Drown.
Her concept of death had been clear from the start. She knew it wasn't an end. Her fate was consigned to the clutches of the deep.
Or so she thought. It was quite fuzzy, her demise. Felt a bit like being drunk. Death should have been colder.
"Nngh," Alia shifted.
Her keen mind adapted to the truth just as soon as she regained consciousness. The dancer wasn't dead. Moreover, she wasn't exactly in a state of petty torture either.
"This-," Alia squirmed, unable to break out of the hogtie Ivy had trapped her in. "You idiot!"
Ivy looked down at her with tired eyes, sitting awkwardly on a broken log with tucked legs. Her staff was cradled in her arms, harmless and docile. She seemed more concerned with good posture than anything.
"Yeah," Ivy shifted with a groan. "Maybe."
Alia rolled around in the grass, her face red with embarrassment. "This isn't how the world works!"
"Psions forge their own path."
"You think that matters?!" The dancer gasped, realizing she was out of juice. Ivy had stripped it away using Lunae's technique. "I didn't plan to survive this."
"I'm not killing you. Deal with it." Ivy rolled her eyes. "Maybe that's what you'd do. It's certainly what I'd do a month or so ago."
She could hear the dancer grind her own teeth, frothing at the mouth. "Then let me go!"
"Nope."
"So what, you're gonna torture me then? Feel better about what I said?"
"Nah."
Ivy took pride in sounding like Lila. She didn't need to be a mimic for that. The change was all natural.
"Then what's the deal?" Alia rolled onto her side, staring up at Ivy with curled toes.
"You tried to kill Sonera."
"I...I wanted to survive."
"I get it. But here you are. Alive."
"Then," the dancer hesitated. "What have I done?"
It seemed obvious to Ivy. The impossible had already happened. But Alia had not yet confronted her situation. She always believed it was kill or be killed. But to fail and live, without even a scratch, relatively speaking, exposed just how heinous she had really been.
"It's fine," Ivy read her mind, an easy feat given Alia's lack of power. "We're all still here. We still have that mutual cause."
"You don't get it."
"The way of the world? I already told you-."
"The things I've done before I came here," Alia sniffled. "I...I got it all wrong."
"So did I." Ivy shrugged. "I always thought I had an excuse. My mother was a monster. Why talk to her? My sister must have just been a coward. Or maybe we were all afraid. The truth, however, was that I lived as a deplorable person. Nothing fantastical about it."
The heiress's eyes shimmered in hues of red and blue. She scanned Alia with sympathy and a bit of admiration. The origins of the dancer were a mystery. But she was perfect, and she knew it. Ivy found that quite relatable.
Perfect to the eyes at least.
"You really should just kill me," Alia said, looking down in shame. "I'll forever be a problem for you."
"I don't believe that." Ivy huffed.
"Then what now?"
Alia's wrists shifted, relaxing in their new binds. She had accepted her situation.
"Let's take you home."
"That's not my home."
"Home is where the others are, idiot."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
"Sneak mode activated, too bad we don't have a box to crawl around in." Lila grimaced with a comedically stern face. "Or maybe a hysterically overpowered taser. Don't need spidey powers when you've got that."
The small girl didn't react to her hijinks. She seemed oddly comfortable with them. Her interest leaned more towards the Ginjous.
"So what was that chasing us anyway?" the Earthling peeked out of the closet. "Got any idea?"
No response. Perhaps she was too traumatized to answer. Either way, Lila was out of luck.
"Okay, let's just...keep going," Lila sighed. "Guess I got five kids to take care of now. Always thought Lunae would end up the mother of our group. I wonder if she lays eggs."
"Are you scared?" The girl reached for Lila's hand, her silver eyes shrouded by her white hair. "You talk a lot when you're scared."
"Uh," Lila smiled. "Nah, I'm fine. We got this. What do I call you?"
Still, no response.
"How about Ina?"
The girl seemed to like that, producing a faint smile before staring back at the Ginjous. Lila had noticed her interest in the plushies. She had already given one to the girl by then, who preferred Ginjou Boy out of them all.
"Okay then."
Lila swiveled her head side to side, checking both directions before stepping out on the tips of her toes. Ina was effortlessly silent with her bare feet and soon led the way. She knew her way around it, it seemed.
"Whoa," Lila stared as the group rounded another corner.
There was a glass pane on the wall with a detailed mural, almost like a screen. Bright images of flowers and vines flashed at the girls like it was an eerie show. Lila seemed almost amazed, yet her new friend hardly reacted.
"What even is this place?" Lila cocked her head to the right, spotting another screen. "Like a fancy spa?"
Ina hastened her step as she scuttled towards a hatch in the distance. The room was beginning to expand the further they went, and soon a series of potted plants and hanging vines began to populate the landscape. Lila abandoned her bewilderment in exchange for caution.
"Resuscitate," Lila read, spotting a strange language on the wall. She knew it was her bond with Ivy that allowed her to discern the letters. It appeared as a mix of English and Latin, fused like an art project. "Hey, where ya going?"
Ina opened the hatch, slowly creeping inside as she hugged the side of the doorframe. Lila followed as well as she could. She could hear a quiet little gasp from the girl as she drew near.
"Oh shit."
Ina stared with wide eyes at a sleeping woman in a bed. It was a hospital room of sorts. The kind of place Lila had been to before, when her own mother was sick. Only, that's not what scared Ina.
A tall mechanical figure loomed over the woman, whose fair features and silver hair no doubt made her kin. At first, Lila expected there to be another spotting of the Mimic. But instead, the machine that stared patiently at its work was far more alien in nature, with a set of spider legs dotted along its back as well as four arms that clung to a large tablet.
The machine snapped around abruptly, spotting Ina with a set of six eyes. Lila had never seen a Vjetar, nor what they were capable of. But she wasn't exactly keen on finding out.
"Time to bounce," Lila gulped, snatching Ina just as the alien began to transform its hands into a set of cannons.
Using her Psionic speed, she darted out of the room, fully expecting a hot pursuit. She'd grown a habit of underestimating herself; long before Lila ever considered the possibility of her successful escape, she was already well into her fifth chamber. The alien was nowhere in sight.
"Okay," Lila panted. "You okay?" She looked down at Ina and the Ginjous.
Spatial awareness was never her strong suit. Upon realizing her little friends were still cowering, she looked up to see a dark, narrow room filled with racks of machinery. They weren't the Mimic as she knew. But it had become apparent to the Earthling just how much of her partner's story had been influenced by the synthetic all along.
"Shit," she grimaced. "How do we go back?"
A surge of nausea filled her head as Lila stumbled backwards. Her little friends seemed unaffected, albeit still scared. The Earthling was becoming increasingly overwhelmed.
"I thought I figured this out," Lila groaned. "I...I'm sorry, guys."
Suddenly, a voice came from one of her Ginjous.
"Auntie can help," Bobo waved his little mittens. "She can find us."
"W-who?" Lila stammered.
"Auntie Lunae."