Day 5 Morning

[Proto Man]

After so many days of just trying to survive, it was strange to realize just how close they were to the end of the tunnel. With the demise of the Warlock, the last of Teucer’s relics had been liberated from the grasp of the island’s various monstrosities. Even though the sun was barely just escaping from the flats of the horizon, Proto Man was starting to feel a little better about the situation.

The death of the Warlock certainly would start to unravel whatever fel designs had been placed upon the primes sent to his place. For now, the machine felt just as tired, cold, and miserable as he had since he’d first been dumped into the ocean surrounding the island. Proto Man looked forward to feeling like himself again. At this point, he longed for the shadow of humanity he’d grown up with—anything was preferable to all these feelings. If he could go a lifetime without every experiencing the mixture of madness and grief he felt at the sight of Belle’s lifeless corpse, he would die a happy machine.

The cave they were in was dank and smelled faintly of methane, blood, and burning fabric. Despite the fact that most of the people still alive had at one point tried to kill one another, no one made any moves. Even Belle’s killer offered the woman some short words before turning back to his wounded ally. A quick look at the chainsaw-wielding man revealed that he wasn’t long for this world.

“I’m sorry,” Proto Man muttered to himself as he turned his gaze to the ground in front of him. While he wouldn’t forgive ‘Magus’ for trying to saw off his limbs with a chainsaw, the android wasn’t about to waltz over there and shout at someone bleeding to death. Whoever he was, the grizzled warrior would have to face his own demons soon enough. That though would have to be enough to satisfy the throbbing wound in Proto Man’s right leg.

In the far corner of the room, the ninja and the redhead were licking their own wounds. The machine knew that Sasuke Uchiha was a confidante of Gilgamesh. He knew that the two had been loose associates in Dante’s Abyss, and beyond that, there was nothing that would erase the image of the ninja killing Samus near the end of the event.

Justice will find you someday.

The purple-haired fighter sat sullen, and as he stared, Proto Man remembered that the young man had lost his female companion to the terrible might of the Warlock. Had the pair been friends long or had the event pulled them together? Part of him wanted to go and offer the man some kind words, but the last time Proto Man had crossed paths with the gun-totting fighter, there had been grenades and bullets involved.

In another section of the cave, Desco and the young girl were talking softly amongst themselves. Proto Man knew the demon—Desco was a friend of Guu, who was herself a wonderful person—but he refrained from approaching them either. Even with the Warlock dead, there was still too much tension in the air. There were too many people with paranoia in their eyes and memories of past scuffles fresh in their minds.

The machine was more than happy when Mickey decided their course of action. With his characteristic exuberance, the mouse announced that they were going to return to Teucer, even though Proto Man was one hundred percent sure that his best friend had zero ideas about how to escape the crumbling island.

Although every part of his body hurt in some way, the red robot held his chin high as he lurched after his companions.

On their way out, Mickey and Link had a quick exchange in Mireya-speak, which caused Proto Man to chuckle. He wasn’t aware that there was an entire language behind the half-night elf’s intermittent outburst. He just assumed that stuff like maricon, puta, ‘vete a la verga culero’ was the woman’s own creations, but when Mickey spoke, he had the smallest fragments of Mireya’s accent.

Proto Man was about to ask Mickey if he could understand some other pieces of Mireya-speak, but before he had a chance, the quartet were joined by a pair of ninjas with spiked hair and their own share of scrapes and bruises. After introductions by Kakashi and Minato, the six primes started off from the warlock’s crypt. With any luck, they could find some way to get back to the temple before Teucer got too worried about their predicament.

Once they had the Spirit reunited with his relics, they could all return to their friends in the Omniverse proper.