Chapter Text
Sparks sparked from sparks with the intensity of the clash. P:AL lunged with precise, undeniably lethal intent—then missed by exactly the amount Spatulad needed to dodge. Some teacher, he thought; he was almost mincemeat!
P:AL's longsword lay heavy against the stone floor, as if it sensed Spat's hesitation and sought to bring him out of his trance.
"APOLOGIES," the unfeeling tutor began.
"I WAS PROGRAMMED TO MENACE WITHIN REASON. FOR YOUR SAKE, THIS NEXT BLOW WILL BE MORE TELEGRAPHED."
"Hey, wait a sec-!" Spatulad just barely got his sentence out before ducking a sideways swipe from P:AL's coldsteel weapon.
Recognizing the futility of reasoning with it, he decided to get serious for a second. After all, it was what he was here for, right? His purpose. His destiny. It all began with beating this one single enemy on his own.
No pressure.
While P:AL was still reeling from their earlier, heavier strike, Spat protracted his claws and leaped at it, crawling behind the bot and stabbing at the weighty shawl protecting their metal body. With as thick as it was, he'd have no luck penetrating it without some sort of distraction first.
He didn't have much time to think about it before P:AL simply picked him off of their back and threw him at the wall, his head slamming back with a crack before he fell on the floor like a ragdoll.
Whatever. He's a big boy. He'll heal fast. It'll all be worth it in the end. He just has to do this once.
No pressure.
The machine chuckled darkly, their screen emanating a look of what almost seemed like pity.
"YOU ARE MEANT TO GO ON TO FACE DRAGONS. GODS. NARRATIVE SIGNIFICANCE." It slowly edged closer on spider-like legs, thick as a neck at the base but thin and sharp as needles at the tip. "FROM THIS ENCOUNTER, YOU WILL LEARN TIMING. IMPROVIZATION. AND I, SHALL LEARN NOTHING. AS THINGS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN."
Despite the pain wracking through his body, Spatulad still felt like he could take this thing.
"I'm also starting to learn," the kid began, "That all those tropes in the movies about villain monologues were right! Take THIS!!!"
He pulled a spellcast bottle out of his bag of holding, shattering it on the ground.
P:AL approached steadily though its screen showed a bit of confusion at the display.
Spatulad suddenly remembered that for a spellcast to work, you had to call out its name while emptying the contents of its essence. Having already spilt the essence, he called out its name, albeit nervously.
"Oh! Shit, uh...MEATIER SWARM!!!"
Suddenly, a storm of raw meat flew out of nowhere, slamming into P:AL's body from wherever it wasn't currently looking. It didn't consider this much of an issue despite the minor damage to its chassis, which were easy enough to fix.
Of course, this was until it noticed, A: the small red cat it was dueling with had already fled from the corner it was previously in. And, B: Dead 300lb cows apparently meet the criteria for the raw meat cast by Meatier Swarm. P:AL was suddenly slammed into with the force of the bovine, which was then cut away at with relative ease despite the major damage done to its sides from the onslaught.
Spat couldn't help but laugh at the utterly ridiculous sight. "Kehehehe! Klod, I can't believe that worked! Aren't you supposed to be the best swordsmachine in the whole Hemisphere? Still got absolutely SPANKED by a 15 year old at the height of your caree- that doesn't sound right. Mm. Nevermind."
P:AL whistled, or at the very least let out a high-pitched tone from their limited vocal range while its screen made an attempt to SHOW them whistling.
"VERY INTERESTING. YOUR UNPREDICTABILITY WILL BE YOUR LINCHPIN. BUT, WHAT WILL YOU DO AGAINST AN OPPONENT ON THE DEFENSIVE?"
P:AL held its shawl out like a shield, its stance widening and its longsword raised high.
By now, Spatulad had already bought himself enough time to rummage through his bag more thoroughly, finally locating his prized magic lute. It only had one string, but it was very special to him as he'd owned it all his life.
Backed into a corner yet again, he played a quick tune he'd all but memorized, summoning the favor of wisps from beyond the veil, who were so thoroughly moved by the melody that they threw their lot in with the kid and decided to fight alongside him, slamming into P:AL's shawl with all their might before disappearing back to where they came from.
Their efforts, albeit small, were not in vain, at the material began to burn up with supernatural fire. P:AL , wholly unbothered what with the current small size of the flames, whipped the shawl at Spatulad. With cat-like agility (who'd have thought, right?), he leaped away onto the adjacent wall.
"Missed me, chud!"
P:AL tried to guard his path, but he squirmed out of their grip before it could get tight, getting up behind the machine and pulling it to the ground with the back of their shawl.
In mere moments, P:AL was on the ground, most of their back legs pinned under their own weight as ethereal flames danced across its surface and burned up its protective clothing.
Using its front and side legs, it struggled to rise once more, rolling back onto its front and pushing itself up while shedding its burning shawl on the ground.
Without their shawl, P:AL looked much like a radio tower of sorts, jagged bits of metal and wiry hunks building up to a hideous pike holding its screen atop a coily neck.
"GOOD." It flatly insisted. "VERY, VERY GOOD. YOU ARE IMPROVING FASTER THAN EXPECTED."
"Damn straight I am, ya tripod!" With this, the rock pine feline tied up his bag of holding, spinning it around his head like a flail. P:AL responded by running straight ahead and going for a lethal stab, which Spatulad blocked by holding the bag in front of him. P:AL's sword arm hit something hard and metal inside the bag, snapping in two with one of its pieces falling inside the abyssal pocket dimension.
Before P:AL could even react, Spat skittered away with the bag in his possession, the previously broken surface sealing itself back up in due time. Due time enough for him to throw the bag with the weight of entire worlds at the machine, its other, more prehensile arm being snapped off like a twig while the bag thumped against the floor at the other side of the room.
Spat feinted as P:AL could do little more than try and crush him with their weight, feeling the end of the battle drawing near. A rush of pure pride and excitement ran through his body as the fight graduated into a steamrolling. He was so happy with how far he'd already come, and he could hardly wait to tell Cheese, Carl and the rest about his victory against the-
The fight was interrupted when something bright-yellow suddenly flew into P:AL's stomach. Or, rather, it flew THROUGH P:AL's stomach and then flew back to where it came from, to a section of the arena room cloaked in pure shadow. P:AL let out a disturbing series of drones as it struggled to stuff its extremities back into themself, an ultimately futile task that ended with it sputtering in glitchy croaks and wails on the floor, its legs having given out.
Spat'd had many years to recognize the exact shape of that blur, so it wasn't really much of a surprise when his long-time rival took shape from the corner, the cognitohazardous blackness thickening into organic ropes of charred, stick-like limbs, all gathering into a body with fur like razors. She tipped her pointy yellow straw hat, her signature, both her identity and her favorite weapon, over her imperceptible face, the cat-like arts n' craft eyes pasted on top of them serving as disturbing ocelli.
He was the first to speak. Calmly, he asked, "What are YOU doing in here!?!?"
FOE giggled haughtily, her ocelli looking onward very cold and calculated in contrast.
"What are you gonna do, kill me like you did that robot guy? Oh, wait, you didn't!!! Hahaha!!!!!"
Spat frowned harshly and pointed his finger at her. "Piss off, yellowbelly, you know that doesn't count!"
FOE simply shrugged. "Aww, whassamatta? Y'know, where I'm from, you woulda just killed me before I got a chance to take shape."
Spat just rolled his eyes. "You know, I FIGURED you came from somewhere with no class! Maybe it's how y'look, I dunno. Or, maybe that voiiiice...that smeeell....anyone's guess."
"Oh, keep blabbin', bumpkinbreath!" FOE waved her hand dismissively. "You're just jealous I'm the first'n eighty-schmillion whatevers to properly put that thing in the ground instead of just lettin' it lose on purpose, like YOU woulda. And now I'm gonna be FAMOUS."
"Oooh, great, love that for you. Good thing I already spanked your ass back in RedRuut too long ago for me to give half a shit."
"Believe whatever you want, cabbage-patch! Point is, I snuck in the most high-security section of the most high-security facility in the most backwatuh town in the west, killed the big bad robot, did it all better than you EVAH could, and nothin' you say's gonna mean anything when I beat the Ohne and never have to see your ugly little face again! Capiche?!"
"How do you think you're gonna do any of that, conehead? I don't see a shell, an heir, OR a fairy with you, but I DO see a whiny little kid! Same as it ever was, huh?"
"Ha! Quit projecting, loudmouth. YOU'RE the know-nothin', halfway through ya life-mandated tutorial level, while here *I* am, settin' examples for all the otha mouthbreathers on this stupid planet, and that's not gonna change no matter what'cher prissy little insults say about me!"
Spat scoffed. "Pshhh, get real, there's a million other wannabe heroes out there 'setting exaaaaamples' just like you. You're just doing everything the institute *wants* you to do, ya fuckin' *freak*."
"DON'T EVER CALL ME THAT!"
"...!" Spat ducked back, claws protracted in equal parts irritation and fear.
"....."
"......."
"...Ugh, screw this! A-and screw you! You think you're tough, fat boy? You're a joke! The whole world's gonna see itself and me, and you're just gonna sit and watch like everyone else! Freak!"
With that, FOE threw a smoke bomb, which carried her off to the destination in her mind as she disappeared into its ethereal gases. Within moments, she was gone without a trace.
"....Huh. Found the panic button, I guess."
All of the sudden, a beam of light completely enveloped the room, bathing Spatulad in burning-hot rays straight from the sun. Though he somehow knew this, and even more strangely recognized it for what it was, he wasn't scare nor hurt by the phenomenon. What the hell was going on?
...Wait. He thought on it for a moment.
According to tradition of the prophecy, The Kid, The Heir, and the Shell would all meet eachother somewhere across their lifetime...then The Kid would fight a great metal beast in combat...and then...
An eerily monochromatic....*something* approached from beyond the veil, masking its true appearance with that of a simple computer cursor with inverted colors. It flitted here and there, Spatulad's focus being drawn nearer and nearer to it as the ray of light raged on. Eventually, it was all he could see...
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Spatulad awoke in the mud, being gently thwacked on the head with what he recognized from many years of its....use, as Carl's staff. He put his hand up to show he was awake, then slowly got up to his knees to see he was now outside of the Tutorial Institute. Carl looked annoyed. Cheese looked worried. Scooper looked shell-shocked as always. The fairy looked-
Wait, WHAT?!
Carl, recognizing the look of panic on the boy, tapped his noggin with his staff again.
"Easy, sonny, you did well. See? Cursor fairy, right as rain."
...Oh.
...Oh!!! Spatulad pumped his fists and cheered, happy at his newfound accomplishment. He could worry about whatever FOE had planned for him later, but for now, he was just glad he beat his first true adversary, and all on his own no less!
The Fairy who greeted Spatulad at the ray of light introduced itself as "CURSE->R". Spat was wary of the thing, as he was with most mysterious glowy cursor-shaped artifacts, but he tolerated it for the sake of the prophecy.
...And, for the sake of his family. Scooper in particular was rather fond of the thing, peppering it with questions and ramblings and compliments on its not-hair alike.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
While the so-called Restless Dreamers made their way back to town for some much needed rest and relaxation, the bowels of the tutorial institute were still stained with the recess of P:AL's broken body. From within, miniature nanomachines crawled out from the being's unbreakable core, beginning work on repairing them for the next go around. Amidst the salvaging of its CPU, P:AL made a sort of observation.
It never finished its battle, did it?
It was interrupted by that strange symbiote girl before it ever had a chance. And then, it promptly died. It failed. But not how it was supposed to. P:AL was supposed to fail to the benefit of the new generation. To cultivate a new team of heroes that would one day annihilate true evil from the world.
It failed at its one purpose, which was to fail.
It had never felt so useless, so cheated before...
Is this the emotion known as 'anger'?
It could not tell, and none were around for it to ask, save for the spare dust bunny.
Without any way to understand, it felt this emotion tenfold, directing this so-called "anger" at itself.
And at its target.
It vowed that the moment it was able, it would pursue its old target with everything it had in it.
And, surely, by then, he'd have not only gotten stronger, but also rejoined with his team. Foolish child. How could he survive in this world without proper guidance from P:AL? It had not only failed themselves, but had failed its student as well. How could it let this happen?
No. P:AL would have to make this right. P:AL would train as well. P:AL would do what it takes to get stronger.
Stronger.
It had to get stronger.
P:AL swore, when they eventually reunited...
They would give the heroes a fight they would never forget.