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[virtupets]

Sloth didn't get very far after making his rushed exit from talking with Brody. His head kept swimming, and he kept hearing things. But not actual hearing; like there were thoughts that were floating through the air, and then slipping themselves inside of his brain. Causing him to read memories or thinking in tandem with a complete stranger

Comments

[neospacefairy]

Good question.

After her own chat with Brody, Lumindra appears suddenly again, hot on Frank Sloth's trail. Stopping only mere minutes behind him, first at his stopping place in the Nexus, then through to Neopia, and finally his office. Door locks are for people other than her.

"Frank?"

[virtupets]

He jumps violently, whirling around already and splaying his hands flat against the stainless steel doors like a trapped animal.

"Wh-...! You! I-...Oh gawd, I don't know what's going on, Lumindra. Did you do this to me? It was either you or that brat, I know it!" Sloth advances on her quickly, and angrily. He grabs tight onto one of her wrists.

"Fix it! Do it now, or they'll never find so much a speck of stardust when your sisters look for your body, I swear it!"

[neospacefairy]

Now, see, you don't just grab the Space Faerie like that. That's just stupid.

The Space Faerie and Dr. Sloth have fought, physically fought, many, many times in their checkered past. She can't count the times that she's blasted him across a room with a well-timed burst of magic. Their exchanged blows have been cheered on by hundreds, if not thousands of Pets over the years.

What they don't realize is that she's never hit him before. Not with her hand. Not just swinging back and slapping him across the face.

Which is what she does right now. It takes some work, seeing as he's so much taller than her, but she manages.

"Control yourself! You know I didn't do this, and that boy has all the power of a pile of sludge! Now what's happened? What's happening to you?"

[virtupets]

The worst part is he does know, after some involuntary concentration, that she's right. He can see and sense the clarity of truth in her words and mind. Neither she or Brody are to blame; Sloth's just reacting in the first emotion he always does when things are spiraling out of his control; anger.

The most shocking part is the fact he just got slapped. It snaps him out of his mad quite nicely, since it really just leaves him feeling stunned. And for a blessed moment, his mind is silent, as the only sound now ringing is the one of her hand smacking across his face

[neospacefairy]

She zips through the Nexus like a particularly active and hot water molecule. Zipping here, and there, and all over the place, sometimes moving so quickly she's not even a blur. She makes blurs look slow and lazy. Because this needed fixing yesterday.

At first, she loses her bearings. The Nexus is so...organic. It changes every moment. The sofa that was there yesterday could be a koi pond tomorrow. Trees spring up overnight. New portals, constantly shifting, constantly moving. Even if you were staring right at something and would swear up and down it hadn't changed, it would do so anyway. Just to spite you. Nasty thing, the Nexus. You needed to roll a very high number to pass your SAN check

[virtupets]

Meanwhile, the time that's passed since Lumindra left is hard to say for Frank Sloth. But it doesn't really matter, because regardless of it being several hours or scant minutes, it feels like an agonizing eternity.

There had been a feverish attempt to lose himself in his work, standing at one of his chalkboards, scribbling out plans and notes. But his mind kept wandering. Or more accurately, getting tugged away by someone else's. Other people's thoughts either drifted by, or barged into his. It's only when he steps back and looks over his work does Sloth realize what he's written thus far makes no sense; it's nothing but aimless scrawls, equations that mean nothing or stop suddenly partway through, or, worst of all, him transcribing the thoughts he's hearing. A sleeve is angrily swiped over the board, blurring all that he wrote.

Sloth eventually stumbles towards his study, fumbling for books to try and read, anything to try and not hear them. But nothing is readable when your thoughts are constantly derailed by someone else's

[neospacefairy]

Which is, of course, when Lumindra reappears, triumphant.

"Ah hah! Got it!"

Then she sees the position he's in...and the sheet stained with his blood.

"Frank!"

The card is almost dropped as she hurries to his side. She actually looks utterly horrified, for once the proper expression crossing her face without it being pre-planned or thought out. She tucks the card into her belt and pinches at the bridge of his nose with some very strong faerie fingers.

"You stubborn, bad-tempered, idiotic fool! I told you, let me help you, oh, what on Neopia am I going to DO with you?!"

Those insults, that rhetorical question, are the signs of a faerie in distress, and should not be taken literally. She tries to clean him up, fretting and gnawing at her lip the whole time.

"I told you to let me handle it, I said! Oh, Frank..."

She's going to keep doing this until he shuts her up.

[virtupets]

It's bad enough every brain in the vicinity is chattering. Now she's started in as well. Cripes.

Sloth finds he doesn't know what to do with his sight right now; if he opens them, his vision swims and his eyes water. If he closes them, it seems to only make the thoughts louder. Sometimes he can almost see them behind his closed eyelids. Or maybe he's just imagining that...

"Get off, woman," he growls, though his voice sounds kind of stuffy thanks to the blood in his throat and nose, and the fact the Space Faerie's still pinching the latter. But it doesn't stop Sloth from roughly trying to brush her aside.

"As if it's not bad enough I'm losing my mind, my very brain is hemorrhaging along with it. Fantastic." That's probably not true (at least in the fact it's his brain doing the bleeding), but his headache makes that feel pretty believable.