Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sebastian had been scavenging for supplies in one of the flooded hallways which opened up to the outside abyss. He was preoccupied with trying to claw a flashlight out from a crevice in the cracked concrete wall, when he suddenly caught movement in his peripheral.

With a snarl, he whirled around, unholstering his gun and aiming it towards the source of the movement. He belatedly remembered a second later that he was underwater and thus his firearm was useless, but he figured the principle of drawing the weapon would send a clear enough message either way: DO NOT FUCK WITH ME.

He blinked in bemusement when he found a small golden fish staring blankly down the barrel of his shotgun. For several seconds, nothing happened. Sebastian was so baffled by the sight of the fish that he uncharacteristically found himself at a loss for words.

Then, the fish bumped against his gun, its fishy maw mouthing curiously at the barrel as though looking for algae.

Sebastian snapped out of his daze and uttered an annoyed grunt as he withdrew his weapon. Stupid fish. He turned back to the crevice he had been prodding at, muttering to himself in a burble of bubbles.

He sensed the fish swimming closer, evidently attracted by the debris he was dislodging. He had half a mind to swat the thing away with a claw, but stayed his hand when it suddenly darted into the crack.

Curious, he watched as the fish wriggled around for a bit before unceremoniously dislodging the flashlight from where it had been annoyingly out of reach from Sebastian’s large claws.

Huh. He snatched up the flashlight and gave it a once over. It was in pretty good condition! He fastened it securely to his tail, still feeling bemused but oddly gratified by the strange occurrence.

The fish had reemerged from the crevice and was poking about at other cracks in the wall, seemingly oblivious of its contribution to Sebastian’s efforts at restocking his wares.

Sebastian decided that instead of having the fish as a small snack, he’d let it live.

—

The next time Sebastian encountered the fish, it was when he was inside one of the areas he utilized as a shop for passing Expendables. This shop was situated in an air pocket above a flooded area, so Expendables would have to emerge from the hole in the floor in order to enter.

His ear fins twitched when he heard the sound of moving water, and he turned towards the entrance with his customary grin and clasped hands. “Welcome back, I got some—“ He stopped as his eyes focused on a familiar glimmer of gold under the water’s surface.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me…” He muttered as he slithered towards the pool. Lo and behold, there was the fish, its blank eyes ogling him.

He squinted at the fish, baffled by the fact that not only was it still alive after all this time, but it had somehow found him again. He hadn’t thought much of the fish when he had first encountered it, but seeing it again made him want to reevaluate what he had previously considered to be just another specimen of the native sea life.

Sebastian Solace wasn’t a marine biologist, but he was relatively certain that goldfish weren’t on the list of species that dwelled in salt water, let alone among the ones capable of surviving the crushing depths of the deep sea.

Granted, this fish wasn’t your average pet store prize you win at the Fair in a shitty little plastic bag kind of goldfish. It was a lot bigger. The only reason Sebastian thought of it as small was because, relative to his ten foot height, it was small to him. However, to the average human, the ‘goldfish’ was more like the size of a koi.

But it couldn’t have been a koi, could it? Maybe it was some kind of salmon. Salmon were capable of transitioning from fresh water to salt water, right? Sebastian felt like he had learned something to that effect in middle school.

Still, it was weird that it was down here at all. It wasn’t like any of the other sea life near the Blacksite, monstrously mutated or otherwise. It might have been an escapee from some other experiment onsite, though if that were the case, Sebastian hadn’t found any documents referring to it.

Never the less, the fish was currently blocking the entrance to his shop. “Get out’a here, fish bait,” he made a waving gesture with his hands. “Shoo! I don’t have anything for you here, and I don’t tolerate freeloading!”

The motion of his waving must have scared it off, because the fish swiftly swam back down and out of sight. Sebastian was about to return to his usual spot, when he spotted the fish coming back. He growled in annoyance, leaning down with the intent to catch and put an end to the little nuisance, when he abruptly got a face full of water squirted directly at him.

“AUGH! Why you little-“ Snarling, he punched a hand into the water, seeking to grab the fish. But when he wrenched his arm out of the water, he found he was holding a crank-powered flashlight. “What the…”

He stared blankly at the device, before looking back into the hole. The goldfish stared back at him with lidless eyes. “Did… you actually bring this for me?” He wasn’t expecting to get a response, and he didn’t get any as the fish simply swam in a small circle before diving away again. This time for good it seemed.

—

Sebastian sometimes wished he could dump his SCRAMBLER, if only so he could get other stupid devices to actually work. But unfortunately the chip surgically installed between his shoulder blades meant that if he ditched the SCRAMBLER, then Urbanshade would be able to track his whereabouts.

It wasn’t as though all devices ceased functioning when he was around. But some more sophisticated machines which relied on things such as radar or radio waves became incredibly difficult to work with.

One such device he currently held clasped between his claws as he swam across the ocean floor outside of the facility, occasionally adjusting the knobs in an attempt to pinpoint the signal it was supposed to be tracking.

He felt like he had been going in a circle for hours, and was getting increasingly more and more aggravated the longer he spent trying to decipher the mess of garbage signals he was receiving.

Safe to say, he wasn’t really paying attention to his surroundings and only realized something was nearby when a familiar green glow was cast over him. He stopped, hovering in the water, his tail swaying unconsciously into a tighter formation about him, like a coiled snake primed to strike. He raised his gaze from the device in his hands and glared at the Eyefestation looming above him.

What the fuck do you want? He mentally spat at it, knowing the Eyefestation was capable of low level telepathic communication when it wasn’t attempting to mentally force its victims to look into its caustic gaze.

YOU HARBOR PREY. The Eyefestation boomed, staring almost accusingly at the fellow monster with its multitude of eyes.

Sebastian made an indignant huff, bubbles bursting from his mouth in incredulity. What?!

YOU. The Eyefestation loomed closer, daring to get within Sebastian’s reach as it jerked its nose at him. HARBOR. PREY.

Sebastian barred his teeth in a wordless snarl, his tail lashing. Listen, buddy! I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! Go stick your eyes someplace else before I tear’ em right out’a your sockets!

The Eyefestation’s eyes flickered red briefly and Sebastian braced himself, expecting another brawl of dominance to ensue. But after a tense moment, the Eyefestation seemingly thought better of it and slowly turned to swim back the way it had come with an air of disinterest.

Sebastian watched it go, bristling with nerves and outrage. What the fuck was it going on about? Was it talking about his dealings with the Expendables? That was none of its fucking business! And more importantly, why the hell would it even care?! It wasn’t like the monsters of the Blacksite were allies or anything; it wasn’t as if they were on the same side of some war with the humans. Each and every monster was in it for themselves, with their own motives and methods on how they would enact revenge on Urbanshade.

He sensed movement and tensed. Something had brushed the scales along his tail, and it took all his self control not to thrash about in a blind panic.

Slowly turning about in the water, his eyes picked up a glimmer of gold. There’s no way… He twitched his tail to the side, a fleeting shape quickly darted back underneath his shadow. He twitched his tail the other way, catching sight of the goldfish as it hurried to follow. You can’t be serious.

That little fish had been using him as cover as it picked along the ocean floor, hiding under or behind his coiling tail as he moved, like he was some sort of mobile shelter. And why not? Sebastian was the baddest bitch in the ocean around here! No predator would dare come near him. He was the perfect cover for a small bottom feeder.

Sebastian was torn between feeling incredibly irritated at the thought of being used in such a way and oddly flattered that the fish considered him the safest place to be in the open ocean. He quickly quashed the latter feeling. It was ridiculous, and he felt annoyed at himself. It was just a stupid fish!

He quickly swam off, intending to leave the little thing behind to get eaten by the local fauna. He swam back towards the facility, flowing effortlessly back within its confines through a broken section. Once he was inside, he couldn’t help but glance back out into the blackness, wondering if the Eyefestation was still watching.

To his shock, he spotted the goldfish still with him, floating by his tail and picking at some gravel like it had no thoughts in its head. It must have managed to tuck itself into his slipstream as he had powered through the water. It wouldn’t have been capable of keeping up with him otherwise.

Sebastian had the sudden and violent urge to smack it away— to claw and rip into its flesh. How dare this tiny fish have the audacity of presuming it was safe to be in his presence! How dare it think it had the privilege to just hang around him like he just some convenient stupidly large body to use as a meat shield. It probably thought it could get away with messing with him because it thought he was too slow to catch something so small. HA! If only it knew…

He sucked in a gill full of water, then let it out slowly, and the feeling of rage soon abated. He reflected, bitterly, that it was an incredibly immature impulse to project his feelings on a damn fish of all things. It was just an animal; it didn’t have some agenda or motive behind its actions beyond basic survival. It probably didn’t think anything of Sebastian, or even recognize that he was any different from any other creature.

He felt something bump against his wrist and looked down. The fish had a handful of USB sticks in its mouth, and as soon as it got Sebastian’s attention, it spat them out in a gush of expelled water, letting the USB sticks slowly float to the floor as it swam away.

Sebastian swept up the USB sticks before they could settle on the floor, staring thoughtfully down at them.

Yeah. Just a dumb fish.

Chapter Text

Tink!

Bonk!

Sebastian’s ear fins twitched at the dull, metallic thumps that he could hear through the water. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the fish bumping against a discarded can of some offbrand energy drink.

Bonk! Bonk!

He sighed, a flurry of bubbles erupting from his mouth as he did so, and turned toward the fish. He couldn’t exactly yell at the fish while underwater. Well, he could, but all that would come out would be the furious sound of frothing bubbles. He doubted the fish would understand him even if he was comprehensible.

The fish managed to bop the can off of the desk, where it floated lazily in the water, steadily drifting down to the floor. However, before it could reach the floor, the fish bopped it again, sending the can up a good few feet before it began drifting earthwards once more. The fish bumped it again, keeping the can from touching the floor.

This went on for several minutes, and Sebastian couldn’t help a smirk slowly gracing his features as he watched. Was it actually playing with the soda can?

The lights flickered.

Sebastian blinked and suddenly the fish had vanished, the can falling to the ground with a dull clunk. Alarmed, he looked around for the fish, twisting about in the water as he craned every which way in hopes of spotting a glimpse of gold scales.

He heard the dull roar of an approaching Angler racing down the corridors and grimaced in annoyance. The Anglers hardly bothered him, he was too big for them to eat and he got the impression that whatever anglerfish DNA he had spliced into him made the Anglers non-hostile towards him.

He still found them annoying. They busted all the lights and— while that usually wasn’t an issue since he had his own light source permanently affixed to his head-- the lack of light attracted Squiddles, and those creepy bitches had no qualms against harassing him.

He swam closer to the far wall, leaning back against it with two arms crossed as he waited for the Angler to scream past him, the claws of his third arm tapping impatiently against the wall.

The Angler rushed through the flooded hallway he resided in, blitzing past without so much as a backwards glance in his direction before disappearing down another corridor, its screams echoing after it through the water.

The lights predictably went dark, leaving Sebastian with only his lure lighting up his patch of the hallway.

He was just about to dim his light in order to avoid aggroing any Squiddles that would pop up, when he caught the glimmer of gold. His ear fins perked up as he watched the golden fish dart out from where it had been hiding behind a cabinet.

Frankly, Sebastian hadn’t thought the fish was smart enough to avoid threats like the Angler, but he felt oddly pleased for once to be proven wrong about the fish yet again.

He chuckled as it swam towards the can it had been playing with moments before, and watched in amusement as it pushed it across the ground, doggedly attempting to flip it over and failing.

Leaning forward, Sebastian plucked the can off the ground and dangled it in front of the fish, which fluttered its fins energetically as it tilted its head up to track the object. Sebastian let the can go and the fish went back to bopping it through the water.

Bonk!…. Tink!…. Bonk!

—-

Wall dwellers weren’t a threat to Sebastian, but he had an almost perverse glee in popping them off with his shotgun whenever one had the misfortune of emerging within his general vicinity.

He especially disliked the fuckers since they were the only monsters who had the utter audacity to murder his customers right in the middle of his goddamn shop!

Growling in annoyance, Sebastian reholstered his gun and went about picking over the freshly made corpse of the Expendable who’d been mauled to death after having just finished buying some of his wares.

Honestly, it wasn’t too much of a loss, but still! He didn’t want any rumors getting out that his shop wasn’t a hundred percent safe and secure. With his luck, the damn idiots would start accusing him of purposefully setting the Wall dwellers on them just to scam them out’a their hard earned research and items!

With a disgusted grunt he lifted the mangled corpse of the Wall dweller and set it aside to hopefully harvest some of the organs, before grabbing the body of the Expendable and slithering towards a nearby pool, separate from where his customers would normally enter the shop. He didn’t want to clog the entrance with bodies, after all.

No, this body of water was actually the result of one of the pipes inside the room bursting, one wall having partially crumbled away and creating a small area where enough of the debris was piled up to allow the water to collect in a sizable pool.

As he unceremoniously dumped the body of the Expendable into the pool, a glimmer of gold flashed into view.

“Yeah, yeah, eat up, you shameless bastard.” Sebastian said as he watched the fish start picking over the corpse, sucking up bits of gore like a mini vacuum cleaner.

Yes, Sebastian had carried the fish up and dumped it into the pool. No, he didn’t do it because he was worried about the fish’s wellbeing. The stupid thing simply refused to vacate the tunnel which led up into his shop, and no matter how loudly he yelled it simply wouldn’t leave.

It was a good thing a separate body of water was present, because otherwise Sebastian wasn’t sure what he would have done. Probably simply close up shop and go somewhere else in the facility where the fish wouldn’t be able to obstruct the path of his customers.

He honestly hadn’t expected the fish to allow him to grab it, he hadn’t even needed to put any effort into catching it. When he had shoved his claws into the water in an effort to scare it off with a feinting swipe, it had easily dipped around and clasped its weird toothless mouth onto one of his fingers.

Worried about potentially tearing open its face if he tried to wrestle away his claw, Sebastian instead took the opportunity to loop his free hand underneath the fish and hoist it bodily out of the water. He then had to use his third arm to keep the fish from thrashing out of his grip as he’d swiftly brought the fish to the pool in his shop and released it into the water there.

The fish had swam around, assessing its suddenly smaller confines before returning to the edge and poking its head halfway out of the water and staring up at Sebastian. The fish didn’t have the ability to make any facial expressions, but Sebastian had gotten the feeling that if it could, it would’ve been glaring reproachfully up at him.

Now, however, it seemed to be quite content to remain in the shallow pool, so long as Sebastian was there. He had even given it an empty soda can to play with! And now it had plenty of food too. Sebastian had seen the fish picking over the bodies of other deceased sea creatures during his scavenging in the flooded sections of the Blacksite, and figured that human flesh was as an appropriate food source as any down here.

The fish didn’t seem to mind. So, it must be fine.

—-

Okay, maybe it wasn’t fine.

Apparently, remnants of the Wall dweller had clung to the Expendable’s corpse and the fish had ingested some of the green luminescent matter and now the fish was glowing green!

Sebastian could only hover warily over the pool, worrying his claws together as he watched the fish swim around, oblivious to the anxiety it was causing the mutant sea snake.

Maybe it was fine, the fish didn’t seem to be bothered by its spontaneous luminescence. Wall dweller chunks typically gave healing benefits anyways! At least, to humans. Maybe it would be equally benign or even beneficial to the fish!

“Goddamn it…” Sebastian swore under his breath, forcing himself to turn away from the pool and return to his usual spot in the room. He can’t honestly let himself get this worked up over a fish! And yet he felt at least partially responsible for what was happening to it; he’d essentially taken it out of its “natural” habitat and confined it to a space where it now relied solely on him for sustenance!

He should have just chased it away. He shouldn’t have indulged its persistence. He should have made it afraid of him, just like it was afraid of everything else. That was how it had survived all this time, and now it might die because it believed it was safe with him!

Squirt!

Sebastian flinched with an undignified yelp as water splashed him square on the side of his face and he whirled around to see the fish peaking over the edge of the pool, one glassy bulbous eye looking at him.

“What the hell was that for?!” He snarled.

The green luminescence seemed to pulse along its scales before the fish dove back under the surface, resuming its aimless swimming as though it had done nothing at all.

Sebastian could only stare in befuddlement as he wiped away the water from his face with his coat sleeve. Stupid, dumb fish…

Chapter Text

The green glow seemed to recede after a few hours, Sebastian was loathe to admit just how relieved he felt as soon as the fish regained its normal pigment.

Once he confirmed that the fish was no longer displaying anymore bizarre symptoms, he started the process of closing up shop in order to return to scavenging. He thought about just leaving the fish in the little pool he’d put it in, just so he wouldn’t have to worry about it, but that idea was swiftly discarded when the damn thing tried to fling itself out of the pool when he moved to exit the shop.

The fish managed to make it halfway over the edge of the pool, water gushing over the side as its tail thrashed wildly to propel itself overboard.

Sebastian spat out a curse as he hurried over and caught the fish just before it could flop onto the floor. “Jesus-! Don’t freakin’ do that!” He scolded, the fish wriggling in his arms as he dove for the port hole in the floor and into the flooded hallway.

As soon as they were both submerged, he allowed the fish to go free, to which it began energetically swimming about him, before darting off to go do whatever fish things it wanted to do.

Perhaps now that it’d had a taste of Sebastian’s “hospitality”, the little guy would be less inclined to be a cling-on.

Squinting, he noticed that there were flecks of gold drifting in the water around him. Holding out a hand to allow some to collect on his palm so he could scrutinize them more closely, he realized they were tiny scales.

He winced upon the realization, and quickly flicked the scales away, feeling a hard knot of guilt forming in the pit of his stomach.

Maybe he had been a little too rough with handling the little guy…

—-

For a time, Sebastian lingered in the drier areas of the facility while he scavenged. No, he wasn’t trying to avoid the fish, he just had things he had to do in places where water bound lifeforms couldn’t traverse!

Besides, whenever he slithered into a section which had viewing ports out into the open ocean, he swore he would occasionally catch a glimpse of gold. But that might have just been a trick of the light being cast from his lure bouncing off the glass or something.

Still…

He eventually had to go back into the water, his scales were starting to feel itchy due to the lack of moisture.

When he does venture back into the flooded sections of the facility, he comes across an overabundance of rotten coral. The dark green growths scaling the walls and branching outwards to encompass the rest of the room, clogging up doorways, and sporadically producing nodules of luminescence which blinked and clicked ominously.

This “rotten coral” was a phenomenon that, as far as he knew, didn’t have any official documentation anywhere in the Blacksite. Sebastian suspected that it was likely because the rotten coral only appeared inside the facility after the lockdown. The instances where it appeared were sparse and relatively contained within which ever outcropping the growths cropped up in.

The stuff didn’t appear to have any corporate use or malicious intent behind it, and it was highly likely that the rotten coral was actually just native to the Let-Vand Zone. The most interaction that Sebastian had seen with the coral was whenever a Wall dweller spawned from a wall already encompassed by the coral, to which the monster would have chunks of rotten coral growing from its skin as a result.

Hmmm… Come to think of it, didn’t the Wall dweller that he’d accidentally fed the gold fish have rotten coral remnants on its body? That might have explained the weird green glow.

Sebastian was dragged out of his musings when he spotted movement, and couldn’t help but grin at the thought of seeing his little buddy again.

The fish was quick to greet him, swimming up to bump its nose against his tail and rushing around him several times before settling down.

Sebastian glanced over the fish, noting with a touch of concern that it seemed to have odd discolorations on some of its scales. A sign of sickness? Or just a natural part of fish biology that he wasn’t aware of? Maybe it was molting. Did fish molt? Like, grow new scales and the old ones got all ugly before falling out or something?

Sebastian had no idea. He might have his own cocktail of fish DNA installed in him, but that didn’t mean he had any knowledge of the creatures which made up his own fucked up biology. He had majored in engineering; machine stuff, not animal stuff.

The fish veered away from him, something about the rotten coral evidently catching its attention. Then Sebastian watched with subdued horror as it started eating the glowing buds of the alien coral.

Well… Okay, then.

The fish seemed to notice he was staring, and swam back to him with a small cluster of the glowing coral in its mouth.

Oh no.

Sebastian grimaced as the fish approached his face, and he preemptively put a hand up to block its attempts to share its food with him. The fish, however, took the proffered hand as acceptance of its gift and promptly spat the coral piece at him, where it plopped against his claws.

Gross…

Sebastian surreptitiously discarded the bits of mulch and continued on his way down the rotten coral ridden corridor, the fish following close behind whilst it occasionally foraged for more luminescent buds to consume. Hopefully, eating the stuff wouldn’t have any consequences….

Ah, who was he kidding? At some point, he was probably gonna end up finding the fish mutated into some god awful abomination that wanted to rip his guts out.

—

“Cute pet fish you got there.”

Sebastian’s ears flicked as he paused his perusal of classified documents to give the Expendable a cold stare. “It’s not my pet.”

The Expendable was leaning over the tub that Sebastian had hauled in to temporarily house the fish in his shop. The fish was sporting a few faintly glowing green scales, and could barely turn around inside the tub, but it seemed content to mouth along the porcelain interior.

“Then what is it?” The Expendable queried, looking over their shoulder as their fellow comrade went about buying supplies and patching themselves up. There were two of them, both anonymous to Sebastian due to their diving equipment and face masks obscuring their features.

“How about you mind your business,” Sebastian sneered. He was not interested in entertaining the Expendable’s questions, especially if it didn’t have anything to do with giving him more data.

The other Expendable, (Sebastian mentally labeled that one: Expendable #2), walked over to the edge of the tub, their hands on their hips and head cocked to the side. “Looks like some sort of carp analog,” they muttered.

Expendable #1 glanced up . “Really? I thought it was one of them fancy china fishies; my grandma had a bunch in a pond in her backyard.”

Expendable #2 shrugged and pointed down at the fish in question. “Kinda. Technically, koi fish are just a fancier breed of carp. But while this fella might have a shiny color, its body shape is all different. More compressed.”

Expendable #1 made a sound of understanding. “So… it’s a fancy carp?”

Expendable #2 shook their head. “I didn’t say that.”

“But you said—“

“I said it was a ‘carp analog’.” Expendable #2 cut #1 off. “As in: on the surface it seems like a funny looking carp, but there are other traits that make it obviously not a member of the species. Or any species that I recall, for that matter. And considering where we are, I wouldn't be surprised if the people who worked down here weren't making some new strain of fish or something.”

Sebastian had been silently watching the two of them intently, completely nonplussed by the sudden dialogue these two random Expendables were having right in front of him.

“What was it you were convicted for, if I may ask…?” The mutant sea snake found himself inquiring aloud before he could stop himself.

Expendable #2 chuckled and gave him a thumbs up as they proudly pronounced: “The trafficking and distribution of highly illegal and exotic animals!”

Sebastian blinked, then slowly nodded. That… actually made a lot of sense.

“Anyways, we out’a get going,” Expendable #2 grabbed #1 by the shoulder and dragged them towards the exit, waving goodbye to the shopkeeper. “See ya later, Sebby!”

Sebastian’s right eye twitched as he offered a smile filled with just a hint of too many sharp teeth and waved. “Don’t get killed~!”

Chapter Text

Sebastian should have known something like this would happen, and yet he still somehow blundered right into it anyway.

He had been swimming through a highly degraded stretch of the facility, the area having been subjected to multiple hull breaches during the initial stages of the lockdown. The fish had, of course, followed loyally beside him, tucking itself close to his tail so as to take better advantage of the slipstream his larger mass created. It had annoyed Sebastian at first, but he supposed he should be grateful that the fish wasn’t one of those species which suckered onto the bellies of sharks. The very thought of having some creature adhere itself onto his skin had made him shudder in revulsion.

While weaving around the fallen support beams, the fish had darted away to nibble at more instances of that wretched coral. The fish had grown a bit bigger in size, which Sebastian had chalked up to being the result of the surplus of calories it was taking in, due to not needing to hide nearly as much whilst around the giant mutant sea snake.

It was while the fish had been tugging at the bits of coral that a sudden reverberation caught Sebastian’s senses, and he had looked around in alarm. Suddenly, choosing to traverse through the dubiously sound sections of the facility didn’t seem like as good of an idea as it had been initially.

With a shriek of abused metal, an overhanging catwalk suddenly broke free from its moorings and sank like a stone through the water. Sebastian just barely managed to whip his long body out from underneath it before it crashed into the ground with a jarring clang.

More dissonant creaking followed, the ceiling overhead swaying as the water pressure bore down on the rapidly deteriorating integrity of the archway. Sebastian whirled around, his tail propelling him away as parts of the ceiling began to cascade downwards.

If he could just get clear of the facility— find a breach in the hull that opened out into the abyss— a support beam caught his shoulder, the force tearing into his coat, but he kept swimming. He spotted a door partially wrenched open and dove for it, wriggling about to coil as much of his body within the small room as possible, flinging desks and chairs aside.

He curled up as tight as possible, the roaring intensified and the entire room shook violently as the corridor beyond collapsed in on itself. The sound of shifting rock and metal echoing for several long moments as clouds of dust and dirt billowed into the room.

It took several long moments before the collapsing structure finally settled, the water was choked with loose dirt and debris kicked up by the destruction, and Sebastian’s gills had to work overtime just to breathe.

When the murkiness finally began to clear, Sebastian took stock of his surroundings. Yep… everything was busted to hell. A complete mess and no chance of finding anything even remotely salvageable.

He let out a sigh, coughing slightly at the murky water that the light of his esca struggled to pierce. When he unwound himself from the defensive coil he had been in, he winced at a sharp pain in his shoulder and looked down.

Blood was seeping from a gash where his coat was torn when he got hit by that falling support beam, and he grimaced in irritation. He could feel pinpricks of pain along his body from other superficial scratches and nicks he’d received from the cascade of rubble. Nothing he couldn’t easily handle.

He further uncoiled himself in the room, knocking over a locker in the process, as he made his way towards the doorway to see the state of the corridor beyond, only to stop when he realized that the doorway was blocked.

Damn it!

Rushing over, he dug his claws into the hill of rubble blocking his way out, dislodging cracked cement and flinging away jagged spurs of metal. His digging was stirring up another choking cloud of dirt and he had to slow down in order to avoid completely blinding himself. With effort, he eventually managed to remove enough debris to open up a narrow gap between two fallen beams.

He flinched away when a shape darted in through the new opening, then relaxed when he saw it was just the fish. He allowed the fish to swim around his head, raising a hand to let it brush its scales against him in greeting. Sebastian was glad that his little buddy managed to avoid getting crushed in the chaos.

His gaze returned to the opening he had formed, shining his light through to peer at the other side. He was dismayed to find that his light immediately bounced off a veritable forest of warped metal and large jagged stones.

It was going to take forever to dig his way out. He could do it. Sebastian knew he could escape. He wasn’t gonna let something as stupid as being buried alive be the death of him, if only to further spite Urbandshade.

He could last some time without food, though the act of continuous digging would likely drain him of a lot of his strength, but he had some supplies with him, including a few medkits, except those weren’t really meant to be applied whilst one was still underwater. It was unfortunate that he didn’t have anything that could help him excavate his way out.

With an exhalation of bubbles, Sebastian began the task of digging. If the worst comes to pass, I could always just eat the fish… He mused darkly, even whilst his stomach twisted at the thought.

—

“Stop that.” Sebastian gurgled in the water, shifting away from the fish who had been picking at the bloody bandage over the gash in his shoulder. Greedy, shameless begger still trying to leech off of me even now!

The blood had clotted at some point, though flecks of it occasionally pittled off whenever he moved too quickly. He had finally caved and decided to use the gauz in one of the medkits to wrap it up, even though doing so exposed the rest of its contents to the water, wasting most of the supplies inside.

He had made decent progress in clearing out the doorway, the back of the room he was in was now host to the piles of displaced debris. He could just barely squeeze his head and arm out through the gap he had widened.

He had no idea how much time had passed, and it was a constant mental battle to remain calm as he felt himself grow weaker and hungrier with every passing hour. Sebastian purposefully avoided acknowledging the fish with an effort of will, but occasionally he couldn’t help but steal glances at it whenever he paused his excavating.

The fish had begun glowing green again, though this time the glow seemed to emanate from the discolored scales along its back, which seemed distorted for some reason, like the scales were dividing into little clusters which broke up the usually uniform pattern of the golden scales. There were two spots along the fish’s head which were particularly worrisome, they seemed to bulge outwards slightly, like tumors, and they possessed that same green glow as the rotten coral.

I knew the little idiot shouldn’t have been eating that stuff, Sebastian lamented, but who was he to judge if the coral was causing the fish to mutate? At least the fish was eating. Unlike himself, who was decidedly not getting anything to eat.

The fish would occasionally swim out of the hole and come back with various things for Sebastian. So far, it had brought him: rotten coral, (which he declined); broken USB sticks, (useless); a pulp of meat from some indiscernible creature that was crushed during the collapse, (he reluctantly consumed this, it tasted like shark ass); and a spoon, (not helpful).

This was frustrating and annoying, but Sebastian did his best to resist the urge to vent said frustrations at the fish. It was doing what it could and it wasn’t the fish’s fault that Sebastian got himself into this mess.

But now the fish was trying to aggravate his injuries!

Sebastian blinked, and realized he had sunken to the floor at some point and curled in on himself. He had been laying there for quite a while.

He felt a stab of pain and rose with a snarl, baring his teeth at the fish, who was biting at his bandaged shoulder. He swiped a claw at it, but it easily dodged and swam in front of his face in a flurry of activity.

He didn’t understand what had it so excited.

It darted forwards, grabbing a gritty lock of his hair and tugging. Sebastian instinctively snapped his jaws at the fish, lunging up from his position on the floor. The fish darted away again, this time swimming up and disappearing through the narrow hole in the doorway.

That’s when Sebastian saw movement, and he floated closer to the opening, before recoiling with a hiss as a beam of light suddenly shot through the opening. He raised an arm to shield his face from the sudden bright light, squinting balefully as he heard the muffled sounds of voices beyond. He thought he heard something along the lines of: ”Holy shit! It’s Sebastian!” as well as other things he couldn’t discern.

Expendables.

It was just his luck that Expendables would find him in the sorry state that he was in. No doubt they would mock and harass him now that he was unable to retaliate. Maybe they would even fill in the hole he had created, bury him for good down here.

The light receded and one of the masked visages of the Expendables dared to poke their sorry faces in, and Sebastian lunged with a feral roar.

“WOAH!” Came the muffled shout before the Expendable was tugged out by their comrades before Sebastian got the chance to bite their head off. How many of them were out there?

Sebastian dug his claws into the rubble, scrabbling madly at the narrow entrance, his tail lashing and stirring up more debris as he clawed his way forward. He was NOT going to die down here. He wasn’t about to let these pathetic wretches watch him starve down in this hole! He thrashed within the narrow confines, feeling his scales scrape painfully against the jagged rocks, the bandage along his shoulder tearing open in his hysteric fervor to escape. He was almost there! He had his head and shoulder free, then his other shoulder, his arm wrenched free and swiped blindly about in an attempt to curtail any ballsy attempts to stop him. He detected the presence of three—no, five Expendables in a semi circle in front of him. His jaw unhinged as he let out a blood curdling snarl that vibrated the surrounding water, causing the Expendables to move backwards, arms raised, one had a flash beacon aimed at him. Sebastian growled again, ready to surge forward and slaughter them all.

But he couldn’t move any further. Try as he might, to his dawning horror, he couldn’t pull himself any further out of the hole. The SCRAMBLER attached to his back was caught on some protruding rock and no matter how he twisted and squirmed, he couldn’t wrench it free.

No, no, no, no, NO NO—

Sebastian thrashed about in a burst of wild panic, spitting and snarling expletives and profanity at the watching Expendables, promising death and violent disembowelment to any who went near him.

Several Expendables were waving their hands at him, yelling something, probably something stupid like: ”Calm down!” or whatever. Sebastian was not in the mood to be calm, like hell would he let his guard down around these scumbags!

A flash of gold caught his eye, and for a split second, Sebastian stopped his crazed flailing and glared at the fish. It swam in front of his face, an unwrapped and waterlogged granola bar held in its mouth. The kind that the Expendables were sent down with in order to not starve while traversing the Blacksite.

The fish spat the granola out, the brick of condensed calories bumping into Sebastian’s face and his mouth snapped shut, teeth grinding the bar into crumbs in a matter of seconds. It wasn’t nearly enough, he was still starving, but that little bit of sustenance brought back some needed clarity to his mind… and he realized just how fucked he was.

He needed to stop behaving like a rabid lunatic. He needed help. He needed the Expendables. Clearly, the fish knew this, and had lured the humans here in an attempt to get Sebastian to realize this as well.

Slumping forwards, Sebastian wiped his face with his only free hand and gave the gathered Expendables his best, albeit shaky, smile.

“Heeeeyyyyyyy, friends,” he pronounced as clearly as the water would allow him. Water really was a terrible medium for human speech to travel through. “Mind lending a hand to your ol’ pal? I’ll make it worth your while!”

The gathered Expendables all glance at one another.

—

Surprisingly, Sebastian didn’t even get a chance to try to negotiate the terms of the deal he had been preparing to propose in order to convince the Expendables to help him.

They just… started helping him. Without a word. They all started moving about, moving chunks of rubble out of the way and searching the surrounding area.

He couldn’t understand why. Perhaps, they wanted to get him free first and then tell him what they wanted in return so that he wouldn’t have a choice on whether or not he owed them? That would be stupid, since as soon as he was free, he could just swim away and not stick around to deliver on any obligations.

Expendables were stupid, but surely they weren’t THAT stupid.

The fact that he couldn’t figure out what their angle was left him in more of an uncomfortable position than he already was. He tried to start a dialogue several times, wanting to at least get some idea on what the Expendables intended to do after he was free, but one Expendable would just shake their head at his attempts to talk and offer him another granola bar to eat, (to which he begrudgingly accepted).

It was highly possible, Sebastian soon realized as time went on, that the Expendables were even less adept at discerning human speech underwater than he was.

The Expendables went about slowly widening the hole he was trapped in; the ones who had gone searching had come back with sheets of metal to use as improvised shovels, while the others resorted to digging with gloved hands.

The fish lingered nearby, flitting about the humans in a playful manner, but mostly sticking to hovering protectively over Sebastian’s prone form, (Sebastian would never admit it aloud but he was grateful for the fish’s wordless support).

He did his best to suppress the urge to flinch or lash out whenever one of the Expendables would inevitably brush against him while they worked to dig him free. He didn’t like being touched, and he would stiffened whenever one or another Expendable thought it prudent to give him “comforting” pats on the (uninjured) shoulder whenever he made a grumbling noise.

As a result, he tried to stifle any and all indicators of his distress and discomfort so as to avoid any more misguided attempts to offer him comfort. Remaining as still as possible, and making no amount of noise.

This didn’t help.

He soon found that if he remained too still, or otherwise tried to mentally recede into himself in an effort to disassociate from the situation, the humans would start touching him even more. Petting him anxiously as they uttered muffled sounds of concern, like he was some ill pet slowly dying on the operating table. He would then have to console the worried humans by giving them a thumbs up and word of reassurance before they would leave him alone and go back to digging him out.

God, this was so humiliating…

It became beyond unbearable when one of the Expendables tried to redress his wounded shoulder while patting his head like he was some injured child, and he finally broke.

Turning to stare the Expendable directly in the opaque face mask, Sebastian mouthed the words: “Please, stop TOUCHING me.”

The Expendable paused, then slowly nodded and backed away, hands up in a placating gesture.

Sebastian let out a relieved sigh of bubbles, which was at first cut short as he spotted another Expendable reaching over to give him a consolatory pat, only to stop before making contact when the first Expendable waved them away with a fervent shake of their head.

Sebastian was exceedingly grateful that, for once, his boundaries were being respected while he was in such a compromising position.

—

It took time, but finally the Expendables managed to remove enough of the debris for Sebastian to wriggle the rest of the way free.

All five of the Expendables raised their arms and cheered in triumph when he swam free, and Sebastian couldn’t help but feel a bit flustered at the display. They didn’t stop cheering as he took the opportunity to swim away as fast as he could, the little fish following him after doing a quick victory loop in the water.

Humans were weird, and Sebastian just wanted to return to one of his shops and curl up into a tight ball whilst he pretended not to care about anything.

Chapter Text

Okay, the fish was getting bigger. Like, not monstrously big or anything that would raise any red flags. But whenever Sebastian would have to carry the fish in order to place it in its temporary spot in his shop, he had begun to notice that the fish was starting to have a bit more heft to it.

Right now, he had the fish in the shallow pool in one of his water accessible cache sites whilst he went about redressing his injuries. The wound on his shoulder was healing well enough, though he suspected that it was going to leave a scar.

Thankfully, Sebastian was just as handy with a needle and thread as he was with machines, and repairing his signature jacket was easy enough to accomplish.

His garments had been originally tailored for him by Urbanshade back when he had been promoted from LR-P to MP-R status, where he was given the privilege of some modicum of decency. Getting to choose what kind of clothing he wore was one of the only things he got a choice in, allowing him to regain some sense of identity back after what Urbanshade had turned him into…

Once he was done patching up the tears in his jacket, he slithered closer to the pool where the fish was contained. The fish was moving less energetically than usual, staying close to the floor of the pool and lingering in a particular corner where gravel had piled up.

The discolored scales had become more prominent, with some actually sticking out of the fish to form weird stubby nodules that, once again, looked an awful lot like the rotten coral. The fish also seemed strangely… bloated.

Sebastian sighed, sitting beside the pool and leaning over it, both elbows propped against the edge with his hands folded under his chin while dipping his third hand into the water, wiggling his claws to get the fish’s attention.

The fish swam slowly over, butting its head against Sebastian’s claws before mouthing at the palm of his hand, probably expecting food.

Sebastian chuckled at the act, using the tips of his claws to just barely graze the new mutations riddling the fish’s body. At the very least, the growths didn’t seem to cause any pain when he touched them. But then again, what did a fish in pain look like exactly? It didn’t have teeth to grit or bare in agitation; it didn’t have any eyelids to squint or droop with fatigue, and it didn’t exactly have the ability to tuck its tail between its legs when frightened.

Sebastian thought that the fish could very well be in severe agony at this moment, and he would be none-the-wiser untill it went belly-up and died.

Sebastian was shaken from his lamenting when he heard the telltale splash of water that announced the arrival of an Expendable making their way out of the flooded corridor below and up into his shop.

“Welcome!” Sebastian easily greeted with his usual grin as he turned away from the fish, sitting up and stretching his tail out for easier perusal of his wares. “Got a selection of good things on sale, friend!”

There were five Expendables this time. Again, their diving gear making it impossible to identify any of them as they dripped water all over the floor of the cozy chamber. However, from the way they moved, Sebastian got the impression that these were a few of his more regular customers.

“Howdy, Sebastian!” One of them gave a casual wave to the fish man. Before surprising Sebastian by adding: “Good to see you doing well after that whole landslide fiasco.”

Sebastian froze, his smile turning the slightest bit tight along the edges as he eyed them warily. “Oh…! Y-you heard about that?”

The Expendable laughed. “Well yeah! I was there, fish-face. I know ya don’t bother with remembering every convict that comes through here, but c’mon bro.”

“Ah, yes.” Sebastian did his best to mask any feelings of awkwardness, smoothing back a lock of his hair over one ear fin. “Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I won’t be handing any discounts out for your team just because you happened to be around during that incident. I have a reputation to uphold after all!”

All five Expendables laughed, one even exclaiming: “Aw man! Not even a free battery?” and Sebastian felt some of the tension ease. He had been a bit worried about these guys coming back and trying to demand recompense for rescuing him. But so far, they seemed pretty chill about the whole thing, which was something he wouldn’t have been able to say about the previous groups of Expendables he’d had the displeasure of dealing with.

“No worries, we didn’t expect you to.” Another Expendable said after they were all done with their chuckling. “Besides, it is in our best interest to keep our ‘only friend’ in this hellhole alive.”

“Right you are!” Sebastian grinned slyly, appreciating that the Expendable followed a similar train of logic to his own. “Now, while there won’t be any discounts, I do in fact have some particularly rare items that may interest you. If you’ve got the right amount of research for it, that is.”

He gestured to the belts along his tail, which hosted several Blacklights, Code Breachers, a Gummylight, (garbage, but Sebastian knew the Expendables liked the stupid devices despite there being far better options), as well as a strange glowing cube.

“Oh nice!” The Expendables were quick to make their purchases, chattering animatedly amongst themselves whilst handing over their collected assets to Sebastian.

“Is that your little pet fish friend?” One of the Expendables suddenly asked, having moseyed over to the edge of the pool Sebastian was sitting beside. “The one that lead us to where you were stuck?”

Sebastian nodded with a grunt, preoccupied with counting the newly acquired data files. “Uh, yeah. But it’s not my pet…” He mumbled something incomprehensible, glancing at the gathered Expendables and debating on whether or not to dare ask if any of them happened to know anything about fish care. Or if one of them just so happened to be a certain convict who participated in the illegal pet trade.

However, he stubbornly resisted the urge. He could just imagine the jokes the Expendables would make at his expense.

”Sebastian? Our local fishman asking us humans on how to take care of his PET FISH?!”

“The Great and Almighty Sebastian Solace is worried about his wittle bitty baby fishie???”

“AWWW SEBBY CARES ABOUT HIS LIL’ FISH FRIEND—“

Yeah, fuck that.

“Uh, Sebastian?”

He felt a slight tug on his coat sleeve and just barely managed to suppress the instinctual flick of his wrist that would have taken the perpetrator’s hand clean off.

“Yesss…?” He glared down at the offending Expendable, who backed away swiftly upon catching onto his thinly veiled displeasure.

“Um, I don’t know if you noticed. Buuuut I think your fish might be eggnant?”

Silence fell over the room.

Both Sebastian and the other humans stared at the Giver-of-this-Knowledge with mixtures of astonishment, disbelief, confusion and abject horror.

Sebastian’s eye twitched and he pushed a few stray strands of hair out of his face, before sucking in a sharp breath. “I’m sorry… But would you care to repeat that for me?”

The Expendable had the presence of mind to look contrite as they tried to explain. “W-well, it’s just that- before I had my run in with the authorities, and y’know ended up here, haha. I, uh, well my ex-girlfriend had this hobby of hers where she would breed these little fish she’d get at the pet store for like a dollar each. Which was great ‘cuz like, while I was busy waiting for a drug deal to go through, we had this side business selling quote on quote ’Fancy Pedigree Fish’. But yeah anyways, um, whenever the fish would get pregnant, I remembered they’d have this, like, bulge at the back of their abdomen. And I’m just saying that your fish looks kinda like how those fish looked when they were getting ready to lay eggs...”

More silence.

One of the Expendables that had been watching near the back of the group had subtly taken the opportunity to slip out of the shop, evidently not wanting to be present for whatever bullshit was happening. That Expendable was probably one of the wiser ones…

Because the stupidest of the remaining four Expendables chose that moment to open their dumb mouth.

“ARE YOU SAYING THAT SEBASTIAN PORKED THE FISH?!”

Shouts of dismay and cries of protest erupted from the other humans, one even going so far as to punch the one who had spoken non-too-gently in the shoulder with a shouted: “Dude, what the fuck?!”

“What? How else would it get pregnant?? There’s only one other fish here, so obviously—“

“Oh, shut the hell up! Mister I-got-arrested-for-having-intercourse-with-my-neighbor’s-dog!”

“I TOLD YOU THAT I WAS DRUNK THAT TIME!”

“You sure as hell weren’t drunk for the next seven times you did it!”

“There ain’t no way, there’s plenty of other fish in the sea! Why the hell would—“

“Can’t some fish reproduce asexually, though?”

“No, no, that’s frogs.”

“Hang on— I’m still not over this. You’re telling me that this motherfucker got arrested for having sex with his neighbor’s dog???“

“I WAS DRUNK!”

“All seven times?!”

“NO! I MEAN- Listen! I’m not going over this story again! We’re talking about Sebby’s new babies!”

“Dude, you are disgusting! Like actually deranged, man!”

“How would that even work???”

“Oh my god, do NOT ask that—“

“Wait— are we still talking about the fish? Does that mean there’s gonna be gold fish for sale soon?!”

“Alright, that’s it!” Sebastian yelled over all of them, rising to his full 10 foot height and jabbing a claw towards the exit. “EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY SHOP!”

In a matter of mere seconds, all the humans scurried to vacate the area as fast as possible, making loud splashes as they dove through the port hole in floor in a flurry of motion. Leaving Sebastian alone with his thoughts.

Sebastian took a moment to just… appreciate the silence. Then he plunged his head into the fish’s pool and screamed as loud as he could.

The fish, intrigued by the eruption of bubbles suddenly filling the pool, swam about in an excited circle. Oh, how Sebastian wished he could be so ignorant and carefree.

Having screamed his lungs out, Sebastian eventually raised his head, water cascading down his face as he tried to come to terms with everything.

Surely, the human who had pointed out the fish’s anomaly must have just been taking the piss out of him. It had to be some practical joke! The Expendables loved playing pranks on Sebastian! Surely, this was just another hare-brained scheme of theirs to get on his nerves.

He stared down at the fish, who had returned to its corner where it was using its tail to shift about the gravel into a suspiciously nest-shaped pile.

Christ on a cracker, of all the stupid things Sebastian Solace had to deal with… This was ranking fairly high on the list of stupidity.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The fish was refusing to leave the pool in his shop. Even when Sebastian made it clear that he was going to go out on one of his usual scavenging trips, the fish made no effort to try and follow him.

This was a far cry from when the fish would resort to bodily flinging itself out of its containment in order to follow Sebastian where ever he went. Sebastian was torn between feeling increasingly worried and relieved that he wouldn’t have to deal with the fish tagging along on his dives into the deeper parts of the facility.

Nevertheless, the fact that the fish evaded all attempts to be removed from the pool meant that it was preventing Sebastian from migrating along his usual check-points where he visited his various cache sites. He didn’t want to just leave the fish when it couldn’t get out and feed itself. But he also didn’t want to just dump a bunch of bodies into the pool, he was pretty sure having a bunch of rotting meat in the water would be a bad idea.
He certainly did not want the fish to eat anymore rotten coral!

He ground his teeth in frustration as he swam laps about the flooded corridor, like tiger shark on the warpath . Goddamn this stupid fish!

He didn’t have time for this shit! He had tolerated the presence of the fish, but only because it had been self-sufficient and didn’t need anything from him! But now he had let himself become attached. And now the fish was relying on him to… what exactly? To provide it sanctuary? To provide food for it while it had its eggs? To ferry the fry from said eggs to the open ocean when they hatched??? Or would there just be tiny versions of the fish occupying that shallow pool of water in his hideout for the rest of time? Could he sell them? Would Expendables even want to buy fish?

Get your very own lucky gold fish here in the depths of Hadal Blacksite! Guaranteed to make your underwater ventures just a tad less lonely and definitely a lot more sad and pathetic!

Sebastian felt the irrational urge to bash his head against the wall over and over again, if only so that unconsciousness would relieve him of this nightmare. But the thought of having to deal with the inevitable concussion on top of all his problems kept him from acting out such impulses.

He swam further down the corridor with no particular destination in mind. He could travel across the Blacksite fairly quickly, especially in the flooded sections, and he was vaguely aware that he had swam a good distance away from his usual stomping grounds.

One indication that he was in a part of the facility he hadn’t visited recently was the submersible halfway rammed into the side of the wall.

That was… unusual.

Warily, he swam closer, noticing that the submarine’s cockpit was open. The inside was empty, so either the previous occupants had managed to survive the crash and escaped or their bodies were dragged off by some other creature.

This submarine must‘ve had one hell of a navigational error to have driven itself right into a random part of the facility…

Just what the hell were the Urbanshade operatives doing up there?

——————

“Hey, Painter.” Sebastian slunk into the room where the sentient AI was held.

“Sebastian!!!” The p.AI.nter’s tinny robot voice practically squealed, the volume so loud that Sebastian was worried its speakers would blow out.

“Shhh! Keep it down, buddy!” He hissed as he slithered over to the cage which held the little computer.

“Sorry! Sorry!” The monitor which displayed the scribbled visage of the p.AI.nter’s face turned into a > u <‘ “I’m just so excited! I thought you’d never come back! N-not that I doubted you, of course! But you’ve been gone for so long that I was really starting to worry! Is it time to escape yet? Is it? IS IT?!”

Sebastian felt an unwanted sense of guilt well up in him at seeing the sentient AI so full of hope. “Ah, well, no… Not yet, unfortunately. I’m still trying to get in touch with some of the rival companies that actually have a chance at getting past Urbanshade’s defenses in order to extract us safely.”

He did not mention the fact that the radio transmitter he had rigged up hadn’t managed to pick up any signals. Sebastian was aware of the existence of operatives within Urbanshade’s ranks who were acting as spies for rival companies, one of them actually helped with his plan to sabotage the Blacksite by coordinating for him to be transported to another location, during which was when he had sprung his escape and initiated the whole lockdown event.

Unfortunately, Sebastian had been unable to make contact with the spy since. Which did not bode well.

Painter’s face turned into a ;( at that before turning back into a :) “Oh, okie dokie! Then w-why did you risk coming all this way to Heavy Containment? Has something happened?”

Sebastian chuckled, Painter might be naive and a little unstable but it could be startlingly perceptive at times. “In a way… I actually came by to ask if you’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary on the cameras you still have access to.”

This was half true. What Sebastian had initially come to the Heavy Containment sector of the Hadal Blacksite for was to try and find any documents about the fish. Hoping to find any information pertaining to its nature. So few Expendables ever made it this far into the facility that he very seldom got any of the data contained within.

One of the reasons he didn’t try to scavenge here more often himself was because the security grid was only partially compromised. When Sebastian had hooked up Painter to take over the site’s systems, the bastards up on the surface managed to lock down some of the more heavily reinforced areas and prevent the AI from totally wreaking havoc on the facility’s mainframe. One of the consequences of that meant Urbanshade had access to most of the cameras located in Heavy Containment.

Sure, Urbanshade couldn’t exactly do anything to him remotely through the cameras. But he hated the idea of them catching so much as a glimpse of his whereabouts, and he had done his best to avoid the areas he knew security cameras were stationed.

“Out of the ordinary?” Painter queried. “Like, how out of the ordinary are we talking?”

“Oh, you know, like: Urbanshade Subs randomly crashing into the facility kind of out of the ordinary.”

“Huh.” The Painter’s sketchy face glitched slightly, an emulation of it blinking whenever it tapped further into its database. Or at least that’s what Sebastian assumed, anyway. “Well, there aren’t that many cameras pointing outside. Which makes sense; the corporate piggies are more concerned about the goings-on inside the facility rather than what’s happening outside. And FOR GOOD REASON, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Sebastian waited patiently for the Painter to get over its bout of hysteria, knowing that its sudden changes in mood weren’t its fault, due to its often overclocked systems. “Focus, Painter.” He gently prompted.

“HAHA! Huh? Oh, r-right, sorry-“

“It’s alright! Just tell me what you know.” Sebastian offered the AI an easy smile, despite the anxiety of being this deep in this sector of the facility weighing on him.

“Right, umm, yeah. Like I said, there aren’t any cameras that point outside the facility. Except for the ones at the dry docks.”

Sebastian cocked his head, he had suspected as much, but it was good to know for certain. “Really? Do you know if anymore teams of Expendables have arrived?”

“Nope! The last sub to arrive at their drop-off point was over three weeks, six hours and thirty-two minutes ago, based on my internal clock. By the way, happy Tuesday!!!” Multicolored pixels scattered across the Painter’s monitor in a facsimile of party confetti, with complimentary stock-sound effects of party kazoos.

Sebastian couldn’t help but let out a snort at that. He had stopped keeping track of the days long ago; there wasn’t much point when the sun’s light couldn’t reach them this deep in the ocean.

“Alright then, Painter. If you see anything odd, just give a shout-out over the speakers in my usual area.” He turned to leave, already his mind filling with all of his other troubles and how he was going to go about them. Visiting Painter had been nice, but certainly not useful.

“W-wait!”

Sebastian paused to look over his shoulder, immediately feeling bad upon seeing the desperate look on the Painter’s scribbled features. He tried not to let his sympathy show too much, however. Sebastian had work to do, and he couldn’t stay here. They both knew that.

“I did see something a little while ago!” The Painter hastily said. “Though, I don’t know if you’d consider it pertinent or anything. But… a few days ago I saw something strange through a camera that had a view of one of the larger windows— y’know, the ones where Eyefestation likes to peer in through at passing humans? Well, I saw what looked like a whole bunch of yellow lights! They kinda looked like stars out there in the open ocean, almost. Gosh, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the stars…”

“Yellow lights?” Sebastian echoed, somewhat intrigued despite himself.

“Yeah!” The Painter’s excitement grew a touch. “I have no idea what they were. But there was a lot of them! At first I was worried that they were lights from a whole fleet of submarines or something, but they moved too quickly, too organically, like they were suuuuuper tiny fireflies. So, I don’t think it came from machines.”

Huh. Sebastian wasn’t sure what to make of this information. The Painter was right about it not appearing to be anything relevant to their situation, so it was essentially useless to them. But Sebastian made a mental note to keep an eye out for anything like what the Painter had described.

“Thanks for the info, Painter. I’ll keep that in mind the next time I go venturing out into the abyss. I’ll try to visit you again soon, alright?”

“Okay!” The Painter beamed, even as Sebastian moved to go, glad that it had gotten the chance to talk to its friend again. “Oh! And say hi to your little fishy pal for me!”

Sebastian blinked, surprised that the AI knew of the fish’s existence, before realizing that it had probably seen him and the fish together on the cameras.

Smiling, he gave the Painter a thumbs-up. “Sure thing, buddy.”

——————

The trip back to his usual haunt took Sebastian a few hours, all the while he tried to remain out of sight by either swimming outside the facility or crawling through maintanence tunnels.

He briefly encountered a herd of Abstract art loitering in one of the circular presentation rooms, all facing a cracked display monitor detailing the usual emergency procedures of the lockdown. Or at least, he assumed they were all facing the screen, they didn’t have any discernible eyes, so for all he knew they were all facing the doorway where he came in from.

Well, that was an unnerving thought…

At least the Abstractees were passive entities, according to their file.

“‘Scuse me,” Sebastian said as he weaved his long snake-like body around the stationary humanoids. “Pardon me, coming through!”

He needn’t have bothered; try as he might, he could never seem to knock the concrete creatures over, despite them standing on proportionally spindly limbs. It was like some magical force was keeping them in place until they decided to migrate.

As expected, the Abstractees didn’t move or give any indication of their sentience as Sebastian moved past them and into the adjoining hallway.

————-

When he finally made it back to his hideout where the fish was held, he was confronted with a disturbing sight.

Rotten coral creeped up the edge of the pool and sprouted from niches in the cracked walls.

Hauling himself fully into the room, Sebastian approached the edge of the fish’s pool and looked at its interior.

Rotten coral covered the bottom of the pool in an even coating of dark green algae. In the far corner a cluster of the luminescent buds blinked eerily, amidst their fronds lay the distinct round shapes of fish eggs, no bigger than the tip of his claw, and there had to be over a hundred of them all clumped together in that pile.

The fish was no where to be seen.

Sebastian searched the entirety of the shallow pool, even going as far as to disturb the rotten coral fronds to see if the fish had somehow hidden itself among them.

But the fish was gone.

Sebastian sat there for a long while, his tail curled inwards about himself like a warding wall against his roiling emotions. Did the fish actually manage to make it to the port hole in the floor? Had it hurt itself in doing so? There was no sign of blood or loose scales on the floor, but that hardly meant anything.

The room was silent save for the sound of his breathing and the steady drip of water.

drip…drip…drip…drop…

Did someone come in and take the fish? Why? He didn’t think the fish would just let itself be hauled away by a human. Sure, it was small to Sebastian, but it was a sizable specimen when compared to a human.

But what if the fish had been weakened after laying its eggs? Too weak to swim away or struggle?

Sebastian shut his eyes tightly, his claws clenching into fists, he had no idea what to do. He could go out and try to search for the fish, maybe he would come across some Expendables and could interrogate them. But how could he find one small fish in a vast ocean?

drip…drip…drop…slap…

Sebastian had to confront the fact that he may not ever know what happened to his fish friend, and that all he had left were its offspring, which may not even be viable for all he knew. He also didn’t know a thing about caring for fish fry, so they may all die anyways even if the eggs were viable.

drip…slap…drip…slap…

He wasn’t sure what emotion he was feeling right at that moment. Whatever it was, it bundled up in a tight fiery ball in his chest that burned more painfully with every shuddering breath he took.

slap…slap… slap… slap…

Sebastian was so deep in his thoughts that, if he had still been human, he wouldn’t have registered the change in the pattern of water droplets.

However, even in the midst of grief, his other senses were still primed for anything and his instincts alerted him to the presence of something else in the room.

Lifting his head, Sebastian’s glowing eyes slowly scanned the rest of the chamber. The shark DNA in his genome allowed him to detect movement at closer range, but nothing was pinging on his mental radar.

slap… slap…slap…

His earfins flicked at the noise, then he felt a patter of water droplets fall on his head and his eyes widened slightly. It’s coming from above me…

Slowly, very slowly, Sebastian looked up.

Above him wasn’t exactly a ceiling, in fact, the hideout he was in was actually a part of the maintenance tunnels, so pipes were lining most of the walls. Several of such pipes led upwards into a narrow shaft above that went up for quite a ways before curving into another shaft.

One of the pipes was directly overhead, and clinging to the underside of the metal surface with elongated fins which curled into distinct finger like protrusions, staring down at him with lidless eyes, was the mutated form of the golden fish.

“Holy shit…” Sebastian reflexively raised his hands up, fully expecting the creature to pounce and try to rip his face off.

The fish did detach from the pipe to fall towards him and Sebastian tensed as he caught it out of the air before it could land on his face.

He grasped onto it with all three hands as it squirmed in his grip. His mind suddenly narrowing to a grim fine point. If he had to kill the fish, he would. At least now he knew what had become of it and he could have that as closure…

The fish, however, made no move to bite him or to attack. It just stared up at him, its toothless mouth gaping open and close rapidly.

Sebastian realized with a start that the fish was breathing, its sides heaving despite its gills remaining firmly shut. It was breathing out of the water!

It had gotten significantly larger as well, the glowing green clusters along its scales having become more numerous and prominent; the distribution of golden scales and mottled dark green was enough to give the fish a calico-like patterning. Either that or like a golden loaf of bread had a serious case of mold. Several dark green veins of coral branched off its body like little antlers. It also had sprouted additional whisker-like barbels along its lips that gave it a ragged, sparsely mustachoed appearance.

“What the hell happened to you?!” He shouted, practically shaking the fish as he yelled. Because, seriously, what the actual fuck! He hadn't been gone that long! It had only taken a couple hours to get to and from Heavy Containment! How did all of this happen in that short amount of time?!

The fish waggled its tail, and waved its head from side to side. Sebastian could only imagine it saying something like: ”I don’t know, man! I’m just a fish!”

Clearly, the definition of ‘just a fish’ was in need of refinement.

The fish wiggled more insistently and Sebastian let out a long exhale. Warily, he lowered the fish to the floor and let it go.

The fish remained upright, resting on its belly with its fins splayed on either side of it. It kind of reminded Sebastian of a seal. Then it began to shuffle towards the side of the pool, making that distinctively wet slap, slap, slap sound each time its fins hit the stone floor.

Sebastian found himself oddly fascinated by the fish’s newly acquired form of locomotion, and to his greater astonishment, he watched as the fish was able to somehow scale up the side of the wall before it flopped ungracefully into the pool.

Through some mechanism that Sebastian lacked the knowledge to understand, the fish was apparently now capable of not only walking on land, but also fully capable of scaling vertical surfaces like a freaking gecko.

“Well,” Sebastian sighed, feeling mentally drained from the emotional rollercoster he just had. “I suppose this means I can formally welcome you to the Mutant Fish club…”

The fish blew out a bubble in response, because now it could do that with its new ability to breathe in both the water and the air.

Chapter Text

Sebastian wasn’t sure how long fish normally took to hatch, or if different species had different incubation times, but it certainly didn’t take long for the eggs to start changing.

Approximately forty-eight hours since he first discovered the eggs, the little reddish orbs seemed to have grown twice their original size. Each egg now possessed two distinct black dots, which Sebastian assumed were supposed to be eyes.

Over half of the eggs, however, turned a fuzzy white color. Sebastian thought it was a sign that those ones were duds.

He became worried when he noticed that the white fuzzy coloration of one egg started infecting one of the eggs next to it that had already developed eyes, and before he knew it he had begun to meticulously separate any white dud eggs away from the rest of the brood to prevent whatever was happening from spreading.

Why was he doing this? Because the fish didn’t seem to posses the brains or a keen enough eyesight to tell the difference between one egg or another. In fact, it hardly acknowledged the eggs beyond hovering in the water over them protectively. The fish would bite ineffectively at Sebastian whenever he stuck a claw in to remove the dud eggs, which was annoying, so he would often have to resort to holding the fish under one arm so that it wouldn’t get in the way.

His efforts to quarantine the other eggs from the defective ones seemed to be working, as the white fuzz didn’t spread any further once the duds were no longer clustered with the healthy eggs.

Sebastian hadn’t realized it at first, but now he really couldn’t deny the facts. He was invested in the survival of the damn fish’s offspring.

This meant that his usual operation of migrating between different cache sites to take advantage of the traffic of Expendables was essentially put on hold for the foreseeable future.

There were three problems with this.

One. Not being able to freely move from cache to cache meant he couldn’t easily restock on supplies.

Two. Not being constantly on the move between different hideouts meant a higher likelihood of Urbanshade piecing together where he was located based on their spotty connections with the Expendables.

Three. Without him to act as a check-point/rest stop for coming and going Expendables, that meant a higher chance for the Expendables to perish, and thus less people down in the Blacksite who could gather more data files for him.

Sebastian really hoped that the eggs wouldn’t take too long to hatch, because at some point Sebastian was going to have to leave to other parts of the facility. It was simply too dangerous to stay in one area for too long. He had already been forming the bad habit of sticking to the parts of the facility that were water accessible due to the fact that the fish couldn’t follow him into the more intact sectors of the Blacksite.

But now, that would change. Since apparently the fish had mutated to become semi-aquatic. Now it could follow him essentially anywhere, at least in theory.

Sebastian was now testing out this theory by entering one of the areas where the collapsed ceiling gave way to an air pocket to the floor above. He slithered out of the water and went about checking drawers and cabinets, like he usually would whilst scavenging.

The fish meanwhile, lingered in the water, eyeing Sebastian.

When Sebastian did not return to the water and kept going further down the corridor, the fish floundered about before leveraging itself up onto dry land.

Sebastian had to bite back a guffaw as he heard the rapid slapslapslapslapslap of the fish waddling at great haste in order to catch up with him.

He waited for a moment, watching as the fish waddled to a stop beside his tail, sides heaving with the effort. Sebastian supposed that walking on land was something the fish would need to hone as a skill; it certainly wasn’t going to keep up very well with him if he wanted to get the most out of this scavenging trip.

Still…

“I’m not going to carry you,” Sebastian stated bluntly as he slithered away down the corridor. If the fish was able to keep up with him in the water, then he was sure it would figure out a way to keep up with him on dry land. Sooner or later.

Call it tough love, but Sebastian hadn’t gotten this far in life by being coddled and he certainly wasn’t going to rob the fish of well earned experience by treating it like a helpless baby.

As he continued onwards, the sound of the fish noisily waddling after him soon became distant. He turned down another corridor, slithering over a pile of knocked over storage racks, before ducking into a side room.

The room had a series of computers, all dead and disconnected from the network, but Sebastian could pry out some of the more important computer parts for repurposing. Such work was often tedious and slow, since his claws were much larger than the fleshy, dexterous fingers on human hands, so he had to take particular care whenever he pried one of the towers open.

He figured that spending thirty minutes to extract some motherboards and other junk would be more than enough time for the fish to catch up, so he set about retrieving his various tools from some of the pouches strapped along his tail and went to work…

It took the fish forty-two minutes to reach him.

Sebastian had finally run out of patience and had poked his head out of the room he was in to peer down the hallway from whence he’d come, only to see the fish had been sulking on the other side of the blockade made by the fallen over storage racks.

“What are you doing?” Sebastian asked, sliding over to squint down at the fish from where it was squatting.

The fish made a little hopping motion, its tail wagging as it tilted its head from side to side to look at Sebastian with one eye, then the other.

“What? Did you forget that you can scale walls like a freakin’ spider?” Sebastian snorted, putting his hands on his hips. “C’mon, I’ve seen you do it before.”

The fish wobbled in a slow circle, its mouth opening and closing idly as the barbels along its lips quivered.

Sebastian groaned in annoyance, reaching over to tap the wall on the fish’s side of the blockade. “Over here, fish bait.”

The fish caught sight of the movement and waddled over, bumping its head into the wall before managing to lever itself upright so that it had its fore fins pressed against the wall.

Sebastian tapped his claws against the wall again, and this time the fish managed to scuttle up the wall and over onto his side. “Well, would you look at that! You did forget that you could climb the walls. Talk about having the memory of a gold fish.”

The fish offered no reply, instead seeming to become preoccupied with eating at the crumbling dry wall.

“Stop that.” Sebastian admonished, quickly plucking the fish off of the wall. He resigned himself to the fact that he was likely going to be carrying the little freak all the way back to the hideout.

“Hey, Sebastian.” A lone Expendable greeted, having just come up into Sebastian’s water accessible shop.

The mutant snake man turned to greet them, his earfins twitched as his esca’s light flickered brighter. “Ah, hello there. Needing to restock on some supplies?”

Sebastian wasn’t certain, but he had the notion that this Expendable didn’t appear to be part of the other groups of Expendables he knew of. Then again, Sebastian wasn’t exactly keeping tabs on which Expendables came with which. So, he could easily be mistaken.

The Expendable gave a slow nod, though they seemed somewhat distracted, glancing at the overabundance of rotten coral creeping up the walls and into the shallow pool that Sebastian was standing beside. “We’re not gonna have to worry about Wall dwellers jumping us in here, are we?”

Sebastian huffed a chuckle, assuming the human meant the two of them. “Well, I wouldn’t say you shouldn’t be worried.” He teased with a fanged grin. “After all, down here in Hadal Blacksite no place is truly safe. Though, rest assured that I am more than capable of handling measly Wall dwellers, should the vermin dare manifest in here.”

The Expendable made a sound of solemn agreement, though they still seemed to be thinking something over. Which admittedly, made Sebastian a bit confused.

He couldn’t read the Expendable’s expression due to the face mask they and every other Expendable wore. The prisoners that were sent down for the Expendable Protocol were all outfitted with full body suits (Prisoner Diving Gear) meant to protect from most hazards and provide oxygen when traversing flooded zones. However, it also acted as a way for Urbanshade to administer punishment and disposal of disobedient convicts.

Punishment: in the form of a continuous electric shock that Sebastian was all too familiar with. The stream of electricity being fired through the built in circuitry meant to be monitoring the Expendable’s life signs wouldn’t stop until the operatives on the other side decided to switch the torment off.

Disposal: in the form of the remote detonation of the built in explosive affixed to the back of the wearer’s suit, secured just underneath the diving backpack that housed the Expendable’s oxygen tanks and other supplies.

This elaborate and convoluted diving suit was purposefully designed to be finicky, so that if the Expendables tried to tamper with their own suits or the suits of their fellows, they were more likely to set off either of the two mechanisms rather than accomplish anything. Sometimes if the suits were damaged too severely they would also be set off, causing either a premature death for what would‘ve only been a nasty gash to a non-vital part, or immobilizing the wearer with pain that would last until either the operatives monitoring them noticed or the Expendable simply passed out from the agony.

Sebastian certainly didn’t envy the Expendables and their predicament, that was for sure.

The fish chose that moment to make itself known by poking its head out of the pool and spitting water at the Expendable, who squawked in indignation.

Sebastian had to press his lips together to keep himself from cackling. That’s what you get for loitering!

“Apologies, my little colleague here isn’t too fond of strangers lingering around for too long,” Sebastian stated with a smug grin. “So, if you intend to buy anything, I suggest you hurry up.”

The Expendable grumbled something that Sebastian couldn’t hear, taking another look around the room before seeming to come to a decision.

“Actually, we came here to give you some information... Information that we were told would be of great interest to you.”

Sebastian blinked, the air in the room abruptly feeling much heavier with the sudden tension and the quickening beat of his heart. His body slowly uncoiled as his previously lax and casual stance changed to one of a dangerous predator poised in anticipation.

The Expendable seemed to gather themself, aware that they were treading on thin ice now they had gotten The Saboteur's undivided attention. Their head tilted slightly as they noticed the way the mutant sea snake’s tailfin had angled itself in such a way that it could easily strike them if they made any sudden moves. They weren’t sure if the movement was deliberate on Sebastian’s part or resulted from some instinct imbued upon him.

“Information, you say,” Sebastian purred venomously, looming over the “expendable” as he scrutinized them critically, wary of potentially hidden weapons they might have on their person. “Well that’s certainly interesting! And why would you, a supposed criminal sent down here into the meat grinder by Urbanshade, have anything of such great importance which pertains to me?”

The Expendable audibly gulped, raising a shaking hand in a pitiful attempt to forestall what would likely be a brutal attack if they said the wrong thing. “Um… look, before you bite our head off, at least let us deliver the message first…? We promise, it’s in your best interest if you hear us out.”

Sebastian cocked his head slightly, catching onto the Expendable’s continued use of plurals. His brow furrowed in deep suspicion. Who the fuck is “we”? Is this Expendable not actually alone?

Sebastian stared the Expendable down for several seconds, eyes narrowed to slits, before suddenly he barked a nasty laugh. Spittle hitting the Expendable’s face mask as they took a startled step back from him.

The large snake man kept cackling, holding his sides in apparent humor, before stopping all at once. His face turned dead serious and unimpressed.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go with no.”

POW!

Quicker than it took the blink, Sebastian had drawn his sawed-off shotgun and shot the Expendable dead between the eyes.

The human crumpled like a sack of potatoes, blood pooling on the floor in a steadily expanding puddle.

Sebastian stood there, waiting for something to happen. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Maybe a for a whole team of elite Urbanshade operatives to suddenly come bursting out of the walls, or for the Expendable’s corpse to simply reanimate and resume talking like nothing happened. Or maybe for the body to suddenly explode with deadly neurotoxin meant to kill him…

None of those things happened.

Splat!

The fish added its contribution to the dead Expendable with a spit of water, causing Sebastian to quirk a smile at the little fish’s impudence.

With caution, Sebastian began the process of searching the corpse before removing it from his hideout. He was still wary of a trap, but after a few minutes he found nothing nefarious beyond the still intact Prisoner Diving Gear, explosives and all.

In fact, the Expendable hadn’t been carrying anything at all. No loose assets, no flashlight or tools, not even the pitiful rations that the Expendables were usually sent down with.

How the hell did this Expendable make it this far into the facility?

The only plausible explanation, Sebastian thought, was that the Expendable had come in on the wayward submarine that he had found several days ago.

Perhaps Sebastian was a bit too hasty about killing the human. However, he had every right to be as paranoid as he was. There had been multiple times when Urbanshade had sent down their more trained operatives in an attempt to flush him out, and they had used all manner of nasty tricks and manipulation in an attempt to catch him unawares.

The worst of which was when they had used recordings of her voice to try and lure him into a deadly trap…

Sebastian felt something crunch in his claws, and he realized he had been holding onto the Expendable’s corpse so tightly that he had broken its arm. His breathing had begun to devolve into shallow gasps, old memories threatening to overwhelm him.

Squirt!

He was snapped out of his daze by the splash of water rudely squirted in his face by the fish. He shot a look at the fish, who had propped itself onto the lip of the pool, staring blankly at him.

Sebastian uttered a heavy sigh, wiping wet hair out of his face with frustration as he resumed hauling the body out of the hideout and into the flooded corridor below.

He didn’t bother with any fan fair or ceremony, he simply tossed the corpse away and let the water carry it off.

Before he turned to go back to the hideout, he noticed a glint of something shiny become dislodged from somewhere on the body.

Swimming closer to shine his esca’s light on the object, he saw what he could only describe as a rolled up piece of tinfoil.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Sebastian plucked the garbage up and unrolled it, not expecting to find anything of interest but…

He squinted.

Scribbled on the piece of tinfoil in sharpie marker were the blood smeared words: “We’ll Be Back!!!”

For some reason, Sebastian felt an odd chill run down his spine.

He noticed that along with those ominous words, there was an arrow pointing at the corner, indicating that there was more written on the back.

Turning the tinfoil around, his face turned into a scowl.

The words “Shithead!!!” written in bold letters were what greeted him.

With an irritated growl, Sebastian tossed the tinfoil aside and swam back to his hideout. Stupid humans…

—-

He peered anxiously into the pool. To his surprise, the eggs didn’t hatch like a chicken or a lizard egg would. The fry just sort of morphed out of the egg, unfolding from the thin membrane until only the yolks were left attached to their undersides.

They looked nothing like gold fish. They didn’t even look like mutated versions of the goldfish, they were practically translucent save for their eyes and speckles along their thin bodies.

Sebastian was frankly confused by this. Was this normal? Would they look more like their progenitor as they matured? Or did the fish somehow produce the offspring of an entirely different species?

It was times like these where Sebastian really wished he had access to the internet.

The fry didn’t seem capable of independent movement, however. In fact, the yolk sacs attached to them seemed to be enough to keep them immobilized on the little pile of gravel that was their nest. Though, he would occasionally see one furiously waggling their tail as if trying to swim away, especially whenever he cast a shadow over them.

Finding this amusing, Sebastian had briefly entertained himself by using his light to cast shadow puppets with his hands and pretended to nom at the little babies, causing the fry to twitch and and wriggle about frantically in fear of an imaginary predator. Then the fish had spoiled his fun by planting itself over the brood, casting its own shadow and preventing his from teasing the fry.

Sebastian pouted for a moment, before shrugging and turning away to resume sorting through supplies.

So far, things had been relatively quiet around this section of the facility that Sebastian was occupying. No more Expendables had come through since he had killed that strange one.

He couldn’t decide whether or not that was a good sign or an ill omen for things to come.

Sebastian took a risk and began trying to fiddle with the radio once more, trying to tune into a frequency that Urbanshade wasn’t on, whilst also keeping in mind that his SCRAMBLER prevented most radio waves. He had configured the SCRAMBLER to specifically disrupt signals from Urbanshade channels, but he wasn’t sure of what tricks they would employ to try getting around the blocked channels.

This meant he usually had the SCRAMBLER set to cover a wide range of radio frequencies, which was counterproductive to his end goal of contacting a rival company which had the means to get him the fuck out of here.

He really needed to find a way to get into contact with that spy again. If they were even still alive. He hadn’t been given much time to learn anything of use when he had been in communication with the undercover operative before the events of the lockdown.

All he’d been given was a heads-up that Urbanshade had plans to relocate him and how the guards would be using tranquilizers to knock him out. The undercover operative had advised him in hushed tones that if he pretended to go along with the transfer with minimal resistance, they would provide an opening where the amount of guards escorting him would be light.

Sebastian had been desperate enough to believe the spy, and everything afterwards fell into place. The rest was history.

“Heh,” Sebastian spoke his thoughts aloud. “It would really suck if that weird Expendable was actually the spy. That’d just be my luck.”

God, he really hoped that wasn’t the case.

Sebastian was pretty sure they hadn’t been the same person that had helped him. Like… 98% sure.

Okay, maybe more like 95% sure…

———-

The fry were starting to move around the pool on their own. They still looked nothing like the his fish friend, and they still carried their yolk sacs under their bellies but those were beginning to shrink as time went on.

Sebastian counted nine little fish that were now swimming freely about. That was a pretty steep dive in numbers when compared to the hundreds of eggs that were laid.

He did notice that the little fish were becoming less transparent as they grew, steadily gaining that familiar orange-ish golden color with a sheen of green iridescence.

Sebastian debated on attempting to relocate the fry now that they were capable of moving on their own. But they were so small, small enough he could probably fit all nine of them in one hand, he worried that being exposed to the pressure of the Let-Vand zone would kill them.

But he really needed to get moving, he had stayed in this hideout for too long and that fact was starting to really grate on his nerves. No other monsters had come through this area, which wasn’t as comforting as one might think. It meant that nothing else was acting as a deterrent to potential interlopers beyond the occasional Expendable. The longer this area was desolate, the better primed it was to be a target for Urbanshade to send another scouting party to assess the state of the Blacksite in person.

Sebastian needed to get to a more secure area, one where he could rely on Painter to assist by locking doors and enabling the turret defense systems. This hideout that he was in was too exposed to the outside, with the flooded hallway and broken in hull of the facility opening out into the wider abyss.

At any moment, Urbanshade could send a sub directly outside his hideout and it would be absolutely trivial to invade and gun him down.

Sebastian tried to keep himself from patrolling the area, like his instincts wanted him to do. That wouldn’t help. It would just provide more of a visual of his whereabouts to anything potentially pointing its sensors at this part of the facility.

He felt restless and was currently contending with himself by coiling up in an angry pile of suck, like some agitated puff adder. Welcome to Sucksville! Population: Sebastian Solace, who’s in the suckiest situation to ever suck!

Spat!

“FOR FUCKS SAKE!” Sebastian shot up from his attempts at imitating an angry hedgehog. “Stop spitting water on me when I’m upset!”

The fish was perched on the edge of the pool, its head canted downwards to look at the water before looking back up at Sebastian with its stupid eyes.

Sebastian glared at the fish, before slowly leaning back against his coils and crossing his arms.

His earfins twitched when he saw a small head pop up over the edge of the pool. The fish backed up, as slowly one of the nine fishlets managed to flop onto the edge, its fins gripping at the concrete as its tail propelled itself the rest of the way over.

Sebastian lurched out of his seated position just in time to catch the fingerling. The tiny thing quickly righted itself in the palm of his hand, similar to how its parent could, it felt slimy, like it was covered in a mucus layer. It weirded Sebastian out even more when the damn thing somehow blinked without the use of eyelids, its eyes just sorta… sunk into its head briefly before reappearing again.

Apparently the first little fish making it out of the pool was the cue for the rest of them to begin flinging themselves out. Sebastian just barely managed to prevent them from crash landing into the cold hard floor, but they were all writhing about in his arms trying to get free.

Eventually Sebastian resorted to making a loose coil of his body and setting the nine fish down in the center in order to contain them. They all waddled around like miniature versions of the fish, though they lacked the rotten coral corruption.

The fish scaled down the side of the pool and purposefully made its way to the port hole in the floor, splashing into the water before poking its head up and waving its fins about.

Blinking in bemusement, Sebastian slithered his tail out of the way and immediately the nine little ones made a b-line towards their parent, creating little wet skid marks as they raced each other to be first into the new source of water.

It kinda reminded Sebastian of baby sea turtles shuffling towards the ocean.

Sebastian gave one more look around his hideout before diving after the fish and into the flooded hallway.

The fish were all clustered in a school around his fish, who lingered close to his tail. This, he figured, was as good a time as any to begin the journey to another cache site, and hopefully some place less exposed to danger.

As he began swimming down the corridor, Sebastian had initially been worried that the fry wouldn’t be able to keep up, and the thought of having to move at a slower pace was agonizing to think about.

However, he needn’t have worried. The fish, as usual, stuck close to him in order to ride his slipstream and the fry followed the elder’s example to a T.

Sebastian had his own school of fish keeping pace with him as he swam through the water. It was a surreal feeling, as though Sebastian was actually part of an oceanic ecosystem, instead of an abominable affront to nature crafted artificially by a bloodthirsty corporation.

How strange had Sebastian’s life become…

Chapter Text

Sebastian thought about giving the fish a name. Or rather, he thought about giving it a name once his company turned from fish: singular, to fish: plural.

He hadn’t given The Fish a name originally due to his aversion to becoming too attached to anything down in Hadal Blacksite. But that attachment had long since solidified itself, and now Sebastian was dealing with an entire school of the fish’s offspring.

Something had to be done, if only to keep Sebastian’s own inner monologue in order. However, Sebastian wasn’t sure what to call the fish. He had occasionally called it ‘fish bait’ but that was mostly in jest, and he just couldn’t picture it being a proper title.

What was a good name for a fish? It couldn’t be something stupid. Sebastian refused to disrespect his fishy companion by giving it an offhand name like Bob or Fins, or Gills. It needed a name that sounded cool and refined, like Sebastian Solace! But that was his name, so he needed something different. Plus, it’d be a bit weird to give a fish a human sounding name…

Nemo? No, no, that wicked Mouse would surely find a way to sue his ass.

Goldeen? No, that’s a pocket monster…

Goldie? Eh, that seemed a bit too on the nose. Besides, the fish wasn’t exactly all golden anymore, with its patches of mottled green scales.

Sammy? Nah, that was too close to a human name.

Sachiel… that might work. It sounded cool, and was the name of some sort of archangel or something from some anime. And it started with an S!

Sebastian and Sachiel! Sworn fish allies and survivors of Hadal Blacksite!

Hmm, maybe that’s a bit too corny. Sebastian shook his head in amusement, his hair billowing out in the water at the movement and he had to brush it away in order to see clearly.

He had traveled quite a bit of distance from the previous hideout, keeping close along the exterior hull so as not to risk losing sight of the facility, as well as to be within range of the lights which were still active.

He didn’t want to be eaten alive by the parasites which dwelled in the pitch blackness of the abyss. Before, he would often have to swim in tight undulations so as to keep the majority of his body covered by the light he was able to produce on his own.

Oddly enough, his school of fish seemed to posses their own bioluminescence, which was something that Sachiel wasn’t capable of before it had consumed the rotten coral. Now however, they all glowed a faint warm light tinged with green hues. It kind of reminded Sebastian of Halloween lights, if he were to be perfectly honest.

His own light from his lure lit the way ahead, and he found that with the added light of his bioluminescent school, he could swim much more freely, allowing his tail to stretch to its full length without fear of his fluke getting nibbled by parasites.

BOOM…

Sebastian slowed his pace, he could see a part of the facility which a designated airlock was stationed, and beyond it a chasm which was dotted with the glaring green lights of flare beacons.

In the far distance, a vast cone of light shone to illuminate the four dark pillars, which were the massive legs of a great machine. Slowly, one pillar would rise, then fall with an earth shuddering boom.

A Trenchbleeder.

Sebastian wasn’t sure which of the four Trenchbleeders it was, but it was quite a fair distance away from where he was, so he didn’t have to worry about getting stomped on.

Still, he’d rather not linger in its path.

With a quick glance around, just to make sure his school was still with him, he swam towards the airlock.

The heavy doors would not open automatically for him, but there was a manual release on the outside which he was able to access in order to force the doors to slide open.

Swimming swiftly inside, along with all ten fish in tow, he pulled the lever to shut the outer door and allow the airlock to cycle.

As soon as the doors slid shut and locked, the water level within the chamber began to drain. The younger fish seemed to panic at this, swimming frantically around him, and Sebastian became worried that they wouldn’t be capable of transitioning to land as easily as Sachiel could.

He allowed himself to sit on the floor, the water now having drained to about chest height for him. Sachiel, spotting an opportunity, gripped onto his shoulder with its weird claw-like fins, like a wet scaley parrot. Its barbels tickling Sebastian’s cheek as he tried to lean away from it.

“Ugh, no! We are not doing this! You need to help your kids chill out.”

Unfortunately, monkey-see-monkey-do also seemed to apply to fish, as the next thing he knew, all nine of the fishlets began to cling onto various parts of his tail in a similar manner as the water fully drained.

This was horrible.

“I am not your guys’ personal Uber!” Sebastian shouted vehemently as the inner airlock door began to slide open.

He shook himself as he slid into the main chamber beyond. But alas, unless he wanted to squish the group of cling-ons, he wasn’t going to get them off unless he meticulously went about plucking each and every fish from his person.

With a deeply aggrieved sigh, Sebastian allowed his school of fish to continue to ride on his tail. Though, he did reach up to grab Sachiel so that he could carry it under his third arm. He couldn’t see properly with the fat-fuck perched on his shoulder.

At least the nine fishlets were clinging onto his straps and bags instead of trying to latch directly onto his scales; that would have been intolerable.

As he traversed this portion of the facility, Sebastian would occasionally pause to glance over his shoulder, mentally counting off each fish every time. Just to be sure.

The nine fishlets would simply stare at him with that same googly-eyed look that Sachiel would give him, though one or two would do that weird blinking thing without eyelids that weirded him out. He also noticed that the nine seemed to retain water longer, their bodies still glistening with moisture even after the rest of him had long since dried.

He realized that he wouldn’t be able to squeeze in through any of the ventilation shafts with his party of cling-ons. Which might be a problem… Since that was usually how he would avoid the majority of Expendables and other monsters.

God, Sebastian did not like this extra burden of having other creatures dependent upon him. Things were already hard enough!

Sachiel started wriggling in his hold, and he gave an annoyed grunt as he readjusted his grip on the fish.

He came across a doorway, this one shut tight with a blanked out number display. There were no other doors, the rest blocked by collapsed rubble.

Well, this was a problem.

“HI SEBASTIAN!”

Sebastian totally didn’t scream and try to draw his gun, only to realize that he was holding Sachiel out like a weapon instead. Sachiel helpfully expelled water from its mouth, but unfortunately this was not an adequate substitute for bullets.

Nope, none of that happened. Totally. Sebastian had calmly turned around to see the display above the door now showed the sketched out face of Painter.

Painter let out a giggle. “Sorry, if I startled you! I just noticed you were wandering around a lot suddenly, whatcha up to?”

Sebastian raised a brow before angling his tail forward so that Painter could see the nine fish still hitching a ride on him.

Painter blinked in bemusement, before its doodled eyes turned into starbursts in excitement. “Wow, you got a whole aquarium with you! But don’t they need water? I thought fishies couldn’t breathe without water. But then again, you seem to do just fine out’a water. But you aren’t a regular fishy! So, what gives?!”

Sebastian gave an exaggerated shrug, not bothering to attempt verbally speaking, before jabbing a thumb at the locked door. The PA system didn’t have microphones installed in most of the corridors which it covered, so while Painter could project its voice through the inbuilt speakers, it couldn’t receive audio and was only able to obtain visual data through the cameras.

“You need to go in through here?” The Painter clarified. At Sebastian’s nod, the door’s lock gave a clunk as Painter hacked it, allowing the door to slide open.

“There you go! There’s some rooms ahead that have water flowing due to some of the pipes busting open, you should stop by there to give your little fishy friends a break!”

Sebastian smiled and gave the Painter a thumbs up before slithering through the doorway.

—

Sebastian dipped his tail in the pool of water, this chamber had a floor which sloped downwards towards an aqueduct; the water within had ceased flowing due to the blockage of rubble clogging the pipes which would’ve pumped the water elsewhere across the Blacksite.

The fish were eager to release their hold on his belt straps and free fall into the water below with little plops! Sachiel wiggled about and Sebastian set the larger fish down on the floor where it quickly waddled over to dive into the water with the rest of its kin.

Reaching into one of the satchels affixed to his belts, Sebastian extracted some vending machine snacks and proceeded to dump its contents into the pool. The fish within going into a frenzy as they ate the factory produced junk food.

Satisfied that the fish were all situated to the best of his ability, Sebastian retreated to the far corner of the room where a vent was. Squeezing through, he was once again amidst familiar surroundings of one of his cache sites where he hosted his shop for the Expendables. There was another vent across from him that led into a separate hallway where the Expendables typically entered in from.

This area of the Hadal Blacksite was much more secure in Sebastian’s eyes. In order to get here, one had to go through a series of labyrinthine maintenance tunnels. Operatives from Urbanshade would have to break down the freaking walls in order to get at him, which was not an advisable course of action considering the already tenuous existence of the site’s hull integrity.

Because of this, humans were forced to enter through the ventilation shafts, which meant that they could only enter his place of residence one at a time. This made it an optimal choke-point to defend against would-be attackers.

Sebastian’s spirits were beginning to feel much lighter.

“Hey, so before you shoot—“

Sebastian let out a harsh snarl of both outrage and shock as THAT EXPENDABLE rose up from behind a crate next to the wall, and did not hesitate to draw his weapon and shoot the fucker.

Unfortunately, the Expendable had learned from the last time and ducked behind the crate as the bullets peppered the wall behind them.

“Ok, ok! I get that you’re a bit miffed about us coming back from the dead and all that—“

“Shut the hell up! I don’t care what kind of freak immortal super soldier you are! You DIE right fucking now!” Sebastian yelled, his tail swinging around to send the crate crashing against the far wall and exposing the crouching Expendable.

He quickly twisted about to bring his tail crashing down, intending to crush the human to a bloody pulp, but the Expendable rolled out of the way, jumping to their feet as soon as they could and dashing to the side.

Sebastian’s gun fired again, hissing with frustration as the bullets cracked into the wall just shy of the Expendable’s shoulder.

“It won’t matter if you kill me!” The Expendable shouted, their voice sounding breathless and urgent as the struggled to keep out of Sebastian’s line of fire. “We end up back where we started!”

Sebastian’s eye twitched with rage, he was starting to really get ticked off by this Expendable’s weird cryptic nonsense. “I don’t give a fuck! I’ll gladly keep killing you as many times as I have to! I’ll kill every one of you that exists!”

Moving with lightning quick reflexes that belied his large stature, Sebastian snaked behind the Expendable, cracking them across the face with the back of his hand and sending them flying.

They hit the ground and skidded across the floor with a groan of pain, momentarily dazed by the blow.

Sebastian aimed the barrel of his shotgun at the prone Expendable and pulled the trigger.

click!

Sebastian blinked in surprise, then swore under his breath as he swiftly re-holstered his gun and lunged with a snarl, ready to tear the Expendable apart with his bare hands if he had to.

The Expendable, however, had regained their senses and withdrew a regrettably familiar device from their belt and aimed it right at Sebastian’s face.

“MOTHERFUCK—“

FLASHBANG!

Sebastian’s vision went white, his eyes feeling as though they had been skewered by rail spikes that drove straight through his optic nerves to pierce directly into his brain.

Sebastian had been flash-banged before, but not at point blank range like this! That shit fucking hurt!!!

He was completely blind, writhing on the floor in agony as he spat cursed expletives. His hands covering his eyes while his snake like body whipped about on the floor wildly, hoping to smother the human in the chaos or at least prevent them from taking advantage of his weakness.

“We’re really sorry!” He heard the Expendable shout, and he lashed his tail in the general direction of their voice, hearing something crash to the floor as a result.

“FUCK YOU!” He roared, his eyes watering painfully. “FUCKING KILL YOURSELF!”

“I guess that’s fair! But we already tried that— a few times actually.” The human replied, confusedly.

Sebastian was going to gut them like a pig! As soon as he regained his eyesight he was going to tear the insolent human limb from limb and choke them with their own intestines!!!

“Listen,” the Expendable spoke again. They sounded closer. “We really don’t want to fight you, okay? Let’s be friends!”

Were they fucking serious?!

Sebastian had resorted to pulling his body into a defensive coil, with his tail fin covering the top of him like a lid. He had begun making a sustained hissing noise low in his throat that he couldn’t help but emit whenever he was particularly upset. The sound was akin to a violently deflating tire from hell, his entire serpentine body puffing up whenever he inhaled.

“Danger noodle,” he heard the Expendable mutter nearby, causing him to hiss louder in anger.

“When I get my claws on you…” Sebastian growled with hatred dripping from every word. “You’ll wish you’d stayed in your coffin!”

To his surprise and infinite annoyance, the Expendable laughed.

“Oh, don’t worry. I already wish that.” A pause. “Hey, did your fish get bigger since the last time I saw it?”

Sebastian flinched from his curled position, squinting his eyes open to glare death in the general direction of the Expendable from underneath his tail. Despite the spots still floating in his vision, Sebastian could just make out the Expendable sitting on a tossed aside crate, with Sachiel having at some point come into the room, now perched on the wall like a gecko.

Saichel’s fins were flared out, the fin along its back raised with an angry blood orange color as it stared unblinkingly at the human. Sebastian could appreciate the fish’s attempt at intimidation, but it was too close to the human for Sebastian to launch an attack without risking the fish getting hurt in the crossfire.

As Sebastian’s eyesight began to clear, he started to make out other details. The Expendable’s face mask was cracked badly, likely rendering it useless for diving. Their suit was torn in several places, their oxygen tanks having long been discarded at some point, and Sebastian wondered if their bomb was even still attached. What was more startling was the clear bullet hole in the top center of the mask, where he had blown the Expendable’s brains out back at the other hideout days ago.

They still had the flash beacon clutched in one gloved hand, the device resting atop their knee as their gaze switched between the mutant fish on the wall and the mutant fishman on the floor.

“Alright, Expendable….” Sebastian spoke, his tone smooth and casual like he hadn’t been trying to rip the human’s throat out just a minute ago. He rose from his coils to lean forward slightly, face expressing a fanged grin which held absolutely no warmth. “You wanted to talk? Fine then, let’s talk! It is clear that you won’t leave me alone otherwise, and I’d rather not spend my remaining days in this hellhole killing you over and over again until the Blacksite implodes in on itself.”

The tension in the Expendable’s shoulders seemed to ease somewhat. “Good! We were hoping you would comply eventually— wait no, not like that. W-we were hoping that we could come to an agreement. I have information!”

Sebastian watched the Expendable critically, his face settled on a neutral mask as he tried to parse their strange manner of speaking. “Go on…” He prompted.

“Yes! Listen, we have allies. Sort of. Allies elsewhere. Mr.Lopee is keeping me alive, for a purpose, he’d said. But he also said that he wanted you to help!” The Expendable leaned forward sharply, Sebastian refused to flinch from their sudden proximity, eyes narrowing. “WE CAN’T DIE!” They said in a hoarse voice, before slumping backwards. ”I shouldn’t have signed up. But you can help now!”

Jesus… this Expendable was off their rocker and all the way into the back alleys of Looney town.

Sebastian had his head tilted slightly, a thoughtful hand on his chin. If it weren’t for the fact that this Expendable had risen from the dead after having their brain blown to bits, he would have laughed and called them mad.

Hell, maybe they were mad. Clearly some brain matter wasn’t recovered after reviving if this was how the Expendable normally talked.

“We need to get the Crystal.” They shot a hand up to forestall Sebastian’s immediate, (and understandable!), objection to the idea. “But-but-but he did not say we had to give the Crystal to Urbanshade.” The human continued, waving their gloved hand animatedly in the air. “He just said— RETRIEVE THE CRYSTAL! Mr. Lopee didn’t say anything about retrieving it for Urbanshade, right? That makes sense. I think so, anyway. He also said that you would help us! You have to help.”

It was strange how they would abruptly switch from using ‘we’ to ‘I’ seemingly at random, whispering their words at one moment before talking normally or barely on the edge of shouting the next sentence.

It felt like Sebastian was listening to random voice clips recorded by the same person but spliced together, creating a disjointed mishmash of inflections bereft of their original context. It was bizarre, and Sebastian wasn’t certain if the Expendable was just crazy from dying over and over or if something more anomalous was occurring.

Who the fuck was Mr. Lopee?

“You said you had allies, so who exactly are you working for, if not Urbanshade?” Sebastian questioned. He’d puzzle over the Expendable’s eccentricities later.

“Mr. Lopee.” They replied.

“Alright… And who is Mr. Lopee?”

The Expendable seemed to become unnaturally still, Sebastian couldn’t tell if they were even breathing. After a few seconds of no response he was tempted to either ask his question again or ask a different question altogether.

Sachiel beat him to it by spitting water at the side of the human’s head.

The human jolted in place as if they were given an electric shock, gasping. “We work for ourselves!“ Their tone switching from desperate to dead and monotonous. “I can get into contact with an agent not affiliated with Urbanshade, freedom is at hand if I complete the objective. They can help us get out.”

Sebastian’s earfins pricked at this, but he was quick to temper any hope with cold hard realism. “Can you prove it?”

“What?”

“Can you prove that you can actually establish a secure channel with an undercover agent? I might be willing to humor you for now, Expendable. But I’m not going to risk my neck for you unless I’m given proof that you can provide a method of safe extraction from the Blacksite.”

The Expendable nodded slowly, their masked face turning about as they glanced around the room before fumbling with a breast pocket. Sebastian watched with interest as they withdrew what appeared to be a red USB stick. Nothing remarkable in it of itself.

“If we connect this to a computer that still has access to the facility’s mainframe—“

“No.” Sebastian cut them off, crossing his arms.

“No?” The Expendable tilted their head in confusion.

“How do I know if that little red doohickey won’t just restore Urbanshade’s control over the site’s mainframe, hm? Not to mention the fact that the only ‘computer’ currently with access to the system is the p.AI.nter, and I’m not about to let you stick an unknown USB into it. I’m not stupid.”

“We never said you were,” the Expendable replied, their tone implying genuine confusion. “But this USB is meant to send a code bundle that’ll enable our agent to connect to us on a secure comm link.”

Sebastian raised a skeptical brow. “Is that what they told you? Or do you actually know for sure that’s what it actually does.” He didn’t bother hiding the scorn in his voice as he said this. “Surely, someone who has been given the oh-so-coveted gift of immortality would be a bit smarter than that.”

“W-well, I…” the Expendable seemed to struggle to find any words to say. “It has to be true! I met the agent before being sent down here, she said—“

“Oh, really??? You’ve met the Agent? Well, that’s reassuring! Said ‘Agent’ couldn’t have possibly just been some dumbass in a costume telling you a load of horseshit to get you to follow through with their schemes!” Sebastian sneered, teeth sharp and gleaming in the light as he leered down at the seated Expendable.

“Stop being so mean!” The Expendable had the gall to actually admonish him, like he was the one being the naive child right now.

“I’m not being mean,” Sebastian scoffed, giving the Expendable a harsh poke in the chest with a claw. “I’m being realistic. Sorry if that’s too much for your clearly damaged brain cells to comprehend, sweetie. But I’m not about to throw my lot in on the assumption that there are altruistic beings out there willing to help us monsters.”

“But you aren’t monsters.” The Expendable stated, with a firmness that surprised Sebastian. “Every entity down here is a victim of a corporation that was allowed to perpetuate its exploits without regulation or restrictions that respect the rights of living beings!”

Sebastian stared down at the Expendable, wishing for once that he could see their face. If only to see their expression. But he was pretty sure that it was safe to say that the Expendable genuinely believed what they had said.

How naive…

Sebastian sighed, reaching a hand over to scoop the fish from the wall so that he could place it safely on his coils. The Expendable watched from where they sat, waiting for his response.

“That might be true for some of the entities down here,” Sebastian admitted, thinking of the Painter and how the little sentient AI only wanted to spend its time painting pictures. “Most are just animals—” he thought about the Eyefestation, who had been a normal bull shark before it was subjected to the B.U.P.W.M program. “—or beings who don’t belong to this world.” The Valcula Void-mass and its spawn which came from space on an asteroid, now exploited for the manufacturing of bullets.

“However, there are some who really are… nothing but monsters.”

BLAM!

The Expendable flinched at the sudden sound, feeling something impact their vest, then they looked down and saw the gaping hole in their chest.

Slowly, the Expendable looked up at Sebastian, who was looking down at them with a cold indifference. Bits of glass from their face mask fell away to reveal one bloodshot eye that stared at him with shock and incomprehension, then dulled to a simmering kind of resentment.

“You…f-friggin… jackass…!” They wheezed out with an almost incredulous air, before their body slumped over into a crumpled heap.

Sebastian stared for a couple of seconds, before holstering his shotgun. Unbeknownst to the Expendable, Sebastian had been prudent enough to reload his firearm secretly whilst he had been coiled up in a tight defensive ball.

Sachiel bumped its head against his hip from where it was perched on his tail, and Sebastian reached down with his lowest hand to gently caress the fish’s scales. He didn’t take his eyes off of the body, his expression grim and unreadable.

“Next time, come up with a plan that’s actually decent and not full of holes.” Sebastian said to the corpse, before taking the fish into his arms and slithering through the vent to go hang out with the rest of them.

He’d deal with disposing the body later…

Chapter Text

Sebastian Solace drifted slowly up from unconsciousness at the feeling of something tickling his face. His sleep had been plagued with vague apparitions— things which he could not remember, but left a hollow feeling of dread in the absence of memory. This was not unusual during his sleep cycles.

He made a grumbling noise, refusing to open his eyes as his brow creased in mild irritation at being disturbed. He was so freaking tired. He rarely ever got the chance to just let his body rest.

But Sebastian couldn’t afford to rest down here, not for long. Not while Urbanshade was still a threat. Not while he was still stuck here, in Hadal Blacksite.

So… why had he…. When did he fall asleep?

He felt the tickling sensation again, the source having migrated to his ear, which fluttered at the contact and he let out a bemused snort— lazily swiping the claw of his third arm up to shoo away whatever was bothering him.

Then something cool and slightly damp flopped onto his face. It smelled like fish and rotten coral. His snout wrinkled in growing annoyance.

“Sachiel…” He murmured sleepily as he deigned to crack an eye open, the light of his esca flickering to life as he rose to full consciousness. “The hell are you doing…?”

He couldn’t really see anything, however, due to the fact that his fish companion had its whiskers blocking most of his vision. He could just see one of the fish’s glowing green eyes staring at him.

Its barbels quivered, tickling Sebastian’s face again and he finally shifted to a more upright position, reaching a hand up to catch the mutant fish before it slid off.

Sebastian, still blinking with drowsiness, took a moment to take stock of himself.

He was coiled up in a corner of the room by the aqueduct holding the nine other fish, who were clustered near the bottom. He assumed they were sleeping based on their lack of movement, but he couldn’t really tell since their eyes were open.

How the hell could any creature sleep without eyelids?

Sebastian was glad that he had kept his eyelids after his transformation, despite having various types of fish DNA in his genome.

He let out a sigh, setting Sachiel down on the floor, before stretching out all three arms— feeling, as well as hearing, some satisfying pops and cracks at the action.

Right, he remembered now. He had slunk off from his shop to brood in the company of his fellow fishy companions after leaving the— OH SHIT THE BODY!

Sebastian jolted from his restful position on the floor, then flinched as he felt a few muscles along his torso protest at the sudden movement. After taking a second to rub at the sore muscles, he quickly slithered through the vent and into the shop.

“Goddamn it.” To his chagrin, the body of the anomalous Expendable was gone.

He also realized that he had left the state of the shop in quite a mess. Various crates and supplies were strewn across the room during his scuffle with the stubborn human, and there was a prominent blood trail leading out the opposite ventilation shaft that exited into the corridor beyond.

Sebastian really hoped no other Expendables had come in here. The shop looked like it was an active crime scene. Not that it was unusual for rooms to look as such for Hadal Blacksite…

He realized he had been gazing at the blood trail for a long moment, having creeped forward to lean down on all three hands in order to peer through the alternate vent where the blood trail disappeared through.

Something primal in the back of his brain flickered and his tongue flicked out, picking up the coppery scent.

With a start, Sebastian hastily rose and shook himself. “No, no, no, no, nuh-uh! Nope! Not doing this again.”

He knew that feeling— that instilled instinct in him to hunt. To track down wounded prey. To follow the scent of blood until he inevitably caught up with its source.

But no, no. That was just the great white shark DNA in him talking! Sebastian wasn’t some stupid beast who lost his mind at the scent of blood! He had standards, and he wasn’t going to let himself fall prey to the impulses of the animal DNA that he was made up of and— wait why was he in the corridor now?

Somehow, unbeknownst to Sebastian, he had been transported out of his shop and was now midway down the lightless hallway. The light from his lure illuminating the smears of dried blood on the floor ahead of him.

Sebastian blinked. He blinked hard. Then, slowly, he turned away— intending to return to his shop and clean the place up so that it would at least look somewhat decent to any arriving Expendables.

He noticed that there was another smear of blood on the wall next to him, but this time it the blood was painted in purposeful arcs that looked like an attempt to spell out: SABASas Is ASSssssssssssssssss

Or at least, that’s what he thought the smudged blood was supposed to say. It was hard to tell, because halfway through the sentence the letters kind of tilted sideways before devolving into an unintelligible mess.

The light of his esca flickered.

Sebastian blinked again, he was now even further down the corridor, nearing the bend in the hallway where the door beyond opened into an adjoining chamber. The exact opposite direction of his hideout.

There was a red smeared handprint painted across the wall, the Expendable must’ve placed their hand on it in order to navigate the darkened hallway. The blood was dry now, but couldn’t have been more than a few hours old.

Did the Expendable still retain the wounds that should have killed them? Their gear and clothing certainly bore the signs of their past hardships and fatal mistakes, but Sebastian had no idea whether or not if their body actually regenerated after each death.

Maybe the Expendable was just unable to die, no matter how much damage their physical body took…

That was certainly a disturbing thought, and if true, Sebastian did not envy them. The implications of such an ability was horrifying to say the least.

Would the immortal Expendable be forced to go on even if most of their body was destroyed?

Would they still be alive after being decapitated? Would they still be able to control their arms and legs even if they were severed from their torso?

Would the Expendable still be fully conscious if their body was chewed into tiny pieces and slowly digested—

ALRIGHT! Take those horrible thoughts and put them BACK in Paranoia’s box!

Why was Sebastian in a completely different room now? How did he keep moving without his conscious input?!

“What the hell is happening?!” He hissed aloud, backing up against a wall as he felt his breathing begin to come out in rapid gasps. His heart was thundering in his chest as he clutched at himself, his claws digging into his arms hard enough to bruise.

He was in a large open area that might have once been a waiting room of sorts, though it was hard to tell due to the fact that everything in the room had been trashed to hell. It looked like Pandemonium had come through and wrecked the place.

He was aware that something was very wrong with this situation. He tried to steady his breathing, digging his claws deeper into the flesh of his arm in order to ground himself. Stay focused! Stay in the moment! Don’t let… whatever the fuck was happening happen again!

During more desperate times, Sebastian would fall back on his more animalistic tendencies in order to survive. His sanity being sheltered behind the fog of reflexive action and instinct that would guide his amalgamated senses until something inevitably snapped him out of it.

But this felt different, this wasn’t him losing himself to “the beast within” as one might call it.

It was as though each time he lost focus, some outside force was now sinking its teeth into him and dragging him around unbidden.

And now it was leading him out into the open against his will, and it terrified him. He wasn’t sure if he had firm control over his actions or when if said control would be ripped away from him and he’d suddenly find himself somewhere else entirely.

The shadows being cast by his self illumination was tripping on his nerves— with the way they danced whenever he moved his head. He reached up and pulled on the stem of his lure, the light at its end going dark and allowing his night vision to take over.

Slowly, he peeled himself away from the wall and began reorienting himself back towards his hideout.

“You cannot hide forever, Mr. Solace.”

Sebastian whipped around, a snarl on his breath as his eyes darted about the room to find who ever dared to sneak up on him.

But there was nothing there.

Sebastian remained rigid, body tense like a wound-up spring ready and waiting to either flee or fight. He waited for several breaths.

Nothing.

Christ, maybe he really was starting to go crazy down here…

Warily, Sebastian turned back towards the way he’d come, his snake-like body gliding swiftly over the floor as he retreated.

The entire time he couldn’t help but periodically glance over one shoulder. He had the uncanny feeling of being watched…

—-

When he made it back to the hallway just outside his shop, he paused in the darkness. His ear fins twitched as he detected the sound of boot steps coming from the far end of the corridor. Multiple boot steps.

With his eyes tuned to the darkness, he was able to make out the silhouettes of two humanoid figures, all decked out in typical Expendable gear. One was busy fussing over a crank-powered flashlight and— from what Sebastian could hear— was agonizing over how short the device’s duration was.

For a moment, Sebastian just loomed there in the middle of the hallway, eyes narrowed to slits to conceal their cyan glow as he watched the Expendables blithely stumble through the dark towards him— completely oblivious to his presence.

Human eyesight was so pitiful in low-light conditions…

Sebastian was debating on whether to give the Expendables a quick spook— just to teach them a lesson about wandering around so carelessly in the dark, when he caught sight of a soft golden green glow emanating from the vent leading to his shop.

The humans noticed it too.

Well, shit.

One of the smaller gold fish had waddled out to the edge of the vent, like a dumb baby sea turtle just waiting to get snatched by a hungry seagull.

“Aww, it’s so cute!” One of the Expendables bent down on their knees to look at the tiny morsel.

The second Expendable, however, didn’t seem too keen about the fish as they hastily reached a hand over to pull them back. “Don’t go near that! We don’t know what it is…”

“What? It’s just a little fish though!”

“A fish that’s glowing and walking on land! That’s not normal.”

“No way, the thing’s so tiny I could probably crush it with one flex of my fist!” The Expendable shook off the other’s cautioning protests to reach out a hand towards the fish. “C’mere little fishy wishy!”

Oh no you don’t.

“You should probably listen to your friend,” Sebastian said as he slid into view, much to the shock and terror of the humans— the one who had reached out to the fish standing up so abruptly that they nearly fell flat on their ass.

Sebastian allowed his lure’s light to flicker on to illuminate his unamused expression as he glared down at the now cowering Expendables. “You wouldn’t want to find out the hard way about what’ll happen if you so much as sneeze in this little fish’s direction, would you?”

“Jesus christ!” One Expendable swore.

“Heheh, not quite.” Sebastian chuckled, flashing his teeth at them.

The fact that the two humans hadn’t immediately run away screaming told Sebastian that they were at least familiar with his working relationship with the Expendables sent down into the Blacksite. But they certainly weren’t among his regular customers.

“Wh-what’s so dangerous about them?” The other Expendable asked as they and their companion took several cautious steps back from him.

The little fish had been joined by three more of its siblings, whether out of curiosity or because these four particular fingerlings hadn’t gotten enough to eat and were searching for food, Sebastian hadn’t the faintest clue. Best to herd them back to the rest of the school before they had a chance to wander off.

Sebastian smirked, not taking his eyes off of the Expendables as he moved to subtly place himself between the humans and the vent. “Oh, the fish themselves are perfectly harmless! It’s me you’ll be dealing with if you ever harm even a single one of their scales, capiche?”

The Expendables both nodded their heads, understanding the underlying threat to his statement. Not bothering to dare question why Sebastian Solace of all creatures would care about the wellbeing of seemingly innocuous aquatic lifeforms.

“Good, now scram! The shop’s closed right now.”

—————

At first, Sebastian was delayed from re-entering his shop by the conundrum of how to get the four little fish to go back through the vent. None of the fish were responsive to any commands he tried to give, verbal or otherwise.

When he had first arrived at this particular hideout with all of the gang hitching a ride on him, he had entered the back room by going the long away around through the maintanence tunnels.

Safe to say, he didn’t want to go through the trouble of carrying these four all the way through the long route, only to find that the rest of the school had decided to move through the shop’s vent onto this side of the wall looking for him.

He spent a pitiful five minutes peering into the vent and trying to call for Sachiel, hoping that the larger fish would somehow be able to comprehend his plight and thus ferry their wayward fry back to the aqueduct in the back room.

Said wayward fry were currently waddling around stupidly by his tail in the hallway.

Unfortunately, Sachiel didn’t come when called. Sebastian considered this might’ve been because he’d only just recently named the fish, and on top of that, he had only done so in his own mind.

It hadn’t occurred to Sebastian that he should’ve attempted to impart this knowledge of the new designation onto the fish. It was, after all, still just a fish.

Actually, come to think of it, did fish even have ears? Had Sebastian just been talking to the void whenever he bothered to address the fish?

What Sebastian wouldn’t give to have an encyclopedia on marine animals right now.

Sebastian stooped down to gather the four fish up so they wouldn’t wander any further. They were all so much smaller than Sachiel; he could hold all four in the crook of one arm.

In order for him to fit through the vent, Sebastian had to essentially go in arms first, or else his shoulders would get caught on the sides. The shaft was so narrow that he couldn’t carry the fish through without smushing them.

Sebastian let out a sigh, his chin dipping down into the folds of his scarf as he chewed his lower lip in thought.

Wait a minute….

Taking one of the fish gently in one hand, he lifted it up and tucked it into his scarf, just below his chin. The fish wriggled about, not happy about suddenly finding itself enveloped in fabric, but otherwise remained in place.

This could work.
With the four wayward fingerlings tucked into his scarf, Sebastian managed to slither through the vent and back into his mess of a shop without issue.

What he found upon re-entering his shop was a little disturbing.

Sachiel, along with its five remaining offspring, had their mouths busily mowing the floor…. where the blood stain was.

Sachiel paused to tilt its head up at Sebastian, whiskers flecked with crusty human blood. Their bulbous green fish eyes staring vacantly up at him; the faintest hint of red reflecting in their pupiless orbs.

Sebastian stared back for a few seconds, before shrugging and taking the four runaway fish from his scarf and depositing them onto the floor, where they began eagerly supping upon the spoils with their fellows.

Like semi-aquatic roombas, the fish had made good progress with removing the human remains.

Shameless bottom feeders…

“I guess that’s one mess I don’t gotta clean up,” he muttered as he turned to the rest of the room. He had some crates to re-stack and inventory to go through.

Chapter Text

Sebastian was gratified to find that the fish’s propensity for scavenging useful items extended to their offspring.

As Sebastian went on his routine deep dives into the flooded sections of Hadal Blacksite, his school of fish remained loyally close to him at all times. The only time they would break away from him was when responding to a threat approaching, such as the Anglers. The fishes would swiftly hide into any available crevice they could find, and would only come out after the danger had passed.

Sebastian couldn’t help but do a head-count each time this happened. Not that there would’ve been much he could do if one or more happened to be snatched up by a predator, but Sebastian wanted to keep track of their numbers… for reasons! Practical reasons!

Strangely, he noticed that Saichel would continue to eat any rotten coral they swam across, but the other fishes didn’t seem interested in the stuff. In fact, they completely ignored the rotten coral, not even going for so much as a curious nibble like they would do for nearly all other surfaces they’d come across.

Sebastian didn’t know what to make of this behavior. Was it a territorial thing? Was there a pecking-order? Biggest fish gets the right to consume rotten coral? If that was the case, Sebastian thought that might’ve been why Saichel tried to get him to eat the nasty stuff. Sebastian was indeed the biggest fish of the group, just ignore the fact that he looked nothing like a gold fish and couldn’t possibly fit into whatever species dynamic that was going on here.

Or maybe he did, who could say? He wasn’t a marine biologist!

For all he knew, the fish worshiped him as their god and sought only to bring him offerings in the form of anything that seemed remotely useful.

Maybe he was overthinking this…

Sebastian hated to admit it to himself, but he had been rather on edge ever since his last confrontation with the immortal Expendable. He found himself glancing around at his surroundings more frequently than was strictly necessary, despite the fact that he should be more at ease since he had a whole school of fish that could watch his back.

While the fish couldn’t vocalize in order to warn him, Sebastian was able to detect changes in their movement whilst in the water; he’d gotten good at telling when their movements became frantic in response to danger.

If he had been less stressed, Sebastian might’ve found it fascinating. When he focused solely on his ability to sense motion in the water, he could distinguish individual fish and their position in relation to himself without needing to visually see them.

Sebastian hadn’t realized until then just what the range of his underwater senses could detect; there was so little sea life at the bottom of the Let-Vand zone.

Which was why he had plenty of forewarning that something was approaching when all the fish suddenly converged on him in a flurry of motion.

Sebastian hovered in the water for a second before moving to place his back against the wall, looping his tail in on itself to provide more cover as all ten fish sought to cluster as tightly as possible underneath the bulk of his body.

A large shadow loomed overhead through the glass roofing, green light pouring past the hexagonal beams between the panes of six-inch thick glass.

YOUR SHIVER GROWS.

The haptic buzz in the back of Sebastian’s brain went off as Eyefestation telepathically spoke to him.

Sebastian’s earfins pinned back against his head as he squinted, careful not to stare directly into those radioactively green eyes. I’m not shivering! He mentally shot back, incredulous.

There was a momentary pause, in which Sebastian received the odd impression that the mutant shark was genuinely confused by his rebuttal.

NOT YOU SHIVERING. YOUR SHIVER.

What?

A SHIVER…. Eyefestation’s multitude of eyes rolled in their sockets and something like an exasperated sigh was mentally broadcasted. IS WHAT GROUPING OF SHARKS ARE CALLED.

Sebastian shook his head in befuddlement, what he had expected to be a tense encounter was turning into a genuine argument over some miscommunication.

Yeah, okay… maybe you should get your eyes checked, ‘cuz clearly you can’t tell the difference between your own kind and a bunch of other vastly different species of fish.

The mutant bull shark slapped its tail fin against the glass dome, causing the entire structure to vibrate. Eyefestation made a mental rumbling noise that Sebastian interpreted as displeasure.

NO MATTER. NOT IMPORTANT.

Indeed. So, why’re you bothering me? I’m a busy guy, y’know.

CAN… HUMANS… REGROW THEIR HEADS? Eyefestation’s projected mental voice had a note of uncertainty to it that made Sebastian instantly wary.

No. Last time I checked, human heads pop off just as easily as any other creature’s when you put enough lead in ‘em. Sebastian had a sinking feeling. Why? Did you… did an Expendable get back up again after you’d…

Y E S—

Sebastian doubled over as he was suddenly hit with the worst migraine imaginable. His vision blurred and then solidified into a nauseating kaleidoscope of a single scene, viewed from the exterior of Hadal Blacksite, peering into a window at a haggard looking Expendable. The vision became overlayed with a harsh green sheen and the Expendable silently spasmed, the eye that was visible through their cracked visor ran with blood before their cranium erupted in a horrific explosion of brain matter, leaving nothing but a bloody stump of their neck as their body slumped to the ground. The vision flickered and faded in and out before something from within the Expendable’s body seemed to flash with light. The Expendable picked themselves back up again, head gradually reforming from seemingly nothing, revealing a face—

revealing a f̴̳̀̉a̴͓͍̯͉͑̃͐̍c̴̭͂e̶̖͂̾͘

a̴ ̴f̸a̴c̶e̶— that — couldn’t see their face— why—

Sebastian’s stomach twisted and he promptly vomited up the contents of his stomach into the open water of the flooded hallway. His normal vision faded back in as he shuddered, his gills working overtime to provide oxygen as he hyperventilated. He had his head between his hands, claws digging into his scalp like he was afraid that his own brain would force its way out of his skull if he let it.

Eyefestation had gone, its hellish green light abating as it swam away without a parting word.

Which was for the best for it, because if Sebastian wasn’t incapacitated by the horrible pain of being brain blasted a memory, he would’ve found away to swim outside and kick the mutant shark’s ass.

For now, Sebastian was huddled on the floor of the flooded chamber, writhing with each wave of pain that racked through his brain.

He would’ve felt utterly miserable for himself at that moment if it weren’t for the feather-light touches of multiple worried fish pecking at his face and forearms. He felt the familiar tickle of Sachiel’s bushy beard brush against his earfin and finally allowed his hands to fall as he cracked his eyes open.

“That fucking sucked—“ Sebastian muttered hoarsely, coughing a quick burst of bubbles as he wiped his mouth with one sleeve. The stinging taste of bile was still prevalent in his mouth.

He glanced at the other fish, making sure none had gotten fried by Eyefestation’s radioactive stare— only to grimace in disgust when he caught sight of a few of the fish sucking up the floating chunks of his puke.

“What the HELL!” Sebastian flung his arms up, his claws flexing as he resisted the urge to grab the nasty little shits and shake them. “WHY?! Why are you doing this?! That’s disgusting!!!”

Horrified as his fish continued to feast on his ex-breakfast, Sebastian promptly swam away in an effort to move the school into abandoning their ill-gotten picnic.

Fish were fucking stupid. Nothing would convince Sebastian otherwise.

———-

“SEBASTIAN!”

He flinched as the speakers of the site’s PA system suddenly switched on, projecting the Painter’s distressed tinny voice.

Sebastian was in a control room with his posse of clingers-on as he hunted for particularly classified documents. Specifically regarding the External Repellent System.

Now, he dropped everything he was doing to focus on Painter’s visibly sweating visage airing on the screen by the door.

“Se-Sebastian! There’s these strange humans in my containment room! Normally, it wouldn’t be an issue and all— I wouldn’t be worried, Expendables sometimes find where I’m at when they wander into Heavy Containment! But these guys keep trying to force the door to my cage open and—“ The sound of a loud bang, followed by crashes and muffled shouting. “HAHA! NICE TRY, IDIOTS! You’re not gonna bust down a military grade industrial bulkhead that easily! HAHA— What are you— HEY HEY HEY! WAIT! STOP—“

The transmission abruptly cutout and Sebastian felt a rush of cold shoot through him.

No, no, no, NO!

Without thinking, Sebastian shot out of the room and tore down the corridor, diving into a waterway and ducking through a series of underwater channels which led outside of the facility.

He cursed his luck that he just so happened to be on the FARTHEST side of Hadal Blacksite right when Painter needed his help. Whatever deity was watching must’ve really wanted to fuck him over on this one!

With a speed Sebastian hadn’t realized he was capable of, he powered through the water, cutting the distance between himself and where Heavy Containment was stationed in a matter of minutes instead of hours if he had been trying to get there the sneakier way from inside of the facility.

He didn’t stop or slow down to make sure his school was still with him, his mind focused solely on reaching Painter. If those humans hurt that little AI… there would be hell to pay.

Sebastian could feel each second tick down like it was a physical blow as he was forced to wait for the airlock to cycle through, his body practically vibrating with nerves as he mentally urged the metal gears to turn faster.

As soon as the inner airlock doors slid open, he darted through, reaching into his inner coat pocket and tearing out a purple keycard that he then slammed against the card reader.

The double doors opened with loud clunks and he was soon snaking his way through the vast hallways of Heavy Containment, heedless of the various hostile security cameras which blinked upon registering his presence.

He didn’t care. Let Urbanshade know he was here! Let them warn their operatives that Z-13 was rapidly approaching their position and that they were all dead men.

Snarling, lips pulled back to the gums, Sebastian slammed into the opposing wall as he slid into view of the server room which held the Painter. His eyes flashed as he caught sight of a human garbed in heavy military gear standing guard by the door, Urbanshade’s insignia plastered onto their helmet.

The guard had just enough time to shout a warning before Sebastian was on top of them, one claw grabbing the rifle they were holding and wrenching it out of their grip with such force that there was a wet popping sound as their shoulder was twisted out of its socket.

The guard let out a bloodcurdling scream as Sebastian lifted them up by the damaged limb and flung them bodily into the far wall with a sickening crunch.

Sebastian flinched with a pained hiss as he felt bullets shred into his scaley hide from behind. Twisting around, Sebastian launched his body upwards and locked his claws around the steel girders on the ceiling above, startling the remaining operatives with his lightning agility as he practically skittered across the ceiling like a sea spider from hell.

Bullets pinged off of his surroundings, missing him narrowly before he flung himself from the rafters and crashed into their midst— one operative was killed outright as they were crushed under the weight of his tail, another was sent flying as Sebastian clipped them with a claw swipe, the remaining operatives scrambled to put distance between them as they re-aimed their weapons.

Sebastian grabbed one human who was just a tad too slow, lifting them up and using the flailing soldier as a meat shield as shots were fired. Bullets connected with the unfortunate operative, who spasmed in Sebastian's grip as he withdrew his own firearm and fired off two shots right back at his enemies.

Unfortunately, his triple-barreled sawed-off shotgun was more effective at close range, but the dispersed scattershot did send the remaining operatives running to take cover behind the server racks.

Their efforts, however, were completely negated by the fact that Sebastian was several meters taller than the server towers and could easily take shots at the cowering operatives from his vantage point.

He picked off three more Urbanshade operatives, dodging and weaving around the room to throw off their return fire before he finally cornered the last of the armed soldiers.

The bastard, realizing that they were the last man standing, resorted to the spray-n-pray method while screaming at the top of their lungs.

Their screaming was silenced when Sebastian decided to heft an entire locker over his head and bring it smashing down on top of them, reducing the operative to a bloody pile of broken bones and meat.

Sebastian didn’t waste time to tend his injuries, turning away and diving through the open doorway which led to Painter’s holding room.

What he saw made his heart lurch.

The cage wall was cut open, likely with bolt cutters if said tool resting on the floor was any indication, and the old computer which held the sentient AI was powered off and in the process of being unhooked from the rest of the server towers situated in the room.

Standing beside the inert form of the Painter was two other operatives, clearly non combatants but still obligated to wear the same protective gear as the soldiers.

One had immediately dropped whatever tools they were using to gut the sentient AI to the floor, hands raised shakily as they gaped at Sebastian in dawning horror.

The other, however, too absorbed in their gruesome work, continued to feverishly type on a console that was running some inexplicable code.

That, for obvious reasons, pissed Sebastian the fuck off.

One clawed hand grasped the ignorant operative by the back of the neck and practically threw him away from the Painter.

“What did you do?!” Sebastian roared in the operative’s face, his hot breath fogging up their visor as he shook them violently. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO IT?!”

The operative struggled ineffectively in the enraged monster’s hold, only able to let out choking sounds as claws squeezed tighter around their throat.

“Let him go!”

Sebastian paused his strangling of the operative when he felt something hard thunk against his lower back and he slowly turned to look at the other human.

The other operative, the one who had actually reacted upon his entrance, had a wrench clutched in one trembling hand. They were backing away now as Sebastian stared down at them, all three eyes full of nothing but utter contempt.

When the wannabe-hero tried to make a dash for the door, Sebastian’s tail slammed down, blocking their avenue of escape as he leveled his gun in their direction.

Sebastian let the now unconscious human he was holding drop unceremoniously to the floor, as he turned his full attention to the remaining operative.

“Listen closely, Urbanshade,” Sebastian spoke in a low growl as he loomed menacingly over the cowering human. “You’re going to fix whatever you’ve done to Painter, or else I’m going to shove the barrel of my gun so far down your throat that you’ll be shitting lead by the time I pull the trigger.”

“I-I… I can’t…”

Sebastian jammed the gun harshly under the human’s chin, making them gasp as they tried to flinch away, their back hit the wall as Sebastian leaned in close enough to nearly touch noses.

“I wasn’t ASKING!” He snarled.

The human choked on a sob, their voice high and reedy with distress. “Y-you don’t get it, the company will—“

“Anything Urbanshade could do absolutely pales in comparison to what I will do to you and your co-worker if you don’t comply with my demands.” Sebastian spat, peeling his lips back to display his sharp dagger-like fangs in all their wicked glory.

As if to demonstrate, Sebastian pivoted to point his gun at the unconscious operative’s lower leg and pulled the trigger.

There was a splatter of blood and bone followed by the operative screaming in agony and shock as they were violently brought back into wakefulness.

“Okay! Okay! We’ll fix the computer! Christ— you fucking monster!”

Sebastian didn’t bother to respond as he roughly shoved the still-functioning human towards the ruined remains of the Painter’s holding cell.

“Glad we could come to an agreement!” He said with fake cheer, moving to place the remainder of his serpentine body by the door to prevent any further escape attempts.

—----------

An hour had passed and after a lot of pleading and begging, Sebastian begrudgingly allowed the operative to use a medkit on their co-worker’s mangled leg. If only to get them to hurry along with repairing whatever damage they had done to the sentient AI.

“What were you scumbags trying to do, anyways?” Sebastian growled lowly as he watched the operative hastily reattaching wires.

“W-we were, um, they told— Urbanshade, that is. They told us we needed to m-manually remove the source that was hacking into the site’s mainframe.”

Sebastian let out a disgusted scoff, his tail-tip thumping against the wall and causing the operative to jump. “If that was all they wanted, you could’ve gotten the job done by simply unplugging the Painter from the wall outlet. So what the hell is all this extra shit here for?”

“We were also instructed to l-locally install an override executable to Z-779 in order to regain system-wide access. Overwriting the corrupted program and instating a more robust security system.”

In essence, kill the Painter and put in a new Urbanshade brand AI in its hollowed out husk to bring Hadal Blacksite back under company control.

The thought made Sebastian’s blood boil.

He must have been emitting that sustained low hissing noise he did when upset, because evidently the operative felt prompted to try and speak up for themselves.

“I was just following orders! I didn’t—“

“Oh, fuck you!” Sebastian snapped, grabbing a chair and sending it flying into the far wall, where it splintered into pieces upon impact. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard the same ol’ spoonful of bullshit from you people? ‘It wasn’t my fault! I was just following orders! I don’t deserve to get ripped into pieces!’ Waah! Waah! Waah! Cry me a river, why don’t you. All of you corporates are the same! Unwilling to take some goddamn responsibility for the suffering you’ve helped sown—“

“Wass’up, Sebastian!” An Expendable poked their head in through the door from the outside, or tried to, since Sebastian was largely blocking the way in.

“Sup, dumbass.” Sebastian didn’t miss a beat, continuing to tear the dumbfounded Urbanshade operative a new asshole on their sense of morality and ethics. “—And to be completely honest, I am sick of hearing these shitty excuses! So be a doll, shut your mouth and BRING THE PAINTER BACK ONLINE!”

“What happened to Painter?” The Expendable outside shouted, jumping up and down trying to see past Sebastian’s bulk. “Hey, Sebastian! Why are there dead boot-boys out here? Was there a fight?”

“What the fuck do you think?” Sebastian snarked, refusing to look at the Expendable as he crossed his arms and glared death at the operative.

“Did… did backup arrive?” The wounded operative on the floor mumbled dazedly.

Sebastian had honestly forgotten about the other operative, whose leg he’d practically blown off.

He felt a spike of annoyance when the healthier operative stopped their work to crouch by the other’s side, whispering reassurances.

“No, sorry, I think it’s just one of the convicts from the Expendable protocol. I wouldn’t expect any help from criminals like them…”

“Oh… okay…” They coughed and seemed to lose focus again. Probably due to the blood loss.

“Just rest for now, yeah? We’ll get out of this, I promise.”

Sebastian snorted a nasty laugh, to which the operative shot him a hateful look.

“Is somebody in there with you, Seb?” The Expendable piped up again, having taken a step closer and making Sebastian’s shoulders tense in response as he sensed the human’s presence behind him.

“If you try to climb over me, I’ll kill you.” He warned without turning his head, but his ear fin flicked as he heard the Expendable take a few purposeful steps back.

“Fair enough. But seriously man, what happened? Did we miss the show?”

….We…?

Sebastian felt an icy chill run down his spine. He exerted as much willpower as he could into not showing any outward signs of anxiety, besides the slight tension in his shoulders.

Surely it couldn’t be…

“Why are you here, Expendable?” The operative suddenly demanded, shouting past Sebastian. “Shouldn’t you and your ilk be focusing on getting the Crystal for the company?”

“Who the heck are you?” The Expendable yelled back, having stepped closer to Sebastian again, (who had to resist the violent urge to whirl around and BITE).

“I’m an Urbanshade tech operative! And in the absence of HQ oversight, I am your superior—“

“Your title don’t mean shit to us down here, bitchy-twitchy-rhymes-with-itchy!” The Expendable crowed. “Especially with Sebastian Solace here!”

“If you are referring to Z-13, then I implore you to cease—“

“Fuck off, bro! Did y’all do something to Painter? We are so gonna kick your ass when we get in there!”

The operative faltered for a moment. “What? Who’s ‘we’? If HQ finds out that you’ve allied with any of the entities down here you’ll have your PDG detonated!”

Sebastian felt the strangest sense of validation at seeing someone else catch onto the immortal Expendable’s weird use of plurals.

If the Expandable behind him actually was the immortal human…

“Haha, jokes on them, but they’ve already done that!”

Yep, that settles it.

The operative threw their hands up in exasperation with a frustrated groan before returning to the table to work on reviving the Painter.

Sebastian couldn’t stand it anymore, despite all of his instincts telling him not to, he had to look.

Making sure that operative refocused on their work on the Painter, Sebastian slowly looked over his shoulder.

He saw

the Expendable’s

F̵̞͛͐A̷͚̪͘͘C̶͙͈̀́Ĕ̶͚͍̱

Ỳ̸̧̙̳̗̗̠͇͇̘͍̠͖͓̥̳̖̈̀̾͘Õ̸̘͔͓͈̪͔̤͇͍̗͍͇̳̬̱͌̉̇̔̔͒͋̿́́͗̚̚͠U̴̢̩̟̼̻̯̦͎̟͎̒̈́͑͂̂͗̋̍̔̾͌͋̀̂̍̈́͝Ŕ̸̛̲̦͎̹̹̟̌̆͌͌̇̏̔͛̈́̚͝͝ͅF̸̡̛̱̳̹̼̟̹̮͋̾̾̋͋̍̾̆̾̍̏̈́͘͝͝Ā̴̡̭̤͚͍͇͇͇̮̫̫̲̌͑̅̀̓̈́̓͑̇̆̔̍͌̏̕͜͝C̸̡͔͔̯͉͓̫̠͑̍̃͒͛̿̂̒̕E̷̯͔̔̄̀͊̔̕M̶̝̣͒́̒̓̎̊̋͌̕̕Ỳ̸̩̓͌̄̕F̶̢̛̮̩̝̰̖̿̆̌͂̐́ͅȦ̵̢̦̦̘͎̗̰̳̻̦̱̦͖̓́̊̅͜ͅC̵͚̣͚̞̺͙̻͗̽͑̓̋̋͘̕͜͝͠Ę̴̰̠͍͈̥̜̙͉͔͓̐̉̿̿̄̍͐̈̉̿̈́̈͂̔͝Ǫ̸͙̞̩̬̫͈̦̈́̐̆͐̀̐͛̏̈́͛̚̕͝͝͝ͅƯ̸̤͎͇͇͉͇̭͌͑̒̏̈́̾̀̽͝R̸̢̡͈̥͚͛͛̄͂̓̑͗͋̚͝͠F̶̹͚͑̀̈̊̉̍̿̎̎̑̀̀͘̕A̸̮͖͕̱̘̮̝̗̳̻͍͌̊̎̚C̵̜͛̅́̚ͅĘ̸̖͔̦̠̳̗͙̘͂͊̔̋͒͋̾̇̊́̊͗̉̓̌͝

IT'S OUR FACE

Sebastian stared, unable to comprehend what he was looking at. It was a human face. But he couldn’t… for some reason his mind couldn’t focus on any defining features. He was unable to discern whether or not the human was male or female or if they appeared non-binary. Nothing would stick or solidify in his mind. It was like he was unable to formulate any visual identifiers about the Expendable’s face. It was like watching static on a TV screen blurring the pixels into incomprehensible garbage.

“What are you?” He breathed out, feeling more than a little rattled.

The Expendable merely shrugged their shoulders.

“Well, we’d like to be your friend.” They said softly, their gloved hands clasped behind their back as they swayed back on the heels of their boots.
“But you kinda shut us down on that prospect pretty quickly. Y’know with the whole…” they mimed shooting themselves in the head and in the chest. Their uniform still had a ragged hole in it from where Sebastian had shot them, but it was matted with dried blood. “But like, that’s okay! He said it wouldn’t be easy to gain your trust, so no worries. We’re not mad! Even though it hurt— IT ALWAYS HURTS— but we understand!”

“Alright, whatever! Sheesh—” Sebastian closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Expendable, I don’t know what kind of anomalous freakshow is going on with you. Honestly, I don’t think I ever want to know. But…”

He paused, glancing back at the operative to make sure they weren’t eavesdropping.

He wasn’t sure why, but as the minutes ticked by, he was becoming aware of the increased likelihood that the operative was stalling for time. Despite his portable SCRAMBLER blocking communications between the operatives and HQ, he was certain that HQ had to have seen him coming through Heavy Containment when he was rushing to Painter’s location.

It would only be a matter of time before Urbanshade sent down more soldiers to try and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Him and Painter (if the AI was even still alive) were sitting ducks.

To form a tenuous alliance with the immortal Expendable might just be the right type of chaos needed to generate a spark of hope.

Sebastian sucked in a silent breath before letting it out. He looked meaningfully back at the Expendable, or at least tried to give them a meaningful look in the general eye area, before quietly moving aside so that the Expendable could peak into the room.

As soon as Sebastian offered this unspoken invitation for collaboration, the Expendable pounced upon it like a ravenous animal.

He had only intended for the Expendable to see what the situation in the room was and had expected to formulate a plan from there.

What he didn’t expect was for the Expendable to bodily force their way into the room.

Sebastian let out an undignified squawk as the human practically shoved him out of the way. The move had been so unexpected that Sebastian didn’t have time to react before the Expendable had clambered over the remainder of his coils and leapt onto the operative like a crazed chimpanzee.

“DEATH TO CORPORATES!” They shouted as they slammed the surprised operative’s head against the table, rattling the tools and Painter’s inert form atop it.

The operative went out like a light, slumping to the floor in an unconscious sprawl.

Sebastian stared open mouthed as the Expendable stood there with their hands proudly on their hips.

The Expendable looked back at him, then looked back at the unconscious operative, before looking back at Sebastian. “What?”

“What the hell did you do that for?!” He practically shrieked.

The Expendable simply stood there, seemingly confused. “You brutally murdered like seven Urbanshade soldiers out there, and you’re freaking out over what I did?”

“That’s not the point! I needed that operative to bring Painter back online!” He was furious, and he would’ve brought his gun out and shot the immortal Expendable again if it weren’t for the fact that they were standing directly in front of where the Painter was sitting on the table.

“Oh, don’t worry about that! We’ll fix’ em up for ya!” They said glibly, and Sebastian got the impression that they were grinning from ear to ear. Not that he could tell with the whole… weird… face distortion thing.

“Besides, this way it’ll be easier to make the modifications!”

“Wait, what?” Sebastian was both intrigued and flabbergasted at the same time. Things were going way too quickly and he felt as though his grip on the situation was steadily unraveling from his control.

The Expendable reached into their breast pocket and took out the red USB stick. Alarm bells immediately went off in Sebastian’s head and he lunged forward and grabbed the human’s arm.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He hissed, reaching over to pluck the red USB stick out of the Expendable’s hand.

“Hey!” The Expendable protested, trying and failing to snatch the USB back.

Sebastian easily held it out of their reach and sneered. “You bring the Painter back first before you try doing anything else, got it?”

The Expendable huffed. “These people were the ones who were gonna do that awful thing that you suspected us of doing! If we were just going to give Urbanshade control over the system again, then why would we bother stopping their goons from doing just that?”

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How did you know what these operatives were sent here to do?”

The Expendable threw their hands in the air, then swept them around to indicate the various tools around the room. “I have eyes!”

Sebastian rolled his in exasperation. “Oh, do you now? Sorry, it’s kinda hard to tell with the whole freaky pixelated-distortion censoring your face.”

“OH SHIT!” This evidently startled the Expendable as they turned away with their gloved hands covering their head. “Don’t look at us! You’ve seen too much!”

Had they not realized that they lost their face mask when Eyefestation exploded their mind?

Sebastian shook his head. “Look, just do what you gotta do to get the Painter back up and running. And hurry! I don’t know when Urbanshade is going to be sending more of their operatives; we need to not be here long before that happens!”

“Sure thing, shark-boy!” The Expendable turned, completely forgetting about their whole face-reveal situation, and pulled out something else from a different pocket on their person. It was small and round, in fact it looked like it was some sort of keychain, but Sebastian didn’t get the chance to study the object in detail as the Expendable suddenly pulled out a roll of industrial grade duct tape out of nowhere.

Sebastian watched with increasing incredulity as the Expendable proceeded to mummify the Painter in duct-tape, taking care to layer strips over any openings and seams. The Expendable even took the drawing tablet and plugged it back into the monitor before duct-taping that as well, securing it to the underside of the blocky machine.

“Why are you doing that?” Sebastian finally asked.

“To make it waterproof!” The Expendable informed, grabbing the wires still attached to the back of the computer and coiling them up into a compact bundle before taping them to the rest of the growing mummy.

“Are you stupid?!” Sebastian barked, his temper beginning to flare as his faith in the Expendable started to plummet into the negative numbers. “Duct tape isn’t designed to withstand prolonged exposure to water!”

“That’s fine!” The Expendable didn’t stop their work, finally shifting the Painter to sit right side up. “We just need to get it out of here to somewhere safer! I’m thinking we go over to your place, yeah? Then we can get to the real work.”

The Expendable tried to hoist the clunky computer off of the table, their arms visibly shaking as they found the task a bit more difficult than they expected.

Sebastian quickly came over and scooped the computer up before the Expendable dropped it, clutching the machine almost possessively to his chest as he frowned dubiously at them.

“This whole plan of yours feels ill-thought out,” he readily admitted.

“That’s cuz it kinda is.” The Expendable confessed, though they seemed no less chipper about their prospects as they proceeded to gather up as many tools from the operatives that they could carry.

This gave Sebastian no amount of confidence. “Let’s just get moving, I don’t wanna linger here any longer.”

The Heavy Containment sector of Hadal Blacksite was situated in such a way as to be closest to the center of the site, it had a limited amount of exit points which led into the other parts of the facility. Sebastian had entered via the closest access point connected to an airlock to the outside. It had the benefit of being the quickest way to enter Heavy Containment whilst also possessing the downside of being the riskiest. A submersible could easily park right outside the airlock and deploy another squad of Urbanshade soldiers.

Trying to leave the same way he had come in would be a bad idea, especially whilst carrying fragile cargo with him. And despite the Expendable’s optimism, Sebastian wasn’t quite desperate enough to risk Painter’s hardware in the open water.

This meant that they would have to find an alternative route.

Sebastian had a fairly good memory, but even he wasn’t a hundred percent aware of the full extent of the Blacksite’s layout. Still, he had a basic idea as to where the optimal route to escape from Heavy Containment was.

Moving swiftly, Sebastian snaked his way through the large corridors. He could guess where the Urbanshade operatives had come in from based on the heavy doors which still laid open from their passage; Sebastian sought to go in the opposite direction, just in case more operatives were waiting.

The Expendable had to break out into a jog in order to keep up with him, and Sebastian wasn’t interested in slowing down. Thankfully, they remained relatively silent the entire way, besides the occasional inane comment about something or other that Sebastian didn’t bother paying attention to.

Sebastian briefly wondered how his fish were doing, feeling guilty about having left them in the dust in his rush to get to Painter…

—-----

Sachiel was no ordinary fish.

Sachiel was a fish that had peculiar properties that allowed it to mutate based on its environment. However, there were limitations to those mutations.

For one thing, Sachiel couldn’t reverse any gained mutations. Once the fish developed them, there was no going back. Sachiel could never again return to the simplistic aquatic lifestyle of your average pet gold fish.

Secondly, Sachiel could pass on some of their mutations to their offspring, but only to a lesser extent. Sachiel’s offspring gained the ability to traverse land, if only briefly. They were unable to climb walls as easily as Sachiel could and did not posses the rotten coral growths that had begun to riddle the larger fish’s body like a benign cancer.

Sachiel was, of course, not consciously aware of this information about itself. Sachiel wasn’t consciously aware of most things for more than a few seconds at a time.

Fish lived their lives in the moment, and rarely had the brain power to formulate long term plans for the future.

However, Sachiel had one persisting thought that was currently bearing down on the forefront of their tiny brain.

Sebastian. Gone. Missing. Sebastian missing. Must find. Must help. Sebastian.

The school of ten fish were currently lingering outside of the airlock where they had traced the mutant sea snake to.

Sebastian had left in such a frantic burst of energy and terror that the fish had mistakenly assumed that he had become the target of a much larger predator and the fish, acting upon instinct, had shamelessly released their grip on Sebastian’s person in order to get away and avoid becoming a meal with him.

Now, however, the fish were without protection and out in the open water.

This was not optimal.

But these ten fish were not ordinary fish.

They would adapt and, with time, they would find their big mutant sea snake protector.

Chapter Text

With the Painter no longer connected to the system, Hadal Blacksite was now running on the bare bones of the mainframe’s programming.

Automated systems were shut down with no rogue AI or Security System at the helm. The only thing that was working as intended were the Navi-AI installed in the Trenchbleeders, but those were self-contained systems that operated independently from the Blacksite.

Now, the only way for Urbanshade to regain access to the site’s mainframe was to do a manual reset of the entire system, which they couldn’t do without the Crystal.

Sebastian didn’t fully understand the details, but he knew it had something to do with the artifact constantly producing power which ensured the Blacksite was incapable of experiencing a blackout, which meant that resetting the system wasn’t as simple as flipping a switch.

Sebastian and the immortal Expendable managed to navigate their way out of Heavy Containment, Sebastian having found a maintenance shaft above that was accessible via a suspended walkway.

He had easily pushed himself up the side of the wall with his tail, feeling stabs of pain shoot up his back from where bullets had ripped into him from earlier. When he levered himself onto the catwalk, (which vibrated slightly when he hefted his weight onto it), he allowed his tail to dangle over the side.

“Climb up.” He ordered and proceeded to cringe when he heard the ecstatic squeal the Expendable made as they clambered up the length of his tail, using the various belt straps as grab points and footholds.

As soon as the human hoisted themselves up and over the railing, Sebastian roughly pushed them ahead of him.

“Hey! No shoving!” The Expendable protested petulantly as they trotted ahead, which for some reason made Sebastian feel a little bit better.

Making their way through the maintenance tunnels, they eventually stopped within a room that had a caged off area that needed a red keycard in order to access it. But a good ol’ code breaker was good enough to open it.

These caged off areas housed a plethora of supplies and various utilities, but they were rare. He was honestly surprised this room hadn’t already been picked clean.

“This area should be secure enough for now,” Sebastian stated as he swept one of the tables clear in order to set down the Painter. “Do you think you can fix Painter with the tools available here?”

The Expendable made a noise of uncertainty, causing Sebastian to turn around and glare at them, his arms crossing impatiently.

“Well?” He prompted.

“Shouldn’t we…” The Expendable made a vague gesture at Sebastian, who only raised a brow in response. “I mean— you’re kinda bleeding? Maybe we should, like, deal with that first?”

Sebastian glanced casually at the bloody holes that were midway down his snake body. They were starting to really hurt now that all the adrenaline had petered out. The bullets, thankfully, hadn’t penetrated terribly deep due to his sheer size, mostly lodging into the meat of the muscles in his tail. So, he wasn’t worried about bleeding internally from perforated organs.

“So, like, do you need us to—“

“I can deal with my own injuries!” He snapped curtly, the length of his tail sliding into a more defensive position on instinct.

The Expendable immediately raised their hands in surrender. “Alright! Alright, just offering! No need to get your tail in a twist.”

“You just don’t wanna ruin your hard work after you went through all the trouble mummifying the damn computer,” Sebastian shot back, testily.

When the Expendable didn’t immediately respond, he let out a disgusted scoff before pointedly turning away to inspect his injury.

He was going to have to extract the bullets somehow… Preferably sooner rather than later, he knew he would survive even if the bullets stayed in, but having bits of metal lodged inside your body wasn’t exactly good for one’s health.

Sebastian’s claws were too big to easily remove the bullets, not without worsening the wounds.

He bent forward, nearly bending over double in order to press his face closer to the site of the entry point; the shark DNA in him gave him a rudimentary level of electroreception. With it, he was able to get a sense of where the bullets were and whether any loose fragments were present.

This was going to be a pain in the ass to deal with…

“AAAAHHAHH!!! WHERE AM I?!”

Sebastian jolted in alarm, nearly dropping the tiny pair of metal tongs he was using to painstakingly extract each bullet from his perforated tail.

He whirled around, seeing that the Expendable had cut away a portion of the duct-tape around the back of the computer. The main power line was jury-rigged to receive power from what looked like a car battery. (Sebastian had no idea where the Expendable managed to get the battery and he wasn’t going to ask).

The Painter’s monitor had snapped on in a burst of static, the scribbled face twisted in terror and shock.

“IT’S ALIVE!!!” The Expendable cackled maniacally, causing Painter to let out another robotic shriek of fear.

Sebastian rushed over, pushing the Expendable out of the way so that he could inspect Painter’s condition for himself. “Painter, it’s me! You’re okay, buddy! I took care of the humans that were trying to hurt you.”

The Painter’s monitor flickered and their face immediately turned into one of relieved joy. “SEBASTIAN! I knew you’d rescue me! Those morons didn’t stand a chance— wait, where are we anyway? Ohmygosh did you unplug me from the system?! You idiot! This place doesn’t exactly have WiFi, y’know? I can’t access the site’s mainframe like this!”

Sebastian shook his head, smiling despite himself. He knew that disconnecting the Painter from its place in Heavy Containment would be a problem, but he was just glad that the little AI was alive. “Well, I couldn’t exactly leave you after your holding cell had been breached, could I?”

He didn’t mention the fact that the operatives had already been midway through lobotomizing the Painter by the time he managed to reach the holding cell.

“Yeah—haha, I guess you’re right…” Painter admitted with a sheepish look, probably embarrassed by its outburst. “B-but what about the internal defense system? How am I going to help keep the humans away from the Crystal now!?”

“We’ll figure that out later,” Sebastian reassured. “With a bit of time I could probably rig something up with the SCRAMBLER so that you can trigger certain systems remotely, but it’ll likely have a limited radius as a result.”

“Awww…” The Painter seemed disappointed that it could no longer be the scourge of the security systems, but it perked up again upon a realization. “Wait— does this mean I get to come with you this time??”

Sebastian chuckled and gave the computer a light pat on the top of the monitor. “Yes,” he heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Unfortunately, looks like I’ll be stuck hauling you around.”

“More like I will be the one stuck hitching a ride on your smelly self!” Painter easily bantered back.

They both laughed.

“You boys are so cute,” the Expendable chose that moment to butt-in.

He'd almost forgot they were there and gave them an deadpanned look as Painter frowned in confusion.

“Oh, shoot it’s you—“ The Painter stopped then made a ‘‘o__o face. “I-I mean! WHO THE HECK ARE YOU?! Stranger?”

Sebastian glanced from Painter and then to the Expendable, suspicion suddenly creasing his features. A moment passed where nobody spoke, and Painter began drawing more and more sweat drops as the seconds ticked by.

He sucked in a short breath, raising one finger before gesturing between the two. “You both know each other, don’t you.”

“Yep!”

“NO!”

The Expendable’s affirmation came simultaneously with Painter’s denial, which only made Sebastian cross his arms. He stared accusingly at Painter, waiting for the AI to crack under the pressure of his pupil-less stare.

It didn’t take long.

“OK! So, I may have talked to this idiot once or twice before….” Painter admitted, and when Sebastian continued to stare at it, the AI continued. “They kept visiting my holding cell! And no matter how hard I tried to gun them down with turrets they always managed to get away, but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal! I was bored! C’mon, you know I don’t get the chance to talk to anyone very much and you always get to talk to the humans all the time with your dumb shop! SO DON’T GET MAD AT ME—“

Painter abruptly silenced itself when Sebastian rested his head heavily on top of the blocky computer with a dull thunk. Which confused the AI deeply; the action couldn’t have been all that comfortable.

“Sebastian—?”

“I don’t care.” Sebastian finally mumbled, cutting Painter off.

“Y-you don’t?” Painter’s visage blinked owlishly.

“Not one bit,” he reassured with a light pat on the monitor’s side. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be there for you as much as either of us wanted.”

“Aw, jeez, it’s okay!” The AI was quick to forgive and put any misgivings behind them, which made Sebastian smile softly.

“Ugh, I wish I had my phone with me right now!” The Expendable said suddenly, their hands clenched into shaking fists. “We need to take a picture! You guys are so cute!!”

“Would you shut up?!” Sebastian griped, swiping his tail fin at the human, who easily danced out of the way. “You’re still on my shit-list, Expendable!”

“And you still need to get those bullets outta your butt!”

The Painter’s eyes went round. “Bullets? What bullets? Sebastian, did you get yourself shot?!”

Sebastian shifted to press his hands to his face as he groaned in aggravation. “Yes… a few bullets clipped me when I was beating the shit out of some Urbanshade soldiers.”

“They did more than clip you, my man.” The Expendable pointed out bluntly, dodging again when the mutant fishman's tail came back for another swipe.

“Sebastian!” Painter whined, clearly not happy that its best friend in the whole-wide-world got hurt on its account. “You need to take care of yourself, you dummy!”

“Oh, don’t you start getting on my case, too!” He growled, slithering away to pick up the small pair of metal tongs he had been trying to use earlier.

“Did you make sure to sanitize those?” The human questioned, making Sebastian grind his teeth.

”No, but it came from one of the medkits, so I would assume that it is as sanitary as it’s gonna get!” He promptly sat down and resumed the painful process of digging the remaining bullet out of his hide. “Besides, my immune system is far more superior than a mere human’s. I doubt I’ll give myself sepsis.”

“Famous last words…” Painter muttered, causing the Expendable to chortle with laughter.

“Oh yeah, we forgot to ask, but…” The human began once their giggles subsided. “What happened to your fishy crew, big blue?” They directed this question supposedly at Sebastian.

Sebastian felt like his skin tone was more grey than blue... but whatever. Or was that supposed to be a jab at the fact that he was part Blue whale?

Painter blinked, uncomprehending at first, before coming to the same realization. “Oh, right! The gold fish! Where are they, Sebastian? Did they finally get eaten or something?”

He bit down on his lip as he finally wrenched the last bullet out and tossed it away with a muttered curse. He quickly started patching the open wounds up, his ear fins drooping as he mulled over how best to answer the question.

“I… I’m not sure, actually.” He admitted as he turned back towards the Expendable and the Painter. “When I received your message over the PA system that you were in trouble, I tried to get to you as fast as I could. I lost track of them during the rush…”

He was surprised by how distraught Painter’s face became at the news. “W-well that’s no good! We should go find them!”

Sebastian frowned. “Painter, I’m sure they’re fine. Besides, your hardware isn’t waterproof. I wouldn’t be able to search the water if I were to bring you along.”

“You can leave me here,” Painter offered bravely. “I’ll be fine by myself until you get back! Those little fishies need you!”

“What? No, Painter, I’m not gonna just leave you behind in some random closet—“

“It’s not like it’ll be that different than how it was before,” Painter cut in, and Sebastian felt a pang of unwanted guilt. “Except that I won’t be able to watch over you on the security cameras… haha, or protect you with the turrets, or open doors…”

“I don’t need your protection!” Sebastian suddenly snapped, a wave of frustration and anger bleeding from him.

He instantly regretted the words the moment he said them upon seeing the hurt look that flickered on the AI’s monitor. However, it disappeared just as quickly and was replaced by an annoyed grimace.

“I didn’t say you needed my protection, moron!” Painter shot back, its robotic voice hissing with static as its emotions spiked. Then its annoyed countenance transformed into an imploring one. “Look… Sebastian, I’m clearly useless to you in my current state, so it won’t matter if you take the time to search for your fish pals before you come back for me.”

“Beeeeeesides,” the Expendable shifted into view, wrapping a companionable arm about the monitor. “It’s not like Painter will be completely alone.”

Sebastian had a displeased look on his face, not liking the idea of the human being buddy-buddy with his sentient AI friend. As much as Sebastian wanted to go search for his fish, he didn’t like the idea of leaving Painter in the clutches of the immortal Expendable.

However, he did still have possession of the red USB stick, (having pocketed the thing when he had snatched it away from the Expendable). So, at the very least he didn’t have to worry about the human trying to use it on the AI when he wasn’t around.

Not that trying to hack the computer now would accomplish much, since Painter was no longer connected to the site’s mainframe.

Still, the Expendable was unpredictable.

Sebastian didn’t trust them.

But… they did bring Painter back online, despite whatever damage the operatives had done to the computer. Sebastian might have majored in engineering but with the way the AI's innards had been gutted, he wasn't sure if he could've kept his composure in order to figure out how to reverse the damage, not with Painter's life on the line like that.

“Fine,” he relented. “I will go and take a quick look around the exterior. I won’t go far, and I will try to be back within a few hours.” He rose up, leaning over the Expendable as he gave them a stern look, jabbing a claw downwards at the floor. ”You are to stay here and wait for my return. Is that understood, Expendable?”

The Expendable leaned back, having to tilt their head up in order to look Sebastian in the eye, (not that he could see their eyes in order to gauge their reaction based on expressions alone). They shakily gave a thumbs up. “Y-yep, yep! You got it, boss! We’ll stay right here and keep Painter safe.”

Sebastian huffed, satisfied that his show of intimidation had its desired effect, before turning to Painter and giving the AI a farewell pat. “I’ll be back, don’t blow a fuse while I’m gone, yeah?”

Painter rolled their doodled eyes and snickered. “You just make sure you don’t get lost!”

Sebastian barked a laugh as he slithered out of the caged room, leaving the Painter in the somewhat dubious care of an immortal human.

Now that he was no longer in a rush, Sebastian took the time to navigate his way to a breached area in the facility’s hull, taking care to avoid open hallways just in case any operatives were lurking around.

He heard the occasional rumbling and distant shrieks of Anglers rushing in and out of corridors; he wondered venomously about where the Anglers had been when the operatives were breaking into Painter’s holding cell. It was possible that the phantasmal entities could’ve been distracted by the presence of something else in the facility, but whatever distraction Urbanshade had employed appeared to no longer be in effect now.

When he finally found a part of the facility where there was a way out into the open water, he immediately swam to where he had last seen his fish, which was on the opposite side of Hadal Blacksite.

The entire way, he swam at a much slower pace, keeping his body tucked close within the radius of his esca’s light to avoid getting nibbled by parasites. When had rushed to Painter’s aid, he had been moving too fast to notice any parasites that bit at him before he was out of the water.

Now, he was taking care to move slower in case his fish had gone to ground and hid amongst the various fissures and outcroppings along the sea floor.

He felt the anthropomorphic impulse to call out into the abyss, but stifled the urge in order to focus on scanning his surroundings as he swam. Yelling in the water like a human wouldn’t help find his fish, nor would it likely help his fish find him even if they could detect his voice in the water.

He wondered what fish did when they lost their way. Did they just wander aimlessly until they found their kind again? Did their fellow fish care if they lost one of their own?

He had no idea and trying to imagine what might be going on inside Sachiel’s tiny brain when he disappeared made him depressed.

He suddenly stopped, his arms splaying forward to stall his momentum through the water.

He smelled blood.

A lot of blood.

Like a switch had been flipped in Sebastian’s brain, his eyes dilated and his maw opened to bare razor sharp teeth as he abruptly changed course in the water.

With a predatory grace, he glided across the sea floor and over a ridge. A shallow chasm opened below, he traced the scent all the way down; his light piercing through the darkness and bouncing off of the craggy rock walls.

As he crept forward, the scent got stronger, and then he crested over another sharp outcropping and saw the source of the blood.

Before him lay the remains of some great fish. He had no idea what species it was, but it was in the process of being devoured by a swarm of smaller luminescent fish.

With a start, Sebastian realized that he was looking at golden fish. He wanted to feel relieved, but something made him hesitate. Were these his fish? These ones seemed… a bit more wild.

Cautiously, he swam closer, the scent of fresh meat made his mouth water and it took him great effort not to dive right in the midst of the feasting fish and take the carcass for himself.

As he got closer, he surveyed the school of fish, trying to find Sachiel among them.

He lurched backwards when something suddenly barreled into his chest from below and he thrashed about in a panic as his vision was over taken by gold.

The fish had abandoned the carcass and were now surrounding him, nipping and biting at him! Sebastian raised his arms to protect his face, horrified at the prospect that he was about to be eaten alive by a bunch of tiny fish.

He snarled and swung his tail about, ready to claw and tear at the little monsters, when he suddenly realized that the thing that had initially hit him was still clinging to his chest.

Looking down, he would have gasped in shock if he could.

”Sachiel?!”

His fish was clinging to his coat with its weird finger like fins, its mouth munching on the end of his jabot while its tail fin wagged like a happy dog.

It was then that Sebastian noticed that the other fish surrounding him weren’t drawing any blood when they bit at him. They weren’t trying to eat him, they were simply greeting him in the only way they could.

As he surveyed the gathered school, he saw that all nine of Saichel’s offspring had developed mutations.

The mutations were varied and ranged from minor changes in morphology to entirely new limbs having been grown.

One of the most dramatic of these mutations was one fish who had somehow sprouted three tentacles from its torso. The golden tendrils trailing behind it as it swam using its widened fore-fins like they were wings.

Some of the fish had changed in size too. Some had retained their original size, while others had lengthened or shortened, becoming either stocky or streamlined. All of them were still smaller than Sachiel, who remained the big fish in that respect.

He would have to inspect each fish individually in order to catalog all the mutations, but for now he was confident that he had indeed found his missing school of fish.

Now he just needed to return to Painter and the Expendable before shit had a chance to hit the fan.

Chapter Text

Sebastian felt the tension within himself ease as he swam with his school of fish. Their biolumenescence and his own illumination combining to create a sort of warding cone of light around him to keep the parasites within the darkness at bay.

He munched on the remains of the carcass that the fish had been feasting on when he had come upon them, carrying the body with one claw while tearing a strip of the tough salty meat off with his teeth. Sebastian might not have known what type of creature it was that he was eating, but his senses told him it was edible and he so rarely got the chance to indulge in fresh meat that he wasn’t going to turn his nose up at it.

He wondered whether or not his school of fish had been responsible for the creature’s demise… He watched as one of the recently mutated fish darted in front of him to nab a scrap of meat, the light glinting off of the tiny bone white teeth filling its maw like a piranha.

He supposed it was possible… but he still found it hard to imagine as he surveyed the fish around him. It seemed like only one of them had formed razor sharp teeth from what he could see, and that was one of the milder transformations among the fish.

Some of the fish had mutations that looked almost painful, and Sebastian was reminded uncomfortably of his own as he looked at them.

One had formed a few rows of segmented legs under its belly between its fins, said fins had become warped into mismatched sizes and pushed backwards towards the tail fin; some of its scales along its back had grown to form a sort of carapace, but the transformation seemed to have stalled halfway. It was like the fish had been combined with a deep sea isopod.

Due to its asymmetrical fins and slightly hunched body, this fish had trouble keeping up with its fellows, and at some point after having reunited with Sebastian, it had alighted onto one of his packs along his tail in order to avoid getting left behind.

Sebastian let it stay there, surprised with himself when he found that he didn’t mind if the little oddball used him as transportation. Perhaps he felt a sort of kinship with the isopod hybrid, seeing as Sebastian also possessed asymmetrical mutations.

That fish wasn’t the only one of the nine who developed extreme adaptations. Sebastian took note of the fact that three of the juvenile fish had developed tendrils along their bodies. One had sprouted three octopus-like limbs that looked fully capable of manipulating objects, while another’s tendrils were much smaller and tucked closer to the body, being largely overshadowed by the massive wing-like fins on its sides. The third had four slim tendrils extending from its back that had odd pink barbs on the ends that glowed faintly.

He wondered if each of the fish now possessed their own unique abilities and how they acquired them?

Was it related to what the fish ate? But they had eaten other things before... So, despite the fact that Sachiel possessed rotten coral growths along their body from all the coral they'd consumed, Sebastian was beginning to believe that this was more likely just a side effect of eating rotten coral rather than a sign of the fish being capable of mutating based on what they ate.

Did that mean that the fish had conscious input on how they mutated? Or were the mutations brought about by their environment? If so, then why did each individual differ so drastically in their mutations?

There was just too many variables at play that he wasn't aware of to give a definitive answer. He almost wished he had been present when the mutations had occurred in the fish, if only to see what the trigger was.

Sebastian took another bite out of the carcass, chewing thoughtfully as he scanned his surroundings. He intuitively knew which direction the facility grounds of Hadal Blacksite lay, but he hadn’t realized just how far he had swam in his search for his fish.

He was fairly certain that this was the farthest out he’d ever been from the Blacksite. The thought made him feel a strange combination of conflicting emotions. He had spent the past decade of his life trying so hard to be free of the Blacksite, and yet being out here in the deep dark abyss beyond the facility’s reach gave him a creeping sense of unease. He had been confined within Hadal Blacksite for so long that he felt uncomfortable without its walls surrounding him on all sides.

If that wasn’t some telltale symptom of Stockholm syndrome then Sebastian didn’t know what was.

As if to disprove the disturbing notion, Sebastian purposefully took his time returning to the facility. Even though a tiny voice in the back of his mind screamed at the thought of being out in the open water longer than strictly necessary.

He paused momentarily when he noticed Sachiel swim a short distance away, hovering over the lip of a stone shelf that seemed to be part of a crater.

Curious, Sebastian swam over and peered over the side of the shelf to see what had caught the fish’s attention.

He blinked in wonder as his eyes caught the faint luminescent glow of green lights scattered about the bottom of the crater like a field of stars.

At the epicenter of the crater was an entire forest of rotten coral.

Columns of dark green branches stood several hundred feet tall, their nearly black forms only illuminated by the plethora of green lights dotting their spires. Clusters of the green lights were spread sporadically along the vast expanse held within the crater, giving off the impression of an oasis in the middle of a desert. Or a portal to another world entirely. The lights blinked faintly, and Sebastian thought he could just barely make out dark shapes drifting in and around the columns of coral.

The sight was as beautiful as it was eerie.

Sebastian’s ear fins flicked as he barely caught the familiar sound of ominous clicking, the sound managing to drift up to where he floated at the rim of the crater.

Creepy…

Slowly, his head swiveled so that he could eye Sachiel, who eyeballed him right back with an almost expectant look.

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed and he gave a firm shake of his head. No way in hell—

He spluttered a curse as the rotten-coral-happy fish darted over the lip of the crater, swimming towards the ominous forest below.

He glanced around at the remaining nine fish, contemplating the option of just abandoning their addicted parent to their new crack den— only to have that option ripped away from him as one by one, each of the mutated fish followed after Sachiel, leaving Sebastian alone at the top of the crater.

Traitors. Sebastian thought sourly, then blinked when he noticed that the isopod hybrid had remained clinging to his tail, shivering slightly in its golden hued shell. The poor thing looked terrified as its dark round eyes stared unblinkingly down at the rotten coral forest.

Sebastian sighed, a gush of bubbles expelling from his mouth and gills as he did so. He plucked the trembling fish off of his tail and tucked it into his coat pocket, where he could more easily keep an eye on it.

Well, now this one was just being a wimp; staying up here where it was safe whilst its siblings and mother went into the spooky underwater woods…

Like Sebastian was doing.

But Sebastian wasn’t being a wimp! He was just… He just didn’t see any reason to go down there, that was all!

He wasn’t scared.

He wasn’t!

Besides, Sebastian really needed to return to Painter and the Expendable before—

OOooOooOoOOOAH!!!

”Shit!” Sebastian whirled around, eyes widening as he easily caught sight of the massive form of a Searchlight swimming languidly in his direction.

Frantically looking around, Sebastian realized that the entire area surrounding the crater was barren of hiding places big enough to shelter him.

He could always swim up above the Searchlight, but the density of parasites rapidly increased the higher one went, not to mention the other things which lurked at shallower depths in the Let-Vand zone, closer to the veil.

Sebastian wasn’t desperate enough to risk being eaten alive by parasites.

He could just swim away back to the Blacksite, Searchlights slow and Sebastian could easily out maneuver the cumbersome giants—

OooooOOOAAAAHHH!!!

Another Searchlight, followed by another and another.

They appeared from the darkness like ships appearing from the fog, a whole pod of Vultus limunaria moving in a loose formation. Way too close for comfort. How did this many managed to get this close without Sebastian realizing?!

He didn’t have time to linger before the cavalcade of spotlights would be right on top of him, so he quickly abandoned the remains of his food and dove down into the crater.

He could hear the rumbling sound of the Searchlights as they swam over head and he felt a spike of fear course through him as he felt the warmth one of their spotlights.

He twisted his body sharply to one side, just barely avoiding the harpoon that shot down at him, the barbed head grazing his tail fin as he plunged into the midst of the rotten coral forest.

He ducked behind one of the massive columns, tucking his tail close as the beam of the Searchlight passed over his position.

Sebastian watched as one of Searchlights shot a harpoon out at a dark shape that had darted from cover— he had no idea what the creature was, as it was swiftly skewered and retracted into the leviathan’s maw before he could get a good look at it.

Sebastian was about to move as he sensed another Searchlight coming around on his side of the column- when he suddenly felt a vibration run up the length of the coral.

With a whoosh of displaced water, the top of the column opened up and out unfurled a fan of fronds, each frond was several meters in length as they billowed out to form a neon green umbrella. The tendrils swayed gently in the water as the Searchlights skimmed past, their lights bouncing off of the colorful fronds and sheltering Sebastian from view.

Sebastian marveled as all around him fronds unfurled from the other towers of coral, spreading out to create a canopy over the rotten coral below.

When his nerves began to settle, Sebastian couldn’t help the sense of awe that overcame him as he watched the large creatures glide by. He hardly ever got the chance to be this close to the leviathans without also being in mortal danger.

Unlike most of the anomalous entities that dwelt within Hadal Blacksite, the leviathan class creatures known as Vultus luminaria, (commonly known as Searchlights), were indigenous to the Let-Vand zone’s ecosystem. They migrated through-out the zone, always on the look out for food where-ever their spotlights could find it.

When Sebastian had first discovered the documents detailing these creatures, he had initially wondered about what such massive monsters ate down in the depths. Surely something that massive couldn’t survive on the occasional suicidal human swimming about in the open, right?

Again, Sebastian lamented on his lack of knowledge about sea life and how it operated.

Clearly, Urbanshade had neglected to document the full extend of the Let-Vand zone’s local fauna and flora; the company was only interested in documenting anything that were assets making money or things which were a threat to said assets.

Seriously, fuck Urbanshade.

The little isopod hybrid fluttered out of his pocket, and Sebastian cupped a hand protectively over it to keep the little fish from straying too far. His senses detected movement to his left, and upon looking in that direction he was relieved to see the rest of the school had been smart enough to take shelter beside a nearby tower.

Sebastian rolled his eyes as he caught sight of Sachiel busily munching away at some coral polyps. Insatiable little gremlin…

As the pod of Searchlights gradually moved over the rotten coral forest, Sebastian remained alert for any new threats that had yet to make themselves known. The chittering and clicking from the rotten coral made him feel jumpy.

Hopefully, Painter was having a better time than he was…

“NO! You cheated!” Painter accused as it erased the tic-tac-toe game it had somehow lost.

“Nuh-uh!” The Expendable shouted back, their hands going to their hips as they spun around in the office chair they were sitting in. “There’s like only one way to cheat at tic-tac-toe, and that’s by taking extra turns. Which we know we didn’t do! You just suck!”

“I don’t know how you did it, human. But I’ve never lost a game of tic-tac-toe against Sebastian, and he’s the smartest guy I know! So how the heck are you BEATING me?!”

The Expendable let out a snort of laughter. “Awww, sounds to us that the big scary smart fishman is letting you win!”

“No! Liar! Not true!” The Painter’s scribbled face became more erratic as the computer’s fans began to rev loudly. “You’re stupid! Stupid biped! Idiot human!”

A spark flew from where the cable was plugged into the car battery on the table, and the Expendable abruptly sat up with a start.

“Woah! Okay, remember what Sebastian said about not blowing a fuse while he’s gone?”

“SHUT UP! YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME—“ The monitor glitched, then blacked out as a worrisome popping sound went off and smoke began to rise from the computer.

The Expendable jumped out of the chair and began hastily waving away the smoke, before cursing under their breath and grabbing a nearby fire extinguisher.

The Expendable didn’t hesitate to spray the AI down in a layer of halocarbon-based foam, smothering whatever was trying to burn up inside.

Thankfully, Painter’s monitor flickered back to life. The little AI’s scribbled features becoming downtrodden. “Thanks…” It mumbled.

The Expendable gave the computer an OK sign. “No problem, bud. Maybe we should play something else instead. Tic-tac-toe is a stupid game anyway.”

“Yeah…” Painter emitted an electronic sigh. “Ugh, I hate not having the extra server power I used to have in Heavy Containment…”

The Expendable gave the AI a comforting pat as they did their best to brush away the accumulated fire detergent. “Yeah, I know it must feel like you’re working at half capacity right now. Just try not to fry your circuitry until we get the chance to outfit you a more robust mainframe.”

The AI blinked quizzically at the human. For some reason their camera was unable to focus properly on the human’s facial features, but Painter figured it must just be a bug in its software. “What do you mean by that?” It instead asked.

“I mean that we have plans for you once we get out of here,” the Expendable explained without explaining anything at all. “You can be so much more than what you are right now, Painter. The jerks at Urbanshade were wasting your potential by forcing a sophisticated artificial intelligence like you to mine cryptocurrency!”

Painter smiled, feeling validated by the human’s words. But it was still confused, not understanding what they were trying to tell it. “I don’t get it, though. How am I supposed to become more than what I am? It’s not like I can just be uploaded into a new body, right? M-my creator said that he made my hardware unique, otherwise he would’ve put me into a much more modern model…”

The Expendable didn’t say anything in response, simply sitting back down on the chair and spinning in lazy circles.

Despite the fact that Painter’s video feed couldn’t parse the human’s face, Painter got the strangest feeling that they had a knowing smile on their lips.

“Have you ever played Pictionary?” The Expendable suddenly asked.

“Uh, no?” Painter admitted, a bit thrown by the sudden change in topic but more than eager to learn a new game to play.

The Expendable stopped spinning in their chair and leaned forward. “Okay, so it’s kind of like charades, but! Instead of acting out the secret word, you draw the secret word and then I try to guess what the secret word is based on your drawing.”

The Painter’s eyes turned into stars. “Ooooh! I like the sound of this game!”

“Alright then, think of a word! Then start drawing it and I’ll try to guess what the word is!”

“Okay! Lemme think…” Painter’s scribbled features scrunched up as it ran through a million different potential words in less than a millisecond before finally landing on one. The AI’s face made an evil expression as it came to its decision, before shrinking to a corner of the screen as a cursor appeared and began sketching out a rough outline.

The Expendable tilted their head, watching for a few seconds as the drawing gradually began to take shape, before making their guess in a deadpan voice.

“Painter, that’s just a penis.”

The AI erupted into laughter.

It laughed so hard at its immature joke that another spark flew and the Expendable preemptively sprayed the computer down again with the fire extinguisher.

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it for real this time! I’m sorry, I just had to!” Painter giggled, erasing the offending body part and starting on a blank canvas.

The Expendable merely shook their head in amusement.

Chapter Text

Fishes as they hatched. Pre-mutation.

Mutated fishlets.


Mutated fishlets.

Sachiel's current evolution.

Chapter Text

It took a while for the Searchlights to pass; the pod appeared to be inclined to linger above the rotten coral forest.

Sebastian cautiously darted from his hiding place, swimming from the cover of one voluminous umbrella to another until he was amidst his wayward school once more.

The fishes immediately flocked to his face to peck at his hair and ear fins. He let out annoyed grunt as he tried to duck his head away from them, his attention solely focused on Sachiel, who was still eating the rotten coral.

Sebastian grabbed the large fish and turned it around so he could glare into its stupid eyes.

Sachiel stared unblinkingly up at him, still munching on a few rotten coral sprouts. Nom nom nom nom….

He glared down at Sachiel for several seconds, before his face gradually warped into a pained grimace as he barred his teeth in a silent snarl of frustration.

UGH!! He just couldn’t stay MAD at the little shit!!! Sachiel was just too stupid to comprehend his anger. The fish could never appreciate the sheer anguish that it caused Sebastian, so why bother.

He gave the irritating fish a little shake, as if to somehow psychically impart some measure of his inner turmoil onto the fish’s pitiful blip of a consciousness.

Sachiel— oblivious to the mutant fishman’s grief, (or stalwartly ignoring it)—let the remaining polyps of coral drift from its mouth, its barbels quivering in the water as it moved on to mouthing at the scales along the calloused claws still gripping it.

Sebastian let out a sigh, shutting his eyes at the wave of exasperation that threatened to overwhelm him, but his eyes opened again when he felt something pull at his hair.

He tilted his head to the side, noticing that one of the tendril-bearing fishlets had used one of their boneless appendages to tug at a lock of his hair. Once the octo-fish saw that it had Sebastian’s attention, it let go and used another tentacle to point upwards.

Sebastian blinked and looked up.

He instantly stiffened and the light emanating from his esca dimmed instinctively.

At about ten meters above their position against the large column of coral, a dark oblong shape hovered ominously in the water; the outline of tendrils branched outwards from one end, the other end tapering into a wide arrowhead.

Two large eyes glinted malevolently as ripples of color spread across the creature’s body in an almost hypnotic pattern.

It was a squid.

Not a giant squid, or at least not as big as the fabled krakens. But large enough that Sebastian judged that it was about half the length of his tail. Not including its tentacles, which seemed to stretch and shrink on a whim. The squid’s mantle was certainly wider than himself by a significant margin.

Sebastian was aware of his school crowding close to him, their own biolumenescence dimming slightly, but unable to fully go dark.

As he warily watched the predator hovering above, he came to a sudden conclusion.

He was behaving like prey.

Pressed up against the coral column, with his tail coiled close to himself in a vain attempt to appear smaller. It was clear that the squid had already seen him and was likely determining whether or not Sebastian was worth attacking.

Whether this realization occurred to him due to the various different animal DNA in his system imparting an instinctual awareness on this fact, or if he came to the conclusion based on observation alone— Sebastian couldn’t be certain.

But what he was certain of was that there was no point in trying to hide.

He let his lure light up once more, letting it burn brightly as he released Sachiel from his grasp. He uncoiled himself, letting his serpentine body arch and whip about as he barred his teeth. He spread his arms wide, as if inviting the squid to come and try attacking him.

Around him, the fishes seemed to react to his change in demeanor and started glowing brightly as well. They began swimming around him, faster and faster until they practically created a unified halo of light, the effect causing Sebastian’s shadow to warp wildly on the wide backdrop of the column of rotten coral.

Before his eyes, the squid, which had appeared so dark and foreboding just a minute ago, seemed to visibly shrink at the light show— before it suddenly jetted away with a dark spray of ink in its wake.

And just like that, it was gone.

Sebastian allowed himself to relax slightly, his eyes scanning his surroundings for signs of anything else that wanted to try him.

Only after several moments passed and nothing moved in to attack did he finally concur that they were safe. For now at least.

He cautiously drifted upwards to peer out at the surrounding forest, making sure to stay well within the shadow of the column he was sheltering under, in case any Searchlights happened to be lingering directly above.

Distantly, he could see a few Searchlights lingering near the edges of the crater, but they appeared to be moving on.

He flared his ear fins, trying to detect the telltale rumbling growl which heralded the Searchlights as they passed overhead. But he couldn’t detect anything with the continuous chittering of the rotten coral surrounding him.

Sebastian made the decision to begin making his way closer to the edge of the forest, darting from one column to the next.

As he swam, he noticed that the umbrellas at the top of the largest coral columns had begun to retract, their fronds furling back up before disappearing— taking their neon green glow with them.

He supposed that was a good indicator that the Searchlights were leaving.

Still, he didn’t want to dash out into the open and get skewered, so he continued to move at a slow pace. Occasionally, he’d cast his gaze about, making sure his school was still with him and especially keeping track of Sachiel. He didn’t want to risk his best fish indulging its crack addiction again.

Sebastian made it to the edge of the forest, pausing momentarily to cast about his surroundings before propelling himself up the side of the crater and cresting over the rim in a plume of disturbed sediment.

Alright, enough getting sidetracked! He had been away for far too long, and he really needed to return to the Blacksite.

“Someone is coming,” the Expendable suddenly warned, causing Painter to pause its doodling.

“What—“ the Painter was about to ask if it was Sebastian, but then its view was suddenly obscured. “H-hey! What gives?!”

“Shhh!” The Expendable shushed, having hastily thrown a tarp over the computer in an effort to conceal its presence.

The sounds of multiple boot steps was growing closer and closer to their location.

The Expendable frantically looked around the room, trying to find a hiding place for themself, but there was no locker in the room and they doubted simply crouching behind a crate would be adequate.

With a shrug, the immortal Expendable decided to just wing it. Surely, if the approaching boot steps were from fellow convicts from the Expendable protocol, they would be able to find some manner of camaraderie.

If the source of the boot steps belonged to Urbanshade operatives, however, then the Expendable doubted they would stand much of a chance anyway.

The identities, (or rather, the affiliations), of the approaching humans were soon revealed as one by one, three other Expendables in various states of wear and tear trudged into the room.

The three masked humans looked haggard, like they had just sprinted down several corridors before getting here. They had probably been running from one of the many monsters roaming the Blacksite.

One of them was holding a rifle, which had likely been pilfered from one of the dead soldiers that Sebastian had taken out.

“Kind of a stupid move to steal one of the soldiers’ guns,” The immortal Expendable voiced aloud, causing the other three humans to jump.

”Holy shit!” The one with the rifle exclaimed, reflexively bringing the stolen weapon to bear.

“Who the fuck are you?” Another Expendable demanded, pointing an accusatory finger, before suddenly seeming to see the weird distortion happening to the other human’s face and jumping back. “What the fuck- What the hell is up with your face?!”

The immortal Expendable blinked. Goddamn it, they forgot they no longer had their diving mask on again.

Well, this was awkward.

“Umm,” the immortal Expendable raised their hands up, their mind frantically improvising on the fly. “B-because! I am a ghost! A ghost that— that EATS people’s faces! Because I, uh, don’t have my own!” They made a stilted clawing motion with their outstretched arms, as though imitating a ghoul or zombie. “So, BEWARE! And go away! Or else your face will be snatched!”

The three Expendables just stared, their own opaque face masks making it impossible for the maskless Expendable to tell what they were thinking.

Curse them and their mask-having selves!

“Pshhh! That was lame!” Painter piped up abruptly, and the immortal Expendable mentally screamed.

“What the- who else is in here?!” The rifle wielding Expendable demanded. (We’ll just call that one Rifle-guy).

“That sounded like that crazy psycho AI….” Another of the Expendables murmured, their helm pivoting to stare directly at the suspiciously computer-shaped form covered by the tarp before looking at the immortal Expendable and pointing. “Oh my god, you actually stole the p.AI.nter from its holding cell?!”

Well, the cat was outta the bag now.

The three Expendables barged into the caged off area, one of them reaching out and swiftly tugging away the tarp that was hiding the Painter while Rifle-man kept his weapon trained on the immortal Expendable.

“Oh, poop.” Painter deadpanned, looking unimpressed as it surveyed the motley crew of new Expendables. “What the heck do you morons want? You planning on taking some revenge out on me, huh? Unbelievable.”

“You’re the one who gunned down several of our friends with your stupid turrets!” The Accusatory-Expendable snapped. “You’ve been a menace to us from the very start, I don’t see why we don’t just smash in your monitor and be done with it!”

The immortal Expendable tried to impose themself between Painter and the other human, despite having a rifle aimed at their head. “Hey, now! Let’s not get crazy! Painter is no longer hooked up to the security system, so we don’t have to worry about turrets attacking or being forced into spontaneous gauntlets.”

“Shove it, you freak!” Rifle-dude barked, jabbing the end of the rifle into the other human’s chest and making them stumble back against the table. “You ain’t in any position to stop us!”

The immortal Expendable raised their hands up, tilting their head slightly as they tried their best to deescalate the situation. “Woah, there. Let’s slow down, friend. Listen, if you kill Painter, Sebastian is going to be really pissed.”

Silence fell over the room as the three seemed to hesitate at this.

“He wouldn’t know it was us.” The third expendable, who hadn’t spoken up until that point, said: “We’d be long gone. If he ever finds the Painter’s remains, I doubt he’ll be able to figure out who specifically did the deed.”

“‘If?’” The immortal Expendable cocked their head to the side. “What makes you think he won’t find out? You do realize he was the one who fucked up all those Urbanshade soldiers outside of Painter’s holding cell, right? I assume you’ve already passed by there, seeing as one of you was dumb enough to pilfer one of their guns.”

“If that’s true, then where is he now, huh?” Rifle-guy challenged, his grip on the stolen weapon tightening minutely.

“He went out to scavenge for supplies,” the Immortal Expendable lied. “He’s a real busy guy, but he’s coming back soon. If I were you guys, I wouldn’t want to stick around.”

“Yeah!” Painter vouched loudly. “And when he finds out how mean you idiots have been, he’s gonna give you a real bad time!”

The other Expendables looked at each other, one shook their head vehemently while the other seemed uncertain.

“Maybe we should just go…” One of them said in a hushed tone, reaching out to put a hand on Rifle-dude’s shoulder. “C’mon, we can’t risk it!”

“No way. I don’t believe this freak’s bullshit story about Sebastian having been here, they’re just trying to cover their own ass!” Rifle-guy rebuked. “I bet Urbanshade will give us a bonus if we take out one of their enemies for them…”

Before anyone could say anything, Rifle-dude moved— violently shoving the immortal Expendable out of the way and pointing the rifle directly at Painter before pulling the trigger.

Instead of firing, the gun made an odd beeping sound as a red light flickered on its side.

“WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED WEAPON USAGE DETECTED.”

Before Rifle-dude could utter a single sound, his body seized up as volts of electricity shot through his system. The inbuilt circuitry in his PDG suit having been triggered to administer its punishment protocol upon detecting the attempt to use Urbanshade-grade weaponry.

He fell to the ground as his body spasmed with agony, the rifle clattering to the floor as the two remaining Expendables backed away in shock.

The immortal Expendable picked themselves up from where they had fallen on the floor, casually dusting themselves off before putting their hands on their hips as they glared down at the writhing ex Rifle-dude. “Told you it was stupid to steal the soldier’s gun.”

“Jeez-louise….” Painter murmured, its face bearing a shell-shocked expression. “I think I just saw my artificial life flash before my non-existent eyes…”

The immortal Expendable cackled, patting the computer good-naturedly. “Yeah, near death experiences will do that to ya.” Their demeanor quickly turned serious as they glared at the two Expendables who were still on their feet. “So! Now that Mister Gun-Happy-Boy-Toy-Benson here is outta commission, have you reconsidered your stance on murdering somebody who is no longer a threat to you just for some petty revenge?”

The two Expendables glanced at each other, before one of them quickly bent down and grabbed their still twitching companion by the arm and hauled him over one shoulder. The other Expendable hurriedly followed suite, taking their comrade’s other arm.

Wordlessly, they shuffled out of the room without a backwards glance.

Once the immortal Expendable was certain the three were well away, they breathed a sigh of relief and slumped onto the office chair.

“H-how did you know that was gonna happen?” Painter shakily inquired.

“I didn’t,” the Expendable admitted. “But I know that Urbanshade has a real stick up their ass about personnel having ‘proper authorization’ when it comes to who’s allowed to fire weapons. So I figured it was highly likely that they’d make sure the literal criminals they were sending down into Hadal Blacksite wouldn’t be capable of arming themselves and, y’know, rebelling.”

“Ah.” Was all Painter had to say in response.

Sebastian made it back to Hadal Blacksite without further delay, his school of fish thankfully still retaining their ability to survive out of the water as he entered through a small breach in the walls and into a portion of the maintenance tunnels near Heavy containment.

He still grumbled to himself as he felt his school latched onto his various belts when he exited the water, still not comfortable with the idea of having to chaperone the little fish when traveling on land.

At least Sachiel seemed to have gotten the hang of walking beside him. The elder fish actually managing to straight up gallop as Sebastian slithered through the maintenance tunnel. Like some sort of sea lion. It was really weird.

He slowed when he came to a small junction where the pathways split off in different directions, his ear fins twitching at the sound of shuffling footsteps and heavy breathing.

Before him, he saw three Expendables turn around a corner, two of them supporting the third between them. The third one looked like he had a run in with the PDG’s punishment system, from what Sebastian could tell.

The three abruptly stopped in their tracks upon spotting Sebastian, who merely flashed his teeth and offered them a friendly wave.

“You three look like you’ve gone through the wringer,” he commented amicably as he slid past them, smirking when the humans quickly stumbled back against the wall in order to get out of his way. “You should stop by my shop next time and stock up on supplies, I’m sure I’ll have something to help heal those unfortunate electrical burns your poor friend likely suffered. If you survive for long enough, that is.”

His grin only widened as the Expendable being supported by the other two uttered a frightened whimper.

Holy shit, did that bitch actually piss himself?!

Sebastian considered that a win in his book. Scare a guy bad enough that he peed his pants! That was certainly a first.

Sachiel waddled along side, pausing momentarily to eye the cowering humans intently before spitting a spurt of water at their feet and hurrying to catch up with Sebastian as he disappeared down the hall.

Sebastian felt immeasurably relieved as he entered the room where he had left Painter and the Expendable and found that both were still there.

“I have returned!” Sebastian announced as he slid into the caged area.

“You’re back!!” Painter exclaimed, doodled stars replacing its eyes to express its excitement. “And you found your fishy friends!!!”

Sebastian grinned, moving to sit beside the table where Painter rested. He looked over at the immortal Expendable, who had remained oddly silent where they sat on an office chair they had pulled up.

“Soooo… did anything happen whilst I was away?” Sebastian asked casually.

“Um… well…” The Expendable nervously swiveled in their chair as they crossed their arms, and Sebastian immediately became suspicious.

“A few other Expendables came in and tried to start shit,” Painter helpfully informed, sounding way too chipper about it as they proceeded to regale the horrified Sebastian on the incident. “They were threatening to kill me! But then our human was like ‘no you won’t cuz then Sebastian will kill you all’ and it turns out something is actually wrong with their face! I thought it was just my video feed bugging out, but no! The other humans said their face was messed up! Anyway— so one of them had nabbed one of the guns from the soldiers you killed earlier, and they had it pointed at me and tried to shoot me with it! But it turns out that Urbanshade has a system in place which prevents Expendables from operating firearms while in the facility, so the gun didn’t fire! Instead the idiot got himself zapped by his prisoner diving gear’s punishment protocol! After that they ran away like a bunch of babies!”

Sebastian stared, mouth slightly agape as he took this all in. Sachiel had found said rifle still on the floor and was idly mouthing at the cold metal.

Sebastian finally closed his mouth and looked over at the Expendable, his expression unreadable.

The Expendable fidgeted uncomfortably in their chair. “Yeah, it was a pretty hairy situation. We got lucky that they gave up so quickly. It could’ve gotten real bad if they had decided to get physical.”

“Hey, we survived!” Painter insisted, looking from Sebastian to the Expendable and back. “Sebastian, don’t be mad at the human! They did their best!”

Sebastian grimaced, one ear fin twitching in annoyance. “I’m not mad at them!” He snapped, before letting out a sigh and sucking up his pride.

He rested a hand on the Expendable’s shoulder and looked them in the eye, (or rather the general eye area). “Thank you for keeping watch and protecting Painter.” He tried to say as sincerely as possible.

The Expendable tensed, slowly looking at Sebastian’s hand resting on their shoulder and for several seconds they did not react.

Then, they lifted their head— uttering a high pitched squeal that started out small before gradually growing in volume and Sebastian instantly regretted everything.

He quickly retracted his hand and reared back as the Expendable jumped up with their arms thrown wide open as they screamed like a gleeful schoolgirl.

“DO NOT FUCKING HUG ME, I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL SHOOT YOU!” Sebastian shouted, his voice going up several octaves as he cringed away from the ecstatic human.

“DAMN IT!” The immortal Expendable wailed as they proceeded to take the office chair they were just sitting in and throw it against the far wall with a clatter, their breaths coming out in violent puffs as they stood there shaking with barely restrained emotion. “We were so close!!! So CLOSE! But no, just gotta wait— we must bide our time. This is a glorious achievement….”

They continued to mutter to themselves, and Sebastian slowly allowed himself to uncoil from his defensive position to slide closer to Painter.

“Are they usually this batshit insane?” Sebastian whispered conspiratorially to the AI.

“No,” Painter said, their voice just as low. “They’re actually super nice. I dunno what their deal is, and they can be kinda weird sometimes. But while you were gone, they taught me some new games to play, some of them involve drawing! So like— even if they are a little crazy, they can’t be that bad, right?”

Sebastian hummed in acknowledgment, still staring warily at the human. Then he noticed what Sachiel was doing and hissed in exasperation.

“Sachiel! Stop trying to eat random shit!” He admonished as he swiped the rifle from the ground and proceeded to safely disgorge it of its ammunition, the remaining bullets clattering harmlessly to the floor.

“Oooh, what’s this? Did you finally name your fish friend?” Painter laughed at the flustered look that bloomed across the mutant fishman’s features.

“Well— yes, obviously I had to give it a name after it multiplied!” Sebastian insisted stubbornly.

“Does that mean you’re gonna give the other ones names too?” Painter logically asked in turn.

“No.” Sebastian muttered. “I am not naming any more of them. One fish with one name is good enough.”

“Aww, c’mon! That’s dumb!” Painter whined, before getting an idea. “Oh, oh! Can I name them, then? Please! Please! Please!”

Sebastian groaned, wiping a claw over his face as he resigned himself to accepting the inevitable. “Fine… you can name the rest of them.”

“YAY!!!”

Chapter Text

“I designate this one: Skuttle.” Painter announced, the AI’s drawing of the golden isopod fish hybrid completed with its new name proudly emblazoned on the side. Said hybrid was currently sitting awkwardly on the table in front of the AI’s monitor whilst it slowly chewed on a potato chip it had clutched in its claws.

“Creative.” Sebastian opined, not looking up from his work on the SCRAMBLER.

He had taken the device off of his back and set it down on the table beside Painter, and was currently in the process of figuring out how to secure two lengths of cables to the back of the computer. The length of cables originated from a small compartment on the side of the SCRAMBLER; Sebastian suspected they were designed as a means to connect to other devices, but the AI’s hardware was so outdated that it made retro-fitting them to pair with each other a bit of a headache.

Painter’s doodled expression stuck out a tongue in response to Sebastian’s comment. “Whatever! Show me the next fishy!”

Sebastian sighed and paused in his work to scoop up ‘Skuttle’ and tucked the little fish into a pocket, where it continued to munch on its potato chip.

Twisting about, Sebastian plucked up one of the other fishlets that were still clinging to his person. This time, he picked up the smallest of the nine, this one was barely bigger than his finger, and placed it in front of the Painter.

To make sure the fishlet didn’t move from its spot where Painter’s video camera could see it, Sebastian stole another potato chip from the Expendable and placed it in front of the mini fish.

“At this rate, I’m going to be chip-less and starve,” the Expendable griped from where they sat on the floor beside Sachiel.

“Need I remind you that those were my chips to begin with, Expendable?” Sebastian pointed out, turning back to his work on the SCRAMBLER while Painter proceeded to sketch out its newest subject as it mulled over what to name it. “Besides, I highly doubt starving will stop you from continuing to be a pain in my ass.”

The Expendable made an unhappy huff, lying back onto the cold cement floor with the bag of chips clutched to their chest.

“Designation: Dart!” Painter announced. “Next!”

Sebastian glanced over, his ear fins twitching in bemusement. “Dart?”

“Because it has a pointy nose and it’s small. Like a dart! ” Painter explained, drawing some red arrows to point at the drawing of the little fish’s head area.

Curious, Sebastian leaned down to get a closer look at the minuscule fish as it consumed the last bits of chip. He supposed the ‘nose’ area of the fish was a little pointier than its fellows, kinda making it look like a swordfish.

Apparently, despite the fish’s small stature, it was just as agile on land as it was in the water, because at that moment it decided it was done sitting on the table.

With a flick of its tail, Dart launched itself into the air and managed to land squarely atop Sebastian’s head.

Sebastian sat up straight in surprise as Painter laughed at the sight. With a grunt of annoyance, he gingerly reached up to remove the tiny fish from his mess of hair before placing it back along his tail.

Sebastian hadn’t been expecting the nine fish to continue clinging to his body the entire time, he honestly thought that once he had stopped moving so much that the fishlets would disperse about the room. But the only fish that seemed intent on exploring was Sachiel, who continued to find new things to stick into its mouth.

He supposed it was for the best that the nine fish remained perched atop him for now, at least until they got back into the water. He was at the very least glad that they didn’t spend it clambering about his body, that would have been intolerable to his senses. But no, for the entire time he remained on land, they remained still on the places where they had first alighted on.

In fact, they stayed motionless for so long that they were actually leaving damp spots on his scales. It was like having a bunch of frogs resting on a log, with Sebastian being the log in this scenario.

Sebastian was beginning to get the impression that the nine were actually sleeping this entire time due to their lack of activity, and he just hadn’t realized it due to their lack of eyelids.

The thought made him feel mildly guilty about disturbing them as he reached over to pluck the next fish up for its naming ceremony.

This one was one of the octopus looking ones, the one with the beak and oversized fins. It flopped onto the table with a slightly confused expression; its wide orb-like eyes reflecting the bright light of the monitor and Painter’s scrutinizing face.

“This one’s Bubbles.” Painter said immediately, not bothering to draw this one for whatever reason. “Hand over the next one.”

“Hang on,” Sebastian grunted, two of his hands fumbling with some wires whilst his third held the cable steady.

“I’ll get it!” The Expendable volunteered, springing up from their place on the floor and scooping up the floppy Bubbles in one hand.

Sebastian’s head jerked in their direction, a warning on the tip of his tongue to be careful, but he bit down on the impulse and resolutely turned his attention back to his work.

The Expendable didn’t notice, casually setting Bubbles back onto Sebastian’s tail and giving the fish a potato chip from their quickly dwindling supply.

They reached out to carefully retrieve one of the other fish, only to let out a short laugh when the one with the fully formed octopus arms reached up and grasped the human’s arm.

“Hello there, grabby.” The Expendable cooed as they lifted the octopus-fish up. It clung onto their arm with two tendrils, the third one reaching over to the bag of chips in the human’s other hand. The Expendable readily offered the bag to the eager fish, who began scarfing as many chips as its little suction cups could grab.

“Grabby is a dumb name,” Painter decided, ignoring the Expendable’s responding ‘boo’. The AI quickly drew a rough sketch of the Expendable and the octopus-fish together. “This one’s designation: Iggy.”

“How is the name ‘Iggy’ less dumb than ‘Grabby’?” The Expendable asked as they tried to pry the grabby Iggy off of their arm.

“Because I said so!” Painter shot back. “Besides, I am the one who gets to name the baby fishies! Right, Sebastian?”

“Uh-huh,” Sebastian nodded absentmindedly, only half listening to the conversation. Working with machinery was so difficult when one had big meaty claws.

The Expendable sighed as they finally pried off Iggy and set them down, grabbing another fish and showing it to Painter. “Okay, what about this one with the teeth?”

This went on for quite a while, Sebastian tuning out the conversation long enough that he finally managed to jury-rig something workable with the SCRAMBLER and the 80s computer that Painter was hosted on. Now the AI was directly hooked up to the communications device and could access some of its properties, including short ranged hacking.

The SCRAMBLER’s power supply should also be more than capable of powering itself and the AI. Its power source essentially being a highly modified compact fusion reactor crystal, not unlike the Crystal that was powering the Blacksite.

The SCRAMBLER’s power source could last for a couple of decades before it started deteriorating, where as Z-2 was theoretically capable of continuing to output power for the next several thousand years before it would start to show signs of wear.

Such longevity of a clean source of power was the main reason why Urbanshade was so desperate to reacquire the Crystal.

“Alright, Painter! Everything’s ready to go, the only remaining problem is the whole waterproof thing.” Sebastian stated, rising up from where he had been crouched over his work, cracking his back as he did so.

“We could always use duct-tape again.“ The human suggested, having at some point managed to corral all of the fish onto the table where they huddled around the Painter in a pile of golden hued scales.

“That isn’t a permanent solution to the problem.” Sebastian growled, rubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hands. God, he was tired.

“Yeah, but like, if we layered enough duct-tape around them it would take a while for the water to fully permeate it, right?” The Expendable reasoned.

Why was this human so intent on mummifying Painter in duct-tape….?

“I don’t mind,” Painter piped up from its doodling of the gathered fish on the table. “As long as I get to come along with you, I don’t care if you have to shove me in a mini refrigerator in order to keep my hardware from getting waterlogged.”

“I don’t think there’s any mini refrigerators just lying around the facility.” The Expendable lamented, their head tilting in thought. “Actually, would a mini fridge even work?”

Sebastian decided to head off the conversation before it had a chance to sprout wings and fly into the sun of insanity. “I’ll use one of the smaller crates Urbanshade uses to transport supplies from the subs. Those are watertight and pressure resistant.”

This would mean that Painter would have to be unplugged and powered off whenever Sebastian had to travel through the flooded areas. Which Painter was already aware of and had consented to earlier.

“It’s just kinda like falling asleep, I think.” It had said when Sebastian had asked how it felt about the idea of having to periodically be shut down. “Not that I would know what that feels like, obviously. But it’s not as disconcerting as you might think.”

Once Sebastian had found a suitable carrying case that would house the Painter when he inevitably needed to traverse the flooded areas of the facility, Sebastian had secured the Painter to his side by repurposing some of the belt straps along his tail and did the same for the carrying case on his other side.

It would take time for him to get used to carrying the extra cargo around, but Sebastian didn’t think his movement would be too hampered by the added weight.

“Choo-choo! All aboard the Solace Express!!!” Painter crowed, emitting a stock-sound of a train’s whistle.

“Fuck off,” Sebastian grumbled as he slithered through the maintenance tunnel, hauling nine newly named fish plus a sentient AI in an 80s computer on his person like a goddamned beast of burden.

He hadn’t bothered to memorize the new names for the fish, counting on the fact that Painter would make a point of using the new names at every opportunity.

“C’mon, you gotta admit it, Seb.” The Expendable chuckled as they skipped alongside the mutant snake monster. “You are quite the mount—YIKES!”

The Expendable just barely managed to skip out of the way of Sebastian’s lashing tail.

“What does that even fucking mean?” Sebastian groaned, feeling a headache starting to creep in.

“I think it was supposed to be a sex joke,” Painter offered.

“It was a sex joke.” The human confirmed.

Sebastian groaned again, this time louder and with an accompanying eye roll as he pushed faster down the corridor in a vain attempt to just get away from the cackling human.

At least Sachiel had the decency to waddle alongside him quietly and not add to his already overloaded backside.

“Where are we going anyways?” Painter inquired, their fans humming as their camera feed blinked from one camera to the next as Sebastian moved through the corridor, the AI taking it upon itself to act as a sort of scout by hopping into the security cameras that came within range of the SCRAMBLER’s influence.

“We’re going to one of my cache sites to stock up on supplies,” Sebastian informed, stopping at a point in the wall where several sheets of metal had been piled up and beginning the process of removing them. “Then I’m going to do a quick circuit through my usual check-points around the Blacksite and gather intel on what’s been going on. Hopefully, once word gets back to Urbanshade that their little assassination attempt on you failed, they’ll sit on their asses for a bit before making anymore moves against us.”

“And then we’ll go get the Crystal!” The Expendable added cheerfully.

Sebastian stiffened, claws digging into a ragged piece of metal he had been hefting aside with an audible creak. Painter’s monitor blinked as its expression changed to one of wary trepidation.

For a few heartbeats nobody spoke, before Sebastian resumed removing the blockade and opening up a gap in the wall revealing a hidden passageway.

Without a word, Sebastian turned around— grabbed the human by the torn collar of their ruined suit— and threw them into the newly opened tunnel ahead of him.

The Expendable made an eep! noise as they were non-too-gently thrust into the passageway, landing heavily on their back and banging their head against the stone floor.

“Ouch…! Fucking hell, man!” The Expendable cursed in pain as Sebastian slithered into the tunnel, turning back to pull the metal cover to conceal the entrance once more.

“Quit whining,” Sebastian hissed, glaring down at the still writhing human on the floor. “If it hurts so bad, I can do you the favor of breaking your neck and you’ll regenerate good as new.”

“Huh?” Painter blinked in confusion. “They can do that? Expendables can regenerate?!”

“No. Just this one, apparently.” Sebastian growled as he slid closer, practically looming over the Expendable, who was still nursing their head wound. “If you don’t move out of the way, I’m going to crush you.”

The tunnel was too narrow for him to simply move around the Expendable’s prone form.

“Yeah, we’re sure you’d love that…” The Expendable grumbled as they shakily got to their feet.

“Actually, I’d rather not have to scrape the gore of your flattened corpse off my scutes, thank you very much. So, please hurry your ass up.”

The Expendable stumbled on ahead, letting out a surprisingly convincing sob as they turned away from him dramatically. “WHY are you so mean to us, Sebby???”

“Because you’re a bitch, and I don’t like you.” Sebastian snarked without missing a beat, following behind the Expendable.

“So you’ll let me eat sand?” They asked.

Sebastian blinked all three eyes slowly, completely thrown by the seeming non-sequitur. “...What?”

“You’ll let me eat sand because you don’t like me.” The human extrapolated, which unsurprisingly did not clarify anything to the nonplussed Sebastian.

”What the fuck are you— Oh, forget it.” Sebastian threw his hands in the air in defeat. His headache had increased to a dull throbbing behind his eyes and it was making his tolerance for the Expendable dwindle rapidly.

The Painter laughed at the interaction. At least someone was entertained.

Finally they made it to the end of the tunnel, exiting out of another hole in a different wall across the facility and into a chamber that was otherwise made inaccessible due to the collapsing structure.

The chamber was one of the rare circular ones which housed a live tree in the center of the room separated by a glass cylinder. This tree was one of the plants grown from the Oxygen Gardens, but planted in this chamber more for aesthetic purposes than for actually producing clean air.

Apparently, HR had thought it prudent to have a few of these rooms built to boost “worker morale”, in order to help ease the minds of employees who suffered from the existential dread of being surrounded by the crushing depths of the abyss.

The tree had a large light fixture above it within its enclosure, which was a poor facsimile of the actual sun. The tree itself looked half dead; all of its leaves having long since fallen off and piled up on the sparse patch of grass which barely clung to life in the 4 by 4 meter block of dirt it had available to it.

The Expendable rushed over to slam their gloved hands against the glass exterior, pressing their face up to it to peer in at the pathetic plant life.

“Is that a tree?!” Painter squealed, catching sight of it as Sebastian moved further into the room. “Oh my gosh, I haven’t seen a real life tree in forever!”

Sebastian chuckled, unhooking the belts securing the computer to his side in order to hold it in his arms so that Painter could properly face the tree.

Meanwhile, Sachiel waddled up to the glass to mimic the human in their ogling at the tree. The nine fishlets were quick to follow suit, clambering off of Sebastian’s tail to line up along side with their upper bodies pressed up against the glass— like a bunch of children looking through the window of a candy store.

“It must be autumn if the tree dropped its leaves.” The human mused as they peered at the tree, before abruptly shaking their head. “No wait— would Hadal Blacksite even have the controls set to mimic the amount of daylight being shown on the surface? We doubt their botany devision was that intricate.”

Painter’s expression flitted to the side of their monitor, emulating their gaze glancing towards the Expendable. “Oh, no the lights for the Oxygen Gardens are set on a timer. Twenty hours of simulated sunlight and seven hours of simulated moonlight. I don’t get why, though. Do plants need to sleep?”

“Kinda,” the Expendable said, pushing away from the glass to look over at Painter. “But if the time the lights go on and off never changes, then I bet the tress are confused as shit about what season it is.”

“I think the tree is just thirsty,” Sebastian deadpanned. He thought that much was obvious; normally a sprinkler system would provide the plants with fresh water, but those had shut off not long after the lockdown. The lack of water meant that the tree didn’t have enough energy to grow new leaves.

Fresh water was just one of the many things that was becoming a rapidly decreasing resource while the site was under lockdown.

Desalinating salt water was much too costly a process for Urbanshade to bother setting up the proper technologies in order to initiate distillation and electrodialysis to produce fresh water locally, so Hadal Blacksite primarily relied on specialized cargo subs shipping down hundreds of gallons of fresh water to stock the facility.

Sebastian had no idea whether it actually cost the company more by having to ship water down to the Let-Vand zone on a bi-monthly basis as opposed to actually investing in the money to create an onsite distillery, considering that the Crystal could produce as much power as needed in order to run the thing— but it wouldn’t be the first time Urbanshade had made short-sighted financial decisions.

“That makes more sense,” Painter agreed, easily siding with Sebastian’s assessment. “Speaking of water, don’t your fishies still need it?”

Sebastian cast a look over the gathered fish, noting their distinctly drier forms than they had been an hour ago.

He let out a sigh, shifting to hold Painter with his lower arm as his upper one rose to massage the space between his eyes.

Being responsible for multiple lifeforms was exhausting…

“I should have some spare bottles of water somewhere around here,” as he said this, he moved towards the far wall where various crates were stacked up and began throwing the lids off of a few.

Sure enough, after a minute of searching he found the crate which held several cases of your average store brand bottles of water.

The school of fish, sensing the large mutant fishman’s activity, quickly congregated around him as he pulled out one of the bottles.

Uncapping the bottle, Sebastian unceremoniously upturned its contents onto the gathered fish.

The fish flopped about on the floor, as if they thought they were suddenly underwater, despite the resulting puddle being barely even a millimeter deep.

Sachiel just stood there passively under the stream of water, eyes unblinking.

“There, that ought’a tide them over for now.” Sebastian decided, grimacing slightly upon noting his accidental pun a moment later. He crunched the empty bottle in his fist before tossing it away.

Eventually the fishlets came to the realization that no, they were not in fact underwater, and righted themselves up again to ogle uncomprehendingly at the now damp floor. Some even going as far as to press their fishy mouths against the floor in order to sup at the remaining water.

Their scales looked much more vibrant and glossy now that they had been hydrated, which was probably a good sign.

After restocking on some supplies, Sebastian was ready to set out immediately to do what he’d said he’d do, which was to check up on his other shops and gather intel from the traveling Expendables.

“Really? Already ready to go?” The immortal Expendable said, their tone implying a sort of skepticism that Sebastian did not understand.

He quirked a questioning brow at them. “Yep, ready as I’ll ever be.”

The human crossed their arm. “Are you sure?”

Sebastian’s earfins pinned back slightly as he felt a spike of annoyance. “Yes! I’m sure, I’ve been doing this kind of shit for a long ass time, I know what I’m doing!”

Painter made a robotic sound of agreement, squinting dubiously at the Expendable. What was their problem?

“Oh, we don’t doubt that,” the human said, their tone uncharacteristically calm and even. “We just think that maybe you should perhaps take it easy. You’ve been moving non-stop and your wounds still haven’t had time to heal.”

Sebastian was genuinely starting to get pissed off now. Who the hell did this Expendable think they were?

“I’m fine.” He hissed lowly, barring his teeth in a prominent scowl as he loomed menacingly over the Expendable and jabbed a claw at them. “I can take a lot of punishment. A lot more than a fragile human, I might add, even one with the power to fucking regenerate such as yourself. I don’t need you backseat gaming my every move; you’re not my mother, for fuck’s sake.”

There was an odd twinge when he uttered the word ‘mother’ as if he hit a mental cord within himself, and the anger he felt twisted into bitterness.

Not wanting to let the Expendable see his expression, he turned away with snarl of derision.

Fuck this.

Fuck his life.

Fuck everything.

Holy hell, just… goddamn it!

Sebastian flinched when he felt something brush against his tail, ready to lash out if he found that the human had thought it was a good idea to touch him, but he relaxed when he saw it was only Sachiel.

The fish was looking up at him with its stupid eyes, it had flopped over to lean its side against his tail in a surprising gesture of comfort.

Either that or it just thought Sebastian made for a good wall to lean against.

Sebastian leaned down and scooped the fish up into his arms, idly tracing the tips of his claws over the various rotten coral growths along its scales.

“Are we gonna get going or not?” Painter complained, boredom making the AI impatient.

Sebastian let out a sigh. “Yes, we’re going now.”

Chapter Text

“You cannot camp out here,” Sebastian stated firmly, scowling down at the immortal Expendable.

“I’m not!” The Expendable protested. “I don’t have a tent!”

“That’s beside the point and you know it.” Sebastian hissed, using his tail fin to slide the human across the floor towards the open vent. “This is an unbroken rule that all the other Expendables abide by! Absolutely NO freeloaders! No squatting in my shop, no exceptions. I can’t have customers thinking that I’m giving preferential treatment to one of their own. So, you have to go!”

The human let out a childish whine. “Come on! That’s no fair! Aren’t we part of the team now?! Proven our usefulness to you? We helped fix Painter!”

“Yeah… they did help save my life.” Painter begrudgingly admitted, still secured to the large fishman’s side as the argument played out.

The AI was a little conflicted about who to side with. Naturally, Painter trusted Sebastian, but the human had quickly become a friend and Painter didn’t like the idea of just kicking them out.

“You don’t get a say in this!” Sebastian responded to the AI with a glower.

“W-why not?!” Painter glared back as best they could from their angle, their internal fans revving angrily. “Just because I’m forcibly being totted around like luggage doesn’t mean I don’t have agency!—“

Sebastian lightly batted the side of the AI’s monitor with a claw, growling with frustration. “You know I didn’t mean it like that, you ass! It’s MY fucking shop! That means I’m the one who makes the rules, end of story!”

“But it’s not nice to kick out our friends!” Painter insisted. “Who cares about what the other humans think? They’re all gonna die anyways, so what does it matter?”

“It matters—“ Sebastian spoke with a deeply exasperated tone “—because the Expendables periodically get checked in on by the overseers at HQ, and there’s no guarentee that they won’t blab about the convict with a busted PDG that’s suddenly hanging out with Z-13 and Z-779!”

“He’s right,” the Expendable said, their entire demeanor changing in that uncannily abrupt way, which Sebastian had witnessed more than once now. “It would be best if I wasn’t seen here when others come by… We cannot risk compromising the mission.”

Then the human jolted upwards in a sudden burst of energy, shouting: “PLUS, I NEED A NEW FACE MASK THING! Can’t masquerade as a normie without one!”

Before anyone could say anything else, the Expendable scurried through the vent on all fours and clambered out of sight.

Sebastian felt the tension in his shoulders ease, glad that for once the immortal Expendable’s unpredictable behavior was working in his favor.

Just to make sure that the Expendable didn’t suddenly decide to pop back in right away, he slid a crate in front of the vent opening.

Painter seemed unhappy about the outcome, but didn’t say anything further as Sebastian moved about the room.

He lifted himself up to an upper platform near the back of the room and deposited the computer on the landing, taking off the SCRAMBLER and placing it beside the computer so that the AI could remain powered on while he worked.

His school of fish had made themselves at home in the various nooks and crannies about the room. Some knocking over vials and folders onto the floor, much the his annoyance.

He even brought in a bucket of water for the little fishes to hydrate themselves in, but then Sachiel decided to plonk their fat ass inside of the bucket, causing most of the water within to be pushed out onto the floor.

Sebastian clicked his tongue at the coral corroded fish disapprovingly. “That water was for your kids, you overgrown fish turd.”

Sachiel merely waved its fins at him from where it sat in the bucket, barely a liter of water was left in it now. It spat out a short stream of water, like a shitty water fountain.

Sebastian shook his head. “Sorry, fish bait, but I highly doubt you could provide enough water for all of you to thrive in.”

Sachiel flapped its fins again, before jostling about inside the bucket until it tipped onto its side— spilling the remaining water onto the floor as Sachiel waddled away.

Sebastian sighed and moved on to taking inventory. It was a wonder how his supplies hadn’t been raided by passing humans, but he supposed it made sense that Expendables wouldn’t wish to linger long enough in order to loot anything for fear of an attack. Whether by his own claws or some other monster roaming around.

It did not take long for Expendables to start knocking on his door. They came in pairs of twos and threes, with the occasional loner, all asking the same questions that he had been dreading.

“Where have you been?!”

None of your business.

“I thought you’d finally up and died!”

Nah. Solace never dies.

“Haven’t run into any turrets lately, did Painter finally short-circuit?”

No. The Painter is fine. Be grateful that it’s taking a break.

“Saw some dead Urbanshade goons a few doors back, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Nope!

“What’s with all the mutant gold fish?”

Mind your own damn business!

“Are the gold fish for sale?”

NO! HANDS OFF!

Sebastian did his best to evade any invasive questions the passing humans had, more determined to needle them for information rather than allow them to glean anything of use for Urbanshade. Not that the convicts had much in terms of information besides the data files that they were trading for items.

Some of the Expendables might’ve genuinely liked Sebastian, but there were more than enough who didn’t. Such vermin would gladly tattle to Urbanshade about everything he was up to, should they get the chance.

He had to throw out such low-lives more than once when they tried to provoke him.

One lone Expendable got cheeky and tried to snatch one of the small fishlets.

Unfortunately for the perpetrator, they made the mistake of grabbing the fish with the teeth.

The human had screamed hysterically when they suddenly found themselves lacking three of their fingers.

“YEAH! Eat that human’s fingers, Chomper!” Painter cheered from its place on the landing.

The human continued to scream as the fanged fish devoured the severed appendages. The other fishlets quickly converged on the Expendable upon sensing blood, some of the ones with limbs latching onto the human’s legs as they tried to ineffectively bite through their clothes.

Panicking, Sebastian drew his gun and shot a hole through the Expendable’s head before they had a chance to retaliate against his suddenly overzealous hoard of fish.

The body flopped to the floor and the nine fish wasted no time in trying to EAT the human right then and there. Even Sachiel had waddled over and began chewing on the ragged stumps where the human’s fingers used to be.

Now… Sebastian had seen— and experienced!— a lot of fucked up things. He himself had resorted to eating other humans during leaner times when food was scarce to come by.

But watching his school of fish attack and then eagerly devour the corpse of a human he had just killed made his stomach twist in an unpleasant way.

“Wow, they must’ve been hungry!” Painter observed from the landing. The AI didn’t have the same sensitivities that biological beings did, so the sight of a brutally murdered human didn’t really faze it.

When Sebastian didn’t immediately respond, however, Painter became worried.

“Sebastian? You alright, buddy?”

The fishman shook himself, coughing awkwardly as he glanced over his shoulder at where the AI was. “I thought I told you to be quiet when Expendables are around, Painter.” He scolded, trying to deflect his unease with a veneer of irritation.

Painter didn’t fall for it. “What’s wrong? You’ve killed humans before, so what changed?”

“Nothing!” Sebastian waved a hand in the air, as if he could dispel the AI’s sudden concern. “I just… wasn’t expecting the little guys to be so… bloodthirsty.”

Painter didn’t say anything for a moment, their monitor flickering as their processor made an honest attempt to try and understand what had disturbed the other.

“Isn’t… that a good thing?” It hesitantly inquired, not wanting to sound judgmental, but uncertain as to what the problem was.

“Well— I mean…” Sebastian rubbed the back of his head with a claw as he holstered his weapon, trying to put his thoughts in order as he watched the fish feed on the corpse.

Why did it disturb him so much? Perhaps the idea of his shoal growing to become violent predators worried him. Would they turn on him once they grew strong enough where they no longer needed him to protect them?

No. That didn’t feel quite right. Sebastian would honestly relish the idea of no longer having to worry about the fish so much if they became strong enough to take down a human.

So, what was it?

Sebastian sighed again, shaking his head as he felt another headache coming on. “Nevermind. It’s not important.”

“But—“

“Drop it, Painter.”

“…Okay.”

For the next half hour, Sebastian went about disposing of the bloody remnants of the unfortunate Expendable. There wasn’t much left over after the fish were done eating, nothing but bone and the torn remains of the Expendable’s PDG.

He was just about to get ready to close up the shop, when suddenly another human entered through the vent.

“The shop’s closed—“ he started to say, only to stop upon noticing the familiar hole in the chest region of the Expendable’s suit. “Oh, you’re back.”

“We’re back! ” The immortal Expendable affirmed with a hop to their step. True to their word, they had somehow managed to acquire another face mask to conceal their distorted features. “We also brought goodies, but first! Did everything go well over here?”

“Chomper bit the fingers off of somebody!” Painter eagerly informed.

“Nice!”

Sebastian let the two chatter amongst themselves while he moved to seal off the vent, preventing anymore visitors from entering.

The nine fishlets had all huddled up in a damp corner with Sachiel resting protectively near them. Evidently eating that much meat was exhausting work.

Sebastian knew the feeling…

“So, anyways. I brought these things!” The immortal Expendable flung their duffel bag onto the floor and unzipped it, revealing an array of various machine parts that Sebastian wasn’t familiar with.

Curious, he leaned over to give the bag’s contents a once-over. At first the parts looked random, and he couldn’t discern why the human thought the stuff would be useful. But as they started taking out the parts and arranging them on the floor, Sebastian began to see the picture.

“Are these for the ‘modifications’ you had mentioned a while back?” He questioned, eyes narrowing in thought.

“Yuppers!” The Expendable nodded enthusiastically. “Do you think it’ll work? He said it would work, but I didn’t really peg him as a science guy, what with his whole get-up making him look like a balding leprechaun— but I mean, looks can be deceiving, obviously. But he REALLY just seems more like the magician slash scary willy-wonka eldritch horror type, y’know?”

Sebastian waited for several seconds with his primary hands clasped politely in front of him, watching the Expendable for any signs that they were going to continue their tangent before responding.

“Maybe,” he shrugged noncommittally, purposefully choosing to only acknowledge their first question and ignoring whatever the fuck the rest of what they said was. “I don’t see why not. But it might take some time in order to develop the code to get all of it to sync up properly. It’s not as easy as simply sticking the things on and expecting them to work.”

“What are you guys talking about? I wanna see!” Painter complained, unable to see the floor properly from where they were on the landing.

Sebastian easily hoisted himself up onto the platform and scooped Painter up in one arm whilst he grasped onto the SCRAMBLER with his other two.

Once he had deposited both machines onto a nearby table, he sat himself in his usual spot in the room, the end of his tail idly shading the bundle of sleeping fish.

“What the heck is all this stuff for?” Painter queried, looking over the various machine parts.

“These—” the Expendable picked up one of the parts, showing off a metal claw-like clamp sticking out of one end “—are gonna be your new legs!”

Predictably, Painter was ecstatic over the idea of gaining its own autonomy.

Unfortunately, the process would indeed take time.

Time which they might not have…

While Sebastian was going over the specifics on what needed to be done, the conversation was interrupted by a sudden rumble that shook the entire room.

It was a deep earth shaking quake that Sebastian could feel in his very bones as the world around him shuddered. Vials and tools clattered on their shelves before falling to the floor, and ominous creaking sounds reverberated through out the corridors outside. Sebastian was vaguely aware of a dull roar underlining the cacophony as he felt a spike of primal fear.

It lasted for only a moment, going as quickly as it came, but it was enough that everyone in the room stopped talking.

An ominous silence fell over the room as the world seemingly resettled into stillness.

“What the hell…?” Sebastian murmured to himself as he glanced warily at the support beams above. Was the Blacksite finally starting to collapse in on itself?

Painter’s monitor glitched as it tried to get access to the mainframe in order to ascertain the origin of the disturbance. But it was unable to get anything from the limited range that the SCRAMBLER offered. Did some reactor engine deep within the facility just blow up?

Sachiel and the nine other fish had been woken up by the quake and were now sitting with slightly more alert postures. The barbels along Sachiel’s lips quivered.

Meanwhile, the immortal Expendable just sat silently with their hands resting on their knees.

“Tick, tock.” They suddenly said, their voice no more than a whispering sing-song. “Can-not wait, must es-cape~ Down in the dark, a-cross the heart~”

“Stop that!” Sebastian hissed, roughly smacking the human upside the head and causing them to fall over with a yelp. He knew that the action was uncalled for, but something in the way the strange Expendable’s voice had shifted put him on edge, and whatever it was he wanted it to stop right now.

“Augh! You’re gonna give us brain damage!” The human complained, irritably rubbing at the back of their head as they sat up.

“I doubt I could do more damage to whatever little brains you have left,” Sebastian sneered.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to say that,” the Expendable retorted. “We got a lot of knowledge in these brains of ours —THE EXTERNAL REPELLENT SYSTEM IS IN NEED OF REPAIRS!”

Sebastian stared at the human. If he had hackles, they’d be raised and bristling. How the hell did they know about the state of the site’s External Repellent System? That was all the way past the Ridge. There was no way the human had been there. None of the other Expendables had managed to get that far, Sebastian knew that much.

Lunging toward them, Sebastian proceeded to grab the Expendable by the shoulders and shake them. “Alright, enough bullshitting us! What is it that you know?!”

“Wwuhuh-“ the Expendable frantically waved their arms about as they were jostled. “We-we know a lot of things! We-e-e have in-information! We told you this already! STOP SHAKING US!”

“Can we please not fight—“ Painter tried to interject, only to be ignored.

“WHAT INFORMATION?!” Sebastian practically roared, bodily lifting the Expendable into the air.

“WEEEEEE!!!” The human squealed as they dangled from his grip, which only further incensed the mutant fishman.

“No! NO!” Sebastian gave the human another firm shake that probably gave them whiplash from the sheer force, refusing to let their randomness derail him. “Stop playing games, Expendable! You better start explaining yourself or so help me—“

“You’ll what?!” The immortal Expendable shouted back, their voice becoming scathingly sarcastic. “Kill us??? Get real!”

Sebastian growled low in his throat, before his furious scowl morphed into a devilish grin as he promptly released the human from his grip, letting them drop the 10 or so feet to the floor.

There was an unpleasant crack and a cry of pain as something broke upon impact.

Sebastian leaned over the human, cyan eyes glowing malevolently. “There are plenty of fates that are far worse than death, Expendable.”

He was fairly certain that the fall had fractured something, but he pushed down any reflexive guilt he might have felt over causing the injury. It didn’t matter.

It wouldn’t matter…

“Y-yeah… We know.” the human wheezed painfully from where they lay on the floor, not bothering to get up. “We know. Should’ve known better than to— Sorry. Sorry… SORRY?!— No, it’s okay. It’s not okay obviously— BUT WE UNDERSTAND. We know it isn’t fair! This isn’t fair to anyone!”

Sebastian’s ear fins pinned back, his scowl returning in full force. It felt like a bunch of bees were buzzing in his head whenever the immortal Expendable started rapidly ‘switching’ like this. Or whatever the fuck it was that was happening to them.

“Shut up!” He barked, claws flexing in agitation. “Just shut up! Goddamn it, why can’t you just answer the simplest of questions without having a circle-jerk with your cryptic bullshit?!”

“You’re full of bullshit!” The Expendable snapped back, coughing wetly. ”Hrkk! God, why won’t you just—!“

“WILL YOU MORONS STOP FIGHTING?!” Painter shouted, unwilling to stay silent any longer.

Sebastian and the Expendable both stopped and looked over at the AI.

Painter’s features were drawn in a desperate, almost tearful way as the computer’s internal fans spun rapidly; an artificial emulation of heavy breathing.

“Just… Stop! Please…” The AI begged again, voice small and pleading. “Stop fighting each other… We’re all on the same side!”

Sebastian’s lip curled, wanting to dispute that notion on the Expendable’s part, but he kept quiet upon the sharp look that Painter shot his way.

“I DON’T CARE whether the human is actually on our side or not,” Painter went on. “But I know that hurting people isn’t a great way to get them to help you!”

“Word.” The Expendable agreed; they were still lying prone on the floor. “But we’re still gonna help ya, even when ya do hurt us. No matter what. That was the deal we made when we signed up. So, fuck you, Seb. LOVE YOU LOTS! But fuuuck youUuu…”

Sebastian couldn’t help it, he actually snorted a laugh— one that he quickly tried to disguise in a cough. ”Ahem— You’re right, Painter. I suppose it would be in our best interest if we tried not to work at cross-purposes with each other.”

“Of course I’m right, dummy.” Painter said, some of its usual attitude returning. “Unlike you, I don’t have a bunch of organic brain matter making me act out in illogical ways.”

Sebastian flipped the bird at the AI, who quickly sketched one back in response.

“Yay…! Now we’ve all kissed and made up.” The Expendable cheered weakly, finally attempting to sit up. They winced in pain, hunching over slightly as they steadied themselves.

Sebastian felt that twinge of guilt trying to rise up again. Maybe they had deserved it, but then again… maybe he shouldn’t be so quick to resort to physically abusing the human just because they were immortal.

“Do you need me to…” He trailed off, gesturing at them awkwardly. “Uh… ‘reset’ you, so to speak?”

The Expendable huffed a laugh, wincing again. “Nah, it’s just a cracked rib. No biggy.”

Sebastian stared at them for a moment, keeping his expression carefully neutral. He’d broken his own ribs before, more than once. He’d even grown entirely new rib bones during his transformation into the creature that he was now.

The point was that having to deal with a broken rib sucked. But he wasn’t going to push the issue— not unless the Expendable became too much of a liability due to the injury.

With a dismissive shrug, Sebastian moved to scoop Painter back up along with the SCRAMBLER before climbing up to the landing and setting both down.

“Well, then. I suppose I should get to work on Painter’s new modifications.” He said as he came back to gather up the new machine parts into the duffel bag and toss it over the railing above.

“Don’t you want us to help?” The Expendable asked, watching as their duffel bag disappeared.

“No, I think you’ve done enough.” Sebastian said, rolling his eyes disdainfully when he saw the human’s shoulders sag dejectedly at his dismissal.

As an afterthought, he unclipped one of the medkits from his tail and tossed it to the Expendable, who just barely managed to catch it.

“Here, you can have this. Free of charge.” He said over his shoulder as he climbed up onto the landing to begin working.

Painter was giving him a knowing smile, to which he frowned and quietly hissed: ”What?”

”That was nice of you,” Painter praised, its voice a soft buzz so as not to let the human hear. It said it with such genuine happiness that Sebastian found himself sputtering for words.

”No it wasn’t! I was the one who broke their rib in the first place!” He reasoned, his voice a harsh whisper as he argued. “The least I could do was pay for the damage. Nothing extra nice or charitable about it.”

Painter merely hummed with amusement, its doodled eyes squinting cheekily. “Sure, sure.”

Sebastian huffed indignantly. “Whatever. Be useful and start working on the code for your new legs.”

Chapter Text

Sebastian awoke with a jolt, his brain buzzing with half-remembered nightmares and foggy with sleep as he twisted about on the floor.

“Hey, you. You’re finally awake.” The tinny voice of Painter sounded nearby, and Sebastian allowed himself to slump to the ground with a tired groan.

Rolling onto his back, he rubbed at his eyes in an effort to clear the bleariness. “What… what happened?”

“You fell asleep, moron!” Painter said, sounding utterly put-out from its spot on the floor, the computer sitting slightly off-kilter from where they were currently installed atop a sort of modified gimbal with several long spider-like limbs sprouting from the center. “And you conked out right in the middle of our conversation, too! So rude! I was literally telling you about how just because I am an advanced sentient AI doesn’t mean I know a thing about developing new code and then you—“

Sebastian made an obnoxiously loud snoring sound, and Painter’s face twisted in furious indignation.

“SERIOUSLY?!” The computer shrieked, only for Sebastian to let out a snicker at the AI’s outrage.

The mutant fishman rolled over onto his stomach before properly sitting up, brushing dust from his clothes as he gave a cursory glance around the room.

The nine fishlets were all waddling about the room, a crate having been opened at some point and its contents dumped onto the floor. A bunch of torn wrappers and crumbled remains of ration bars were strewn all over the place. Sebastian wondered how the fish managed to get the crate open, though he suspected that a certain Expendable might have had something to do with it.

Speaking of the Expendable… the human was no where in sight.

This concerned Sebastian much more than he was willing to admit aloud as he sat up straighter, his senses pricked as he scanned about the room with more scrutiny— he was half expecting the Expendable to have somehow found a way to Spider-Man crawl their way onto the ceiling just to fuck with him.

“The human left not long after you fell asleep,” Painter informed, correctly interpreting the source of Sebastian’s sudden alertness. “They didn’t really say where they were going, though. Just said something about um… finding a panda bear? I think? I dunno, they left before I could ask them to clarify.”

Sebastian hummed thoughtfully. A panda bear? He couldn’t for the life of him figure out what the hell that meant, and not knowing gave him an uneasy feeling.

Deciding that he would deal with whatever nonsense happened when it happened, Sebastian turned back the Painter.

He startled slightly upon seeing Sachiel suddenly beside the computer, its mouth clamped over one of the inert robotic limbs.

Sebastian quickly shooed the fish away, and Sachiel begrudgingly released the robot limb and shuffled a few steps back. “So, have you figured out how to make the limbs receive your input?”

“No!” Painter griped. “I just told you! I wasn’t designed with the sort of knowledge needed to construct new code! And before you say it, no the defense system was different because the mainframe already had the functionality in place to activate a lot of the stuff on command! When you hooked me up to the mainframe all I needed to do was hijack those systems because the AI in charge of the security system was dumb as bricks and I easily overrode it with my superior processing power! THIS—“ one of the spindly limbs flexed suddenly “—Is different! I don’t have anything to work with! The connections are there but there’s nothing for me to take control over.”

Sebastian stared at the mechanical limb that had moved. “Are you sure about that?”

“YES! Idiot—“ Painter stopped speaking when Sebastian reached over and gently lifted one of the limbs up in front of the Painter’s monitor. The metal-claws on the end were twitching. “What the— Am I doing that??”

“Seems like it,” Sebastian said, letting the limb drop to the floor. “You didn’t notice?”

“No… I-I didn’t.” A look of deep concentration came over the Painter’s screen as its fans whirred loudly. Another limb twitched. There were 8 of the mechanical limbs in total, all attached to a central mechanism that could pivot around, allowing the Painter’s computer to essentially ride in a cradle and use the mechanical arms to manipulate objects as well as move around.

Theoretically.

Sebastian honestly had no idea what the whole mechanism was originally part of and he was seriously beginning to question where the immortal Expendable was getting all their intel from.

How could someone so clearly mentally unstable be capable of reversing the damage that Urbanshade had done and revive the Painter? How did they know that the site’s External Repellent system was in need of repairs? Where did they get the mysterious modifications for Painter? How did they know so much…?

Who the fuck was Mr. Lopee and what did he want?

Sebastian reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the red USB stick, idly thumbing it as he became lost in thought.

The only thing that he was certain of was the fact that the immortal Expendable, for whatever reason, was hellbent on assisting himself and the Painter— they were also possibly even willing to help most of the other entities which were trapped by Urbanshade.

This was his only comfort, and he didn’t know how to feel about it.

“What’s that?” Painter queried, bringing Sebastian out of his thoughts.

“Hm?” Sebastian turned back to the AI, noting how it had somehow managed to get the hang of closing one clawed appendage on command.

“That ominous red USB you’re holding, duh.” Painter quipped, trying to raise the leg that it had gotten tenuous control over, and failing.

“Oh,” Sebastian looked down at the USB, for a moment contemplating on just crushing the thing and saying it was nothing. But something stayed his hand. “Our Expendable friend wanted to use this on you, back when you were still connected to the site’s mainframe. I obviously told them hell no. They tried to use it on you anyway while you were um… offline… and I took it upon myself to hold onto it for them for safe keeping.”

“Oh,” Painter hummed thoughtfully, their doodled features looking at their uncooperative limb sourly. “Why’d they wanna use it on me?”

“They claimed that it would allow them to establish a secure connection to an operative that is supposedly a spy of sorts for some unnamed rival company.” Sebastian said, not seeing any reason to not tell Painter about what the human had initially intended to do.

Painter paused in its efforts to control the limb, looking thoughtful. “Well, we could use the help! So why not try it out and see what happens?”

Sebastian frowned. “No way. I wouldn’t trust the word of an Expendable, let alone one as crazy as the one that’s tagging along with us. Besides, the USB is useless unless it’s inserted into a computer that has a connection to the site’s mainframe.”

“Can’t you just hook up a laptop to one of the server racks? The USB doesn’t have to connect to me, right?” Painter began trying to move its limb again.

“We don’t know what the USB actually does!” Sebastian insisted stubbornly. “It could be full of malware that could cause any number of problems for us.”

“Or… it could be what we need to GET OUT.” Painter responded, starting to get a little frustrated with Sebastian’s stubborn cynicism. “You said it yourself, you haven’t made any progress with trying to contact a rival company that has a chance at helping us! So, why not give it a try? Seriously, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Sebastian stiffened, crossing his arms as his ears flicked anxiously. “Come on, don’t tempt fate like that, Painter…”

The AI rolled its doodled eyes. “Whatever! Just maybe… think about it, please? I know it’s a risk, but at this point what else do either of us have left to lose?”

Sebastian sighed, glancing away. “Fine, I’ll think about it. But no promises, alright?“

“Okay!” Painter agreed, easily appeased by its friend’s assurance. The AI managed to get the limb to raise upwards, but then it flopped uselessly to the ground with a clatter. “Damn it!”

Sebastian chuckled. “You’ll get the hang of it, buddy. It took me a while to learn how to use my new arrangement of limbs.”

Painter looked up at him, surprised. “Really?”

Sebastian’s ear flicked lightly as he smiled, shrugging. “Yeah, Paints. I didn’t always have three arms and no legs.”

“I know,” Painter’s expression became sheepish. “I just— I guess I never really thought about it. The fact that you were once… y’know.”

“Not a horrible Frankenstein monster made up of multiple different sea creatures?” Sebastian finished with a smirk.

“WELL, I wasn’t gonna put it like that—“ Painter laughed nervously, before making an annoyed beep when Sachiel grasped onto the limb that the AI was struggling with. “Hey! Sebastiaaaan! Your fish is biting meee!”

Sebastian snorted a laugh, the sight of Sachiel doggedly tugging at Painter’s barely functioning limb was surprisingly amusing. “Aw, don’t worry, buddy! They’re just playing!”

Sachiel made an odd gurblin’ noise, their fishy head shaking from side to side as they wrestled with the twitching limb.

“Not funny!” Painter complained loudly, and managed to get another one of their limbs to flail about and smack at the fish. “Bad! Bad fishy!”

On reflex, Sebastian reached a hand out to protect the fish, but realized that he needn’t have bothered. Sachiel’s scales had grown tougher since mutating and the metal limbs glanced off of the coral protrusions with little effect.

Sebastian sat back on his tail, watching the interaction between the two while occasionally casting his gaze over to the floor below, just to make sure the other fishes were all accounted for.

Hopefully, the immortal Expendable wasn’t getting into too much trouble…

“Eyefestation! HELLO!! Here sharky, sharky, sharky!”

Eyefestation, the mutated-multi-eyed bull shark, slowed in its patrol route around Hadal Blacksite. The X shaped pupils within each glowing green orb along its body constricted with anger as they caught sight of the human waving its arms idiotically in front of one of the glass windows.

As soon as the shark moved to a stop in front of the human, its eyes began to pulsate with radiation.

Abruptly, the human fell to the floor and rolled behind an upturned table, blocking Eyefestation’s radioactive stare.

The shark’s teeth gnashed angrily, how infuriating.

Then suddenly a massive shape charged into the corridor the human was in, an amalgamation of rotting brown flesh and tendrils as the creature floated forward like a wraith. The creature’s multitude of intraoral eyes flashed white as its malformed visage turned towards the window.

The many eyes of one monster met the many eyes of the other.

“Despite what you might be inclined to think, love was not what happened at first sight!” The immortal Expendable finished their tale with a shake of their head.

Sebastian and Painter simply stared at the human, both completely at a loss on what to say.

When the Expendable had returned, Sebastian had moved the Painter down to the main room— intent on questioning the human about the origins of the mechanisms they had procured. However, what neither of them had expected was for the immortal Expendable to immediately begin regaling them on their most recent bout of insanity.

“Why did you do that?” Sebastian finally asked, even though he was honestly dreading the answer.

“Why’d we do wha?” The Expendable responded, confused.

Sebastian sucked in a calming breath, his eyes sliding half closed as he resisted the urge to grab the human and strangle them. ”Why… did you lure Pandemonium into a confrontation with Eyefestation?”

“Oh,” the Expendable seemed to take a moment to think about their answer, their face tilting downwards as though they were suddenly feeling contrite. “Um… reasons. Reasonable reasons— for the sake of forming a connection between two multi-eyed beings! Okay, maybe I just wanted to see what would happen??”

Sebastian crossed his arms, his third resting on his hip as he leveled them with a very unimpressed look.

“Wait a minute…” Painter spoke up, their expression changing to one of dawning realization. “Were you trying to play matchmaker for two of the most dangerous entities in Hadal Blacksite?!”

Sachiel was still nomming on one of Painter’s newly acquired limbs, the AI having long since given up trying to dislodge the fish. But with this new revelation, the limb started waving around erratically, bringing the fish along for the ride.

“Watch it!—“ Sebastian yelped as Sachiel was flung right into his chest with a wet slap. He reflexively grabbed the fish with all three hands and checked over the fish to make sure no damage was done, only to get a spurt of water shot in his face for his trouble.

…Why was he not surprised?

Slowly, he wiped away the water from his face with the back of his coat sleeve, before he proceeded to punt Sachiel like a basket ball directly into the water bucket across the room— which he had taken the time to refill after he had woken up, thankfully.

The fish landed in the bucket with a sploosh, wriggling around a bit in order to right itself so that it could stare at Sebastian with its googly eyes.

Those stupid fish eyes glimmered with plans for a world on fire.

“I was not playing matchmaker!” The immortal Expendable protested, only for their head to make an odd jerking motion as they suddenly started pacing in a tight circle. “Maybe we were! Who can say? YOU CAN’T PROVE ANYTHING— but you should’ve seen it, though! Man, who knew that much rotten flesh could explode that many times? It was a good thing we managed to get into a locker, but I think Pande was too preoccupied with trying to drag itself away from Eye’s mindfuck laser to bother with us, haha! Those mouth eyes of theirs sure didn’t help it much.”

Sebastian firmly planted a claw atop the Expendable’s head, stalling their pacing motion. “Okay, snap out of it, Flippy. I have more questions for you to take a crack at answering for me, if you’d be so inclined.”

The fishman quickly retracted his claw when the Expendable reached up to try and grab his hand.

”’Flippy?’” The human tilted their face mask up at him, their tone a mixture of barely contained excitement and rising incredulity.

Incredulity evidently won out as the human put their hands on their hips. “I feel like I should be offended by that nickname— Shut the fuck up, Sebastian Solace gave US a nickname, oh my gOD!”

“Hey, hey!” Sebastian leaned down to snap his fingers a couple times in front of the Expendable’s face. “Focus!”

Painter, meanwhile, had sketched out a stereotypical bag of popcorn and was animating itself eating the cartoon kernels as it watched the show.

“WE’RE FOCUSSED!” The Expendable exclaimed. “We are present! WE ARE HERE! What would you like to order?”

Sebastian brought out the red USB stick and waved it teasingly over the human’s head. “Remember this lil doohickey? Yeah? I want to ask you a couple of questions about it. You said someone gave it to you before you were sent down into Hadal Blacksite, correct?”

“Yes.” The Expendable responded immediately.

Sebastian hoped their easy response was a good sign, so he continued. “Okay, can you tell me who gave you the USB? I know you told me an ‘agent’ gave it to you, but at the time you were very vague on the exact details, plus I was perhaps a little skeptical about your authenticity back then.”

“Oh,” the human scratched the back of their head with a gloved hand. “Umm, well, we never got her name but she said that it was very important that we get to you if she failed— we were suppose to be plan B.”

“Wait— someone was sent here before you?” Sebastian asked, wondering again if he had actually encountered the same exact operative during his ploy to sabotage the Blacksite.

“Yeah, that was like, almost a year ago. I was deployed less than a few weeks after Hadal Blacksite went into lockdown. Mister Lopee said that she was compromised after finally completing the first part of her mission. I was sent to finish the job.”

Sebastian's ear fins drooped slightly at that. So, that confirmed that the spy who had provided him an opening by ensuring that he had minimal guards watching over him when he was feigning unconsciousness was most likely dead. Whether due to Urbanshade finding out afterward and executing them for their treachery or they had simply been picked off by the ensuing bloodbath that had transpired once Sebastian had released all the monsters.

Painter made a buzzing noise of amusement. ”Pzzt! Lopee is a funny name…”

A few of the fishlets had made it onto the table and were eyeballing the Painter’s new twitching limbs. Iggy, the octopus-fish hybrid, was trying to mimic the movement of the one limb that the AI had shaky control over— raising its own appendage up in tandem with the Painter.

“It is a funny name,” the Expendable agreed with a solemn nod.

“I’m going to have to ask you again: who is Mister Lopee?” Sebastian questioned, already fearing the worst as he watched the Expendable once again freeze in place. Just like the last time he had posited the same exact question when he had first started listening to the Expendable’s story.

“He’s…. Cannot— can’t. Mister Lopee— DON’T ANSWER THAT!” The human suddenly shouted as they spun around and walked straight into a wall. “Ow.”

Painter’s monitor flickered and its expression changed to one of surprised curiosity. “Oh man, I didn’t know humans could also have restrictions on what files their brains are allowed access to. How does that even work for a biological? Does a doctor have to go in there and mess with your neurons—“

“Wait, wait— you have files in your hard-drive that you can’t access?” Sebastian suddenly cut in, alarmed.

Painter rolled its doodled eyes. “Well yeah, duh! Otherwise I’d have bricked myself a long time ago, instead of trying to use a work-around all this time by overclocking my systems in the hopes that my circuits would eventually overheat beyond repair. Imagine being able to just delete yourself from existence by accidentally putting your brain in the recycle bin!”

Sebastian’s face twitched with the effort to not make any expression upon hearing the AI’s casual admission that it would have pulled their own plug rather than continue to suffer mining cryptocurrency.

Sebastian was glad, right then, that such restrictions were hard-coded into the AI. Otherwise, he never would have had the chance to meet his friend…

“Alright, good to know.” He concluded with a clap of his hands, which was his cue to get the conversation back on track. “So, Expendable, I understand that— for whatever reason— you are physically unable to tell us who this Mister Lopee character is outright, so why don’t we try using a work-around?”

“Alright,” the human withdrew from the wall and sat down crisscrossed on the floor. “But you might be disappointed.”

“Humor me,” Sebastian waved a beckoning claw, allowing his tail to coil so that he was sitting lower to the ground in front of the Expendable. “Let’s start with the tried-and-true method of yes or no questions and we’ll work up from there.”

“Sounds fun,” the immortal Expendable nodded, scooting slightly forward to be at a more comfortable talking distance from the fishman. However, they did not miss the way said fishman’s tail twitched when they inched closer.

“Y’know, we’re not gonna jump you, right?” They asked, tilting their head to the side.

Sebastian gave them a deadpanned look. “I highly doubt that.”

”Despite the visceral urge to glomp you, we promise not to without your explicit consent!”

Sebastian folded his arms, staring down his nose at the Expendable. “Promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die!”

There was a beat of silence, before Sebastian huffed and brushed a lock of his hair behind one ear fin. “Alright, first question: Is Mister Lopee working for Urbanshade?”

“No.” The Expendable answered, and even they seemed surprised that they were able to.

So far, so good.

Sebastian continued. “Was Mister Lopee a prisoner at Hadal Blacksite? Like the other entities held here?”

“N…No…” The Expendable seemed less sure about their answer.

“Is Mister Lopee an enemy of Urbanshade?”

“Yes.”

“Cool. Now, does that mean Mister Lopee is an ally to us?”

“Um…” The Expendable rocked from side to side, their voice taking on a slightly strangled edge to it. “For now… Yes? But like— with a disclaimer at the bottom written in super small print.”

Well, that was certainly NOT reassuring at all… But not unexpected.

Sebastian figured it would be something like that. “So, what you’re saying is that he’s only our ally as long as we’re useful to him.”

“Yes.” The human nodded.

“Uh-huh…” Sebastian worried his chin in thought. “Alright, last question for now: when you get the Crystal, does Mister Lopee have a means to extract you?”

“I mean, we would think so?” The Expendable raised their hands, palms up. “He didn’t exactly say how, though. Only that we needed to get the Crystal before anyone else.” Then the human seemed to freeze with a soft gasp. “Wait, you said ‘when’ not ‘if’ does that mean—“

Sebastian raised a hand to forestall their excitement. “Before you lose your marbles on me, I am willing to assist you in retrieving the Crystal. But I’m only doing so because the longer the lockdown continues the more the Blacksite falls into disrepair, and I rather take the risk to help you instead of taking this shit lying down. Even if we cannot trust your ‘benefactor’, as long as Urbanshade gets fucked over in the end, I’d die a happy man.”

“Count me in too!” Painter piped up, raising their working robotic limb and clacking the claws on the end together triumphantly. “Let’s go get some revenge on a bunch of greedy corporate piggies!”

“Alright, poggers!” The Expendable jumped to their feet and thrust a fist into the air. “Let’s get going boys and girls, it’s time to save the world!”

Chapter Text

“We should install a turret on you,” the Expendable stated abruptly.

“I’ve barely made any progress with getting my new limbs to work! How the heck would adding a turret help?” Painter complained, dangling from Sebastian’s side with their mechanical limbs waving about clumsily.

“Well, at the very least somebody else can help shoot things if we run into trouble,” Sebastian said, despite the implausibility of attempting to install one of the mounted turrets onto the comparatively small computer. The idea did sound kind of badass.

Sebastian once again found himself in the position of being the group’s pack-animal, with the Painter strapped to his side and the various fishlets attempting to hitch a ride on his tail.

However, Sebastian had finally had enough of being used as a taxi, and every time one of the fishes attempted to climb atop his tail, he’d turn around and hiss angrily until the fishlet scurried away.

He’d gotten a couple rounds of water bullets shot in his face for his efforts by Sachiel, who didn’t approve of him threatening its offspring.

Now, instead of trying to hitch a ride on Sebastian directly, the nine fishlets were attempting to grab onto Painter’s trailing limbs— the AI having no qualms about letting the school cling on.

This annoyed Sebastian greatly, because now instead of all of the extra cargo being evenly dispersed along his body, he was swiftly contending with an ever increasing weight accumulating on his right side as the Painter let more and more of the fish latch onto their mechanical limbs.

“Painter, stop letting the little shits on! I’m trying to teach them some independence, for fuck’s sake!”

“They’re too small to keep up with you!“ Painter argued, managing to lift one limb and curl it protectively around Skuttle (who, by the way, had been scuttling across the floor just FINE, so Sebastian didn’t see why it thought it still had the privilege to ride on the Solace Express!). “C’mon, you’re plenty big and strong! You can carry all of us easily!”

The Expendable turned around, even with their headgear concealing their face, Sebastian could sense the eager look they were sending his way.

“No!” Sebastian’s tail fin slapped the wall with a loud THUMP. “Everyone has to pull their own weight! The deeper into the facility we go, the more dangerous things are gonna get. I can’t keep—“

He stopped suddenly as he heard the distant sound of unearthly shrieking quickly approaching.

“Pinkie incoming!” The Expendable shouted as they dashed over to a locker and flung themselves inside.

“Pinkie?!” Painter yelped, monitor flickering with panic. “Do you think she’ll try to kill me? I’m a machine so—“

“Hush!” Sebastian snapped as he grabbed Sachiel before turning about in place until he could hide his torso within the coils of his tail— he held his fluke up like a sort of fan to further shield the little fishes from sight.

Despite the lethality of the Angler and its variants, the phantasmal creatures’ one weakness was that they were practically blind. If you hid yourself behind a solid object outside of its direct path, the Angler would scream past without a second glance.

As the horrid shrieking of the Pinkie came closer, Sebastian desperately counted the fish clinging to Painter’s limbs. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…. There were only seven here!

”SHIT—“ Sebastian was about to lurch up and search for the—

SHREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Too late.

Sebastian caught sight of the dark pink smoke as the entity rushed through the corridor.

Just as quickly as it had arrived, it was gone.

Pinkie’s screams began to fade, and as soon as Sebastian saw the smoke dissipate he surged from his protective coils and looked about the room.

The Expendable soon popped out of the locker they were hiding in. “Well that just happened!”

Sebastian ignored them as he slithered about, scanning for any signs of the two unaccounted for fish. He was distantly aware of the fact that he was still clutching onto Sachiel, his third hand running along their scales over and over again. He wasn’t sure if he was feverishly petting the rotten coral infested fish in an attempt to sooth it, or if he was doing it more to sooth himself.

Sachiel remained perfectly calm in his arms, its fore-fins gripping onto his coat sleeves.

“What’s wrong?” The Expendable softly inquired from a short distance away.

“Baphomet and Beelzabub are missing!” Painter beeped in distress.

This snapped Sebastian out of his spiraling anxiety as he looked down at Painter incredulously. ”Baphomet and Beelzabub….?”

“Uhh… yes?” Painter hesitated, double checking the seven remaining fishlets just to be sure.

“You named two of the fish… Baphomet and Beelzabub?!”

“Yes! Jeez, don’t wear it out.” Painter frowned. “Were you even paying attention when I was giving all the fishies their names?”

Sebastian nervously brushed his hair out of his face. “Ehh…”

“You jerk! Sachiel is so disappointed!”

Sebastian looked dubiously down at the fish in his arms. Sachiel gave no indication that it was even aware of what was going on; it just eyeballed him with its head tilted slightly to the side, because its eyes were so damn big that they were physically unable to look at him with both.

“I think Sachiel is at most impartial on the matter,” Sebastian concluded flatly.

“Nuh-uh! She’s giving you the stare. Sachiel is utterly appalled!” Painter insisted, even though the computer couldn’t even see the fish from where it was hanging from Sebastian’s side.

“Sachiel is always staring! Fish don’t have eyelids—”

“I found Baphy and Beelz!” The Expendable announced, carrying the wayward fishlets in both arms. “They were hiding behind a cabinet.”

Sebastian sagged with relief. “Oh, thank god.” He slithered over to the human and eyed the two fish, looking between them. “….Which one is which?”

The Expendable raised up the fish in their left arm, the one with the odd pink tendrils sprouting from its back. “This one is Baphomet.” They raised the other one, this one had the frog-like back legs. “And this is Beelzebub!”

Sebastian nodded, despite not having the faintest clue as to why either fish qualified for such names. But he supposed he shouldn’t be one to judge, considering what he ended up naming his first fish…

“Alright, let’s keep moving.” Sebastian turned away, his hands clasped in front of him. He ignored the fact that the fish remained clinging to Painter’s limbs.

It was when they began getting closer to the center of the facility that problems started to arise.

Urbanshade had evidently retained control over the systems nearest to the Lunar-Grav testing track. Don’t ask why there was a Lunar-Grav testing track, Sebastian didn’t have any ideas as to why Hadal Blacksite hosted such a module this deep in the ocean.

The fact that Urbanshade had control over the systems surrounding the Lunar-Grav testing track wasn’t the main problem, as the combination of Sebastian’s SCRAMBLER and the Painter’s hacking took care of any locked doors or defense systems.

Urbanshade might have been able to surmise based on their sudden loss of control over parts of the sector that Sebastian was in the area, but the company wasn’t in any easy position to do anything about it with the External Repellent System no longer operating. No more subs were able to make it to Hadal Blacksite without encountering resistance from the aggressive fauna lingering at the veil of the Let-Vand zone.

The main problem that Sebastian and his odd group faced was the fact that, somehow, a Searchlight had found its way into the Lunar-Grav testing track and was now patrolling in a continuous loop near the roof of the massive chamber.

Sebastian and his group stood watching the odd spectacle on a catwalk that was connected to one of the large Anti-gravity towers, which were responsible for projecting the field over the chamber.

“That poor Searchlight must be so confused…” The Expendable commented, their tone pitying. “It must have found its way in when the bulkhead was left open.”

There was a section in the ceiling of the chamber that was capable of opening to the water of the abyss, the anti-gravity preventing the water from pouring into the chamber. The bulkhead was originally designed to allow the docking of experimental submersibles, before the area was retrofitted for the installation of the Lunar-Grav track module.

“How is it even still alive?” Sebastian wondered aloud, watching as the leviathan class creature circled past them, the catwalk well out of the way of its spotlights.

“It’s an extremophile organism,” the human stated as if it were obvious. “I doubt it actually needs water to breathe. Research suggests that its anatomy is structured in such a way that it is probable for it to utilize thermal energy to regulate itself. This would make it one of the first lifeforms ever discovered to use an alternative method of metabolic processing that doesn’t require oxygen in order to function.”

Sebastian and the Painter both stared blankly at the Expendable in bemusement. Once again, Sebastian was left to wonder fruitlessly about who the Expendable truly was, and how they knew such information.

“Either that, or it’s just like Sebby and his fish friends and can breathe both air and water,” the Expendable continued with a tilt of their head, their tone of voice shifting entirely to a more chipper one. “But that seems implausible given their natural environment. But who’s to say!”

“You really just keep on yapping, don't you.” Sebastian commented dryly.

“Yep!”

“So…” The Painter cut in, waving a free arm at the Searchlight in the Lunar-Grav track. “Are we gonna do anything about that? Surely we can’t just leave it here…”

“I’m sure Urbanshade will find a way to get it out sooner or later,” Sebastian said, not caring in the slightest about the creature’s predicament as he turned to follow the catwalk. “Come on, let’s get into the Lunar-Grav’s control center; some systems in there are still monitoring this sector of the facility.”

The Painter easily hacked the door and opened it to let them into the control center for the Lunar-Grav testing track.

The room was circular, with windows along the far side which overlooked the chamber holding the testing track. There were several monitors mounted on the walls along with a massive console that had an array of confusing diodes and buttons.

Several of the monitors displayed read-outs that were constantly updating and Sebastian noted that there had been a sudden dip in the testing track’s power regulation. Some of the generators must be in need of recalibration.

Another batch of monitors displayed camera views of different corridors through out the sector.

Movement on one monitor caught his attention, and he paused to look.

“Damn,” he cursed as he recognized what he saw. The camera was viewing the hallway which would inevitably lead to the sector where the Crystal was held, and a group of Expendables were already making their way through.

Sebastian could easily handle getting rid of Expendables if they got in the way, but despite everything, he still didn’t see the Expendables as his enemies.

The thought of approaching the Expendables and seeing them wave happily in greeting— only for him to draw his shotgun and begin slaughtering them all… it made him feel sick.

“We have to figure out someway to delay the Expendables from reaching the Crystal before we do,” Sebastian growled, surprised at the level of conviction in his own voice as he said this.

“I could always use turrets to gun them down,” Painter offered, but Sebastian shook his head.

“There’s no turrets in this sector of the facility. Too many generators and other delicate machinery that the company doesn’t want accidentally shredded. And besides, they’re too far ahead of us to be within range.”

“Hey, this thing has access to the PA system around here.” The Expendable suddenly pointed out, tapping the side of a microphone situated by one of the consoles. “Painter, you can mimic the guy who’s always in charge of relaying HQ’s instructions, right?”

“Uh-huh, easily!” Painter boasted with a grin. “Turns out the PA guy isn’t even real, it’s just a voice filter in the system that HQ uses in order to mask whoever’s speaking over the comm.”

“Huh,” Sebastian huffed a laugh, he hadn’t known that about the PA system. “So, you could trick them into diverting their course…” He glanced over at the Expendable, who was jumping in place excitedly. “I think I might be catching on to what you’re putting down, Expendable.”

“Yeah!” The Expendable nodded emphatically. “Project: Detour is a go!”

The group of Expendables stopped as the door they were heading towards suddenly locked and the sign beside it turned blank.

“The hell?” One Expendable looked around in confusion, the others looking around as well before the PA system suddenly crackled to life.

“We’re going to need you to take a quick detour. Several pieces of equipment in this sector are broken, and we need them fixed.”

Another door to the right of the group clunked as its locks cycled before sliding open, showing a series of double doors which required a purple keycard in order to access.

The Expendables looked at one another, before shrugging and moving into the room. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to find the purple keycard and get the double doors open.

Beyond was a darkened room with various generators lined up along the center, some had flashing red lights while the others maintained a steady green.

“The door is remotely locked until every broken apparatus is operational again.”

With no choice but to comply, the Expendables went about fixing the generators.

“There, that should reroute them back here and delay them long enough for us to get ahead of them.” Sebastian said, taking a moment to set the PA system’s last recorded message on repeat for whenever the camera detected another group of Expendables approaching. Just in case.

He had initially been against the idea of directing the humans to fix Urbanshade’s shoddy equipment, but the Painter reasoned that it would provide for a convincing enough distraction that when HQ regained control over the sector they wouldn’t question the detour that the Expendables made, as it only benefited the company.

As they began to make their way through the sector, Painter eventually asked if it could try to walk on its own. It had been practicing with its new limbs ever since they had been installed and they had grown confident enough to try out their new mobility.

At first, Sebastian was hesitant to comply, not wanting to stop in their progress towards the Crystal. But he eventually capitulated when Painter pointed out that if Sebastian kept carrying it, the little fishes would keep clinging to its limbs and continue to make Sebastian’s life miserable.

The group eventually stopped in a side room that Sebastian felt would be relatively safe to reside in for the time being. It was one of the rooms separate from the main hallway that Angler and its variants never bothered to pass through. It had a window which overlooked the abyss beyond, but was otherwise safe. A leaky pipe also provided water for the fish to moisturize themselves in.

Sebastian unclipped the Painter from his side and set the computer gently on the ground, the cables still attached to the SCRAMBLER unraveling further to provide more slack.

Painter managed to stand on its own, its spider-like limbs supporting the computer a foot above the ground. The metal claws on the end of each limb splayed out to give better stability as the AI hesitantly lifted one leg and tried to take a step.

The computer immediately pitched forward and would have smashed its monitor into the floor if Sebastian hadn’t been ready to catch them.

“Maybe I should tape some pillows onto you,” he joked as he righted the computer.

“Shut up!” Painter retorted with embarrassment. “The cables messed me up! Why do I have to be leashed to you all the time anyway?”

“Until we can find a way for you to retain your own source of power or install a battery pack onto you, you’re stuck with the cable.” Sebastian said reasonably.

Painter emitted an angry bit-crushed grumbling sound as it tried again to get its new limbs to cooperate.

They managed to gain some form of locomotion, but it was more akin to a multi-legged shuffle. Like a baby deer skidding along ice. Painter eventually figured out how to alternate between different legs in order to maintain its balance, though they seemed to have only gotten the hang of moving sideways like a crab, and only in one direction. Which made the computer quite frustrated.

“LEGS ARE STUPID!” Painter shouted as it once again bumped into the wall. “How do organics live like this?! How do you keep track of where each foot is at all times?? I don’t get it!”

“I don’t know,” Sebastian shrugged. “I would say that I don’t always keep track of where my body parts are, but that would be a lie.” He flicked his tail fin over to lightly steer the grumbling computer away from bumping into another wall. Sebastian was always painfully aware of how much space his mutant body occupied and took a certain amount of pride in having learned how to move gracefully through his environment, despite his much larger bulk. “I think it has something to do with having a nervous-system. I remember reading some article a long time ago that said your guts act as a secondary brain with the amount of nerves concentrated in the intestines, or something to that effect.”

“I don’t have any guts!!” The AI exclaimed. “I don’t have a nervous-system! This is hopeless!”

“Aw, c’mon buddy.” Sebastian tried his best to soothe the angry machine, keeping his voice jovial and lightly teasing. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up already!”

“I’m not,” Painter grumbled as it eventually settled itself onto the floor, its limbs folded neatly on either side of its monitor. “It’s just a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

Sebastian made a sympathetic hum of acknowledgement, before looking over at the Expendable, realizing that they had been oddly quiet during the entire interaction.

The Expendable had sat themselves down on a discarded chair and had been watching Painter’s progress with a strange level of intensity that made the hair on the back of Sebastian’s neck rise.

Even though he couldn’t see their eyes, he knew that look.

It was the look that the scientists who operated on him would have as he writhed about on the floor as his body was changed.

Sachiel chose that moment to seek contact and lightly butted its head against his tail.

Sebastian lowered himself until he was nearly on his stomach, tapping his claws on the floor in front of him. Sachiel waddled over and idly brushed its barbels against his hand before flopping onto their side so that Sebastian could scritch at the scales on the fish’s belly.

For just a moment, Sebastian allowed himself to relax.

On the exterior of Hadal Blacksite, Eyefestation was on the war path. The mutant bull shark was furious. No matter where it went, that flesh amalgamation kept stealing their kills!

Eyefestation prided themselves in having a high kill count when it came to the number of humans they had brain blasted to death. Of course, they had no idea how many humans they had killed, sharks weren’t capable of counting very high… but Eyefestation was certain that they had killed a lot!

Now their kill-streak was being disrupted because an evil flesh horror had one hell of a grudge!

It wasn’t Eyefestation’s fault that Pandemonium decided to stare at them with all of its mouth eyes and then continued to stare even as whatever constituted as a brain within its misshapen cranium kept regenerating over and over again!

Eyefestation banged their tail fin against the side of the facility in anger, the metal clang reverberated through the water and caused parasites to fly in a panicked flurry.

As if on cue, the rotten wraith moved into view of the nearest window, its face dark and devoid of eyes, which surprised Eyefestation.

The rotten flesh wraith lingered by the window, pressing its open maw against the glass. Acidic bile drooled from its mouth as jagged yellow teeth scratched at the glass.

How charming.

Eyefestation paused by the window, bearing their own jagged teeth at the other monster.

The shark wasn’t sure if Pandemonium’s eyes were simply closed or if they had finally managed to burn its eyes out permanently.

Might as well make an attempt at communication. Eyefestation wasn’t totally unreasonable.

Tentatively, the shark expanded its senses and forged a mental mind bridge with the other entity.

HELLO-

G R E E T I N G S, F E LLOW COMRADE IN S U F F E R I N G!

Eyefestation reared back at the sheer volume of the bombastic voice which boomed across the telepathic link. The shark wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of being mentally blasted.

IT  B R I N GS  M E  IN FIN ITE  J O Y  TO  F I N A L L Y C O M M U N E  WITH A NOTHER MANY-OC ULAR  BEING!!!

BE SILENT!

Eyefestation’s many eyes flashed with radioactive fervor as they mentally slapped Pandemonium’s brain case.

The entity’s entire face scrunched inwards onto itself, like a sock puppet crumpling.

S O R R Y-

CEASE TALKING!

The mutant bull shark slammed against the window, causing a spiderweb of cracks to form along the glass as the entire corridor trembled. Pandemonium’s body jiggled as the hallway reverberated, its mouth slurping closed and giving off a rather comical expression, like it had tasted something particularly sour.

Once Eyefestation was certain that the creature would speak no more, they made their proposal.

YOU HAVE BEEN INTERFERING WITH MY HUNT. STOP INTERFERING.

With their message delivered, Eyefestation promptly cut off the mental connection with Pandemonium and languidly swam off into the dark abyss, leaving the sad rotting abomination to stew by itself.

Chapter Text

It was cold. Very cold.

Sebastian found himself in a horrible state in which he was unable to move, he could barely think. His thoughts kept flickering in and out of cohesion as he struggled to make sense of his surroundings.

Why was it so dark?

He tried to move, but it was as if his control over his body was partially cut off. His muscles contracted, but his limbs wouldn’t move.

He was trapped in his own body.

A rising sense of terror began to seep into Sebastian’s consciousness as he mentally screamed for any part of him to move, he’d settle for even a twitch of his fingers if only to confirm to himself that he wasn’t completely paralyzed.

Why was it so cold?

The darkness suffusing his vision warped with sickly green light before he felt a sickening lurch of vertigo overcome him. Suddenly, he was looking up at a silhouette of an old man with a cane peering down at him with emerald eyes which shone starkly against the darkness.

“Mr. Solace…” the man’s voice had an odd cadence to it, like an old English man who had smoked too many pipes. “It would be wise… if you viewed the information that is held within the red, flash, drive…”

What the fuck.

“Indeed,” the silhouette of the man seemed to distort slightly along the edges. “The… flash, drive in your possession has… information, most pertinent to your situation, and I feel, that if you were to continue ignoring it… you will later find yourself feeling most... regretful.”

WhAT THE FUCK.

Sebastian was reeling with confusion, he wanted to demand who the fuck this pompous asshole was and what had he done to his friends. But his body still refused to obey him.

“In time, you will understand… Mr. Solace. In time, you will—Ẃ̷̞Ą̵̩̪̖̞̤͎̓͂̃K̷̢̿E̷̠̅̀̽͒ ̵̟̳̰́U̵̢͐̉̃̾P̶̫̟͗͛̎—learn about— S̶͔̒E̶̱̯͒̏B̵͉͇̀͂A̵̭̞̅̇̈Ś̵̳̲̗͌T̸̗̪̤̍̄͋Ỉ̷͎̔͛A̴̋ͅN̵̠͒̎— and— Ẃ̷̞Ą̵̩̪̖̞̤͎̓͂̃K̷̢̿E̷̠̅̀̽͒ ̵̟̳̰́U̵̢͐̉̃̾P̶̫̟͗͛̎!”

Everything was distorting again, and Sebastian’s vision blurred into blackness once more.

W A K E  U P!

Sebastian was awoken by a cold splash of water shot at his face, and he lurched up with a strangled gasp as his eyes flew open.

“What—“ He coughed, wiping his face as his vision came back into focus and he took in the room.

The Painter was standing a few feet away from him, two of their mechanical limbs raised in an oddly defensive posture as the AI stared at him warily.

“You alright?” Painter asked with alarm. “You were thrashing about in your sleep!”

Sebastian groaned as he curled his tail around himself, trying his best to get his racing heartbeat under control. “Where is— the Expendable?”

“Over here, handsome.” The Expendable popped into view, walking in from the hallway whilst carrying an armful of vending machine snacks.

Sebastian was surprised to see a couple of the fishlets trailing behind the human like ducklings, each fish dragging along their choice of junk food.

“Great,” he rubbed his face again, sucking in a deep breath as he struggled to get his thoughts in order. “Painter, don’t… if I ever look like I’m gonna fall asleep again, please wake me up.”

“Uh, okay…” The AI looked concerned, it was rare that Sebastian ever said please, especially with such a pleading edge to his voice. It made the AI nervous, but it didn’t want to press Sebastian. “Sure, I’ll just have Sachiel spray water on you if I catch you snoozing.”

Sebastian huffed a weak chuckle as he reached down to pat said fish, who had remained at his side. Sachiel nipped at his fingers in response, the action almost comically ineffective due to the fish’s lack of teeth.

He startled slightly when the Expendable tossed a bag of chips into his chest, making him scowl in irritation.

“For you!” The human explained as they turned to sit their ass down on their chosen office chair. “So, what’s been happening in the headspace of Sebby?”

Sebastian gave the Expendable a suspicious look, his skin crawling as his senses suddenly went on full alert. “What?”

“You fell asleep again,” the Expendable said with a wave of their hand. “Did you manage to get anything?”

Sebastian continued to stare at the human, feeling his shoulders tense with unease. “What are you talking about?” He said, even though he suspected he already knew what the human was referring to.

The immortal Expendable leaned back in their chair, crossing one leg over the other. “Usually he tries to contact people during times when one’s mind—“ Their entire body jerked and their next word was cut off with a choking sound before they suddenly leaned forward, both hands on their knees. “—ANYHOO! You should probably pay attention to that! Stop avoiding it!”

Sebastian felt an odd chill run down his spine, not liking the implications that the Expendable’s aborted explanation provided him. Now he couldn’t just dismiss his dream as simply being a hallucination or night terror.

This sucked.

He felt nauseous, his claws gripping the tiny bag of chips hard enough that its contents had likely been rendered into dust.

“Is this about that red USB?” Painter inquired, shifting its monitor to look at both of them. “I feel like continuing to avoid seeing what it does is getting a little ridiculous."

Sebastian let out a grumbling noise, using his teeth to rip open the bag of chips before tilting his head back and dumping the contents into his open maw.

Vinegar flavor.

He chewed angrily, not bothering with any sense of decorum as crumbs spilled from his mouth, he crumpled the bag and tossed it away. Sachiel waddled after the discarded garbage, like a dog running after a thrown tennis ball.

“Fine!” Sebastian barked as soon as he was done eating. “But first, we’re getting the Crystal. Afterwards, we’ll see about using the red doohickey once the backup generators power on.”

That should provide enough of a safe guard in case the red flash drive turned out to be full of nefarious company-grade malware. With the Crystal gone, and the backup generators only possessing a limited amount of power, any viruses inside wouldn’t have much time to propagate— or at least Sebastian and his motley crew wouldn’t have to deal with any resulting shenanigans for very long.

“I still don’t get why you’re being so stubborn about this.” The Expendable said with their hands raised in exasperation. “I already told you what it does! We don’t know how else to prove it to you that we’re being sincere.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Sebastian retorted, even though in the beginning he very much did not believe the Expendable. “I just… have a really bad feeling about it, alright? I’ll admit that. But having a healthy dose of paranoia about stuff that I don’t have all the facts about is whats been keeping me alive for this long!”

“Maybe.” The Expendable gave a begrudging nod. “But it can certainly impede you when somebody is actually trying to help.”

Painter emitted a digital noise implying agreement, their doodled face bobbing up and down on their monitor to emphasize.

Sebastian snorted as he crossed his arms. “I have no reason to trust you, Expendable. In this merry band of ours I know everyone else’s motives, except yours. Painter just wants to get the fuck out of here, same as me. The fish are just animals, and will follow me so long as I provide them with adequate food and protection—“

Sachiel chose that moment to waddle back, the crumpled up wad of garbage clasped firmly in its mouth as it nudged Sebastian’s tail. Sebastian didn’t stop his tirade as he absentmindedly took Sachiel’s ball of garbage and threw it again, the fish eagerly waddling off to chase it.

“—But you? I don’t get you. You’re not like all the other Expendables sent down here, obviously— what with the whole immortality thing and all that implies. But the one thing that all the other Expendables have in common is that they want their names cleared of whatever horrible crimes they’ve committed. But I know nothing about you as a person or what you get out of all of this, and the fact that you are physically incapable of telling me certain critical details makes me question whether or not I should be worried about you suddenly flipping your bit and stabbing me in the back at some point in our ill-fated journey!”

The immortal Expendable was silent for a moment, their chin resting on one hand while the boot of their foot jogged in a repetitive tic that wasn’t present before.

Finally, they let out a long sigh before tilting their head down. “Yeah… Yeah, we suppose… that’s fair—” they placed both hands on the armrests of the office chair and splayed their fingers out. “—You’re right. Neither you nor the Painter have any reason to trust us.”

There was another moment of silence, one which Painter eventually broke with a tentative question.

“Do you… have a name? I know we’ve kinda just been referring to you as Expendable this entire time but…” Painter trailed off, their mechanical limbs shifting slightly in apparent nervousness.

“A name.” The Expendable said, their voice devoid of emotion suddenly.

“My… name… is… Y̵̨̰̣̲̮͍̓̑̔̋͂͝͠Ó̶̫͙̻̻͚̮̗̻̪̊͊́̈́̋̎̃͊̈̾̽̆͜Ǔ̴̟̈́̾͂̈̀͛͐̌̄̏͐̓̐͝͠Ŗ̴̢̛̣͓̥̮͇̱͔͎͍̪͇̉̐͂͛͑̀̾̚ͅN̸͖̄̇̎͋̀̐̀̌̂̈́͂̾͘͠͠Ä̸̺̯͚̪͙̹̲̯̭̰́̽͒̄̉̾͑̑́͒̌̿̿͝M̴͕̜̣̩̪̣̗̥̣̩͍̺̹̱̱̮̙̔̋̈́̒Ȩ̴̢̘̻̲̫̭͈̪̪̩̝͔̯̭̰̓̂͌͠M̴̖̩̑̓̊̏̉́Ŷ̵̨̛̳̠̯̪̲͉̥̯̖͗̈́͆͗͗̃̈́͒̑͆̕͜͜͝N̴͈̠̩͙̝͖̳̭̝̥͍̪͚͚͗̓̾̎͂́̑́̆̀̒̂̀̑̎́̕ͅǍ̷͎̫̩͎̜͍̠̞̲͈͎̲̟͑͌́̈́̂̊͜ͅM̸̤͉̼͇͕͚̙͊̈́̽̑̈́̊Ę̸̖͎͗̔̐̐̈́̿̎̃͛̅̓̕͘̚Ỏ̵̡̢͖̤̦̥̙̩͓̝̥̭̞̞̘̳͆̉Ṷ̷̢̲̝̻̜̤̥̺͇̓̐̆̈́̀̓̈̿̽̑̿̾̒͒͐̕R̵̨͖̩̯̺̱̣̄̀̓͑̚ͅN̶̢̛̳͍̠̗͔͊̾̊̌̓̂͆̌̐̊̀̔́͠͠A̷̹̫̭̾M̵̛̳̽͌̆̃̂͘Ḛ̶̼̟̦͖͕̲̀̋̔̏͊̓̎͛͝͝W̴̥̤͕̥̲̉̾̓̀̔̏͒͊̑̕H̷̡̛̘̱͕̹̲͖̼̰̻͈̔͜A̶̭̰̮̻̦͇̘̩̦̟̯̙͚͆̽̓́̋͆̾̒̌̑̈́͘T̵̲̬͛̾̆̊͗͛̒͋̾͘̚͠Î̸̳̜͝Ş̶̧̨̭͎͈̯̪̲̭͎̜̆̃̒͒͐́̽͜M̴̘͛̑̍Y̵̲̼̥̖̮͗̓̉͂̀̐̑̒̈́̈͐͛̎͗̈́͜͝N̸̩̥̆͐͌̽̕̚A̶̧̩͉̲̺͍̼͇̙̺͙͕̻̭̘̹̳̓̐̌̄́͗͒́͊̚͝M̶̡͈̲̠͖͔̘̠̩͍̖͕̟̮̹̮͒̄̆̍͊̿̕̕͝͝Ę̷̛̦̻̟̫̤͖̼͉͖̼̰̥̝̾͊̓͆̌͐̌̂̀͠”

Sebastian and Painter exchanged a look, both silently asking the other if they also experienced that weird auditory glitch.

Sebastian raised a claw and flicked at his ear fin in an attempt to clear the residual buzzing sensation. “I beg your pardon?”

The Expendable sagged in their chair and put their head in their hands. They made a high pitched noise of utter frustration on an existential scale that nobody in the room at that moment would ever understand.

“Nevermind, it’s pointless.” The Expendable groaned. “Just add it to the growing pile of things that I CAN’T tell you.”

Sebastian stared at the miserable human for a couple of seconds before shrugging. “Very well, I’ll just keep calling you a Pain-In-My-Ass.”

That got a chuckle from the Expendable as they looked up at him. “Sure, and we’ll start calling you Fish-Face-McShits.”

Sebastian smiled, baring his sharp teeth in a threatening way. “Don’t push your luck, friend.”

The human chortled with laughter, misreading Sebastian’s unfriendliness as playful banter, again.

With a shake of his head, Sebastian turned to scoop up the SCRAMBLER from the floor and sling the device onto his back once more. He grabbed onto the cable trailing from its side and gave it a light tug.

“C’mon, Painter. Let’s get moving.” He punctuated the command with a short whistle as he watched the AI’s monitor turn red.

“I AM NOT A DOG!” The Painter shrieked, stomping its limbs in place angrily.

Sebastian merely cackled as he slid over and plucked the furious AI off the ground. “Lighten up, buddy! I’m only messing with you.”

“Well you’re NOT FUNNY!” Painter fumed, two limbs crossing in front of its monitor in a surprisingly accurate imitation of a pouting child.

Sebastian brushed off the Painter’s ire and proceeded to secure the grumbling computer to his side. Once that was sorted out, he turned to survey the fishlets, making sure to do a headcount before initiating the next leg of their journey.

He was surprised to find that the nine fishlets didn’t immediately try to clamber on to him for a free ride as he moved into the corridor.

Instead, Sebastian watched in fascination as the smallest of the fish climbed atop their larger brethren, who were more able to keep up with the group.

Even Sachiel had two of their offspring clinging to the coral growths protruding from their back.

Well, at least they were learning not to rely solely on Sebastian.

Unfortunately, much to Eyefestation’s annoyance, Pandemonium did not cease interfering with the mutant bull shark’s hunt.

No matter where Eyefestation went, whenever they approached a part of the facility which possessed windows looking out into the abyss, a familiar rotting flesh amalgamation was there. Its horrible face pressed against the glass and its eyes flashing white as Eyefestation proceeded to boil its brain into radioactive mush.

No matter how many times Eyefestation tried to kill Pandemonium, the rotting flesh merely reformed a moment later and the cycle would begin anew.

It got to the point where even the bull shark’s multitude of eyes began to ache with the strain of continuously mind blasting the other entity.

Eyefestation eventually came to the conclusion that it could not destroy Pandemonium.

At least… not on their own.

It had not occurred to the mutant bull shark before… but the idea of enlisting the cooperation of the other entities roaming the Blacksite was suddenly on the forefront of their mind.

Bull sharks sometimes hunted in groups, and even though Eyefestation had long since mutated beyond anything remotely resembling their original species, some instincts still persisted.

For the first time since the lockdown had begun, Eyefestation diverted from its usual pattern of behavior.

It first tried to establish contact with the Angler and its variants.

The main problem with that was the fact that the phantasmal entities seemed to be constantly on the move, rushing down the corridors through out the Blacksite without slowing or stopping.

It made forming a mind bridge difficult, as Eyefestation needed line of sight with the subject in order to maintain the connection.

Eyefestation eventually managed to sustain a short-lived connection with the Angler variant known as Chainsmoker. The malformed blobfish-like ghost moving at a slow enough pace for the mutant bull shark to track it.

HELLO.

………..Hhhhheyyyyy….

Eyefestation was honestly surprised to get a response from the smog demon. They were even more perplexed by the slow and lackadaisical nature of the mental voice that projected back to them.

WHAT DO YOU SEEK? WHY DO YOU PATROL THESE HALLS?

Such philosophical questions were usually inconsequential to Eyefestation, but even the bull shark knew that it needed something to base its proposal for alliance off of. Usually a common goal was enough to unite otherwise differing parties.

………Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm……

The length of which the phantom blobfish hummed in thought was long enough that Eyefestation’s many eyes twitched with barely subdued impatience.

…………Neverrrrr rrrreally thought ‘bout it……… Whhhhat ‘bout youuuuu? Whaaaat doo youuuu seeek?…..

If the shark could scoff, it would. Instead, their eyes flashed with contempt.

I SEEK TO TAKE REVENGE ON THE HUMANS WHO KEPT ME PRISONER.

……..Hmmmmmmmmm………. Seeeeeeems kindaaaaa….. intennnnse….. Whyyyyyyy don’t youuuu juuuuuuuuuuuuuu—

The connection abruptly cut off as Chainsmoker turned a corner and vanished from Eyefestation’s line of sight.

Eyefestation gnashed their teeth in frustration. What a horribly inane and utterly useless conversation! Their eyes flickered red with anger as they swam away, intent on finding an entity that was more up to the shark’s speed.

Chapter Text

“How come Eyefestation doesn’t melt your mind?” The Expendable asked in that random out of no-where manner they were known for.

Sebastian slowed his pace as he raised a brow in the Expendable’s direction. He didn’t bother wasting his breath asking how the immortal human knew he had been in physical contact with the mutant bull shark before, instead opting to answer truthfully. “I would assume it’s because it only has a murder-boner for humans.”

Painter let out a laugh at that, their spider-like limbs wiggling with mirth.

“But doesn’t that spectrum include you…?” The Expendable inquired further, clasping their hands behind their back as they tilted their head.

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed as he gestured to himself. “What part of what I am counts as me being even remotely human anymore?”

The Expendable shrugged, completely oblivious to the hostile edge to the fishman’s voice that suggested that they were treading on thin ice. “That’s up to you, I guess. But really, can we ever truly separate ourselves from our human roots?“

Sebastian’s ears flicked in puzzlement. A part of him reflexively wanted to feel insulted; after all the twisted physical transformations he’d suffered through, how could he not be considered no longer human? Yet, the Expendable was implying that somehow didn’t matter???

“Honestly, if you ask me, I’d even go as far as to say that Painter is human.” The Expendable continued, causing said computer to let out a confused noise.

“Huh???” Painter’s monitor flickered with incredulity. “How does that make any sense? I’m a machine!”

“Yeah, but you have human origins. You are a sapient intelligence made by a human. And man is rather fond of making things in his image, am I right?”

“I thought that was God who made man in his image.” Sebastian pointed out dryly.

“Oh boy, and I wonder who created the concept of God???” The Expendable sarcastically said with a mischievous giggle.

Sebastian had to resist the urge to face-palm as he grimaced. “For Christ’s sake, we are not opening that can-of-worms!”

“Indeed!” The Expendable laughed as they skipped on ahead.

“I don’t get it…” The Painter mumbled.

“Be thankful for that, buddy.” Sebastian lightly patted the AI’s monitor. “Let’s move on from this line of inquiry, shall we? I honestly do not feel mentally equipped right now to be dissecting what makes one human and what doesn’t.”

“Okie dokie!” The Expendable agreed, before stopping in at a junction in the hallway they were traversing through. “Uhhh, by the way, which door are we supposed to go through?”

“Aw, crap.” Painter’s monitor flickered as they cybernetically jumped between the different cameras within the area. “I guess the Navi-AI system didn’t reset itself after I was unhooked from the mainframe.”

There were two doors that they could take, both possessing identical numbers.

“Eh, don’t worry about it.” The Expendable waved a hand, walking up to one of the doors at random. “We can just brute force it!”

“Wait—!“ Painter yelped in alarm, but it was too late.

The door slid open, and immediately the Expendable was thrown backwards as a massive claw lashed out from beyond the doorway.

Painter remotely commanded the door to slam shut before the Good People within tried to take another swipe at the prone human.

“Seriously! How are you this stupid!?” The AI shouted, their limbs flailing angrily.

When the Expendable didn’t reply, Painter felt a spike of fear and they pushed their limbs against Sebastian’s side in order to angle their monitor to better see the Expendable’s inert form. “H-hey! Are you okay? Sebastian, help them—!”

Sebastian reflexively wrapped a hand around the computer, worried that the AI would accidentally shimmy free of the straps securing them to his side. “Calm down, Paints. Just give them a sec.”

A moment passed and a weird flash of light emanated from the form of the Expendable before they suddenly lurched into a sitting position with a gasp.

“Okay! Not that door!” The human reported as their got to their feet.

Painter stared, their doodled eyes going wide with shock. This was the first time the AI had actually witnessed the strange Expendable’s immortality kick in, and up until that point they hadn’t really believed it was real.

The human now sported three ragged gashes in their already battered and worn vest, the blood still fresh and oozing down their side, soaking the dark blue fabric an even darker shade.

Sebastian couldn’t help the urge to flick out his tongue to scent the coppery smell now wafting in the air, and he quickly brought a hand up to cover his mouth in order to stifle the impulse.

Meanwhile, Sachiel and the nine other fish were lingering by Sebastian’s tail, not too close to impede his movement, but close enough that they could easily leap onto him if the entire group had to make a run for it. None of the fish visibly reacted to the sudden death of the Expendable or the appearance of the Good People.

If Sebastian had been paying attention to the fishes, he might have found that odd.

The Expendable glanced back at Sebastian and Painter. “What?”

Sebastian shook his head, slithering past the human as Painter got the correct door to open. “You could’ve just waited for Painter to check which door was the correct one,” he said over his shoulder as he crossed the threshold. “Trust me, if I ever need to use you as a meat-shield I’ll gladly let you know. There’s no reason to throw yourself to the dogs when a less messy solution is available.”

The Expendable hurried to catch up with the retreating fishman. “Aw! You make that almost sound like you actually care about me!”

”Ugh,” Sebastian made a disgusted sound at that, and Painter snickered with robotic laughter.

Eyefestation made contact with another Angler variant by the sheer luck that this one seemed to be trapped in a circular room which had a glass ceiling that the bullshark could see through.

The variant known as Blitz was ping-ponging around the room, its form surprisingly not phasing through the walls. It seemed as though it were trying to get through one of the doors, but it was moving too fast to properly aim for the entryway.

Eyefestation considered this a golden opportunity to form a mind bridge with the entity.

GREETINGS.

HihihihihiWhat’sYourNameWhoAreYouAreYouAmassiveSharkIneverSeenaSharklikeYouBeforeHowAreYaHaveyouseentheothersaroundhaveyouseenanyhumanslatelyhowmanyhaveyoukilledIkilledalotbutnotasmanyasyouprobablyweshouldteamupitllbefunletsdoitTEAMSPEEDDEMONYAAAAAAAAAAAA—

Eyefestation cut the mental connection off prematurely and quickly swam away.

“Woah,” Painter beeped nervously as they peered over the side of the massive hole in the hallway, looking out into the blackness. “Where’d all the water go?”

“We’re in the sector of the facility where it starts to go underground; Urbanshade drained all the water from the caverns.” Sebastian explained in a somewhat rushed voice, his body pressed to the wall as far away from the perilous drop as possible, not trusting the broken floor’s integrity enough to bear his considerable weight and risk going near the portion that had collapsed “Painter, get away from the edge!”

During their progress towards the central part of the facility, Painter had gotten restless and insisted that it had gained enough control over its limbs to walk on its own. Sebastian had complied, allowing the AI to walk along beside him while still being connected to the SCRAMBLER.

“Pffft, don’t worry, I have a safety tether!” The Painter pointed out, one clawed limb tugging at the cable connected to the back of their monitor for emphasis.

“Don’t do that! You might unplug yourself!” Sebastian warned, shimmying his way across the crumbling hallway and inadvertently dragging the Painter along with him.

The fishes and the Expendable were already waiting on the other side, as they had been light enough that they were at little risk of making the floor collapse further.

Sebastian had spent several minutes prior debating whether or not they should try finding a different route. He hadn’t thought he was someone who would be scared of heights, but the sheer drop into nothing had his senses screaming danger at him.

Alas, this was the most direct route to where the Crystal was held, and the Expendable pointed out that the floor wasn’t getting any more stable the longer Sebastian agonized over it.

Finally, Sebastian made it to the other side, his heart hammering in his chest as he ducked through the next door and onto more stable ground. Painter scuttled along after him to avoid being dragged by the cable.

“Yay! You did it!” The Expendable cheered while clapping their hands. Sachiel and the other nine fish began slapping their fins against the floor to mimic the sound, serenading the mutant sea snake’s accomplishment with fishy applause.

Sebastian’s ears pinned back as his face flushed with embarrassment. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let’s just keep moving.”

As the group continued their journey, they encountered little opposition besides a few close calls with the Angler and an incident where the Expendable got jumped by a Wall dweller.

Said Wall dweller was easily dealt with and then devoured by the fishes, who seemed more ravenous than usual. Sebastian figured it might have something to do with them being out of the water for so long, but he couldn’t say for certain.

The fish known as Chomper and Beelzabub had gotten quite the growth spurt, now becoming nearly half the size of Sachiel, with Chomper being more wide than tall in comparison to Beelzabub, who’s froggish legs had fully developed— allowing it to hop a considerable distance.

Sebastian marveled again over the strange and inconsistent rate of which each fish mutated. There had to be some document regarding these fish somewhere in the Blacksite, Sebastian refused to believe that the fish only appeared after the lockdown occurred.

“What is that?” The Expendable suddenly piped up, pointing out a window that had a view of the far cavern wall. The cavern was slick and pockmarked with old deep sea barnacles that occasionally blinked open to reveal hair-like cirri.

Sebastian paused and squinted at the rocky walls, trying to discern what the Expendable was pointing at. “What?”

“That.” The Expendable pressed their gloved finger against the glass, supposedly indicating the cavern wall several hundred meters away from the window. “You don’t see that light?”

Sebastian leaned closer, trying to make out anything against the dark walls beyond. “No? I don’t see any lights. Nothing out there is illuminated.”

Painter, curious about what everyone was looking at, used their limbs to climb up onto a nearby cabinet in order to peer out the window.

“Oh, huh.” The AI’s camera focused on what the Expendable was pointing at. “Yeah… there’s something out there. It’s glowing a strange blue-ish purple light.”

Sebastian’s ears flicked as he blinked with sudden realization. “Blue-ish light?”

“Yep,” the Painter confirmed. “It’s definitely on the UV-light spectrum.”

“Ah, that would explain it.” Sebastian huffed. “I can’t see UV-light.”

“What? Really?” The Expendable seemed genuinely surprised by this.

“Tragic, I know.” Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Don’t ask me how or why. I figure it probably has something to do with one or more of the creatures whose DNA I’ve been spliced with.”

“Huh,” the Expendable looked back through the window. “So… whatever that thing is, it’s completely invisible to you?”

“What exactly are you guys seeing out there?” Sebastian asked with slight frustration, squinting out into the darkness despite the futility of him doing so.

“Umm,” Painter shifted on their legs, trying to utilize one of the security cameras nearby in order to zoom in on the anomaly. “It’s like a collection of lights all pulsing together… whatever is producing the light seems to be clinging to the rocks. No idea if it’s multiple things or if it’s just coming from one thing, though. It’s too far away to make out its shape. I think— oh, now it’s moving away! Aaand now it’s gone.”

“Weird.” Sebastian hummed with thought, mentally flipping through the various documents he had collected over the past few months. “It could be a new variant of Void-mass.”

“Hmmm…” Painter hummed skeptically, but did not dispute Sebastian’s theory. Though, the AI had seen plenty of instances of the puddles of Void mass back when it was connected to the facility mainframe, and something about this anomaly just seemed… different.

Eyefestation was not having a good time. It had at first tried to contact something other than the Anglers, but the results were not satisfactory.

Attempting to form a mind bridge with Wall dwellers only led the creature’s little brains exploding. Eyefestation had no idea why this occurred, the Wall dwellers didn’t have any eyes and Eyefestation had been under the assumption that the creatures were immune to their radioactive stare.

But whatever. It wasn’t like the Wall dwellers would have been much help in defeating Pandemonium anyway.

Eyefestation had a bit more luck with trying to communicate with the Squiddles, but the resulting conversations with the strange shadow like octopuses generally went along the lines of:

HELLO.

….Flee!

DO NOT BE AFRAID.

Fleee!!! …..flee from the light!!!

Danger…!!! Go away! Away!!!

I ONLY WISH TO—

Fleeeeeee!!!

Then the Squiddles would proceed to de-manifest as Eyefestation’s luminescent gaze bathed the room with green light.

Eyefestation finally decided that it had no choice but to return to trying to establish communications with the other Angler variants.

“Our stalker is back…” the Expendable warned without stopping their stride.

“You mean besides yourself?” Sebastian snarked as he picked up one of the fishlets, Dart, who was having trouble making it over the piles of rubble on the incline they were traversing.

Painter beeped in amusement, following Sebastian’s example by offering a few of the smaller fish to hop atop its monitor.

“No!” The Expendable denied defensively, standing at the top of the incline with their hands on their hips. “I mean our invisible stalker! Or at least, invisible to our large and dashing shopkeeper.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes, but he did look over his shoulder. Then he mentally berated himself for doing so, as he wouldn’t be able to see the light produced by whatever entity that was following their group.

“Has it gotten any closer to us?” He inquired.

“No. I don’t think so.” The human responded. “I still can’t tell what it is. It seems to be following us by scaling the cavern walls outside.”

“Hm,” Sebastian slithered past the Expendable, still holding onto the smallest of the fishlets gently in the palm of his hand. He was worried about losing the damn thing, even though Dart seemed somewhat impatient to get back to waddling across the ground along with the rest of its siblings.

“Let me know if it gets any closer.” Sebastian didn’t like the idea of some unknown anomaly tailing them, it might be a new attempt to track his whereabouts by Urbanshade. Or it could be something completely unrelated to the company.

“Sure thing, boss.” The immortal Expendable gave the fishman a salute.

“I’ll try to keep an eye out for it too!” Painter said, scuttling easily across the floor. The AI was getting better with their new legs.

Sebastian couldn’t help the smile that creased his features, having allies that could cover the areas where he was at a disadvantage was nice.

Having friends who could watch your back was nice.

While swimming aimlessly around the facility, trying to get into contact with any non-human entity, Eyefestation nearly had a heart attack when Pandemonium suddenly revealed that, yes, it can swim.

Pandemonium could swim.

Not very well, but it could swim frightfully fast, and when it came upon Eyefestation out in the open— the rotten wraith amalgamation proceeded to bodily tackle the mutant shark.

What ensued was a bloody flurry of roiling bubbles and flailing bodies as both entities fought one another. Eyefestation bit down and tore entire chunks of flesh out while Pandemonium tried to smother the shark’s gills with its mass, its rotting teeth scraping ineffectively against the mutant shark’s toughened hide.

Eyefestation found it was unable to bring the full brunt of their radioactive stare to bear with the flesh demon clinging to its body, and for a heart stopping moment Eyefestation felt a spike of fear.

Eyefestation twisted about in the water, the glowing green light emanating from their eyes changing from lurid red to volatile indigo as it charged straight into the side of the facility— crushing Pandemonium against the reinforced steel and scraping it against the rough surface as Eyefestation propelled itself through the water, smashing Pandemonium against any and everything within the shark’s path.

Eyefestation was heedless of any damage that it was doing to itself in its enraged state, solely intent on dislodging the cur who dared to attack it.

With a bone shattering crash, the mutant shark slammed Pandemonium so hard into the side of the facility that a section of the corridor buckled inwards and collapsed, filling the interior with water and shrapnel.

The impact finally managed to dislodge Pandemonium from Eyefestation’s body, and the shark whirled around in the water to concentrate the full breadth of their baleful gaze onto the amalgamation— Pandemonium shrieked as it was boiled alive under the intense radiation.

Eyefestation, still enraged, was about to charge into the entity with the intention of tearing it apart when all of a sudden there was a flash of blinding light and a resounding boom as a sea mine detonated no less than 10 meters away from them.

The mutant bullshark was rocked by the explosion, the shockwave rupturing several of its eyes as the shark thrashed about in pain and panic.

In Eyefestation’s rage fueled state, it hadn’t realized that it had charged straight into one of the many defensive mine fields that were planted around the exterior of Hadal Blacksite.

Another mine detonated, followed by another, and Eyefestation came to the horrible realization that it was about to die.

Then the shark was suddenly cannoned into by Pandemonium, its body wrapping around the wounded shark and smothering it beneath layers of thick rotting flesh.

More explosions tore through the abyss, each shockwave sending the pair of entities spinning through the water until finally settling on the ocean floor.

It took several long moments for the debris to finally settle down, and once they were certain that no more explosions were forth coming, the two monsters broke away from each other.

Eyefestation’s gills were flared with stress, blood clouding the water as its missing eyes seeped a viscous green ichor. It still had plenty of other eyes it could utilize, but for once its radioactive gaze faltered as it stared at Pandemonium.

Pandemonium had a significant portion of its body blasted away, and Eyefestation was not so bullheaded as to not realize what the other entity had done.

WHY DID YOU SAVE ME.

Eyefestation watched warily as Pandemonium sank to the ocean floor, its body steadily regenerating its lost mass.

BE CAUSE, F E LLOW COMRADE. I AM UN ABLE TO D I E,  AND  I  W O U LD  BE  M O S T  REGRETFUL  I F  YO U  WERE  T O  P E R ISH PREMA TURELY!

Eyefestation only stared in confusion and could find nothing to say in response.

Pandemonium took that as a sign to continue speaking.

F E L L O W COMRADE! WE N E E D N OT CONTINUE TO BE AT O D D S WITH O NE AN OTHER! NOT JUST T HE T W O OF US B UT ALL OF US!

Pandemonium’s face warped into a grotesque grin.

I NO TI CE D YOU CONTACTING THE OTHER ENT IT IES! I SE E NOW TH AT THE NE XT CO URSE OF ACT ION IS THAT WE A LL MUST BAND TOG ETHER AS FELLOW COMRADES IN  S U F F E R I N G!

Eyefestation remained silent, deciding not to bring up the fact that the reason it was trying to communicate with the other monsters roaming the Blacksite in the first place was because Eyefestation wanted to form a kill squad in order to destroy Pandemonium.

WHY. FOR WHAT PURPOSE?

Pandemonium rose from the sea floor, its wretched maw wide in a silent roar as it mentally bellowed.

T O  A N N I H I L A T E   U R B A N S H A D E   A S S!!!

Chapter Text

“What were you doing anyway? Before you were arrested.” The Expendable asked, their hands raised palms up in front of them. “I mean— one does not simply get accused of committing nine murders outta no where unless you were at least adjascent to the crime scene, right?”

Okay, this was getting ridiculous.

Sebastian whirled around to level an icy glare at the human, causing them to stop in their tracks as he confronted them with a jab of a claw. “First of all— That is none of your fucking business! And second— Why the hell are you asking increasingly invasive questions the further we progress into the facility?”

The Expendable thought a moment, then shrugged. “Dunno, we’ve just had a bunch of stuff on the mind.”

“You were convicted for killing nine people…?” The Painter queried hesitantly, momentarily pausing to angle their monitor up in order to see Sebastian’s face.

Sebastian grimaced, his hands clenching into fists as the horrible memories tried to rise up. He’d buried them deep inside for the past 10 years, and dredging them up now felt like gouging into an old wound. “Yeah… I was sentenced to death row for it, before Urbanshade picked me up.”

“But he was falsely accused,” the Expendable cut in, much to Sebastian’s surprise. “Though, that fact was only discovered long after Urbanshade had taken Seb.”

“Oh…” Painter seemed to consider this, looking down at the floor before looking back up at Sebastian. “I’m sorry. That must have been… awful.”

“It was.” Sebastian responded dully, his face going carefully blank as he observed the AI’s reaction.

He had only met Painter mere hours after the lockdown had been initiated by his actions, and while the two had been quick to bond with one another over their shared goal to escape, Sebastian hadn’t been keen on talking too much about the circumstances which inevitably brought him to Hadal Blacksite— afraid that the Painter’s view of him would change if it knew about his somewhat complicated past.

Even though Sebastian hadn’t been the one to actually commit the murders, there was a reason why he had been considered the prime suspect….

Back when Sebastian was human, he had gotten involved with some less than savory individuals. He had been a lot more reckless and stupid, and hadn’t realized just how deep into the shitter he was in until it was too late.

He had made mistakes— stupid mistakes. He trusted the wrong people, and it had cost him everything.

That was all in the past, however.

“How the heck do you even know all this stuff about Sebastian?” The Painter asked skeptically, jabbing a leg into the side of the Expendable’s boot.

The Expendable merely shrugged again. “Mr. Lopee gave me the file Urbanshade had on him.”

“Figures,” Sebastian muttered. Of course that green asshole would have access to his file.

“Well,” the Painter scuttled up to Sebastian and bumped the side of their monitor against his tail. “I don’t care about what you did or didn’t do back then, you’re still my bestest friend!”

Sebastian actually felt his eyes well up with moisture and he had to look away. “Th..thanks, Paints.” He coughed awkwardly, trying to mask the slight tremor in his voice whilst he vigorously wiped at his face.

“No problem!” Painter beamed, shifting away to give Sebastian his space as the group resumed moving down the hallway.

With Pandemonium now officially allied with Eyefestation, the rotten meat amalgamation was intent on making good on its promise to unite the monsters of Hadal Blacksite.

It seemed that Eyefestation was the key to bridging communication between entities with the mutant bull shark’s telepathic ability.

The continuous use of Eyefestation’s telepathy seemed to have increased its proficiency in the skill, and the bull shark found that it was now capable of forming multiple mind bridges at once, so that more than one entity could speak to them.

Pandemonium managed to get the attention of the Angler and Pinkie with little effort, as both entities seemed keen on repeatedly sapping away the life force from the constantly reviving flesh horror— hovering around Pandemonium like ghosts haunting a corpse.

Eyefestation got into position outside the facility, peering in at the trio through a side window and forming the necessary mind bridge in order to create a four-way conversation pool.

HELLO.

Eyefestation decided to start simple, but their greeting was greatly overshadowed by Pandemonium’s over enthusiastic urge to make the greatest of first-impressions.

S A L U T A T I O N S FELLOW COMRADES!! IT IS GR E A T TO FINALLY—

Eyefestation quickly cut Pandemonium out of the mind bridge, doing the psychic equivalent of kicking the other entity out of the group voice-call.

PLEASE IGNORE THAT ONE. WE ONLY WISH TO TALK.

The two anglers had ceased moving, their maws gaping open in surprise and their screeches diminishing to whispering trills as their eyes flitted between Pandemonium and Eyefestation in bemusement.

Uh… Okay? Sure, we can have a chit-chat.

The Angler’s mentally projected voice was surprisingly… normal… sounding when compared to the entity’s brethren.

Ye-ah, Ah’m down fer sum company! What do y’all wanna talk ‘bout?

Pinkie’s mental voice, however, was jarring to hear- in that it not only had a feminine edge to it, but also a distinctly southern accent for some inexplicable reason.

Eyefestation decided to ignore the strangeness (or lack-there-of) and move onto the main sales-pitch.

WE WOULD LIKE TO PROPOSE AN ALLIANCE BETWEEN THE OTHER ENTITIES OF THIS INFERNAL HUMAN PRISON, IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE A COMMON GOAL.

The two anglers didn’t visibly react besides their eyes glowing slightly brighter with interest.

An just what, pray-tell, common goal is that, huh? Pinkie inquired with a challenging twang to her voice.

Eyefestation allowed their mouth to curve into a wicked grin.

REVENGE.

The two Anglers looked at one another in a surprisingly human gesture.

Ehh… I mean, sure. I guess. The Angler’s jagged teeth clicked together as its phantasmal form wavered with uncertainty. The humans couldn’t really do anything to me, other than keep me in containment for a little bit. Then, after all the humans bugged out, I called a few of my friends and my sister from our home dimension to just hang out and stuff.

Eyefestation was at a loss for words.

Ah think it sounds like a fun idea! Pinkie interjected, snapping her jaws open and shut eagerly. We’ve all been killin’ all these here weak an weaponless lil humans this entire time! Ah wanna take down sum more for-mid-able opponAnts!

THAT IS… GOOD.

Eyefestation was having trouble fully understanding what the Anglers were talking about. The bullshark had no concept of what a ‘dimension’ was or what it meant to ‘hang out’.

Pandemonium, meanwhile was rolling around on the floor while shrieking petulantly like an irate baby. Utterly inconsolable over the fact that it was not included in the mind bridge, and making a lot of noise about its displeasure.

Eyefestation rolled its remaining eyes and finally allowed the flesh amalgam to rejoin the conversation.

W O O O OAHH WHY MU ST Y O U FORSA KE ME, COM RADE??? I ON LY W I SH TO I M PA RT MY UNADULTERATED AD ULATION AT F I N ALLY COMMENCING—

SILENCE!

Eyefestation mentally boomed, and Pandemonium ceased its wretched writhing on the floor to peak up at the watching entities.

O H— H E LLO!

The Angler twins exchanged unreadable looks with one another. Neither sure about what they had gotten themselves into, but it wasn’t as if either of them had anything better to do.

“We’re going to have to swim across,” Sebastian leaned on the railing to peer out over the large chasm of water. The cavern they were in was only partially drained of water for whatever reason, and the catwalk that would normally allow employees to easily cross from one side of the cavern to the other had fallen apart.

“Painter, that means you’ll have to go into the box. I don’t wanna risk you getting wet.”

Painter made a disappointed sound, angling their monitor up to show Sebastian an excellent depiction of exaggerated puppy-dog eyes. “Promise you’ll wake me up as soon as we’re on dry land?”

Sebastian chuckled at the display as he unfastened the empty crate he’d been carrying for this exact occasion. “Of course, buddy. You know I’d never leave you hanging.”

“Okay…” Painter mumbled, begrudgingly allowing itself to be placed within the protective cargo crate. Once the AI was settled, they offered Sebastian a quick wave of one of their limbs. “See you on the other side!”

With that, Sebastian unplugged the cable from the SCRAMBLER and the computer’s monitor went dark as its source of power was cut off. He shut the lid of the crate, making sure it was fully sealed before strapping the crate securely to his person.

“Alright, we ready?” The immortal Expendable asked, sitting precariously on the railing with their legs dangling over the side.

Sachiel was already standing near the edge of the platform along side their offspring, their tail wagging eagerly at the prospect of getting into the water.

“Almost,” Sebastian moved towards the railing— before he reached out a hand and unceremoniously shoved the Expendable over the side.

The Expendable let out a startled shriek before they hit the water with a resounding splash.

Sebastian watched as the water rippled, before the Expendable popped up with a spluttered gasp and an angrily raised fist.

“You asshole!”

Sebastian merely cackled with laughter as he pulled himself over the railing to join the human.

The Expendable let out another panicked cry as they desperately tried to swim out of the way, just barely avoiding getting crushed as the large mutant sea snake crashed into the water.

A second later, Sachiel and their offspring followed suite, flinging themselves off the side like lemmings as they plopped into the water below.

Sebastian was quick to get his bearings, his gills along his neck reflexively flaring to filter oxygen from the water. His school of fish swam around him, keeping close as he oriented himself.

He caught sight of the immortal Expendable treading water nearby, and he was reminded by the fact that the human no longer had their oxygen tanks— the gear having been destroyed after their PDG detonated a while back.

Sebastian sighed out a stream of bubbles as he swam over to the Expendable and grabbed onto one of their legs. He heard the muffled shout as the Expendable flailed in panic, but their fear subsided upon catching sight of the familiar light emanating from Sebastian’s esca.

Sebastian did his best to ignore the Expendable’s “WEEEEEEEEEE!” as they were dragged through the water— Sebastian being courteous enough to stay near the surface so that the human could keep their head above the water. He swore if they said anything afterwards, he would drown them.

The opposite side of the cavern wasn’t far, and Sebastian made it to the other side in mere moments. However, he was stalled by the conundrum of finding a way up onto the platform above.

Still holding onto the Expendable’s leg, he swam closer to the cavern wall, searching for any sign of a ladder or something.

So intent he was on ignoring the Expendable, he didn’t notice anything was amiss until the human straight up kicked him in the shoulder with their free boot.

Sebastian let go with a snarl and burst out from the water. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“BAD THING! ABOVE US!” The Expendable shouted, pointing up at the cavern wall.

Sebastian barely had time to look up before something crashed down on top of him.

He cried out as he felt a stabs of pain lance into his chest and shoulders as he was forced underwater, the flurry of bubbles and cloud of blood obscured his vision as he struggled to dislodge his attacker from him. He felt claws digging into his shoulders and the snap of needle-like teeth just inches from his face as he pushed against the unknown creature, before managing to twist about and slam his attacker against the side of the cavern wall.

The creature, momentarily dazed, loosened its grip on Sebastian and he took the opportunity to tear himself free and get a good look at what exactly he was fighting.

The creature was humanoid, but its body was partially obscured by a writhing mass of tentacles. Its form was dark and blended into the surrounding water; Sebastian was only able to make out its outline due to his own source of illumination reflecting off of its body. He caught sight of two arms and two legs, and two long appendages sprouting from its head area like a pair of antenna or ears.

Sebastian didn’t have time to scrutinize any more details about the entity before it was charging at him again.

With a powerful sweep of his tail he tried to smash the creature aside, but it nimbly darted out of the way and made an attempt to grapple onto him.

He swiftly changed tactics, evading his opponent’s strikes and propelling himself away from it.

The creature was fast, frightfully fast and Sebastian had to make tight turns through the water in order to avoid its slashing claws.

During one of his evasive maneuvers he misjudged the distance between himself and the entity and felt a stab of pain as the creature bit a chunk out of the fluke of his tail.

This was bad, Sebastian had to end this fight quickly. But if he tried to close in with the other entity he was sure to get a face full of claws and teeth. If only he were fighting it on land, then he could bring his gun to bear on the thing.

What was worse was that his vision was distorting slightly around the edges and he was feeling an increasing sense of nausea. Sebastian had experienced extreme blood loss before, but he didn’t think the creature had inflicting that much damage to him in its initial attack, and he couldn’t take his waning focus off of the entity long enough to check his injuries in order to confirm that.

Another close brush with the creature left lines of pain across his tail as it gouged bloody slashes into his scales, and Sebastian was beginning to feel the first waves of panic set in.

Suddenly, he seized in the water as he was hit by what he could only describe as an electric shock, and for a brief moment he was helpless— his gills struggled to keep him breathing as agony shot through his body.

Whatever had happened seemed to have affected his attacker, he could just barely make out its form twitching in the water as arcs of electricity shot through it.

One of the fishlets darted away from the entity’s twitching form, its body flickering with sparks as it swam away.

Sebastian realized that one of his fish, apparently, had the ability to electrocute things and must have shocked the attacking monster directly. He had merely suffered the aftershock as the electricity dispersed through the water, and was able to recover before the enemy could.

He tried to swim away, but he was disoriented and his mind felt as though it were stuffed with cotton balls. For several heartbreaking seconds he merely swam aimlessly about in the water, unable to formulate a coherent thought for more than a fleeting moment.

He caught sight of a flash of gold, and relief flooded him when Sachiel swam into his rapidly dwindling cone of vision. Stupidly, he tried to reach out for the fish, but Sachiel easily evaded his attempt to grab it and swam a short distance away.

Sebastian followed, his mind unable to think beyond basic instinct as his gills struggled to pull in oxygen. He didn’t understand why it was so hard to breathe— had the enemy somehow clawed out his gills? He had an extra pair along his torso, but those were less effective due to his clothes being in the way…

He was suddenly snapped back into focus when his flickering light illuminated what appeared to be a ramp of sorts that was partially submerged in the water. He had no idea how he had overlooked it, but he was in too much pain to care as he dragged himself up the ramp, gasping as he breached the water. He didn’t make it far before his arms buckled and he slumped onto the ramp with a watery wheeze.

He wasn’t given time to rest, however, as he felt someone tugging harshly on his arm— sending fresh stabs of pain through his wounded body.

“No time for naps! Gotta blast!” The Expendable said in a rush, trying desperately to get Sebastian to move as they cast worried looks at the dark water beyond.

”Hhrrgg…” Sebastian slurred as he tried to pull himself together, but he felt as if parts of himself had gone completely numb and he merely flopped onto his side, coughing up blood and water.

“Sebastian, please!” The Expendable cried, moving to his side and attempting to push the mutant sea snake further up the ramp. “Don’t die on us, man!”

Sebastian’s vision was fading in and out, his consciousness barely hanging on by a thread as he struggled to simply breathe. Whatever was wrong with him exceeded the symptoms of simple blood loss, his wounds pulsed with fiery pain— the sensation distantly reminding him of an old memory of when he was a kid and had to be taken to the emergency room after being bitten by a particularly venomous spider.

Venomous.

Oh, goddamn it.

Sebastian’s mind began to wander as his vision blurred, and he was no longer fully aware of his surroundings.

Whatever venom or poison the creature inflicted upon him was causing him to hallucinate. Strange colors were swirling in his vision, he couldn’t tell what was real or not. He saw faces, many of which were achingly familiar. He saw Mr. Lopee watching him with his disturbing emerald eyes. He thought he saw his mother at one point, and he felt himself try to cry out in anguish as she faded away. He heard voices, multiple voices, strangely familiar voices. He thought he was moving, or being moved, or maybe that was the poison fucking with his spatial awareness.

Then he began to spiral, down and down and down into a dark abyss of burning agony.

Was this what Hell felt like?

Had he died and been condemned to an eternity of darkness and pain?

The darkness warped with green light and suddenly Mr. Lopee was there, standing a few feet away and flipping a golden coin. The coin glimmered with a strange light as the man caught it between his index and middle finger, flashing a symbol of a golden human skull.

“Try not to, waste it, Mr. Solace.” The man smiled, his perfect white teeth strangely visible despite his shadowed features.

Sebastian came back to consciousness slowly, his mind sluggish and body heavy with bone deep aches that made him unwilling to move.

It took him several seconds before he gathered enough strength to crack one eye open, surveying his surroundings as best he could in his weakened state.

He was laying atop several folded tarps laid out on the floor, inside a side room from the looks of things. He saw tables strewn about, and a window which viewed the hallway beyond.

As he took stock of himself, he noticed that he had been stripped of nearly all of his gear, and his wounds had been patched up. At least he wasn’t naked, but who ever had tended to his wounds likely removed his clothing in order to do so before placing them back on him.

He shifted his tail and became aware of the fact that Sachiel and her brood had all huddled up in the crook of his coils. They didn’t react at his movements, so he assumed they were asleep.

He realized with a start that he wasn’t wearing his SCRAMBLER, nor did he posses the crate which held the Painter’s inert form.

Casting about the room, it didn’t take long for him to notice both were situated atop one of the tables beside him. Someone must have hooked Painter back up, because the computer was resting atop the table with its legs tucked at its sides. The AI’s face wasn’t present on their canvas, instead it seemed like Painter was repeatedly drawing circles over and over again in various colors. First a black circle, then a red circle, then blue…

Sebastian didn’t know how long he remained lying there, staring mesmerized by the repetitious action. Then his gaze wandered and refocused on something odd about the screen.

He realized with dismay that the AI’s monitor now sported a small crack that spiderwebbed across the side of the screen, slightly distorting the Painter’s visage.

“P…Painter…” Sebastian croaked, his throat feeling painfully dry as he struggled to speak.

Painter’s monitor flickered and the computer abruptly pivoted to fully face Sebastian. The AI’s doodled expression appearing with a bright smile.

“Sebastian! Oh my gosh, you’re awake! You’re awake! I thought—“ The Painter’s expression then flickered between sadness and anger. “D-don’t ever do that again, you stupid, stupid idiot! When the Expendables brought me back online, you were unconscious and you wouldn’t wake up! And I was all alone with the humans and scared and I thought you were gonna die! You PROMISED you’d wake me up as soon as you made it across the water, but then you got yourself hurt! How stupid are you?! Sebastian you are the biggest moron I have ever met—“

The Painter’s ranting quickly devolved into static as the computer’s fans revved at full power and its monitor glitched erratically. It sounded as though the computer was sobbing.

Sebastian, alarmed and feeling extremely guilty, struggled to prop himself up into a sitting position. “Paints…. ‘m sorry.” He reached out a shaking claw, barely managing to catch the edge of the table.

Painter’s own mechanical claw reached out to clutch onto Sebastian’s hand, the metal digging almost painfully into the mutant sea snake’s scales.

Sebastian didn’t say anything else, already feeling exhausted from the small amount of movement. He just focused on breathing and the sound of Painter’s fans whirring.

He didn’t know how long they remained like that before somebody walked into the room.

“Oh shit, are you..?”

Sebastian’s ears flicked and his eyes cracked open, not realizing when he’d closed them as he turned his head to look at the human.

This was not the immortal Expendable. This human’s PDG was fully intact. "Holy shit, you're awake!"

Before Sebastian could gather enough strength to demand who the fuck they were, the Expendable turned on their heel and dashed out the door.

“Painter…” Sebastian said slowly, looking back to his best friend. “What the hell happened…?”

Painter’s monitor resolved itself to display a weary frown. “It’s a long story…”

[ 32 hours ago... ]

“Sebastian, please!” The Expendable cried, moving to his side and attempting to push the mutant sea snake further up the ramp. “Don’t die on us, man!”

But the mutant fishman was unresponsive, blood and dark purple ichor seeping from the various scratches across his chest and tail.

Sachiel was frantically tugging and biting at Sebastian’s ears and lure in an attempt to get him to wake up, but their efforts were futile. The water continued to lap at the partially submerged ramp and the waves were threatening to pull Sebastian’s body back in.

They needed to get away from the water before the other entity recovered and came after them.

“Goddamn it!” The immortal Expendable shouted in frustration, trying their best to move the massive hybrid by bracing their boots against the slippery ramp and shoving their back against Sebastian’s coils, but they weren’t making any progress. “SEBBY, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO FUCKING FAT!”

“What’s going on over here?!” A stranger’s voice called from the landing above.

The immortal Expendable’s head shot up and they saw— not one— but five other Expendables gathering by the railing. Several pointed down at Sebastian and the fishes, shouting emphatically or waving their arms.

“Please help!” The immortal Expendable yelled as they scrambled back up to stand beside Sebastian’s upper body and waved frantically. They didn’t know whether these other humans were friendly, but they didn’t have much of a choice. “He’s hurt real bad!”

“Don’t worry!” One of the Expendables waved reassuringly as others started running towards the ramp. “Just hold on!”

Much to the astonishment and gratitude of the immortal Expendable, the five humans did not hesitate nor make any demands as they all ran down the ramp to offer aid.

“Everybody, grab a hold of something and get ready to pull!” One Expendable shouted, moving to stand beside the immortal Expendable and grabbing Sebastian’s opposite arm.

“I can’t believe this‘ll be the second time now that we’ve had to save this fish-fuck’s ass…” Another Expendable muttered, moving to grab onto one of the many belt straps along Sebastian’s tail. “You sure all six of us’ll be able to move him, chief?”

“No idea, but we gotta try, don’t we?” The other Expendable responded, (which until further notice will be designated as Chief). He looked over at the immortal Expendable. “What the hell happened, anyway? I didn’t think anything down here could hurt Sebastian.”

“Something attacked us out in the water,” the immortal Expendable shook their head as they grabbed onto Sebastian’s other arm and got ready to help pull. “It’s been following us for the past several hours and only just now decided to attack. One of Sebby’s fish electrocuted it, but I don’t know if that killed it!”

“Damn! You saying one of those tiny fishes fried a monster?” Another Expendable piped up disbelievingly, pointing at the school of fish who had moved off the ramp to give the humans room. They were now hovering just below the water’s surface, their bioluminescence making them easy to spot in the water.

“Not now!” Chief retorted. “On three, we pull! One, two…. three!”

It was slow progress, but together the six humans managed to drag Sebastian onto the landing and lay him down on stable ground.

Exhausted and heaving, the Expendables all took a moment to catch their breaths, all except the immortal Expendable— who was still anxiously looking out at the water for any sign of the unknown creature.

“We need to get him someplace safe!” The immortal Expendable insisted. “That other entity might come back and finish the job.”

Chief nodded, righting themselves back up and grabbing onto Sebastian once more. The other Expendables wordlessly followed suite.

Sachiel and the other fishlets lingered by the ramp, as though the fish were guarding the rear of the group as the humans worked to bring Sebastian to safety.

The group managed to drag Sebastian into the next room, moving aside furniture in order to clear the way.

“We need to stop the bleeding.” One of the Expendables said. “He’ll die before we can get far enough to find someplace to hide him.”

“Well we can’t stay here,” another pointed out. “Unless we can find a way to get the door to shut.”

The immortal Expendable dropped the arm they were holding, and scrambled to unstrap the crate along Sebastian’s side. “We do! We do! Help get the SCRAMBLER off of him.”

The humans didn’t question it, surprisingly, and did as the immortal Expendable said.

“So, did Sebastian create some gadget that can hack the door locks or something?” One Expendable asked as they pulled the SCRAMBLER onto a table.

“Even better!” The immortal Expendable said as they flipped the lid of the crate open and revealed its contents.

The five other Expendables gasped and uttered stunned expletives.

“Oh my god.”

“Is that the Painter??”

“Holy shit, and here I thought the lil shit was dead!”

“…Why does he have spider legs?”

“Enough chit-chat!” The immortal Expendable snapped as they went about hooking the AI back up to the SCRAMBLER’s power source, unrolling the length of cables from the side compartment and plugging the ends into the back of the computer. They prayed the computer still worked after it had been jostled around during the fight; the monitor had been lightly damaged.

The monitor flickered on after a moment and Painter’s doodled face appeared. “Hey, are we already— WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?!”

“Shit happened.” The immortal Expendable said simply, rushing through the explanation as quick as possible. “That thing that was following us decided to attack us out in the water, we managed to get away, but Sebby’s hurt and we can’t move him any further. Can you hack into the system and lock the doors leading to this room?”

The AI’s monitor flickered as it rapidly flitted through the security system within the SCRAMBLER’s range of influence. Painter didn’t waste any time asking why there were more humans around, they simply did as they were told and locked the door once the fishlets retreated into the room with the rest of them.

Just before the door closed, the immortal Expendable caught sight of something glowing a familiar indigo light scaling up the cavern wall beyond.

“Done.” Painter announced as the door sealed, before angling its monitor towards Sebastian’s bleeding form. “Is he… is he going to be alright?”

“Of course he is!” The immortal Expendable responded cheerily.

“I don’t know,” one Expendable shook their head, having retrieved a med kit and kneeling down to inspect Sebastian’s wounds. “These wounds aren’t very deep but there’s some unknown substance that seems to be preventing his blood from clotting properly.”

The immortal Expendable looked sharply at the other, despite their angry expression being hidden due to the face mask. (Though, not having the mask on wouldn’t have helped either, in their case).

Painter’s face turned downcast, and the computer’s internal fans began to run audibly with the AI’s increasing anxiety. “Wh-what do we do? Can’t we do anything to help him? Sebastian’s tough, he wouldn’t just let himself die from a few scratches!”

“I’ll do my best,” the Expendable with the medkit said with a sigh, reaching over to brush a Sebastian’s hair out of his face in order to lay the back of their hand against his forehead. “No promises though.”

“Man, you are just the worst when it comes to keeping a positive attitude.” Another Expendable remarked with a shake of their head.

“I’m not a miracle worker!” Medkit-Expendable snapped. “I only made it through my first year of nursing school before I dropped out, and they sure as hell didn’t cover freaky fish man biology in the course!”

“Just do your best,” Chief-Expendable said, giving the impromptu medic a pat on the back. “The rest of us will go look for supplies. Maybe find something to move our friend onto to make him more comfortable.”

[ 22 hours ago… ]

“So, how did you end up getting the infamous Sebastian Solace as a traveling companion?” Chief casually asked the immortal Expendable.

The two humans were taking their turns to watch over the recuperating fishman, while the other four humans scouted ahead for supplies.

They had managed to find some tarps to fold up and make into a makeshift bed for Sebastian to rest on, and had moved him into a side room that was relatively safe from any passing entities. Though, oddly enough they hadn’t encountered any in quite a while.

“Um, well…” The immortal Expendable crossed their arms as they sat back against a file cabinet, trying to figure out what to say to the other without revealing their true nature. “We uh, convinced him toooo….. help us get a thing from a place?”

If Chief-Expendable noticed the other’s strange use of plurals, he didn’t comment on it. “Really? Huh, I would’ve loved to have seen how that conversation went down. I didn’t think our mutual shopkeeper would’ve been interested in lending a hand to us lowly criminals.”

“Oh yeah, no. He totally shot me in the face the first time.” The immortal Expendable stated matter-o-factly.

Chief must have taken that as a joke, because he merely laughed in response instead of asking how the fuck that was possible.

Painter, meanwhile, remained silent on its table by Sebastian. The AI had been surprisingly short and unfriendly to the new group of humans, only occasionally snapping insults or pretending to be in sleep mode whenever one of the Expendables tried to start up a conversation with the AI.

The fish had all clustered around Sebastian’s tail, with Chomper acting like the group’s guard dog— clacking its teeth together menacingly whenever a human got too close. It seemed as though that, without Sebastian awake to act as the band’s de-facto leader, the fish had all gone into hyper defensive mode.

More than once, Painter had to step in and encourage the fish move away from Sebastian long enough to allow one of the Expendables to apply medical attention. They would sometimes have to resort to bribing the fishes with the group’s dwindling supply of ration bars as a distraction, if they wouldn’t listen to Painter.

The immortal Expendable did their best to evade any personal or probing questions from the other humans, not bothering to remember names or any friendly conversations in an effort to avoid triggering any of their weirder quirks. Even though doing so wouldn’t technically compromise their mission, having the other convicts become aware of their anomalous nature could certainly become compromising if the group didn’t react well to it.

Before Chief could try to ask the immortal Expendable anything else, the scouting party returned.

“We have a problem,” one of the humans said. “I think Urbanshade has caught onto the fact that we’re helping Sebastian.”

“How’s that?” Chief asked.

“Well, we tried to go farther out, closer to where HQ said the Crystal was located just to see if we could get eyes on the thing, but our gear started to beep and the PA system said something along the lines of ‘traitors will be executed for conspiring with blah blah blah’ and what not.”

“Oh shit,” the immortal Expendable murmured, glancing in the direction of Sebastian. But in actuality, they were looking at Painter, whose monitor briefly flashed a sketchy smirk at them before returning to a blank canvas.

None of the other humans noticed, and while the immortal Expendable was clinically insane, they had enough awareness to not bring attention to the AI.

“Well, that’s… not good.” Chief responded stupidly, looking around at the others before gesturing towards the SCRAMBLER that was sitting on the table. “Maybe we can borrow—“

“Absolutely not,” Painter stated flatly, their face glaring as the claws on the ends of their 8 mechanical limbs flexed. “You try taking this device, and you’re gonna find out just exactly what I can do with these new legs of mine!”

“Woah, okay,” another Expendable raised their hands in a placating gesture. “Settle down there, lil’ Skippy. We’re not gonna be taking anything from you or Sebastian, alright?”

“You morons better not…” Painter muttered darkly as they resettled on the table, one limb resting on the SCRAMBLER for emphasis.

[ 18.5 hours ago… ]

“He’s running a high fever,” Medkit Expendable stated, using a strip of gauze to dab at the gathered sweat that had accumulated along Sebastian’s face.

Sebastian’s wounds had festered into an angry blue and purple tinge, the flesh swelling and oozing a clear fluid, despite said wounds being thoroughly disinfected before hand. The scales surrounding the infected areas had become discolored and dark veins were visible underneath where the scales were thinnest.

Occasionally, Sebastian would utter a strained sound of pain or mutter incoherently at random intervals, but he otherwise remained unconscious. His entire body was shivering as though he were caught in the midst of a blizzard, despite the heat radiating off of him.

Painter shuffled their limbs anxiously, feeling utterly useless and hating that it could do nothing to help.

[ 12 hours ago… ]

“How long are we going to stay here?” An Expendable demanded in a hushed tone out in the hallway where the rest of their party was gathered— minus the weirdo with the busted PDG.

“Until Sebastian wakes up or kicks the bucket,” Chief replied firmly. “We can’t go any further without getting our heads blown off anyways, so I don’t see the problem in waiting to see if our friend pulls through or not.”

The Expendable who had posed the question scoffed. “Come on, man. You can’t seriously think Sebastian is gonna suddenly have a change of heart and act all charitable towards us just because we helped him out twice now, do you?”

Chief shrugged. “That other convict managed to convince him to help them.”

The others murmured half-hearted assents at this. Nobody was really sure what to make of the odd Expendable that they had found with Sebastian.

“Wonder how the bitch managed that,” another Expendable wondered aloud as they crossed their arms. “Do you think they, like, fucked or something?”

“Ew, dude, seriously?” Chief let out an exasperated sound. “What the hell is with you and sex with non-humans!”

The perp raised their hands defensively. “Hey, I’m just throwing it out there that it seems really weird for Sebastian Solace of all people to just drop whatever they’re doing in order to help some rando down here!”

“There could be a million other reasons for why, though!” Another Expendable butted in with a harsh punch to the other’s shoulder. “People can have other motivations besides sex, you dimwitted pervert!”

“Ow! Stop hitting me!”

“Stop being gross!”

“Guys, we’re getting off topic.” Medkit Expendable drawled. “What are we going to do if the Saboteur croaks?”

Chief shifted uneasily, staring at the floor. “I figure if that happens… we’ll try asking the Painter if we can have the SCRAMBLER, and then go get the Crystal as originally planned; I’m sure we can negotiate with Urbanshade once we have what they want.”

“What if he doesn’t want to give up the SCRAMBLER?”

“Then… we’ll do what we need to do, alright? But let’s just wait and see how the dice rolls first.”

The gathered Expendables muttered their agreement at the plan, the conversation ebbing and eventually switching topics as the group moved down the corridor.

Nearby, a door’s number display flickered and the Painter’s face briefly appeared.

[ Now... ]

Sebastian took all this information in, his ears twitching in thought. He still felt like utter shit, but at least his mind had mostly cleared from whatever fever he had broken from.

“What did the Expendables mean when they said they’d saved you before?” Painter inquired curiously.

“Oh…” Sebastian thought back to the only incident where he had to rely on Expendables to help him. “They dug me free from a hole I got stuck in after a flooded part of the facility collapsed...”

“What?!” Painter beeped in alarm, their eyes going round with shock before narrowing accusingly. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about that?”

Sebastian shrugged, wincing as the movement pulled on his injuries. “Didn’t come up…”

His voice was still hoarse and talking too much was painful. Painter seemed to notice and scuttled towards the crate they had originally been kept in, reaching a leg in and retrieving a water bottle.

Sebastian nodded gratefully as he took the offered water bottle and quickly downed its contents. The tightness in his throat instantly lessening as his thirst was quenched.

The two didn’t have time to talk any further as just then the group of humans all rushed in, making all of Sebastian’s muscles tense on instinct.

“He LIVES!” The immortal Expendable fist-pumped the air excitedly.

The other humans began talking animatedly amongst each other, shouting whoops of joy and clapping. Sebastian felt himself cringe at being the center of attention while in such a weakened state.

“Everybody shut up!” One of the Expendables said over the bedlam sternly. “The man just woke up, give him space!”

The room instantly quieted down with a few muttered apologies added in as the humans shuffled awkwardly about, like they were all naughty school children who had just been told off by their teacher.

Sebastian relaxed slightly at first but tensed again when the Expendable who had given the order walked forward and knelt in front of him.

“Hey, Seb. Remember me?” The Expendable asked.

At Sebastian’s blank stare, the Expendable raised their hand to the top of their head and mimed a patting motion.

“Remember? Back when you were stuck in the rubble after that avalanche incident?”

“Ah,” Sebastian’s ears flicked self-consciously and he cleared his throat. “Yes, I believe I remember now….” He offered a somewhat sardonic smile at the group. “I hope that none of you expect me to have retained any of your names, if you’ve given them. I can assure you that I did not care and was likely not listening.”

“Oh, we didn’t.” Chief Expendable reassured.

“Must be confusing though,” another Expendable muttered with crossed arms. “Telling us apart in your head, I mean.”

Sebastian brushed his hair out of his face with a dismissive huff. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve been mentally labeling you with asinine nicknames whenever I am burdened with the effort of having to deal with more than one of you at once. For instance, ‘Dog-fucker’ wouldn’t happen to still be among you, would he?”

All the Expendables turned to look at the only one in their original group of five that would warrant such a title.

“SERIOUSLY?! That’s what you remember about me???”

Everyone in the room burst out laughing at their unfortunate fellow’s expense.

Sebastian wasn’t nearly as amused as he studied his claws indifferently. “Well, when a criminal infamously known for zoophilia accuses me of committing the very same atrocity on a gold fish of all things, you’re bound to leave quite the impression.” He said venomously as he bared his fangs in an unpleasant smile.

One of the Expendables managed to stop laughing long enough in order to proclaim: “Sebastian has spoken! From now on, you will be known as Dog-fucker!”

“I ain’t ever gonna live this down, am I?” Dog-fucker grumbled.

To add insult to injury, Sachiel spat a shot of water at Dog-fucker, causing the human to jump away with a yelp.

This only made the Expendables in the room laugh even harder.

Sebastian could already feel a headache beginning to build.

Maybe he should go back and let that unknown entity just kill him… It might be better than having to deal with a whole group of Expendables.

Chapter Text

Once all the humans winded down from their bout of hysteria, it was decided right then and there that now that Sebastian was officially awake— it was time for a “group meeting”.

All the humans were now sitting in various places about the room, situated in a vague semi-circle in front of the ailing fishman. There weren’t any chairs available, so a few humans were leaning against tables or sitting atop cabinets— except for the immortal Expendable who had decided to sit cross-legged on the floor.

Medkit Expendable had wanted to check on Sebastian’s wounds— Sebastian politely but firmly insisted that he could do that just fine on his own. Thankfully, Medkit Expendable conceded and handed him the remaining medkit before backing off to sit atop one of the tables nearby.

Then the “group meeting” started. Or, what Sebastian personally called the “interrogation session”.

“So, Sebastian,” Chief began casually. “I’ve been meaning to ask, and before you say it— I know it isn’t any of our business what you get up to down here. But the Crystal room is only a couple dozen corridors away, and your, um,” he made a hand gesture at the immortal Expendable sitting quietly on the floor. “Friend told me that they had convinced you to help them get the Crystal for them.”

Sebastian looked sharply at the immortal Expendable, who in turn, looked towards Chief with a shout of protest.

“We didn’t say that!”

Chief let out a slightly unnerving chuckle as he shook his head. “C’mon, now. When you told me that you convinced Sebastian to help you get a ‘thing’ from a ‘place’… There’s really not much down here other than the Crystal that you could’ve possibly been referring to.”

This revelation seemed to be news to the rest of the group, as everyone’s body language shifted from friendly and attentive to uneasy and full of tension.

Sebastian, however, was determined to not let this upstart control the tone of the room.

He straightened up, intentionally shifting his coils in such a way that the scales audibly rasped together in an unnerving fashion that he knew made the hair on the back of humans’ necks stand on end.

Everyone’s gaze snapped towards Sebastian as he casually brushed away some imaginary dirt from his jabot.

“Well, you are correct about one thing, Expendable,” He hissed the last word with emphasis. “It isn’t any of your business. But—“ he raised a claw “— I won’t bother wasting my breath trying to spin an obvious lie. The human you refer to has indeed made me an offer that I simply could not resist. And part of the deal we brokered was that I must assist them in obtaining the Crystal for their benefactor.” He clasped his claws together in front him as he smiled thinly at the gathered humans. “Now, understandably, this would put a damper on your prospects of attaining your own freedom. But from what Painter has told me, Urbanshade has already cut your group loose and considers you culpable in exacerbating the events of the lockdown by helping me not once, but twice.” He tilted his head and frowned in mock-sympathy. “I’m sorry to have to say this, but you all kind of totally fucked yourselves with that one.”

One of the Expendables couldn’t take it any longer and jumped up from where they had been sitting, fists shaking at their sides with rage. “So that’s it then?! After all we did to save your sorry ass, you’re just gonna go on and screw us over like this?!”

“I never asked for your help,” Sebastian replied coolly, glaring down at the impudent human.

“If it weren’t for us, you’d have starved to death in that hole we found you in!” The Expendable shot back, not caring that they were facing down a mutated sea serpent that was quadruple their size as they pointed an accusing finger at him. “If it weren’t for us, that monster out in the caverns would have had your guts for its larder! You owe us big time, fish-face!”

Sebastian let out an angry growl as he reared back, the tips of his ear fins practically brushing the ceiling. “I don’t owe you insolent vermin anything! You should all be thankful that I don’t just slaughter every one of you right here and now just to spare me the headache of continuing this argument!”

Chief finally stepped in, putting a restraining hand on the irate Expendable while holding out his other hand in a warding gesture towards Sebastian. “Hang on, hang on! Let’s all calm down and talk this out, okay? We all want the same thing, I don’t see how we can’t come to some sort of compromise.”

“Yeah… um…” Painter, speaking for the first time, once again found itself acting as a mediator. “Sebastian, I don’t see why these humans can’t come with us...”

While the AI didn’t fully trust any of the humans, it didn’t think killing them was the right answer, especially after they had helped them. Hurting the people who helped you was a bad thing to do… an evil thing to do. It was something that Urbanshade did— and Urbanshade was evil.

Sebastian sighed, reigning in his anger as he lowered himself to a less threatening height, the loop of his tail tightening around the group of fish who were still nestled with him. Chomper had moved to stand atop his tail, bracing all four fins against his scales and looking ready to pounce, while Sachiel had their fore-fins gripping the side of his coils as it eyeballed the gathered humans. The other fishlets looked ready to jump out as well.

Sebastian realized that if he continued to act aggressively, he might inadvertently trigger his little army of fish to attack the Expendables. And while some of them had proven to be quite capable of causing damage, he didn’t want to risk the stupid things getting hurt on his account.

“Who is this benefactor, anyway?” Medkit Expendable suddenly asked, their face mask turned toward the immortal Expendable. “Sebastian wouldn’t help you if you were working for Urbanshade…”

The immortal Expendable shifted uneasily, not looking at the other humans. “All you need to know is that we are on a mission from an interested third party unaffiliated with Urbanshade. DO NOT ASK ANYTHING ELSE!”

Medkit Expendable flinched at the sudden shout, raising their hands in surrender. “O-kaaaay!”

“That totally doesn’t sound sketchy as hell…” Dog-fucker muttered.

The immortal Expendable flipped him the bird without turning around. “Sebastian believes us and you should too!”

Sebastian crossed his arms with perturbed grumble. More like I’m being forced to comply because you’re a persistent son-of-a-bitch who won’t fucking stay dead, he thought darkly to himself. That, and some eldritch entity of sorts is haunting my nightmares.

“As I was saying before,” he continued, deciding it best to alter his strategy for the time being. “Urbanshade considers you all traitors, so the way I see it is that you have two choices.” He held up one finger. “One— you can try to hinder my efforts,” he held up a second finger. “Or two— you can assist me, and you might be able to get out of this situation alive. Word of advice, I’d pick number two. Because option one has exactly a zero percent chance of any of you even remotely succeeding.”

The group of five humans looked at each other, some murmuring in hushed voices as they argued back and forth.

Sebastian didn’t bother trying to eavesdrop with his superior hearing, he could already tell where the tone of the debate was going. The humans would comply with his demands; they didn’t have any other choice that wasn’t suicide.

Finally, the huddled Expendables made their decision and Chief looked up at Sebastian. “Fine, we’ll tag along and help you. But can you at least remove the bombs in our PDGs so that our heads won’t pop-off just for being out of the range of your SCRAMBLER?”

Sebastian stared incredulously at the Expendable. “What makes you think I have the ability to disable your PDG?”

The humans seemed surprised by his response, and Chief pointed at the immortal Expendable. “Well, I… I assumed that you….?”

“HAH!” Sebastian barked a laugh, putting a hand on his hip as he shook his head. “No, friend. Unfortunately the SCRAMBLER is only able to prevent HQ from triggering your PDG remotely, it won’t stop the anti-tampering mechanism installed inside from tripping if you try to mess with it. While my previous titles included ‘The Handy-man’ as one of them, bomb-disassembly is not among my qualifications.”

Chief still seemed doubtful. “Then how did…?”

The immortal Expendable looked over at him. “I swam out too far from the facility and parasites started swarming me, and I thought bright lights usually get rid of them. So, I kept swimming until my PDG exploded.”

Sebastian squinted dubiously at the immortal Expendable. “Why didn’t you just swim back?”

The immortal Expendable only shrugged.

The other humans stared silently at the other for a few seconds.

“All right, then. Keep your secrets.” Chief responded coyly, though his tone implied a subtle hint of: I WILL find out the truth, eventually.

If only he knew…

Sebastian clapped his hands together, causing everyone in the room to jump. “Well then! Now that we have that all sorted out, I recommend we make haste and retrieve the Crystal before any more Expendables have a chance to make it this far.”

“Should you really be moving so soon after you just woke up?” The immortal Expendable asked.

Sebastian glared down at them. “Don’t you start on this shit again—”

“Actually,” the Painter waved a leg. “I kinda have to agree with the human on this one.”

“Yeah,” Medkit Expendable added in their opinion. “You really shouldn’t be overexerting yourself so soon after your fever broke, you might relapse.”

Sebastian watched in disbelief as the other humans nodded in agreement. “You cannot be serious. After all this arguing, you’re going to insist that I remain bedridden?? I feel perfectly fine!”

And he did feel fine, surprisingly. He felt a bit sore in some places, but he didn’t feel any worse than he had before he’d been attacked.

“C’mon, Seb, we worked real hard to keep your ass alive,” another Expendable insisted. “It would be real un-poggers of you if you got yourself sick again.”

“Plus,” Dog-fucker hesitantly spoke up with a raised hand. “I don’t know about y’all, but I haven’t had a chance to sleep a wink for the past thirty hours, and Urbanshade only gave us so many stimulants to stave off fatigue.”

Medkit Expendable’s head jerked sharply in Dog-fucker’s direction. “How many of those stimulants have you taken?”

“… Five…”

“Since we were shipped down here or…?”

“… I took three since we brought Sebby here.”

“Jesus Christ, how have you not keeled over from a heart attack?!”

“The instructions said each shot lasted for ten hours! We’ve been here for roughly thirty so I thought—“

“That doesn’t mean it’s safe to take one after the other like that!”

”Uhhhgh!” Sebastian made an exaggerated sound of disgust as he promptly flopped over onto his side, Sachiel immediately taking the opportunity to clamber onto his chest and brush their barbels against his face. He gently held a hand up to nudge the fish away. “If we’re going to be staying here to rest, then would you all kindly do me the favor of taking your insipid banter elsewhere?”

With the Angler and Pinkie on board with Eyefestation and Pandemonium’s crazy scheme to enact vengeance on Urbanshade, locating and convincing the other angler variants was easier to accomplish.

The Anglers had their own ability to communicate with each other via shrieking, so Eyefestation was thankfully spared the headache of trying to telepathically communicate with the likes of Blitz and Chainsmoker again.

The only angler variant that was unaccounted for was Frogger. The last time Pinkie had saw the other female angler was in the Ridge, and so the mob began to make their way in that direction of the facility.

Eyefestation was unable to get into the Ridge, only able to peak through the few windows which were built sparsely along reinforced portions of the area.

Pandemonium stuck with Eyefestation outside of the facility in the open water, while the Anglers swarmed the inside of the Ridge in search of their missing sister.

Eyefestation did not bother maintaining a constant mind bridge with Pandemonium, finding the bombastic mental projection of the amalgamation’s voice to be overwhelming. Pandemonium didn’t seem to care, as the oblivious flesh horror found other ways to communicate with the mutant bull shark, much to Eyefestation’s irritation.

Pandemonium more than once bumped into the mutant bull shark, causing Eyefestation to reflexively jerk to the side and snap their jaws at the entity in admonishment— thinking that the melting rancid meat horror was simply clumsy in the water. It was only after the fourth and fifth time Pandemonium bumped into Eyefestation that they began to suspect that it was something more than that.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

C O M R A D E, THE  E Y E S  ALONG  Y O U R FORM HA VE NOT GR O W N BACK! A RE YOU WE L L?

Eyefestation stalled slightly in the water, simply hovering in place as they contemplated Pandemonium’s words. Several of their eyes had ruptured from the shockwaves caused by the exploding mines, but Eyefestation had so many eyes grotesquely pockmarking their body that the mutant bull shark hadn’t really noticed the absence of a few.

What was more befuddling to the shark was that Pandemonium noticed. Did the other entity think Eyefestation was weak?

Eyefestation’s multitude of eyes flashed red in anger as its tail lashed, propelling it forwards once more. A few eyes swiveling in their sockets to glare back at Pandemonium.

I AM NOT HINDERED BY THE ABSENCE OF A FEW EYES. I HAVE PLENTY TO SPARE AND MY POWER IS NOT DIMINISHED!

Pandemonium struggled to keep up with the shark without accidentally colliding with it. While they could rapidly propel themselves through the water, their maneuverability when swimming at higher speeds was unfortunately lacking.

I ASSURE Y O U, COM RADE, I D O NOT DOUBT YO UR LETHA LITY! I A M MERELY CUR IOUS AS TO WHY THE EY E S HAVE YE T TO RE GROW! YO U HAVE B E EN EATING PLENTY, Y E S? I WIT NESS ED YOU DEV OUR AN EN TI RE C R ESH OF SEA CR EA T URES NOT LONG AGO! WHY HAVEN’T YO U REGR OW N YOUR EYES?

Eyefestation paused again in the water, understanding finally dawning in the shark’s brain.

I DO NOT POSSES YOUR ABILITY TO REGENERATE LOST BODY PARTS.

Eyefestation kept an eye on Pandemonium, wary of the other entity’s response to this admission of weakness. However, Pandemonium seemed only puzzled as its misshapen head tilted to the side.

W H Y   N O T?

If Eyefestation could blink, it would. Because it was not expecting that response.

I JUST DON’T.

Pandemonium’s mouth slurped closed, flecks of decaying flesh drifting from it. The information evidently disturbing the entity for some reason.

Eyefestation decided to leave the other entity to its internal crisis as they swam upon another reinforced window that gave a view into the tunnels of the Ridge.

They were surprised to see something moving within. Something that wasn’t the Angler or its variants. It was a large creature nearly as large as Eyefestation or Pandemonium, and it had two massive limbs which ended in three taloned claws. The creature was hunched over, facing away from the window, the room it was in was coated with blood and viscera.

Eyefestation hovered by the window, curious. It had never seen this entity before.

Pandemonium pressed its face against the window, drooling as its maw opened once more into a large grin.

O H WHAT G O O D FORTUNE, COMRADE! THE C OLL ECT IV E HAS FINALLY COME OUT OF HIDING!

THE COLLECTIVE? WHAT IS THIS COLLECTIVE?

U N K N O W N. I H A VE ONLY HE ARD RUM O R S OF ITS EXI ST ENCE. BUT TH EY HAVE WHISPERED TO ME ON OCCASION THR OU GH THE WALLS! URBAN SHADE CA L LS TH EM Z-96!

Eyefestation peered closer at the being sitting within the corridor. It could speak?

Suddenly, the hulking mass of flesh rippled and the creature seemed to tremble for a moment. Then the being straightened from its hunched over posture and its head twisted a full 160 degrees, revealing a weathered grey mask that depicted a rictus grin.

To Eyefestation’s consternation, they suddenly heard an echoing voice inside their mind, and they hadn’t even formed a mind bridge!

Hello, hello, hello, greetings, greetings, hi, hi, hi, salutations, salutations, hey, hey, hey, howdy, howdy, good evening….

Eyefestation glanced warily at Pandemonium, who only grinned eagerly and looked back at the Collective.

Eyefestation tentatively reached out with their telepathic senses in order to begin formulating a mind bridge so that the mutant bullshark could respond, only to reel back at the cacophony of screaming they received as soon as they did.

The entity known as Z-96 shuddered and let out a pained growl, sensing Eyefestation’s mental probing and it retreated into the shadows of the room, using its massive claws to drag its mass away. It hid behind some sort of human machine, effectively cutting off Eyefestation’s connection and preventing it from making another attempt at forming a mind bridge with it. Not that Eyefestation was eager to try again, especially after what little it had heard inside the creature’s head.

Do not, Do not, Do, not, Don’t! Don’t! DON’T! Stay away, away, away, from, away from, us, us us, us.

Eyefestation was at a loss on what to do, the situation had evolved to become far more complex than the mutant bull shark was equipped to handle.

Eyefestation turned and started swimming away, only to be stopped by a toothy mouth clamping onto their tail fin and bringing them to a jarring halt.

The shark whirled around and snapped its jaws angrily, causing Pandemonium to quickly withdraw a short distance to avoid getting a chunk bitten out.

C O M RADE, S H OULD WE NOT RECR UI T THE COLLECTIVE TO O UR C AUSE?

I CANNOT SPEAK WITH IT.

.....W H Y NOT?

Eyefestation’s eyes flashed, and Pandemonium withered under the shark’s stare, literally, as waves of low level radiation pulsed down at it.

BECAUSE, WHEN I CONNECTED WITH ITS MIND, ALL I HEARD WERE SCREAMS. I CANNOT SPEAK WITH IT WHEN IT IS CONSTANTLY SCREAMING.

This only seemed to confuse Pandemonium further, its eyes going dark as it weathered through Eyefestation’s caustic stare.

C OMR ADE, IF W E ARE TO HAVE ANY H OP E OF SUCCEE D ING IN OUR CON Q UEST TO DE FE AT URBAN SHADE, WE M U ST GATHER ALL OF THE ENTIT IES ABLE TO ASSIST US SO TH AT W E MAY DO BA TTLE W ITH A UNITED F ORCE! THE HUM ANS OUT NUMBER US! WE CAN NOT WASTE THIS OPPER TUNI TY!

Eyefestation’s teeth ground together in frustration, their eyes casting about in various directions as it debated with itself. It could not dispute Pandemonium’s logic, but Eyefestation didn’t see how they could obtain the help of the Collective without suffering psychic damage just trying to communicate with it.

W E SHOULD GO AND RECONVENE WI TH THE OTHERS!

Pandemonium cut into Eyefestation’s thoughts.

WHY….?

THE Y MA Y HAVE INSIGHT ON W AYS TO CONVINCE THE COLL E CTIVE TO JOIN US!

Eyefestation was doubtful about that, but if it meant that they could move on, then it was willing to indulge in Pandemonium’s strange ideas.

The Expendables thankfully respected Sebastian’s wishes and vacated the room, moving a few doors down to do whatever the fuck— he didn’t care.

Meanwhile, Painter kept trying to coax Sebastian into going to sleep.

“I’ll keep watch, I promise!” The AI said, not understanding why Sebastian was being so stubborn.

“Haven’t I technically been asleep for the past thirty hours or so?” Sebastian replied as he went about removing his jacket in order to get a look at his injuries. “I told you, Painter. I’m fine.”

“Yeah, but—HEY!” Painter sputtered in indignation as Sebastian threw his coat over the computer, followed by his shirt.

Sebastian didn’t pay the cursing AI any mind as he inspected the dressings on his injuries. It seemed as though the Expendables had done their best to ensure that his entire torso was mummified in gauze.

“For fuck’s sake, did the humans go through three medkits worth of bandages?” Sebastian grumbled irritably, shaking his head at the waste of product. Dried blood stains were visible through the layers of gauze and he was surprised by the sheer amount he had bled.

Maybe the Expendables had reason to believe that he had needed three medkits worth of gauze in order to stop the bleeding…

“The nurse said that your blood wasn’t clotting properly,” Painter informed, having used their limbs to fling Sebastian’s clothes off of itself.

Sebastian’s ear flicked as he started carefully peeling away the layers of bandages. “There’s a nurse with the Expendables?”

“Well, they didn’t complete nursing school. They dropped out after the first year, apparently.” Painter said, their mechanical claws idly picking at a loose thread on the discarded shirt. “I wonder why? Do you think they did something terrible? Like, maybe they smothered an old man with a pillow because they couldn’t stand his snoring, and that’s why they dropped out and ended up here?”

“Maybe,” Sebastian responded absentmindedly, not really paying attention as he finally peeled away the last strips of gauze from his torso.

There were no wounds underneath.

Other than the old surgical scars that Sebastian bore, there was no sign of the injuries he had suffered when he had been attacked. Not even a scratch remained. The only evidence that he had ever been injured in the first place was the dried blood still sticking to his scales.

“What the fuck.”

“What?” Painter tilted their monitor in an effort to better see what Sebastian was looking at. “Woah, those are some nasty looking scars on your chest! Was that from the experiments that you— oh wait, sorry. I probably shouldn’t talk about that. You okay, Sebastian?”

Sebastian was just staring at his lack of injuries. Unbidden, the memory of Mr. Lopee and a mysterious golden coin with a symbol of a skull came to mind.

“Try not to, waste it, Mr. Solace.”

He slowly rested his head in his hands, hunching over slightly as his mind reeled with the implications. Did he actually…die?

The immortal Expendable had mentioned that Mr. Lopee was keeping them alive for a purpose. Had Mr. Lopee decided to extend that same protection onto Sebastian? If so, then what did that mean for Sebastian? Was he now cosmically chained to follow Mr. Lopee’s whim? Would Sebastian be indebted to the strange anomalous being now?

“Sebastian?” Painter reached out a tentative leg towards him.

Sebastian flinched before Painter could touch him, causing the AI to quickly retract their limb.

Wordlessly, Sebastian fumbled for his clothes and quickly replaced them on his person. He didn’t want any of the humans to see his miraculous lack of injuries, lest they try to pester him with questions that he couldn’t reasonably answer.

He removed the bandages along his tail, the scratches there having been less prominent from what he could tell by the amount of blood and the lack of mummification by the Expendables’ efforts. So, he figured he could get away with claiming that those had already healed due to his superior anatomy and being an overall badass.

The humans would believe him, right? Right.

Finally, he turned to Painter, an apology on his lips but he faltered at the AI’s utter lack of expression. The canvas devoid of any face.

“Paints? You alright, buddy?”

“No.” The Painter’s monitor flickered, the effect distorting slightly more due to the small crack warping the screen. Painter finally allowed an expression of consternation to appear after a few seconds. “Something’s bothering you, like really bothering you.”

Sebastian frowned and looked away. “It’s nothing you have to worry about—“

“And yet here I am! Still worrying regardless!” The AI snapped. “So are you gonna tell me what’s bothering you, or are you going to hide it like an idiot until it comes back to bite you in the ass?”

Sebastian narrowed his eyes, feeling frustrated with the AI. “And what exactly would telling you about it accomplish? It isn’t like you can fix it either way.”

The AI’s doodled expression rolled its eyes. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’ll relieve you of some of the burden of having to deal with all the shit on your own? Look, I might be an Artificial Intelligence and maybe I don’t have the best grasp on what biologicals have to deal with, but even I know that pretending everything is okay when it really isn’t okay is a stupid thing to do!”

Sebastian grimaced, annoyed by the fact that Painter was giving him a pep-talk yet again, and for a few moments he stubbornly crossed his arms and refused to say anything.

Painter waited with an equally stubborn countenance, going so far as to mimic the fishman’s posture by crossing two of their own limbs in front of them.

“The girls are fiiiiiightiiiiing…” a third voice said, and both of them broke away from their staring contest to look towards the doorway.

The immortal Expendable strode in coolly— before tripping over one of the fishlets (it was Beezlebub, so no damage was done) and pitching forward to roll across the floor, coming to a stop just before Sebastian and the Painter.

The human didn’t bother to get up, steepling their fingers over their stomach as they casually tilted their head up to look at the duo.

“Hey.”

Sebastian sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be mingling with the rest of the humans?”

The Expendable shrugged their shoulders. “Unsurprisingly, they don’t like us. Kind of a weird herd mentality, honestly. Despite the fact that historically humans are considered predators, so like— You would think that herding-behavior would be less prevalent in our culture, but surprisingly humans have a highly stigmatized sense of Othering those who do not fit into the herd. Very aggressively, mind you. It’s kind of wild. Because like, you’d think that herbivores would have a higher bias against those who don’t fit in, but then you see shit like elk herds adopting a donkey as one of them or sheep and goats gladly vibing with guard dogs—“

“Shut—“ Sebastian slapped the palm of his third arm down on the Expendable’s chest “—Up!”

The human tried to grasp at the hand, only to be soundly disappointed when Sebastian swatted their questing graspers away. ”Waaa, we’re never gonna get a chance to squish them toe-beans…”

“I do not have toe-beans!” Sebastian hissed with disgust, looking down at his upturned hand, just in case. Yep, no beans. How sad.

“So, the other humans kicked you out?” Painter inquired with a frown.

The immortal Expendable waved a gloved hand dismissively. “Nah, they just subtly hinted that they didn’t want me ‘round, is all. So I took the hint and vacated the space. Trust us, the awkwardness in that room was intense.”

Beelzebub, annoyed at having been tripped over, decided to hop onto the Expendable’s chest and sit there. The human wheezed at the weight of the now sizable frog-fish hybrid compressing their lungs.

Sebastian ignored the Expendable’s plight, turning back to Painter. “Look, I’m not trying to hide stuff because I don’t trust you, alright?”

Painter startled slightly, surprised by the abrupt return to the two’s previous conversation. The AI had honestly thought that the conniving fishman would have jumped at the opportunity provided by the appearance of the immortal Expendable to deflect the conversation elsewhere.

“I just…” Sebastian sighed, rubbing at his temples as he tried to get this thoughts in order. “Look, Paints. I don’t know what is going on. There are forces at work here that I have no frame of reference for and not the faintest clue as to what they want or what they will do to us, and frankly… I’m fucking terrified.”

“Oh…” the Painter’s eyes went round. The AI knew how much it must have taken Sebastian Solace to admit that aloud, which was terrifying in it of itself. “Is this… about that Mr. Lopee guy?”

Sebastian nodded with a grimace. “Whoever, or whatever, that asshole is, I get the feeling that he’s not someone who can be defied easily.”

“You got that right,” the immortal Expendable piped in, while trying to move the heavy fishlet off of their chest— only to be thwarted when Iggy, the octopus fish hybrid, decided to clamber over and thwap a tentacle onto their face mask.

“So… then what do we do about it?” Painter asked hesitantly.

Sebastian merely shook his head, looking away. “I genuinely don’t know, buddy. I don’t know… We’re just going to have to survive whatever comes next. Sometimes that’s all you can really do.”

Sebastian hated feeling so uncertain about what the future held. He hated feeling so helpless. Unable to control his fate and at the mercy of higher powers which could care less about insignificant sods like him.

But he couldn’t do anything about it, and he wasn’t even given the shitty option to just sit down and do nothing because not only did others depend on him now— but he was being pushed down a path by an anomalous green asshole with a hat and cane.

How much more hopeless could the situation get—

SPLAT!

“GAH! FUCKING DAMN IT!” Sebastian yelped as he got a face full of water. He promptly snatched up Sachiel and held the water-spitting fish up to his now dripping face. “LET ME WALLOW IN MY ANGST, YOU STUPID FISH!”

Sachiel merely waggled its fins at him, its mouth opening and closing idly as its stupid googly-eyes stared vacantly at Sebastian with spite.

Sebastian ground his teeth angrily, before sagging and simply curling up on his side— Sachiel held firmly against his chest.

“Slumber partyyyy…” came the immortal Expendable’s muffled voice, their body now covered by the rest of the fishlets.

Evidently the fish wanted to see if it were possible to bury the human alive with their bodies.

Chapter Text

So, here Sebastian Solace was, slithering his way down one of the many derelict corridors among Hadal Blacksite with ten mutant gold fish, a multi-legged 80s computer hosting a sentient AI, an immortal human and five normal humans.

Safe to say, they made quite the motley crew.

Sebastian wouldn’t have minded so much about their increase in numbers if it weren’t for the fact that EVERYONE WAS BEING NEEDLESSLY CLINGY.

Painter, understandably, couldn’t go very far from Sebastian due to the fact that the AI was essentially on a leash. The fishlets, despite their increase in independence, still occasionally liked to hitch a ride whenever Sebastian wasn’t paying attention.

THE HUMANS DID NOT HAVE ANY EXCUSE TO BE LINGERING SO CLOSE TO HIM!

He felt like he was playing chaperone for a bunch of children. Granted, it wasn’t as if there was much room in the narrow corridors, but every time the facility creaked or the pipes within the walls made an ominous sound— all the Expendables would go scurrying to stand by Sebastian as if being closer to him somehow provided a higher percentage of life insurance.

“Why are all of you so jumpy?” Sebastian finally demanded, looking down at the cowering humans with an unimpressed frown. “Surely you’ve encountered all of the horrors that this facility has to offer by now.”

“We haven’t been this far into the facility before…” Chief Expendable answered, warily looking about at their surroundings.

Sebastian tsked with disappointment. “And here I thought your group of five was considered Urbanshade’s best and brightest!”

One Expendable stopped to put their hands on their hips, evidently taking offense at that. “Well, have you been down this deep into the facility?”

“Of course I have,” Sebastian replied with a derisive sniff. “I’ve practically been everywhere in the Blacksite!”

“Then why do you keep getting lost?” Painter butted in with an electronic snicker.

“Perhaps that is because a certain someone is bad at giving directions.” Sebastian quipped right back, and the AI’s doodled expression stuck their tongue out in response. “Plus, this place is practically built like a maze on purpose. That is why they had to install a Navi-AI in order to ensure that employees knew where they were going—“

Sebastian abruptly stopped after passing the threshold of the next doorway, staring straight ahead at the solid wall in front of him. The rest of the group halted with him, with the humans leaning to the sides in order to peer around the mutant fishman.

“Why the fuck would they build a wall here?” Medkit Expendable asked incredulously. The room didn’t look like it was supposed to be a dead end, it looked exactly like the hallway they had just been through— with the obvious exception being the abrupt wall blocking their way.

Sebastian only shook his head, looking down at Painter to see if the AI had an explanation, but it seemed just as stumped.

“Well, where are we supposed to go now?” Dog-fucker asked, fear lacing his voice as he glanced back at the hallway the group had just come through. “I don’t remember there being any other doors leading elsewhere.”

The fishes had waddled into the room with Sachiel standing in the middle of the floor, facing the wall that was blocking the path, their whisker-like barbels quivering.

“Painter, do you think you can find an alternative route?” The immortal Expendable inquired softly. The human had been surprisingly withdrawn for the past hour or so when the group finally started making their way towards the chamber which held the Crystal.

“Hmm, maybe. I don’t get it though,” Painter admitted as their monitor flickered between various camera views. “This way is supposed to be the way forward. There shouldn’t be a wall here!”

“Now who’s the lost one,” Sebastian couldn’t help but comment snidely.

“Shut up!” Painter beeped angrily.

“Hey, guys?” One of the Expendables called for the group’s attention, pointing towards an area where the wall met the floor. “Umm, are your funky gold fish half Wall dweller by any chance?”

Confused and mildly alarmed, Sebastian shoved his way forward until he could see what the Expendable was indicating.

He stared uncomprehendingly at what he at first thought was half of one fishlet’s tail pressed against the wall, with no body attached to it.

Then the tail wiggled and disappeared through the wall.

“What the hell?” Sebastian blinked in confusion, then became even more confused when Sachiel’s face suddenly appeared from the wall.

Impulsively, Sebastian leaned down and reached out towards the fish, only to fumble forward slightly when— instead of his hands colliding with the wall like he expected— they phased right through.

Sebastian jerked back with a startled hiss, causing everyone else to stumble backwards as his long tail reflexively coiled about the room, jostling furniture and people alike.

What the hell was this tomfoolery?!

“Oh! I get it!” The immortal Expendable suddenly exclaimed as they trotted forward, putting a hand out before blithely stepping through the wall like it wasn’t even there.

After a few seconds where nothing happened, the gloved hand of the immortal Expendable phased back through to wave the group forward.

“Come on, it’s safe! Just step on through!”

The other humans looked at one another, then Chief simply shrugged with his hands raised palms up before he walked through the wall. The others were quick to follow with only minor hesitation and a bit of stumbling.

Sebastian sighed and rolled back his shoulders, he supposed as weird things went, this was one of the milder ones. With a downward glance to Painter, who offered a reassuring grin, they both moved forward and phased through the wall.

Sebastian couldn’t help the instinctual urge to close his eyes just before passing through, he expected to feel something that would denote the anomalous nature of the wall— like maybe a buzz of electricity or magic or something, but nothing happened.

When he opened his eyes, he was on the other side of the wall with the corridor continuing onward like it was supposed to.

He looked back at the fake wall, disturbed when he caught sight of his tail only half way through. He quickly slid the rest of the way in, the sight of his serpentine body being cut in half by the illusionary wall giving him the heeby-jeebies.

“Well, that was weird.” Painter commented, scuttling alongside Sebastian.

“Didn’t know Urbanshade utilized holograms…” Medkit Expendable muttered with a shake of their head.

“They don’t...” Sebastian said, his voice devoid of emotion as he slithered on ahead of the group.

The weird fake wall was not the last of the strange architectural anomalies that began manifesting. One area had all of its furniture inextricably fused into the walls and floor. Another room had all of its furniture on the ceiling. The worst instance by far was the corridor that physically twisted into a tunnel like structure that created a nauseating optical illusion.

None of that compared to the constant barrage of questions which came from the Expendables trailing behind him.

“What is causing all of this?”

I do not know.

“Do you think we should be worried?”

Probably.

“Is there some sort of creature running around here that just likes to mess with physics in order to creep us out?”

No idea.

“Have you ever seen this kind of stuff happen before?”

No.

“Are there any files that might clue us in on what’s doing this?”

Possibly.

“Does anyone else see those red eyes staring at us, or is it just me?”

Probably just you. Try not to worry about it.

“Where’s the Angler? We haven’t encountered that dickhead or its friends in a while now.”

Your guess is as good as mine.

“So, when we get the Crystal, is this other benefactor going to like, bust in with their own sub and pick us all up or something?”

Let’s just focus on actually getting the Crystal first.

“Eyefestation hasn’t been bothering us lately, is that because we’re with you?”

How am I suppose to know what that multi-eyed freak gets up to?

Such inane questions were starting to give Sebastian a serious migraine and he didn’t know which desire was stronger— the urge to bring out his shotgun and start shooting everyone, or the urge to turn the gun on himself and blow his own brains out.

The comparison of herding children once again came unbidden to his mind. His life had certainly taken the strangest of twists and turns as of late.

Don’t even get him started on when they came across stretches of corridors where the lights had all gone out. This normally wouldn’t be a problem, since Sebastian had his own light source that he could turn on at will. But whenever a pod of Squiddles happened to be present in the darkened rooms, it became necessary for everyone to navigate through in the dark without the aid of light sources. And everyone seemed to insist that the safest way to avoid getting jumped by Squiddles or being left behind was to hold hands with Sebastian.

Actually, scratch that-- the immortal Expendable was the only one insisting that the optimal approach was for everyone to link hands with one another and for one person (the immortal Expendable) to be holding Sebastian’s hand because obviously he was the only one who could see in the dark and thus lead the way.

Sebastian only agreed to it on the one condition that the immortal Expendable be at the back of the line.

He took sadistic pleasure in watching their entire posture sag with crushing disappointment as they unenthusiastically grasped Dog-fucker’s hand at the back of the human chain, (meanwhile, Dog-fucker was looking between the immortal Expendable and Sebastian with an air of suspicion on a level approaching someone who was becoming more and more certain that all of their assumptions were true and that they couldn’t wait to shout: “I friggin’ told y’all they totally banged!”).

Whoever got the honor of holding the magnificent Sebastian Solace’s hand was dutifully ignored, (it was Chief, because that fucker always seemed to weasel his way to the head of the pack), though they might not have considered it much of an honor since Sebastian merely grabbed onto the person’s forearm none-too-gently and practically hauled the person off of their feet, like a particularly pissed off mother dragging their child out of Walmart. (Chief was a pretty big guy who was solidly built, so the sensation of being manhandled was acutely disturbing to him).

Sebastian was glad that he had three arms, because whilst also contending with leading the stupid humans through the darkness, he had to hug Painter’s monitor to his chest in order to prevent the light emanating from the computer from agitating the Squiddles.

At least the fishes were fine, most of them being too short and their bioluminescence too faint whilst out of the water to bother the Squiddles.

Thankfully, they didn’t have to deal with too many lightless corridors, before they finally made it to the main control room stationed outside the Crystal chamber.

The control room was a large atrium filled with the usual assortment of consoles and modules that monitored the energy output of the Crystal. The far wall was a bulkhead which allowed the people within the control room to view the bridge which lead to the main chamber that housed the Crystal.

“Who is that?” Medkit Expendable pointed out the observation window at the bridge.

The immortal Expendable was the first to see what the other human was indicating and immediately spat out a curse. “That’s not a who, that’s a what! And its a bad what!”

“What are you jabbering about?” Sebastian growled with irritation as he slid over to peer out at the bridge. He had to squint in order to see it, but the light being cast from the bridge’s guide lights installed along the safety rails left little to the imagination.

It was the monster that had attacked him. Its body black as night, long oily hair hanging from its head and draping down its form, tendril-like tails curling at its feet as it stood in the middle of the walkway, those long ragged ears swaying gently in an unfelt wind.

“It’s just standing there, MENACINGLY!” The immortal Expendable shouted unhelpfully.

Sebastian narrowed his eyes as he pointedly unholstered his gun and checked to see it was loaded.

“Wait, you’re not gonna go out there and fight it are you?!” Medkit Expendable said in alarm as Sebastian moved towards the stairway which led to the airlock doors.

“It’s standing in our way, so yes, I am going out there to fight it. Unless any of you have an alternative suggestion,” Sebastian removed the SCRAMBLER from his back and placed it on the ground, only to have Painter grab onto his arm with a pleading look on its monitor.

“Sebastian, don’t! That thing really, really hurt you last time! There’s gotta be another way.”

“We don’t have time to figure out another way around this thing. And I doubt it’s going to just stand there and let us simply maneuver a way around it.” Sebastian gently but firmly pried Painter’s mechanical limbs off of him before rising up and turning towards the airlock doors.

He was halted yet again when the immortal Expendable dashed in front of him and put both hands out, as if they had even the smallest chance of keeping him at bay.

“Listen, Sebby, we know that your pride is probably smarting from having been beaten by that other monster— but have you considered the fact that this feeling may be coming from a source of toxic masculinity that is insisting that you get payback even if it is at the detriment of the entire group and our collective long-term goals?”

Sebastian stared at the Expendable, unimpressed. “No.”

“W-well! You should!” The immortal Expendable squeaked as Sebastian easily grabbed the back of their suit and casually toss them to the side. “PAINTER, LOCK THE DOOR!”

There was a CLR-CHUNK as Painter overrode the airlock doors sensors and set it into lockdown, the green lights on either side of the double doors flashing red.

Sebastian stopped, then slowly turned to the computer and leveled it with his coldest stare. “Painter…”

The Painter was visibly trembling, their mechanical legs rattling as their expression became tearful. “I…I.. I won’t let y-you get yourself k-killed, you idiot!”

Sebastian slammed his tail angrily against the wall as he loomed over the computer. “Damn it, Painter! You would think that I’d be able to depend on my supposed bestest friend to have my back, and yet here you are taking orders from a human who you barely know anything about! Are you seriously going to let your feelings get in the way of obtaining our freedom? After all we’ve suffered, you’re just going to throw it all away because you don’t have any faith in me?!”

The AI’s internal fans were whirring audibly as it lifted two of its limbs to cover its web camera, their doodled expression clenching their eyes shut as they weathered through Sebastian’s shouting. Deep down, the Painter logically knew that Sebastian’s words were coming from a place of anger and frustration; the manipulative fishman was just resorting to hurtful language in a misguided attempt to get Painter to get angry too and relent— to throw its arms up and say ‘fine! Go get yourself killed, you big jerk!’.

However, the Painter wasn’t as naive as it once was and it wasn’t going to let Sebastian’s words push it into giving him what he wanted. Even if his words still hurt.

“Stop being mean to Painter!” The immortal Expendable admonished, jumping up and smacking Sebastian where his ass would be, if he still had one.

Sebastian barely felt the blow, but the fact that the human actually hit him flipped a switch in his brain that unleashed a tidal wave of aggression. Whirling around, Sebastian snatched the human up by the neck and hoisted them into the air, his claws squeezing the human’s windpipe as he snarled into their face mask.

“WOAH!” Chief shouted from where he had been watching the dispute go down, vaulting over the railing and landing on the staircase. The other humans quickly rushed to follow as Chief grabbed onto Sebastian’s lowest arm. “Hold on, pal! This doesn’t need to end in violence!”

“B-Bad idea—!” The immortal Expendable choked out just before Sebastian flung the man aside, his rage turning on the other human.

Chief hit the wall with a pained grunt but he quickly recovered, rolling to the side to dodge Sebastian’s follow-up strike; the fishman’s claws raking the wall with a metallic shriek.

Sebastian was about to bring his gun to bear, but then one of the other humans boosted themself off of his writhing coils and jumped up, latching onto his other arm. With an enraged roar, Sebastian’s jaw unhinged and he swung around, fully intent on biting the human in half.

FLASHBANG!

Sebastian cried out in pain and dropped the immortal Expendable as he reflexively raised his hands up to cover his face from the harsh light.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! POW!

The staccato sound of bullets impacting the wall nearby made everyone freeze in place, even Sebastian froze, his animalistic rage momentarily fading as the spots in his vision cleared.

“This is stupid!!!” Painter shrieked from its place on the floor, the AI having taken control of the defense turrets that were apparently installed in the control room. “Seriously! Why are we all fighting each other right now?! Why are all of you morons so STUPID?!”

Breathing heavily, and more than a little bit ashamed that he had allowed himself to lose control so quickly— Sebastian frantically tried to save face, dusting himself off and straightening his jacket before crossing his arms and staring haughtily down at the gathered humans.

“They hit me first,” he stated defensively, pointing a claw at the immortal Expendable.

Nailed it.

”For Christ’s sake—“ Medkit Expendable had released their grip on Sebastian’s arm after the flashbang went off and was now helping the immortal Expendable onto their feet. “What are you— twelve years old?! You could have seriously injured somebody!”

Sebastian curled his lip into a sneer and was about to snap a retort, but the immortal Expendable beat him to it.

“It’s fine! Alright, seriously! Next time, if Sebby ever gets angry, just let me handle it. You guys stay out of it.” The immortal Expendable gave a thumbs up to the other humans, but they weren’t having it.

“Look, dude,” Dog-fucker scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “I don’t know if this is like some sort of kink between you two, but y’all gotta have some sort of safe word to let us know—OW!”

Predictably, Dog-fucker got a punch to the shoulder by the Punch-out Expendable who seemed to always be there to punish him for his crimes.

“THERE IS NO KINK!” The immortal Expendable shrieked, which totally made it sound like there was one. “It’s just safest if we handle it alone!”

“That’s nonsense,” Chief crossed his arms sternly. “I may not know you very well, but I sure as hell ain’t going to just stand by and watch this fish-fuck abuse you just ‘cuz he can’t fucking take no for an answer!”

“UGH! Are you seriously white-knighting us right now?!” The immortal Expendable shouted. “I cannot be KILLED! Ergo, it is better for everyone that if Sebastian ever has another episode that he takes it out on me!”

“I’m really starting to resent being talked about like I’m not even here,” Sebastian stated with a huff, only to be soundly ignored.

“You keep making quips about having died before,” One Expendable waved a hand incredulously. “I don’t know if it’s some kind of power complex you have or something, but I am drawing the line at you purposefully throwing yourself into the jaws of a monster.”

“Some kind of… power complex???” The immortal Expendable’s shoulders hunched as their tone became angry. “Painter, shoot me!”

“What— no!” Painter beeped in alarm. “I’m not just gonna shoot you!”

“You know I’ll be fine!”

“Still NO!”

“Okay, fine! Sebastian, you shoot me then.”

Sebastian looked at the Expendable with a frown, then put his hands on his hips. “Well now I don’t want to.” He turned away with a derisive sniff.

“Oh COME ON—Hrrk!”

Sebastian whipped back around at the wet crunching sound and saw that one of the fishlets, (Bubbles, the one with the beak), had leapt down from the landing above and landed smack dab on top of the the immortal Expendable— clamping its beak-like jaws around the human’s neck and severing their artery vein in a single bite.

The immortal Expendable fell to the floor with a wet gurgle, blood pooling beneath them as Bubbles scurried off of their body and hid behind Sebastian’s tail.

“W-what the fuck!!” Dog-fucker backed away hastily from the expanding pool of blood. “What the FUCK!”

The other Expendables looked on the verge of similar panic, but just before the first human could start screaming, there was a flash of strange light from the corpse and the immortal Expendable sat up with a gasp.

“Ta-da!” They raised their hands up as they displayed their radical ability to defy death.

Dog-fucker proceeded to pass the fuck out, his body thudding to the floor.

Eyefestation and Pandemonium finally got the chance to regroup with the other Anglers when the bull shark caught a glimpse of the phantasmal creatures through one of the few windows along the Ridge.

HAVE YOU FOUND YOUR WAYWARD SISTER?

Eyefestation wasted no time in getting right to the point.

No. Angler replied, sounding somewhat exasperated. I’ve no idea where Frogger could be, usually I’m able to contact her easily. But she isn’t replying to my calls.

Ah told ya it’s becuz she’s mad at ya! Pinkie butted in with a snap of her jaws. She’s not answerin’ yer dang calls cuz she don’t wanna talk to ya!

YeahYouReallyFuckedUpLastTimeWhenYouSaidHerEscaLitTheRoomLikeGlowwormPoopInAJar— Blitz commented rapid-fire, zipping about the room before catapulting outside of Eyefestation’s range.

I thought chicks liked glow worm poop… Angler lamented with a despairing screech.

Ye-ah, but they sure don’t like it when a man comPARES their esca to worm poop, ya dumb varmint!

CEASE THIS CONFUSING BABBLE! Eyefestation cut in, angrily bumping their snoot against the glass. THE PANDE AND I—

‘P A N D E’?! All of Pandemonium’s eyes flashed white in excitement as the flesh amalgamation leaned uncomfortably close to the bull shark. C OMRADE, IS IT TR UE? HA VE Y OU DE CIDED TO GRA NT ME THE HONOR OF A C OM PANIONABLE NICK N A M E?!

Eyefestation’s teeth gnashed and their eyes pulsed with radiation. NO. I GROW TIRED OF THINKING YOUR FULL NAME. IT IS TOO LONG.

Yer name is just as long… Pinkie pointed out dryly.

QUIET! WE HAVE COME TO ASK FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE ON RECRUITING ANOTHER ENTITY.

The two Anglers pressed closer to the glass of the window in interest. Chainsmoker, meanwhile, looked like he was asleep from where he was halfway phased through the floor.

ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE BEING KNOWN AS Z-96?

Oh, yeah. The ‘Good People’. The Angler’s eyes flickered. Yeah… we know of them. Whenever I happen to drive by, they chatter to me with, like, a bajillion voices. It’s suuuper annoying.

Ah think they’re just lonely. Pinkie mused sadly.

How can an entity made up of over a hundred different people be lonely? Angler asked skeptically.

DO ANY OF YOU KNOW OF A WAY TO COMMUNICATE WITH Z-96? I HAVE TRIED TO ESTABLISH A MIND BRIDGE WITH IT, BUT ALL I GOT IN RETURN WAS SCREAMING.

Hmmmmm…….. Apparently Chainsmoker was not asleep, and had been in fact listening in on the conversation the entire time. ……..You cooooould maaaaybeeee tryyyyyyyy wriiiiiitiiiiing…..

Eyefestation and Pandemonium stared uncomprehendingly.

COM RADE, WHAT I S TH IS W R I T I N G TH AT YOU SPE AK OF?

……..Woooooooordsssssssssss…… Chainsmoker’s smoke rippled and curled through the air to form shapes. Youuuuuuuuuuuu knnnnooooooow…..

TheMarkingsAlongsideTheDoors! TheHumansMakeThem— Blitz mentally bombarded as it zipped past the window before disappearing down another hallway.

Eyefestation did not understand. Neither did Pandemonium, it seemed. But if it was a human construct, then the bull shark was wary of trusting it.

Maybe we can just get'em to follow us. Pinkie suggested. Ah mean, normally the PA systum would lure’em ‘round and have’ em hide behind doors before jumpin’ any passin’ humans. But it seems like it ain’t doin’ that no more.

VERY WELL. DO WHAT YOU MUST TO ENSURE THAT IT REMAINS CLOSE FOR WHEN THE TIME COMES TO STRIKE.

Eyefestation swung its tail from side to side as it began swimming away, trusting that the Angler and its variants had the situation under control.

After everyone had time to calm down and the immortal Expendable explained as best they could about their anomalous abilities, (with their story being further corroborated by Sebastian and the Painter), the humans collectively decided to take a moment to reconsider their options and perhaps formulate a better plan than just allowing Sebastian to throw himself at the unknown monster.

Sebastian was sulking by the airlock door, glaring at the red lights which indicated their locked status. His school of fish had eventually managed the daunting task of navigating the stairs, and were now clustered solemnly around him.

“Sebastian…?” Painter moved hesitantly up to the mutant sea snake, two of their limbs tapping their metal claws together anxiously. “You’re not still… mad at me, are you?”

Sebastian eyed the computer sullenly through his bangs. “Oh, I don’t know. Should I be?”

“Um…” Painter seemed unsure of what to say.

“I suppose I should be grateful—“ Sebastian crossed his arms and leaned heavily against the airlock door “—to have someone who cares about me so much that they’d go so far as to prevent me from making stupidly rash decisions… If you weren’t my best friend, I would’ve killed you for pulling that stunt.”

“Great… Good to know.” Painted responded flatly, their expression turning into a -_- but internally they were gratified that Sebastian still called them his best friend. “Why do you want to fight that entity?” It asked, because the AI was genuinely curious as to why Sebastian was so eager to confront the creature that had injured him so badly.

“Because I know I can win this time,” Sebastian hissed with determination. “It caught me off guard before, and we were underwater. It might surprise you, but I actually fight better when not dealing with water hampering my mobility.”

Painter made a nodding motion, their entire monitor bobbing up and down. The AI believed Sebastian when he said he could fight better on land, it had witnessed the few times when Urbanshade tried to send down their elite operatives to try and eliminate Sebastian, and those humans had all met a bloody end.

But…

“How do you know this if this entity can’t fight better on land too?” Painter logically inquired, and Sebastian's determined look turned into a pained grimace.

“Fair point…” He admitted.

They were both silent for a moment, the only sound being the distant hum of the reactors surrounding the Crystal’s chamber beyond and the quiet voices of the humans talking amongst themselves.

Painter’s CPU was working furiously to come up with a plan that would satisfy Sebastian’s need for revenge whilst also keeping him alive. Then the AI drew a lightbulb as an idea formed. “Ooh, how about we let the immortal Expendable go out and take a shot at the enemy while we watch from the observation deck? That way we can learn about how well it fights on land without risking anyone’s hide!”

Sebastian’s ear fins lifted with interest, but he didn’t move from where he was leaning against the airlock door. “Hmm, maybe... I’m not sure what good that would do, though, seeing as their fighting skills are rather lacking.”

“Crappy data is still data,” Painter pointed out.

“True…” Sebastian sighed. “The main problem is convincing them to actually do it.”

Painter raised two of their limbs in a shrugging motion. “I don’t know, I think they’d be eager to do it, to be perfectly honest.”

“Yes,” Sebastian hissed as he rubbed his forehead. “But the other humans seem to have become oddly adamant about defending the immortal Expendable.”

“Well, you can be kind of mean sometimes…” The Painter tapped two of their claws together nervously, looking away.

“Hmph…” Sebastian’s ear fins twitched as he lowered his chin into his scarf. He knew he probably had some anger management issues to work out, but he largely chalked that up to his fucked up biology messing with his overall brain chemistry… or something.

Whatever.

This wasn’t exactly the time nor the place to be seriously analyzing his mental state. Maybe once they had all gotten out of here, there would be time…

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

“So, you’re immortal.”

“Yes.”

“And your name is, as far as we know, a whole bunch of garbage noise that nobody can understand.”

“Pretty much.”

“And you can’t tell us—“

“Look,” the immortal Expendable raised a gloved hand to interrupt Chief. “While we’d love to continuously rehash the same hashbrowns of facts over and over again until the heat death of the universe— at this current moment in time, our priorities are to complete our mission! Not speculate over what the fuck is up with everything involving ourselves.”

Chief let out a deep sigh, looking down at the ground. “Right. Alright. But damn this is just— a whole lot to take in, y’know?”

“As opposed to all the other bullshit we’ve been dealing with down here?” Medic scoffed. “C’mon, chief. Some guy who’s freaking invincible isn’t that hard to imagine.”

Chief merely raised his hands up in exasperation, turning away to instead gaze out at the bridge beyond the observation deck.

The unknown monster was still standing in the middle of the walkway, still as a specter. Its single eye glowing a lurid purple-ish blue whilst several spots along its tentacle-like tails pulsed with a similar light.

Even though it was far away, Chief estimated that the enemy was significantly smaller than Sebastian, and it was crazy to think that such a diminutive creature had managed to nearly kill the big fish monster. Apparently it secreted some sort of poison?

“So are we gonna come up with a plan or what?” Punch-out asked as she sat back against a nearby console. “As much as a problematic dickhead Sebastian is, I’d really hate to see him get himself killed out there.”

“Yeah, he needs to stay alive— it’s important.” The Immortal Expendable assured with a frantic nod. “If we lose him, then all this will be for nothing! HE HAS TO LIVE!”

“Uh-huh, sure...” Medkit Expendable sounded less than enthused about the immortal Expendable’s devotion to Sebastian Solace’s continued wellbeing, still miffed about the Saboteur’s over violent reaction earlier. “We’ll do our best to keep your fishman alive, kiddo.”

“Don’t call us kiddo.” They replied with a sniff. “I’m pretty sure we’re older than you.”

“Oh really,” Medkit sounded as though they had raised a skeptical brow. “And just how old are you?”

The immortal Expendable held up a finger and sucked in a breath to respond. “I am—̵̮̂—̴̦̽-̴̥̌1̴̖̓2̴̖̍,̴̼́ ̴̻̌2̷̗̄3̴̣͂,̵̝͑ ̶̼͒8̶̲͐7̷̖͐,̷͙͠ ̵̝͝3̷͍́2̸̣̅,̷̝̀ ̶̜̚3̷̀ͅ3̴̠͋,̵͈͑ ̴̼̒4̶͋͜5̸̙̕,̴͈͠ ̶̖͒6̷͇͝7̵̟̚,̵̂ͅ ̵̡̈́2̵̡͆8̵̠̆,̴̹͒ ̴̻̓2̴̨̈́6̴̣̓6̴̥̂6̴̫̃6̷̗̽6̷̟̄6̵̼̒6̴̞̐6̵̹͌6̷͓͐6̴̢̓6̷͚̀6̴̠̽6̶̥͘6̴̥̂  6̷̲̈́6̷̳͐6̴͈͗6̵̙̄6̷̣̄6̵̢̀6̴͔̉6̴̩͘6̷͎͗6̵̩̊6̶͍̀6̵͚͘ 6̷͓̀6̶͚̄6̷͔̇6̴̼̿6̵̝͗6̴̦͆6̴̥͝6̶̹̆6̴̲̔6̷̡̾6̵̥͂6̶̳̎6̶̗̃6̵̩̇6̸̬͑6̵̻̃6̷̗̋6̶̜̈6̶̹̕6̶͎͠6̶̘͐P̷̧̑i̸͙͝–̴̰̕ OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER!”

There was silence as the other humans exchanged mask-obscured looks with one another.

“…..Okay…” Medkit shifted uncomfortably. “Just going to ignore that— Chief, you’re army, right? Do you have any ideas on what we should do in order to get past that thing on the bridge?”

Chief made a discontented grunt, still staring out at said thing on the bridge. “I’m retired. And I was a foot soldier, I wasn’t in charge of any of the tactical thinking, I was just told what to shoot.”

“So, no plans?”

“I didn’t say that…” Chief shook his head. “I might have an idea. But it might be a bit crazy.”

“Oh no,” White visibly cringed. “This isn’t gonna be like that one idea you had with the locker dominoes, is it?

“Well…”

“Oh god…”

“I’ve got a lovely bunch of fishy friends~” Painter softly sing-songed to itself as it lifted one of the fishlets in a mechanical claw and placed it next to the others it had lined up. “Here they are all sitting in a row~ Doo~doo~doo~” The AI had arranged the fishlets from the smallest to the largest that their limbs could easily lift, with Dart being the smallest and the biggest being Iggy. Chomper, Beelzebub and Sachiel were too heavy for the AI’s rather spindly limbs to pick up. “Big ones, small ones, ones as big as your head~!”

“Are you singing?” Sebastian asked with a light smirk, pausing momentarily from doing maintenance on his gun in order to look over at the computer.

“So what if I am?” Painter pivoted its monitor to show Sebastian a defiant expression. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

Sebastian merely shook his head in bemusement as he went about putting his tools away into their respective pouches. “Just didn’t realize you were multi-talented like that, buddy. Hell, maybe you can pursue a singing career after you’re done making art.”

Painter made a dismissive buzzing sound as it waved a metal claw. “Pzzt! No way! I’ll never be done making art!”

Sebastian chuckled. “Of course, how silly of me.” He unconsciously glanced up at the airlock door again.

“I’m not going to unlock the door,” the Painter said flatly, reading Sebastian’s body language way too easily.

Sebastian’s ear fins pinned back in annoyance. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were.”

Sebastian let out deeply aggrieved sigh, carding his claws through his hair as his serpentine body shifted about restlessly. “So, when are we going to bring up your amazing plan to throw the immortal Expendable out the airlock?”

“Yeah… well I’ve been thinking about that.” The Painter’s expression turned pensive. “I realize now that it’d probably be a really stupid idea.”

Sebastian clasped his hands together, putting on his most reassuring smile. “Aw, don’t be so hard on yourself, Paints. It sounds like a fantastic plan!”

Painter squinted dubiously at the fishman. “Uh-huh… See, that right there is why I’m not keen on going through with it.”

“What ever do you mean?” Sebastian asked quizzically, casually brushing a lock of hair out of his face as he feigned ignorance. “I’m more than willing to give it the good ol’ fashion college try! After all, if it doesn’t work, I’m sure we can think of something else.”

The Painter stared at Sebastian for several long seconds, but Sebastian’s casual grin remained unwavering as he gazed intently back at the computer.

A little too intently.

“You just want me to unlock the doors so that you can slip outside as soon as the airlock cycles for the human.” Painter concluded.

Sebastian’s pleasant expression morphed into a displeased frown, and he looked away with an offended scoff as he placed a weary hand upon his chest. “I’m hurt, Painter! You would accuse me of going along with your brilliant plan only to go behind your back at the last moment in order to pursue my own endeavor to defeat the unknown entity?”

“Yes.” Painter didn’t even hesitate. “Yes, I would. Because you are a slimy con-man and a lying sneak!”

Sebastian’s ear flicked and his expression twitched as he felt a pinprick of actual hurt at hearing that come from the AI. But he quickly quashed any misgivings he may have had at being called out, because— while Sebastian was loathe to admit it out loud— Painter was right.

“Fine. Fair enough.” He sighed with defeat, slouching against the wall beside the Painter. “Clearly, you know me too well, buddy...”

Painter’s expression became a triumphant smirk at having foiled the fishman’s plan, but it quickly flickered to a sad smile.

“I really meant it when I said I wasn’t going to let you get yourself killed,” the computer made an electronic humming sound that vaguely resembled a sigh. “I… I really don’t know what I’d do if you were gone. I don’t think… I’d be able to continue if you’d… Look, I was really scared when you were hurt! It reminded me of when my creator got hurt— got hurt by those people who found out about me. Th-they hit him really hard on the head… and he didn’t… he didn’t wake up and I-I couldn’t—!” The Painter stopped speaking when they were suddenly lifted from the floor, their limbs waving about in surprise before reflexively wrapping around the arms that were now hugging them to Sebastian’s chest.

Sebastian didn’t say anything, he just held the computer, his chin resting atop its monitor. Hesitantly, the Painter’s mechanical limbs tightened around Sebastian’s arms to reciprocate the show of comfort. They had both gone through so much and they were both hurting in their own ways.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Painter became aware of the fact that the fishman was making an odd thrumming sound low in his throat. It reminded the AI of the sound its own whirring internal fans made… Or more like—

“What are you laughing at?” Sebastian grumbled as he shifted to glare down at the suddenly snickering AI.

“Are you-“ Painter’s face was flickering as they struggled to keep their electronic giggling under control. “Are you PURRING?!?”

“Urrgh!” Sebastian held the now cackling computer out at arms length with a disgusted look. “You ruined it. You ruined our heartwarming moment and now I will have no shame when I drop you.”

“NOnono-PLease! Hahaha!” The AI had doodled tears at the corners of their eyes as they frantically held onto Sebastian’s arms with all 8 of their limbs. “I’m SORRY! IT’s just— EHAHaHA! I didn’t know you could PuRR like a CAT—“

“Dropping you now,” Sebastian dramatically let go of the computer, but the AI remained hanging onto his outstretched arms like a cybernetic octopus.

“What’s this about Sebastian purring?!”

Of course the immortal Expendable wouldn’t miss this as they charged down the stairs, just barely avoiding tripping over Sachiel— who had sat inconveniently at the foot of the staircase.

“Nothing!” Sebastian snapped, gritting his teeth as he glared balefully at the still laughing AI. “There was no purring! You heard nothing!”

The immortal Expendable was followed by the Medkit Expendable, who trudged down the stairs at a more sedate pace as the immortal Expendable bounded up to Sebastian.

“Okay! Well, we have a plan to deal with the llort atop the bridge!” The immortal Expendable announced with all the cheer of a child presenting their parent with a gift.

“Llort…?” Sebastian repeated in confusion.

“Y’know how trolls linger under bridges?” The immortal Expendable explained. “Well then what lingers on top of bridges? Sllorts! Or in this case a llort!”

“Oh, it’s like troll but backwards.” Painter beeped with realization. The AI had gradually managed the feat of lowering itself closer to the ground by extending its limbs, before tentatively unlatching one claw from where it was holding onto Sebastian’s arm and reaching down to set its claw onto the ground.

“Right…” Sebastian took pity on the AI and leaned down to let the computer more easily disembark from his person. “So, what is this plan that you are you proposing?”

This was a stupid plan.

Granted, it was a better plan than just letting Sebastian throw himself at the monster, but it was still a pretty shitty plan.

Why? because it relied on the stupidity of the opposition in order to work.

If a plan you make relies on the enemy being dumber than you are, then it’s a bad plan from the get-go.

What the humans had proposed was that they let the airlock door cycle open, and then trick the monster out on the bridge into coming into the airlock. Most likely by having the immortal Expendable stand inside and wave their arms idiotically until the monster came at them. Then Painter would cycle the airlock in reverse so that the monster was now in the control room, allowing Painter to hose it down with turret fire.

Seemed simple enough, right? Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Well, actually there were several snags in that plan that Sebastian gladly pointed out.

#1: The airlock doors took a long fucking time to cycle open and close, which would give the monster ample opportunity to realize what was going on and dash back out onto the bridge before it could get trapped on the other side.

#2: The internal defense turrets didn’t cover the entire control room, and while there was a turret that had a clear shot at the stairwell to the airlocks, there was no telling how fast and agile the unknown monster was.

#3: Everything relied on the assumption that the monster was even effected by bullets.

Nevertheless, the humans were willing to give it a try, since the alternative was to either waste time finding a way around the monster or waste time sitting around with their thumbs up their asses hoping the monster would go away.

To be safe, everyone moved 2 rooms back, with the Painter locking each door behind them while the AI kept an eye on the security cameras located within the control room.

The immortal Expendable remained in the control room, standing patiently in front of the airlock as its lights switched from red to green and the doors began to cycle open.

After that, Painter didn’t have a camera view to easily see what happened next.

This was a great idea!

The immortal Expendable bounced on the heels of their boots as they waited for the airlock doors to open, before stepping inside and pulling the lever that would initiate the second set of doors to open.

This was a great idea.

Slowly, the doors slid open and the immortal Expendable got a good look at the unknown creature standing in the middle of the bridge.

The immortal Expendable raised a hand up and waved energetically at the motionless being. “Hello! Hi! How are you?”

The creature didn’t visibly react beyond one of its ragged ears flicking to the side and then back. It remained where it stood, stock still and motionless. It was difficult to tell if it was even breathing.

Feeling a little awkward, the immortal Expendable took a few bold steps out onto the bridge and waved both arms in the air. Maybe the creature was just short-sighted and couldn’t see them.

“Hey! Over here!”

Still nothing. It just continued to stand there… Menacingly.

“Hmm…” The human allowed their arms to flop to their sides, glancing over their shoulder at the still open airlock door and then back at the statuesque being.

Acting on impulse, the immortal Expendable abruptly charged towards the monster head on, screaming at the top of their lungs.

Surprisingly, that finally got a reaction from the creature, its glowing purple eye going wide in alarm before it promptly turned on its many tentacled tails and ran— also screaming, but in abject terror.

The two ran all the way across the bridge, both screaming like hysterical lunatics before making it to the opposite end of the bridge where the secondary set of airlock doors resided— barring the way to the sites main reactor room where the Crystal was held.

Finding itself momentarily cornered, the creature whirled around, its oily hair bristling as its tentacles writhed in a threatening manner. It hissed in fear as the immortal Expendable continued to advance on it.

The immortal Expendable slowed down, emboldened by the creature’s apparent fear and striking a menacing pose. “Ah-ha! That’s right! Be afraid, you wretched fiend! We’re not gonna let you hurt Sebastian again!”

The creature froze, its surprisingly pale face twisting with sudden feral aggression as its gaze whipped about wildly, as if searching for the fishman. “Seb…astian….” It hissed in a small voice which rasped slightly. “Must… find…“ Its hands rose shakily to grip the sides of its head as it shuddered. “MUST KILL— No! Must…”

“Wowie, you can talk?” The immortal Expendable tilted their head to the side, intrigued. “That’s neat. Let’s start a dialogue!”

“C-can’t…” the creature’s claws gripped their ears, tugging on them in a way that looked painful as their eye frantically darted around. “Where…?! Where… is… he?!”

“Umm.” The immortal Expendable put their hands on their hips as they watched the strange display. Trying to puzzle out what the creature’s deal was. “You mean Sebastian?”

The creature twitched violently, their entire body spasming as their soft features twisted into a fanged snarl again. “KILL!”

“Noooo,” the immortal Expendable shook their head frantically, their voice taking on the cadence of someone who was speaking to a child. “No, you can’t kill him! That’s bad!”

“Bad…” It raised its head, looking around as if searching for something. “I… need to find…him.”

“Well, he’s over there,” the immortal Expendable jabbed a thumb over their shoulder, then froze as a thought occurred to them. “Hm, wait maybe we shouldn’t have—“

They blinked, realizing that the monster was no longer on the bridge.

“Uh oh…”

This might have been a bad idea.

“What the hell is that moron doing?!” Sebastian spat as he did the snake’s equivalent of pacing about the room that he and the rest of the group were holed up in. “It’s been over ten fucking minutes!”

“I don’t know!” Painter exclaimed, equally as frustrated but more worried about the fate of the immortal Expendable. “None of the cameras in the control room have a good view of the observation window! I think I caught a glimpse of movement from one camera, but I have no idea what’s going on. They haven’t cycled back through the airlock doors yet; that’s all I know!”

“Something must have gone wrong…” Chief concluded with a despairing shake of his head. “Damn it, I knew we shouldn’t have let them do it by themselves!”

“Well, what do we do now?” Dog-fucker asked. “Should we just wait? Or…”

“No. Fuck this.” Sebastian slammed his claws down on the table which the Painter was sitting on top of with the SCRAMBLER. “Painter… unlock the doors, and let me through.”

“Nope!” Painter’s metal claws dug into the table, bracing itself for a yet another shouting match again.

“Just let me into the control room,” Sebastian practically begged. “At least so we can get some idea as to what’s happening out on the bridge!”

“What if as soon as you go in there that’s when the airlock cycles through and brings the monster in?!” Painter argued back.

“Then I’ll get out and you can fill the fucker full of lead!” Sebastian reasoned, the end of his tail whipping back and forth with agitated energy, causing the humans to jump away in order to avoid getting smacked.

“And what if you aren’t fast enough, huh?!” Painter insisted, stubbornly considering every possible thing that could go wrong. “What if that monster comes charging in as fast as an Angler and tackles you?! How would I be able to shoot at it then with your fat ass in the way?!”

“Painter, I swear to the Almighty—“ Sebastian nearly shrieked, the urge to pick the computer up and shake it violently rising with every passing moment.

“Will you boys stop arguing!” White snapped, her hands on her hips. “This is getting us nowhere!”

“Careful, Jessie…” Medkit Expendable cautioned the other human quietly, wary of Sebastian’s volatile anger potentially being triggered by one of them trying to intervene.

Sebastian merely spared the humans a disdainful look, however, his focus still mostly on Painter. “We can’t just wait here forever, Paints—“

“MOVEMENT!” Painter suddenly beeped with a start. “It’s the Expendable! They’ve come back through the airlock. And— they, uh, look fine? No sign of the unknown entity.”

Sebastian’s ears flicked with confusion. What the hell had the immortal Expendable been doing out there?

“I’m unlocking the doors,” Painter announced, and it didn’t take long for the immortal Expendable to come striding into the area where the group had been waiting pensively.

“What happened?” Chief immediately demanded as he walked over to the immortal Expendable. The other humans were quick to gather around, with Medkit Expendable wordlessly poking and prodding at the immortal Expendable in search of injuries.

“We had a dialogue!” The immortal Expendable proclaimed, sounding somewhat bemused themselves.

“What.” Sebastian slid over to loom over them, the other humans quickly getting out of his way. “Do not tell me you actually made friends with it!”

“Well… No, not exactly.” The immortal Expendable shrugged. “I think she knows you, though. She started tweaking out when I mentioned your name.”

“She…?” Sebastian grimaced, not enthused about the unknown entity suddenly gaining pronouns. Because with pronouns came with a potential name, which came with the potential baggage along with it and Sebastian was finding that his pity pool was quickly reaching capacity with all the losers present in his party of misfits.

“Umm…” The immortal Expendable nervously tapped two fingers together, suddenly seeming shy. “Well, she was kinda nakey… and we def saw boobage and no dick. But then again, we’re dealing with someone who’s not human, so maybe we shouldn’t be making assumptions??? But like… I don’t know, we got mega epic girlboss vibes, is all.”

Sebastian stared unblinkingly at the Expendable, the intensity of his gaze practically burning holes into the human as he internally warred against the urge to pick them up and violently pitch them into the nearest bottomless chasm. Because, seriously, what the fuck did he just listen to?

“And…?” He barely managed to grit out through clenched teeth.

“Oh, and she’s gone now. I think we spooked her, or she’s trying to find another way—“

There was a loud crash and everyone looked towards the source of the noise. On the far wall, a grate which covered a ventilation shaft had exploded outwards, the metal frame clattering to the ground as dark tentacles waved threateningly from the now open vent.

Then the tentacles swiftly retracted, before the lithe form of the creature leapt out, landing onto the floor with cat-like poise as it rose up to survey the room.

Sebastian snarled as his muscles tensed for battle, his long body coiling about the room as the humans all scattered to get out of the way of the upcoming confrontation. The immortal Expendable shouted something along the lines of “So much for trying to plan around this!” before grabbing onto the SCRAMBLER and dragging Painter behind an overturned locker— the AI screaming expletives the entire time. The fish all scattered as well, Sachiel and Iggy scaling the side of the walls along with some of the smaller fishlets still capable of climbing, whilst Chomper doggedly followed behind the immortal Expendable, with Beelzebub hopping on top of a cabinet and knocking over several office appliances onto the floor and emitting a shrill croaking sound as Skuttle curled up into a ball and rolled underneath a nearby table.

Sebastian ignored them all as he withdrew his gun and aimed it at the creature, sighting down the barrel at his target— then he froze.

This was the first time that he had gotten a clear view of the creature’s features, it wasn’t all black as he had originally thought. Its face and body were a pale ashen color, only darkening along its extremities.

Its face— her face. Her soft and achingly familiar features— now marred and disfigured by whatever horrors she had endured as her mouth twisted into a feral snarl that exposed needle-like teeth. But it was still unmistakably her face.

Sebastian hadn’t realized when he had started shaking, but his breathes were coming in short, desperate gasps as he struggled to keep his gun arm steady. His heart hammering in his chest as his mind struggled to comprehend what he was seeing.

“No…” He whispered as the creature advanced and he shrank away. “No, no, no, no, no! It’s not real! You can’t be here! You’re not her! You’re not HER!” His voice rose into a shrill roar as he clutched his gun with both hands, old memories threatening to overwhelm him. Memories of sunny bright days, of a sweet bunny face and cute bunny ears, her melodious laugh that made butterflies flutter in his stomach. The endearing way her ears would wiggle whenever he kissed them. Memories of long nights resting on top of the hood of his car as they both stared up at the star-filled sky and talked for hours about anything and everything… about their hopes… Their dreams… their deepest fears.

Screaming. Somebody was screaming. He thought it might have been him, the gun having slipped from his grasp as he clutched his head, claws digging into his snake-like skin as he was overwhelmed with utter anguish and loss.

He couldn’t defend himself as she charged towards him, mouth agape and claws outstretched, ready to tear him apart like how his mind was currently trying to tear itself to pieces.

Suddenly she was on the ground, having been tackled from the side by an Expendable wielding a crowbar.

The metal rebar cracked against the side of her head, causing her to let out an inhuman shriek as she kicked out at the Expendable, the claws on her feet digging into the Kevlar of their suit as she kicked them off of her.

Dark blood dripped from her scalp as she rose, her eye squinting half closed as blood ran down her face and into her eye.

“You stay away from him!” The immortal Expendable shouted as they jumped to their feet and swung the crowbar again.

This time however, she caught the blow with a raised hand, gripping onto the metal hard enough that it bent.

“Oh shit—“ The immortal Expendable yelped as she batted them aside with a claw swipe. A spray a blood followed as the immortal Expendable was thrown backwards and slid across the floor, their right arm having been practically separated from their body, with only a few strands of muscle connecting the two.

Before she could turn her attention back on the still panicking Sebastian, she was thwarted by another object cracking against her skull as Chief picked up the discarded crowbar and lobbed it at the back of her head.

She whirled around, hissing as her tails writhed angrily, the muscles in her legs tensing as she prepared to lunge at the other human.

“Think fast, chuckle-nuts!” Punch-out whooped as she brought out her flash beacon and pulled the trigger, causing the rabbit monster to stagger backwards with a pained shriek.

“Seriously? It took you this long to make a TF2 reference?” Medkit Expendable shouted as they brought out their own flash beacon and pulled the trigger, flashing the monster again as it took another step back, its clawed hands covering its eye as it shook with pain.

“Shut up! I’ve just been waiting to find an actual flash grenade, is all.” Punch-out snapped back as she flashbanged the monster again, keeping it pinned. “How many charges you got left?”

“Five!” Medkit Expendable replied, flashing the monster again. “Not counting that last shot!”

“Bitch, I’ve got twelve! You gotta be better at conserving your flashes, man.”

While the two kept the monster distracted by the onslaught of flashing lights, White and Dog-fucker were trying to get the immortal Expendable back on their feet whilst Chief tried to snap Sebastian out of his catatonic state.

“Ew, ew, ew, ew, gross, gross!” Dog-fucker whined as he slung the immortal Expendable’s intact arm over his shoulder. He nearly threw-up inside his helmet as he watched a shredded piece of sinew ooze out of the ragged area where their arm was partially severed.

“Dude, seriously, stop being such a pansy!” White berated as she slipped the immortal Expendable’s face mask off. “You still with us, bud— OH good Lord what is the, up, with your face??”

“HehHh… the up.” The immortal Expendable wheezed a laugh as their head lolled to the side, their ‘face’ distortion modulating with their voice. “Yeahhh we GET that A LOT—“ They coughed as their health rapidly began to deteriorate from the extreme blood loss and shock.

Chief, meanwhile, was trying his best to get Sebastian’s attention without accidentally triggering the mutant fishman’s violent tendencies.

“Hey, fish-face! You need to snap outta whatever fugue state you’re in right now!” He shouted, but Sebastian didn’t even seem to hear him.

He had gone into a defensive coil, his body trembling with his head in his hands, cyan eyes dim and staring sightlessly at nothing as his mouth moved with unintelligible muttering. He hadn’t even reacted to the flash beacons going off nearby, which was even more concerning.

“I’m out of charges!” Medic announced, stepping back as they hurriedly searched their pockets for a spare battery.

“Sebastian keeps his store of batteries on the third pack on his tail, in the left pocket!” Painter informed from where they were stuck by the overturned locker, unable to move very far due to them being tethered to the SCRAMBLER.

Medic nodded in thanks and rushed over to where Sebastian was, quickly locating the pack and gingerly retrieving two batteries— only to yelp as a clawed hand shot out and grabbed onto their arm.

”Are you trying to fucking steal from ME?!” Sebastian hissed in the Medic’s face, his eyes suddenly bright with sharp focus.

“Are you kidding right now?!” Medkit Expendable squawked with a mixture of panic and outrage. “Us all fighting for our lives right here isn’t enough to ping your radar but the act of someone skimping you of a few batteries IS?!”

Sebastian’s ears flicked and he momentarily turned to survey the current state of affairs, and everything came back to him like a bucket of ice water being dumped on his head. His grip on the Expendable went slack as he froze, the overwhelming sense of despair threatened to cloud his perception once more—

SPAT!

Of course, Sachiel wasn’t going to let that happen again, having crawled along the ceiling like a spider in order to be directly above Sebastian. Easily putting the fish in the position to bombard the mutant sea snake with water bullets if it became necessary.

Sebastian shook his head with a grunt as water droplets flew from his hair. For a brief moment, his survival instincts kicked in for just long enough to make a decision.

Acting with haste, he quickly gathered up Painter and the SCRAMBLER before diving into another hallway. His school of fish loyally scrambled to follow, along with the humans.

Punch-out Expendable was the last to retreat, flashing the cowering creature one last time before pelting it with the spent device and running.

As soon as she made it past the door, Painter cybernetically slammed it shut.

Sebastian didn’t stop moving, however, slithering through the corridors at great speed as he clutched the Painter to his chest whilst the SCRAMBLER was slung partially over one shoulder. He was running on autopilot, his mind simply broadcasting the urgent message to FLEE— to find a safe place to HIDE.

Painter was saying something to him, but he couldn’t decipher the words due to the high-pitched ringing in his ears. He just kept moving. He just needed to keep moving.

Maybe if he moved fast enough, he’d be able to outrun his past.

“I think he’s heading towards one of his hideouts!” Painter shouted over the PA system to the group of humans, who were moving as fast as they could to keep within range of Sebastian’s SCRAMBLER.

Luckily, the immortal Expendable had already perished from the shock of having their limb partially severed from their body, prompting their regenerative abilities to kick in and revive them good as new. So, they were now running alongside the others instead of slowing everyone down with their dead weight.

“Cool—“ the immortal Expendable panted as they rushed down the corridors. Painter ensuring that the doors behind them were promptly sealed shut in order to hopefully slow down any pursuers. “Keep us appraised of the situation!”

The Painter did not respond, its visage flickering from one hall monitor to the next as the humans did their best to keep up.

“Should-should we be—“ Dog-fucker puffed and wheezed, clearly not cut out for running for such long distances. “WORRIED— about leaving behind- Seb’s kids?!”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine!” Medic responded, easily keeping pace with the group, and the immortal Expendable felt a pang of jealousy at their endurance. “They seem to have their own bag of tricks for surviving this place.”

Little did the group know, the group of 10 fish were doing something that might have resembled their own form of reconnaissance to an outside observer.

Baphomet, the fishlet with the pink tendrils, had remained in the room where the unknown monster was still writhing on the floor in pain. The fishlet had hidden itself on the ceiling, its hook-like claws on its fins allowing it to cling to the wall with relative ease as its large eyes rotated about to keep the rabbit-like monster in sight. All the while, the pink spot on its slightly domed head was glowing faintly. Their slightly barbed pink tendrils along their back were a bit shorter than they were before, like the ends at fallen off.

Dart, the smallest of the fishlets, was shimmying through a vent with Skuttle, the isopod hybrid. Both fishlets had similar pink glowing specks on the ends of their tails as they moved through the ventilation system.

Iggy, the octopus hybrid, was crawling along the ceiling, ducking through similar ventilation systems along with Bubbles, their beaked counterpart. They were following the group, but at a slower pace. Both possessed the same pink marking somewhere along their bodies.

Scorch, the electric eel hybrid (and the only one who had successfully injured the enemy), and Whip, the swift swimmer of the group, (who had yet to do jackshit or anything of note), were keeping close to Chomper— who was trying to gnaw its way through the door in order to take a bite at the monster who had so badly upset Sebastian. They weren’t making any progress.

Beelzebub was the only one quick enough on land to keep up with the humans, and so took it upon itself to follow the bipeds, its long frog-like legs easily aiding it in keeping stride.

Sachiel, loyally, had leapt onto Sebastian’s tail as soon as the mutant sea snake had bolted. Sachiel wasn’t going to lose track of their favorite long boi again.

Sebastian hadn’t spoken as he feverishly clawed open a hidden passageway and ducked through, not bothering to conceal the entrance as he climbed his way through the maintenance shaft. His serpentine body coiling easily over and around the various metal pipes trailing up the walls and floor as he slithered into the secluded area that he had made into one of his hideouts.

His breathing was coming in ragged gasps, he sounded like a wild animal, heaving and panting. Slick foam had formed at the corners of his mouth, his eyes dim and the light of his esca flickering with distress as his arms went slack, and the Painter had to use their own limbs to cling to Sebastian’s coat as the fishman crawled further into the room, using all three of his arms to keep himself upright.

He felt like he had been shot, badly. Had he been shot? No.. no.. something else was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

Zerum….

Sebastian let out a wailing scream, the sound terrifyingly inhuman as it rattled the walls and echoed through the maintenance tunnel— yet it was so unmistakably full of grief and rage.

What had Urbanshade done to her?! Why? How?! Was it even her, or was it some fucked up facsimile they created to taunt him?

Sebastian was dragging himself across the floor on all three limbs, the rest of his body slithering and jerking about the room like a caged animal as he snarled and raged within his own mind, completely oblivious to Painter still hanging onto to his chest, the AI rendered mute out of fear. It had never seen Sebastian behave like this before— like some sort of feral beast devoid of rational thought.

Sachiel was there, equally as disturbed as it silently disembarked from Sebastian’s tail and hid itself beneath a table. Watching pensively as the fishman lost his mind.

Eventually, the fervor of the mutant sea snake’s mental breakdown ebbed as Sebastian’s movements slowed, his tail coiling close as he breathed heavily, his face pressed against a wall as he clenched his eyes shut. His head was pounding painfully, his entire body trembling. He wondered distantly if he somehow got nicked by one of Zerum’s venomous claws, or if he was simply having that bad of a reaction upon realizing that she… that she was… she had been…

All at once, Sebastian’s body went limp and Painter let out a startled beep as it just barely managed to avoid getting crushed as the mutant fishman collapsed. The AI repositioned itself at a safer distance from Sebastian’s limp form, their internal fans whirring with anxiety as they watched to make sure he was still breathing.

Painter had no idea what to make of Sebastian’s reaction towards the unknown monster. It hadn’t even touched him this time! Was it psychic, or have some sort of mind blasting powers like Eyefestation? Painter didn’t know, and for once it hoped that the humans would hurry up— the AI didn’t think it could deal with this alone.

“Mr. Solace….”

Sebastian was dreaming again. He had to be. Otherwise, why would this pompous green asshat be here.

He was in a darkened room, sitting before a worn wooden desk, his esca’s light barely casting enough illumination for him to see the tabletop. On the other side of the desk, he saw the green eyes of Mr. Lopee gazing back at him, the old man’s eyes were hooded with pity, or perhaps vague amusement. Sebastian couldn’t tell with how the rest of him was completely obscured by darkness.

“I believe, this, will bring you some, needed clarity to the… situation, you now find yourself in.”

A folder slid onto the table, the bold red letters displaying the word: CONFIDENTIAL were clearly visible, along with a small photo of woman with lagomorph characteristics. She was smiling in the photo, her hair done-up with a pink flower hairclip, her long ears slightly cocked as though she were listening to something.

Sebastian felt his heart clench painfully.

Wordlessly, he reached a trembling hand over, his clawed hand nearly large enough to encompass the entire document as he slowly used one claw to flip the file open.

The document read as follows:

The Siren

Z-014 - Codename: “The Siren”, real name “Zerum Solace”, is a genetically modified humanoid possessing extremely lethal capabilities needed in order to track and take out her assigned target. Z-014 is designed for the specific purpose of terminating dangerous individuals, such as Z-13.

Z-014 was brought into Hadal Blacksite after Urbanshade operatives caught her trespassing on company grounds. It was later determined that Z-014 could not be allowed to leave after interrogation efforts revealed that Z-014 had been spying on Urbanshade for over a decade following the detainment of Z-13. Z-014 stated that she never believed her husband was a killer and claimed that the public announcement of his execution was “bogus” as she had witnessed Urbanshade operatives entering the prison he was being held at before leaving with Z-13 in a conspicuous black truck after his supposed execution date.

There were discussions on what to do with Z-014, and the suggestion of simply disposing of her and covering up any legal fees was more than once brought up. But Mr. Shade proposed a more practical use for Z-014.

While Z-13 had yet to display any indication of his eventual treachery and subsequent sabotage of Hadal Blacksite, Mr. Shade had confessed that he would feel safer if there was a backup plan in place if Z-13 ever went rogue, as the transformations which occurred during the experiments had likely caused unpredictable changes to Z-13 mental state and it was unknown as to when he might act against Urbanshade.

When the lockdown incident started, “The Siren” was still in development, being kept in a stasis pod deep in Hadal Blacksite’s laboratories.

Z-014 has been imbued with several DNA strands from ___________ , _________, Valcula Void-Mass, and Lammelse species, as well as possessing a specialized augment chip installed by her left temple which compels her to hunt down and kill Z-13.

Due to the interference caused by Hadal Blacksite's compromised security mainframe, the Hadal Devision was unable to send the activation codes that would release Z-014 from her stasis. However, a recent development following the latest attempt to manually remove Z-779’s influence from Hadal Blacksite’s mainframe has allowed HQ partial connection over systems previously blocked. One of these connections allowed the transmission of the activation command for Z-014.

All Personnel are advised to avoid Z-014 if spotted, whilst Z-014 is not programmed to be hostile towards humans, there may be unintended behavior if there are any attempts to interact or impede her.

…..

“This…. really…. fucking sucks.” Sebastian muttered numbly.

“Indeed,” Mr. Lopee said, his tone sounding genuinely sorry despite his somewhat stilted way of speaking. “You have, my, deepest sympathies, Mr. Solace. No man should… ever.. have to deal with what you are, going through.”

Sebastian didn’t respond, the tip of his claw tracing the picture of Zerum’s smiling face.

“There is, still time, Mr. Solace.” Mr. Lopee spoke up after a moment and the document slid off of the table and out of Sebastian’s grasp. There was a sound like an old rickety chair creaking as Mr. Lopee leaned forward, his emerald eyes gleaming in the darkness. “If you obtain the, Crystal, we may be able to…. Help each other.”

Sebastian didn’t say anything, he felt numb. Devoid of all emotion. What could he even say? Cynicism scoffed at the notion that helping Mr. Lopee would do any good. But hope…

Hope dared to flicker in the depths of Sebastian’s cold heart, and that felt almost worse...

Sebastian’s eyes slowly opened, vision blurry and eyes stinging with dried tears.

He was curled up in a nest made up of his own body, face smooshed against the crook of one coil, the metal of one of his belt’s clips digging rather uncomfortably into his cheek as he groggily lifted his head. He idly wiped away the dampness still clinging to his face, his ears twitching as he heard movement in the room and then something cold brushing against him.

He twitched and the contact immediately retreated, before he became aware of the sound of whirring fans and he relaxed as he turned to look at the Painter.

Painter was sitting beside him, legs tucked close to its body, monitor displaying a deeply distressed frown as the AI waited in tense silence.

Sebastian realized then that the room they were in was rather dark, and that he was probably looming rather ominously over the little computer, who very much did not posses night vision and the light emanating from its monitor only served to cast the mutant sea snake in harsh shadows.

With a small effort of will, Sebastian’s lure flickered on, illuminating his very tired and crusty features as he rested his head on one hand.

Immediately, Painter’s expression flickered to a small yet hopeful smile. “Hey…”

“Hey,” Sebastian responded with a weary grin.

“You look like shit,” Painter pointed out.

“Yeah,” Sebastian sighed, his coils shifting as he laid back down. “I feel like shit, too.” He huffed a startled breath when Sachiel’s golden whiskers tickled at his face, he hadn’t even realized the fish had been perched atop his tail until the fish had moved to harass him face to face.

“The humans are waiting outside in the hallway,” Painter informed. “I kinda told them all to scram when they caught up and found us, in case you woke up and were… um…” It didn’t need to finish the sentence.

“Thanks, Painter.” Sebastian said, genuinely. He wasn’t sure if he would’ve been able to handle waking up to all the humans staring at him and bombarding him with questions right away. “I suppose they’re eager to barge in here and start asking me what the fuck just happened.”

“Yep,” Painter affirmed with a simulated nod.

“Best not keep them waiting then,” Sebastian sighed as he straightened up, taking a moment to fuss with his hair and such to ensure that he at least gave off a semblance of having tried to look put together.

Painter beeped and their monitor flickered as they accessed the PA system, informing the humans that Sebastian was ready to talk.

It didn’t take long, with the immortal Expendable charging straight into the hideout whilst the other humans were more civil about their entry.

The immortal Expendable predictably tripped and face planted into the floor, Sebastian having swiftly brought his tailfin around upon seeing their swiftly approaching figure and catching them in the legs so that instead of glomping him— they glomped the floor, with their face.

This did not deter the immortal Expendable, as they immediately popped up from the floor. “ARE YOU OKAY?!” They shouted, ignoring the blood spilling onto the front of their uniform from what was likely a broken nose.

Where was their face mask?

Sebastian decided to ignore the oddity and simply fell back on his usual air of snarkiness, despite feeling anything but okay. “I’m about as alright as anyone would be after seeing their horribly transfigured wife try to kill them.”

Everyone in the room was silent with shock. Painter was equally as surprised, staring up at Sebastian with wide eyes.

“Hhebebhmm…” The immortal Expendable swayed on their feet, sounding lightheaded. “Your… your what?”

And so, Sebastian told them the identity of the unknown monster.

He didn’t tell them everything of course. He didn’t dare mention the fact that he received this knowledge from an eldritch being who had infiltrated his mind while he was unconscious. He just spun a half-truth half-lie, informing the group that they were dealing with an assassin who was genetically modified for the sole purpose of killing him— the way he worded it implied that he already knew about the existence of the assassin, (a lie), but had only just found out that the assassin was his wife who had been twisted by Urbanshade’s experiments (true).

“Man, that’s fucked up,” Punch-out said with a shake of her head. ”Fuck Urbanshade.”

Sebastian didn’t respond, looking down at the floor, eyes dim. His mind kept trying to delve into dark places. Zerum had been searching for him all this time, and then proceeded to suffer at Hadal Blacksite for months prior to the lockdown, and he hadn’t known. After having his body irreparably changed by the experiments, Sebastian had given up any hope of ever returning to his past life. Yet Zerum hadn’t… she’d never stopped trying… she never gave up hope that she would find him... and then she paid for it in the worst way possible.

Sebastian never felt more self-loathing than he did at that very moment.

“So… you’re telling me…” the immortal Expendable’s voice was odd, their distorted face seeming to warp strangely. “You… Are M̵͙͐ Á̷͓̖ R̵̮̟͋̕ R̴͔̝͆̓ I̸̘͎̽͘ Ẽ̸̜ D̵͕̾̈́!?"

They bellowed that last word with such force, such utter vehemence and outrage that everyone in the room flinched. Painter’s monitor flickered as it briefly glitched out. Even Sebastian was snapped out of his funk as his eyes focused on the rippling distortions running across the Expendable’s face; he felt a sudden sense of foreboding in the air.

“YOU CAN’t— That’s not fair! You’re not supposed to be MARRIED!” The immortal Expendable shouted with an angry stomp. “That’s not how this goes! That’s— That—Thatthatthat— WHo the hell said you could be— ZERUM! You B̶̢͒͝Í̵͈̆Ṱ̸̀͂C̶̜̿́Ḧ̶̼̳́!̴̜̞̍ How dare you—!!!“

“Woah, what the fuck,” Dog-fucker raised his hands as he took several steps back. “Is anyone else hearing that weird buzzing sound???”

“Dude, calm down!” Medic tried to put a hand on the immortal Expendable’s shoulder, but they jerked away as strange energy rippled across the anomalous human.

“I’LL FUCKING KILL HER! KILL HER! KILL HER KIĽ̵̞͙L̸̝̥͐ ̴͕̱̾H̵̺͗Ë̴͈͕́̽R̵̯̔K̴̫̈̎I̴̢̹͗́L̴̫̝̇L̵̩̲̃̓ ̴͙̿́H̷͇͔̐E̴̯͛͊Ŗ̷̤͂ ̸̫̄̚K̷͕̒Ì̶̙́L̸͔͍̈́̃L̸̬͛ ̵̧̋̕K̸͚͚̚I̵͓̾L̷̩̇L̴̮͒̈́ ̵͔̈́H̸̢̻͗Ḛ̸̅̿Ř̵͉͙̄!̶̡̖̾!̴̦̞̈̈!̴̻͔̐”̷͙̜̆̈́ The immortal Expendable shrieked, their voice devolving into a crescendo of ungodly static.

For the first time since Sebastian met the immortal human, he felt afraid of them. It was like he was hearing the voices of thousands of people spitting vitriol and hatred, and it was all directed towards his wife for daring to exist.

Suddenly, the immortal Expendable’s ranting was cut off as Punch-out walked over and proceeded to do what she did best and punch them in the gut.

“Quit it with your freaky ass satanic bullshit! You need to sit yo ass down and take a chill-pill, my dude.” She stated with finality as the immortal Expendable doubled over with a pained wheeze. “ I know a jealous rat when I smell one! And our fishman deserves better than to hear you cussing out his damn wife!”

Sebastian stared, mouth slightly agape. If he wasn’t so adverse to touch he might have hugged the Punch-out Expendable, or at least given her a high-five.

Why was his life like this? Everything was so absolutely fucked in so many terrible and horrible ways, and yet, he couldn’t help but laugh.

It started as a shaking of his shoulders as he tried to stifle his chuckles, then it became full blown laughter, then an uproarious cackle as he held onto his sides and laughed and laughed and laughed. Tears were in his eyes, he just couldn’t stop laughing at the absurdity of it all!

“Um, Sebastian?” Chief asked warily as the mutant sea snake continued to cackle hysterically. “You alright?”

“This shit—“ Sebastian barely managed between breaths as his laughter started to break down. “—is such ass. Here I am, a goddamn mutant freak of nature in a goddamned facility over twenty-two kilometers below the ocean’s surface— dealing with untold horrors beyond human comprehension and now on top of all of that, I find out that my WIFE has been inflicted with the same torture that I had endured, except its worse because she’s being forced to kill me—“ His voice broke, his laughter having long since devolved into wretched sobbing. “And yet— AND YET! Somehow, this motherfucking undying piece of shit Expendable has the audacity to be jealous! Outraged and jealous that yes! Once upon a fucking time— I was a normal guy with a normal fucking life with a loving wife and I was happy until SHIT HIT THE FAN AND URBANSHADE SWOOPED IN AND FUCKED ME!”

It was truly hilarious.

“I think.. all of you should go.” Painter said quietly to the humans, and when the immortal Expendable looked as though they were about to say something— Painter’s tone turned harsh. “Especially you, moron.”

Wordlessly, the humans walked out, leaving Sebastian to wallow in his grief whilst Painter and Sachiel did their best to support him.

Chapter Text

It took a while for Sebastian to calm down, having curled up into as tight a ball as he could, his tail looping around him several times to hide his upper torso from the outside world.

When he finally managed to gather enough of his composure, he came to a decision.

“I need to find her.”

“What?!” Painter beeped in alarm as Sebastian rose from his bed of coils. “You don’t mean—“

“Yes, I do.” Sebastian stated firmly, his tone brooked no argument as he started rifling through some nearby crates.

“But she’ll kill you! You said it yourself, she was programmed to hunt you down!” Painter’s metallic claws scraped against the floor with agitation as it watched Sebastian pocket several small devices that the AI hadn’t seen before. “And you don’t even have your GUN with you!”

Sebastian halted all movement at this, his third hand instantly going to his side where his gun’s holster was. But, alas, the firearm wasn’t there.

“Shit,” he spat, cursing himself as he recalled having dropped the weapon when he in the middle of having his mental breakdown.

“Well, now I definitely have to go back.” Sebastian said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Oh my god,” Painter’s expression squinted with disbelief. “Sebastian, I won’t let you do this! I swear, I’ll lock all the doors if you—“

The Painter’s monitor went dark, their limbs locking up as their source of power was abruptly cut off.

Nearby, Sebastian slowly rolled up the length of capable that had connected the Painter to his SCRAMBLER as he stared solemnly at the now inert computer.

“Sorry about this, buddy.” He muttered softly as he turned away, then looked up at the maintenance shaft above him.

Sachiel was already up there, the fish’s green eyes glowing with judgement from where it clung to one of the pipes running along the wall.

Sebastian shook his head, glancing back at the computer. Painter was going to give him one hell of an earful for this later… But he couldn’t risk the computer getting in his way. Not this time. Not for this.

He wasn’t going to bother trying to reason with the humans either, so he decided to avoid them entirely by taking an alternative route out of his hideout.

With a grunt of effort, Sebastian’s serpentine body propelled him upwards and his claws grabbed a hold of the pipes. He began to climb up the maintenance shaft, his body snaking around the pipework with ease as he navigated his way in the vague direction where he had last seen the Siren.

Sachiel followed him, their eerie propensity for clambering along any manner of surfaces making it easy for the rotten coral infested fish to keep pace with the large mutant fishman.

Sebastian didn’t necessarily have a plan in mind, per se. He had no idea what he was going to do when he found Zerum…. Or if Zerum found him.

Probably die, he thought dismally, before shaking his head with a frustrated grumble. He needed to keep himself from thinking that way, otherwise he was liable to go down a dark rabbit hole of despair that would render him unable to do anything even remotely useful.

Whilst he did not have an actual plan on how to deal with “The Siren”, he wasn’t going to be doing anything stupid or reckless (famous last words). Urbanshade still had to pay, and Sebastian wasn’t going to let them get away with what they had done to him and his loved ones by allowing despair to crush him.

He paused as he came upon a junction in the maintenance tunnel, the way forward branched off into several directions. And he didn’t have this sector of the facility as clearly memorized as the other places he more often frequented.

His ear fin twitched when he heard the distinct sound of a tail slapping against metal and glanced around, spotting Sachiel perched on one of the many metal pipes turning down one tunnel.

The fish’s posture was erect, the fin along their spine flaring as they lifted a fore-fin and stared at Sebastian expectantly.

Sebastian cocked his head to the side, blinking in bemusement. “What?”

Sachiel did a little hop, their fins waving as they angled their body down the tunnel they were nearest— fore-fin still raised and tail wagging from side to side.

Sebastian huffed in amusement as the fish’s posture reminded him of the way a dog would ‘point’ when sighting a duck. “Alright, fish-bait. Lead the way.”

Sachiel did another little hop before waddling onwards down their chosen tunnel, pausing every few dozen meters to make sure that Sebastian was still following.

They eventually came upon a vent cover, and Sebastian had to go onto his belly in order to peer through the grate. When he didn’t immediately sense anything, he pried the metal cover off and quietly set it aside, then poked his head through.

This vent opening was tucked close towards the ceiling, being slightly concealed by more pipes and scaffolding.

He flinched when he felt something press against him, and made an annoyed grunt when he realized Sachiel had somehow managed to squeeze through the vent beside him, their tail slapping him in the face as they popped out of the vent and crawled onto the wall.

Sebastian turned his gaze to the room below and quickly recognized it as the room where the confrontation with the Siren had occurred. Splatters of barely dried blood stained the floor and walls from the fight, and he wondered how much of it was hers.

He didn’t see his gun anywhere in the room, which made him wary of the possibility that the Siren had taken it.

Sachiel was already making its way down the wall, pausing occasionally to nibble at the bloodstains it came across before moving on.

“Sachiel, wait a second!” Sebastian hissed, glancing around the room one last time before scooting back. This particular vent was too small for him to get through, but he knew of another way around. While Hadal Blacksite’s walls were fairly solid, most of the ceilings in the office areas had an extra crawlspace between the panels and the actual load bearing girders which form the majority of the structure, and Sebastian exploited this little detail to great effect when sneaking through the facility.

You just had to pry open a few metal sheets separating this from that and…. Then…

CRASH!

Okay, usually Sebastian didn’t fall through the ceiling, but whatever. Nobodies’ perfect.

Righting himself up, Sebastian quickly dusted himself off and looked around, quickly spotting Sachiel waddling down another corridor. At first Sebastian wasn’t sure why the fish wanted to go in this direction, but as he moved to follow he quickly caught sight of the intermittent droplets of blood that trailed across the floor.

Instinctively, Sebastian’s tongue flicked out to scent the air. The blood was still relatively fresh.

Moving cautiously, Sebastian followed Sachiel down the corridor. About halfway, the fish paused, their barbels quivering before they pivoted and scurried up the side of the wall. Sebastian took that as his cue to hide as well and he deftly transitioned to crawling along the scaffolding above, the metal faintly creaking with his weight as Sachiel joined him.

The hallway was dark, and Sebastian felt a prickle of unease at the back of his neck, remembering that he wouldn’t be able to easily see the Siren in the darkness due to the UV light she emitted. He had to keep his own illumination off in order to avoid giving away his position, and whilst his night vision was good, the dim red of the emergency lights cast everything into monochrome, which made picking out finer details difficult.

Sachiel started moving again, crawling along the metal beams like a gecko, and Sebastian felt compelled to follow.

It wasn’t long until he picked up a faint pink glow, and he realized with a start that another one of his fish were also present in the room.

Moving carefully, Sebastian and Sachiel crept closer until they met up with the other fish. It was… Baphomet, if he was recalling the fishlet’s name correctly.

Baphomet was perched on the edge of a metal beam, like a gargoyle, face tilted downwards. The pink glow was coming from the fishlet’s head.

Sachiel approached her offspring, brushing whiskers with the other fish before angling themselves to adopt a similar posture, both fish peering downwards at the floor.

Sebastian followed their example and saw what they were looking at.

Below, the Siren was crouched against an upturned table, ragged ears pinned flat against her head and tentacles curled around; her arms hugging her knees to her chest as she sat there, still as stone.

She looked so small.

Sebastian kept his breathing shallow and even, not daring to make a single sound as he watched her. Was she alright? He knew that the Expendables had fought with her whilst he had been having a panic attack. But he had no idea whether the humans had managed to severely injure her or not. The document that Mr. Lopee had provided didn’t give any information on the extent of her capabilities. For all he knew, she could’ve been designed like a glass-cannon; incredibly dangerous and lethal, but fragile.

He unconsciously shifted in an effort to see her at a better angle, and the metal girders his coils rested upon gave an ominous creak. He froze, not daring to breathe as he watched one of her ears flick in response to the noise.

Thankfully, that was the only reaction she gave. She didn’t even look up. Sebastian figured that might’ve been because the noise was similar enough to the facility’s usual creaking and groaning. But surely, the noise should have been different enough to provoke a stronger reaction.

After a solid minute of staring down at the Siren. Sebastian became aware of a faint sound just barely on the edge of his hearing. It was a soft, rhythmic sound that at first he couldn’t determine the source of. It sounded vaguely familiar…

He identified the sound a moment later, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from uttering a pained sob.

She was snoring.

Oh, how dearly Sebastian wanted to hold her right then— to just tuck himself close to her and simply listen to the sound of her breathing whilst she slept.

This was torture. Absolute torture. Why did he come here? What did he think he would accomplish other than hurting himself more? There was nothing he could do for her. He couldn’t help her. She would only be compelled to kill him if he tried, and while he was more than willing to endure any kind of punishment she slew upon him, he knew that if she were in her right mind, she would have been horrified beyond measure by her actions and only blame herself in the end. He didn’t want to hurt her any more than he already had.

And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to just leave her.

He found himself at a loss on what to do. So, he simply stayed put beside his two pet fishes and watched over her while she slept.

“I can’t believe it.” The immortal Expendable said aloud as they stood in the middle of the empty hideout. “He really just left Painter behind! Again!”

The immortal Expendable had initially walked into the hideout with the intention of prostrating themselves before Sebastian and begging him for forgiveness, despite the vehement disagreement of the other humans who had been arguing for the past hour over what to do and blah blah blah blah blah—

Anyway, now all of the Expendables were standing in the room, staring at the inert form of Painter in dismay.

“Can’t say I blame him,” Medic crossed their arms with a shake of their head. “The Painter would’ve obviously tried to stop Sebastian from leaving.”

“Why did he leave?” Dog-fucker asked cluelessly.

“To find his wife, dude!” Punch-out snapped. “Have you not been paying attention?”

“But… isn’t she like trying to kill him though?” Dog-fucker seemed even more confused.

“It doesn’t matter,” Chief stated before the group could get into another argument. “The point is that Sebastian is gone, which means we’re all in trouble if we don’t find him. I’m guessing by the fact that our PDGs haven’t popped our heads off must mean he can’t have gone far yet.”

The immortal Expendable’s arm twitched in an aborted motion, they logically knew that due to their censored face that the others couldn’t see their expression, but they still tried not to side-eye Chief too hard in response to what he’d just said. While Painter hadn’t said anything directly, the immortal Expendable highly suspected that the AI had fabricated the whole spiel about Urbanshade cutting the five other Expendables loose.

So… in reality, Sebastian could be anywhere. And that meant that HQ could potentially pop-in at anytime and start demanding where the five had been for the past 72 hours.

For the sake of not dealing with the awkward questions which would result from such an event occurring, the immortal Expendable mentally prayed to whatever deity who was listening that Sebastian was still nearby.

“What should we do about the Painter?” Punch-out inquired, poking at one of the AI’s frozen extremities. “Should we plug it into an outlet or something? Maybe then it can locate where the fishman went.”

Beelzebub was also there, butting its head against the computer’s monitor. The frog-fish hybrid was making plaintive peeping noises that sounded like it was trying to mimic the electronic beeps the Painter would emit on occasion.

“I don’t see why not,” Chief shrugged his shoulders. “The question is whether there’s a functioning outlet nearby. A lot of the stuff around here has been damaged, and I don’t know enough about computers to try fixing anything.”

“We have a better plan…” the immortal Expendable spoke up, their tone shifting to become somewhat ominous.

Everyone in the room paused, looking to the anomalous human with mixtures of trepidation and concern. The other humans had only interacted with the immortal Expendable for a relatively short time, but they were now beginning to recognize their strange pattern of behavior as something more than just the symptoms of a mental condition. They had all seen what had happened when the immortal Expendable began to lose “containment” so to speak.

It was safe to say that the group had become a little more wary of the immortal Expendable.

“Oh yeah? And do you mind telling us lowly mortals about this plan of yours?”

Except for the Punch-out Expendable. She didn’t give a shit. She would deck Satan in the shnoz if given the oppertunity.

The immortal Expendable didn’t say anything, they simply reached into a pocket on their vest and pulled out a red USB stick.

Yeah, they totally pinched it off of Sebastian back when he was comatose after having been attacked the first time by the Siren.

“Sorry, Sebby…” the immortal Expendable muttered under their breath as they knelt down to insert the USB into the side of the vulnerable computer. “Change of plans!”

Now… A flash drive doesn’t normally have the ability to power on a whole computer. It just holds data, and usually it’s not a lot of data. But this red USB stick was no ordinary flash drive.

This red doohickey was Mr. Lopee’s Mcguffen! And Mr. Lopee was a fickle eldritch being of unknown origin and unfathomable capabilities.

To put it simply, the red flash drive was merely a vector for possibility. An unopened shrodingers cat yet to be defined. It could have done any number of things depending on what it was inevitably used on.

None of this matters now, because it was used on the inert form of the sentient AI known as Z-779.

===========

Booting up Emergency Power….

EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE DETECTED…..
Processing Data…..
Initializing Executable Data…….

Loading RED.exe……

Searching for Sapient Data Construct…..
Sapient Data Construct found !

Checking for Power Relay…..

ERROR ! Power Relay unavailable !
ERROR ! No Overseer Mainframe detected !
ERROR ! Outbound Connection unavailable !
ERROR ! Host Hardware Outdated !

Initializing Emergency Jumpstart Executable….
Loading Emergency Jumpstart Sequence….

Please Wait….

=======

With a crackling fizzle, the red flash drive glowed red hot before abruptly exploding into a short-lived shower of sparks that dissipated in less than an eye blink.

There was a humming sound as the 80s computer’s internal fans whirred to life and the Painter’s doodled expression flickered into being.

“—try to go back!” The Painter’s voice cut back in mid rant, then its monitor flickered as it registered its surroundings. “What the— What’re you morons doing back in here?! I told you all to leave!” The AI pivoted around, suddenly noticing the absence of a certain fishman. “Huh? Where the heck…. What just happened?! Where is Sebastian? What’s with all this extra data in my hard drive!”

“Woohoo! It worked!” The immortal Expendable cheered, still crouching in front of the AI.

“What in the hell just happened…” Chief uttered in disbelief, not understanding what had transpired in the slightest. The rest of the group was no better off.

The AI turned its gaze to the immortal Expendable and its expression became a murderous scribble of rage. “YOU! You did something, didn’t you?!” Suddenly the AI’s limbs had wrapped around the human’s neck and face like a cybernetic alien horror blob.

“Eek! BAD TOUCH!” The immortal Expendable squealed as they were tackled to the ground by the suddenly murderous machine. “PAINTS BE KIND! SEBBY NEEDS HELP!”

“Tell me something I don’t know!” The AI screeched, its metal claws digging into the human’s already torn vest.

“Okay! That’s enough!” Chief stepped in and wrapped his arms around the computer before trying to lift it off of the other human. But Painter’s limbs merely tightened their grip around the immortal Expendable.

“Painter, seriously! I thought AIs are supposed to be cool and logical and stuff!” Punch-out tried to reason with the AI as she tried her best to keep the mechanical limbs from crushing the immortal Expendable’s neck.

“SHUT UP!” Painter snapped, but their limbs loosened as they relinquished their death grip on the immortal Expendable in favor of grabbing onto Chief’s arms and forcing the man to let go.

As soon as the AI was free, it skittered away and up onto a table with surprising speed as it glared at the gathered humans with contempt. But their gaze soon refocused on the immortal Expendable, who was getting to their feet.

“You hurt Sebastian’s feelings!” Painter jabbed a mechanical claw at them accusingly. “You made him really sad when you said all those awful things!”

The immortal Expendable looked down. “We know…” Their voice was laced with deep shame and regret. “We know… we’re really sorry. I don’t— I didn’t mean to say— it wasn’t us, I mean. It wasn’t really… We didn’t mean the things we said. I just said— we just… It’s hard to explain. We can’t always control what happens when—“

“That sounds an awful lot like a bunch of stupid excuses to me!” Painter sneered.

“THEY’RE NOT EXCUSES!” The immortal Expendable shouted back, their fists clenching at their sides, causing the AI to flinch. “They… are not… excuses! I can’t— CONTROL THEM!” Abruptly their posture straightened and their head cocked to one side, the static distortion along their face warping as their voice became bright and inquisitive. “Have you ever had a worm in your systems? A virus? It wreaks havoc on your software and you can’t always control what you do or say. Have you ever been infiltrated before? Invaded with voices that aren’t your own? Have you ever spent an eternity with those invaders— spent so long with so many voices that you can no longer untangle them from your own?”

“Umm…” The Painter was caught off guard by the sudden pivot in the conversation. “No. Can’t say I have. But what does this have to do with anything? You still hurt Sebastian!”

“I KNOW!” The immortal Expendable cried, throwing their hands in the air. “I KNOW I FUCKED UP! So PLEASE help me unfuck it! We have no idea where Sebby is! And for all we know, he could be dead right now at the hands of his psycho-bitch wife!”

Painter frowned, its anger subsiding and giving way to worry, the AI seemed to take a moment to debate with itself. Beelzebub hopped up onto the table and nudged one of their mechanical limbs. The AI briefly used one metal claw to lightly pat the fish-frog hybrid as it came to a decision. “Alright, fine! But you gotta apologize big time when we find him!”

“I will apologize.” The immortal Expendable nodded with absolute seriousness.

“And you need to tell him that you are a stupid doo-doo brain.”

“I will tell him that I am the stupidest doo-doo brain to have ever existed.”

“AND— and you have to give him a big Apology Pie!”

“An Apology Pie?” Medic whispered incredulously in the background. “Down here???”

“I will fucking BAKE the BIGGEST Apology Pie for him,” the immortal expendable readily promised without batting an eye.

“Okay…” Painter seemed satisfied. “So, um… where should we start looking?”

“Uh, we figured you would be able to answer that.” Chief pointed out. “Can’t you check through the security cameras and stuff?”

“I don’t think I can without being connected to the SCRAMBLER.” Painter admitted. “Honestly, I’m kind of confused as to how I’m even being powered on right now.”

“We used to the red doohickey on you.” Immortal Expendable informed.

Painter’s eyes went round. “You… you plugged that red USB stick into me?!”

“Yep.”

“I DID NOT CONSENT TO THAT!” Painter angrily waved its claws about in agitation.

“Let’s worry about all of that later!” White pleaded desperately. “Let’s just focus on finding Sebastian first, then like, everyone can go back to screaming at each other or whatever, okay?”

Sebastian felt like he was losing his mind. Why was she still sleeping? Was she more badly injured than he’d thought?

He didn’t have a watch on hand, so maybe he was just perseverating and it only felt like he had been sitting in the rafters for hours. But he couldn’t shake the anxiety that something was wrong. How could anyone sleep so soundly in a place like this?

With an effort, Sebastian began the slow process of sneaking his way down from the scaffolding above, and crept his way towards the Siren’s sleeping form. He had to be patient and time his movements with the natural rhythm of the facility’s ambient sounds, being extra quiet and employing all his stealth capabilities.

It really didn’t help that his mind began to conjure up the Mission Impossible theme song. He actually caught himself humming the damn theme as he came within a few meters of the Siren’s position and had to bite his tongue to force himself to stop.

Nearly there….

Slowly, he eased up against the side of the overturned table and cautiously peaked over the side.

There she was.

Sebastian never felt more wracked with nerves than he did at that very moment, he thought his chest might explode with how hard his heart was hammering as he tapped into all of the predator instincts imbued in his DNA to ensure that he didn’t do anything to alert his prey to his looming presence.

At this close, he could make out the dried blood caking her brow. He silently cursed the Expendables for hurting her, even though they had done it in his defense. It still made him frown.

Then he noticed something else.

Curled up in one of her tentacle tails was his triple barreled shotgun.

Well… fuck.

Sebastian gingerly reached a claw over and delicately tried to slip the gun away from her, but the tentacle reflexively tightened and curled further around the weapon. Sebastian froze, checking to see if she was still asleep. After a few heartbeats, he tried again, his claws grasping onto the barrel of the gun and slowly shimmying the weapon side to side in an effort to gently dislodge the tentacle. With how the tentacle seemed intent on holding the weapon in a death grip, he was kind of worried that he might slip up and the tentacle would end up squeezing the trigger and blow his freaking hand right off.

He reached over with his other hand, thinking that he could maybe get away with prying the grasping appendage away from the gun. This was a mistake, because as soon as his claws brushed against the slick oily tentacle, it flipped about and curled around his wrist, releasing the gun— which Sebastian just barely managed to catch before it hit the floor.

Well. FUCK.

Sebastian stood there, staring at his trapped wrist as he slowly holstered his reacquired gun, grateful to have his signature weapon back but… he kind of needed his arm back, too.

For a solid few seconds, he contemplated the idea of simply chewing his own hand off. He still had two more. It was fine, he didn’t need this hand. It now belonged to Zerum!

He looked up, spying Sachiel and Baphomet still perched upon the scaffolding above, watching him fumble about like an absolute idiot. Sachiel raised one fin upon seeing him looking, and Sebastian imagined it was the fish’s equivalent of giving him a thumbs up. He swore he saw Baphomet give a little despairing shake of its head.

Sebastian had to repress the urge to sigh, lest he wake up the Siren. He glanced back at his tail, looking for an item that he could potentially use to get himself out of the bind he suddenly found himself in.

He spotted the green plastic of a Gummylight still strapped to his tail. That would have to do.

Carefully arching his tail around in order to unbuckle the gimmicky device, pausing when he felt the grip on his trapped wrist tighten, he glanced over to make sure all was good before he grabbed the Gummylight.

Delicately, he tapped the side of the flashlight against the tentacle holding his other arm prisoner and was relieved when the tentacle reflexively latched onto the device and curled around it— freeing his wrist.

With a slight shudder of relief, Sebastian quickly retreated before he could do something else stupid and soon rejoined Sachiel and Baphomet in the rafters.

It was a good thing too, because not a moment later, the Siren finally woke up.

Sebastian held his breath as he watched her stir. Her head lifting as her ears slowly rose, she let out a cute yawn, flashing her wicked needle teeth as she did so.

Then she seemed to notice the swapped object in her tentacles and tilted her head in curiosity. She grabbed the Gummylight tentatively, looking the device over. She used one clawed thumb to flick the light on, shining the pale green light— only to frown in disappointment when the light quickly died. Seemingly frustrated, she gave the device a shake and it made that distinctive annoying rattle that Sebastian despised. She paused, her ear twitching with interest.

She gave it another shake, making the device rattle again as its light flickered back on.

She giggled.

Oh no… Sebastian thought, feeling a confusing mixture of horror and heart aching adoration as he watched her play with the Gummylight, he clutched at his chest as the turmoil of conflicting emotions threatened to make him vomit. She likes the stupid thing!

Chapter Text

The six Expendables were uncertain as to where they should begin searching for Sebastian. Chief logically suggested that they backtrack towards the room that they had confronted the Siren, as that was likely where Sebastian would have gone in search for his wife. With no better leads, the others agreed.

On their way back, the group encountered more of the mutant fishes waiting by one of the sealed off doors.

“Scorch! Chomper! Whip!” Painter called out gleefully, scuttling ahead on their many legs to reunite with the fishlets.

“Do all of Sebastian’s kids have names?” Dog-fucker asked as he watched the AI pat each of the fishes in greeting.

Painter rolled its eyes. “Duh, of course they all have names!” The AI was about to add something else, but they paused upon realizing that Chomper was scrapping its teeth against the doorframe. Chunks of drywall having already been pried off and caking the floor. “Jeez, did this wall insult your momma, Chomps?”

Beelzebub hopped over, emitting a croak as it brushed barbels with its siblings. Chomper merely clacked its teeth together angrily, before headbutting the door.

“Maybe Sebastian’s on the other side?” White guessed, stepping closer to press a hand on the door. “You sure you can’t open it?”

“I don’t think so.” Painter replied with a sad frown, they were feeling rather useless without their ability to hack into systems like they normally would.

“What about the ventilation system?” The immortal Expendable pointed up at a grate near the ceiling. “Maybe we could boost each other up and through.”

“I don’t know,” Medic raised their hands up, trying to measure the distance. “That vent has got to be like… over fifteen feet up.”

The immortal Expendable gave a huff of frustration, feeling as though Medic was likely exaggerating about how high it was, but they conceded the point.

“I could probably climb up and see if I can fit!” Painter offered with an eager look. “Then I can crawl through and check to see if Sebastian’s on the other side!”

“You sure?” Chief sounded doubtful. “What if you encounter trouble while you’re over there? What are we supposed to do? Sit here and wait?”

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Punch-out butted in. “I don’t see any other options available to us. There’s not exactly a lot of places we can go.” She glanced over her shoulder, warily eyeing at a nearby security camera. “Plus, I don’t like the idea of us being within view of HQ’s surveillance for too long. I feel like that’s just asking for trouble.”

Whilst the Expendables went back and forth over what the group’s next course of action should be— Part of Painter’s attention drifted, focusing inwards as it studied the changes that had been made to its matrix.

The AI found that it had much more processing power than it originally had. It found that its motor skills had been fine-tuned and adjusted, and the crack on its monitor had somehow repaired itself. It also now had access to several processes that it didn’t know it had, as well as a full diagnostic readout on its current hardware and the changes which were made to its matrix in order to better process data.

The full extent of all the changes that the red USB drive had done to the Painter would take time to sort through, and Painter immediately started crafting a subprocess (which was essentially a subconscious, only better) to organize the data in the background whilst it focused on more immediate matters.

“Painter!”

The AI’s screen flickered and it tilted its monitor up to look at who had spoken. “Huh? Yeah?”

“We said to go ahead through the vents,” the immortal Expendable informed with a somewhat exasperated tone.

“Oh,” the Painter’s expression blinked, before it let out an annoyed beep. “Took you guys long enough…”

Without further fanfare, Painter used their multitude of limbs to scale up the side of the wall. The tips of their metal claws easily punching holes into the drywall as they hauled themselves upwards, before pausing beside the grate to the ventilation shaft.

They used one claw to grip onto the metal slats and with a slight whir of running motors they pulled, the grate easily popping off. Painter’s monitor displayed a triumphant grin as they carelessly tossed the grate aside (the immortal Expendable letting out a shouted “OW!” As they proceeded to catch said grate with their face) and crawled into the now open vent.

“Heheheheheh….” Painter felt oddly giddy as they made their way through the ventilation shaft, their mechanical claws seamlessly carrying the computer around corners. No longer being tethered to the SCRAMBLER was quite liberating!

The AI was so caught up with reveling in their sense of freedom that they nearly stumbled right into Dart and Skuttle.

“Oh my gosh!” Painter gasped in surprise, their mechanical claw automatically pivoting to avoid accidentally stepping on the diminutive fishlets. “Where have you two been?”

Dart’s body twitched as it flipped its tail at Painter in greeting, the pink dot on the tip of their tail fin catching the AI’s sensors. Skuttle merely rubbed two of its claws together anxiously, jerking its head towards the grate that the two fishes were waiting by. Painter noticed that the isopod hybrid also possessed an odd spot of pink on their tail fin.

How strange…

Painter mentally shrugged, deciding to file the peculiarity away for later analysis as it turned its webcam to peer through the slats in the grate.

It didn’t see anything of note right away, the passageway beyond being quite dark— with only the red emergency lights providing any semblance of illumination.

Dart waddled forward and pecked its long nose at the edge of the grate insistently, before pausing to eyeball Painter with an expectant look.

“Out there?” Painter’s doodled expression simulated an inquisitive frown. The AI supposed this grate was as good as any to exit from, even though the AI had no way of telling how far it had traversed through the ventilation system.

With two mechanical claws, the AI easily popped the grate open, letting it fall to the floor with a clatter that was loud enough to make the two fishlets jump.

“Oopsie…” Painter made a cringing expression as it hesitantly stepped out into the corridor, the light of its monitor casting about as it swiveled to assess the area.

Dart and Skuttle quickly followed, keeping close to the AI’s many limbs for protection.

“Hmm…” Painter’s internal fans whirred as it tried to discern where it was. It had files relating to Hadal Blacksite’s layout, and it busily began to compare different maps in an effort to orientate itself.

However, movement suddenly pinged on the AI’s sensors as it picked up UV light pulsing no less than two meters from its position.

Cautiously, Painter angled its monitor towards the source, the bright screen of their monitor reflecting off the side of an overturned table. The AI blinked, confused. Then it caught sight of something peaking over the top, a single glowing eye looking down at it, ragged ears rising and canting forwards.

“Uhhhhhhhhhh…..” Painter didn’t normally blue-screen, but it certainly felt like it was blue-screening as it realized with dawning horror that it was in the presence of the Siren.

The AI flinched when suddenly a green light was shone at it, and it reflexively brought a claw up in anticipation of an attack. Their monitor flickered with confusion when the pale green light quickly faded, and Painter realized that the Siren was pointing a Gummylight at them like it was a weapon.

“Umm, okay...” Painter was very confused, and felt a little irritated by the strange behavior. “You know that isn’t a gun, right? That’s a freaking flashlight.”

The Siren’s eye squinted down at the computer from over the edge of the table, shaking the Gummylight and flicking the light on again. “Sp…spider… Ick…”

Painter’s expression turned offended. “I’m not a spider, you idiot! I’ll have you know that I’m a highly sophisticated sentient AI!”

The Siren seemed unconvinced as its ears tilted. She pointed a clawed finger at the computer. “Legs…” Her voice was raspy, as if she had gone a long time without using it and wasn’t used to forming words.

Painter glanced down at its mechanical limbs, lifting one and clacking the claws on the end. “Yeah? So what? I think they’re pretty damn cool!” Then the AI’s monitor flickered. “Hey wait a minute— why am I even bothering to talk to you?! Where’s Sebastian? Did you do something to him?!”

Like a switch had been flipped, the Siren’s eye widened and glowed brightly as her face twisted with a mixture of pain, panic and rage. “KILL!” She barked, dropping the Gummylight to the floor with a clatter as she rose to her feet, the multitude of tendril-like tails waving threateningly as her head whipped about the room. “Must… Find..! Must k-k-kill! I c-can’t!” She was breathing heavily, ears twitching erratically as she staggered backwards, her claws reaching up to grab at her hair.

Painter stared in stunned silence as the Siren proceeded to let out a horrific shriek before she dashed away, disappearing down the dark corridor, the sounds of her rapid footsteps quickly fading as she fled.

“What the heck…?” Painter glanced down questioningly at Dart and Skuttle, who had remained close behind the computer during the entire encounter.

The computer jolted when a heavy slam caused the floor to reverberate as something huge landed no less than a few feet away. The Painter let out a terrified electronic yell as it suddenly found itself in the air, two massive claws gripping either side of its monitor as its webcam was suddenly filled with the enraged face of Sebastian Solace.

“What are you doing out here?!” Sebastian hissed, his breath fogging up AI’s screen. “Or a better yet: HOW are you out here?” Sebastian had watched the whole encounter between the Siren and Painter in silent horror and disbelief, but now that the Siren was gone, that fear quickly turned into outrage.

Painter’s internal fans whirred loudly as it reflexively looped its mechanical limbs around the two which were holding it aloft, the Painter’s expression flickering from relieved, to frightened, to upset, to absolutely pissed off.

“YOU LEFT ME!” The AI finally settled on absolutely pissed off. “YOU BIG JERK! You unplugged me and left me to die!”

Sebastian jerked his head back, face twisting with shock and incredulity. “What?! No I did not! I was going to come back for you! I just needed to make sure you wouldn’t try to stop me—“

“So you thought the best way to do that was to leave me powered off against my will so that anyone passing by could do whatever they wanted to my inert husk?!” Painter was really angry as its metal claws dug into the fishman's arms. “What if you didn’t come back?! I would have been left there all alone for who knows how long! I could have been trapped like that until the Blacksite inevitably eroded and collapsed in on itself, and I would have no idea! You fucking bastard! How could you do that to me?!”

Sebastian’s ear fins had drooped as he bit his lip, eyes squinting half closed as the weight of what he had done by leaving Painter the way that he had fully dawned on him. “I… I’m so sorry, Paints. I didn’t realize….”

Painter crossed two of its limbs in front of its monitor, still pissed. “Yeah, I get that you were likely being extra stupid because of your wife or whatever— but still! Not cool, Sebastian. If you ever try to power me off against my will again, I will not hesitate to riddle your big fat head full of bullets!!!”

“Understood…” Sebastian nodded solemnly, knowing that the AI was absolutely serious about that threat. With a sigh he lowered the Painter to the floor and released them. “So, how are you being powered on right now, if you don’t mind me asking.”

Painter stared flatly at the fishman. “You know when I mentioned that anyone passing by could do whatever they wanted to me when you left me like that?”

Sebastian felt his stomach twist with sudden dread. “Oh god…”

“Yeah, dumbass. Our mutual undying friend used that ominous red USB on me!”

With a start, Sebastian’s hand instantly went to the pocket on his coat where he had been keeping the insidious flash drive. Lo and behold, the pocket was empty. “That sneaky bitch…” He lowered himself to be closer to Painter’s level, eyes scanning the computer critically. “Where is the doohickey now? And how the hell were they able to use it on you when you weren’t even connected to a power source? That isn’t how USB sticks function.”

“I don’t know!” Painter waved two of its arms. “I wasn’t exactly conscious when they inserted the drive. All I recall is that one second I was yelling at you for being an idiot, then the next second I was surrounded by all the humans and suddenly I had all this extra data stored in my hard drive! I’m still sorting through all the new stuff, and I have no idea what exactly it did, but now I’m moving around without needing to be plugged into something. But I can’t hack into any nearby systems without having access to your stupid SCRAMBLER!”

Sebastian was worrying his chin with one hand as he digested all of this new information. The fact that Painter wasn’t fully aware of the entire extent that the USB had done to them was concerning, but neither of them were really in any position to do anything about it, Sebastian didn’t currently have the tools available to isolate the new additions without harming Painter’s matrix. “Alright… You’ll let me know if something strange happens, yeah?”

Painter lowered its limbs, expression still sour. “So you can what? Blast a hole through my hard drive on the off chance that I suddenly turn into a killing machine?”

“You’re already a killing machine, buddy.” Sebastian pointed out flatly, not batting an eye at the AI’s comment, letting the Painter get its justifiable anger out.

“Whatever,” Painter grumbled, before begrudgingly adding: “Also the humans are freaking out, I think they might be on the verge of figuring out that I faked HQ calling them traitors through the PA system.”

“Hmph,” Sebastian gave a disinterested grunt. “Honestly, I don’t see why either of us should care. It’s not as if we need the humans in order to retrieve the Crystal for ourselves…”

This surprised the AI. “But… don’t we need the immortal Expendable in order for their benefactor to help us?”

Sebastian shrugged. “Maybe. We don’t actually know what will happen once we obtain the Crystal.”

“Sebastian,” Painter was glaring again. “I just told you off for abandoning me, I’m not about to let you pull the same goddamned shit with the humans.”

Sebastian grimaced, feeling immediately ashamed as he brushed a lock of hair out of his face. “Right…”

“You really are such an asshole.” Painter gave a small shake of their monitor.

“That I am,” Sebastian put his hands on his hips as he grinned down at the computer with all of his teeth. “But you knew that from the start, best buddy.”

“Yeah…” Painter couldn’t help the small smile that formed. “I don’t know why I’m still friends with you.”

“I figured it had to do with my overwhelming charm and endearing characteristics!” He winked.

Painter raised an unimpressed brow. “Uh-huh, sure. You are about as charming as an oily snake with a serious coke addiction.”

“Hey, hate the system, not the victim.” Sebastian waved his hands dismissively, his eyes flicked towards Dart and Skuttle as Sachiel scaled down the wall and came over to reconnect with her offspring. He noticed the pink luminescent dots on the tail tips of the two fishlets.

Taking a shot in the dark, Sebastian pointed at the two fishlets. “Those two didn’t happen to lead you here, did they?”

“Not at first,” Painter admitted, glancing at the fishlets in question. “I found them lingering beside the vent cover while I was trying to find a way around the sealed doors by going through the ventilation system.” The AI looked up at Sebastian quizzically. “Why? Did Sachiel lead you to your wife?”

“Actually, they led me to Baphomet, who had been keeping an eye on the Siren.” Sebastian scratched his chin in thought, glancing up at the rafters and noting that Baphomet was no longer present. “It might be a coincidence, but I have a hunch that our mutant school of gold fish have taken it upon themselves to track the whereabouts of the Siren. I don’t know how, but Baphomet seems to be the key to the operation.”

“Why would they do that?” Painter questioned.

“I don’t know,” Sebastian gave a shrug. “I could obviously speculate, but without having found any evidence of there being any documents regarding golden fish, I can’t be sure of what each one is fully capable of or what they primarily desire, beyond—“ he waved a hand in a vague gesture “— basic fish things.”

When Painter didn’t immediately respond, Sebastian looked down at the computer.

The Painter’s monitor had gone fuzzy, a window having popped up over their default art program and displaying the text: locating document…

“Paints?” Sebastian asked anxiously, leaning down and giving the computer’s screen a light tap.

A metal claw batted his hand away as Painter emitted an annoyed beep. “Don’t touch the screen! Gosh, that’s like basic computer etiquette, you moron…”

“Apologies,” Sebastian raised his hands apologetically. “But what’s with the pop-up?”

“I don’t know— but one of my subprocessors pinged me when you said ‘golden fish’ and— Oh! There’s a match!”

The pop-up window disappeared and another window opened up to display what appeared to be an image scan of an open file document, with the header displaying the words: Z-113 “Golden Fish” with an photo pasted above depicting a specimen that looked a lot like how Sachiel used to look before they mutated.

“Holy shit,” Sebastian whistled, peering closer at the screen as his eyes eagerly pored over the document. “Well, this is quite convenient…”

“Tell me about it,” Painter beeped in disbelief. “I wasn’t even aware of this file until you apparently mentioned the key word that triggered it to unlock.”

“Interesting. Very interesting…” Sebastian spoke with genuine intrigue as he read the file, occasionally making a hand gesture— like one would when using a touch screen in order to use the scroll bar, except he made sure to avoid actually touching the computer and the AI was quick to catch on and scroll downwards to reveal more of the document.

The document read as follows:

Z-0133 “Golden Fish”

Z-0133, codenamed: Golden Fish, are a lab grown species of carp that have a key modified trait in their DNA which makes their genetic makeup highly reactive and unstable, causing instances to mutate spontaneously and erratically when exposed to environmental pressures or certain stimuli.

The base genetic material responsible for their highly mutative nature had been originally discovered when Trenchbleeder Rose went over a section of the Let-Vand Zone where the tectonic plates had recently shifted. Rose’s foot broke through the weakened rock shelf and opened up a previously undiscovered chasm that was later found to be host to _________ and ________ life. The properties of which had promising potential for various applications that could be exploited if applied correctly.

One of these many potential applications was further researched with the intention to test the possible mutagenic properties on biological life in such a way that would also generate revenue for Urbanshade, and thus the “Golden Pet Project" was conceived.

Z-0133 were originally developed for Urbanshade in a campaign to generate funds through the exotic pet trade, with the marketing scheme slating for these highly adaptive fish to become the highlight of any aquarium with no two fish being exactly alike.

Unfortunately, due to the highly unstable and unpredictable nature of the mutations that could develop in instances of Z-0133, the project was soon shelved as researchers at Hadal Blacksite proclaimed a need for further testing to be conducted in order to ensure no “unintended side-effects” occurred, (and to lessen the likelihood of buyers suing the company for damages and loss of life). Not to mention that most specimens that underwent mutation were less than appealing to look at, with major concerns about quality of life coming into question as some mutations resulted in the formation of physical deformities in the fish, which impacted their longevity and overall ability to thrive.

The existing instances of Z-0133 are currently being kept in containment on site for further study, but it is highly likely that the remaining individuals of the project will be terminated as Urbanshade moves on to bigger avenues for profit.

Addendum: Notes taken by Project-Lead Doctor _______ ______

No Two Alike: A persistent quirk about the unstable genetic make-up of Z-0133 is the fact that attempts to replicate a specific mutation is incredibly difficult. Even when specimens are exclusively exposed to exacting stimuli, specimens are unlikely to form identical mutations in order to adapt to the new environment. It seems as though the fish are pressured to mutate in such a way that avoids copying another specimen’s existing mutation. This may be some form of enforced diversity in case one individual’s mutation proves to be less successful in the new environment than another’s.

Staggered Mutation Stages: There is currently no concrete way to determine when an instance of Z-0133 has finished mutating. In simulated lab environments where the goal is to test the versatility of certain mutations, it has been discovered that different fish will mutate more rapidly than others and at multiple times in their lifespan. Some mutations can even become hereditary and compound upon new mutations that are developed over generations. It is unknown as whether or not the seemingly spontaneous mutations is triggered by certain chemicals in the fishes brains being activated or if some individuals simply have more unstable DNA than others.

Life Expectancy: The lifespan of individual instances of Z-0133 are highly variable, ranging anywhere from 2 - 5 years on average, with the oldest individual still alive to this day being 7 years old. This specimen has been designated: Z-0133-A and is currently being kept as the project’s control specimen, where no changes to its aquarium has been conducted, thus keeping subject Z-0133-A in an un-mutated state.

NOTICE: The lockdown which has been triggered by an unprecedented containment breach in Hadal Blacksite has left the state of this project inaccessible. Currently no knowledge on the fate of the surviving instances of Z-0133 exists, and recovering the data from the project is low on the company’s priority list.

AT THIS RATE ILL NEVER GET THE CHANCE TO CREATE MATSYA!!

Sebastian didn’t know what to make of the penned out scribble at the bottom of the scanned image of the document’s last page, and decided to ignore it as he considered the information the document had provided.

Leaning back, and thus wordlessly signaling to Painter that he was done reading, Sebastian looked over at the three fish that were currently with them. He wondered if Sachiel was specimen Z-0133-A that the document mentioned.

Sachiel was eyeballing him in its usual stupid fish way, having to tilt its head slightly in order to look up at him. With their very much mutated state, Sebastian supposed that Sachiel was no longer eligible as the project's control specimen.

“So, you were a test-tube baby!” Sebastian stated with a smirk as he reached down and picked the rotten coral infested fish up to be at eye level with him. “Nothing but lab grown fish-bait! How absolutely tragic.”

Sachiel merely stared at him, googly eyes unblinking as its mouth opened and closed idly. It probably didn’t understand a single word he had said.

“I don’t get why some of the data is still redacted.” Painter mused, still scanning over the file itself.

“Probably because the physical copy that was scanned had those parts redacted.” Sebastian said reasonably as he switched to holding the fish under one arm. “We should start making our way back, before the humans do something stupid.”

“Are you sure this will work?” White asked pensively as she handed over a screwdriver to the immortal Expendable.

“Absolutely!” The immortal Expendable responded cheerily as they proceeded to jab the screwdriver handle first into the open wall panel, causing the mechanism inside to make an unpleasant crunching sound.

“I know in sci-fi movies they have the protagonists shoot the control panel in order to get a door to open or whatever,” White continued unabated. “But like, I don’t think the same is supposed to apply to actual control panels.”

“It’s not an unreasonable assumption, per se.” Chief said, standing a few feet away and leaning against a wall with the others. “Most automated mechanisms are programmed to automatically return to the resting position if their power is abruptly cut off. Or at least that’s how it is for OSHA approved appliances.”

“What makes you think anything down here has been even remotely OSHA approved?” Medic inquired flatly, only to earn a noncommittal shrug in response.

There was a sudden flash and a loud yelp as the immortal Expendable evidently crossed some wires and proceeded to cause the entire panel to short-circuit. The resulting electrocution was a byproduct as the smoking human flopped to the floor.

“Oh my fucking god!” White waved a hand frantically at the charred human, her other hand going to her face mask. “Are you, like, okay?”

With a characteristic flash of light, the immortal Expendable sat up and shook themselves before responding. “We’re right as rain! And look, the door’s open now!”

“Actually, I opened the door, dumbass.” Came the voice of Sebastian as the mutant sea snake loomed into view, holding a red keycard that was swiftly returned to his inner coat pocket.

Painter crawled in beside him, along with the three fish, who were quick to scamper over to the four other fishlets who had been with the humans. Now all they were missing was Iggy, Bubbles and Baphomet.

The humans all came to attention at the appearance of the fishman, with White quickly scrambling to stand by Chief, effectively abandoning the immortal Expendable to their fate as Sebastian reached down and promptly picked the human up by the back of their still lightly smoldering vest.

“You used the red doohickey on the Painter.” It was a statement, not a question as he jabbed an accusing claw into the human’s chest, purposefully poking the ragged hole in their vest where a bullet had ripped through prior.

“Yeah, we did. I did.” The human flinched as the claw pricked their flesh. “But it worked out, didn’t it? I mean, obviously since Painter isn’t connected to the mainframe it wasn’t able to establish a secure connection to the agent who we were told was supposed to contact us and relay further instructions but—“ They stopped, slumping in Sebastian’s hold like a puppet whose strings were abruptly cut. Their voice trembling. “L-look, I’m sorry. Really sorry. About earlier and all that, I really, really didn’t have any control over it, but I’m still so sorry that you had to witness that. Sebastian Solace, I am the biggest, stupidest, most idiotic doo-doo brain to have ever fucking existed and you are right to hate me, and when we get out of here, we’ll bake you the biggest apology pie ever.”

Sebastian watched the human babble out their apology, expression flat and uncaring as he remained silent.

The rest of the humans were all standing by awkwardly, waiting in anticipation for Sebastian’s verdict, and each mentally preparing their own response depending on what the verdict was.

After a few tense seconds of silence, Sebastian lifted a hand to rub at his face as he let out a deep sigh. “It has to be a shepherd’s pie.”

“A shepherd’s pie.” The immortal Expendable’s voice was hopeful. “Do… do you want it vegetarian or…?”

Sebastian let out a derisive cackle at this, lowering the human before letting them drop the last few feet to the floor. They just barely managed to stick the landing. “Obviously not! I want the whole deal, with sweet corn topping over the beef casserole!”

“Okay… Okay!” The Expendable bounced on their heels as they seemed to grow excited. “Yes! We can do that!” They spread their arms out. “Apology hug?”

“No.” Was Sebastian’s immediate deadpan response.

“Aww…”

Chapter Text

“So, what’s the plan right now?” Chief asked as soon as he felt they were no longer at risk of Sebastian doing a violence on somebody.

“To get the Crystal, obviously.” Sebastian responded in a clipped tone as he slid past the group, heading down a corridor that he hoped led in the general direction of the control bridge.

“And you’re certain that your lady friend won’t be out there waiting for us again?” Chief pressed, lengthening his stride to keep up with the much larger being.

“No, not exactly.” Sebastian admitted, though he kept his tone carefully neutral as he spoke. “But our options going forward are limited. We could try to take an alternative route towards one of the other control bridges that connect to the main reactor room, but doing so would take time. Each control bridge connected to the main reactor room is stationed at the terminus of each sector of Hadal Blacksite, which are spaced within a rough equal distance from one another.” He tilted his head downwards to eye Chief. “And since we’ve already encountered anomalous shifts in the site’s architecture whilst on our way to this control bridge, I do not doubt the likely possibility that such anomalous instances will be present elsewhere within a similar proximity to the other control bridges.”

“Right…” Chief nodded his head, turning his attention to the corridor ahead. “And you still have no idea as to what’s causing these… shifts… in the site’s layout.”

“Not a single clue.” Sebastian confirmed with a solemn head shake. He found that he didn’t mind talking to the Chief Expendable. The human seemed to have a steady head on his shoulders, and he didn’t waste time with pointless dithering or small talk. Chief was straight to the point and professional. From the somewhat gruff timbre of his voice and general way of carrying himself, Chief gave off the impression that he was much older than anyone else in the group. Maybe even older than Sebastian.

If Sebastian were still human, Chief probably would have towered over him by a good foot and a half— which was odd to imagine.

Sebastian idly found himself pondering as to what the Chief Expendable had done in order to get himself thrown in with Urbandshade’s Expendable Protocol.

Of course, Sebastian wasn’t going to trouble himself with asking. Especially not with all the other humans around, because then asking one Expendable about their tragic backstory would prompt all the others to begin sharing and—

“What did you do to get thrown in prison?” Painter inquired, the computer having taken the liberty of clambering onto the back of Sebastian’s tail along with the fishlets and Sachiel.

Goddamnit.

Sebastian had to resist the urge to fling his tail about and send the unwanted hitchhikers flying.

Chief looked at the AI with surprise, before letting out a short huff of amusement. “Oh, nothing too interesting. I just killed a motherfucker who deserved it, and as expected, the civil world didn’t take too kindly to it.”

“You only killed one person?” The AI’s expression was a disbelieving frown. “But, weren’t you in the army? Didn’t they make you kill people then?”

Chief shook his head. “Yes… but in that context I was merely a soldier doing my duty to defend my country at the behest of my government.” He spoke patiently, like he was talking to a child. “In this case, I was no longer in active duty and I had murdered a citizen who was under my government’s protection. That kind of shit gets you major jail time.”

“Huh…” Painter seemed to consider this. The AI had very little exposure to the wider world outside of what little it had learned when it had lived with its creator, before Hadal Blacksite had locked it away. So the concept of politics and law was largely unknown to it.

“How’d you know I was in the army?” Chief then questioned the Painter, his tone conversational, but it had the faintest edge to it that immediately made Sebastian tense. “I don’t recall having mentioned it to you.”

Painter noticed it too, and their monitor flickered as the AI did its best to mask its nervous expression. “Uh, well, I just—“

“We told them about it!” The immortal Expendable popped in, merrily skipping along the other side of Sebastian’s tail.

Sebastian allowed the tension in his shoulders to ease and he felt the metallic claws gripping along his belts loosen by a fraction; Painter eagerly nodded to back up the immortal Expendable’s lie.

Chief made a disgruntled sound. “Oh. Well, next time I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from gossiping about my personal life, Immy.”

“Immy?!” The immortal Expendable made a choking noise as they nearly tripped.

“Yeppers,” Punch-out called from a bit farther back, having overheard the immortal Expendable’s outburst. “Since none of us have a hope of ever pronouncing whatever garbage noise that your actual name is, we decided to give ya a nickname!”

“Oh,” the immortal Expendable— Immy— sounded completely lost, and reflexively their head tilted up to look at Sebastian.

Sebastian had no idea why they were looking at him. “Immy the Immortal Expendable it is.” He shrugged and gave a derisive snort. “Good for you! You’ve successfully integrated with your own kind and been accepted into their herd! Now you can burden them with your eccentricities instead of bothering me all the time.”

“What?!” Immy sounded horrified. “NO! I’M NOT READY!”

“Too bad, so sad!” Sebastian gleefully said over his shoulder. Painter let out an electronic cackle at the scene, finding the situation incredibly amusing.

“Don’t worry, Immy.” White came up beside the flabbergasted Expendable and gave them a pat on the shoulder. “It’s, like, for the best. I mean— It’s probably for the best? You can’t keep clinging to the fishman forever.”

“Yeah,” Dog-fucker joined in. “Sometimes when you love something, you’ve gotta set it free!”

“NO!” Immy shouted, waving their arms frantically. “We’re not FREE yet— don’t send me out into the wild! I need— we need— waitwaitWAIT! SEBASTIAN!!!”

But Sebastian kept going, giving the immortal Expendable three middle fingers as he slithered on ahead.

Then the world shook.

It started as a rumbling beneath them, and then the entire walls and ceiling began to shudder as something shook the entire Blacksite from within. Sebastian stopped, his tail coiling about as Painter and the school of fish clung on fearfully. The humans all stumbled, a few letting out shouts of alarm as they tried to keep their footing. There was a dull roar underlining the sounds of the Blacksite shaking itself apart, and Sebastian felt an unwanted surge of fear.

Then, just as quickly as it had started, it was over. The world resettled and the group was thankfully still alive.

“What the hell was that!?” Chief shouted as he pushed away from a wall.

Sebastian’s ear fins flicked as he warily scanned their surroundings. Painter’s monitor was flickering rapidly as their internal fans whirred anxiously. The fish had all gone eerily still as they waited for something to happen.

”The Angel is stirring….” Immy proclaimed ominously, having fallen into a crouching stance with their hands clasped over their head. ”The Big One weeps and the blood ceases flowing!”

“Oh goddamn it, not again…” Sebastian cursed under his breath as he rubbed his face angrily. The last time the whole Blacksite shook, the immortal Expendable started spouting cryptic nonsense before revealing that they were somehow able to divine that the site’s External Repellent System had gone offline.

“What are you yappin’ on about now?” Punch-out gave the immortal Expendable a few light slaps to the side of their head. “What did I say about you goin’ off on your satanic bullshit again?”

Immy shook themselves, waving a gloved hand to ward off Punch-out’s prodding as they got shakily to their feet. “Shits fucked,” was all they said in response.

“When is it not,” Medic grumbled.

“We need to hurry,” Sebastian hissed, quickly turning and resuming his path down the corridor, though at a much quicker pace. “This whole damn place is falling apart.”

His ear fins twitched as he became aware of the sound of flowing water, and his stomach sank.

Turning the corner, he saw what he had dreaded.

The passageway back towards the control bridge was blocked by layers of shifted rock which had caved inwards during the earthquake, the rocks having broken through the ceiling and sheering off various pipes in its wake, which was the source of the now flowing water.

Sebastian slithered closer, pressing a hand against the bare rock, rivulets of water streaming down and running over his claws. His fish disembarked from his person to take advantage of the flowing water, eagerly moisturizing themselves, with Sachiel refilling their personal supply by directly sitting underneath a leak and letting the water spill into their open mouth.

At least someone was looking at the bright side of things.

Sebastian certainly wasn’t.

“W-what do we do now?” Dog-fucker asked timidly.

“We find another way,” Chief stated simply, not letting his dismay show in his voice as he put his hands on his hips. “Painter, I know you said you weren’t able to hack anything on your own, but with Sebastian and his SCRAMBLER here, surely that shouldn’t be a problem anymore.”

“Yeah, I guess so…” Painter nodded, though they understandably sounded a bit reluctant. While the red USB Mcguffen had granted them independence, they found themselves disliking the idea of being tethered to the SCRAMBLER again, even if only temporarily. The AI looked up at Sebastian, who looked down at it in return, his expression carefully guarded.

“It’s your choice, Paints.” Sebastian flicked a hand at the SCRAMBLER, his tone light and casual. “I’m not going to make you if you don’t feel comfortable.”

“Thanks, Seb. But I’m good.” Painter’s expression became determined as they extended a mechanical claw and deftly popped open the side compartment on the SCRAMBLER, unraveling the cords and passing them from one claw to the next before easily inserting the ends of the cables into the back of their monitor.

Immediately, their screen turned a lurid red as white text began appearing.

============

EXTERNAL CONNECTION DETECTED !
EXTERNAL POWER SOURCE DETECTED !

Analyzing New Modular Addon…..

Experimental Radar Jamming/Encryption Device: SCRAMBLER.
Reconfiguring….
Analyzing Influence Radius….

WARNING ! NATIVE NAVIGATIONAL AI PRESENCE DETECTED !

Tread Carefully….

================

With a static burst, Painter’s monitor returned to normal, though the AI now bore a somewhat fearful expression.

“What’s wrong?” Sebastian asked, turning in place to better look at the computer.

“I… I’m not sure. I… I’m suddenly seeing a lot more data through the SCRAMBLER than I did before, and I’m detecting a HUGE presence in the Blacksite’s mainframe. But it… I recognize it, it was there even from when I was still connected to the mainframe directly, but I just thought it was a normal aspect of how the Blacksite’s systems functioned, and it kinda is, but it’s more than that. I SEE it for what it is now.” Painter tilted its monitor up. “The Navi-AI is sentient.”

“What?!” Nearly everyone in the group shouted at once, confusion rampant as the humans all started speaking over each other at once.

“The Navi-AI? As in the one that’s supposed to guide personnel through the Blacksite with the numbered doors and shit?”

“I thought the Navi-AI just controlled the Submarines, I remember poking at one of the consoles in there and hearing a lady’s voice—“

“How is that possible? Has it, like, been spying on us this entire time or have we been evading its notice because of the SCRAMBLER?”

“All I’m imagining right now is another 80s computer with a bow on top—”

“QUIET!” Sebastian barked, and was gratified when all the humans instantly shut up. He turned his attention back to the Painter. “I’m aware of the Navi-AI, Paints. But I do not think it’s sentient like you are. It’s practically built into Hadal Blacksite’s mainframe, but it doesn’t have much ability to actively do anything to us. Not whilst I have the SCRAMBLER— and even if I didn’t, the Navi-AI is not known for taking the initiative. That’s why we didn’t experience any problems when I hooked you up to the mainframe. The thought of resisting probably didn’t even occur to it. Which is why those operatives from before tried to take you out manually.”

“B-but…” Painter didn’t seem convinced as its gaze kept flickering over the data it had available to it. “It’s so… HUGE! How can it not be sentient?”

Sebastian couldn’t help but give a slightly sardonic smile. “Painter, Urbanshade doesn’t have the ability to create true Artificial Intelligences, that’s why they were so interested in containing you. Your creator achieved something that they could only barely replicate by building a massive complex in order to house the Navi-AI, and it still doesn’t nearly have half of the capabilities that you exhibit within your tiny outdated computer.”

“Hmph,” the Painter couldn’t help but preen a little at the compliment, but it still felt unnerved and found that it even felt a spark of… longing? The AI had never met one of its own kind before, and the thought of finding a being that could potentially be just as sentient as itself had it deeply curious.

“Anyways, has your upgrades to the SCRAMBLER revealed anything that could be useful to us at this moment.” Sebastian prompted, his hands clasping before him.

“Oh, right.” Painter blinked as it refocused its attention on the rest of the data. “Yes… yes! There’s an alternative route we can take to circle back to the control bridge, it’s a bit of a round-about way, though. But it should allow us to bypass this obstacle.”

“Excellent.” Sebastian praised with a toothy grin. “Lead the way!”

It was dark, but she was used to that.

It was cold, but she was used to that, too.

She couldn’t remember much. When she tried to recall anything in her past, her head would hurt and her sensitive ears would fill with the sounds of static and screaming.

It was better to not think. It was better to not feel. It was better to just do what the voice told her to do.

KILL Z-13.

KILL SEBASTIAN SOLACE.

KILL.

KILL.

KILL.

She hated that voice. It buzzed so loudly in her head, screaming at her with such force that she often mistook its desire for her own.

But something inside her resisted. Even now, with everything gone, with everything having been taken from her— a tiny voice in the far reaches of her mind resisted.

Stop now—!

stop now!

stop

But she couldn’t stop. Onward she tread through the darkened hallways, the floor was cold against her bare feet, her claws making a faint clicking sound with each step she took.

She had to find him.

This was the only thing that the two different voices within her could agree upon.

Find him.

FIND HIM.

She halted, ragged ears twitching as she scanned her surroundings for the first time in a while.

She noticed something glowing red on top of a desk, and found herself approaching the object.

It was… a remote. She knew what a remote was… it was… something that could turn something else on or off when you pressed the right button.

Maybe if she pressed the button on this remote, it would turn off the horrible voice in her head.

With a single claw, she gingerly pressed down on the glowing red button, only to immediately reel back with a startled hiss when ANOTHER voice blared into her ears.

“THANK YOU FOR USING OUR LIMITED TIME IMAGINARY FRIEND REMOTE! We hope you enjoy the next two days with your very own real not so Imaginary friend!”

She covered her ears, cringing away in fear as she skittered backwards, back thumping into the wall as her heart raced.

“Hey.”

She let out a startled yowl, whirling around and seeing a red… blurry blob of something appear in front of her, coalescing into a vaguely humanoid figure with two dark voids in place of eyes and a circular mouth ringed with sharp teeth.

She stared at the thing, body tense and wary as she waited. But the red creature remained statuesque in her vision, no matter however which way she tilted her head or moved, the creature remained visible.

More curious now than afraid, she swiped a claw out, trying to bat at the red thing. But the floating specter remained frustratingly out of arm’s reach. She tried to charge at it, but it sped down the hallway, always facing her, never moving yet somehow remaining at an equal distance from her.

“I can see through you… Your organs aren’t where they should be.” The red thing said quietly.

She growled, leaping at the red thing, only to collide with a wall and slump down with a pained sound.

“Hehehehe!” It laughed at her.

She felt like crying.

Sitting with her back to the wall, she hugged her knees to her chest and hid her face, shaking as her tails curled and undulated with distress.

“Oh, I-I’m sorry,” the thing suddenly sounded closer, and she looked up to see it sitting down next to her. “Are you… alright?”

She stared at the red thing— into its hollow eye sockets. She felt tears pool at the corner of her own remaining eye. “N-no….” She whispered hoarsely. “I-I’m… l-lost…”

“Oh,” the red thing didn’t move, its dead expression unchanging. “Who are you?”

She shook her head. “I..I don’t r-remember…” She squinted through her tears at the red being. “Who… are you?”

“Your Imaginary-Friend,” the red thing responded automatically. “For the next forty-two hours, at least. Then I’ll be… gone.” It looked away, voice going soft and uncertain. “I‘ll be gone… I don’t know where I will go when time runs out. They didn’t tell me what happens after.”

“Oh…” She didn’t know what to say to that, but nevertheless felt a pang of sympathy for this strange apparition.

She then suddenly felt a familiar jolt run up the side of her face and sat up straight, before staggering to her feet as the buzzing continued.

“Where are you going?” The Imaginary-Friend asked,

“I… NEED to FIND…” She shivered as waves of pain stabbed into her brain, the voice in her head screeching and grinding into her senses. “FIND… Sebastian…!”

“Oh, do you know him?” The Imaginary-Friend perked up. “I’ve met him a few times. He’s… a bit grumpy. But most of the time he just seems… sad.”

She turned around, staring at the Imaginary-Friend with sharp focus. “Do.. you know… where he…is?”

“No, I’m sorry. I haven’t spoken to him in a while.” Imaginary-Friend sounded apologetic. “Maybe we can find him together?”

“T-together…” She repeated the word, ears twitching. She didn’t say anything else as she turned and continued down the corridor. The Imaginary-Friend dutifully followed behind her.

Above on the ceiling, three particular fishlets hung watching, one glowing a faint pink.

“Well, this looks fun,” Immy said as they dipped a boot into the water of the flooded sector.

The water was only about waist high for the humans, several pieces of furniture floated about as the sound of dripping water rang through the square corridors. The area was largely meant for cargo management and dispersal, but something must have gone wrong with an airlock or a pipe system had burst, because water was now continuously filling and draining from the area.

Sebastian highly suspected there might be an actual breach somewhere that was causing the place to partially flood.

“Painter, you should go inside the box while we travel through here,” Sebastian cautioned, already unstrapping the portable crate from his side and flipping it open.

“Do I have to?” Painter whined, cringing away when Sebastian turned to the computer expectantly. “Last time I went into the box… you got your ass beat.”

Sebastian chuckled. “Well, I doubt you not being in the crate would have changed anything, buddy. And besides, you won’t be powered off this time!”

“Yeah… I guess that’s true.” Painter relented, reaching a limb around and unplugging the cable from their monitor. They winced as the extra data and power was cut off from their periphery, half expecting themselves to power-off completely. But whatever nebulous code the red Mcguffen had imparted on the computer seemed to still be in effect, as the AI gingerly allowed itself to be sealed into the crate.

Sebastian gave the AI a thumbs-up, before he shut the lid, then strapped the container back on. He turned, glancing at his school of fish as the humans began wading into the water.

He was surprised to find that the fishes hadn’t immediately dove into the waist high water, but instead they were lingering by the edge, shuffling about nervously.

“What’s the matter? Don’t tell me you’ve spent so much time on land that you’ve all forgotten how to swim!” Sebastian smirked as he slid down into the water, the water being shallow enough for him that it didn’t completely cover his serpentine body. He would have to lay down flat on his belly in order to fully submerge himself.

He expected to hear the fishes splash into the water after him, but after a minute he glanced back, seeing them still standing by the edge. Dart and Skuttle were perched atop Sachiel’s back with Scorch and Whip lingering behind her, whilst Beezlebub and Chomper seemed to be peering down warily at the water as if they’d never seen the stuff before.

Sachiel only had eyes on Sebastian, their many barbels quivering.

Sebastian raised his hands palms-up in exasperation. “What’s the hold up? Sachiel, come on, we need to—“

“AHHHH!!!” One of the humans let out a terrified scream and there was a loud splash followed by a guttural bellow.

Sebastian whirled around, water sloshing about him as he saw one of the humans being dragged away by what looked like a massive grey worm.

Without thinking, Sebastian surged forward, his serpentine body easily pushing the water aside as he quickly flanked the attacking creature.

“Somebody please help! Fucking shoot it or something!” Cried the human trapped in the things jaws.

Ignoring the Expendable, Sebastian instead brought his tail around and sent it smacking down atop the creature’s back, causing it to let out a gargled squeal as it let go of the flailing human- who quickly scrambled to get out of the way the moment they were free.

The creature turned its tri-pincered maw on Sebastian, who wasted no time in punching it in the side of the head where its glowing feelers protruded from, causing the creature to writhe in pain as it squirmed away from him.

“FUCK OFF!” Sebastian yelled at the thing, slamming his tail again and causing a spray of water to wash over the creature. “THIS IS MY TERRITORY, YOU PARASITIC WENCH!”

“He is so fucking cool!!!!” Immy shrieked like a fan girl in the background from where they and the other humans had scrambled onto a raised platform.

The worm-like creature let out a reproachful scree before it quickly swam away, disappearing beneath the water as it fled.

“Is everything okay out there???” Came the muffled shout of Painter from within the confines of its protective crate.

“Yes, everything’s swell!” Sebastian called back, giving the crate two taps with his knuckles, before turning to check over the humans.

The human who had been grabbed had been Dog-fucker, and Sebastian had a moment to feel regret over having saved the bastard, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Other than throwing the human back into the water to be eaten.

“What was that thing?” White cried out with a shudder of revulsion, whilst Medic checked over the traumatized man sitting on the floor for injuries.

“That—“ Sebastian jabbed a thumb over his shoulder “—was a Bottomfeeder. Otherwise known as the Lammelse species. They’re an oversized parasitic slug that are native to the Let-Vand zone.”

“If you knew what those were, then why didn’t you warn us about them?!” Punch-out shouted as she crossed her arms.

Sebastian’s ear fin flicked with annoyance at the Expendable’s accusatory tone. “I didn’t know any of them would be here! Those creatures usually live at the bottom of the Let-Vand zone, hence the name: Bottomfeeder. And besides, they aren’t that dangerous when compared to the other things lurking around here.”

“Says the ten foot tall mutant fishman…” Punch-out grumbled irritably.

Sebastian let out a weary sigh. “Look, all you have to do if one grabs you is punch it where the glowing antenna are located. And whatever you do, do not make it bleed. Its blood is toxic and can cause paralysis if you accidentally ingest it or get enough of it on your skin. Got it?”

Punch-out seemed mollified by the useful bit of advice. “Alright… Gotcha, punching things is certainly something I excel at.”

“Is that why you didn’t just shoot it?” Chief asked, looking up from where he had been peering out at the shallow water for any sign that the creature might’ve returned.

“Exactly why,” Sebastian confirmed with a snap of his fingers. “Having that worm saturating the water with its blood would be the last thing we would want.”

His ears flicked when he heard a few small splashes, and he turned to eye the faintly glowing forms of his fish finally entering the water.

Sachiel popped out of the water a second later to lever themself up onto the elevated platform with the humans, their offspring quickly following.

Sebastian supposed he couldn’t blame the fish for being initially wary, especially when his status as the baddest bitch in the deep sea was challenged by the Siren.

“You are so cool,” Immy repeated, voice adoring.

Slightly caught off guard by the Expendable’s fawning, Sebastian pushed a lock of his hair out of his face, feeling somewhat awkward. “Uh-huh, I’m sure that to you anything I do would be considered amazing in your eyes.” He replied with a sarcastic edge.

“Yeah….” Immy agreed dreamily, the sarcasm completely going over their head— which only made Sebastian feel even more awkward.

Dog-fucker seemed to have come out of his daze long enough in order to point at Immy and proclaim loudly: “SIMP!”

This earned the recently rescued human a solid thunk on the head by Punch-out, which triggered a shout of protest from Medic about refraining from hitting somebody who had just went through a traumatizing experience— to which Punch-out snapped back that clearly he wasn’t traumatized enough.

“Hey, listen, y’all—“ Dog-fucker raised a hand from where he had been rubbing the sore spot atop his head. “At least I’m not the one lustin’ after a married man.”

“We’re not lusting!“ Immy protested, lurching forwards as if they were about to take a swing at him, before their voice abruptly changed tone. “Okay, maybe we might be lusting a bit— SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP! You’re the DOG-FUCKER! You don’t get to say anything!”

Sebastian promptly turned around and started to leave without saying a single word; he was absolutely done listening to this absolutely asinine conversation and he very much wanted to be anywhere else at that moment.

Loyally, his school of fish followed, sticking close to his tail and occasionally hopping onto said tail whenever an errant ripple or splash in the water seemed to spook them.

A few moments later the yelling humans appeared to notice, causing them all to scramble to catch up with the fishman as he easily moved through the flooded sector.

Angler had decided to backtrack out of the Ridge when neither he nor his fellow phantoms could find Frogger.

After the sudden earthquake, a lot of areas had become blocked off, so Angler found himself going down passageways he had not been through in an effort to find Frogger.

After what felt like hours of screeching down corridors, he finally got a return call.

Eyes flashing with excitement, Angler pivoted from its current route and turned to phase through a doorway, finding himself suddenly floating across a long catwalk.

At the end of the catwalk was a large platform, and the yellow smoke of Frogger hovered.

“Hey!” Angler screeched in his native language, since Eyefestation wasn’t there to form a group chat or whatever. “Me and the gang have been looking all over for you!”

Frogger’s lure flashed as she turned to regard Angler frostily. “You don’t say. With the amount of noise you and everyone else has been making in the Ridge I figured you were having a good ol’ time without me.”

So, she was still angry about the glow worm poop comment.

“Look, I’m sorry for what I said earlier.” Angler apologized with a dull shriek. “Pinkie was kind enough to inform me afterwards that comparing a girl’s esca to glow room poop was uncouth…”

Frogger didn’t respond right away, her jaws clacking open and shut as she mulled over his apology. “I supposed my expectations might have been a little too high for you to reach, so I’ll forgive you for your blatant blunder.” She flicked her gaze forward. “Besides, we have bigger problems to deal with…”

“What do you mean?” Angler looked in the direction that she was facing, and the lights of his eyes quickly snuffed out with dread.

It had been so huge that the Angler hadn’t noticed it before, (plus they had poor eyesight in general), but on the far wall amidst a network of pipes and pumps was the crucified body of a giant. Skin as pale as the moon, halo shimmering in the red dull light as its multitude of eyes stared down at the pair of deep sea poltergeists.

“̡͇͜A̻̝͖R̪̞͜T͓̝͖ T͍͉̝H̡̙̻O̢͙͉U͉̟ C̞͕̘O̺̙̦M̢͕̺E̝̞̼T͎̘͜H̺̘͜ Ț͙̻O̦͚͜ G̘̫͜L̞̺͍O̘͕̟A̙͎͔T͉͉̞,̺̙̟ D̪͙̼I̺̺͇M͍̼͜I͇͚͜N̝͔̟U͖͍͎T̼͖I̢͍̙V͉̠͖E͇͎ D̝͖͜A̫͍̘E̼̟̟M͙͔O̡̫̠N̞̟S̢͖̪?̦͖̟”̙͉͙

“Oh shit,” Angler let out a terrified shriek as it felt its form wither under the Guardian Angel’s divine gaze. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit—“

“Calm down,” Frogger growled. “It can’t do anything to us in its current state.”

“Why is it here?!” Angler screeched, trying to hide partially behind one of the many consoles littered about the platform. “How long has it been here??? I knew this Urbanshade company was bad news, but I didn’t think they were crazy enough to take down the Guardian of the freaking BANLANDS!”

“̔́̚T̿̽̾Ḧ́̿̾Ó͝Ǘ̔͘ K͒̿͝N̔̽͝O̓̿̽W̓͑͐S̀͛̚T̀̔́ T͋̓H̓̚͝A͋͒͝T̔͛͐ W̔̓͒E̓͊͝ C͒̿͋Á͛͝N̾͝͠ H̽́̓E͐̔̈́A͐͐̚R͛͒͝ T͑͆̈́H̀̓́E͆͌͝E̓́̚,̀̓̕ C̔̈́͝O̓̿́R͋͋͝R͛͒͊E̽͑͒C̾̽T̔̽̐?͋̔͆”́͒̚

The divine being rumbled with displeasure as the various pipes running out of its flesh shook.

“͍̫͍T̼̙H̟̞͓E͕͍̠ F̘̪̟O̺͉͉U͍̫̫L̫͎̝ U̪̼̦R̡͉͙B̡͖͔A̼̫̼N̺̝͜S̢͖͜H͕̺A͚͔͓D̢̻͜E͔͚̙ H̞͚A̢̻̼T̢͉̞H͍̟ W͚̙͖R̦͔͇O͔̙N̻̝͔G̡̺̞F͖͕̙U̫͓͉L͕̘̪L͇̠̞Y̢͖̞ I̡̝͍M͚̠͜P͕̟̝R̞̫͔I̪͎̟S̫̺͜O̡̺͉N̡̘͙E͇͉͜D͕̟͍ U̢͉͍S͖̦͓,͙̙̞ H̺̼̞A̟͎̙T̼͖̻H͕̻͍ R̙͉̺O̢͚̦B̼͙̪B̡̘͉E̺͖̺D̻͉̪ U͔͓͍S̪̟̺ O̺͙̟F̺͖̼ O͓͖̼U̘̘͜R̢̠͓ R̢̞I͇͔͖G̝̙̦H͉͇̼T̠̝͓F̡̪̘U͉̙̺L̢̘͉ D͖͕͜U͚̼͎T͓̦̻Y̘͜͜,̘͜͜ A͕͎͎N͕̪͜D̺̞͚ N͚̙̺O̝͙͜W̫͉͉ H̙͔͇A̘͉͉R̢̪͜V̪͇͔E̦͙̞S̡̢̢T̻͓̞ F̻̟̦R̫̺͍O̫͕̝M̘̼̘ O͇͙̪U̪͔̦R̢͙͔ D̠̠I͖͍̙M͍̞̪I͉̞N̟̫͙I̡̦͇S̡͕͓H̞͍͕E̘͎̠D̦͇̼ F̟̟͔O̞̘͙R̢͔̼M̻̻ F͇̙O̢͕̝R̢͇̙ M͉͙͎E̡͙͍R̡̝̪E̦͍͉ M̠̫͜A̡͇̘T̫̦̼E̢̺̦R̼̘̺I̺͚͜A̢͚̻L̡͎̙ D̟͍̺E̡͖͎S̡̫͔I͔͓͜R̪͎̠E̡͎͔S̠̺.̢̪”͙͔̝

“Wow…” Angler shuddered with both fear and disgust. “Urbanshade sucks.”

“̀͊̚I͊̔̚N̾̚͠D̓̓̚E̔͒̈́E̽̈́͒D̓͒̕.̓̔͋”̿̓͝

Angler turned to Frogger, his eyes flickering back to life with sudden nervous excitement. “So… I’m not sure if you’ve heard, Froggy—“

“Do not call me that.”

“R-right. Well, anyway, me and the gang have formed an alliance with a couple other beings who wanna do more to kick Urbanshade’s ass, and we’ve been looking for you hoping that you would wanna join in.”

Frogger stared impassively at Angler for a few seconds. “Sure. I don’t see why not.”

“̡͎̼W͕̼͉E͎̻͇ C̝͖O̼͙̘N͚̺̪C̻͓̟U͙̪͓R̺͓̘.̞̠̼ W̟̙E̦͉͚ W͙͔͜I̪̟̻S̫͖̼H̺͓͙ T͍͖͍O͕͚ A͎̘͔L̻͔͉S̞͓O͕̘͎ B̻͉̟E̻̦ P̢̦͜A̪̦̺R͎͖̦T͎͙ O̘̻͜F͓̼̦ T͙͜H͖̠͉I̠̺͔N̼̠͔E͎͙ S͉͔͇C̢̼͙H̢͚͜E̟̪͜M̘͚̼E͇̠ T̪͙̫O̢͉ P̫̪͉U͓̫͖N̪͚̻I̡͉̪S̡͓̙H͖̼̦ U͙͔̠R̫͎͙B͍̫̟A̻̫͜N̡̡͉S͇̘͕H͇͚͚A̟̘͜D̝̪͎E͕̝.̼͓”͙̻͉

Angler startled, looking at the Guardian Angel warily. “Uh, oh. Well. I guess the more the merrier, but I don’t see how you can… uh… help in your current state.”

The Guardian Angel’s halo pulsed with power as it spun more rapidly about its head.

“͉͇̻A̘̪͍S̡̼̙S̫͜I̦̺̦S͚͙̫T̪̻ I̡̫̦N͎͚ F͎͙͔R̘͓͇E̡͔̻E̺̠͜I̡͉͉N͎͕̟G̠͚̺ U͍̪̘Ș̡͜ A̦̺͜N͉͉͎D̙͓̻ W͍̦̝E̢͉͇ S̢̝̝H͎̝̞A̺͚̼L̫̫͇L̼̟ B̺͜R̢̠̫I̢͔̦N̞͉͇G͉͕ T͙͇̫H̼̻E͇̺͜ E͇̪̞N͓͙T̢͓I̫͎͕R͔̼͜E̠͖͚T̫͚͎Y̺̪̠ O͓͕̟F͚̫̫ T̻̪̫H̻͕̼I̝͓̻S̠̺͚ I̪̫̞N̢͇͓F̡̺͉E͎͖̝R̠̺̺N͕̻̘A̻͉͇L̝͓̟ P͕͖͉R̟̘͉I͇̫͉S̺͙̟O̡͍̫N̦͉̠ C͓̪R̟̘͙U̘̠M͕̠̼B͍͕̺L̠̼I͇͎N̡̫̠G̙̻͖ T̝̠͙O̘̪̠ A̝̫B̼͎̝S͓̺̠O͙͙L͎͎̻U̦͙̞T̡͕̞E̞͎͍ D͍͕̺U̻͍̺Ș̫̻T͖̺.̢͙̦”̢̘̺

Chapter Text

Sebastian and his group of clingers-on managed to get through the rest of the flooded sector without any further incidents. Sebastian had to pause several times during the trek in order to wait for the much slower humans to catch up; the waist high water making movement cumbersome for bipedal beings.

He was starting to feel a bit concerned by the fact that so far, they hadn’t encountered any sign of the Angler or its variants. This was incredibly odd, since the phantasmal creatures had been eager to patrol through the different sectors of the Blacksite relentlessly ever since the lockdown occurred, especially where ever there were signs of Expendable traffic.

Sebastian had just found the end of the flooded sector when another Bottomfeeder attacked, this time slinking up from behind the group and trying to snatch one of the humans that was lagging a bit behind.

Unfortunately for the parasitic worm, it ended up grabbing the one human who really liked to punch things.

Sebastian actually felt kind of bad for the disgusting creature as it squealed in pain while Punch-out proceeded to beat the ever-loving-shit out of it.

This Bottomfeeder was slightly larger than the other one he had tangled with, possessing more necrotic fish bodies attached to its tail. One of which, he noted with a touch of alarm, had golden scales made dull with time. The fish was at the end of the chain of bodies fused with the parasite, and was much larger than any of his gold fish, with glowing lures sprouting from various parts of its body.

It must have been one of the specimens from the Golden fish project that had escaped, only to meet a rather unfortunate fate.

“Easy, easy!” Sebastian shouted as he surged up beside the battle hungry human, snatching both her arms up in one claw before she could take another swing at the barely conscious Bottomfeeder. “Settle down there, fireball! I think you gave that worm enough of an ass whooping to last its entire lifetime.”

Punch-out struggled in the fishman’s hold with an furious yell, her legs flailing out of the water as Sebastian easily hauled her away and onto dry ground where the rest of the group were anxiously waiting.

“I had it! I had it under control!” Punch-out insisted breathlessly, jerking her arms free as soon as Sebastian set her down. “Damn it, fish-face! I could have finished it off!”

“Chill out, girl.” Medic tried to soothe, reaching out to the foolhardy Expendable. “There’s no reason to be risking yourself needlessly.”

Punch-out shrugged off Medic’s attempts at platitudes, crossing her arms and fuming angrily. “Man, ever since we were shipped down here we’ve encountered all manner of monster that either can’t be physically fought or go down in a single hit and I’ve been raring to give somethin’ a proper beat-down!”

“Oh-kaaaay!” Medic took a few steps back from the clearly deranged human. “I forget that you totally killed a guy by punching him to death during a boxing match.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Punch-out whirled on the other, jabbing a finger into their chest. “You wanna talk shit about past crimes, Kate?! Don’t forget the fact that you’re here because you fucking torched ten innocent—“

“WOAH!” Chief interjected himself between the two bickering Expendables. “Settle down, both of you! Look we’re all stressed, alright. Let’s not lose sight of the primary objective. The last thing we need right now is to start tearing each other apart when we’re this close to the goal.”

“How do you know we’re close?” Punch-out snapped. “We’ve been down here for how long now? Weeks? A month? A freakin’ year?! It’s just been endless hallways and monsters non-stop! How do we have any way of knowing that we’re any closer to the damned objective than we were when we first started this shit expedition!”

“Closer than yesterday, at least.” Immy said cheerily over their shoulder, having wandered towards the door out of the flooded sector, and was now idly running their gloved hand along the edge of a doorway. “Always closer! Just gotta keep moving, and we’ll end up somewhere! Time doesn’t stand still, even if you do. No matter what you do, you’ll always be moving forward to someplace eventually.”

“Yeah, what they said,” Sebastian sneered as he extricated himself out of the water. “Always look on the bright side of things and be positive— I won’t, but you definitely should. Especially considering the fact that I’m not going to tolerate any setbacks just because one of you is having an emotional breakdown.”

“We waited for you when you had yours…” White murmured quietly, flinching in fear when Sebastian’s sharp gaze turned towards her.

“While that may be so,” Sebastian tilted his head as he studied his claws indifferently. “You didn’t exactly have much of a choice in the matter. Do not forget that despite this little arrangement we have, the lot of you are still expendable.”

“Asshole…” Medic grumbled, which only caused the fishman to chuckle darkly as he slithered on ahead.

“Can I come out now???” Painter’s muffled voice came from the crate, startling Sebastian.

Quickly, he unbuckled the crate and popped the lid off, allowing the computer to quickly clamber out.

“Ugh, I’m not sure if being conscious while stuck inside of a cramped box is worse than just being powered off for the duration.” Painter griped as it shook its metal limbs out. “I didn’t think I was claustrophobic before, but now…”

Sebastian gave the computer a sympathetic pat. “Eh, that might just be the Paranoia gas getting to ya.”

“Would the weed smoke even affect a computer?” Immy asked.

“It’s not fucking weed…” Sebastian growled in annoyance as he turned away.

“I don’t know, man.” Dog-fucker for some reason felt the need to add in his two-cents. “Whenever I used to get high as a kite I sometimes get panic attacks. And Chainsmoker is definitely smoking something.”

“I remember seeing the Paranoia box in Heavy Containment a while back,” Chief stated with a head shake. “That shit seeping out of it certainly smelled like weed.”

“So it is super weed!” Dog-fucker sounded triumphant.

“IT’S NOT FUCKING WEED, YOU PIECE-OF-SHIT STONER!” Sebastian yelled from all the way down the hall. “Now will you morons quit loitering around and hurry the fuck up?!”

“We’re coming, we’re coming!” Chief called back, gesturing to the rest of the group to pick up the pace as he broke into a jog.

Painter had transitioned to moving along the ceiling at some point, testing out their dexterity by swinging themselves from one limb to another like a spider monkey.

Sebastian was warily watching, his arms slightly outstretched as if in preparation to catch the computer if it fell. “Be careful there, buddy! If you fall from this height, it’s game over.”

“Don’t be such a worrier!” Painter admonished, only to falter a second later as one of their claws slipped, before they quickly regained their hold. “Heheh, oops.” Painter laughed nervously.

Sebastian slapped a palm to his forehead in exasperation, looking down at Sachiel. “You seeing this shit, fish-bait?”

Sachiel merely tilted their head up to eye Painter’s progress, their tail flipping from one side and then to the other.

When the humans finally caught up, and Painter had decided to leave its jungle-gym shenanigans for later, Sebastian wasted no time in moving to the next room.

“We’re still on the right track?” Sebastian asked Painter.

“Yep! I think so.” Painter paused atop a nearby table to review the data it had copied from the SCRAMBLER’s readout. “Unless something changed in the past hour—“

The AI jolted when Sebastian suddenly slammed a hand down on the table in front of it, the fishman leaning in close.

“Doooon’t jinx it, pal!” He urged in a harsh whisper, cyan eyes glowing fervently.

“Uhh…” Painter blinked. “Okay…?”

Sebastian closed his eyes and sucked in a breath before turning away. “Nevermind. Just… don’t tempt fate, alright?”

Painter continued to stare in bemusement. “Uh. Sure. Whatever you say.”

Just before the group came up to the next closed door, Sebastian paused in front of it, his ears twitching.

He held up a hand to keep anyone else from pushing past him, and thankfully all the humans stopped by his tail.

“What is it?” Chief asked.

Sebastian didn’t respond immediately, ears still perked as he moved to the side to listen through the wall. He didn’t hear the distinct sound of breathing that would come from the flesh blob that was Z-96, but he was hearing… something.

“Do you need me to plug back into the SCRAMBLER and check the security cameras on the other side?” Painter inquired reasonably, but Sebastian merely shook his head, leaning away from the wall.

“No… I think I know whats on the other side.” For some reason he cast a glare at the humans, turning to face them as he clasped his hands together. “Alright, scumbags! Listen up, before we go through this door, I must insist that despite what you may find on the other side, that you at least try to keep any emotional outbursts to a minimum. Because for the love of God, if I have to suffer hearing even a single one of you so much as squeal… I will not hesitate to shoot you DEAD. Am I understood?”

The humans all looked at one another, confused and a little unnerved as they each tried to imagine what kind of horror could possibly be waiting for them on the other side of the door.

Immy, however, eagerly nodded without hesitation— giving Sebastian two thumbs-up. “Understood! Open ze door, my Sebby-bestie!”

“Never call me that again,” Sebastian hissed with disgust as he flicked the immortal Expendable in the forehead, before pushing the door’s manual release and allowing it to slide open.

Sebastian slid all the way into the room, his fish following close behind along with Painter, whilst the humans came in a bit more cautiously.

Chomper stopped abruptly, jerking its head to the side and clacking its teeth once before making a beeline towards a part of the room that had been sectioned off as a lounge area.

“What’cha got, Chomper?” Painter eagerly followed the fish, climbing over an arm chair and casting about the lounge area. The AI’s doodled eyes turned into stars. “Oooh!!! Bunnies!”

“What?” Immy dashed over to the lounge area and peered over, they let out a loud gasp before sucking in a sharp breath to no doubt release a cry of adulation— only to stop upon hearing the distinctive click of Sebastian’s gun switching the safety off.

Immy looked over their shoulder, Sebastian was glaring daggers at them from where he had sequestered himself to the farthest side of the room.

“Right, no squealing.” Immy proceeded to mime zipping their lips and throwing away the key.

Curiousity got the better of the other humans, and soon everyone was stepping into the lounge area to see what the fuss was about.

“What are those…?” Punch-out asked, their voice a mixture of awe and unease as one of the ‘bunnies’ proceeded to amble towards her on its many stubby legs.

“Deep Sea Bunnies,” Sebastian informed dryly as he rested his back against a wall. “Hadal Blacksite’s patented lounge pets for Employee Enrichment.”

“They’re so cute!” White exclaimed in a super soft voice, going to her knees in order to pet one of the critters. It did a little hop afterwards, its bulbous tail wagging excitedly.

The school of fish had varied reactions to the criminally adorable creatures.

Chomper immediately tried to take a sampling bite out of one, much to the horror of Painter who did its best to reign in the toothy fish by wrapping their limbs around them. This did not stop the fish from trying to aggressively headbutt a poor deep sea bunny that Chomper had designated as its target.

Dart had discovered that the Deep sea bunnies made for comfortable roombas to ride upon— climbing onto the back of one idle bunny and sitting atop its head. The deep sea bunny didn’t seem to notice its new passenger.

Skuttle was sitting awkwardly by the couch, steadily being surrounded by deep sea bunnies. The sea bunnies seemed to be debating whether or not the isopod-fish hybrid was food, their ear-like rhinophores canting forwards to tap against the diminutive Skuttle curiously.

Scorch had wiggled underneath a couch in an effort to escape the curious booping of the deep sea bunnies, only to come into contact with their cousins, the deep sea Dust bunnies.

Whip had managed to get one of the deep sea bunnies to engage in a game of chase, with the two semi-aquatic critters binking about the room in a less than elegant manner.

Beelzebub was trying to settle the age old question of who’s the better hopper. Bunny or Frog-fish? Each combatant doing their best to out hop the other in an increasingly elaborate game of leap-frog that would occasionally merge with Whip’s game of chase about the lounge area.

Sachiel ignored the deep sea bunnies entirely, instead choosing to stay as close to Sebastian as possible, and aggressively lunging at any bunny that wandered too close.

At first, Sebastian had no idea why Sachiel was being so protective, until he tried to pet one of the bunnies— and then Sachiel lost their shit. Sachiel attacked at the hand he was using to pat the bunny, ineffectively biting at his claws and aggressively bopping the poor bunny on the head with its open mouth as though it were trying to lacerate the bunny’s face with nonexistent teeth. The bunny merely emitted a confused mewl in response, backing away quickly to evade the angry fish’s assault.

Sebastian found this absolutely hilarious. “Aww, what’s wrong, fish-bait?” He cooed teasingly as he used his two other arms to scoop up the enraged fish. “Is somebody jealous of all the attention the DSBs are getting? Who's fugly fishy? You are! Yes, you are! Who’s the scrungliest gold fish to ever exist? It’s you!”

He stopped, suddenly remembering that he wasn’t alone in the room and glanced over at the others.

The humans were all staring at him, including Painter, who was midway through their version of taking a picture of Sebastian and Sachiel by drawing the two. Immy looked like they were having a seizure from the sheer amount of effort they were putting into keeping their emotions from exploding forth and ruining the moment.

“What the hell are you all looking at?” Sebastian snapped, hugging Sachiel close to his chest defiantly. “Can’t a guy fawn over his favorite pet fish in peace?!”

The humans quickly turned away, muttering awkward apologies and other excuses. Painter merely proceeded to laugh uproariously at Sebastian’s valiant attempt to appear dignified while he was cradling Sachiel like a baby.

Personally, Sachiel found the sensation of being on their back to be very disquieting, since fish generally only went belly-up when they were dead. And Sachiel’s tiny brain couldn’t comprehend any other scenario where it would be belly-up and not be dead, so the fish was completely limp in Sebastian’s hold as it had an minor existential crisis.

“Hey, one of the bunbuns are taking my flash beacon.” Medic noted aloud, although they didn’t seem too bothered by the fact as they watched the sea bunny trundle away with the device on its back, before disappearing into what appeared to be a hole in the wall of the lounge area.

“Yeah, they do that sometimes.” Sebastian remarked absentmindedly as he allowed Sachiel to plop gently to the floor, the fish looking a little dazed as it shook itself. “Don’t let them grab onto anything you plan on keeping, otherwise you’ll have to play a game of infinite exchange in order to get it back.”

“Wait a second…” Chief sounded disbelieving as he watched the same sea bunny return but with a flashlight in its mouth, before it dropped it in front of the Medic. “Are you telling me these sea bunnies have an economy?”

Sebastian snorted a laugh. “I wouldn’t go that far. They’ve just been trained to give items back by ‘trading’ for them, since they like to hoard stuff to decorate their burrows.”

“Oh, cool.” Medic picked up the flashlight that the sea bunny had given them, looking the device over and flicking the light on and off. “This flashlight has a full charge, too.”

“Maybe you should try getting that flash beacon back,” Punch-out suggested uneasily. “I lost mine when we were fighting the psycho-bitch wife, and I think one of us should at least have something that’s proven to be effective against creatures that are sensitive to bright flashes of light.”

That last comment was obviously aimed at Sebastian, but the fishman didn’t give any indication that he had heard the remark other than to let out a drawn out yawn, the overhead lights reflecting off of his rows of razor sharp teeth.

Medic nodded in wordless agreement, bending down to give the flashlight back to the bunny.

When the bunny didn’t take the flashlight, they tried to give the flashlight to another nearby bun.

The other bunny gladly accepted the flashlight, dragging the device away into its warren before coming out with a Blacklight.

“Oh wow!” Dog-fucker whistled. “Nice job suckering that rabbit into giving you something good.”

“It might be good against Squiddles, but it’s hardly useful for anything else.” Medic said dourly, moving to find another bunny to trade with.

“What???” Dog-fucker sounded aghast. “No way did you just call the Blacklight useless!”

“Considering all the things that you get up to, I’d rather us not have a Blacklight that might accidentally reveal the full extent of your depravity.” Punch-out sneered with disgust.

Meanwhile, Sebastian had surreptitiously signaled to Painter to come over to where he was sitting, simultaneously holding up a finger to his lips for the AI to be discreet.

Painter blinked in confusion, but nevertheless complied. Four of their eight limbs were occupied with keeping Chomper from taking a bite out of any of the bunnies as the AI used its free limbs to drag itself over to Sebastian.

Chomper quickly stopped fighting its restraints when Sachiel waddled over to give the burly fishlet a reprimanding fin-slap to the side.

Once Painter was close enough, Sebastian leaned down to whisper something to them. The AI’s doodled expression became a dubious frown, but Sebastian merely gave them his most winning smile and an eager triple thumbs-up.

Painter had never gotten a triple thumbs-up from Sebastian before, so they decided to do as the fishman instructed and pulled Chomper the rest of the way over to be handed off to Sebastian— who plopped the unruly fishlet within the loop of his coils. Then the computer turned around and proceeded to go about the lounge area, collecting each fishlet and bringing them over to Sebastian. The last fishlet was the trickiest, because Beelzebub just kept hopping about with its newfound bunny friend, but Painter managed to coax the frog-fish over by emitting soft electronic beeps that Beelzebub eagerly mimicked as it hopped over to the computer.

None of the humans noticed this, as all of their attention was focused solely on their transactions with the bunnies. All the humans had clustered close to the warren entrance and waited for the next cute bun bun to bring out the item it had chosen to exchange.

“At least so far they’ve been bringing out light sources,” White pointed out. “So, like, they must have some concept of what kind of item we would like in return.”

“Yeah, but I wish they’d stop bringing out the same item over and over again.” Punch-out grumbled. “If I trade a flashlight, I would like something other than a damn flashlight!”

“Well, at least it’s not just giving you back the same flashlight, right?” Immy said as they checked a recently traded lantern’s battery life. “Seems like they’re giving back stuff that has a full charge of battery instead of stuff that’s been used. I wonder if they’re intelligent enough to switch out the batteries, or maybe if they have some sort of charging device in that warren of theirs. Which do you think is more plausible? A nest full of batteries or a personal charging station?”

Medic stared at the immortal Expendable for a moment, being one of the only few who bothered to pay attention whenever they rambled. “Neither.” They responded with a head shake. “They don’t have opposible thumbs.”

BEEP…

Everyone’s attention was brought back to the warren entrance as a deep sea bunny came back carrying a round disk-like object with a glowing light on the top.

BEEP… BEEP, BEEP, BEEPBEEPBEEP—!

“Oh, FUCK—“

BOOM!

Everyone went flying back due to the concussive force of the blast, though thankfully nobody was seriously harmed, because at the last second Immy leapt on top of the landmine just before it went off— absorbing most of the blast and preventing the resulting shrapnel from peppering the other humans.

Immy’s body was sent crashing into a nearby couch, their chest area a smoking ruin of blood and meat before their regenerative abilities kicked in and removed the damage in a flash of light.

“What the hell—“ Chief coughed as he rolled to his knees and stood up. “Why the fuck did that damn rabbit have a landmine!?”

White suddenly let out a horrified gasp, and everyone turned to look at where she was pointing.

All that remained of the unfortunate deep sea bunny was a charred section of carpet where its eight stubby legs lay— the rest of its body having been rendered to ash by the explosion.

“Well,” Punch-out scuffed the floor with one boot as she dusted herself off. “That’s… a shame.”

Sebastian’s shoulders were shaking as he held in his laughter, meanwhile Painter stared in stunned astonishment. On the one hand, it was sad to see something so cute get exploded (or hilarious, depending on who you asked). On the other hand, seeing things explode was always fun.

“Oh dear, it looks like play time in the lounge area is over!” Sebastian said with false sorrow. “Best we be heading on our way to the Crystal.”

“Did you know that was going to happen?!” Medic asked in a scathing tone as they picked themselves up from where they had landed against a nearby armchair.

“What? No, of course not! Don’t be ridiculous.” Sebastian gave a derisive sniff as he waved a dismissive hand at the angry human. “How was I suppose to know that such innocent creatures would be harboring such a nasty surprise?”

“Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that he’s, like, trying to get us killed…?” White murmured uneasily to Chief, who merely shook his head in response with a resigned sigh.

“Very well, let’s get a move on.” Chief agreed as he waved for the others to follow.

“Excellent,” Sebastian grinned toothily as he pushed away from the wall he had been resting against and made his way towards the next door.

Meanwhile, Sachiel had waddled over to the charred remains of the deep sea bunny, eyeing the white spongy stumps that were all that was left of the legs. Without a second’s hesitation, Sachiel promptly sucked up one of the severed limbs, swallowing the morsel whole.

Another deep sea bunny had waddled over, its ear-like rhinophores bending forwards to sniff at the remnants of its kin— before it too proceeded to consume one of the burnt limbs.

One couldn’t let good food go to waste down here in Hadal Blacksite.

Chapter Text

“How did we end up reaching the Oxygen Gardens?” Immy inquired incredulously as they stood at the threshold of the new sector. “Those are like, in the opposite direction, I thought!”

“There’s more than just one garden.” Painter informed readily, crawling along the catwalk that ringed the inside of the chamber. “Each sector of the Blacksite hosts their own Oxygen garden!”

“Huh… Well, this one seems a little dry.” Chief commented as he and the other humans stepped onto the catwalk, Sebastian trailing behind this time to ensure that there were no stragglers.

This iteration of the Oxygen garden did appear to be drier than previous versions Sebastian had visited since the lockdown was initiated. The foliage hanging from the planters lining the walls had a brownish tinge and crinkled whenever anyone brushed past; the grassy plots that were normally lush with vitality were now a pale yellow and sickly brown.

“Aw, the poor plants must be thirsty!” Immy lamented as they were leaning precariously over the railing to peer down at the greenery below. Sebastian paused to have an internal battle against the intrusive urge to reach over and push them.

Medic placed a cautionary hand on Immy’s arm whilst shooting looks over their shoulder at Sebastian, evidently able to guess what the fishman must’ve been thinking about with the way that he was staring intently at the immortal Expendable’s back in a rather predatory manner. It was the kind of stare that a cat possessed just before it pounced upon a particularly oblivious bird.

When Sebastian noticed Medic eyeing him warily, he merely flashed them a pleasant smile and a wave, which did nothing to belay the Medkit Expendable’s fear.

“Why are those hedges cut in the shapes of people?” White asked with a note of concern.

“Oh, those are no mere lawn ornaments, friend.” Sebastian informed with a slight smirk. “These are what Hadal Blacksite calls the DiVine. Emphasis on the ‘vine’ part of the name. They’re sentient plants which provide the majority of the oxygen down here.”

“Don’t they… move?” Punch-out asked uneasily as the group descended down a flight of stairs that brought them to the ground level of the Oxygen gardens.

“Not often, but they will certainly start moving if you happen to trespass on what they consider their territory. Word of advice: don’t step on the grass.” Sebastian chuckled as he allowed his entourage of fish to clamber onto his tail whilst he went down the stairs. One would think that having no legs would make stairs a chore to get down, but the scutes along his underside easily gripped the steps as his mass undulated down each step.

He recalled during his early days when the final stages of his mutations had set in, the scientists had ‘graciously’ given him a physical therapy regimen to follow in order to get him properly ‘adjusted’ to his new body; one of the activities was an exercise using a series of varying types of modular staircases and inclines that the science team had brought in. He had struggled a lot during those early days to get to the point where he was no longer an uncoordinated mess.

He was brought out of his reminiscing when he spotted Sachiel waddling towards the edge of one of the grassy plots in the room. He paused, resisting the urge to lunge forward in order to snatch the fish away from the forbidden ground— aware that such an action might accidentally startle the fish into fleeing onto the grass. Instead, he lingered nearby, watching to see what Sachiel would do.

Sachiel didn’t go onto the turf, thankfully, it just sat by the edge, eyeballing one of the DiVine that stood statuesque amongst the brown scraggly grass.

Many of the DiVine had adopted somewhat ‘wilted’ postures, their humanoid figures slumping with their heads turned downcast. The vines which made up their figures were shriveled and brown, and Sebastian wondered just how long this sector’s Oxy garden had been without water. Usually the DiVine were fairly good at retaining water for long stretches of time, and the Oxygen gardens themselves possessed their own aquifers. It was possible that one of the main pipelines responsible for distributing the water had been disrupted or the main water supply for the garden had be contaminated.

Suddenly, Sachiel expelled a spurt of water from its mouth, the spray landing squarely atop the head of the closest DiVine.

Sebastian thought he saw the plant creature twitch, and he half expected its dry vines to become awash with vibrant green— rejuvenated by that single spritz of fish-grade mouth water.

However, no such miracle occurred and Sachiel’s head tilted downwards as if in disappointment.

Sebastian made a tutting sound as he moved up beside the fish, leaning down to scoop them up. “Sorry, Sachiel. But unfortunately I think it’s going to take a lot more water than that in order to liven the place back up.”

“Hey, Sebastian!” Chief called from the other end of the room, where the rest of the humans were cautiously filing through the next door. “You good back there?”

“Just peachy,” Sebastian drawled, turning away from the shriveled form of the DiVine and quickly catching up with the humans.

Unbeknownst to anyone, as the group moved on, a small flower proceeded to bloom from atop of the DiVine’s head.

“So, how do you know Sebastian?” Imaginary-Friend asked politely. She didn’t normally engage in conversation with any of the recipients that she was summoned to shadow, as the humans were usually too stand-offish or creeped out by her presence— so she would normally default to merely messing with them in between musing to herself aloud.

However, It wasn’t often that Imaginary-Friend got the chance to speak with one of the ‘monsters’ residing within Hadal Blacksite.

Plus, This particular monster was new to Imaginary-Friend and she was curious about what their story was.

Said monster paused in their somewhat stilted stride, ragged ears pinning back against their skull as they seemed to flinch with pain.

“Don’t… say his name…” They pleaded in a hushed whisper. “It hurts…too much.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Imaginary-Friend replied, not quite understanding why speaking of the charismatic shopkeeper would be painful for her new friend, but nevertheless feeling bad that she had caused such pain.

The rabbit monster didn’t respond, merely continuing onwards through the corridor.

The silence was getting to Imaginary-Friend, and she felt compelled to try again a few minutes later. “Is he a friend of yours?”

“N-no…he… he’s… more than that.” They reached up to grasp at their ears, face twitching with a mixture of emotions. “He’s…. he… I remember… he was… taken. From me. I think…. M-maybe…”

“Was he…” Imaginary-Friend pondered for a moment, trying to guess at what her new friend was trying to convey. “Your brother? Or father, maybe…?” She looked over the rabbit monster’s appearance, thinking that guess might’ve been a bit far fetched now that she thought about it.

The rabbit shook their head. “No… no. He was… special… to me… I think?”

“Oh!” Imaginary-Friend brightened with sudden understanding. “You mean you two were—“ She raised her thin red arms, touching the tips of the appendages together and looking expectantly at the rabbit for confirmation.

They merely stared at her with their one visible eye, gaze uncomprehending.

“Uh, hehehe, n-nevermind.” If Imaginary-Friend’s skin wasn’t already red, she would have been visibly blushing. She decided it was probably best to change the subject. “So, where exactly are we going?”

“To…find him.”

“Yes, y-you said that already. I’m just wondering if you know where he is.”

“I… don’t…” The rabbit monster’s ears seemed to wilt as their expression twisted with a growing sense of despair at the realization.

“Oh, um,” Imaginary-Friend glanced about the corridor they were in, but nothing about their surroundings gave her the faintest idea as to where they were. Frantically, she tried to search for the right words to say that might bring her friend’s spirits up. “H-hey! I see something glowing!”

Imaginary-Friend pointed up at a catwalk that stretched out above them, and the rabbit monster looked up, immediately catching sight of the faintly glowing forms of three… fish?

They weren’t quite fish… they looked odd. Like they were in mid transition between morphing from regular gold fish into completely different animals— and were stuck in the middle. The strange glowing fish were eyeballing the rabbit monster with unblinking intensity.

Something about the golden glow was vaguely familiar to the rabbit monster. She recalled having seen a glimpse of gold when she had first attacked… him… and then blinding pain had arched through her entire body. The whole incident had momentarily silenced the voices screaming inside her head.

She felt instantly wary, her tendrils waving at her sides in implicit threat as she continued to stare at the three fish. The mutant fish continued to stare back, the tendrils along their own bodies mimicking the waving motion of her own.

After several long seconds of mutual staring at each other, Imaginary-Friend abruptly broke the silence with a strangled shout.

“Something is coming!”

She whirled around, ears pricking as she suddenly caught onto the distant sound of shrieking echoing down the corridor. The noise steadily getting louder by the milisecond the longer she stood there.

“RUN!” Imaginary-Friend cried out, startling her friend from her standstill as she bolted down the hallway and ducked down a side room— going to her knees and allowing her momentum to slide her neatly underneath a nearby desk tucked into the corner of the room just in time for the shrieking to build to a crescendo.

She expected the screaming to fade as quickly as it had arrived, but to her alarm the shrieking instead lessened only slightly in intensity before idling in a continuous roar just outside the side room she was hiding in— like the engine of a massive locomotive continuing to run even as it sat still.

Then a bright green light shone through the doorway of the side room, causing her to cringe further back into her hiding spot.

“Oh my gosh—“ Imaginary-Friend whimpered, sounding close to tears as she hovered close to the shaking rabbit monster. “W-what is happening?! W-why are there s-so many all at once?”

The rabbit monster only shook her head, her hands covering her ears as she shut her eye and curled into an even tighter ball. She prayed that whatever was happening outside would pass soon.

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

Eyefestation mentally projected to the Angler, their many eyes peering through the window in the corridor. Eyefestation had decided to double back after there had been an extended amount of time where they were unable to locate the Angler in the Ridge, one of the other phantasmal beings had mentioned that the Angler had gone back to look for Frogger, and Eyefestation decided it was high time to check in.

Not that the bull shark cared about the entity. It was just that the Angler was easier to communicate with than the rest of his kind, and Eyefestation was getting fed up with trying to keep the others in line.

Finding Frogger. Angler supplied, lingering by the window as his smokey form billowed about. I found her, and we were just on our way back. We also discovered—

IF YOU HAVE LOCATED THE FROGGER, THEN WHERE IS SHE? Eyefestation interrupted.

She’s on her way. Angler’s eye lights wavered with nervousness. She just likes to be thorough when patrolling the hallways, she should be here in a few— oh, here she comes.

Eyefestation became aware of another sound rolling off the walls of the corridor, one different from the dull roar of the Angler’s own continuous shrieking. It was fainter, but no less intense, not nearly as shrill as the Pinkie’s, but it had a subtlety to it that Eyefestation could appreciate as a hunter.

It wasn’t long before their eyes spotted the yellow glow coming from the female’s esca as the Frogger swooped down the corridor, pausing momentarily beside Angler before continuing onwards, then doubling back.

“Why have we stopped?” Frogger spoke to Angler in their native tongue.

“Eyefestation is here,” Angler informed, knowing that due to Frogger’s style of echolocating that she had a tendency to blanket her surroundings with an initial pass before coming back to pick out finer details.

“I realize that,” Frogger’s jaws snapped, annoyed at the insinuation that she hadn’t noticed the giant fucking shark shining a radioactive spot light through the window. “What I’m asking is why that should give us any reason to stop! We are wasting time.”

I AM INCLINED TO AGREE. Eyefestation had deftly added Frogger into the mental mind bridge and was able to discern what the others were saying even as they spoke in a different language. THE OTHERS ARE WAITING AT THE END OF THE RIDGE; PANDE IS WITH THEM ON THE INSIDE, AND CLAIMS THAT THERE IS AN OBSTRUCTION BLOCKING THE PATH FORWARD. I AM UNABLE TO ASSIST. THE TUNNELS GO DEEP UNDERGROUND WHERE I AM UNABLE TO FOLLOW.

Oh, well that’s no good. Angler pointed out the obvious, switching to speaking mentally, or perhaps not realizing that he had projected his thoughts across the mind bridge.

“If there is an obstruction in the way, we may have found someone who can help with removing it.” Frogger hissed aloud.

Eyefestation’s multitude of eyes flashed with interest. YOU HAVE RECRUITED ANOTHER ENTITY TO OUR CAUSE?

Eh, not quite…. Angler projected, their eye lights flickering out entirely.

“They will only assist if we can find a way to free them.” Frogger informed crisply. “None of my kin are capable of applying enough kinetic force to break the Angel from its bonds. But if Pandemonium and the Good People are with you, we might have a chance.”

Eyefestation mulled this information over. The bull shark had no concept of what this ‘Angel’ was, nor did it understand the meaning behind ‘kinetic force’. But the shark did understand the importance of breaking free from Urbanshade. VERY WELL. INFORM THE OTHERS ON WHAT YOU HAVE FOUND AND THE PINK ONE CAN LEAD THE ‘GOOD PEOPLE’ TO THIS ‘ANGEL’.

“What about Pandemonium?” Angler asked.

Eyefestation’s eyes rolled in their sockets. I AM SURE PANDE WILL BE…. OVER ENTHUSIASTICLY WILLING TO LIBERATE ANOTHER ‘COMRADE’.

“There is one other thing,” Frogger intoned with a slight edge to both her inner and outer words. “Angler, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to your sonar, but I’m detecting movement.”

Angler’s form merely shifted in an approximation of a shrug. “The volume of our sonar has a tendency of shaking things up; it’s probably just loose debris.”

“No…” Frogger’s eye lights flashed with thinly veiled annoyance at her fellow’s ignorance. “If you ever bothered to modulate your frequency instead of always blaring at full blast you might actually notice the difference between shifting rubble and small land fish CRAWLING ALONG THE CEILING!”

At this revelation, Eyefestation’s gaze automatically flicked upwards, immediately honing in on the small shapes darting swiftly across the ceiling.

STOP!

The three fish faltered in their retreat, their various tentacles twitching in agitation. Their heads jerked from side to side as the fish resisted Eyefestation’s mental pull with a level of willpower that the mutant bull shark found surprising.

LOOK AT ME!

Eyefestation’s gaze intensified, becoming a harsh red upon finding that even now, the diminutive creatures resisted!

One of the fish, the one with the pink tendrils, suddenly stopped and the spot on its forehead glowed brightly. Eyefestation felt something mentally smack it with a loud and clear NO. It was more like a strong feeling rather than a projection of the word, but the feeling was clearly a harsh denial of Eyefestation’s attempts at persuasion.

This left the mutant bull shark baffled for long enough that its focus wavered and the three fish were able to flee into an open vent, promptly cutting off Eyefestation’s connection as it lost line of sight of the prey.

INSOLENT LITTLE— Eyefestation’s jaws gnashed with outrage as they smashed their tail against the outside of the corridor, causing a loud clang that reverberated through the water. The mutant bull shark’s rage quickly turned on the two anglers who were still hovering by the window. WHY DIDN’T YOU TWO DO ANYTHING TO STOP THEM?!

Angler projected silent confusion and uncertainty before tentatively answering. “Uh… it was just a few little fishes, dude? Weird little fishes. But I mean, why would we care?”

“They were clearly watching us.” Frogger hissed, causing Angler’s jaws to click shut dubiously.

“The three tiny fish… were spying on our mental slash screaming shriek language conversation?”

THOSE THREE WERE ABLE TO RESIST MY WILL. Eyefestation boomed with conviction. THERE IS MORE TO THEM THAN THEIR PITIFUL FORMS WOULD IMPLY. THEY MAY BE A THREAT TO OUR CAUSE.

The Angler seemed less than convinced. “Um, sure. Whatever you say.”

I DO SAY. Eyefestation affirmed. NOW GO AND RECONVENE WITH THE OTHERS. I WILL TRACK DOWN THE SPIES AND DESTROY THEM.

Actually, Eyefestation just wanted to kill the little fishes for daring to escape. Such impudence could not be tolerated.

Without giving the other entities time to object, the mutant bull shark disconnected from the mind bridge and sped off into the dark waters, leaving the Angler and Frogger to resume their journey towards the Ridge.

“Do you have a death wish or something?!” Sebastian yelled as he struggled to pry the violently flailing Punch-out away from the DiVine they had decided to throw hands with.

Splinters and wood chips littered the grass as the DiVine struggled to get away from the deranged human, one arm having been already obliterated by a wild haymaker that Punch-out had thrown. Several other DiVines were jerking spasmodically in their direction, their dried out and brittle forms significantly hampering their strength and coordination as they tried to come to their kin’s aid.

Sebastian easily swept the gathering DiVine aside with a light flick of his tail, being careful not to actually hurt the plantoids. The DiVine beat their creaking limbs ineffectively against his scales, unable to muster enough strength to put any power into their punches.

“Dude, just leave the poor plant people alone!!!” Immy cried out, vaulting over Sebastian’s tail (much to his annoyance) and grabbing a hold of Punch-out’s shoulder.

“It attacked me first!” Punch-out shouted back, shaking Immy off and pointing an accusing finger at the retreating DiVine. “You all saw it! I was defending myself!”

“No one is doubting you!” Chief insisted with a wave of his hands, trying to defuse the situation as best he could from a short distance away. He was unwilling to jump over Sebastian’s tail like Immy and risk drawing the fishman’s ire. “But this is the second time now that you’ve intentionally provoked something to attack you, don’t think I didn’t notice you ‘accidentally’ stepping on the grass.”

It was true. Whilst the group had been making their way through the Oxygen garden, Punch-out had ‘accidentally’ stepped onto the corner of one of the patios and a DiVine had lurched in her direction with its limbs raised to attack. Punch-out had reacted accordingly. However, nobody expected just how weak the DiVine had become due to the water shortage— the attacking entity had toppled over like a rotten log, bits of it cracking off with each blow as Punch-out laid into it mercilessly.

“You could’ve easily just stepped away, goddamn it!” Sebastian snarled, swiping the claw of his third arm at the human and causing her to jump back in order to avoid getting smacked. “The ones that guard the lawns don’t leave the grass! Now do us all a favor and curb your violent tendencies before you piss off the wrong entity and get us all killed!”

“Bullshit!” Punch-out crossed her arms defiantly. “You get to throw around your violent tendencies all the damn time, but the moment one of us tries to blow off some steam by beating the shit out of some monsters you get all uppity!”

“Yes, but in your case, when I throw hands there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it!” Sebastian spat, purposefully looming over the Expendable and baring his teeth in a nasty sneer. “I, however, have a variety of possible ways to deal with scum like you who gets out of hand! Option one: Letting you deal with the consequences of your hubris. Option two: leaving you behind to die from your willful act of hubris! Option fucking THREE: Blowing up whatever constitutes as your brain to put an end TO YOUR ACTS OF HUBRIS! Need I go on?!”

“Who’s Hubris?” Immy asked unprompted, resulting in Sebastian thwacking them upside the head in response.

“Are you idiots done bumbling around down there?” Painter’s tinny voice sounded from the catwalk above. “I swear, if you guys were any slower I would have rusted into a pile of loose garbage by now.”

“You’re made out of plastic.” Sebastian called up from below as he began unceremoniously herding the humans up the stairs.

Painter let out an affronted gasp as their monitor peered over the side of the catwalk. “No way, I am?” Their expression switched from astonishment to an unimpressed frown. “It’s called a figure of speech, moron!”

Sebastian snorted a laugh as he shoved Immy forward in front of him, making the human stumble. They would have probably face-planted into the stairs if Medic wasn’t there to catch them, grabbing the immortal Expendable by the shoulders and glaring over at the fishman. “Quit pushing Immy! I know they’re immortal and all that, but that’s no reason to be so rough with them!”

Sebastian was ready with a snide retort but Immy quickly smacked a gloved hand over the Medkit Expendable’s face mask, causing the other human to flinch.

“ShHHhHhh— It’s okay! We don’t mind! Don’t worry!” Immy insisted, pushing Medic to turn around and continue going up the stairs. But Medic wasn’t having it, it seemed.

“You shouldn’t let him bully you like that!” Medic hissed, brushing Immy’s hand away despite the fact that it being on their face mask did nothing to stop them from speaking.

“Hey, I wouldn’t need to bully them so much if they’d stop getting underfoot all the time!” Sebastian snapped defensively. “I’m a BIG guy! I already have to worry about accidentally crushing tiny fish on a regular basis, I don’t need an overtly clingy human added to the mix! If they just stayed out of my fucking way, I wouldn’t have to keep pushing them around!”

“Bro, it’s so obvious that they’re only getting in your way just so you’ll touch them more,” Dog-fucker pointed out from halfway up the staircase.

“Nuh-uh! Not true!” Immy practically screeched, waving their arms emphatically in the air. “THAT IS SO NOT TRUE— Shut up! We’re not a glutton for punishment or anything, we swear! HE MAKES US FEEL SAFE— No he doesn’t. SHUT UP! I DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM!!!” With that they proceeded to push past the other Expendables as they charged up the stairs, racing over the catwalk past Painter and out the next doorway.

There was a moment of awkward silence that followed. Sebastian tossed a hand up in exasperation and pointedly glared at the Medkit Expendable as if to silently say: see the kind of shit I gotta deal with?

Medkit Expendable merely shook their head with a disgruntled sound before turning away and heading up the stairs with the rest of the group.

As the group made it out of the Oxygen gardens, Sebastian instructed the humans to wait in a safe room.

“What do you mean wait here?” Chief spluttered incredulously as Sebastian turned to leave the room. “Where abouts are you planning on going?”

“None of your concern, I just need to check on something real quick.” Sebastian said reasonably, taking a moment to do a quick headcount of his school of fish as they waddled into the room and started foraging about the office spaces. Sachiel managed to get one of the lower cabinets opened and dragged out a folder with their mouth, eagerly galloping over to Sebastian’s side and dropping the document on the floor.

Sebastian smiled down at the rotten coral infested fish and gave them a pat on the head as he scooped the file up and pocketed it before returning his gaze to the humans. “Don’t worry, it will only take a couple of minutes tops. I won’t be going far.”

“Uh,” White raised a hand in objection. “I’m like, pretty sure that separating isn’t a good idea??? What if we end up out of the radius of your SCRAMBLER?”

“That’s why I’m leaving the SCRAMBLER in the capable claws of my second-in-command,” Sebastian reassured with a sly grin as he unclipped the bulky device from his person and proceeded to set it on a nearby table where Painter was perched upon.

Painter glanced up at Sebastian, doodled eyes practically sparkling. “Oh my gosh, I’m your second-in-command???”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Sebastian waved dismissively, hurriedly snaking his way out of the side room. “Make sure the humans do as they’re told and stay put until I get back, alright? I’m counting on you, Paints!”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Punch-out fumed angrily, shooting a look at Chief and gesturing. “Are we seriously just going to let him go?!”

Chief looked at her, then at the retreating back of the fishman, then back at her. “Do you really think we have a chance at trying to stop him from doing whatever the fuck he wants?”

Punch-out made a growling sound as she crossed her arms and slumped into a nearby chair.

“You don’t.” Painter answered smugly. “So, it’s probably best that you do what Sebastian says and get comfy. He might be a minute.”

“Why? Do you know what he’s doing?” Medic asked.

“Nope!” Two of the AI’s mechanical limbs raised in a shrug before reaching over to the side of the SCRAMBLER and drawing out the cable and connecting it to its monitor. “But I can easily find out using the security cameras.”

“Better hope he’s not pooping…” Immy murmured under their breath.

Sebastian had doubled back into the Oxygen garden, taking a few detours through the dry foliage. He had one hand against the wall, brushing away the dried vines that stubbornly clung to the walls. He eventually found what he was looking for when his claws tapped against something metal and he proceeded to clear away dead vegetation, tearing the dead plants aside until he revealed the metal panel embedded into the wall. With a flick of claw, he popped the panel open and was greeted with a series of diodes displaying the local garden’s water meter.

Sebastian wasn’t a plumber, but before the lockdown he had been Hadal Blacksite’s resident Handyman, and while he had never been specifically tasked with repairing anything within the Oxygen gardens themselves (he was largely relegated to working on underwater repairs)— he did know a thing or two about how most of the pipe systems worked.

When he saw the readout on the water meter, he gave a resigned huff. Just like he had expected, the water being pumped from the local aquifer had been shut off automatically to preserve the site’s supply of fresh water. Sebastian personally thought that depriving water from the only entities which was capable of producing oxygen in the Blacksite had to be some sort of oversight on Urbanshade’s part.

Following the pipeline running along the walls from the sprinkler systems, it didn’t take Sebastian long to find the main pipe which was funneling water through the sector. He could still hear water running through the pipe, it just wasn’t allowing the water to channel into the sprinkler system of the garden.

With a hearty slam of his tail, the pipe buckled and broke in a violent spray of water, quickly drenching the floor as water flowed freely into the room.

Sebastian’s ear fins flicked as he heard the rustling sound of movement and turned to see a veritable swarm of DiVine clumsily surging into the room. He quickly backed away, allowing the thirsty plant beings to gather around the burst pipe and bask in the rejuvenating water spray. Already he could see shades of green beginning to bloom across the closest DiVines, the vines which made up their bodies darkening into a lush green as they were saturated with water.

Surprisingly, as soon as one seemed to have gotten their fill, it walked away from the spray and onto the nearest dry scraggly grass patch, before expelling excess water it had absorbed into its body out onto the grass. Several others mimicked the behavior, trading places with newcomers coming in from farther parts of the garden in order to tend to the parched lawns.

The sight made him smile as he turned away and began making his way back towards where he had left the group.

Sebastian wasn’t sure why he had decided to do it. The DiVine had never done him any favors, and he wasn’t sure if the plant beings even realized what he had done for them. Perhaps a part of him felt that he was somewhat responsible for their predicament. After all, he was the whole reason the lockdown had happened. Or maybe he had done it purely out of self interest. It would be a lot harder to escape Hadal Blacksite if the majority of it became uninhabitable due to a toxic amount of carbon dioxide build-up.

Maybe he was simply inspired to do it when he saw Sachiel trying to revive the dying plants.

Chapter Text

“Why are random stretches of hallways just completely dark?” Immy inquired.

“Okay, the answer to that question should be obvious.” Sebastian grumbled, not even bothering to look at the Expendables as they all linked hands with one another, and Sebastian grabbed onto the nearest end of the human chain to unceremoniously guide the group through the blackened corridors ahead.

Unfortunately, Immy had managed to manuvere themselves to the front of the line this time and was practically vibrating with giddiness as Sebastian reluctantly tugged them along by the arm.

“I knoooooow, but we wanna hear what you thiiiiiink!” Immy said in a sing-song voice and Sebastian had to restrain himself from reflexively tightening his grip on their arm, lest he snap the limb in half.

Medic, who was second in the line, squeezed the immortal Expendable’s hand in warning. “Immy— maybe it’s best if you don’t distract Sebastian while he’s guiding us through this Squiddle infested corridor...“

“Yeah, you never know— I might lose focus and decide to randomly fling you into the nearest wall.” Sebastian sneered sarcastically, causing Painter to emit a muffled giggle from where Sebastian was cradling the computer to his chest with his other arm.

“Should’ve kept the Blacklight…” Dog-fucker mumbled petulantly from the back of the line.

“Would you shut up about the stupid Blacklight!” Punch-out hissed angrily, kicking the heel of her boot into Dog-fucker’s knee.

“Ow! Chief, she’s kicking me again!”

“Knock it off, you two.” Chief warned with an exasperated shake of his head, (he was linked between Medic and White). “You’re both adults, start acting like it.”

“Yeah, do you guys like always have to fight?” White piped in, giving Punch-out’s other hand a playful shake. “You both act like an old married couple. Like, I used to know these two grannies who lived in the trailer right next to where—”

CLUNK…

The entire group fell silent and Sebastian brought them all to a halt as his ears twitched.

“What was—“ Immy started to say, only to have Sebastian’s third hand slap over their mouth area— though due to the size difference, his hand practically encompassed their entire head, which had the bonus effect of not only stifling their words but also smothering their ability to breathe.

“Nobody move…” Sebastian hissed lowly as his eyes darted around the room, searching for the source of the strange noise.

They had crossed the threshold of the previous corridor and entered a spacious hangar that seemed to be used for storage. Various large cargo containers were stacked around the room, the kind that you’d normally see carried on long ships— some had their doors open, their contents nowhere to be found— but most were still sealed shut. The containers made surveying the entirety of the room impossible, though Sebastian supposed if he really wanted to he could easily leverage himself up on top of one of the cargo containers to see the rest of the room. But he surprisingly found himself reluctant to leave his ragtag group of humans alone in the darkness.

CLUNK….

There was that sound again. Like a heavy cinder block thunking against the ground.

“What’s going on??” Painter’s muffled voice complained and they wiggled their monitor about in Sebastian’s hold, but Sebastian merely pressed the computer’s screen tighter to his chest— even as the AI’s spider-like limbs writhed about in agitation.

CLUNK… CLUNK…. CLUNK…

Sebastian felt a chill go up his spine and he both heard and felt the humans shuffling anxiously by his tail. Immy made a muffled noise of distress as they struggled to draw breath and Sebastian quickly retracted his hand from their face, allowing them to gasp in a lung-full of air.

“Uuawghck! Your hand smells like dead baby seals…!” Immy wheezed in a strained whisper.

CLUNK… CLUNK…. CLUNK…

Sebastian didn’t respond, his tail coiling in a defensive S shape and jostling the humans about as his esca suddenly flared bright enough to illuminate their surroundings. Everyone flinched at the sudden brightness, a few of the Expendables beginning to ask questions about what was happening— only for White to suddenly let out a terrified gasp and everyone turned to see what she was gawking at.

Peering over one of the cargo crates was a stone behemoth, its form bipedal and vaguely humanoid as it slowly stepped around the obstruction and revealed itself in its entirety. The massive stone pillars which made up its legs thunked heavily against the floor as it moved, making the ground subtly shake with each step as it slowly lumbered towards the group.

“SCATTER!” Sebastian shouted and immediately the human chain broke apart as the Expendables ran in opposite directions from each other. Painter— having finally managed to turn its monitor around to see what was happening— let out a terrified yell as their mechanical limbs whipped about in a panic.

“OhmYGOD IT’s a GIANT STONE GOLEM IT’S GOING TO STEP ON US RUNRUNRUNRUN!!”

“Calm down! You’re gonna rip holes into my coat—“ Sebastian moved as swiftly as he could whilst wrangling with his AI companion, its multiple limbs having wrapped around his shoulders and torso as Painter tried to scramble over him.

“IT’S GETTING CLOSER!!!” Painter screeched.

“STOP MOVING!” Sebastian roared, finally managing to disentangle the panicking computer from his clothing before practically chucking the AI away from him.

Thankfully, whatever advanced programming inside of the Painter’s hardware seemed to give the AI some semblance of spatial awareness and their limbs stretched out as if on reflex, easily breaking their fall, their metallic claws sparking against the floor as they skidded a short distance before coming to a stop. The AI’s expression blinked several times before becoming irate.

“Did you seriously just THROW ME, you maniac!?”

“Yell at me about it later! Get to safety now!” Sebastian ordered as he felt the vibration of the Candlebrute’s footsteps intensify and he whirled around.

The Candlebrute’s steady advance slowed as it came within direct range of his esca’s light. Sebastian took a split second to analyze the situation and form plan of action. The Candlebrute had Sebastian beat in height by several meters and he highly doubted that bullets would do any good against a creature made out of literal stone. There was no easy way to take one of these monolithic beings down with the tools he had at hand.

A bright blue flame suddenly surged within the Candlebrute’s head, bright blue arcs rippling through the cracks in the stonework of its body as it charged forward, rearing back one arm to punch down right on top of where Sebastian was.

The mutant fishman had been expecting this, however, and easily twisted out of the way of the strike, the stone fist slamming into the floor with a bang, causing the ground beneath him to jolt as he slithered away and danced around the brute’s follow up strike.

Enraged, the Candlebrute tried to stomp on Sebastian’s tail, but he deftly dodged out of the way again, coiling his body around and shunting his mass about with much more finesse than the stone golem. The Candlebrute seemed to be having trouble with keeping track of the rapidly moving snake as it tried and failed again and again to land a blow.

“Sebastian! Over here!” Came Chief’s voice and Sebastian spared a quick glance in the direction of where the voice was coming from, spying the Expendable waving from within the shelter of an empty cargo container behind the Candlebrute.

Dodging another one of the Candlebrute’s attempts to turn him into a pancake, Sebastian darted between the animated statue’s legs and dove into the opening of the cargo container before the Candlebrute had enough time to react.

Inside, he found Chief and White also taking shelter within.

“What’s the plan now, fish-face!?” Chief shouted as the Candlebrute slammed a fist into the top of the cargo crate, causing the metal to bow alarmingly.

“Where are the others?” Sebastian demanded instead as he tucked the remainder of his body into cover, just barely avoiding getting his tail fluke stomped on.

“Here!” Medic shouted from the other end of the cargo crate as they stumbled in, followed by Dog-fucker and Punch-out.

“Right, okay—“ Sebastian flinched as another stone fist hit the container, causing the entire refuge to jolt violently. “There should be a heavy set of doors on the other end of the room, but it’ll take some time for the doors to open, so somebody has to go out there and distract the Candlebrute—“

“Hey!! Hey, brutzy! Let’s party! Brutzybrusterbrutebrutebrutebrute!” The sound of Immy hog calling the Candlebrute could be heard outside the cargo container and for a moment the Candlebrute’s attacks on the group’s shelter ceased.

Then came the sound of heavy footsteps receding, and Sebastian cautiously peaked out from the opening to see Immy dancing recklessly around the Candlebrute, waving a flashlight around and flicking it on and off in a strobe effect like they were at a shitty rave party.

“Alright, Candlebrute distracted! Let’s go!” Sebastian clapped his hands together and the humans quickly followed his lead as he darted out into the open once more.

Whilst weaving their way around the large cargo containers stacked haphazardly about the hangar, Sebastian caught sight of the Painter edging along the far wall of the chamber and he whistled to get the AI’s attention.

Painter promptly flipped him the middle finger with a metal claw, paired with a doodled version on its monitor for good measure before rapidly skittering over to rejoin the group.

“I climbed up one of the storage racks to get a better look at the room. The exit isn’t far but the doors need a keycard in order to open.” Painter informed with an irritated beep.

“No problem,” Sebastian reassured with a smug grin as he pulled out the red keycard from his inner coat pocket. “I know the magic words to open all doors in Hadal Blacksite.”

Painter rolled their eyes, then everyone jumped when there was a particularly loud bang, followed by a strangled yell as Immy was bodily flung into the air— their body sailing over several cargo crates before smacking against the far wall with a resounding crack.

“IMMY!” Medic shouted as the humans all bolted towards their fellow Expendable.

Sebastian looked to Painter, the AI only offering a shrug before following behind. Sebastian let out a sigh, glancing over his shoulder as he heard the Candlebrute’s footsteps slowly increasing in volume. So much for the ‘distraction’.

When the group came upon where the immortal Expendable’s body had collided with the wall, several of the humans let out various sounds of disgust and horror. Dog-Fucker promptly turned on his heel with hands raised whilst he muttered: “I’m out. I’m out. Nope.”

Immy looked similar to how a fly would look after having a rolled up news paper smashed into it. For several seconds, nobody did anything other than watch in morbid fascination as their body slowly slid down the wall with a wet sound, leaving a bloody smear behind on the wall before their corpse landed heavily on the floor, their mangled limbs sticking out at awkward angles.

Even Sebastian cringed at the sight as he came up to asses the damage. “Yikes, that looks like it must’ve hurt!” He chuckled nervously, bending down to give the immortal Expendable’s body a poke with his claw.

Before Medic could loudly reprimand Sebastian for being insensitive, there was a flash of light and Immy let out a scream that made everyone jump back.

“MASSIVE TITTUMS BIG MAMA!”

Immy sat up before getting to their feet and dusting themselves off, then glanced around when they noticed that everyone was staring at them oddly.

“What?”

Sebastian just shook his head, his ear twitching when he heard the Candlebrute getting closer. “Nevermind. Let’s get moving!”

Without further delay, the group managed to make it to the other side of the hangar swiftly now that they could rely on light sources for the time being. There didn’t seem to be any Squiddles to worry about in the hangar, despite the darkness.

Sebastian wasted no time in swiping the keycard on the card reader, and the double doors began the slow process of opening. As soon as the double doors slid wide enough to allow them through, everyone was rushing to get into the next hallway. Chief shouted at them to go single file, and thankfully the others heeded his words and ducked through with minimal shoving. Sebastian took up the rear, making sure Painter went on ahead of him before sliding through himself just as the Candlebrute rounded the last cargo container in its path.

Surprisingly, the Candlebrute seemed unwilling to follow as the group vacated the hangar. Sebastian watched as the stone giant simply stood there for a heartbeat, before turning around and lumbering back into the depths of the hangar.

With a shrug, Sebastian turned to follow the humans, the light of his esca bouncing off of the glass surfaces of office windows as he caught up.

The humans were gathered near the center of the hallway, some of them leaning against walls whilst they caught their breath. Immy was fussing over their flashlight, but it seemed that the device had been damaged when they had been punted across the hangar.

White had brought out a lantern and was hesitantly casting about warily for any more threats. “No Squiddles so far…”

The room they were in branched off in a few different directions, with multiple sections where office work spaces were partitioned from the main floor— with a lower floor below that could be reached via a set of stairs.

“What was that thing?” Medic asked after having checked to ensure that nobody was injured.

“Candlebrute.” Sebastian muttered curtly. “They’re some sort of animated stone gargoyles with occult origins or whatever. They hate lights, just like most of the things down here. But for them it’s because their skin hardens when exposed to photon rays, causing them to freeze in place like statues.”

“It didn’t seem to freeze when you shone your photons on it,” Punch-out noted with crossed arms.

“That’s because it was a Candlebrute— as opposed to their smaller kin, Candlebearers.” Sebastian explained dryly. “Candlebrutes won’t be frozen as easily as Candlebearers. I assume the hangar would normally have bright spotlights to keep the big guy in place, but something must of broken them—”

“Hey, uh, Seb?” Immy suddenly raised a hand, ignoring the annoyed look Sebastian sent their way at being interrupted. “Where’s your fish posse? They didn’t get left behind, did they?!”

Sebastian immediately clapped his hands to his cheeks as he let out a mock gasp of horror. “Oh noooo! My precious fish nowhere to be found??? Whatever shall I do???”

Painter made a disbelieving sound. “S-Sebastian!!! They could be—“

“They’re FINE!” Sebastian waved a dismissive hand as he turned away to survey the room. “Hell, the little shits are probably having the time of their lives right now…”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Painter only seemed more alarmed by Sebastian’s apparent lack of care about the absence of his pet mutant gold fishes.

Sebastian paused, glancing over his shoulder and seeing the distressed look on the AI’s monitor and his expression softened. “I mean exactly what I said, friend. They’re alright.”

“Trust in the Solace, Painter!” Immy butted in, leaning over and giving the AI’s monitor a hearty pat. “We all know that if Sebby actually lost track of his fishy pals he would be WAY more distraught than this. So they ought'a be fine!”

Painter seemed to consider this, relaxing a bit but still feeling worried and confused. “Uh, okay…”

“Alright then, why don’t we split up and check these offices for supplies before we move on to the next room.” Chief suggested, (he didn’t really care all that much about the where-abouts of Sebastian’s strange gold fish), already moving to one of the doors which led to the vacant work area and sliding the door open to peer inside, White hurriedly followed after him to provide light with her lantern.

The others silently followed Chief’s lead and began checking drawers and cabinets, meanwhile Sebastian slinked down the stairs to check if the door to the next room was located on the lower floor. Painter stayed with Immy, the light from the computer’s monitor working just as well as any flashlight. Punch-out had reacquired a flash beacon at some point during the search and was periodically firing off shots, causing Sebastian to flinch and bristle every time, even though she took care to not point the device directly at him.

Dog-fucker had wandered a little ways away, mostly just feeling around in the dark rather than risk using a light source. He was deathly afraid of Squiddles and even though the many flashes from the flash beacon hadn’t revealed any, he was still paranoid about one of the creatures spontaneously manifesting. He eventually came across the door to another work area and clumsily slid it open, fumbling about as he stepped into the office space.

He froze at the distinctive sound of concrete grinding against each other, followed by the clunking of footsteps. In a panic, he whipped out the flashlight he had on his belt and flicked it on, letting out a gasp as the light immediately illuminated the form of a… baby Candlebrute? Or wait, this must be a Candlebearer!

“What is it?” Medic peaked into the office, before taking a step back as they saw the Candlebearer. “Holy shit…!”

“It’s okay, look! It doesn’t just slow down when I have the light on it.” Dog-fucker said with false bravado, flicking the light away briefly and the Candlebrute took a half step forward before he flicked the light back onto it, causing it to freeze in place once more. He let out a nervous laugh, doing it again and watching as the Candlebearer stuttered forward like a video game character with a low frame rate.

Medic wasn’t nearly as amused, reaching over to grab onto the other Expendable’s shoulder. “Dude, stop messing with it!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” Dog-fucker reassured, his confidence seemingly bolstered by the perceived power he possessed to make the animated statue freeze on the spot. “See, it’s frozen in place so long as I keep the light on it—“

The candle within the Candlebearer’s head ignited with a bright blue flame, and with a roar it surged toward the two humans.

Both humans screamed and scrambled backwards out of the office area, hoping against hope that the Candlebearer would be too tall to leave, but to their horror the Candlebrute merely hunched over and easily passed through the doorway— the top of its cage-like head scraping loudly against the doorframe.

At this point everyone was shining their light sources in the direction of the Candlebearer bearing down on the two humans.

Dog-fucker and Medic turned and ran, the fists of the enraged Candlebearer smashing down where they had just been standing a second prior.

Before the Candlebearer could race after the two humans and into the rest of the group, Sebastian lunged up from the staircase, his snake-like body coiling around the stone statue’s shoulders and causing the Candlebearer to stumble backwards.

“PAINTER! Find the door to the next room!” Sebastian ordered as he pushed off of the Candlebearer before it had a chance to try and grapple with his coils. He whipped his tail about behind the golem’s legs as he shoved it, causing it to trip and go crashing down the flight of stairs.

Painter was about to shout back that they had no way of knowing which door led to the next room without the aid of the SCRAMBLER, but the humans had already taken the task upon themselves to brute force a solution— trying every door they came across before moving on to the next if it failed to open or if it only led to another office space.

White let out a screech after opening one door and coming face to stone knees with another Candlebearer. She quickly backed away as the Candlebearer loomed over her, the lantern held in her hand shaking.

“Drop the lantern!” Sebastian shouted at her.

“What?!” White squeaked in fear as her back hit the wall and she frantically looked for a way to escape.

“Jessie! Run!” Medic screamed from the other side of the room as they and a couple other of the Expendables rushed to come to their fellow’s aid. But the Candlebeaerer was already nearly on top of the Expendable, and there was no way the others would make it in time to do anything other than annoy the stone being.

“It’ll leave you alone if you throw away the lantern!” Sebastian explained, unable to offer aid as he was preoccupied with making sure the other Candlebearer couldn’t ascend the stairs, smashing his tail into the animated statue’s chest and causing it to lose its footing on the narrow steps.

With no other options and blue light beginning to sizzle and spark along the Candlebearer as it began drawing its arm back to deliver a strike— one that would no doubt cave her skull in, White tossed the lantern away and covered her head as she whimpered with fear.

To her surprise, her head hadn’t been beaten to a bloody pulp and she cracked an eye open and saw that the Candlebearer had seemingly lost all interest in her.

The Candlebearer stormed away from the lightless White, instead heading towards the group of Expendables that had initially been running to save her.

Now seeing that the Candlebearer had apparently switched targets, the humans all skidded to a halt and immediately began backpedaling.

“I found the door!” Painter shouted with a triumphant cackle, the light of their monitor having illuminated the dead door panel just enough to see the vague imprint of numbers, indicating that it was a door leading to a new area.

Everyone immediately rushed to Painter’s position and the AI let out a startled yelp as it leapt atop a cabinet in order to avoid being trampled. Punch-out slammed into the door first, fumbling for the door’s handle and wrenching it open.

“C’mon! Move it or lose it, people!” She yelled over her shoulder as the others rushed in after her.

Chief managed to duck around the Candlebearer that had been approaching, sliding to a stop beside the still shellshocked White and grasping onto her arm before hauling her to her feet. “No time to go all deer-in-the-headlights now!”

Without waiting for a response, Chief dragged White along with him towards the door, where Sebastian was already in the process of slinking through after having goaded the other Candlebearer into punching its brother (causing it to fall back down the stairs yet again).

Sebastian yoinked Painter up as soon as he saw the AI, swiftly pulling out the cable from the SCRAMBLER and practically jamming it into the back of the monitor.

Painter needed no further prompting and commanded the door to slam shut and seal behind them as soon as everyone was clear.

The sound of stone fists thudding futilely from the other side could be plainly heard. Each bang caused the humans to flinch as they expected the door to crumple under the onslaught of blows, but the door held. Eventually, it seemed like the Candlebearers lost interest and the sounds subsided.

“I thought you said light made the fuckers freeze?!” Medic snapped with reasonable outrage at the mutant fishman, who was busy checking over the bruises growing along his scales from battering against solid rock.

“Hmm?” Sebastian turned to look down at the irate Expendable. “Ah, yes. I suppose I did forget to mention the little detail that only stationary light sources keep them in place. Small light sources that come from handheld devices only serve to stall them temporarily. After a few seconds, they have a tendency to become agitated and power through the paralysis in order to crush the perpetrator wielding a working light.”

“And you didn’t think to mention this VITAL information because…?” Chief inquired in a calmer tone, though he sounded like he already suspected the answer.

“Well, frankly I was a bit distracted by a certain so-and-so interrupting my lore-dump about the creatures in order to ask inane and unrelated questions!” Sebastian retorted, one hand going to his hip as he crossed his main arms.

“So, just dropping our light sources is enough to pacify them?” Chief asked, and at Sebastian’s nod, Chief made the logical connection. “Hm. A shame then that you can’t simply discard the lamp growing out of your forehead.”

Sebastian’s shoulders tensed and he slowly turned fully to glare venomously at the Chief Expendable. “Indeed, what an absolute shame...”

There was a chilly silence that followed as the rest of the group watched Chief and Sebastian stare each other down.

Then Immy broke the tense atmosphere by walking over and giving Sebastian’s tail a pat. “Don’t worry, Seb! We wouldn’t abandon you just because those Brutalistees would chase you down to the ends of the earth!”

Sebastian flinched as the immortal expendable inadvertently touched one of his bruises, breaking his stare with the other Expendable in order to glare indignant daggers at Immy. “What the fuck— Brutalistees?? Is that some sort of—”

“Reference to the Abstractees?” Immy interrupted smugly. “I know, I’m a genius. But it totally makes sense, right? The Abstractees are sentient statues built to resemble abstract art, and the Candlebearers are also sentient statues that are made up of grey concrete— and we call the big guys Candlebrutes— so viola! Brutalistees!”

There was silence as the others stared at Immy for a few seconds.

“I’m pretty sure they more closely resemble gothic style architecture rather than brutalist—“ Medic began, only to be cut off as Immy whirled on them and screamed.

“DO NOT CRITISIZE OUR CREATIVE GENIUS, HERETIC!”

“I need a fucking drink…” Sebastian muttered, letting out an aggravated sigh as he promptly turned and made his way over to the next door. The room they were in was surprisingly sparse, save for a few chairs lined up against the wall, it was otherwise a straight shot to the next door.

Painter was still plugged into the SCRAMBLER and was following along side Sebastian before pausing just in front of the next door with a concerned beep. “Uh, Sebastian. Be careful, I can’t seem to access any security cameras in the next room.”

Sebastian merely chuffed as he grabbed the door handle, glancing down at the AI and giving them a reassuring grin. “That’s because this next part doesn’t have any security cameras.”

“Huh? How do you know that?” Painter raised an inquisitive brow as they watched Sebastian open the door. “Have you been to this part of the Blacksite bef— what the shit….”

The other humans quickly gathered by the doorway to peer in as Sebastian calmly slithering into the large cabin style lounge area. The cozy atmosphere was accentuated by the flickering light cast by the fireplace off to the side as Sebastian approached what appeared to be a bar near the back.

That wasn’t all.

Seated at a round table were Sebastian’s wayward fishlets, the remains of a game of poker were strewn about the tabletop as a deep sea bunny wearing a visor nibbled at the corner of a stack of cards.

The other fishlets simply sat on their assigned seats, some had party hats strapped onto them whilst others (like Beelzebub) had a pair of sunglasses balanced precariously on their heads. Skuttle was the only one attempting to mimic holding the cards, but the isopod-hybrid was too small and only succeeded in clasping a single card in its pincers.

Sachiel was sitting atop the bar inside of a punch bowl, their head obscured by a pair of slotted glasses that quickly fell off as soon as the fish caught sight of Sebastian approaching.

There were also skeletons.

Human skeletons.

The Expendables all gawked in horror as they watched as one skeleton sitting on a couch by the fireplace turned its head to stare at them with its empty sockets. Another skeleton was seemingly passed out at the poker table with the fishlets, (either that or it was just a regular skeleton). There was also a skeleton acting as a bartender, a rag in one bony hand methodically cleaning the inside of a shot glass and giving a nod to Sebastian as he sat by the bar. Sachiel immediately leapt from the punch bowl and waddled across the bar top towards Sebastian, their tail waggling excitedly in greeting as the fishman smiled down at them.

“Having fun, fish-bait?” He chuckled when Sachiel merely flopped over onto their side and flapped their fins, and he reached a claw over to give the fish belly scritches.

“Woah…” Painter seemed mystified by the decor, as well as pleased to see that their fish friends were well. They unhooked themselves from the SCRAMBLER, since the device wasn’t able to give them any further data about the strange anomalous room, scuttling onto a vacant seat by the poker table to greet the fishlets, who all perked up upon seeing their computer friend.

“What the actual fuck…” Punch-out hissed in wide eyed disbelief as she and the others continued to linger by the doorway. “Am I trippin’ or are y’all also seeing this too?”

“I’m seeing it.” Chief mumbled, dumbfounded.

“Woohoo! This place looks great!” Immy exclaimed, bounding into the room and flopping onto the couch next to the skeleton. “Hey there, sexy.” They crooned as they leaned over to the skeleton, (who despite not having flesh in order to make any facial expressions was looking increasingly uncomfortable by the minute). “Are you a skeleton? ‘Cause you’ve got me rattling with excitement.”

The skeleton’s only response was to stare blankly at the immortal Expendable, before lifting a skeletal hand and giving them a thumbs-down.

“Right, sorry. That was poor form on my part,” Immy replied with a shake of their head, somehow completely understanding the skeleton.

The skeleton waved their hand in a ‘meh’ gesture.

“Oh really? Well, I’ve got more puns to share if you’re willing to indulge little ol’ me for a moment. Maybe you can rate my performance!”

The skeleton’s head swiveled around as if desperately looking for someone to ask for help, but Immy immediately began assailing the poor bastard with various skeleton related puns. There would be no escape.

The humans eventually got over their anxiety and began cautiously filing into the room. White nervously took a seat by the fireplace, watching the animated skeleton in morbid fascination as it suffered Immy’s tirade.

Medic stepped over to the other side of the skeleton, and the skeleton looked in the Medic Expendable’s direction and waved an exasperated hand at Immy.

Medic gave the skeleton a knowing nod. “I apologize for my friend’s attitude. Many do not find their word-play very humerus.”

The skeleton started to nod, then stopped, their jaw snapping shut with a sharp click as their eye sockets glared balefully at Medic.

Immy let out a chortle of laughter. “Aw, c’mon. My puns can be real rib-ticklers!”

“I don’t know,” Medic hummed as the skeleton between the pair slapped a bony hand against its forehead with a clack of bone on bone. “Now’s not the time to be skull-ing around. This establishment may be dead fun, but I wouldn’t get too comfy rattling their bones with your spine-tingling pun-ishment.”

Immy let out an exaggerated swoon as the skeleton hunched in on itself, skull pressed into both of its hands as its shoulder blades shook with silent sobs of agony.

Sebastian couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight from where he was leaning back against the bar, Sachiel having snuggled into his crossed arms at some point. The bartender slid over a glass of vibrant glowing liquid, which Sebastian gladly accepted in his third hand with a nod of thanks.

“So, what is this place exactly?” Chief inquired as he casually walked up to the bar beside Sebastian.

Sebastian side-eyed the Expendable with a displeased curl of his lip, still a bit nettled by Chief’s earlier jab at him. He wasn’t sure why it bothered him, Sebastian had had verbal spars more scathingly malicious with Painter when compared to Chief’s simple observation. But something about the older human made Sebastian wary. There was an intelligence behind his gruff demeanor that spoke of wisdom and lived experience that Sebastian couldn’t easily read.

Taking a sip of his drink, Sebastian plastered an easy grin on his features. “Oh, this place? Nothing short of your typical mobile pocket dimension roving around Hadal Blacksite, serving drinks to the weary and sanctuary to the deceased and destitute in this corporate-driven hellscape.”

“Right…” Chief didn’t sound impressed by Sebastian’s spiel, his attention briefly shifting as the bartender sought to serve him a glass similar to the one the fishman was nursing. “And there are no dangers or unspoken side-effects by lingering in this… pocket dimension?”

Sebastian snorted a rough laugh, jostling Sachiel in his arms and causing the rotten coral infested fish to slap a fin against his arm in annoyance. “Nope! This is probably the safest “place” in the Blacksite. The only catch it has is that you can never expect to find it in the same spot twice. As soon as we walk out of here, it’ll poof to some other part of the Blacksite.”

“How did you know it would be here, then?” Chief asked as he hesitantly took the glass and eyed the glowing contents.

“Call it a Sixth sense,” was all Sebastian offered as an explanation, he then downed the rest of his drink in one gulp.

A door up on the landing above suddenly slammed open, and a seven foot tall skeleton with glowing red eyes stepped out and surveyed the room before spying Sebastian and pointing.

“SEBASTIAN! YOU CONNIVING SEA DOG! You’ve got some nerve showin’ yer scaley hide around here and bringing in a whole barrel of flesh bags to boot!”

Sebastian merely flashed a shark-tooth grin as the skeleton stomped down the stairs towards him. “Aye, nice to see you again, Buster!”

“NOT MY NAME! But yer lucky I’m off duty right now, laddie. Else I would’ve had to kick you and your skin-wearing companions outta here! Oh! And by the way—“ The tall skeleton lifted an arm, revealing Chomper dangling from where it was doggedly gnawing on the bones of the skeleton’s hand. “Ya bloody well owe me one for transporting your golden crew of wee fish mates all the way here! This pilferin’ parasite here has been tryin’ to make off with me metatarsals for the better part of an hour! If he wasn’t so endearing, I woulda pulverized the lil’ blighter ages ago!”

“And I appreciate your restraint regarding my crew’s antics,” Sebastian reached over and plucked the toothy fishlet off of the skeleton, tucking it alongside Sachiel (who angrily bopped their offspring on the head). “No need to worry, we’ll be outta your hair in a few.”

“Funny.” The skeleton deadpanned before turning away with a wave as it began walking back up the stairs. “Just make sure you pay your bloody tab this time ‘round, alright? Damn wanker…”

“You’ve got… interesting friends.” Chief stated as soon as the skeleton left.

“Not my friend. Just some schmuck who owes me a few favors.” Sebastian drawled before reaching over and snatching Chief’s untouched drink. “You gonna finish this?”

He didn’t wait for Chief to respond before he was already downing the drink and slamming the empty glass down on the bar with a belch. “Alright, enough lollygagging around, we have a Crystal to secure!”

“Aww, but I just got a full house!” Painter whined, having at some point restarted the game of Poker(?) with Dog-fucker and Punch-out somehow being roped in.

“Liar!” Punch-out threw her cards down on the table. “I’ve been counting the cards this entire time! You absolutely do NOT have that many cards!”

“What? Nooo! Who the heck are you calling a liar?!” Painter sneered even as doodled sweat drops manifested on their expression. The AI surreptitiously nudged the corner of an Ace underneath Beelzebub.

“Man, I don’t know what kind of card games you’ve been playing, but this sure ain’t Poker.” Dog-fucker mumbled as he set his cards down.

Painter shrugged, laughing a little nervously. “Heheh, yeah… I’ve never actually had the chance to play any card games other than Solitare. Been meaning to learn.”

“I’ll teach you how to play cards once we’re outta here!” Immy offered, having moved on from torturing the resident skeleton couch potato.

Sebastian let out an impatient growl as he slithered towards the exit, letting Sachiel and Chomper down onto the floor to waddle beside him, the rest of his school of fish quickly converged on his position as he flung the door open. “Yes, yes, we’ll have plenty of time to play board games and throw parties after we get the Crystal.”

He stopped momentarily as he spotted three glowing fishlets come scurrying down the hallway towards him. He blinked, recognizing that it was the tentacled trio of fishlets that had been missing.

“Huh, I thought you three had died.” Sebastian said, pleasantly surprised as he shifted to the side, allowing the three fishlets to scramble into the room and excitedly meet up with the rest of their siblings.

“Yay! Everyone’s finally accounted for!” Painter crawled over to greet the returning fishlets. “Damn, you three have gotten bigger since the last time I saw you!” The AI reached a claw out to pat Iggy and Bubbles, but Baphomet seemed to be agitated by something, their bulbous head still pulsing with pink light as the fish shifted from looking around the room to looking out the door.

Sebastian didn’t know why, but he felt as though the fishlet was projecting a strong sense of urgency and he turned to glance out the doorway, peering into the darkness beyond. This door wasn’t the one that the group had originally entered through, instead leading to a sector that acted as a connection point for multiple corridors. Supposedly one of the corridors connected to the junction would lead the group back towards the Crystal.

Immy and the other humans had gathered nearby, with Chief coming up beside Sebastian to see what the fishman was looking at.

“What’s that purple light—“

Sebastian immediately slammed the door shut before Chief had a chance to finish speaking and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare.

”Fuck!” Sebastian spat as he whirled around, digging his claws into his hair as his tail lashed angrily.

“What! What is it?!” Painter asked, narrowly avoiding being clipped by Sebastian’s tail fluke.

“She’s out there!” Sebastian snarled, jabbing a claw at the door as he paced in a tight circle, his tail looping over itself as he struggled to keep his breathing under control. “Damn it! How did she get ahead of us again?!”

“Woah there,” Chief raised his hands. “Let’s calm down for a second. Maybe she hasn’t realized that we’re here and she’ll move on if we stay quiet. Painter, can you check if there are any cameras nearby that you can use to scope out the situation?”

“Uh, sure.” Painter glanced at Sebastian, who had stopped pacing and was just clutching his arms to himself tightly as he emitted a low hissing noise. He caught the AI looking, and gave a rough shrug with a nod to his SCRAMBLER. Painter hesitantly climbed over his bunch of coils and reached over to plug the cable into their monitor.

“Hm, yeah. There’s a few cameras in the junction. But I don’t see—“

“Hey!”

“—any sign of the Siren. I think there’s some kind of interference happening with this spooky lounge area. None of the cameras seem to be operational within a certain radius.”

Sebastian’s ears twitched. Someone else had spoken over Painter but nobody seemed to notice…

“Well that’s no good,” Immy put their hands on their hips. “Maybe I can take—“

“Hehehehe!”

“—a peak outside and see if she’s out there!”

Sebastian slowly turned around, eyes narrowed as he glanced about the room. The voice sounded familiar. “Is anyone else hearing that?”

“Hearing what?” Medic looked around, confused. The others seemed equally bemused.

Sebastian opened his mouth, about to say something else but when he turned to face the humans he jerked back upon seeing a bright red figure hovering near his face. “SHIT!”

“What?! WHAT?!” Painter yelped as they were nearly bucked right off of Sebastian’s tail. Everyone else tensed, ready to jump into action, but nobody seemed to see whatever the fishman was reacting to.

“Hehehe! Hi Sebastian!” Imaginary-Friend giggled.

“NO! No! Ugh, not again…“ Sebastian let out an aggrieved groan as he dragged a hand over his face.

“What? What’s happening?!” White looked around anxiously, sounding on the verge of panic.

“Nothing, nothing! Just…. Being haunted by my… imaginary frieeeend.”” Sebastian waved a hand as he sighed heavily.

The humans all looked at one another, then Punch-out made a loopy gesture along the side of her head with an index finger.

“I think the fishman’s gone off his shits again…”

“No, no, no! It’s true.” Painter waved a metal claw emphatically as they vouched for Sebastian’s sanity. “There’s this stupid toy thing that apparently gives you a limited time imaginary friend hallucination that follows biologicals around. Usually it only lasts for two days, but…”

“But for SOME REASON—“ Sebastian growled as he glared at the red phantom. “I seem to get visits from it randomly! I only ever pressed the button once! But every time someone else presses the button on the toy remote and comes within range of me, I have to suffer along with them!”

Imaginary-friend seemed to pout as she crossed her fin-like arms. “Hey! That’s not very nice, Sebastian!”

“Sorry,” Sebastian apologized, swiping a lock of hair out of his face as he rubbed his other hands together. “I’ve just been a little on edge lately. I know it’s not your fault, but now really isn’t the best time to be dropping by for a visit.”

“I’m sorry, Sebastian.” Imaginary-Friend sounded genuinely remorseful, but she seemed determined about something. “B-but me and my new friend have been looking all over for you.”

“New friend?” Sebastian raised a brow, though he had a sinking feeling. “You don’t mean…”

“Do you know her?” Imaginary-friend’s head tilted to the side. “She seems to know you. Which is strange, because she can’t seem to remember her own name… poor thing.”

Sebastian’s ears drooped and his expression became pained upon hearing that. “Ah, I-I see…” He looked away, his throat suddenly feeling dry.

Meanwhile, Immy had sidled over to Painter, who was still perched on Sebastian’s tail. “What’s the imaginary friend saying?” They whispered.

“I don’t know,” Painter whispered back with a mechanical shrug. “It’s not like I can see it!”

This went unnoticed by Sebastian, whose attention was solely on Imaginary-friend. “Is… she outside the door right now?”

“Yes, she is!” Imaginary-Friend confirmed, unaware of the turmoil going through Sebastian. “Is it alright if she comes in? She’s been very upset lately. I’ve been trying my best to help her, but…”

As if on cue, there came a loud thump from the other side of the door, causing the humans to jump and all the muscles in Sebastian’s body to tense.

“No.” He replied, voice devoid of emotion as his gaze fixated on the door.

Imaginary-friend seemed surprised. “N-no?”

“She can’t come in.”

“W-why not?”

“Because she’ll try to kill me if I let her in.”

“What? But I don’t understand… she said that you were special to her! Why would she—“

“BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T HAVE A CHOICE!” Sebastian snapped, his entire body trembling as his claws clenched into fists, his breaths coming in shallow gasps as he glared at the crimson apparition.

The tension in the room had skyrocketed at his outburst and the gathered Expendables all took several steps back from the fishman, except for Immy, who stubbornly stuck next to the Painter. The AI was still connected to the SCRAMBLER and seemed too afraid to move from where they were currently perched atop Sebastian’s coiling tail.

Imaginary-friend was shocked into silence for a few seconds, she didn’t understand what exactly Sebastian meant, but based on how she had seen her new friend behave whenever his name was mentioned aloud, she could make a guess.

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Sebastian.” Imaginary-friend finally said earnestly. “I-I didn’t realize.”

Sebastian, still trembling slightly, managed to suck in a deeper breath of air and compose himself a bit. He bent down and grabbed Sachiel, who had been nudging against his tail for the past minute or so, and cradled the fish in his arms. “It’s fine.”

It wasn’t fine.

Imaginary-friend seemed to consider something, glancing over at the door and then back at Sebastian. “What is her name?”

“Zerum…” He said with a shaky breath. “Her name is Zerum.”

Imaginary-friend perked up a bit. “That’s a pretty name. I’ll be sure to tell her it. I’ll try to get her to leave so you can get where-ever it is you and your friends are going.”

“Thank you…” Sebastian didn’t look up, his claws occupied with tracing Sachiel’s mottled scales.

There was a moment of silence in the room, and a moment later the thumping at the door ceased.

Unbidden, Sebastian found himself cautiously sliding over to the door, his head leaning close as his ear cocked to listen.

He heard the faint muffled sound of crying, and his heart ached. He tightened his hold around Sachiel as he listened in rigid silence. After a moment the sound faded and Painter beeped.

“I see the Siren in crossing through the junction now… she’s turned down one corridor. She’s out of the SCRAMBLER’s range now.”

“Good.” Chief nodded, having taken a step towards Sebastian. “I reckon we should wait a few more minutes in here, just to make sure she doesn’t double back on us when we leave.”

“Yeah…” Sebastian spoke solemnly, not taking his eyes off the door. “Good idea.”

Chapter Text

“Hey, I checked the other side of the door,” Imaginary-friend told the rabbit monster pawing at the door. “I, um, I don’t think we should go this way.”

“I… heard HIM!” Came the hissed reply, as she beat her fist against the door again. “He… is in there!”

Imaginary-friend felt torn, trying to think of a way to get her friend to leave and allow Sebastian to continue on his mission. “I… don’t think the door is going to open, Zerum.”

The rabbit monster paused, her entire body freezing as her ragged ears stood straight up. “Wh…what?”

“Zerum.” Imaginary-Friend moved so that she was now hovering in front of her vision. “That’s your name.”

She stood there, silent as a ghost as her one eye stared vacantly at nothing for several seconds. Flashes of images flitted through her mind’s eye, things that she had long forgotten, things which she had repressed.

Zerum… her name.

Her name was Zerum…

Pain abruptly split the inside of her head and she gripped her face as she let out a broken sob. She hunched over as agony raced through her mind and down her body like she was connected to the end of a live wire. It was as though the mere recollection of her name had triggered a cascade of memories that threatened to drive her insane the harder she tried to grasp them. There was something within her, something that was savagely trying to stop the memories from fully resurfacing by smothering her with waves of endless suffering.

She clawed at the side of her head, her sharpened nails digging into the flesh of her right temple and causing dark red and purple ichor to spill from the self-inflicted wounds. She had to get it out! Whatever this thing was—Get it out! Get iT oUT! GET IT OUT!

“Hey!” Imaginary-friend floated in front of her, unable do anything to stop the rabbit monster from hurting herself due to her incorporeal nature. “Please, please stop! You shouldn’t hurt yourself like that! Let’s just get away from here and go some place safe to rest, okay?”

Zerum’s eye focused on Imaginary-friend, her whirling thoughts momentarily stalled as she focused on the bright red phantom. She gave a trembling nod; she was already letting out soft sobs through chattering teeth and feared that if she tried to speak she’d start screaming uncontrollably.

They moved slowly, Imaginary-friend coaxing Zerum along with gentle words as she guided the other away from the door and back the way that they had come. Zerum walked in a daze, like a zombie, swaying unsteadily as blood dripped down her face and neck and pattered onto the cold floor. The pain had lessened to a dull throbbing as her mind filled with nothing but static as she followed the red specter in her vision.

She passed by a few Squiddles in the darkness, ignoring their hissing as she stumbled by. Eventually, Imaginary-friend pointed an appendage towards a side room with a vent, and Zerum crouched down and practically tore it open in order to scurry inside and curl up into a cramped ball.

“How are you doing?” Imaginary-friend gingerly asked, her form unbothered by the cramped ventilation shaft.

“Bad…” Zerum croaked, her torn up cheek stinging and still oozing blood as she rested her head against the floor of the vent. She didn’t know what to do. She still had that persistent nagging in the back of her mind telling her to find Sebastian Z-13. But now she felt the additional urge to question why. Originally, the sharp pain which would follow upon her mind drifting to question what her purpose was would be enough to dissuade her from traversing down that thought-process, but after regaining her name… she found that stubbornness was in her nature— and after having barely scratched the surface of what she had lost, she was unwilling to let it just slip away.

“You said… my organs were wrong…” Zerum’s eye flitted in Imaginary-friend’s direction. “What did… you mean?”

“Oh,” Imaginary-friend brought an appendage up to one cheek as she glanced away. “Eheheh… That’s just… I mean— usually that’s just something I say to people to mess with them. You know, just to keep them wondering!”

Zerum’s eye slowly blinked. “Ah…” She had been hoping for something a bit more… useful, than that.

“But I can actually physically see through people!” Imaginary-friend continued. “Well, sort of. It’s not like people appear as translucent to me, or anything. I just have this sort of… Oh, what was it called? Sebas— I mean, uh, our ‘mutual friend’ called it Electroreception. I’m more attuned to the electrical impulses which go through the organs of most biological beings. So much so that a person’s insides appear almost like they are lined with silver light in my vision.”

Zerum took this all in as best she could, her mind threatening to drift occasionally due to the throbbing in her cheek and head. But she managed to comprehend the gist of what Imaginary-friend was telling her.

“Can you… see anything happening.. to me whenever I think of…. him?”

Imaginary-friend tilted her head to the side. “Y-yes, actually. But I wasn’t sure if I should mention it. I’ve been told that it’s rude to point out a person’s physical oddities, whether they’re external or internal.”

Zerum felt her heart rate pick up as she stared intently at Imaginary-friend. “Tell me.”

“W-well, whenever there’s mention of Him. I’ve noticed there’s this sort of flash or spark that happens on the inside of your head on one side—” Imaginary-friend pointed at the right side of Zerum’s face, where the blood had begun to dry “—and I see a vague shape briefly highlighted by the spark. I don’t know what it is.”

Zerum lifted a hand to brush against the side of her face, wincing as her fingers grazed the wound there. “How… deep?”

Imaginary-friend stared. “W-what?”

“How… deep…” Zerum reiterated, the tips of her claws curling into the barely scabbed over wound. “Is… the shape?”

“I- I don’t know!” Imaginary-friend looked frantic as her fin like appendages flitted hesitantly towards Zerum’s raised arm, as if to try and stop her from what she was thinking of doing. “P-please, don’t hurt yourself further! You’ve already bled quite a lot!”

Imaginary-friend wasn’t all that knowledgeable about physical beings, but she had witnessed enough to know that bleeding too much was best avoided.

“I…” Zerum was trembling as she dug her claws deeper into her right temple, beads of fresh blood beginning to well up from where the tips pierced pale flesh. “….need to… get IT OUT!”

“Please just WAIT!” Imaginary-friend nearly shouted, causing Zerum’s ears to pin back. “Please, please, just wait a moment! If- if you really think that you need to… do this… then I can’t stop you. But I-I think you shouldn’t do it here—“ She waved her limbs about at their cramped surroundings. “Wouldn’t it be better to wait until we find some place… cleaner? And perhaps with a mirror? So you can actually see what you’re doing before you…”

Zerum allowed her hand to fall away from her face, her shoulders slumping. Yes, Imaginary-friend was right. As much as Zerum wanted to remove that infernal implant from her flesh as soon as possible, right here wasn’t the smartest place to do it.

“Okay….”

The red apparition visibly relaxed. “Thank you.”

Choosing to stay a bit longer in the Skeleton Lounge was a mistake.

Why?

Because it turns out the lounge had a Karaoke set-up and for some unknown reason the skeletons decided to bring it out. It was a shitty wooden stage, with a shitty microphone and shitty speakers and a skeleton in charge of operating it who had a pair of headphones that looked more akin to the kind of headphones that construction workers would wear in order to avoid damaging their hearing from the loud machinery.

Sebastian was sorely tempted to try bribing the skeleton DJ in order to acquire the noise canceling headphones for himself.

Because the immortal Expendable was a horrendous singer, AND THEY REFUSED TO LET ANYONE ELSE HAVE THE MIC.

“You’re stubborn, jeans stolen, night rowing— THINK YOU’RE BABY~!”

Nobody knew what satanic bastardization of a song that the immortal Expendable was singing.

“Hey ah you~ and maisy! But jambre, so CLAYBE! It’s ha-right BAAAY— But jambre, so claybe!”

But for some reason, the music that went along with it was a banger. It was strangely familiar and Sebastian couldn’t stop the end of his tail from thumping along with the beat.

“Took your t’call, no t’k fall~ Gave me n’mall~ do you’re away~ beg n b’steal, at first it’s real~ didn’b feel, but it’s away~!”

Clearly, this had to be the work of some sort of witchcraft or occult ritual.

“You’re stubborn, jeans stolen, night rowing—“

Because seriously.

“THINK YOU’RE BABY?!”

What the actual FUCK were these lyrics?!

“Why does this song sound like ‘Call Me Maybe’ but with like every other beat removed???” White exclaimed over the music with reasonable indignation.

“That’s it! That’s the song that I was thinking of!” Sebastian shouted with a snap of his fingers. He knew the song was familiar, but the lyrics that Immy was singing was absolute nonsense— it was exactly the kind of lyrics one would get if they took the song “Call Me Maybe” and cut every other beat out of it with a pair of scissors and then smashed the remnants together.

“Boy you came my life~
missed you sad~ missed you mad~
so claybe!”

The disturbing part was that, vocally, Immy imitated the abruptly cut-off nature of the lyrics to a T.

“It’s hark right— BAAAY~
but jambre, so claybe~!”

“Why the hell does this even exist? Why do you guys have this instead of the original song?!” This question he directed at the discount skeleton DJ that was manning the music player, but the skeleton didn’t react due to the noise cancelling headphones— in fact, they appeared to be flipping idly through a magazine and doing an excellent job at ignoring everything else.

“Honestly, it sounds pretty good.” Dog-fucker said, his boot tapping to the beat from his seat at a nearby table. “I think I like it better than the original.”

“You would.” Medic rolled their head to the side as a surprisingly adequate substitute for an eye-roll.

Meanwhile, Punch-out was enthusiastically jamming out to the music, having managed to ‘talk’ one of the skeletons into relinquishing their drink to her. She may have been a bit buzzed after drinking the one glass of skeleton grade booze.

“Took you’re t’call, no t’k fall~ gave me n’mall, do you’re away~
beg n b’steal, at first it’s real~ didn’b feel, but it’s away!”

What made Sebastian more furious was that he was fairly certain that if this was indeed a chopped up version of “Call Me Maybe” then the song should’ve been significantly shorter than the original.

“through a well, ask me but tell, look too you fell, now you’re away~
tray my soul wish, knees and a kiss~
wassum for this, now you’re away~!”

Immy had been singing for well over five minutes— repeating the nonsensical “lyrics” over and over again to the point that Sebastian was fairly certain he was going to have a horrendous ear-worm for the next several hours.

“Aaannd other buoy, CHAAAAAY~!”

Chief had remained silent during the entire ordeal, and a glance over confirmed that the older Expendable had somehow managed to fall asleep sitting upright in one of the nearby armchairs. He was snoring audibly, like some drunk uncle passed out with the TV blaring on full blast. It was honestly impressive.

“THINK YOU’RE BABY!?”

The only reason Sebastian didn’t bring out his gun and start shooting to put a stop to this madness was because there was a strict No-Weapons-Fire policy in the Skeleton Lounge, and he did not want the normally off-duty Bouncer to come stomping down and metering out punishment, (the seven foot tall skeleton had one mean right-hook). That and Painter seemed to be enjoying themselves, doing a good impression of the crab rave dance on a coffee table and trying to get some of the fishlets to dance along.

Sebastian had traded one source of agony for another, and he wasn’t sure which was preferable. He legitimately considered just leaving and chasing after Zerum, to hell with the consequences and the inevitable outcome should he find her.

While this was going on, Sebastian noticed that some of the skeleton patrons were starting to move about on the upper floors. Some were looking over the railing to gaze bemusedly at whoever was singing at the rarely used karaoke stage— but most were bunched up in small groups seemingly communicating with each other in the soft clattering of their bone language. Most of the animated skeletons didn’t posses enough power to magically conjure up their own voices, so they substituted their lack of vocal cords by utilizing a sort of xylophone sound based sign language that involved a lot of rattling and the tapping or waggling of specific bones, coupled with hand signals and a mixture of human ASL.

Sebastian knew the bare bones (heh) of the language from what scarce observations he made whenever he encountered the undead. Yes and No were visually the same, so was Hello and Goodbye. It was complex sentences and concepts that were much more difficult to discern. And Sebastian wasn’t too interested in learning a language that he wouldn’t be able to utilize himself unless he was an undead skeleton.

Nevertheless, from the general body language of the skeletons that he could see from his position— he got the impression that patrons of the Skeleton Lounge were either nervous or excited about something, perhaps a mixture of both.

It made him uneasy and anxious to get moving.

Pandemonium was feeling exhilarated as he moved through the corridors, having just departed from the Ridge after the arrival of the Angler and the Frogger. The deep sea poltergeists had shrieked amongst one another in their native tongue, which he unfortunately could not understand, but the Pinkie had turned and started relentlessly badgering the flesh abomination until he eventually moved where she wanted.

Without Eyefestation around to facilitate communication between the differing entities, Pandemonium was bereft of any way to speak with the Angler and his fellows. So, the mutant flesh blob allowed himself to be herded back through the Ridge and into the main sectors of Hadal Blacksite.

He hoped that Eyefestation was alright; he hadn’t seen his fellow comrade in quite a while and he lamented the fact that he was incapable of asking the Angler about it.

Pandemonium wondered where the Pinkie was leading him. He had noticed that occasionally he would catch the faintest skittering whisper of the Collective nearby and assumed that the Pinkie must be guiding the other entity along as well.

He could not fathom the purpose for bringing two different amalgamations of flesh to an undisclosed location, but Pandemonium had faith in his comrades and their competence. After all, the phantoms were in a position to act strategically with their ability to speak with one another, so it was only reasonable that Pandemonium differ to the coalition’s judgement when Eyefestation was absent.

Come to think of it—

Pandemonium suddenly halted in the junction he was in, the rotting flesh that made up the rest of his mass sloshing into him, causing him to anchor himself down with a few decaying tendrils in order to avoid pitching forwards.

Pandemonium’s many eyes within his maw flickered to life as he spied movement down one of the hallways. One of the doors had slid open, and he spied the forms of multiple humanoids moving about.

Instinct automatically kicked in, and with an overjoyed shriek for blood and viscera, Pandemonium propelled himself down the corridor like a freight train and crashed right into the lead human, crushing it underneath writhing caustic flesh. Rotting teeth tore into the downed human, which continued to struggle with surprising energy. As Pandemonium’s intra-oral eyes focused on his prey, he realized with a moment of hesitation that something was… off… about the human’s face.

Before Pandemonium had the chance to contemplate further about the odd human he was gnawing upon, there was a loud bang and suddenly a portion of Pandemonium’s vision blackened as pain blossomed all along his body.

Half-blinded by the sudden attack, Pandemonium retreated back a few paces, dropping the mangled human in the process as he tried to pinpoint which human was responsible.

What Pandemonium saw, however, wasn’t human.

The amalgamation of constantly regenerating flesh continued to stare in confusion as its eyes slowly reformed and he was able to see the figure more clearly. A giant serpent of some kind, meters in length and possessing multiple arms. One such arm had a firearm clutched in a clawed hand.

Pandemonium knew what guns were. They were tools that the humans who worked for Urbanshade used to administer pain and punishment. Was this other entity working on the side of Urbanshade? How deplorable!

Pandemonium gnashed his teeth together, eyes glowing with fury as he let out a guttural growl— the sound akin to a watery frothing that echoed ominously from the back of his gullet.

The serpent let out a snarling hiss of its own as the length of its body whipped about the room in an aggressive posture.

Before Pandemonium could charge, a flash of light low to the ground caught his attention and his many eyes briefly flicked in the direction of the mangled corpse of the human.

To Pandemonium’s astonishment, the human’s wounds had vanished and it stood up as though nothing had happened.

What wicked sorcery was this?! Had Urbanshade managed to replicate Pandemonium’s own regenerative abilities and applied them to other humans? If so, then this was terrible news for the escaped entities and their plans for rebellion against the company!

Pandemonium cautiously shuffled backwards, eyes darting between the serpent and the immortal human. Coming to a decision, Pandemonium lifted his head up to let out an ear splitting shriek that rattled the walls around them. The cry echoed down the corridors, far louder than any hunting cry that Pandemonium would normally emit upon spying prey.

Here, here, here here we come herehereherere we are, we are wewe are!

A nearby ventilation shaft rattled before a grate busted open as the metastasized form of the Good People dropped down. Their body spilling out of the narrow confines like ropes of spaghetti as the horrendously smiling mask came down and swiveled about to take in their surroundings— Their massive claws forming upon hitting the floor and digging grooves into the concrete as it spied the humans huddled behind the serpent.

Not a second later, Pandemonium heard the distant shrieking of the Pinkie coming back to see what the commotion was about and soon the pink Angler was also in the room, hovering to a halt on Pandemonium’s opposite side as her eyes glowed brightly.

The immortal human let out a fearful cry and dashed behind the serpent, who looked more than a little alarmed and panicked at the sight of three dangerous entities in the same room.

Pandemonium allowed their maw to twist into a malicious grin as he saw the blue serpent slowly backing away down the corridor, the other humans having quickly abandoned their fellows and disappearing down the corridor behind the serpent.

Pandemonium’s body tensed as he prepared to charge forward and rend the enemy apart.

Wait-wait waIT WAIT WAIT WAIT! STOP! STOpstopstopstop!

Pandemonium paused, eyes flickering towards the Collective. The fellow flesh amalgam was pawing fitfully at the ground with their claws, masked head twisting to one side and then the other like a deranged bird as they seemingly eyed the blue serpent who had now placed itself in such a way that its coils blocked off the corridor leading to the humans.

Pandemonium wanted to question them, but without Eyefestation around he was unable to.

Surprisingly, the Pinkie also seemed reluctant to attack, her shrieking became shriller as she floated about the room in a tight circle before racing down the way she had come from a short distance— then coming back and shrieking again at Pandemonium.

The Good People turned around and started following the Pinkie, much to Pandemonium’s indignation and befuddlement.

He looked at the serpent again, trying to puzzle the other creature out. He eventually noticed the presence of dimly glowing figures crawling along the serpent’s tail. They looked like small fish. There was also another entity clinging to the serpent’s back, this one with a flat face that glowed brightly and a multitude of spidery limbs which glinted in the light.

The two adversaries stared each other down for several long seconds, before the Pinkie shrieked again and Pandemonium finally broke the stare, his eyes going dark as he turned away and resumed following.

Clearly, the Pinkie and the Good People knew something that Pandemonium did not, and once again the flesh wraith found himself outvoted.

“What the fuck,” Sebastian whispered shakily after he watched the Pandemonium just… walk away. Seemingly at the behest of one of the Angler variants of all things!

“Ditto,” the Painter mumbled, equally as shellshocked.

“Why were those three together?!” Immy practically squeaked. “I’ve never seen the other entities interact with each other like that! Do you think they’re working together now? Are they even smart enough to do that? Where do you think they’re going?

Sebastian didn’t answer right away, still staring at the spot where Pandemonium and the two other entities had disappeared from.

The group had just exited the Skeleton Lounge and hadn’t made it more than one door away from the sanctuary before they’d run into trouble. Of all the monsters they had the misfortune to run into, it was Pandemonium that found them. He didn’t know how well he measured brawn for brawn against a creature that was in a constant state of decaying and regenerating, as he had managed to avoid running directly into Pandemonium after he had released it from containment during events leading up to the lockdown, but Sebastian was ready to fight if he had to.

Shit went sideways real quick when Pandemonium somehow summoned the Good People and one of the Angler variants to its side. At that point, Sebastian was convinced that he and his ragtag group was royally fucked; the Expendables had panicked and lost all semblance of coordination as they all ran back down the corridor in an attempt to get back into the Skeleton Lounge.

Unfortunately, as Sebastian had stated before, the Skeleton Lounge was no longer there.

It boggled the mind that instead of attacking, the entities had unceremoniously retreated.

What the hell was going on? Were the loose entities of Hadal Blacksite unionizing or something???

“Happy birthday, by the way,” Immy abruptly said, completely derailing Sebastian’s spiraling thoughts as he looked at them incredulously.

“What?”

“Happy b-day?” Immy tried again, shrugging. “Happy day of birth to ye?”

Sebastian squinted at them. “It’s… not—“

“Oh my gosh, it’s your birthday???” Painter absolutely beamed, tapping the ends of their mechanical claws excitedly. “Happy birthday, pal!”

“It’s not my birthday!” Sebastian snapped, slightly flustered by the sudden change of topic as he reholstered his gun. “Just— whatever! None of that is important! We literally just dodged the biggest bullet we could’ve ever dodged in this forsaken place! I think that overshadows anything else right at this moment.”

“Hey, birthdays are very important!” Immy chided him with a wave of a finger.

“How old are you, anyway?” Painter inquired innocently.

“Not. Important.” Sebastian reiterated with a clipped tone as he cautiously moved further into the junction. “Why don’t you go back and inform the rest of our courageous crew that despite all odds the coast is clear for now.”

“Aye, aye, captain!” Immy gave the fishman a smart salute before turning on their heel and rushing down the hallway they had come from.

Meanwhile, Sebastian’s school of fish had dispersed about the room, busying themselves with shoving open drawers in nearby cabinets and lockers.

One locker Iggy had managed to pry open using one of their octopus limbs, only to immediately be knocked back by a retaliating tentacle of an angry puddle of Void-Mass inside.

Before Sebastian could do anything, Sachiel was already spritzing water at the puddle of Void-Mass before it had a chance to try and eat the smaller fishlet— much like how someone might use a spray-bottle on an unruly house cat.

The Void-Mass let out a disturbed gurgle as it found itself under assault and swiftly used its tentacles to slam the locker doors shut. It’s glowing green eyes glaring balefully at the gold fish.

Sachiel waddled over to Iggy, checking over their offspring with quivering barbels before nudging them upright. Iggy waved their tentacles about in a show of vitality, lest their mother decide that they’d be better as food, before waddling away to join the rest of their siblings.

Sebastian chuckled at the sight, then blinked when the fishlets gathered around him, each bearing their own findings and dropping them on the floor.

Sebastian made a sound of approval as he glanced over the gathered loot. Granted, it wasn’t much, just a few USB sticks and a couple of batteries. But it was better than nothing.

Sebastian’s ear flicked as he heard the sound of many footsteps approaching and he quickly swept up the school’s findings and pocketed them before turning to the humans.

“What happened?” Chief was the first one to speak, cautiously looking around the room, as if the other entities were somehow still lurking in the area. “How are we all still alive? That was Pandemonium and that Mask of Sadness son of a bitch!”

“Don’t forget the Angler was there too,” White added with a shiver. “The pink one, I think.”

“Yes, I’m fine, thanks for asking.” Sebastian snarked. “Sure couldn’t have used the help if you’d all bothered to stick around.”

“Yeah, cowards!” Painter piped in, glaring at the humans from over Sebastian’s shoulder. “All of you ran like a bunch of chickens!”

“What exactly did you expect us to do?” Medic raised their hands in exasperation. “It’s not like any of us Expendables have any weapons that are effective against giant meat monsters! You saw how Pandemonium tore Immy up!”

“Speaking of torn up…” Dog-fucker gingerly spoke. “Um… we might wanna find our friend some new attire. Their suits lookin’ a little sparse.”

“OH NO!” The immortal Expendable looked down at themselves, the front of their vest was completely torn apart, exposing their undersuit, which already had ragged holes pockmarking the material. They were also missing a pant leg and their gloves. Their entire ensemble looked like it was literally only hanging on by threads. “SOON I’LL BE STREAKING!”

“Maybe try a bit harder at not getting brutally murdered?” Punch-out blithely suggested.

“Hey, danger is magnetized to us!” Immy protested with a jab of their thumb. “We can’t help that we’re the center of mayhem! DANGER SEEKS ME AND MY FLESH!”

“Right, right,” Sebastian waved a hand, turning away as he looked down one corridor and then another. “We’ll just add brand new clothes to the growing list of things we need. Maybe we can stop by Hadal Blacksite’s notorious shopping center on our way to the Crystal!”

“Hadal Blacksite has a shopping center?!” Immy asked excitedly.

“No.”

Chapter Text

Eyefestation eventually found the diminutive pests that it had been hunting for. Initially when Eyefestation had first made their declaration to destroy the insolent gold fish, they had honestly just been using that as an excuse to self-isolate. Being in contact with so many entities and acting as the bridge between communication with said entities had the mutant bull shark feeling overwhelmed. It wanted time to just be alone.

Being a biologically uplifted bull shark that had to exercise thought processes other than hunt, kill, eat, sleep, etc, was exhausting.

Eyefestation hadn’t actually expected to find their quarry.

The mutant bull shark had first spied the gold fish whilst swimming languidly by a section of the Blacksite which possessed several windows. What made Eyefestation pause to take a closer look was the fact that there was a significant amount of movement happening in one of the sectors.

At first, Eyefestation thought they had just discovered a sizable group of humans and their eyes pulsed with anticipation as they swam closer. But then, the mutant bull shark hesitated when they spotted the familiar serpentine shape of the Saboteur slithering alongside the humans.

As Eyefestation lingered in the shadows just out of sight of the meager lights being shown through the windows, it saw that Sebastian was still ferrying his shoal of tiny fish, who had somehow miraculously gained the ability to traverse land and were now waddling along side their protector like pitiful seal pups.

Eyefestation was perplexed by the strange sight, and for a moment it was at a loss on what to do.

Then one of the tiny gold fish paused, tilting its head to stare past the pane of glass which separated the interior of the hallway from the vast watery abyss beyond. It was the bulbous-headed one that had previously rebuffed Eyefestation’s telepathic influence.

The mutant bull shark’s eyes glowed brighter as it stared balefully at the puny thing, wanting nothing more than to watch as it exploded into a mist of gore after being oversaturated with Eyefestation’s radioactive gaze. All other thoughts were irrelevant.

The tiny fish must have sensed the hostility that Eyefestation was projecting, because it quickly scurried away from the window and practically flung itself onto the Saboteur's tail, causing the lengthy snake monster to pause and look back at the little fish in annoyance.

Eyefestation decided it was about time that it made itself known, if only to get to the bottom of whatever farce was going on with the Saboteur and his current company.

Sebastian had been tense the entire time he and his group continued onwards, he expected at any moment to be jumped by either the Siren or some other entity. The odd encounter with Pandemonium and the Good People had shaken him, and he was feeling his old sense of paranoia beginning to raise its ugly head again.

Thankfully, the Expendables seemed to sense how on edge he was and wisely stayed quiet. Most of them, anyway….

The immortal Expendable was still humming that damned song parody as they skipped along beside him, completely oblivious to his fraying nerves.

Then something small abruptly thwacked onto his tail and he felt something in his neck crick at how sharply he turned to glare at the perpetrator. For some reason, a part of him knew it would be Baphomet, and he was correct. The little fishlet was exuding an air of urgency again as its weird bulbous head glowed pink.

The rest of the group slowed upon seeing the fishman pause. Several of the humans purposefully giving Sebastian a wide berth as they moved to walk past him whilst he dealt with his pet.

Painter scuttled up to look quizzically at the agitated fishlet. “What’s the matter, Baphomet?”

Sebastian squinted at the fishlet, watching as it rapidly angled its head toward the far wall before turning back to face him. It did this a couple of times, before he finally got the message and turned to look out the window.

Well. Shit.

“SHARK ATTACK!” Immy apparently also caught onto what the fishlet was trying to convey, just before the window became filled with the multitude of glowing green eyes as Eyefestation swam into view.

Sebastian bristled as his serpentine body coiled about himself, eyes narrowing as the harsh glare of Eyefestation’s green light filled the hallway. He swiftly positioned himself in such a way so that his school of fish were blocked from the shark’s sight, coiling his tail around to provide cover as the fishes scrambled to tuck themselves within the safety of his shadow.

The Expendables quickly ducked for cover, either crouching behind cabinets or ducking under desks; Immy took an extra few seconds to grab onto Painter before sliding underneath a table, much to the confused indignation of the AI.

WHAT IS THIS.

Sebastian grimaced at the telepathic boom of Eyefestation’s voice resounding within his skull, his ear fins pining back. “Fuck off!” He spat, both verbally and mentally. “I’m not interested in seeing you splatter brains within my vicinity again!”

I WILL NOT OFF WITH THE FUCK!

Eyefestation retorted, the lurid glare of their multiple eyes pulsing with rage as they bared their teeth. For a brief instant Sebastian felt the pressure of the mutant bull shark’s powers intensify, threatening to turn lethal as his own eyes started to burn and he was forced to look away.

Up until that point, Eyefestation had never focused the full force of its brain exploding powers on Sebastian, which he chalked up to the fact that if it weren’t for him causing the lockdown, Eyefestation would have been terminated. The mutant bull shark having shown its gratitude by not trying to outright kill Sebastian whenever they crossed paths.

Now, however, it seemed that Eyefestation may be at the brink of deciding that their truce had expired. It hadn’t yet decided to attempt forcing Sebastian to look into its eyes, but he was bracing himself just in case.

“What do you want then?” Sebastian growled as he crossed his arms, hating that it had become necessary to keep his gaze downcast as if in submission just to avoid receiving a massive migraine or worse— but he wasn’t so stupidly stubborn as to get into a stare down with the multi-eyed bull shark for the sake of his pride.

WHY DO YOU HARBOR THEM?

Sebastian’s ear fins flicked and he had to stop himself from glancing up at Eyefestation in bewilderment. But evidently the mutant bull shark was able to discern his confusion anyways and chose to elaborate further.

FIRST YOU HARBOR PREY. NOW YOU HARBOR THE ENEMY. WHY?

“What’s it to you?” Sebastian couldn’t help but snap. “Seriously— Why do you always insist on getting up in my business, huh? There’s plenty of other Urbanshade scumbags for you to get your regular kick of vengeance off of, so I don’t see why it should matter at all to you how I go about conducting my own affairs!”

“Is he actually talking to the fucking shark???” Punch-out whisper shouted incredulously from her spot behind a desk.

“Quiet!” Chief shushed from his own hiding spot not too far away between two storage racks. “Just keep your head down and let the fishman do his thing.”

MY PLANS FOR REVENGE HAVE EXPANDED BEYOND MERELY SLAUGHTERING THE FEW HUMANS STILL STUMBLING ABOUT. YOU’D DO WELL TO ABANDON WHATEVER ALLIANCE YOU HAVE WITH THE HUMANS.

Eyefestation’s teeth shone in the green light as its grin widened, unaware of the hushed conversations happening between the humans who were out of range from its telepathic influence.

THE OTHER ENTITIES AND I HAVE FORMED OUR OWN SHIVER. TOGETHER WE WILL DESTROY THE HUMANS OF URBANSHADE IN ITS ENTIRETY.

Despite everything, this piqued Sebastian’s interest. It would certainly be a significant development if what Eyefestation was saying was true. If Sebastian played his cards right, he might be able to manipulate this new uprising to his advantage at some point.

“Oh? I’m guessing that’s why I saw Pandemonium and the Good People hanging out with one of the Anglers.”

THEY ARE ON A MISSION TO ‘LIBERATE’ ANOTHER ENTITY WHO HAS BEEN TRAPPED BY URBANSHADE.

Eyefestation explained, giving an almost dismissive flick of a pectoral fin. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the mutant bull shark, Immy was slowly shimmying across the floor with Painter trailing behind them. Immy was holding onto two of the table legs in order to push the table along with them so as to remain sheltered from Eyefestation’s gaze. The movement wasn’t at all subtle, but Eyefestation didn’t seem to notice or just didn’t care, and the other humans quickly began to follow the immortal Expendable’s example, dragging along their own implements of cover as they began moving towards the end of the hallway.

Sebastian had to stifle a wince as he heard the grinding of furniture being slid across the floor, his ear fins pinning back as he kept his gaze directed in the general area of Eyefestation whilst simultaneously avoiding the shark’s eyes.

“And what exactly do you plan on doing in order to destroy Urbanshade? Hadal Blacksite is just one of many facilities that Urbanshade controls and their headquarters aren’t anywhere near here.”

Eyefestation’s toothy grin lessened a touch as the bull shark seemed to reflect on this fact. Evidently it hadn’t occurred to Eyefestation to think that far ahead, which Sebastian thought was just typical. Was he the only one in Hadal Blacksite that actually bothered to think these sort of things through?

URBANSHADE WILL BE DESTROYED.

Eyefestation decided to reiterate in lieu of admitting that it didn’t have an actual plan.

YOU ARE LIKE US. JOIN US. YOUR SKILLS WOULD BE OF GREAT AID.

Sebastian couldn’t help but let out a snort, the end of his tail swishing to the side to keep a few of his fishlets from peaking out behind him. “Sure, sure. I’ll be glad to offer my services to your cause. I might as well, since it was I who first kickstarted the whole idea of rebelling against Urbanshade, if you recall. Though, of course at the time I didn’t exactly expect you or the other entities to posses the where-with-all to actually cooperate with one another, otherwise I would have brought the idea up with you sooner!”

IT WAS PANDEMONIUM.

At Sebastian’s confused frown, Eyefestation’s eyes rolled slightly as if it was simultaneously exasperated and reluctant.

IT WAS PANDEMONIUM’S IDEA TO WORK TOGETHER TO DESTROY URBANSHADE.

“Huh…” Sebastian was honestly surprised by that, he hadn’t thought that Pandemonium was even sapient, let alone possessed enough cognition in order to conceptualize ideas. “Well, you’ll have to formally introduce us then…”

I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THIS ‘FOR-MALLY’ IS. BUT YES. I CAN OPEN A BRIDGE BETWEEN MINDS TO ALLOW YOU TO SPEAK WITH PANDEMONIUM.

“How very interesting.” Sebastian said, his attention slightly diverting to the side when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. One of the Expendables was waving frantically at him from the end of the hallway, where the trench room corridor transitioned to another room type that didn’t have nearly as many large windows.

Time to get going.

“Well it was nice chatting with you, friend!” Sebastian abruptly clapped his hands together with a bright smile. “But I have some business I need to attend to, so we’re going to have to put this delightful conversation on hold. Cya!” With that he turned and started rapidly making his escape.

WAIT!

Sebastian jerked to a halt as he felt the painful tug on his brain stem from Eyefestation’s psychic powers, and he felt a chill run down his spine at the sensation. He curled his tail inward to corral his fishes ahead of him, keeping them sheltered within his shadow.

THE REST OF US ARE IN THE RIDGE. IF YOU WISH TO JOIN OUR CAUSE. SEEK US THERE.

“Noted…” Sebastian hissed through gritted teeth. He felt the mutant bull shark’s aura recede and only after a few seconds of tense waiting did he allow himself to relax.

Sachiel was bumping against his tail and he swiftly scooped up the coral infested fish and cradled it close to his chest as he sucked in a steadying breath. He contemplated about the ramifications of what Eyefestation had told him, and what it could mean for the future if the entities successfully collaborated to permanently render Hadal Blacksite unsalvagable. It was unlikely that they would succeed. Humans, especially humans motivated by greed, were infamously persistent in ensuring their own dominance over all things. If Urbanshade couldn’t take back Hadal Blacksite, then Urbanshade would likely decide to nuke the place just to deprive anything else from taking control of the facility’s remains. Corporate bodies were like that. Cold, calculating and uninterested in forming compromises with what they considered beneath them.

Eyefestion’s declaration of war against Urbanshade was an ill-thought out endeavor, and worse— if Urbanshade found out that the escaped entities were actively coordinating with each other in order to fight back, the company might just nuke Hadal Blacksite anyways, regardless of the amount of assets that would be lost.

It was highly likely that HQ was already aware of the strange behavior being exhibited by the other entities from what little they could discern from the inconsistent security feeds. It wouldn’t take long for them to put the pieces together.

Sebastian reckoned that the only reason he and the others in Hadal Blacksite hadn’t been blasted all to hell by a nuclear detonation was solely because a nuclear detonation would surely destroy the Crystal. The Crystal was a priceless artifact with its ability to produce unlimited energy. If it was destroyed, a significant portion of Urbanshade’s funds would be taken out with it.

He needed to get the Crystal. It was the only chance he had at potentially saving himself and those he cared about from total annihilation.

“So what’d the shark say?” Immy’s annoying voice piped up, breaking into Sebastian’s contemplation.

“Nothing important.” He lied, as he sent a cursory glance around to do a headcount. Unfortunately none of the humans had bothered to die. Painter had scuttled up to him and began fussing over the fishlets, who seemed non the worse for wear after the encounter with Eyefestation.

“It sure didn’t sound like nothing,” Chief huffed as he walked up to them. “I knew Eyefestation could make you hear voices, but I didn’t think it could actually communicate.”

“I reckon that’s cuz it’s more preoccupied with tryin’ to convince you to look at it, rather than making conversation.” Dog-fucker grumbled, taking a moment to shift his face mask off to wipe away some of the blood that had gathered at the corner of his eyes. Apparently, he had accidentally caught a glimpse of Eyefestation’s radioactive eyes.

Sebastian fantasized darkly for a moment about whether or not Dog-fucker happened to get enough of an eyeful in order to receive some permanent brain damage. Who knows! Dog-fucker might develop a brain tumor from the radiation and keel over dead in the next few minutes. One could only hope…

“Uh, Seb?”

Sebastian blinked, realizing he had been staring off wistfully for several seconds. He gave a slight shake of his head and glanced down at the gathered humans. “Hmm?”

“Sooo, what did the Eyes of Festive saaaaay?” Immy asked again, making Sebastian want to pretend he was lost in thought again just to avoid answering. But all the humans were looking at him now, including Painter, who had canted their monitor upwards to look expectantly up at him. Because of course Sebastian wouldn’t leave his best pal in the dark!

Ugh…

“Let’s talk about it later,” Sebastian insisted as he purposefully moved to slither past the group. “I wanna avoid lingering out in the open; we’ve already encountered way too many entities in quick succession.”

Chief made a grunt of assent, knowing not to press the mutant fishman further, instead casually turning to fall in line behind him. The rest of the Expendables looked at one another for a brief moment before following suite. Painter seemed a bit miffed about the blatant deflection, but decided not to comment on it.

“Why didn’t it fry your brain?” Medic inquired, lengthening their strides in order to remain within easy talking distance from Sebastian. “Eyefestation, I mean. How were you able to face it without the radiation killing you?”

Sebastian’s lip curled in annoyance, having already had this question asked of him by the immortal Expendable back when it was just them tagging along with him and the Painter. He was about as interested in explaining himself now as he was then. But he came to the reluctant conclusion that if he kept brushing it off, the humans would keep asking.

“I dunno. I suppose I’m just that much of a badass.” He replied with a shrug, grinning toothily at the irritated grumble from Medic. Then Sebastian straightened his jabot and sucked in a short breath before continuing. “But seriously— the cone of light emitted by Eyefestation’s eyes belies the actual width of which its radiation actually covers. The light merely delineates where Eyefestation’s telepathic influence extends. If radiation was constantly being produced nonstop, Eyefestation could easily just pump an entire area with a lethal dose of radiation regardless of whether or not you’re looking into its eyes. That is the caveat to the whole B.U.P.W.M program, the subject actually needs to make visual eye-to-eye contact with the target in order to trigger the radiation emission that beams right into the target’s skull through their ocular nerves. Which is why Eyefestation has to use psychic manipulation to force its victims into staring directly at its eyes. The reason why I wasn’t at risk of having my head explode just for facing its general direction was because Eyefestation wasn’t intent on forcing me to look into its eyes. Though, the threat was certainly still present, mind you.”

When there wasn’t an immediate response, Sebastian glanced down and noticed that several of the Expendables had tilted their heads up to look at him. He found himself feeling irritated by their stares. “What?”

“Nothing, just…” Medic shook their head. “Wasn’t expecting you to actually give an informative explanation.”

Sebastian feigned offense. “All my explanations are informative! It’s not my fault that you guys are too oblivious to pick up on the subtext!”

“Yeah, but like, usually you just tell us like, a super abridged version or just tell us to shut the fuck up.“ White stated as she nervously wrung her hands together.

“You’re right!” Sebastian exclaimed with a snap of his fingers. “I should keep doing that. Otherwise you guys might actually start improving in your continence!”

This made Painter pause. “I think you meant ‘competence’.”

“I know what I said.” Sebastian dismissed with a wave of a hand.

“I don’t think I’m that old just yet, dude.” Chief said dryly.

“What does ‘continence’ have to do with you being old?” Dog-fucker questioned. “Do you mean like cuz when ya get older you start having trouble with getting it up—OW!“

The punch to Dog-fucker’s shoulder was delivered forth with by Punch-out, along side an accompanying smack upside the head by Chief.

“I think what he meant was that when you get older you start to become incontinent.” Medic explained.

Dog-fucker made a sound of understanding, then went silent as he seemed to think for a moment. “But… none of us have had any problems pissing ourselves down here, I don’t think. So why would any of us need to improve in our con—“

“HE WAS PROBABLY REFERRING TO OUR SELF-CONTROL!” Immy said loudly as they threw their arms in the air. “Like- our ability to act without panicking or something??”

“But that’s not what continence means.” Medic interjected.

“Doesn’t countenance mean like, the way a person’s facial expression is or something?” White asked.

This quickly devolved into a whole entire argument behind Sebastian as he continued onwards as if nothing was amiss, grinning evilly as he stroked Sachiel’s scales like a villain petting his evil cat.

“You see, Sachiel? I can say just about anything and it throws the silly humans into utter disarray…” He snickered to himself. Sachiel merely stared unblinkingly at nothing in particular, having taken to suctioning its stupid mouth onto the fabric of Sebastian’s sleeve.

Sebastian let out a huff and pried the fish off before setting it back down on the floor. Sachiel waddled off to go nose around an overturned garbage bin with the rest of its brood.

“They sure are noisy,” Painter commented dryly, having taken to clambering onto Sebastian’s tail.

Sebastian glanced over his shoulder at the AI. “Why’re you hitching a ride on me again? You taking a break from the legged-life?”

“Maybe.” Painter beeped noncommittally, tapping two of its mechanical claws idly as it swiveled its monitor back towards the still loudly arguing humans. The AI seemed to be lost in thought.

Sebastian watched the AI for a second longer, before shrugging and turning back to the path ahead. Normally he didn’t tolerate freeloaders, especially after going through all the trouble of dissuading the fishlets from constantly using him as a ride, but he’d always make an exception for Painter.

“Why do humans argue so much?” Painter suddenly asked, causing Sebastian to pause and look over his shoulder again at the AI.

“I dunno, Paints.” Sebastian answered honestly. “Sometimes they argue for the sake of arguing. That’s just how people are; I’m not an anthropologist.”

The Painter made a dissatisfied sound, evidently finding Sebastian’s explanation wanting, but knowing that simply asking “why?” again was unlikely to render any further results.

“If you’re gonna be riding the Solace Express you might as well hook yourself up to the SCRAMBLER and help keep an eye out for danger.” Sebastian stated.

Painter let out a chuckle before clambering further along the fishman’s tail to do as he suggested. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re lost without me checking the security cameras constantly.”

“Oh shut up,” Sebastian retorted as he felt Painter reach around to pull out the cable from the SCRAMBLER. “Tell me if you see anything ahead.”

“Okie dokie!” Painter plugged the end of the cable in and their monitor flickered as they gained control over the few security cameras within the area. “Well I can tell you off the bat that there’s nothing— Oh.”

“Oh?” Sebastian stopped again, his ear fins twitching at the Painter’s foreboding tone as he looked back at the computer.

“Uh…” Painter’s screen flickered for a few seconds before its visage materialized in a disconcerted frown. “There’s, umm, a laboratory sector not far from here. It’s trashed to hell. But uhhh, th-the Siren is… is inside there.”

Sebastian’s spine stiffened. “What is she doing?”

“She’s… Uh…” Painter’s doodled expression squinted its eyes. “I actually don’t know. She’s like… standing in front of a mirror and she’s… Uh- oh gosh. OH MY GOSH! SHE’S CUTTING HER FACE OPEN!”

“WHAT?!” Sebastian shrieked.

[[WARNING: GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF SELF-HARM]]

[[If you wish to avoid triggers, scroll until you see the opossum! ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ]]

“Okay! Alright, just a little to the— yes! There.” Imaginary-friend hovered anxiously over Zerum as the rabbit monster pressed the sharp end of a scalpel to the side of her scabbed over temple. She had found the implement amongst the scattered tools lying about the room she had stumbled into, and upon finding a nearby mirror, she was determined to dig the foreign object out of her flesh.

Even now the implant was buzzing shrilly in her brain, making her vision blur along the edges as she struggled to focus through the haze of debilitating pulses trying to dissuade her from what she was attempting to do.

“Okay, it-it’s about a few centimeters deep… It’s tiny. I’ll tell you when you’ve reached it, alright?” Imaginary-friend cautioned. She had initially tried to convince Zerum that this course of action was a bad idea, but Zerum had remained steadfast and eventually Imaginary-friend realized that it would be better to assist Zerum rather than impede her— if only to avoid as much needless damage as possible.

“Alright…” Zerum sucked in a deep breath, before letting it out. She wasn’t at all keen about doing surgery on herself, but… times were tough and there was no way that she was going to tolerate having the infernal device screaming inside her head for a second longer!

The scalpel sliced into her flesh, causing fresh blood to quickly well up and spill down the side of her face. She grit her teeth against the pain, her eye narrowing as she continued to cut deeper into the side of her head.

It didn’t take long before the tip of the scalpel scraped against something hard, and the shrill screaming inside of her head pitched higher, nearly causing her to black out on the spot as her breath came out in ragged pants.

“There! That’s it!” Imaginary-Friend cried, hovering closer, wishing that she could help in some way. But her incorporeal nature rendered her unable to do anything to physically assist in the procedure.

Zerum swayed on her feet, leaning heavily over the counter in front of the mirror, she was bleeding profusely. Blood ran down the side of her head in rivulets as her whole body shook, she was shaking so badly that she nearly dropped the scalpel.

“Are you alright, Zerum?” Imaginary-friend asked, concern evident in her tone. “Maybe you should—“

“No!” Zerum snapped, clenching her teeth so hard that her jaw trembled as she adjusted her grip on the scalpel. She had to do this! If she stopped now, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to muster up the nerve to try again.

Carefully, she set the scalpel down and grabbed small pair of forceps, looping her clawed fingers through the handle and positioning the end of the serrated jaws against the incision she had just created. For several long agonizing seconds she spent probing around inside the wound until she managed to clamp down on the small square of metal. Perspiration drenched her fur as she locked the forceps in place, she clenched her eye closed, her breaths coming out in quick gasps as she braced herself.

She began to pull.

Pain seared through her, blinding in its horrible brilliance as she felt sinew and muscle slowly tearing away from the side of her face. She couldn’t help the scream that rose from her throat as she forced herself to keep going, roaring with both agony and determination as she finally pulled the implant free with a sickeningly wet ripping sound.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

The shrill buzzing that had been haunting her since she had first awoken in this hellish place went silent, and all she was left with was a dull ringing in her ears and the frantic beating of her heart.

For a moment, she stood there, eye fixated on the pair of forceps clutched in her shaking hand and at the bloody pulp of gore glistening on the end. The metallic shine of the implant glinted in the faulty light.

She did it. She fucking did it! She was free!

She was… very light headed.

Her body was caked in sweat and yet she had chills running through her as she continued to shake uncontrollably. Her vision began fading in and out of focus as her ears drooped lifelessly on either side of her head and she slowly slumped forwards.

“Zerum? Zerum!” Imaginary-friend cried out as she watched her friend fall to the floor, the forceps flying from her grasp and spinning off to some distant part of the room as blood pooled beneath her.

Imaginary-friend floated over Zerum, desperately looking for any signs of life as she fought down the welling sense of panic that threatened to overwhelm her.

“Zerum! Please, wake up! Please! Please!” She reached out her fins, trying to nudge Zerum awake, but the appendages merely phased right through her. Imaginary-friend’s sharp teeth quivered in her circular maw as her eye sockets trembled. “Please… don’t leave me alone!”

The red apparition startled from her spot over Zerum when she heard a loud bang, the door along one of the far walls having slammed open and the imposing figure of a ragged looking Sebastian loomed in the doorway. His eyes were wild, mouth open and teeth bared as he rushed into the room, knocking aside furniture and other lab instruments as he lurched towards the fallen form of Zerum.

Imaginary-friend quickly floated aside, not wanting to get between the distraught fishman and his past lover. She caught sight of something clinging to his back— it was that funny computer who liked to draw. It was clinging to the device that Sebastian always had on him and it looked absolutely terrified.

“What happened!?” Sebastian snarled at Imaginary-friend. “WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP HER?!”

“Huh? What are you—“ Painter startled, thinking at first that Sebastian was yelling at them, but then they noticed that he was looking to the side at a space which, to Painter, was empty. “Oh, you’re talking to the…toy thing.”

Sebastian ignored the Painter, his attention flitting between glaring at Imaginary-friend and casting horrified looks at Zerum’s unconscious form. He reached a trembling claw out to gently turn her over so that he could asses the damage, his throat tightening at the gruesome sight of the bloody ruin that the side of her head had become.

“Why…” Sebastian breathed as he hastily grabbed a medkit off of his person and started applying gauze to the affected area, his first priority being to staunch the bleeding. She’d already lost so much blood.

“I’m s-sorry, Sebastian.” Imaginary-friend whimpered, her voice barely above a whisper. “Th-there was something inside of her th-that she wanted to get rid of! I tried to talk her out of it, I swear, I really tried my best! But she was determined to get it out…”

Sebastian recalled when Mr. Lopee had shown him the Siren’s file that there had been mention of some kind of implant that had been installed inside Zerum in order to enforce compliance. Sebastian had since been deliberating on ways of attempting to disable the device, but he couldn’t think of anything that had a high likelihood of succeeding without one of them harming the other in the process. The implant would have had Zerum fighting him every step of the way like a rabid animal and the venom she secreted from her claws would’ve made subduing her long enough to remove the implant neigh impossible.

But now it seemed that Zerum had taken matters into her own hands to solve the problem all on her own. Through stubborn determination, Zerum had spared Sebastian the headache of trying to figure out a way to free her, but at great cost to herself.

He said nothing as he swathed Zerum’s head in gauze, taking a moment to check to make sure she was still breathing before sitting back. He was shaking slightly as he looked down at her; it felt surreal, seeing her like this. Body covered in surgical scars, blood staining her pale fur, her long black hair a matted mess which tangled with the tentacled appendages that sprouted from her lower back.

Sebastian pulled his coat off and laid it atop her, as if to shield her from the cruel reality they had found themselves in. Painter slowly lowered itself onto the floor, internal fans whirring pensively as the AI scrutinized the unconscious being with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.

Suddenly, Sebastian’s ear fin flicked as he caught onto a faint hissing sound not too far away. Swiveling around, his eyes zeroed in on a glinting bit of metal the floor. It was a small millimeter thin square of metal covered in blood, strings of muscle were still clinging to it as Sebastian leaned down and plucked it from the floor, the faint static noise increasing in volume as he brought it closer to his face to examine.

It had Urbanshade’s logo etched onto it. That insidious pentagram signature— it was pulsing with a dim red light in time with the static buzzing noise. If Sebastian listened for a few seconds, he swore he could hear voices underneath the shrill emission.

With a snarl of disgust and hatred, Sebastian promptly crushed the implant in his claws, silencing the Siren signal once and for all. He discarded the remains with a flick of his wrist, scattering the pieces across the floor.

“What are we going to do now?” Painter inquired nervously, turning to look at Sebastian. “Is… is she all better now? Will she stop trying to kill you?”

Sebastian heaved a sigh, his shoulders slumping. “I don’t know, Paints. Maybe. But we don’t know what exactly they did to her in order to turn her into this. The Z-014 file that Lopee bastard showed me wasn’t all that extensive about the procedure… Plus…” He curled slightly inwards on himself, his claws digging into his arms as his eyes dimmed with growing despair. “I-I don’t know if… after everything that Urbanshade has done to her— she might genuinely want to kill me now. Implant or not.”

“What d-do you mean?” Imaginary-friend inquired softly. “I thought—“

“So what should we do?” Painter asked again, unknowingly cutting off Imaginary-friend due to their inability to perceive the apparition. “If she wakes up and she still wants to kill you…”

“Um!” Imaginary-friend gave Painter the side-eye as she raised a fin. “I don’t think she ever truly wanted to cause you harm. Whenever I would try talking about you, it was like she was fighting internally with two voices. I-I know I don’t know her very well, but I th-think she s-still cares…!”

“Sebastian?” Painter asked when Sebastian hadn’t immediately answered the AI.

Sebastian had to wipe away some moisture that had gathered at the corners of his eyes. “S-sorry,” he chuckled as his voice cracked with emotion. “This is really awkward when only one of us is capable of hearing Imaginary-friend’s contributions to the conversation at hand.”

“Ah,” Painter squinted in irritation, it didn’t like there being a secret third party leaning in on the conversation that it couldn’t hear. “Well, did the fake friend have any ideas?”

Imaginary-friend made an offended humph! noise as she crossed her arms and turned away with a pout.

“No,” Sebastian glanced apologetically at Imaginary-friend, before looking back to Zerum’s unconscious form and letting out a sigh as he mentally went over their options. “As much as I want to stay by her side until she wakes up… my gut is telling me that it would be safer to watch at a distance.”

“We should probably also get back to the humans.” Painter reminded. “You kinda left them in the dust several halls back, along with your fishies.”

Sebastian huffed with annoyance. “Eh, those assholes are probably still arguing amongst themselves. Sachiel and her brood can keep watch over them until we get back.”

Painter made a doubtful noise. “Hate to tell you this, pal. But I get the feeling that they might track you down much quicker than you think.”

Sebastian’s ear twitched as he looked questioningly at Painter, and the AI pointed a mechanical claw at the glowing pink spot on his coat. Sebastian leaned forward and squinted at the luminescent speck, before realization dawned on him.

”Fucking Baphomet.”

Sachiel was in fact waddling along the corridor with one of its children, Baphomet, who had tagged Sebastian’s coat with one of their pink tendrils and thus knew exactly where the mutant fishman was.

The humans were trailing after the little herd of fishlets who were following dutifully behind their parent and sibling. Sebastian had left in such a hurry that nobody had had time to react before he was already out of sight.

This had started yet another argument amongst the Expendables, until one of them pointed out that the fishes seemed to have an idea of where they were going, so it was probably best that they all stick together if they were to have any chance of finding Sebastian and the Painter.

“Do you have any idea what could have set him off?” Medic asked Immy again. “I know you said you heard Painter yelling about something involving faces being cut off, but I seriously doubt Sebastian would care. He’s probably slashed more than his own share of faces.”

Immy shrugged, having taken to holding onto Iggy on their shoulder. The fishlet was playfully waving its tendrils about in the air and occasionally smacking the immortal Expendable on the head. “I dunno— ow. Maybe his friggin’ wife had a psychotic episode and went all jeff the killer on her own face.”

Medic sighed. “Don’t say that about her. I understand you have like… issues regarding the fact that Sebastian has a wife, but seriously—“

“No.” Immy interrupted vehemently, the static censoring their face rippling. “You don’t understand. Nobody understands. Nobody can ever understand what it’s like to—to-totooo—-“ They stopped, their body jerking violently and nearly throwing the octopus-fish hybrid off of their shoulder before they abruptly righted themselves and began power walking on ahead. “NEVERMIND! Nevermind! It’s fine— shut up! GOD, we are so fucked! Hate this life— this house is a fucking nightmare. Wow.”

Medic blinked as they watched Immy’s retreating back, not sure what to make of the strange reaction. But they doubted it meant anything good.

Chapter Text

“We gotta keep them away from her,” Sebastian said as he began rifling through his bags.

“What? Why?” Painter looked confusedly from the still unconscious form of the Siren and back to Sebastian. “Are you worried she might attack everyone if she wakes up and reacts badly?”

“No…” Sebastian brought out a few supplies, a fresh medkit, some ration bars and water bottles before setting each neatly beside Zerum within easy reach. “I just don’t want the Expendables anywhere near her while she’s vulnerable like this. Especially the goddamned immortal Expendable!” He turned to Painter with a scowl. “That means no discussing what happened here, alright? I don’t want them getting any bright ideas in that fucked up head of theirs if they find out she is here.”

“Okay. Got it…” Painter understood Sebastian’s reasonable fear of what might happen should Immy come into contact with the Siren again. Especially after they had learned about the Siren’s relationship with Sebastian. Though Painter thought that the idea of Immy actually being a threat towards the Siren was comical at best— but then again, with the Siren in such a weakened state… Immy might let the demons get the better of them, to put it simply.

Sebastian turned back to Zerum, leaning over her and gently brushing some of her hair out of her face to check her bandages. His claws lingered for a moment, softly tracing the side of her cheek, then her face twitched slightly, her brow furrowing and he quickly retracted his hand.

“How much more time do you have left before you disappear, Marissa?” He directed this question at Imaginary-friend who had been hovering silently nearby.

Imaginary-friend made a nonplussed expression at being referred to by a human sounding name. Usually Sebastian would just call her “red thing” or “floaty ghost gal” or some other equally demeaning title. She decided it was best not to comment on it.

“Oh, I-I believe I have roughly two hours left. I think. I’ll keep watch over Zerum for you until then! But… obviously after time runs out… she’ll be on her own.”

Sebastian nodded with thoughtful frown. Although Imaginary-friend couldn’t do much to influence the physical world, he didn’t like the idea of Zerum waking up all alone. Unfortunately, he didn’t happen to keep an Imaginary-friend Toy remote handy with him.

“What did the fake friend say?” Painter inquired.

“Be nice, Paints.” Sebastian muttered as he clasped his hands together and gave the computer a disapproving look.

Painter rolled their doodled eyes with an annoyed beep. “Fine. What did ’Marissa’ say?”

“She said she only has two hours left before she times out and disappears, and I don’t want to leave Zerum completely alone without a friendly face around.” Sebastian admitted, once again debating whether or not to stay by Zerum’s side and simply deal with the migraine of contending with the humans whenever they showed up.

He could imagine how it would inevitably pan out; the Expendables would question him, they would argue, and say shit about how ‘they didn’t have time for this’ and other bullshit. He would make threats and maybe put a bullet or two in a certain immortal Expendable if they started up too much of a fuss, and then they would have to have a big discussion on how to go about things and how long everyone could reasonably stay in one area for however long it took for Zerum to recover—

“I could stay with her.” Painter said.

Sebastian blinked and looked down at the AI in surprise. “What?”

“I could stay with her,” Painter repeated, sounding completely serious. “Think about it, pal. She was pretty chill when I accidentally met her face-to-face while I was out looking for you.” The AI smirked slightly as they recalled the memory. “Heck, all she did was point a flashlight at me and call me an icky spider!”

Sebastian was still staring at Painter, also remembering that instance, but in a much different light. He shook his head. “Hell no, Paints. I’m not going to leave you behind!”

Painter’s smirk switched to a sad smile, before becoming determined. “Hey, it’s not you leaving me behind! It’s me going on a super secret mission to safe guard your babe! Besides, it’s not like it’s going to be forever! Just long enough for me to see whether or not she still wants to kill you and then Baphomet can lead me back to the rest of the group afterwards.”

Sebastian said nothing for a long moment, feeling conflicted. Painter’s plan was sensible, but Sebastian hated the idea of separating. Why did he have to leave anyways? Just because of the goddamned Expendables potentially fucking something up or making the situation more complicated if they were around? So, what? He could just kill all of them and not have to deal with any of their shit. It wasn’t as if they were of much use to him anyways! It’s not as though they had helped him… multiple times… when he was at his most vulnerable…. even though they didn’t have to.

Alright, Sebastian was a selfish asshole, but he wasn’t a backstabbing selfish asshole. His pride would never let him to admit it out loud, but as annoying as the group of Expendables were, he had come to think of them as his group of Expendables. Even that insufferable prick, Immy. He owed the Expendables to at least keep them from stumbling into needless confrontations, especially when the point of contention was his ailing wife.

That, and… Sebastian was still terrified of the idea of reuniting with Zerum. What if she woke up and didn’t remember him at all? What if she did remember and decided that she hated him? What if she woke up and all the memories that had been locked away supposedly by the implant came rushing in and the weight of it all broke her?

Sebastian felt a lump form in his throat. “Alright, Paints. If you’re sure.” He managed to smile, though the expression did not reach his eyes. “I’m counting on you, best buddy.”

God, he was a coward.

Although Painter couldn’t tell what exactly was going through Sebastian’s mind at that moment, the AI could tell how hard it was for him to make the decision. “Yes sir!” Painter gave a mock-salute with a mechanical claw. “Don’t you worry; I’ll keep her safe!”

With a nod, Sebastian cast one last look at Zerum before turning and fleeing the room.

Pandemonium wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. But it wasn’t the utterly glorious specimen that he and his fellow comrades found themselves in the presence of.

H͕̝̙A̡͙T̡͎H̢̠ T̙͔̞H̪͎͓O̙̻͍U͖̙͕ C̝͓͍O̢͚̙M͚͉͜E̦̺͉T͔̼H͔͙͜ T̡͔̺O̪̦̼ F̘̘̦R͔͓͖E̦͇̦E̝͜͜ U̦͉Ș͉͎ A̫͇̦T͎̙͜ L̺̝͓A̠̝͇S̪͙͎T̢͔͍?̝̻͖

The divine being spoke in a voice that reached all of them, causing the Good People to shrink back in fear whilst the Pinkie merely tilted her head to the side in curiosity.

Pandemonium on the other hand was absolutely thunderstruck. The wraith like abomination felt his entire body quiver as his wretched maw opened to let out a shrieking wail of adulation, acidic bile and spittle frothing out as he replied.

“Y E S! O G RE AT UNFATHOM ABLE ONE OF S U CH HOLY RAD IAN CE WE HA V E COME TO LIBERA TE YOUR GR EATNESS FR OM YOUR CH A INS! MY COM RADES AND I HA VE TRAV EL ED A G REAT DISTANCE J U ST TO L AY EYES ON Y OUR DIVINE FL ESH WE PROSTRATE OURSELVES IN REV ER ENCE TO YOU O MIGHTY GREAT ONE WE ARE UNWORTH Y—“

“Oh MY gawd, shut the fuck up!” The Pinkie shrieked right into Pandemonium’s face with such vehemence that Pandemonium was instantly rendered speechless. “Y’all can fraternize on yer own time! We gotta get this bugger free first, y’hear?!”

Pandemonium stared at the Pinkie, bewildered. “COMRADE, WH AT GR E AT FORTUNE! WE C AN SP EAK WITH ONE ANO TH ER WITH OUT THE EY E FESTATION PRESENT!”

“Wuh?” The Pinkie’s eye lights flickered as she too came to the realization. “Well I’ll be darn! Would ya look’it that!”

On impulse, both entities turned to look at the collective that was the Good people, who had pressed themselves all the way to the far wall with their massive claws curled over their mask. They looked like a child trying to hide in plain sight with their entire body shivering with fear.

Y̢͚͕E̦̞͍S̡͔.̠̙ W̫͔̻E̢͇ A̡̘̟R̡̙͔E̟͍̠ A͍͉̦B̢̦̘L͚̞͎E̢͓͚ T͉͍̻O̡͙͍ S̡̟͎P͎͉̝E̢̺͙A̼͉͔K͉̞͉E͉̼͉T̞͎̟H̦̘̺ W͇̟͎I̺̘̪T̡͓͚H̡̠̝ T̢̟͙H͕͉E̙͕ I̞̻̞L̘̟͓K̞͙ O̻͓̪F͙̘͍ D̡͚̦E̠͕͙M̺͕̟O͎̙N̙̪̺S̡͍̞ A͍͕̼N̘̦̙D͍̘͇ U̢̪N͚̙̟D͖̙͙Y̼̪̟I̡̢̞N̢̙͓G͓̟̼ F̘͓̫L͔̟͔E̟̦̟S͖̪H͓̪͖ H̢̫͉E̞͇͍A͔͎͇T͕͖̻H̺̪̫E͇͎̺N̫͓͍S̙͎͜.̫̺̫ I̙͜T̞͕ I̪͎͚S̫̟̟ A̢͕͍ Ș̘͍I͇̻̟M͎̞̼P̡͚̺L͖̺̝E͉͜ M̟̺͎A͉̫T̺͕͜T̼͇E͍̘R̺̫ T̡̠O̺͙̻ E͍̻X̪̝̺Ț̝̫E̞͎̙N̫͓̝D̡̼ T̢͕̺H͖̠̠I̢̦̘Ș̢̺ S̡̺̟A̢͓̠M͔͇͕E͍̺͖ A͓̻̙B̠͎̘I̝̦̙L̡̠I̢͕T̠̦̙Y̢͖ F͔̫̘O̻͓͇R̡͙̻ E̝̫A̡͔̠S͓͙͔E͖͙ O̙͍̠F̠̪̙ A͎̺̟C͎͉͜C̫͖͖E̡̻̝S̘͔̙S̺̟ W̪͜͜H͍̺͓I̞͍̪L̟͙S̟̞̞T͖̟ W̠̞͓I͎͎T̻͕̫H̻͎I͇͖͜N̡͙̪ T͔̼͚H͇̼͚I͖̦͜N͉̝͜E̪͉̻ P͇͖͙R̠̟͚E̺̞̼S̫͍̦E͇͕̘N̟̟C͍͖E̻̝̞.̡̡͕

The Guardian Angel rumbled as their halo spun more rapidly.

I̡̠F͎̪̦ O̡̻͜N̢̟̝L͍͖̪Y͓̝͕ W̠͎̦E̟̻̪ C̝̞͎O̝͖̝U͖̦͚L̟̠͜D͕̟̪ H̟̫͜A̞͖͇V̙̺̼E̻̙̻ S͕̪P̝͍O̺͚͉K̟͉E̝͖T͔͔͖H͍̘ A̝͚S͓̫ E̢̞̙A͔̞̘S͙̟I̠̪͜L̫͍͍Y̫͎͎ W̻̘͍I̙̪͎T͔͎͜H̞̟͉ T͍͚͚H͙͉E͔̫͜ M̢̻͔O̟͖͉R̞̪Ț͚͉A͔͍̞L͔͙͓S͍͍̙.̡̼̞ T͇͇͜H̠͜E͔̞͕N̠̪̠ P̡̘͍E̟̺̺R͇̘͍H̻̝͎A̫̠̝P̠̺̝S̡̡̝ W͕̘̻E͉̺͖ C̝̦O̝͔̙U͕͉̺L̡͍̠D̟͙̺ H̡̺͇A̡͍V͙͙͚E̡̫͙ P̘̠̘R͕͔̫E̻͍V̡͓͙E̘̦͜N̢̙͔T̙̞̞E̻̝̫D͙͔ T͖͙H̫͚̪E̺͙̺ E̦͕V̪̻̻E͎̼̙N͍̺̙T̢͍̘S̟͙̺ W̡͔̻H̡̝͓I̘̻͕C͎̪͜H͉͉ I̞͖͕N̻͚̝E͍̞͇V̘͉͙I̪͜Ț̪͖A̡͔̼B̢̝L͖͚̻Y͚͙̠ R̫̘͜E̠̦S͚̞͉U̦͜L̼͜T͕͍E͖͇͚D̡̢͇ I͎̦͙N̼͔ O̢̙̟U͖̫͓R͍̞ I͓̻͖M͇͓͜P̪̺R̢͔͖I̞̝S̠̘O̡͔̻N͓̻̫M̺͇̟E͓̻͍N̠̺͉T̞̞͜.̙̺̫

“Uh, yeah, ‘bout that.” Pinkie floated up a bit to eye the Guardian’s state of being. “How’d y’all expect us to get’cha out? Ah don’t know if ya noticed, but yer only a torso! Won’t tearin’ out all them pipes stuck in ya cause ya to bleed out or sumthin?”

T̡͖͙H͔͔͔A͉͕̘T̻̺ I̡̫S͚͕̻ N͙̟̞O͉̺̝ C̢̟͔O̡̻̻N̫̫͎C̢͎̺E͕̝̫R͙̪͜N͓̘ T̺̙͉O̼̫͕ U̡̡̫S̡͎̙.̺͔͜ W̻͚̟E͖̟ M͖͍͜E̞̠R̡̦͚E͕̞L̞͜͜Y̦͓͎ N̻͍E̪̫̻E̢͔̼D͙̦̙ T͖͎̫H̫͚͍I̡͇͔N̢̘͕E̠͕ A͔̫̝I͓̠̠D̢̙͔ I̝̟N̢͎͉ B͓̻̠R̞̙͜E̝̠A̢͉̟K̼͍̠I̙͔͖N̢͓͜G̝͎͜ T̫̦̺H̙͖E̢͉̟ S̡̼̙E̞̺͎A̠̞̻L̢̞S̻̼͉ W͕͍̙H̡̠͓I͚̘̟C̢͍͜H̼͕̼ B͖̙͉I̡͕͖N͖̻̙D͇̪̻ U͚̙͇S̞̫͎ T̞̘̝O̡͚͜ T̙̝͓H̫͎̼I̺͍͓S̻̦͜ P̞̠̘R̡̡͖I̡͔̻S͎̦͕O͔͖̺N̡͔̻.̠͚

One of the Guardian’s eyes flicked upwards towards a bulkhead above, where a bright red pentagram burned malevolently with satanic power. There were identical sigils on either side of the Angel, etched into the bases of the monolithic pumps which continuously drained the Angel of Pureblood.

“W E SHALL DO AS YO U COMMAND O GRE AT ONE!” Pandemonium gleefully announced, his body already sloshing towards to edge of the platform. Pandemonium took a few seconds to judge the distance, before all of his rotten mass bunched up, tendrils waving in anticipation. Then he launched himself off of the platform, splatting heavily against one of the tubes connected to the main pump, and Pandemonium began crawling his way up towards the sigil. Ooze and rotten bile sizzled as it made contact with the machinery, causing sparks to fly from some parts and smoke to rise. The smell of burnt rubber wafted in the air.

Pandemonium finally made it to the sigil, and for a moment, his many eyes pulsed as he deliberated over how to go about destroying the thing. It was seemingly etched atop of a wide circular metal disk affixed to the base of the pump, the glowing light was burning hot and portions of Pandemonium’s body steamed as the moisture within its body started to evaporate at the intense heat. Pandemonium gingerly pressed a tendril against the edge of the burning sigil, burning pain racing up the appendage as the rotten flesh started to cook. Pandemonium grit his rotting teeth and pressed more of its caustic flesh onto the sigil, hoping that defacing the thing would be enough to weaken the seal.

“Pande, look out!” Pinkie suddenly screeched, causing Pandemonium to pause his work and look around.

The Good People suddenly landed right on top of him, knocking Pandemonium off of the burning seal and sending the two amalgamations of flesh hurtling into the dark chasm below. The two were locked together, Pandemonium bit and tore whilst the Good people slashed and clawed.

“TR A ITOR! RUINOUS BE TRAYAL!” Pandemonium cried as they continued to fall.

“Can’t can’t CAN’T LET YOU free free free thethetheGUARDIAN!” Was all the Good People had to say in their defense as they savagely dug their claws into Pandemonium’s rotting hide, refusing to let go even as the two smashed into rocks and jagged outcroppings. Gore from both entities went flying as they crashed against the sides of the walls, before finally landing with an almighty crunch of meat and bone.

Pandemonium’s form practically exploded on impact with the ground, rotting meat spraying in all directions. For a brief moment, Pandemonium’s consciousness blipped out as its rotting brain matter was discombobulated, before his regeneration began to pull his rotting mass back together.

With a shudder, Pandemonium’s head reformed and his many eyes blinked to life one by one, before he turned to survey his surroundings. He was in a large, dark chasm of sorts, the distant sound of water dripping as well as other undiscernable noises echoed from the slick rock walls.

Off to the side, impaled on a sharp protrusion of rock, the mutilated body of the Good People lay twitching with pain. Its mask surprisingly still intact.

Pandemonium slinked forwards to loom over the injured entity, baring rotten teeth as he growled menacingly down at the pitiful thing.

The Good People did not respond, merely reaching a taloned hand up to paw feebly at the jagged spire of rock protruding through its torso.

With a disgruntled sound like wet mud sloshing against gravel, Pandemonium reared up and smashed into the rock, causing it to crumble into rubble and allow the Good People to drag itself off of the remaining chunks. Viscera and bits of tissue trailed after the entity as it crawled away, though it did not seem to notice as it shuffled to the far wall and proceeded to wraps its arms about itself.

Pandemonium didn’t know what to make of the other entity’s odd behavior. He was still rightly nettled by their betrayal, but he did not bother to attack the Good People any further. Clearly they were not mentally sound.

Pandemonium decided to ignore the Good People for now, his attention instead turning upwards. The flesh amalgamation contemplated attempting to climb back up, though he had no idea how far they had fallen and the rock walls were slick with moisture.

Pandemonium turned away from the wall, looking back at the chasm. Perhaps there was a tunnel or incline that they could utilize.

With a bullying snap of teeth and a harsh shove to the Good People’s side, Pandemonium began traveling deeper into the cavern. The Good People let out a disturbed hiss, but eventually uncurled from its fetal position and began following sullenly behind the flesh wraith.

Meanwhile, above: Pinkie was hovering near the edge of the platform, staring down into the depths below. The Guardian Angel was also staring downwards, having watched the whole ordeal play out in bewilderment.

They were both silent for a long moment, before the Angel heaved a weary sigh.

W̫͓͎E͎̝̝L̦͔̟L̫̙͜,͙͚͜ T̢͎͖H͙͕O͉͇͖U̦̟ H̡̙͖A̟̪S̡̼̙T̻̝͔ T͙̙͜R̦̙U̪̙̞L̼͎͙Y̡̝̝ F̙͔͜U̦̦͖C̢̦̘K͓̻͎E̻̞̙D̠̙͕ U̡̪S͉͚.͉̺

"Hey! Ah didn't know they were gonna do that!" Pinkie objected sourly.

....

A͐͛̚R̓̾̽T͊͘ T̾̈́͝H̐͘͠O̾͆͑Ù͛͆ G͊͊͆O͆̈́͘I̔̈́̚N͛́G͌̓ T̔͋͒O͊͊́ R͐̀͝E͆̒̿T͐͋̚R̽̔̚I͒̕E̚͝͝V͛͌̿E͛̒̀ T̈́͒̚H̕͝I͛̕͝N͛́͌Ë́̚͝ C͆̕͝O͛͆͠M̿̓͝P̔͐̕A̾͒̾N͊̓̽I͒̐͠O͋͊N͐̐́S̐́?͛̈́̾

"Heck no! Ah ain't goin' down there!"

Zerum awoke slowly. Her head felt heavy and she felt unbearably weak. Her ears twitched as she became aware of a certain sound. It was continuous and artificial, like white noise, occasionally interspersed with a soft electronic beep. It made her think of the back room in the library where the old computers were situated.

“Zerum, are you awake?” The soft voice of Imaginary-friend spoke nearby.

Zerum’s brow furrowed slightly, and her eye fluttered open for a brief moment, before shutting again. She felt so exhausted.

“That’s… that’s okay.” Imaginary-friend sounded sad. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be leaving soon.”

What…?

Why…?

Zerum wanted to sit up, she wanted to open her eye and look at Imaginary-friend. But she couldn’t. Her body wouldn’t obey her and already she could feel her consciousness beginning to drift again.

“D-don’t worry, though!” Imaginary-friend reassured, though she still sounded sad. “Y-you won’t be alone when you wake up. But, just in case I’m gone before you wake up, I wanted to say goodbye.”

Goodbye…?

Zerum didn’t hear anything else as her mind drifted back to into deep sleep.

Sebastian didn’t take too long to find the humans. The laboratory sector that Zerum was holed up in was on an offshoot several corridors down from the main thoroughfare that they had initially been traversing. He caught sight of the group from an adjoining hallway through a window, and decided to loop back around in order to throw off where he had actually come from.

Sebastian came upon the group as casually as he could, moving slowly as his mind rapidly spun over what exactly he was going to say in order to explain away his sudden departure.

“THERE HE IS!” Immy shouted, pointing a de-gloved hand at Sebastian as soon as he slithered down from a nearby catwalk. Immediately his school of fish converged on him like a swarm, with the humans quickly following after.

Sebastian noted that Baphomet was lingering a few paces away, staring at him intensely. Sebastian knew that the fishlet had been tracking him via the pink sliver of neural tissue it had adhered to his jacket, and the fishlet was probably confused as to why Sebastian was here when its tracker said he was elsewhere.

Sebastian mentally urged Baphomet to continue towards where its tracker said he was, despite the fact that the fishlet’s objective of finding him had technically been completed.

Baphomet’s bulbous head pulsed with pink light once, before the fishlet turned and continued waddling onwards. Surprisingly, Beelzebub hopped to follow; the two fishlets quickly disappearing from view as they went around the next bend. Supposedly, towards where Painter and Zerum were.

Huh. Sebastian hadn’t expected that to actually work. Well, with that settled, now he just needed to present the Expendables with a believable explanation as to why he—

“WHY ARE YOU NAKED?!” Immy exclaimed once they had reached Sebastian, completely throwing him off of whatever lies he had been preparing in his head.

“What?!” He snapped indignantly as the rest of the humans gathered before him. “I’m not naked!”

“Eh,” Medic cocked their head to the side, eyeing Sebastian up and down. “I don’t know. It’s really weird not seeing you with your snazzy jacket on. What happened to it?”

“Furthermore, what happened to the Painter.” Chief asked with crossed arms. “And why’d you run off all of a sudden?”

Fuck. What was he planning on saying again? Think, Solace! Think! Goddamn that stupid fucking immortal Expendable always fucking up his machinations—

“There was… a gas leak…” Sebastian spoke evenly, inventing rapidly on the fly. “When Painter plugged into the SCRAMBLER… they became aware of a critical failure that had occurred in one of the site’s nearby boiler rooms and so I courageously went to go see if I could potentially fix it before the pipes could blow and douse us all in scalding hot vapor.” He clasped his primary hands together, falling into his usual demeanor as he got the ball rolling. “Right now, Painter is currently hooked up to one of the stations responsible for controlling the pressure levels in the pipes to ensure that they continue to run smoothly whilst we make our way out of this sector of the facility. Once we make it to the inner ring where the hubs distributing the Crystal’s power are, I’m going to double back and retrieve Painter. I can move a lot faster when I don’t have to worry about you lot slowing me down. So me and Paints will be able to vacate the area with the faulty pipes before the sector experiences another catastrophic failure.”

The key to fabricating a believable cover story: over-explain everything with utmost confidence to make it sound as though you know what you’re talking about. Because obviously someone who bothered to explain things in such specific detail had to be telling the truth!

“Wow, okay then,” Punch-out shrugged. “Thanks, I guess, for not letting us get boiled alive.”

“But what happened to your coat?” Immy reached their hands out as if to conjure the missing article of clothing from thin air. “Your signature drip is flawed without it! You can’t just go around in nothing but your white undershirt! It’s obscene!”

Sebastian let out a scoff. “You’re one to talk! Half of your uniform is falling off at the seams!”

“WE KNOW!” Immy cried in anguish, collapsing to their knees. “AND LOOK AT US NOW! DRIPLESS AND BITCHLESS ALL AT ONCE!”

“I’m sure there’s gotta be some spare lab coats laying around,” White said, gingerly leaning over to pat Immy on the shoulder. “Maybe somebody stowed an emergency sweater in an office desk?”

Sebastian turned away, disinterested in the immortal Expendable’s plight. He subtly observed the reactions of the other Expendables, an easy feat with his lack of visible pupils.

Punch-out and White seemed to have readily accepted his explanation, their attentions having been grabbed by Immy’s outburst. Medic looked like they wanted to ask further questions but were resigned to the fact that they were unlikely to get any answers. Dog-fucker just seemed bemused and didn’t look like he even knew what was going on.

Chief, on the other hand, still had his arms crossed and was staring steadily at Sebastian with an unreadable expression— though that was more due to his face mask obscuring any expression he might have had. Nonetheless, his body language gave little away. But with how still the man’s posture was, Sebastian got the impression that he was being eyed critically.

With a swish of the end of his tail, Sebastian soundly thwapped Immy with his tail fluke, causing both Immy to yelp in protest and White to jump back with a startled squeak.

“Enough of your sniveling! Let’s get moving so I can hurry up and retrieve the Painter.” He snapped, beginning to move on past the humans. Sachiel and her fishlets (minus Baphomet and Beelzebub) followed loyally beside him.

Painter was sitting on the bloodstained countertop, their mechanical limbs tucked neatly to either side of their monitor as they stayed sentry over the Siren’s sleeping form.

There had been a few instances when she had opened her eye and Painter had braced for what would be the start of an awkward conversation, only to be disappointed when she seemed to fall back unconscious a moment later. Unlike Sebastian, this chick seemed determined to sleep for as long possible until necessity kick started her into wakefulness.

Painter had to keep itself from letting out a startled yell when the Siren suddenly sat bolt-upright, Sebastian’s jacket sliding halfway off of her with the movement. For several heartbeats, she just sat there, eye wide and unblinking, seemingly staring at nothing.

Painter’s hardware betrayed it as its internal fans kicked on with its heightened anxiety, and they watched as one of the Siren’s long ears swiveled at the noise before she slowly turned her head to stare at the AI.

“Uh, hi there!” Painter put on its usual smile, waving a mechanical claw. “Remember me?”

The Siren continued to stare at the computer, her eye tracking the movement of the mechanical claw as it stopped waving to tuck itself back along side the others. After a second, she gave the barest hint of a nod. Her long ears kept twitching as if she were hearing distant sounds that the AI could not detect.

“Yeah, alright, okay…” Painter tapped two claws together, feeling incredibly unnerved by the Siren’s continued silence. Best to start off with the basics. “Well, my name is Painter. And you are…?” They gestured a claw at the Siren as though physically passing off the social cue to her.

“…..Zerum.”

“Zerum! Cool. Now, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that’s Zerum ‘Solace’. Otherwise known as Mrs. Solace.”

At Zerum’s slow nod, Painter continued.

“Well, ain’t that a coincidence! I happen to know a Mr. Solace! He’s a real good pal of mine. In fact, you might even say that he’s my bestest friend. It’s kinda a long story, how we met and all that, but anyways— he’s not here right now. He was here earlier, but he had to go because he needed to ferry a bunch of other people to safety and because he was too much of a wuss to stay and say hi to you when you woke up. Which I think is really stupid of him. I mean— clearly you went through all the trouble of getting that implant out of your head so you wouldn’t be forced to kill Sebastian. I actually watched you do all that through the cameras and I gotta say: it was suuuuper hardcore!”

The AI was rambling. It knew it was rambling. But the silence was deafening and Painter didn’t know what else to do other than talk, if only to see what Zerum would react to. If there were any lingering desires to hunt down Sebastian and kill him, surely Painter talking non-stop about the guy would trigger them.

But Zerum continued to stare, unblinking, her expression seemed to be caught halfway between dumbfounded shock and complete catatonia. Then, when Painter paused to catch their proverbial breath, Zerum’s ears wilted and her expression crumbled as her eye suddenly welled up with tears.

“AHH— O-Okay! Crying! We’re crying now!” Painter panicked as it watched Zerum fold in on herself, clutching onto Sebastian’s coat and sobbing brokenly as she rocked back and forth.

Painter waved their mechanical limbs about, before gingerly climbing down from the counter top to stand beside the crying rabbit on the floor. The AI never knew what to do when somebody started crying and this was no exception.

“Hey now, it’s alright!” Painter tried to soothe her, lightly tapping one claw on the part of Sebastian’s coat that wasn’t currently being used as a snot rag. The AI was hesitant to touch her directly, lest she react badly, similar to how Sebastian would react when being touched. “I know everything is really scary and confusing and- and you’re probably hurting really badly and stuff, but I promise everything’s gonna be okay! So please— no more crying! Or maybe k-keep crying? Oh gosh… I don’t know how you biologicals go about this sort of thing. I’m really sorry...”

After a moment, Painter simply stopped talking, believing that perhaps something it had said had made Zerum cry. Sebastian was going to kill them if he found out they made his wife cry!

Then to Painter’s surprise, Zerum reached over and grabbed onto the 80s computer, hugging the side of their monitor to her chest as she continued to cry.

“Oh c’mon! Ewww!” Painter couldn’t help but beep in disgust at being wept upon.

Though the AI didn’t dare pull away, noticing the extremely sharp obsidian black claws at the corner of their vision. Painter had seen what one swipe of those claws had done to Immy. So, if Zerum wanted to cry on their monitor, then Painter would just have to deal with it.

The AI hoped that Baphomet would arrive soon.

Chapter Text

Transcription:

Beelzebub current mutations: Increased Size, Increased Speed & Agility, Long Leaping, Claws.

Chomper current mutations: Increased Size, Powerful Jaws, Increased Durability.

Bubbles current mutations: Bone Breaker Beak

Scorch current mutations: Electricity, Slippery.

Skuttle current mutations: Shell Durability, Turtle-Up.

Dart current mutations: Speed & Small Size, Agility.

Baphomet current mutations: Low Level Psyionic (Psionic? Psychic? whatever) Ability, Tag & Track.

Iggy current mutations: Increased Dexterity, Versatility.

Whip current mutations: Speed +++

Inherited Mutations: Air & Water Breathing. Adhering Fin Grip.

Chapter Text

Zerum’s sobs eventually abated into sniffles and then petered out entirely. All the while, Painter remained clutched in her grasp, awkwardly patting her on the back with one of the few mechanical claws that weren’t trapped against her body. The AI really hoped that none of the gross tears managed to spill onto its hardware, that would suck.

Finally, Zerum seemed to compose herself and loosened her grip on the computer, letting Painter swiftly skitter backwards and attempt to wipe off any lingering nastiness with the edge of Sebastian’s coat.

“S-sorry…” Zerum sniffled as she wiped at her eye, her voice still sounded scratchy from disuse, but had gained in strength. “I’ve… been dealing with a lot lately.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Painter said, genuinely sympathetic. The AI could only imagine the kind of hell that the rabbit girl had endured under the cruelty of Urbanshade. “Are you feeling a bit better though? I’ve been told that crying is supposed to be cathartic.”

Zerum huffed a soft, somewhat broken laugh. “I feel leagues better now that I don’t have that stupid fucking microchip screeching in my head…”

Painter snickered, it seemed that Zerum had as filthy of a mouth as Sebastian. The AI had honestly expected her to be the sweet and meek sort based on what little they knew of rabbit girls. But that was probably just a stereotype now that they thought about it, and Painter honestly couldn’t see Sebastian falling for a shy timid sort of gal.

“So, that microchip was what was making you act all crazy, right?” Painter asked, just to be sure. “That means you no longer wanna kill Sebastian.”

At the mention of Sebastian, Zerum reflexively tensed, her body expecting the jolt that normally would come whenever she heard or thought about her husband. But there was nothing. She raised a hand up to brush the bandages wrapped around her head.

“Yeah, I guess so…” Her eye squinted, the purple glow within dimming slightly as she looked imploringly at Painter. “Sebastian… he’s… you said he was here?”

“Yep! But he left because he didn’t want the rest of our group to find out you were here and injured.” Painter tapped two claws together, suddenly sheepish. “Um, I’m not sure if you remember. But you kind of attacked all of us, back when you were still… y’know. So, most of our friends are probably a bit mad at you. But I mean— it’s not like any of them got seriously injured when you’d attacked! Well, except for Immy and Sebastian.”

Zerum’s eye widened with a look of horror and her throat bobbed as she felt a sudden tightness in her chest. “I-I hurt Sebastian?”

Painter, realizing how that must have sounded, quickly tried to reassure her. “No, no! Well— I mean, you did mess him up real bad the first time— BUT HE GOT BETTER! He’s fine! He’s not upset or anything! Please don’t start crying again…”

Zerum bit her lip and sucked in a steadying breath. “Okay… okay…”

“Do you… really not remember the times you attacked us?” Painter asked, though they had a feeling that they already knew the answer.

Zerum slowly shook her head, her ragged ears waving side to side. “No… I don’t… I don’t remember much from when the implant was screaming the loudest…” She pressed her hand more firmly against the bandages on the side of her head, feeling the sting of the wound she had inflicted when she’d ripped the implant out. “I… only remember hazy flashes. Everything else during that time felt like I was constantly struggling to do algebra while under the influence of LSD or some shit…. This is the clearest I’ve been able to think since I first woke up down here.”

“Huh…” Painter supposed that made sense. The AI wondered for a brief moment if that was how Immy felt most of the time.

“Can… can I see him?” Zerum asked quietly, her ears drooping slightly. “Sebastian. I mean…”

“Oh,” Painter’s monitor flickered, before they remembered with a frown that they didn’t have access to the security cameras. They would just have to make do! Hopefully, Baphomet would find them soon enough. “I guess so! I don’t see why not. Are you able to walk on your own?”

To answer that for herself, Zerum braced her hands on either side of her and slowly got to her knees. The coat that had been covering her slipped off, and she quickly grabbed onto it and placed it on her shoulders before slowly getting to her feet. Her multitude of tendrils instinctively splaying out to aid in her balance as she stood.

She hugged the coat closer about her shoulders, slipping her arms into surprisingly wide sleeves. The ends of the jacket nearly dragged on the floor and she blinked as one of her tentacles wrapped around what looked like a third arm sleeve attached to the left side.

“Oh and don’t forget to take these!” Painter added, indicating the supplies that Sebastian had left for Zerum.

Zerum nodded, accepting the ration bars and water and stuffing them into the many coat pockets which the asymmetrical jacket bore. She struggled a moment with where to put the medkit, to which Painter helpfully informed her that the jacket had a sizable inner coat pocket that they’d seen Sebastian tuck things into that should have enough room.

This made Zerum pause. “This jacket… belongs to Sebastian?”

“Yeah, why?” Painter looked at her quizzically.

Zerum’s face scrunched up slightly as she looked down at the jacket, one of her tentacles having slipped into the third sleeve to wave it around.

The jacket was way too huge for Sebastian… or so she thought.

“Why… does his jacket have three arm sleeves…?”

“Uhh, because he has three arms?” Painter frowned, not understanding what had Zerum so confused.

Zerum swayed slightly, her heart beating faster as her mind conjured up a plethora of possible horrors that Urbanshade had transformed her dear husband into. What had they done to him? How much had he changed from the man she once knew?

How much had she changed?

She glanced at the mirror nearby, staring at her own warped reflection— fully taking in for the first time just what manner of horror that Urbanshade turned her into.

A terrible thought then crossed her mind, an insidious thought that creeped up from the depths of her younger self’s insecurities. What if the reason Sebastian hadn’t wanted to stay until she woke up was because he couldn’t bear seeing what she had become. She was no longer the cute rabbit girl who loved to dress up in pink. She was now a horrible sea monster that looked more at home in the dark depths of the abyss.

“H-hey!” Painter’s voice broke her out of her spiraling thoughts. She blinked and looked down at the computer, realizing that her breathes had become rapid and shallow.

Painter looked up at her, the expression on their monitor sad and worried. “If you’re worried about Sebastian, let me tell you that I know for a fact that he’s just as worried about you! So, l-like, don’t make any assumptions until we meet back up with him and the others, okay?”

Zerum bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling and she nodded resolutely. Painter was right. It would be doing a disservice to both herself and Sebastian if she allowed her mind to go off speculating about worst case scenarios. “Okay…”

Painter’s expression changed to a small smile, before the AI seemed to remember something and reached over to a small crate that had been lying on the countertop. “Also would you mind carrying this along with you? Sebastian left it just in case.”

Zerum looked over at the small crate and picked it up. It wasn’t that heavy, and when she gave it an experimental shake, she suspected that it was actually empty. There were belt straps secured around it.

“Uh, sure.” She pulled the straps over her head, so that it was slung loosely over one shoulder, the crate resting against her side. “Is it like your pet carrier or something?”

”No.” Painter beeped with a annoyance. “I’m not exactly waterproof, if you couldn’t tell. So in case of an emergency, I’m supposed to go in there to avoid having my circuits waterlogged.”

“Oh, fair enough…”

With that the AI began skittering towards the door, the fast movement causing Zerum to jump slightly before she started to follow. She still kind of found the AI’s form of locomotion a bit disturbing to look at. But who was she to judge when it came to disturbing looks? She was walking around half naked with tentacles trailing from her backside for christ’s sake.

Speaking of naked, she really needed to find some clothes to wear, she couldn’t keep wearing Sebastian’s oversized jacket. She hadn’t realized she had been running about the halls in her birthday suit when she had first woken up from stasis, but now that she had a clear head she had time to worry about her attire!

Priorities, Zerum. Priorities…

She wasn’t likely going to find anything nice that would actually fit her down here, anyways.

“Sooooo, how did you and Sebastian meet?” Painter asked after a moment, clinging onto the doorway as they looked back at Zerum.

Zerum blinked, surprised by the sudden question. Why would this funny computer wanna know about… oh wait, Painter had mentioned that Sebastian was a dear friend to them. So, perhaps the question was a genuine one.

“We met in college.” She said simply as she passed the threshold and into the adjoining hallway. Painter’s monitor swiveled to track her as the AI’s limbs easily found purchase along the various pipes and crevices lining the walls.

She thought back, memories of happier times when they were both younger and the future ahead had seemed so bright. She shook her head, trying to dispel the aching sense of loss that inevitably came with those memories.

“What about you? How did you and Sebastian meet in this hell site?” Zerum asked with a slight tilt of her ears.

“Oh, I met Sebastian right after he had escaped from containment!” Painter grinned, remembering the event fondly. “Before the lockdown, the schmucks here had me mining cryptocurrency. But then Sebastian found me in heavy containment, and he promised to help me get out of here and hooked me up to the site’s mainframe so that I could wreak havoc on the internal defense systems and keep the bad guys busy while he worked on finding us a way out.”

Zerum nodded, she supposed that was why everything in Hadal Blacksite seemed so empty. When Urbanshade had detained her for trespassing on company grounds at their Headquarters on the surface, they had decided to transport her down to Hadal Blacksite for experimentation rather than outright executing her. She hadn’t had time to see much of the interior of Hadal Blacksite before she had been subjected to the experiments, but she did remember that the place had been bustling with employees and guardsmen.

She hadn’t even realized that Sebastian was being held in the same exact place. Not that she’d been in any position to find out, at the time. They kept her under heavy sedation for most of the experiments.

“How did he escape?” Zerum asked.

“He said he killed one of the Elite guardsmen and stole their high clearance security keycard, and then afterward he started unlocking every containment cell he could, releasing all the entities inside.” Painter explained as the AI transitioned to digging their metal claws into the holes of the grates in the ceiling, dangling down so that their monitor was at head height with Zerum. “I don’t know the exact details, since I wasn’t connected to the mainframe until after he had already released a bunch of monsters.”

Zerum’s brow furrowed as she thought about this. Sebastian had killed someone…?

10 years ago, Zerum hadn’t believed her husband to be capable of murdering somebody, let alone the nine people he had been convicted for murdering. The very thought of her Sebastian killing anybody was just fucking absurd! Sure, he talked a lot of shit, but he was a real softy at heart. A total mama’s boy!

However… after what she had endured under the hands of Urbanshade for only a few months… She could only imagine how twisted a person could become after being tortured for an entire decade.

How much had Sebastian suffered to be driven to the point where he had been willing to kill another human being?

“You alright, pal?” Painter nudged her shoulder with a metal claw, a look of concern displaying on its monitor again.

She shook her head, smiling apologetically to the AI. “Sorry… this is just, a lot, to take in. I don’t… I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel.”

Painter made an electronic noise, reminiscent of somebody humming in thought. “Do you… wanna talk about it?”

Zerum actually let out a short giggle, finding the AI’s attempts at being socially aware rather endearing. “If I start talking, I’ll start crying again… and I get the feeling that I’m going to do a whole shit ton of crying by the time we reach your group.”

Painter laughed awkwardly. “Heh, yeah. I guess that’s true. But like, if you ever do need to talk. I’m open. Sebastian used to vent to me a lot about his dealings with the Expendables back when he was still running his shop. So, I’m used to listening.”

Zerum quirked an ear at that. “Sebastian was a shopkeeper? Down here?”

The face doodled on Painter’s monitor bobbed up and down in a nod, their expression brightening. “Yep! He had this whole system he planned out during the first few weeks of the lockdown. Urbanshade has been sending in Expendables nonstop; they were directed to gather up any loose research files that the scientists didn’t have time to grab during the evacuation, and Sebastian needed the research in order to buy us a way out of here by negotiating with a rival company, so he started up a whole gig where he’d ‘sell’ supplies to passing Expendables in exchange for any research files they picked up along the way.”

Zerum couldn’t help but chuckle at that. The idea of Sebastian being some shady merchant down in this wretched place was comical to say the least. She wondered if he had a catch phrase or sales pitch that he memorized and recited to every new customer, that would be so like him.

The pair eventually rounded a corner and entered a two way junction. Painter paused, swiveling their monitor one way and then the other. “Hmm, now which way did… Oh! BAPHOMET!”

Zerum’s ears pinned back at the shout, watching in confusion as the AI began waving one of its limbs. She craned her head to look past Painter and saw the glimmer of gold and pink. It was one of those funny looking fish that she had seen a little while back!

Her curiosity swiftly turned to mild concern when a much larger fish(?) came bounding up from behind the first. It looked like it was midway through metamorphosis from a tadpole to a frog, but it had the shiny orange scales of a gold fish.

“And Beelzabub!” Painter exclaimed as both fishlets came within a few feet from the computer, before stopping abruptly and ogling Zerum with their big fishy eyes.

Zerum felt oddly judged by those unblinking eyes, and she wasn’t sure why. “Baphomet and Beelzebub…?” She asked tentatively.

“Yeah! They’re two of Sebastian’s pet fishies! Their mama was an experimental pet that was being created here. Sebastian befriended her a while back and then she had a bunch of babies who all mutated.” Painter scuttled over and patted the big frog fishlet on the head with a metallic claw.

Zerum’s ears perked up at that. Sebastian had never had any pets in the time that they had known each other, though he did talk about a childhood cat called Bradee that he had fond memories of.

Cautiously, she stepped forwards, then stopped when the bigger fish made an odd guttural croaking noise that sounded very unfriendly.

“Hey, Beelzebub! Be nice!” Painter admonished the frog fishlet with a nudge. “This is Zerum. She’s a friend! We don’t make nasty noises at our friends.”

The frog-fish, Beelzebub, still looked tense and kept making the low croaking noise as it splayed its fore fins out, looking ready to pounce. But it stopped when the other fishlet, Baphomet, waddled towards Zerum before pausing right in front of her and waving its tendrils at her.

Unbidden, Zerum’s own forest of tentacles waved in return from under the hem of Sebastian’s coat, mimicking the motion as the purple blueish spots along each tendril pulsed with luminescence. She had no idea why, but as she stared down at the odd fishlet, with its strange bulbous pink head and weird pink tendrils sprouting from its back like the fingers of an anemone, she felt a strange sense of connection.

Friend.

Then Baphomet turned around and began shuffling back the way it and their sibling had come from, as if nothing had happened. Leaving Zerum feeling more than a little mystified.

“Huh, that was weird.” Painter commented, looking between the fishes and Zerum. “Well, c’mon! Let’s get moving. Baphomet will lead us back to the rest of the group!”

With that, Painter began moving again and Zerum had no choice but to follow.

“Are you alright, fish-face?” Chief asked suddenly.

Sebastian blinked, raising his head slightly as he glanced over at the older Expendable. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Chief merely stared at him for a beat, before shrugging his shoulders. “Dunno, you just have this look about you. Are you missing your jacket that badly?”

Sebastian unconsciously ran the claws of his third hand along the white sleeves of his shirt, frowning as he looked away.

“You could say that.” He did not elaborate further, his mind already sinking back into the mire of dark thoughts that had begun to plague him since he left Painter and Zerum behind.

He currently had Sachiel cradled in his main arms and hadn’t stopped carrying the fish since he had rejoined the rest of the group. The rest of his posse of fish had decided to take advantage of his dismal mood and were now sitting on various spots along his tail. He’d been too distracted to bother reprimanding them.

For whatever reason that Sebastian could not fathom, Immy had remained uncharacteristically silent since their initial outburst over his return. Sebastian wasn’t sure if he should be grateful or extremely disturbed by the immortal Expendable’s sudden awareness of his mood. He didn’t dare try to sneak a look over his shoulder to check and see what the immortal Expendable was doing, lest that break whatever spell of silence they were under.

So far, no other entities had crossed the group’s path, save for the one instance where Pinkie came screaming back through the hallways. But the female Angler didn’t even bother them, instead turning down a completely different route before the group had the chance to see her and her screams quickly faded.

Sebastian had braced for the potential appearance of Pandemonium and the Good People to follow soon after, but neither entity showed their faces. So, the group cautiously continued onward towards their destination.

Then they came across their first locked door. This one was another heavy set of doors that was stationed beside a waiting room that had Hadal Blacksite’s logo etched into the cement floor in the center of the lobby. Two rows of seats were situated before a large window that had a view of the Let-Vand Zone’s ocean floor, similar to how an airport terminal would look. This was likely one of the areas where Urbanshade employees would wait for the specialized tram system in order to quickly reach different sectors of the Blacksite. But all of the trams were offline due to the lockdown.

There was a portion of the room that was separated by a wall and glass which held the tram’s docking controls. Employees would usually have to show an ID card to the terminal guard before they were let through.

Speaking of ID cards…

Sebastian may have neglected to take the vital high security clearance keycard he kept in his coat pocket in his haste to leave…

For fuck’s sake, how did he manage that?! Usually he wasn’t this stupid!

The Expendables were quick to realize his blunder a few seconds after looking around the room and finding that Sebastian was still in front of the double doors with a pissed off expression.

“I’m gonna guess you don’t have your magic keycard with you,” Chief stated matter-o-factly, and this time not backing down when Sebastian sent him a cold look. “Seriously, what the hell happened back there? First you leave without so much as a word of warning, then you come back half naked and down a member of the team. What the hell did you actually do?”

“I already told you what happened,” Sebastian hissed through gritted teeth, his free hand clenching into a fist whilst his other two gripped Sachiel tighter. The fish squirmed with discomfort and gave him a warning slap on the arm with a fin. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go inside the terminal area and see if I can’t manually override the locks on the doors. You idiots stay here and don’t fucking bother me.”

With that said, he turned his back and promptly slithered away, disappearing through a nearby door that would let him have access to the terminal in the other room.

“Do you actually think fish-face is lying about what happened to Painter?” Punch-out asked Chief as soon as the fishman was out of sight.

“I don’t think he’s lying about having to leave behind Painter,” Chief explained with his hands on his hips. “I just don’t buy his whole spiel about the boiler room being the reason for it.”

“Why would he lie, though?” White asked nervously. “It sounded believable to me… why else would he want us to hurry if he wasn’t worried about the pipes or whatever exploding?”

“He said it himself,” Medic spoke dourly, sitting in one of the nearby chairs. “He can move a lot quicker when it’s just Painter he has to worry about carrying. If the pipes were really in danger of blowing, he could’ve easily chosen to abandon us and make his escape. So, the question is, why didn’t he do that?”

“MAYBE—“ Immy finally spoke up “—He actually cares about us??? I don’t know? Maybe he isn’t so heartless that he’d leave us all behind to die!”

There was a pause, the other Expendables looking dubiously at one another. Chief merely shrugged as he also took a seat in a chair.

“Maybe.” He admitted, but he didn’t sound convinced. “However, I’ve been giving it some real thought, and I think what’s more likely is that he’s trying to keep us away from something. Something he doesn’t want us to know about, and only trusted the Painter to watch over it while he led the rest of us away.”

“That seems a bit… I don’t know…” Dog-fucker began, waving a hand in a vague gesture. “Kinda overcomplicated? I mean, why would Sebastian care about being secretive about it? If there was something that he thought was dangerous, he’d tell us, right?”

“Yeah,” Punch-out nodded, for once agreeing with something that Dog-fucker said. “Asshole has been pretty open about tellin’ us about all the terrible dangers of the deep.”

“That’s because he’s a sadist,” Medic said bluntly, crossing one leg over the other. “I doubt he tells us this stuff out of the kindness of his heart. I’m with Chief on this; Sebastian is definitely hiding something.”

“Y’know,” Immy slowly walked down the center of the lobby, stopping right on the center of the Hadal Blacksite logo etched into the floor. “I used to resent Seb’s persistent distrust of others back when it was just me, him and the Painter. But look at us now. The moment he’s not in the room, everyone starts conspiring behind his back… so, maybe he’s right to be distrustful of us humans. Clearly we don’t trust him either.” They suddenly whirled around with their arms in the air, balancing precariously on the heel of their boot as the static censoring their face modulated crazily. “WITHOUT TRUST, there can be no love! If only we united and worked together, the WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER—“

The entire lobby rumbled.

Then there was a distant boom, followed by the low throbbing drone of a loud horn. For a moment everybody was frozen with shock, then White pointed out the window with a trembling hand.

“B-b-big metal g-giraffe…” She mumbled as everyone turned to look out the window.

Beyond, the monolithic titan of a Trenchbleeder loomed from the dark abyss, illuminated by the many spot lights built along its structure as it slowly lifted another foot before bringing it down with another resounding boom. The humans hadn’t noticed it before because it had been standing still up until that point. Now, for whatever reason, the Trenchbleeder was on the move.

As if on cue, the double doors at the end of the lobby began to cycle open, and Sebastian slid out of the room, looking no less disgruntled than he had before. “What’re you all gawking at? Let’s get moving!”

“Is that thing normally supposed to be this close to the building?” Dog-fucker asked hesitantly, loathe to turn his gaze away from the massive machine out of an irrational fear that it might suddenly pivot to step directly on the facility— as unlikely as that was to actually occur.

“How should I know,” Sebastian snapped curtly, already moving toward the now open passage way. “The damned things run their own schedules.”

Reluctantly, everyone followed after the retreating fishman as he led them into what appeared to be a railway system of sorts. The tunnel was long, with two elevated platforms on either side of a trench in the middle which held a single powered rail, (currently powered off), mirrored by an identical one on the ceiling.

There was no sign of the supposed trams that were meant to be stationed here.

They walked perhaps a hundred meters down the tunnel until Sebastian suddenly stopped and finally put Sachiel on the ground beside him, which triggered the rest of the fish to hop off and onto the platform.

Turning around, Sebastian faced the gathered humans. “Alright. This should be far enough. I’m going to head back and retrieve Painter. The rest of you should continue following the track and we’ll catch up with you soon enough.”

The humans looked ready to object, but the immortal Expendable beat them to the punch.

“Wait, Sebastian,“ Immy started to say. “I need to tell you about something that my therapist said—“

“—You do NOT have a therapist!” Sebastian interrupted with a disbelieving scoff.

Then…

The fucking Trenchbleeder stepped onto the tram tunnel no less than a dozen yards behind them, caving in the support structure above and allowing the outside abyss to flood the interior with a wave of dark murky water.

The group barely had a second to brace themselves before they were hit. Water smashed into Sebastian hard enough to momentarily stun him as the rushing current sent him and the humans and his fish hurtling down the tunnel at uncontrollable speeds. The overhead lights went dark as the water quickly filled the tunnel, plunging everything into further chaos and confusion.

Sebastian’s esca instinctively flared brightly as he twisted wildly about in the water, trying to orient himself and avoid smacking into the sides of the wall as the powerful current continued to drag him along.

He was gratified to see that his fishes had somehow managed to survive the concussive force of the initial wave and were spinning about in the water, their glowing bodies making it easy to pick them out in the dark.

Whip in particular seemed to be having the time of its life as the speedy fishlet nimbly zipped through the powerful current, speeding over to nudge its siblings who were having a difficult time coping with the rushing water.

The humans were flailing about in a panic, their Prisoner Diving Gear thankfully saving them from drowning, but not so much helping them control their tumbling spiral through the rushing water.

Sebastian didn’t waste time thinking, his long tail propelling him as he deftly managed to duck around one of the Expendables and catch them before they could be slammed against a jagged slab of cement from the caved in wall.

He could hear the Expendable screaming something, but he ignored them as he dove towards the other Expendables. A few had the wherewithal to grab onto the belts lining his tail and hang on for dear life whilst grabbing onto the arms of their fellows who were less aware of their surroundings.

Sebastian had to hold onto Immy by himself, the immortal Expendable already having expired from the lack of oxygen due to not having a working PDG. Their corpse remained limp in his grasp as the extra weight of all the humans clinging to him gradually slowed their velocity down to something less chaotic.

His shoal of fish took advantage of this by tucking themselves beside the clustered humans and taking shelter from the strong current.

Eventually, the strength of the current abated and the humans were able to safely detach themselves from the mutant fishman and swim on their own. They quickly swam upwards hoping to breach the surface, but the tunnel had been completely flooded, and it wasn’t until several minutes of swimming later where the tunnel canted upwards that they reached an air pocket.

Sebastian was the first to surface, water noisily sloshing onto the tunnel floor as he dragged Immy’s lifeless corpse onto land.

The rest of the humans quickly followed, scrambling onto dry land, a few almost immediately collapsing with panting breaths as everyone came down from the ordeal they had gone through.

The fishes lingered in the water, taking the time to play about in their natural element.

“I fucking knew that Trenchbleeder was up to something!” Dog-fucker immediately exclaimed.

“W-why did it do that?” White sputtered, removing her breathing mask to wipe away at her face. “Was it trying to kill us?!”

“I don’t know…” Sebastian admitted, his nerves frayed and mind frazzled by the sudden attack. The Trenchbleeders normally followed a set path and rarely deviated unless given direct orders. Did HQ managed to surmise where they were? That should have been impossible with the SCRAMBLER, they shouldn’t have been able to send anything to the Trenchbleeder whilst it was within range. Was it possible that the Trenchbleeder was tall enough that its communication node was out of range of the SCRAMBLER’s influence? But if so, that still wouldn’t explain how HQ managed to pinpoint and target their position so precisely. It didn’t make any sense…

Nearby, Immy finally coughed, swiftly turning onto their side and expelling all of the water in their lungs. “T-that was uncool!” They wheezed, before sitting up. “Jeez, I hope none of that water flooded backwards to where Painter is!”

Sebastian felt cold.

He slowly looked at the immortal Expendable, his expression a mixture of dread and pure absolute hatred.

“WHAT THE HELL!” Painter screeched from where they clung to the rafters of the large atrium they were in. “WHY IS THIS PLACE FLOODING!?”

Zerum was perched along side the panicking computer, looking down warily at the churning water that was slowly rising as it filled the chamber. Beside her were Baphomet and Beelzebub who looked more nonplussed rather than worried.

The small group had been walking down the main thoroughfare when Zerum’s sensitive ears picked up the distant rumbling sound of rushing water. Without hesitation, she had discarded the ration bar she’d been nibbling on and grabbed the AI before dashing into a side room, leaping upwards onto the crossbeams above them just before the wave of water rushed through the hallway.

This had only been a temporary solution, however. Where ever the breach in the facility had been, it was large enough that it was quickly flooding this sector in its entirety.

“I guess this is the kind of emergency that you’d need your pet carrier for!” Zerum stated, her voice cracking slightly as she struggled to be heard over the sound of rushing water.

“I AM NOT A PET!” Painter shrieked indignantly. “But yes! This is the time for the emergency crate!”

Zerum nodded, quickly fumbling for the clasps around the crate and popping the lid open. The AI wasted no time in climbing in, reaching a mechanical claw up and slamming the lip shut. Zerum made sure that the crate was fully sealed before tightening the belt straps around the container.

Once she was sure that the carrier was secured, she glanced hesitantly at the two fishlets, who were eyeballing her expectantly.

“Here goes nothing…” She whispered to herself, hugging Sebastian’s coat tighter as the water reached her position and she leapt off.

She coughed a bit as her own gills along her neck flared open, the cold water stinging and leeching away all the warmth in her body. She didn’t think she would ever get used to the sensation of parts of her neck opening up. But she pushed through the discomfort and allowed instinct to guide her.

Behind her, Baphomet and Beelzebub plopped into the water and followed alongside. Her tentacles flattened and curled closer to one another until they looked as if they had merged into one single tail, allowing for a more streamlined build as she propelled herself through the water. Her speed was somewhat hampered by the bulky coat she was wearing and the crate with the Painter inside, but she was strong enough that the powerful current didn’t give her too much trouble, even as she swam against it.

More than once she was reduced to gripping her claws into the pipes along the wall in order to keep from being swept away. Beelzebub and Baphomet had taken refuge in her wild black hair in order to stay with her as she did all the heavy lifting.

By the time the water finally leveled out and the current began to stabilize, she was exhausted. But she stubbornly kept going. Refusing to give in even as her muscles screamed in pain with each movement.

Eventually, she was forced to stop because something was blocking the way forwards. A large metallic structure of some kind had fallen onto what she guessed was supposed to be a subway tunnel of sorts.

She suspected that she was looking at what had caused sector to flood.

It was while she was deliberating over what to do when the entire tunnel shook, and to her horror and astonishment, the metal structure slowly lifted upwards and out of the massive hole it had created.

The underside of the structure was surprisingly flat and bore massive spotlights along its bottom as it retracted from the tunnel.

She swam backwards to avoid the cascading debris that were disturbed by the movement, and she realized with a start that she was looking at part of some kind of massive machine.

There was a loud boom that shook the unstable tunnel, and she retreated further back as more shattered rock began to fill in the hole that the machine had vacated.

She cringed and covered her ears as a loud fog horn reverberated through the water, the sound so loud that she could feel her teeth rattling from the sonic vibration.

More booms sounded, steadily growing fainter as whatever it was wandered away. It took several long agonizing minutes before Zerum could no longer hear it, and only then did she cautiously swim forwards to survey the damage.

Baphomet and Beelzebub provided a bit of light, their glowing bodies illuminating the piles of rock and debris which now served to block the tunnel ahead.

Well, damn.

Warily, Zerum poked around the edge of the filled in hole, trying to see if there was a gap that was large enough for her to potentially wiggle through.

Baphomet zipped over to her, its bulbous head blinking a pink light as it swam back a short distance before circling around a portion of the wall that looked like it had been opened up by all the destruction.

Zerum peered closer as Baphomet swam into the hole. It looked more like a small tunnel that had been dug out by something… organic. If she stretched her arms out on either side of her, she could brush her finger tips against both walls.

She wavered uncertainly at the entrance. From what little she could see, it look as though the tunnel went downwards. She didn’t like the idea of going deeper underground.

Beelzebub was tired of waiting and grabbed onto the ragged end of her ear, giving the appendage a harsh tug that made her let out an undignified squeak. Beelzebub quickly let go, mimicking her squeak before froggy paddling into the tunnel after their sibling.

Zerum rubbed at the sore ear, then let out a resigned sigh of bubbles. The things she did at the behest of foul beasts…

Clutching the crate which held Painter close, she swam into the claustrophobic depths of the channel.

Chapter Text

“—look I’m sorry I didn’t mean it PLEASE DON’T HIT ME!!!” Immy screamed as they pelted down the center of the tram track with a very pissed off fishman charging right on their heels.

After Immy had unwisely commented on the potential fate of the Painter due to the sudden flooding of the sector, Sebastian— absolutely done with their shit— had leapt at them with the intent of crushing their skull between his claws.

Miraculously, Immy had managed to roll away from his initial attack and immediately fled down the tunnel whilst Sebastian gave chase. The other humans had all scrambled to follow, shouting after the pair with mixtures of alarm, panic and exasperation.

“You run pretty fast for a DEAD MAN!” Sebastian roared as he swiped a claw downwards at the retreating Expendable, only to miss the slippery bastard by mere inches as they managed to kick off from the side of the trench and dodge out of the way.

“TERROR WILL DO THAT TO YA!” Immy yelled back, only to skid to a halt as Sebastian’s tail slammed down in front of them and cutting off their escape.

“Why’re you terrified?!” Sebastian taunted with a sadistic grin as he loomed over the cowering immortal Expendable. “You’ll just come back good as new! Right after I’m done reducing you to a pile of bloody bones…”

“Yeah cool— but I’m NOT into that!” Immy yelped as they dodged to the side when Sebastian made a feint to grab for them, his claws slamming into the ground as he prowled towards them.

“Really??? It’s hard to tell with how often you seem to be ASKING FOR IT!” He lunged again, claws outstretched. Immy tried to duck under the swing, only to be caught by the fishman’s third arm.

They twisted out of the weaker limb’s grasp before the claws could sink in, causing another tear to form in their clothes as they vaulted over Sebastian’s twisting coils. Immy danced around in a crazy circle, trying to keep behind the fishman’s back in order to avoid his slashing claws as he spun in place with an enraged snarl.

Sebastian’s tail swept about, trying to knock the legs out from under the immortal Expendable. He partially succeeded— his tail fin smacking into the human’s side and sending them rolling, but they popped back up a second later and were scrambling away before he could pounce.

Nearby, the other Expendables managed to catch up, gathering on the side of the platform as they watched the ongoing game of cat and mouse.

“Shouldn’t we be doing something?!” White waved her hands at the two combatants in emphasis.

“Well, Immy did say to leave them to it if Sebastian went on a rampage again…” Punch-out mused aloud.

“That doesn’t mean we should just stand back and watch!” Medic exclaimed angrily, already searching for their flash beacon on their belt, only to recall with a start that it had been pilfered by the Deep sea bunnies several hours back.

“I dunno. I still think this is some kinda weird foreplay for them—“ Dog-fucker covered his head as he anticipated Punch-out’s divine judgement befalling him a second later, only to let out a yelp when she easily pivoted and popped him in the face mask instead.

“In that case I definitely don’t want to stand back and watch!” Medic snapped, foregoing finding a weapon and choosing to wing it instead, sliding down the side of the platform to land on the rail way.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Punch-out leapt down to stand beside Medic, unholstering the flash beacon that she had acquired in the Candlebearer rooms.

“So you’re saying we should get in on the action then?!” Dog-fucker called down at the two, staying back on the platform to avoid getting reprimanded.

“Y’know, from how often you say things to piss me off I’m startin’ to think YOU have a thing for punishment!” Punch-out shouted back while flipping him the bird, leaving Dog-fucker spluttering in embarrassment.

Chief sighed, eyeing the five foot drop from the platform to the tram track below dubiously. “Man, I’m getting too old for this shit…”

White gave him a small consolatory pat on the shoulder.

Meanwhile, Sebastian, in his frenzied efforts to catch the immortal Expendable, had practically twisted his snake-like body into a tangled knot whilst spitting and hissing curses. Immy had not been this difficult to kill last time around! How were they evading all of his attempts to crush them!?

Perhaps his worry and fear for Painter was affecting him a lot more than he realized. His mind was full of hate, but his heart just wasn’t in the killing mood. What was he doing anyways? He should be swimming back right now to see if Painter was alright! He knew that he’d left Painter with the carrying crate in case the computer came across water whilst watching over Zerum, but he had no idea whether or not Zerum would be in any state to actually assist Painter! What if she’d still been unconscious when the water flooded the area? What if she woke up and found herself alone with a crate— or god forbid, tried to open the crate and exposed Painter to the water?!

“Aww, danger-noodle’s saaaad!” Immy had taken to sitting on the lump of Sebastian’s coils, and he realized at some point during his worried thoughts he had stopped trying to catch them and was just laying on the ground, staring numbly up at the ceiling.

“Sooo, are y’all good now?”

Sebastian blinked and noticed that both the Punch-out and Medic Expendables were standing a few feet away, watching.

“Mr. SeBUSTION is all tuckered out.” Immy stated matter-o-factly.

What.

Sebastian let out an aggravated snarl and flipped his tail, causing Immy to fall to the ground with a yelp. He quickly untangled himself and swept his hair back with a sniff of derision.

“No! Quite the opposite, in fact!” He snapped, shoving Immy when they tried to get back up as he slithered around the two other Expendables and back towards the flooded section of the tunnel. “Now if you would all kindly excuse me, I’m going to go do what I SAID I was going to do before we had been so rudely interrupted by that walking mile high oil rig!” He kept going even as he passed the rest of the Expendables still on the platform. “And for the love of the Almighty, if any of you fuckers try to stop me! I WILL kill you!”

“B-but what about—“ White raised a hand in objection.

Sebastian whirled around, pointing a warning claw at the Expendable. “I MEAN IT! I WILL KILL YOU! DO NOT FUCKING TEST ME!”

With that, he continued snaking his way toward the flooded section, finding his fish waiting at the edge of the water. He checked over them briefly, leaning down to brush a few of the fishlets aside as he slid into the water.

Sachiel and her offspring followed him, naturally taking up positions along his serpentine body as he swam, just like how they used to back when he would take scavenging trips in the water.

It took him a while to swim all the way back to the breach, roughly ten minutes, even while swimming at a moderate pace. He was loathe to swim at his full speed, lest he leave his entire shoal behind. But also he didn’t want to accidentally crash face first into any lingering debris that had been washed down the tram tunnel.

When he finally found the spot where the Trenchbleeder had stepped down on the tunnel, he felt his heart sink. His esca’s light illuminated a solid wall of broken rock. Cascades of sand and bits of rubble were still falling as he approached, making it difficult to see much in the cloudy water. The tunnel must have collapsed in on itself when the Trenchbleeder retracted its foot from the hole it had created, effectively blocking the only way back to the previous sector.

With a muffled scream of rage, Sebastian punched the wall of stone, causing small cracks to form, but otherwise the wall remained unmoved. This only enraged him further as he scrabbled at the wall, clawing great rents into the rock and dirt and creating a choking cloud of debris all around him.

He should’ve stayed! He should have never left the Painter behind! He should have stayed with them!

He whirled about in the water, shining his light around as he scanned the circumference of the obstruction, trying in vain to find a possible gap that he could utilize, but his senses already told him that there was nothing.

Perhaps if he could somehow get outside of the facility, he could swim back along the outside of the tram line and find an opening in the infrastructure. But that could take hours and who knew whether or not more architectural anomalies had fluctuated again, making the prospect of backtracking a nightmare.

Sebastian sank to the tunnel floor, his arms wrapped tightly about himself as he lay there, feeling a sense of desolation overcome him as both his eyes and esca dimmed in sorrow.

Around him, his fish gathered close, hovering about him like a halo of bioluminescent globes. Sachiel nudged the side of his head, their mouth opening and closing anxiously when Sebastian didn’t so much as twitch an ear fin.

The fish couldn’t possibly comprehend the full context of the tragedy which had befallen the mutant fishman, but they knew that something was wrong and that was enough for the fish to be wary.

Sebastian wasn’t sure how long he waited there, curled up against the rocky wall. But he suddenly became aware of movement in the water, one that was separate from his fishes. He noticed a weak light beam flicking across his form. He guessed it was from a flashlight, and his suspicions were confirmed when the masked form of an Expendable swam into his field of view.

His ear twitched slightly when he heard the muffled sound of the Expendable talking. It sounded like it might’ve been Chief.

The Expendable made a beckoning hand gesture, then pointed back down the tunnel. Sebastian only scowled in response and turned his head away.

There was a gush of bubbles from the Expendable’s PDG as he sighed, but he made no move to try touching the fishman or anything to get him to move. Instead Chief turned about in the water and swam out of view.

Sebastian didn’t care. He shut his eyes, his ears pinning back against his head as he tried to shut out the world.

Ah, what the hell. He couldn’t just sit here forever. He had responsibilities to attend to and he would feel really stupid if it turned out that Painter and Zerum were perfectly fine. He could already guess what Painter would say if the AI saw him right now. Probably call him an idiot and a moron… and a stupid idiot moron.

Even if Painter… was dead. Sebastian still had to escape Hadal Blacksite, if only to avenge the little AI. Urbanshade still needed to pay. He may be hurting and weary, but he had promised himself long ago that he would not let Urbanshade break him.

With a groan, Sebastian lifted off from the floor, a plume of sediment being kicked up as his tail undulated through the water.

His fish flurried about him, excited by his sudden movement as he began swimming back down the tunnel. He quickly caught up with Chief and grabbed the man by the arm to tug him along as he picked up speed.

Chief let out a surprised sound at being suddenly grabbed, but upon releasing it was just Sebastian, he didn’t struggle and simply let the fishman carry him as they rushed through the water.

It didn’t take long before they were back in the air pocket. Sebastian hastily let go of Chief and shook himself off, he spied the other Expendables waiting a short distance up the tunnel and braced himself for the inevitable questions that would occur.

“I’ll fill everyone else in on the situation,” Chief spoke up, his tone low so that only Sebastian could hear as they approached the rest of the group.

Sebastian looked down at the older man, despite the sense of numbness clouding his thoughts, he couldn’t help but feel faintly surprised.

Chief simply shrugged in response to his odd look, before jogging on ahead, leaving Sebastian to himself.

Sebastian stood there, ears twitching as he heard the Chief explain to the rest of the Expendables that the way back was blocked off. He felt an odd sense of gratitude towards the Chief Expendable for taking it upon himself to temporarily act as a buffer between the fishman and the rest of the humans.

Normally, Sebastian’s pride would’ve left him feeling indignant and insulted. But with how bleak everything felt at that moment…

Sebastian felt something brush against the scales and he reflexively bent down and scooped up Sachiel. The rest of her brood had already clambered onto his tail, and for once he welcomed the weight of their little bodies clinging to him.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY FELL?!

Eyefestation’s gaze turned purple with rage as the mutant bullshark mentally roared at Pinkie.

Ah mean exactly what Ah fuckin’ said! The dang Good People jumped Pande while he was tryin’ to free the Angel and they plum darn fell off into the abyss! Ah couldn’t have done nothin’ even if Ah wanted to!

Eyefestation swam in back and forth in front of the glass window, the shark’s equivalent of pacing. Eyefestation knew that Pandemonium was an imbecile of rotting flesh, but they hadn’t expected the undying amalgamation to fuck up his mission that badly! Clearly the Good People were the ones to blame for the catastrophe, but Eyefestation had expected Pandemonium to have at least been competent enough to not let himself be so easily jumped!

WHY DID YOU NOT GO AFTER THEM?

Ah figured y’all would’a wanted to know what happened. Pinkie replied with a clack of her jaws. Aaaand Ah didn’t wanna go down there by myself. Y’know. In case something nasty was down there.

YOU ARE A PHANTOM. YOU CANNOT BE HARMED. Eyefestation pointed out.

Yeah, but Ah sure as hell can get lost and trapped and all sorts of other thangs! Pinkie stubbornly argued back. Anyhoo, Ah’m gonna go and tell everyone else what happened, maybe they’ll wanna jump down there an find’em.

VERY WELL. Eyefestation’s multitude of eyes rolled in a wave, already tiring of the conversation. This whole rebellion thing was exhausting.

Zerum was starting to regret going down this path. The narrow tunnel continued to slope ever downwards, and its walls had quickly become overgrown with rotten coral. The eerie clicking noises emitted from the green buds was unsettling and made her skin crawl as she tried her best to focus on following Baphomet and Beelzebub.

Occasionally the tunnel would turn or seem as though it were going upwards, but only briefly. She had no idea how long they spent traversing the narrow tunnel, but it felt like hours had gone by.

Just when Zerum was on the verge of having a full blown anxiety attack did she finally encounter a possible end to the claustrophobic nightmare.

Baphomet suddenly swam upwards, and the distinct sound of water being displaced was heard as the fishlet evidently discovered an air pocket and waddled onto dry land. Beelzebub was quick to follow and Zerum was close behind as she surged out of the tunnel and into a much wider space.

She clambered onto rocky stone, damp and slippery with algae. Little crustaceans scurried out of her path as her feet crunched down atop a few. She wrinkled her nose at the sensation of squirming things under her feet and flicked the critters away with a tentacle.

Beelzebub was happily gulping the tiny crustaceans down by the mouthful, as was Baphomet, who snapped them up individually with their much smaller mouth. Apparently, the fishlets found these deep sea dwelling creatures tasty.

Zerum surveyed her surroundings, finding that they appeared to be in some sort of cavern. The bioluminescence being produced by the fishlets and herself wasn’t bright enough to fully illuminate their surroundings, but she got the distinct impression that the cavern was huge. If the distant sound of dripping water and indistinguishable creaking and clicking noises echoing beyond were anything to go by.

She spied bits of light that may have been more outcroppings of rotten coral in the distance. The stuff lined portions of the high ceiling above and she noted the outlines of several massive stalactites… or was it stalagmites? She could never remember which was which.

A sudden knocking sound right beside her made her nearly jump out of her skin.

“Hey! Is it safe for me to come out yet?” The slightly muffled voice of Painter spoke from the crate strapped to her side.

“Uhhh…” Zerum looked about at the very damp surroundings. Whilst they were no longer underwater, the moisture in the area wasn’t likely to be any safer for the computer. “I don’t know… It’s kinda gross and wet out here…”

“Most of the Blacksite is gross and wet by now!” Painter beeped back. “At least crack the lid open so I can take a peak!”

Relenting, Zerum flipped the latches securing the carrier’s lid shut, and Painter’s mechanical limbs gingerly lifted the lid up so that the AI’s web camera could see out.

“Woah…” Painter’s screen flickered as the AI took in what little it could see, they attempted to consult the digital map they had downloaded back when they had been connected to the SCRAMBLER. Although, without the aid of said device, the AI could hardly make heads or tails of the map. But they were pretty sure this wasn’t supposed to be the tram line. “Where the heck are we?”

“No idea.” Zerum shook her head. “Your fishy pals were the ones who led me down here. So…”

The AI shifted to peer further out of the crate and Zerum had to wrap her arms around it to keep the AI from spilling out onto the cave floor.

“Baphomet! What gives?!” Painter scolded as they saw that the little fishlet was busy munching on whatever it had found crawling on the ground. “You were suppose to take us back to Sebastian and the others!”

Baphomet paused its foraging, the remnants of a crunchy critter still hanging halfway out of its mouth as it eyeballed the Painter. Their tail gave a little wiggle and their tendrils waved about in a noodle motion.

“I… I don’t understand sign-language!” Painter grimaced, this was a conundrum that the AI had not anticipated. “Hey, Zerum, do you know how to speak tentacle?”

“Ah, yes. The sacred art of tentacle kanji. I know it well.” Zerum replied in a deadpan voice.

“I am detecting sarcasm.” Painter stated with a raised brow.

“No, no, I’m serious. Tentacle kanji has been passed down from generations of rabbit girls who’ve been tasked with cultivating hentai for the masses.” Zerum said with absolute seriousness, but there was a twinkle to her eye as she spoke.

“OKAY! Wow, I know I’m not all that knowledgeable about the wider world, but THAT is total bullshit.” Painter’s doodled expression squinted dubiously at Zerum.

Zerum rolled her eye and shook her ears, her lip curling in the faintest hint of a smile. “Alright, fine. You caught me. I have no idea how to talk to your fishy friends.”

“Hmph,” Painter grumbled as they tilted their monitor to look around once more. “Well, I have no idea where we are. And I don’t have access to any systems without being plugged into the device that Sebastian’s carrying on him. So… I’m open for suggestions on what our next move should be!”

They were both silent for a moment as they stared out at the darkened cavern. The foreboding atmosphere of the place made both of them leery of simply choosing a random direction and hoping for the best.

“Well… okay, let’s see—“ Zerum shifted about to hold Painter’s crate to be more level, so that the light from the AI’s monitor was cast in front of her. The light being emitted from the monitor was bright against the darkness of the cavern, but it didn’t reach very far. Nevertheless, Zerum was able to pick up more details in the darkness with what little light managed to reflect off of the stalactites nearby.

When she first awoke in Hadal Blacksite, she had noticed that her vision had been changed in some way. For instance, she could see a lot better in the darkness than she use too, and bright lights hurt her a lot more than she thought was considered normal.

“Umm… what are we looking for?” Painter inquired after a moment. The AI’s ability to see in the dark was limited to whatever their shitty inbuilt webcam could pick up.

“I dunno, like, a path maybe?” Zerum suggested as she slowly spun in place. “Y’know, something that might look like a way out of here.”

“Oh…” Painter blinked as they considered this. “What would a way out of here look like? I don’t see any signs that say EXIT or anything like that—“

“Shhh!” Zerum suddenly hushed the computer, standing stock still as her long ears swiveled about. “What’s that sound…?”

“Huh? I don’t hear anythi—“

“SHHHHHH!” Zerum slapped her palm over the Painter’s screen, where their doodled mouth was, and the AI immediately went silent. Though it was more out of surprise and sudden fear at having those wicked claws against their screen.

Zerum’s ears continued to twitch, and the hair on the back of her neck slowly rose as she tried in vain to determine the direction of which the noise was coming from. It was a rhythmic sound that repeated, like a heartbeat, but wetter and heavier. Like mud slapping heavily against the ground over and over again at regular intervals.

It was getting louder with each second that ticked by.

“Painter… I think you should go back in the carrier…” Zerum spoke quietly as she reached up and pressed the lid down on the crate.

“What? Why? What did you hear???” Painter argued, their metallic claws holding the lid open as they looked around in confusion.

“Something bad…!” Zerum hissed, shuffling backwards toward the water’s edge as the strange noise got louder. Beelzebub and Baphomet seemed to have sensed something approaching as well; the two fishlets having already ceased their feasting on the cave critters and were now standing stock still, the barbels along their lips quivering.

“How can you tell whether something’s bad or not based on how it sounds?” Painter asked dubiously, stubbornly refusing to let Zerum shut the lid of the crate.

“Well for one, it sounds like something huge and fleshy is stomping its way in our direction…”

“Oh. Um.” Painter blinked, their screen flickering. “Yeah, that’s probably something bad. Right. Into the crate I go!”

With that, Painter retracted their limbs and allowed Zerum to shut them inside. Once she was certain that they were secure, she turned around and quickly scrabbled up the nearest rocky wall, her claws easily finding purchase amongst the porous rock as the suction cups along her tentacles gripped everywhere else to aid in her ascent.

Below, Beelzebub and Baphomet chose to take refuge in the pool of water, ducking amongst the rotten coral to hide their orange glow.

Zerum pressed herself close to the wall, one of her tentacles curling up to hug Sebastian’s coat closer to herself as she waited.

A few moments later, she caught sight of what the source of those disturbing noises were… and she had to bite down on her tongue to resist the urge to scream.

Pandemonium didn’t really know where they were going, but it was better than remaining idle! The Good People whined and hissed the entire way, occasionally their staccato speech would whisper across the aether and Pandemonium would catch a repeated word here or there, but otherwise the undying amalgamation ignored the other.

The caverns the two entities had found themselves in was much more vast than Pandemonium had anticipated, and he wondered forlornly if they would ever find a way back to the others. Pandemonium had spent eons of his undying existence living alone at the bottom of the Let-Vand zone, feeding off of the thermal vents which lined the ocean floor. It had been a lonely existence, a maddening existence, and now that Pandemonium had just recently thought he had filled that bottomless pit of loneliness, he feared that he may not see his comrades again.

Somethingsomethingsomethingisnear close something isisisisherehere…..

The collective that was the Good People paused and pawed nervously at the ground, their claws making a distinct scraping sound that echoed through the cavern.

Pandemonium swiveled about as his eyes began to flicker to life, further illuminating the darkness and causing tiny creatures along the cavern floor to flee.

Pandemonium looked down at the floor, his many eyes rotating about to track the darting movements of the diminutive cave crustaceans. He reached a rotting tendril down in curiosity, the caustic fluids seeping from his flesh dripping onto the floor with a faint hiss.

“NO THING BUT SM ALL CAVE CRAW LERS, COM RADE!” Pandemonium informed in his wretched tongue. Though, of course, without a conduit acting as the bridge between communications like Eyefestation or the Angel, the Good People did not understand Pandemonium’s warbling cries.

The Good People instead seemed to become even more agitated, the fleshy column which pivoted their mask around like a neck twitched erratically from side to side. Their talons were digging harsh grooves into the stone as they let out a low growl.

Beingwatched Being watched BEING WATCHED WE’RE BEING WATCHED….

Pandemonium let out an aggravated groan, choosing to slog towards a pool of water that he had noticed rather than continue to listen to the other flesh amalgam. While Pandemonium didn’t need water to survive, he found the sensation of being submerged to be a meager comfort. He peered into the dark water for a moment, eyes flickering about at the sight of rotten coral blinking back up at him from along the walls of the pool.

He was about to dip into the water, but something made him pause. It was odd. But he suddenly became aware that something was amiss, though he could not describe or place it. It was just this sort of feeling at the back of his rotting mind. It was foreign. A sense of fear that was not his own, yet he felt it all the same. It was not unlike Eyefestation’s ability to project their own emotions using their telepathy, just not as pronounced. It was like wisps of smoke in comparison to Eyefestation’s roaring inferno.

“HE LLO? TINY EYE FESTATION?!?” Pandemonium boomed, causing the surface of the water to ripple with the force of his shriek. “DO NO T BE AF RAID, SMA LL ONE!!! C OM E OUT, SO THAT W E MAY EX CHA NGE GRE ET INGS OF F R I E N D S H I P!!!”

Unfortunately, Pandemonium’s grotesque bellowing did not belay the supposed mini Eyefestation’s fears, as no creature made itself known after several seconds of waiting.

Disappointed, Pandemonium’s eyes dimmed and his rotting form sagged with an unhappy expulsion of built up gases.

There was a faint cough, followed by a retching sound.

The Good People let out a sudden snarl as it lurched backwards, rearing up on malformed back legs as the fleshy protuberance carrying its mask twisted to glare up at the far wall beyond the pool. They splayed their clawed hands to either side of them in an odd sort of threat display, as if they were trying to appear larger than they already were.

Pandemonium found the action rather quaint, but nevertheless turned its head to gaze up at the wall, eyes glowing once more as he caught sight of small purple-ish blue lights pockmarking a spot on the wall. His eyes flared brighter and only then was he able to discern the source of the lights.

Whatever it was, it was vaguely humanoid, with tendrils about it squirming against the wall in apparent agitation. Pandemonium’s eyes burned as he instinctively began emitting his hunting cry, the shrieking wail causing droplets of water to shake from the cavern ceiling in a light downpour.

Before either entities could act, a sudden splash from the pool startled Pandemonium and the flesh amalgam flinched. Two small creatures of gold had burst from the water, leaping onto the far wall and then both were rapidly retreating along with the first creature deeper into the cavern beyond.

Pandemonium recovered quickly from the surprise and was immediately overcome by instinct. He gave chase, roaring all the while as he crashed around outcroppings of rock and spires of stone in a frenzy to bring down his prey. Lengths of rotting flesh whipped about to acquire purchase on the slippery gravel of the floor, but the prey was much more quick and nimble than Pandemonium had anticipated and soon he lost sight of his quarry entirely as the growths of rotten coral became thicker and more dense the further into the cavern he went.

Pandemonium has soon forced to stop when parts of his body became tangled with vines of the rotten coral, and only then did he come back to his senses and realized what had happened.

With a disgruntled snarl, his rotting teeth tore into the foliage binding him, then he backed up a few paces. His many eyes darted about in an effort to pierce the thick wall of rotten coral barring his way, but he saw nothing beyond the green glowing lights emanating from the organisms.

Pandemonium felt a strange sense of shame, he had acted rashly and had fallen into his old ways of seek and hunt upon spying a new lifeform. Eyefestation had taught him the value of companionship! And Pandemonium was certain that if the mutant bull shark could see him now, they would shake their head in disappointment!*

*Eyefestation didn’t teach him shit. Pandemonium is delusional. Eyefestation’s policy is often: “blows up brains first, maybe speculate about it later.”. The only disappointment the mutant bull shark would feel is the disappointment of being unable to kill Pandemonium for being so incompetent!

The Good People finally caught up to Pandemonium, the creature not being the pursuing type of predator and thus not capable of moving at speed for a sustained amount of time.

They trailed more loose ribbons of meat behind them and Pandemonium momentarily wondered if that was healthy for his fellow flesh amalgam. Pandemonium was constantly shedding bits of decaying flesh, but he was also constantly regenerating said flesh. The same could not be said about the Good People. While they no longer bore the massive hole they had sustained earlier when they were impaled by a jagged spire of rock, their form was certainly less formidable than it once had been, almost appearing shrunken in places.

Pandemonium growled and turned away after a moment of looking the Good People over, who did nothing but scrape its claws sullenly against the ground. For the first time, Pandemonium considered the option of just eating them. It would certainly serve the traitorous scum right after they had thwarted Pandemonium’s attempt to free the Angel.

But… the Good People may still prove useful. They might even have a chance to redeem themselves should they ever get out of these caverns.

Pandemonium was still intent on finding a way back to the others, or at least finding some place that allowed them access to the open waters of the Let-Vand zone. At least then he could potentially meet up with Eyefestation again…

Pandemonium was not relishing the prospect of having to explain to the mutant bull shark how he had failed in his task to free the Angel.

Chapter Text

There came a point where traveling through the tram line without riding the actual tram started becoming a problem.

The tunnel which held the tram track eventually became nonexistent as the tracks went through a natural cavern. The group had to utilize the maintenance catwalks that ran along either side of the cavern in order to continue following the suspended line of the trackway.

This was nerve-wracking in multiple ways, because the drop was quite perilous and once again Sebastian was faced with the irritating realization that he may indeed have developed a fear of heights at some point. Such a phobia was only further enhanced by the Paranoia gas permeating all corners of the Blacksite.

The worst part was that the walls of the trench tunnel were lined with rotten coral, and Sebastian had preemptively snatched Sachiel up before the coral infested fish could launch itself off of the catwalk. He then proceeded to use his scarf as a makeshift blindfold for Sachiel to keep them calm while he carried them securely underneath one arm.

“Jeez, that is one big drop,” Punch-out commented needlessly as she peered uneasily over the side of the railing. “Can’t even see the bottom; how deep is this pit?”

“Deep.” Sebastian grumbled, steadfastly not looking at the bottomless abyss. He was in the uncomfortable position of being at the front of the pack, since the width and length of his tail took up a significant portion of the catwalk and he guessed that if the stability of the walkway were to fail, it was better that his fatass be the one to trigger its collapse. Or so he was angrily telling himself. The humans didn’t say it, but he could tell that was what they had been thinking when the group had first come upon the sudden transition from solid concrete to precarious steel walkways. Sebastian had been too tired to argue.

Nevertheless, the relatively tense quiet of the journey was just asking for something bad to happen.

Because fuck his life.

It started with the immortal Expendable experiencing one of their episodes.

The group came to a grounding halt when Immy suddenly stumbled with a choking sound of distress. Sebastian was inclined to keep moving, but was forced to stop when Immy started spouting more demonic profanities that made his skin crawl and his head fill with buzzing bees.

“T̸H̶E̵ ̵Z̸E̷A̵L̶ ̶W̶I̸T̴H̶I̴N̷ ̴O̵U̴R̵ ̵E̷Y̴E̴S̵ ̵F̵L̷I̷C̴K̶E̵R̴S̴!̵ EVERYONE FLEES FROM THE BEAR BUT EVEN THE BEAR HAS BAD DREAMS!” Immy wailed in their odd voice as they shook with uncontrollable spasms.

“Goddamn it!” Medic reached over to grab Immy before they ended up pitching themselves over the railing during one of their convulsions.

“Jeez, Immy, what’s set ya off this time?” Punch-out grumbled, though her voice had a touch of concern as she stood on the immortal Expendable’s other side to prevent them from banging into the cavern wall.

Sebastian turned to glare at the humans, a scathing comment on the tip of his tongue, but he was halted when he felt an ominous vibration through the metal catwalk as something large landed atop it on the far end.

Looking forward once more, Sebastian spat a curse at what he saw.

“What in the hell is that?!” Chief shouted, having been the only other person to notice that something had joined the group on the catwalk.

At his shout, the others paused their tending to Immy in order to gawk at the newcomer.

A tall humanoid stood several meters down the catwalk ahead, features twisted in a grotesque crooked grin and flesh pale and sickly against a worn military uniform. Atop its deformed head sat a military beret sporting Hadal Blacksite’s logo. An enlarged eye sat unmoving on one side of the being’s head, while the other much smaller eye flicked about as it focused on each individual in the party.

“Is that a freakin’ Urbanshade guard?” Punch-out hissed incredulously, glancing at the others for any kind of confirmation.

Chief shook his head. ”I don’t remember the guards looking like a Regenerador from Resident Evil!”

“Man, we are so fucked!” Dog-fucker whined, his hands raised over his head as he danced nervously in place. “First HQ tries killing us with the Trenchbleeder and now they’re sending their super soldier boys after us! The jig is up!—“

“Quit your squealing!” Sebastian snapped, flicking the end of his tail at the nearest of the Expendables and just barely avoiding slapping them over the railing. The humans quickly quieted as they cowered beside the still twitching form of Immy, who had since collapsed.

Sebastian unholstered his gun, but kept the barrel pointed downwards as he readjusted his grip on Sachiel, still clutched underneath his third arm and blindfolded.

He plastered on his usual winning grin as he slithered a few paces forward.

“Heyyyy there, friend~! Long time no see. I thought you and your little pal were sticking by the Outskirts after what happened last time you and I had a chat!”

The monstrous guardsman didn’t respond verbally, instead crossing its massive forearms over its chest and cocking its head to the side as its one good eye seemingly glared at the fishman.

Sebastian’s ear flicked at the lack of response, though he figured that the guardsmen’s mutations may have deteriorated his ability to speak. He shrugged and casually twirled his gun in his hand. “Giving me the silent treatment, I see. Very well. I guess that’s fair enough. But I’m afraid I don’t have time to deal with whatever score you have to settle! So, if you wouldn’t mind letting me and my companions pass, I’ll be glad to hit you up at a later date.”

To his surprise, the crooked man merely shook his head— instead lifting one arm and firmly pointing downwards over the side of the railing with a single bony claw.

Sebastian didn’t dare look away, knowing how scarily fast this adversary was when not being directly observed. The humans behind him, however, had no qualms about looking where the stranger was pointing.

“Oh my god—“ White breathed out, voice trembling with fear.

”What is it?” Sebastian’s voice was calm, almost casual even. Though his ear twitched again as he resisted the urge to look backwards.

Sachiel squirmed under his arm and he reached a hand down to brush his claws against the fish’s scales. The other fishlets clinging to his tail had all begun to move, which normally would have been beyond irritating, but he could tell even without looking that the fishlets were moving to put themselves into better positions if a confrontation were to occur. One fishlet, (he thought it might have been Chomper), had slowly crawled up his back and was now boldly perched atop his left shoulder. He could hear the burly fish’s teeth grinding in anticipation. (Yeah, most likely Chomper, unless one of the other fish had grown teeth while he wasn’t paying attention).

“The, uh, green coral stuff is… glowing brighter and umm… moving.” White’s uncertain voice eventually answered Sebastian’s query.

“It’s going all vaporwave and shit!” Punch-out extrapolated, which didn’t do much to explain anything.

Well, that didn’t sound like it was anything good. Though Sebastian couldn’t fathom why the crooked guardsman would care about—

”What are you—IMMY NO!”

There was a clatter and several shouts, and Sebastian turned to see the immortal Expendable had suddenly sprang to their feet before bodily flinging themselves over the railing. This wouldn’t have been that big of a loss if the Medic Expendable hadn’t proceeded to launch themselves over the side in an effort to stop the crazy Expendable, which triggered Chief to lunge and grab onto Medic’s leg before both them and Immy could plunge into the depths below. White, Punch-out and Dog-fucker quickly latched onto Chief to help, causing everyone’s weight to be slammed into the side of the railing as they halted the two’s headward plunge into the depths.

“Jesus Christ! What the shit, Immy!” Punch-out shouted as she and the others struggled to haul both Medic and Immy back over the railing.

“Just hang on—“ Chief reassured as he readjusted his grip on Medic’s leg.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK I’M DOING?!” Medic shrieked, their heart practically in their throat from dangling precariously over the abyss.

Immy seemed to have gone completely limp again. It was unclear if they were even conscious after having tried to pitch themselves over the side.

One of the fishlets, Iggy, had sprung off of Sebastian’s tail and had clambered along the railing. The octopus-fish hybrid reached their comically short tentacles out to “help” the humans begin the precarious process of pulling the other two back to safety.

The catwalk gave an ominous creak.

Sebastian realized with a start that he had taken his eyes off of the adversary. He quickly whipped his head around, his gun raised, expecting the mutated guardsman to suddenly be an arms length away and ready to slug him in the face— But the catwalk ahead was empty.

Surprised, Sebastian just stared stupidly, eyes darting about in search of the missing entity.

Then he flinched with a startled grunt as all at once his shoal of fish suddenly abandoned him, leaping onto the cavern wall next to the catwalk and scrambling atop the metal railings on either side of him as the fish reacted to something that he hadn’t seen. Chomper remained perched on his shoulder, their tail wagging as they clacked their jaws excitedly. Sachiel wriggled about energetically under his arm, still blindfolded by his scarf but nevertheless sensing that something was happening.

There was a sudden bedlam of shouts and screams behind him, and he looked back just in time to see that the crooked man had somehow gotten behind him and had grabbed onto the human chain and effortlessly chucked them over the railing. Medic and Immy fell along with Iggy and Chief, who had refused to let go of his fellow Expendables whilst White, Dog-fucker and Punch-out had sensibly jumped away as the Crooked bodily hoisted him over the side like a sack of flour.

“Hrrgh— fuck!” Sebastian swore vehemently as he twisted about, wasting precious seconds as his tail thrashed instinctively to pivot him towards the enemy, only to have his serpentine body bang against the sides of the narrow catwalk, causing the walkway to shudder and sway dangerously— creaking loudly as the metal strained. The fishlets who had taken to clinging alongside the railings jumped and scrambled to keep from being knocked off by the fishman’s frantic movements.

Dog-fucker let out a terrified scream, having stumbled back in an effort to get away from the seven foot tall guardsman and turning to run, but he didn’t get far before he was yanked back by the collar of his uniform and chucked over the side.

In desperation, Sebastian aimed his gun at the mutated guardsman and fired a shot, clipping the Adversary in the shoulder, but the guardsman barely reacted as he stalked towards the remaining Expendables. Sebastian fired another shot, but the bastard merely turned sharply to the side in order to avoid the bullet and continued walking.

Now the Adversary was practically on top of the remaining humans, and Sebastian couldn’t risk firing another shot lest he accidentally kill one of them in the crossfire. Snarling, his body twisted as he doubled over the top of his tail, his scales and belts catching on the sides of the narrow walkway as he scrambled to get his large and suddenly very inconvenient body out of his way without causing the catwalk to rip free from its moorings.

Punch-out made a valiant effort to tackle the Adversary, but the human couldn’t measure up to the supernatural strength that the monster possessed. She swore and screamed and kicked like a mad woman as the mutated guardsman easily plucked her and White, (who appeared to have accepted her fate and was merely whimpering whilst she covered her head), up in both claws and tossed them over the side.

The Expendables’ screams echoed as they fell, before abruptly their cries were seemingly swallowed as the waving ominous fronds within the forest of rotten coral below reached out, engulfing the group with its vibrantly dancing dark green depths.

Sebastian stared open mouthed, completely dumbfounded as the Adversary stood back and turned to face him.

The guardsman crossed his arms, then gave a head tilt in the direction of the chasm below, as if telling the fishman: “your turn now”.

Rage surged up from Sebastian’s throat like bile as his face twisted into a snarl. “Oh, fuck you—“

Sachiel had at some point managed to wiggle enough that Sebastian’s scarf was no longer covering their eyes, and as soon as the fish saw the glowing rotten coral below— they twisted right out of his grasp and leapt off of the catwalk.

This, predictably, prompted the rest of her offspring to follow. Chomper jumped off of Sebastian’s shoulder, followed by every other remaining fishlet as they plunged into the rotten coral below, disappearing just as swiftly as the humans had.

If Sebastian’s mental state was like a pane of glass… a horrific crack would have just split its surface. He gazed numbly over the side of the railing, his brain feeling as though it were stuck on a skipping record as he tried and failed to comprehend what had just happened.

…

Fuck it.

Shaking his head, Sebastian pulled himself up and over the railing, turning just in time to give the Adversary the middle finger as he let himself fall backwards into the glowing forest of coral below.

The Adversary smartly saluted the fishman as he watched him disappear into the depths.

Zerum didn’t stop running even as the deafening shrieking of the monster had long since faded. She was in full flight mode, leaping in long strides over outcrops of rotten coral and ducking underneath hanging strands of the stuff as the world around her blurred in a sea of green blinking lights and darkness. She was distantly aware of flashes of gold in her peripheral, and the crate strapped to her side would bang painfully against her whenever she took a sharp turn.

She was forced to stop when she suddenly tripped over a particularly rough patch of rotten coral and ended up partially tangled in the stuff as she spun about in an effort to stop her fall.

Sebastian’s oversized coat helped cushion her fall, and she faintly heard the muffled beep of Painter complaining within its crate as the AI was thrown about by all the jostling movement. For a brief moment, Zerum lay panting— staring dazedly up at the cavern ceiling, which seemed overrun by strange glowing plants that undulated lazily in waves as though caught in an unfelt breeze.

There was movement nearby, and she caught sight of Baphomet and Beelzebub coming into view, the two fishlets having somehow managed to keep up with her during her panicked flight.

After another moment, she slowly sat up and the crate beside her gave a rattle as Painter impatiently banged on the inside.

“Hey! Hello? Zerum! Are you dead?!”

Quickly, Zerum unlatched the crate, allowing Painter’s monitor to pop out. “No, not yet at least.”

“Well that’s good,” Painter lifted themselves out of the crate with their mechanical limbs, then made an electronic noise of disgust when one of their claws crunched onto some rotten coral. They flicked the stuff away, before swiveling to look at their surroundings. “What happened anyway? I’m guessing from the sounds of the shrieking that you must’ve run into Pandemonium.”

”Pandemonium?” Zerum’s face wrinkled with distaste. “If that’s what the freaking mountain of shit with a million eyes was, then yeah you could say that.”

”Jeez, you’re lucky you got away! Normally if that guy sees you out in the open, it’s a death sentence!” Painter chirped with admiration.

“Uh-huh… lucky me.” Zerum agreed absentmindedly, glancing around once more. She hadn’t realized just how thick the rotten coral had gotten, the blinking green lights of the luminescent buds continued to click and chitter like some alien version of nighttime ambience.

The longer she stared, the more she felt as though the rotten coral were creeping in closer.

“We should keep moving,” Painter suddenly said, evidently also feeling unnerved by their surroundings. Swiveling their monitor about, the AI spotted Baphomet and Beelzebub nearby and waved a mechanical claw at the two. “Baphy, do you think you can find us a way out?”

The bulbous headed fishlet perked up slightly, the claws on their fins scuffing at the ground briefly as the fishlet angled their head to one side and then the other.

Beelzebub let out a croaking noise that sounded suspiciously like “wawa” before hopping forwards and nudging Baphomet in the side.

Baphomet slapped at them with their tail fin, not appreciating their larger sibling’s nagging. Then, after a few more seconds they seemed to pick a direction and began waddling.

Painter smiled, not questioning the mutant fish’s decision as the AI began picking its way through the outcroppings of coral.

Zerum’s ears flattened against her head; she thought that following the strange fish would be a poor decision after it had previously led them seemingly in the wrong direction. But she didn’t have any better ideas on how else to get out of this place, so she reluctantly got up to follow.

She and Painter had to pause every few paces to cut aside thicker branches of rotten coral that got in their way. The fishlets seemed to have very little issue with traversing through the alien foliage, and more than once Zerum was afraid that they’d lose sight of the little mutant fishes. But Painter reassured her that the fish wouldn’t leave them behind.

Soon, their little group came upon something that broke up the seemingly endless forest of dark coral.

Baphomet and Beelzebub were sitting in front of a manmade structure, something that looked very similar to how an entrance to a mine shaft would look, with an accompanying warning sign planted crookedly in the ground beside the entrance.

WARNING: CONSTRUCTION AHEAD.

Zerum and Painter glanced at each other.

“Does this count as something that looks like a way out?” Painter inquired. The sign didn’t exactly proclaim the word EXIT, but it was still a sign.

”Sure,” Zerum’s ear gave a flick as she hugged Sebastian’s coat tighter around herself. “Though, considering it’s under construction it might just lead us to a dead end. But it would be a change of scenery at least.”

“Wonderful,” Painter rolled their eyes, then gave Baphomet a stern look. “If you brought us here just so you can follow in your mother’s footsteps to eat concrete and drywall, I SWEAR TO GOD, BAPHOMET!”

Beelzebub made a ribbiting noise that sounded vaguely like: “tO gOd” and hopped in place excitedly.

Baphomet’s bulbous head merely glowed pink briefly before dimming, and the fishlet began waddling onward into the new area.

Sebastian felt like he had been falling for an eternity, flashing lights spiraling all around him as he fell faster and faster, the wind whipping about him crazily as he squinted his eyes against the bright dizzying lights.

Then a second later, he found himself standing on solid ground. There was no thud, or painful sensation of his entire body being obliterated on impact.

He had been falling at terrifying speeds one moment, and then the next instant he was just… there.

The suddenness of the change had him dazed, and for a moment he just remained there, completely shell shocked— not even registering his surroundings.

“WE LIVE!” Came the victorious shout of Immy the immortal Expendable who had the audacity to pop up from the ground right in front of Sebastian. “WILD! CATS! EVERYWHERE! RAISE YOUR HANDS UP IN THE AIR! THAT’S THE WAY WE DO IT—“

Sebastian’s arm shot out on reflex, clocking the Expendable right in the face. They went down like a sack of potatoes.

Ah… sweet silence.

Anyway, that was enough of a disturbance to get Sebastian’s mind back into gear and his ears flicked as he took in his surroundings.

He didn’t like what he saw.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he murmured to himself as he took in the concrete walls, the various abandoned mining and construction equipment strewn about, the low hanging rock ceiling.

This was looking an awful lot like the Outskirts. How the hell did falling from the tram way tunnel lead them to the freakin’ Outskirts?! It didn’t make any goddamn sense!

He had to be mistaken! It was geographically impossible! Maybe this was just an abandoned part of the Blacksite that had been under construction before the lock down had occurred! There were plenty of those lying about. The Hadal Division was always seeking to expand the Blacksite’s reach through-out the Let-Vand zone!

That had to be it.

Sebastian didn’t even want to consider what it would mean if it turned out that the architectural anomalies happening through-out the Blacksite were worsening.

There was a pained groan and Sebastian finally dained to look in the immortal Expendable's direction, glaring down at them with nothing short of contempt.

“You…” He hissed as he reached down and grabbed the Expendable by the throat before they could recover from his earlier blow. ”This is all your fault!”

“W-what?” Immy choked, their hands reaching up to grasp feebly at Sebastian’s claws around their throat. “What’d w-we do— Hrrk—!” They spat up a glob of blood, which dribbled down their chin and onto the side of Sebastian’s hand.

Sebastian was sorely tempted to crush the Expendable’s windpipe right then and there, but with a disgusted snarl he withdrew and wiped the blood off on his undershirt.

“You know what you did, dumbass!” He snarled angrily, crossing his arms as he watched the Expendable shakily rise from the floor. “If it weren’t for your suicidal stunt, we would’ve still been on track towards the Crystal. But because of YOU, we are way off of our original course!”

That… and Sebastian had no idea where his fish were… Whatever had happened seemed to have separated the group.

”I think I hear them over here!”

Or maybe not.

Sebastian’s ears flicked as he heard the sounds of boots against concrete and turned to see two other Expendables come rounding a corner.

“Immy?! Are you alright?” Medic shouted as they ran over, though they slowed upon approach as they stared warily at Sebastian, giving the visibly pissed off fishman a wide berth.

“‘M fine!” Immy replied with a thumbs up.

“Good, that means I can do this.” With that, Medic roughly punched them in the shoulder, causing the immortal Expendable to flop back onto the ground with a pained yelp. “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?” Medic shrieked as they proceeded to pummel Immy. However, Medic was no Punch-out and their blows were inexperienced and likely only caused minor scuffs at most. “YOU STUPID CRAZY BITCH! YOU COULD HAVE GOTTEN US ALL KILLED! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU—“

The second Expendable— White, it turned out— finally walked up to the rest of them, glancing nervously at Sebastian before looking at the two who were fighting on the floor. She winced each time Medic slammed a fist against one of Immy’s arms which they had raised in front of their staticky face in defense.

Seeing that her friend was currently occupied, she timidly turned to Sebastian for guidance. “So… um… like, do you know what happened and stuff?” She quickly trailed off as Sebastian’s annoyed stare bore into her. “Sorry, I mean… you don’t have to like, answer. I’m sorry we got you into this mess; you didn’t have to jump down after us…”

”I didn’t jump down after you guys,” Sebastian hissed venomously, causing the demure Expendable to flinch.

”Oh… so, that scary guardsman managed to push y—“

”I jumped because my fucking wayward goldfish decided to give into the intrusive thoughts and dive overboard.” Sebastian cut her off, sneering at the implication that the crooked mutant guardsman was capable of physically forcing him to do anything.

For a moment White remained silent, arms crossing and uncrossing as if she didn’t know what to do with her hands as the two other Expendables continued to tussle nearby.

“Sorry…” she finally mumbled.

Sebastian sighed, rolling his eyes as he pushed his hair out of his face with a disgruntled huff. Of all the Expendables, White was the least accident prone when compared to her fellows. The only thing which she ever did that remotely caused Sebastian undue stress was helpfully inform him that Sachiel had been about to lay eggs— which at the time, he was not at all glad to hear in the slightest and had promptly thrown her and the rest of her group out of his shop.

Still, White was also next to useless when it came to anything else, and Sebastian just didn’t know how to interact with the shy wallflower.

Turning away, Sebastian finally got tired of listening to Medic’s tirade and snapped: “Alright, alright! Enough with this tantrum of yours, Medic!”

Medic stopped, breathing heavily as they turned to glare at Sebastian. “My name is Kate, jackass!”

”Nice to meet you Jackass, you can call me Solace!” Sebastian quipped right back, causing Medic to splutter in anger whilst Immy wheezed with pained laughter on the floor. “Pleasantries aside, where’s everyone else?”

Medic sighed, moving off of Immy to stand awkwardly beside them. “I don’t know. I was falling one moment while still hanging onto Immy and Chief was still hanging onto me, and then the next second I was standing atop a wooden platform with Jessie. It was like we teleported or something.”

White nodded in confirmation. “I didn’t see any of your fishes, either…”

Sebastian gave her a solemn nod. “I figured that was the case, but I appreciate the confirmation.”

Nevertheless, he wasn’t all too worried about Sachiel and the rest of her offspring. They had shown that they were more than capable of taking care of themselves.

Still…

Straightening his posture, Sebastian gave another cursory glance at their surroundings. “Anyway, we better get moving. I don’t know where we are exactly, but based on how close you two ended up, I reckon that the rest of the group shouldn’t be too far. We best hurry and find them before something else gets to them first.”

White and Medic both nodded their agreement at the plan, and moved to follow the fishman.

When Immy groggily tried to get to their feet and follow suit, they suddenly found themselves hoisted bodily into the air as Sebastian gripped them underneath the arms. “HUH?! WHAT’S THIS?! HAVE ALL MY DREAMS COME TRUE AT LAST? Do we get to ride the Solace Express?!”

“Nope!” Sebastian quickly manhandled the immortal Expendable so that they were now being held under his third arm like a sack of flour. It was uncomfortable for both parties, but Sebastian would rather kill himself than fucking carry them bridal style. “I simply DO NOT trust you to walk anymore. Not after that stupid stunt you pulled while we were going through the tram tunnel! Now you have been demoted to Meat-Shield status!”

“Okay, third mom.” Immy shrugged before hanging limply in Sebastian’s grasp, seemingly accepting their fate.

Medic walked beside the fishman, glancing up at Immy quizzically. “Third mom? Who’s your first mom?”

”Wouldn’t you like to know…” Immy responded with a strangely steely edge to their tone.

If Sebastian came across another pit, he was throwing the immortal Expendable in it.

Chapter Text

"What do you think the corporate piggies were building here?” Painter inquired as the AI maneuvered itself over several inert generators, which lay strewn about haphazardly in the middle of the hallway.

“Don’t say that, it’s a slur.” Zerum admonished lightly as she shuffled in between the generators, nose wrinkling with annoyance whenever her tentacles randomly brushed against the dusty metal surfaces.

”What? Corporate?” Painter blinked in bemusement, pausing atop one of the generators and idly flipping at the on/off switch with a metallic claw— to no effect.

“Calling corporates ‘piggies’,” Zerum emphasized, finally stumbling past the remainder of the obstacles and straightening up to give the AI a haughty look. “I’ll have you know that I’ve met several Pigs of noble repute in my time as a fair maiden!”

Painter just stared at Zerum for a beat, confusion sketched plainly on their monitor. “Wait… hang on. Did I actually make a social blunder or are you just gaslighting me again?!”

Zerum’s snobbish countenance broke as she let out a giggle. “Haha! S-sorry, sorry, I couldn’t help it! You just look so funny whenever I say something regarding furry folk.”

Painter’s expression turned into a miffed frown, before taking on their own snobbish countenance as they moved to continue onwards down the corridor. “Well excuse me for trying to be culturally sensitive!”

Zerum chortled again, her tentacles waving merrily at her sides as she hurried to keep up with the AI. “Yeah, sorry, I guess I’m kinda resorting to humor in order to cope with the…uhh…”

”The horrors?” Painter supplied.

“The horrors.” Zerum nodded solemnly as the pair turned down another corridor and through an open doorway.

“That’s fair. But seriously,” Painter continued. “You’ve mentioned rabbit girls a-and furry folk now. Does that mean there are other types of people on the surface?”

Zerum glanced down at the AI, thinking a moment before she spoke. “Yes, there’s many different kinds of people, not just humans. Though, humans are the most common.”

Painter tilted their monitor up with interest, a faint hope rising in their tone. “Are there any other AIs up on the surface like me?”

Zerum frowned thoughtfully, one of her ears tilting to the side. “Umm, I’m not sure, actually. There’s a few cyborgs here and there, and there’s certainly more than a few weirdos who idolize the whole idea of Cerebral Upload and other similar shit. But I don’t actually know that much about machines. That was more of… Sebastian’s thing.”

The thought of Sebastian made her ears droop and her gaze drifted down to the coat she had draped around her.

“Oh.” Painter was disappointed, but not surprised. From what little they did know, they had the impression that other entities with Artificial Intelligences were not a common occurrence, despite what media the AI had stored away would imply.

Then Painter noticed the change in Zerum’s mood and paused atop a turned over cabinet to look at her with a reassuring smile. “H-hey, we’re going to find Sebastian soon! No need to get all sad. Just think about how happy you’ll be once you two reunite with each other!”

Zerum wiped at her eye as she sniffed, trying to keep her composure. “Y-yeah…” She sucked in a breath, but she didn’t look at Painter.

Try as she might, she just couldn’t help but be afraid of what might happen once she finally did reunite with Sebastian. After spending 10 long years doing everything within her power to find him, the idea of actually seeing him… really seeing him… it was just overwhelming to think about.

Her ears flicked, and she suddenly stopped. Her halt was so abrupt that Painter noticed and paused as well. This time the AI remained silent as it observed Zerum’s ears swivel about, though the impulse to ask what was up was strong.

Then Zerum’s gaze tilted upwards and her brow furrowed. She saw Baphomet and Beelzebub hanging from the stone ceiling like geckos, gazing back down at her with their weird lidless eyes.

Painter followed her gaze and their screen flickered in confusion. “Huh, wonder what’s gotten into them?”

Zerum shrugged, equally puzzled. “Maybe they just find the ceiling easier to navigate?” But as she stared at the two fishlets, she began to get an uneasy feeling.

She couldn’t explain it, but a creeping sense of foreboding began to crawl up her spine and she felt the hair along her body begin to rise with trepidation.

Painter’s limbs shuffled nervously, not sure why Zerum was still standing there. “Well, in any case, we should keep moving. Unless you wanna take a moment to rest, maybe? Sebastian would go days at a time without stopping to rest, but I have reason to suspect that isn’t exactly normal or healthy for biologicals—“

”Hang on,” Zerum raised a clawed hand up to stall the AI’s nervous yammering. Her ears were cocking again and her eye narrowed in concentration. “I… I think I hear voices.”

Painter stared. “UHHh, yeah, are you sure you don’t wanna stop and take that rest I mentioned???”

“No, not— I don’t mean I’m hearing the voices. I mean I hear people!” Zerum’s face scrunched. “I think… I think they’re fighting. There’s shouting and—“ she winced as her acute hearing picked up the sound of something hard impacting something soft, followed by what was unmistakably a scream of pain.

“Well that can’t be good!” Painter began scuttling ahead. “Come on!”

Zerum, caught off guard by the AI’s sudden insistence, hurried to follow. “What? Why?”

“Because they might be from our group!” Painter explained, an implied ‘duh’ at the end of their sentence. “We gotta help them!”

Zerum bit her lip, hesitating a moment. Didn’t Painter say that their group wouldn’t take kindly to her? What if they reacted badly upon seeing her with Painter?

All her doubts were swiftly discarded as she heard another pained cry, and she soon found herself running.

“FUCK!” Punch-out spat as she staggered backwards from the concrete creature, her left arm hanging limply at her side and bleeding from several lacerations. Dog-fucker was cowering uselessly behind her, too terrified to move.

The creature looked like the mother of all Wall dwellers, its gangly body made up entirely of chunks of cement and twisted metal. The only organic part of it seemed to be from its face, where the craggy stone of its head had a crack in the middle and displayed dark red meat surrounding a single bulbous eye. It looked like how one would imagine a human face would look if it were being shoved against a crack in a wall by a hydraulic press.

“Why did you have to punch the thing!?” Dog-fucker shouted in dismay. “You just made it angrier!”

“It was better than letting it cave in my skull!” Punch-out snapped as she backed away from the advancing monster.

The two Expendables had been caught off guard after falling into the abyss, having ended up surprisingly alive and not splattered into gristle, but in an unfamiliar place and separated from the rest of their group. However, neither had time to do much to formulate a plan or orient themselves before they were suddenly under attack.

Punch-out had instinctively attempted to throw hands, but unfortunately, this creature had its own weaponry in the form of a massive club arm studded with spikes of rusted rebar on the end.

Punch-out had been tackled to the ground after her first hit failed to do any damage and only left her with bloodied knuckles and the creature had raised its club arm for an overhead strike, but she managed to twist out of the way just in time for the blow to miss her head. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been quick enough to escape unscathed. She was fairly certain that her shoulder had been dislocated when the blow meant to cave in her head ended up connecting with her arm. She was lucky that the bones in her arm hadn’t snapped like twigs, but with her dislocated shoulder rendering her arm useless, it might as well have.

The two Expendables were in trouble, to say the least.

The creature lunged with a shriek, intent on beating the humans to a bloody pulp, but it staggered back when something rammed into the side of it.

“Chief!” Dog-fucker cried out in surprise as the two beings tumbled to the ground.

Chief grappled onto the creature’s club-like arm, preventing the entity from bringing it to bear even as the jagged bits of metal dug painfully into the man’s arms and hands.

”Go! Run!” Chief commanded, his voice straining as the concrete monstrosity thrashed about wildly, kicking and clawing with its other limbs. Chief was certain that if the creature didn’t succeed in ripping him apart, he would definitely expire due to the sepsis inflicted by being cut by rusted metal.

Dog-fucker quickly scurried to run down a hallway, Punch-out stumbling after at first but then turning around at the doorway, unwilling to just tuck tail and run whilst her fellow human risked his life so that they might have a few minutes head start before the creature finished him off.

Before she could say anything however, Dog-fucker suddenly came barreling back the way he’d come— crashing into the back of Punch-out and sending both of them sprawling to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

Punch-out let out a cry of pain as she landed badly on her injured arm, but she still had enough strength to kick the bumbling Dog-fucker away from her and curse at him. “Dude! What the fuck?!”

“IT’S THE PSYCHO-BITCH WIFE!” Dog-fucker wailed, pointing frantically back down the hallway.

“No shit— YOU SERIOUS?!” Punch-out struggled to stand, her good arm fumbling about as she tried to yank her Flash-beacon off of her belt. She at least knew how to deal with one monster.

Dog-fucker got tired of waiting for Punch-out to negotiate the Flash-beacon from her belt and reached over to grab it. He was so desperate to get the Flash-beacon that he inadvertently pulled the trigger whilst the device was pointing upwards, flashing both them and everyone in the room at once.

The concrete monster let out a shriek at the sudden bright light, the pupil of its eye constricting and becoming bloodshot before throwing itself away from Chief. Its body contorted at unnatural angles as it twisted and writhed on the floor. Then, it picked itself up and proceeded to gallop away on all fours, disappearing down a dark hole in the far corner of the room.

Well, that was one problem out of the way.

Chief picked himself off of the floor with a pained groan, blood staining his uniform. He looked up as Dog-fucker and Punch-out hurried towards him, both sending furtive glances backwards down the hallway as something else moved within the darkness.

Chief squinted past the now cracked surface of his visor, catching a hint of indigo light glowing with increasing intensity as the Siren came closer.

”You alright, chief?” Punch-out asked, having snatched the Flash-beacon away from Dog-fucker and was now pointing it ahead, even as her other arm hung limply by her side.

“M’fine, girl. Christ, you’re the one who looks like she’s already got one foot in the grave!” Chief gruffed, moving to stand beside the indomitable woman as he cracked his neck.

“I’ve had worse,” Punch-out quipped blithely, despite the fact that she was visibly trembling and the arm holding the Flash-beacon was unsteady.

”You’re both batshit crazy, man…” Dog-fucker muttered, edging backwards and looking frantically around for a hiding place or another way to run.

Neither responded, they were both bloody and in no state to run from a hyper lethal assassin designed to kill the likes of Sebastian Solace.

“Get your ass outta here,” Chief advised the only one of their diminished party to have come out of the previous attack unscathed. “No point in you dying along with us.”

”Y-yeah, uh, as much as I’d love to. I don’t actually think there’s another way out of this room,” Dog-fucker lamented shakily. “And I’m not about to go diving into the scary dark hole that the Omega Walldweller came from…”

”Then hide in a freakin locker!” Punch-out hissed, her nerves fraying further with anticipation as she stared down the dark hallway at the flickering purple spots, which had ceased approaching. “With luck the psycho-bitch wife might ignore you while she’s busy slaughtering the both of us!”

”Psycho-bitch wife?” An unfamiliar, slightly raspy feminine voice echoed.

The three Expendables went silent, and it took a moment for them to realize that the source of the voice had come from the direction of the Siren.

Evidently, Punch-out finally lost her nerve at that and pulled the trigger, flashing blinding light down the hallway.

An inhuman shriek erupted and an instant later a dark form surged from the hallway as a clawed hand grabbed onto the end of the Flash-beacon.

Before Punch-out could react, her view was suddenly filled with the scowling one-eyed face of a very angry Siren. Needle black teeth bared and dark raven black hair bristling.

”Don’t. Do That. AGAIN!” The Siren snarled, her clawed hand flexing and causing the Flash-beacon to shatter.

Punch-out stared, mouth agape and feeling slightly dizzy. “Deja vu…” She murmured as she dropped the now useless device to the floor and stumbled back from the Siren.

Surprisingly, the Siren’s features softened a second later as she watched the injured Punch-out falter.

“Oh jeez, y-your arm is… yikes.” She reached a clawed hand out as if to steady the suddenly pale Expendable, then seemed to think better of it and retracted it underneath the strangely familiar coat she had draped over her shoulders.

Chief and Dog-fucker had stared in stunned silence, and it was Chief who finally broke from his shock in order to hold a hand up against Punch-out’s back to keep her from falling over.

He glanced warily at the Siren, sizing her up. She was a head shorter than he was, (if you ignored the ears), and though her posture was tense, her one visible eye was focused and alert. He noted the jacket that she was wearing, and raised a brow at that. He also saw that her head was heavily bandaged. A few pieces to a puzzle began to settle into place.

“You… seem to be a lot less blood thirsty than when my group and I last encountered you.” Chief began casually as he eased Punch-out back a step.

The Siren blinked, her ragged ears twitching forwards as she regarded the older human. “Yeah. I, uh— Painter told me that I may have attacked your group previously while I was still under Urbanshade’s control.” She lifted a hand covered by an oversized sleeve, lightly tapping the side of her head where the bandages were as she smiled wryly. “But after a little amature plastic surgery, I’ve since been cured of the psycho-bitchitude that your friends seem so fixated on.”

“Holy shit…” Dog-fucker breathed out. “Oh man, Immy is going to freak.”

Chief ignored his fellow Expendable, intrigued by this new development that had unfolded. “I’m gonna guess that the Painter is with you then? Where is he?”

”Over HERE!” Came the electronic voice of the AI echoing down the hallway.

The Siren glanced over her shoulder before stepping aside and allowing the computer to come clambering into view. Baphomet was perched atop the AI’s monitor whilst Beelzebub hopped alongside the AI’s many limbs.

“Ugh, jeez, Zerum! Did you have to leave us in the dust like that?” Painter grumbled as it swiveled its monitor about. “Hey, losers! Oh—wow, what the heck happened? You guys look terrible!”

“I feel a sense of impending torment…” Immy uttered in a shaky voice as they hung limply under Sebastian’s third arm.

“Oh yeah? Well it’s about time! Ever since meeting you, my life has been filled with nothing but torment, impending or otherwise.” Sebastian sneered unpleasantly as he used his tail to move aside fallen over construction equipment.

Medic stepped down a case of stairs, having tried to check if one of the few doors would open, but had no such luck. Meanwhile, White was busy poking and prodding around the inside of a few cabinets in a small side room.

The group had yet to find the missing members of their party. Which left Sebastian in an agitated and foul mood, as every few doors he would insist on doubling back to check through the previous rooms to see if there weren’t any potential offshoots they had overlooked.

Sebastian felt an ever growing urge to scream the longer he went without finding any sign of his missing fish. He’d already lost Painter. He couldn’t deal with the prospect of losing his stupid shoal of stupid mutant freak goldfishes too!

”Oh hey, Iggy!” Immy waved an arm, bumping their elbow against Sebastian’s side as they did so.

Sebastian whirled around so quickly that Immy let out a startled yelp as they narrowly avoided having their head bashed into the side of a locker. The immortal Expendable was promptly discarded, landing in a heap on the floor as the fishman’s eyes zeroed in on the octopus-fish hybrid, who had crawled out from behind two crates set near the wall.

Sebastian darted forward, nearly crashing to the ground in his haste to scramble towards the startled fishlet. He realized at the last moment how that must look from the poor fish’s perspective and quickly reigned in his urge to snatch them up in his claws— instead lowering himself down and slowly reaching a slightly trembling hand out towards them.

Iggy waved their tentacles, having swiftly backpedaled at the fishman’s aggressive approach. But now seeing that their big blue guardian meant them no harm, they shuffled forwards and reached out a tentacle to grasp onto one of Sebastian’s claws.

Sebastian’s ear fins wiggled, pleased to have found at least one out of his ten missing fish.

Medic had walked up to see if Immy was hurt before glancing over at what held Sebastian’s attention. “Huh, I hope that’s at least a sign that we’re headed in the right direction.”

Sebastian ignored the Expendable, reaching his other hand out to coax Iggy onto it, but to his surprise the fishlet refused. Instead they shuffled back towards the crates by the wall, the suction cups dotting the underside of their tentacle pulling on Sebastian’s claw. The octopus-fish hybrid used their other tentacle to point at the crates.

Frowning, Sebastian allowed the laughably tiny fish to guide him towards the crates, and he tilted his head when he soon realized that the crates were not flush with the wall but instead seemed to be sitting in front of a wide open vent.

Pushing the crates aside, Sebastian leaned down to peer into the vent as Iggy let go of his hand and waddled on inside.

With a gasp, Sebastian surged through the vent, the sides creaking and warping as he forced himself through and into a tiny room. All of the fish who had jumped from the catwalk were there, they were all sitting in the center of the room gathered around… around…

….The fishlets were gathered around the still form of Sachiel, lying motionless on her side in the center of the room.

“Oh no, no, no no….” Sebastian slithered forward, the fishlets moving aside as he hovered over Sachiel, his gaze darting over the rotten coral infested fish in search of any injuries.

Sachiel had her forefins covering her eyes, their body slightly curled in on itself as though in the fetal position. But otherwise the fish looked unharmed.

“Sachiel…?” Sebastian reached down to gently trace his claws over the fish’s scales, his throat constricting as he tried to figure out what was wrong.

The fish’s sides heaved at his touch, its fins pressing tighter against its face as it curled further inward on itself.

Not dead then, Sebastian let himself breathe a short sigh of relief. Not dead. But then what was wrong? Was Sachiel sick? Dying?

“C’mon, fish-bait. Don’t do this to me…” He hated the way his voice whined as if he were a petulant child, but he couldn’t help it.

“What’s going on in here?” Immy called from outside the vent, and Sebastian couldn’t bring himself to even feel annoyed.

“Something’s wrong with Sachiel.” He doubted that the immortal Expendable would be able to help in any way, but he felt the need to at least voice the problem at hand to somebody.

“What’s wrong with who?” That was Medic, who also found the vent and was now crouching beside Immy to peer in at Sebastian, spying the luminescent bodies of the gathered fishlets. “Oh, your goldfish! Is one of them hurt?”

“I don’t know!” Sebastian snapped, frustration and worry making him reflexively angry. “I don’t see anything obviously wrong, but I’m not a fucking marine biologist! I don’t know—“

”Hey, hey! Let’s just calm down, big guy.” Medic had crawled into the vent with Immy close behind, though they crouched in the mouth of the vent to keep Immy from barging past and potentially making the situation worse. “I‘m not exactly a vet, but if you want, I can check over your fish and see if I can’t figure out what might be wrong.”

Sebastian calmed slightly, his tail having coiled against the far wall of the small room, he felt a flare of defensiveness rise up as he saw the Medic Expendable lingering inside the vent. But he wasn’t too far gone to not see the obvious logic.

Reigning in his instinctive urge to hiss and growl, Sebastian tucked himself amidst his coils and gestured for Medic to come in.

Medic obliged, cautiously stepping into the room, being mindful of the many small fish ambling about around their ailing progenitor.

Immy tried to follow, but was thwarted when a tail fin slammed down in front of the vent, preventing the Expendable from entering. “Aww! No fair! We wanna be the one trapped in close quarters with the fish!”

”Why don’t you go check on Jessie?” Medic suggested over their shoulder.

”Walter White is making drugs!” Immy snorted derisively.

“Yeah?” Medic responded absentmindedly as they knelt down beside Sachiel, who was still covering their eyes with their forefins as if trying to hide from the world.

“Yeah! She found these syringes full of red and orange and now she’s mixing them up in an empty soda can. Do you think she’s making her lycanthropy druggos?”

“Her what?” Sebastian couldn’t help the question that left his tongue. Though he was half expecting it to just be another one of Immy’s… Immyisms… but he was surprised when he saw Medic nodding emphatically.

”I believe she mentioned that she was sent to prison for manufacturing illegal drugs. Remember? Back when she told you that your fish was eggnant.”

Sebastian did remember. But he couldn’t get over what kind of drugs that the diminutive human had apparently been cultivating. “Yes, I do recall… But I thought she meant that she was busted for peddling Meth or some shit!”

“Well,” Medic brushed the tips of their fingers over Sachiel’s scales, poking and prodding the fish in an attempt to get some kind of response. “She was also making that. But that was more of a cover for the actual drugs she was brewing. Y’know, the kind of cocktails of steroids and… other things that used to be used in the military way back during some war or whatever before it was officially banned. It’s some seriously messed up stuff… But I highly doubt she's found the ingredients to cook that kind of drug down here.”

Sebastian wasn't too sure about that. With all the things that Hadal Blacksite had stored in their laboratories, they might just have the ingredients needed to produce whatever super steroid that White apparently knew the secret to making.

Sachiel twitched after a moment of the Expendable continuing to poke at it, one fore fin flicking back to slap away Medic’s hand, before going back to covering its face. Apparently, Sachiel didn’t like getting scritches from anyone other than Sebastian.

Standing back up, Medic put their hands on their hips as they looked down at the fish. “Anyway, I’m not sure what to tell you, Seb. But I think your fish is just pouting.”

Sebastian’s ears twitched as he looked from the Expendable to Sachiel and back again. “Pouting?”

”Yep,” Medic nodded, waving a hand at the gathered fish. “I may not be a veterinarian but none of the other fish seem to have any injuries, so I think it’s safe to say that they experienced the same weird teleportation phenomenon that we did. So, I don’t see any reason for this one to be in distress.”

Immy had managed to shove aside Sebastian’s tail fin in order to look inside the room. “Aw, poor thing’s probably just upset they didn’t get to eat all that rotten coral that was in the cavern!”

Sebastian squinted down at Sachiel, then reached into a pocket along his tail and pulled out a bit of the luminescent coral. He had taken to storing the stuff secretly whenever Sachiel would feel the need to give him a share— since trying to surreptitiously dispose of the coral would only result in Sachiel finding it and trying to give it to him again.

As soon as he brought the rotten coral out, Sachiel instantly came to life, practically jumping to their fins and staring up at Sebastian with their big stupid eyes, their tail wagging from side to side like an excited dog eager for a treat.

Sebastian let out an annoyed groan, feeling an infuriating mixture of relief and exasperation. He reached down and plucked the fish off of the floor, letting them have the bit of coral, then he noticed that his scarf had been cushioned underneath Sachiel’s body when they had been sulking on the ground. He grabbed his article of clothing and quickly donned it, ignoring the musty odor as it settled back around his neck.

Sachiel, meanwhile, happily munched away at the scrub of rotten coral— looking as content as a mutant goldfish could be.

”Stupid fish… giving me grief over your stupid addiction.” Sebastian muttered to himself as he glared sourly down at the oblivious fish that he cradled close to his chest.

His ears flicked as he became aware of the rapid footfalls of somebody running outside, then the harsh thump as White scrambled into the vent alongside Immy.

”T-there’s an Angler down here!” She exclaimed, her voice frantic. “I think it might’ve seen me! It’s mouth was huge—“

There was a loud shrieking noise followed by a sudden bang as something outside the vent collided with the frame. Whatever the creature was, it seemed unable to phase through physical objects, unlike the Angler and its variants.

Both White and Immy let out frightened screams and shoved over Sebastian’s tail fin in an effort to get away from the slathering mouth that was trying to tear at the vent opening.

The humans stumbled into the tiny room, barely avoiding stepping on some of the fishlets who scattered and climbed atop Sebastian and scaled up along the walls, some hunkering on the ceiling dangerously close to the slowly spinning fan blades of the air duct above. Sebastian’s aversion to close contact spiked and his body twitched with the barely repressed urge to start thrashing violently.

He grabbed for his gun and leaned down to stare at the gnashing jaws surrounded by veiny flesh, then he aimed down the vent.

“Cover your ears!” He warned before pulling the trigger.

BANG!

The sound of the triple-barreled shotgun going off in such a confined space was loud, and for a moment Sebastian’s own hearing went numb, leaving nothing but a dull ringing in his ears as he watched the creature at the end of the vent retreat with a silent wail of pain.

Smoke billowed for a moment at the vent entrance, obscuring the entity as it thrashed, before it seemingly fled. The smoke looked similar to the stuff that the Angler and its variants produced, but clearly whatever this entity was, it must be corporeal to some degree, otherwise it would have simply phased right through the vent and come in after the Expendables. Plus, the bullets clearly hurt it. Unlike the Anglers, which were impervious to physical damage due to their phantasmal nature.

How interesting…

When the ringing in his ears had subsided, he holstered his gun and set Sachiel down on the ground before slithering through the vent himself. He cautiously poked his head out, noting the specks of blood spattered around the vent opening.

There was no sign of the entity.

Slithering all the way out of the vent, Sebastian gave the Expendables the all clear before moving towards the next door.

The Expendables and his shoal of fish quickly followed, sticking close to the formidable fishman, who’s spirits seemed much higher now that he had regained his semi-aquatic entourage.

Now they just needed to find everyone else…

Pandemonium had discovered an area that bore the signs of Urbanshade’s wretched influence. The unnatural straight angles of the walls coupled with the humans’ notorious machinery laying about was a sure sign that Urbanshade’s corruption had come through this cavern.

The amalgamation of undying flesh gnashed his teeth as he shoved his mass forward through the cramped hallways. It seemed as though this place had been abandoned some time ago, and no traces of recent human activity could be discerned from his many eyes.

Lagging a few doors behind Pandemonium, the Good People were inching along with undue caution; flinching at every distant sound and pawing fitfully at the ground every few moments— leaving bloody rents in the floor from their massive talons.

Pandemonium could not understand why the Good People were being so cowardly! It was unbecoming of a creature of their lethality to be behaving like a frightened mouse.

At some point, Pandemonium had gone so far ahead of the Good People, that when he glanced back— he could no longer see the other entity.

Pandemonium lingered for a moment in a room filled with lockers and storage racks, waiting to see if the Good People would catch up.

They did not.

Just as Pandemonium turned to begin going back in order to search for the fickle being, something suddenly crashed into his backside, causing the metastasized flesh of his body to fold over top of him as he stumbled.

With a gargling snarl, Pandemonium whirled around to face his attacker, mouth agape and eyes glowing brightly— only to pull up short upon seeing the perpetrator.

It was a fish-like being which levitated in the air with smoke billowing about it— like the Angler and his fellows! Except, this one was almost half the size of the others and looked more similar to a fringehead than an angler fish (or blobfish in Chainsmoker’s case). It also appeared to be injured; one side of its mouth was flayed open and dripping dark ichor onto the floor.

The creature had backed away upon realizing it had ploughed right into Pandemonium, the smoke about its fins swirling as it swam backwards through the air, making a pitiful noise low in its throat, its eyes sunken deep within folds of bruised colored skin.

Pandemonium’s own eyes dimmed in brightness as his maw slowly closed with a wet sound. He stalked closer to the other being, eyeing it with only the two optics perched atop his own head. The small Angler moved perpendicular to Pandemonium, still wary of an attack.

The two beings slowly circled one another, sizing each other up. Pandemonium’s rotting mind was abuzz with questions that he desperately wanted to ask, but without Eyefestation around, trying to communicate with the other entity would be pointless.

“O H WH AT MIS ERY! I F O N LY ThE P I N K IE H A D VE NTURED DO WN IN TO THE DE PTHS IN S TE AD OF U S!” Pandemonium lamented aloud. If the Pinkie were down here, she would have been able to at least speak with the other phantasmal entity. But alas…

”P… P i i i n k… e e e…” The smaller creature croaked in a hollow wheezing sort of voice. Its eyes pushed forwards as its maw suddenly opened to become twice the size of its head. However, the action exacerbated its injuries as the skin along the side of its mouth stretched painfully and it quickly closed its jaw.

Pandemonium’s eyes grew bright with surprise and delight. “C OM RADE! Y OU CAN S P EAK F O U L N E S S? W H AT GRE AT FORT UNE! W H AT IS YO UR NA ME, SMA L L E R A N GLER?”

“P…P i i p—” they squeaked, seeming to struggle with what words they wanted to say, then it simply repeated the word and squeaked again.

Pandemonium decided to take it in stride. Evidently, this entity was not able to speak the full breath of Pandemonium’s native tongue. “P IP SQ UEAK! GR E ETINGS TO YOU, COM RADE! I AM PA N D E MO NIUM! BUT M Y COMPA NIONS CALL ME P A N D E!”

“P a n…d e e…” Pipsqueak said, swimming about in the air as it repeated the name over and over, as if getting a taste for the word. Then it was suddenly darting toward Pandemonium and pressing the uninjured side of its face against the rotting flesh just underneath his rows of jagged teeth.

Pandemonium froze, startled by the contact and not understanding what the little corporal phantom was doing.

With a bemused grumble, Pandemonium used an extension of flesh to gently push Pipsqueak away from him.

“C OM E NOW, CO M RADE! W E B EST GO AND RE CONVENE WITH M Y FELLOWS AT THE R I D G E! D O YOU KN OW THE WAY?”

Pipsqueak did a little bob of its head, before turning around and zooming off down the corridor.

Pandemonium eagerly followed, happy to have made a new friend. Perhaps falling down hadn’t been a complete waste, though something niggled at the back of Pandemonium’s rotting mind. He felt like he might be forgetting something— or someone.

Eh, it probably wasn’t important…

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