#critter fucking dies and explodes and is never seen again

[crittercatt]

oh my god

[imperiouswag]

[S] Reflect.

「You haven’t seen a room this stark in a long time. It reminds you of the place you woke up in when you first came to this city. But this time, there are no monitors. There’s no smug human barking at you about how things are going to be and no joke of a weapon to defend yourself. There’s none of that. It’s just you.」

「Two of you.」

「By all accounts, she looks exactly like you. Tall and proud and full of piss and bitter soporific sauce. But something about her seems off.」

“That’s right. I’m not you. I’m what you used to be.”

「You can’t say you’re entirely caught off guard by the fact that she can speak. It’d be pretty fucking weird to be stuck in a room with an unmoving double, but then again, in this city, you never can tell. What does send your shout poles blinking is the fact that she seems to be able to read your mind. Not only that, but there’s also the added bonus of her seeming to think there’s a large enough discrepancy between you that’s enough to comment on.」

) (IC: da fuck you mean what i used to be

“You should be able to answer that question on your own. What changed, Meenah?”

「The urge is strong to just outright cull the bitch, but she just smiles at you as though she knows exactly how you’re feeling and it’s the cutest thing in the world. Have you always been this irritating? You’re pretty sure you have, but being on the receiving end of it is something you don’t want to think about or experience. It’s too bad you don’t really have a choice in the matter.」

“Well? Are you going to answer me or will you keep standing there continuing to hate yourself more than you already have been?”

) (IC: who said i hate mashellf

“You did.”

) (IC: when

“Every single day. Maybe not out loud, but haven’t you always said actions speak louder, anyway?”

「You want to raise every bit of unholy hell you possibly can against what she’s saying, but unfortunately, you can’t. Well, you could, but you’d be LYING TO YOURSELF. Literally. Maybe it wasn’t necessarily outright hatred at yourself, but it was more because--」

「Oh, that cagey bitch.」

“I see you get it now.”

) (IC: why da fuck didnt you just come out and say dat

“Not how it works.”

) (IC: youre fuckin ANNOYIN you know dat

“Thank you.”

「You hate admitting she’s (you’re???) right. But you don’t hate yourself completely. You think back on what the Grand Highblood said to you when you met. Maybe he was right. You hate WHAT YOU’VE BECOME. In the time that you’ve been here, you’ve done your share of damage, but overall, you feel you’ve let yourself start to grow COMPLACENT. You didn’t think of it that way then, but he reminded you of a lot of things. You’ve been far too quiet. Your old generals would probably look down their sniff nodes at you. Even with the little stunt you pulled, you wouldn’t have let something like a handful of PLUCKY WRIGGLERS and a SHITTY SLITHERBEAST IN THE SNEEZEPLANT TRAITOR stop you from getting what you wanted. 」

「The old you would have kept going. Isn’t that the way you presented yourself when you gave him his reminder? The old you would have gotten her prongs dirty and plunged this city into absolute CHAOS and TERROR. Yeah, you don’t have all your powers, but you didn’t have all of them when you started, either. Your kingdom started on the back of a relentless work ethic and savage efficiency. Sure, there might have been some OUTSIDE INFLUENCE involved in it, but over time, you learned to see the beauty in it. That BULBOUS-HEADED BULGESTAIN had some points here and there. It made you what you are. It made you STRONG. Like fuck are you gonna let a bunch of bespectacled datafuckers and their game of meowbeast and cheese critter change that.」

「But you stop yourself thinking about something else. Since you’ve gotten here, you’ve actually stopped and spoken with your people. That was’t something you were necessarily able or willing to do before, namely because of your RAMPANT PARANOIA the last time you took your nub off their necks.」

「But here is different. You don’t have quite the same menagerie of killers under your thumb with some plotting to kill you (yet). And sure, Pyrope isn’t exactly a shining pillar among the rabble that you’ve got at your immediate disposal, but she’s one of the ones that keeps coming back. Perhaps it was because of this minor change in approach. Maybe she’s just maggots. Who the fuck knows at this point? All you can say for certain is something’s not working. You think it’s time to fix it.」

「You look up and see yourself staring back at you expectantly.」

) (IC: if you want me to break down cryin or some shit because a dis stunnin revelaseaon you can bite me

“As if. I know you better than that.”

) (IC: so what now then

“Choose.”

「You blink and she’s gone. You don’t have much time to marvel at her ability to make an exit because you’re too busy staring at the MYSTERIOUS DOORS that definitely weren’t there before. There’s nothing about them that gives you any indication of where they lead. You don’t like it. Not one bit. Then again, there’s not a lot about this place you DO like, so you guess it’s par for the course.」

「You stand in front of the doors and consider everything that’s happened. You think about how you died here and how you died before coming here. They were mistakes and you don’t deny you made them, but you learned from them. You’ll keep learning. But it seems before you can do that, you’ll have to go back to basics, so to speak. And to do that, you have to choose.」

「You go for the door on the LEFT.」

「Almost instantly, your body is wracked with agonizing pain. You feel as though you’re being stabbed, burned alive, bitten, exploded, and various other horrible forms of violence all at once. It’s blinding and maddening and you’re pretty sure you’re screaming at this point. You can’t hear yourself over the sound of what you can only believe is your body being torn apart inside and out. You feel like you’re only a step away from dying all over again. You almost want to give in.」

「But you can’t. You won’t. You REFUSE.」

「You have things to do. You have an army to gather. You have a city to bring into line. You have a YOU to be. This pain is nothing but a stepping point. A cleanse. You’ll survive it, if only because you’re sick of dying. Or maybe in spite of it. You aren’t sure. You don’t really care. You just know you’re not dying here alone. Not anymore.」

「Before you know it, you find yourself on your prongs and knees on the floor of your respiteblock, panting and gasping air, covered in sweat. Your skin looks ashen from what you can see. You probably look a mess. Once you get to your feet and manage to look over at the mirror on the wall, you see you’re right.」

「But you also see a woman standing tall. A woman who is capable of anything. A woman who remembers.」

「And most importantly, you know a woman who knows all too well what they say about what doesn’t kill you.」