There's a loud thump in the nearby woods. Thump. Again. Thump. Laughter. Thump. Thump… A tree is launched to the front door of the house. It lands close to the house and quite violently. Luna and Cole hear the tree and head outside to investigate. There's a bunch more trees getting knocked down in the middle of the woods. Some manic laughter following it.
Cole cracks his knuckles as metal strips levitate next to him "Let’s fucking kick it!” He grins and starts sprinting towards the trees getting knocked down. Luna chases, locking onto him and running right behind.
A tree branch flies straight at Cole, trying to hit him for comedic effect. Metal strips form a shield that blocks the tree branch as Cole flinches slightly.
Luna pulls out her sword and continues running. More branches fly out at them Luna gets scraped by a couple of them, but it's not that bad. It does hinder her movement slightly. Luna is cutting down the branches with her sword to the best of her abilities, but it turns out she kinda sucks.
After a bit, the branches stop. There’s a rotten smell in the air. It makes it a bit hard to breathe. Luna holds her breath and continues to run, and Cole isn’t bothered by the scent.
After more running, they can finally make out a silhouette in the woods. "Foolish. Foolish! This entire place is foolish. The smart ones were left to rot it seems. I'll make sure to fix that. I'll fix it. I can fix you." The figure starts to walk closer to them.
"Oh for fucks sake." Luna groans. Her voice is muffled as hell. "Can you just FUCK OFF ALREADY????"
"Damn Luna. Youu might as well call it a slur." Cole chuckles lightly.
"I'll only be quelled once everything is perfect. Trees are a sign of ancient knowledge yet most are weak. I'm weeding them out, just like I'll soon weed out you little pests who intervened with my hunt." It starts to grow.
Luna pulls out her trusty Marked Broadsword and enters a defensive stance. "Bring it."
Cole rolls his eyes. "I won't even need my armor for this fight" Lightning arcs cover Cole’s body as he unholsters his revolver.
"Oh, the idiocracy of you two. A couple of pebble-sized brainlets. Don't you understand? Can't you feel it?" It stops growing and starts to form another, more humanoid shape. "I've feasted during the time I was gone. I've been watching everything closely. She only beat me because of you both. I'll make sure that doesn't happen. I'll make sure nothing interrupts me anymore." There's a huge blinding light coming from it.
Luna closes her eyes and focuses on its sounds in response to the blinding light. Cole's eyes make various camera shutter noises. "Much better. Anyway, you talk like me when i've been huffing fumes for several hours."
Luna chuckles.
The light stops. Before them stands... Something. It's a very weird mixture. It looks human. It looks artificial. It looks like a feline, a canine, a lizard, a lot of stuff. It looks like a fake deity, it looks like a blasphemous liar.
It doesn't growl or laugh. It just opens one, extremely judging eye.
Cole's eyes make various camera shutter noises again as he stares directly into the eye. "So like do you shoot lasers out of that eye like that one Avenger?"
Luna focuses on the area around her and attempts to launch various sticks and branches from the trees knocked down to the creature with her psychic powers. "Take this! Branch Barrage!" The branches are absorbed by it. It extends a hand. A square. A twig. A strand of hair. A pillow. A cable. A ruler. A gun. Someone’s worst fear. Someone’s cause of death. Someone’s worst regret. It still stares.
"You're kind of a fuckin’ pain in the ass dude." Her eyes are looking nowhere near the creature's singular eye.
Cole extends a finger gun as the arcs brighten around the tip of his finger. He continues to stare at it in the eye and tempt fate. "So you’re not like Cyclops, got it."
It keeps looking. It took an interest in Cole. The arm tries to grab him and squeeze him, not enough to hurt, but pretty uncomfortable nonetheless. Cole's body flinches away but his arm is grabbed anyway causing it to be shocked by the 5V arcs dancing on top of his clothes and skin. It is shocked. It doesn't seem to flinch that much since tar isn't that conductive. It still hurts and it groans in pain, pieces of the arm seeming to flicker between other objects.
Luna becomes engulfed in a bright purple light for a second as she transforms into her elemental mage MG form. With her gloved hand, she summons blue lightning arcs there. They dance and look vicious.
It decides to just go for a two-in-one, attempting it's best to grab both of them.
Luna launches a bolt of lightning from her gloved hand targetting the eye. "Take this! Blue Lightning Blast!"
The arcs grow brighter as it experiences 20v shocks as Cole tries to pull his arm out of it's grip
It's entire body is flickering between stuff after the lightning blast and the arcs. It's disorienting. There's a ton of screaming, almost like a mesh of voices. It lets go of Cole.
Luna immediately defocuses on the creature but the sounds still manage to confuse and disorient her. She's still up on two feet, but it's a struggle.
It locks onto Luna, trying to grab her. Cole dashes backwards as he aims his finger guns at it, "MAGIC POLICE!" 2 bolts of electricity hit it, each of them about 120V.
Same thing. Flickering. Groaning. It sounds more organized now.
Luna rolls out of the way despite the loud sounds and launches a weaker lightning blast at it again. She's struggling to keep up however.
It dodges the attack. It's really focused on Luna. It tries to grab her again.
"Uh uh uh fuckin’", The arcs dissipate from Cole as the metal strips form a sword as he slices at the arm that's trying to grab Luna. The arm feels... Weirdly hard now. Almost like the shocking made it like a muscle being activated.
Luna tries to roll out of the way of the grab. She's not gonna last much longer. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Luna's grabbed. It drags her closer as it tries to simply slam Cole to the side. Watch yo tone mf type shit.
Luna is struggling to the end, launching lightning blast after lightning blast at it. Anything to get out of it. And wasting her mana as well. Cole is slammed to the side as he skids across the ground and quickly recovers and stares it down. "Maybe I did need a suit for this what the fuck."
It's still dragging Luna closer, even as it gets hit by lightning. There's some ringing in Luna's ears.
Luna starts screaming in pain from the sounds.
Cole starts sprinting away as he presses on his left temple and mutters. "Requesting suit number 58."
"Cole!? Where are you going????" Luna is trying to teleport out as a last ditch effort.
After a bit, it stops. She can't hear anything. Not a single thing, not even white noise. A familiar voice starts to play in her mind, it sounds like Ivy.
{-Oh, quite the mistake you've made.-} The voice calls to her telepathically.
{- Oh fuck off. -} Krystal responds, attempting to defend Luna’s mind.
Cole's HALO armor lands in front of him as he quickly gets in it and shines a bright red laser directly into its eye.
It simply slams Cole to the side again. The manifestation of anxiety and grief got hands.
Cole grunts and skids across the ground as he regains his footing and stares it down
{-Please, we can both agree that this is quite cathartic for both of us. I'm finally getting what I want, and you'll soon be at peace.-} The voice continues.
{- I'm already dead! -} Krystal proclaims.
{-Death could be defined as... Soul crushing by some. This will only take a second, it'll hurt... About as much as it hurt Ivy when YOU killed her.-}
{- Yeah yeah, go on Zyzz. You really underestimate Lunes and I. -}
It's still staring Luna down. Another hand starts to reach over, before...
It groans. It drops Luna. Her hearings back, too.
"When will you learn to simply SHUT-" Bang. "THE FUCK-" Bang. "UP!" Bang.
Luna wishes her hearing wasn't back. Owwwwww. She is also currently unconscious from spending all of her mana.
Cole claps as he chuckles. "Comical."
It falls to the ground groaning in pain. It tries to grab Ivy to no avail, as she just cuts every arm with her scythe. It looks... Really different. "You. YOU. LAMB. LIAR. MANIPULATOR-"
"Oh my fucking- CAN YOU STOP?!" She looks over at Luna and mouths "sorry" at her. "You made the last two years of my life hell. It feels a bit rude to not give you a bit of it back, whore." There's just a ton of scythe slashing and blood and tar flying over and over.
After a bit of this continuous loop, Petal finally manages to grab Ivy. It keeps her on the ground as it returns to its original form. Ivy's too weak to do shit. Petal looks back at Cole and Luna. And smiles. It knew this would be the perfect bait.
Petal tries to grab Ivy's soul.
After a bit, it manages to do it. It touches it. Ivy is scared shitless, she didn't even know she had a soul anymore, and she passes out.
Petal puts Ivy's soul back and slowly walks away laughing.
After a few moments, Luna gets up but her eyes are now purple. Krystal is taking over.
"What the hell was all of that?" Krystal complains.
Ivy's in the ground. Not moving at all.
Cole sighs and walks over to Ivy and taps her on the shoulder, but she is out cold, "a divorced couple fighting probably."
"That wasn't a divorced couple dude. That was Zyzzyx. Lunes told you about them right? Basically a tentacle monster dromen that wants to fix Ivy?" Krystal sighs.
"Fix is a strong word. Looked like it wanted to kill her." Cole checks her pulse with a sigh
"Precisely." Krystal nods.
Ivy still has a pulse. Her ass is just face down on the grass.
"Err, should we bring them home? They did just save Lunes's life."
"Yeah, I remember where their house is" Cole nods as he goes to carry her fireman style.
Cough.
"Okay. Will you keep us updated? I need to go tend to Lunes's wounds." Luna’s body is scraped up pretty badly.
Cole nods. "Got it." The two of them disappear.
Krystal hobbles back into the house to perform first aid on her partner.
----
Cole and Ivy appear inside the living room as he lays her on the couch, face up. Motherfucker gasps for air.
"...huh? What- I... Uhm..." She looks around, eventually seeing Cole. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
Cole steps back as he looks her over for any wounds, "bringing you home after getting your shit rocked, nothing more."
"What... What happened?" She's not in a lot of pain, just in shock.
"Zyzzyx kinda touched your soul after you got tired of slicing it" Cole folds his arms, keeping a neutral stance
"She did WHAT." Ivy sits upright, looking at Cole dead in the eye.
"did i stutter?" Cole's visor isn't up but Ivy can tell he isn't joking.
"I-I have a soul? Like a physical thing? And it touched it?? What the fuck does that mean?!" Ivy is panicked.
"Probably nothing, considering touching a soul should do nothing other then make you pass out or forget something" Cole shrugs.
"Well I passed out, sadly remember a LOT besides the whole being passed out parts. I... Fuck...I feel sick."
She starts to mumble. "Out of all people, why did you have to bring me back-"
“Everything happens for a reason, Ivy," Cole sighs. "Do you want me to get you anything, or should I just leave?"
"Everything happens for a reason? Wow, great FUCKING lesson, as if I didn't learn that shit already!" She mad. Her screen is flickering a lot.
"....I mean to be fair I've learned a lot of lessons" Cole chuckles quietly
"You act as if you never learned a lesson in your life." She scoffs. "You act like a fucking cop at times, y'know that? Weirdly power-trippy."
"Ivy do you know why my hair is white? like semi transparent kinda ghostly?" Cole groans and puts his hands on his hips
"...are you the ghost of a late 1800s Ohio police deputy?"
"....stop calling me a cop you stoner. My hair is white because I've died one too many times and you know what? You start to learn a lot of things when you die a lot and experience a lot."
"So far I only learned two things from death personally. Never listen to the goop demons and don't fall in love after the smallest sign of affection."
"Two very good lessons honestly. I'm sure 12 girls in 1960s New Vegas would have loved that advice."
"Huh?"
"hmm?"
"...never trying to date a twink again my fucking- Okay, whatever, you wanna just like, take a joint home with you? I'm just gonna fucking pass out."
"I am not a twink for one. Two," Cole snaps as a bottle of water appears in his hand, "drink some water you skank." He throws the bottled water to Ivy.
She grabs the bottle. "Thanks. Y'know, you're actually kinda chill. Sorry for like... The whole blood stuff I guess. Mostly my fault I guess."
"Well they had to fix my brain a little, but I can think a little better. But uh, it's fine. I uh over reacted I guess,"
Cole sighs
"Eh. I would've done worse." She says while shrugging and drinking the water as if that's Perfectly Normal
"What, would you have ripped my organs out or something?" Cole chuckles
She stares at Cole. "Yeah." She's being serious.
"......honestly not the first time my organs were harvested but still terrifying" Cole shakes with fear slightly
"Either that or the teeth. Pull them out one by one like they're splinters." She's drinking the water normally but she is messed up.
Cole nods and shakes slightly more
"Did you know I apparently decapitated a dude with a shovel? A fucking shovel! Hah. I could do way worse now with what I have. It's interesting."
"Oh shit, I've done that before but with my bare hands. Well....so I've been told. I don't really remember it."
Cole chuckles nervously
Cole feels slightly sick. "You alright? You're shaking like a washing machine with a brick in it."
Cole waves his hand dismissively, his visor hiding his expression "I'm fine, just uh ya'know the thought of my organs being torn out is a little scary" Cole stops shaking as he fidgets with his hands.
"Hm. Okay." She crushes the water bottle and eats it with the screen cracks.
"So uh you need anything else? Food? More water?"
"...not that hungry to be honest! Don't know why. Didn't eat recently." She smiles. " I might just go to bed I guess. You go and do your little.. stupid twink things."
"I'm not a twink! I have abs! You know this!" Cole huffs as he crosses his arms
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Oh, also, bring the rest of the blood here like, tomorrow or something. Would appreciate it. You get going now, go sweep chimneys or some shit. Toodaloo." Ivy lights a joint and heads to her room.
"Whore." Cole disappears as the crate of blood appears but it’s missing 3 vials.