exeggutorhead | 64th Transformation [FOURTH WALL]

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fourth wall

64th Transformation [FOURTH WALL]

[Envy's having a little bit of an issue this weekend.]

[Not swarming Pokemon or even teleportation, oh no. Those, he's gotten fairly good at handling. It's weird that these weekends are something anybody could get used to, but he just about has.]

[No, this time the problem is musical. There's a haunting song playing instead of the background music wherever Envy finds himself. It's scratchy and clearly sounds like it's coming out of an old phonograph, and he KNOWS that if he looks hard enough he'll probably find the damn thing somewhere. He knows he will because he DOES keep finding it, smashing it, and getting an hour or two of quiet before it COMES BACK.]

[Honestly, any reminders of his old master aside, he's spent four centuries listening to this waily goddamn song and he's just sick of it. So during the weekend, if anybody comes across him while the song is going, they'll find him pulling up bushes with his bare hands to look behind them and kicking around any spot where a phonograph could be hiding, trying to get it. And Envy will absolutely recruit passersby to help him out.]

[If the song isn't playing at the moment and providing a distraction, he'll be wandering around anywhere, still in the oddly subdued mood he's been in the past few weeks.]

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[While Envy can recognize faces and body shapes like nobody's business, he's not so great with knotholes.]

[And this HAS to be Henry, right? Same shirt, even. He's probably just in shock from waking up a tree.]

Hey, c'mon, come with me. We can go back to the house for a while.

_{[His tail winds around his feet as an awful rattling hiss starts coming out of the zig-zag mouth that looks all but carved into Henry's face.]}

Who are you...

[THIS...IS NOT RIGHT.]

[A bit more cautiously, he says:]

Envy...you are Henry, aren't you?

Stop...stop saying that!

_{[Pasty disgusting vermin! Walking fertilizer! He even smells like a Rotan! Henry snarls and then he lunges, twisted tree claws swinging.]}

Hey, hey look--

[Envy could probably have dodged that. He's got the speed, the reflexes right now.]

[But even this strange tree Henry...he was still thinking of Henry. And he just honestly didn't expect to be attacked.]

[The claws go right into him in a spray of blood, and he crumples around them. His last thought is oh, goddamn it. A homunculus can be killed just as easily as a human can...at least before they get back up.]

[But for now, Envy appears to be as dead as dead can be. It always takes a second or two to come back.]

_{[When the 'human' falls, Hentree pauses for a moment, shaking with rage and fear. Then the instincts kick in because what else are you going to do with a freshly dead or dying body?]

[WE goin' to Wendy's.]

[The tree looms and its root-like claws prepare to extend downward to push into Envy's flesh and start eating him as only a tree can.]}

[They're about to go in when Envy's eyes snap from glassy to alive and aware. The wounds from Hentree's claws are already starting to knit back together in a glow of white alchemic sparks.]

[On a scale of unpleasantness from one to ten, waking up from the dead to see a treeman version of your best friend looming and about to stick roots in you is somewhere around a twelve.]

[He also sees those roots headed in the general direction of his stomach HEY HELL NO THAT'S WHERE HIS RED STONES ARE. THOSE ARE HIS. He reaches out with his arm that's not still healing and tries to grab for the claws, cat's eyes narrowed in extreme annoyance. He doesn't know precisely what Hentree is going to do with them but he has an idea that it wouldn't be good.]

HEY! Quit that, what the hell'd you go and do that for?! I didn't do anything to you!

_{[Henry leaned in to continue the circle of life when his meal suddenly popped awake. Before he knows what's happening, a strong hand is wrapped around his wrist.]

[!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

[This was exactly as alarming as your burger suddenly biting you back. The tree creature was so alarmed that he wound up shutting down, the only sound escaping him being a long, high pitched screech of dismay.]}

[Envy takes the opportunity to try pushing the roots further away from him and scooting so that he can stand up. The wounds are mostly healed up by now, although the blood doesn't disappear from Henry's claws or the ground.]

[He's tempted to leave Tree Henry here in the street; he's still really annoyed and this clearly isn't his friend. But...he looks enough like him (y'know, for a tree), and he's clearly freaking out...and what if it IS his Henry, but something's happened to him?]

[SIGH. But if he gets attacked again, this time he'll be ready. Maybe if he just talks calmly and firmly, that'll work.]

Okay, yeah, I come back to life. And I can do that as many times as you kill me. So you might as well not.

I'll give you that ONE time, got it? No retaliation. And if you come with me, I can tell you about what's going on.

Understand?

[After a moment's consideration, he extends a hand. It's mainly a symbolic gesture, he doesn't really expect Hentree to take it.]

_{[Henry's knothole eyes widened in terror as Envy rebuilt himself from the core outward. No! No no no! This couldn't be happening! ROTAN! ROTAN SCUM! When the hand was offered, the nymph recoiled and let out a screech.]}

What ARE you!

...Uh?

_{[Drawn by the sounds of his friend in danger, Henry had abandoned trying to get a really good photo of a very real actual car from Cars. With his camera at the ready, he's frozen on the corner, staring at his bloodied friend and...a really familiar looking tree.]}

I'm--

[Envy looks over when he hears Henry's?? voice, confused. So...there are two Henrys?]

[what]

[At least HIS Henry hasn't been turned into some kind of plant chimera. Envy would be more confused if he didn't come from a world with multiple versions of people, but uh still this is weird. He backs up a few more steps from Hentree, getting a little between the two of them, and calls without taking his eyes off the tree version.]

Henry, do you know anything about turning into a plant?

[FROM WHAT HE'S HEARD OF SILENT HILL, IT'S A VALID QUESTION. IS THIS NORMAL??]

_{[He gapes for a moment not unlike a Magikarp before snapping back to reality.]}

I know that I'm not one for once!

_{[The towering Hentree just balked at the other Henry. It was like seeing a ghost, but there he was! The way he was supposed to be. His face with real skin and eyes! His feet that could fit into shoes! Was this some trick of the Fourth God? Was this the strange case of the Two Walters he'd seen back on his original adventure?]

[Whatever it was, Hentree didn't like it. So he spread his thorny jaws in a scream and lunged at his human double.]}

[Killing Envy? He can let that go, it's not too big a deal. Yeah it hurts and it's annoying, but ultimately he's died plenty of times and in worse ways before.]

[Attacking one of Envy's friends though? His human friend who doesn't regenerate, no less?]

[NOPE, NOT HAPPENING.]

[Envy darts forward to straight up TACKLE Hentree as hard as he can, hoping to knock him to the ground and hold him there if he can manage it.]

HEY!

_{[The nymph lets out a roar of surprised when he's rammed into and goes down like a...well you know what he goes down like.]}

_{[Henry had already bolted, still having some of his horror protag instincts in tact. When the monster fell with Envy attacking him, he wheeled around.]}

DO THE DRAGON THING!

[You know what? The dragon thing sounds like a GREAT idea right now.]

[Envy transforms, his body going from a tiny human one to the giant, scaled loops of the serpentine dragon he'd showed Henry once before.]

[Except this time, he gives himself a pair of dragon arms too. He coils in a circle around Hentree to box him in, and aims to pin him to the ground with one clawed hand.]

Stay down, I'm done being nice.

_{[Henry is ready to get up, he's ready for a second round. He makes another savage noise and twists his body around in an unnatural way to slash at Envy, but suddenly the pasty, long-haired man is gone and in his place is an enormous green noodle of death. He is slammed against the ground.]

[He writhes and scratches at the dragon's claws but there's not a lot a stick can do to a very real literal dragon. This is the worst day.]}

_{[Henry, meanwhile, is panting, hands on his knees. It looks like the Monster Him is contained for now. Perhaps against his better judgement, he approaches the scene, wide-eyed.]}

I've been here for a long time...but I've never seen anything like this.

[Satisfied that Hentree isn't going anywhere, Envy turns his attention to Henry.]

I haven't either...I've seen other versions of people, but nothing like THIS.

What should we do with him? I tried getting him to calm down, it didn't work.

[THEN THINGS ESCALATED he's pretty sure that Hentree isn't going to calm down anytime soon. Considering that the tree is Henry's weird double, he figures his friend should have most of the say in what happens--he's decided already that Hentree had his chance to have a say and very promptly lost it.]

_{[He leans around Envy's coils, trying to see the weird leafy mirror of himself. The nymph just hisses and tries to bite through Envy's scales with his poisonous teeth.]}

We need to tell somebody.

[Sadly for Hentree, the scales are difficult to get through, and even if he does then poison doesn't really work on homunculi. But it still hurts, like a bee sting, and Envy bares his teeth warningly.]

Not the cops, they'd probably just think he was some new Pokemon and we'd get in trouble.

Let's take him back to the house, we can stick him in the basement or kitchen or something and call around.

[He straightens up like a cobra, picking the angry monster up as he rises and holding onto him with both clawed hands. Not too tightly; he still doesn't want to badly injure him.]

[But maybe a little tighter than he'd strictly have to. He's still mad.]

You can hitch a ride if you want, it'd be faster.

_{[It's rare for Henry to smile wide enough for it to reach his eyes, but this? This was a fucking grin that would put Totoro to shame.]}

Yes please!

_{[The ride will have to wait, because a bolt of black streaking down from above promptly collides with the back of Envy's head, right behind one of those earlike fins sprouting from the sides of his jaw. And then it proceeds to SINK A WHOLE LOT OF CLAWS AND TEETH IN.]

[Because that is HER TREE that the dragon has clamped in his coiled claws.]

[HARPY HEATHER HAS JOINED THE PARTY]}

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