There are times when your life flashes before your eyes and there are times when you hit your head so hard you start seeing colors; this is neither. Slater is familiar with death and dying. He's familiar with hitting his head so hard it splits open. He's quite literally seen his own brain before. You could say that Slater is uniquely prepared for a variety of situations, that he's able to think himself out of most variables due to his position as both a regressor and an agent of time's will. Unfortunately! You would be wrong.
Slater is not prepared.
At the very least, he's not prepared for situations that he's never experienced before — being face to face with a feral Keeper of the City in a basement bunker with one of the most chaotic people he's ever met? Yeah. You could say he isn't the most well-equipped to handle it.
He scrambles as far as he can up the ladder, very intent on leaving Bones behind to deal with the Keeper alone. The reasoning is simple, Slater is not a hero and well he's not sure he really wants to die in such a grotesque way.
( Though he is still fantasizing about the great forever sleep. )
"Where are you trying to go!?" Bones snaps his head, reaching back to grab the back of Slater's shirt and yank him off the ladder. He was intent on not letting the mouse of a boy leave.
A murder suicide, how fitting.
"Fine, I give up. Just kill me now," Slater goes slack in Bones grip, flopping to the floor like a fish. "Leave me to die, why don't you?" He is content to find himself a home on the floor, closing his eyes in an effort to make the process easier to accept.
The Keeper funnily enough, hasn't moved to strike them yet. Almost as if just as incredulous as Bones felt the situation was.
"Wait, are you serious...?" Bones holds up a finger to the Keeper as if telling it to just wait a moment.
And like the obedient, carnivorous, destructive force it was — it listened.
"Yes, just let me die here. You can leave. Just go up that ladder and find the rift exit by yourself." Slater's tone is serious, devoid of any jest or good-natured fun. No, he is more than happy to just lay there and embrace his fate. If the world could just let him die here? That would be great. There would be no more painful tomorrows or todays or even yesterdays. Eternal sleep really sounded so amazing. So peaceful. So...
"Stupid. You're literally stupid." Bones lets out a big-bellied laugh, "Where's the fun is just turning tail and dying? Get up! We're going to play tag you're it with the Keeper."
It's Slater's turn to stare now.
"No. Just leave me behind. We can't out run this thing." Especially not with his anima being as faulty as it is. Bones may have a chance with his own anima, but Slater didn't really want to take any risks especially knowing that Bones was as wishy-washy as they came.
The silence that follows makes Slater believe that Bones was seriously considering just leaving him behind to go have fun by himself. Naively, he makes the mistake of assuming Bones would let him have his peace.
Bones never lets anyone have peace.
He can feel the younger one start to try and pick him up and something like panic flares up in his chest. It's all-consuming static that threatens to rip his heart out. So he shoves, thrashes, and gets up faster than he ever thought himself able. Slater backs away into the grooves of the ladder, almost liked a cornered animal. "Don't touch me."
"I wouldn't have to if you would just—"
A harrowing shriek nearly bursts their eardrums as the Keeper finally decides to stop listening to the gentle suggestions of staying away. The battle cry rumbles the foundation of the bunker and the earth around it.
Just at that moment, a digitized mouse appears right above it's head.
"Oh, you've literally got to be kidding me..." Slater notices of course, tipping his head upwards like the ceiling would give him an answer to this.
While the mouse is a warning, realistically Slater can't reach the top of the Keeper's massive head in the first place.
As the Keeper lunges forward towards them, only Bones is quick enough to dodge to the side while Slater's body forces himself down to the ground. Teeth and claws rake across his back, tearing into his shirt and skin like it's paper. Blood is warm but the adrenaline pumping through his veins is enough to dull the pain for the moment. He is flat on his stomach, fingers trembling in complaint.
The mouse continues to hover above creature's head and Slater's at a loss as to what to do other than die.
Death is calling his name so sweetly, too.
"Oh, I can stitch that up for you later once we're out!" Bones calls cheerfully, the Keeper striking out at him as he speaks. He stumbles backwards, watching with interest as Slater picks himself up.
The room they are in is familiar and since it's home to Silvie's things, there would no doubt be something that should theoretically help. Even though the girl in question was young, she was still a tinkerer at heart. Slater takes note of this and tries to rack his brain for anything that he knew was in here, wildly looking around as the Keeper finds amusement and purpose in trying to slice Bones apart.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
( Also trying to ignore the fact that Bones is laughing whilst getting mauled. )
He feels along the wall, hurriedly before taking his chances leaving Bones behind in the room.
The sound of his retreating footsteps has the Keeper turning around, as if remembering the main focus was to get at Slater rather than mess around with Bones.
"Hey! Come back!" Bones voice is distant in the background, overshadowed by the Keeper's shrieks.
It's teeth lash out at Slater, while Bones takes it as an opportunity to... manifest a sword. Really? A sword? Couldn't he have just made something else? Slater thinks it's silly, though, he's also opted for swords and daggers — they were simply quintessential.
"Are you going for offense then?" He throws himself to the ground again as the Keeper strikes out with its claws. It's large and heavy, destroying the walls in the process. Whether they managed to beat this thing or not, there is a very real risk for being buried alive regardless. A hope that brings Slater some semblance of happiness.
"Yeah!" Bones responds happily, throwing himself at the Keeper while Slater tries his best to dodge.
Unfortunately for both of them ( fortunately for Slater ) the Keeper's claws cleave Slater right in half. He is familiar with the pain, making brief eye contact with Bones before he is also cleaved right in half.
Game Over Bad End Forced Restart - Condition Met
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He comes back to reality with a sharp gasp, eyes wide. He clutches at his stomach and searches for scarring that isn't there. He can still feel the pain of being cleaved in half, the sharpness of it and the look in Bones eyes. He supposes a normal person would be thankful that their anima could save their life like this. Slater was anything but thankful, opting instead to dig his own fingers into his skin like the pain would be enough to let him rest.
"Slater?" The same voice. The same call. The same direction.
It's always jarring whenever he goes back like this. Usually, the system only sends him back a few minutes or a few moments, not often does he respawn in places he doesn't remember creating a save point for.
He doesn't give a sheepish reply this time, cracking his neck in the process of turning to make sure it's actually Bones that he's seeing.
It is.
"Fuck, it's you again." Why could he have not just been reset at his apartment? He'd much rather have see the corpse of his brother than this guy.
His anima has never been fair and Slater figures he has to deal with Bones for the foreseeable future. At least now he knows where not to go.
"Fuck me? Huh?" Bones sends Slater a confused look, coming into his space with his head tilted to the side. "Again?"
The sidewalk continues to move around them, like a river flows around rocks. Slater turns his head to watch them, then gestures for Bones to follow him as he turns around and disappears back down an alleyway. So long as they didn't go that way and the Keeper never knew they were there... Slater figures they will be safe.
"Sorry, I just... I wasn't talking to you." He was, though Bones didn't need to know that. "You're stuck here, too? We're in a rift." He explains without any fan-fare.
The alleyway pathways give Slater enough room to breathe. The thing is, it's not that he doesn't mind the fact the system saved his life. He minds the fact that it won't let him die, either. Not truly, not completely. He ignores the way Bones matches pace with him, for a quiet moment... he wonders if he could permanently die if Bones was the one to do it. In truth he knows that Bones would never succeed. There was just a sick and twisted gut-wrenching feeling that told him it was futile.
"Yeah, I am stuck here. How'd you know?" Bones responds.
"Because I'm stuck here and it sounded like the most reasonable assumption... considering who you are." Slater manages to deflect.
"Oh. I seeeeeee. That does in fact make a lot of sense."
Bones —who Slater should have never turned his back to— throws an arm across his shoulders and leans down from his taller vantage point just to bring him to a stop. "So, Slater... what's dying feel like?" The statement shouldn't have been as jarring as it was. It brings Slater's heart thrumming to a stop, replaced by static as he wonders about the system. Had something messed up in the process? Had Bones been brought back, too?
His response stutters to life and Slater has to keep everything in him from trying to murder Bones on the spot. "What kind of question is that?" There was and is still a chance that Bones doesn't know what he's talking about and is simply trying to rile him up.
The laughter that follows alerts him to the latter option. "I was just wondering, since-" he pauses, mulling over his words. "Since you look like you've got experience with it. Your feet are all bloody."
Oh, that's right.
Slater doesn't need to see the soles of his feet to remember he was barefoot and there was caked blood there, too. "Yeah... I don't. I just stepped in some blood, I came from Terminus." It was the simplest explanation.
Terminus was the rotten side of Karanoia, filled with grit and crime. Anyone who lived in the city knew of the district almost better than they knew their own districts.
Bones finds the answer acceptable, releasing him from his hold as he moves in front of Slater instead. He turns around, walking backwards in order to keep direct eye contact with the other boy. "Are you excited for school, then?" There's a bit of deja vu here, Slater considers completely changing his answer from last time.
"I'm super excited, the most excited that anyone ever was." His delivery is dry, his wrist itches. He scratches.
There is something wrong. Was it really going to be this easy just to evade the Keeper? Was it really this easy to just... not go down that sidewalk and disappear down an alleyway? Why here of all places?
What if the red flag wasn't the Keeper...? What if it was Bones?
Slater shakes that thought out of his head, acknowledging something that ridiculous was grounds for ruining his own life. Bones doesn't notice his expression waving. He just grins with a mouth full of teeth.
"Same here! I'm really super duper excited, too." Finally, he turns around.
At the very end of the alleyway and on the other side was the Keeper.
Slater's breath catches in his throat and he curses. There really is no catching a break with this system. The objective was to escape though it never expanded on what he was meant to escape from. Is this what he is meant to escape? The Keeper? Is he supposed to survive with both him and Bones to make an exit? Where the hell was the beginning of the rift anyway. There had to be somewhere they could hide.
Maybe the option was to just simply...
"Run!"