More screeching rolled through the sewer tunnels, as we went through the rest of the items we’d acquired from the Scion.
“That’s gonna be a hard no on the mask and droplet,” Panda said sternly.
“Maybe it won’t work as advertised, since I’m glitched.”
“Gambit! Don’t mess with Absolutes, what did I tell you!? Especially not the Flayed Queen! As a matter of fact, you should throw this thing away! It’s bad!”
“The Anointed Class might be good,” Bee muttered.
“Perhaps it turns you into a mosquito,” I replied.
She frowned. “Nevermind. I’m no longer interested, actually.”
“You should take the Claw though,” I told her.
Bee picked up the silver finger. It was longer than I remembered, but it also had another segment since it included the metacarpal bone.
“Is this an index finger or a middle finger?” she wondered, moving the silver ‘wand’ around.
“It’s the ring finger,” I said.
Panda gave me a worried look. “How do you know that?”
“None of your business,” I replied. “So what if my favorite toy as a kid was the skeleton in the nurse’s office named Smiley!?”
Bee and Panda shared a look.
“Panda, since you’re apparently an expert,” she then started. “What does Fiendblood do?”
“When it kills a humanoid, it turns them into a Fiend. Basically a primitive vampire kind of thing that only hungers for human flesh and blood.”
She grinned. “It’s not just you who can summon monsters now, Gambit!”
“Mine are cooler,” I replied.
“Do I need to remind you that it is other people you are turning into monsters?” Panda scolded us.
“Don’t be such a stick in the mud,” I told him.
The plushie sighed. “You know what? Screw it! Clearly you two don’t need a moral guide. I’ll just shut my trap and let you two get your villain arc underway! By all means, put on the mask and consume the Flayed Queen’s blood! It’ll be fun.”
“I think you broke him,” Bee told me, not even bothering to lower her voice.
“Meow.”
“What do I have to apologize for??” I asked the familiar.
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Panda had walked away at this point, doing his best to pretend like he didn’t care what we were up to.
I watched him for a moment, then looked at Bee. “This isn’t the first time he’s done this. Give him a few minutes and he’ll go right back to lecturing us.”
“He seems pretty serious,” she commented, sounding worried.
“He’ll be fine.”
I turned my attention to the last item. A little obsidian floppy disk with the label ‘unFake’ on it.
“Ugh, this sounds suspiciously like the magic of a Skinstealer… Although I suppose it might be good if I ever need to infiltrate one of the Agencies,” I said. “But, then again, it’s faster to just punch my way through them.”
I put the mask and droplet into my inventory with the new plugin, since it didn’t seem like Bee was gonna keep either of the two items. Besides, if I ended up selling them, I’d just split the coins with her. As I was looking at my inventory, I realized I had an item I could now check safely.
The plugin appeared in my hand, looking identical to the three already poking out of my chest, but the label was more ominous than all three combined.
Panda immediately appeared right next to me, putting his squishy hands on my left forearm.
“What are you—!?” he started to say, but then forced himself to stop mid-scold.
If he’d had teeth, I was sure he would’ve been gritting them right about now. The amount of self-control it took him to not intervene was quite impressive.
I pulled out the ‘unHero’ plugin and slotted in the one in my hand.
“Why are you doing that?” Bee asked.
“I’ve got a second life, remember? I might as well use it. Plus, I’m curious.”
“That’s so goddamn—!!” Panda started, almost breaking his promise to not lecture us.
“Don’t pop a blood vessel in your forehead, buddy,” I told him.
PLUGIN UNINSTALLED.
‘unHero’ protocol no longer in effect!
PLUGIN INSTALLED.
‘unAlive’ protocol now in effect!
“Hm. Nothing’s happening,” I muttered.
Then everything went black.
GAME OVER!
You have died.
Please wait for scheduled resurrection by
SKILL TRIGGER!
Personal Rule(Cheat Death Once) resurrected you!
Blurry and hazy light returned to my eyes, while Panda was yelling up a storm, and Bee shook me furiously.
“—solute numb-skulled neanderthal behavior!!” he finished.
Then he saw I was back.
“Smoke came out of your goddamn eyes, you fucking moron!”
“So I died?”
“Yes!! Your brain literally fried inside your head! Why would you do something so idiotic!?”
“It smelled pretty bad,” Bee added.
“I just figured they couldn’t actually give me an item that kills me.”
“There’s probably a rule that says it’s okay if it’s very obvious what the item does,” Bee theorized.
“It was a lot less fun than I thought it would be.”
“You wasted your Cheat Death on curiosity!?”
“Obviously.”
Panda looked like he was about to blow up from the internal stress I was apparently causing him.
“Calm down, it’s fine.”
“Calm down!?” he yelled, not listening to me and only getting angrier.
“It was pretty stupid,” Bee admitted.
I pulled out one of the two Fusion Gums we had split, holding it aloft like a trophy.
“Or was it!?” I asked theoretically.
“Yes,” Panda grumbled.
I popped the gum in my mouth and began to chew. A full course meal of vanilla-banana ice-cream flowed across my tongue.
ACTIVATING SKILL FUSION!
Choose two Abilities or Passives to combine:
“Combine ‘Personal Rule’ with… hmm… let’s try ‘Outcast’!”
Panda sighed.
COMBINING SKILLS!
One moment…
…
…
…
New fusion skill created!
Congratulations!
You have unlocked the new Ability:
‘Rules of Anarchy’
