Antasma emerged from the hallway and came to a door labeled as The Nuclear Reactor. His marker was highlighting the entry, so the bat assumed that this must be the place. The door was sealed shut with various complex looking locks that held the panel tightly, there was no touch pad on the side which indicated its absolute security…but the bat was not fazed.
He gently touched one of the locks on the door and felt his systems begin working. The designers of his cybernetics had programmed the knowledge of the special lock solver into him, so it was quite handy for the ancient bat.
Within minutes, the door was unlocked and he pushed open the heavy wrought iron door.
The reactor room was understandably gigantic, Antasma could see hundreds of pistons and metal rods poking out in various places as well as a huge circular pool in the middle of the room. However, what was interesting about this was that, above the pool, there was a ginormous cylinder cannon hanging above the body of water, it seemed to be a gigantic gun that was built into the ship for it's defense system.
It was a strange choice considering this was supposed to be the engine of the ship, but maybe the engine was somewhere else within the pool and the gun was just a big thing that needed to be fueled by the core directly. The bat was not surprised, a gun that size would definitely need a large fuel source. Even if it was from the only thing keeping this ship working.
However, the bat also noticed a flaw with the design, if the placement of the cannon implies that the engine of the ship also powers the gun, then wouldn't the increase in energy surge blow out the core? The bat scratched his chin, he knew enough about mechanical engineering that too much pressure on any engine would blow it out, so unless the gun was powered by another energy core, then this ship was most likely going to lose power anytime this vessel went into battle.
He descended from the entrance and slowly made his way towards the center, his marker directed him towards the cooling pool, and so he approached. The bat leaned forward and stared at his reflection from the water, he hadn't checked on his appearance in a while, all the chaos that had happened during the past couple of days had really worn him down. On the outside, he didn't look any different from the first time he had seen himself all the way back in the armory, other than looking considerably filthier by the minute, but he could see a digital representation of eye bags surrounding his pixelated eyes, he chuckled, at least he could still joke about his horrible sleep schedule despite being a nightmare entity.
The bat exhaled and glanced around the area, Dreambert was probably not going to send in any soldiers in here since this was the most important and fragile room on the ship. Maybe he could lay down for a nap before continuing on, he did consider bathing himself in the cooling pool to wash off all the grim and blood, but it was probably full of radioactive substances that would most likely melt his face off, so he reluctantly ceased his urges to skinny dip in the radioactive pool.
The bat floated a little way off from the place and leaned against the wall, he unfurled his wings and gently wrapped it around himself, he didn't necessarily need sleep considering that his body felt completely fine and even energized, but the non-stop fighting from the past few days really grated on his nerves and exhausted his brain immensely. A nap would do, a nap would always do.
So he slowly closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep…
….
…..
….when he was suddenly startled awake by something grabbing him.
The bat screeched in surprise when he saw a giant robotic tentacle grabbing him, Antasma grunted in distaste when he noticed that it originated from the pool, the bat tried to thrash around from it's grasp but realized that his own wings also kept him in place, and with no other choice, he was forced into the water as the tentacle dragged him along with it.
King Boo snarled with distaste when he sensed another soldier in his area, he had already warned those stupid beans and pillows that he would destroy their nuclear reactor if they tried to do anything funny, and it seemed like they didn't listen. The boo had contemplated immediately striking the core the moment that soldier tried to dive into the cooling pool, but it seemed like the guy was only content in frustratingly camping the reactor room, and remained in the outer edges.
The king stilled and thought for a moment, the fact that there was only one soldier in here was already quite strange, usually those beans would've sent in a platoon of them to try and fight him. Perhaps they are a messenger?
The boo grunted, not likely, there's most likely an ambush waiting for him on the outside the moment he resurfaces. He would not fall for a trap as lazy as this.
But the chance of them being a messenger was still valid, so to ensure a safe hearing, the king devised a plan.
He knew that all of those mechanical soldiers were somehow equipped with diving gear, even though they were built for space, but the boo didn't ponder on it, he didn't give a damn about the questionable designs of those stupid bean and pillow guys. If anything, he'd be glad that they're screwing up their own tech, it'd be less things to trap him with. Just like the crap that this ship was made off.
The boo growled unhappily, whatever, he'd just grab that one guy quickly with this tail attachment and question him underwater, or whatever method of communication that works.
So the boo angled his tail, and fired.
When he'd be done with this guy, he was going to destroy this entire ship, trap any remaining survivors in paintings, and finally take revenge on that stupid scientist.
He had expected himself to be dead right now.
Currently the bat king was getting dragged into the depths of the cooling pool by this robotic tentacle, his mask had automatically triggered the moment he went into the water as his systems immediately began working on providing him oxygen. Antasma glanced at the offending appendage and quickly scanned, perhaps this might be some sort of defense mechanism within the reactor room, a…very strangely designed defense mechanism, but its effectiveness was currently appearing to be unquestionable.
However, he was shocked once again to discover that this appendage belonged to Subject - KB00o, otherwise known as King Boo.
The bat squinted at the piece of the new villain, he had heard about this King Boo before, but he had the idea that the man was just a glorified version of a typical boo. Considering that it was rumored down there that Luigi had defeated him, not once, not twice, but three times…all on his own turf.
Back then the bat simply laughed at the notion, being defeated once would be understandable, inexperience and bad luck would do that to you. But three times? Three whole times that the boo had a chance to defeat the green clad plumber, but three times the specter failed.
However, now that the bat was dragged closer and closer to the latter, he only felt irritation as he realized that there was a thin force field surrounding his body; it separated him from the contaminated water and kept him from getting wet. So even if he did bathe in the water, he couldn't.
Eventually, the king came into view.
The bat was surprised by the sheer size of the boo, the king was at least twenty feet tall, and the excessive roundness of the boo made him look much more intimidating.
But for whatever reason, the specter also had cybernetic attachments to him, the king had two gigantic arms and claws attached over the nubbins of his body, and he could see the moveable steel slowly snaked towards the back of the boo and extended into the tail that currently held the bat. And on top of the boo, there sat a huge golden crown with a purple gem on top. He couldn't quite make out the color of the cybernetics due to the depths, but it seemed to be a solid shade of yellow.
The boo dragged him closer and squinted at the bat, its violet eyes glared at the tiny chiroptera as the boo brought him closer.
Antasma stared at the massive specter as his objective slowly typed out it's next mission:
Objective: Extract the Module Chip from Subject - KB00o
….
Oh hell no.
There was no way for him to attack directly without the specter destroying the engine. The pulsing, rotating orb in the middle of the area strongly implied that it was the reactor core.
But all of a sudden, the bat began hearing static in his head, he thought the radioactive wave penetrated the forcefield and was slowly melting his face off, until he heard a fairly high pitched guttural voice piercing through the static.
"Who are you?"
The bat blinked,
"… Vhat?"
The boo twitched his eye,
"I SAID, WHO ARE YOU?"
The bat recoiled slightly from the sudden booming voice, he hadn't expected the boo to communicate with him, much less ask him anything. He had assumed that the specter would immediately kill him on sight considering that the previous researchers had claimed that the boo had gone insane.
The fact appeared to remain true for the other two, but it seemed like the boo had debunked that claim.
The bat quickly shook his head and responded.
"I am Antasma…and I presume that you are King Boo?" The bat asked.
For a second, the bat could see a gleam of pride the moment he mentioned the spector's name, but it vanished as the boo quickly returned to his typical demeanor.
"Heh…indeed…" The boo responded. "And you're not one of them?"
The bat tilted his head, "You mean…the Beanish?"
The boo nodded, "Yeah…those chumps, those pieces of crap that brought me on here and put all these useless tech on me." he replied.
Hmmm… if that was the case then maybe he could team up with the king just like he did with Mimi, a boo this size would easily level the playing field and the revenge plan would be going at a much faster pace.
"No…I'm not vone of them, in fact, I'm trying to kill their leader right now."
The boo scowled, "And what makes you think I'll believe that?"
The bat simply replied, " Because I'm just like you, I'm also vone of the villains that they've brought back, my code name is Subject - TA33y ."
The boo squinted as he began searching within his own terminal to find the bat's designated ID, and very soon, his eyes visibly widened when he read Antasma's entry.
"Oh crap, you are like me…yeah…ok….mhm…oof, sorry for you man…..yeah that checks ou-...wait." The boo scowled, "It says here that you have been 'coded to always follow the directive', what does that mean?"
The bat blinked, "Vhat?"
"What does it mean that you have been coded to always follow a directive? I checked out mine and I didn't have that and neither did any of the other villains that had recently died on this ship."
Then…as if Dreambert was listening to this conversation, his objective suddenly bolded:
Objective: EXTRACT THE MODULE CHIP FROM SUBJECT - KB00o, NOW
The bat hesitated when he stared at the message, it was obvious that Dreambert wanted him to end the specter as he was ransoming the ship's main power component for his own gain. But…the boo's question struck a nerve, he already hated the notion that the Pi'illo was using him to do his dirty work, but the fact that it had been written shamelessly on his own profile, where he could always see it, just enraged the bat even more.
"no…NO….HOW DARE HE?! HOW DARE HE PUT IT ON THERE?! I'M NOT HIS FUCKING TOY!" Antasma screeched.
The boo however, remained unfazed at the bat's mental tantrum, "Yeah, well…none of us wanted to be in this position, but judging by your reaction, you didn't read any of the terminal entries, did you?"
The bat immediately stopped his mental thrashing and glanced back at King Boo, "Vhat?"
The boo chuckled slightly and looked away, he quietly muttered "And they call me uneducated…." Then he turned back with an taunting grin, "You ought to read it you know, there's more screwed up stuff in your entry that I've doubt that you had experienced…stuff like….your very bloodied development process…and….how screwed up your corpse looked even though you retained the most body mass."
The boo wrinkled the bridge of his would-be-nose in disgust,
"They even included a photo of it too, like seriously, you're the only one I've seen that has a picture of your own deceased body. The other's just had a short description of it."
This heavily piqued the bat's interest as he proceeded to silently curse himself for slacking off on the entries, he was simply too busy to think about such things since he was always fighting for the objective, he had no time to rest, and even if he did, he would've rathered focusing on sleeping than reading some dumb lore piece.
The bat sniffed in disdain, "I'll read it later, anyvays, I vas thinking, do you vant to tea-"
Objective: EXTRACT THE MODULE CHIP FROM SUBJECT - KB00o, NOW OR I WILL FORCE YOU
The bat froze at the threat,
...you have been 'coded to always follow the directive'...
….no…no no no, he can't do that, Antasma won't allow him to do that, he won't let the Pi'illo drive him mad like he did with the others…or is it that they've been driven mad because they won't allow him to control them.
"Hm? What did you say? Did you want to team up?"
EXTRACT THE MODULE CHIP FROM SUBJECT - KB00o, N̸̼͝O̴̳̅Ŵ̶̯
The bat nervous nodded, "yeah, I vanted to-"
EXTRACT THE MODULE CHIP FROM K̵̻̇I̶̻͊N̶̞̓G̵͉̏ ̶̰͐B̸̤͒O̵̮̎O̷̫͋, DO IT NOW, F̴O̷L̵L̸O̵W̵ ̷Y̶O̷U̷R̶ ̸O̵B̸J̷E̷C̵T̸I̸V̶E̵ ̶A̵N̵D̵ ̶O̴B̶E̶Y̵ ̷M̴E̵.
The boo tilted his body slightly at the stiff bat, "Dude, are you alright, even with the difficult visibility here I can still tell your sweating bullets."
Antasma could feel his hands trembling, the urge to immediately break out from the boo's grasp was starting to overwhelm him, this was the first time that Dreambert had really intervened with the objective system in his head. It wasn't exactly as bad before, as it was either blocked or that he genuinely had no way around.
But this? He had the chance to switch things up now, he could choose his own path and the Pi'illo was doing everything in his power to stop it.
"I'm…completely fine, I am just…un…trying to…make a proposal."
The boo blinked, "You want to marry me?"
Antasma choked, partially because the question was so abrupt that he almost burst out laughing, but mostly because he was trying his best not to fall under the influence of violence and desperately trying to think of a way on obtaining the chip peacefully.
"Urg–no, that's not the proposal I'm talking about, anyvays, is it possible…that you can hand me your-"
OH, ARE YOU REALLY TRYING TO RETRIEVE IT PEACEFULLY? FOOLISH, FOOLISH. I WANT BLOOD. I WANT GORE. ATTACK HIM NOW, OR I WILL TAKE FORCE, T̴̯̓H̸̤̉Î̸̯S̶̭̓ ̴̟͐Ị̵̚S̵̝̚ ̴͖̕Y̴̧̽Õ̶̻U̸̪̍R̶̤͗ ̷̤̓F̵̼̾I̷̥͗N̷̠͛Ạ̷͒L̷͖͌ ̵̝̾W̶͕̕A̵͕̿R̷̫͂N̵̟̑Ĭ̵̺N̷̮͠Ǧ̷̲.̵͕̋.
The boo grinned, "Hand you my what? My hand in marriage?" He teased, "You know…we can just do it right here baby, all the steps together if you know what I mean."
Antasma felt like he was having a brain aneurysm, the feeling of his head being split into two had removed his ability to think of coherent words, much less talk, the specter's filtration from the misinterpretation of his word and the roaring bearingness of the Pi'illo King was driving him mad, it was like talking to two people at once in an online chat room where no one can hear anything other than your voice, but amplified tenfold and with the capacity of melting your brain.
"N–...No…I'm….asking…for-" he stammered, attempting to bargain one last time before Dreambert could take control, but it was already too late.
TIMES UP, YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE. NOW I WILL C̴̛̫̻͕̽͊O̵̭͐͝R̴̛͚̎R̵̜̣͗E̵͔͆̏̓C̷̲̪̲͝T̸͕̹͇͂ YOUR BEHAVIOR.
Antasma's vision began flickering violently as he tried to resist the influence, but it was futile. Within moments, his vision turned black, and his consciousness suddenly disappeared with everything going dark for a moment.
…
….
…
Then suddenly, he was back.
The first thing he noticed was that he was free now, his wings were fully expanded as his claws were outstretched. He was in battle mode and fully prepared for combat.
The second thing he noticed was that the reactor core now had a force field surrounding it, and the current within the pool was violently flowing counterclockwise as it pushed him towards the ginormous boo.
But the third and final thing that he noticed, was the absolute hatred radiating from the eyes of the boo, his previously friendly smile now twisted into a rageful scowl as the specter readied a punch.
Antasma tried to plead with the king, "Vait…boo…stop…that vasn't me-"
"Shut your trap, you tried to manipulate me with my feelings and gave me false hope when I thought I could finally leave this place." He snarled, "Now I will destroy you for betraying me, DIE!"
The bat yelped and barely dodged the incoming strike, the boo was exerting too much force for him to parry his attack so he needed to carefully avoid the punches while trying to strike at the boo.
The bat clenched his teeth angrily when he was struck by the specter, he could've gotten a friend, he could've breezed through this warfare with the boo at his side and easily destroy the horrible Beanish authorities that revived them.
But no….
Dreambert had to come and ruin it for him again, he not only betrayed the will of his people, but his own as well.
…Now I will destroy you for betraying me…
…He had never been called a traitor, he was never a betrayer, evil? Yes, traitor? No. He hated the idea of betrayal, he realized that it benefitted no one within the partnership, losing a friend was the equivalent of losing an opportunity and a lifeline. There might be a time you would need that person again and betraying them for your own pointless gain would do you nothing but harm….
…
And he would make sure to remind Dreambert of this lesson.
But for now, he'd need to put the boo out of his misery, with one last apologetic message sent to the specter, he drew his blade and charged.
The boo snarled as the specter fully tanked the strikes and returned it with a volley of bombs produced by his tail, Antasma managed to dodge a few before parrying a couple back towards him, the explosion temporarily stunned the boo as the bat performed a wombo combo on the specter, fully depleting a good chunk of his health and heavily damaging his right arm.
King boo roared in pain as he felt the full extent of the attack and quickly retreated backwards, his right cybernetic arm was now useless as it dangled limply to his side. But the boo couldn't remove it as it was still attached to the specter, he was therefore forced to fight the bat with a dead weight to his right.
"You don't seem very apologetic with that combo." he snarled,
Antasma simply said nothing.
The boo wound back his left arm and activated his module, Antasma exhaled from his mouth as he dodged the strike once more, landing on the wall behind him, the impact producing a giant explosive shockwave that would've otherwise left the bat very wounded and stunned.
However, after everything the bat had learned, he was now more skilled at dodging attacks as slow as that, the only thing he was concentrating on dealing with were the explosive, non parriable shockwaves that the boo wad producing. It hurt him moderately whenever one passed over, but the force of the wave stuns him heavily and leaves room for the specter to attack.
Soon enough, predictably, the specter decided to use the same bomb attack again, Antasma being this time much better at reflecting the bombs and easily destroying King Boo's second arm. The only thing now left of him was just his tail and nothing would be able to harm hi-
The boo suddenly lunged forward and bit his lower half, the bat was thrown into a stupor as the specter shook him around like a rabid dog.
"I would've made this pleasurable if you didn't betray me," He snarled.
The bat grunted at the suggestive comment, "Ve're in the middle of battle and you're still thinking about that 'proposal '?"
"Hell yeah, I'm gonna make you wish that you chose the sloppy instead of the choppy." He growled.
Antasma choked underneath his mask at the response, "For the last time, I did not betray you, and I don't mean the romantic kind of proposal you idiot." He huffed, "They're right, you are uneducated."
The boo, obviously enraged by the reply, chose to fling the bat into the wall, heavily damaging the outer layer of the cooling pool. Antasma quickly pushed himself off the caved pit and easily avoided the tail strike, his wings protecting him from the majority of the impact and resisting the stun of the attack.
Antasma scowled as he felt Castaphrose leaking from his armor plates, the bite of the boo was surely a strong one, given the fact that the species was completely reliant on their mouth to survive.
So then, he must kill it too, through the mouth, by taking away the only thing they can use, the specter would surely perish and disappear once more.
The bat pointed his blade at the maw of the boo and charged, the specter laughed at his advances and thought of the nightmare to be absolutely idiotic. He will devour him whole and spit out his remains as a reminder to those beans and pillows of their foolish attempt, and destroy the reactor core once he penetrates the shield.
So he opened wide and crunched down into the bat once more….
Before realizing that Antasma had completely avoided his teeths entirely.
Suddenly, he felt a sharp jab at the roof of his mouth,
…Oh no…
Such was the last thing he thought before the bat completely split his head in half, shattering his crown and the magical gem as the specter was finally ended with the deadly blow.
…
After a while, Antasma slowly resurfaced from the reactor pool as he watched his objective being crossed off, he carefully inserted the module chip and waited for it to install, trembling, he wiped his face with his hand as the bat attempted to recount the events that just happened.
He…almost managed to make friend…and maybe a fiancé…until Dreambert had stepped in and ruined everything, originally he had thought of his marker as nothing more than a guide seeing as how easily it was to be overridden, but clearly he had taken those things for granted as it had also demonstrated how easily it could override him.
…hmmm, usually such things as mind control were completely useless against him, but considering the amount of forbidden knowledge that he had somehow acquired…and the entire database of hundreds of machines in his head…maybe…just maybe…Dreambert might have…screwed with his actual brain.
….
And then what? How was he going to deal with that? Lobotomize himself? Unlikely, he was too much of a pussy to do that anyways. So he'd have to completely cut off the connection at Dreambert's end to fully free his brain from the Pi'illos' reign.
But soon enough, the installation completion sound played:
— – New Module Installed – —
– Supportive Explosives –
Hmm…that sounded interesting, he opened his module settings and checked out the spec.
It seemed like Supportive Explosives worked as a add-on to any of his combat chips, be it his fighting styles or his modules, however, Antasma could only put this on one combat chip at a time, so the bat had to pick carefully on which combat chip he wanted to add this module.
But for now, he'd continue on with his journey, now that all of the revived villains had been euthanized and returned back to where they came, there was only one more target for him to kill.
And he'd be coming for him, sooner than he'd know it.