Chapter Text
The sky was a shade of deep crimson seeping through the thick stratocumulus clouds.
Fires endlessly blazed across the ruins of the pizzeria, strange how they could burn with no fuel and release no smoke, and yet still sting so much.
The tattered walls were covered in red child-like graffiti, pasting that same boisterous slogan like a bad ad. Now the lovely artist behind them was not too far.
The man had only caught glimpses of him
(Afterall it was better to keep his distance, work on fixing generators, with his skillset he couldn't help the team much.)
When he saw it, it was like a sight straight from the depths of hell. Red skin that sat awkwardly on the bones, like the body underneath had grown up too quickly.
oh and the bones, they looked like they might protrude from under the skin any second, their forms so clear to him despite his blurry eyesight (seriously where were his glasses? all of this and he had to be half blind on top of that?)
When it talked, in that distorted uncanny voice, uncannily similar to the boy he called his son.
It has to be some kind of sick joke right? There was no way the tiny infant he raised from the moment he ended up on his doorstep was this monster.
The boy that also went missing, the boy he searched days, weeks, months, years for. The boy who became his entire reason to live. The boy. The boy who-
007n7 stared down at the last two wires left to be connected in the broken generator before him, fingertips on the red coating of the copper wires inches from meeting each other
Right as soon as he finished the last connection, a searing, burning, pain tore across his back. Easily 2nd and 3rd degree burns.
“TAG! YOU'RE IT!!” the voice from earlier taunted, that voice. his son's voice. his son.
007n7 fell back away from the generator, atleast the fire killed his nerve endings! or maybe it was the adrenaline?
Almost like a reflex (it seemed like it was becoming one) he swiftly pressed a button on his black and red console. Making him go invisible and simultaneously creating a picture-perfect clone of him.
He watched for a second, in some kind of grim awe, as the clone was lifted in the air, limp, and strangled until its simulated neck snapped with a sickening crack. But the way it laid the body down on the floor.. slowly, like it was putting someone to sleep, not tossing it aside like it had done with the others.
Common sense kicked back in and 007n7 had the wonderful idea to actually get up and run, with a few seconds left of the invisibility he managed to duck behind a wall right as it wore off.
Best he find a place to hide until that timer hits zero.
The supply building, he remembered its structure, two openings with stairs going up to a platform where the boxes of ingredients would be. But right now it was strategically the best he could think of. He also wasn't alone in thinking this.
As he practically dragged himself up the last few steps (getting slashed with a firebrand and set on fire tends to do a number on you) he noticed the pizzeria’s best employee frantically struggling to connect the final two wires on a generator.
“Come on come on just- just connect already they're all dying out there-” Elliot muttered to himself.
Finishing this last puzzle would grant him a good boost in healing, considering the number 007n7 could see next to Guest on the UI, he could really use those extra digits.
Well, only if Elliot would stop mashing the copper wires against each other and slow down to properly connect them.
“Uh hey.?” that came out a lot more awkward and high pitched than he wanted.
And it earned him a panicked shriek from Elliot, followed by a pizza slice aimlessly lobbed at him in defense.
“AAAAAAaa- Oh. It's just you.”
“OH! um, I'm sorry for startling you like that.”
“I was gonna offer to help with those wires, If you need it?”
“...Actually, sure.”
Elliot got up to hop off the platform (not even gonna take the stairs?)
Just for a millisecond, He considered keeping the slice that was thrown at him, the idea was discarded faster than a walkspeed override,
Guest needed this more than he did, even if his health was falling far below Guest’s, (seemed like his nerve endings were perfectly fine based off the searing pain that still ran through them) but that was different!
Guest would always go down protecting people. Besides he had his own abilities, carved out specifically for making a proper pursuit impossible.
He didn't need this slice.
“Wait! don't you need this?”
007n7 awkwardly held up the pizza slice, now with one of its pepperoni slowly sliding off the cheese.
“Oh, right.”
Elliot reached up, standing on his toes now, to grab the slice 007n7 lowered for him to take. Before taking off and following his near-perfect intuition on where the injured soldier might be.
The ex-exploiter watched him sprint off towards the main pizzeria for a few seconds,
it seemed that even Elliot agreed with his inner monologue, He didn't need that slice.
007n7 sat down to twist the last two wires hanging out of the generator together.
. . .
“GUEST! CATCH!!”
The slice made an arc through the air as it flew before the blue-haired veteran caught it, somehow with the pepperoni still on.
“Oh, Elliot! Thank you for this, I will do my best to keep protecting all of you.”
The delivery boy slowed down to catch his breath after sprinting all the way
“Phew- it's no problem! Really! You really don't have to get all formal every time I help you. But say, where's the killer gone off to? Just so I can stay clear of them until I can throw a slice again y’know?.”
“They fled towards the supply building after they lost interest in me because I punched them.. and cried out something about telling their dad? It was strange.”
“The- The SUPPLY BUILDING?! Oh nonono-”
Guest startled by the reaction, looked down at the UI they'd been granted, a simple display that stayed along the edge of your subconscious just out of reach until you needed it and only became accessible by focusing on it.
Before Guest could even think about running to the supply building, a clean red 0 appeared next to the ex-exploiter’s name.
“DAMNIT- I should've let him keep it! How was I supposed to know it'd switch targets so quickly?!”
“And now- now someone is dead because- Goddamn it!”
“It's not ideal, but Elliot you're trying your best here aren't you?”
“I suppose..”
“Then all we can do now is to keep moving forward, let's find the others and group up to prevent this from happening to any more of our teammates.”
“Alright.. If i had to guess, there's a destroyed house across from here, with pretty decent cover, odds are someone like Noob or Twotime might try to take shelter there. But that's just a guess.” Elliot concluded, pointing straight ahead of them.
Guest only nodded in response, like a soldier on a mission receiving intel, actually that is about exactly what he was.
The two set off for the house, with Guest leading the way.
. . .
One moment he was connecting two wires, the next he was standing in the middle of an empty cabin. With a terrible case of phantom pain running across his neck and skin where it'd been burned and slashed.
Logically he knew what'd happened, But he couldn't feel it. He was killed by his son. And he hadn't even bothered to fight back or run. Did it even matter if he got to ‘play’ with his son after so long? Death had become meaningless in a world where you'd come back to life soon after anyway.
That had been c00lkidd, Now without a shadow of doubt over that fact, no matter how many bones you stretched, no matter how the skin peeled over the joints, those were the same reddish-brown eyes, full of innocence like always. His boy was alive! Alive with a fate worse than death. Who? Or what? Had done that to him?!
The way he dragged himself when he ran. arms too long. legs too lanky. it just had to hurt, or atleast be uncomfortable? What kind of filthy monster would do that to him? What kind of demon? What kind of total scum?!
Before he knew it, the c00lgui panel was buzzing at his fingertips, flickering like a flame. When did he open this? Must've done it by reflex. Because it wasn't like any of the three remaining options on the gui could do anything for him in this situation.
Maybe back then, but now it'd been reduced to nothing compared to its former glory. glory? No no there was no glory in what he used to do, and he'd regret it for eternity.
What if one of the others saw him like this, dissociating and volatile? He knew he needed to get away, the cabin walls felt like they were closing in. He couldn't stay here, He wasn't welcome here, not after what he'd done.
He was pacing.
He just needed time, time to stop feeling like this, time to stop feeling like a threat.
He couldn't face them, he couldn't talk to any of them right now, especially Elliot.
But he knew they'd come looking for him if he vanished, yes even Elliot, who was nothing short of a saint, 007n7 could tell that despite everything, Elliot somehow did not and could not wish harm upon him, even tossing him a pizza on occasion.
He couldn't deal with any of this right now, he just needed time- and time was running out with the timer on the round ticking down with each passing second. If only- If only he could just-
“lets chat! how are you feeling?”
Oh! he'd ran right into one of the NPCs in the cabin. This one in particular really really reminded him of c00lkidd, with the high pitched voice, characteristic of childhood.
Maybe that's why he avoided ever interacting with this NPC.
But an NPC..
He tilted his head in a mix of curiosity and contemplation now. He could easily rewrite a clone’s code to be capable of speech.. Something representative of him, it wasn't like people talked to him much, something good enough to pass as “living”. As long as he could predict what someone starting a conversation with him would say and that was easy.
Almost in encouragement, the timer went up by 15 seconds, it seemed like Twotime had hit their second life. Now sitting at a comfortable 2:47 minutes.
That was enough to quickly add a few lines of dialogue to a clone.
With intention this time, the c00lgui panel came to life at his fingertips.