Meditat lands on the ground, and he takes a deep breath, having successfully taken one Babylonian down. He looks down at Argus's glowless helmet, and lets out a soft sigh, knowing that behind that soulless helmet is his old friend Vrey.
He softly apologizes, "I'm sorry."
He then turns towards the rest of the Babylonians, seeing Cratus, the twins, and Indra standing on the other side of the room. Indra stays by the door while the twins stay by the hostages, and Cratus stands in front of them for protection.
Indra steps back towards the door, and the device hovering behind him starts flashing red, making a beeping sound. Suddenly, the door behind Indra opens up, seeming to have been successfully hacked by the device. Past the door seems to be a hallway with red illuminated lights, which leads to another door.
Indra however keeps his attention on Meditat, seeing how he defeated one of his allies. He makes a tsk, and turns towards the benches on the other side of the room. He then raises his left arm towards it, as though aiming his hand at the benches desperately.
He's suddenly interrupted by Cratus, who commands in his artificially deepened voice, "Stop! The door is open, you take the device and keep going with the heist, me and the others will stay back here."
Indra turns his head to Cratus, and he exclaims, "Wait, but-."
Cratus interjects with a bodler and more assertive tone, "I said go! We can handle this, you trust your team, right?"
Indra keeps his hand aimed at the bench, thinking for a few moments. He turns back to Meditat, who stands over Vrey's defeated body, and he lets out a deep defeated sigh.
He lowers his arm, and turns around, grabbing the device off the air. He runs forward a step, but stops, standing in the middle of the doorway.
He then softly answers, "I do, be safe."
Cratus keeps his eyes on Meditat, and he responds toughly, "We will, now stop crying on mission and go get us the big capsule thing."
Indra sighs, and he runs down the hallway, leaving the fight in the middle after taking Cratus's request.
Cratus lets out a sigh, relieved that the captain went on with the mission and listened for once. He steps forward, staring Meditat down, as the two face off on other sides of the room. He breathes heavily, staring at the man who beat his face without hesitation, wanting to do the same back.
He then turns to face the group of hostages, who all cower in fear upon being stared at, turning away and covering their eyes while yelping and squealing.
He turns back to the two twins, who then turn to him, facing him as if awaiting orders, for he is second in command.
Cratus indeed orders with a commanding tone, "Peitho, Medea, you got yourself a whole battalion, use them. Let's see if he's as willing to fight them as he was fighting Argus."
The two twins, whose codenames seem to be Peitho and Medea, however it's hard to tell which is who, both nod their heads responsively.
The twin in the crimson suit then places his hand on the twin in the yellow suit, and he speaks with an incredibly deep voice, so much that it sounds as though he's some otherworldly monster, much deeper than Cratus's.
He remarks, "You can do that thing you wanted to do, but you just have one target now. Don't do something dumb and screw this up, Medea."
The twin in the yellow suit sighs, and he retorts, his voice being extremely high pitched to the point of being creepy and childishly unsettling, "Yeah yeah I know Peitho, I got it. But I'm going to have some fun with this one, I had a cool idea of a giant monster with six arms and-."
The other twin interrupts, "Tell me after you do it, idiot."
The twin in the yellow suit nods his head, and he turns to face the hostages. He then takes a deep breath, and shouts, "HEY!"
The startling sudden yell suddenly causes all of the hostages to face the direction, confused and fearful. However, upon turning to the man, the yellow man's large eye flashes brighter, almost blinding them.
All of the hostages step back, screaming in fear of the flash. As they all stumble backwards, all of their irises seem to turn to the same bright yellow as the color of the man's glowing eye. They all then stumble around, seeming at first disoriented, as though they didn't know what just happened or where they were.
Meditat watches in confusion as all of the ten hostages then turn to him, and all of their eyes widen in petrification. Meditat stares at them with confusion, wondering why they seem terrified of him when he was there to save them.
He tries to explain, "Wait, I'm here to save you, don't worry! I'm going to get you all safe from them, and this can all be over soon, you'll all be okay, I promise."
However, to his surprise, all of the hostages begin screaming in fear at him, as though when they look at him, they are terrified of the image they saw.
To his even greater surprise and shock, all of the hostages suddenly begin chasing him, running at him while flailing their arms, screaming and begging in utter fear as they seemed to be running towards a monster to try destroying it.
Meditat's eyes widen as he steps back, and holds his hands out, confused by what is going on. He watches as they all run at him, and he tries to calm them, "Wait wait, I'm not your enemy, please I-."
It's too late however, as the first three hostages that get to him all tackle him, as if trying to take him down.
Meditat staggers backwards before more men and women jump on him, trying to bring him to the ground, screaming in his face in absolute terror as though they didn't want to be there.
He tries to step back and move away from the hostages, unable to see anything but their faces as they try to bring him down. He watches helplessly as one of the women brings their face close to his mask, and screams, "PLEASE, I HAVE TWO BOYS AT HOME, DON'T HURT ME!!!"
Meditat feels tears in his eyes as he's overwhelmed by confused sorrow, as it seemed that all of the people he intended to save saw him as the monster trying to hurt them.
He tries to explain, "Wait ma'am, I'm not going to hurt you, please you can trust me."
However, it doesn't even seem like what he says register to them, and he feels other hostages grab at his arms as if trying to use it to hold him down, even though he didn't intend to use them to do anything to them.
Meditat continues stumbling backwards, feeling all the hostages on him, who begin weighing him down. The more that gets on him, the harder it is to move, however he can't just fight them off. He doesn't want to put a finger on them if it means harming them, all he wants to do is save them, but all they see in him is someone trying to hurt them.
He groans as he just stares ahead, and watches as a man slams his head into Meditat's, his brown eyes staring right through Meditat's goggles.
The man has tears running down his eyes as his expression is of pure fear and pain, and he cries, "Please, don't do this to me, I did nothing to deserve this! Don't take me away from my little Julia! Please, it's her birthday tonight, I have to return home!"
Meditat gulps, knowing that even if he were to respond, the man wouldn't hear it. He takes a deep breath, knowing that he has to shake the hostages off without hurting them, and the best way is to move away from their reach.
He gently and cautiously starts gradually boosting up, making sure not to leave any damaging impact to the people grabbing onto him. He lifts off his feet and ascends, however his body keeps being brought down from the hostages, who grab onto each other to pull his arms down.
Meditat takes a deep breath, and he very carefully starts boosting with his arms, using the gentle current coming off of his suit to try making the people let go. He doesn't want to do anything to hurt them, and he recognizes that he'd be pushing them down, but it's the best way he can see letting them off him with the least damage possible.
His arms start glowing blue, and the man and woman holding onto his arm both scream in pain, trying to grip on for dear life, resisting Meditat's push.
Meditat squints as he feels tears run down his cheeks, and he shouts helplessly and desperately, "Please don't make this any harder than it has to be!"
The man in the crimson suit watches from afar then complains, "These people can't fight even if it's to save their own lives. They're pathetic wastes of flesh, unable to come up with any intuitive way to achieve any mission. Useless, I guess I'll have to inspire them myself."
Meditat then watches as the man in the crimson suit begins approaching him and the pile of hostages grabbing onto him, creating a chain from the floor to his arms. Meditat grits his teeth as he tries holding his arms up as high as he can, holding them in a cross, yet the people still hold on.
He watches as they approach him, trying to decipher their identities and abilities. He remembers Cratus calling out both of them to be "Peitho" and "Medea," and he remembers the two calling each other individually, helping to mark the man in the crimson suit as "Petiho" and the one in the yellow suit as "Medea."
He vaguely remembers Sriya mentioning that last name, "Medea," when speaking to Shuraj in the dorm room while planning the mission.
More importantly, he notices their dynamic, seeing that Peitho is the more serious one, who also seems to at least believe themselves to be of an intelligence above average, while Medea seems to be the more lighthearted one cracking jokes at the expense of others, and even having a similar interaction that Shuraj and Ara had in the dorm room.
From what Rohan remembers from the friends he was with for a year, that would likely make Peitho as Ari, and Medea as Ara, cracking the identities of the final Babylonians and their specific codenames.
However, that still won't help him escape his situation, especially as he's unable to fight while Peitho seems to casually approach the hostages.
Peitho stands behind two of the hostages trying to grab onto the chain. and he lets out a soft sigh, commenting "Wow...this is almost laughable, true desperation isn't it?"
Meditat looks down at Peitho, and he angrily shouts back, "Shut up, you think this is funny? What's...what's wrong with you...I thought you were a good person, how can you…."
Peitho sighs again, and he holds both of his glowing red hands out. He then turns to two of the hostages, and he places his hands on the back of their heads, grabbing them and holding them in position.
The two hostages suddenly freeze up, and they stand straight, almost as though they were deactivated droids. They stare straight with blank soulless and hollow eyes.
Peitho responds monotonously, "It's not funny, sorry, poor choice of words. It's amusing what it is, how helpless they are, and to think these are the people in such roles of power. This civilization is so clearly weak from how many failures their leaders are, even if we didn't exist, they'd tear themselves apart like they've done all throughout history. None of us are up there in the Outer Rim anyways, and we haven't killed as many people as the humans in the war. Maybe their bodies can be of some use though."
Both of the hostages' irises suddenly turn red, covering their natural brown eyes, ridding them of their individual cores.
Peitho lets go of the heads, and he steps back, allowing the hostages to continue the dirty work. He puts his hands behind his back, almost like he feels he's in a state of power, and he calls out to the two others: "Medea, come up here, use that creative mind of yours and help me make our friend over here a dreamy paradise. You're welcome Meditat, really we could let you feel your body being torn in half, but instead we're going to let you live your last moments blissfully. Cratus, the body will be all yours."
Medea walks towards his brother, and stands by his side, looking up at Meditat. The two brothers with their creepy masks stare at Meditat, stalking him from the underworld as their slaves pull him down.
Meditat feels his body lowering as the hostages try harder to grip onto his arms, regardless of the boosting of his arms trying to push them down. He takes a deep breath, seeing that even after his warning, none of them even lightened their grip.
He sighs softly, and apologizes, "I'm so sorry," before he increases the strength of his arms' boosts.
His arms glow brighter with more powerful energy being pushed out, and he watches as the two hostages gripping onto him scream in more pain. He winces in guilt, but he knows there's nothing else he can do to stop them.
The two hostages let go from the increase of power, and they fall to the floor, along with the other six hostages holding onto them.
Meditat sighs in bitter relief, and he transforms both of his gauntlets into arm cannons, intent to fire down on both of the twins, especially after their horrifying display of power that took advantage of all the fearful hostages.
However, before he can fully prepare himself, two more people grab onto him, specifically his knees. He feels their arms wrap around them in a hug, and his eyes widen in surprise as they pull him down to the ground, using more of their body weight in the pull as opposed to the desperate clawing of the other hostages.
Meditat grits his teeth as he's pulling to the ground, surprised by the sudden empowerment. He turns beside him to see both of the men on the floor, sitting to lower themselves as much as possible while gripping his legs to hold him from flying back up.
He observes both of them, noticing that their irises are red, as they seem to be the ones affected by Peitho. However, the hostages don't seem fearful, in fact they seem entirely emotionless, making no sound as they comply with the actions as obedient mindless drones. The person inside them was sucked out, and replaced by an authoritarian command, one that forces them to pull Meditat to the ground.
Meditat tries to move his feet, trying to boost his feet more to fly back up, however the two don't seem to let go regardless of how much power he puts, for they are unable to tend to their own pains, giving their lives up to follow the command.
He turns ahead of himself, unable to move the two men, and his eyes widen as he sees both Peitho and Medea run straight towards him. With Meditat unable to move, they each place one of their glowing hands on the back of Meditat's neck, an odd and uncomfortable move.
Their hands feel extremely cold, as though they were made of ice, causing him to feel a sting. His eyes blink twice from the sting, trying to stay strong, as he still finds himself standing.
He grits his teeth, and with both of his freed arms, he slowly aims each of his cannon's barrels at each of the twin's knees, trying to knock them out while he has the chance.
He then fires a shot from both cannons, and the blue bolts strike the two. Both of their bodies stop illuminating after the shot, and the two of them collapse on the floor, letting go of Meditat's neck and seeming to have been defeated.
Meditat immediately turns to Cratus, who turns to him, seeming surprised that he broke free. He then aims both of his cannons at Cratus, and fires rapid fire at him, not giving a single chance for him to stay standing.
The barrage of shots all pierce through Cratus's body, with each of them leaving fresh blue burns in his orange stone armor. He lets out a gasp of air, putting his hand over his chest.
Meditat's eyes widened in surprise, as his shots shouldn't have created marks. He stares in fear, as he realizes that those marks are burn marks, meaning his shots penetrated Cratus's armor, and his body.
He stares helplessly as he watches Cratus look back up at him with helpless eyes, realizing that he was breathing his last breaths.
Cratus falls to his knees, and he quietly comments, "We were brothers-," before falling to the ground, dead.
Meditat stares at him, his heart having stopped. He couldn't have killed him, he made his arm cannons to only fire bolts to stun enemies and knock them unconscious, not kill them. He didn't put enough power to kill him, at least that's what he thought.
As he stares at Cratus's collapsed money, his gauntlets transform back to their standard harmless states. All he can do is stare helplessly at the man he just murdered in cold blood, when he could've just easily stunned and captured him.
That was the plan, and he even told himself he wouldn't get carried away and try going overboard. But he had done it, he murdered his old friend, and left him to die.
Meditat tries to step forward, trying to check on his body. He stops boosting altogether, dropping back on the ground, his feet touching the floor. His eyebrow raises, surprised that he suddenly doesn't feel any grip on his legs, as it seems that defeating Peitho also relinquished them of the control.
He looks down to his legs, however what he truly finds is far more disturbing, causing his jaw to drop in a loss of words.
Meditat finds that beside his body were the charred bodies of the two hostages, who lay on the floor, absolutely deceased. His eyes widen as he looks at each of them, as though the continuous boosting on his legs had burned them alive.
As he stares at the bodies, all he can be reminded of were the charred bodies in the dark mall, on the day he met Indra. The horrifying corpses that laid down the hallway, following wherever he went as he searched for the killer. Those horrible deaths, those burnt bodies, in the way that Indra massacred those innocents, so did Meditat.
Meditat steps forward, away from the bodies. He killed them, just as he killed Cratus. He begins running forward, but quickly stops to turn to the two bodies of the twins that lay on the ground, which he believes he had stunned.
He slowly walks towards the two bodies, standing in the middle between them. He then drops his knee on the ground, and puts each of his white and blue hands on the side of their necks to feel a pulse, an indicator that they're alive. However, he feels no pulse, he feels no indication. For when he shot them, those were also lethal rounds.
Meditat slowly stands back up to his feet, realizing he murdered almost all of them. Not just Cratus, not just the two hostages, he murdered five people all at once like a true monster. He turns back to face Cratus, and he runs towards the orange body, stopping to inspect it.
Meditat looks down at the corpse, feeling his eyes water. He knows that what Cratus did was horrible, and yet it hurt knowing that he ended his life. He took away his freedom to live just as he took away everyone else's.
He took down the majority of the Babylonians, in fact there was only one left, and yet he didn't feel like he succeeded at all. He succeeded in defeating the Babylonians, but he failed to capture them, and that felt worse.
He looks up at the open doorway to the hallway that Indra ran down, seeing that the door beyond was also open, as it seemed he managed to get far during the chaos. He didn't know that his friends were dead, he was probably unlocking just another door or trying to find how to lift the machine back out the door. He didn't know that this was the last mission he'd have his friends for.
Meditat takes a deep breath, knowing Indra was the last man he had to confront. He slowly begins walking towards the doorway, ready to find him and bring him in. Maybe the news would get him to give up fighting, maybe it'd lead him to fight harder, maybe it would get him to give up in a worse way.
He didn't know, as he didn't think he'd be put into this situation. But now, he had to keep going, wherever he was heading.
Meditat approaches the door, but as he does, he suddenly feels his feet sliding backwards, and his body being pulled back. His eyes widen, and as he inches towards the doorway, he sees the doorway and entire floor in front of him seem to begin rotating upwards, causing him to lose his traction on the floor.
Meditat begins running towards the door more, as the floor slants more, making it harder to move forwards. As he sprints, boosting his legs to enhance his speed, the bodies of the five people he killed starts sliding down and towards the open hole where the window once was.
Regardless of how fast Meditat runs, the whole floor seems to tilt a whole ninety degrees, making the floor he's running on like a wall. He slips off, and begins falling, terrified and confused of what was happening. His right arm transforms into the armored fist, and he punches a hole straight into the floor, trying to halt his movements.
Even with his fist in the floor, he still continues sliding down until getting to the hole, where the bodies had already fallen. He looks straight up at the doorway, which almost seems to be at the ceiling from his perspective.
He gulps heavily, and slowly turns his head behind his back and down, trying to see what is below him. His eyes slowly widen as upon staring down, he finds the only floors below him being the walls of the highrise buildings and skyscrapers in the far distance, as there seems to be no ground.
He looks back up, and his eyes widen as he sees the bench from earlier falling down the floor, and straight for him. Helpless, the bench hits Meditat, breaking his grip on the building.
Meditat flails his arms forward as he falls down, staring at the Octagon's face as he falls away from it. He tries to use his suit to boost and control himself, however he finds himself unable to do so, as for whatever reason he can't find the strength to maneuver anywhere. He just continues to keep falling until he suddenly feels his back strike a stone floor, but only for a moment, as his body breaks through the floor and continues falling.
He watches helplessly as he passes the stone monument, and watches as part of the blade has been broken off from his fall. Pieces of the stone blade fall with him as well, as it seems that the whole world is falling.
He seems to fall for miles, as the Octagon disappears from his point of view, leaving him only with the rocks of the destroyed stone sword. The rocks then fall past him, leaving him alone, as all he can do is stare at the world upright, yet find himself falling as though he's facing the sky.
He eventually falls all the way to the urban district. He sees skyscrapers past him as he continues falling, to which he turns his head to see skyscrapers seeming to be below him, seeming to be sticking out from the air, being longer rather than taller as its long side is placed parallel to the ground, if there was a ground.
He doesn't fall for too much longer however, as he then suddenly falls against a building's silver wall, causing him to get out a pained groan as he feels his back in agony. He stares at the sky, and looks at the skyscrapers above him. He takes a deep breath, and gulps.
Meditat throws himself onto his feet, stumbling forward as he feels his back in pain. He looks around, and to his surprise, he finds himself standing on the side of a building, similar to how he would when returning to his dorm, however this time he wasn't using any technology on his boots.
As he stands on the silver side, he looks far ahead down the skyscraper, to which he staggers back from the shock of what he witnesses.
Far in front of Meditat, seemingly miles down the skyscraper's wall is the street that the skyscraper should be standing on. He then slowly looks up, and finds that all in front of him is the ground, which creates one massive neverending wall, where the whole city protrudes from. The ground isn't gone, it was moved, creating an end of the whole world for him.
He stares at the giant wall of the Earth's surface, looking up to see more skyscrapers and other buildings protrude from the wall, as if it was some freakish nightmare.
He begins feeling a bit cold, and he decides to turn around, guessing that on the other side of the skyscraper is the sky.
As Meditat turns around from the surface wall, he does find himself to indeed be correct, however his eyes widen as he doesn't only just find the sky in front of him. In front of the black void of the dark clouds remains a massive floating object that hovers above the city, or what is now in front of it.
The object appears to be a brain, however it's extremely massive, larger than whole buildings. It seems to hover with its bottom facing Meditat, as though it'd be floating over the city if it was oriented normally. Meditat just stares first at the giant pink tubes of the brain, which hover in front of him like an alien ship, or a giant monster looming over the dark city. However, it's just a brain, at least that's what it looks like, to Meditat he just finds himself puzzled.
However, what's even more worrying is not just the brain itself, but what's attached to the stem. A massive white spinal cord seems to stem from the bottom of the brain, which seems to run down above Meditat and down to the giant surface wall, being drilled into the wall far above of Meditat.
All he can do is look at the massive spinal cord looming above his head, to which he notices massive branches of material the same color as the brain stemming off of the cord, which then seems to be plunged into different buildings around him, as though implanting itself into the city.
Meditat looks up and around the giant spinal cord above him, observing the giant stems coming off it. He looks to notice that farther up on the building he's standing on, there seems to be a branch plunged into the wall, stabbing straight through the silver floor.
He looks at his own gloved hand, and tries to boost again, however for whatever reason it seems that his suit isn't able to maneuver anymore, leaving him on the ground. However, he tilts his head, and looks at the branch stuck inside the building he's on, wondering if he could somehow climb up it to get to the giant brain in the sky, which may have the key to undoing whatever horrible nightmare he finds himself in.
He slowly begins approaching the giant branch, hoping that he could find some way back home, as the city is cold, and the world feels even colder with one half of it blocked off with a wall.
However, from below his feet, branches of the same color as the ones stemming off of the spinal cord stick out of the ground, far smaller to be about the size of a snake's body, and almost seem to creepily resemble veins. Meditat tries to step away, terrified of the random veins coming from the floor, and he begins sprinting towards the branch, trying to get off of the building as soon as possible.
Before he can get to it however, the veins catch up to him first, and they grab his arms and legs, coiling around his limbs and constricting. Meditat screams helplessly, hoping someone could hear him and help him, but nobody responds. He continues screaming as his movement is stopped by more veins, grabbing onto his body.
Unable to fight back, all he can do is stare at the massive branch in the building as the veins coiled around his body drag him down underneath the floor. He stares at the small fragments of the broken silver floor flying above him as his body is pulled down through a hole in the floor and into shadows, dragged into the cursed world he fell into.
Helplessly.