“Crystal, what’s up with this creepy alleyway?” Dennis looked at me in fear, and started to shiver like a funny scaredy pup. “Don’t worry Dennis! You got a dragon on your side, one that’s 2 meters and a half tall (8’2), big in size… and knows ice magic! You’re as safe as can be!” “Uhhh… I guess that’s true? I’m not sure…” Dennis sighed in disbelief from what I had just said, ahahaha! GOD I just can't have enough with this silly little goober… Oh yeah! Anyway… Just suddenly, an unknown voice that sounded like it came from an old walkie-talkie snuck up behind us. “Welcome… That’s you, Crystal? You brought a slave?”
“SLAVE?!” Dennis jumped back and hid behind me. “No Xavier… This is a friend of mine, and a co-worker. I’ve come to make some business with you, but it doesn’t have anything to do with slavery.” I crossed my arms, upset he’d say such a thing. “Ah, that’s too bad, kid.” Xavier yawned and walked towards us, revealing only eyes in a seemingly dark void where his face should be, while his body was covered by a long dark purple coat. “Anyway… I’m looking for plasmatic blood and maybe, just maybe do you have a Usurper with you? I would imagine that with how the situation has turned up and how good you are with this stuff, you would.”
Xavier put his hands in his pockets and chuckled, like the total shady weirdo I’ve known him to be. “Yeah, I got one. But it’s gonna cost ya. The plasmatic blood though, not so much. At least for your standards.” Dennis, of course, began to yell. “W-what the hell are you doing Crystal? Don-” But I held his snout shut so he wouldn’t talk further, quickly enough. “Mmmphh mmm!!”... Pfft. Well, now my head won’t hurt. Afterwards I looked at Dennis. “Dennis, shut up for a second at least. This is in the name of science. You know that plasmatic blood has acidic properties, right? I’m very curious.”
“Well, quite the discipline you got there Crystal. Alright, so you’re thinking of pouring the blood on the Usurper?” Xavier tilted his head. “Yeah. The Usurpers feed on soul energy after killing people, I’m wondering if somehow, if they were to feed from a Plasmatic and taste their blood, they would die…”, “Let’s test it out, shall we Crystal?” Xavier pulled out a small jar and a cage with a Usurper in it out of nowhere, the usurper seemed to be sleeping, but unfortunately quickly jumped and started hissing at me to threaten me. What a hopeless creature! You don’t deserve sleep, anyway.
Xavier slightly opened the lid, and proceeded to pour the blood in as I watched the scene unfold before my very dragon eyes. Unfortunately, I felt Dennis escape my grasp, and he then collapsed on the floor… “Poor Dennis, but that doesn’t matter right now.” I observed the Usurper closely… Making sure not to miss on any details. As soon as the Usurper had made contact with the blood, it instantly released steam and screeched in pain! Before melting into black goop… Ha.
“Just what I suspected. Thank you, Xavier. Here you go, you can keep the change.” I handed Xavier a suitcase full of cash which I had kept stored in my pocket dimension, to which Xavier’s eyes got all shiny just witnessing it, and he hugged it! The greedy man! “Heh, well… I’m gonna go take Dennis with me, have a nice day Xavier. By keeping the extra change, make sure nobody knows about this, as always.”, “You got it Crystal.” I picked up Dennis and cradled him in my arms, fortunately he’s very lightweight for me.
Truth be told: For every problem we face in our world, we must make sacrifices, even if they go beyond moral matters, or they are outright insane. But I’m a scientist, and my job is to discover and experiment with things. Now that I know how to take care of these beasts, I will make sure Meex survives, no matter the cost.
“Where did Natalie go?” After I had spent time with her parents and taken my coffee, I got out of the house and walked outside looking for her. It’s raining a little bit, so I don’t want to take my phone out… Ah, there she is. I saw her sitting at a cafe table safe from the rain, then again she’s a terran but either way, it seems like she’s using her phone right now. I walked to the cafe and sat down in front of her. Now how in the gosh darn it do I explain this thing? Am I doing the right thing? Is this even my responsibility? Why was I so shy to visit her home and meet her parents? WHY AM I- “Oh, hey Matt. You’re all wet, want me to dry you?” … “Oh, sure, thank you.” Natalie put her hand on top of my head, it was a bit awkward, but she quickly absorbed the water from my body and dried me in the process. Fascinating.
“There we go, you’re all set. And I won’t be thirsty for a while.” She smiled at me. Awkward… “Thanks again, I wanted to talk with you about ourselves at least for a little bit if you wanted.”... “Yeah sure, what is it?” Natalie looked at me curiously, not suspecting where I was going… sigh. “Well before we do, should we order some coffee? I already had a bit, but it wouldn’t hurt to have some more.” I said as I smiled at her. “Sure, I’ll pay for mine and you pay for yours?”
“That’ll work. Let’s go and get it.” We went to get some coffee. Natalie got herself a coffee cup with milk and sugar, while I had just chosen a mug with normal, dark and bitter coffee. I looked at her after I started enjoying my good ol’ coffee. “So, Natalie, you can tell me about this, but how happy are you with your life?” “Well…” Natalie fiddled with her hair a bit. “Honestly, it’s pretty hard to explain. But now that we’re alone here, I can be my normal self. It’s really hard to keep up that boss persona, you know.”
“Ha, I imagine, it can get on my nerves and make me worry about you sometimes to be honest.”
“Yeah, sorry Matt. It’s just that the job requires it, you know.”, “That’s fine, don’t worry, just please explain to me what I just asked. I want to hear it.”
“Right, well, I feel like my life is pretty regular right now. Like, boring kind of regular. I don’t really care much about what happened in the past with my parents if that’s what you’re thinking, but I feel like my life is missing any excitement in it. It’s hard to get some when you work at an office, and Arthur is… pretty monotone. Formal.”... “Yeah, you talk to him a lot, that must tire you. Although I think I know what you mean, since my life was pretty much like that. My relationship with my parents was definitely better, but working as an architect for the law didn’t feel special at all.”
“Yeah, you used to fantasize a lot about law enforcement and all that as a kid, I remember.”, “Yeah, but when you grow up and get a job, it’s not as exciting. So when Crystal suggested I use my architect career to build houses for others, I wasn’t sure what to think… But I gave it a try, and so far it’s really making me happy to see people enjoy what I do. Michael and Crystal make it really easy. Maybe you just need to find something in life you enjoy.”
“Heh, I think you’re right, but I don’t know what that is yet. I guess I secretly joined you in house building trying to look for an answer.”
“Really? And how did that work out?”
…“It’s okay…”
“Ah.” I just took a sip of the coffee with nothing more to say, and she followed me in drinking her own in sync with me. Well, at least serious mode was working pretty quickly. But, how strange. I’m honestly not sure if I’m able to ask her this… “Hey Matt, you’re here because you talked with my parents right?” [Sigh…] “Yeah, that’s why I’m here. I can see why you left now.” The cat is out of the bag… So it was her parents bothering her after all, as I suspected… “What did you talk about with them?” “I just wanted to hear their side of the story, what’s bothering you. I’m deeply sorry what they did affected you, Nats… I… I never knew. And you never told me either.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter now. I just wish they talked to me as I grew up, I feel like I’d be able to answer rationally. But that’s not the only thing, right?”
“Well, it would be the only thing, but they told me something out of nowhere that I didn’t ask…” , “Well, what is it? I know that they like to tell people all sorts of things about me which is very embarrassing and annoying!”
“Well, I’ll get straight to the point then.” I gulped down the rest of all my coffee impulsively and slammed the mug on the table, just before sighing, unsure where this would go.
“I don’t know why they told me this… But they said you were in love with me, is that true?” Natalie looked at me coldly, without any words or movement, just… stared at me.
She looked to her side and fiddled with her hair. “Y-yeah… That’s… true. I’m sorry, I never told you before, did I? Bit of a strange change of topic though but I don’t really care, I need to hear something else.” She was visibly blushing hard. I feel kinda bad…
“No, it’s fine. I was just wondering why you never told me about it… You’re blushing by the way.” A smile quickly formed in my face, one that I couldn’t stop, how embarrassing…
“Yeah, we have known each other for a long time, and for some reason I just couldn’t build up the courage to tell you.”
“Yeah, me neither, we’re in the same boat.”
Well, nothing more came out of our mouths after I finished that sentence, Natalie just continued drinking her coffee as I was just thinking about what to say, just looking down…
Then very conveniently, my phone began to ring. I grabbed it and answered the call. “Yeah? Matt speaking.”
Crystal yelled at me from the phone, “Matt! Come over to Silver T. Big at The Emergency Research Laboratory! We found a way to stop the Usurpers!” …With how loud she yelled she could totally come out of the phone and stab my ear with her horn! “R-really? Alright, Natalie’s with me, we’ll be there in a bit.”. “See you there!” And she hung up… “What is it?” Natalie looked at me wondering what that was about, trying to peek at my phone. A little bit of privacy, ‘Ms. I-find-the-embarrasment-of-others-entertaining’? “Crystal says she found a way to stop the usurpers. She sounds confident, and wants us to go see her. Let’s go, alright? I’ll give Michael a call.”
“Alright.” I dialed Michael and asked him the favor of getting us at Silver T. Big, fortunately this guy will do whatever I want him to, and only about a minute later, he had arrived, stationed outside. “Alright Nats, let’s go.” I turned around and went to meet up with him, but… Natalie grabbed my hand to stop me. “Hold on Matt, let me help you.” She giggled and the flower on her head expanded in size, serving as a makeshift umbrella for the both of us. “Ah, thanks… Nats. I really appreciate it…” Holding hands, we went to get in Michael’s ship car vehicle.
“What’s this?” Michael laughed. “You two love birds are holding hands? That’s adorable.” We chuckled just a little bit, and Natalie replied. “I guess it is…” Michael then began to drive us to the big place itself: Silver T. Big, at a pace more bearable than that one time where I passed out.
I feel… happy about all this.
Thanks, Natalie.
Thanks, Michael.
…We arrived, and got out of the vehicle. “Thanks, Michael. We’ll continue working tomorrow.”
“Got it, take care now eheh… And don’t worry about the ride, it’s on the house.”
Michael left, and Natalie and I looked at each other. “I think we should stop holding hands now, I don’t want Crystal looking at us like this. She’d make a huge fuss about it.” I said. The less noise, the better. Natalie chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s get serious.” We stopped doing what we were doing and got moving, taking a quick elevator to the laboratory, while Natalie just dried herself by absorbing the water and returned the flower to its original size.
We got to the laboratory and knocked on the door… Crystal greeted us with a big smile on her face. She jumped from excitement… “Finally, you’re here! Dennis and Arthur are already in here, come on! I’ve been waiting!” She pulled the both of us inside, much to our dismay.
“Ugh, hello Dennis, Arthur.”
“Hey Matt, Natalie.” Arthur tipped his crown at us.
“Hey guys!” Dennis smiled at us.
Natalie looked around. “Alright, so what’s this you’re gonna show us Crystal?” “Behold!” Crystal rushed to the end of the room. “I’m gonna show you something amazing!” Crystal posed with great excitement and emotion, I could tell she was extremely happy to show us whatever she was gonna present to us. Behind her, a curtain and a rope were hiding something. I don’t really understand why you would need those in a laboratory, but then again, this is Crystal we’re talking about… The machinations of her mind are truly an enigma.
Crystal opened the curtain to reveal some sort of… Uhh, Usurper colony in a massive container. Yeah. Okay. “What the hell? How’d you guys manage to do that?” Natalie, Dennis, Arthur and I flinched a bit understandably shocked at this bizarre showcase, to which Crystal only reacted with a hearty laughter. “Let’s just say I used a little bit of magic, silly! Now then, allow me to show you the best part of this!”
Crystal jumped off the ground and floated to reach the top of the container, pouring a little bit of a strange liquid. The liquid flowed from the top of the container to the bottom, as I watched, the Usurpers screeched in pain and melted… Ah? What in the world??? We’ve officially gone from a 10 out of 10 weirdness to an entirely newly made up number from this insanity. “What… You guys found a way to melt those Usurpers?” As I made my question, Dennis fell on his back, fainting. “Oh, there he goes again... “ Natalie sighed and moved him to rest against the wall. Giving him a little pat.
Crystal laughed more. “Yeah! Isn’t it obvious? You JUST saw it! I don’t know why you’re asking!” Arthur asked, determined. “Well, what are you waiting for? What is this liquid you’re using to kill those pesky pests?” …Honestly, I could see him putting up better with his patience than me.
Crystal returned to the ground and lowered herself a bit to be able to look at us directly with a similar height.
Her eyes and smile gave me the feeling that something was off, and then, she decided to explain.
“It’s Plasmatic blood. Crazy huh?”
Natalie and I stood back. “W-what?” Stuttering while I tried to process in my mind what the hell she JUST said, I wasn’t sure if I heard this correctly. Did she actually… Well… given from Natalie’s similar reaction and Arthur standing still in silence, it looks like I heard her words just fine.
Natalie’s voice rose from a bit of anger. “That’s insane, where did you get that from?!”
The Plasmatic scientist chuckled. “Ah sorry, I should’ve clarified. My name’s Nitro, I donated a bit of my blood for this… We mixed it with water to be able to use more, Crystal really is smart when it comes to this!”
Arthur sighed. “Well, there’s your answer Natalie, he consented to having his blood used for… whatever this show is.”
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