The Curse of Day/Part3D

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3rd Day, 7:00 AM
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On the tropical South Island, there lies an area called Marble Ruins. This area gains its name from the fact that it is practically chock-full of marble ruins. These ruins are overgrown with grass, which would make the area fairly nice to be, except for the fact that the cracks between the ruins are filled with lava. This would make the area fairly nasty to be, except that, then again, there's the grass. This odd juxtaposition of fairly nice and fairly nasty was the destination that a quickly-constructed, yet servicable plane approached at dangerously high speeds.
"Approaching Marble Ruins!" said Taglumo, one of the plane's two occupants. He was too busy looking at his map of the area to notice that the plane, which he was ostensibly piloting, was rocketing towards Marble Ruins so quickly that it would likely crash if he didn't stop it. Then again, he had made known to Mac, the plane's other occupant, precisely where the controls were, though this was caused more by carelessness than by careful planning and an accurate depiction of the future.
Mac was enjoying himself, letting his jacket and hair flow freely with the wind. Admittedly, he had forgotten part of the mission because of how relaxed himself. He tried to yell over the wind so that Taglumo would be able to hear him. "HEY! TAG! HOW MUCH LONGER ARE WE GOING TO BE IN THE AIR?!"
Taglumo checked the plane's speedometer and looked over the dashboard. "Five seconds," he said. Then a look of panic overcame his face. "OH NO! ONLY...THREE SECONDS!"
Mac's surprised face was showing him quite shocked (no pun intended), and before he could get the idea to just jump out of the plane that second, Taglumo yanked back the brake lever, causing the plane to slow down dramatically until it ultimately lodged in a tree.
Taglumo hopped out of the plane into the tree. "Woohoo! We made it!" he said, starting to climb down the tree, apparently oblivious to the fact that his plane was still stuck in a tree.
Mac, whose hands were still in his pockets, stood up and flipped out of the plane, onto the ground. "Heh, that was fun. I'm lucky I'm me, though - that could've really hurt the average person if they were exposed to heat from the engine, dude." Mac shook his head. "So, need some help getting the plane out of the tree?"
Taglumo did a double-take. "Oh right, the plane!" he said. "Um...sure. While you do that, I'll look around aimlessly for the Sol Emerald..."
Mac jumped up into the branch to be on level with the plane before grabbing it's tail and yanking it out... however, he found himself falling backwards with the plane right next to him when he landed. "That thing... is heavier than I thought..." Mac stated, feeling woozy and dizzy.
"Oops, sorry, didn't think of that," said Taglumo, sounding genuinely concerned. "When I built the plane, I didn't realize that anyone would have to drag it out of a tree..." Taglumo then brightened considerably. "But hey, that means that if we needed to drop the plane on someone, that would be really effective, right?"
Mac chuckled and groaned right after. "Hardy har har, comedian. What other funny jokes do you with ya?" Mac groaned again, getting on his feet and looking around the area. "So... where do we start?" he asked, wondering what exactly they were planning to do now.
"Good question," said Taglumo, dragging out the words as he racked his brains for a reasonable plan. "We could try scaling that wall over there...or we could...wait, don't you have some kind of energy-sensing thingy?"
"Oh, gumdrops, I completely forgot!" Mac scratched the back of his head and chuckled nervously, obviously embarrassed. "Let this Bengal do his thing, Tag." Mac focused, and suddenly, everything in his sight was green or black with the exception of the light-orange energy waves flowing freely through the air. "Ooh... Taglumo, I'm gettin' some signals, and they're pretty dang powerful."
"Oh cool!" said Taglumo. "Let's follow them!" He turned to Mac, looking a bit sheepish. "You do know where these signals are coming from, right?"
"Yeah, dude, I got 'em." He looked to the left and quickly darted left, following his instincts. "Somewhere over in this area, I think..."
"All right!" said Taglumo, rushing after Mac. "Let's go in this direc-OUCH" Taglumo slammed into a wall. He picked himself up and said, "Oh huh, looks like there's this wall in the way. No matter really, we can...go around the wall?"
"Oh, fun!" Mac hands jolted with blue, energetic lightning and he made a gun-like signal with his hand, threatening to blow the wall to pieces. "This, however, would be much easier. May I do the honors?"
"Er..." Taglumo fidgeted nervously. "Sure...just let's make sure that we don't get a bunch of lava falling on our heads, or, y'know, big ruins caving in on us, or anything like that..."
Mac looked at what he was about to do, gasped, and looked down in disappointment when he realized he was putting the duo in danger. "Aw man... whatever... I've always wanted to try that out," Mac looked up again at their obstacles, scratched his chin, and faced Taglumo. "Ey, Tag, how do you think we're going to get through this? I might be able to survive some collateral damage, but you... no offense, but you ain't that tough."
"Um...yeah," said Taglumo. "Now if only we could..."
Taglumo's thoughts were interrupted by a loud "TAGLUMO WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" as a silver pink hedgehog wearing a shirt, shorts, gloves, and boots (all in mint green) burst out of the nearby foliage.
Taglumo reeled backwards in alarm, putting his hands up (which placed him in serious danger of unbalancing himself and falling over backwards onto Mac). "She's not with me! I don't know her!" he said.
The hedgehog rolled her eyes. "Oh seriously," she said. "What do you mean, I'm...who's that?" she said, gesturing to Mac.
Mac smirked as he pointed to himself with his thumb, grinning. "My dear friend, I'm the greatest dude you shall ever know. My name is Mac Hartley, which happens to be a synonym for 'awesome.'" Mac flexed his arms, showing off his muscles.
The hedgehog sighed. "Okay, so my little brother has gone off and gotten involved with another TAGLUMO GET BACK HERE!" She ran after Taglumo, who was apparently trying to stuff himself into a crack in the large wall that Taglumo and Mac had been trying to figure out how to pass.
"Taglumo, what are you doing?" she said.
"I got stuck in this wall," came Taglumo's muffled voice from the other side of the wall, "and now I'm trying to get out. Actually wait I can" Taglumo disappeared through the wall with a barely audible thud. "Oh hey, there's this large glowy purple object NO WAIT COME BACK"
The hedgehog turned to Mac. "Here's my very fast introduction," she tossed at him a disposable identification card bearing her name, Vereco, "and now I have to go off and rescue Taglumo." She pulled a grappling hook off of her belt, launched it through the wall, and was gone through the crack in a second.
Mac smirked, excited. Sounds like he's got something. And his friend's... pretty hot. I'll ask her out later. Mac, mentally reminding himself to hit on her afterwards, turned himself into electricity and easily went through the crack.
The wall was apparently one wall of a small, roofed ruin. Taglumo could be seen a short distance away, banging on another wall of the ruin. Vereco was with him, fiddling around with something in the wall while chiding Taglumo.
"...and now I have to bring you back home, because you aren't supposed to be out here trying to take over the world!" she was saying.
"Er...why not?" said Taglumo, stopping banging on the wall. "And when are you going to get that bit of the wall open so we can go after that thing and get the purple thing?...I mean, the Sol Emerald?"
"I'm getting it open as fast as I can," retorted Vereco, "and as to why you're not supposed to be out here taking over the world, there's a very good answer to that: you're supposed to be at home living a normal and productive life!"
At this point, the wall suddenly exploded away from the two hedgehogs, revealing the small ruin to be part of a larger ruin. The larger ruin contained nothing of note, except for the metal humanoid that stood against the far wall. This humanoid seemed to be very busy drilling the wall with one arm (which was in the shape of a drill) and holding, in its other, normal arm, an object that glowed purple between. The normal arm was between the humanoid and the wall.
As Mac could see all of this and was now in Taglumo's range, he ran over to the grey hedgehog, mouth agape. "Wow, Tag. You have a lot of friends don't you?" Mac chuckled, grunted, a placed a hand on his belt, which held a sword and two guns. "Only problem.... this one doesn't look all too friendly."
"Yeah, I really have no idea what's up with that thing," said Taglumo, gesturing towards the humanoid. "I walked into the room, and it grabbed the Emerald and ran here. Maybe we should try talking to it. HEY METAL HUMANOID!" He waved in its field of vision.
The humanoid turned its head towards them, shrugged, and went back to what it was doing.
"Not too helpful," said Taglumo. "Any thoughts, Vee?"
"Nope," said Vereco. "OK, guy I don't know, Tag and I are stumped. Do you have any suggestions?"
"It's Mac, gosh-darnit," Mac grumbled while he shook his head. "I dunno... my brain says we should get a closer look, but my heart says that I should just rip it into pieces this very second. Which one should we choose? Argh... so conflicted..."
"Right, Mac, sorry," said Vereco. "Wait, what, Tag?"
"I, um," said Taglumo. "I was just thinking that we could get a closer look and then rip it into pieces. But wait, then that wouldn't be this very second. Sor—"
Taglumo's sentence was interrupted by a loud crashing noise, as the humanoid had finished drilling through one part of the ruin, only to send large amounts of rubble crashing in, revealing another part of the ruin. The humanoid, apparently angry, shook its fist and started flying into the adjacent ruin, only to be caught around the ankle by Vereco's grappling hook. This apparently angered the humanoid so much that it shapeshifted its leg out of the cable, then turned both legs into a large hammer and charged at the group.
Mac cackled as he took out his sword, Angel. "Oh yeah, I'm up for a battle! You two might want to stay back - this could get very messy." Mac pointed his sword at the humanoid, smirked as it thundered with electricity, and then fired a slow but powerful lightning bolt.
The lightning bolt hit the hammer head on, causing it to explode across the room and nearly hit Taglumo in the head, which, in turn, caused Taglumo to yell, "Hey, watch it!" The humanoid then shook its unoccupied fist at Mac and started flying into the adjacent part of the ruin.
Mac laughed some more as he sheathed Angel and equipped his guns, Zip and Zap, motioning for the duo behind him to follow. "C'mon, guys, let's chase this thing and possibly find out what it is up to... or if it's useless, we can just break it."
"If you break it, can I get the pieces?" said Taglumo, as he and Vereco followed Mac.
The part of the ruin that the humanoid flew into was in a pretty bad state of repair. Marble columns stuck out of a sea of lava, while protrusions stuck out of the wall at odd intervals. All in all, it was not a very good place for walking through, though the humanoid flew through it just fine.
Vereco pulled up sharply at the edge of the platform that the threesome's path led to, stopping Taglumo as well. "Does anyone here have super gymnastic skills and/or flying abilites?" said Vereco, uncoiling her grappling hook.
"Not me!" said Taglumo instantly. "I'll need help from the grappling hook. Mac, can you fly?"
Mac got into a stance and squatted, preparing for a leap. He then put his hands out behind him for the two hedgehogs to grab onto. Vereco, quickly realizing what was going on, grabbed Mac, but Taglumo barely managed to grab on to Mac in time.
As soon as the two hedgehogs grabbed Mac, he was suddenly surrounded in a light-blue aura, his fur became a very light-blue, his hair became turquoise, and his clothing looked white and blue. Mac smirked before leaping high into the air at moderate speeds, able to reach the other side as if he were flying. When he landed, he went back to normal.
"That was so cool!" said Taglumo, letting go of Mac.
"Yeah, that was pretty great," said Vereco, also letting go of Mac. "Good to know that someone can do that in this group. By the way, the robot thingy is getting away..."
As soon as the two let go of him, Mac equipped his guns and aimed them at the humanoid. "Not anymore!" Mac fired ten bullets (five from each gun), all accurately aimed at "the robot-thingy."
Mac's target suddenly gained legs just before the bullets hit its chest and head, tearing through them as if they were tin-foil. The robot's legs then retracted and the holes filled up, making it clear what had just happened: it had expelled some of its metal into creating new legs, then moved the metal back where it wanted it. After performing this feat, the robot kept flying, though it shook with what would be laughter if it made noise.
Taglumo, who had been in awe of Mac, was now equally in awe of the metallic humanoid. "THAT ROBOT IS SO COOL!" he shouted, pointing at it.
"It may be cool, but we're apparently smashing it and getting that Emerald," said Vereco, shooting her grappling hook at the wall close to the humanoid. She then shot over to the grappling hook, ricocheted off the wall, kicked the robot's hand where it held the Sol Emerald, and shot back to where Taglumo and Mac were. This did make the robot drop the Emerald, as planned, but the robot then dipped mid-flight, caught the Emerald as it fell, and kept flying.
"Wow, it looks like nothing's going to stand in its way," said Taglumo, as Vereco returned to his platform. "What do we do now?" he said, turning to Mac.
Mac quietly cursed under his breath, now recognizing the robot's abilities. "Taglumo, Taglumo's sister, I have an idea. Either we capture it, slice it in half, or paralyze it." Electricity cackled throughout Mac's body, and Mac tensed his lower muscles, preparing for yet another lunge. "You two - here's the plan. I fling you two at it, causing it to be taken by surprise. Then, you guys pin him down so I can fry his circuits." Mac placed his hand out again, removing the electricity that was previously being emitted from it. "Unless one of you has a better idea, let's get started."
"Sounds awesome!" said Taglumo. "I'm good at sitting on things—I mean pinning them down."
"And I can give us a decent landing," said Vereco.
"All right, let's do this!" said Taglumo and Vereco as one.
Mac grabbed their hands and spun around quickly as a living top, twirling at rapid speeds while somehow not getting sick. Then, transforming into his TAI state once again, he shot the two hedgehogs at the humanoid at super speed, fast enough for the two to begin to catch fire if they didn't hit the humanoid soon. Fortunately for them, the three quickly collided with the humanoid. Also fortunately for the two hedgehogs, the humanoid had realized that it was about to be whacked and had pushed most of its metal out into legs, which, coincidentally, spared the hedgehogs from a very hard landing.
"OK, we've distracted it," said Taglumo, before the two rebounded off of the humanoid. "AAH WE'RE FALLING oh no wait we're not," as Vereco grabbed the humanoid with her grappling hook, leaving the hedgehogs suspended in mid-air.
Taglumo turned to Vereco, looking awed. "Wow, that grappling hook is being really useful!" he said. "Can I have one?"
"If you ever remembered to pack one, like I keep reminding you to, you could," responded Vereco.
The humanoid, evidently distressed at being tied up, started flailing its free arm wildly, detaching the hook from itself and knocking it into a cliff, leading the humanoid to crash into a nearby ruin, and leaving the hedgehogs dangling precariously close to the lava.
"HELP!" yelled Taglumo.
"Mac, can you do something?" shouted Vereco.
"Darn it, you guys, I can't always save you at times like this!" Mac frowned and groaned before remembering a very important thing - he was a tiger, and one thing tigers have are claws. He jumped to where the rope of the grappling hook was dangling, grabbing it with one hand to save his partners. Then, with the combined power of will and strength, he started to climb the cliff with one hand, using his claws to stop him from falling. It would be a while until Mac reached the top, and struggled to pull the rope as to send the two hedgehogs up with him.
"Thanks for saving us!" said Taglumo, looking up. "But...is there any way we could..."
"Yes, we could go faster," said Vereco, finishing Taglumo's thought. She pulled out another grappling hook and attached it to the top of the cliff, using it to pull her and Taglumo to the top. She then pulled Mac to the top with the other grappling hook.
"Why didn't you use the other grappling hook earlier, when we were hanging there?" said Taglumo, once Mac had reached the top.
"It wouldn't have reached," said Vereco. "We were at the very end of my grappling hook, and I couldn't activate it without risking it detaching from the cliff entirely, so thanks for saving us, Mac!"
"Yeah, we really owe you one," said Taglumo. "One...no two...no five...We owe you five, or at least I do."
"Please, hedgies, you two don't need to tell me twice," said Mac, exasperated. He had gotten better at maintaining his TAI form, but using it to save people was new to him. He could lift, but it was still a struggle. Mac faced the two hedgehogs again. "Ey, guys, we need to get back on topic as soon as possible before that stupid robot pulls another trick out of its butt. I am so ready to throw it into the lava by now." Electricity jolting in his fists, Mac walked over to the humanoid, as close as he could get without flying. Then, he held a bolt of lightning in his hand, threatening to use it to fry the robot's circuits. "You. Tell me everything that you know, or else I will kill you without any second thought."
The "robot", noticing that it was being spoken to, went through a series of motions. First, it shot out legs so it could stand at the right height to look Mac in the eye. It then shifted the Sol Emerald to the back of its head to have both hands free. After that, it motioned first to where its ears would be, then shook its head, then motioned to where its mouth would be, then shook its head again, then started over, pointing to where its ears would be again.
"Oh hey," said Taglumo, "I have an idea. If it can't hear or speak, I think I know what's going on with it. Mac, do you mind if I go over and poke it to test my theory?"
"Tag..." said Vereco warningly.
"No, it's" Taglumo whispered something into her ear.
"Oh fine," said Vereco. "Just make sure that Mac agrees so he doesn't blow up the robot and you with it."
"Right," said Taglumo. "OK, so Mac, do you mind if I go over and poke the robot thing to test my theory about why it can't hear you or talk to you?"
Mac ceased with his threatening and sighed. "Fine, Tag, but don't do anything stupid and get killed in the process. If that things dares to even touch you, I will utterly and completely decimate it, leaving no centimeter of it behind."
Taglumo gulped. "O...K..." he said. Then, remembering that he could now try his plan, he brightened considerably. "Now I get to go poke it and see what happens!" he said, walking over to the humanoid. He then tentatively poked it, causing a metal cylinder to slide out of the way of his cylinder. He then reached his finger into the hole and started poking various other parts of the humanoid, causing metal cylinders to slide out of random strange bits of the robot to get out of the way of Taglumo's finger, all while the humanoid impatiently tapped its foot.
"Aha," said Taglumo, withdrawing his finger, causing the metal to haphazardly return to the humanoid (and causing the humanoid to stop tapping its foot). "Theory proven!" He walked back to where Mac and Vereco were. "I think I've figured it out. You see, this isn't a robot, it's all metal, all the way through. Well, except for its head, there are cameras in its head. And the reason I think all this is that my uncle, Sinjoro, has a tendency to make these entirely metal humanoids with cameras in their heads, and the humanoids fly around and do stuff for him. So, that's what's going on. Not a robot, a..." Taglumo stopped. "Vee, what did we say we were calling them?"
"We didn't," said Vereco, looking exasperated. "Why are you even mentioning all this, anyway?"
"Because it's helpful?" said Taglumo. "I mean...I mean...well, we're trying to get this object from the thing, it's useful to know what the thing is, isn't it? Especially since Mac threatened to fry its circuits, and it doesn't have any, that's useful to know, right?"
"Yeah, I guess so," said Vereco. "So, did you have a plan for what you were going to do if your theory was correct?"
"Nooooo," said Taglumo. "I, uh, thought Mac would have a plan. Mac, do you have a plan?"
Mac was starting to get aggravated by Taglumo's nerdy antics. "What the actual heck does a blasted piece of junk have to do with this?!" Mac said, nearly at the boiling point. "I don't care if you had some Schnee-like uncle who could make stuff like this! We need to get the Emerald and leave, but noooo, we have to listen to some useless trivia about an annoying hunk of trash that I'm about to slice into bits anyway!" Mac groaned, walking to Taglumo and the metallic humanoid.
"Taglumo, you're an innocent guy, I'll give you that. But you need to get your priorities straightened so I'm not having to save your and your (mildly attractive) sister all the time! At first, I tagged along so that I could just get the Emeralds myself, but you somehow managed to convince me to go with your complete blasphemy only to make me the one to do 60 percent of the work!" Mac grunted, a grenade of static energy resting in his palm. "Now, I'm going to obliterate this piece of trash, we're going to grab the Emerald, and we're going to leave this place that has the nerve to dare bite into my vacation time! Capesh?!"
"OK, sure," said Taglumo, who, for some unknown reason, was grinning.
"Sure, blow it up," said Vereco, sounding exhausted.
Taglumo suddenly jumped and stopped grinning. "Oh, wait," he said. "You can go ahead and blow up the thing, that'll probably be for the best, but I just realized the really important thing about this being one of my uncle's robots, which is that there are probably a bunch of these robots going around and trying to get the other Sol Emeralds, too..." He trailed off. "I probably shouldn't have mentioned that until after you blew it up."
Mac pointed at the crack while glaring at Taglumo, aggravated yet calmed down at the same time. "Tag, thanks for the useless fun fact that I really don't care about, but we don't need to hear you blabbering some nonsense. If you want to do something useful, then please get the plane started so that when I fire the grenade, we'll be able to leave right away."
Taglumo gave Mac a quick, but nervous, thumbs-up and started trying to get out the way they had come in, then pulled up sharply when he realized that he would need to cross some lava to do so.
Meanwhile, Mac walked over to the metal creation, yanked the purple Sol Emerald from it, and turned to face Vereco right after. "Hey, Taglumo's sister, if you don't mind, could you please follow Tag? I'm about to completely blow this joint out from the inside, and I really don't want to see your nearly obliterated body when I do." Mac inserted more energy into the Thunder Grenade, causing it to increase in size. 
"Sure," said Vereco. "No, wait, Tag, this way," she said, grabbing Taglumo, launching a grappling hook at a crack in the ceiling and drawing him out. As the two flew out towards the crack, Taglumo suddenly turned to Mac as well as he could and yelled, "Wait, Mac, how are you going to get out?"
Mac smiled. "Doesn't matter. Hopefully, I'll get out. Now, go." Mac chuckled as he inserted even more energy into the grenade, making it double in size. "Don't worry about me. I won't be able to die with myself if you die, so move it, if you could."
By this time, Taglumo, who was still holding onto Vereco, was almost out of earshot, as Vereco was moving towards the plane in a succession of grappling-hook-assisted-jumps. "OK, I'm moving!" yelled Taglumo, before a loud clunk, followed by an engine sound, indicated that Taglumo and Vereco had landed in the plane and that Taglumo was starting it up.
"BLAST OFF!!!" Mac yelled, firing the Thunder Grenade into the flaming sea of fiery lava that was near the humanoid. The second that it touched the lava, it exploded, releasing enough static and ergokinetic energy needed to destroy the humanoid. However, if he didn't get away, Mac would also be killed, so he quickly tried to outrun the explosion, leaping over seas of lava and barely dodging falling rocks made out of marble before slipping through the crack as if he were covered in butter. Then, he jumped onto the plane (which had gotten under him just in the nick of time) and pointed up, signalling that he was ready to move.
"Yay! We did it!" shouted Taglumo, driving his plane perilously close to the flaming ruin in his excitement.
"Tag, please steer clear of the exploding ruin," said Vereco.
"Oh, right, that," said Taglumo. "Why isn't my up lever wor—"
Taglumo was cut off in the middle of his sentence by the sudden start of a loud, low noise coming from the engine, followed by the plane suddenly going extremely fast.
"WHAT'S GOING ON?" shouted Taglumo over the plane's engine.
"I THINK YOU MUST HAVE DAMAGED THE ENGINE WHEN IT FELL OUT OF THE TREE, AND THEN AGAIN WHEN THE ENGINE GOT HIT BY THE EXPLOSION," responded Vereco.
"OH RIGHT," shouted Taglumo back. "WHAT DO WE DO NOW?"
"I'M THINKING ABOUT IT," yelled Vereco. "WHILE I'M THINKING, MAYBE YOU SHOULD CHECK WITH MAC?"
"OH YEAH," said Taglumo. "MAC, WHAT DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD DO?"
Mac didn't actually answer Taglumo's question - instead, he took action. Using what was left of what energy he had to spare, Mac transformed into his TAI state once again and grabbed the plane. Knowing exactly what he needed to do and hoping his plan would work, Mac inserted electric energy into the plane at the cost of his energy, tiring him. When he was done, he leaned back, exhausted.
Shortly after Mac inserted electric energy into the plane's engine, the engine sputtered a bit and resumed normal functionality. Since Taglumo had been holding back the brake lever the entire time, hoping that the plane would slow down, this meant that the plane came to a halt...
Category:The Curse of Day