Comic 1144 - Exit the red
Posted on 12th Dec 2018, 3:32 PM
in Like a Bullet from Behind
Average Rating: 5 (4 votes) /
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Author Notes:
"Mine," Red interrupts, wearily. "Maybe you should save that for later, when we're not all falling apart."
Oh, right. The worm is still deteriorating from red exposure, and Red looks... whole, mostly. Her image seems to blur and distort, on and off, in places.
You hurriedly hug her, and thank her. She rejoins your body, feeling substantially... less, than she was before. You believe she'll get better with some rest--the damage wasn't anything permanent, she's just very drained.
You focus. As long as you exit the red at some point after you entered, then there shouldn't be any negative repercussions--so you try to open your portal back up at a time shortly after you arrived here. That way, no matter how much time you actually spent here... you'll only have been gone a little while.
You open the portal to the power plant.
The ghostly imprint of part of the worm is sort of... sucked through the portal entrance, dispersing into the latent EM field as it enters the facility--rejoining the network of the worm proper.
You force yourself through the portal, as well, and arrive in the midst of... a full blown battle.
Fuse is throwing up walls of fire to push back half-formed spirits. Michelle is firing at the worm with her minigun, though the damage thus far is minimal. Caius is... scaling the silkworm's body, his hammer strapped to his back. The worm spews bursts of caustic saliva, which Michelle mostly dodges--her armor tanking the minimal droplets she can't avoid.
"Guys, it's charging back up again!," Fuse yells, cradling some kind of device in one hand--it seems to be reading the electrical levels in the area.
"Is our EMP thing gonna work again--?," Michelle begins to ask, throwing a glance back toward Fuse... and seeing you. "BLONDIE!"
"Wha--" Caius stops climbing, angling a look toward you as well. "She's alright!"
"I told y'all!," Michelle shouts.
"Holy shit," Fuse mutters, looking back to make sure it's really you. "We thought the worm, like... ate you or something."
"YOU'VE MADE A GRAVE ERROR," the voices of the worm crackle.
"YOU WERE STRUGGLING AGAINST ONLY A FRACTION OF WHAT I HAVE."
"NOW, I AM WHOLE AGAIN."
"MY POWER HAS RETURNED."
"AND WITH IT, I--"
"... WAIT."
"I DON'T--"
"WHAT IS THIS."
You tell everyone to stand down.
The worm's ghostly minions flicker out of existence.
Michelle quits firing, Fuse takes a moment to breathe, and Caius... er... stops where he is, dangling off the side of the worm.
"YOU..."
"YOU COULD HAVE TORN MY SOULS APART."
"YOU COULD HAVE LEFT THEM THERE."
"YOU CHOSE... TO DO THIS."
"YOU FOUGHT FOR PEACE."
"EVEN WHEN YOU DIDN'T NEED TO."
"EVEN WHEN IT WAS THE HARDER CHOICE."
"ALL OF THIS..."
"I NEED TIME"
"TO THINK ABOUT THIS."
"I DON'T--"
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS."
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS."
You ask, just out of curiosity, how long you were gone. Caius starts to climb back down.
Fuse gives an exhausted sigh. "It's like... what, one in the morning?"
Michelle nods, and leans on the railing of the balcony. "You were gone for about 10 hours."
this is a great question to ask
Looks like it's time for a "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" marathon.
Everyone (yes, Thale and Carpenter/Nil too) gets an invitation, afterwards grouphug, all are happy, world is a better place, end of comic.
Let's give the Silkwyrm a chance to think and go get some sleep. We've also got to check on Edison if we have the energy to do so, perhaps while we're on the way back from Ilworth. I'd like to visit her in astral projection form at some point to sort of... show solidarity with her by being less solid, but perhaps that's a task for a later time. I suspect the exhaustion from what we've just done is about to hit aaaaany second now.
We can come back tomorrow and see what Ilworthoggr has to say after having a night to sleep on it. (If it sleeps, that is XD) Before we go, does it need any help with battle damage? While we're checking on the health of our allies, we may as well make sure there isn't anything we can do to help the wyrm too, as a gesture of kindness.
Also hug everyone and say thank you for coming to rescue us. Next time this happens-- because let's be real, it may well happen again-- we'll have to figure out a way of letting them know that we're alright.
...What the hell they'll be capable of when we give them proper weapons and armor?
I would argue we've definitely reached "proper weapons" tier, even if there's some room to upgrade. Michelle's got her minigun, Caius has his amazing hammer.
I'll concede that Fuse could use something to compliment his abilities better than a pistol, but I'm not sure right now what that might look like.
That way, instead of a simply explosión of flames that causes damage and maybe makes the clothes of the enemy catch fire (If it is using clothes XD), he'll really drown them in flames without having to maintain the flame with his willpower.
And if we end putting in fire an entire Building of Forest by accident doing that... We can always put it off with 5000 lts of Blood XD.
We may need to work on our Red-Time-Control Accuracy. As is we're about as good at hitting an exact time as The Doctor. >_>
Gosh dangit autocorrect!
Let's see our selves out, and catch up on what happened today with everyone. Not just our closest allies, actually everyone.
Better than a month I guess. Did the base explode or something?
Also explain things. Possibly here, possibly not. We could just leave our blood here and form a mouth and ears or something here when the worm wants to talk.
Sleep time!
after everyone's settled,
let's leave some of our blood in like a bone bowl here for the worm to partake in if it wants to (also leave some eyes and set a blood alarm in case the worm does anything with the blood, which includes partaking in it)
Look on the other side of the Bunker X door.
It is the only door we don't know what is on the other side.
At least until we find a new bunkercode.
I doubt the fight itself lasted 10 hours, but there's still a lot to catch up on. Offer healing to everyone - worm included.