Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Previous parts(please read first):
-Part One: Meet the Family
-Part Two: It Comes in Waves
-Part Three: Box of Memories
-Part Four: Do I Know You?
-Part Five: Recovery
-Part Six: The Docks
-Part Seven: Going Up

Once outside, he could hear and smell the ocean again. He smiled. It was nice to have those familiar sensations. Eddie stuck his hand out in front of himself and walked forward untill his hand met a railing. He followed it for a while, hoping to be somewhere near cabin 304. If Bucho wasn't there, he was going to wait. Luckily he didn't have to wait long, as the sound of a familiar voice started making its way toward him, "He sent you on a vacation. I just don't think you should be attacking people like that."

Eddie pulled himself up onto the railing, grabbing a hold of the support just inches away. He reached into the pocket of the boardshorts he was still wearing, and pulled out the cylindrical thing he was fiddling with earlier. He gripped it tightly, waiting for the voice owner to get closer. He hopped down quickly, grabbing a girl by the arm, and pointing a syringe with some apparently black goo at her neck. It was the owner of the voice that he had grabbed: Bucho's girlfriend. "Don't scream if you don't want this in your throat," he whispered in her ear.

"You sonofa--," Bucho was right there and Eddie knew it. The girl couldn't have been talking to herself.

"I wouldn't try anything," Eddie said, turning his head sideways so as to listen to Bucho's movements, if any. "I really don't know what's in this thing. All I know is that it smells bad and has been sitting in this needle for too long. It could kill her, or it could give her some new disease. I really don't know." He laughed a bit, "And I don't care."

Bucho gritted his teeth. He wasn't so sure he even liked this girl, but he wasn't about to risk a person's life like that. "What do you want?"

"I want some answers. You seem to know me... so, who am I?"

"I made a mistake. I don't know you."

"DON'T LIE TO ME!" The pointing quickly turned to poking; the needle just shy of breaking the skin.

"Ok, ok." Bucho could sense Eddie's desperation. "You... you were part of an early G-Corp experement."

"Experement?" Eddie's scarf flapped around behind, almost as if it were trying to escape.

"Yes. We thought you were dead untill you came back, calling yourself LabTech X, and selling those vials you stole."

"You mean... I'm..." Eddie was stunned. Bucho's girlfriend seemed stunned and still frightened of the unconventional weapon poking her in the neck.

"Silent Flash was supposed to have finished you off three years ago! But I guess you weren't in the mansion. And then the fire," Bucho was starting to get angry. "I knew that was your doing! It had X written all over it! And you survived that. And now you're back again!" Bucho looked over the threat jamming a needle into his girlfriend's neck. "Sure you're not that same huge monster on the cliff, but you still managed to survive! You're not even human."

All throughout what Bucho had to say, Eddie found himself growing pretty angry. He pushed the girl aside and lept onto the large man, jamming the syringe into his shoulder and injecting half its contents before Bucho could react. He ripped the syringe out and pain began shooting through his arm, just enough to allow Eddie a moment of escape.

His escape was short lived as Bucho grabbed a good hold of the scarf behind Eddie's neck. He twisted his hand, giving Eddie a good choke. "How do you like it?!" Bucho jammed the syringe into Eddie's side, injecting the rest of the foul black slime into his opponent. Eddie could feel it burn intensly before he grabbed it and ripped it out. The burn, however, was still there. Suddenly, he felt something hit him in the back. Bucho had punched him right in the scar on his back. Drops of water started to drip from the sky as he screamed in severe pain.

Bucho, having found this weak spot, punched him again. The pain was paralyzing. Eddie could barely move his arms, it was so intense. The rain began to come down harder and a few more punches met Eddie's back.

Bucho kicked the door in on his cabin. The growing pain in his shoulder and arm was searing, but he wasn't going to stop. He threw Eddie hard into the large, decorative lamp, sitting on the table in the corner of the room. It shattered and Eddie's fall broke the table it sat on. He clammored around the floor, searching for some way to pull himself up. Bucho was soon ontop of him, stomping hard on Eddie's back. Eddie screamed in pain again and Bucho relented for a moment, allowing Eddie to roll himself over.

Eddie breathed heavily. This, he felt, had been a failure. Another failure in a series of failures. He had killed to... Eddie grabbed a hold of his head. Everything was flooding back all at once. Selling vials, murdering Doctor 123, attacking Gino... and even glimpses of his time before calling himself LabTech X.

It was a lot all at once. Almost as painful as a moment later when Bucho grabbed a hold of him by the scarf and slammed him up against the wall. It was a good solid slam into his back. "What're you gonna do, lap dog," Eddie/X said, "hand me over to your master?" He gritted his teeth as blood ran down his face from a headwound.

"No," Bucho said, "I'm going to end this now, for good. You're too large a threat." He dropped Eddie/X to the floor responding to the throbbing pain of the black slime coursing through his veins.

X was feeling it, too. He remembered now what it was before it had turned black, but at this point, it was probably unstable. Something new and toxic. He sat with his back against the wall, more or less where Bucho had dropped him. "What are you doing?"

Bucho held his shoulder where the needle had penetrated. He stared down at the bleeding blind man, "Where's the antidote?"

"Antidote?" X spit blood, "Are you stupid? That was sitting around for a year and a half, rotting in a closet. I didn't even know it was there. I wasn't planning on using it on myself. Why would I make an antidote?" He started to laugh with a twinge of insanity.

"Shut up!" Bucho was getting scared. Some poison was running through his body and he had no way to combat it. Before he could worry too much about his own predicament he was alerted to something going on outside by the sound of a scream.

Instinctively, X turned his head in the same direction as if trying to see, abruptly stopping his laughter. "What was that?"

Bucho darted out of the room, leaving X on the floor. That scream was clearly very important to him. X sat and listened. He could hear more screams from outside amongst the rain and strange scurrying noises. "He left," X muttered, trying to blindly work his way off the floor up the wall. "So weak." Finally up and leaning against the wall, he heard something come in. Several somethings. Many small somethings. "Who's there?!" He called out towards these somethings.

"Grruu..."

He started inching himself away, stopping when his scarf seemed to snag on something. He reached out and pulled on it. "Come on..." One of those somethings leaped at him, clinging to his side. It was soft, fuzzy, and oddly cold. X breathed a momentary sigh of relief before the grunny wrapped its mouth around the spot where Bucho had injected his with half a syringe of rotten muck. He felt the pain from the poison melting away, reversing direction.

Suddenly, as soon as the pain disappeared, the grunny fell off, flopping on the ground and turning black. Grunnies surrounded the unmoving undead bunny almost as if in reverence of its sacrifice before leaping onto it and savagely devouring their fallen comrade.

X heard it and was so very glad he was unable to see it. Before he had much time to consider what had just happened, his scarf went limp, losing the snag. A step away from the wall, and he very quicly realized he was on a ship. The storm outside was making the harbor water choppy. X stumbled a bit and was quickly made aware that the grunnies were still in the room. They seemed to want to help so he held out his hands offering a place for one to make itself comfortable. They hesitated together before one took the offer. He held it up and the strange creature licked his bloody face like a pleased puppy.

"Well, hello to you, too." He lifted up the critter and put it on his head, where, instead of latching on with its huge mouth, it grabbed a hold with its paws and oddly purred. X grinned. "You can see better than I can, little buddy, so can you get me out that door?"

"Hrrf..." it responded.

X was quickly aided out the door. The other grunnies ran behind with the grabbit bringing up the rear. Once outside, he was met with the rain on his bare skin. It was like being in the surf and suddenly he felt like he could navigate himself on the ship as if walking a giant board. A woman screamed in his direction. X sneered and then pointed angrily in her direction. A few grunnies leaped at her and X ran past.

"Grah!," the grunny on his head barked out.

X stopped. "What?"

"How...?" It was Bucho. He stood infront of LabTech X, breathing heavily.

X grinned wickedly, "Oh, this?" He spread his hands out, indicating the grunnies he was aware of. "I need to thank you for this. You broke a lot of these guys out of their cages by throwing me into them." X gave a thumbs up. "God job there, lap dog." He pointed at Bucho and spoke to the grunnies. "Help him out. He let you guys out and gave me my memory back."

Bucho backed up, trying to avoid getting a grunny attached to his head. One grunny did leap up, but it landed on his shoulder, biting into the point where he had been injected. Almost immediately, the poor thing started turning black. It fell off, dead on the deck, and slid off the side, into the water below. Bucho put his hand on his shoulder. It wasn't hurting anymore, but there were some large bite marks. He was stunned for a moment before getting angry.

X grabbed a hold of the railing as the ship swayed. "When we meet again... I'll kill you." He grinned, suddenly changing moods, "Thanks for the memories," he half sung, free hand in a wave, before leaping over the railing and into the water below, with a large splash, grunnies following behind, save for the remaining green monsters causing chaos on the cruise ship.

Bucho rushed over, looking over the railing, but X was gone. The ship, he noticed, seemed to be slowly moving away from the dock. "Oh. Crap." It looked like this little vacation might just take a little longer.