Chapter 72: Plushieland (1/2)

For a second, none of the Psychos dared to move.

Instead, they looked at the surreal scene before them. That of an adorable rabbit plushie standing right outside the room, surrounded by blood and corpses. Ryan never told Len much about this unholy abomination, and so, these fools didn’t expect to awaken it. The seal had been broken, and hell set loose.

The plushie noticed the Black Elixir in Big Fat Adam’s hands, and looked at it with curiosity.

Don’t do it.

The plushie playfully glanced at Ryan.

Don’t do it!

And then, the worst came to pass.

The plushie noticed Little Sarah, bound on the table. Its ears raised up in interest, and it uttered cursed words, “Child detected!”

Finally realizing the danger, Psyshock launched his wire tentacles at the plushie, while Ghoul unleashed an ice shard volley. The possessed toy leapt into the air with unnatural agility, its eyes turning red. A laser blast hit Psypsy and vaporized his brain, the rabbit bouncing off walls to dodge attacks.

Realizing the danger of Ryan dying in the crossfire, Hannifat Lecter turned towards his captive with the Black Elixir bottle raised. “No escape!” he snarled angrily, intent on corrupting the time-traveler.

In a sudden but inevitable betrayal, Sarin unleashed a blast of compressed air at her boss. The attack threw Adam against a wall, shattered the bottle, and splattered him with black ooze. The vicious cannibal let out a scream of agony, as the Black Elixir ate through his reinforced skin and consumed him whole.

Call it Karma.

“Sarin, you traitor!” Ghoul raised his hands to freeze everyone in the room, too dim to realize it would kill Ryan and make him restart. Before Mr. Dem Bones could do anything though, the plushie bounced against his chest like a cannonball. The cryokinetic tripped on Adam’s leg and fell onto his boss’ lap, the black ooze immediately latching on to him as well. Soon, the scene looked like two birds desperately trying to escape an oil spill, and failing.

“Let’s hug!” the plushie abandoned everything to leap on the table and lovingly hug Sarah. The little girl’s gagging muffled her screams of fear and confusion. “We’ll be together, forever and ever!”

“What the fuck?” Sarin looked at the scene in shock, before getting her priorities straight. Using weak but focused vibrations, she disabled Ryan’s bindings one by one.

“AH!” Ryan gasped for air after spitting out the apple in his mouth. “That was close.”

“It’s not over yet,” Sarin warned, as the Black Elixir finished consuming its two victims. Somehow though, it didn’t collapse into nothingness like in the previous loop. Ryan quickly understood why. Ghoul couldn’t die, but the Black Elixir devoured its hosts.

A paradox.

And somehow, the situation allowed the Black Elixir to stabilize in the shape of a colossal, monstrous blob of dark goo; an oily shoggoth. Its victims’ eyes and mouth floated on the surface, the lips moving to form words. “You…” it said, the alien voice belonging to neither of its ‘hosts.’ “You… you open the gate… send me back… back to the Black…”

Sarin raised her hands to blast the creature, but Ryan stopped her by standing up between the ooze and her. He had an idea.

Look for the stars in the night sky...

“How about this?” Ryan told the shoggoth. “You help me, and I help you.”

If the creature was sentient and needed help, then perhaps it understood the concept of reciprocity.

The goo fluctuated and wriggled, but much to Hazmat Girl’s surprise, didn’t make a move to attack. It didn’t even try to assimilate Ryan, perhaps because it needed him alive and functional. “Help... how?” the ooze asked with a confused voice.

Ryan glanced at the corridor outside the room, glimpsing some movement on the other end. Psyshock must have summoned his thralls. “Helping me live through this would be a start?”

“Wait, you aren’t offing yourself?” Sarin asked, a bit surprised.

“Not yet,” Ryan replied. This run was doomed from the start, but it also provided a unique opportunity. “I’m all for assisted suicide, but only in moderation.”

“Alright…” The shoggoth slithered out of the room, Psyshock’s thralls immediately opening fire at the alien abomination. Bullets hit the creature without damaging it, and it quickly devoured them like it did with the Psychos.

“Man, you tamed a giant slime,” Sarin said, astonished.

“A shoggoth,” Ryan replied, before glancing at the other abomination in the room.

Pop!

Correction, the two rabbit abominations in the room. While the original kept hugging Sarah by the neck, the clone pulled out a switchblade and cut her bindings. The poor girl immediately removed her gagging and took a deep breath, like Ryan before her.

“Are you alright, Sarah?” the courier asked her, the little girl backing away in fear and falling off the table.

“Who are you?” she asked in a panic. “Where are we? How do you know my name?”

Before Ryan could answer, the second plushie removed its switchblade to grab Sarah’s hand instead. “Let’s play together!” it said, all but begging its new bonded child, who had no idea how to react.

“Later,” Ryan told the critter, before trying to reassure Sarah. “I’m your mom’s friend.”

“Ma? She was all strange, and these guys… they took everyone.”

“Yeah, Adam wanted to throw them at the base’s defenses,” Sarin said, before observing the plushies more closely. “Do they multiply or something? Come here, fluffy.”

The two rabbits looked at Sarin with crimson eyes.

“Hey, hey, stop!” Ryan pleaded by protecting Hazmat Girl with his body, neither of the critters dropping their murderous attitude. “She’s thirteen too, in her head! Let’s save the other preteens first, then we resort to violence.”

The two plushies calmed down, speaking in unison, “Let’s go to Disneyland!”

“We’re not going to Disneyland,” Ryan said, cracking his knucklebones. “We’re already there.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on anymore,” Sarin admitted.

“Story of my life.” The courier looked at the corridor beyond the room, which the shoggoth had cleaned up of life. All the thralls, and even the plushie’s previous victims, had been consumed by the ooze. “Thanks for the assist, by the way. I almost regret beating you up in previous loops.”

“I didn’t help you pro bono, jackass,” she replied gruffly. “Do you have a cure? Can you make me human again?”

“I don’t have a cure on myself,” Ryan admitted. “But I think I have the resources to make one.”

“So like Adam.” She crossed her arms, disappointed, but not surprised. “Always the same bullshit.”

“Except he’s a sociopathic cannibal, and I’m a friendly, grass-eating time-traveler. One should sound a little more trustworthy than the other. Who else knows about my power?”

“Uh, maybe Acid Rain? She wanted to skewer you on sight, so Adam kept her outside.”

Whalie had kept the secret close to his chest to avoid a leak or mutiny, which served Ryan fine. If he could get rid of Psyshock, nobody else in the Meta-Gang would know the truth.

“So what’s the plan, Quicksave?” Sarin asked, as the two plushies both took Sarah by one hand and tried to lead her towards the slaughter. The little girl was still too cowed to follow through with it. “If you aren’t killing yourself.”

“First we save the children and Shortie, then we’re taking over.”

Sarin froze a second. “What, the bunker?”

“Yes, the bunker.” With Adam gone, most of the Meta outside the base, and his current allies inside, Ryan had a once in many lifetimes opportunity. Since the plushie had already entered its duplication phase, the run was ruined beyond repairs, but the courier would have the opportunity to study Mechron’s tech up close. “I will need a gun, and drugs. Something that can alter the brain quickly.”

“Like every drug ever?” Sarin deadpanned, but went along anyway. “I think Psyshock keeps a batch of Bliss in the infirmary. Mongrel can’t sleep without that stuff. The other hellions should be there too.”

“Well, let’s go take some eye medicine then.” If Psyshock was mostly made of brain tissues, then drugs should paralyze him like Enrique’s toxin. “Sarah, you stay with the plushies until Uncle Ryan comes back with your mom. You don’t leave them, but you don’t listen to what they say either. They’re a baaaaad influence.”

“Let’s play outside!” the plushies replied, eager to sow chaos.

Sarah anxiously bit her lower lip, exactly like Len. Adorable! “You’re leaving me alone?”

“Oh, you’re safe, trust me. It’s everyone else who isn’t.” Ryan walked outside the room and into the corridor, Sarin following him like his shadow. “We’ll clear the way.”