Chapter Text
The Righteous Heart was once again speaking with someone that she didn't really want to speak with. But she needed answers, even if she would have to drag them out one by one. Should she sit up straight to show she means business? No, this was definitely going to take a while. So she leaned back against the pile of bodies and glared ahead.
Might as well get this over with.
"Was it worth it?"
The Shifting Mound- the full mutlibodied one, not the fakeout mini(s)- smiled down at her.
"Perhaps I should be the one asking you that question."
"Oh come on!" she snapped. "You know what you did. I didn't have to waste my time running around on stupid sidequests trying to fix the internet when with a snap of your fingers you could do anything you want."
"We are beings molded from perspective. Not just from others, but from ourselves as well. What I done was something you had too desired."
Righteous sucked in a breath. "What I wanted was to introduce League to the others- Don't even say anything. I can't do that without the internet. So I wouldn't have wanted to cut it off!"
The Shifting Mound tilted Her heads. "Was that what you had really wanted? To show those similar to yourself a game that you enjoyed? A simple explanation would be all without the need for a celebration under dubious premises."
"Okay, maybe I also wanted them to like it. And I didn't think they would unless they were high out of their minds." She sighed, rubbing her face, "And it didn't work. So I didn't get what I wanted. Is that something you know, or did you need me to fail to gain a 'new perspective.'"
"You and I both know failure. And we also knew success. You have won overall."
"What?! How?"
"Why don't you tell me what happened?"
Righteous looked up to see The Shifting Mound's calm faces. It infuriated her. "Don't you already know?"
"Your perspective, though a part of me, is no less important than any other."
"If you really want to know than just read my mind," Righteous muttered darkly.
A moment of silence.
"Clever was the first to get there- since I'm sure you already know- and if I was there, then maybe I wouldn't have to go through the embarrassment of revealing my games to everyone because she would have asked and told me it was stupid! Sure, I know you don't care because you're above it all and everything, but I have to be with them and I don't know all of their weaknesses like you do."
The Shifting Mound waited for her to go on. Shocking.
"What if Cautious needed help? You know how she is."
"The Cautious Heart made do," She said. "Do you know why?"
Righteous bitterly looked at her nails. "Because I practically forced her to?"
"Because of you."
"That's what I just said. Wow, we sure do think alike." If only she wasn't Her. She would love to gouge Her eyes out, if only for a moment. Maybe the vessel next to her would do? As if sensing her thoughts (which probably happened given She was a freak) the aforementioned vessel turned to her with bright eyes just daring her to try.
"Do our words carry the same meaning? Are actions still forced when the other isn't there? How much of a thought is original? How much is theirs?"
"Huh? I mean- Obviously they can, like when there's a threat. People could always come back and there's always the chance of some snitch nearby. And if by 'original thoughts' you mean what they want before thinking about the consequences, then obviously they would be muddled down to whatever is the best outcome, even if not all of it is in their favor."
"And if they choose to follow another's lead, is that not their own thought?"
...She did not like where this was going. "Actually it doesn't matter what they think. Actions always speak louder than words. So am I just here to talk philosophy with you?" Righteous grumbled. "Because I have better things to do."
"Yet here you are."
Righteous jumped up. "You're right! So goodbye, your majesty. You got your conversation and I'm leaving."
She turned her back and walked away. It took effort to not trip over all the bodies, some she reciprocated rude gestures to.
But she felt something strange... Like this was too easy. She glanced back to see The Shifting Mound quickly shifting from a peeved look to a gentle smile.
Ugh.
"For the record, I'm doing this out of my own free will- Not because you told me so! I'm going to tell you everything you missed, because you were too busy being all high and mighty alone."
The words didn't seem to faze The Shifting Mound, even if some of the vessels needed to be restrained by themselves from jumping her. "My heart is filled with joy knowing that you are finally willing to share."
"Yeah, yeah," The Righteous flipped her hair and settled back down on the throne of bodies. "You know what you did, but I'm going to start from the very beginning."
The Righteous Heart was bored. She keep finishing single player games too quickly or got the bad end and quit without ever picking them up, so she turned to multiplayer games. Don't ask how she got online or even how she got the games in the first place, that was probably some convenient magical belief thing. It helps that she didn't even have to pay because she was already paying by wasting her valuable time arguing with mere mortals who couldn't stop messing with her. One point she thought that maybe the problem was her, but she dismissed it when she witnessed others being treated the same.
This wasn't fun. So she got The Cautious Heart involved.
Cautious suggested not using a mic so that they wouldn't know what she was thinking. That... Was a good idea and she sneered as finally others were raging and they couldn't hear her spit back. That air of nonchalance might have also been what made Divine insufferable and she could see why she keep acting like that.
But when Cautious played along, she was a lot slower. Righteous knew why. Her hands were as raw as fresh meat, adding onto the nerve damage and sore muscles. Pain lingered with each pressed buttons and twist of the wrist. But she was getting into it anyway, so she was cool with watching Righteous play and being a backseater. And Righteous was also okay with this. Sure it was sometimes annoying to hear Cautious hiss in a breath every time she got hit, but she liked hanging out with her, especially when they were both having fun.
She wanted more.
Cautious might have given her a chance, but she had no way of knowing everyone else would do the same. And what if those that did hated it and made fun of her behind her back, discouraging anyone who might have join to not? So she made a plan. People liked playing games at parties, right? So she'd host one to lure everyone inside only for it to be late as they realized they actually liked playing both cringey games they always called.
But what to use as a lure? Some would reject the party itself. Some would reject it based on Righteous' presence. She needed to think bigger, more outside the box. Yes, they all wanted freedom. That was something fundamental in all of them. Freedom to do whatever they wanted. Freedom to choose... Something that sounded cool. Something that sounded vaguely illegal and suspicious but also not. A contradiction. Yes! It was all coming together! She just needed something like-
Cautious wanted to bake some brownies for the party. Righteous said sure. Everyone loved sweets and things that made them feel good. And everyone loved Cautious, expect for those that hated everyone. And even they were able to tolerate her too. She could be part of the lure. So off Cautious went to gather all the princesses.
Anyway it would be too... Obvious if they went and got some weed. Everyone would smell it. The same would go for other drugs too thanks to some vessel's heightened senses. Cautious had the bright idea to trick everyone instead, so that they would curious enough to actually come over and take a look, only to be confused and stay longer to see when the real fun would happen.
"But then what happened?"
"I got mobbed. Wait- Was that what you wanted to know? How 'my masses mob you' could turn back on you?"
"I have already witnessed such from my own hands."
Righteous paused to wonder when that happened. Then she decided she didn't care. Because she remembered something. She jumped suddenly and looked back and forth. "Is that loathsome thing around just watching to revel in my misery? Ohoho, now is that why? Everything makes so much sense now."
"He's not," The Shifting Mound said, a bit too glum to be fake.
"Really?" Righteous asked incredulously. "I didn't know you could be apart from him."
"Of course I have moments without him," her five large heads started to show ooey-googey smiles. "And these moments make the time I spend with him so much sweeter."
There was an ocean of sighs.
Righteous tried not to gag. But aha! She just admitted she didn't actually like talking to Righteous and was just using her to waste time with. Oh, and also, She never refuted that he wasn't a loathsome thing, in fact, She didn't even ask for clarification!
"Missing one does not mean another would fill the void. You can not replace him, just as he can not replace you."
"I didn't even say anything," Righteous sniffed.
After everyone got off Righteous, and gave their share of how much they hated League even if they had no idea what it was even about, miraculously they all stayed thanks to Vibes asking/pleading/demanding them to. It helped that they somehow had a whole army on their side. And the party officially started.
Some of them flowed outside and the door was always open. Overwhelming stood in the corner, probably thinking she looked incredibly cool but in reality looked incredibly awkward until Bold asked her to judge who was the better wrestler than her and everyone because of course she would asked that. And of course Overwhelming accepted, not too quickly because she was aware she'd seem desperate, but everyone all knew she was.
Anyway those who didn't want to fight scattered but Yearning thought it'll be funny to do it so she went up first. She lost because she just hovered in place as Bold punched through her again and again, meaning she wasn't in the 'spirit' of things which was apparently a huge deal of points according to the other judge The Open Heart. Yearning agreed for that was the point.
Next up against Bold was Watchful. The very second the match began, Open deducted a million points due to Watchful being armed with chains instead of her muscles. Watchful jumped out of the ring to tackle Open, immediately disqualifying her, but Bold decided that everyone else might as well use whatever weapons they had too such they had stick arms.
Piercing jumped in next, eager to fight especially since knives were now allowed. Open deducted points due to her not actually wrestling. Piercing heel-turned and went over to kill her instead. Before that could happen though, Bold threw her head into a hoop and declared there needed to be a new judge who wasn't such a downer. Overwhelming disagreed as she didn't even get the chance to be in control before Open spammed the point deduction. Piercing turned to kill Overwhelming instead. Her blades were quickly eliminated.
The Clever Heart stepped up next, ready to actually participate since Open was gone. Overwhelming was making it a little weird by talking about winning her hand, but as long as that was ignored the fights were interesting to watch. Righteous mentally took notes as Clever lost by getting her hands ripped out by her own chains, Vibes getting flattened into a pancake, Driven getting twisted into a pretzel, and The Bright Heart for some reason burning herself alive(?) before the flames could reach Bold.
Some of the minis (yes, it was completely obvious, don't look so surprised) even gave it a go. The clone of Bold didn't really have muscle, but matched her spirit, so she lasted a little longer. And then she died. Then there was The Burning Heart. Overwhelming was actually useful in deciding this one. As Bold was able to get more hits in quicker, Overwhelming gave announced the winner as The Bold. There was no favoritism there.
And then there was Weathered. Bold was surprised she actually wanted to fight, and immediately embraced it. She exploded into thirty three trillion cells.
Before Overwhelming could announce the winner, Weathered then said she quit and reconstructed Bold. This annoyed Bold so bad, she flung herself at Weathered. That was a trap. Weathered gleefully grabbed on and twisted Bold's arm much more than it was supposed to and spun her around the ring using the string of muscle she stretched thin. Then she pulled her back and ignored a sucker-punch to rip Bold's face off to force her to fight with a bird's eye view.
Weathered would have won if she didn't lean too far back laughing and fall over the ropes.
The thing Righteous took away from this was never get in a fight with The Weathered Heart.
Bold then demanded everyone else try, but all she got was The Pliable Heart since everyone else was either wholly uninterested or had self-preservation. Bold was then satisfied punching Pliable again and again because somehow she managed to match her exactly. Probably the whole 'make you happy' thing, but still, it was better than Righteous getting dragged into the middle of it.
Open (who was heavily supervised by Watchful) and Overwhelming refused to leave their seats as the fight was still ongoing and didn't want to seem bored, especially Overwhelming. The other vessels brought food and chatted with them instead.
Because they considered the brownies safe to eat, they were consumed within seconds. Empath, however, was still curious to know the difference between what Gentle and Beautiful originally thought they consumed and the regular ones, so she ended up eating both versions. Both delicious, she said. And taste the same as they should.
"What about the special ingredient?"
"Too bad you'll never find out because aren't any leftovers."
"It was coffee."
"Snitch. You better not go telling that to everyone. These are my brownies."
"As you wish, dear Righteous Heart."
Even though the other vessels were averse to getting high, they hypocritically were cool with getting drunk, and Weathered at one point decided to go back to her supply and get some more. She tripped over a rock and disappeared somewhere, only coming back sleeping on top of a disappointed Rave who also carried the alcohol but was sure to dilute it whenever someone begged for another drink. She acted as a great mixologist so that she could give them heapings of ice and water. And about one drop of alcohol. Those already drunk didn't notice and something like a placebo effect occurred in which they still became drunker, even when Ravenous started handing them pure water.
Only Gentle and Beautiful (and later Empath) were to be strictly off the bottle. They were still under the impression that they were high. It was a good thing they only felt a little dizzy and thus just stayed on the couch. Curious could withstand the effects much better than Empath and began watching them to be her new experiment in between attempts to absorb everyone. Only a few were enthusiastic about that, like Divine and the two of them combined made it difficult to avoid the pull. Righteous was spit out as soon as she was taken and everyone became less inebriated when they too were let go, leaving Curious to finally tip over to the other side of the influence. She and Divine just giggled hysterically as one and talked about concepts too boring for Righteous to care about.
Yearning choose a bad time to ask the others if she wanted to get possessed, and shrugged off every no. Piercing was the first who said yes so they had a fun time terrorizing the minis (yes she knew it was happening that's why she wasn't around to get their attention, duh) before getting killed by Burning. Though Yearning she already a ghost, she mysteriously was gone for the rest of the party until she revealed herself to have been inside Burning the entire time. Probably why Burning was horribly able to infer people's mental states easier.
A new karaoke machine was hooked up to the system. As it turns out, Honest liked the same genre as Tender and Wise. And it was very loud so Righteous avoided them too. She only went inside to get the food. Speaking of, what they made was actually pretty good. Maybe she shouldn't have doubted them because they only one who put poison was The Wise Heart, but once Bright recovered enough to burn it, everything was fine since there was no cross-contamination involved. Wise swallowed some out of spite and died. Maybe she did think they would be fine.
As for what Cautious was doing? Well, she finally got to sit down and actually enjoy herself. She ate the brownies and chatted with the others on the couch. Vibes had shuffled over and timidly/reluctantly/warily gave her an apology for putting so much on her and not keeping the minis in check. Cautious had (possibly) moved passed it already and handed over a brownie. As soon as they ate it, they asked about League. Righteous was happy to show her.
Honest and Tender were easily convinced to switch the karaoke machine off since Wise was dead and they too were interested in seeing the game, for Tender that was more of so that she could make fun of it. All of them refused to touch a console, which was funny since she never considered a keyboard and mouse to be one, so Righteous once again had to play with and against randos. It was also annoying for Cunning to turn out to be a professional backseat gamer, and the arguing attracted the others into watching too.
It was a little different to play on a big screen but after that learning curve was smooth sailing. With others around, Righteous had less time to look at chat, only glancing when the other vessels were making fun of someone. Cautious laughed and explained some aspects for them, leading to Driven to try. She sucked and raged harder than Righteous ever did (what do you mean that's wrong shut up). But hey, at least she admitted that she liked it, and that was a win for Righteous- No, stop that didn't count don't go twisting her words.
There was probably much more that happened, but Righteous wasn't the one who had a million eyes. But she could see when the party started winding down. Some started to leave to do other things, with Deep leaving first because of course she would, but at least they cleaned up their own messes- More than what Righteous expected them to do.
The ones who remained were too out of it to notice all the dishes and cups getting washed which was a good thing since they would have probably broken them out of clumsiness. Gentle tried to get up and follow them, of course, but Clever forced her to sit back down. Beautiful fell asleep on Empath's lap who in turn was asleep on Cautious, who Righteous also didn't allow to get up.
Yearning forced Tender to stay and help clean. Honest pruned the thorns and Curious encouraged the plants to scar over quicker. Piercing came back just in time to find out all the cutting was done with and was baited by Cunning to chase her into the woods.
When Righteous waved goodbye to Pliant and Divine, at long last, she could sink down on the cushion next to Cautious and process the day. The whole journey to the internet was annoying, and so was the fact that her plan had fallen through, and so was the backseating, but looking back, she felt-
"Wait a minute!" Righteous gasped as she jerked back up. "Are you trying to be my therapist?"
The Shifting Mound blinked. "Do you feel better?"
"I- Well- Answer my question first!"
The Shifting Mound lingered for a beat too long. "What is a therapist? Are they only a professional-"
"All right, shut up, I don't want to hear it anymore," Righteous grumbled, settling back down. Of course She wouldn't give a straight answer.
"I had only wished to answer your question," She smiled. "May I hear your response to mine?"
Righteous scoffed. She tilted her head back and stared at the galaxy. Even despite The Shifting Mound's luminous form, the stars weren't dimmed.
"Okay. Fine. Maybe I do feel better. But not because of you! I could have spoken to anyone and have the same result!"
She narrowed her eyes as she watched The Shifting Mound ponder over her words. Surprised she was so truthful?
"Well? Are you happy now?"
The Shifting Mound smiled and clasped Her hands together.
"There is one last question I must ask."
Righteous glanced around, on edge as the minis started smirking with Her. "What is it now?"
"Hey, Cautious."
"Hi. How was it?"
"Eh. Anyway, She gave me this."
"What- Why?"
"I don't know. Maybe She felt sorry? No, that can't be it. But it's still in my hands anyway."
"And you want to smoke them."
"Obviously. And... I wanted to let you know."
"For what?"
"Because..."
"Because?"
"Well- Because you really helped me a lot, okay? Now shut up and take one."
"Now?"
"When else?"
"I was thinking about the smell that would linger."
"Maybe we should do this outside so everyone could see what they're missing."
"Or smell."
"Yeah. That'll be funny."
So they did.