“You freaks…” the ratbug hissed, turning towards the group menacingly as the villagers all cowered against the walls of the chamber. “People here call me a monster, but what are you? Where do your powers come from?”

Before an answer came, Gwazi came forward with his attack. More prepared this time, though, the ratbug swiftly dodged the dagger, and, holding up its surprisingly agile limbs, it blocked Gwazi’s sword attack by grabbing his arms, and used Gwazi’s momentum to toss the boy onto the ground. It prepared to lunge on top of him, but paused when it was interrupted by Muse’s rambling.

“Listen, bub,” Muse spoke up. “You’re, like, probably not supposed to be here, so…” she stepped forward, approaching the beast. “If you don’t leave, we’re probably gonna have to attack you and stuff…” she threatened… sort of. “Got any, like, mortal enemies or something? Or maybe a… natural predator? I dunno. If I could get some sort of detailed description of a monster that can kill you fairly easily, that would be nice.”

The ratbug tilted its head, not sure what to make of Muse’s words. “I don’t even know you.” it growled, about to disregard her presence and face the roleplayers, when it hesitated, sniffing the air again. “…But your scent is different from theirs.” it stepped towards Muse. “Even more bizarre…”

“Woah there.” Muse stepped back, holding her hands up in front of her, palms out. “That’s uh… quite a schnoz you got there if you’re implying what I think you’re implying.” she commented. “I mean, you can smell who’s from your roleplay and who’s not? Hot damn. Ten points for evolution right there. Your GM would be proud.” she rambled, her thoughts rather evidently still clouded by the drugs that hadn’t quite completely worn off.

The ratbug narrowed its eyes again. This strange woman’s words were complete nonsense to the creature. Deciding she wasn’t worth the effort, the ratbug returned its attention to Gwazi, lunging on top of him, ready to pin the roleplayer to the ground.

---

MK cuddled up against Callum, purring as he accepted the roleplayer’s embrace. The cat seemed to know what Callum needed, and what he needed right then and there was some solid emotional support, even if MK was mostly just a cat who couldn’t do much more than cuddle and purr, for the most part.

"Oh shit..." Gwazi thought as his sword was blocked by the Ratbug. "This creature is tougher than I thought it would be after those wounds before he was tossed aside. Thankfully though, Muse managed to distract the ratbug. During which time Gwazi used to grab his sword and get ready for another attack, during which though he overheard the Ratbug say Muse smelled even more bizarre. "Interesting, Muse is even more out of this world than players... he thought to himself, but then the Ratbug lost attention from Muse and went to lunge at Gwazi again, saving Gwazi the bother of planning his next attack. Instead he quickly stepped out of the way and spun around with his sword to slash at some of the Ratbugs legs.

Books poured all of her anger into a attack. The loose rocks on the ground started to shake and started to shoot at the monster. Like facing your fears. Except your fear is in the form of a giant monster. She thought closing her eyes as more rocks shot at the monster. A huge chunk of rock started to lift of the ground and she used all of her remaining energy and shot the rock at the monster.

Rae's face scrunched up slightly as she thoughts 'we're the freaks? take a look in the mirror'
she took a deep breath and put her hands out in front of her as she, for the moment, had a clear line of fire between her and the ratbug.
she tried forcing all the fire out through her hands and 2 (comparatively) impressive strings of fire went from her to the beast. she started to slump immediately but forced her back to stiffen and, as the fire petered out, she dropped her hands and took several deep breaths to attempt to build up the fire again.

“‘Playing’?” GM echoed softly, his head down, before sharply looking back up at Leon. “‘PLAYING’?!” he roared, eye-aura blazing in anger, stepping towards the boy angrily. “Playing with my Bassie?! Playing with- no, forget that, even,” he cut himself off. “Playing with anything on my computer?!” he yelled, not only infuriated but just amazed that Leon would even have the balls to try such a thing. “Did I miss a few zeroes and ones when I transcribed you or have you always been this… completely brainless?!” he continued, stepping forward all the while. “I’ve never met anyone who would ever try to defy me in such a… stupid way!!” he roared, not even finding the words to express just how idiotic Leon was. “So with that being said…” he spoke a bit more softly. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just wipe you out of existence right now?” he finished, glaring down at the terrified roleplayer.

The ratbug struggled to dodge Gwazi's attack, though, with one of its left legs already clutching the wound on its abdomen, it hardly had any had any limb to stand on as Gwazi's blade grazed its hind leg. And, before it even had time to react to that, the creature stumbled back as it felt Rae's fire singeing its right side. It drew its wings up in front of its face again, sacrificing the thin body parts for his more important flesh as the wings on his right side began to melt into hideous shapes, much like those on the left. Weakly stumbling away from Gwazi on fewer legs than normal, the creature only barely managed to leap out of the way of Books' boulder.

"Yeah! That's it!" Muse cheered from the sidelines. "You guys are getting better at this!" In her still somewhat floaty-minded state, it was almost as if she's totally forgotten that she, too, could fight.

"You cretans..." The ratbug hissed. "I... refuse to be beaten by the likes of you!!" At those words, the monster paused, intensely focused, before new limbs burst out of its body to replace the ones lost - these slightly thicker and tougher-skinned than the others. Likewise, larger, blacker, heavier wings sprouted out of its back to replace the melted ones, altogether resulting in a more horrifying, mis-matched creature than they had to begin with. "Now then..." It spoke up, panting. "Come and get me…!”

Books' eyes widened. "Okay that give us just a slight disadvantage...." She said stepping back slightly. C'mon Books. Think of it like a video game...yea a video game that's it! She thought, which made her smile as she concentrated to make the pebbles around her feet form into a sword. She quickly bent down and picked it up.

"Well, that's a new one" Gwazi said to the ratbug once the new limbs appeared. In all practicality this could mean the fight was hopeless, but he knew better than to give up. Giving up is to guarantee death, to fight is to take the chance to make it out alive. So he lunged right at the right bug again, this time doing passing swings at limbs such as the legs and wings, as he tried to climb his way up to the Ratbugs face. Hoping that if he made it and managed to stab it in the brain, a vital body part it might stop the process and take the thing down.

Rae's breath was coming in puffs and she had a stitch in her side but she took in several deep breaths before forcing herself to straighten and she wrapped one arm around her stomach and brought the other up, forcing all the fire she could muster to her hand, fire leaping off the skin she carefully aimed because she wasn't sure she would be able to take another shot. she forced a long hot stream of fire out of her hand directly at the creature's limbs that touch the ground and the lower half of it's body, she tried her best to avoid hitting Gwazi, who was on top of the creature, but as her eyes started to droop and her fire began to fall short, she dropped to her knees, gasping in breath. her vision swam but she forced her breathing to calm and allow her body a moment's rest before she tried to stand. she huffed out "d***, that takes a lot of me, i need to slow down"

For a while there was mostly silence, the only sounds was the brief sobbing of Callum. For a long while they didn't move. With a sudden gasp, Callum got up. Infact he tried to get up, but forgot that the thing he was standing on was blanket material and fell over backwards. "Woah!" Callum fumbled about for a few minutes, "Would you just.......WOULD YOU JUST" Callum finally got free of the blankets evil grasp. He paused for a second, before giggling madly. "I.....I......WILL....." Callum succesfully stood, and with that flailed his hands in the air. "WILL...DO WHAT I NEED TO DO!" He screamed as loud as he could. Before giggling madly once again.

He turned his head, along with his whole body after a delay, which caused him to stumble once again. Over to MK-Ultra. "I...may be going a tiny bit crazy, but....I....need to do whatever I need to do to fix the fact that right now I want to die. And to do that! I need to ignore the fact that I'm broken! The fact is...To fix the problem I must pretend it doesn't exist. I must hide it! IN PLAIN SITE! A new me! One who makes cool speeches, and is more cynical then ever! One who hasn't seen someone get killed! One who wasn't hunted by a god. I say good sir...ummm....Cat. THAT!" Callum paused for a second, he let his head fall to one side.

"The need....for me to find some magical way to fix this....Revive Kole!....Or......Find someway for me not to.....Feel this........dread. This gut-turning feeling of wanting to shit my pants....or.....bed...giant bed" He giggled for a second before turning back to MK-Ultra.. "Whatcha do you say....Seemingly magical cat!...You should totally speak now...Oh wait....." Callum suddenly fell over face first into the blankets. He giggled a little more before going quiet.

He stood up once again, "I think....we.....should....go" He yawned. Seemingly less giggly. "I say....that direction." He looked around, "Ah.....but we probably need a way off this giant bed.....uhm...." Suddenly an flaming elevator made a hole right through the bed. Right in front of the two, causing Callum to flinch before exploding at the bottom. shortly after, a second not flaming elevator very slowly appear from above. It stopped right next to the two, and the doors opened. With some classic elevator music on, Callum didn't actually know what music was on. He just imagined cheesy Elevator music. He wasn't in them much so how was he supposed to know what they sounded like?

"Let's....go?"

'I... I...I..." Leon tried to think of something, starting and immediately closing his mouth again whenever he realised that no, that was not a good enough reason -- in the process making himself look like a fish. As stupid as it looked though, he couldn't stay silent. He had to say something, anything! There had to be some way out of this mess, some way to not have to suffer endless torment! And yet... He couldn't think of anything. In between the stress of being about to killed (again), his soon-to-be-murdered standing right in front of him seething with rage and the fact that he was on a time limit of sort, Leon's mind completely blanked out.

"I... I don't know," the young man finally broke his stupor. And that was the end of it. As much as he wanted to think of a reason for his own prolonged existence, as sad as it might be, he simply couldn't. He averted his gaze and looked at the ground, knowing that divine judgment would soon come to pass...

Books’ pebble sword came together easily enough, but it was flimsy, and not held together very well. The pebbles had a hard time sticking together, and the sword looked like it would only be good for a couple strikes before it would fall apart. Meanwhile Rae’s fire seemed to be doing even worse, as, not only did it drain Rae’s energy, but the streams of fire from her hands fizzled out barely any distance away from her, not even reaching the ratbug.

Gwazi, meanwhile, was not only already in close proximity to the creature, but he also wielded a much more reliable weapon. As he slashed his sword at its limbs, each strike hit, and every hit did some damage. While the ratbug’s new limbs and wings were a bit thicker and a bit tougher than the previous ones, they were still no match for Gwazi’s sword, as the creature’s wings were chopped up like paper snowflakes and his legs started to collapse under him as Gwazi’s attacks continued. No longer able to hold itself up, the ratbug screeched in pain as it toppled onto its side. Helpless on the ground, a powerful stab through the head from Gwazi managed to silence the thing. It growled and whimpered in pain for only a few seconds before its body fell limp.

Muse let out a long whistle. “Wow.” she said in amazement. “That was, um… wow.” she spoke up, looking around as the village people seemed to be relaxing only marginally, still stuck to the cavern walls as none of them dared come closer. “We um… that was… yeah.” she continued, awkwardly nodding her head at the villagers. “Yyyeah.” She then more closely examined the ratbug, kicking its corpse gently just to confirm that the thing was dead. “We should, um, probably get going now…” she continued, looking towards the roleplayers. Then, looking back at the village folk, “And, um… have a nice day?”

The pebble sword crumbled and Books smiled. She was glad that they defeted the monster. Just like a game. She thought as she walked to stand by Muse. Her arms and legs were shaking and her vision seemed to grow dim. She had used a lot of energy for all of her attacks. She felt like she couldn't go much longer without sleep for fear of fainting from exhaustion.

Gwazi went in sword lunging, aiming right for the rat bugs head. And before he knew it the creature was lying there dead... "What, really? No, this too easy... Natural 20's don't happen in real combat. It HAS to be an act". So he pulled his sword out and made one mighty swing at the neck of the thing to chop the head off. Then taking a second to look and confirm nothing happened he sighed now fairly confident that the creature was in fact dead, "Yea... that should do it". But then realizing that doing so probably creeped some people out (Hopefully not too much, these were roleplayers and amazon warriors after all) said out loud "Just being sure. This thing already regenerated once...". But then when Muse said they had to get going he nodded, but then said towards the watching crowd "I'd suggest you burn this... just to be safe". Then after taking out a cloth and quickly wiping the blood off of his sword he put it away and began to follow Muse and the others out.

Rae heard the thing screech and fall and then silkence. after a few deep breaths she managed to stand in time to see Gwazi slice the thing's head off. she felt herself gag a little but she wasn't sure there was even enough energy in her to throw up. Based on the loosk they were getting from the warrior women she agreed that it was a very good idea to leave now "yeah, let's go" she took another deep breath and said "thank you for your hospitality" and she took an almost shambling step forward before stopping, taking a deep breath again, straightening her back and taking a few almost normal steps, which brought her to Muse's side, she mumbled "let's hurry, yeah?"

“You don’t know…” GM echoed silently, looking down at the floor. “YOU DON’T KNOW?!?!” he roared, eyes locked onto Leon again as a katana materialized in his hand. “So you just decide to fuck around with my computer, fuck around with my Basilix… for no good fucking reason?!” he exclaimed. “Why did I ever even think… that I’d want you around?!?” he screamed, before thrashing away in pure anger, hacking Leon’s torso nearly into pieces between each deep, powerful strike of his sword. The boy didn’t last long. Blood pouring out of him, he was dead almost instantly.

Panting, GM tossed his bloody weapon to the side, still catching his breath as a swivel chair materialized beneath him to fall backwards onto. He started to calm down as he lazily propelled himself around with his legs, inching back towards his computer. Once it was in front of his feet, he laid his hand out, palm facing upwards, and raised his arm. With it, a desk came up out of the ground, lifting his computer to eye level. He turned the holo-screen off, instead pulling the laptop screen upright to use normally. He sighed, pulling up his web browser and looking through his bookmarks. “I wonder…” he mused, glancing down at the sleeping lizard on his floor. His cursor hovered for a long time over a bookmark he’d labeled “the real Data Spell”, before finally he shook his head, closing out of his bookmarks and instead pulling up something else. He scrolled down the page, beginning to browse. “I wonder how much of this is still viable…” he hummed to himself.

Then, GM heard a light ‘thud’, and, hearing it, he jumped, quickly spinning around in shock as his feet perched on top of the swivel chair. “WAI, WHAT’S GOING O- oh.” he started to scream, but he stopped himself when he realized it was just Leon who’d suddenly appeared in his hideaway. It was then he remembered that Leon was automatically set to respawn whenever killed. “Oh yeeaaaah that’s why I decided to keep you around…” he sighed, no longer feeling enraged enough to kill the kid permanently.

——

MK nodded, stepping into the makeshift elevator as a song had been chosen from inside the Guild consciousness, probably one that many of the Guild members immediately thought of when the heard the term “elevator music”.

Once they reached the ground, MK Ultra seemed ready to just allow Callum to lead the way, before his ears perked up, and he started looking around in every direction, as if looking for something he couldn’t see.