Chapter Text
She hyperventilates whilst zooming through the frigid metal facility, frantically looking for an exit, jumping up to open various doors as she maneuvered around the halls. Alarm sirens started going off, and she doesn’t even know where she expected to go from here. There were so many doors, and no windows. She didn’t even know what floor she was on, and her hopes of finding a way out causes her speed and resolve to dwindle. However, at the end of a particular hall, she comes across a mysterious and important looking door. She goes to open it, and is surprised to find it unlocked. When she enters the room, she looks to the first light source she sees— a computer console even bigger than the one in the containment room she escaped from. She sees some sort of radar system across the world displayed on the screen, various yellow, blue, and red dots littered throughout. She steps closer, suddenly entranced by the display, when a voice jolts her back to reality.
“Hey.”
Her gaze is yanked towards a cage with purple energetic bars and metal rungs, and within it is a lone pipotron donning a cold and serious expression…
… A green pipotron.
Marine warily turns to the lone prisoner, who then points to some metal drawers near the computer.
“If you wanna get out of here, the key to my cage is in the bottom drawer of that thing. It has a green fob. Get me out, and I’ll get you out. That is, of course, unless you’d rather be liquified and sucked into a gun.”
Marine immediately dashes over to the drawer, pulling it open and frantically shuffling through the contents until her blue hand touches the key in question. She holds it up, still breathing heavily from her panic before running over to the green’s cage. She didn’t know if this unique mutant was trustworthy, but freeing her was the only real option she had. Marine jams the key into the lock, her trembling hands finally turning it after some struggle. As soon as the electric field goes down, the green immediately bursts out from the door and runs over to the cart. She grabs a long cord, tying it securely around one of the cart’s legs, before tossing the other end to Marine and giving her orders.
“Tie that cord tight around your waist and boost like a bat outta’ hell. I’ll take care of the enemies, just dodge them and follow my directions.”
The door to the room suddenly bursts open, multiple viral creatures flooding in. Marine shrieks and backs up, only for the green to jump between her and the monsters. Green holds out her hands in front of her, conjuring numerous shadowy missiles that spread out and obliterate all of the creatures in their path. She then jumps on top of the cart, crouching and grabbing one edge of the surface, her other hand readied at her side. After a moment she glares at Marine and hisses out her order.
“What are you waiting for?! Move it!”
—And move it she does. She blows up her booster in less than a second and takes off through the door.
“Go straight down this hall until you hit a corner, then from there take the second door on your right.” The green calls to her, and she does as directed. Various monsters were blipping in around them, but Marine dodged them all. She could hear and feel the explosions behind her, but remained focused on her goal. Once the door had been reached, she hopped up and raced through it, nearly tripping as she found herself in a stairwell. Nonetheless, she continued speeding downward through the flights of stairs, glancing back for a second to make sure the other mutant hadn’t fallen off from the chaotically bumping cart. She was beginning to run out of strength, but the adrenaline kept her going. Once more, the green pipotron yells orders at her.
“Once you hit the bottom of this flight of stairs, there’s a dark hallway. At the end of it is a green exit sign. There’s a keypad that locks that door; the passcode is 7476. Punch that in, zoom out and prepare to stop briefly WHEN I say so to untie that cart from you. Got it?”
Marine barely manages to nod as she takes in the directions. She feels like the world is a blur. Everything feels deafening. She doesn’t feel in control anymore. She manages to stop right before the keypad, unknowing if when exactly the stairs ended and the hall began. She typed the code in... And then, they saw daylight. They were spat out of the cold facility onto what looked like a sunny island. The blue pipotron pants for a few moments, her mouth that was formerly agape in horror now twitching into a smile of relief. She took off again, barely beginning to laugh as she raced forward, so thrilled that she had made it out… so thrilled by the escape that she didn’t hear her ally calling to her.
“Okay, we’re approaching the cliff so STOP!” The green called… but they still kept moving. Her eyes widen in panic as she realizes what’s happening just a second too late.
“Oh, sh-”
—And then, they were dropping. She hadn’t anticipated this, and was stunned by the change in events for a few moments. She blinks and sees Marine ahead of her tumbling and tugging on the restraint as she falls, faster and heavier from the weight of the cart she was still tied to. The green recollects herself, straightening her body to dive closer to the blue. She barely gets close enough to hook her hand into the harness of wire before they hit the water. Marine keeps trying to tug for a few seconds before her grip loosens, now having lost consciousness. Green presses on, unwrapping the cord, watching it float free in a loose ring. She grabs Marine, trying to swim for the surface. The last thing she sees is her own hand reaching for the sunlight rippling above the waves, before the darkness takes her as well.
She didn’t feel anything as her mind drifted through the nothingness, her senses slowly flickering back to life. She began to focus on the sounds of waves sloshing along the shore, the cold waters barely grazing her tail and feet. She was on her stomach, lying in the warm sand. She felt about ready to fall back asleep again when she felt a sharp pain in the back of her calm. She sprung herself up on her arms and screamed, before she was immediately hushed by a green hand clamping her jaw shut.
“Shut up and lay still! I still need to get your tracker out!” Green removes her hand before placing it back on her calf, continuing the careful slicing of her dark edge through her skin. The blue tenses, but starts to focus more on the many questions running rampant through her head. She just now realized that the wirey silencer was no longer stuck in her neck. Her throat was still sore, but at least she could speak again.
“I thought we cut our trackers out before…?” She asks.
“Wild trios have two trackers. The first one is more for seeing who would remove it if they could; it’s meant to be obvious. The other, however, is virtually impossible to detect. It’s a mesh that wraps around some inner muscles. Extremely difficult and painful to remove, and there’s no easy way to do it, so brace yourself.”
Her sudden alarm was replaced by agonized screaming as she felt the green’s hand dip into the wound and the mesh being tugged along her inner leg, and it felt like it was taking forever. She tries to stifle her own cries, but it’s just too painful. Suddenly, she feels something slip out and her screams cease, replaced by exasperated panting. She looks up to see the green holding the bloody mesh in her hand, which she then tosses on top of another in the sand. It’s just when the green walks with a slight limp over to the meshes that Marine notices the bald back of her calf with a slice that matches her own. She’d managed to do that to herself… ?
The green pipotron then holds her hand over the meshes, blasting out multiple shadowy missiles and reducing the trackers to ash. She then walks back over to Marine, and uses both hands to hold down her calf.
“Hold still.” She says. Marine looks back as she fires a laser from her forehead and cauterizes her wound with it. She then gets up, walking over to a nearby rock and sitting on it. Her stoicism can’t hide her exhaustion and her head drops as she pants slightly.
Marine is still comprehending all that’s happening. She gets up, hobbling over to the mysterious mutant and sitting down in front of her. The green raises her head, looking into Marine’s eyes. They had a vacant shadow to them, as if haunted. Marine doesn’t even know where to begin, so the green starts speaking first.
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions. You may as well start asking them.”
Marine stretches out her wounded leg to try and ease some of the pain before finally finding a starting point for her numerous questions.
“Who are you?” The blue asks, still absolutely intrigued by this unique pipotron.
“I’m the Prototype. You can call me as such. Or Proto, or Green… I really don’t care.”
Marine blinks, questioning deeper to reaffirm she’d understood what she was hearing correctly.
“You mean… You’re the first pipotron…? Are you the only green one?”
“Yes and yes.” The green answers. “I was the first. But I had… well, let’s just call them flaws. I was the only green pipotron ever made.”
Marine pauses before asking another burning question. “How did you know how to escape?”
The green pipotron chuckles before turning to her once more, a smirk on her pointed lip. “Believe it or not, I’ve been waiting on this day for a very, very long time. I’d hoped a blue would escape the test and find me one day… however I’d also hoped that she knew how to stop before we went off of the damn cliff too soon.”
Marine looks away, somewhat ashamed at her blunder, before Proto speaks up again. “It’s okay. You were probably on autopilot. I get it. At least we both made it out alive. Overall, you did a lot better than most could’ve. Your booster skills are nothin to sneeze at.”
Marine blushes slightly at the praise, sheepishly scratching the back of her head. “I-Um… Th-thank you.” She stutters out.
Finally, she gets to ask the biggest question on her mind.
“So… what is ‘The Perfection Protocol’?” She asks. Proto doesn’t respond, instead stands up, facing toward the jungle. She readies her hands up, and a few moments later, multiple pipo monkeys jump from the bushes, holding machine and ray guns. Marine looks to Green, who sighs, and raises her hands higher in surrender. She nudges Marine to do the same, and the monkeys swarm them.
“Guess I’ll have to save that explanation for you and Specter, then…” she mutters, allowing the monkeys to approach and tie her up, Marine doing the same.
“Why are we not fighting them, again…?” Marine asks, confused by the surrender.
“Because we need numbers if my plan to take our creator down is to succeed, and I don’t think killing a bunch of Specter’s subordinates is going to help sway him to our side.”
The pipotrons are then ushered through the jungle by the monkeys, and in the distance, they see a large, spiky base crafted with Specter’s likeness come into view. Soon enough, they’d have an audience with the leader of all monkeys… All they can do now is hope that he’ll listen.