Chapter Text
Scar has to hand it to the HEP, they kept their lab rather secret. He probably wouldn’t even know that it existed if it weren’t for Grian, his beautiful songbird. Scar checks in to how Grian is doing, grinning as he watches the guard slowly losing unconsciousness.
He arrives only a few minutes later, smiling brightly at his partner, “excellent work!”
Grian grins back, swiping the keycard against the panel, granting them access to the building. He enters first, holding the door open for Scar. “This place is heavily ventilated, but it’s rather easy to shut down if you know how to.” His grin widens, “and once we do, we’ll easily take over this whole place.”
“Lead the way, my songbird,” Scar replies cheerfully. Grian nods and begins to lead him through the building, Scar following along right next to him. His mood is a little dampened as he feels the ventilation sucking up and killing his spores. It isn’t a pleasant feeling, he’s glad they’re stopping those soon.
Scar startles as a scientist rounds a corner and notices them. He quickly covers the short distance and puts a hand over their mouth before they can scream. He quickly increases the spore cloud around him, their proximity causing them to inhale it very fast.
As they start losing consciousness, Scar changes his grip and lowers them to the ground. Scar turns back around to face his partner, “let’s continue!”
Grian nods, surprise quickly fading as he starts walking again. They soon arrive at the control room, which holds a lot of seemingly important equipment. Grian quickly heads over to a panel in the corner, opening and flipping several switches on it. He pauses, hand hovering over one switch, and hands over the keycard. “Once I shut it down, they’ll notice quickly. I’ll stand guard outside once I do, incase they call for backup.”
Scar nods, taking a keycard and giving Grian a chaste kiss. He exits the room and makes his way deeper into the lab. He grins when he hears the ventilation fall silent, increasing the cloud of spores around him, beginning to fill up the building.
He soon finds the biggest room in the building, easily identifiable as their primary lab. “Good evening everyone,” he greets cheerily, grin widening at their panic. They look around at each other, clearly at a loss for what to do, which amuses Scar. They had so much faith that they wouldn’t need anything else to ward him off. “Now, we can do this the easy way and you can all join us without resistance. Ev-“
“You’re crazy!”
Scar frowns at the interruption, narrowing his gaze on the scientist who spoke. He slowly approaches them, his cane thumping on the ground the only other sound. “Now, I don’t like being interrupted,” Father Spore growls lowly. The scientist only glares up at him, even if they’re basically backed into a corner. He grabs them by the collar of their shirt, pulling them until they’re nose to nose, “I really don’t like it when my sporelings are disobedient. Keep this up and you might just become mushroom food.” He tightens his grip, “now I’ll ask again, without interruption, will you join us without resistance, to connect to us and begin a new, better, life?”
Their eyes are completely fogged over, probably barely able to keep a coherent thought, as they very slowly nod.
“Good,” Scar purrs, gently helping them to the ground before turning to face the others. If they were scared before, it is nothing compared to their horrified looks now. He smiles brightly again, “what do you say? Joining us and connecting to the mycelium is the start to a better life. You’ll never have to worry about anything ever again!”
None of them speak, clearly too afraid to do so. Scar would like an answer, it would make things easier, but it doesn’t matter much. He can see how the room is slowly filling up with spores, it won’t be long until they inhale enough to begin connecting to them.
Scar sighs as he studies their expressions. They all clearly intend to say no, just too afraid to voice it. “So be it,” he replies, increasing his spores to the maximum capacity and approaching them. They back away from him, but it doesn’t help. Their eyes soon start fogging up and they slump against each other and fall to the ground.
He hums, pleased. It could have gone better, but things worked out great for them either way. Scar can faintly feel his spores reaching more people as the lab begins to be fully filled by them. Clearly his work here is done. He’ll have to relay his instructions to them when they’re more conscious.
With a grin, he turns around to retrace his steps. He reaches the exit in just a couple of minutes. Grian is grinning brightly, clearly able to feel his excitement through the hivemind. A lot was achieved today, a very important thing was achieved today.
“Everything went smoothly,” Grian comments, confirming that he can either feel it, or watched Scar succeed.
He nods, “they are all under my control and will shortly receive their assignments. The HEP won’t be getting this place back once everything is fully grown.”
“Which will take hours?”
“Less.” Scar closes the distance between them and cups Grian’s face in his hands, “you did marvelously, songbird. I’m so proud of you.” He leans in close, until their lips are almost touching, and purrs, “you deserve a reward.”
Scar can feel his partner shiver as he closes his eyes, leaning forwards to kiss him. He moves his hand to hold the back of Grian’s head, tilting his head to deepen their kiss.