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Lugubrious
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Eviledd1984
NalloreDespite the Pain
Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Pit’s @Yankee, Roxas’ @Double, Luka, Yuito, Hanabi
Word Count: 3143 (+4)
Sakura gave a little embarrassed wave to Crenshaw. For some reason she kept assuming she wouldn’t see any of these people again, and it was weird when she did. She would probably have to come clean to Gemma soon about her Fusion, if he hadn’t figured it out already.
”The conspiracy..? Oh, man. Another one?” Sakura asked, tired of all these shadowy groups. Sakura brightened, however, when Crenshaw revealed he could take them to Peach! ”So she’s safe? That’s amazing!” She exclaimed, relieved. ”Let’s go, let’s go see her!”
”When is there ever not a conspiracy?” asked Roxas with a deadpan tone, ”At this point I'd be more surprised if there wasn’t one.” He reached up and pushed back the hood of his black coat so it was no longer covering his head. Then with a relieved exhale he wiped his forehead with a gloved hand. These coats were necessary but sometimes they made warm weather feel a lot harsher than it actually was.
”Maybe we should start asking if there’s conspiracies inside the conspiracies then? Men behind the men, puppeteering once conspiracy to serve their own” Minda suggested, half joking, before realizing ”Actually that might just be the Consuls”
Pit rubbed his eyes, adjusting to the new area through the portal they'd taken. This was the facility that Peach was being held in. It seemed no less strange than anywhere else they'd been in Midgar. Speaking of, he wondered where exactly in the city they were. "Supernatural Life" they'd called it, so they could be back in the same sector they'd started the day in... if he recalled the layout of the plates correctly.
The interior was unlike any factory Pit had seen before, but to be fair he hadn't exactly seen many. What these rebels could possibly be using the brains for must have been on everyone's minds, though as before there wasn't much of an answer when Yuito questioned it.
"I hope we find out it's something good. Kinda hard to say you're the good guys when you're sneaking around with a bunch of brains," Pit said, eyeing the conveyor belts. This whole thing felt so... weird. Distasteful. Wrong, even, despite hopefully being for a good cause.
Sakura covered her eyes and prepared for take-off, and when it faded she tilted her head up and down and all around to get a good idea of the space. Only a few moments later did she gag and pinch her nose. ”Yeah, it’s weird. I still don’t know how those brains are even real.” Sakura said, her voice nasally. She breathed in through her mouth and then coughed.
Midna meanwhile just slipped her mask back up over her face, and though its filters only somewhat reduced the scent/taste, it was better than nothing.
”If you think that’s weird, try wrapping your head around the idea of creatures who exist without hearts.” Roxas replied, a subtle reference to some of the weirdness from his own world, ”Alongside other creatures who are essentially hearts that have been corrupted by Darkness, and yet those are the ones named Heartless rather than the former creatures. Did I mention my world was kind of confusing? Because it is.”
"Yeah you should definitely complain to whatever god is naming stuff there." This was of course coming from a proud citizen of Angel Land, a place where they called a lot of monsters by the name of which ever individual they happened to meet first, leading to species called "Micks" or "Phils." Pit wrinkled his nose as the smell finally started getting to him, though not quite as much as their street fighter friend.
”It wasn’t exactly a god that named them.” Roxas said, beginning to hold his nose in response to the smell, ”Just a guy trying to become one.”
”Ugh- I’m just tasting it instead! It’s worse! Bleh!” Sakura was eager to hurry out of the room.
She gasped in fresh air and was surprised when she saw the massive hallway.
”Do giants live here or something?” She asked in amazement, though she whispered it because the place was so quiet.
“In a sense,” Crenshaw muttered darkly.
When she heard the voice in her head, she stood up straight and gasped. She made eye contact with Luke because she knew that he heard it and he knew she did too. ”Peach-san!” She exclaimed, and began sprinting with Luka, trying not to get too far ahead of everyone.
Unable to hear the psychic voice, Pit nonetheless ran to follow Luka and Sakura. He wasn't quite dimwitted enough not to understand that when Luka had exclaimed "it's her" after hearing something, that he meant Peach. Pit had been informed of his fellow Smasher's fate, so he steeled himself for however they would find her - but he was still surprised once the group burst through the door. Sakura was hopping up and down as the door was unsealed, and she rushed inside and literally skidded on her heels to come to a stop as she looked up at a giant Other.
”Peach-san!”
"This is... Princess Peach?!" Pit asked, wide-eyed. She was huge, a mismatch monster like the 'Others' he'd seen before.
”It is now” Midna confirmed, the princess arriving just a bit behind the others due to having simply walked swiftly instead of running. She already knew what she was going to see after all.
Sakura turned over her shoulder and glared at Pit like he had said something offensive. Then she turned back and bowed in greeting at Peach. ”It’s- it’s really good to hear your voice again.” She said, folding her hands in front of her with a sigh of relief. ”I’m sorry you got shot like that. Must have been really scary.”
”At least she isn’t being controlled or trying to blow herself up.” Said Roxas somberly. He was referring to Poppi of course, but didn’t yet realize that her fate would not have been reported to Peach just yet. Thinking of both of these situations just frustrated him. Like he should have been able to do something, yet instead was powerless to do anything.
”What… exactly have they been doing with you here, Princess? Is there… any way to reverse this at all?” It was especially frustrating in this case. With anyone else they could probably reverse the change with a Friend Heart. But Peach was already freed from Galeem so a Friend Heart would have no effect on her.
“I’m…just sorry it had to happen like this,” Sakura and the other psionics heard. Though Roxas posed the question, he could not hear Peach’s telepathic response. ”I’m fine…the people here are very kind, even to an Other like me…”
She paused for a moment. Not only did her mental voice sound distant, as if broadcasted through a low-quality radio, but also it sounded strained. ”But when I don’t take the ampoules, it really hurts…gets hard to think…and I can’t communi…cate.” The more she spoke, the more strained she sounded.
“We have no way to reverse it at present,” Crenshaw lamented softly. “I’m afraid that the ampoules merely treat the symptoms.”
”And we’ve just jeopardized the way you produced those, right?” Minda asked rhetorically, before adding ”Not that I wouldn’t do it all over again” with unknowing callousness due to not being tuned into peach’s state of being.
Crenshaw shook his head. "That hospital deserved far worse, and I dread to think what its denizens had in store for those brains. If need be, we'll find another way to make the ampoules."
"I can't stand them," Peach transmitted suddenly, her mental voice bitter. "Knowing where the 'medicine' comes from…why I need it…it's so horrible, it makes me sick…" A grinding noise could be heard as her huge, twisted limbs curled up beneath her in revulsion.
Sakura realized she should probably be translating what Peach was saying.
”Peach-san says the people are nice to her, and that, um, the ampoules let her communicate and think. But…” Sakura frowns. ”She doesn’t like where the ampoules come from.” She said, and received a nod of thanks for her efforts from Midna.
From those brains, right? Pit thought to himself with a grimace, putting the pieces together. He sympathized with the princess. He had been rubbing his arm awkwardly since the scathing look Sakura had sent his way, but now he raised both of them encouragingly.
"It's..." Okay? It really wasn't. It wasn't Peach's choice either, but she knew that. "...just for now. Temporary! Until you're back to normal!"
”Peach-san, you’re not an Other, you’re our friend. We’re gonna find the cure!” She exclaimed. ”For everyone. We have too.”
”I might have… something for that. Not a cure but-” Midna stepped in to say, before pausing to open a portal on the floor next to her ”Here let me just” and summoned from it her vibrava.
The dragonfly shaped, and now thorn covered, dragon fluttered up to land on Midna’s outstretched arms so she could hold it as she explained that ”This thing used to be a wolfos, but after applying 10 of the same kind of spirit it completely transformed into this thing. Or well. Almost this, I added a cactus monster later” The Psych-OSF soldiers present looked on in confusion, but kept quiet to make sure the Seekers had the space to talk with their unlucky friend.
”It’s drastic, and I’m not sure how much it affected this thing’s mind. Its still loyal, and knows how to use portals and such, so it’s not as if its mind got entirely overridden. But as with all fusion, it’ll twist you, I’m almost sure of it. Plus there’s no guarantee it will solve the inability to think issue. It depends on if it's inherent in being an Other, maybe?” She went on, having been thinking about this since Peach had been transformed, and now dearly hoping it would help.
[color=Gold”]Hmm…”[/color] Roxas looked deep in thought. Like he was considering a suggestion of his own. But he wasn’t quite certain if that suggestion would work. Even if it would, Roxas himself didn’t possess that power. And the only person he knew that did have it was not currently present. It might be best to keep it to himself and not give anyone any false hope.
Even as she made the suggestion, Midna knew just how long a shot it was. Ten of the exact same spirit might have worked for a generic kind of Pokemon, but what spirits did Midna have in mind now? Even if by some miracle the process of essence conversion mitigated or undid the damage done to Peach’s human mind, unless the ten spirits belonged to ten additional Princess Peaches, the being brought about by such a change would be even less ‘her’ than the monster that languished before the Seekers now.
”Please, don’t…in fact, just…go.” The huge Other shifted slightly, laying her head down. [i]”Yes. You all have…much to do. The Administration…Konoe…Zanotto…the Guardian of this place, and…and all the rest. You have…to carry on. Please…forget about me.”
At that point, Yuito couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “No! We can’t just leave you here,” he exclaimed, partially translating for the mentally inept. “There’s got to be something we can do. We can get you out!”
”Um…” Roxas was about to say something, but was interrupted.
"None of us are gonna abandon you here!" Pit said, his voice firm. Though he couldn't hear her voice, he got the gist of just what she was saying thanks to Sakura and Yuito's translation. She had to know there was no way they'd go on without her, not willingly at least.
”Thank you, but…there’s no way I’d be able to have…a life, out there. I’m an Other now.” Her voice momentarily dispersed through a hiss of pained static. ”Agh…the ampoule…it’s running out.”
Crenshaw narrowed his eyes. “The ampoule.” He pointed at the injector in Luka’s hands. “Use it on her!”
Though Luka began to move straight away, Peach’s voice gave him pause. ”Wait! I…I don’t want it. I don’t want to…to live like this. It’s not…awful here or anything, but…if this is how it’d be…for the rest of my life…I don’t want that, either. It’s…not living. I’d rather…you put me out…of my misery. When I lose it…I’ll attack you again…try to e-eat your…your brains, so…just kill that monster…and let me rest.”
Bristling, Crenshaw gritted his teeth. “Absurd. We can’t afford to let you die.” He urgently motioned for Luka to finish the job. “Do it!”
"Die?!"
”...Th-the Power of Waking!” Roxas suddenly blurted out. And then he swallowed hard, immediately wishing that he hadn’t. But it was too late now, ”It… it’s a power that exists where I come from. I’ve seen it used to bring back someone who was struck down and killed. It might cure this…” There was clearly hesitation in his voice. It wasn’t hard to figure out that there was probably a catch to it, ”...It’s just that, well, I don’t possess that power. I know the person who does, but… he isn’t here with us right now. We’d… have to bring him here.”
Sakura looked between Peach and Roxas, on the verge of tears. She approached Peach and set a hand on her. ”I’m really sorry. Pl-please don’t give up hope, Peach-san. Not yet. Can you let us leave and come back? To try and save you?” She beseeched the Princess. ”It might not be the rest of your life. A lot can happen in a day.” She looked to the others desperately, hoping they could back her up on this.
”Such as cracking open the conspiracy that did this in the first place and making them spill all of their secrets” Midna offered
Pit nodded vigorously. No matter what method they could find, or when they found it, no one was just going to give up on Peach.
"If there was a way to turn you into an Other, there's a way to turn you back! I know there is." With no actual evidence he was only speaking from a place of blind hope, which he had in spades. Tora would find a way to fix Poppi, and they would find a way to fix Peach. And it only made sense anyway; if it was magic then they could find a counterspell, if it was science then the eggheads could reverse whatever had changed - and they already had some limited degree of success, as macabre as it was. "You gotta stay strong! For your kingdom, and the world, and yourself."
While Roxas and Midna hastened to try and come up with plans of action, Luka rushed forward. He joined Sakura beside Peach’s monstrous form and laid what he hoped would be a reassuring hand beside his former squadmate’s. “I know it hurts,” he began. “And that it seems hopeless. Like you’re trapped, with no way out. But you can’t just give up, not so soon. Have faith in your friends. In a world like this, anything’s possible.”
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, switching to Brain Talk so that only the psionics in his immediate proximity -Sakura and Peach herself- could hear him. ”Before joining the OSF, I was… a dud. No matter how hard I worked, or how I acted, I would always be deprived. Cut off from others. An analog boy in a digital world. But as the younger brother of Karen Travers, I was lucky enough to receive a special, experimental treatment. It was rigorous, and painful, but in the end my brain began to produce the psychic hormone, and I became like everyone else. Even if I may lose it all some day.” He furrowed his brow. ”I don’t mean to compare what I went through to yours. Just to say that there’s always a flicker of hope. So please…”
“...Don’t throw in the towel just yet, Peach,” he finished. He still held the ampoule, clutched tight in his hand. “May I use this?” he asked her for permission.
Sakura compressed her lips and shut her eyes, hoping Peach would say yes.
Heartened somewhat by Luka and Sakura’s support, as well as Roxas and Midna’s commitment to finding a solution, Peach relented. “O-okay. If you guys…think there’s a way…I’ll try and hold out here for a while longer.”
Luka nodded, and injected the ampoule. The pink slurry within flowed into Peach’s body, and its muscles began to relax. Hanabi, clearly rattled, gave a sigh of relief. “Thank you for letting us help you,” Yuito told Peach. “We might not know one another, but I can’t let this injustice claim another innocent life. I promise we’ll find a way.”
”Thank you! You won’t regret it.” Sakura said, setting a hand on her heart and letting out a breath.
"Alright, if we're gonna help her then we can't waste any time!" The sooner they kept their promise, the sooner Peach wouldn't have to suffer anymore. Pit looked around at those gathered. "Let's find the people responsible and get some answers."
“Yes, let’s,” Luka agreed, his face serious. “I suppose our first order of business is to make our way back to Suoh, then. Chances are, we’ll find those answers in the Otherlobe.”
Crenshaw crossed his arms. “My Transport power’s just about worn out for today, but I can probably muster up enough for one more trip. Not as far as the Otherlobe, but I should just be able to get you back to the plate.” Yuito and Hanabi nodded, ready to go.
Sakura nodded, still solemn after what Peach said. She adjusted her fighting gloves, and tightened her headband.
