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goatbi · 4 years ago

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Deep Dark Sea Chapter Six

For a moment, the two of them stared at each other in silence, Bubby kneeling next to the pool, and the mantis shrimp poking his head out of the water, staring up at him. He couldn’t think of what to say here, just staring at that wonderful green. The mantis shrimp seemed to have nothing to say either, staring right back up at him, mouth open just a little as if in shock.

The water rippled next to him, and another head poked out of the water. Bubby glanced over at him as he surfaced, and the mantis shrimp took that opportunity to shift, pulling himself up a bit to balance on the edge of the docking bay, his body drifting behind him. The other merman, as that was all Bubby could imagine them to be, was a bit too deep to see what exactly he was. Yet, he was the first to speak.

“You’ve been listening to him sing for however long he’s been down here, and you don’t say a word now?” Bubby blinked, before looking towards the mantis shrimp, who pushed back off the wall and shoved the other’s head back down under water.

“Don’t mind Tommy.” Bubby blinked, then nodded slightly, shifting to sit cross legged a bit back from the edge of the docking bay, so the mantis shrimp could hook his arms, the more human ones, on the edge again and hang there. “I’m.. Coomer.”

“Bubby.” He answered softly, voice barely able to make a sound through his shock. This was a merman. A mantis shrimp merman, who had been listening to him singing? This entire time?

Tommy popped back up again. “The entire time, Mr. Human, the entire time!” Coomer shot a look behind him, and Tommy disappeared back underwater, and Bubby blinked, seeing a large shape move away from the pool, what he assumed to be Tommy. He was deceptively big, how had he not seen that mass before? Was he flat? Some sort of manta ray then.

“Uh...” Bubby’s eyes flicked back towards Coomer, who was frowning at him. “Are you alright? I know it’s a bit of a shock-”

“Fine! Fine, just uh... Trying to figure out what... type of creature he was. I mean, you’re obvious, mostly, and I think I figured out the other one when he floated past, but uh, Tommy, I didn’t see until he... swam off.” Coomer nodded slightly, still staring up at him.

“That’s alright. He’s probably going to go get the others anyways, you can meet the school.” Bubby blinked at him, then nodded slightly.

“You’ve... been listening to me sing?”

“Oh, only when you’re in here, that’s the only place I can really hear it. Your voice is lovely, I’m a little upset I couldn’t hear it through the windows so I could hear you more often.” Coomer shifted slightly, and his tail disappeared into the dark for a moment as it flicked down, then slowly floated back up. Bubby watched quietly, still trying to fully process what he was seeing.

They sat like that for a moment, Coomer staring up at him, and Bubby staring back, before Coomer spoke again. “I like your eyes. They’re very nice.”

“Oh... I mean, red’s a weird color-”

“No, that’s... not red. I know red, that’s not quite it.” Bubby frowned at him. They were his eyes, and he had been subject to a lot of bullshit because they were red. He knew what color his eyes were.

“No, I’m... pretty sure-” and then Bubby paused. Mantis shrimp had far more color receptors than a human had, didn’t they? Maybe Coomer just... saw something different than he did. “I mean... I guess they would look different to you, huh...” he trailed off, before shaking his head slightly.

“I guess so. The others do say I see differently than them a lot. They tried to tell me humans didn’t have stripes!” Coomer leaned up, catching Bubby’s wrist in his hand carefully, pushing himself up with the shrimp arms to have his other hand free to trace something along Bubby’s arm.

Bubby saw nothing, frowning at him a moment, before going with it. “Your eyes are very green. I don’t think I’ve seen anything that green before.”

Coomer was still tracing the marks that only he could see, and paused, Bubby watching him flush before shooting a grin at him, looking back to his arm. “I dunno if they are green like green is to me... But I’m... glad you like them.”

He almost snorted, turning his head and continued to let Coomer trace the lines along his arm, watching him out of the corner of his eye. As such, he watched the water ripple again, as the pyrosome colony he had seen before poked his head up, and then disappeared again. Bubby raised an eyebrow. “That uh... pyrosome colony-”

“Forzen”

“Yeah, uh, Forzen... What’s his deal?”

"Oh, he just likes watching people.” Coomer glanced back, and must’ve been able to see where he sunk down into the water. He looked back towards Bubby’s arm. “Plus he has trouble swimming, so we move him with currents. So that just means the others are here too now.”

“Others?”

Coomer nodded. “You saw Tommy for a second, there’s Darnold, Benrey, and Gordon as well. Well, G-Man too, but he’s rarely around, so I don’t think he’s here. Also Gordon’s son Joshua, but Joshua is just a normal fish he adopted, so he can’t come up here like we can.” He hit the sleeve of Bubby’s shirt again and pouted, dropping back down onto his human arms. Bubby blinked, rubbing his arm slightly, almost missing his touch.

He glanced over as another head popped up from the water, and Coomer looked over at him as well. “Hey Darnold. This is Bubby.” Darnold shifted up a bit more to lift a hand at him, slowly beginning to circle. Bubby looked at him quietly.

“Shark?” Darnold grinned at him, and that only confirmed it to him. “So we have Benrey and Gordon left to see, right?” Coomer nodded slightly, and just then, Tommy resurfaced, grinning.

“Benrey’s coming up soon!”

Bubby was... honestly a bit overwhelmed, but said nothing, as another sharp toothed merman surfaced, black hair spread out around him. Bubby glanced at the others, who said nothing, looking back at this grunge looking man who had emerged from the deep.

So maybe Bubby was a bit scared. This was fine.

“Hey Benrey! Where’s Gordon?”

“Uh being a lil... a lil bitch baby.” Bubby stared at the newly identified Benrey, eyes narrowed slightly, but was distracted from his thought as Coomer sighed, pushing himself off the wall.

“I’ll get him.” and he disappeared into the water. Bubby stared after him, then glanced around at the others, who all stared at him dead faced.

“... I have done nothing to deserve your ire.” He said, glaring around back at them, and Tommy huffed.

“yeah, but we’ve never seen Coomer like this before. So... just know you won’t make it back to the surface to your school if you hurt him.”

His school? This was a very strange school at this point, and Bubby sighed. “I don’t have one? So I don’t think it would matter that much if you killed me, I just don’t feel like dying.”

For some reason, when he said that, they seemed upset at this, but weren’t able to say anything before Coomer’s tail appeared, as he scrambled up the side and managed to get his feet onto the level surface, backing up carefully as he dragged the most pissed off looking mer Bubby had ever seen. To be fair, he hadn’t seen a lot, but he knew anger when he saw it.

This had to be Gordon. He was hanging from Coomer’s arms, hair plastered in his face, arms dangling. His hand had some pretty nasty claws on it, and the other was a scarred stump. Bubby tried to find his face in the mess of hair covering it, but was unable.

“Here’s Gordon!” Coomer called, holding him up with apparently ease, though Bubby, looking down into the dark water, could not see the end of of his tail. He could see a small fish circling the tail that remained in the water. Just a normal fish. This caused him to laugh softly, looking back up at Gordon, who snarled at him and Bubby fell silent. “He didn’t want to meet you, but I wanted him to, so he’s gonna!”

“I’m faster than you.”

“And I’m stronger than you!” Coomer replied cheerfully, and dropped him back into the water. Gordon ducked down for a second, but only to slick the hair in his face back off of it, surfacing again to glare towards Bubby. He looked across the bay to look at Coomer completely out of the water for the first time he had seen him. He was just as brightly colored, if not more so than Bubby originally thought, without the dark water muffling the bright colors. Coomer shifted and dove back under, popping up in front of him, pulling himself back up into his original position and...

Bubby forgot about the others, in favor of the green once more. Coomer seemed content, staring back at him, and they fell into silence again.

“Jesus you two are gay-”

Coomer dove at Tommy, and they disappeared under the water.

#hlvrai #half life vr but the ai is self aware #hlvrai mermaid au #bubby #dr. coomer #tommy coolatta #gordon freeman #darnold #forzen #benrey #Feelings In Various Ways

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confusedunit · 4 years ago

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Universe of Unreality - Chapter 11

Chapter 11 - "We need....to talk." Benrey does a lot of thinking. Forzen hides. Tommy's sick of shit, and needs to sleep. Gordon talks to the team...sort of.

Benrey adjusted his grip on Dr. Freeman, as the Science Team walked through the halls of the facility. The physicist hadn't woken yet, and given how heavy the HEV suit was, he'd gladly offered to carry him.

After all, Dr. Coomer's arms were already busy carrying Bubby along.

While the Sweet Voice had helped in stabilization of their injuries, it couldn't perform miracles. They'd need medical equipment for that. …Or, something else. But he still hadn't been able to talk to Tommy's dad, which was really starting to make him a tad bit nervous. Not that he'd admit that, though.

At the very least, Bubby was healed enough that he could hold his pistol, which meant they still had two fighters active in their group.

The other, of course...being Tommy.

And while Tommy might have been doing well enough at hiding his struggle for the others to be fooled, Benrey was not. And following the group at the back and seeing the glowing cracks of yellow light shining under his lab coat wasn't even the biggest reveal. The drain from protecting Bubby during the incident in the Blast Pit had almost shattered the exhausted alien, and to try to compensate for that Benrey had offered to take over their protection for the next while. He was more used to that kind of drain than Tommy was. Plus, with all the times that he'd had to protect them during their last cycle? It was a wonder that Tommy hadn't shattered prior to all of this mess.

But after a bit more running and gunning, hiding and chasing, finally, in a sharp burst of yellow light, everything stopped all around them. Bullets hung in the air, military men floated where they were falling, and everything was tinted with a hue of yellow.

Benrey tensed up a bit. Shit. Tommy was pissed.

"I can't-" Tommy shoved his gun into his pocket, hands twitching and clenching, before he harshly bounced up and down on his feet. He grit his teeth and hissed out a sigh, flapping his arms through the air as his eyes glowed different colors in sequence.

Benrey blinked slowly, understanding immediately. Tommy wasn't pissed. He was tired, and frustrated, and conflicted. He wanted to come up with a solution, but didn't know how to do it, or how to even explain it in words. He wanted to get them the hell out of there, but didn't want to hurt anyone of their group, but why would he-

"Tommy, are you alright?" Dr. Coomer tilted his head towards the younger alien, adjusting his grip on the man clinging to his back.

Bubby nervously glanced around, adjusting his arms around Dr. Coomer's neck. "...Time's stopped...?"

Tommy startled at their words, as if he hadn't expected them to be able to speak. Given what Benrey saw of Mr. Coolatta's time stopping, he can't really blame him. They'd never noticed before, why start now?

Benrey let out a few Sweet Voice bubbles, to attempt to make a guess. He figured that since they were part of his group, he must have intentionally let them not be frozen, consciously or unconsciously. Seemed reasonable enough to him.

Tommy relaxed a bit, after seeing the glowing bubbles, before thinking for a moment. Abruptly, he snapped his fingers, and his eyes glowed yellow again.

Benrey smiled a bit. Tommy was always such a bright yellow. 'Yellow like the sun, guidance and protection'. Always his main goal, always broadcast so obviously to everyone around them, but no one knew the language enough to understand. The yellow was a blessing, and a warning. He protects these people. They will feel safe in his community. But if you touch them, if you harm them, you will bring down a wrath upon yourself that you will never be able to contain.

Tommy was raised in human culture, but the power of his species had never left him. And while they did not form grudges easily, when they obtained them they would rarely forgive them. Benrey knew that from experience.

"...Tommy?" Dr. Coomer nervously spoke up again.

"Dr- Dr. Coomer, I- I have a question." Tommy grinned, but his joyful look was drowned out by his exhaustion and strain. "You let- let Gordon do things that- that made no reasonable sense, for...for Playcoins, right?"

"Tommy." Bubby glared through his glasses.

"I...yes, because Playcoins can- …can..." Dr. Coomer slowly blinked, staring down at the ground. "...What even is a Playcoin...?"

"How many Playcoins do I have?" Tommy shifted from foot to foot.

"You have-" Dr. Coomer flinched, gritting his teeth.

"Tommy, stop!" Bubby clamped his hands over Dr. Coomer's ears. "Whatever you're going to do, just fucking do it! Don't try to reason, we'll justify whatever we have to once we get there!"

Tommy grinned, but with far sharper teeth than he usually showed. The world flashed a bright yellow, and when the light faded, they were all standing at the end of a hallway, with a door opening up to the surface. He quickly adjusted his coat, flicked the propeller on his hat, and stormed out of the doorway out into the courtyard. There were two shots, before there was silence.

Dr. Coomer still reeled, leaning sideways against the wall as Bubby quietly talked to him over his shoulder.

Benrey glanced over the two of them, but when Bubby waved him on he followed after Tommy. He caught up easily, watching the younger alien stare up at the sky. "...we skipped forzen?"

"He isn't here." He slowly turned to look at him, reaching out to rest a hand on Dr. Freeman's shoulder. "I can't actually...sense him anywhere...but he must be- be here somewhere. Maybe they're hiding him?"

"could be." He shrugged. "you see darnold though, right?"

"Yeah. You too?"

"yeah."

He let out a sigh, shoulders slumping. "I'm- I'm so tired, Benrey."

"i know, man. that's why you wanted to hurry us up, yeah? get back to snooze cruisin?"

He laughed a bit, before he spun his hat propeller again. "...Yeah."

"...hey. this is where we took that break last time, right? you guys over there, me over here throwin shit, great time right?"

"...Yeah, it is. Why?"

"well, since you've just uh, moved us ahead of schedule so much, why don't we just...take a rest here? you can get some naps, i can set down freeman for a bit, it'll be good."

"...You sure? We...we settled for the night just- just past that door, before..."

"yeah man. bonding time, sleeping time, all important stuff. especially for you. you're runnin on empty bro, it's like...obvious."

Tommy slowly nodded. "...Okay. That...that sounds really good, actually."

Forzen startled, pulling back around a corner and hurrying into an unlocked room. He crouched down just behind the open door, covering his mouth to silence his breath.

"Where the hell is he?" An angry voice followed stomping footsteps into the doorway. "Damn runt, I told you we shouldn't have let him out."

"And done what exactly? They're shredding through our numbers. We need every person we can get!" Another angry voice spoke from the hall.

"He's a baby who never even got to go through basic training, you think he's good for anything other than being fodder?"

He tensed up, pressing his face into his knees.

"He might be useful, if he can really sneak around like this. Get him behind them and catch them unaware."

"Or, he'll trip over his own two feet the second we give him a gun. Or he'll shoot one of us. We should have left him in his room to whatever happens after we're done here."

He knew what would happen, he remembered from his dreams. Dreams of a man in a suit pulling him away and asking him questions after stealing...something. There was nothing left for Black Mesa after everything went wrong. That had always been the plan there. Why did he know these things? Dreams weren't reality...right?

"Adrian! Get the fuck out here, if you're in here!"

His name wasn't Adrian. His name was Forzen. He was given the name Forzen, and it was a gift, and he wasn't going to give it back ever. His name wasn't Adrian, but he knew that name. A name that called up a particular face, one that was alarmingly familiar to him. One that almost every soldier wore. One that looked like him, but older.

He knew of Adrian, but he knew deep in his mind that he'd never met him. That he likely never would.

The men cursed, before leaving the room with a slam of the door. Their footsteps echoed down the hall, as they stormed off.

Forzen pushed himself to his feet, stumbling along to a desk and a filing cabinet. He pushed them both around a bit, as quietly as he could, until he could climb into the space behind them both, and hide himself from view. He reached up and pulled a keyboard to cover as much of the hole above him as he could.

He'd hide. He just needed to hide until his friend came back. He'd promised he wouldn't leave him there.

He just had to wait.

Everything would be okay.

Tommy could hardly focus on anything going on around him.

His mind was a jumble on a good day, or at least it felt like one anymore. He'd understood it long ago, before he'd tried to understand humans better. They thought so much differently. So much focus on what day things were, what times, when things happened. For a species that had such little understanding of the reality of time, they sure were obsessed with it.

He thought of things much more vaguely. The specific days rarely mattered, what mattered was sequences of events. And the events around him had happened for much longer than he had been expecting.

Could Dr. Coomer have been right? Claiming that the date was fifteen years after he'd last seen a calendar? And how did he even know of the time of...well, anywhere that wasn't there? He didn't like having a lack of this information, but he would find out in the future. Bubby was convinced of where data would be, so once they got there it would be easy enough to locate. He hoped.

He thought back over the events that had occurred this most recent temporal flux, but there was too much noise all around him. He heard talking off in the distance, Dr. Coomer and Bubby, even Benrey's voice, as well as the VOX chiming in from time to time. He didn't care about what they were talking about. He just needed to sleep.

He just...needed to sleep...

Gordon had invested most of the day into trying to pretend to be normal.

He'd cooked lunch, gone for a walk to get some extra food from the store since he'd been running low, and had finally returned home to work on the code project. He'd changed back into pajamas as soon as he'd gotten home, glad to be able to hide from the cold in fluffy pants and long sleeve shirts, and had brought a bowl of food with him as he got back into it.

The forum website unfortunately hadn't given him as much info as he'd hoped for. One person had just responded with 'sounds haunted, man.' though, and had gotten into an argument with another user about not just the existence of ghosts, but also the logistics of if they could actually haunt a videogame. He'd lost it laughing for a while, and he saved screenshots of that convo to his phone for him to look back at and laugh again later.

One user had actually responded though, with thoughts about the situation. They'd mentioned that they'd checked all the versions they had, including the newer port and the remake, and found no files that had those kinds of file types. Though they admitted that they didn't have access to either of the Dreamcast beta builds on their current system to check if they used those kinds of files. They also expressed interest in learning more about where he got the data from.

Well, at least not everyone was writing him off as crazy, he appreciated that at least.

He turned to look at his headset, debating on checking in on his friends, but it took him a moment to realize something. And when he had, he launched to his feet.

He saw light shining from the headset onto his desk.

The last time he took off the headset, he'd been in a black void.

He hurried over and grabbed his headset, moving to sit in his chair. He was shaking, he could tell. Why was the game playing? Were his friends okay? Had he fucked up?

He took a slow breath, and closed his eyes, before he pulled the headset back on. When he opened them, he felt disoriented. He seemed to be in some sort of spectator mode, and he reached carefully over his desk to try to reach the laptop. He figured out quickly that using a few keys, he could alternate between where his view was. It took him a bit longer to realize he was seeing through cameras.

Why the hell did the game have this feature? To instead of see through the players eyes, to see through cameras throughout the facility?

What the fuck was this beta build supposed to do?

After a bit longer, he started to notice remnants of battle left in whoever's wake. He slowly started to realize where the cameras were, as well. The test chamber, which caught his eye for the laser still burning, then Sector C, then offices...military holdouts filled with the slain to the Blast Pit. He startled when after a certain point, he saw living soldiers instead of bodies. Whatever had happened, some must have respawned for some reason?

…Except they couldn't have, because the test chamber was in a different state than the last time he saw it. What the fuck was going on?

He flicked through more cameras, hoping to find anything, and he startled when he found one that showed the outside. He blinked slowly, seeing two soldier bodies, seeing a security guard and a scientist talking, while another scientist was carried by the first. It took him a moment to be sure, but he quickly smiled to himself. His friends were okay!

The security guard quickly turned, looking directly at Gordon's view. He felt himself flinch, as the man walked closer, staring up at the camera.

The two scientists followed. "Benry, are you alright?"

"What are you staring at that camera for?"

Benry slowly blinked, before he leaned back on his heels, crossing his arms. "yo, you're not supposed to be here."

Gordon startled into laughter, though it faded when he got no reaction from the other three. Could they not hear him, when he wasn't a player? His hands carefully searched over the keyboard, hitting a button to open a chat menu. He vaguely remembered how to use the VOX, from how he'd been testing it out in a different game version, so he gave it a try.

The VOX beeped, before speaking. "CAN YOU HEAR ME."

The three flinched, before Benry stepped closer to the camera. "yeah, i can. you fuckin, uh...black mesa? you a goon?"

Another beep, as he hit enter. "WHAT, YOU WANT MY PASSPORT OR SOMETHING."

Benry's eyes widened, and he burst into a grin. "hell yeah! that you, feetman? we got you back in our corner?"

Dr. Coomer smiled. "I asked him for assistance, at the end of our time together! I knew he would pull through!"

Bubby couldn't keep a faint smirk off of his face either. "Gordon, you're alive!"

…Hmm, the fact that Bubby was being carried around wasn't comforting. "WHAT HAPPENED TO BUBBY." Man, Gordon wished the VOX could specify questions. It sounded so...impersonal to talk this way.

He tensed. "Uh....none of your damn business!"

"He got injured by the alien tentacle! But-" Dr. Coomer jolted, closing his eyes with a wince.

"Harold, don't think about that. Don't think too hard."

Benry took a step forward again. "dr. coomer's a bit fragile rn bro. don't worry about it."

Gordon blinked slowly. "DID YOU JUST SAY 'RN'. OUT LOUD."

"yeah i did, you wanna fight about it?"

"NO, YOU WOULD WIN."

"hell yeah i would."

"WHERE IS TOMMY."

"tommy's around the corner at the pigeon perch, taking a nap. he's exausted. oh, his dad wants us to meet him at lambda, think he's got a plan or whatever." He leaned back even further, but didn't fall over. It looked like he was lounging in the air, especially once he laced his hands behind his head. "so like, don't stress over whatever it is you were asked to do by coomer."

"HE WANTS OUT. I WANT TO HELP YOU GET OUT."

"i know. but if tommy's dad's got a plan, then he's got a plan. don't you worry about it." He floated, straight up floated, up to the camera, looking into it. "and don't listen to what dr. coomer said. he doesn't know."

Gordon blinked, and started to type a response, when he heard a noise across the house. He paused, before he deleted the message, and typed a new one. "I'LL BE BACK SOON."

"okay, take care. i'll watch out for the team for you, bro. good luck."

He took off the headset, taking a breath as he set it down. There was far too much to analyze in what he'd just learned, but he took comfort from the fact that his friends were okay, even if they were...for some reason playing the game again? But Benry'd just told him not to listen to what Dr. Coomer had said...was that about the alien tentacle? Or something else? As always, he had more questions than answers, and was already starting to get a bit of a headache from the anxiety spike.

He heard the sound again, and this time he could tell what it was. A knock at the door.

He quietly left his office, closing the door behind him. He heard the knock again, the same as the last two, as he slowly approached the door. He stopped right in front of it, taking a breath. There was no reason to be stressed. Someone was just knocking on his door, in the early afternoon. There's nothing weird about that. His anxiety being through the roof just made him paranoid. That was it.

Maybe it was a package. Maybe his dad had sent them something through UPS or Fedex or something, and that's why there was knocking. Maybe it needed a signature, and that was why they kept knocking.

A fourth knock echoed through the door.

"Fuck." He muttered to himself, before taking the step and unlocking the door. He swung it open. "Can I help-" He flinched, letting go of the door and stumbling back.

A man stood in the doorway. A man he knew, but could not know. A man that could not be real. A man in a suit, with a briefcase, who stepped inside the house and adjusted his tie.

"What the fuck? What the fuck! You're not-" He held his metal arm in front of himself, as if it could protect him. "Who the hell are you? Get out of my house!"

A flash of blue light washed over the room, as the man took another step forward. The door closed on it's own behind him, and locked. "Now, Mr. Freeman...is that any way to speak to, a guest?" He tilted his head a bit, at Gordon's baffled look. "Or should I say...Mr. Dyson?"

He froze, blood running cold. He knew that voice, and even throwing aside the fact that the man could not exist, how did he know his name? Panic mode, it was definitely panic mode time. "Yup, Dyson's the last name! You got the wrong man, man!"

"No, I believe very...strongly, that I do not." He took a few steps forward, closing the gap.

"Look- Mr- Mr. Coolatta, if- if you're really him somehow, and, haha! How! Could that be possible! Then I'm- I'm really trying to- to help Tommy and the others. Please, I don't- I mean literally no harm, they're- they're my friends!" Gordon felt himself unraveling, as the panic attack started to build. "I want to help- please don't hurt me, I just- I just want to help!"

Mr. Coolatta reached out his free hand, gripping tightly around the metal wrist of Gordon's prosthetic. "I know, you want to, help. Mr. Dyson." For the briefest of moments, it almost looked like he had a faint smile on his face. "And...you will."

The blue light faded as quickly as it came.

And the room was empty.

#*confused fanfiction noises*#UoU AU #Universe of Unreality

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