[from here]Unfortunately, the adventurous door seemed to lead to a very unadventurous hallway that was exactly identical to the last hallway
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As Forte managed to get through another door, his steps more steady, he was following this strange cloth, or threads or whatever was draped over his head down to what was definitely a cloth shirt draped over his body. That partly explained his strange feelings - he never wore clothes, his armour was his skin. That was when it hit him - it would never have fit over his armour. He started feeling around his torso and body, and even with through the soft, 'mushy' feeling of his sensors, most of the telling spikes and ridges were gone. He grabbed at his head now - his glorious head-fins were gone!
This confirmed it - someone had been working on him, and after removing his helmet and armour had simply covered his exposed parts with cloth and... and thread. Now he was furious - even Wily couldn't be that sloppy, someone must have kidnapped him to reprogram or study him. That was why his wiring was messed up, why everything felt strange and he had extremely fuzzy access to recent memories.
Looking around furiously, Forte saw only another hallway. He was ready to simply blast his way through the roof if he didn't get an explanation and his armour returned. Unfortunately, there weren't any people in the immediate hallway, but that didn't stop his outburst.
"Dammit, where the hell am I!? What's the meaning of this? Who's in charge around here!?"
The only response the patient got was the clattering of a scorpion as it bolted its way down the hall. Unlike some of the other monsters, it wasn't looking for food so much as hoping to defend itself, or at least get rid of the humans that seemed to have invaded its living space. It wanted to get rid of the threats, and seeing how this one was on his own, he was an easy target.
The scorpion made no efforts to hide its approach, instead bolting right for the confused patient with the hopes of getting its stinger into his leg before he had a chance to react.
Its exoskeleton a milky white and its size close to that of a possum's, the arachnid drew closer.
Despite Forte's exasperation, he could hear people coming and going behind him, or before him in the dark as stumbled into the middle of the hallway. In fact, they were probably skirting out of his way. However, it was the distinct clickity-clack that immediately caught his attention. That meant tiny metal feet - probably a robot bug or scorpion - at any rate, it was either going to attack him directly or stop and shoot at him, and it didn't sound like it was stopping (no-one built anything with that many legs to be friendly). Even in the dark, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.
There was only a fraction of a second to react, but Forte instantly held up his right arm, palm forward and.... nothing. No gun appeared, let alone fired, and his hand remained just a hand. He didn't even get any feedback - no weapons systems error, simply nothing - and now it was too late to even muster a kick.
Whatever the human had been trying to do, it hadn't worked. The scorpion didn't seem to give any reaction to it, however - it was set on its attack, and nothing was going to stop it now. Once it got close enough, it leaped at the patient's leg and landed on top of one foot.
Getting so close to something so much larger than it was a risk, but there was no other way for it to hunt.
It reared its stinger back and prepared to strike...
Forte could do nothing but stumble backwards, and fall on his rear as the small assailant gripped his foot. He was still off-guard from his weapons systems apparently being... entirely gone, and was practically tripping over his own clothes. He did manage to catch a glimpse of what was attacking him as he fell, through the (apparently purple) mess on his head, and by the light of a distant flashlight.
Even with the hard exoskeleton, it was obvious that this was no robot. Momentarily surprised by how easily its prey had fallen, the scorpion wasted no more time. Its stinger shot forward, and the sharp, venom-filled end dug into the human's ankle.
For a brief moment, Forte was relieved - he didn't know how big these organic things were supposed to be, but if it wasn't a robot of some kind it wasn't really a threat.
The relief was quickly washed away by... something horrible. He could feel it in his leg, like fire but so much more real, more terrible than he'd ever felt anything in his life! He could feel it spreading into his leg, burning inside, where he shouldn't be able to feel anything, and he couldn't shut it off or ignore it.
He was in pain! This must be what pain feels like!
He screamed again, but this time much louder than his angry ranting. His scream echoed through the halls.
Sheena burst through the door, the volume of the screams increasing telling ehr she'd made it to the right location. Now that she didn't have any walls blocking some of the sound, the agony in the scream was very unsettling to her. She'd only heard grown men scream like that a couple times... usually because they've been either stung by one of those giant bees in the forests near Mizuho or they'd been stung by...
...a scorpion, Sheena confirmed as she saw the creature by the man's foot. In fact, it looked like it might actually be on his foot.
The female ninja reacted quickly as she darted at the man and his arachnid foe. She trained her flashlight on it just in case she could blind it (she couldn't remember if scorpions could see or not). She then dropped down, her free hand flat upon the ground and launched a sweeping kick at the scorpion, hoping to send it off the man's foot and into the nearby wall.
Sheena was used to larger scorpions and this smaller one was cute in that eat-your-face kind of way. Or... sting-your-foot kind of way? Too bad it was evil, cause it'd make a fun pet otherwise.
So focused had the scorpion been on its first target that it had not even registered another human coming to this one's rescue.
The kick therefore took it by surprise, and while the flashlight hadn't done anything to blind it, taking such a hard hit was more than enough to do so. The arachnid hit the wall and then slid to the floor, landing on its back. Its legs started to squirm and its stinger flung around wildly as it tried to get back onto its feet.
But it couldn't see, it couldn't hurt unless it could find what to sting, and it was now very vulnerable. Still, even in this state, that stinger was no less dangerous.
Forte was too caught up in his pain to even notice the scorpion being knocked off his leg, let alone the woman that had done so. In fact, he barely managed to look down and see, to his horror, a human foot on his right leg - albeit one now bleeding and starting to swell. It was neither the metal boot that was his foot or, the other possibility, its inner workings exposed. Normally he would have assumed someone replaced his leg with one resembling a human's but the way it had been wounded and the excruciating agony it was sending him - like his own leg was screaming at him - suggested... but it was impossible!
Thankfully the scorpion was smaller than the type she was used to dealing with as kicking it would have hurt otherwise since she no longer had the protective greaves she normally wore. Sheena was pleased to see the monster fly off the man's foot and smack into the wall where it lay on its back struggling to right itself.
It didn't look like it was having an easy time doing so with the way it's tail was flailing about like that. In a way, it was almost comical to watch, but the guardian decided instead of watching the thing struggle in its misfortune of meeting one of Mizuho, she took advantage of it's current predicament to do something about the injured man. The scorpion was still too close for comfort and she'd rather he not accidentally get stung again.
Sheena kept her attention partially on the scorpion, in case it turned itself over faster than she anticipated, and then turned to the man and knelt next to him.
"Hey, hey... hold on. There's a clinic not too far from here; we can get you fixed up," she said to the man. With the way he was looking at his foot like it was going to jump up and try to eat his face told the summoner that he either had never been stung by a scoprion before or... he couldn't feel his foot anymore.
He didn't seem that much bigger of a guy than she was, so she hooked her arms around him and attemtped to drag him further down the hall toward the doors that she'd entered through, away from the overturned scorpion. "Calm down. Remember to breathe," she said, feeling like she sounded kind of lame. "Let me take care of the scorpion."
Blinded and vulnerable, the scorpion couldn't tell what was going on, really. It could register vague noises, but they meant nothing to it.
Slowly, it started to work on getting back to its feet, unsure of when it would recover from the hit and its vision would return. At least it knew that it had gotten its stinger into the first human, which meant that it didn't have to worry about that one trying to get any sort of revenge.
The other one was more of a concern, though hopefully she would think that it was out of commission now. The scorpion did consider running, but it would have to see how this all turned out. Perhaps the humans were already gone.
His mind was either unable to comprehend - or perhaps accept - the state he was in until he heard a voice saying, "remember to breath." Suddenly, it caught up with him as he realized he'd been doing just that all along. Like a spell had been broken, he had to remember what he'd done and force his muscles to move - not signaling motivators, but lungs, opening and closing. His eyes had teared up from the pain, but he looked around again - the woman who had spoken, standing next to him, had been the one to knock the scorpion away, and she was still talking to him. He nodded dumbly, sputting, "I- I'm not- it hurts..."
Duh. Of course it hurts, Sheena wanted to say but didn't. "It'll be okay," she said, instead, her voice soft as she tried to be comforting. "I have a friend that can heal you."
The summoner pulled the man to rest against the wall opposite the one she'd kicked the scorpion into, back toward the door. She pushed his hair back from his face. "Stay here, okay? I'll be right back," she told him.
Turning away from the man, Sheena found the scorpion with her light again. It looked like it'd taken the moment to get itself mostly upright. Well, she needed to take care of it and quickly; who knew how bad its poison was and how much it'd gotten into the man's system before she'd booted it off. She took darted to the other side of the hall and then a few steps toward the scorpion, wanting to get some separation between them and the injured man. She reached into her waistband and pulled out one of the paper spell cards she managed to create during dinner.
With a flick of her fingers, she threw it at the monster and formed a rapid succession of seals with her hands, channeling her mana into the card to form the pyre seal. At her command, the card suddenly separated into a small cloud of identical cards and swirled at the scorpion to explode and hopefully knock it further down the hall if they didn't kill it outright.
Eh?! That's usually a lot... bigger. Much, much bigger, she thought, seeing the size the flurry of cards had become.
Just as it had gotten its footing again, the scorpion found itself victim of yet another attack. Seeing how its vision hadn't returned yet (or was bad enough that all it could catch were vague movements), the attack hit it straight-on, forcing it back and blinding it all over again.
The scorpion flew down the hall and landed on its side, stunned for a good while. It was obviously not much of a match for this new threat, and it had already done enough damage that it wasn't worth any more effort.
Once it righted itself again, the scorpion turned tail and headed further down the hall toward the field. Hopefully it could find a place to hide there and nurse its wounds.
[It's okay, it happens to lots of spell cards. I'm sure it's not you, it's the spell card!]
As the woman turned away, Forte was coming back to his senses. He remembered, years ago, when he'd first met Rock Man, and had pretended to be injured to gain his confidence.
What if Rock were here now - what if he saw me like this? Breaking down in front of a human woman. He'd probably be rescuing her.
With that thought, he started taking deep breaths, trying to force himself to ignore the pain and compose himself.
As Forte managed to get through another door, his steps more steady, he was following this strange cloth, or threads or whatever was draped over his head down to what was definitely a cloth shirt draped over his body. That partly explained his strange feelings - he never wore clothes, his armour was his skin. That was when it hit him - it would never have fit over his armour. He started feeling around his torso and body, and even with through the soft, 'mushy' feeling of his sensors, most of the telling spikes and ridges were gone. He grabbed at his head now - his glorious head-fins were gone!
This confirmed it - someone had been working on him, and after removing his helmet and armour had simply covered his exposed parts with cloth and... and thread. Now he was furious - even Wily couldn't be that sloppy, someone must have kidnapped him to reprogram or study him. That was why his wiring was messed up, why everything felt strange and he had extremely fuzzy access to recent memories.
Looking around furiously, Forte saw only another hallway. He was ready to simply blast his way through the roof if he didn't get an explanation and his armour returned. Unfortunately, there weren't any people in the immediate hallway, but that didn't stop his outburst.
"Dammit, where the hell am I!? What's the meaning of this? Who's in charge around here!?"
[waiting for a monster]
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The scorpion made no efforts to hide its approach, instead bolting right for the confused patient with the hopes of getting its stinger into his leg before he had a chance to react.
Its exoskeleton a milky white and its size close to that of a possum's, the arachnid drew closer.
[ Court ]
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There was only a fraction of a second to react, but Forte instantly held up his right arm, palm forward and.... nothing. No gun appeared, let alone fired, and his hand remained just a hand. He didn't even get any feedback - no weapons systems error, simply nothing - and now it was too late to even muster a kick.
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Getting so close to something so much larger than it was a risk, but there was no other way for it to hunt.
It reared its stinger back and prepared to strike...
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That's... not a robot?
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The relief was quickly washed away by... something horrible. He could feel it in his leg, like fire but so much more real, more terrible than he'd ever felt anything in his life! He could feel it spreading into his leg, burning inside, where he shouldn't be able to feel anything, and he couldn't shut it off or ignore it.
He was in pain! This must be what pain feels like!
He screamed again, but this time much louder than his angry ranting. His scream echoed through the halls.
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Sheena burst through the door, the volume of the screams increasing telling ehr she'd made it to the right location. Now that she didn't have any walls blocking some of the sound, the agony in the scream was very unsettling to her. She'd only heard grown men scream like that a couple times... usually because they've been either stung by one of those giant bees in the forests near Mizuho or they'd been stung by...
...a scorpion, Sheena confirmed as she saw the creature by the man's foot. In fact, it looked like it might actually be on his foot.
The female ninja reacted quickly as she darted at the man and his arachnid foe. She trained her flashlight on it just in case she could blind it (she couldn't remember if scorpions could see or not). She then dropped down, her free hand flat upon the ground and launched a sweeping kick at the scorpion, hoping to send it off the man's foot and into the nearby wall.
Sheena was used to larger scorpions and this smaller one was cute in that eat-your-face kind of way. Or... sting-your-foot kind of way? Too bad it was evil, cause it'd make a fun pet otherwise.
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The kick therefore took it by surprise, and while the flashlight hadn't done anything to blind it, taking such a hard hit was more than enough to do so. The arachnid hit the wall and then slid to the floor, landing on its back. Its legs started to squirm and its stinger flung around wildly as it tried to get back onto its feet.
But it couldn't see, it couldn't hurt unless it could find what to sting, and it was now very vulnerable. Still, even in this state, that stinger was no less dangerous.
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It didn't look like it was having an easy time doing so with the way it's tail was flailing about like that. In a way, it was almost comical to watch, but the guardian decided instead of watching the thing struggle in its misfortune of meeting one of Mizuho, she took advantage of it's current predicament to do something about the injured man. The scorpion was still too close for comfort and she'd rather he not accidentally get stung again.
Sheena kept her attention partially on the scorpion, in case it turned itself over faster than she anticipated, and then turned to the man and knelt next to him.
"Hey, hey... hold on. There's a clinic not too far from here; we can get you fixed up," she said to the man. With the way he was looking at his foot like it was going to jump up and try to eat his face told the summoner that he either had never been stung by a scoprion before or... he couldn't feel his foot anymore.
He didn't seem that much bigger of a guy than she was, so she hooked her arms around him and attemtped to drag him further down the hall toward the doors that she'd entered through, away from the overturned scorpion. "Calm down. Remember to breathe," she said, feeling like she sounded kind of lame. "Let me take care of the scorpion."
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Slowly, it started to work on getting back to its feet, unsure of when it would recover from the hit and its vision would return. At least it knew that it had gotten its stinger into the first human, which meant that it didn't have to worry about that one trying to get any sort of revenge.
The other one was more of a concern, though hopefully she would think that it was out of commission now. The scorpion did consider running, but it would have to see how this all turned out. Perhaps the humans were already gone.
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The summoner pulled the man to rest against the wall opposite the one she'd kicked the scorpion into, back toward the door. She pushed his hair back from his face. "Stay here, okay? I'll be right back," she told him.
Turning away from the man, Sheena found the scorpion with her light again. It looked like it'd taken the moment to get itself mostly upright. Well, she needed to take care of it and quickly; who knew how bad its poison was and how much it'd gotten into the man's system before she'd booted it off. She took darted to the other side of the hall and then a few steps toward the scorpion, wanting to get some separation between them and the injured man. She reached into her waistband and pulled out one of the paper spell cards she managed to create during dinner.
With a flick of her fingers, she threw it at the monster and formed a rapid succession of seals with her hands, channeling her mana into the card to form the pyre seal. At her command, the card suddenly separated into a small cloud of identical cards and swirled at the scorpion to explode and hopefully knock it further down the hall if they didn't kill it outright.
Eh?! That's usually a lot... bigger. Much, much bigger, she thought, seeing the size the flurry of cards had become.
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The scorpion flew down the hall and landed on its side, stunned for a good while. It was obviously not much of a match for this new threat, and it had already done enough damage that it wasn't worth any more effort.
Once it righted itself again, the scorpion turned tail and headed further down the hall toward the field. Hopefully it could find a place to hide there and nurse its wounds.
[Annnd it's officially gone!]
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As the woman turned away, Forte was coming back to his senses. He remembered, years ago, when he'd first met Rock Man, and had pretended to be injured to gain his confidence.
What if Rock were here now - what if he saw me like this? Breaking down in front of a human woman. He'd probably be rescuing her.
With that thought, he started taking deep breaths, trying to force himself to ignore the pain and compose himself.
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