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“Let's make a deal: next year, none of us will invent a murder robot and call it ‘my son’ .” Joel screams.
“I can’t promise that.” Grian mutters.
The once pristine laboratory, with cutting edge technology, a reference to scientists all over the world, was being shredded to pieces. It wasn't the owner's fault; doctor M. K. Jumbo wasn't even there to begin with, and he left the place impeccable before leaving for an important appointment two hours prior.
The ones to blame were being chased down by a two meters tall automaton, with lasers and rockets as weapons, and a strong desire to cause chaos in the name of what it considered order.
Grian dodges from the attacks with little to no success. Ignoring Mumbo’s rule of “no flying inside his lab” , he barely manages to keep his wings out of Grumbot’s sight. Fine, maybe turning the robot on in the first place wasn’t the brightest of ideas, but he was bored, and he wanted to brag about something he had contributed to Joel. Grumbot was supposed to be just an assistant A.I.; whatever happened between the five months he spent without checking on it, it definitely wasn’t his fault.
On the opposite side of the room, hiding behind a counter, holding a hammer twice his size that wasn’t much of help with the situation, Joel is rethinking his motives to be there. He should’ve heard when the suggestion to stay at the HQ was given, and when Grian said “I will get your hammer”; maybe then he wouldn’t be in this messy situation.
(In the first place, he shouldn’t have pushed his partner in patrols with “what is this thing?” and “what does that do?” suggestions, because Joel knew better than anyone that if Grian saw a button, he will push the button.)
“And where the heck is this thing 's other father ?” Joel makes a valid question; if someone could turn off the murder robot, it had to be its creator. However, since he had set a foot in the laboratory, Mumbo was nowhere to be seen.
“Busy, at the mall, in vacations, I don't know,” Grian isn’t helpful, for he is being chased with lasers and can’t stop to think, “ can we focus on this situation?! ”
Joel looks around: the laboratory is already too messed to save. He spins his hammer and leaves the hideout. “Hey!” He screams, and swings the hammer, facing the head towards the robot. Without further delay, he fires an electric orb, strong enough to damage Grumbot and take his attention away from Grian.
“What’s the plan?” The winged hero flies away, aimless. “Mumbo will kill me if Grumbot breaks!”
Ignoring the laser being pointed at him, Joel stares at his friend. “You’re concerned about that?”
“Watch out!” The warning comes too late: the laser is fired, and even though he holds the hammer to block the impact, it is strong enough to send him back a few steps. The laser ricochets on the weapon, on a table made of unknown material, until it stops in a machine, being absorbed by the strange thing in the end.
He is about to say “that was close” when the machine turns on. “Grian?” Joel calls, alarm in his voice. The machine starts to make weird noises, and lights on, a weird blue display glitching out; he doesn’t understand what is going on, but he feels his body getting lighter and lighter. The next thing he notices is that he’s being pulled by the blue display. “Grian!”
“Hold on!” Grian flies in his direction, dodging the rockets being fired and the debris of the mess they’ve made. Joel extends his hand for Grian to pull, but it doesn't work as expected; using his wings as both shield and propulsion slows him down more than helps. “Drop the hammer, you're too heavy!”
“The hammer is keeping me on the ground--” A stronger pull from the machine surprises him, and Joel inevitably looses his hand from Grian's.
He's dragged into the strange display, hammer and all, and the last thing he sees is his friend flying in his direction.
Inside the machine, there's nothing but blue. A light blue, easy on the eyes, like the sky right after the sun started setting. Grian could see no horizon, and if it wasn't for the shadow his body cast on the floor, he wouldn't see a floor either. There was also no Sun to bless him with its light, and it makes him more uncomfortable than he cares to admit. He has a multitude of questions that range from “where am I?” to “why Mumbo had a machine like that in his lab”, but the first thing he said out loud was:
“Are we dead?”
“Nah, you wouldn't be in my heaven.” Joel's voice was both a relief and an annoyance. He decided to ignore the provocation and focus on the fact that his friend was less than five meters away from him. “Where are we?”
Grian tries to think of a clever answer, but a bluer light, shaped like a humanoid, by his side makes him jump away in surprise, and Joel doesn't avoid a laugh. He doesn't even have time to complain: the hologram, doctor Jumbo shaped, starts to speak with a loud volume.
“Testing, one, two, one two.” The translucent figure fixes his lab coat before continuing. “If you're watching this, it means that you pressed buttons you weren't supposed to. So, Grian, we are going to talk later about you playing around in my laboratory.”
Joel laughs again, and receives a light punch on the shoulder from his partner. “It was literally your fault this time!”
“And who turned on the murder robot?” Touché. He wants to continue the discussion, but the hologram continues.
“You might be confused about where you are, and I can't give many details because it's confidential but,” HoloMumbo leans in and opens a smile, as if to tell the greatest secret of the universe, “it's so cool, dude. I'm working with other scientists from Hermitech, and we're having so much fun-” He's interrupted by someone complaining about his information leaks (by the voice tone, it's safe to assume Tango is the one out of frame, trying to keep the secrets a secret). “I wasn't saying anything! Anyway, don't panic, don't speak too much, you'll be fine. A way out will appear soon, just wait a while. Don't make any deal with a devil, or something like that, we don't know yet.” Another off-screen complaint. “I told them I don't know, how is this a leak?! Anyway, cheers and see you soon with a lengthy conversation, Grian. ”
The hologram turns off, and leaves the blue room devoid of sounds for a moment. Having been just told to sit down and wait, Joel does so; he feels uncomfortable in that blank scenario, but it's better than having his ass kicked by a robot. Grian, on the other hand, starts walking forward (or backwards, or sideways, no one can really tell).
Joel sighs. “Where are you going?”
“I don't know yet.”
“Just sit down and wait , for gods' sake.” He's decided: he won't be the one to break something else and to hear it from Hermitech. If it’s a secret, it’s a secret. (Joel has other means to get information, anyway. Pix owes him a favor, and who better to ask about things than the PR representative of Hermitech?)
Grian stops and turns around, staring at him with a look that sits between annoyance and tiredness. “And what do you want to do?” As he speaks, hand gestures are made more frequent, emphasizing every word. “Count the shades of blue? List every verb in Mumbo's speech? How about cards? Let's play cards!”
Out of thin air, a deck of cards appears. Joel jumps out of the ground, unsure how to react. After seconds of both of them staring at the pile of cards on the ground, he speaks: “How did you do that?”
“I don't know.”
“Is this some alien secret power?”
“I don't know!” Not even entering the “not-an-alien” monthly discussion, Grian tries to reason it out like science people do. “I think… It may be the room. It's confidential, Mumbo did repeat himself about not doing or saying anything…” In his head, the logic makes sense. To test it, just like the science people, he makes another suggestion. “Can I get a cup of tea?”
He gets what he wished for: a cup of tea, empty, drops over his head like a cartoon anvil and shatters on the ground. Joel laughs even harder than before, and Grian refuses to sketch a reaction.
Shedding a tear, Joel says: “I wish you could see yourself right now!” And to their shock, the machine answers the vague request.
Not with a mirror, like one would expect. A blue hologram, much like Mumbo minutes ago, appears in front of them: a clear copy of Grian, with two, then four, then six wings glitching out of his back, a red sweater and slightly messier hair. Joel quickly ducks behind his equally stunned friend. The hologram looks around, inattentive, and flies around the blue void with his wings.
“I'll take it back! That's too much Grian!” He whispers, hoping that thing would go away at request.
Upon the mention, the not-Grian looks straight at them. It feels like a twisted judgment day, seeing the familiar face of an angel of death coming to collect your soul. (Is that how Grian's enemies felt? Joel decided at that moment to never step on his toe again.) The hologram smiles, and it does nothing to ease their worries.
“You can't take it back, they haven't built in a delete button yet.” It makes what sounds like a joke, but it feels wrong coming from it.
Grian, the real one, takes a step forward. “What in hell are you?”
“I'm you!” Not-Grian replies, cheerfully, and shrugs. “Sorta. A mirror version, let's say!”
Grian still doesn't trust the thing. The six wings, out for them to see, throws him off more than he cares to admit; those were supposed to be sacred, only exposed in moments of extreme need. He's still debating with his thoughts when Joel steps out of his “protection” to ask:
“Can you get us out of here?”
“Hey, hey hey hey .” The question snaps Grian out of his mind. “Just a moment, not-me.”
The 2-winged man grabs Joel's arm, and drags him away from the 6-winged hologram. When he judges it to be far enough, not an easy thing to decide in that immensity of blue, he speaks again:
“Did you not hear what Mumbo said about not making deals with the devil?”
“It's not a devil, it's just a hologram-you!”
“And if that's not the devil, what is?” Neither of them knows the answer; Grian continues: “I know myself enough to know that this will not end well!”
They look back to the hologram – however, he's no longer there. For a second, they hope it is gone, and it was nothing but an illusion by the machine to play with their heads. But then they look to the other side, and there it is, glitching out by their side like it's watching the most entertaining television show of all time.
“I can hear you two, you know.” It says, and it smiles again. “Are you really going to believe the words of those guys that didn't even trust you with this little project? It's just a pocket dimension, it's not that deep!”
“I will trust them, actually.” Grian leaves Joel and walks in the direction of the hologram. Looking in a twisted mirror wakes too many emotions, but he ignores them in favor of an argument. “Because I have messed with artificial intelligence too many times to know that it always ends badly!” (Joel makes a note to himself: ask how many of the unutilized A.I.s that are in Mumbo's laboratory are also Grian's.)
“Ouch.” The hologram places a hand on its heart, seemingly offended. “That's a little rough.” In a quick change of expression, it materializes a different deck of cards on its hands. “Want to play cards?”
A staring contest begins between the winged ones. Joel, still aside from that discussion, analyses their – not an enemy, not an ally either – companion. Grian looks like he’s about to throw a punch with the ghost; finally, he knows what it is like to be by his side after he made a “little prank”. HoloGrian looks amused with the situation; and Joel knows that face too well.
“What's the trick?” He asks, catching the attention of them both.
“W- There are no tricks!”
Joel raises an eyebrow. “You're a Grian – sort of – of course there are tricks.”
While the hologram looks confused, the real one lets his jaw drop, clearly offended. Joel just shrugs; he knows he’s right, and won’t contest the affirmation. Not-Grian sighs, and floats in his direction, the translucent wings barely making a noise.
“Fine. If you win, I will vanish forever, and you can tell Mumbo that you never did anything in his secret project.” The only good scenario, a perfect one, even. But…
“And the catch is…”
“And if I win, I get to leave this place for one minute. Just one. They promised I would one day, but… I guess they forgot.”
It’s not too bad of a deal, when he stops to think about it. What harm could a hologram do in the real world? It’s not like it’s a dragon or, gods forbid, a warden again. More than that, if they had promised him a way out, he would be doing a favor and checking a box on their to-do list. Still, Grian looked at him with fire in his eyes. “Don't…” He started, but it was too late.
“Deal.”
“Joel!” Grian screams, already imagining the long, long speech that waits for them outside the machine.
“I can't pass on challenges, I like winning!”
They are bumping heads when HoloGrian creates a game table, similar to the ones in half of Las Nevadas’ buildings. They are still discussing this idea deemed stupid when Joel sits on the chair in front of the hologram. The talk ceases when eleven cards are set on the table, one six of hearts facing up.
“A simple game of Switch, you might be familiar with it.” Not-Grian says, and Joel smirks. This is definitely a trap , he thinks. Back in his college days, he won three of the yearly Switch championships in a row, winning himself the title of King of Cards. “Ready?”
He picks up five cards, and immediately plays a six of spades.
The game goes on for a couple of minutes. Joel is focused on his strategies, only drafting when necessary and strategically playing aces and kings. Grian remembers when they played that game with Jimmy, weeks earlier, and feels relieved on being in a team with chances of winning for a change. He switches his attention between the players – and for a second could swear that he saw the hologram's cards visually glitching.
They're tied for two cards. He doesn't know which cards HoloGrian has, but Joel has a two and an ace; he gives a thumbs up to his partner, confidently, feeling the victory coming.
Not-Grian plays a two of hearts.
Joel plays a two of clubs, and smiles.
Not-Grian returns the smile. He plays his last card: a two of spades.
“Good game, Beans.” Joel considers flipping the table and starting to cry right there. “Do you wish to return to the outside world now to honor our deal?” It was a trap, after all, and Grian is using all of his self-control to not say “I told you so”.
“Yeah, I do wish to go back.”
On his command, a split in the horizon in the shape of a door appears. Joel tilts his head, curious (and wonders if that was his doing, his wish to the machine and not something that the hologram did). He picks up his forgotten hammer, and takes his place by the real Grian's side. They exchange a look of wariness, switching back and forth between themselves and the hologram that was waiting by the door.
“You know…” Joel starts, walking slowly towards the way out, “I have only seen you with six wings when we were facing stronger and deadlier enemies.”
Giving up on self-control, Grian replies: “I told you it was a bad idea.”
HoloGrian smile grows larger by the second. The three of them leave the blue void behind, crossing the door to the other side.
The first obvious difference is the colors; the laboratory, although completely destroyed, has multiple shades of reds, greens, grays and blues. The second obvious difference is the Grumbot, that is still there, waiting for their return to continue his path of destruction.
They had forgotten about the murder robot.
“You have one minute, make it quick and then go back.” Joel tells the hologram, while preparing his hammer for a strike.
The hologram looks at him, his smile glitching and flickering. “About that…” A sword, much similar to the Dreamslayer that the real yields in battle, materializes in his hand. Grumbot, who was coming in their direction with rockets and lasers, gets struck down with a beam of energy from the sword, and falls flat on the ground. “I lied. I am not returning.”
“We made a deal!” Grian complained, eyes glowing with indignation.
“And that was really stupid of you.” HoloGrian chuckled, pointing the sword at him. “You should’ve known better, old-me.”
It acted as a trigger word for the Sun's Chosen. Like the star itself decided to grace the laboratory with its presence, Grian starts to shine as bright as day. His wings – no longer just two, but now six, a perfect mirror of his counterpart – his sword, everything is involved in golden light. “Get ready.” He whispers to his partner, the hammer in Joel's hand cracking with potential energy to use.
And then, he flies.
Although HoloGrian himself is intangible, his sword is very much swarp. The real Dreamslayer clashes with it, and sparks fly all around them. A sacred sword, blessed by the gods of the Vaults, being mocked by a meaningless imitation… It makes him angry; at the AI for making it, at himself for allowing it to escalate to this point.
Joel stays behind in the fight, analyzing their opponent and trying to find a way to defeat it. “What do you want?” He asks himself, low so only he could hear his spoken thoughts; the hologram, like before, hears anyway.
“What does everyone want, Mangrovia's Might?” Behind the swords being clashed, the glitching smile turns his attention to him. “I was trapped in that hellish void for months, thanks to your scientist friends! I want the freedom I deserve! No… More than that… I want power!”
Grian is full of the chit chat before the end of the phrase. They made a mistake, they would be the one to fix it, once and for all. “You wanna shut up!” He shouted, before attacking again. Running towards the fight with a steady hammer, Joel has an idea at last: might not work at all, but the least they could do is try like the heroes they are.
“Down!” Joel screamed, and so Grian did, ducking his body under the trajectory of Joel's hammer.
The ghost may be off-limits to hit, but the sword that it is using for attack and defense isn't. Mirroring what happened hours earlier, the electrically charged impact sends the hologram considerably back, just enough so that Grian could escape its reach. Using the space between them, it's his turn to use an energy bolt of his sword for something: he aims for the machine and doesn't miss.
The machine turns on again, and just like before, what is right in front of him – the enraged hologram – is quickly pulled to the inside of the blue display. HoloGrian resists, using its wings to fight back, trying to reach for something to hold (to no avail, for his hands can't hold what wasn't made by it), but nothing prevents the inevitable: after a flash of light and blue visual glitches, it is gone.
“Unplug the damn machine!” Grian yells, still aiming his sword towards it in case the hologram escapes again.
“Oh, fuck no.” Joel recharges his hammer, and marches towards the machine. In one moment, the hammer is in the air; in the other, it is smashing the machine in a thousand pieces. Not even caring about the cost, or the importance in the “next stage of technology”, that machine needed to go. “I am never returning to this lab.”
Grian sends his sword to another plane before collapsing on the floor; he has so much explaining to do – to Mumbo, to Hermitech, to the gods, whoever needs it –, and he will drag Joel with him in every instance. And all because he wanted to show his son to Joel.
Regardless, without regard to the state of the laboratory, he chuckles. “We are in so much trouble.”
“That is true.”
Because the timing of the gods is always playing against him, standing by the door frame with a cup of coffee and a bag of sweet berries, is the owner of the laboratory.
“I am… Oh, goodness, you two are…” Mumbo looks around, and attempts to find adjectives that would be sufficient for that situation. Unable to find one, he simply says: “Fucked.”
Fair. Joel takes his weapon, and goes in the direction of the door. His initial plan was to shake Mumbo's hand, but given the look of I-might-kill-someone that the scientist has, he's content with just saying: “Thanks for the hammer?”
“Dude, just get out.” Nodding, Joel walks past him, waving Grian goodbye. The winged man takes advantage of the distraction, and attempts to escape through a broken window. “You stay, Sunny Boy. We need to talk.”
“Can't I just say that we found a little mistake in the project and dealt with it in a safe manner?” (If Mumbo buys it, it will be the excuse he will use later with the other scientists.)
Mumbo looks at him dead in the eyes. “Get a broom.”
Not even playing the Gods Champion and Sun's Chosen card would get him out of the situation. “It's behind the door?”
“Glad you remember at least this.”