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Again & Again — The Bird and The Bee
Again and again and again and again
Do it again, do it again
~*~
The last thing Orange remembered before blacking out was rage.
Pure, unbridled anger, only comparable to how they felt when The Dark Lord murdered their friends, years ago. Except, unlike years ago, the feeling fizzled and faded instead of exploding like they wanted.
Once again, Orange was helpless to protect anyone.
~*~
Waking up was hard.
Their body clung to unconsciousness like it'd save them, but Orange wanted—no, needed to see their friends. They wanted to see Red and Blue squabbling, hear Yellow ramble about code, Green singing—they wanted to see them alive and ready for another adventure. When their eyes finally cooperated and opened, they instead saw darkness. Their face wasn't covered, but the only light in the entire room came from the bulb above them and revealed…nothing. It made the glass entrapping them reflect a little, but what it showed couldn't be Orange.
What stared back at them was something wild. Chartreuse eyes glowed slightly, and it wasn't a trick of the light. Ginger hair was frizzy and fried at the ends and down the other reflection's face. past their neck and disappearing under their shirt, were pale streaks that traveled in an erratic, almost lightning-like pattern.
Orange looked down further, as far as their restraints allowed, and saw the same streaks running down their arms. They tried to flex their fingers, but they stung and trembled. Cursors, it hurt.
Tears pricked at their eyes. They dropped their head against the metal at their back.
"So glad you're awake, now."
Orange snapped back up, scanning for the familiar voice—a voice that's haunted their dreams for years.
Swiftly ascending the stairs with her boots clicking against the floor was a hollow-headed stick, her bright red hair swinging from her ponytail. A sharp, almost feral, grin stretched across her face.
It was The Dark Lord.
Orange reflexively shrunk back as much as they could.
The ever-present anxiety running through their veins increased tenfold. If The Dark Lord was here, then where were their friends?! What even happened?!
A million questions whirled in their head, but only one came out of their mouth: "How are you alive?"
It was the question on their mind since they saw her again, right before this torture machine. Noe, Orange wasn't entirely sure The Dark Lord died before, but they know what they saw in that memory, even if they couldn't believe it at first. The Dark Lord was supposed to be dead. That's what Chosen told them—that's what they saw!
No one could've survived that blast, especially at point-blank range.
As sick as it made them, Orange definitely killed The Dark Lord. The twitch in her eye told them that she remembered.
"Y'know, us hollowheads are quite durable—like, stupidly durable." She came to a stop in front of the glass, her voice slightly muffled from the barrier between them. "You'd think a few hits with a code deleting blade would be enough to put a sucker down, but no, the clementine just stands back up, more powerful than before, and completely obliterates you." She shook her head with a light chuckle, hands planted on her hips in what was probably supposed to look relaxed. For some reason, all Orange could see was the tension in her shoulders, her white knuckles, the careful distance between them. "Unfortunately for your opponent, you also happen to be undying. Viruses work in strange ways." As The Dark Lord said that, her black-stained hands started dripping, as if they were melting.
Orange's eyes locked onto the puddle of black sludge as it pooled on the floor, right near their feet. They've never been so glad to be fully encased before. And then, because apparently normality and physics have just been thrown out the window entirely, the sludge started moving. Slowly, it inched its way toward the machine, climbing up the glass panel and to the side, where the seam between it and the rest of the machine was.
If Orange's throat wasn't so raw, they might'vs screamed. Instead, they could only manage a whimper as it slid past the glass without a problem. They started pulling at their restraints, away from the thing that was taking shape at the edge of the case that trapped them. Their eyes flickered to The Dark Lord, who watched with thinly-veiled satisfaction at their squirming. A little lower, the hand was gone, just a writhing mound of flesh that melted and dripped onto the floor.
Before they could scream, the once-sludge jumped at them, clogging their nose and mouth, covering their eyes, and all awareness was gone.
~*~
It hurts.
Orange's chest felt tight, like their lungs were expanding past their ribs, like their skin couldn't stretch any further to accommodate them.
It hurts.
There's a weird wriggling at the center of it all, worming its way down.
It hurts. So, so bad.
It felt like drowning while being pumped full of air. Drowning in air, another impossible feat made possible.
It hurta. Never before has something hurt so much, except maybe losing their friends (again and again and again—)
Finally, the mass at the center of their chest moves and they suck in air greedily.
It still hurts.
But it settles at the bottom of their stomach and Orange doesn't feel like they're dying anymore.
The pain fades to the background as the world closes in around them again.
~*~
Time was strange when the only source of light was a small bulb.
Time was even stranger when they're forced to revive another animation, shocks of electricity burning through their veins before it stops just as suddenly and they lost consciousness.
For…a few days?—Weeks? Months?—Orange never slept. They only passed out and woke up and repeated that cycle. In between, The Dark Lord visited often. Orange didn't want to see her, but as weak as they were, it wasn't really up to them.
The only other people—if they could even be counted as such, considering their current state—Orange saw were some of the Rocket Corp. clones, who were apparently ordered to take care of their basic needs. No matter how much they screamed or cried or talked or thrashed, the clones didn't react. Even when they resisted, the clones only held them down with expressionless faces and forced them. After the fifth time, Orange gave up on resisting.
~*~
Dreams were weird, Orange decided.
(They started valuing the few moments they had awake and not in pain. During this time, Orange reflected a lot. This time, it was dreams.)
But, being a physics space cowboy sounded a lot more fun than where they currently were, so maybe it's not all that weird.
~*~
"Dear Clementine!" Dark called. Orange cracked over their eyes to see the very stick they wanted to see the least. "Still not my name…" They muttered.
The Dark Lord either didn't hear or didn't care. It was probably the latter.
"Because I'm in such a benevolent mood," Orange just barely didn't roll their eyes, "I decided that you deserve a little reward for being such a good little spawn point!" The Dark Lord skipped up the rest of the steps and up to the machine directly, poking it where Orange's nose would be if they weren't on opposite sides of glass on a sort of phantom boop.
To say they were apprehensive at the idea of a reward would be an understatement.
"And then, it got me thinking: what would Clementine like? I doubt there's much for you to want, considering…" The Dark Lord trailed off, as if she was distracted. "Aw, fuck. No One just died again." She tsked. "You know the drill."
Orange did, in fact, know the drill.
As The Dark Lord snapped, green electricity singed their skin as their muscles spasmed. Despite how many times it's happened, it never hurt any less. Orange screamed as their blood reached boiling point and light filled their vision.
And just as suddenly as it started, it stopped, leaving Orange heaving. Unlike the last—ten? Fifty? A thousand?—times, however, they didn't immediately pass out.
"Anyways, like I was saying," sound flowed back into their ears, "I wasn't sure what to get you at first. And then it hit me: you're always crying about your little friends or whatever—why not bring them to you?" The Dark Lord rambled on.
Orange's head snapped up, only to see The Dark Lord smirking like she expected their reaction. "What do you mean?" They asked, bordering on a growl.
Her smirk only widened, sharp teeth on full display. "I think you know what I mean."
Behind The Dark Lord came a line of colorful sticks, walking up the stairs in single file. Not a single rigid movement was out of place.
Red, Yellow, Green, Blue.
That couldn't be right. Orange closed their eyes and opened them again.
Red, Yellow, Green, Blue.
They arranged themselves in a line next to The Dark Lord.
Red, Yellow, Green, Blue.
Orange strained their eyes to find something wrong with them. To find some inconsistency that proved these were importers and not their friends.
Red.
Right shade of deep red, a yellow bandana tied into a bow around his wrist the same way Blue would do it, hair shaped like cat ears—
That's Red.
But surely, Orange thought desperately, surely not all of them are—
Yellow.
Her glasses were missing—they have been since that memory scanner was forced over their eyes all that time ago—but the star-shaped scar on their forehead peaked through their bangs. Her hair was pulled up in that exact ways she'd do it so it wouldn't touch their neck.
Oh cursors. It's Yellow.
The hope that Orange clung to was starting to die, their heart along with it.
Green.
A silly minecraft keychain hung from her belt—something Yellow got her on a whim—and her right ear was pierced with the left wasn't. Her short hair still had five clips in each of her friends' colors.
Oh, Green.
Tears pricked at the edge of Orange's eyes as they forced their self to check the next one.
Blue.
Their clothes were still stained with netherwart and his left ear was pierced while the other wasn't, matching with Green. If that didn't confirm it, the patch of embroidery on their sleeve that Orange hand-sewn did.
Blue.
It's them.
It's all of them.
All of them and they were as mindless as the clones that held Orange down to force feed them—
Heartbreak set in, along with another familiar emotion.
Rage.
"How dare you."
Their breath picked up, and not because of the pain of reviving.
"How fucking dare you!" They snarled at the cause of all this.
For the first time since being trapped in this hell, The Dark Lord flinched.
As if she was actually scared of what Orange could do.
They reveled in that.
Chartreuse particles of light floated around them, and for perhaps the second time ever, Orange took a step back and let The Second Coming take over.
~*~
Never, ever, was it a good idea to let The Second Coming take over.
The Second Coming was a beast filled with and fueled by rage and rage only. The only direction it knew was forward and the only goal it had was to destroy.
It took a lot of effort to keep it down, to be Orange, during even the calmest of moments. It was even harder to control it during moments of stress. The Second Coming was the manifestation of everything Orange hated feeling and doing. It acted like their most intimidating foes, and they never wanted to be associated with that.
It scared Orange just how much damage they could do if they weren't careful.
And yet, when they came to again, it felt like the only difference was the feeling of a bruise blooming across their ribs and some extra soreness around their wrists.
Oh, and the bulb above them was shattered. There was no light in the room other than a few lingering green particles.
In front of them stood The Dark Lord, looking a tad worse for wear. Her bun was falling into a ponytail and the strange goop that kept her together wasn't doing its job quite as well anymore.
"Well, wasn't that something!" She said with a shaky smile. "I'll, uh, leave them here so you can get used to each other."
And with as much grace as a newborn giraffe, The Dark Lord fled down the stairs and out the door on the far side of the dark room.
~*~
Orange thought their predicament couldn't get any worse. Once again, they were proven so, deeply, wrong.
Their friends replaced the clones that took care of them before. Their friends were now the ones that kept them fed and hydrated and clean and Orange wanted to cry every time they saw what's become of their group.
No amount of anything make them so much as emote—and Orange has tried nearly everything.
Humming one of Green's songs didn't elicit so much as a twitch.
Nuzzling into Red's hand when he came to give them water didn't lead to him ruffling their hair.
Kissing Yellow on the forehead didn't make them smile or frown.
Crying in front of Blue didn't even make their brow furrow.
Watching their friends—the pieces of their soul—be so indifferent to them killed their heart and buried it. Orange didn't want to chance fate, but this had to be rock bottom, right? There's no way anything could be worse than this.
Orange would soon become very familiar with Murphy's law.
~*~
"Clementine! Are you awake?"
The agitating voice of The Dark Lord rang in their ears.
"I have someone here to visit you!"