A woman walked into one of the autopsy rooms deep in the underground of Central Peace headquarters. Going by her garb, one could easily guess she was a doctor, but her pendant identified her further as the head medical examiner of the CP. She took her hands out of her coat, rubbing them together as she breathed hot air onto them.
It was clear that she’d been lacking sleep with the deep bags under her eyes. She’d likely been woken up to be briefed at some ungodly hour about what was happening. “Well, this is going to be my whole day, isn’t it?” She gazed listlessly into the room.
“Mawhg it. I need a big early lunch if I have to deal with this. Or is it late breakfast at this point?” she pondered as she turned on her heels and walked out of the room. It securely sealed behind her, not allowing a single person but her into the room until the autopsy was completed.
Drim suddenly jolted upwards, taking the first deep breath in at least a day. He was unaware of how much time had passed, but that was his best guess. The room he woke up in was extremely clinical, the kind of place Ahvra would love—and freezing, even by Fiend standards. He looked around for a moment, blinking to restore his vision, and three others sprang up in the same fashion as he’d done just a moment ago.
The first thing that was immediately obvious was that they were all naked. Drim covered his eyes, sliding off the autopsy table while he made crude clothing with his Curse. Both Kada and Xard rushed to grab at it, but Phon ignored it for the time being. Instead, she pinched at her eyes and groaned, “Ahhh, someone help me get these mawhging things out, they ache so much!”
Nathym had made covers for the inside of Phon’s eyelids before the mission. They allowed her to use her Curse without her hands or ribbon, but were extremely uncomfortable. This was how she’d survived through her hanging, constantly using her Curse to teleport herself higher on the noose. Drim had been able to get somewhat of an idea from the seed he’d left with her, but could only really see how much she was suffering.
She had to use her Curse perfectly for hours, only moving her body ever so slightly so that no one would notice. It also had to be done endlessly every second without fail or she really would have died, and had to keep shifting her neck into spikes no less.
Drim peeked through his fingers, still doing his best to keep her body covered. The wound was still fresh, and purple trickles of blood were dribbling down her front. Nathym’s device hadn’t disabled their healing, but had slowed it down. It would have been an immediate give away that they were still alive, otherwise.
Kada melted the covers out of Phon’s eyes, and they all finally slipped into their crude rags that were just a hair away from dressing in vegetable sacks. “Okay, who’s going to do it?” Xard posed to the group, finally saying a full sentence to them that didn’t seem to have malice behind it.
“I’d do it, but I think mine got damaged. It shoc-” on cue, Kada jolted a little. “It shocks me every so often. I think one of the bullets they shot into my back must have damaged it before I could melt it. Seriously, those living bullets were a good attempt by them, and uber scary. If the impact didn’t cause that coating to ‘die’, then I really might have been dead by now. Thankfully, I was able to trick them by making the melted bullets look like my blood.”
“Yes yes, we’re all proud of you for accomplishing the basic goal of this mission by not dying,” Phon slowly applauded her. “And I’ll do it. I’m already bleeding so may as well add some more.” Without warning, and causing everyone else to flinch, she grabbed a scalpel off one of the nearby tables and jabbed it into her back between shoulder blades. It was the same spot as her Curse mark, causing a self fulfilling prophecy with her stabbed-globe tattoo.
Purple blood now stained the backside of her rags to match the front. Kada rushed over and jammed a finger into the wound. Nathym’s device had been implanted along their spinal cords to have full access to their nervous system, and to not make it obvious that there was anything hiding in their bodies. Kada dragged out a squirm of liquid following her finger, which she then converted to its alternate form of a portable computer drive.
Xard and Kada huddled around the computer terminal in the room after Kada plugged in the device, which began working automatically. Phon went over to dress her wounds and try to clean off the blood. This left Drim alone to finally acknowledge the Elesloth in the room. His eyes wandered to the table closest to the terminal, where a fifth corpse lay: the body of Sim Twelling.
Drim slowly wandered over to it as his eyes glossed over the wounds. The cuts were deep and perfect, the gashes still open and unhealed. Sim’s severed arms were laying next to him on the table. His body had been cleaned of its mud-like blood, but Drim could see it as if it was still there. He really hadn’t held back, attacking Sim with every ounce of force he had.
A twinge of pain surged through Drim’s chest, both in his heart and from the actual injury Sim had given to him. Killing Sim had never been his goal, and honestly had never even crossed his mind. Sim Twelling was evil, that couldn’t be denied, but he still hadn’t crossed the unforgivable line. He hadn’t really harmed people, just stolen from them and made threats. There was always a chance for redemption.
However, the moment Drim was struck, his survival instincts kicked in. They wouldn’t let such an opportunity go by when Sim dropped his guard, and they went for the killing blow. Before he could realize what he’d done, Sim was already unsavable, his life forfeit at Drim’s hands.
What pained him the most now was wondering if he was originally destined to be just like Sim, ruling the world together as he’d mentioned. By all counts, Drim should have grown up to be the proud noble and world leader that everyone expected him to be. His personality shouldn’t have been what it was. He should have been a spoiled rich kid with a superiority complex.
Drim had never been left wanting for anything and had a loving family on top of that. Even with his oddity of being able to sense the evil in people, he should have grown up entitled. Where would he be, where would the world be if he had never killed his parents, if he had never discovered their secrets so early on, if he had never been to that rally, if that drunken man had never attempted to assault them…?
On the verge of tears, Drim’s mind filled with uncertainty and guilt. A comforting hand was placed on his shoulder. Drim turned his head, surprised by more than anything else to find Xard. “You shouldn’t let his death weigh on you,” Xard consoled him. “Sim was responsible and accountable for everything that happened. You just did what you had to do to keep yourself and everyone else safe.”
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Drim found it hard to look at him at the moment, and definitely didn’t want to keep looking at Sim, so he opted for the floor. After a few moments of silence, Drim mumbled, “Xard, are we—”
“Let me say something,” Xard continued for him. “I said unforgivable things before the mission, things I can never take back. I was too confused and conflicted, and I’m really sorry for it. Hopefully, you can forgive me someday. As for going forward… I don’t know that our views for a perfect world will ever fully align, but that’s not a bad thing. It takes a lot of different perspectives to make sure we don’t lose sight of our goal.”
“We will make this world a better place, Drim. That’s a promise. And while I’m going to get you to reconsider some of the points of your plan, I’m going to make sure that you get to complete it. From now on, I’m with you one-hundred percent. Project Fiendless is now my top priority as well. Just let me know what you need me to do, and I’ll be there for you.” Xard then pulled him in and they gave each other a hug with light pats on the back.
This was unbelievably comforting for Drim. For the past few days he felt like he’d lost a friend, and felt like he'd lost more of himself with Sim’s death, but this made him feel whole again. However, he was still a bit uncomfortable, and used his Curse to make a similarly ragged blanket to cover Sim’s body with.
Drim then wandered over to Kada to check on the progress of the data transfer. “How’s it going?” Drim lightly tapped on her shoulder.
Kada jumped in her seat, swiftly turning around, pulling out the earbuds that Drim didn’t know she was wearing—even more confused as to where she found them, but assumed they must have been left at the terminal. “Oof, sorry,” Kada stumbled. “The transfer is going well, slow, but well. You’d think with Nathym’s tech it would have been done in a second, but I guess there’s literally billions of files.”
“Anyways, I was digging through that lady’s personal stuff. Did you know she has a playlist for performing autopsies? It starts with a punk-rock song called ‘Getting Slitty’. I shudder to think what would happen if she and Ahvra ever met. Oh, and she ends it with a Virabeldian folk song about death. It’s surprisingly not bad.”
“Uhh alright, enjoy.” Drim knew it best at this point just to nod and smile at Kada’s weird actions rather than question them. “Please let us know when the transfer is done. Thanks a bunch.”
Drim then slowly strolled over to where Phon was sitting on top of a counter. She was pulling off the bandages she’d placed over her wounds since they’d healed in the past few minutes. “How are you feeling?” Drim asked her, relieved that she was finally better.
“Doing alright. I took some painkillers from this lady’s stash to see if they’d help. Didn’t get the chance to find out since the pain went away before I even finished swallowing them. I’ll still get some satisfaction knowing that she’ll wonder why her pill count is off. It’s weird that you’re asking when you’re the one who had the big gaping hole in your chest,” Phon was on the verge of scolding him.
“Yeah, thanks for saving me,” Drim smiled at her. “If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I probably wouldn’t have been able to patch myself up enough to get away from Sim’s beasts. Definitely would have run out of blood if I tried to move too quickly. You really did come through for me, and thank you again for being the one to take the hit with the CP. I don’t know that I would have been able to go through what you did in my condition.”
“You know I’d do anything for you, little brother,” Phon said with the softest tone of voice and the gentlest smile he’d ever seen her make. To add on top of it, she then reached out and patted him on the head. Perhaps the pain meds had actually done something after all, and Drim figured he may as well enjoy it while it lasted, knowing it’d be short.
“Anyways, this place is pretty amazing, not gonna lie,” Phon actually praised the CP—words Drim never thought would come out of her mouth. “I wish I had my tiara so you could see it, but then I guess we’d need our phones too, and if we had that, we’d have everything, so what’s the point? Anyways, I noticed a hint of our auras when looking around, so I’ll see if I can find our stuff.” Phon closed her eyes and slumped down a bit. Drim was unsure if she actually was searching or if she was being forced to take a quick nap from the medication.
Drim glanced back over at the terminal and could see that the transfer was almost done. It would also then plant a bug of its own that would hack into the system which they could hopefully use as a backdoor in the future to access more files remotely, assuming the CP’s tech department didn’t notice and quash it.
Since he still had a little time to kill, Drim decided to lay a vine trap for the medical examiner. Once she noticed they were gone, she’d immediately bolt from the room to inform someone. This trap would grab her and keep her in place for about an hour. He didn’t want to keep her confined for too long, since most likely no one would come searching for her given the expected length of the autopsy. It just had to be long enough for them to make their escape and get far away.
Once Drim finished, Phon vanished without warning. She reappeared about a minute later with a crate of their belongings. About half of it had been tagged, so it was clear the CP was still sorting through it. There was also a smattering of blood on her nose—red, so it wasn’t hers. Phon assured them that she knocked everyone in sight unconscious, so it shouldn’t raise an alarm for a while. Even if the unconscious bodies were found, it would likely be blamed on their gear having some security device.
The four of them each took their clothing to a respective corner of the room and redressed. Drim’s top and cloak still had a hole torn clean through, so he used his plant fibers to patch it enough to make himself look presentable. There was some restrained grunting coming from Xard’s corner as his rings reconnected to the nerves in his fingers. Somehow, someone in the CP had been smart enough to figure out how to remove them without lopping his fingers off.
When Phon was finished dressing, she vanished again, reappearing with a bounty of food. Nathym’s device had also disabled their Fiend nutrition conversion, so they were all starving and scarfed it down. While all their mouths were full, the device pinged at the terminal to indicate it was done, but no one seemed to mind it at the moment until they were satiated.
“Alright, let’s talk about what we’re doing next.” Phon addressed the group after the device was retrieved. “Obviously, escaping is our number one priority, but do we want to do anything else while we’re here, or once we get out of here? I’ll admit, I’m pretty tired and wouldn’t mind going home right away or crashing somewhere for a while.”
“I think we should take our victory and not risk being here any longer than we have to,” Drim put forward. “While I really want to explore this place, we should wait for a time when we are welcomed guests. That said, I don’t think we should waste being on this side of the world while we’re here. We’ll know exactly where we are once we get to the surface, but I can’t imagine we’re far from Prosper. I think it’s time to officially put phase 2 of Project Fiendless, Expansion, into motion. Let’s visit an old friend.”
It seemed that they took too long discussing their plans and the secure doors eventually opened. The medical examiner took one step inside and then dropped the big jug of coffee she’d brought with her from shock. The vine trap did its work, securing her while the doors closed behind her, locking this room while everyone else was none the wiser. Still, the Fiends didn’t want to take any more risks and took this as their cue to exit.
The four Fiends reappeared in the bathroom of a gas station out in the middle of nowhere. “Oh, I see now,” Phon said loudly after a second. “I can’t believe I’m praising them again, but it’s honestly pretty smart. The entrance is through the car wash. They make sure to time any car entering with one leaving a few minutes later so no one would get suspicious.”
The group walked out into the gas station and grabbed a few snacks for their upcoming trip home. Everything seemed a little too serene for it being the secret entrance to the most secure place in the world. Even the disinterested cashier didn’t raise an eyebrow as he was ringing them up. It really sold the inconspicuousness of the place.