Chapter Text
There were muffled voices as he awoke, far off, barely comprehensible, he felt like a ghost, the previous vastness of his body gone to leave him in his current state with pain shooting through his back, a warm liquid pooling out from what felt like a wound created by a source he could barely remember, yet that small memory made him more infuriated than anything he recalled seeing or feeling in the past, his mind packed into a mere three neurons levitating above his head.
He looked at the figures walking away from him, the distant voices emanating from them, slightly muffled by the golden masks they wore on their heads.
But over the sounds they made, he could vaguely make out something, words that he could understand despite his bleariness and pain.
‘Mission accomplished!’ They exclaimed, the sentence followed with a laugh, exiting through an old door, shutting it behind them, not bothering to look behind them or lock it, assuming that he was completely dead.
Yet he was alive, damaged vents weakly exhaling steam, antennae flicking slightly at every little noise, the dripping of water nearby, the noise of chittering purposed organisms as they scurried past, and the slight clacking of rocks hitting each other after having been hit off their higher positions, falling down due to the running of the small creatures to their dens.
It was all so strange, once he had been in a pristine chamber and he felt vast, huge, powerful; now he was in a dilapidated room, small, weak, and in pain. Despite this, he felt a drive to get up and move somewhere despite his body’s protests to his movements; getting up was a struggle as his legs seemed to want to cave in on themselves by the mere action of moving, yet he forced himself up anyways, stumbling upon unused legs as he attempted to take a step forward, falling face first onto the ground.
As he tried getting up, he noticed his hand hitting a puddle, dirty water hitting the previously pristine carapace on his fingers; purposed organisms scampering off into tunnels he didn’t even realize were there, which left him alone again, not even a single noise audible from the place he had found himself in.
His vents shakily and weakly let out a puff of steam as he attempted to get up again, a loud snap emanating from the roof, the wood that held up the section above beginning to cave in due to many cycles of stress and disrepair. Feeling unsafe, he tried getting up to walk again, forcing himself to move as each step sent a new wave of agony through his legs. Despite this, he pushed on at a slow speed. Eventually he reached the door in which he ended up leaning upon; causing it to immediately fall over, hinges coming loose and causing him and the door to hit the ground simultaneously. The fall caused a puddle to splash, getting him a bit wet with the dirty water from the seemingly abandoned alleyway he had found himself in.
As he got up again, he heard more creatures scurrying away, presumably the purposed organisms from earlier. So he started walking around the area in a slow manner, stumbling slightly with each step as he slowly got more and more used to the motions of doing so. Although still struggling to move due to his wounds, the liquid still slightly oozed out of his back from where his metal arm was previously attached… he could barely remember even having it. Maybe it was not worth going back to.
He continued walking awkwardly, slowly gaining more confidence in his steps until he found himself in front of a ladder. Pausing for a moment, he considered his options, finding them limited, he placed his hand on to one rung of the ladder, pushing himself up as he pulled his feet off the ground in order to attempt to climb up; but as he lifted one foot off to get on to the next part of the ladder, he slipped, grip faltering as the ropes of the ladder swayed backwards, causing him to fall off of it.
As he fell, sudden and intense pain shot through his leg as it felt like he scraped against something, leading him to scream in pure agony; and within each shaky puff of steam coming out of his vents, he only fell further down until he landed in something soft, almost plush but also slightly rough in texture, he couldn’t quite pin down what it even was. So instead of thinking more about it, he tried crawling out of it, pushing away heaps of the material as he crawled towards what looked to him like a bright light.
Yet as soon as he exited the pile to see the light, he immediately covered his eyes; hissing in pain from the sudden brightness that overloaded his senses.
He now knew that he couldn’t open his eyes unless he risked another bout of pain from them. But he knew there were more pressing matters at hand, most notably his now injured leg, leaking what felt like a viscous fluid, not too different from the one he had felt dripping down from his back a bit ago. Now that he thought about it, when had that even stopped hurting?
Where even was he at all?
He decided to push that thought down in order to sit up and check out the new injury that had recently formed on his leg. It was incredibly painful, yet it wasn’t as bad as the back injury and that had healed fast… right? Although, he couldn’t really tell how long he had been in this general area, how long he had the back injury, nor how bad the leg injury was, he couldn’t really open his eyes, nor did he have the knowledge to even know how long it would take to heal.
But as he grabbed some sort of slightly damp fabric to stop the liquid from leaking, he got the odd feeling of being watched; so he tried to listen for any audio cues, antennae flicking in order to pick up more sound from the environment; he could only hear a light hum from something that he couldn’t quite understand.
[LIVE BROADCAST] - PRIVATE GROUP [LOCAL GROUP] Big Sister Moon, Chasing Wind, No Significant Harassment, Unparalleled Innocence, Five Pebbles
UI: You won't believe what I saw.
UI: Five Pebbles is up and walking!
BSM: Do not kid, this is a serious matter.
UI: I am not! Not this time! I can provide evidence!
BSM: This is not funny.
UI: I'll send evidence.
...
BSM: Oh.
BSM: Oh dear.. he's..
BSM: ...
NSH: We will find a way to help, do not worry, Moon.
BSM: ...Thank you.