The Wonderful World of Skullgirls

Sidetracked Chapter 14: Deadlocked

Unknown Location
May 1st

A distant faint ringing could be heard in the dark followed by incoherent mumbling.

The mumbling became easier to make out as each second passes.

"...A...ke ...p. C...me o... Ake up."

"...Uuugh. What?" The Player's voice, while weak, responds in the dark.

"Wake up," the other voice responds, now being intelligible.

A grey blur briefly appears before the darkness blinks out. It happened again, each blink the blur became more humanoid in appearance.

Before long the blur clears up revealing Brain Drain at the forefront of the Player's POV who had just awakened.

"You shouldn't have been out that long."

"Uugh... Brain... Drain?"

The Player was bound to a wall with his arms and feet in a bind, he had various vital readers and ECG electrodes stuck to his face and bare torso.

He looks around his environment and sees an empty dark room full of various incubation tanks and medical tools. It didn't take him long to figure out his predicament.

"...You've got to be kidding me," the Player said in a drowse.

"You weren't willing to cooperate so I had to take a more...drastic approach to the situation. Because of you and that little girl I lost my best weapon."

His comment struck a nerve that made the Player's expression darken with hate.

"Carol was never your weapon and you need to get that out of your skull. Then again...you don't have one so I'm guessing that's why you continue to believe that bullshit," The Player smirked with his eyes barely open.

Brain Drain huffs and folds his arms. "You're nothing at all like I was expecting."

"If you were someone I cared about I'd tell you I was sorry to disappoint you."

"Really? More insults?"

"You're not exactly giving me options for an alternative. I assure you, if I wasn't stuck here...this conversation would've gotten violent the moment I saw you."

"You think you can hurt me?"

"Get me off this wall and let's find out."

"Interesting. You've got that fire I always envisioned you having, but your morality keeps you from being so much more."

"It keeps me from being scum like you."

"Still so blind. You're worried about the life of a single individual when thousands, if not millions, are at risk of being slain by the Skullgirl. A bit selfish of you in the grand scheme of things, don't you think?"

"And what makes you any better?" The Player asked as his bitterness put some base in his weak voice. "You talk about being selfish, but you don't give people a choice. Your tunnel vision for a problem you have no control over clouds your judgement. And guess what? Your precious project was going to fail from the start. You couldn't fully control Carol."

"Of course. Valentine's altruism got in the way of that. She suggested we keep a fraction of that girl's soul intact, as a 'mercy,' but now that I think about it I'm wondering if that was an intentional design flaw."

Carol's ability to keep a small portion of her sanity, thus being able to resist control was the result of Valentine's forethought, further supporting Valentine was only keeping character as a morally unjust soldier as a front for her true intentions.