Destiny Village ~ Chip's Lab

[Negrek]

Nate stopped where he was. What... what the fuck was that? "Well, we dunno, kinda," he said. "We found you kinda, ah, possessing one of our friends, and brought you here after we managed to separate you two. You seemed too pissed to talk, though, so we asked Eien here if she could get through to you somehow. She's kinda got experience."

Nate tried to think of where to go from here. Eien had blocked most of this guy's shadows, right? He still sounded... kinda dark. "Is there someplace else you think you oughta be?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave stared. What the fuck. What the fuck. Now it was willing to speak?

He opened his mouth to say something, interrogate it on what they were doing and what they wanted and whether the one in Soda was their leader and how to get it the fuck out of him, and then didn't, waiting for it to answer Nate. Whatever they had here, communicating with it, it seemed fragile, somehow, liable to break and fuck it all up. He stayed on guard, ready to put up more barriers.

 

[Namohysip]

No nonverbal response. It continued to lay on the ground. A dribble of bubbling energy left its mouth. It looked like it was eating away at the pavement beneath it.

"It won't matter," it said. "Soon nothing will matter."

"Goodness..." Eien shuddered, but kept her focus.

 

[Negrek]

“Yeah?” Nate knelt down to be closer to the parasite. It really wasn’t looking good. “What makes you say that? What do you think’s coming?”

The mightyena was being weirdly quiet. Nate had expected him to be all over this guy with questions about Soda. He could live with quiet.

 

[Namohysip]

It dribbled more corrosive liquid on the ground and hissed.

"Nothing is coming."

High above, the moon, in large pieces, loomed over them. It was more than halfway repaired by now.

"Nothing for everyone."

 

[Negrek]

“So I hear,” Nate said. He glanced upwards. Yup. Creepy moon. Still up there. He resisted the urge to flip it off. “Why, though? Seems like a nice enough world. Why change it?”

 

[Dragonfree]

Jesus. Dave felt his hackles rising. He supposed listless "nothing matters" was about what was to be expected from something that'd been purged of all negative emotions while being unable to feel anything positive.

"That something you want, the parasites, or somebody else? Something else?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Parasites?" It hissed, weighing that word in its mind, like it had only listened to it, or bothered listening, for the first time. "I'm not a parasite. I'm a gatherer. And all I've gathered... is how much pain the world hides. The world wants to end. I will gather it all."

 

[Negrek]

Okay, well, that was close enough to an answer, anyway. It even sort of made sense. “Fair enough,” Nate said. “So the world’s gonna end. That it? Or does something come after?”

 

[Namohysip]

The parasite stared at Nate for a while, then, and then lowered its head, like he wasn't worth the time. Nate got no response.

Eien hummed. "I don't know if there's much more here... I don't know if it wants to elaborate at all."

 

[Dragonfree]

"Think you've got the wrong fucking world there, bud." Dave glanced at Eien. "Cibus runs on hope and friendship and rainbows. Pretty sure there's no sense in which Cibus wants to end."

Of course, how the fuck would the parasite know, if positive emotions were alien to it. If all you can see is pain and misery, then all you can see is fucking pain and misery. Go figure.

Maybe Eien was right and there was no further point trying to talk to the thing. He exhaled through his nose. "There's one of you on the moon, right? In Soda? That your leader?"

 

[Negrek]

Nate sighed faintly and considered the parasite. Seemed like the only thing giving them any energy to get up and menace stuff was all the shadow shit they were steeped in, which really fucking sucked. Nate considered the parasite while the mightyena went on at it, all those questions about Soda and the moon. No real fucking surprise there.

He doubted the parasite would bother answering. Didn't seem interested in much of anything. And not a lot of ways to make it interested, either, if it was really as emotionless as it was acting. No way to provoke it, or to play on sympathy. Did they have anything it wanted? Didn't seem like it, outside of maybe one thing. "You're gathering pain, ain't you?" Nate said. "I got plenty of pain you can have, if you clue me in on what's coming after the world ends."

 

[Namohysip]

The parasite ignored Dave for all but one phrase. "Leader... There is no leader. I just am... Ever since I was born... ever since I woke up..."

"I got plenty of pain you can have, if you clue me in on what's coming after the world ends."

"You really don't understand," the gatherer replied. "What comes... after. After it ends?" The parasite's head slowly, slowly swiveled toward Nate. No eyes, and yet Nate could feel a look going straight to his soul.

"Ṉ̵̉o̸̘͒t̸͉́h̶̥͗i̷̩͊n̶̟̉g̸̠̋."

It flopped down and stopped responding, apparently bored, withdrawn, or resigned, or simply exhausted from whatever lack it had.

"A-ah!" Eien suddenly pulled away, like it startled her. But once she did, the parasite didn't respond. It was dissolving away, like dust in the wind, as if it had accomplished its goal. Or perhaps it had simply run out of energy from being pressed for so long, and had no will to recover.

One way or the other... it was gone, and Chip sighed. "Well... so much for that." He glanced back, then drifted inside, then returned. "The dark one is still there, at least. But what could any of that mean? That nonsense it said... What is it planning?"

"...I think I understand," Eien said gravely. "I think... this Blacklight creature, or whatever this main source has become--this... Blacklight Eternatus... It sounds like it gathered the pain and memories of so many people, until that was all it knew. And now it's trying to gather everything within itself... to plunge them into an eternity of darkness. Just like Maple, just like what happened to Telum for so long... That is its goal. Perhaps it thinks that is the only way to end suffering; perhaps... it thinks it's trying to help. But... No. It's clear that we need to stop it. It's... beyond words and saving. Not by our hands..."

 

[Negrek]

Nate took an involuntary step back when the parasite turned its snout towards him, which had to be on purpose, right, like it was clearly fucking with him. There was some kind of strange distortion on its words, like something corrosive he could feel rather than just hear.

He was so shaken it took him a second to realize what was going on when the parasite started to crumble away. "W-wait!" he said. "Don't--fuck." It was gone.

Well, that had been... That had been enlightening, maybe. And definitely really fucking freaky. Nate rubbed his hands together slowly, exchanging a look with Rocky.

"Yeah, well, I guess that confirms that Soda's whole 'remake the world' shtick is a load of shit," he said. "I mean, it was obviously never gonna work out that way, but I thought maybe whatever's in the driver's seat had its own vision of how it wanted to redo the place. But I guess it's just your typical destroy-the-world deal."

"It made me think of what Dark Matter's supposed to be like," Rocky said quietly.

"Yeah. And if you had something that was made out of eterna energy and shadows, that'd basically be a supercharged Dark Matter, right? But this energy thing we think's out there fucking with shit has Radiance in it, too. Shouldn't that change things somehow? Like, these parasites... do they got anything in them besides shadows and eterna? I woulda thought if there was any Radiance in them, they wouldn't go so, you know, flat with the shadows suppressed."

One way or another, though, that parasite did uncomfortably remind him of someone else. Fuck, he really needed to go check on that mewtwo.

 

[Dragonfree]

"Wait, no, don't--"

But the parasite was already dissolving into dust. Fuck. He looked at Eien, heart hammering. "You sense any kind of energy going towards the moon there? Or did your thing suppress it? Goddamn it."

Of course they'd wound up killing it. Of course.

He clenched his jaw, knot in his stomach. All of Soda's delusional desire to change things, and it just amounted to this. Nothing. A bunch of brain parasites wanting to just pointlessly end everything because of their own tautological misery. The power of a god, and for what? Making the brain slugs stronger, leaving everyone else to clean up your fucking mess?

He wondered again what would've happened if he'd taken Soda's hand at Spirits' Edge. Maybe he would've just gotten brainslugged too, be floating there somewhere mindlessly trying to end the world too. Or then again, maybe not. Maybe they'd have hung out and had a few spiritual beers while Soda's mind disintegrated into a fucking shadow of nothing. Maybe he could've said Adne's name, and he'd have vaporized him and obliterated Destiny Village but remembered just enough to purge the thing out of him afterwards and not destroy the rest of the world. Maybe.

Yeah, right.

 

[Namohysip]

"It could be that the Radiance affected their... activity rather than their mood," Eien said, sighing. "Well... As it stands, that's all we have. I'm going to let Diyem know about this and see if he can do anything about it. Thank you, everyone, for all your efforts."

 

[Negrek]

Well, their activity hadn't seemed all that hot with the shadows gone, either. Nate rubbed his gills and looked briefly over at the spot where the parasite had disappeared, unremarkable now outside a couple acid pockmarks. It seemed like Eien had places to be, though. He'd have to follow up more later. He had his own business to take care of, anyhow.

"Yeah. Thanks, Eien," he said. "Couldn't have done it without you." Whatever "it" even was. He needed to go get some fucking sleep. Maybe all of this would make sense in the morning.

 

[Dragonfree]

Eien hadn't even answered. Probably impossible to know, anyway. Whatever. He had better things to do. Like visit Flesh and see if they could finally find the last Substitute.

"Yeah. Thanks for trying."

Exhaling, he turned to leave.

 

[Negrek]

Nate had been zoned out, tired in a way that meant that he was too tired to want to drag himself back to bed, and simply enjoying not having to move or do anything. The mightyena's voice jolted him back to full alertness. Right, yeah, time to leave. Mightyena was taking off. Good fucking riddance. Didn't look like the guy was having a great day. Probably didn't get what he wanted out of that parasite, neither. He'd run right the fuck over here after the team meeting instead of grabbing a nap like all the sensible people. Was he actually going to grab some shut-eye (and maybe a fucking bath) now, or was he off on some other mission?

Nate rolled his eyes up at the sky, then sighed. Crossed his arms. He knew Rocky was watching. Okay, whatever.

"Wait," he said. "You, uh." Look like complete hell? Like maybe you're starting to go as nutso as that zoroark you won't shut up about? Yeah, sure, that would get good results. "I know you been kinda all over the place, trying to figure out what to do about Soda. Kind of a big job. So, you know, if you want any help or whatever. I could. You know. Help. If you wanted."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave turned at the sound of the Marshtomp's voice, expecting some form of complaint about his general existence. Instead he got... what?

He squinted at Nate. What the actual fuck was he playing at. "You want to help. What, is there nobody around for you to help that you don't think is some kind of fucking pedophile?"