Chapter 39

The bolts flew down the halls, but only one had a set destination, the rest simply scoured the facility. The lone bolt he'd given concrete instructions to flew towards the entrance of the facility where it hovered idly along the roof. It would be watching the entrance to make sure monsters didn't come swarming through, and so long as the bolt was hidden along the roof they were unlikely to notice it. People rarely look upwards, hopefully flesh boys aren't an exception.

Michael slowly walked through the halls, heeding the information being sent to him via the bolts and hiding into siderooms when necessary. The monsters were killable, but it was a complete and utter pain to do so, which made simply not encountering more ideal.

He could always try using the spores on the monsters. Since they may do something to them now that they weren't in direct sunlight, but that would just lead to him playing hivemind tug of war with the sun. Which wasn't something he was exactly keen on doing.

The good news though, was that the bolts were able to damage the monsters, if only a little bit. They seemed to have an incredibly fast healing factor, but did still seem to struggle when softball sized holes suddenly started filling their body. Perhaps using the mace and hammer to separate chunks of their body would be effective?

Michael shook his head. He was overthinking it. Nothing good would come from that, especially when they weren't really the problem at the moment.

No, that would be the ginger haired skeleton demon thing that was currently watching him from the shadows. Her skeletal head was covered in matted orange hair and was currently poking out of a puddle of some oil-like material on the floor.

She probably assumed that he couldn't see her in the darkness, but she'd be wrong. He could see about as well in the dark as he could in the light.

Michael unslung his crossbow and began to fire bolt after bolt into the air, not directing a single one of them towards the monster.

The condensed infected that he kept at his side made controlling the many bolts incredibly easy. After each shot they'd soar off several feet and then circle back around to him once the initial momentum of the shot was spent.

And it didn't take long before several dozen bolts hovered idly around Michael as he watched the creature creep closer and closer, the pool of oil following it all the while.

Then once it was a mere two feet away he gave the bolts a small mental probing and in the next second they fell down upon the monster.

It quickly retreated back into the oil as the bolts exploded into little pockets of void upon the puddle.

One after another the bolts burrowed after her until they eventually made it all the way through into the next floor.

But sadly none of them seemed to have hit her, and Michael could already see more puddles of oil forming throughout the hall.

"I don't know if you're sentient or not, but this isn't a game you want to play."

A few seconds passed before she poked her head out of one of the puddles.

"How, how could you reject the sun's kindness like you did?"

Her voice was raspy and was filled to the absolute brim with pity.

"Did you seriously just ask why? Maybe because it's trying to melt me into a giant meatball. Or even worse, turn me into whatever the fuck you are."

Michael grabbed his mace and hammer.

"But whatever the case you're my enemy, right? Considering how you referred to it as the sun's kindness I'd take it you agree with what it's doing."

Michael's heart was awake and feeding off her emotions.

"So what were you planning to do to me if I was just some normal schmuck walking down these halls?"

"You are going to embrace the light. Like a disobedient child you run from it, but you will bask in its glory."

"Jesus Christ, are you crying?"

At that moment one of the bolts made it to the hall directly beneath them, but couldn't see the bottom half of the skeleton sticking through the floor or anything of the sort. Which meant she wasn't just phasing through walls, but doing something else entirely.

"Give into the light, please."

"Nah, I don't wanna."

With a flash of light Michael teleported beside the creature as his mace came down, rippling with emotion from the heart it impacted the puddle, which she quickly retreated into as it was turned to fine dust.

Apparently a strong enough feeling of pity gave the heart the ability to disintegrate stuff, good to know.

The skeleton reappeared down the hall, crawling out of one of her many puddles. Michael quickly began to move towards her before coming to an abrupt stop. The bolt he'd left to watch the front had spotted something, and more importantly he could literally feel it approaching.

The bolt couldn't move out into the light or the eyes on it would melt away, but way off in the distance it could see movement. It looked like a red tsunami was rapidly approaching the facility, but he was pretty sure he knew what it was, because it reeked of flesh.

"Goddamnit, alright Mrs. Skeleton, this has been fun and all, but I have more important things to do."

With that Michael teleported far deeper within the facility where one of his bolts currently hovered.

What he'd just seen was going to be a huge fucking problem. Mainly because it was moving so fast that it'd probably be reaching the facility right about...now.

The entire facility shook as a wall of flesh slammed into the above ground section, but luckily most of the structure was underground, so it didn't seem like it was going to immediately collapse.

That however, was where the good news ended, because several of Michael's bolts could see appendages as wide as the hall stretching from the giant blob and moving throughout the facility.

Now he had several options, the first one being making a run for it. Which honestly had quite a bit of merit to it. Digging out would be a lot harder without the soldiers, but escaping the flesh using the teleportation method would probably work.

The problem there was that he honestly wasn't sure how much space that thing was taking up outside, and if he was being realistic, it could have very easily stretched the one or two miles he'd traveled to get to the facility. Besides, he typically wasn't able to leave a dimension until he'd defeated something.

The second option he had was more of an add on to the first, but it did help fill in the 'defeat an enemy' criteria quite well.

"Hey Keith, how knowledgeable are you with technology?"

"If it's inside of one of the facilities then I know how to use it, simple as that. Why, what do you have in mind."

"Firstly, that's a little concerning. Secondly, I've heard that every one of these facilities are set to blow in case of an emergency. Is this true?"

Keith was silent for several moments before finally speaking.

"You know, everyday you make the prospect of taking over your body less and less appealing. There's definitely something wrong with it."

Michael grinned, "Thanks for the vote of confidence, now let's go."

----------------------------------------------------------------

Michael moved within the deepest reaches of the facility, walking past containment cell after containment cell, each one with their doors torn wide open.

Not that it was something to be concerned over, if there was anything alive down here then the bolts would have seen them. Most of the SCP's that were down here probably got led to the surface by the skeleton, or simply left by themselves.

"Are you sure it's down here Keith?"

"Of course I am. They always keep one of these switches near the containment cells. It gives the guards something to do while being torn apart by whatever creature their incompetence let escape."

"Uh huh."

"Oh, there it is now."

Up ahead Michael could see a thick metal door with a bold lettered sign loudly proclaiming 'Off Limits'.

"Yeah that seems about right."

Taking a step forward Michael couldn't help but stop himself. His instincts were screaming for him to stay still, to not move, so he listened to them. They hadn't steered him wrong yet.

Moments later his suspicions were proven right when the entire stretch of hallway ahead of him slowly began to turn to oil.

The skeleton slowly rose to the surface and greeted Michael with a look of disappointment.

"Oh this could have been so simple darling. Just a quick trip back home and you'd have been able to truly understand what makes the light so special."

"You crazy bitch, what did you just try to do?"

"I simply tried to show you the majesty that is the sun, the light that cleansed the world. The light that you foolishly flee from."

"I think she tried to drag you into her pocket dimension, plenty of creatures have them. I wouldn't recommend visiting it though, if you feel like staying alive that is."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Enough talk, you've made your choice clear. If you won't join willingly, then I'll simply have to drag your carcass into the light."

She stood from the pool and stepped towards Michael, the oil rippling beneath her as she suddenly fell to her knees.

"I'm sorry little ones, but those who have basked in the light should understand the importance of bringing in those who haven't. In return for bringing this poor child before the sun, I shall trade one hundred thousand souls, including my own."

The rippling of the oil stopped for a moment, before immediately becoming a splashing mess as the skeletal woman and oil burst into purple flames. She screamed and the oil simmered as a horned man stood from within the pool.

Michael grit his teeth upon seeing who she'd just summoned.

"Shit."

The demon cracked his neck and stuck a pose before turning towards Michael.

"Who has summoned one of the great princes of hell? The price you paid wa-. Wait a goddamn second, aren't you the guy who stole my chair?"

Amongst the burning oil stood the demon prince of pride in all his glory.