Meat Slop

Sometimes as a gag, Iris would pay in cash and revert it back into her pocket. If she was feeling adventurous, she would revert a repaired bag of chips to its shelf and leave the food in her stomach. She hoped to both match Amelie's rank and Eva's impishness: it was rumored that Eva had once spent an afternoon swapping the taste of every item in a grocery store and put the spiciness of ghost peppers into the pints of ice cream.

Especially around Urasaria, the best pranks are those with an element of depraved sociopathy.

On her way back from a grocery trip she had the vague sense she was being stalked, though when she looked around she saw no one. This had been happening with increasing frequency lately, and she thought it could only be that tall woman she had fled from, or... Viktoria, whose hatred of her had been getting way out of hand.

Recent months had deepened her deranged obsession with Iris, and she let her know of it frequently, outside of her class and approaching her when Olivia wasn't around. There she would invoke the name of Natasha for sympathy, with the implication that the aura of the woman had been absorbed into her and that to disrespect one was to disrespect the other. To Viktoria Iris's hatred of her was inscrutable, and the easiest inscrutability she could latch onto was evil; so be Iris its agent or its principal, she would wreak that hate back upon.

Iris shrugged and thought she'd pop the bitch's skull if needed. Viktoria was two years ahead of her, but Iris was the student with 2 Revenants: a fact most thought as bullshit but could offer no explanation how she used both Phantom and Meteorology's abilities. So far as she liked to tell, it imbued her with a level of strength and endurance befitting the combination of herself & Natasha.

She headed back home to Olivia and gave Olivia her requested dinner -- a pint of chocolate mint ice cream -- and set out the ingredients for her own on the counter -- bacon-wrapped pork tenderloins.

Olivia started prepping. "And just so you know, it's 30 grams of protein, 16 grams of fat, and 200 calories each."

"I'm just intrigued to see it."

With Kairos' assistance Olivia finished quickly, then plated it for Iris and smiled as she watched her eat through it. Her eyes were a little elsewhen, but all else gave way to the reduced simplicity of her memories. "Good?"

"Good."

"I like seeing you actually eat something that tastes good for a change."

Iris shrugged. "Effect on my physique matters more to me than the taste. Just convenient that this fulfills both."

Olivia's tablet vibrated, and her & Iris set out to a city covered in smog and an infection of engineering. A massive outdoor factory stood ahead of them; machines assembled machines that assembled machines that assembled machines, their ingredients passed between themselves via yellow conveyor belts and small swiveling crane-hands growing from the arid ground. A wide line of transport belts spread outward from the factory, continually growing out of these twisted aisles of machinery.

"Let me check where the host is." muttered Iris. She launched herself up 50ft and blasted away the pollution as she launched herself another 50 to survey the factory from above, but a million bullets & shotgun slugs & lasers & cannons & missiles shot at her from all around and she landed instantly back down. "Suppose we're going in the normal way."

"Can you manipulate any of it?"

"Nope." She pitched a bolt of green lightning into the transport belts growing towards them, yet before it struck the belt paused and her lightning charred it black; a swarm of drones flew out from the machines to repair it, yet another swarm of lightning kept them away. "It's disconnecting itself to keep the electricity from travelling through the system."

She sighed and figured Meteorology's half would be working for most of this as the transport belts continued to spread towards them; she allowed it as Baal chewed through a chunk of dirt below, and onto the lengthening corridor of belts they walked, its speed pressing against their own as they rushed forward. Deeper into that corridor of smog & pollution they ventured; a sphere of wind formed over them and kept their sight clear as they followed the source of the transport belts around another corner of machinery, and in the next instant -

- a glut of oil was spewed onto them from a line of pumpjacks at their left, and Iris realized there were train tracks at their left & right; a hook of wind tugged her & Olivia onto the center belt as two trains sped by them in opposite directions, a line of flame rushing beside & at them -

- but Baal slurped the oil from their bodies and a single tongue-tap disintegrated it from them, a single rush of snow extinguishing the line of flames; Iris glanced back and noted a line of flamethrower turrets atop one of the trains, then continued her forward rush as more pumpjacks spewed oil at them and Baal swallowed every last drop spewed into its hungry maw, black liquid spurting and gushing out down its fetid lips until Olivia smacked it for bad behavior.

The pollution grew thicker as they continued their rush, heavy gusts of wind periodically dispersing it; shotgun slugs and bullets came out from the miasma (but not that one), but the air hyper-slowed and the bullets paused as if in a disturbed gel; once Iris & Olivia were 80ft away, her range dulled and the bullets slammed into each other behind. Above, they heard a swarm of drones and could only barely see the rain of grenades that followed, the tin of tracks again rustling behind -

" - train!" shouted Olivia and Iris grabbed her as she launched herself right; with a bit of risk she launched themselves further up, and midair at their left she saw the swarm of explosive-carrying drones -

- and a single bolt of green lightning arced between every autonomous drone within that swarm, her fingers twitching as her electricity twisted and hit the grenades; a rain of explosions followed as a line of bullets followed them from out of the smog, and she had no choice but to accelerate the explosion dry and launch herself into the midst of that past-mayhem, turning once she entered and repeating the explosion around themselves to blast away the flood of bullets now seeking them, a moment of respite as both hovered in that vortex of explosives, continually rebirthing around them, waves pressing outward but no resurrection of the inner damage.

A sphere of wind cleared their sight and they saw themselves above the factory, millions of bullets & grenades & shotgun slugs repeatedly launched towards them, yet the repeated explosion blasting the projectiles away & apart, Iris speaking: "Down?"

Olivia shook her head. "Host."

"Check for me."

From within the explosion Iris peeled forth a dot of sight out from the repeated barrage, then another as Olivia kept her vision out; on the third, a single laser shot through it and towards Iris -

- but a single igneous rock absorbed its light away and blocked it; beside her, Olivia pointed to a patch of sight near the center of the factory, and there Iris launched herself & Olivia; even in the smog she could see it now, approaching it from 300ft away, a titanic mechanical spider of many mechanical eyes & legs, standing at the beginning of these many corridors & aisles of transport belts; it caught sight of them from 200ft away and turned, its lasers warming, miniguns spinning up; 100ft separated them as missile launchers popped out from its legs, and as they came 50ft within -

- Iris arced herself & Olivia over it, Baal vomiting a torrent of oil back down upon it; a single geyser of lava split it wide open and it fell into fiery pieces, a still-beating heart falling out of it alongside a swarm of dead fish, city around reverting from a factory of machines back into an urban factory of clinical depression.

Iris landed and they rushed up to the heart. Olivia took out her tablet.

"Naomi?" whispered Iris, believing the woman Scylla against Charybdiss.

"Lemme check her location." Olivia checked on her tablet. "This bitch is in Arkansas, what the fuck? Nah, we'll just scan this one."

[FACTORIO: Manufacturing of machines that assemble machines that assemble machines that assemble machines that assemble transport belts, munitions, trains, artillery, lasers, spidertrons; spews pollution that renders itself immune to electricity; the factory must grow.]