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wordsvomit101 · 1 year ago

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That awkward moment when you realized that your big bro got laid with the person you tried to kill.

Author Notes: Credits to @eternal_auditor & @jazeswhbhaven, I got this idea for this shameless worldbuilding headcanons for Heaven and Angels thanks to both of them and the latter's "Angel Bros Headcanons: Michael Flips" post. I also just want to write the scenario in general. Warnings: Raphael is a caution flag himself, depictions of violence, thoughts of brutalizing and eating someone (being directed at MC) by Raphael, a lot of name-calling from Raphael directed at MC

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(Heaven - Time of Councils and Assemblies)

In the tranquil embrace of Heaven, evening descends like a gentle caress, casting a soft golden hue upon the timeless realm. As the radiant sun dips below the horizon of ethereal clouds, the celestial landscape is bathed in hues of pink, orange, and purple, creating a breathtaking tapestry of colors that stretches across the vast expanse of the heavenly domain. The sky is like a canvas painted lovingly by the hands of God, with the colors of a thousand sunsets, each stroke a masterpiece of divine artistry. The clouds, like celestial brushstrokes, dance across the canvas, their forms ever-changing, their edges illuminated with an ethereal glow.

Amidst the celestial splendor, angelic beings gracefully glide through the sky upon the archways of purest gold span the thoroughfares of Heaven, their graceful curves reminiscent of angelic wings in flight. Beneath these archways lie crystal atriums, their transparent walls revealing the celestial wonders of Heaven in all their resplendent glory. Their iridescent wings shimmer with divine light, flying gracefully as if they dance and pirouette in ethereal ballets, painting radiant trails of luminescence across the sky.

The lower-ranking angels engage in celestial chorales, their melodious voices intertwining in harmonies that resonate throughout the Heaven. The soaring soprano of archangels blends seamlessly with the velvety alto of cherubim, weaving a symphony that would uplift the soul and transport the listener to realms of pure bliss. The music reverberates through the celestial expanse, like a cosmic symphony conducted to worship the Almighty.

For middle-ranking angels, their beloved duty during the Pilgrimage to the Mount of Revelation to commune with their dear creator has to be despairingly pushed to merely Contemplation of Sacred Texts and attending to the Halls of Eternal Wisdom, a lesser, but an honorable duty nonetheless.

Even higher above, amidst ethereal spires and resplendent palaces that grace the heavenly expanse, angelic artisans toil diligently within the Halls of Artistry. Their deft hands sculpt magnificent statues and weave intricate tapestries, each a testament to the wonders of creation. They yearn for the day when their divine creator will bestow upon them a glimpse of their artistry, even a millisecond of recognition for their unwavering dedication to him would be more than enough.

While other angels tend to the flourishing celestial flora in the Gardens of Eternal Bliss. Radiant blooms burst forth in a splendor of colors, their petals shimmering with an otherworldly luminescence. The angels nurture these heavenly gardens with love and care, a single damage to a petal of these beautiful flowers is enough to have their heads roll to the disgusting pit of Hell, however making a mistake in God's favorite garden is an even bigger sin.

It is a mundane day for all of them.

Bang!

"Sir-!"

Creak!

"AAAAAA-!"

Crunch!

"I have yet to finish my prayer-!"

Snap!

However, it wouldn't be a normal day if there wasn't a Raphael brutally tearing and eating fleshes of every angel on his path to the Chamber of Divine Counsel to meet with other Seraphs. His blood-caked shoes thundering over polished marble as he swaggers through the vaulted corridors of Heaven, his crimson-smeared wings unfurling like banners of carnage. Red marred his short blonde hair and white attire. With each wrathful step, he leaves a trail of dismembered angel carcasses, their alabaster feathers floating like ethereal snowflakes in his wake. His crimson eye fully emits an aura of violence and fury.

Thump!

Bursting into the Chamber of Divine Counsel with enough force to make the office tremble, the room was bathed in an ethereal glow, and the other Seraphs present, Gabriel and Michael, sat in their resplendent chairs, their expressions inscrutable. Raphael's form, however, drenched in the gore of his victims, stood in stark contrast to the pristine surroundings. He only has one thought of personally feasting upon that purple hair wench's flesh when she is still alive and making her watch herself being devoured alive and cut off her tongue so she couldn't even voice out her pain.

"Why... Why is it always her...! That bitch!"

The pure white chairs, crafted from the finest celestial ivory, bore the brunt of his rage, splintering and crumbling under his kicks. Yet Gabriel and Michael, their faces devoid of emotion, paid him little attention.

"If you insist on throwing a tantrum, I implore you to do so in a realm more suited to such sorrowful displays. Hell would accommodate your temperaments more appropriately."

Michael stood tall over the intricately designed long table with a mindmap and countless brainstorming notes. Standing in a place Brother Lucifer used to stand in each council meeting. His glare locked on the furious blonde seraph before him. A frown, as if carved in stone, creased his handsome face, adding an air of solemnity to his prideful demeanor. Around his neck, a regal purple choker, embellished with ornate gold rings and shimmering gemstones, encircled his throat. At its center, a prominent gold ring held a solemn cross pendant, its gentle clinking accompanying his every movement.

In a swift motion, Michael tilted his head to the left, displaying effortless grace as he dodged the flying chair hurtling towards him at high speed. The chair collided with the wall, its impact leaving a deep dent in the panel, a testament to the force behind the throw.

"Shut that shitty mouth of yours! Maybe try to go down there yourself to ask why our dear brother is entertaining trash!" As Raphael spoke, his voice trembled with anger and frustration, his words dripping with venomous accusation. A few veins already popped on his crazed, striking appearance. Filled with unrepressed anger that led him to kill his spies who reported to him and fly from the dungeon up here.

Yet Michael continued to look at his notes, his face blissfully indifferent. His right hand continued to write on many of his papers on the white table.

"He has simply strayed from the right path."

Brother Lucifer’s footstep-less feet headed for the vile tiny red devil.

'Stop it.'

However, he couldn't say the same about his head. Memories he had been trying to wipe from his mind for years served only to haunt him. Taunting him of the gut-wrenching event more than a hundred years ago.

In the silence, pure white hands pushed through the grass and preciously held up the rotten red thing.

'Don't dirty your hands.'

His brother stroked that thing's body so softly with his hands so similar to how he once did with Michael's face. Those strong, beautiful hands that once held his face so tenderly to wipe his tears away. As he placed a gentle kiss on his forehead.

'Brother...'

"I remain confident in my ability to guide him back to the right path."

His brother's hand was holding Michael’s ray of light. The light in Brother Lucifer’s hand had stopped in front of the disgusting beast's chest, unable to advance further. He was again protecting worthless things that didn't deserve his grace.

'Why did you save it?!'

When his brother finally stood before Michael on his third step, black energy, not white, began to flow from his body.

'No-NononononoNONO-'

From his beloved brother’s head, the gorgeous head of the Morning Star, bright red horns that were the same color as the vile thing that tempted him began to grow.

'Brother- Brother Lucifer please!'

"You shall witness it in due time."

"I love you, my brother. Which is why I will give you one last chance. Return."

Crack!

The force of Michael's left hand left a massive crack in the opulent crystal marble table that trailed down to the other end of it. Effectively bringing clarity back to Raphael as the blonde gazes at Michael's hard knuckle gripping the table painfully, ignoring the blood pooling down to the marble floor and further dirtying the former pristine chamber.

Michael's abrupt actions were met with an air of knowing silence from the two. It wouldn't be far-fetched if they possessed a secret understanding of his motivations that would elude outsiders.

"Hmph," a scoff rang out and pierced the silence of the room, originating from the slender man with platinum blonde hair seated to Michael's right. His face, though classically handsome with a pale complexion, remained stoic and emotionless, belying the arrogance that dripped from the single syllable he uttered.

"Then you better live up to those words."

Gabriel's lean was a graceful movement, his body sinking into the chair as if it were a throne. His arms crossed over his chest, the crisp white of his shirt contrasting sharply with the gleam of the gold chain that adorned his white jabot ruffle shirt. The fabric of his sleeves rustled softly against the delicate filigree, creating a symphony of subtle sounds that echoed through the silent room. His eyes, deep and enigmatic, surveyed the scene before him, his expression a mixture of amusement and quiet contemplation.

"Furthermore, even in his current state, Brother Lucifer still demonstrates a reverence for God. It is conceivable that his actions are merely a symptom of his yearning for God's divine presence."

In this timeless realm, where Gabriel proudly proclaims to reign supreme as the epitome of seraphic obedience, there exists but one for whom he would willingly surrender his esteemed position: Brother Lucifer. The firstborn of God's creations, Brother Lucifer's devotion to his Maker surpassed all others, earning him the title of Morning Star. His brilliance illuminated the heavens, casting an unrivaled radiance that even Gabriel's wings could not obscure.

It was Brother Lucifer who instilled within the celestial choirs the rituals and observances that expressed their gratitude to the Almighty. Yet amidst his unwavering piety, Brother Lucifer adhered to a solitary discipline known only to himself. Only a select few had glimpsed this secret regimen, elusive even to those who had followed his every step for countless eons.

Solitary would not be said without Brother Lucifer's name being attached to the word. He found solace in his own construction of hallowed sanctuaries. These Majestic Temples of Worship at odd places in Heaven served as his solitary refuge, where he could commune with the divine without the distractions of others. His devotion ignited a spark in other angels, who, inspired by his example, crafted Halls of Artistry. They sculpted countless colossal statues of the Almighty, their grandeur exceeding the limits of mortal imagination.

No one dared step one foot into his havens, they were for Brother Lucifer alone, and death would be upon those who broke that unspoken rule.

Yet there were times he allowed Gabriel to join him during Celestial Meditation in the secluded Garden of Eternal Reflection, a sacred sanctuary hidden deep within the heart of Heaven. Here, amidst the fragrant blossoms and tranquil pools, Brother Lucifer let Gabriel join his silent meditation and prayers. It was one of the highlights of Gabriel's day when his brother was still around.

"Not if he is messing with the descendant of Solomon."

Raphael's voice now had the former rage in it that reminded him of what he came here for, to be in these two insufferable presences. He could barely believe it when one of his spies uttered those words out of their useless mouth. That Lucifer? The Morning Star? His brother who despises Solomon as much as any other angel and the one that would bite another head off if they recklessly touched him even in the rendezvous night at the sacred Eternal Flame at the heart of Heaven where they allowed themselves to let loose for a bit?

It sounds fucking unbelievable, but when they show him a picture of that purple-haired vixen bumping parts with his brother, it sends him off the reels. He kills most of the spies and storms out of his favorite dungeon to here.

"Pardon?" Michael's mismatched eyes bulged, his neck creaking and twitching as he stared up at Raphael in a frenzy of incomprehension, his falsely composed display gone. The mere hint of the truth was liable to send the black-haired Seraph into a rampage and murder them all.

"Are you suggesting..." Gabriel's face, previously etched in stoicism, crumbled into a mask of horror. He couldn't believe the words that had escaped Raphael's lips, but he couldn't shake the realization that was slowly creeping upon him. He desperately wished that the words that came out of Raphael's mouth were nothing more than a cruel jest, but the look in his eyes said otherwise.

"I said, he's with the descendant of Solomon, that purple-haired harlot...that traitor....that cheat- That tempting trash!"

It pissed Raphael off even more as he raised his voice volume, veins now appearing on his throat, especially at the reminder of his text with that two-timer. The sheer self-satisfied energy radiating off his phone screen almost makes him fly down to Hell to choke that bitch until her brain pops out of her head himself.

"This is preposterous...impossible..." Michael's jaw hung slack, his eyes wide with disbelief as Raphael's accusations cut through the air like a madman who had just been cheated on. His normally steady stance faltered, replaced by a palpable sense of hysteria that made his body tremble. He stumbled backward, his back colliding with the cold, unforgiving wall as if seeking solace from the onslaught of emotions that threatened to consume him. The wall provided no comfort, its smooth surface a stark contrast to the turmoil raging through his body.

"I'm not joking. I heard her talking about Lucifer, his scar, his... 'thing'," The mere mention of his beloved brother's private part sends shivers down his spine as his voice quivered. The thought of that conniving bitch taking full advantage of the trust Brother Lucifer had placed in her made his blood boil with simmering rage. And that she dared to go against her promise to him as if those moments they shared in the poisonous sky of Hell meant nothing.

"She knows his exact measurements!- You know what, look at this shit yourself!" With a resounding slam that echoed through the room like a thunderclap, he unveiled the damning evidence: a collection of photographs frozen in time, capturing moments of intimate interaction between Lucifer and the individual in question.

The images fell upon the table with a heavy thud, causing the fragile surface to tremble under the weight of their revelation. Despite the force of impact that threatened to shatter the fragile table beneath them, the pictures remained intact, their unspoken truth radiating from their glossy surfaces like a painful revelation begging to be acknowledged.

Michael's face contorted with a ghastly twitch as if he were attempting to conjure laughter, but the sound that escaped his lips was more akin to a hollow echo in the thick, suffocating atmosphere. "Shut up," his mind struggled to piece together the unthinkable truth that lay sprawled before him like a macabre revelation. Denial, a feeble shield against the onslaught of evidence, crumbled before the weight of reality, leaving him quaking.

"I swear before Thrones of Heavenly Majesty I will make her rue the day she even touched him. She corrupted him and brought him over to the side of temptation. God would never-" As Gabriel's solemn vow echoed through the room, the air crackled with the intensity of his conviction, thick with the gravity of impending retribution for the sinner.

His words struck a nerve, exacerbating Michael's fraying composure. The gravity of the situation bore down upon him like a suffocating weight, his anger bubbling to the surface in fervor.

"FUCKING SHUT UP! IT'S NOT REAL! IT'S NOT REAL!" Michael's voice cracked with anguish and insanity, his outburst sending shockwaves through the chamber. In his distress, the chamber was engulfed in an inferno, casting eerie shadows that danced upon the walls. In the distance, the echo of Michael's despair mingled with the desperate prayers and curses of those trapped within the blazing office. The once-orderly chamber had become a scene of utter chaos and destruction.

"O, Almighty Creator," Gabriel's voice trembled with urgency, his words a fervent entreaty to the absent God above. "Grant us clarity in this hour of darkness, illuminate our path with Your divine light."

Meanwhile, Gabriel's attempts at prayer offered little solace as he grappled with the implications of Raphael's revelations.

His murmurs grew more frantic with each passing moment, a desperate attempt to find solace in the face of unsettling truths. "Guide us through this tempest, O Lord, for we are adrift in a sea of uncertainty. Let Your wisdom be our compass, and Your mercy our salvation."

But despite his fervent appeals, only shrieks and flames answer back, echoing throughout Heaven from the burning chamber they're in.

"She said she'd only do that with me..." Raphael’s voice cracked with bitterness, each word laced with venomous resentment. His fingers curled into fists, nails digging into his palms as he fought to contain the seething anger threatening to consume him whole. "...she lied...she lied..."

The weight of betrayal hung heavy in his heart, suffocating him with its oppressive presence. Raphael's chest heaved with each labored breath, his heart aching with the sting of betrayal. "Fucking cheater..." His words dripped with venom, the bitterness of betrayal poisoning his soul.

With a primal snarl, Raphael's control shattered like glass, shards of rage cutting deep into his consciousness. He lashed out blindly, his teeth sinking into the flesh of a passing stupidly brave angel that came to check on the three Seraphs, the taste of blood a bitter reminder of his own foolishness.

"I hate her..." The words escaped his lips in a guttural growl, each syllable dripping with raw fury. His grip tightened around the angel's trembling form, nails digging into flesh as he sought to vent his pent-up rage on an unwitting victim.

"I'm not sloppy seconds..." Raphael's voice cracked with rage, his crimson eyes ablaze like a firestorm. He tore into the angel's flesh with savage ferocity, his actions a grotesque display of his inner turmoil. "...I'm no side bitch!"

Boom!

— — — — — — — — — — — — — —

"Hm?", in the dim recesses of his grandiose office, Lucifer, who was engrossed in his craftsmanship of carving the statue of the divine, lifted his gaze from his artistic endeavor by the sudden but subtle yet discernible disturbance in the island above the sky of Hell.

His pure white eyes shimmered with an otherworldly glow. Despite the plaster and pigments that adorned his once-pristine garments save for his bloody back that had his broken wings. His form radiated a timeless beauty, marred only by the grim expression on his handsome visage.

The sensation he felt was like a creeping up from above, like a ripple in the placid waters of a celestial lake.

'What are those three getting angry at right now?'

Raon, who was perched upon the plush velvet couch that adorned his office, her tall form immersed in the pages of an ancient tome, looked up swiftly at Lucifer's voice, a rare occurrence after hours of silence.

Once she raised her gaze from the text, her curious eyes meeting Lucifer's form with silent inquiry. Normally, she would wait until Lucifer is willing to tell her what is on his mind, but currently, she is bored and needs a break after reading several magic grimoires Lucifer gave her and practicing with them for almost a whole day.

'Let's just hope he will at least give me a short answer.'

"Um, Lucifer, is there something wrong?" Raon's voice, soft and tentative, carried a note of concern as she awaited his response, her gaze fixed unwaveringly upon him.

Lucifer's answer was measured, his words carrying the weight of foreboding. "I feel there's a disturbance. There would be a storm soon," he left out the part that it was most likely his brothers being angry about something again.

"Is it related to the angels?" Yet the young woman still managed to catch onto the hidden message, her question not directed at ordinary angels but at his brothers as she nervously tightened her grip on her grimoire.

Lucifer nodded solemnly. "Very likely," he confirmed. His gaze remained fixed on the distant horizon but his voice relaxed to ease the lady's tension as he contemplated the unfolding events in the celestial realm.

"Oh, then I will get back to my training-", with a subtle shift of his form, he turned his attention back to Raon, his gaze meeting hers with a serene intensity as he stood up to clean himself with a swipe of his finger. He tidied himself with a cleaning spell and put his tools and statues back into their orderly places without doing so himself physically—a casual display of his magic that Raon wishes to get to one day.

"It's fine," Lucifer assured her, his tone gentle yet authoritative. "Let's take a rest. Care to join me for a walk to the observatory room?" Quietly, he held out his right arm for her to hold on to if she wanted to accompany him.

Raon's heart fluttered at the invitation, her breath catching in her throat as she struggled to contain her excitement. "Really? I-I mean, of course! Please lead the way." Her words spilled forth in a rush of eagerness, her eyes shining with anticipation as she rose from her seat and she excitedly but carefully walked over to Lucifer's spot.

As Raon raised her gaze, a silent query lingering in her eyes, she studied the handsome devil's countenance for the slightest hint of unease. Finding none, she shyly reached out and clasped his arm, a silent agreement passing between them. Together, they embarked on a leisurely stroll, the pace unhurried yet purposeful.

Lucifer, typically swift in his movements, slowed his steps to accommodate Raon, pausing whenever she expressed a desire to linger and marvel at the exquisite white blossoms that adorned Paradise Lost, a sight reserved only for the privileged few. The air was filled with a sense of tranquility and reverence as they meandered through the garden, each step bringing them closer to their destination, yet allowing them to savor the beauty that surrounded them. Unbothered by the chaos that is currently exploding in Heaven.

#what in hell is bad #whb #whb worldbuilding #whb michael #whb gabriel #whb raphael #whb lucifer #whb mc #minors dni #these 3 are so silly/jk #i will act like the christmas event didn't happen and just let mc girlbossing in another way #let homegirl be magical #lucifer is literally God's first fan boi #guess who these three got there habits from #it would be funny if lucifer was the wild one that contain himself to be a role model to his brothers but it failed anyway #they still love him tho and that is all it matter

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lillaxtrigger · 2 years ago

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The empty void of desolate shadow parts as light fixtures above flash to cast their illumination across the featureless concrete room, revealing the only thing worth of note being a pair of human sized sleep pods fashioned from a couple of tanning beds resting at the end of the chamber. Nearing these pods from the other side of the room be the deadly duo of mob boss brothers; Tury studiously marching towards the beds, while Cen far more casually strolls alongside his sibling. “Lo and behold, Tury; the gateway of our evolution. When we awaken from these chambers, our abilities will no longer be constrained by their crude limitations. We shall no longer be constricted to the bounds of mortal men, for we will be standing among the realm of gods.” the spacial reconstituting mob boss poetically claims. “And, you’re certain of the structural foundation of these chambers are sound?” Cen is concerned with. “I’m sure they are, bro. We’ve put our faith in the dear old doc so far in everything else tech related; I’m sure the sparks of the psychic stone he stashed in these bad boys’ll soak up through our skin nice and fine.” “Yes, I don’t doubt that. I am more concerned over the structural integrity of these pods. I understand that December had to hasten their construction to meet our deadline, but their outward appearance fails to lend manner of…reliability. I think I can still see parts of the tanning bed’s branding still left on.” “You’re making way too many knots out of this simple string, Tury. You’re always telling me that it don’t matter the way something looks, and all that matters is the way it performs; the whole not judging a book by its cover routine. Doc just got done testing one of these on some random street grunt just last week; Rando something, I don’t know. Point is that the test went off without a hitch, so we got the doc’s guarantee here.” “Well, I suppose if its been properly tested.”

A sharp hiss escapes from within the pods as both brothers crack them wide open, unvieling beyond their shells a comforting plush line of bedding waiting for them to lay upon; all with it equipped with a vital drip feed. “Comfy. Say, how long are we supposed to snooze in these things again?” questions Cen. “Judging from how long the doctor claimed for the scions powers to ferment, I wager around a week or so.” Tury answers. “A whole week!? Man, the art expose is supposed to be this weekend! There were supposed to be new original pieces by Jon Esroce. Do you know how rare that man comes out with new pieces?” “Clearly enough for you to ponder over the worth of our accomplishments.” “Mrrr…” “Cen, remember what we are doing all this for. Surely missing a simple art showcase is worth returning to our rightful place. Once we undergo our powerful evolution, no gallery in the world will be able to capture the potent strength of our metamorphosis.” “Yeah…right. I’m just pretty bummed that were gonna miss so much.” the space bending psychic laments. “I promise you, this investment shall lead us both back into our family’s saving grace.” the time controlling businessman assures.

Its after this brief exchange that both of the mob bosses crawl into the cradling comfort held within the pods, injecting the IV drips into their arms before resting atop their pillow top inside; the pod lids beginning to shut as they comfortably lay themselves to rest. With a few brief moments before the pod doors seal themselves, Cen takes the chance to speak up with: “Yo, Tury.” “Yes.” “See you on the other side?” “I look forward to it.” claims Tury, giving his brother an assuring grin before the lids shuts. The moment the twin pods are sealed nice and tight, an incredible luminescence shines from underneath their lids; the black and white aura of the brother’s intensely glowing to engulf the entire chamber in their light.

Returning to the realm of consciousness, Sunny opens his eyes to reawaken to nothing but darkness surrounding him; the boy failing to gaze what lies beyond see past his fingertips. Beyond the lack of any light, the boy almost immediately notices the fowl odor permeating around him; a stench so pungent, that he is forced to pinch his nose to keep the stink at bay. In wondering where he had dropped down into, Sunny delves into the pocket of his tattered coat to pull out a small flashlight; the same light Thursotte had when they first dropped down in here. Upon flipping its switch, the flashlight beams through the shadows before the boy to reveal what lies beyond their shadowy veil; Sunny discovering himself standing among the confines of a room holding several lengths of pipes and water channels stretching out across the room. Tar black sloppily drips out from the corners of the pipes; the way this mass stretches down onto the floor as it falls from the cracks lending the look of liquidized rubber.

The young boy then aims his light upwards to discover where he had dropped down from; the busted remains of an air vent cover just barely hanging on to the ceiling hinges. Its this site that has him recollects how he had fallen down into this dank pit, remembering how Tuesco had chucked him into the air vent before the swarm of mechanical manta descended upon them; the last thing he saw being the solid air psychic’s smile before descending. And coming to the bottom of the boy’s fall, Sunny assumes crashing against the vent grate waiting for him is what had knocked him out; the kid rubbing the back of his head to feel a small bump left from his fall.

In wondering of where to go from here that the sound of running water catch’s Sunny’s ears, following the distinct noise to a grate standing at the end of the room; the collection of gunk flowing pipes being the only thing allowed past this vent. The young kid approaches the grate to peer what lies beyond, finding it leading down into a tunnel of the city sewer; the rancid river of waste flowing in the middle of the tunnel. Discovering this potential escape from the deranged doctors facility has him think back to what Tuesco had made him swore; brushing his palm against the steel as he remembers the air psychic words. “If things get hairy in any way, I need you to run and hide. Don’t think about me, don’t think about the mission. I want you to escape the moment the situation turn sour.” Considering the dangers that wait for him above, the times he had come close with facing his own demise, even still feeling the small burns and wounds he had been inflicted with; simply escaping from a situation he wasn’t even meant to be in feels all too tempting. “Maybe we can’t bring the life you had with your folks back, but that doesn’t mean you should throw away the rest of it, dammit. You only have so much time to be a kid, and I think you should enjoy it while you’re still one.”

But in this moment of uncertainty, Sunny recollects the reason he had brave his way down into the depths of the sewers and into this den of metallic menace. It wasn’t just a desire to prove oneself, it wasn’t just a bid to repay the debt he believed Wedsle deserved for slaughtering the murderer of his parents; it was something far deeper. The kindness these humble strangers had bestowed him among the lowest of his short life thus far, to simply abandoned them in their time of need? No, no more running. The boy’s resolve holding firm, Sunny turns his sites away from what could be his only chance to escape to instead the smashed open air vent he had fallen from; determined to climb his way back up and return to the others.

Swift to come back to the realm of the waking, Frida is next to open her eyes and discover nothing but darkness surrounding her; only able to feel the floor beneath her feet as she stands back up. The dimensional psychic slinks her hand into the inside of her jacket to pull out an uzi, aiming it out towards whatever may emerge out from the void. “Oh please. You should know that won’t work by now.” she then hears echo out from the shadows. “Where the hell sort of dank shithole did you dump me?” Frida demands to know. “Excuse you! This “Shithole” is a marvel in test chamber design built by yours truly. Don’t you dare insult the same engineering mind that has captured you.” the doctor barks, genuinely insulted by her comment. “Yeah, what’s so special about this hovel?” “Allow me to demonstrate.”

The dark void that surrounds the dimensional psychic starts to be swiftly replaced as tiles of the shadows flip away, giving way to a sandy beach with a bright and Sunny vista; the crystal clear waters of the ocean reflecting the sunlight beaming overhead. Behind her towered the visage of a colossal coastal cliff side of which the sunlight bouncing of the ocean shines upon, shimmering off the craggy rock incline. Frida is left taken aback by not just the sudden and drastic change of scenery, but how natural it all felt; even if she knew for sure what surrounds her was nothing but artificial, the ambiance, Sunny heat, and the salty ocean breeze would be more than plenty to make someone else think otherwise. “Amazing, is it not? These chambers I have so meticulously crafted hold the power to mimic even the most outlandish and treacherous environments known to man; erecting scenery so accurately real, one would mistake it for reality.” “Okay, impressive so far, I gotta admit. But there a reason you decide to drop me down in a nice sandy ocean side? You think the sound of crashing wave’ll be relaxing enough for me to forget putting a bullet through your brains.” jests Frida. “Ha! Oh no, my dear wall hopper. Though the sand that surrounds you are calm soothing and serene, the depths of the sea before you are eager to unleash their fury.”

The calm waves of the ocean suddenly thrash across the sandy beach as something massive breaches from the surface; a crustaceous sea beast so astoundingly large, its size rivals a tiny, single mound island. Fresh out from the deep, the monolithic monster shifts its eye stalks over towards the lone woman standing in the middle of the beach; its claw opening wide as it starts to shuffle out from the waters. “Is that a crab?” she wonders aloud. “This is the prototype of an automaton I have built to aid in construction and demolition, its claws capable of crushing solid concrete in half with but a single snap.” the doctor elaborates. “Okay, but why a crab?”

This minor mystery is put on hold as the chromatic crustacean thrusts its open claw towards the gunwoman, with the limbs teeth finely sharpened like a razor toothed comb; Frida dives down into the sand beneath her feet to escape from the lunging claw. Scuttling across the shoreline, the dimensional psychic leaps out from the sands to dive directly into the rocky cliff face; the sea beast attacking her left undeterred as it crawls onto shore. Frida is forces to veer constantly as the colossal crustacean continues to pound its limbs against the hard rock visage, swerving left and right to evade the claws that tear through the rock with its rending teeth. As the doctor had described, the automaton’s pincers rip through the cliff face’s hard stone with such efficient ease, one would mistake the rock to be nothing more than brittle clay.

Once scampering far enough up the towering cliff side, Frida peers back down to find the chrome crustaceans pulling one of its claws out from the rock; the gunwoman attempting to act fast as she reaches inside her denim jacket. Okay doc, think the guns I got are weak shit? How bout I show you one of my bigger bad boys just waiting to make its booming retort. Yet before the eager dimensional psychic could so much as pull out the powerful weapon she had in mind, she witnesses the gigantic ocean crab lift its legs up off the shore sands and stabs them into the rugged incline; the mechanical monolith scaling up the coast one leg at a time as it continues its upwards pursuit. You gotta be kidding me.

“You gotta be kidding me.” Satette frustratingly growls. From where the young woman dashes does she stand atop one of several broken up rock spires that tower out from the depths of the sea, suspended countless feet above the baron wide ocean that surrounds her; nothing but deep blue for what seemed to be miles on end. This salty situation goes from bad to worse as she faces down another terror of the ocean, forced to fight against the wrath of a giant sea snake; its overwhelming length raveling around the rock as it climbs up one of the spires as its dragonic eyes remain locked to the lively psychic akin to a beast staring at its next catch. “A wonder of beauty, isn’t it? A project I have carefully crafted after one of the ocean’s greatest mythological creatures; the tale of a serpent so terrifying, its said to have claimed the lives of countless that dare swim through its waters. Cower in fear of the legendary sea dragon!” December dastardly declares.

The dragonic head of the serpent springs off the side of the craggy pike to launch after its much smaller target, with its scaly fins fluttering about as it careens through the air; Satette attempting to bolt across the length of rock she stood on in fleeing the beast. Though the monster manages to miss the young woman, its massive body crashes against the spire with such impact that shatters its stone; the pieces of rock along with Satette sent hurdling across the isles. Careening over to the side of another towering rock formation, Sat clutches against its rugged visage before she could plummet hundreds of feet down towards the sea below. “Beginning to think you might have some strange obsession with the ocean.” claims Sat. “An astute observation. Many have marveled over the wondrous forms of wildlife that occupy our seas; an environment so vast, so deep, so fundamentally different to the world above, it seems almost alien. The abundance of creatures that inhabit those waters, all of them having branched to a radically different line of evolution opposed to the other species of our planet. How can such natural designs crafted from those depth not be revered as awe inspiring. To experiment over how such forms may benefit us, how can one not?”

A look back to the serpentine sea beast beneath her, Satette witnesses the monster begin to slither up the neighboring tower of rock, noticing a peculiar beige luminescence seeping out from its saw like teeth as it ascends. Seeing the dragon like leviathan cease its rise to aim its glowing head at her, Satette starts to realize what the light escaping its mouth was and lets go off the rocky spires side as the monster opens its mouth. Out from the depths of its throat does a stream of electrical beige power come shooting up across the chasm and blasting the spire to chunks; the lively psychic plummeting away from the explosion by the seat of her skirt. Of course it can breathe lightning, why wouldn’t it? Before the young woman could so much as think of how to stop her descent, she is suddenly met with the maw of the colossal chrome monster as it plummets at her; the young woman moments away from swallowed.

But just as the metallic monster was ready to chomp down upon its prey, a bright natural green light flashes from the young woman as a dozen or so little rats come scurrying out to transform from the aura; their bones and flesh forming a big grate to fend of the beasts bite and keep its mouth from closing. No matter how hard the synthetic sea serpent tries to clamp its mouth closed, the bones of the countless rats keep its mouth wide open to keep Satette from plummeting down its throat. “What!? What did you…Are all those rats…Did you just pull out a rat king!? Where did you even-” “Sewer.” Satette swiftly answers. “Frankly, I don’t know what else I was expecting.”

Noticing the thinly bones of her pack of rats beginning to break under the sea dragons jaw, Sat leaps out from the monster’s mouth as she reforms the rodent to go with her; the lively psychic narrowly evading the sea serpents chomping teeth before she careens across its metal scale shaft. As the length of the beast brushes by her, Satette finds herself hurdling towards one of the dragon snake’s fins and commands her collection of rats to transform into a gnarl toothed maw wrapped around her arm. Coming to the sea serpent’s limbs, the maw that Sat had just made bites down upon the monster’s fluttering fin to hook herself on its side; the young woman holding on as tightly as she could as the dragonic beasts delves towards the ocean.

Violent bursts of flame scatter across the top of a broken ship as Thursotte sprint across its deck, fleeing from several fiery mortars hurdling through the air after him; the blazing bombs engulfing more of the ship in its enraging inferno. With nearly most of the ship he stands on encompassed by the pursuing flames, the young man makes a bounding leap right off the tip of the bow to escape; Thurs dropping down upon the deck of another neighboring vessel wrought with disrepair. Peering around over where he could run, he finds several other busted and crashed ships left stranded across the clusters of rocks that entomb them to their watery graves; each of them left in different states of decay as they’re all left to rot among this ship cemetery. Just before he attempts to plan out the best possible route to take among this spread of destroyed old vessels, something breaches out from the waters below to thwart his escape; the shining sun glistening against the chrome skin of mechanical dolphin.

Spurting out from the depths of its blowhole be several balls of raging fire that rise through the sky and plummet down after the fleeting psychic; Thursotte darting across the ship deck as the mortars crash down like descending meteors. Furiously erupting upon impact, the bouts of fire that spew out spread across the deck; its aged and brittle planking set ablaze as the ship is engulfed in mere moments. Fleeing from the disastrous blaze, Thurs’ orange aura flares as makes a daring charge towards the burning ships center pillar and tackles against its withered wood with all his might; his chaotic power spreading across the giant pole as it topples over. Crashing down upon the deck with a terrible quake, pieces of the wooden floor boards are sent flying all across the deck as the pole smashes straight through the ships hall; the vessels structural integrity crumbling at the seems. Leaping right over some of the bellowing flames that burn across the crumbling ship, Thursotte makes a bounding jump over to the neighboring vessel; the burning pieces of the ship he leaves behind falling into the ocean as he lands.

There remains little time for the young man to catch his breath however, as he witnesses the android dolphin again make a soaring jump out from the sea; its blowhole unleashing an eruption of fiery mortars as soon as it breaches the water. Its while darting away from the downpour of fiery bombs, Thursotte hears the voice of the dear doctor chime in among the ongoing chaos to boast how: “Stupendous, isn’t it? The blazing might of this submersible hydro weapon has been equipped with the firepower, no pun intended, to lay battleships to waste; Engulfing all within its fiery wrath!”

“Okay, get it all so far. But you made it a dolphin because…” Thurs questions. “The evolution that the creatures of the deep blue sea had taken is one that should be admired; even the species closest to mammals, have adopted such unique forms. The slick majesty of the dolphin, the ferocious might of the great orca, the overwhelming size of the gigantic blue whale; each of them having taken such radical courses of evolutionary change swimming in the depths of our briny blue.” “And the hydrodynamic body of the dolphins form lends it superior swimming control across the bodies of water to evade even the most persistence submarines and underwater wildlife, that’s why you chose a dolphin, right?” finishes Thursotte. “Yes, you get it! Most of my superiors simply scoff the idea outright, they herald no glimmer of imagination over the practicality of my design. If only they would see it the way you do, our syndicate could branch out beyond the scuffles of the asphalt lands and to the goldmine of the coasts. The international sea trading routes will be under the control of our thumb!” The cusp of their conversation is punctuated by the fiery blast that the chaos triggering psychic flees from; Thursotte diving right off the plank of a ship to escape from the raging inferno.

Finding himself submerged within the depths of the briny sea, Tuesco quickly sinks down to evade the prickly sting of a metal spike that torpedoes through the waters; the pike missile plunging into the side of a coral reef before exploding. The layer of solid air he had encased his head in lets him take a second to breathe from the close call, soon looking back to the abnormal automaton who had shot at him; Tues left concerned over the mechanical puffer fish boasting the size of a small submersible swimming after him. Across its chromatic body stick out numerous, sharp tipped spines much like the one that nearly struck the solid air psychic; a couple of these pikes fire out from the fish’s body to pursue its target like a fierce volley of scud missiles. The spiraling pack of spikes rocketing towards him, the air solidifying psychic does his best in attempting to evade the barrage by kicking off from the reefs below; the explosions he jumps away from spawning a slew of bubbles that begin to rise past him and up towards the surface.

Yet in the middle of swimming away from the blasts, Tuesco peers back to discover one more explosive spike moments away from skewering him; the tip of the missile just a few feet away from his face. The air solidifying psychic acts fast to swipe some of the bubbles that brush past him and uses his powers to control the oxygen trapped inside, gathering the collection of bubbles in front of him as the spike was about to hit him. Contact with the bubbles ends up causing the spine to explode, yet spares Tues of its full brunt as he is simply hurdled back; the collection he wields having been formed into a sturdy shield. The force of the blast sends the psychic of solid air careening right towards a wall covered in sea sponges; the sponges name betraying him as Tuesco feels the impact against the hard rock wall all the same.

There remains little time to process the pain he feels however as he witnesses the mechanical puffer fish continue to blow out several more missiles from its chrome hide; Tues getting off the wall to stand on top of it as the swarm of spikes approach. He manages to spring himself off the sponge covered wall before the barrage could reach him, the missiles instead exploding against the tall reef and reducing the rock to pieces; the reef debris scattering alongside a myriad of bubbles. It’s watching the assortment of bubbles ascend upwards that he turns his site over to the shield he had made with them; the face of the clear barrier holding only minor cracks from withstanding the blast from earlier. From these facts, he then glances back to the robotic blowfish swimming towards him to notice the spikes it launches come out from the holes across its body.

Tuesco starts to swim his way down to the rocky ocean floor below as the deadly automaton unleash another salvo of spiny scud missiles; the psychic of solid air diving down as quickly as he could as the barrage starts to close in. The moment his feet touch the rock solid surface, he leaps right off the floor just before the missiles rocket at him; not dodging the explosion, but catching the blast of resulting bubbles as he’s rides the explosion towards the nearing puffer fish. While careening at the chromatic imitation of one of the sea’s most volatile creature, Tuesco congeals the collection of bubbles he had gathered from the explosion to conjure a pair of clear domes; both of which he clasp together to trap the explosive launching balloon fish. The moment that the chromatic puffer attempts to launch a flurry of its spiny missiles at the air solidifying psychic, the tips of the spikes poke against the transparent shell and explode inside its cage, leaving the machine to suffer the full force of its own payload.

Once the last of the explosions in the shell go off, Tuesco dissolves the cage to collect the bubbles within; the foggy waters clearing away to reveal the battered and busted scraps of the mechanical menace that hounded him. His moment of satisfied glory is swept aside when seeing a large shadow sweep across the ocean floor, a site that which begs him to glance back and see what could cast such shade; what he discovers behind him making his stomach drop. Swimming after him be an entire swarm of spiny chromatic blow fish, armed and ready to unleash their stock of explosive spines; a site of which makes a couple of bubbles blow out from within the air psychic’s pants.

All feels eerily quiet throughout one of the facilities steel halls, with the silence accompanied by a waving light that shimmers against the reflective chrome wall; not a soul to disrupt the near tranquility. That is until the grate above begins to tremble; something on the other side wedging its way through within the vents, all with a magenta power coating it from top to bottom. As soon as the grate is popped off the ceiling, it and the child psychic that pried it off tumble down to the hard steel floor; their descent muffled from Sunny’s influence over sound. And while the kid was still silencing himself, he opts to scream out from the rough fall just to get it all out; not a single decibel of his screams so much as escaping. Augh! Ow! Ach! Oooh! God, that hurt!

Once the mild pain from the fall starts to subside, Sunny’s attention is drawn over to the waving lines of light that glimmer across the chrome walls; the manner of which they skirt back and forth across the metal surface nearly mesmerizing the boy. What the…where did I… When turning back to see what could create such a glorious show of light is he left in further awe upon finding a subversive view from under the New York waters. The craggy rocky bottom, the spots of seaweed and moss, the schools of local sea life; all of it clear as crystal to behold from the other side of the glass window. The light that bares down across the wall behind him shines from the ocean waves above; the rays of natural sunlight glistening against the ocean’s surface to bend and refract across the seafloor and slip into the chrome hallway. Wow. Its all so clear to see. How far down are we?

Sunny breaks his sites away from the ocean view to glare down both ways of the hall; the stretching corridors lending the boy the rising sense of worrying confusion and doubt. Oh no! I just realized, I don’t know where I’m going. How am I supposed to save the others if I don’t know where they are? I could be looking for hours and hours around here and they could be dead by the time I find them. Oh god, this was a huge mistake. What made me think I could bail them out, when I can’t even find where any of them-

The young boy’s spiraling dread suddenly cease when out from the deep blue sea does a sizable fish bump against the glass, causing a low trembling bang to reverberate across the metal halls. Such an unexpected loud noise baits the attention of what machine Manta flutter nearby, swarming out from both sides of the hall towards the kid; Sunny backs away to the wall behind him as the school of faux sea creatures close in. But when wrapped in his silencing aura, not one of them bare any mind to the kid as he watches them all focus their attention across the window; their stingers ready to fire as the glass shakes from the impact. As the window start to settle back into silence, the armada of metal manta ray dim their tails as they all withdraw from the scene; all of them splitting off to resume their programmed patrol routes.

Watching the last of the droids float away, Sunny start to recount what Tuesco had mentioned relating to them; that their programming are wired to sense one thing. That’s right. These things are sensitive to noises. No wonder they freaked out. I mean I would rush over too if I suddenly heard a loud bang from really…far…away… Hey…If those glorified tin cans can track things through following sound, why can’t I? There’s practically nothing else down here that can make such mayhem besides the others, hearing where they might be shouldn’t be that hard. I just have to do what they told me about my powers and focus.

Heeding the pieces of wisdom that the crew had advised him over his sound controlling abilities, Sunny closes his eyes to let nothing but the ambient drone of the metallic halls wash over him; the boy putting every ounce of focus he has in listening what may be dwelling down in these metal depths. Come on. Gotta concentrate, everyone is counting on me. Letting his power spread throughout the hallways of the facility, Sunny’s magenta power lends his hearing a boost in range so extent and so potently focused, he could hear the engines from the dozen or so manta that float across; the boy brushing aside their quiet jets to listen deeper through the corridors. Its among listening deeply for even the tiniest pin drop that his heightened sense of hearing manages to catch something sounding off in the distance. The loud clangs of metal, the sound of breaking rock, the bangs of bullets being fired. Frida! Recognizing the distinct ruckus of his gun toting guardian, Sunny sprints off towards the source of the chaos he had heard not too far off; the young boy determined aid the others in their dangerous heist. Hang on, everyone! I’m on my way!

The towering beach incline that the dimensional psychic ascends begins to crumble apart as the colossal chromatic crab continues to feverishly pursue her in its crawling climb chasing after her; whole chunks of rock breaking off the cliff face to plummet past the metallic monster. In attempting to ward off the chrome crustacean, the gun woman aims her weapons down to the crab before firing out several more shots against the mechanical terror; not one of her bullets able to penetrate through its tough steel shell. Dammit, most of my arsenal can’t even put a dent in it. What the hell is it’s shell made of? Scuttling after its wall merging target, the chrome crustacean thrust its powerful steel pincers after her once more in hopes of rending the woman with its saw teeth lined claws; Frida leaping out from the wall a moment before the crab strikes against the cliff and descending down towards its reflective top. Don’t wanna waste the only rocket I got on this over glorified steel toy. So on to plan B. If I can’t break through its shell, I’ll just have to slip my way in.

The moment that the dimensional psychic lands upon the robotic wall climber, she merges into the surface of its steel shell and starts to slide all around its body in search of someplace vulnerable; a crack in the automatons defenses. Yet no matter where she slides across its chrome dome, Frida fails to find even a fraction of a flaw anywhere across its steel plating; not a hole, shaft, screw, or slip at all to be found. What the hell? Every single bit of this piece of steel seafood is pressed in tighter than the virgin Mary's chastity belt. I can’t find even a single spot to slip my way in.

Frida swift search across the steel shell is brought to an end the moment she breaches back to the 3rd dimension to catch her breath, the chromatic crustacean quick to pluck her right from its hide and entrap her in the clutches of its pincers; Frida feeling the claws teeth brush across her torso as it starts to squeeze its grip. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Its already digging in my body, I can’t slip out! Don’t know where the rest of the gang are, can’t contact anyone, we don’t know where the stone is, and I’m seconds away from being sawed right in half! Its all going so wrong! I thought I could handle this like it was jut a usual mission; like we’d be out of here in an hour flat. Weds was spot on. This is way bigger than I was ready for, and now thanks to my fucking brilliant planning, I’m gonna die down here. Just hope that the other’s had the right idea of ditching me.

Its on the cusp of her hopeless situation that her attention returns to the beach cliff face above them, noticing a section of the rock furiously quaking from a deep bass hum that seep out from the other side; it isn’t until pieces of magenta glimmer out from between the rocks that she starts to understand. That aura? Is that from… All at once, the patch of rock burst forth against a blast of sound waves to break a piece of the illusion; the dimensional psychic alarmed to witness the sound controlling kid crashing in from the other side of the simulated cliff side “Sunny!?”

Plummeting down from the beach cliff face, the kid ends up falling right on top of the metallic crustacean with a hefty clang; one so sudden and unexpected, that the grip it held upon the dimensional psychic loosens; Frida almost immediately taking her chance to slip from its saw tooth clutches. The very moment she escapes from the chrome crustacean, Frida leaps atop the automatons head to swiftly scoop the sound controlling kid out from danger; the gun woman springing off the steel shelled robot with the boy in her arms to merge back into the side of the cliff.

Holding their head back up from the cliff’s 2nd dimension for air, the very first words to come out of the gun woman’s mouth for the boy are: “What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were with Tuesco.” “I was, that is until things started to escalate and he tossed me down a vent. I came back up to try and find where he was, but I ended up tumbling in here instead. Hey, is that a giant crab?” the boy wonders, glaring down to the bottom of the cliff. From near the end of the towering cliff face does the chromatic crustacean rapidly ascend after the two of them, with Frida left darting her sites across the section of rocky incline and utters how: “Dammit. Barely got anywhere to put you.” “Well I know what to put in this cranky crab.” the young boy boasts, pulling out his pistol to aim down against the approaching crustacean. “Kid, wait!” As soon as Sunny pulls the trigger to unleash but a single shot, the recoil inflicted from the gun nearly has Sunny slipping out from the wall; the bullet he had fired out clanking against the rising automaton’s shiny steel shell. Holding onto the kid, Frida clutches Sunny by the leg tightly to keep him from plummeting down with his wayward shot; the kid staring down as he’s dangling off the side.

“Nrgh. The hell is wrong with you? You ain’t accounting for the recoil before you even aim! A second too late grabbing you and you’d have wound up being caught in that crab’s clutches.” scolds Frida. “Is it supposed to be vibrating like that?” “Are you even listening…Hang on, what?” “The crab down there. Its shaking weird.” Peering down where the chrome crustacean climbs, the dimension psychic discovers the kids claims to be true and discovers the plating of the crabs shiny shell trembling as Sunny’s magenta aura runs across its surface; Frida’s keen eye letting her see spots of its chrome carapace loosening. “Uh, kid. The hell did you just do?” “I shot at it with a bullet holding some of my sound power. It worked on one of the manta, figured it could work with this thing. I guess its too big to take down with sound waves, huh.” “Maybe not to bring down, but might be enough for me to work with.” debates the dimensional psychic. “Of course, you can’t do much with just that dinky peashooter. How’d you like an upgrade to your arsenal?”

“And you’re sure about me having this?” worries Sunny, cradling one of Frida’s uzi’s as he stands atop a rock sticking out from the cliff. “I mean a pistol is one thing, but what if I wind up accidentally falling off or hitting you.” “Don’t worry about it, kid. The recoil shouldn’t do much as long as you keep yourself propped up on that rock. I just need you to unload everything that bad boy’s got as soon as I dive into its shell, you got it?” “I think so.” “Good, now keep your trigger finger steady and get ready to bounce.” Upon relaying these instructions, Frida breaches from the cliff face to drop down after the rising chrome crustacean; Sunny keeping himself stiff standing against the piece of rock as he watches the woman dive.

Witnessing its target plummeting down to its pinching grasp, the steel shell android thrusts its open claws after her; its collection of saw teeth still moist from where she had been caught before. Yet the moment the giant crab attempts to clamp down upon her does Frida merge into the shining surface of its second dimension; the wall merging gun woman slithering down its limb and onto its chrome carapace. The moment he see’s her slip her way onto the automaton’s shining hide, Sunny pulls the trigger on the rapid fire gun he holds to rain down a downpour of bullets against the chrome crustacean; every round fired out from that gun enveloped in a coating of the boy’s magenta light. Each piece of led that strikes the machine sends out a torrential crash of reverberating sound waves all across its steel plating; its tough frame quaking violently from the constant rain of bullets from above. The gaps in its thought to be air tight shell exposed from the continual trembling lends Frida the moment she sought to break into the real machine hiding behind the carapace; the gun woman wasting no time dishing out a whole gun show inside this piece of faux sea food. Sparks, bolts, and chips come spilling out from within the giant crab as the dimensional psychic causes havoc; the android going haywire as its torn asunder from within.

Young Sunny’s constant rain of bullets soon ceases as the uzi Frida had lent him stops; the last of its magazine having been spent. All Sunny could do at that point was peer down to the chrome crab crumbling apart at the seems; his concern growing as he finds not a single spec of the dimensional psychic along its battered and beaten shell. The boy takes in a sharp gasp as he watches the crumbling crustacean lose its hold upon the cliff face and begins to drop down towards the sea below, dreading that the dimensional psychic may still be trapped inside. Sunny’s worries are dashed when witnessing Frida emerge out from the surface of the steel sea creature to make a bounding leap to the cliff side; the wall merging psychic delving into the rocky face to scale after him.

Quickly ascending up after the boy, Frida sweeps Sunny right off the rock he stood atop and makes a hasty climb to the piece of fake cliff the sound controlling kid had broke in from; the gun woman asking him: “Think you can break us out the same way you broke in?” “Let me see.” the kid tells her, his magenta aura flaring as they close in on the spot. Reaching the exact piece of the simulation he had breached, Sunny slaps his hand against the cliff face to send forth a wave of vibrations beyond the false wall and against the countless pieces of metal that resonates across the illusion; the threads of the simulation fracturing upon the brunt of the boy’s sound to make an escape. The way out clear, Frida and the boy slip through the rip in the simulation to finally break out from this prison disguised as a piece of paradise; the chrome crustacean they fled from exploding the moment it crashes back down onto the beach.

Emerging out from the depths of the ocean with a breaching ascent, the monstrously sized water dragon rockets across the collection of rock spires as the lively psychic holding onto one of its fins holds on for dear life; the head of the mechanical monster bellowing a sonic roar so intense; it casts forth dozens of waves across the waters. The colossal chrome sea serpent glides above the salty waters and lands upon the length of a towering rock formation, rapidly spiraling up the stone shaft as a boa constrictor would slither up a tree; Satette struggling to hold onto the snakes flapping fin as the teeth of her transformed rat clamps begin to slip away. When the last of the rat kings grasp falters upon the machine’s silky fin, the building inertia slings Sat right off the side of the serpent and hurdling across the salty sea air. The dreaded dragon opens its maw as it lunges at her from the tower side, Satette left helplessly careening through the air as the mechanic monsters electrically sparking mouth threatens to chomp down on her.

But just when the colossal chrome dragon was a moment or two away from swallowing the lively psychic whole, an out of the blue explosion strikes at the leviathan with enough of a punch to force its approaching maw way; the serpents teeth skirting past Satette by mere inches as it slithers past. Peering to where the blast had come from, a big smile stretches across Sat’s face when finding her wall merging partner in crime perched along one of the pillars of rock; a puff of smoke wafting from the rocket launcher she had just fired. Discovering her wall merging friend still alive and well, the lively psychic morphs the mess of rats into a coiling rope of fuzzy flesh; the lively psychic casting her stringed together collection over to the nearest rocky pillar, coiling round one of the jagged stones piercing out from the side.

Satette swings across the rocky column to swerve right back around to hurdles towards the pillar her partner had merged in, kicking herself off from column to column as she casts her meat rope around like a whip. Peering back behind her, the lively psychic discovers the dragonic sea monster slithering after her from underneath the depths of the water; its shadow inching closer as it remains on the verge of encroaching above her. It isn’t until Satette is but a couple more swings away from the dimensional psychic that the monolithic sea serpent beneath her pokes its head out from the surface, opening its maw to unleash a mighty torrent of electric after her; the intense stream of lightning blasting apart the rocky spires that stood ahead. With the columns of salty rock ahead of her broken away, Sat is forced to swing right around the column her rat rope is tied around; this complete 180 of a turn lending the serpent below a chance to go for the kill.

Witnessing the colossal chrome dragon launches out from the sea to rise after where Sat swings over towards, Frida springs out from the rocky spire she stood within to descend after her lively partner in crime; the head of the serpent preparing to engulf the young woman in one bite. The gun woman pushes her life bending friend right out from the reach of the beast as she snatches the other end of Satette’s string of furry flesh; the monstrous machine clamping down upon her whole with but a single bite. The mechanical sea beast continues to spiral up the length of the rock column as the rope of rats is caught betwixt its teeth, dragging Satette up towards the top of the stone tower with her. Sat holds onto the end of her whip of sewer vermin as tightly as she could in the chrome dragons rapid rise, peering up to the monsters maw to discover traces of her friends cerulean power running along her weapons length; a hint that Frida had not met with such a grizzly end. Knowing her dimensional partner was still on one piece, Satette clutches the end of her rat rope as tightly as she could in this rocketing ride towards the top of this towering piece of rock; the string of flesh beginning to be stretched to its limit under the constant inertia.

The steel sea beast soon reaches the very tip of the stone spire; the surface merging psychic slipping out from its mouth and sliding over to the tip of its nose, tightly clutching the rodent rope keeping Satette tied to her. At the apex of the dragons ascent, Frida springs off the mechanical monster’s head to send herself and Sat rising into the sky over head; the gunwoman tightly clutching at her end of the string of flesh before swinging it over, whipping the lively psychic ahead of herself before shouting: “Open up!” “Open what?” the lively psychic can’t help but shout in the middle of their rise. Gazing up to the simulated skies above does she spot growing glimmers of magenta power radiating across a section of the clouds; the puffs of white quaking apart into tiny bits of metal as this aura shakes away the panel of falsehood to reveal a way out. From the other side of the breach, the sound controlling kid reaches down to the ascending duo as he keeps the piece of metal holding the prison at bay. “Sunny!?” “Grab on!” he pleads.

With there virtually no time to ponder over the how the boy is able to breach through the simulation, Satette reaches out to the kid as she start to drop; the young woman catching the boy hand just as she was on the verge of plummeting back down. After pulling herself up the rest of the way in the hole, the lively psychic jerks the rest of her rat rope in a frantic hurry to pull Frida out; the head of the steel sea serpent rising after the dimensional psychic akin to a famished shark pursing its fleeting meal. The very moment Frida is dragged back to safety behind the other side of the breach, Sunny retracts his power of sound away from the opening to let the piece of the simulation quickly reconstruct itself; the colossal chrome snake left with nothing but open space to bite down upon at the peek of its rise.

What remained of the collection of simple boats and broken navel vessels floating among the ship cemetery were accosted by bellowing flames; some of them collapsing under their own weight as the furious fire chew through their support. Its midst this burning chaos that Thursotte finds what ground he could even stand on dwindling at the seems, most of the ships he could jump to plagued by the spreading flames. Hell, he was struggling to avoid crumbling debris from the top of the ship he stood. The young man bolts away from the pursuing blaze and makes a bounding leap towards the closest boat still intact, reaching as far as he could for the planks that splinter out from the edge of a split in half ship. Grasping at the end of the piece of wood, Thurs attempts to pull himself up to the deck as the waters beside him ripple; the deadly dolphin droid that had harassed him with such a hellishly hot time springing out from the depths of the sea.

From its chrome blowhole does the steel sea mammal erupt a volley of flaming mortars high into the air, sending all of them descending down upon the ship Thursotte hangs off of with a screeching whistle; the resulting explosions enveloping the deck rattling the boat and sending cracks across that half of its body. The plank of wood that the chaos inducing psychic hangs from snaps from the overwhelming booms, sending Thursotte tumbling down into the exposed inside of the ship with the piece of board still in hand. From beneath the blazing deck, the young man arose to witness one more flare descending from the heavens to plummet down towards him; Thursotte tightly clutching the plank he carries with both hands as he rises back on his feet to step to the top of the split ship.

The young man takes a steady stance as he holds the piece of wood back, infusing the mundane splinter of the deck in his chaotic power as the mortar is moments away from crashing down. Swinging the board as hard as he could, Thurs bats the fiery explosive away from the split ship to instead send it careening off towards another blazing vessel; the fire cloaking the pieces of mortar fluttering through the air before crash down upon the boats towering mast. Having taken the brunt of the flaming bomb from its already fractured base, the ship’s lengthy mast breaks off from the deck and starts to tumble down like a tree having been cut from its stump; Thursotte’s orange aura blending with the crackling fires that plague the pole’s wood.

Yet rather than plummeting down into the sea like he would expect, shock and confusion wash across the young man’s face when witnessing the tip of the tumbling mast crash into what seemed like the middle of the air; that part of the cloudless blue sky crumbling away to reveal nothing but a collection of metallic bits that make up the simulation. The site felt similar as looking upon a complete picture with one of the pieces having been broken away, that metaphor strengthening when the layer of the simulation finally gives away and crumbles to pieces against both Thursotte’s chaotic power and the raging flames. The surprises just keep coming, for from the other side of this layer of falsehood does a torrential geyser of seawater comes bursting out from the pieces of broken space and pours down from the towering tilted mast; the waterfall splashing down upon the ships deck to extinguish the blaze that plagues it. The unexpected turns fail to end there however, as Thursotte can make out the figure of a man spewing out from within the pouring geyser of seawater; the young psychic almost immediately recognizing them as soon as they emerge out from the waterfall. “Tuesco!?” Upon realizing the newcomer to be one of his own, the chaos inducing psychic is swift to leap across the split vessel and climb his way back up to the deck; discarding the piece of splintered wood in his hurry.

After dissolving away the layer of solidified air encompassing his head Tuesco takes in a deep inhale of much needed fresh air; giving himself a moment to breath as he looks around to where he wound up. “Tuesco!” he then hears blurting out beside him. “Ah!” the solid air psychic jumps back exclaiming. Tues’ alarm starts to deflate when finding this exclamation having came from one of his own, calming down as he gets back up to greet the chaos triggering psychic with: “Oh, it’s you.” “What, that’s it? Haven’t even seen you around in this god forsaken death trap in a while and that’s all you got to greet me with?” “Well, sorry. Some of us are a tad exhausted after being accosted by metal fish monsters and a lack of oxygen.” “I’ve been too, but you don’t see me acting cranky.” “Wait, you been dealing with scud missile puffer fish tanks?” “…What?” “What do you mean ‘What’? What’ve you been dealing with?” Their brief reunion is suddenly cut short when out from the ocean waters beside them leaps out the dreaded droid dolphin, blasting out another salvo of fiery mortars from its blowhole; the barrage of flaming balls whistling through the sky until plummeting their way back down towards them. “Oh, a dolphin. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.”

The two of them make a bolt for it as the explosive mortars crash down around them, with Tuesco conjuring a dome underneath him and his partner as they make flee from the flames; the psychic’s solid air shield lending the two surmountable protection against the flying flares and fires as they leap to the next vessel. “This whole place’s looking like a mass viking funeral; its only a matter of time before these boats be our coffins! What the hell do we do!?” questions Tuesco. “You’re asking me? I barely even got the chance to catch my breath, let alone put a dent in that dolphin. I’ve been too busy dodging the bombs this things spews out to come up with a game plan. And all the while I keep running out of room to race away from it all. Any more of these ships catch fire and I’ll be forced to take a dip down in the briny blue sea.” Thursotte claims. “I’d advise against that.” “Why?” Pointing out to the ship they had fled from, Thurs’ attention is drawn to the leak of seawater spewing out from the middle of the air; the chaotic psychic noticing a slew of metal balloon like fish pouring out from the other side of the geyser. “Lemme guess, those the scud missile slingers you been dealing with?” “Yep. They catch us in the water, we’re as good as dead.” confirms Tuesco. “Augh. Can’t get relief above water, can’t get it under.” “Where the hell are we supposed to go then?”

A brief glance down upon the waving surface of the ocean has an idea prick out from Thursotte head; the young man grasping to the solid air psychic to stop as he declares that: “If we can’t go in the water, we’ll just float right over it.” “Wait, what are you even-” Clutching at the dome of solid air above them originally made to shield them against the downpour of flames, Thurs flips the transparent shell right over the deck of the ship and sends it splashing down upon the water below; Tuesco panicking as the young man then jerks over towards the edge of the ship. The two leap right off the side of the vessel moments before another flurry of mortars could crash down upon its deck, the air solidifying psychic letting out a panicked scream as he and Thurs drop down towards the sea. But rather than taking such a deadly dip into the briny blue waters, the two instead land within the very same solid air shell that Thursotte had tossed aside; the transparent dome proving surprisingly buoyant floating across the ocean surface. “Oh, this is what you meant. I guess this solves one problem.”

Interrupting this brief moment of relief do they witness the dangerous droid dolphin breach from the surface once more to unleash a bevy of blazing bombs into the air and send dropping down towards the two. And even with most of the molten mortars simply boiling away into the sea that surrounds them, Tuesco constructs a barrier of solid air to shield against some of the bombs that threaten to drop down atop them; the fiery explosive simply bouncing right off the clear barricade and down into the water with the rest. “But it only partially solves another. We jumped out from the kitchen, only to land right in the middle of the boiling pot. I hope you got another bright idea in that head of yours kid.” Tues states, holding back to the barrage of blazing bombs. “Um…” Thurs ponders, peering across the ocean. From beneath their crystal clear waters can the young man witness schools of the chrome puffer fish that Tuesco had warned of, with their bulbous bodies covered in prickly spines. Among their patrol does something suddenly trigger them to fire out their metallic spikes, the needles scurrying across the ocean like ravenous piranha lunging to their prey. Yet instead of racing right at the two of them, the cluster of miniature torpedo’s instead make a complete opposite dart after one of the surrounding burning boats; the barrage of scud missiles exploding against the ships hull and swiftly reducing the entire vessel to watery debris.

Thursotte lets out a pondering hum upon seeing the way the puffer’s missiles were so easily drawn to the burning wreckage nearby, thinking surely there had to be some coloration. Perhaps their aim is more based off heat instead of sound or site. “Well, you got a plan cooking up there or what?” questions Tuesco. “Cooking might be the appropriate word. If only we could smack that damn dolphin outta the water…You think you can catch a couple of those mortars?” “Excuse me?” “If we grab one of those fireballs, we can redirect where all the pufferfish aim and hopefully blast that damn dolphin out of the water.” Though the air solidifying psychic is hesitant on the idea, Tuesco relents as he modifies the structure of is overhead shield into a wide bowl; telling the young man behind him: “I hope you know what you’re doing.” “Eh, half and half.”

When breaching out from the waters once more, the fake sea mammal does its usual routine of blasting a dozen blazing balls out from its blowhole; the mortars flying high before plummeting back down towards the two floating in the middle of the ocean. While the rest of the barrage dissolves into ashes upon dunking into the water, a couple of them end up rolling right into Tuesco’s transparent bowl like a basketball to a hoop; the psychic enclosing the fiery flares within with another bowl on top. Even with the flaming bombs having been entrapped within his air tight prison, Tuesco still feels their heat radiating past the solid air and begin to strike at the palms he holds them with; grunting from the sensation as he warns how: “Thur, starting to feel the heat here.” “Wait for it.” Thursotte insists. The tension keeps climbing as the chaos triggering psychic peers across the open ocean for any sign of the dastardly dolphin droid; the psychic of solid air letting out pained hissing as he struggles to keep holding the scorching hot bowl of fire above.

Its after a couple more moments of anticipation, the waving waters are upset once again when the dangerous steel dolphin breaches out from the surface once again as elegantly as the real deal; Thurs catching his partners attention as he shouts: “Over there. Chuck it over there!” The moment that Tuesco hears this demands, he turns right over and hurdles the bowl of blazing bombs towards the airborne sea mammal machine; the bowl sloppily skipping across the surface of the water like a kid attempting to throw a rock across a lake. Once the clear bowl filled with flaming mortars rests close to where the dolphin leaps, its constant heat attracts the ire of the dozens of chrome blowfish that swim through the sea; the ones nearby of them unloading their salvo of spiny scud missiles towards the dome of fiery bombs. The moment the collection of cluster bombs explode against the clear container of fiery flares, the resulting blast proves strong enough to send the airborne droid dolphin careening across the salty sea air and sent crashing right atop one of the many boats that litter the ship graveyard.

Stranded on top of the vessel, the shiny steel sea mammal flops about the deck in a panic; its blowhole firing out a constant barrage of mortars all across the ship in its struggling. The boat the droid dolphin had been beached upon combusts in an intense inferno in only meager moments; the insuring blaze standing tall among the other burning ships making up the ship cemetery. Attracted by the overwhelming inferno, the rest of the mechanical puffer fish can’t help but unload their collection of cluster bomb towards the blazing boat; the sea vessel and the dolphin trapped atop it engulfed in the all consuming blast.

Watching the display of deadly fireworks reduce one of their threats to pieces, Thursotte can’t help but cheer from the explosive show while taunt out to the wreckage. “How’s about some sushi to go with the fireworks show, huh? I don’t even know if dolphin counts as sushi, but it don’t matter; your fried anyway!” he boasts. “Well, whatever sort of way you cooked that thing, I hope you got quiet the killer recipe for blowfish.” Tues claims. “Yeah, we smoked that piece of…huh?” Parting from this brief victory does the young man quickly realize themselves being surrounded by schools of the same chrome pufferfish that had laid waste to their steel sea mammal menace; their heat seeking recitals now locked to them. “Oh…Well dammit.”

Dreadful worry starts to rise as the school o scud missile shooting blowfish begin to close in upon the duo, leaving the two of them left nowhere to run to against the approaching threat as they can only huddle together. “So, not to sound greedy, but you don’t happen to have another split second schemes cooking up there, do you?” Tues asks. “Gotta be honest, the mine of my mind is tapped out. We’d practically need a miracle now.” “Whelp. You know, in my police career, if I wound up dying, I pictured my life ending in a gesture of glory the likes of which people would remember for years to come, like a blaze of glory situation. Guess I’ll have to settle with a boiling froth.”

Yet on the cusp of facing their thought to be inescapable demise, the open salty air just above the two suddenly wavers and contorts; a thick magenta power causing the metal bits holding the simulation together parting to bestow upon them an escape from their imminent doom. “Well, you did say we needed a miracle.” claims Tuesco. From the other side of the shattered simulation, the two discover the rest of their loyal crew reunited and waiting for them; Sunny holding the breach with the vibrations of his whistling while Frida reaches down for them. “Or rag tag bunch of reliable friends.” insists Thursotte. “Well, I suppose friendliness is next to godliness.” claims Tuesco. “Just shut up and get up here.” Frida sternly demands. “Yes ma’am.” Grasping the palm of their surface merging leader, both the boys are reeled right out from the depths of their simulated prison right as the steel swarm of mechanical puffer fish unleash their missiles upon them; the two managing to escape from their explosive demise in the nick of time.

“No.” This daring escape out from the depths of the simulated test prisons could be viewed from the screen of one of several monitors, each one displaying a part of the enigmatic doctors labyrinth of technical terror. “No!” Shown on another of these feed is the psychic gang racing across the chromatic halls, all of them barreling through the place now more determined than ever. “NO!” It was plain to see that no barrier, no wall, nothing could stop their approach; Frida guiding them through the smallest of cracks, Sunny silencing the others to keep them from being spotted, Satette and Thursotte fighting back the swarms of mechanical manta that dare stand in their way, and Tuesco erecting shields to protect the others from their beige blasts. “This can’t be happening. I crafted those prisons to be neigh impenetrable those within unable to so much as touch their bars, let alone escape. How could they have…That child. I don’t fully know what he did, but he somehow disrupted the cell’s membrane pattern’s from the outside to free the others. Dammit! If they make there way to this chamber now, everything I worked for will be at risk. I won’t have it come to that; I can simply remote backup my data to another server before they-”

The gifted doctors worrying thoughts are solidified when the door leading out from the darkened chambers is busted open; the light from the chromatic halls pouring in alongside the intruders that barge into the private sanctum. “And things keep going from bad to worse; as if the slew of maintenance needing to be done wasn’t enough of a migraine today. Seriously, do you people even realize how much time and money your shenanigans may cost me?” December groans. “You wanna stop racking up that debt, you know what you gotta cough up.” claims Frida. “Give up the stone, or we’ll tear your whole workshop apart til we find it.” Satette adds. “Oh, I deduce that you lot will find that ordeal much harder to do than speak. The only way you’re retrieving the psychic stone now is over my cold dead remains.” the doctor refuses.

“Where even are you right now?” questions Thurs. “Matter of fact, where are we?” Tuesco adds. “Oh, I am most surprised how you haven’t caught on to the grander picture of where you stand. Surely, you’ve no doubt notices some strange details midst rummaging through the depths of my laboratory. My psychic aura implanted within many of the machines that roam these halls, their efforts and duties seemingly innocuous at first glance. This facility may be where many of my ingenious creations are forged, but it also serves a far greater purpose. But to answer you’re question more accurately, I compel you all to simply draw your gaze above.”

Like the technically inclined doctor instructs, all of them look to the ceiling over head for their answer; their glares widening in disbelief upon the site they discover. Enclosed within a thick case of reinforced glass filled with a purified fluid floats a lone brain, a potent beige aura constantly expelling out from its very depths. From the inside of the piece of gray matter does the technological controlling power surge out into several wires hooked to its wrinkled surface; the psychic aura slithering across and into the dense walls of machinery and technology that line the chamber. Simple sparks of Decembers power are all that need to course through these devices and machines to them all under his command. “I have discarded the natural failings of the flesh, instead to don in ironclad steel; freeing myself from the faults of a body I have for so long suffered within. Gone are those cruel limitations, and in their place be grafted ceaseless potential of technological progress. I am-”

“That bitch’s a brain in a jar!” Satette exclaims. “An amusing deduction there, young miss; but a description oh so lacking. With my gifted mind connected to the very wires of my creations and power over the realm of technology, this once humble underground facility has been transformed into a final frontier of engineering. Its wires my nervous system, its energy my life blood, its processors my heart. Are you realizing how I detected your presence so easily!? My laboratory isn’t simply an intellectual paradise, I have, in the most literal of essence, become my laboratory!” Sparking surges of beige powers run all across the chamber as its technology coated walls begin to fracture, transforming into several massive body part like tools and devices that hover across the widening room; the once enclosed space rapidly opening up into a much wider facility. The exit behind them slinking back as all that encompass them among them now was a chasm of darkness surrounding the platform they all stand atop of. “Huh…Neat.” briefly comments Thursotte.

Among the runs of electrical surges glimmering from within the doctors brain case, a peculiar glint catches the eye of the lively psychic; Satette gazing closely beyond the glass to discover the glistening shimmer coming from the very prize they seek. Within the cortex preserving fluid December’s mind swims in be the coveted stone of psychic wonder encased within its glass bauble. “Guys, the stone! He has it! Its splashing around with him in his damn jar!” she alerts. “So I guess the dear doctor was being more literal than we thought.” claims Thursotte. “Of all the places to put it, too. That is foul.” Tuesco reviles. “Metaphorical or literal, we’re breaking open that brain and pilfering our prize right out. And if a little bit of his gray matter ends up spilling, that’s on him. Care to do the honors, kid?” Frida goes. “With pleasure.” the sound controlling kid confirms, coating his small rapid fire pistol in his own brand off magenta power as he aims up towards the glass case. “Did you give him an uzi!?” blurts Tuesco.

“A fruitless effort!” the doctor denies. Before the kid could even so much as pull the trigger of his gun, one of the many metal machines swings out and knocks him right off the platform; the weapon cast aside as Sunny is thrust down into the shadowy depths below. “Shit, Sunny!” the dimensional psychic exclaims, delving off the platform after the boy. Down two of their squad, Thurs, Sat, and Tues are left to face the wrath of the mechanical mad doctor by themselves; preparing for the worst as the genius’ many machinery thrust upon them, glowing with a violent beige spark as they lunge.

Sunny screams in a panic as he plummets down through the chambers chasm, his outcry reverberating all across the depths as he falls. The boy’s desperate yelling ceases when gazing up to witness the wall merging psychic descending after him; Frida stretching her arms out as far she could to reach for the boy. The sound controlling child reaches up for her in a plead for safety, managing to clutch the gun woman’s grasp. Frida pulls the young boy to her person as the bottom of the chasm comes into view, Sunny closing his eyes as the dimensional psychic envelopes her and the kid in her cerulean power. Its thanks to her abilities that they both merges into the surface of the chrome ground safely rather than violently crash down against it; Frida and Sunny swiftly surfacing out from the face of the floor as she calms the kid with: “Easy kid. We’re fine.” “Augh…Agh…Oh wow. Thanks.”

Their brief moment of reprise is cut short as an electrical explosion draws their attention back towards the top of the chamber; both of them witnessing beams and sparks go flying across the room. “Lets get back up there!” Sunny immediately suggests. “I’ll be heading back up. You’re staying down here where its safe.” “Oh, come on. Now you’re going on with all that safety crap?” “I know how it sounds, but shits getting way too close to the fan here. We can’t fight this pickled prick and make sure you don’t get vaporized at the same time. You’ll have to sit this out.” “But-” “No fucking buts. I am ordering you to stay down here and wait while we deal with the doctor. We clear!” the dimensional psychic firmly asserts. “Mmm…Crystal.” he reluctantly relents, crossing his arms as he glares away. “Good. We’ll try to not make this take too long.” claims Frida, leaping into the center pillar and climbing her way up towards the top. “It’s not like it’d be hard for me to break the glass he’s in.”

Fired out from the tip of a chrome swordfish’s nose, a bright beige beam streaks across the chamber and towards the lively psychic; Satette narrowly evading the shocking ray by the skin of her teeth as she lunges towards the weapon in kind. The young woman transforms the rat king she wields into a big hulking arm to strangle the neck of the lengthy fish with, crushing the chrome weapon with such surprising force to render it useless. Yet in the middle of her struggle against one of the doctor’s dastardly device, another of his machines, a big mechanical seahorse with whirling saw blades attached to the end of its tail, swings out at Satette as she is distracted dismantling the laser lance. Not a tooth of the blade would touch her though as Tuesco barrels in erecting a thick barrier of solid air to block the spinning saws; sparks lighting through the shadows surrounding them as he pushes back against the blades.

With the spare pistol that Frida had bestowed to him, Thursotte blasts out bullet after bullet against the doctors detached brains above in attempting to shatter the glass encasing December; every single shot deflecting right off the dome without so much as leaving behind a single scratch. Realizing how fortified the bullet proof glass keeping the doctor safe was, Thurs opts to coat his pistol in his own brand of chaos inducing aura as he carefully aims the last shot of his magazine; the young man failing to notice the shocking surge of an electric steel eel lunging his way, with beige energy coursing through its body. The electric eels shocking lunge against the accident triggering psychic is thwarted when Frida leaps up from the edge of the platform with a rapid fire rifle in hand, the gun woman unloading its magazine against the steel eel to repel it away from her partner in crime. Landing right next to Thursotte, the first thing the dimensional psychic hears from him is: “Is Sunny alright?” “Yeah, the kid’s just fine. Just a bit pissed he ain’t up here with us. He’ll get over it.”

A violent explosion of suddenly erupts from behind the crew; all of them peering back to discover a lobster suspended in the air via propellers, opening its claws to fire out volatile beige balls upon them all. The four of them scatter to evade the explosive onslaught, the entire chamber quaking from every impact. Though Tuesco held his own well against the saw blade seahorse, the constant quaking makes the air solidifying psychic loose his footing and ends up tripping over; the steel sea equine bouncing right off his transparent shield. The mechanical sea creatures repulsion fails to deter it from thrusting itself at the solid air psychic once more, leaving Tuesco barely anytime to get himself off the floor before the seahorse bares its saw blade tail upon him. Closer and closer do the whirling blades of the ocean equine’s saw loom as it starts to breach through Tuesco’s slab of solid oxygen. But just when its chrome steel teeth was ready to break through and tear into him, strands of flesh envelope across the head of the aquatic life form based android and flings it right off of him; Tues peering across the length of meat to see it stretching from the lively psychic herself. Satette chucks the steel seahorse across the chamber and sends it right against the wall, getting its tail stuck against the solid steel from collision; the sparks from its saw lighting up through the shadows as it runs across its curved chrome surface.

Even after unloading the rest of her rifle’s magazine upon the chrome carapace of the mechanical lobster, the best that Frida’s barrage could manage against it was simply put a few dents in its shell. It doesn’t even slow the thing down as it proceeds to spew out several more spheres of surging power down as the dimensional psychic scrambles from the zapping explosions. “Christ, the metal on these things. None of my guns can even put a hole through it.” she curses. “At least its putting dents in. The kind of glass the doctors brain is encased in has to be harder than platinum. Its not even leaving a scratch. Didn’t you say you had a rocket launcher or something?” claims Thurs. “Sad to say I spent it already saving Sat’s ass. Afraid leads all I got left, and even that’s running a little low.” “Don’t you got a spare or something?” “You think I had a spare, I’d have used it already?” “Well how else are we gonna make some leeway here?” Thursotte then questions. Upon this notion is Frida’s attention briefly caught by the seahorse left blazing across the curved walls of the chamber; the method of which its spinning saw blade tail slash across the tough solid steel getting the gears in her head turning.

After a minute of whirling across the chamber in an out of control fashion, the steel seahorse finally manages to dislodge the blades of its saw tail out from the curved chamber wall; the fake equine almost immediately lunging for the nearest intruder, aiming the teeth of its saw towards the distracted chaos inducing psychic. Right as its blades were on the cusp of tearing into Thursotte’s flesh, its tail is again caught against the solid air of Tuesco’s transparent barrier; Thurs springing back from nearly having his head chopped off. “Doesn’t the teeth its saw’s got packing dull? Feels like it just won’t quit.” complains Tuesco. “Then lets give it something else to chew on. Sat, what do you say we introduce those chompers to its crustacean comrade?” “Right, I get ya?” the lively psychic cheers, stretching the length of her fleshy rat arm after the chromatic ocean equine. Clutching upon the body of the steel seahorse once more, Satette pulls the buzzblade spinning machine right off the solid air psychic’s transparent shield; the aquatic life form based android struggling to free itself in her tight grasp. Satette’s sites are locked upon the lighting lobbing lobster as it continues to fire out a barrage of beige balls of electrical power; the crustacean’s claws suddenly drifting over towards her. The bevy of blasting balls hurdling her way, Sat is forced on the defensive as she attempts to outrun the explosions of electricity. And on top of this mad dash away from vaporization, the steel seahorse she holds in her lengthy rat meat grasp begins to tear through the flesh of its own prison; Satette’s strength of her grasp fading along with it. “Dammit! Need a hand here!” she frantically requests.

The lightning lobsters focus so fixated on the fleeting lively psychic, it is utterly caught off guard when a blast of pellets strikes against its claws; the flurry of pellets being fired out from the barrels of Frida’s double barrel shotgun. The dimensional psychic repeatedly unleashes shell after shotgun shell to ward off the chrome crustacean claws; mentioning how: “I’ve had my fill of steel seafood to last a lifetime, thank you.” The several shotgun shells swerving the lobsters steel claws away from the lively psychic, Satette quits her running as soon as the salvo of shocking sphere cease, swift to lob the steel seahorse she held in her grasp at the lobster that threatened to electrocute her. The iron equine flails wildly as it careens through the air; the saw attached to its tail refusing to stop spinning. Just when the lightning lobbing lobster returns its aim, the seahorse’s buzzsaw bite down against it shimmering steel shell and starts to run across its entire body; the chrome crustacean helplessly struggling as the saw blades tear through its shinning hide. The crew watches with triumph as the lethal lightning launcher is torn asunder before their eyes. “So how bout it, doc? We can keep breaking your toys all day, or you can cough up the stone out of your damn jar before we break it too.” taunts Frida. “A simple matter of rebuilding and replacing. But I doubt the same can be said for any of you.” December denies.

In the midst of shredding each other apart, both the chrome lobster and the steel seahorse are suddenly blown apart in a volatile explosion of sparks; pieces of the pair of androids sent scattering all over the chamber. From this plume of spreading debris, the buzzsaw broken off from the seahorses tail is sent hurdling across the platform; zipping past Frida, Thurs, and Tuesco in the blink of an eye. All three turn back to witness in dreadful horror the blade slicing right through the side of their lively partner, severing her arm right from her torso in but a single instant. Satette in utter shock, glares in disbelief as her own scarlet fluid spurts out from the freshly cut stump her limb was attached to just seconds ago. The speed of which the blade had disarmed the young woman has her stumble towards the edge of the platform, Satette left clutching tightly to her bleeding stump as she and her severed limb topple off the edge and plummet down into the shadowy ravine. “Satette!” her friends cry out in terror. The first among them to attempt and come to her rescue, Frida is stopped as the electric steel eel swoops in to beam down a stream of beige power at her; the gun woman unloading what shells she had to blast away the artificial sea creature. “You bastard!”

Waiting among the bottom of the steel chasm, Sunny lets out a huffy sigh as his eyes are drawn to the darkness above; the child catching only brief glimpse of the action as surges of bright beige power cut through the shadows. The sound controlling kid suddenly jumps when hearing a loud thud echo out from the other side of the chrome column; Sunny quick to venture around the pillar to investigate what could’ve fallen down inside these depths. His curiosity slowly morphs into dread upon finding a line of crimson staining parts of the floor, a dread of which balloons at an extraordinary rate as he comes upon more and more splashes of deep red all over. His growing anxieties then erupt into full blown terror as the young boy comes around to discover the smatterings of blood to be spilling from the lively psychic’s own body; poor Sunny letting out a spine tingling scream upon what he thought to be the remains of one of her guardians.

The sound controlling kid ceases his panicking outcry upon realizing Satette was in fact still with him; seething hisses and grunts seeping out from under her clenched teeth as she tightly clutches her severed arm socket, with drizzles of her blood spilling out from between her fingers. “Sat, you’re alive!” he exclaims. “Nngh…Sunny…That you?” the lively psychic grunts. “What…what happened to you!? Where’s your arm!?” Rolling her head over towards the side, Satette opens one of her eyes to find a trail of scarlet starting from where her arm had been, following the splatters of crimson to discover her arm laying a couple yards away from her. “Right there…It’s right there.” she utters.

“Hu-Hold on, I’ll try and call the others.” says Sunny, his magenta aura flowing across his body. “There’s no time…Barely keeping my own blood from spilling.” seethes Satette. “But…I can’t…What am I supposed to do!?” “Ha…Ha-Hate to ask this of you, Sunny. But…think you can go over and fetch my arm over there for me?” the bleeding woman then requests. Almost immediately upon this plead, the young boy hops right over the wounded woman to follow the small trail of red; Sunny stopping his desperate dash upon coming to the lively psychic’s severed limb. Simply glaring upon the amputated arm, covered in the flesh and fur of rodents stained in red, sent a bone chilling dread in the pit of the child’s stomach. A gruesome site of which most other adults would pray to not so much as see with their own eyes; one that nearly paralyzes the young adolescent simply processing what he was looking to.

His palms nearing the amputated arms blood stained hide, Sunny’s reach suddenly pauses as he feels the warmth radiating from the freshly sliced limb; his hands trembling at the thought of clutching to the severed body part. The kid breaks away from his traumatized trance when the pained grunts of his lively guardian reaches his ears, her distraught cries beckoning the boy to snap out from his terror and reach form the limb. Swift to swipe the severed limb off the floor, Sunny hurries back to Satette’s side to return her amputated arm; the lively psychic smiling up to him as she takes her own missing piece. “Thanks…kid…”

The moment she grasps to her own disembodied limb, Sat sends her own natural green power coursing through its length; the rat king that were enveloped across the arm unfurling off and commanded to slither down along the rest of her body; patches of flesh fur, and bone sliding across her chest to rest atop her flesh wound. Utilizing the tiny, splintering bones from the collection of vermin, the lively psychic pierces into her own flesh to sow her wound up with the stringy rat fur; the young woman biting down hard on the bottom of her lip as she endures the stinging pain from her little procedure. “What are you doing?” Sunny can’t help but worry.

Sowing the pieces of rodent meat together across the hole left on her side, Satette manages to patch up and cover the grizzly wound in what living tissue she had left to work with; slowly pulling herself off the floor as she comments how: “Well, not the kind of patch job I saw myself doing, but at least it stops the bleeding.” “But what about the rest of your arm, can’t you reattach it?” asks the sound controlling kid, gazing upon limp limb that Sat holds. “Don’t think so. I can only do so much to myself. Besides, we’ve been running around this chrome crap hole all day, and my tank is about spent. Gotta use what I got left to finish this.” “So…What do we do?” the boy wonders. “Hmm…” contemplates the lively psychic, glaring down to her own severed limb. “Yo, Sunny. Did I ever teach you about how to carry your power into stuff?” “I…I don’t think so.” “Well then, how bout we got through a little bit of a crash course, shall we?” To this end, Satette envelopes her detached arm with what remains of her natural green aura; the sound controlling kid staring curiously as the limb begins to straighten and extend under Sat’s power.

Repeatedly pulling the trigger of his pistol, Thursotte unloads several shots up after December’s glass brain casing, infusing every bullet he shoots with a thick layer of his accident prone power. Though not even one piece of led would so much as touch the doctors protective shell, as hand of hard chrome, enveloped in their foe’s beige power, suddenly flies in between them and the glass case; the barrage ricocheting right off its palms hard exterior and across the chamber walls. Several pieces sharp metal break off from the curved wall as the bullet bounce off, sending a shower of them raining down upon the trio.

“Son of a bitch!” the dimensional psychic curses, aiming a double barrel shotgun towards the edge of the chamber. Infusing the shotgun in her wall merging power, Frida blows out a scattering of pellets right against the curved wall beside them; every pellet entering the surface of chrome to slide up towards the encased brain overhead. Yet before the bunch of bullets could slide up the wall and at the doctor, the shot is caught out when a part of the wall they streak across unexpectedly detaches from the side, carrying the racing bullets upon its surface. The length of shiny steel is aimed right upon the trio as the shocking machine eel fires a dastardly bolt upon its face; the terrible shock forcing the pellets out from the 2nd dimension and releases the shotgun spread down, with the three scrambling away from the raining blast.

Attempting to take a crack at cracking the doctors cranium case, Tuesco hops up as he constructs a small platform out of solid air; leaping right off the freshly made piece of crystallized air before conjuring another at his feet. Astonished are both Frida and Thurs as they witness their air solidifying partner quite literally hopping through the air. The two snap out from their amazement once beholding some of the doctors aquatic based androids attempting to stop their friends ascent; both of them brandishing their guns and firing out against the encroaching machines. Though their shots inflict no structural damage on the androids, the barrage of bullets proves enough to send the mechanical monsters reeling back from their friend, lending Tuesco a chance to rise up against Doctor December.

Once climbing close enough after the doctors brain jar, the air solidifying psychic constructs a sledgehammer in the palm of his hands to swing against the glass casing, putting every ounce of remaining strength he could muster into his strike. As harshly as Tuesco had hammered his weapon into the surface of the glass however, the impact shows him being only enough to cause the contents within to briefly tremble in the preserving fluid; not even a single smudge appearing from where he had swung. Tuesco is left only to plummet back down towards the platforms upon seeing his efforts bare no fruit, falling after his partners that had aided him so.

Frida hurries after where Tues falls and holds her arm out to catch him; she envelopes both herself and the solid air psychic in her dimensional breaking power to slip into the surface of the floor, successfully cushioning themselves from the fall. Breaching out from the surface of the platform, the air solidifying psychic glares up to the lack of results all his efforts have yielded and laments how: “I put everything I had in that swing, and I couldn’t even make a scratch.”

“Surely, the rest of you must understand by now.” they hear the doctor boast, his army of sea creature androids slowly descending upon them. “Your struggles to pry the stone from me were all for naught the moment you stepped into the realm of my laboratory. Standing at the heart of this domain, all of you cower underneath the light of my unrecognized genius. You have no hope of outwitting a being of utter intellect. But fear not. Unless the rest of you, I harbor no barbarism for your crimes. You’ve proven most admirable fighting your way to this point, so I plan to bestow upon you all fitting roles among the halls of my technological paradise; testing the threshold of my numerous upcoming devices. I expect each of you to last, down to the very bone.”

The trio’s dreadful hopelessness is suddenly dashed when a streak of white speeds right past them, past the numerous machines, and towards the doctors cranium casing like a bolt of white lighting. Piercing right through the thought to be impenetrable layer of glass, a thin lance of bone breaches the safety of the doctor’s protection; the tip of the unexpected spear making it just a few inches away from his very brain. “What!?” December exclaims. Peering back from where the spike of white had been launched, the three’s hopes uplift upon discovering Satette standing upon the edge of the platform, alive and well. “Sat, you’re alive!” cheers Thurs. “Oh thank fucking god.” Frida relieves. “But…Your arm. What happened to-” Tues wonders. “I threw it.” she answers. “Wait, you mean…No way.” the chaos inducing psychic awes, peering back to the thin white lance that she had just hurdled into their foe’s barrier. “A simple over site. I shall not let it extend further past this. Your efforts have still all been for-”

Cutting off his own self aggrandizing rantings, the doctor’s confidence wavers as he beholds a thick magenta hue swiftly engulfs the length of the spear; the white spike suddenly beginning to rapidly vibrate as it evokes a rapidly climbing pitch of tone. “Is that…” Thurs utters, all of them peering back around to the lively psychic. Along Satette’s back hangs the sound controlling kid; Sunny getting right off the lively psychic to further concentrate his powers. “I thought I told you to stay put. It’s way too dangerous. What are you think your doing?” scolds Frida. “Oh sure, now you listen to me.” comments Tuesco. “I’m helping!” the child claims, straining himself to concentrate. “How can you even-”

They cease their brief argument the moment the sound of crackling glass echoes throughout the chamber, all of them returning their attention over head to discover the bulletproof brain case they struggled to even scratch beginning to crack; the fractures growing worse from the trembling lance of pale white. “No. No no no no no NO!” December screeches. The brain is swift to command his nearest pawns to rush towards his side, racing against the destruction of his own cranium casing. Yet even their advance hovering capabilities are not fast enough to stop Decembers dome from breaking against the overwhelming sound vibrating from the intruding spear.

From the shattering of the doctors dome, a shower of glass and preserving fluids rain upon the motley crew; the air solidifying psychic constructing a barrier overhead for the others to stand underneath to avoid the sharp glass. Among the downpour of liquid and shards, the psychic mcguffin they’ve sought within this cryptic chrome labyrinth lands beside them, clanking about as it rolls at their feet; Frida swiping the babble right off the soaking floor with a gleeful grin. “There it is, right back where it belongs.” she cheers, stashing the stone right in her jacket pocket.

A brief chill runs across their spines upon hearing the doctor’s voice echo all through out the chamber, with the sound quality fluctuating as he lightly chuckles. “Hee hee hee hee hee…Fools.” Once more returning their attention upwards, they discover the wires implanted across Decembers brain suspending him in the air and keeping his mind from tumbling down with the remains of his glass dome. “So long as you all remain in my dominion, your success shall be short lived. Even if you have briefly pilfered the stone from me, I shall simply take it back.” December decrees, his armada of aquatic androids lunging down after the crew.

But not a single mechanical menace would reach them as they all suddenly cease in the middle of the air; the beige power coursing through their bodies disintegrating before falling down into the chasm. “Wh-wh-what?” the hanging brain blubbers. Its after all the noise and chaos starts to wind down into quiet ambiance that a small alarm could finally be heard, one that escalates the doctors curious worry into outright panic. “System malfunction…At the matter energy processing? What have you cretins done!?” “I think you’ll find we put a little bit of a jam in your whole operations.” Tuesco quips. Back within the lengthy hallway filled with trash and robotic spiders, not one of the arachnids can push down or break apart the chunks of trash clogging up the beige shafts; the glow shimmering within the spiders slowly beginning to dwindle away.

From bad to worse, another alarm could be heard blaring in tandem with the first; almost giving a sense of rhythm to the escalating situation. “Oh, what now?” he laments. “Well, doc. Seems your plans are all going up in flames.” jests Frida. “Core processor temperature rising! You didn’t!” The countless pipes that envelope the glowing cube of countless central processors Frida had encountered have all been puncture and torn apart, the cold water within leaking down onto the floor as the piece of crucial components start to literally melt. “Have you any idea what you done!? Without the cooling pipes controlling the processors excessive heat, it will reach critical levels. Once the processor is destroyed, it will only take minutes for it to cause an explosive chain reaction that will lay my laboratory in ruin!” “Frida, you set the place to blow!?” exclaims Thurs. “Well, yeah. Didn’t want this big bastard coming after us. Seems like a no brainer to send whole thing to kingdom come.” the dimensional psychic elaborates. “With all of us in it!?” shouts Tuesco. “Okay, to be fair. I thought we would’ve had more time to bail.”

“My time may expire, but yours soon will too.” the doctor statement echoes. “If you are so determined to rend my precious sanctuary into smoldering slag, then you shall behold the fruits of your labor, firsthand. So long as power surges through my cortex, none of you shall slip from my laboratory!” From the darkest depths of the surrounding chasm do the doctors machines rise again; their prongs, tips, edges, and laser points aimed squarely against the crew. “I’d say we’ve had enough of this technology tour, you guys think so?” the dimensional psychic claims. “Yeah.” “Sure have.” “My wonder has sated, thank you.” “Glad to hear. Lets crash through this chrome crap hole til we break outta here.” Tuesco goes. “I know a way out.” claims Sunny. “Lead the way, kid.” Frida insists, the whole band of psychic taking each others hands before making a bounding leap together into the surface of the chamber wall. From the curved chrome side, the dimensional psychic guides the gang across the wall and slides right through the sliding door leading out; leaving dear doctor December to literally hang dry.

All my life, my intellect has been subsided by events outside my control; doomed to be squandered by the apathetic masses. Yet even in my lowest recesses, I had sought for a better tomorrow. Slipping right out from the cracks of the chrome sliding doors, the crew make a frantic break away through the corridors as the emergency alarm, now more clear than ever, blares through the hallway. In my dreams, I saw a world unbound by the limits of the flesh; avenues to new sensations and experiences open to the mind. The gateway to that brighter future, unlocked by the greatest of minds. Coming out from the hall walls, what mechanical manta Ray remain attempt to stand in their way; their efforts steamrolled as Sunny simply silences everyone to simply race right on my without a second thought. Was it but a fools dream, one never to come to prosper? Or simply a perceived terror, scorned by the very people I wished to stand with. We may never know? The entire facility begins to tremble around them, panels of chrome and glass falling apart as they hope over the bumps of circuitry now exposed; the sound controlling kid leading them over to a ventilation shaft for Frida to slip them all through. The course of history can only be steered by a willing, unwavering hand; one cemented in their determined convictions. I may not be one of those metaphorical hands anymore, but there are several others eager to grasp the wheel. Who that hand may belong to, only time shall conclude. After slipping out from out a pipe attached to the ceiling of the New York sewers, the gang hurry through the tunnels towards the closest manhole they could find; climbing up the ladder leading to the surface for dear life.

The big apples ocean side waves crash against the dock’s concrete edges, echoing past the city sea line and across the streets beyond; a welcomed natural ambiance in the thick of this urban jungle. Sparingly spread around the stretch of the cities docking streets sit but a few manholes for maintenance staff to climb down from; the sewage system being so close to the ocean leading to plenty of runoffs lining the edge, giving few plumbers enough of a chance to work. Emerging out from underneath one of these sparse manholes, Frida pulls herself and the crew right out from the depths of the underground sewers; one of them basking in the fresh air and sunlight as they give themselves a moment to breath. “Man, the smoggy New York air never smelled so fresh for me.” Tuesco compliments after taking in a giant whiff. “Feels nice seeing the sun again, even if my eyes are burning from the adjusting from the darkness.” says Thursotte, streaks of tears running down his cheeks. “After being down there for so long, feels good blowing that place off.” adds Frida. “Hey, speaking of blowing. Don’t you think the lab should've explode by-” Sunny attempts to question.

The rhythmic back and forth of the ocean waves are suddenly disrupted when an eruption blows out from underneath the brine; an explosion so intense, that its power quakes past the waves and causes the city ocean line to briefly tremble. Once the waves start to calm, chunks and shards of chrome, glass, and plastic begin to surface from the sea to drift across the shoreline; undoubtedly what remains of the doctors hidden laboratory lay waste. “Gee, I hope the environmental organization isn’t too mad about all the work we just made for them.” worries Thursotte. “That might be a fuck up on them, but the same can’t be said for us. Broke in, got the stone, and destroyed the mobs technological network all in a day. I’d call that a rousing all around success.” claims Frida as she admires the psychic stone they had plundered, the cracked glass case glistening in the sun. “Not exactly.” reminds Tues, bringing their attention over to edge of the shoreline.

Their celebration dims upon seeing the lively psychic staring out into the ocean’s horizon, clutching the patched up part of her upper torso her arm used to be; the crashing ocean waves letting her simmer in the frothing ennui. The very site of one of her own friends having been so radically affected from their heist, upon her leadership no less, fills Frida with a rising guilt; the dimensional psychic prompt to approach the disarmed young woman to say: “Sat, I’m so-” “Frida. It’s okay…I’ve lost worse.” Such a statement takes the gun woman aback, surprised over the lack of emotional output from such a radically physical change. And even more jarring is that Satette simply walks past the dimensional psychic to head out to the rest of the city, suggesting that: “Lets just go home. I wanna clean this up and properly patch it up before it gets infected.” Though a foreboding worry over the welfare of their injured friend starts to wash over them, Tuesco, Frida, Thursotte, and Sunny follow Satette into the city streets ahead; their mission to retrieve the coveted stone of psychic power having been a success.

The season finale for season 2 of Street Smarts. Thank you so much for reading thus far.

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