The First One - A Changed Story

/ RECORD 4 /

After a small hallway with another of those iris-scanning machines, I came to some sort of even larger warehouse, me being suspended in the middle of a safe-looking steel bridge. The white goo puddles earlier were nowhere to be seen in the other room, I had assumed from the trail that they had somehow escaped through a ventilation duct. A sensation of dread filled my body as I walked through: I knew that whatever those white puddles were, they're screwing people up and could possibly be anywhere in the building now. I know for a fact this place is about three floors tall, so 'anywhere' is kind of a really broad term.

And then, out of nowhere, a loud Text-To-Speech female voice blasted from speakers located somewhere in the room, a red buzzer making alarm noises while blasting red lights. Now, here comes a confession: I have absolutely no idea what the voice said, from all languages in the language course, I had massive amounts of trouble with those from asian countries, I only got past the finals because Mimi helped me.

Anyways, where was I? Right, the alarm. The TTS voice said something I couldn't quite comprehend before a bunch of lasers filled the bridge, some of them malfunctioning after a few seconds. I looked above me, and I could see poorly-placed tape blocking what seemed to be a red glowing dot: A laser. There was no way for me to pass through the bridge, so I quite hit a dead end there, until... the door behind my back opened. It was Mizuko, a slimy, drippy version of Mizuko, walking and standing in a rather hunched way, an unnatural white goo oozing from her mouth, to make matters more uncanny, her glasses were glued to her body like if they were part of her biology. Top-down, they looked highly accurate, but her face looked absolutely horrendous to the point I refuse to believe it wasn't done on purpose.

With the help of some drawing tips from a friend I managed to draw this. Just staring at it makes me feel really uncomfortable.

[ "Hello." ] The creature said in a rather casual tone. Shocked by the sight of this creature, I didn't reply. They took a step closer, making me take one step back, inching closer to the lasers.
{ "...Mimi? Is... Is that you?"
[ "...It depends...] The creature said as it staggered one step forward.
I extended my hand to gesture her to stop as I took yet another step back, I began hearing the buzzer of the red lasers. { "Don't come closer, Mizuko!"
[ "I'm not Mistress, but if it makes you comfy, I can try act as her."
{ "What are you and what did you do to Mizuko's body?!"
[ "This isn't her body." ] The creature said as more goo drooled out from their mouth. [ "Well, in a standpoint, it's her combined with mine. I think you already saw the whole ordeal."

{ "...Knight?" } I said, the creature nodding as a flood of the same unknown white substance came from their mouth, the pieces that fell below the bridge turning more of those tiny sludges from before. { "What the hell do you want from me?!"
[ "Isn't it obvious already, Kennybear?" ] The creature, by using that nickname, was clearly trying to mock me. Kennybear is the nickname Mizuko gave me. [ "I want you-" ] The creature pointed one of their hands at me. [ "Inside of ME." ] They finished off by burying their arm deep into their gut using their slime logic.

{ "What are you even going to win with that?! You took my girl, the love of my life! Isn't that enough for you?"
[ "Think it over, if you were inside, maybe you could be with her for the rest of my life."
I extended the hand with my hammer at the creature, which took a few steps near me. I couldn't move backwards any more unless I wanted the lasers to hit me. { "Step once again, and I'm freaking gonna end you."
[ "Really?" ] The monster said, turning into a puddle and quickly forming into a very convincing copy of Mizuko, even changing their voice to sound just like her. [ "If you do that, you're gonna harm me too! I'm deep inside of them, I feel it whenever you hurt them, I feel it whenever you threaten them! You want to hurt me, Kennybear? Do you want to? Kennybear? Do you want to hurt me so much?" ] They finished off their sentence with yet another step, hands together near their chest in attempts to look adorable.

As they took that step, I felt... cornered, figuratively and literally. Behind my back was a bunch of lasers, in my front was a monster taking the body of my love. I knew it wasn't her anymore, but deep inside me, I felt like there was some way I could save her, some way to reach out and get her to reason, that feeling alone was able to make me freeze dead on my tracks.

{ "...You... You can't kill me. You couldn't kill me before, every time you did, I respawned again. I don't know how that works, but..."
The monster went back to their deep guttural voice, still keeping the Mizuko charade. [ "I'll just have to assimilate you into submission."

I wanted to tell the creature 'I want to see you try', but I didn't want them to break the Mizuko costume and charge at me. I could buy myself some time before they began with their strike, and I wasn't gonna let those seconds go for just a small boast.

Determined, I took a deep breath, and as the creature approached, I managed to land a hammer hit on them, my arm touching the lasers the moment I made it go backwards to build up strength, nothing happened, luckily. When the creature got hit, it gave off a dog's whine before reverting back into a white dog, a whine on Mizuko's voice coming out of the dog's body, not even opening their mouth at all. I couldn't help but feel guilty.

[ "See what you have done." ] The white puppy dog known as Knight said as the whining faded out.
{ "If you can hear this, I'm so sorry, Mizuko..."
Knight got up from the floor. [ "It takes effort to get this girl to coordinate into making me able to speak, so let me just make this quick..." ] The dog said, their hand extended, catching me off-guard and taking the hammer away. They began to walk at a slow pace towards me. [ "Since we both seem to have a friend in common... I may as well let you go right now." ] When they reached close enough, they whispered something to my ear, turning into the same, deep-guttural voiced Mizuko decoy. [ "...But it won't be long until everybody is after any of your kind."

{ "...What kind of threat is that? What are you trying to do?"
The Mizuko decoy stepped back, giggling in the same voice as Mizuko, they turned to look at me, the same lizardlike eyes giving me a very cold glare as the black carved smile secreted more liquid.  

[ "You'll soon see..." 

And with that, the creature walked towards the door back to the warehouse, throwing a punch at a breaker box located in the ceiling, highly reminiscent of Chaos 0's moveset in Sonic Adventure. The breaker was broken into pieces, and with the explosion of a fuse, all lasers shut off. They soon brought their stretched hand back and dropped the hammer before going past the metal door.

And with that, I was able to get past the bridge, staring down at what seemed to be some sort of large lab room below me, I began to feel rather uneasy about Knight's words: "Until everybody is after any of your kind"... Whatever they meant with that, it's obvious that they want me to witness it. There was something about this guy... Some sort of tense aura. I don't know how to quite describe it, maybe it's just survival instincts, maybe not. Regardless of what it could possibly be, it's making something very clear: If I fight this guy, I'm not coming back alive.