BEYOND 3A: BloodRed and ScaleBlack

The Twenty-Sixth Feather: Whose Side Are You On?

The day passed and a celebration was held. Not by our heroes or heroines, but rather the sole beneficiaries of the recently unfolded scenario. 'The Caller' was having a grand luncheon with her colleagues and the elites of the syndicate. The head honcho of those elites, Iron Will, was quite joyful of the news, which came as jarring considering how level-headed he usually is, until they realised that he was drunk out of his mind. He wrapped his arm around the Caller's shoulders and asked: "Say, wanna tell us how you pulled it off? Hic, Nah, you probably went transparent and shot him! You're a disgrace to the Nameless! Hic!"

Caller: "Nah, it was a lot more fun than that, Baldy. Like, you wouldn't even believe what happened!"

Will: "Please, I'll believe anything at this, Hic, point."

Caller: "Sadly, you'll forget about it once you sober up. So, sucks to suck!"

Will: "Bitch, you dunno nothin about me! Hic! I coulda killed him with my bare hands! Anybody could do it!"

Caller: "Somebody, shut this dumbass up, please?"

Suddenly, the Caller felt someone tugging on her coat. She turned her head and saw the boss' daughter, Penelope. The Caller told her: "What are you doing here, Penny? This is the grown-ups table!"

Penelope: "Um... Doctor Misha said he wants to have a word with you."

Caller: "What did he say?"

Penelope: "He said... umm... I don't remember."

Caller: "That's alright. You can go back to your sisters, little lady."

Penelope: "Okay!"

After the Caller wiped her mouth, she stepped away from the syndicate's grand dining table and headed to Misha's laboratory. She wasn't a huge fan of that person, he was too strange, even for her taste, but the services he provided for her whenever she asked were far too impeccable for her to complain about.

That person's lab was just under Archimedes' castle, so it didn't take long for her to get there. Due to the kind of work he does, the boss allowed him to own the entire first basement floor to do his own evil little experiments, much to the chagrin of anyone involved. The Caller stepped inside and was met with blinding darkness, which wasn't new to that place, as Misha absolutely despises any kind of strong light. She called out: "Hey, Misha, You can show yourself now."

The doctor, hidden in the darkness, said with his usual hesitation and backspacing: "Are you sur- are you certain?! No one behind- I mean, no one's following you?!"

Caller: "Yes, you big baby. I'm gonna turn the lights on now."

Misha shouted in a panic: "WAIT, NO!"

But the Caller couldn't care less, turning on the lights despite his pleas and revealing his body. From head to waist, he looked like what you'd expect an 'evil scientist' to look like; goggles, bald head, slightly slouching, all that good stuff. However, his bottom half was nothing more or less than hundreds, if not thousands of thin, extremely long legs like that of a spider, the key difference is that they many, many joints that if he were to close one of those legs, it would become a spiral with the radius of two hundred metres, more or less. The floor he was relegated to was quite literally one giant room, specifically to fit those legs. Oh, I forgot to mention one tiny detail; he was dangling from the ceiling.

He shouted: "AAAAGH! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OOOOOFFFF!"

Caller: "Okay, okay, fine. Fucking drama queen."

Misha: "Curses, those lights are permanently fixe- attached to the ceiling and Archimedes won't let me chang- take them off! I hate it here!"

Caller: "Did you call me here just to whine about the lights? AGAIN?"

Misha: "No-Well, yes-but no. I wanted to update you on something."

Caller: "I'm all ears, spider-man."

Misha: "That creat- that guy- that serpent you're seducing, I've found out some curiou- interesting things about her-him-her-him!

Caller: "...Mhm?"

Misha: "He's a very strang- odd creature, I don't think he can even be called a creature. He's like a walking concept! An idea given life!"

Caller: "Okay, isn't that just how Hylic Beyonders are?"

Misha: "Not real- exactly! Beyonders are the manifestation of humanity's perception of many idea- concepts. But this serpent is a concept in and of himself! He exists everywhere, but nowhere! He exists, but he doesn't!"

Caller: "Okay, you're gonna have to be less vague and actually give me something to work with."

Misha: "My sorry- my apologies. Are you familiar with the Schrodinger's box- cat thought experiment?"

Caller: "I don't think I do. Enlighten me."

Misha: "Okay, here's the idea. Take a cat, a bottle-a flask of poison, and a Geiger metre, and put them all in a box. When you close that box, The Geiger metre will brea-shatter the flask and kill the cat if it detects radiation, as in, a single atom decaying. But you're not supposed to open the box yet. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after some time, the cat becomes both alive and dead! Here's the crazy news-aspect, though. If you open the box, the cat will be either alive or dead, not both! That's called quantum superposition."

Caller: "God, that was so fucking hard to follow coming from your error-ridden lips."

Misha: "That's okay, though, I wrote a thesis on it!"

Caller: "I'll just look it up online, just tell me what that cat has to do with the serpent."

Misha: "Well, you know how your late sister made him collect Cat God fragments?"

Caller: "I wouldn't say she made him do it. If anything, they came to him, no additional input was needed."

Misha: "Point is, it seems that the Go-Cat God pieces that he absorbed fuse-merged with his being!"

Caller: "And this means...?"

Misha: "It seems that the fragments allow him to become superposed, for a lack of a better word, whenever he's unobserved! In other words, no matter what happens to him-her-him, he'll go back to normal when no one's looking at him! Nothing will work on him, not burning, not crushing, not electrocuting, nothing!"

Caller: "Ah, that explains why he's so obsessed with killing himself. He literally can't."

Misha: "Exactly! It's such an exciting thing to think about! I'd love it if you ge-bring him to me for further testing!"

Caller: "What are you? Fucking stupid? Don't forget whose ceiling you're attached to... But if you're that interested, you have my number, wink wink~."

Misha: "I'll make a mental note out of that. Also, another thing I should tell you. It's a bit of a non-sequitur, but hear me out."

Caller: "What's up?"

Misha: "I fear that word might be getting out about what you've been doing for a while."

Caller: "That's very likely, now that I think about it. But I wouldn't worry, there's always a way out."

Misha: "But a way to where exactly? It's only a matter of time before things go down the dra-downhill for you and I doubt any of the two remaining factions will glad-happily welcome you among their ranks. And, and, and I get that you're doing this for a greater good, but won't this screw over a lot of our people?"

Caller: "Other factions? Greater good? Haha, you act like this is some kind of fictitious fairytale. Misha, you're an intelligent man, if not a little stuttery. Rest assured, when it's all said and done, you'll have your spot with me."

And just as she was about to leave, Misha asked her: "With you, huh? L'étranger, I can't understand the way you think. You're not helping our adversaries and you don't seem interested in helping us...Whose side are you on?"

Twenty-Sixth Feather:

Plucked