Chapter Text
Regect snaps back to reality, their dreamy fantasizing of Moe getting cut short. Their legs became firmly planted in the carpet as they remembered that Ze is still gone. Moe seems to remember as well as she pulls away from the hug, smile replaced by a worried stare through the window behind Regect.
Regect wished they could hug Moe forever and ever and ever, because it would definitely feel different than Ze’s loose ass half-hugs. But… there’s truly no time for that.
-
3:50 pm.
Some hours go by, and Moe is absolutely beat. If she had known she’d be walking this damn much, she wouldn’t have worn this sweater or put on makeup at all.
She lets her eyeliner smudge a bit, and she doesn’t even bother to wipe up the sweat that’s ruining her perfectly blended blush anymore. She even took off her sweater, throwing it on her shoulder in the same manner that a lumberjack would sling logs onto his shoulder. The black sports bra underneath glistens in the light due to the sun and her own sweat.
Moe squints and looks up at the sun, high as hell in the sky. It’s STILL afternoon.
They had been out all day looking for this man, and there are still zero signs of him. no jacket, no bandana, not even bonfire remains he’d leave behind if he’d been camping. Just… NOTHING.
At this point, Moe was getting pissed off. She usually never felt this type of anger; the sun-induced kind. Her body felt so sticky and gross, and her strong fear of bugs was constantly getting triggered by walking past WAY too many bees and wasps.
To deal with this sudden onslaught of heat-exhausted frustration, she sits down on a fallen log and begins twiddling with her thumbs. The twiddling turns into thigh squeezing, the thigh squeezing turns into arm rubbing, and the arm rubbing climaxes into standing up, reeling back her fist,
and PUNCHING the shit out of a tree.
Moe yelps in pain, unable to contain her squeaky voice to her own dismay. Christ, she struck that tree HARD. She hoped she didn’t break a knuckle…
Maybe Ze’s tendencies were rubbing off on her more than she thought…
-
As the girl was rubbing her fist and cursing herself for doing such a stupid thing, she heard a little sound behind her. A small but audible glitch. She recognized it almost immediately. It…
Sounded like something from…
The Hole.
The same hole Ze could’ve possibly been in at this very goddamn second.
How has she not even THOUGHT about that??
Moe became a statue for a brief second. She was paralyzed—but at the same time—didn’t want… whatever it was… to know she was aware of its existence. So, she continued rubbing her fist, despite the fact she now knew it was just bruised.
She HAD to get a peek at it. Just to be sure.
So, while trying to be as casual and clueless as possible, she went back to the log, reached into her tote bag bedazzled with vibrant colors, sequins and pins, took out her phone, and opened the camera app. She positioned it so it looked like she was just touching up her makeup but in reality, makeup was the LAST thing on her mind.
She moved it enough behind her head to see a patch of red in a lush green bush just 20 feet behind her.
Then suddenly, before she could even react,
The red mass launched itself toward her.
“REGE-“
Was all that would come out of her underutilized vocal chords before her body was covered by its mass.
-
10 minutes prior.
Regect was high above the sky. For once in their life, they remembered they could fly.
Funny.
to add salt to the wound, the whoooole time they were in the air, they could hear Ze’s arrogant voice in their head, reminding them that they could.
For some reason, it kept them going.
For some reason, they didn’t fight it.
They didn’t protest it; hell, they didn’t even think about it that hard.
Honestly, at this point, they were tired of pretending that Ze doesn’t really look out for them. Regect knew he did, probably more so than they looked out for him, even with all the bullshit they’re doing right now to locate him.
Man, that Zechariah was one competitive motherfucker. The asshole wouldn’t even ALLOW Regect to care about him more than he does them.
The near-panther entity realized that, and on the low, they LOVED it.
So, that was enough to keep their dissent and natural ego in a tightly locked box.
Deep, deep within their head.
-
Regect scanned the terrain below, glowing yellow eye narrowing with every slight possible sign of Ze. So far, nothing concrete. Their black body was absorbing every ounce of the sun they were floating under, and since their feline-like anatomy doesn’t allow them to sweat, they just had to… Ignore it.
Thank God the cold breeze caused by their high altitude was keeping them juuust cool enough for them to not pass out.
…
Ohhh, right! They are an entity with admin permissions. They could just spawn a fan!
1 minute later, they were still searching for Ze holding a big ass fan against themself, feeling so much bliss with the even colder air blowing on their half-existent body.
In the middle of this, their ears perked quickly to a sound, swiveling to their left side behind them. It was a high pitched, nasally yelp…
It wasn’t too recognizable, but he’d heard the tone before. He heard it when a certain someone would giggle, even if they were trying to stifle it. He’d heard that tone when that same someone loudly broke down on their shoulder the first time Ze disappeared, uncaring that Regect would now be getting a first-time taste of her voice. It sounded like….
… “MOE..!?”
Upon realizing, Oh, their reaction was like lightning.
The creature’s code reacted before their consciousness did, and their body teleported before their brain could give it the permission to. The teleportation felt like a millennia in their mind, despite their Daemon-given binary allowing pictosecond-accurate timing paired with cosmic-grade coordination. The only sentence filling up their thoughts contained a tiny irregularity, such a detail that seemed natural at first, but quickly changed into something far more serious;
“Since when could Moe fucking TALK?!?!?!”