-Then-
"Alright, here's the lowdown."
Sam never was that fond of the Kingsguard. Mostly, he just found their presence annoying - which was in itself an annoyance, considering they were literally everywhere across the globe. And whenever they turned up, they had a habit of trying to ensure he did things "by the book", which was even more annoying. But he had to admit, a lot of the situations he ended up in could have gone a lot worse, had they not been around, so in that respect they were a rather big help.
Right now, listening to the bristle-chinned sergeant in front of him would be an even bigger help.
"Regenerators," he was growling in a voice like Steven Blum ate too much pepper. "We don't know how they work, and we can't say if they're Ubers. All we know is that they're damn near impossible to kill - can grow back anything in mere seconds. Limbs, organs, bone, the whole shebang. And if one goes rogue, that's bad news for us."
He looked back and forth amongst the recruits, sitting at their desks in front of him. All of them were paying keen attention - looking, in Sam's mind, like a bunch of wax dummies in over-polished battle armour. If there was one good thing that the Destined Hero position granted, it was the position of not being a faceless mook.
Nobody spoke, so the sergeant went on.
"So I want to make this very clear to you all. The only way to kill them is by destroying the brain. If you get that, they die instantly - like zombies, although Chakram knows if these guys count. Anywhere else is wasting effort, lasers, spears and lives. Simple as. If you ever encounter one of these things, a clean shot to the head is the difference between life and death."
His voice raises as the class, disturbed by what they were seeing, began to murmur in apprehension.
"You hear me, lads? What do we do?!"
The reply comes in a roar. "GO FOR THE HEAD!"
"Damn right, you do."
---
-Now-
She'd said hold back and follow her when the shadows had come. Shadows with faces he hadn't known, but she had, ones she'd tried to deal with with a grim look...
Then the ground had cracked open under him, and the boiling steam had engulfed him. Not a huge issue with starfire-based heat resistance...but when he finally got the sense of solid ground back, he'd lost Christine.
Alone again, naturally.Lost on a place Christine told him no one went. A bad place that she was only gracing with her presence because she wanted to rescue a group that had been flying in an airship and had the terrible luck of crashing there...
"Cocking shit!" were the first words that left Sam's mouth when he realized the situation. This was getting to be more than a little aggravating, and he was starting to wish he'd never picked up the Grandius and responded to that distress signal in the first place. Ever since he'd got here, it had been a parade of cock-ups, misfortune and idiocy...
Well, minus one constant benefit. But she wasn't here.
"Christine?!" he hollered out, drawing that now-cursed blade as he scanned the area. "Where are you?!"
Silence, save for the constant low roar of a geologically unstable area.
"...fuck this."
Sam immediately turned and headed in a random direction. Outside, it looked like he was throwing an angry temper tantrum, but there was a shred of logic in this madness - hopefully, he'd run into the cause of this mess. And then he was going to ram his foot down it's throat for ruining what had already started as a shitty day and was getting even worse...
"Let's try to make it right...don't wanna start a fight..."
...Singing.
"And I'm so sorry if I give you all a little fright..."
There was absolutely no way with the background racket of Megan's Woe that he could hear quiet singing...especially since he couldn't pinpoint a direction. It seemed like the singing was coming from inside his own ears.
"I'm not so scary if you see me in the daylight..."
Shame about the situation. It actually was a pretty nice voice...
Like a siren.
"I'll be so happy just as long as you survive the night..."
Still, fuck. Singing. That was just giving Sam flashbacks to the time he'd first encountered Dallas. The blond was sure he'd drank enough beer to forget that particular memory.
Biting back a groan of frustration, Sam tried his best to pinpoint where the noise was coming from. It was good singing, he had to admit, but in the current environment it wasn't doing much for his mood.
"Let's try to make it right
Just wanna start a blight
And I'm so sorry if I
Give you all a little fright
I'm not so scary if you see me in the daylight
I'll be so happy just as long as
You survive the night..."
There was no real surprise. Sam saw the shadow through a fog of mist for several seconds before it emerged. It was female, and at first Sam hoped it was Christine. Then he realized it was too short, and didn't have her weapons.
Then she stepped through.
The thing Sam recalled later was just how impossibly perfect the white of her clothing was, white that matched the perfect whiteness of her hair. It drew attention away from her face...and the fact that her outfit didn't look like cloth. It looked like flayed skin, covering everything save her face. Her normal face...
And the brilliant, happy, void of her eyes. Sam remembered a few of the female Kobbers when they were laughing, that bright glint in their eyes...a brightness gone terribly, TERRIBLY wrong here. The hairs on the back of his neck didn't just stand up, it felt like they were trying to leap off his skin and run away. Wrong, WRONG, bad bad BAD...
"Hey there! How ya doin'? Nice to meet you, are you new in town?"
Such a normal voice, on the edge between talking and singing. A friendly wave.
"Don't think I've seen you before. It's great to see new faces around!"
"Um... yeah. Good to see you, too. I guess."
Oh, Chakram above, bad vibes. Bad vibes crawling all down the neck and back like spiders. Keep one hand on sword, keep muscles tense, look for possible ways out... What do you mean 'ways out', Sam, it's a wide-open plain! She might be able to catch you, who knows what she can do?
Alright, here goes...
"So... who are you, anyway?"
"If you like it, I can give a tour..." Wait that wasn't an answer..."Of this enchanting wonderland, new and improved, without the moores!"
She was still singing. What she was saying was rhyming...
And she was now next to him, standing to his side, one arm draped chummily over his shoulders.
"There's no escape but then, who would wanna leave?"
He felt like he was embracing the floor of an abattoir. Sam jerked away, as a distorting fog rolled over the woman.
"It's a fantastical paradise..." Her hand plunged through the fog, waving it away and solidifying her person, as if condemning any concept this could be a mirage. "And it's not, make-believe!"
...yeah, this wasn't looking good. Better nip this in the bud now, before a chorus line of demons in Vaudeville hats showed up or something. Like Disney gone wrong.
"Okay, I've had enough. Grandius: Priority Two!"
PARAMETERS RECOGNIZED.
And with a flick of the wrist, the sword was sent shrieking like a rocket towards the woman, point first.
"I'm so glad to have another member of the band..." She wasn't even reacting to the incoming blade. "You're one of them now, so let me take you by the hand!"
An offered hand. Just as she'd said. Innocent lost, like even light could not escape a black hole.
The sword went deep, piercing right through her lower chest, impaling her like an insect under glass.
...She just smiled.
"But what is that I spy, with my all seeing eye?"
This wasn't like Diana. If Sam had witnessed that, he would have recognized that her injuries still hurt terribly; she was just enduring it. But this woman?
She was happy.
Then she started pulling his sword out.
Vertically. Up THROUGH her body. The flow of blood became a shower. Blood that was so impossibly, impossibly red.
"I think I see a bit of heart inside the new guy!"
The Grandius was called back to him. That was Sam's take. He didn't like the other idea, that the sword FLED the woman's hand once it was free. It shook off the blood on the way there, the liquid boiling and hissing on the ground. Due to the heat. Sam accepted it was due to the heat...
"Maybe he isn't everything that he seems..."
She was self-cleaved. It wasn't affecting her at all. Then she reached inside herself. The snapping wet noises as she yanked out pieces of herself all at once would have normally made him sick, except the sight of it rapidly pushed him past nausea, the bones and muscles retracted forming into a scythe-like axe as the woman's horrific wound closed up, all that remained that it existed was the blood covering her form and her smile.
"Time to investigate, WHAT'S UNDERNEATH THE SEAMS!"
"...urp."
No, Sam, not the time to throw up! Time to actually do stuff! if this woman wants a fight, then give it to her!
"...if you wanted a fight, you should have just said so."
The former Destined Hero quickly took up his traditional fighting stance. But as he did so, he yanked with one hand on the handle, drawing out the concealed knife with the over-theatrical snikt he'd come to completely ignore over the years. Could never be too careful, right?
There was a very brief moment of relief when she attacked him and he fought back; she was fighting normally. She might have literally yanked a weapon out of her own body, but she was just swinging it like anyone else Sam had ever crossed swords with, as she hacked and chopped and smirked her way through an exchange of blows...
("Let's try to make it right
Don't wanna start a fight
And I'm so sorry if I
Give you all a little fright...
I'm not so scary if you see me in the daylight
I'll be so happy just as long as
You survive the night...")
No demon chorus line. Just the singing, in his ear, when he wasn't hearing the sound of his own breath...
...He was starting to tire.
Oh, he could still go for a while if he had to, Sam had excellent stamina (Chastity could attest to that)...but he was still STARTING to tire.
And she wasn't. In the slightest. Just as every wound he inflicted closed up. In the deepest coldest part of his stomach, Sam rapidly realized he was facing a perpetual motion machine. There was no end to this.
("Let's try to make it right
Just wanna stain the white
And I'm so sorry if I
Give you all a little fright...
I'm not so scary if you see me in the daylight
I'll be so happy just as long as
You survive the night...")
She didn't want him to live through any period of time. She wanted him...to last.
For who knew what horrors lurked in those bright, consuming eyes.
Sam did not want to know what those horrors were, He just wanted this whole thing to stop so he could find Christine and get out of this wretched hell-hole. But he was going to tire himself out at this rate - it was obvious that a straight-up sword fight was not the answer here.
Okay, then. Time to cheat.
Parrying another swing of the axe, Sam leaped back to get some distance...
"Hey, how about you sing one of my favorites?"
Let the power flow...
"BURN, BABY, BURN!"
And let fly with as much solar fire as he could muster, sheets of blazing death...
Which she wasn't around for. In the moment of his declaration, she'd vanished and appeared by his side again...
Putting an arm around him again. This time, Sam felt like he was embracing a porcupine. His body didn't actually get hurt, it wasn't an attack, but his mind and soul revolted at her touch.
"Forgive me for being suspicious, mischief's not on my brain..."
An elbow to the face to drive her away. A jaw shattering and dislocating, cheekbone snapping, eye popping. He hadn't hit her that hard, he COULDN'T hit that hard...
A hand to pop the jaw back in, the damage fading away...
"I'm inclined to be dramatic, if someone messes with the frame..."
"What the hell are you?" Sam said.
"It's not that I don't trust you, I do! (I love you, too.) It's just that, as an Elite...We have a few rules."
"The hell is an Elite?"
Her response was to go for his throat.
Sam's response was to show she wasn't the only one who could pull the blink style dodging.
He also promptly demonstrated some of the tricks he'd learned since he'd ended up here. A month ago, one of his missed attacks would have been a waste.
Now...he'd literally slammed on the brakes with, leaving the sheets of fire burning in mid-air as soon as he realized he'd missed. There was a satisfying sense of release in his brain as the woman, no longer having him as a target flew into it and he could stop devoting extra effort to maintaining it. She burned...
She smiled, even as her flesh was ravaged under the fire...the fire that turned as black as her burning form, swirling around her.
"And if you BREAK them, we will have to BREAK YOU, like you broke our hearts." Oh god that SMILE..."SO WHY DON'T I JUST LAY YOU OPEN, AND PULL OUT YOUR DAMAGED PARTS?"
Damn it, quick, before she made another weapon or worse, in Sam's soul he knew she was capable of SO MUCH WORSE...
"Now, you wouldn't want that...and frankly, neither would I..." Her arms were open, like she was offering a hug, even as flesh sloughed off her form like candle wax. "But sometimes to do some good, you've gotta be the bad guy!"
The Grandius caught her right on the crown of her head. Sam felt his guts twist as the sword plunged down, through bone and gristle and burning, stinking meat, carving through it like a turkey, Sam only stopping from a full bisecting cleave due to a last second retreat. Brain cut, hacked in two...
...the corpse swayed like a snake...
"...In this world we play...I hope that you will stay..."
THE SONG DIDN'T EVEN STOP.
She was growing back. The rules didn't apply. She reaching up and literally pushing herself back together, and despite every trained instinct he had, Sam felt the chill go from his stomach to his knees.
"And we will throw a most electrifying soiree..."
She pushed her head back together. The line Sam had crossed her smile with faded away.
"Formal attire is required for you to take part..."
The flesh was peeling from her fingers, knives of bone sprouting from beneath the burned, ruined flesh, blackened wings of stabbing death peeling out from beneath her body, the black fire she'd tainted his power into settling on them, the ground hissing like a wounded, terrified animal as her blood dripped down onto it, poisoning it...
"YOU'VE GOT SOME SKIN THAT NEEDS REMOVING BEFORE WE START."
The hands grabbed Sam. Twisting his head around.
From behind him.
...
Not her. Christine. Though Sam nearly had a heart attack anyway, first from the shock of the surprise grab...
Then she kissed him, and his eyes nearly joined his heart in bugging out of his body, the sheer contrast and unexpected confusion slamming into his mind.
"Gurryyyhhyyyyerrrh?"
He twisted away, his eyes snapping back to the woman...
She was fading. The fog was washing over her. She looked...disappointed.
Yet the song...
"Let's try to make it right
Don't wanna start a fight
And I'm so sorry if I
Give you all a little fright...
I'm not so scary if you see me in the daylight
I'll be so happy just as long as
You survive the night..."
Still echoed, one last time.
"I'm sure you'll survive...just don't break the rules...and play nice...and we'll be the best of friends...forever..."
Gone, like the shadow she'd been born out of.
"...Sorry Sam. I needed the biggest shock possible. To break the lock you'd stumbled into." Christine said, wiping her mouth. "Your lips are bleeding, by the way."
Sam blinked.
There were a lot of responses on his mind that he could have used. They ranged from asking if Ash had been lacking recently to several bewildered takes on "what the fuck was that", with a standard "thanks" somewhere in between. But all of them were fighting for position like a bunch of screaming fangirls at a gig, and for a while he had a job to think of a proper response.
So he settled for fishing out a handkerchief and wiping his mouth whilst he tried to put the pieces together.
"...give me fair warning, next time," he finally mumbled as he dabbed at his lips. "I might be able to appreciate it, then."
"Sorry about that. The battle that happened here...just damaged...everything. Reality itself. Things...bad things walk here...they're real and they're...not. Things that were, things we fear are...bad things. You didn't know that was just an echo, so it existed...but it needed focus. I broke it, so it faded. I've located the survivors, we'd best get out of here before something else decides to...come. Or come back."
"...so where were you, whilst I was flailing about like a drunken dickhead?" Sam asked, once he was done wiping. It had clicked at this point just what had happened, and whilst he wasn't sure if it was anything to do with the hallucination he had prior, he was starting to feel like an idiot for falling for it twice.
Then it occurred to him.
"Wait... you saw it, too? That wasn't a gas-induced fever dream?"
"No."
"...what WAS that, then?"
Christine's look was the most solemn he'd ever seen her.
"Evil."
That was all she said.
It was all that was needed.
---
Song adapted from Mandopony's FNAF2's song "Survive The Night".
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