Special Test Room

The white buzzes with feedback under the blue's touch - you can feel it like she's holding your own hands. You see her try to pull, and before you can cry out in warning you feel the white pull back. The feeler goes from one point to two points to three to a whole coil of reaching ropes like fingers and slithers up her arm. It buzzes again as she dips a glowing knife through it, but parts like dense jelly to the blade's edge. Her arm remains covered in strands; even cut off from the body, you see them clinging like veins. The white looks the same all the way through but for the tiny black digits suspended within; without their connection to the host, their errant flashing goes dead and inert. Like a liquid version of rigor mortis, the fluid tentacles actively resist being pried off, snapping back like rubber.

The white makes one great pulse that feels like a shiver down your spine. The room creaks. "It's awake," your voice quakes under the weight of it. You hold tighter onto the pink. Your fingers are stuck under the feeler wrapping her up - already it's grasping up the softness under her belly, one arm encased from the elbow down. There's an awful moment of silence where you just hold her and she just holds you, knowing in that silence that the white is...the white is..."It can taste you." The words escape your lips without you meaning to.

You look up at the pink, really look at her. Your eye flickers but you keep her in the centre of your vision. look only at her and not the white rising up around you both. "Warm, soft, radiant, disseminate, familiar," something murmurs through your mouth. Her skin fritzs and buzzes under its touch. making the wispy hair on your arms stand on end. The sharp's blade crackles in the air; the tendrils approaching her stop short of her reach, rearing up on themselves. The body of beasts just sits jutting out of the white, a lump of fangs and faces.

F͖̭̪̥͙̮̠͂͛͐͊͗e̬͖͖̯̫͙̽͂̉ͥë̜́̂͗̊̿l̗̲͉͌̆̍,̱̩̱̇̾̾͗ͭͫ ̯̻̞̼͖̝͉̏͗̑ͮ̋̚̚t̗̤͐̓̆ͪͦ͋̍ͬ̅a̙̼̯̝̝͓̫̭̒̇ͭ͌̉ͧs͉̥͖̯͎̺̙̈́͐t̗͈̻̂̇̿ͫ̿͌e̼̺͎̦͖̼̙ͩͩͤ̄̚,͈͖̟̹̼̙̑̊͗̇ͦ͂̚ ͕̤̖̹͎͓͋ͥ͊͆̉ͫ͑p̮̀ü̩̘͕̫̳̥͈̓̀ͅl̰̮͖͛̉̽ͨ͋l̘̳̦̱̫̩̱̯͈̎̐͆.̲̘̺̝̯̗̾ͩ ͍̳͇̘̝̼͓͆F̠̫̤͇͕̹ͦͨͪ͌̈ͯẽ͚̖̠̑ẹ̭̹͊̄ͅl̙̼̼̰̙͓̰ͣ͌͒,̦̩̝̠̮̾̈́͋̐̈͐̎ͅ ̭͔̱̆t̩̖̽͊̈ͩ̓a̖̓̅ͦͣͧ̿̓̀s͎̲͛ͭͅt͇̬̤͍̳̝ͥ̃ͭ̒é͇̤͕̳͈ͬ,͈ͣ ̤̗̉̓̃ͤͯ͛ͮp͙̱͍̩͋̆ͩͮ̊̓u̼̹̪̰̓ͮ͐ͧ͊̂̓͊l̘͖͕̺͇͍̹̎ͫl̜̲͓̐͛ͩ̌͒̔̚.͉͔̗̟͕̅͛̔̇̚ ̦̺̬͇̯̳̘̠̍̒F͔̬͐̾͂ͪ͐ě͈̙̞̗̗͉̋e͙̣̞ͤ͛ͥl̗̼̝̈́͐̃,̱̼̳̪̦̌͐͊ ̰͓̬̪̥̓ͦ̈̿̂ͅt͙͈͙̲̭̺͉̔̃́̾ͅa̖̯̤̭̦͖͐ͧ̾ș̮ͬ͛͐̋ͦ̌͌t̩̞̞̝̣̩̉̑̈́ͧͧ̌̾ẹ͓͗͂͐ͦͧ̏̐̒,̰̒ͮͥͪͦ͌ͤ ̻̺̻̤͇̾̔̓̉ͯ̾̌p͈̘̲̰̞̝̭͛̃̔̍̌̓̈̾̏u͈͍͇̜ͮ̉͗̊̐̄l̠̟͂̉̂̀̒l̻͕̯̙̥͒̓ͫ͊̒.̪̬̺̞̺̓ͭ̍̋͛͑

The white pulses, and squeezes the pink all over like a fist. "Grab me grab me grab me," spills from your lips in a yelp, because the next instant the white pulls through the pool, and its arms retract so quickly some of them crack like whips. You dig your feet into the ground and reach out to grab her under the arms before she goes under but all around you are whipping stinging flashes of white and oh please no what if you aren't fast enough? What if the sharp and her cruel blade decided you were a threat? Your eye darts around the room, finding nowhere safe to look. You can't bear to look forward, don't want to know what expression will be frozen on the pink's face forever.

Behind you, the beast-shell ripples and swirls. The constant pulse swells the body into a roiling lump of rot that hurts to look at. Static burns your eyes when you try. It swells, fatter and fatter...

...and squeezes.

The body explodes like a meaty pimple. Thick black ooze seeps from the rents in its hide, noxiously sharp as its exposed to the air. The beast-skin crumples into shards and shrapnel, all their supporting innards crushed and corrupted out of them. Jelly-like slurry froths around your feet, making you retch despite yourself. The tendrils, at least, have finally receded, leaving a pool of white rippling on the floor. It consumes the last remnants, sucking the black foulness into itself, and is still.

Your head itches on the inside, somewhere you can't scratch. When you clamp a hand to your eye, red light bleeds over it. "Something in my head..." you gasp out-

[Operation successful.] The voice comes from Ego's lips but it is not her own. All tone is removed, leaving the words cold and dead of feeling. Her singular eye blooms a constant crimson, staring straight forward into nothing. [Administrating.] She raises a hand, lifting a tendril of Hex's body into her hand. The rings floating on her back crackle bloody red, refracting malevolent shadows through the white. It seems to swallow the light.

Within, the mix of old faded digits struggle against the sudden onslaught of viral sludge. One by one, they disappear into the murk. From outside, the pool looks to have grown a black core, like the pit of a long-rotten fruit. As the red light spreads to envelop it, it pulses and ripples, growing black feelers all along its surface. Within the bounds of Hex's body, they grow without restraint, creating an internal network of endless branches just as the main body creates its branches externally. The atmosphere they generate where they brush against the exterior world is foul as putrid meat. The pool, minus the single tendril Method had cut off, tinges visibly with its new taint, generating a haze of static low to the ground. Egomorph stands motionless amongst the noxious grey stain, unseeing, unhearing, unfeeling.

A low, jittery hum like a fit of hysterics threatening to break out came from Method's throat as she struggled internally between whether she ought to be pleased their guest had allowed a sample to be taken without fighting back, or worried that he was encroaching upon her. She held the sample she had cut in one hand while attempting to brush free loose strands of test subject from her forearm, which worked even worse than she expected. "This is the last time we wing it to this degree in one of our tests, Madness," she scolded her sister, while summoning a waist high data packet in front of herself. She quickly deposited the piece inside, where it would sit next to SoapMan's sample from earlier. "There. We should be able to perform plenty of tests."

Madness nodded, though she was more interested in her already advanced situation than Method's developing one. "Eh heh heh, I'm flattered! But our relationship is scientist and subject, right? No tasting," she tried to gently discourage the white. Last time it hadn't really eaten her until she teased it all the way on. She hoped she could get by without getting consumed again, without resorting to something drastic.

The only girl in the room who was so far free from the touch of the white was Cuffs, still brandishing the most threatening weapon of the three and wearing the most effective protective gear of the bunch. Method had moved to trying to use her knife to carefully cut tendrils from her arm, but seeing that Madness was still encased and getting more so, Cuffs approached. "Should I cut you free?" she asked quietly, through her mask.

"Not yet... if, uh, it becomes time, you'll know," Madness answered, while watching the little girl in her arms start mouthing someone else's words. "Oh crap, it's time!" she announced, barely getting the words out before the gooey white one suddenly yanked her entire body inside up to the shoulder. Cuffs shot out one hand to latch one of her namesakes onto Madness' wrist and keep the two of them connected. Even still, she had her beady eyes frozen on the swollen body of the blob.

Thankfully(?), before Madness could be absorbed into that perfectly white abyss, the goop began to spit out a new color, obsidian black. Then another new color: red. This one was coming from the little girl, not the mass she still considered to be Hex.

Another change appeared to have come over the girl. As the two watched her, Method attempted to climb free of the mess, which, somehow, was just about as bad as being pulled into the pure white one. "Boy, he changes outfits even more than we do," she joked, hoping she would manage to get that one out before the subdued beast started yanking her back in or something worse.

"Wh-What is that disgusting, unclean thing? I can barely look at it!" SoapMan gasped, before hurling up a flood of suds onto the floor. "Put me back in my cell! I'm not going to be any further part of this!"

"Good, you don't have to be. We're sending you back now," Method reassured him, then he snapped out in a beam before he had a chance to to tall back.

"I was going to suggest... we stop, put him in containment... and re-evaluate the situation... but if there are answers to be had... we really have to get them now," Cuffs pointed out, seeming hesitant despite ver words.

"Agreed. I don't know if we can communicate with this one or not- er, can we?" Method asked, giving the creature a chance to speak. "But we owe it to the net at large to press on. Bring in the liquid form subject. Hex, if you are in there, our next goal is to test your ability to displace as a liquid lifeforms. We have another criminal, Solvent, who has agreed to participate. Will you agree to that?"

Madness watched Ego with concern, but hesitated to approach her again, given the girl's new demeanor combined with what had happened last time. Method and Cuffs both watched with varying degrees of wariness and varying strengths of bared electric weaponry. Even if he could not explicitly agree, they would probably continue anyways, as such was the nature of the beast. For now, it was a question mark as to whether Madness would even be able to squirm free from the stuff that had started trying to pull her in earlier.

The red incandescence ebbed from Hex's body in fading pulses. The pool lay momentarily inert beneath many feet; creeping itself minutely wider with grasping fingers; reaching feelers from the ground high around Cuff, the better to taste the crackling air. Barely worthy of being called sentient, it was yet intelligent enough to understand the threat she posed. Anyone touching the befouled, veiny sludge would feel something like static beneath their skin, their sensory codexes fighting to put logic to the strange matter.

The waif whose name had once been Egomorph stood unnaturally still. Words crackled in a voice more static than sound from her wide, unmoving mouth, [Synthesis complete. Processing...processing failure, software not found. Rerouting request to Adminstrator.] It was a voice Method and Madness would find familiar: not so very long ago, Hex itself had been capable of the same form of primitive speech. This no longer seemed to be the case.

Dark red light burned from the dual halos Egomorph hung off like a stringless puppet. It looped around on itself in concentric spirals, and redoubled its burning fervour. She twitched. [Redirection accepted > Command: Prioritise central processing. Set default processor: Administrator] It was the white speaking as a Navi, as near as it could manage at this point. Trapped unseeing, unhearing in its thrall, Egomorph was reduced to its loudspeaker as it operated her body to think for itself.

Occupied it may have been with relearning how to think, the white's body grew on unabated. No move yet was made to pull Madness under, though limbs of threaded veins and slime continued their steady cocooning. Their channel for growth had been nothing but accommodating, providing so many convenient vectors and curves to grow around, wrapping and tangling and pulling and binding and glitching to the touch. It wouldn't be long at all before she was completely encased, if measures weren't taken to free her.

Egomorph had begun to twitch with increasing frequency, body jittering between frozen poses. Several times sentences attempted to form, but dissolved into a roar of static. Driven on the base instincts that had gotten it here in the first place, the pool reared up. A choppy wave surged and rumbled across the floor; limbs began to rise up around Method, curling around each other in spirals. The ones already feeling the air around Cuff were branching and dividing and curving in like snakes rearing to strike. A dark shadow fell in the centre of the pool, growing in size as something loomed beneath the surface. The beast had fed, and again hungered.

Hearing the words issuing from Egomorph- administrator, processing, software, etc.- reminded Method and Madness both that they were not dealing with some kind of beast, or virus in net terms, but rather, with a being programmed for a purpose. Or was it simply that it had once been, and these terms were vestiges leftover? She wanted to ask the creature whether someone had made him this way or if the whole thing was an unfortunate, 1/100 coincidence, but that would likely be difficult for it to answer, even if it were in the business of responding in a way easier to interpret.

"You're being pulled under again, Sister!" Method cried out from nearby.

Hearing the summons, Cuffs approached, getting to one knee and reaching out a gloved hand. She grabbed hold of tendrils and began pruning surgically with the knife, like someone who was well familiar with using such a tool to cut restraints. Hex's well-being didn't seem to enter into it for her, as she cut back every tendril within reach.

While Cuffs was thus occupied, the tendrils went for Method instead. Part of her wanted to jump into the air to avoid them, but that would only end in her falling over; it would be even worse for her if the tendrils could reach that much of her, she reasoned. "We can't experiment in these conditions!" she reiterated, while releasing a shock of electricity through a few Thunder chips, to try and paralyze their target with minimal damage. "We want to do all we can for the net by researching this creature, but if we let it eat us, trust me, someone else is going to bathe this whole containment chamber in fire for it! Then we'll all be deleted! That doesn't serve anyone!"

"You're right, you're right," Madness finally agreed. "We need to exit the chamber and then proceed from the watching room just outside. Sorry, buddy, but if you can't play nice...!" She began to rise and tear at the tentacles around herself.

"Activate battlechips!" Method urged her.

"You and Cuffs have already done plenty! If I go at it too, we're going to delete it!" Madness responded. The three made their way toward the hidden doorway and signaled for it to open. Cuffs ensured that Madness pulled free with a few more savage drags of her dagger, before they all stumbled out.

It seemed for a moment as though Hex was going to be alone... before another navi teleported in. Her head was a metallic, blue skull and her body, in the shape of a woman's, was nude and composed of a gelatinous, blue liquid substance, mostly transparent. She tilted her head for a moment and looked around. "Am I in the wrong room?" she asked, not seeing the experimenters, but instead, just Ego and a mass of white liquid tentacles. "Where are those cute researchers? I was looking forward to them..." She didn't sound overly worried for herself...

... But the cute researchers outside did. "Send her back!" Method called out.

"I'm trying, but I think she's tampered with her own transference. Solvent was supposed to be pretty good at creating traps and things... I guess that explains why she knows how to mess with her own jackout mechanism and teleportation!" Madness explained.

The blue-skulled navi slid over towards Egomorph, not moving her feet, while tilting her jaw upward, a bit of a haughty gesture with no face to accompany it, besides the grinning skull's. "I was supposed to be involved in some sort of test of liquid properties, I think. But you know, more impressive than my body stretching is how I can dissolve almost anything! Not that I like to dissolve the living, of course... but I can! I prefer play to harm. But if you keep giving me that gross, dead stare... I'm going to reconsider," she chuckled maliciously, a bit hypocritical given her own expressionless skull face. The skull began to grow into the air as her neck extended and her body began to flatten to swirl, changing from a woman's shape to something more like a large tendril itself, pooling upon the floor.

The woman was talking big, but for whatever reason, Method sounded more worried about their other captive. Her voice came out to fill the room, demanding urgency. "You must return to your cell! We cannot protect you if you disable jackout and transference!" the blue researcher shouted.

The befouled white reared back as Cuffs took action, about to retaliate - only for Method's lightning to freeze the entire pool in its tracks. For a brief but precious moment, Hex was robbed of its mobility, the creeping stalks fell away like grass around its would-be prey. Conversely, Egomorph seemed to perk up; without the massive processing drain of growing itself, Hex found it easier to think through its thrall, and proceeded to do so. As Method, Madness & Cuffs made their hasty retreat, the pool slowly came to - Ego stood pose-neutral amidst the inert growth, words that weren't her's streaming from her gaping mouth, [Error: directive not found > Command: identify directive > Error, data not found > Re-calibrating parameters, searching > searching > searching...]

A new scent entered the room, a new liquid motion that was familiar but not. Thin tendrils rose up to taste the air, curious - either blind, deaf, or simply apathetic to its audience, the puppet continued unabated, [Recursive function command identified, processing > Processing complete; directives updated] The feelers, piled in snakelike coils on the ground, began to slither out from the pool of white, mapping out the room. Hex's window into their world expanded out, stretching its foulness wider with squirming, grasping arms.

[Replicative command cycle identified > instrumental goals updated: acquire resources, replicate > INTERNAL ERROR: final goal not found > INTERNAL ERROR: processing incomplete, additional resources requi-] the grinding voice cut off. Hex's feelers were active once more, twisting on themselves, feeling atmosphere and motion like scents in the air. In the dead space and tasteless walls of the lab, Solvent was a shining star of activity and concentrated data. All of Hex arced in towards her, a shapeless mouth yawning wide.

Egomorph leaned in. From behind her curtain of hair, a finger fell, dropped into the pool and disappeared beneath the surface. Her head twitched, hair falling to one side. Translucent, veiny white leaked from a hole where her other eye should be. [Resources identified]

The damned PET was screaming again.

"Oh, for F**K sake!" Arch swore around a mouthful of smoke. He fought his couch-lock, managed to lever himself upright, stumbled to his desk. Wrapped in as much soundproofing as he could wedge into a drawer, the electronic screech was still loud enough to be heard throughout the apartment, and it would. Not. Stop. Not until Arch gave it what it wanted, then it went right back to being a broken piece of garbage.

He cranked his headphones as loud as they would go, and picked the damn thing up. Screen dark, buttons inert, same old dead PET. Only one part still worked with any regularity, and it was that part Hex was signalling him to indulge. He shoved chips in at random until the noise stopped, and promptly shut the thing back in the drawer, growling to himself. Wasn't his business what Hex needed the chips for, he said. If the stupid blob wanted to run off and do its own thing, well that was its life. Wasn't his problem, and if he threw it out Hex would become someone else's problem, someone who wouldn't know how to deal with it. He had it handled. It was fine. Everything was fine.

Back to the couch. Smoke in his lungs. No more noise. Everything was just fine.

The moment Solvent stretched herself tall, the pool boiled over with bodies.

Up Egomorph's legs they wrapped, like a canvas of twisted skin and faces. A pair of hollowed-out carcasses made up the bulk of the shell, one bald and male, the other female, nude and shapely, twisted together like a macabre parody of lovers. Beneath them, hands and legs burst from the fleshy pillar, balancing the thing as it teetered high enough for Egomorph to nearly brush the ceiling. Cracks formed on her face - the veins crawled up all around, sewing skin to skin. A thin veil of static shrouded it like fog.

It wasn't, couldn't be a Navi. To allow that would mean accepting that there was something out there in Method and Madness' world, something made like them, cut from the same cloth - something that looked at them and saw this: resources for growth, and nothing more. Easier by far to deny it that bond; to call it beast, or monster, or thing, that had perhaps once been, but was no longer a Navi.

Like a blooming flower, Egomorph's face gave one last crack and split open. Petals of skin flaring, a thick tendril slithered out from the tiny waif's white-filled head, crackling bloody crimson. [Run: command cycle: replicate] echoed from her ruined visage, like waterfalls of gravel made voice. The tower of corpses reared back, unfurled a bladed tip from its tentacle. For a moment, the attack seems inevitable - only for it to stretch tall and jam its weapon straight into the ceiling. In that moment, Method and Madness knew they were dealing with the same Hex from experiments past, for how else would it have remembered the sprays of glitch solution? Red light bled into the walls in surging, crackling pulses, seeking out that ever-hated antidote to the poison it would spread.

Hex lurched all at once to one side, cutting the current off. High atop its body, skin bulged and tore from within. A torso broke free like a branch ripping itself out of a tree, and proceeded to vomit more skin sent up from Hex's depths. Down it stretched, one silenced scream after another, into a single incongruous foot. Two points of contact - now it could balance, as more growth burst from the other side of its main column. Another leg pieced itself together; limbs, heads, bones, even a still-smiling Mr. Prog head, woven together with wiry black veins into a gruesome tapestry.

Three points of contact - now it stamped the ground, coiling tension into its many limbs. The conjoined lovers in its abdomen reached out for Solvent with one hand apiece to form an almost-perfect set. The many, many other hands joined in reaching, beckoning, inviting the outsider in.

The lovers' lips opened wide - wider - yet wider. Their lower jaws split on their hinges and fell away, leaving only a sloping ridge of pearly whites gnawing endlessly up and down. A tear ripped itself down the thing's neck, splintering along its abdomen. Ribs yawned open like teeth - all at once, with the prospect of new resources so near, the bulbous, spidery lower body grew a mouth wide enough to fit a man's shoulders. Two spines hung sewn together in the back of its grisly throat, bony scythes reaching out in arrhythmic snaps. Being drawn in would mean being trapped inside Hex's hollow shell; trapped in the amorphous matter within as it went under, and closed its window behind it.

The white had finished building, and now sat, pulsing like a mockery of breath. The darkness in its maw seemed almost to shine.

It charged.
(NSFW: butt)

Stamping, squirming crashes echoed in the tiny lab. The force of too many arms and legs crawled Hex across the floor with force enough to break its own wrists; mindless to the damage, it surged forward. The roiling black haze drifting from its maw, by comparison, looked almost gentle. Gentle, if you ignored the way the static ionised the space around it enough to glow, and devoured that same light in its gravity all in the same breath. It moved in lazy dark billows, drifting in the wake of the creature that produced it. The lab was not large, and Hex's body dominated the room. It wouldn't be long before Solvent ran out of time to escape.

// COMBAT ROUTINES EXECUTED //
/͟/ ̡WA̶R̕NING ̶/͝/ ̧̢̧W͡A̶͘R͡N̵̢I͡N͠͞G͢͠ ͜͢/̷̕͠͝/̴͡҉ ̢͜͡͏Ẁ̴͡͝A̴͘͟͜͞R͡N̶̷̢͞I̷̸̵̧Ǹ̨Ǵ̴͘͢ ̵̧͜ //

1. Stunned
E1. Equip: head-analogue to created Hex body
*Attachment: +Glitch to ElecReel1
E2. ElecReel1Damage: 80 + Spread 3 (Side + Behind)
Accuracy: B
Description: A small bolt of lightning that spreads sideways and behind the target upon impact.
Duration: Once
Element: Elec
Trader Rank: D: Status Cure solution dispenser [85 Elec {B}, Glitch, Spread3 (sides + back)]
2. Buster Charge
3. Buster Charge
4. Breed: Solvent [Glitch 10 {A}; Charge Burner 2; 5tcd]

"I think we're getting something, though not what we wanted or expected," Madness pointed to her sister, as the two watched Egomorph behind the glass. "It sounds like it may be an old-fashioned bug or programming error after all. Whatever Hex was created to do- or 'the white,' though it sounds more like he's the fallout from the failure- he's missing his end point or objective, so he just keeps on repeating without it. Endless recursion... it's one of the oldest errors in the book. The question is, why, who let it happen, and just as importantly, why didn't they step in at some point and stop it? I don't think it's his current operator either. From what I remember, Arch didn't create him-"

"How can you be talking about this right now?! The why matters a lot less than the what right now!" Method complained, leaning across the table and in front of the view-screen that her sister was using to analyze the contents of the test chamber.

Ignoring Method, Madness continued hypothesizing; perhaps she saw a glimpse into her own origins in Egomorph's ramblings. "Just imagine... listening to it, I can't help but think that it's just... feeding, as a way of taking in information, trying to break the loop? The 'resources' it's mentioning could just be data. It's just collecting everything it can, trying to find a new objective or repair the broken cycle and get back to its original instruction..." she pondered, feeling that if she could just keep putting the puzzle together, she could end the nightmare that was Hex.

Inside the room, Solvent was regarding the movements more as a challenge. "Ha ha ha... If you're going to try to crowd me in a room, you should know that in my day to day, I often am the room," the supposed doctor chuckled, beginning to match Hex's movements by spreading out her own tendrils slowly from the area of her feet. Whatever amusement she felt quickly changed to a mixture of suspicion and self-survival instinct as Hex demonstrated a skill-set she did not possess: the ability to conjure bodies out of itself. "Yours goes two ways, huh?" she quipped, but already she was hastening her expansion to grab as much of the uncovered portion of the room as she still could before Hex could reach it.

Of course, Hex knew as well as anyone what was coming next; Method was already reaching across Madness to smash the button. Heading off that anticlimax at the pass, he attacked the sprinkler system. Instantly, the machine was warped... it still seemed to function, but it rained down showers of hot sparks, spitting out each side in random pattern, instead of any helpful liquid that would assist in dispersing glitches.

Soon, Hex was beyond the point that Dr. Solvent, Method, or even Madness really cared to consider the components making him up or even try to count the individuals that composed him. "Eat or be eaten is not what I had in mind!" Solvent informed the others in a growl, as she continued to expand her body, quickly growing to fill the entirety of the room. Earlier, she'd been cognizant of Hex's position and tried to avoid touching him; now, she was fully prepared to try and dissolve him, Egomorph, and whatever one wanted to call the clown car contents of other navis that had spilled out of the white. As soon as her liquid body touched his, she could feel glitches affecting her, but all she could do was hope that the situation would be even more unpleasant for him.

To Method and Madness, it looked like they were viewing the same scene they had moments ago, albeit now underwater, with Solven't skull head floating in the sea, staring down an ever-expanding and transforming amalgamation of broken navis and programs. "I'd complain that you have me outnumbered, but it won't matter once I've dissolved them all!" she spoke, her voice warbled inside her goo.

Hex and whatever related figures would feel it as well; the solution around them was quickly breaking down everything inside it. Too long inside and they would be reduced to nothing. The chamber around them was undoubtedly only preserved as a result of pre-planning, seeing as the NP Tech operatives had known they were going to be calling her in there. In this case, it was hard to tell if it was good for her since it kept Hex concentrated inside her solvent body or if it was bad, considering she may have appreciated having the option to simply burn through the wall and escape.

If resisting being pulled inside Hex was all Solvent had to worry about, she would probably have an easy road to victory; her expansion capabilities were indeed to be lauded and even if he sucked her in, she could pull herself back out to the core of her head. With all the exposure to Hex, however, came countless numbers of glitches, which together turned her from a cocky scientist into a stuttering lunatic. "My uh my uh my uh my uh my uh..." her voice chanted on and on. Her colors began to flicker from white to black in an effect that might look like a strobe light to anyone watching her PET (if she had one, more likely she'd been disconnected). Her liquid body moved in waves, crashing against the glass repeated, while her skull tilted slowly to one side, the jaw opening and closing mechanically. Spikes formed out of her cranium, then receded, then grew back again. With a click, her jaw slowly detached, rendering her incapable of continuing the stuttering dialogue. Other minor changes could be noticed in her viscosity, her coloration, and even scent and taste.

"The anti-glitch system is out! We should purge the whole room. Hex should go back to his PET," Method advised, already moving to do that.

"What about Solvent?" Madness questioned.

"Unfortunate casualty; she knew the risk when she first defied our instructions and then came here without transference enabled," Method responded coldly, not overly concerned at this point what happened to the cocky scientist. "Remember: if this was a decent, normal navi we had in there, she could have eaten them whole."

Madness seemed like that had convinced her; she might be thinking of Ego, who she still hoped would make it through the solvent-based adventure in a large enough piece to consider a rescue target in all of this. Behind the two of them, Cuffs nodded, indicating that she saw no way to avoid this outcome. At any rate, the whole room was beginning to glow red, making Solvent's body look like a bowl of fruit punch. Method's voice came in over the speaker:

"Abandoning test procedures. Purging test chamber in 3..." she spoke over the intercom. As she did, square shaped panels on the walls flipped around... the other side looked like smooth plates, but they appeared to be heating up rapidly. With more time, perhaps Solvent could destroy them, but she didn't seem capable of doing anything crafty right now... her floating skull stared blankly, with only her thrashing, liquid body providing any indication she was still alive. Hex could potentially glitch them if there weren't so many and he wasn't fighting against her painful, acid-like body. Between that pain and the imminent danger posed by the chamber purge, the creature inside was either going to need to come up with some miracle plan, EJO to safety, or otherwise be EJO'd to safety.

The PET was screaming again.

Twice in as many minutes - that was unusual. Arch stopped what he was doing (nothing), and wondered what Hex was up to this time. Since the day he'd found it, the Navi had sat like mold in the corner of the apartment, popping up as a hologram in space and just...sitting there. Broken, or he hoped so anyway, couldn't imagine being created for a purpose like that.

Then Hex had wanted to go kill a bunch of viruses with the chip things that had been scattered around its PET. The bloodsport was good for a laugh or two, Arch supposed, in a vague, one-and-done sort of way. Video games weren't his thing, but he'd entertained it once or twice. Only the blob must've really enjoyed the freedom, because now it just left whenever it wanted. Always showed up back here again, coughed up a little brat once, that was kinda weird - but always, always with the Battlechips. Arch was just happy he'd figured out that's what it wanted when it made the PET screech.

Wasn't as though there was much he could do about it, either. Whatever the PET was made of, it was tough enough to take anything he could throw at it without a scratch, and someone had clearly tried their best before him. Besides, Arch thought privately (always privately), how much harm could it really be causing? He would never admit it to himself, wasn't even aware he thought so, but he was as lonely as he was misanthropic. Hex, as far from human as Navis got, was the only sort of company he would ever be able to tolerate. And the Net was a vicious sort of place; really, Hex fit right in with the local architecture. For f**k sake, Arch monetised a fleet of Mr. Progs to repair all the crap viruses demolished on the daily. Hex was nothing new.

Smoke up. All alone. Feed his charge its fodder, doesn't matter which ones. PET's shut up. Everything was fine.

There was nothing resembling feeling in Hex's twisted colossus. The outer layer was all brittle, hollow skins, cloth easily torn. Egomorph's host fared little better, peeling off from the fingertips in. It felt no pain as its protoplam was gnawed at, shell melting face by face, arm by arm, into foul sludge.

It felt nothing. Nothing but an immutable need to follow its directive. It continued to charge.

Any feelers that it extended were dissolved, too thin to be of any use, so Hex condensed them. Its failed shell was re-purposed, crumpled under a web of veins into a tight, dense ball. A thick column of Hex's matter lifted the cudgel high, adding as much mass as it could conjure in an effort to keep Solvent from undermining its support.

No move is made to defend itself from the acid, or the collapsing room. It put no thought to preserving the form the three Navis watched through their screens, for what they saw was only a feeler; a mouth, climbing ever higher to reach once more for the floating skull. The stomach, the greater body was deep, deep elsewhere. Of them all, only Madness had seen it, could understand that what they saw in that room was only a window, from which something far larger reached.

The hammer fell. Through the puppetry it had trained into its Operator, Hex's blow was imbued with more weight than it had any right to carry, punching into the lab floor like a meteor strike. The ball shattered like a Christmas ornament from the impact, and slowly drifted to Solvent's seabed to finish dissolving.

It pulled itself down, down into the floor, down into its window, its entire being reduced to a single directional input. Limbs twisted into corkscrews, taking all it could with it. All except the administrative unit, its most valuable puppet, which would be its shield. As Hex dealt with whatever it had snared, Egomorph was laid down on her back. The pool shrank into a perfect, shadow-thin outline of her, leaving nothing of itself exposed but the portion she inhabited, and then-

-and then Ego was herself again, face up, stuck to the floor. Black veins shackled around her wrists, her waist, her tiny neck. The white was her prison, and so she was bound to the infinitesimal slice oozing against her back; she could not move. Of all Hex's horrors, she alone could feel the world burn. Her fingers were sloughing off. Her face was gone.

She writhed, and melted, and screamed until she could scream no more.

-Turn Summary-
1. Grapple: Skull
2. BigHammer3Damage: 280 + Impact + Break
Accuracy: B
Description: Summons a giant metal hammer to utterly crush one enemy that stands before you.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Trader Rank: B: Solvent [280 Null {B}, Break, Impact]
3. Consume: Solvent [30 Lifedrain {A}, Nova2; 3tcd]
4. Grapple: pull Solvent's skull under
E1. Re-Equip: meat-shield
*One for All: Connect to Hex [1/2 all damage to Hex split to Ego]
E2. Suffer Defend

Somewhere out there, Arch was playing the horror movie trope of uncaring caretaker who let's the monster escape from its cage, while said monster was wreaking havoc in a laboratory. Solvent, for her part, wasn't the type who solicited much sympathy, but one couldn't help but feel for her as her skull's eyeless sockets stared up at the impending hammer of Hex, making her the first horror movie casualty. She appeared to be in no state to dodge and, as such, the hammer simply crushed the skull into pieces.

That had evidently been too much for her writhing liquid body, which now became more like a large pool, slowly receding. Rather than let it drip down the drain, Hex would suck it up, adding another (albeit badly damaged) puppet to his ever-growing collection. Although badly burned, Egomorph would survive, given that Solvent's body had lost its power. Soon, the room was free of Solvent and contained only Hex and co., though "co" might now include the late doctor.

The countdown had stopped before reaching zero... Madness sat with her hand in the lever, but couldn't finish the process. "I can't! That little girl is still in pain," she pointed out. Incenerating Solvent would have been one thing, but toasting Egomorph was another altogether.

The other sister clicked her tongue irritably, not pleased with the hesitance. "That thing in there just killed and ate our 'unlimited viscous growth' research participant! I think it's pretty bold of you to offer it or any part if it mercy. Just keep your hand on that lever," Method advised. "I'll contact the operator." She rang the PET, issuing a call from her operator to Arch. He might not pick up, given that speaking with the odd, skinsuit-wearing NetPolice researcher was likely not Arch's idea of a fun time. If he did pick up, he would be treated to the image of the blue-haired researcher in her experiment-approved gear, but her words were no nonsense. "Eject your navi now!" she warned him. "And once you do, I'm demanding on authority of the NetPolice that you surrender your PET, with Hex inside, at a NetPolice branch office!"

If Arch did tune in, he may realize that Method's demand was hamstrung by the fact that Hex had been a willing participant in the experiment. There could be consequences on the NP's tech division if she suddenly turned that into confining the navi against his will. Madness pitched in with another idea, from just a short distance away. "O-or, if you can submit reasonable proof that you are taking measures to fix Hex's intent to hunt or injure other navis, that will work too. We could take that proof right now!" she sounded pretty desperate, probably since her hand was the thing separating Hex and Ego from being microwaved by the powered up array of plates inside the room.

Method looked back over her shoulder with a scornful expression, whispering something about needing to study the subject to understand what they were dealing with, before turning back. "Yes, technically correct," she agreed. "Right now, your navi is attempting to endanger the lives of researchers. Officer Cuffs and the two of us will be forced to EJO or delete him if you are not willing to comply with these demands. This includes becoming the ongoing target of our NetPolice Prosecutions Department... Answer the damn call!" she exclaimed in frustration, noticing that Arch was being very slow in answering despite having seemingly swiped in battlechips moments ago.

Pain happens in the mind, not the body. Still thrashing, Egomorph felt her hands burning long after Solvent had drained away, and her brittle fingers had dissolved to nothing. Her back arched off the ground; between breaths, her voice echoed out of her ruined face, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I tried to warn them." She pauses as though listening, and shakes her head no. "No. It doesn't stop," she sobbed, rocking back and forth, "it never ends, never ends never ends never ends never ends never ends never e-

Her voice pitched higher and higher and abruptly cut off. She went limp. The Conduit crackled to life, bleeding malevolent red light across the floor. White oozed from the cracked shell in squirming fingers. [Resources acquired > Allocating...allocation complete; processing complete] Hex grated out in its wretched voice. A mass of tendrils bloomed from the hole where Ego's face used to be. Pinned to the ground, feelers creeping from her many new openings, she resembled an insect ravaged by parasitic fungi.

Wearing its brain as a skin, the thing that was not a Navi sat enjoying its unseen feast. Solvent's liquid body was a fine offering of new mass, but the scraps of core rootcode, sucked like marrow from the shards of her skull, were the true prize. Deep beneath the lab it gnawed on the little scraps of consciousness, pulled them down into itself,, and as it gnawed it thought, and schemed, and rasped, [Command: identify recursive command module - SUCCESS; system replication cycle confirmed > Stages quantified: attachment; entry; uncoating; synthesis; assembly; lysis > Processing final goals...]

It fell silent for a time, its attention diverted to some unknowable place.

The call to Arch still hadn't connected.

If one were curious enough to track the call itself, they would see a connection so profoundly lost, it couldn't make up its mind why it wasn't working. [ERROR - the call cannot be completed as diaERROR - the number you are trying to reach does not exiERROR - the Net is unavailable in this regioERROR - client malfunctiERROR] was just a sample of the call log.

In the innards of an unregistered desktop, something reached from the Internet and buried itself deep.

The call finally patched through, albeit to an anonymous computer . The connection pulsed like a heartbeat around a static-lined webcam feed, which after a few blinking attempts, focused itself on a man's face. Ghastly pale, eyes drooping, he didn't seem to know where Method's voice was coming from, glancing around his apartment confused. After a couple of clicks, his eyes flew to meet the webcam head-on. "-the hell?" he muttered, scowling.

After a moment Arch's eyes flew wide, finally clicking over to the video call. He must have caught at least some of Method's angry demands, because his scowl only deepened. He bit back with only the hint of a slur, "What, y'want the little bastard's PET? Friggin' here ya go, have fun!" The PET was shoved unceremoniously into the screen, mashing the buttons emphatically. The screen remained dark - the PET was clearly unresponsive. "Been like this for ages! Hex comes 'n goes whenever it feels like it, and I can't do boo about it. You think this friggin' thing does anything? All it does is scream at me when the shitpile wants something. So I guess that part still works if you want me to surrender that!" Arch snarled sarcastically, clearly defensive. It was threatening to dawn on him that enabling his bloodthirsty houseguest might have long-reaching consequences, and he was doing all he could to avoid that realization.

He was cut off, not by the room he was talking to, but by a groaning, patchwork voice. Though Hex lay alone in the test chamber, its voice was somehow worming its way through to its Operator. [Operation project files recovered > Final goal updated: follow Creator-issued directives, finish projects, find Creator > ERROR: physical component requisites detected; Operator assistance required > Command: forward NeuralBridge.PROJ to Operator] Through Arch's window Method, Madness, and Cuff could hear a notification chime sound several times. The pale man's brow furrowed in confusion, but it was already continuing, [ERROR: Additional resources required for NeuralBridge.PROJ > ERROR: Resources not found > Returning to PET] Arch locked eyes with Madness, about to say something, but the window cut out before he could get a word in. Ego's body started to sink beneath the depths.

The broken puppet was stuffed back into her head, just in time to feel herself being dragged under. Her head was full of the new voice's screams, which were still fresh enough to distinguish from the rest. The rest were all thoughts and plans she hadn't had before - and even through the memory of pain, the thought of what was to come was terrifying enough to set her off again. "NO!!" she shrieked, fighting her bonds as the white's window prepared to close, "THE HUMAN IS IN DANGER, DON'T LET IT GET HIM IT'S STILL HUNGRY IT'S STILL HUNGRY IT'S STILL HUNGRY!!"

<(Attempting to jack out)>

As usual, Madness seemed torn by whether the right thing to do was to run in and try to pull Ego away when she became a conduit for the white, or whether the better option was to study Ego from a distance and help her with a calm, scientific approach. The latter was probably what her sister would recommend, but even Method was having a hard time keeping that kind of temperament and it was apparently her whole thing, going by her name. Still, with Solvent just having been eaten by the white moments ago, the choice was basically made for her. The only thing keeping the three of them safe- or, possibly, Hex and co. safe from being torched- was the Netpolice-manufactured chamber wall that gave the sisters a relatively safe way to monitor the creature.

Punching at her controls hard enough to do some damage, Method continued to try to get through to Arch fruitlessly a few more times, repeating her same message with varying degrees of sternness and scolding, desperation and bargaining, before she finally made it through to him. Well, they thought it was him, anyway. He hadn't looked well-kept even when they'd met him the first time, but this time, he looked like he could be a frightening sight even without the association with a killer navi.

Method's reaction to his barking back was, of course, indignation. "You're telling me he doesn't even have a working PET?" she gawked, wanting to add that she would have appreciated this critical info before they'd invited him to rejoin them for testing. "What are you feeding it?"

"What does anyone feed a PET? Chips and upgrades..." Madness murmured quietly, seeming as though her attention was split, focusing on both the topic at hand and some unseen dilemma.

"You've been swiping chips into the bloody thing?!" Method questioned with rising vitriol, now leaning against her console. It would be a nice view, if there was any time to appreciate such things. "You're a piece of work! You're bloody well right you'd better surrender the PET, whatever state it's in-"

"Arch, it isn't safe to-" Madness added with a look of added concern. Cuffs' face painted a somewhat similar picture, though, to some extent, she always looked that way. Before Madness could give her advice, Arch disconnected. "The human is in danger? So it's true...! Maso, we have to find him!"

"The only thing that human is in danger of is being policed for reckless endangerment of navi-kind. If he's not going to play ball then it's up to us to see just how far the authority of the NetPolice avails us in this instance..."

"Ego!" Madness called out, ignoring her sister and pressing against the glass for a moment. By then, the navi and SP were already gone.

((Rewards collected for deletion of Solvent:
12000z
MetaGel1 x1
AquaWhirl1 x1
100 bugfrags
Solvent.TXT data))