Re: The Vivacious Deadlock: S3G6: Round One: Genreshift
10-14-2011, 03:06 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pharmacy.
The aftermath, thanks to the tampering of the Tome, continued its effects. Though the fabric of reality was wearing dangerously thin, the destruction was surprisingly elegant. Like the unfortunate Harmon and Phere currently falling in the darkness, the objects and the denizens were going through all the roles of all the genres at an inhuman pace. Unfortunately, existence in this world was not as real as the contestants.
As people were bent to this invisible, oppressing hand, they had no choice but to act their parts. Tragically, the Tome, the tyrant of this reality has been gone and its kingdom was crumbling down to nothing, not chaos, not destruction – just nothingness. Dimensions distorted in indiscernible ways as the hurricane in the sky shifted to suddenly extremes of the monochrome. However, that was not the most interesting part.
With each flash, things started to disappear. Pop, like they were nothing. The bar, once a tavern, once a fuel station, blanked out, leaving nothing in its wake. The lab, the temple, the corporation, that blanked away too. Buildings were disappearing at an increasingly alarming rate, as though someone was taking a large eraser to them.
People also disappeared, but not immediately. As they were merely a face of reality, they were used to one role, not this many roles! The phasing through many realities was too much for most of them, too many roles in too little time. At first, it was unnoticeable. Then, they suddenly behave erratically, moving in abnormal ways and as they degenerate into babbling madness. Pop, gone in a flash, just like the buildings.
The mansions, casinos, facilities, apothecaries – did it even matter? – buildings were crumbling. Corpses piled high around the mountains. The sight was atrocious but, Tek was not paying attention. He was taking in more than he can handle and his existence was at the edge of death. He was a technopath, then a police cadet, then a private – there were too many roles, too much information. His mind was at the edge of insanity at the sudden onset of information. However, he wanted to resist. He did not want to be prey to his doom. Tek did not know the reason. Part of it was pure fear, but what were the reasons? Why would he want to continue existing? Why? Why?
As he thought, memories started to trickle<font color="#00581A"> in through the haze of his roles. There was the time when he first initiated into the Cyber Punks. There was the time when he got his first cybernetic eye. And, there was that time he met Abys. For some reason, he shuddered. They were not exactly romantic with each other, or even casual friends! However, that slight connection, the little time they met, between them seemed to invigorate him. It almost made Tek feel –</font>
Nothingness had consumed almost everything, save for the few body parts, corpses, all suspended in the monochrome void. However, Tek floated there in the nether void with errant rubble as his companions. Though everything was disappearing in the process of disappearing<font color="#00581A">, Tek’s mind felt more lucid than ever. In his mind, he could even remember a small tale in his head…</font>
There was once a child named Theodore Thales. He was an extremely bright kid, tinkering with metal bits and found objects. Engineering was his first and continual passion, but alas, his family was impoverished and education was expensive. As he grew older, personal ambition and dissatisfaction at the world led him to join a technological-futurism gang. His innate knack for machinery exploded into inhuman expertise under that criminal organization. Despite his eventual augments, he was still humane and polite, albeit quiet and distant. Much to the chagrin of his peers, Thales insisted on being called by his nickname, bestowed upon him by his loving family. The nickname?
The realization invigorated Tek and the slight mechanic lurched forward. He was not exactly a combatant or a leader, but one thing remains clear in his mind. He swerved around, looking at the remaining few items popping away into disappearance. Tek quickly grabbed the largest, the most dangerous thing that caught his eye, a vicious looking hybrid of the chainsaw and a rail-gun, former property of the Screaming Eagles, but did that fact matter anymore? With determination gleaming his eye (and his mechanical substitute too), Tek immediately balled up his hand, and thrusters on his boots immediately activated. Thus, Tek went away. After all,
There was someone he needed to meet.
The destruction of the round was commencing, but Merrifield was paying attention to her surroundings. Though she could be quite manipulative if she felt like it, the genetic monstrosity was basically an infant, petty and ignorant. As such, she was trailing up the mountains on her steed Abys, munching on wandering mutants and errant corpses that were so common. Surprisingly, she was not paying even an iota of attention at the disintegration of Dr. Matic’s property on top of her.
Merrifield was dementedly curious, not exactly loyal to one obsession and prone to flitting from choice to choice (for example, the current state of Abys). Not surprisingly, she found experimenting to be incredibly alluring. To her chagrin, her wonton experimentation during the round had been costly. As much as she hated to admit that, she was running out of fuel.
Merrifield was extremely tired, barely even able to keep awake on her forced servant-pet. The monstrosity felt that her control was on the cusp. It was taking her effort to keep control of Abys and even worse, holding herself together. Of course, her mind was not blank. After all, she had a purpose: to get the Tome, long gone and forgotten. However, that goal was at the backburner so to speak. Most of her thoughts were preoccupied with petty things –
–so many petty things that she did not notice a blade tearing at her side.
Merrifield commanded her steed up the mountains and attempted to gauge her injuries. Her eyes became even larger once she saw the state of the wound. The gash was large and gaping; the edges of the frayed cut were rapidly dissolving into sludge. Worse of all, stuff was spilling out of her like the contents from a split flour sack, sludgy insides dripping out like rotten meat. A fetid smell filled the air, as her flesh dripped over on the side of Abys and into the infinitesimal nothing. To her horror, Merrifield found that painful.
She looked at her opponent. To her surprise, it was that Tek person she took away before. With his erratic stubble and filthy green jacket, the slight man looked like something that Merrifield could squish under her proverbial thumb at the slightest thought, but for some reason, he seemed more confident, more dangerous. He spoke not a comforting word, but the shining in his red eye and his weapon told her everything. He was not the prey. She was the prey. At this realization, fat tears dribbled from Merrifield’s eyes. She felt afraid, very afraid.
The scuffle between the two was incredibly pathetic, Tek had the obvious advantage. He darted. He swung, making open holes in his enemy with his unwieldy weapon. With each wound, Merrifield became sluggish, even less conscious – more defenseless! The feeling was incredibly scary! Merrifield began to cry.
Suddenly, rubble rained down.
Tek managed to swing out of the way, his rockets fueling his dexterity. On the other hand, his opponent was not so lucky. With a sickening sound of ripping flesh and crunching bones, Merrifield and her steed got squashed under an errant piece of the laboratory. Thus, the two fell, victim to the gravity of the shifting reality.
Merrifield had made sure that her penultimate goal was to absolutely survive and now, she had failed said goal. The rubble was the final straw for her. No matter how much willpower she had, no matter how powerful she was, she could not save herself. Merrifield knew it. The time had come for her. She was going to die.
Now that she was in the inevitable grasp of death, she had, for once in her very short life, time to think. Oh, how she was silly, so afraid of the end for all the wrong reasons. What were the reasons exactly? Did that even matter? The genetic monstrosity could not help but smile at her foolishness, but now everything is going to end for her and for some reason, she felt alright with this, although she was very much in pain.
She took the last few seconds mulling over her short life. The monstrosity realized when at death’s door, you tend to see things in a new perspective. All in all, her life was wonderful and happy. She met new friends and strangers, for which she was thankful for. She did a lot of exciting things. Suddenly, Tek followed with his rocket. As the dying monstrosity observed, he had this anguished, but determined look on his face. Merrifield thought a little more, but she did have this one single regret.
She looked at Abys, who had seen better days. Then, she looked at the concerned Tek. With smile on her face and tears dribbling upwards, Merrifield let go of her “toy,” knowing better that she was a person. With a gentle push, the monstrosity pushed the former assassin into the surprised Tek’s arms. Oh, how Merrifield wished she could do more, but Abys was honestly at her limit. She had too much pain and her un-death was pure suffering.
With that thought, Merrifield smiled at Tek and then immediately liquefied. The genetic monstrosity was losing form. Her thin skin was peeling away, her remaining organs partitioning into garbage, her collagen and muscles softening and fraying. Her single cells swelled and burst into essential organic compounds. Yet, those too, degenerated. Her proteins denatured, her lipids got radicalized, every single molecule within her was dissolving into useless molecules. As her mind melted away from the apoptosis, Merrifield closed her melting eyes and murmured to herself,
"Abys. Abys! Can you hear me?" Tek snapped in desperation.
The mechanic and the assassin continued their fall, supplemented by unknown acceleration. To Tek’s surprise, the monstrous appearance of his co-worker was melting, to say the least. Gobs of flesh pulled away from her from the velocity of their descent. With each strip of skin melting away, each chunk of muscle disintegrating from the speed, the former cyborg assassin was getting more and more human. Before long, there was Abys – natural, familiar, and most of all, sans robotic supplements – almost as if that monster pressed a reset button on her.
Abys’s eyes fluttered open, but to his surprise, Tek was not staring into the eyes of the abyss anymore. He found warmth, content, and familiarity. It was almost if he was staring into the eyes of a close friend. As soon as he made contact with her eyes, the former assassin smiled – not a smirk or a sarcastic slash of a mouth, but a genuine smile. Almost as if, she was happy to see him. <font color="#007d7d">"I hear you, Tek."
Tek’s heart leapt in sudden joy at the reactions of Abys. "Oh, Abys, Abys!" Tears began to streaming from his remaining good eye. "We are so alive and well." Then, the mechanic choked on his words as phlegm from his sorrows began to build up in his throat. "I have so many things to share and, and –"Tek’s lip trembled in joy. "Maybe, we can hang out more or something!”
Abys’s face soften into a gentle smile. "We are already friends to begin with, Tek. But –" Abys tilted her head sadly down. "My time is up. It has been up a while ago."
Tek’s only eye widened in shock. "No, no no!" The mechanic continued to repeat that single word. "Don’t go, Abys. We have so many things to do! Please , we can fix you up. Remember the Cyber Punk motto– "
The assassin laughed bitterly. She, indeed, had so many things to tell him, but unfortunately, she had no time left. She was going to pass on. How tragic. If only they spent more time together, maybe things would blossom between them, but alas, she had to keep to herself. How silly of her. However, her end was close and this was not the time for thoughts. She glanced at Tek and smiled, "You are a good person, Tek."
Then, she closed her eyes.
"ABYS!" Tek cried. "ABYS! Oh lord, ABYS!" The mechanic continued to cry the name of his comrade into the nothingness. Though the dimensions were infinite, even the ruins and the landscape could not hold all the sorrow of this single nobody.
Such is the power of character.
</font>
Though Merrifield had just expired, her sludgy remains still existed, subject to the whims of current reality. Some of the liquefied meat dissolved away immediately, as though they did not existed in the first place. However, the genetic monstrosity was made of significant amount of matter and plenty of chunks of her still remain. Hitting a pocket of reverse gravity, an errant part distorted and flung in full force of the opposite direction.
Just at the same time, two contestants of this grand battle were facing off each other. Emotions tense, attitudes frayed. Though the current conditions were not pleasant, there was much excitement as Cedric, Son of Sigmund and Nalzaki, the Typhren Kryesan continued their little skirmish in the ruins of Dr. Matic’s facility.
<font color="#00A2FF"><span style="background-color:#C8C8C8;">"I suggest you do not try this,” Kanpeki hissed under her breath, eyeing Cedric with her remaining good eye.
Nalyg looked at his co-worker and heavily sighed; knowing whatever comes out of his comrade’s mouth would fall on deaf ears. There was a massive bruise on the middle Kryesan’s head and it was not helping their situation. Not did that matter, since he was more concerned with defending their bodies with impromptu shields.
Their opponent swung forth and a wall of flames violently lurched towards them. In defense, Nalyg swung his tail forth, extinguishing the flames immediately. Feeling belligerent, Razaran took the opportunity to dart forth a limb-spear with an addition of a dozen bladed scythes as a supplement. The former mercenary’s patience was wearing thin at the length of this fight and he wanted to get this over with.</span></font>
The knight wordlessly smiled. His draconic opponent was putting up a good fight, but the Son of Sigmund could do more. With a mighty yell, Cedric advanced. Time passed and the four flickered through many genres: a knight superhero parrying a sickle from a shape-shifting super villain; a soldier leaping up to a three-barreled howitzer; and many more. As the flaming edge came closer and closer to the flesh of Nalzaki, the pure randomness of the shifting reality decided on science fiction.
And at the same time, a gob of meat suddenly rained on them.
A familiar arm fell down on the two combatants. Spouting a punctual (but appropriate) expletive, Cedric raised his shifting gun to defend himself from the oncoming sludge, flames empathetically flaring up in protection. Despite the horrible smell, Cedric’s weapon did a fine job at protecting him from the foreign flesh. However, the chainsaw bayonet was still active and the fated blade touched the falling fin. The accessory did a fine joke liquefying the meat, and spraying the results everywhere. Nalzaki, unfortunately, got the full brunt of the fetid liquid, making them look like they landed in a slaughterhouse head-first. Some of the stuff even went into their mouth. Disgusting!
Despite that, the fight still continued.
Chaos could only last so long and soon, the genre maelstrom ebbed away, leaving empty pockets of nothingness and large swaths of ruined buildings. Despite that, things started to recover. Buildings were patched up, rubble swept away, corpses identified, mourned, and buried. However, the reality of the universe seemed to change. The cities were various, but not to the point that there were gross differences. The dimensions seem less controlled, less artificial, yet more vibrant, more reasonable. If this universe had a genre, the genre would be called
and it seemed to stay that way, not that Tek seemed to mind. He was currently fussing over his appearance, adjusting his suit and washing his face. After making sure his tie was just in the right way, Tek hooked on the eye-patch and gave just as equal attention. Though his cybernetic eye was still functioning, Tek was not exactly keen on drawing attention from others. Whistling, the former mechanic hopped into his sedan and drove off to the flower shop.
As he fumbled for the dollars, Tek felt pretty content at things in his life. After the disaster, the former Cyber-Punk, decided to set a small business, which exploded into a successful entrepreneurship firm, with thousands of patents and popularity. Not forgetting his humble origins, Tek opened scholarships and donated to charities, to make sure that the disadvantaged could get the benefit of technology. Plus, no more gang wars, no more violence! This was not exactly heaven, but it was pleasant.
Tek took a surreptitious sniff of his flowers, a bundle of acacias, carnation, camellias, roses, and every species he ordered from the (confused) florist, as he went to his destination. He wanted the flowers to be fresh and nice, just the way she liked. Of course, he was just not thinking about the flowers. Despite the time, the past was still very fresh in his mind. The strangers, the chaos, it is hard to forget that sort of things. Finally, he reached his destination.
A modest tombstone made of marble, simple yet austere. Tek smiled sadly as he placed his bouquet in front of the grave marker. "Hello, Abys."
Tek spent the remaining afternoon lying besides the tombstone, thinking about things. He thought about his past, he thought about his future. He thought of the friends he met, the enemies he argued with, and things he had done. He thought about his next projects and his taxes. He thought about the skies, the stars, and especially Abys. Although his mind was busying up, Tek sighed and though how, despite everything
The aftermath, thanks to the tampering of the Tome, continued its effects. Though the fabric of reality was wearing dangerously thin, the destruction was surprisingly elegant. Like the unfortunate Harmon and Phere currently falling in the darkness, the objects and the denizens were going through all the roles of all the genres at an inhuman pace. Unfortunately, existence in this world was not as real as the contestants.
As people were bent to this invisible, oppressing hand, they had no choice but to act their parts. Tragically, the Tome, the tyrant of this reality has been gone and its kingdom was crumbling down to nothing, not chaos, not destruction – just nothingness. Dimensions distorted in indiscernible ways as the hurricane in the sky shifted to suddenly extremes of the monochrome. However, that was not the most interesting part.
With each flash, things started to disappear. Pop, like they were nothing. The bar, once a tavern, once a fuel station, blanked out, leaving nothing in its wake. The lab, the temple, the corporation, that blanked away too. Buildings were disappearing at an increasingly alarming rate, as though someone was taking a large eraser to them.
People also disappeared, but not immediately. As they were merely a face of reality, they were used to one role, not this many roles! The phasing through many realities was too much for most of them, too many roles in too little time. At first, it was unnoticeable. Then, they suddenly behave erratically, moving in abnormal ways and as they degenerate into babbling madness. Pop, gone in a flash, just like the buildings.
The mansions, casinos, facilities, apothecaries – did it even matter? – buildings were crumbling. Corpses piled high around the mountains. The sight was atrocious but, Tek was not paying attention. He was taking in more than he can handle and his existence was at the edge of death. He was a technopath, then a police cadet, then a private – there were too many roles, too much information. His mind was at the edge of insanity at the sudden onset of information. However, he wanted to resist. He did not want to be prey to his doom. Tek did not know the reason. Part of it was pure fear, but what were the reasons? Why would he want to continue existing? Why? Why?
As he thought, memories started to trickle<font color="#00581A"> in through the haze of his roles. There was the time when he first initiated into the Cyber Punks. There was the time when he got his first cybernetic eye. And, there was that time he met Abys. For some reason, he shuddered. They were not exactly romantic with each other, or even casual friends! However, that slight connection, the little time they met, between them seemed to invigorate him. It almost made Tek feel –</font>
Nothingness had consumed almost everything, save for the few body parts, corpses, all suspended in the monochrome void. However, Tek floated there in the nether void with errant rubble as his companions. Though everything was disappearing in the process of disappearing<font color="#00581A">, Tek’s mind felt more lucid than ever. In his mind, he could even remember a small tale in his head…</font>
There was once a child named Theodore Thales. He was an extremely bright kid, tinkering with metal bits and found objects. Engineering was his first and continual passion, but alas, his family was impoverished and education was expensive. As he grew older, personal ambition and dissatisfaction at the world led him to join a technological-futurism gang. His innate knack for machinery exploded into inhuman expertise under that criminal organization. Despite his eventual augments, he was still humane and polite, albeit quiet and distant. Much to the chagrin of his peers, Thales insisted on being called by his nickname, bestowed upon him by his loving family. The nickname?
Tek.
Short for many things, like technical, technological, and "terrific!" as his late mother gushed. It was much personal nickname-slash-codename for the mechanic of the long-gone Cyber Punks. Plus, it was much catchier than boring old "Theodore Thales." He was never much a person for formalities. Tek smiled fondly at this memory. He was not a mere device anymore. He, for once in his life, feltreal.
The realization invigorated Tek and the slight mechanic lurched forward. He was not exactly a combatant or a leader, but one thing remains clear in his mind. He swerved around, looking at the remaining few items popping away into disappearance. Tek quickly grabbed the largest, the most dangerous thing that caught his eye, a vicious looking hybrid of the chainsaw and a rail-gun, former property of the Screaming Eagles, but did that fact matter anymore? With determination gleaming his eye (and his mechanical substitute too), Tek immediately balled up his hand, and thrusters on his boots immediately activated. Thus, Tek went away. After all,
There was someone he needed to meet.
***
The destruction of the round was commencing, but Merrifield was paying attention to her surroundings. Though she could be quite manipulative if she felt like it, the genetic monstrosity was basically an infant, petty and ignorant. As such, she was trailing up the mountains on her steed Abys, munching on wandering mutants and errant corpses that were so common. Surprisingly, she was not paying even an iota of attention at the disintegration of Dr. Matic’s property on top of her.
Merrifield was dementedly curious, not exactly loyal to one obsession and prone to flitting from choice to choice (for example, the current state of Abys). Not surprisingly, she found experimenting to be incredibly alluring. To her chagrin, her wonton experimentation during the round had been costly. As much as she hated to admit that, she was running out of fuel.
Merrifield was extremely tired, barely even able to keep awake on her forced servant-pet. The monstrosity felt that her control was on the cusp. It was taking her effort to keep control of Abys and even worse, holding herself together. Of course, her mind was not blank. After all, she had a purpose: to get the Tome, long gone and forgotten. However, that goal was at the backburner so to speak. Most of her thoughts were preoccupied with petty things –
–so many petty things that she did not notice a blade tearing at her side.
Merrifield commanded her steed up the mountains and attempted to gauge her injuries. Her eyes became even larger once she saw the state of the wound. The gash was large and gaping; the edges of the frayed cut were rapidly dissolving into sludge. Worse of all, stuff was spilling out of her like the contents from a split flour sack, sludgy insides dripping out like rotten meat. A fetid smell filled the air, as her flesh dripped over on the side of Abys and into the infinitesimal nothing. To her horror, Merrifield found that painful.
She looked at her opponent. To her surprise, it was that Tek person she took away before. With his erratic stubble and filthy green jacket, the slight man looked like something that Merrifield could squish under her proverbial thumb at the slightest thought, but for some reason, he seemed more confident, more dangerous. He spoke not a comforting word, but the shining in his red eye and his weapon told her everything. He was not the prey. She was the prey. At this realization, fat tears dribbled from Merrifield’s eyes. She felt afraid, very afraid.
The scuffle between the two was incredibly pathetic, Tek had the obvious advantage. He darted. He swung, making open holes in his enemy with his unwieldy weapon. With each wound, Merrifield became sluggish, even less conscious – more defenseless! The feeling was incredibly scary! Merrifield began to cry.
Suddenly, rubble rained down.
Tek managed to swing out of the way, his rockets fueling his dexterity. On the other hand, his opponent was not so lucky. With a sickening sound of ripping flesh and crunching bones, Merrifield and her steed got squashed under an errant piece of the laboratory. Thus, the two fell, victim to the gravity of the shifting reality.
Merrifield had made sure that her penultimate goal was to absolutely survive and now, she had failed said goal. The rubble was the final straw for her. No matter how much willpower she had, no matter how powerful she was, she could not save herself. Merrifield knew it. The time had come for her. She was going to die.
Now that she was in the inevitable grasp of death, she had, for once in her very short life, time to think. Oh, how she was silly, so afraid of the end for all the wrong reasons. What were the reasons exactly? Did that even matter? The genetic monstrosity could not help but smile at her foolishness, but now everything is going to end for her and for some reason, she felt alright with this, although she was very much in pain.
She took the last few seconds mulling over her short life. The monstrosity realized when at death’s door, you tend to see things in a new perspective. All in all, her life was wonderful and happy. She met new friends and strangers, for which she was thankful for. She did a lot of exciting things. Suddenly, Tek followed with his rocket. As the dying monstrosity observed, he had this anguished, but determined look on his face. Merrifield thought a little more, but she did have this one single regret.
She looked at Abys, who had seen better days. Then, she looked at the concerned Tek. With smile on her face and tears dribbling upwards, Merrifield let go of her “toy,” knowing better that she was a person. With a gentle push, the monstrosity pushed the former assassin into the surprised Tek’s arms. Oh, how Merrifield wished she could do more, but Abys was honestly at her limit. She had too much pain and her un-death was pure suffering.
With that thought, Merrifield smiled at Tek and then immediately liquefied. The genetic monstrosity was losing form. Her thin skin was peeling away, her remaining organs partitioning into garbage, her collagen and muscles softening and fraying. Her single cells swelled and burst into essential organic compounds. Yet, those too, degenerated. Her proteins denatured, her lipids got radicalized, every single molecule within her was dissolving into useless molecules. As her mind melted away from the apoptosis, Merrifield closed her melting eyes and murmured to herself,
"It’s good to be alive."
***
"Abys. Abys! Can you hear me?" Tek snapped in desperation.
The mechanic and the assassin continued their fall, supplemented by unknown acceleration. To Tek’s surprise, the monstrous appearance of his co-worker was melting, to say the least. Gobs of flesh pulled away from her from the velocity of their descent. With each strip of skin melting away, each chunk of muscle disintegrating from the speed, the former cyborg assassin was getting more and more human. Before long, there was Abys – natural, familiar, and most of all, sans robotic supplements – almost as if that monster pressed a reset button on her.
Abys’s eyes fluttered open, but to his surprise, Tek was not staring into the eyes of the abyss anymore. He found warmth, content, and familiarity. It was almost if he was staring into the eyes of a close friend. As soon as he made contact with her eyes, the former assassin smiled – not a smirk or a sarcastic slash of a mouth, but a genuine smile. Almost as if, she was happy to see him. <font color="#007d7d">"I hear you, Tek."
Tek’s heart leapt in sudden joy at the reactions of Abys. "Oh, Abys, Abys!" Tears began to streaming from his remaining good eye. "We are so alive and well." Then, the mechanic choked on his words as phlegm from his sorrows began to build up in his throat. "I have so many things to share and, and –"Tek’s lip trembled in joy. "Maybe, we can hang out more or something!”
Abys’s face soften into a gentle smile. "We are already friends to begin with, Tek. But –" Abys tilted her head sadly down. "My time is up. It has been up a while ago."
Tek’s only eye widened in shock. "No, no no!" The mechanic continued to repeat that single word. "Don’t go, Abys. We have so many things to do! Please , we can fix you up. Remember the Cyber Punk motto– "
The assassin laughed bitterly. She, indeed, had so many things to tell him, but unfortunately, she had no time left. She was going to pass on. How tragic. If only they spent more time together, maybe things would blossom between them, but alas, she had to keep to herself. How silly of her. However, her end was close and this was not the time for thoughts. She glanced at Tek and smiled, "You are a good person, Tek."
Then, she closed her eyes.
"ABYS!" Tek cried. "ABYS! Oh lord, ABYS!" The mechanic continued to cry the name of his comrade into the nothingness. Though the dimensions were infinite, even the ruins and the landscape could not hold all the sorrow of this single nobody.
Such is the power of character.
</font>
***
Though Merrifield had just expired, her sludgy remains still existed, subject to the whims of current reality. Some of the liquefied meat dissolved away immediately, as though they did not existed in the first place. However, the genetic monstrosity was made of significant amount of matter and plenty of chunks of her still remain. Hitting a pocket of reverse gravity, an errant part distorted and flung in full force of the opposite direction.
Just at the same time, two contestants of this grand battle were facing off each other. Emotions tense, attitudes frayed. Though the current conditions were not pleasant, there was much excitement as Cedric, Son of Sigmund and Nalzaki, the Typhren Kryesan continued their little skirmish in the ruins of Dr. Matic’s facility.
<font color="#00A2FF"><span style="background-color:#C8C8C8;">"I suggest you do not try this,” Kanpeki hissed under her breath, eyeing Cedric with her remaining good eye.
Nalyg looked at his co-worker and heavily sighed; knowing whatever comes out of his comrade’s mouth would fall on deaf ears. There was a massive bruise on the middle Kryesan’s head and it was not helping their situation. Not did that matter, since he was more concerned with defending their bodies with impromptu shields.
Their opponent swung forth and a wall of flames violently lurched towards them. In defense, Nalyg swung his tail forth, extinguishing the flames immediately. Feeling belligerent, Razaran took the opportunity to dart forth a limb-spear with an addition of a dozen bladed scythes as a supplement. The former mercenary’s patience was wearing thin at the length of this fight and he wanted to get this over with.</span></font>
The knight wordlessly smiled. His draconic opponent was putting up a good fight, but the Son of Sigmund could do more. With a mighty yell, Cedric advanced. Time passed and the four flickered through many genres: a knight superhero parrying a sickle from a shape-shifting super villain; a soldier leaping up to a three-barreled howitzer; and many more. As the flaming edge came closer and closer to the flesh of Nalzaki, the pure randomness of the shifting reality decided on science fiction.
And at the same time, a gob of meat suddenly rained on them.
A familiar arm fell down on the two combatants. Spouting a punctual (but appropriate) expletive, Cedric raised his shifting gun to defend himself from the oncoming sludge, flames empathetically flaring up in protection. Despite the horrible smell, Cedric’s weapon did a fine job at protecting him from the foreign flesh. However, the chainsaw bayonet was still active and the fated blade touched the falling fin. The accessory did a fine joke liquefying the meat, and spraying the results everywhere. Nalzaki, unfortunately, got the full brunt of the fetid liquid, making them look like they landed in a slaughterhouse head-first. Some of the stuff even went into their mouth. Disgusting!
Despite that, the fight still continued.
***
Chaos could only last so long and soon, the genre maelstrom ebbed away, leaving empty pockets of nothingness and large swaths of ruined buildings. Despite that, things started to recover. Buildings were patched up, rubble swept away, corpses identified, mourned, and buried. However, the reality of the universe seemed to change. The cities were various, but not to the point that there were gross differences. The dimensions seem less controlled, less artificial, yet more vibrant, more reasonable. If this universe had a genre, the genre would be called
real life
and it seemed to stay that way, not that Tek seemed to mind. He was currently fussing over his appearance, adjusting his suit and washing his face. After making sure his tie was just in the right way, Tek hooked on the eye-patch and gave just as equal attention. Though his cybernetic eye was still functioning, Tek was not exactly keen on drawing attention from others. Whistling, the former mechanic hopped into his sedan and drove off to the flower shop.
As he fumbled for the dollars, Tek felt pretty content at things in his life. After the disaster, the former Cyber-Punk, decided to set a small business, which exploded into a successful entrepreneurship firm, with thousands of patents and popularity. Not forgetting his humble origins, Tek opened scholarships and donated to charities, to make sure that the disadvantaged could get the benefit of technology. Plus, no more gang wars, no more violence! This was not exactly heaven, but it was pleasant.
Tek took a surreptitious sniff of his flowers, a bundle of acacias, carnation, camellias, roses, and every species he ordered from the (confused) florist, as he went to his destination. He wanted the flowers to be fresh and nice, just the way she liked. Of course, he was just not thinking about the flowers. Despite the time, the past was still very fresh in his mind. The strangers, the chaos, it is hard to forget that sort of things. Finally, he reached his destination.
A modest tombstone made of marble, simple yet austere. Tek smiled sadly as he placed his bouquet in front of the grave marker. "Hello, Abys."
Tek spent the remaining afternoon lying besides the tombstone, thinking about things. He thought about his past, he thought about his future. He thought of the friends he met, the enemies he argued with, and things he had done. He thought about his next projects and his taxes. He thought about the skies, the stars, and especially Abys. Although his mind was busying up, Tek sighed and though how, despite everything
<font size="1">Life was beautiful.
</font>