," Mordecai accused.
"We're close! It's why I had Morgana go and scout ahead! Mostly 'cause he can turn into a car and can do it way faster than us. The exit's right there, I can feel it." Speak of the devil, the sound of a revving engine caused both Sorun and Mordecai to swivel their heads down the corridor they were sitting in the middle of. A black van with blue headlights rolled around the corner and drove right up to them, and then disappeared in a puff of smoke. Morgana appeared out the other side, huffing and puffing and holding his knee with one of his hands. His other hand was holding a cellphone.
"I... I... I actually found it, you guys. Sorun was right. The exit's near," Morgana panted out. Mordecai perked up at hearing this and was already beginning to stand up. Before Sorun could move Morgana held the cellphone out to him. "Also you got a call."
"Hm?" With a curious expression Sorun took the cellphone out of Morgana's hand and turned it over. He immediately grimaced when he saw the call was from the prefrontal cortex. "Ah, boy. Something happening with Pitou?"
Morgana gave an exhausted shrug. "I... I dunno. Sh-she just sounded really distressed."
"Aw, that ain't good. She's one of the more level-headed cognitions." He should be more worried, but with how this day was going Sorun just didn't have it in him. So, bracing for the worst, he held the phone up to his ear. "Hello?"
"WHY ARE ALL THE ALARMS GOING OFF!?" a voice screamed at Sorun from the phone. It was so loud it made him wince and hold the phone away from his ear. "SORUN WHAT'S GOING ON!? THE SYSTEMS ARE ALL HAYWIRE, NOTHING'S LISTENING TO ME!"
"Ah, yeah, uh, Pitou!" Sorun cleared his throat and stood up from his sitting position. "Yeah, it's that surgery thing we talked about. Right about now Sorun's getting his skeleton torn out of him, so a couple of the nerve monitors might be turning red. Just ignore them, it's fine."
"THEY'RE ALL RED! THEY'RE SCREAMING AT ME!"
"Sounds like you got everything covered, Pitou, good work!" Sorun's thumb quickly hit the button to end the call before another reply could come through. He then sighed heavily, clutching the phone while considering everything that happened, and then as calm as he could handed the phone back to Morgana. "It's goin' well over there," he informed him.
"Ah-huh. Yeah." He didn't look like he believed him at all but also didn't care enough to argue. "Can we just go get this over with?"
"Yes. Please," Mordecai chimed in, already walking his way towards the end of the corridor. "I'm liable to do something untoward if we tarry any longer than we already have."
Sorun made a grunt of affirmation and pointed at the end of the hall, gesturing for Morgana to lead the way. Much like the past five hours the trip was uneventful. Mordecai's standards were too high to complain so he just silently smoldered the entire time they walked, once in a while casting an irritated look at the cabinets. Morgana looked too exhausted to argue about anything so he just trudged along. Sorun was in much the same boat as Morgana was with a dash of aggravation mixed in. Could be worse, all things considered, but at the same time Sorun was struggling to see how it could be worse. At least the end was in sight.
The door. It was bulky and metal, but otherwise normal aside from one of Morgana's fancy fucking locks sitting on it. Though nobody outwardly sighed there was indeed a collective sense of relief that passed by the three when they finally came upon the door.
"Hey, look at that, guys. The end. It's in sight," Sorun laugh-groaned. "Few more steps and we're home free."
"Yes, yes, hurrah and all that, now tell me how to work this contraption so I don't have to lay eyes on this organizational nightmare you call your memories for a second longer than necessary," Mordecai demanded, stopping next to Sorun and huffing out in exhaustion as he laid eyes on the door.
Sorun's eyes darted to the side at Mordecai. "Been over this, Mordecai, ain't my fault-"
"I heard you the first time, but the fact remains the dismal state of this... place makes me never want to step foot in here again." A disgusted sneer settled on Mordecai's face as he glanced around at their surroundings. At all the cabinet doors surrounding them. "No uniformity to any of the cabinets, no organizational system for all the labels, alphabetical or otherwise, and I can forgive the fact that the layout evidently remains outside of your control but at the very least-" He stopped dead when he noticed something. There, lying on the ground nearby. There was a cabinet that had been pulled out of the wall and was now lying on the ground. It was empty. "What is that?"
"What's what?"
"That." Mordecai pointed at it. "On the ground there."
Sorun looked to where he was pointing and saw the cabinet. His lips automatically constricted when he saw the "CPR" label on the cabinet. "Uh... the cabinet that contained all of Sorun's CPR skills," he quietly mumbled.
"Why is it on the ground? Why is it empty?"
"Look, man, you know, uh, reasons." Sorun cleared his throat and turned away. "There's only so much data you can frontload into the short term memory before it can get transferred to long term and a lot was happening that day so some stuff had to be deleted to make room for other stuff. I must've forgot to sweep the cabinet up."
"What was more important than the knowledge to apply cardiopulmonary resuscitation?" Mordecai demanded, whirling back to Sorun with an incredulous expression. "That's a critical safety skill and you just discarded it? For what?"
Sorun pursed his lips. His eyes darted to the wall that cabinet was next to, the wall with the giant cabinet that had the "Warhammer 40k lore" on it, and was desperately hoping Mordecai wouldn't turn around and read the wall. "Mordecai do I honestly seem like the kind of person that would let Sorun trade a genuinely useful life skill for something useless?"
Apparently he did because the very moment Sorun posed that question Mordecai turned back around and looked dead straight at the wall Sorun was really hoping he wouldn't look at. And while Mordecai was squinting his eyes to properly read the label on that wall Sorun was biting his lip, because he was running on blank on how to spin this. Morgana was just hanging back with crossed arms, looking thoroughly unimpressed with what he was seeing.
After a couple seconds Mordecai froze. And then his shoulders hunched up, signaling to Sorun that he'd read the label and wasn't liking what he read. "You're quite serious?" he asked in an icy tone, turning back to Sorun. He looked angry again. "You deemed that frivolous nonsense more important than the ability to potentially save someone's life?"
"I tried to talk him out of it but he ignored me and went on the wiki," Sorun mumbled in defeat.
"And what was your plan for when someone was in desperate need of aid Sorun couldn't provide because he filled his head with fictional refuse!?"
"... Well he just punched him until he got better."
Mordecai's mouth dropped open. His ears folded in disbelief and one of his eyes were twitching. "... Unbelievable. This is gross negligence. Dangerous ineptitude of the highest degree." His features were slowly creeping further into anger as he continued to go off on Sorun. "Need I continue to describe how you're objectively unfit for the position you're in?"
Sorun pocketed one of his hands, the other holding the lightbulb under his arm. His face looked outwardly calm but his eyes were narrowed in Mordecai's direction. "Who are you to tell me that? You're not qualified to judge me."
"What qualifications are needed for me to observe my surroundings to see the world falling apart around us?" Mordecai asked. "That isn't an allegory; the state of the subconscious is at a point it's quite literally breaking apart at the seams. Perhaps more examples are in order? The crumbling sanity of the individual whose head we are all trapped in and inexorably a part of, of which you are charged with preserving, and how you seem to be scrambling to hold it all together to a point you had to hand-craft us cognitions to handle portions of the mind. Meanwhile every one of us were woefully unprepared to fulfill your wildly unreasonable expectations because you can't even handle the simplest-"
"And you would have done a better job?" Sorun interrupted in a cold tone. "If you were in my shoes you would have failed five minutes in. Let me remind you that you're a living memory. A thought. You have your own personality but in terms of skill and ability you're only as good as I am. As Sorun is. Less so, even, since you're a lesser part of the greater whole. You would have done better? If you were in charge of keeping Sorun on the straight and narrow he would have bashed Hope's brains out with that wrench when he was paranoid about being lead into a trap to be experimented on. You know how bad that would have fucked us? It'd have been over for Sorun."
"This doesn't mean a lot coming from the same guy that encouraged Sorun to torture those two spirits back when he died," Morgana piped in from the side, though his tone didn't have all that much energy in it. He was looking down at had a sad expression on his face.
Sorun looked back at him. "It's not my job to make Sorun a good person. It's my job to keep him in one piece. Physically and mentally. And he's not back to the point he can handle things on his own mentally. Not yet. That's why I need to be there to keep him from doing something wrong until this surgery's done and things go back to normal. We have one path left to getting him back to a normal, stable life so I can build his sanity back up again and I..." Sorun looked back at Mordecai. His shoulders sagged. He just felt so tired of this... "I gave you all impossible tasks, I get that. But it was never supposed to be permanent. And at the end of the day Sorun's choices are all his choices. I'm just the voice in his head that runs all the boring background stuff." He took a calming breath, slumping a bit when a wave of exhaustion hit him. "... I just need a little more time, Mordecai. Time and a new fuse for the hypothalamus. "
Mordecai scoffed, but otherwise he held back a rebuke. He looked thoughtful, silently removing his glasses to wipe off the lenses with his handkerchief. Most likely out of habit; he didn't even need them anymore. "Given the dire state of things I suppose your actions have been apropos. We all seem to be under a significant amount of stress. At the very least I'm relieved to see you're not flying by the seat of your pants and have some semblance of a plan in order, albeit a vague one."
Sorun stuck his thumb out over his shoulder. "If you don't wanna admit I'm right and you're wrong then whatever, you do you, but please just open the fucking door already so we can get this done."
"I'd complain about your exorbitant use of expletives but I'd feel it'd be tantamount to talking to a brick wall." He walked past Sorun who grumbled something under his breath and stopped in front of the door. "To reiterate my previous question, how is this done?"
"Just put your palm on the screen and it'll do the rest," Morgana instructed, with Mordecai following along and placing his hand on the palm scanner. Lights shined out of the screen as sensors began scanning the hand's palm. "I really hope we made it, though. It'd be a bummer if we made it all this way only for the lock to have rotated, huh, guys?" Morgana grinned out while making a nervous chuckle.
"Don't even joke about that, Morgana," Sorun hissed. "I swear if that thing blinks red-!"
The screen flashed green and emitted a light beeping sound. With a silent swish! the door opened. Not hesitating for even a moment Sorun stormed right into the room, not even bothering to wait for the other two.
Unlike the last time he'd been here most of the lights in the control room were off. Most of the monitors, too, though there were still some barely flickering to life. Didn't matter. The burnt-out bulb in the center of the room was the only thing that mattered. It shouldn't have proven difficult to unscrew a giant lightbulb to put a new one in, but for Sorun it was proving a more arduous task than expected. The weariness he felt made unscrewing the thing an exhaustive effort. He didn't even bother setting it down. He'd tossed the lightbulb aside and let it shatter on the ground.
Somewhere from behind him Sorun heard Mordecai make a disgruntled hiss at the mess of glass shards littering the floor Sorun had made.
It was fine. He'd clean it. Everything was fine. The new lightbulb was plugged in and glowing. All the lights were coming on. The warmth radiating from the lightbulb wasn't very comforting to Sorun who was practically pressing his body against the bulb but it was fine. It was working. He was fixing it.
"It's gotta work," he mumbled out. "I don't know how much longer we can keep it up. It's gotta work. I gotta fix it, I... fix it. I'm gonna fix it. Everything gonna be fine 'cause I'm gonna fix it. It's fine. It's all fine. I'm gonna fix it."
He heard a few footsteps behind him and suddenly remembered there were two other people with him. Sorun glanced over his shoulders - both of the black and white cats were looking at him. Morgana looked worried and Mordecai looked... something. He wasn't really wearing an expression but one of his eyebrows were rose up at him. Sorun didn't have the energy to guess what that look even meant.
"... Look, guys, I'm gonna be real for a second. You both are the only dependable cognitions I bothered to make so I really need you two to hold the fort down while I'm gone," Sorun said to them. He turned around, groaning as he collapsed against the lightbulb while holding his head. "Just for a little longer. Alright? Please? Until things settle back down on the outside. And then I'll come back and I'll fix it all but... some more time. Just a little bit more time and I can fix everything."
"Y... yeah. Yeah, that's... we can do that," Morgana said after a long moment. He looked up at Mordecai with a pleading look. "And I think we can manage to work together to keep things running for a little bit longer, right?"
"... We can certainly make a concerted effort," he agreed, no emotion in his tone as he looked back at Sorun. "Provided you're expedient in finishing whatever business you have in reality and returning to your proper duties here. But yes. We'll 'hold the fort down' until you're ready."
Sorun gave them both a shaky thumbs-up. "That's great guys you have no idea how much I needed that reassurance... ugh." He pushed off the lightbulb and rubbed at his forehead. His head hurt. "There's still a few things I wanna go check but afterwards I'm thinking ice cream. That sound any good to you guys? Huh? Ice cream trip? You guys down for an ice cream trip?"
"No."
"No."
"You both suck."
A/N- Man. Sorun was a normal guy at the start of this story. Now his brain's run by cats.
Anyways, look, I'm not explaining myself. I said everything that needed to be said last A/N. Poll's up. That being said pretty much everyone in the reviews seemed supportive of the idea so I got a pretty good guess for how it'll go but I'm going with it anyways. Even if I already made up my mind and I'm just gonna ignore what the poll says anyway in lieu of just doing whatever I want. I just wanna see what it says.