at was effectively, a shredder. His module chip disappeared alongside his body, and was presumably destroyed or fallen down somewhere irretrievable.
Or it would have been irretrievable if it wasn't for his advanced tracking system that marked the location of the chip once it left the host's body.
Antasma had been sitting on the ground for a while, the entire fan room was an illusion, there was never any bottomless pit, floating platforms, or giant spinning fans. In fact, the actual Fan Room was much, much smaller and claustrophobic, the fans themselves were operating at a moderate pace, which was nowhere near the high speed shredder blades that he shoved Dimentio into.
Which begs the question, how did he even kill Dimentio in the first place? He had already scanned the room, there was no blood, no remains of the jester, and no Castaphrose droplets either.
Was that fight even real?
Wait no, it had to be real, his system registered the Castaphrose reserves that Dimentio leaked when he fought him, and the terminal marked him as deceased, which means that his friend was, truly, gone for good.
Antasma rubbed his neck as he sighed, speaking of the terminal, he hadn't actually read anything regarding the villains, or the machines that he had encountered, he kind of just…freestyled through it all, along with developing shoddy strategies that somehow worked. Maybe reading through the actual manual that he was provided with could probably make his journey through this ship much less painful.
And clear the mystery on why his friend doesn't recognize him.
However when he opened up the terminal entry, he noticed a new tab next to the 'Enemies' one labeled as 'Allies'. Curious, he selected that one, and only one entry showed up.
Subject Alpha: Mimi.
Well at least he knows that the spider girl isn't going to betray him anytime soon.
He opened up her entry and a hologram version of her appeared next to text that reads as follows:
Machine ID: Subject Alpha: Mimi
Machine Type: O
Current Status: Alive
Current Location: Unknown
Iteration Attempt: Pending
Machine Data:
Subject Alpha: Mimi, or originally known as Mimi, was the first real subject to be made into a sentient powered war machine, as artificial intelligence has proven to be folly, Mimi was chosen to be the first subject for her incredible shape-shifting ability, as well as her strong mental fortitude.
However, due to her tingy behavior and her past as a member of a genocidal crime group, researchers designed a special mecha that reflects the shapeshifters' true form and adequately, induces forced transformation and locking of her body so that she cannot change forms or move while within the machine.
This in turn, allows for the mecha to have more agile movements than any other Type - O machines as the controller's body is stretched apart within the mech and they can move at their own pace without the mechanical pistons restraining their movements.
However, Subject Alpha: Mimi, upon waking from anesthesia, had soon found her new body to be "horrific", "traumatizing", "she thought she was forgiven", and "Not what she signed up for", before immediately breaking out of custody and concealing herself within Ship # NIN-JU-1889. Where she currently dwells until she is recaptured.
…Well at least Antasma knew the name of the ship now.
What disturbed him from the entry was that apparently, Mimi was once a fully fleshed out breathing person, who was given the gift of freeform before having it taken away by the Pi'illos and Beanish for essentially no reason.
War never had a reason, it was always about the power and the deaths.
She was also forgiven for her crimes by the looks of it, since Mimi did tell him that she was a fashion model before this…incident, which just made this even sadder considering that she wasn't even a villain anymore, just someone wanting to make a future for themselves and leave the past behind.
But the future only threw it right back at her, what goes around comes around.
And now he understood why she didn't want to tell him about herself, it wasn't out of shame, but out of grief.
Antasma exhaled quietly as he backed out from her entry, now…he wanted to know why Dimentio…was like that. Why his self-proclaimed friend, why his best friend , randomly decided to attack him while claiming that he was someone else. Why did he have access to his magic while Antasma hadn't? Why couldn't he slowly regenerate like he could?
Antasma selected Dimentio's entry…and almost choked out a sob while reading it:
Machine ID: Subject - DI22y
Machine Type: Y
Current Status: Deceased
Current Location: N/A ( Body is too scattered for locating, attempted retrieval will be futile )
Iteration Attempt: Failure
Machine Data:
Subject - DI22y, or otherwise known as Dimentio, was a former deceased omnicidal dimensional magician that was a part of the crime team along with Subject Alpha: Mimi. Subject - DI22y was chosen to be the third "official" iteration of the experiment due to his thin frame as well as his intensive magical abilities. Retrieving his remains was proven to be difficult as the subject was burnt and exploded, fortunately, a majority of his brain and upper body was found to be preserved through unknown reasons.
However, due to complications with compatibility, researchers were unable to pair his magic with any Type - O, or Type - A machines. Therefore, leading them to equip him with the barely developed Type - Y ground soldier cybernetics. Because of this, Subject - DI22y sparked the increased research and development of the Type - Y cybernetics to avoid such issues in the future.
This in turn, led to a surge of military recruitment as Type - Y cybernetics not only enhanced already healthy soldiers' capability, but also allowed mentally, and physically challenged citizens to join the ranks, leading to an even tide within the war. However, a downside of the Type - Y cybernetics is that, due to its mental strain, and if not monitored properly, it will cause the user to experience intense physiological trauma. This issue was also presented during the development of Type - A machines when researchers were working with Subject - LE11a. Unfortunately, such issues have not been resolved as the technology is still within its early stages as further development has yet to find a solution.
Antasma felt sick to his nonexistent stomach after reading it, he was obviously not surprised that Dimentio was some sort of big villain before his death but he was absolutely not expecting the omnicide attempt of the whole universe, but he didn't care about that since it was inevitable that the plumbers would have stopped it.
What truly disgusted him was the fact that, despite these people knowing full well that their tech had a fatal error, they still kept on recruiting, even the mentally vulnerable ones.
He snarled with anger at the prospect, they were supposed to be the ones protecting and caring about their citizens, in fact, they should've never recruited more when they found out the problem, they should've stopped but they didn't.
To think that the Beanish and Pi'illo would've devolved so much from their former glory was laughable, especially when they were at war with other kingdoms. To think that they branded him as a villain was simply ludicrous when they were the ones exploiting their own people.
The bat exited Dimentio's entry with a renewed sense of hate. originally he was just going to fight Dreambert because of their rivalry and for the sake of his own revenge, but now. This was personal, he was not letting them get away with doing the same thing to others as they did to him.
He became so absorbed in his hatred that he didn't even notice his own entry that was right next to the jester's.
When he left the real fan room, his objective told him that in order for him to retrieve the module chip, he had to travel down towards the bottom of the ship and pick it up within the storage bay. His system had conveniently marked its exact location and the pathway that he should take, and the way down was through a vent that was located at the end of the hallway and a quarter distance of the ship away from where he was at this moment.
Antasma sighed and slowly rubbed his face, he was feeling extremely mentally exhausted right now, there didn't seem to be a moment of rest for him as he slowly headed towards the vent. Half of him wanted to just hurry and get it over with while the other just wanted to sleep. Physically, he was completely fine, his Castaphrose reserves were plentiful even after covering his injuries, and he felt no fatigue or ache from the aftermath of the battle despite getting stabbed, shot, and blown up in a way that should've been fatal.
Sometimes, Antasma thought his excellent repairing abilities were more of a curse than a blessing.
As he traveled, he busied himself through the upgrade menu, he was lucky enough to scrap by the previous fights without the extra defenses upgrades, but now that there were no obvious threats around him, he quickly installed the rest of the system upgrades and only left the rest of the Burning Thunder module variants to be unlocked.
Antasma flickered his ears in annoyance, at least he could still express his irritation somewhat naturally even though it was also replaced by cybernetics.
However what truly intrigued him was his new X-Ray function, when he switched it on, his entire world turned into a yellow hue as various white outlines of enemies popped up behind the walls and…in front of him?
Antasma stopped in his tracks, there were a couple of Futuristic Pi'illodium outlines with...another type of Futuristic Pi'illodium that was behind the two giant mechs. Antasma squinted at the figures. So his X-Ray could predict when enemies were going to spawn in? And also show him where they were going to land? Jeez, this wasn't just an X-Ray, it was a whole new future-telling tech that even rivaled those ancient prophecies that the shamans used.
The bat glanced down, there was a white line in front of him that was labeled as trigger zone, implying that the moment he would float past it, the three mechs would immediately spawn.
Everything about this reminded him of video games.
The bat glanced around, it wasn't like he had a choice, the entire area in front of him was probably designed to scan for intruders, so with a sigh, he passed through the line, and immediately the three mechs appeared in a flash of light.
The first two were just some normal Futuristic Pi'illodium, both staring at him with the same menacing eye that all the others had, how incredibly boring.
However the third one, was green, it sported three eyes instead of one, looked bulkier and had another pair of legs spouting from its back. Antasma tilted his head as he quickly scanned the latter, the new variant was called Futuristic Pi'illodium Y, how creative.
Did this thing do more damage than the others? Or did it just have new attachments and was just passed off as another variant?
That was answered quickly when the bat attacked the first two, the green Pi'illodium's arms immediately began to spin rapidly with a wave of green electricity running along its rotating claws and began to repairing the attacking Futuristic Pi'illodium with a microwaving beam.
Oh, it was a healer.
Antasma chuckled silently, he supposed that it wouldn't be fair if he was the only one that got to heal himself during battle.
With the new variant at threat, the bat ignored the two Futuristic Pi'illodium in front of him and immediately struck at the third one, if he allowed the Futuristic Pi'illodium Y to continue repairing the two Futuristic Pi'illodium in front of it, he would end up in an endless battle which would evidently lead to his demise considering the Futuristic Pi'illodium Y would be out healing his damage and effectively putting him back to square one every time.
But he would be lying if he said it was easy, as it turned out the healer could also attack…while healing. Wow. Fantastic. Just great. Exactly what he needed. (*insert sarcastic clapping sounds here*). Now he had to balance three incoming differently synchronized attacks while slowly wearing down the bulkier version of the three. What an absolute pain.
But with a bit of patience and a lot of tedious dodging…and getting flung around more than he'd admit, Antasma finally got rid of the trio. He was going to encounter more of those Y variants, he just knew it. The bat winced at the future prospects and cracked his neck, the thought of it was just as annoying as this neck ring, the extra weight was uncomfortable and irritating, he wasn't even sure what purpose it served other than being a nuisance to the bat.
After clearing through all the groups of enemies that littered throughout the hallway, he finally reached the vent he needed to go through. As he opened the vent and looked into the drop, the bat felt a sense of deja vu from his flight test. It wasn't like he was going to hurt himself from falling since he was constantly hovering as long as he was on his "feet", fall damage didn't exist for him, but the sinking feeling never left.
So with a push, he delved into the vent and fell down towards the darkness below.
Dreambert was…simply astonished, he was extremely surprised that Antasma had beaten Dimentio without the defense upgrade, the bat was effectively fighting an all powerful jester with half of his life-support hanging out in the open. It may not have looked like it, but his base armor was designed to be incredibly light-weight in favor of speed and agility. The defense upgrade simply hardened said armor and made it air tight so that various nano-machines didn't get into the system. If Antasma had the defense upgrade before he fought the jester, his blade wouldn't even have been able to pierce through his armor, but of course, the idiot chose something else, typical.
He'd have to fix up that noggin once he's ready.
The Pi'illo tossed another handful of buttered popcorn into his mouth, Antasma probably had access to the entries right now, since he sat there on the fan room floor for a while and made constant upward swiping motion with a finger as if he was scrolling through something invisible in the air, and judging by his facial expression, he was probably reading Dimentio's or his own entry.
Dreambert chuckled, he knew about all the upgrades that he could get, he was just surprised that the bat chose something that wouldn't aid him in combat than the obvious bulking. That was very unlike him, considering that in the past, Antasma always wanted more power and strength. Perhaps being dead taught him a thing or two about planning and info gathering, taking it slow maybe…but it wasn't like the Pi'illo was going to give him that chance, or at least, he wasn't gonna do so very often, just a morsel would do. He wasn't always going to be that cruel to his friend.
The Pi'illo leaned back into his seat as he munched down another helping of popcorn, the bat was currently traveling down towards the storage bay, which was located at the bottom of the ship. In truth, even Dreambert didn't know how the jester managed to connect the fan room and the storage bay in one big dimension, the magician didn't exactly just turn the fan room into an illusion, he completely shifted the dimension despite a majority of his own magic fueling his cybernetics. It actually took more magic to keep it running than Antasma's cybernetics since it was an extremely old model, so the optimization of the gear was just plain bad.
However, despite its old design, a lot of current day Type - Y cybernetics were still fashioned after the first "official" iteration that the jester had. The sleek design was effective in both agile combat and strong defense on regular sized humanoids.
The Pi'illo sighed, even though the bat did make several…questionable decisions, he seemed to be completely fine despite the close calls and appeared to have gained a sense of survivability similar to the Mario Bros', which was a good thing he supposed. Now, he'd just have to wait and see Antasma's reaction to what the Beanish have kept down there in the storage bay, locked away in the darkness, eventually being recycled as scrap metal…and flesh.
The area he landed from the vertical vent was dark, he couldn't see anything out into the void even with the not-so-generous amount of lights that lined his armor. How was he going to search for anything in this darkness? He didn't have a night vision mode for whatever reason, so he was most likely cucked…unless.
Antasma had an idea, he remembered his X-Ray mode highlighting all the objects and turning everything into a yellow color, maybe it could…?
He turned it on, and it worked like a charm. He could see mostly everything now. His X-Ray was outlining various machinery equipment and large stacks of crates that were strangely…human sized? The bat squinted at the box piles, he couldn't really see it clearly from where he wad since his X-Ray only outlined the objects and didn't fully illuminate the entire place, he could only properly see the things that were close to him.
So carefully, the bat navigated through the outlined darkness. Fortunately his marker did not falter from its continuously directing state, so it wasn't like Antasma was going to get lost or anything.
But something about this place just felt…off to him, every box he passed through, he could sense something inside, something living . Maybe it was just a bunch of scrapped robot parts that still worked somehow…but he could feel…heartbeats. If he listened closely to some of the crates, he could just barely make out a quiet, yet labored breathing.
…was there someone in the crate?
There was a chance he might be mistaking some old mechanical pump as a heartbeat, and damaged wiring fans turning off and on to mimic breathing…but that was most likely not true. He d id not want to know the true possibility of this place .
As he traversed through the barely visible and quiet darkness, he started to get a sense of what the storage bay was. As its name suggested, it had a variety of stuff stored in it that the bat had no idea what it was supposed to be, stuff that he didn't really care about…yet. So he simply moved on from the living crates, hoping that its contents would never wake.
But such a wish was only in his dreams, as the bat spotted a glimpse of light ahead that somehow peeked through the darkness. The nightmare turned off his X-Ray and squinted at the suspicious glow, there was literally no one here, yet a light bulb was alight within the void. Yes, a huge, physical light bulb, something he hadn't seen at all through the entire ship since it was all lit up by some techy energy that the Beanish had invented. He glided closer towards the light, it had a singular string that held the bulb extending upwards and reaching towards the endless ceiling. The bat was intrigued, there was no use for the light bulb here, so why was it here? Why was an item of the past located in this high-tech warship? The timeless electronic brought a great unease onto the bat, he felt like he was looking back at his ambitious past, looking back at the greed that slowly killed him like venom, looking back at his failure .
Antasma twitched his eye, did Dreambert put this here on purpose to piss him off? Because if he was, then he was doing a really good job at it. However, it seemed to be…too subtle for the Pi'illo to even think that it would trigger him, Antasma doubted very heavily that Dreambert could even think of something like this. So this meant…that…something else…was…
A scraping noise could be heard from within the darkness.
The bat immediately switched into battle mode with his flamethrower pointing at the direction of the sound. He was already agitated by being here and he wasn't interested in staying longer, but it seemed like whatever dwelled here had other plans.
Slowly but surely, more scraping noise could be heard, soon enough, the sound morphed into uneven footsteps, hundreds of footsteps, all coming around him from the darkness along with the bat slowly beginning to panic, the sound was reminding him too much of his past, the footsteps were unbearable, he was on the verge of shooting into the void when something emerged into the light.
It was a Beanish Soldier.
But it wasn't the standard ones he fought earlier, it looked…naked, the Beanish's various body parts were made of old or decaying cybernetics, it stood with a slumped posture with its feeble legs turning inward from the stress. The Beanish appeared to be starved and depraved, with a part of its head caving inwards suggesting brain trauma.
Antasma squinted at the thin Beanish, that..that was not a soldier at all, it had no weapons, no gear, and no armor other than its cybernetics, so why was it here?
The Beanish stood shakily for a while, it stared at the bat with its sniffling eyes as if it was searching for something that maybe he possessed, and judging by they're short pause, they had found it, they reached their arms forward and begged with a whisper,
"Please help us…"
The moment the Beanish spoke, Antasma immediately realized what that thing was:
That was an Iteration.
Specifically the Type - Y version, the one they installed onto real living people.
Oh, oh Jaydes, oh no no no no no no, these can't be…no no no nononono….and they're still alive?!
The Beanish iteration groaned with a ghoulish sound, a sound of painful suffering, judging by its caved-in head, it was a disabled Beanish too.
"-Type - Y cybernetics not only enhanced already healthy soldiers' capability, but also allowed mentally, and physically challenged citizens to join the ranks-"
No way, no way that…they…they…
They experimented on disabled people and threw them down here like trash.
Antasma gasped with horror, at first he thought that the Beanish might be recruiting people with disabilities to help them, to let them regain something that they lost so dearly. Maybe a war recruitment wasn't exactly the greatest place to get that back but he assumed that they were at least compensated for.
But clearly, this was not the case.
The bat felt his arm tremble in realization, he watched as the Beanish stumbled closer with uneven, painful steps, a failed iteration, a life ruined in the name of death.
"Please help us…" it repeated as they stepped closer,
Us…
Suddenly, more of them emerged from the darkness, some of them walked a bit more normally while others were literally crawling on the floor. The nightmare was surrounded by the true horrors of the mind.
The Horrors of War.
He doubted he would ever be able to spin something so violent within the darkest pits of hell.
The cursed souls grew closer, their begs beginning to sound like an unholy chores of angels, crying in despair for their dead God, they wept in pain, in suffering, in death as they watched their creator's beloved creations kill each other for nothing.
"Please help us…"
"It hurts..so much…"
"They forsaken us for you…!?"
"You're not even….why…God…why?!"
"My service wasn't in vain right?...please answer me…"
"Me did good…?"
"I...I-I want to see the sun…please let me see the sun…please let me out…"
The bat was starting to get overwhelmed by the painful moans, there are hundreds…or maybe thousands of them down here. Thousands of trapped individuals that were already plagued by their own birth, thousands that are now here to suffer…forever.
Antasma lowered his head in despair when he realized what he had to do, it would put them out of their misery, but they couldn't be saved anymore, and even if he tried, they wouldn't allow it.
So he readied his claws and faced the crowd with only one thing to say:
"I'm sorry."
And he gave them their freedom.
Some of them realized what he was doing and tried to fight him, many of them tried their best to throw punches or attack him with what little weapons they were given, but most of them either just ran away out of sheer survival instincts…or just…let themselves go.
Either way, the process was painful.
And he'll make sure that Dreambert would feel the same way as he does now, when he reaches him. That man…that monster…will…fucking…PAY, he will pay for the suffering, he will pay for his greed just as he had done to him and these people, he will pay for his sins by suffering in hell just as he and they did, he will pay by being forcibly chained, burned, skinned, disemboweled, and painfully dismembered for all he could care. Dreambert could go fucking die.
The bat was breathing heavily from his anger, his claws dripping with green blood as his armor automatically soaked up the Castaphrose. He wanted to take his anger onto something else now that he had put all the remaining Beanish to rest. They didn't deserve any of that, but it was the best he could offer.
He slowly straightened himself as he slipped out of battle mode, exhausted, he slowly drifted through the green stained land as he followed the marker, his mind went into auto pilot mode as he continued his journey.
Those people, those living, breathing, people, those individuals with their own hopes and dreams, were just euthanized underneath his claws. Normally such things do not really leave that much of an impact on him since he had killed people before, but that? That entire thing? That entire ordeal? Had left him feeling as empty as a hollow shell, everything about that was miserable, he didn't enjoy it at all.
Despite Antasma's status as The Nightmare King, he still had some standards when it came to picking his victims, he never chose the mentally or physically disabled because he knew that their life was already a living nightmare, he did not need to induce more of it, he wasn't that sick in the mind. Hell, even DIMENTIO had standards, equal deaths for everyone, nobody gets left out. That was his motto, alongside with Ciao for some reason.
But them? They? The Beanish government? The ones that are supposed to be the "good guys"? They exploited the most vulnerable members of their society for their own gain, they had broken countless hearts and spirits for their own idea of "progression". They wrapped around their victims like a cunning serpent, biting down and poisoning so many dreams, and so many visions, in fact, they ruined so much of that, that even nightmares seldom flourish, leaving their victims empty like a husk, like a suffering soul.
The bat clenched his teeth with anger, his hate had now become his destiny, there wasn't a reason for him to try and justify his mission now, it was no longer a personal thing.
It was the right thing.
And just as he finished his thought, he finally spotted the chip. Antasma quickly glided towards the module and carefully picked it up, there were a few splatters of blood around the chip, as well as bits and pieces of yellow and purple fabric that littered its landing area. Dimentio was truly gone…but at least a piece of him could be with him for as long as he lived.
He pushed the chip into the slot as his system registered the new update, and soon enough, the new module was successfully installed:
— – New Module Installed – —
– Dimensional Weaponry –
Well, that was quite…straightforward…wait, does that mean that Dimentio's modules were literally just his blade and rifle?
Antasma immediately went into his fighting style menu, and sure enough, Dimentio's blade and rifle were right there, quickly, he selected the blade and equipped it.
Then without missing a beat, Antasma watched his right arm being completely engulfed with his nano tech as it quickly transformed into the blade that was completely identical to the one that the jester used.
The bat lifted the sharp metal and examined it closely, instead of the coloring that outlined the blade being yellow, it was now purple since it was being fueled by his magic, and its metallic edginess seemed to shine despite there being no light source nearby to reflect it's blade. Even with its simplistic design, the blade was still beautiful.
Just like his friend…
…
…..
He'd try it out later, maybe he could carve up more of those mechs to let off some steam, they deserved it after all…
For Everything.