Chapter 9
When Peter fell asleep he had a similar dream to what he had every night but this was stranger. He woke up in his apartment but the whole place was covered in vines and foliage. It was all sprouting from outside from his room and he went to see what it was. As usual it all connected to his front door and when he opened it, what would usually happen would be he saw a plant in a flower pot surrounded by bloodstained leaves and twigs on a pedestal. Weeds sprang out from the walls like hands all trying to reach for the plant in the middle and he would hear whispering of many people begging him to both grab and throw away the plant. But this time right behind the plant was a hand clad in red armour with its hand out. The armour looked as if it could twist and bend in every direction with thousands of red metal plates. Its fingertips looked sharpened and bloodied as if a great beast was asking for something. He reached out, not to anything but just forward to the options presented to him. Take the plant, take the hand, or throw away the plant. Before he could make his decision he awoke on his bed in the motel with the smell of limes in the air.
"You awake yet?" asked Olivia, as energetic as ever. She was eating a bowl of cereal at the table next to the TV, watching the news. There was a second bowl on the table and a magazine with another actor scandal. "Hey, how's the news? Did they give an explanation for what happened at the party?" asked Peter sleepy. "Yeah, they said that there was a malfunction with one of the machines and that they would make sure it didn't happen again. Also about the pocket dimension, I think that might have been a prototype for the new storage facility that the girls on floor 18 were working on." "How exactly does that work again? Cause I remember being at the meeting just not really paying attention." "Why do you not pay attention to these things! They're important! Nevermind. How it works is taking a copy of a 30 ft radius and putting that in the pocket dimension to keep as the area in which you are keeping your stuff but I guess the one that we saw was an upscaled version that had a radius of about 50yd." She explained. Peter then finally crawled out of bed, emerging like a caterpillar from its cocoon but instead of a butterfly he was a moth.
"Hey, how are you feeling? Do you need to sleep a little longer?" Olivia asked, a bit worried from his display of extreme ruthlessness from last night. "I'm fine. My bullets have regenerated so I should be fine." "What do you mean regenerated?" "Oh, yeah I haven't really explained how my powers work. Whoopies, sorry! I have only 10 bullets and those bullets can heal wounds as well but because I have only 10 and my revolver has 6 chambers, that only leaves 4 bullets to heal with." "And because there's three of us that leaves only one extra just in case. So how does the other weird vision thing work?" "What other vision thing?" "You know, when your eyes glow green and you make a really cool move, like you knew what was going to happen?" "My eyes glow!?" At this point Olivia proceeds to tell Peter that from her perspective every time E.L told him to do something his eyes would glow. The reason as E.L later explained was that he was looking into the future for about 10 seconds and then told Peter what to do but the only reason why Peter couldn't see the future was because his brain would turn to mush if he tried handling the infinite information that is the future.
They noticed that they still had their clothes from the party(everyone except Olivia) so they went to a nearby store to get some. Peter wore jeans,t-shirt, and a leather jacket. It was starting to get cold outside so they all needed some kind of jacket. Alex wore a shirt, tie, sweater vest, and suit combo because he looked "Fancyer". Both Peter and Olivia thought he looked like a British boarding school student. Alex suggested that Olivia change clothes too. "They'll probably recognize you from what you're wearing from last night, so just to be safe put something else on." "All right, fine." she said reluctantly. As she was changing Alex asked "So what do you think she got?" "Unlike you, something normal," Peter replied. "Oh, please you look like you're in a biker gang" "Why do you want to know what I think anyway?" "Cause, I know you're thinking about it. You can tell a lot from what someone wears. Plus you've only seen her in her lab uniform, that dress from the party, and what was basically just pajamas, so you've never seen what she actually wears. So, what do you think?" pestered Alex. Alex was right, Peter was thinking that but he really couldn't find an answer so he didn't say anything.
Olivia finally walked out and was wearing jeans, a red and white polka dot T-shirt, and a white jacket with the Princeton Tigers on the back. "So, what do you think?" she asked enthusiastically. "You look like you actually are studying at Princeton." replied Peter. "You look like a frat girl who decided they like sports," said Alex. "Oh, shut up," said Olivia. "So. you want to tell me how we're getting in?" Alex asked. "Don't worry I called in a favor. She'll cover for us." Peter hinted. "You know, if you tell me what the plan is we might actually be able to help each other." said Alex. "Nah, you'd just get mad at me for doing it." Peter said.
They got to the University and started to walk towards the Main Library. Peter then had the thought of "What if there's an assassin already here?" He couldn't shake off that feeling of dread that infected the air. All of them felt this sense of claustrophobia and had fear all about them. What if the next assassin had a camouflage and that's why the trees look weird? What if the next assassin was the same sniper from before and he was just lining up his shot right now? What if that person over there is the assassin and he's getting ready to use his Gauntlet? What if the nex– "Hey, are you guys lost?" the Security guard said as they finally got to the front of the library. He seemed suspicious of them for some reason but not as if he were told about the intruders but instead as if he were worried about them. "Oh, Jeremy, don't worry about them. They're here for my private tour, remember? I told you this young man was planning on joining this university for a little bit with his sister!" said an elderly woman, the Head of the Department of Literature at the University of Princeton, and good friend to Peter and all who receive her home baked cookies. "Ah, Ms.Cherry, good to see you today, as fabulous as always I see!" Peter said as he held out his hand. Today she was wearing a navy blue suit and a Victorian styled top hat with a blue rose. "Oh, yeah! Now I remember! Please come on in! Sorry for the delay. Also, you're his sister? You two look nothing alike." the Guard said feeling a bit ashamed of not remembering. "Uh…step-sister?" Olivia said, trying to think of anything that would make sense in this situation. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!" yelled Alex as Peter tried to restrain him from laughing. "My(can't believe I'm saying this) Step-Dad has a syndrome that makes him laugh uncontrollably, sorry." Peter begrudgingly explained. "Well now that we have that settled with, come inside already it's freezing out here!" Ms.Cherry said, ushering the three of them inside.
As they walked Olivia took in the majesty of the Main Library with all of its walls covered and stuffed with books. The whole library kept going on and on into infinity and eternity. Rows upon rows of shelves with literature of thousands of different subjects. History, Mythology, Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy, Non-Fiction, Fiction, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Mystery, Dystopia, Romance, Religious texts and too many more to count. It felt like they walked for miles until finally they arrived at Ms.Cherry's office which had a turkey on the front of the door. "This place is amazing! Peter, how are you not surprised by this?" Olivia exclaimed as she noticed Peter looking at the shelves as if he were seeing an old friend. "I graduated from here and practically lived here when I was studying." Peter said, still looking at the shelves not really paying attention to what she said.
They entered the office and Ms.Cherry showed them to a small coffee table with cups of hot chocolate already prepared. She went behind her desk to turn on a record player. Now these "modern" record players are a bit different from the ones you and I may have. They're not simply a machine that spins and diamond needle but instead these make you feel the music. If the music is soft and calm(just like in this case) it will make someone more calm and take away any bad intentions from their mind but if it is loud and harsh it will make them heated and angry. It is used in some places as a security measure but the effectiveness of this record player varies greatly from person to person so it's usually used for therapy and meditation. As they take their seats Ms.Cherry asks "So, what made you finally call in the favor?" "We need to get to the basement of the University." Olivia explained. "If I could help you, I would, but not even I can get down there. Only the Dean and the Ouroboros Industries techy's can get down there." "Why are you even helping us?" Alex blurted out. He sensed something wasn't right here. The air was too stale, and this woman radiated a feeling of sadness. "Peter is a friend that needs help and I'm going to do what I can for my friends." Ms.Cherry responded.
"Well can you get us close to the basement?" Peter asked. "What's so important about the basement? If you're planning on stealing something I can't let you do that." "We're not stealing anything…I think.". Ms. Cherry looked at him disappointedly with a look she had given him thousands of times before when he studied there. As the conversation continued and they tried to convince Ms.Cherry to let them sneak into the Dean's office, Olivia noticed something strange. When Peter had described Ms.Cherry to her, she remembered that she had a small scar on her neck from a surgery she had gotten roughly 2 years ago but no scar was to be seen. Alex at the same time was seeing that something was still off. He activated his Gauntlet and hid it underneath his suit. Something he didn't mention to Peter and Olivia was that part of his ability wasn't just the Jackpot Explosion but that he could see all the probabilities to things that he looked at. When he fought Copper he detected the probability of his next attack which allowed him to figure out a way to defeat him. It wasn't as effective as E.L's clairvoyance but it worked well enough to figure out certain things. He looked at Ms.Cherry and calculated the percentage of if she had any intention to attack and in his eyes it showed: 30% Attack Peter, 50% Attack Olivia and 15% Attack at himself. The remaining 5% was unknown. Ms.Cherry's hair flickered in the light as she rose up and a white and blue hot light came from her eyes shot out at Olivia but Alex jumped and blocked the attack before she got hit, sending him flying through the wall and out the room.
"Oh well, no use in hiding now." said the voice as it contorted from Ms.Cherry's voice to that of a much younger woman. She now stood in the place of where a small frail lady once was as a tall slimmer young woman with long curly black hair. She wore a white wool coat over her shoulders with matching white jeans and a blue shirt that had the top buttons unbuttoned as well as long earrings in the shape of tear drops with diamonds inside. She wore blue tinted sunglasses with white crystallized eyes underneath. "What did you do to Ms.Cherry!?" Peter yelled, with sword in hand and rage in his eyes. "Don't worry she called in sick today. She won't be coming back any time soon, Hehe." she said with malice in her voice. Peter lunged forward but before his blade even touched her she disappeared and reappeared behind him and grabbed him by the collar through him out the door and into the Library below. Olivia ran down after both of them because she saw that the woman was about to fire another laser from her eyes.
"How'd you know she was going to attack us?" asked Olivia, scanning the floor for when the next attack came. "Part of my gauntlet but right now we need to kick her ass before they lock down the place." Alex said, rubbing his head from the impact. "No, someone has to get to the basement and find out what's happening. The other two will stay and take her down and catch up with whoever gets the door open." Peter said knowing that this was going to be a fight none of them could do on their own. "Fine, I'll go. With my ability it'll be a lot easier to open the door, you and Olivia deal with that bitch." As Alex was speaking the woman came down and began to walk towards them, seemingly not at all in a hurry. The three then parted ways, Alex going to the left and Olivia and Peter going to the right. Olivia climbed up a bookshelf and launched herself at the woman while Peter went behind and swung his sword from behind. At that moment, as the woman was walking she said "Carve the elegant light, Diamond Cutter." and a second woman seemingly appeared to come out of the first, both then shot their lasers at Peter and Olivia. Peter barely dodged the laser thanks to E.L and Olivia managed to block the laser and sent her flying back into a table.
"How the hell are you doing any of this!?" Peter said aloud, surprised at the sheer amount of abilities Diamond had. "I shine as radiantly as a diamond cut for perfection and used for only the finest of jewelries and you are nothing but a rock that needs to be turned to gravel." she said as the light bent and turned to create more clones of her as she radiated the light of the room making her look like she was in the middle of a glass window of a church. Olivia dashed forward and slit the throat of one of the clones and then another and another and another, she became a non-stop whirl-wind of blades as she cleaved through at least 15 of the clones, until finally she found herself face to face with the original. But at that point she was too tired and could barely keep up with her as Diamond was about to shoot a laser. Peter reflected the laser with his sword before it could hit her. After regaining her composure the two started to whale on Diamond not giving any opening to conjure more clones or shoot anymore lasers. Peter had figured out that to stop both the clones and the heat vision he just needed to block the light that shined off of Diamond and keep her from reflecting any light at all. But in the midst of this as Diamond was now bloodied and left with a broken arm she had one final gamble.
She knew from the report that one of the assassins had told her about that during their fight with Copper, Peter exhibited signs of The Addiction and remembered how to trigger the drug to activate. Right before Peter was about to stab her she saw the opening. He crouched slightly down and let the light above him reach her which was just enough to create the highest magnitude of heat she could put into her heat vision without overloading her Gauntlet to then shoot him with the smallest of lasers directly into his chest. The drug activated whenever Peter felt any pain or negative emotions, so during the Copper fight when Peter had been electrocuted he was actually high but incapacitated until the trip was over. Peter then felt as a white hot searing pain engulfed his chest, ripping through bone and tissue. He fell to the floor gripping his chest in pain as he saw the hole in his chest that had just shot through his right lung. It was only a split second later when vines burst forth from the hole and made him look like a thorn bush had grown inside of him. He no longer felt the pain in his chest or from the world around him. He was in his own private room in limbo. Far away was the voice of Olivia calling for Peter to get up but it was fine he could stay in his room, there wasn't anything important going on right now...right?