Arc 7 Healthy Green Glow, Chapter 7

We followed along the twisting corridors which were steadily turning white and clear. I guess the only bad thing would be the dying light. Not that it really bothered me with my suit filtering everything. It just felt a little ominous I suppose. There I go again jinxing shit. Nothing will go horribly awry… I am just digging a deeper hole for myself, aren’t I? Out of mind, out of sight? I don’t think that is right, but fuck it.

All this white is kinda reminding me about of one of those crazy hentai. I mean, look at it, it is all over the walls and gooey. Dollars to donuts it is warm too.

‘… Sub really? Get your mind out of the gutter.’

We are in the gutter for fuck’s sake!

‘Touché, alright, you got me. Sub please just take this seriously for now. I need serious mode.’

Fine. You smell that?

‘Smell what?’

I don’t know something smells weird. Kinda funky, familiar, you know?

‘Sub, we are in a godforsaken sewer filled with radioactive monsters. It could be anything.’

I hear you, I hear you. I’ll eh, tell you if I sense anything, granted, I am sure that you will feel it too.

I nodded inwardly, Sub is finally being useful. The path opened up back to the nexus point. A couple of the other teams had returned as well, refueling their packs. Everybody seemed to be in a good mood with idle banter going back and forth. From what I was hearing our group made the least amount of progress due to animals. The other groups had not even found any. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, from what I have seen they like to cluster. In all likelihood, they will encounter a few deeper in.

I know for a fact there are giant rat colonies down here. It is a little weird that we have not found any yet. Probably thinking too much on this, we have not been down here all that long. Of course, I could have just had terrible luck on my last visit. It seemed like every damned turn had the fuckers scurrying around. That is just the paranoia talking.

It soon became my turn in the line and I plugged in refueling. It took a very short amount of time before the connector tube dinged and popped off, much as a gasoline pump does at the gas station. Tanks full we set back out down our designated tunnel. Things had already improved significantly from our previous trip. The only thing that blotched the otherwise clean tunnel was a streak of green running down the middle of the canal. Since the water flowed back to the treatment plant, it made sense that tainted liquid would mix and we would have to treat it again in hot spots.

We arrived back at the murder scene, where I had straggled my childhood to death. The bodies were gone and blood trails led off into the low green lit tunnels ahead. Something tells me our many-legged friend was behind this. It was best not to dwell on it, we would deal with mister skitter when he showed up. The tunnel split ahead, one appeared to be a maintenance tunnel from the signs that had been long neglected.

“Alright, we will split up here. Mecha Fairy, Gnome, and Sunshine with me. Katherine and the rest continue on ahead, we will catch up,” said Neon Nurse.

“By Helix, we are splitting up? Like Scoobie and the gang? Don’t you watch horror movies? This is how people die,” I complained.

“Vesper, movies are just movies. Now stop being such a wuss. You can easily throw a car and you are scared of some rats?”

“It is more of the unknown, but yes the rats too. Me and them have a bit of beef.”

“Well then, feel free to pummel anything that jumps out at you.”

“Do I get a treat?”

“You want a treat? What are you a dog?” asked Gnome.

“Scoobie gets a snack. I will have you know I work better with incentives.”

Neon Nurse laughed a little, “I will be sure to feed you some tasty treats later.”

“Oh boy,” I grinned.

“Come along now, daylight is burning.”

I nodded, thinking it over. Really, it is so silly how scared I am of this place. I am far stronger than the first time I came here and this time I am not alone. I got a magical girl, and I know how to use her. That sounded a little weird, at any rate, I got friends. What do you got Bronson Sewers? Nothin, that is what. That makes me the apex predator of this hell hole. Are there still unicorn rats running around down here? I wonder what they taste like? Would the meat be better grilled or fried? I shall feast upon their flesh to gain their power. I could wear the pelt and become Ratgirl. Beware denizens of the deep, behold my magical horn! Nunununu Ratgirl!

‘That was a weird thought. First turtles, now rats, what is wrong with me?’

You are being a fucking weirdo.

‘I can’t help it. I am excited. I am doing superhero shit!’

Sub rolled her eyes at me. Yeah, cause running around in the sewer is real heroic.

‘The evils of the sewers must be cleansed by our righteous wrath! Our revenge upon the rats is close at hand.’

Remember, be Alpha as fuck! Assert dominance. Run it down mid.

‘Wait, are you like my LoL coach? You mean like flashing at people to make them panic flash?’

Exactly.

‘Now who is being weird?’

Shush you. These are life lessons.

‘If you say so.’

With proper reassurances, I reluctantly followed along behind Neon Nurse. What was supposed to be a dead end quickly turned into more of the same twisting tunnels. At the very least, it did not branch off. We did not particularly take it slow, hosing as we went. There were more of those damned tubifex worms. They are like cancer down here. Infesting the walls and corrupting the concrete. Luckily the water down this path was not glowing as much as the main tunnel. This made the disgusting flesh tumors growing out of the walls more like barnacles than some monstrosity that might try to take over the world. If it is this bad up here, how fucking bad is it in the sub-sewer? Why is it that everything with sub in the name is horribly fucked up?

I take offense to that!

‘My point stands.’

That is not nice.

‘Ahh, it is ok Sub. I was joking. Who is my Subby wubby?’

She glowered at me and I scratched her under the chin until she started purring like a kitten. Sub sure is cute when she is being shy. I will spoil you later.

I aimed and made sure to spray all the pulsating flesh blobs down as we went. It was more fun to imagine the foam was napalm and I was going on an exterminatus. By fire be purged! Note to self, get flamethrowers installed in the suit. Come to think of it, it always was fun lighting people on fire in games, watching them screaming and running away. Maybe Burnout was onto something? Or probably not, games are one thing and reality is another. It is not like people actually get hurt over a game. Besides, I doubt that Chief would allow nor install such an upgrade.

It is likely for the best, knowing me, I would fuck it up somehow and light myself on fire. I could imagine it now, running around in circles like a chicken with its head cut off, screaming, “My biscuits are burning!”

“Did you leave the oven on?” asked Sunshine.

“Hmmm? Oven?” I asked, bewildered, looking over at her.

“Not fair, you were making biscuits and didn’t tell Sunshine,” she puffed up and looked away.

How did… oh dammit. I was talking out loud again. I pat her on the back, “No, no. I was just talking to myself. If you want we can make some when we get back. Sound fun?”

“Nee-san is going to cook with Sunshine?”

“Sure.”

Her bunny ears bounced with glee. It sure is easy to tell when she is pleased. Then again, she is basically on cloud nine all the time, happy time drugs and what not. That got me thinking. I wonder what she is like without the medication? It was a strange notion, Sunshine without, well, the sunshine. Isn’t she like chronically depressed and suicidal or something? I wonder what made her like that. Now that I think about it, I don’t actually know that much about Sunshine outside of the basic stuff. Which is rather surprising considering how long we have been together. I never really asked. I just figured that she would open up eventually. I might need to pry that clam open… no Sub, not that clam.

My eyes wandered to Gnome and I could feel her looking at me, I could smell it. Hmmm, I know this feeling. Contempt? No, loathing perhaps? Apparently not. It is not fear, that is for sure. I should know this, but for some reason I am just blanking out. Ah ha, she is disgusted! Wait a minute, what did I do to make her creeped out? I have not been acting that weird have I? Maybe, she is just very specific in how she reacts to things?

“Is there something on my suit?” asked Gnome diverting her view.

“No.”

“Then why you looking at me?”

“You were looking at me first,” I pointed out.

It seemed that she did not like that, “Just don’t talk to me, alright?”

I was about to say something when Neon Nurse interrupted my train of thought, “Now, now you two play nice. We are a team, remember? Gnome, I know you prefer solo activities after what happened in L.A. but that doesn’t mean you can be so antagonistic of others. Organics’ emotions bruise easily after all. Remember, we are in this together and should rely on one another.”

Gnome scoffed, “Don’t act like you know what I went through.”

“It is ok, Gnome I was there. If it wasn’t for me and Medavac, who knows what would have happened.”

That seemed to anger her and she punched one of the worm colonies, making it pop like a zit, “A month. A whole fucking month I survived in that hellscape. Where the fuck were you all that time? Staying safe up here in Bronson after you two ran away when the shit hit the fan.”

Neon Nurse turned a little, smiling that fake smile that I knew too well, she was a little miffed over that. How did I know? Well, it was simple really, I had been around her enough to know when she was putting up a front. The key was how automatic and plastic her expression became. She might try to act like a machine, but there was still quite a bit of human emotion in there. Don’t know if it is creepy or cute. For someone who is always spouting off about how machines are perfection she sure can’t make up her mind.

“Ran away? Well sure, but tactical retreat would be the better term. After all, how were we supposed to fight Nitro heads up? We had been on a supply run, so clearly we were undermanned and unprepared for that. So we did the next best thing, we started evacuating people. Let me tell you, hurting someone who absorbs kinetic energy is very difficult. They might as well have a high powered forcefield.”

I get the feeling Gnome would have spat on the ground out of disgust over that. Her voice started out pretty strong before petering out and choking, “Evacuating? You left us to die. Where were you when Mr. Flash had his neck slit? Or when they barbecued Flamingo? She turned Justice Roller into a fucking rocket. You should have been there. If you had then Bro… Terra Bolt wouldn’t have…”

“I know,” sadly said Neon Nurse, “I am sorry I could not do more.”

A muffled explosion resounded from somewhere nearby. Over the coms we could hear some frantic, garbled orders, “They are everywhere, keep firing!”

If I had to guess another team found a large rat colony. A rumbling started to shake the tunnel around us. Gnome was acting a little weird, though I couldn’t see her face, I could smell the fear positively boiling out of her. She had sort of frozen in place. Did Gnome break? Another quake rippled through the cement and a loud boom went off a little closer than the last. She cried, crouching down and holding her legs.

“You ok?” I asked.

She shook her head and the rumbling intensified. I lost my footing as the concrete cracked and the roof above slanted from the sudden shock. It was right about at this moment that I realized, bringing an unstable Terrakentic who was pretty damned strong into a system of underground tunnels was a bad idea. For Helix’s sake, this bitch has PTSD. What genius thought this was a good idea? Gnome was a fucking ticking time bomb, especially since it seemed she had beef with Neon Nurse. By Helix’s tentacles! She is having Nam flashbacks!

“Gnome, Gnome, Gnome!” I yelled, waving my hands at her, “You are going to collapse the tunnel! Calm down a little-”

Ah shit, bad move. Rule number one when dealing with crazy bitches, never tell them to calm down. It always makes things worse. She turned in my direction and reached out with her metallic hand. She scrunched it as though crushing something. What, are you trying to force choke me? That thought was instantly smashed as my suit dented in my body jarred violently against the wall. Oh, fuck me. She can manipulate metal and we are all wearing it! Neon Nurse was pinned against the wall and I could hear the metal crinkling all around me. Shit, shit, shit, fuck! My eyes swam, searching for anything that could help us. Sunshine. Sunshine was not being attacked. So then Gnome had to use her hands like Squeeze did for her power to work.

“Sunshine! Get her arms! Or knock her out!” I screamed.

Gnome realized it too. She was like in battle mode or something. She swiftly turned to deal with Sunshine and was forced to let Neon Nurse go. She couldn’t control all three directions at once. The ground ruptured and spikes shot out at Sunshine. Holy fuck! She is trying to kill her! I struggled, momentarily looking down before hearing a heinous screeching sound like nails on a chalkboard, but ten times worse. Sunshine’s knights had built a shield wall, absorbing all of the damage. Gnome clenched again and I heard Sunshine make a squeak as she was being crushed. Ah shit, the Knights are not made of metal so Sunshine’s suit is the only thing over there. She was vulnerable to a direct attack.

While Gnome was distracted, Neon Nurse had closed the gap. Her mechanical arms descended with buzzing saw blades, they sheered through a small section of armor and a syringe stabbed down, delivering its payload. Gnome reeled, turning to fight Neon Nurse. Unfortunately for her, Sunshine didn’t need to move to use her power. A giant glowing mallet appeared and clocked Gnome right on the dome. A cartoony bonk sound filled the air. It crushed her down, making her lose her grip on both of us. It was only momentary as she turned the cement into quick sand below us. My feet sunk in and it solidified again. Good try, but not good enough. All four hands shoved down and I kicked, shattering the thick rock and freeing myself.

“You!” She grit at Sunshine as the mallet bonked her again, pinning her into the wall.

The hammer morphed into a blanket and bundled her up, trapping her arms and legs. She struggled, and flopped over, trying to work a hand free. I tackled her and wrapped all four arms tightly to help keep her pinned. She thrashed wildly as though her life depended on it. What the hell, why was she fighting so fucking hard? It is not like we actually want to hurt her. Well, I kinda want to punch her in the face a couple times for fucking up my new suit and trying to kill us, but that is beside the point.

“Gnome stop. What is wrong with you!” I yelled at her.

“I will fucking kill you all, Diablo scum!” choked out Gnome.

“Diablos? We are in Bronson you dumb bitch.”

“You are lying. I can hear the screams. The fires are burning!” cried Gnome.

I slapped her metal face, “What fires? Gnome what the fuck are you talking about?”

Neon Nurse pat my shoulder, “It is ok Vesper. She has been through a lot.”

“What do you mean it is ok?!” I shouted at her, knocking the hand off my shoulder, “She tried to kill us.”

Neon Nurse sighed, “Gnome was forced to fight her brother to the death.”

My eye twitched, “So fucking what? That gives her a get outa responsibility free card? I tried to be nice and be friends. She shot me down and tried to murder us.”

She glared at me, “How would you feel if you were forced to kill your father by the people you thought were your allies?”

“Don’t you go there,” I snapped at her. “I wouldn’t, I would rather die than kill him.”

“And I am sure that he would die to save you. Gnome just needs help. She is traumatized and deeply disturbed. I don’t understand why she was set to active duty if she was this unstable. Look, I will get to the bottom of this.”

I scowled, “Fine. I trust you.”

Her golem armor left no expression, but I could hear her, crying? What the hell are you blubbering about bitch, you started this! I wanted to shake her and bash that head into the ground. I bit my lip, drawing blood to keep back my anger. Why am I so angry? I don’t understand. I wanted to kill her. Rip and mangle and tear! She doesn’t need those arms or legs! I let go of her, clutching my head, trying to drown out the thoughts. I slammed my head into the wall, cracking the concrete, and a skull splitting migraine stabbed into my brain. It took a moment to get my bearings. I flopped back against the wall or I would have fallen over.

‘Sub, what the fuck!’

Hey, that wasn’t me!

‘Bullshit!’

It is the body, dumb ass.

‘Oh really? I thought you had control over this shit?!’

I do, but you override me, you fucking cunt rag!

‘So that was me?’

Yes, that was you. Remember, feedback loop? What you put in comes right back. Stop blaming me when you are the problem!

‘Don’t lie to me! I know you are using me all the time.’

I am not. Stop blaming me. You know what? Enough of this shit. Fuck you! I am out.

‘What do you mean you are out? Where are you going to go? You live in my head.’

I am going on vacation. Have fun dealing with the body by yourself and try not to get killed. It is my body too, you know. Maybe after you go solo for a bit you will truly appreciate me and all the shit I put up with for you.

‘Sub what the hell are you talking about?’

Sub was… gone. Silence was all that filled my head, or rather an antennae trembling pounding. I couldn’t feel her anymore. It was a very strange feeling, being alone. No, no, no. She has to be in here somewhere. Where could she go that I don’t even know about? That little bitch, so she was hiding something else from me too? It is always secrets and half truths with her. It is my body and mind, why can’t you just tell me everything? Are you afraid I will throw you away if I know everything? This is why we have trust issues! Using my fantasies and loneliness against me. How dare you trample my maiden heart and run off on me, you slore.

So that is what I get for giving her almost everything that she wanted. No one in their right mind would let you do the things I let you do to me Sub! You know what? Good riddance. Sub was just a bad influence on me this whole time. Wanting me to eat people and fuck my friends, forcibly if necessary. That is rape Sub. You are literally all the worst parts of me. Don’t you ever come back! If I see you I will kill you myself! Wait… kill? That is a little extreme. Helix my head really hurts. Did I hit it too hard?

I rubbed at my forehead, but the helmet was in the way. I took it off massaging the carapace. It didn’t really help like I thought that it would. There was nothing wrong with the outside. The throbbing was terrible, like getting rudely awoken while in rem sleep. I sat wincing and breathing deeply and slowly. It was supposed to help with pain. The effects were minimal. My stomach felt queasy like I was about to throw up. Yet at the same time, a gnawing hunger filled the back of my thoughts and roiled my stomach. I held my mouth, biting the hand lightly to stop it.

“Vesper? Are you ok?” asked Neon Nurse looming over me.

“No. My, my head hurts a lot. I am real nauseous too.”

“Nauseous and headache? Nothing a little injection won’t fix. Just hold still,” smiled Neon Nurse, raising the needle and my carapace felt like it was alive and skittering all over the place, trying to escape.

I resisted the impulses to a degree, I brought a hand up to defend myself with and she restrained it with her grabber claws. She smoothly slid it into my exposed neck. It oddly didn’t hurt. Well, actually knowing how good at needle work Neon Nurse is, there usually isn’t any pain. I felt the stuff pour into my veins and like ice, it chilled the raging inferno. It was only now that I realized how hot I had been running. If I could sweat, then my body would have been drenched. I had been venting and didn’t even know it. The plates ground back together inside the suit and I held my head.

The world was spinning a little, but everything seemed to be calming down. So, I guess my body was just reeling from the loss of Sub. I see your game. I won’t come crawling back to you.

“What did you inject me with by the way?” I asked, now that I could think properly.

“A little something that Dr. Arbor cooked up for you.”

I don’t like the sounds of that, “So what does it do?”

“Well, nothing you need to worry about. It was custom made for you. So one hundred percent compatible with no drawbacks or my money back.”

“You just roofied me, didn’t you.”

Neon Nurse wagged her hand dismissively, “No. Don’t be silly. I would never do that to you.”

“The first time we met, you jammed a needle filled with sleepy time drug in my ass and then proceeded to molest me with robo snakes!”

“That was different, it was a routine check up. I promise, no sleepy on this.”

“There better not be,” I wearily looked around. Well, I don’t feel bad, but Dr. Arbor had something to do with this. Can I trust that it is nothing bad?

‘What do you think Sub?’

Oh, right. I am just talking to myself. That is going to be annoying, expecting some sort of feedback. All alone. You know, I am starting to think that a roofie would be the lesser of the evils here.