Alex's normally laid-back demeanour slowly changed and his face contorted into an all-consuming anger; his nostrils flared, his hands gripped tightly around the metal bars of the cell until his knuckles turned white.
Profane words came spewing out from his mouth as he cursed under his breath, releasing his pent-up emotions towards the high priest stood before him.
The sly look from the shadow of the priest's face made Alex angrier.
He slammed himself against the bars, his arm reaching out to claw at the priest in an attempt to harm him in some way but failed miserably when all he caught was his hood. It slowly fell back, revealing the ugly monstrosity beneath.
The man was bald and old, with a large protruding nose, sunken eyes and saggy yellow skin covered in hideous tribal tattoos. When Alex looked closer, he could see that the black tattoos were moving.
The priest stared darkly towards Alex - angry that his face had been uncovered. He raised his hand, revealing the tattoo of a hissing snake on his palm.
Suddenly, his hand struck forward and gripped tightly onto Alex's arm and the snake of the tattoo bit into his flesh.
"Argh!" Alex jumped back, falling on the ground and hissed as his palms grazed against the floor.
He gripped his arm where the tattoo snake had bit him. Two pinprick punctures were visible on his skin, along with a mixture of blood and ink oozing out from the wound. His arm instantly started to throb and swell red.
"Son of a bitch!" Alex cursed towards him. "What the hell have you done to me?"
"I've poisoned you." The priest merely laughed at him. "You have ten minutes left to live."
He glared towards Alex, concentrating all of his energy on his power to create a tattoo of a barbed wire around Alex's neck and slowly tightening it. Alex instantly started to choke and gasp for breath as the sharpness of the wire slowly cut through his flesh, and soon after, warm blood began to ooze from his wound.
Alex reached up to his neck, clawing at his own flesh at a desperate attempt to save his own life but causing more harm than good as he only added to his pain and suffering. He keeled over on to the ground, having no energy left to fight back, his breaths were short and raspy at an attempt to breathe in some amount of oxygen.
"Beg my pardon!"
Never in his wildest dream would Alex have thought that that particular annoying voice would be a blessing to his ears.
Startled by the appearance of a puppet, its wooden face illuminated by a torch held in its hands, the priest lost his concentration and unconsciously released Alex from his attack.
Immediately, Alex gasped for air, coughing continuously as his airways opened up to the oxygen he took for granted, he must have been deprived of too much air, he could have sworn he saw a talking puppet.
However, now wasn't the time to be worried about his injury or talking puppets, he had to get out of here and fast. Jessica was his priority.
"Hello!" Baden waved one of his wooden hands towards the priest.
Alex paled, and the tattooed man screamed, which caused Baden to scream back at him. His wooden hands placed on his cheeks in shock-horror, scaring the priest even more than he already had.
"Oh my, you startled me!" Baden chuckled.
"I startled you?" The priest shouted back. "You're the living-breathing-talking-puppet!"
The priest turned his tattoo attack onto Baden.
However, as Baden looked down and felt his hands around his body in an attempt to find where the tattoos were, he saw nothing. He couldn't even feel himself choking to death like Alex had only moments ago.
The puppet slowly lifted his wooden head and looked towards the Priest with his mouth slightly parted open in bewilderment.
From the shadows of the corridor, Tommy leaned against the stone brick wall, with his arms folded across his chest and a smirk playing on his lips. Just as he suspected, the man's cursed soul wouldn't work on Baden.
Because the man's powers hadn't worked on Baden, there was the possibility they would not work on him in his current condition. Tommy wiped the water from his forehead and looked at the droplet glisten on the end of his finger and watched as he made it float into the air. Swimming through the river wasn't all that bad after all.
A shocked expression fell across the priest's face as he stared at Baden. Never before had his tattoo powers not worked on anyone. Why hadn't they worked?
"W-what are you?" he stammered, stepping back.
"Me?" Baden frowned. "My names Ba..."
"Stick to the plan," Tommy hissed from the shadows.
"Yes, the plan!"
Baden looked sharply towards the priest making himself look as tall and intimidating as possible. Shining the lit torch beneath his head and illuminating his frightful puppet face, making him look sinister and evil.
"Do you not recognise me, mortal. I am your God!" Baden pointed a wooden finger down at him. "Your powers won't work on me?"
The priest didn't believe a single word the puppet was saying. Could this really be their Harvest God, a talking puppet?
"If you're my god, why are you a puppet?" The priest rose a brow.
"Er..." Baden looked over to Tommy who was motioning with his hands to continue.
Alex dragged a hand down his face. This wasn't happening right now.
"Because..." Baden started to stammer and itch the back of his head. "Because..." a thought suddenly clicked in his head. "Because, mortal, if you were to look upon my true form your eyes would burst into flames as your soul burned down in hell where you would feel nothing but pain for eternity!"
Baden reached out and grabbed the tattoo man's throat. The priest attempted to use his powers to stop him, but again they would not work on the puppet. He started to gasp, pleading for his life as he looked into the dead wooden eyes of the puppet, a depressing emptiness filling him up. Yet, the puppet gave a powerful aura he'd never felt before.
"Your power won't work on me!" Baden laughed. "Do you believe I am your god now?"
"Yes," the priest gasped.
Baden instantly dropped him, and he fell to the floor, breathing in heavily.
"Good, then release my fri... I mean messenger, I sent down from the heavens to interfere with your sacrifice, what you're doing is a disgrace against my name."
"Yes, almighty one." The gullible priest bowed and fumbled around for the keys to the cell.
The second the priest unlocked the cell, Alex punched him in the face. A powerful hit which sent him flying backwards and knocking him against the stone brick wall. His body slumped over, unmoving.
"Idiot!" Tommy shouted out from the shadows. "We needed him conscious for our plan to save Lady Jessica."
"Does it look like I care about your ridiculous plan?" Alex glared back at him. "How is he even a puppet in the first place, that isn't possible, even with his cursed soul he should crumple to the ground?"
Baden lifted a wooden finger and scratched his chin about to speak when Tommy covered his mouth.
"It doesn't matter how," Tommy sighed. "It's that it worked. Now I have to think of a new plan."
Tommy rubbed his temples in a circular motion as he came up with a new plan, while Alex started looking around for his missing weapons. Eventually, he found them in a locker he kicked open with his foot. A smirked when reunited with Akatenshi and Washiro.
Tommy suddenly snapped his fingers, his silver eyes lighting up with a new plan in mind. "Come on Baden; we need to get to the roof."
"The roof?" The puppet questioned, his head cocked to the side in thought.
"Yes, I have a plan which involves Baden Bones the Harvest God." Tommy smirked.
"If I don't say so myself, I like the sound of that name," Baden chuckled.
Alex clicked his tongue as he shook his head, his crew were a bunch of morons.
"Have fun playing god while the rest of us actually help save Jess." Alex waved them off as he walked away, heading in the wrong direction, making Tommy want to attack him.
If it weren't for Baden holding Tommy back, a fight would have ensued between the two rivals.
"Hey, Blondie," Tommy called after him.
Alex stopped and looked over his shoulder, a deep scowl on his face. "What?"
"When the tattoo man wakes up, he's going to come after you. When he does, make sure you're wet. Ink and water don't mix."
Alex nodded his head in understanding and ran off, trying to find an exit out of the temple so that he could save Jessica. He would make sure not a hair was harmed on her body, and if there were, there would be consequences. His eyes darkened, and his hand gripped tightly onto the red hilt of his longsword.
He had never felt this vengeful before in his life, but then again he had never connected with someone like he had with Jessica. Yes, she had been a pig at the time, but he had still connected with her and told her things he had never told anyone else. Throughout their time together, he could see the understanding in the pig's eyes, no in Jessica's eyes. It made him want to protect her at all costs.
It was then he felt an odd sensation in his chest, and he froze to a halt, placing his hand over his heart. It was a weird feeling, like nothing he had felt before. It was nothing terrible, he could tell that much, but it still felt foreign to him.
What was he doing?
Now wasn't the time to worry about his chest, he had to save Jessica at all costs. He started running through the maze of corridors once again.
"Tommy?" Baden softly said his friend's name.
Tommy hummed in acknowledgement, as he dragged the unconscious high priest into the bared cell. He knew it wouldn't hold the tattoo man for long, but it would slow him down.
"How did you get my puppet form to stand upright and move?"
Baden twiddled with his wooden thumbs, scared of his own appearance and noticed the water interconnecting between his wooden joints, posing as the string. Was Tommy manipulating his moves with water?
Baden looked up at Tommy, his jaw slackened. How was that possible, he couldn't possibly be a cursed soul, could he?
"It doesn't matter how and never mention it again, especially to the crew." Tommy looked at him sharply.
Baden nodded, feeling Tommy's mighty wrath.
"You have my word, but how did you know his tattoo powers wouldn't work on my puppet form?" Baden asked.
Tommy smirked as he rummaged through the priest's cloak and found a magazine filled with nude pictures of women and a pack of cigarettes.
Someone clearly isn't a model priest.
Tommy pocketed the pack of cigarettes and lit one in his mouth, flicking his silver lighter on with his thumb. He breathed in the intoxicating drug, poisoning his lungs but finding bliss in the addictive drug as he breathed out the smoke.
Baden was still waiting for an answer.
"You have no flesh." Tommy placed his hands in his pockets and started walking off in the direction that would lead up to the roof of the temple. "Tattoo's require some form of skin."
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