Chapter Text
Pest was having a weird morning. When he’d first woken up at the ripe hour of 2 in the morning, he’d stumbled haphazardly to his workbench only to find a yellow cat snoozing on top of it. It took a hot minute for him to remember everything leading up to him bringing NULL of all people back to his den.
He’d stared at him for a long few moments, the hairs on the back of his neck rising up for some reason. He stepped forward, hand hovering over the sleeping creature indecisively. This had all been a bad idea. Why had he told Retro he could take care of NULL? Why had he thought he of all people could even care for himself, let alone a newly turned cat who had its own set of issues— no one in Retro’s group was equipped to deal with the Aco Sun.
Pest should just toss NULL out by the scruff now. Put him in the Elevator while he was sleeping and let fate take it’s course. He had no idea why DrRetro cared at all about helping or taking care of NULL in the first place— it was probably some kind of misplaced empathy she naturally had from being a doctor.
Pest, as usual, had to do all the dirty work himself. NULL’s sudden… disappearance would probably be detrimental for him little cult, Pest just had to finish the job. Pest just had to—
A raspy purr snapped Pest out of his stupor. Blinking, he looked down at the subject of his thoughts, who was currently blinking sleepily and rubbing his cheek against Pest’s hand.
…On second thought, maybe Pest should just tinker with that modified diffuser he’d scavenged earlier. That sounded more fun than this moral panic. With an exhausted chitter, he pulled his hand away like he’d been burned and turned to his scrap bin.
- - - -
NULL didn’t remember falling asleep. That fact was disconcerting enough by itself. He wasn’t used to “needing” sleep at all, and he quickly realized that that was something he’d need to get used to for the foreseeable future.
At some point after (or before? During?) NULL dozed off, he’d tucked his paws underneath himself
He blinked, using a paw to bat at the gunk that had built up around his eyes while he slept. It was less than effective. He pushed himself up clumsily, jaws stretching open in a massive yawn. Pest was already awake, laying on his back in his nest and tinkering with something in his claws.
The beetle held the object close to his face. (his expression was scrunched up in concentration in a manner that made NULL feel… something.) He didn’t look up when NULL meowed, or even when he jumped down from the desk and padded closer to him.
Irritating, to say the least. Pest had the audacity to kidnap him to his den (even if NULL hadn’t had any better ideas of what to do) and couldn’t even pay attention to them?
It took NULL bumping his head against Pest’s arm for him to startle and look up, nearly dropping the metal contraption with an irritated chitter.
“そんな風に驚かせるなよ、バカ!” Pest snapped, shooing NULl away.
The former helperbot huffed and scampered a few steps back before circling back around to face the beetle. Pest had gone back to examining the metal thing as if he was afraid he’d broken it. Judging from his sigh of relief and subsequent glare in the direction of the helperbot, he hadn’t.
- - - - -
It was a cheery morning, (maybe morning? The Regretevator didn’t really have a day/night cycle, but this was the time most floors were morning) when a certain Noob stepped onto the Elevator. Well, “stepped” was being generous. It was more like a sort of combination of a skip, hop, and stumble that propelled them off Happy Home Party.
Uno, Dos, and Tres had let Poob crash at their place while Poob’s apartment was still getting repaired. Poob didn’t really mind sleeping in basically a half-broken crater, but they’d insisted.
…Poob had never really slept well outside of their apartment, though. They always got weird dreams about eyes and Aspen leaves and power and oughhh… they had a headache again. Best not to think about it.
No one else was on the elevator yet, so Poob just contented themselves with standing in the corner and rocking back and forth on the balls of their feet. They didn’t really mind being alone, contrary to what most might assume. There was so much to think about! Pest’s birthday was in just a few weeks, and they already had to start planning that Halloween bash…
Poob chewed on their party horn thoughtfully. That Halloween part was really going to be a problem— they couldn’t think of any ideas that weren’t way too gory for some reason. Bah. Maybe Pest would appreciate that sort of thing.
Poob jumped a little when the elevator dinged, signaling it’s arrival on the next floor. That seemed surprisingly fast.
As the doors opened, Poob waited the customary few seconds to make sure there wouldn’t be any bullets before poking their head out. A weird-looking machine with a glass tube attached to it rested in the center of the seemingly innocent room. Was this a new floor? They couldn’t really put their finger on why that surprised them so much.
With a curious blow of their horn, the partygoer stepped in front and pressed the first button they saw.
- - - - - - -
DrRetro hissed as she emptied the last of her coffee mug, setting it down on her desk a little harder than necessary with her right paw and bringing her left up to rub at her temple. She’d been at it for hours trying to find information about that new floor, how the machine worked, how to reverse the effects…
She just couldn’t focus. Not when the subject of her research was a solution to a problem that was only tangentially related to the bigger issues at play at the Regretevator. She wanted NULL to break away from that cult, she really did, but she honestly wasn’t sure if this transformation would help or hinder that process. Not to mention the effect it seemed to be having on Pest, for whatever reason.
So far, all the doctor had discovered was that the machine was hooked up to one of the many types of power sources running throughout the floors of the Regretevator— this one in particular being a sort of invisible ‘Chaos Factor,” as she’d lovingly deemed it.
The machine itself was more of a filter for that energy, specifically making the effect be only to turn people into cats for whatever reason.
So, she knew how it all worked. It really hadn’t been that hard to figure out. What she didn’t know, what she’d been working on for hours now, was how to reverse it.
She groaned, leaning back in her chair with a big yawn and stretch. The doctor found herself closing her eyes, before forcing them open with a spike of adrenaline. She needed to keep working. Falling asleep, ever, was detrimental considering Her abilities, especially because of the knowledge Retro now had about NULL that Folly didn’t.
She stood up, swaying on her feet briefly before padding to the exit door in her office. Speaking with Mach was probably her best bet.