Enter The Ninjaverse

CHAPTER 102

It was finally time to make his move.

Morro had listened to everything happening inside of the Iron Demise. He stood right outside the main cockpit, listening to Krux sigh and gripe about his brother's decisions, listening to the noises of battle that echoed even as deep as here. He'd even heard someone shouting their names on a megaphone. He wasn't sure what was going on, but when he felt the Iron Demise move, he knew it was time for him to finally do what he'd been told to do.

In his left hand, he still held Oni's Realm Crystal, stolen from him. He'd waited this long to see if Oni would notice the fact that it was missing. It seemed that, for now, he'd gotten away with the theft. In his other hand, he gripped hold of a single card that would give him access to the core of the Iron Demise. He'd figured out what he had to do to stop this foul machine.

And so Morro took off walking, quickly through the halls. He wasn't sure if the machine had moved again, but he could sense that the snakes in the walls were more rattled than normal. They were likely simply excited from the first order from the Hive Mind in a long time. Morro chose not to think about how, at any moment, the walls could open up and swallow him whole each time he'd been this machine's battery, how they would wrap around every single part of him and drag him into a swirling mass of red that would barely let him breathe, suffocating him under their slimy scales and fangs that brushed and bit into anywhere they could grab him...

Part of Morro did want to stop walking. If the Twins caught him, he'd be killed. If the Vermillion stopped him, he'd be brought to them. He'd been used as their fuel for too long. Right now, he was the key to help everyone. So he kept walking through the deep, red-light bowels of the Iron Demise. He walked into elevator after elevator, silent and contemplative as he did. His muscles relaxed despite begging to twist up, each moment making him more desperate to run.

The trip through the Demise took several minutes. Morro went down at least twelve stories, perhaps even more, just to get to the core. It was considered "close" to the main control unit so the Twins could get there quickly. But right now, that wasn't the case. As he left each elevator, he swiped the card he had to disable it. There was no going back for him.

Soon enough, Morro arrived at a rather large hallway, this one being framed by massive vine-like wires that seemed to spread out like an infection amongst the red mass of living snakes. He looked towards them with a long frown, trying to parse out what he was looking at. The wires all led to one massive door that was a massive black metal, guarded by three Vermillion that each stood as unmovable sentries. Morro frowned, slowly forming his aura of Chi around him.

From above the Vermillion, a flash of green light drew their eyes. As they looked up, they saw a flash of light that swirled in several circles, then shot down the hallway. Two Vermillion growled and picked up their weapons to go after it, walking past where Morro hid. Morro pulled his hood down over his face, then quickly rolled forward and slunk along the edge of the wall while the other Vermillion continued to look up for the light. Just as he reached the snake, he had to duck as the Vermillion turned to look at him. The shadows of the hall saved him as he quickly and quietly opened the door and slunk past it. Morro recalled his Chi, his hawk soaring back towards him and landing on his arm, getting a pat on the head before it faded away.

Morro turned his head forward, looking to the room where he was with awe. He'd seen this room before in the blueprints he'd downloaded, but seeing the massive scale of it momentarily took his breath away. He stood on a large, circular catwalk, with large metal stairs that went down to others that lay beneath him. They all surrounded a massive crystal, no less than twenty feet high, that looked as though the Iron Demise itself had ripped it from the earth. The thing glowed a powerful green, and from the shimmer of its surface, Morro could tell it was chronosteel or something similar. The green power seemed to froth and writhe inside of it, begging to be released. Large metal probes were attached to the crystal, no doubt in place to spark and set the thing alight when it needed to use its power.