Mountains

[Ira]

Annie didn't talk immediately, he seemed entirely too calm, entirely too pleased, and entirely too willing to let everything drag out. But he wasn't about to jeopardize everything he was planning just because he enjoyed messing with people, that was far too much of a HER thing to do. Instead, he crooked his clasped hands to one side and twisted his crooked grins around to try and 'right side up' them.

"But of course we do! We cannot wait idly by for the Goddess to have her ways with this world! If placed her infiniteness into a box, you have, then our steps align! A deal, a plan, an arraignment- an alliance! Something must be made accord between us-!"

Then, with his crooked grin and his crooked body, he added, "Do you want to see what we've done with our shard?"

-

Ira paused her mutterings as Leech recovered from his earlier misstep. Forgiving him not out of kindness, but out of a realization that he didn't understand what he was implying by calling the Cur a 'friend,' Ira responded. Pointing out Annihilation, she spoke, "Cur. Filthy, worthless, coward. Unfit to serve. Unfit to breathe. Unfit CUR!" Then, as if a revelation came upon her, she turned toward Ghost, "No it- well, I don't... Resurrection? A resurrection? Perhaps..."

She waited, looking Ghost up and down, then Leech, then Ghost again. She wasn't smiling, only thinking in that frowny-furled way a child does when they're grappling with a new, merged concept they hadn't thought of before. There was no devious ideation playing out on her face. Rather, a sudden realization came upon her. Like explaining to a child how peanut butter is made, then watching them think of new ways to use the food before they declare with full confidence, 'Couldn't the same be done with almonds?!'

And so, Ira declared with full confidence, "Yes! Resurrection! A little one! Corpse not fully dead, Cur- Cur is stalling! Quickly- cast your magicks! Tell me, I will assist! Any method, I will help!" An excitement took Ira, and she wanted to move as quickly as possible.

-

But Annie heard Ira, and his smiles widened only further. He repeated.

"Do you want to see?"

 

[illirica]

It was very obvious that Annie wanted to show her something. Duet knew all about that sort of manner - any time someone wanted to show you something, they were up to no good. That was equally true for legal consultations and Eldritch dealings - actually, the overlap between the two was quite significant.

Clients never wanted to give you what you actually wanted or needed. Usually you had to drag it out of them kicking and screaming before your opponent brought it up at an inopportune moment and you had to stand there wondering why the matter of turning the surrounding land into a post-apocalyptic wasteland hadn't come up before now. What they actually wanted to show you was usually more along the lines of how they had a new contract that automatically donated the bodies of employees killed on the job to science for research purposes and how this was an excellent use of resources - and of course the employees could opt out, as long as they read the fine print and found out they needed to and filled out six forms in triplicate and dropped them off at a sub-location 300 miles from the factory locale, in person, between the hours of 6am and 8am on a Tuesday in the first half of the month.

The ACF's questionable morality issues had absolutely nothing on corporate contract law. Neither did Annie, for that matter. "That's an interesting question. I would like more information, and I would like to know what you are willing to offer in return for my taking a look into the matter."


===

"...Wait, yes? She said yes? No one ever says yes!" Ghost's tone had taken on a different tune, sharply excited. Even L-9 didn't say yes, at least, not after the frog incident. "Can I? Really?"

The rest of the team was listening in, of course, even if only to prepare themselves for another potential frog incident. Duet shifted to comms-only, her voice thoughtful. "Acts of assistance don't break the parley contract," she pointed out quietly, which was as good as permission in the L-9 book. The L-9 permission book was sort of a skim the first few lines and then claim innocence story, most of the time. Still, while attacking the things in the anomalous zone would get their team backhanded into another dimension for breaking contract, trying to help was allowed - so Ghost was just going to have to pitch this as very helpful.

Leech knelt down, a hand on 1003's shoulder and his voice very quiet, bringing her into the loop. "Okay, kid. Listen up. We are helping your friend - yes, do not object. We are helping your newfound friend with a little bit of assistance on the resurrection front. Got it? You are going to keep that in mind, because it is going to be very important. And you are going to listen to Ghost there and do exactly what she tells you or I am going to have a talk to the people back at L-14 and tell them that we've discovered that it would be a great idea for you to have milk at every meal, because you said you like it so much." Given her reaction earlier, this ought to be the right level of threatening. "We understand each other?"

Presumably, they did. Duet was still chatting with Annie, easily ignoring the chaos that was about to start happening.

"Okay. I need to finish my circle. You - godbait. I need exactly five hundred dollars worth of diamonds at current market rate - any size and combination is fine; thirteen silk worm cocoons, ten mittens - preferably wool; eight thousand feet of fishing twine, a "Happy Birthday" balloon, and a live nautilus."

 

[Ira]

Annie began gently contorting his body back and forth, moving as though as snake might to a twisted tune. His grins widened, constricted, relaxed, then widened again. Speaking once more, he continued, "Offer~? Oh what can we not offer? Information, so valuable in its own right, shall be granted in good faith. Free of charge, blessed be your mind, understand what I explain. Do you see that which we prune and craft behind me? Do you see its strange shape, so familiar to your little eyes perhaps?" He giggled now, and that was a terrible sound, then lowered his voice.

"It is another, how you say, Godbait. A Sleeper."

-


Ira became more cooperative than she had ever been before in her short life upon this Earth when Ghost started confirming permission was granted. A little Resurrection, just a little one, she knew that's all it needed. That was all She needed. She didn't even get upset or indignant as Leech spoke to her, though when Leech mentioned 'your friend' Ira believed he was referring to Ghost. Ghost, in Ira's mind, was not exactly a friend, but that was a point that could be debated later. She did not receive the same visceral hatred that the worthless Cur deserved, so there was no reason to object to Ghost being a friend.

Leech's threats went unanswered, mostly because Ira had already decided she would revolt if they were carried out. Additionally, they were unnecessary, she would help, she would assist. It had been offered, after all. Nodding in response as Leech finished, Ira moved toward Ghost and listened as she rattled off the list of things she needed. Ira didn't really respond with whether or not she knew what those things were, she didn't really, but she knew what most of them were, or at least she had an idea of what they should be.

Kneeling before the very edge of the containment zone, Ira sighed gently and reached her fingers inside. Only barely, just barely, so that the large tentacle beasts might not see her, but they had actually begun to lose interest in Ira. Dipping her fingers into the Earth as though it were a liquid, Ira brought forth a list of items for Ghost.

'Exactly five hundred dollars worth of diamonds at current market rate - any size and combination is fine;' Ira withdrew a handful of scaphoid bones from the dirt and CRUSHED them under such immense pressure that heat could be felt from nearly five feet from her. They formed little diamonds in her hand. Though their valuable was not exactly determinable, Ira thought they were the correct value. 'Thirteen silkworm cocoons, - Ira withdrew thirteen worm cocoons, though their silk certainly didn't look the right color, nor were they the right shape. But they were silkworms of Ira's making and that was more than close- they were what Ira thought Ghost meant.

'Ten mittens - preferably wool;' - All left-handed, all sized to Ira's hand, but they were woolen mittens. Little worms of indeterminable species were embroidered on their exteriors. 'Eight thousand feet of fishing twine,' - Twine as fine as spider silk and as strong as rope pulled forth, not as large as Ira thought it'd be, but the correct length. 'a "Happy Birthday" balloon,' - So withdrawn and handed off, though it was comprised of skin and the letters were sewn in; it was best not to find out what gas made it float.

Finally, 'and a live nautilus.' - Perhaps this was wrong, perhaps this was right, but Ira withdrew a very small, wriggling nautilus. It was shaped unlike anything on Earth, but nautili could live very, very far down. The odds of this little creature not being replicated on this world were not zero, but still unlikely. Turning around and handing it off, Ira asked with a hint of desperation, "Correct? All?"

-

The large finger beasts worked furiously and quickly, pulling off and cutting away any vestigial formations until the corpse-tree began to look more and more like a human being. Its body was beginning to take shape beneath the silicone-like skin that encapsulated it. It was most definitively human in shape, possibly female, with long black hair. It was also not naked. It wore the white long-sleeved shirt and pants of a contained Foundation AnoHuman, which Duet could make of that what she would. The shirt was even embroidered with a patch that, while not clear beneath the skin cocoon, was definitively the right colors for the Foundation.

Annie pro-offered a hand to Duet, slowly and deliberately as to confirm he was showing no hostility. "What we can offer, of course, of course. Safety within the Tether, this is assumed, as well as service. My angry children I can offer as servants until death, should you find that to your liking. But decide if you wish to see sooner, wait not until later. We are nearly finished with our work. So close to completion, then, we will have exactly what we desire. Exactly what I desire."

He did not leave that last statement up for interpretation, choosing instead to proffer his answer immediately.

"Annihilation."

 

[illirica]

Ghost hadn't been sure if 1003 actually could produce any of the things she had asked for. That was the thing about anomalies, though - you never really did know what they could do until you poked them and found out. Too many personnel just assumed that things couldn't possibly happen: why would you ask it for a live nautilus, how is there any way that could even be possible?

Research, she had found, was often limited by the boundaries of the researcher's imagination.

Strike teams weren't about trying to figure things out, though - they were about getting things done. They weren't here to test out what 1003 could and could not produce, and because they hadn't bothered with the silly step of asking questions like is that even possible?, now they were ready to move on to the next part.

Leech had been watching as well, with a quiet but audible [font color="a32372"]"Huh."[/font] in a tone that was somewhere between intrigued and impressed, observing as 1003 pulled out variations of whatever she thought Ghost wanted. Fortunately, all of Hocust Locusts knew that Ghost's spells worked more or less based on intention. She had a vague hail Mary method to her occultism: rarely did she stop and ask if it wasn't going to work or why it might not, she just fiddled with things until things happened. Generally, it was what she wanted to happen, although how it came about tended to be very much a questionable matter.

She'd never managed a successful resurrection, though, and he had no idea how this one was about to go. The last few had been getting progressively more interesting. She hadn't asked for a frog this time, though, which was a relief. Leech was very glad that frogs were out of the current equation, after the Incident.

"Oh my gods-below, look at the wee tentacles!" Apparently the nautilus was, in fact, quite good enough for Ghost after all.

Leech was beginning to have strong suspicions about it, or perhaps just about Ghost, who was generally deserving of suspicion. "Did you actually need that or did you just want one?"

Her disgusted look was somehow apparent even despite the armor and faceplate. "Of course I needed it, it's the golden spiral. How were you planning on doing a resurrection without a Fibonacci sequence?" Leech did not have an answer to that, but it was entirely possible that no one else did either, so he didn't feel at all bad about it. Ghost was, by all accounts, a prodigy when it came to occultism, to the point where it had been asked if it was actually anomalous. Usually she responded to these inquiries by dropping the questioner off in an eyeball-and-goop dimension for a few hours, and after word got around about that, the questions stopped coming.

For the part of Hocust Locusts and L-9, they didn't think she was anomalous. Just very, very strange.

Of course, they all were.

She'd kept up marking whatever she was drawing in the dirt, and paused to swirl the fishing twine through the diamonds, chanting not-words quietly to herself in a singsong voice. Occultists varied wildly on what they preferred to do their chanting in - Latin was very common, some just used whatever their native language in, others went with inconceivable Eldritch. Ghost might have been unique in preferring constructed language: fake words that sounded like they should be part of a real language but didn't actually mean anything. She had always claimed this was because the spell would intuit the meaning anyway, and the words were just a focus, but it still threw people off to hear her start up a spell in the nonsense-babble from whatever video game she'd been playing lately.

That was, of course, half of the fun. She remained the only one at L-9 who had ever successfully cast a spell in Simlish, which was a dubious title to be sure.

The twine seemed to pick up the diamonds, somehow adhering itself to them or... passing through them, as if they were beads on a string, which shouldn't have been possible, but Ghost rarely paid attention to things like possible or things like shouldn't, so it was what it was. The silkworm cocoons could have been something, but they weren't, which was really the point of them. They flapped around her in lazy orbits on moth wings that didn't exist yet, except they probably would some day and time was just something that was always getting lost anyway.

The mittens unraveled. They'd all been left, which meant this wasn't going to be as messy as it could have been. That was probably actually a benefit, and one that Ghost hadn't thought about until now. She'd have to experiment more with things that were left when the time was right. Other than unraveling, they hadn't done too much, but she'd wanted to have some Strings there, just in case.

"Here, hold the lil' guy," Ghost said, passing the nautilus back to 1003, because she was all wrapped up in this too, and it was probably good that she was touching the infinity sequence.


She didn't exactly signal back to the team leader, but the strike team knew each other well enough to know when things were ready. Duet gave Annie a calm nod, bringing the conversation back around, neatly tying the Strings of a new Contract.

"Safety for us and ours within the tether is acceptable. No service is required. In return, a sight of the shard before Annihilation." Spoken and done. At the opposite end of the anomalous zone, Ghost would be ready.


Her hand made a casting motion, and the glittering twine fell in a net over the anomalous area, no doubt safe from being instantly dissolved due to the bargain Duet had just struck on her behalf. The chanting started up again, quiet at first, then rising as the spell took over doing whatever it was doing, and everything wove together and suddenly got very strange.

 

[Ira]

Ira didn't particularly mean to smile as Ghost exclaimed in joy over the little Nautilus, but she could not help herself but to take pride in her little creation. This had been one of her's, after all. Then, no sooner than it had been handed off was it handed back. Gently, like a child doting over a baby doll, she rubbed the little thing along where its back might've been.

Then, she simply watched. Magicks ancient and new were at work here, and Ira found herself consumed with an insatiable curiosity to see what would happen. Curiosity and a little desperation.

-

Annie had to know what they were doing around him, he had to. His eyes had, more than once, glanced over in Ghost and Leech's direction, though they yet still could not look upon the little Anomaly. Yet still, he made no motions to interfere, if he even could at all. The three tentacled beasts gently began to reduce in their great hatred and laid themselves upon the ground beneath them. With a great heave, all three simultaneously stopped breathing the moment that Duet stepped into the tethered zone.

"Hold tight to me. If release my tether, you do, the greater tether shall swallow you. I would be loath to break our agreement on a technicality~"

Annie seemed entirely unperturbed by the death of his 'angry children,' as though their purpose all along had been to die. Neither was he perturbed by the enshrouding net. While Duet had struck a deal with Annie, the net could not have been protected from the influence of the tether without direct contact with a beast inside. However, that really didn't matter. It was constructed of materials pulled from the origin of the tether anyway. The result was the same as if Annie had actually held up that end of the bargain, and no harm came to the net as it gently floated into the tethered zone.

As the pair approached the wrapped corpse, things began to get very strange indeed. The net warped and twisted, unraveling then reraveling about the corpse tree. It formed a chrysalis about the body and began to glow ever so softly in the light. The moment it began to glow, Annie began a right and proper FREAKOUT

Still holding Duet, -he couldn't break the contract yet!- He screamed at the two beings near the tree. No formed words came forth, only frantic and maddening sound mixed with projected emotions of urgency and panic, emotions only Duet would be privy to. In an instant, the finger beings reared up to their full heights and produced immense spears of bone from their chests.

While connected to Annie via his tethered touch, Duet would know these as the death knells of this species. Their last and only line of offense, shards of bone formed from the dying beats of their hearts. With a paired heave, they impaled the corpse tree and died against it. For a moment, Annie seemed relieved as the soft light of the twine faded. Relief quickly turned to horror as the corpse tree began to move. Or, more accurately, the body wrapped within the tree began to move.

-

An arm pierced out of the mold, then another, then, in a spectacular array of color and light, the tree burst into flames. For a moment, Ira's curiosity and joy turned to horror, then a pierced body fell out of the fire. Standing up and brushing embers off her Foundation Whites, a young woman that looked very much like an older Ira stood before Duet and Annie.

Without hesitation, the woman yanked the twin bone spears out of her body in a spray of blood. The next two things would happen both simultaneously and so fast that no ordinary eye could follow- though the eyes of Hocus Locusts were anything but. The woman divided Annihilation into two sections using the spears of bone and every stone containment statue would explode. Dropping the bone spears, the bleeding woman would proceed to promptly pass out from blood loss.

And Ira screeched for joy.

 

[illirica]

Duet took Annihilation by the hand, which was not an entirely unfamiliar position for her to be in. In this particular case, it was somewhat simplified by having a plethora of hands available to choose from. She'd gone with the nearest on the left, because Ghost's spells tended to be messy enough without her adding to the chaos - and if Ghost wanted extra chaos, she was usually happy to ask for it.

Perhaps a little too happy.

It didn't seem necessary here, and she followed to the withering tree, gazing upon it as it started its metamorphosis into whatever it was going to be. Annie apparently had a few things to say about that, though not in any language Duet was coherent in. It didn't seem to be necessary, as she was getting the gist of it without translation. The two Assistants responded to the rallying call, producing shards from their chest and then impaling themselves, at which point they seemed to be pretty much boned.

Annie seemed fine with that, at least until it suddenly wasn't. The tree didn't so much come to life as release something that might have been alive, something that looked human enough.

"Never trust anything that looks human."

"Hm... What about other humans?"

"Oh, especially not them."

Duet laughed softly to herselves, which wasn't unusual. Of course it all went weirdly, with the thing that looked like a woman turning the impaling spikes on Annie. Duet watched, quiet calm, not letting go of the hand she held. Annie might have found what it had been looking for, but maybe it would mean something to have someone holding its hand while it died.

This was less about altruism and more about the fact that Hocus Locusts knew a thing or two about vengeful ghosts, and dealing with uncrossed annihilation spirits intent on taking revenge on their resurrected deity was a Friday problem, and this was only Tuesday. She was quick to pull one of the bone spears free, though, in case she needed to beat the hells out of someone with it, but it seemed like the new creation was just going to have a little nap. Leech moved forward, cautious, taking the standard vital checks while Duet stood guard, ready to stab the offshoot if it got fussy. The rest of the team had moved in slightly, with the exception of Tech, who was still maintaining the outer boundary in case 1003 decided it was naptime after all this.

Given her reaction, that seemed unlikely.

"Well, at least someone's happy. Do we need to worry about that?"

Duet shrugged, the smile still lingering, tugging at her features. "Nah. I'll mark it down as promoting synergy like the paperwork says we're supposed to be doing these days."

"Heyyyy! Checkmark acquired, team Hocus Locusts! Maybe we'll get a sticker."

"I still have more stickers."

[color="ff4d00"]"I do not want your stickers."[/color]

"Leech, if the new anomaly is stable, I'd like you and Ghost to take her back to L-9. Ghost, can you still do a teleport or are you out of juice?" It was definitely imperative to separate the two anomalies as soon as possible, before anyone got any great ideas about not doing that. It was also imperative to separate Ghost and Damsel as soon as possible, before anyone got any great ideas about continuing their conversation.

"Oh. Um... I got it. There was enough ambient weirdness to power most of that spell without too much input."

"Good. Damsel, take 1003 back twenty paces, please." This assumed that 1003's good mood was enough to convince her to go along with it. If not, well, Duet still had a bone spear and was prepared to do a little osteopathic convincing.

Ghost had another vial out, tipping something else onto the ground that produced a sucking gloop full of way too many eyes and the wrong shade of purple-red-black, much like whatever it had been that had opened up in the sky when they'd entered. Duet stayed where she was, confident in being just outside of the spell's range as it would take the others away to be someone else's problem.

Fortunately, there were people on the other side of that spell who enjoyed that sort of problem. That left three of them on cleanup, to get 1003 back where she was supposed to be and arrange it so that none of this had ever happened.

 

[Ira]

Their conversations continued on, unheeded and unlistened to by both anomalies. One simply did not care, the other was too busy being unconscious. Before Duet had even begun her command of Damsel to move Ira further back, the little kid had already started walking toward the truck in order to get back inside. She had helped far more than she would have liked, and she could not break the thought in the back of her head that she didn't really do anything.

Sure, she brought forth the items for the spell, but she hadn't made the spell. She hadn't destroyed Annihilation, that wrong-corpse did. She hadn't broken through the tether, Ghost did. She hadn't outsmarted the cultists of the Dead God, Duet did. It made her more than a little annoyed, but more than anything at this point she was just tired. Ira knew she very much wanted to go to bed, to return to her place of safety and comfort. Neither of those things could happen while still out in the field.

-

The corpse had been sleeping for so long.

Breathing without breath.

Death without dead.

Living without alive.


The corpse felt life come upon it, then, so quickly, something tried to take it away.

Annihilation.

Removal.

Bleeding.


Was this to be fate? Gifted with a glimpse of what it never had claim to? Life only to be destroyed?

Black ichor seeps.

Eyes see all.

Time to go.