Logically thinking, Lank saw no use threading the path of trouble, it was much easier to turn it down and request going back to their room.
'Just go with the flow, there must be tons of adventure waiting for you in there.' A sinister voice snickered in Lanks' thought.
'Don't listen to him, all you need to do is turn down the offer, you might get into a lot of trouble because of this, it's not worth risking your time on.' A calm voice countered and belittled the other.
Shaking away both thoughts, he had already made up his mind to go through with what he had in mind. "Sure, it would be nice to see something out of the ordinary."
Obsidian's face lit up at his response, nodding his head, he made the converging tentacles fit into the tubelike path.
A bright light fluctuated before normalizing inside.
Tuff!
A smoke mist escaped from the latch and evaporated.
Cough!
Cough!
"Dude!" Lank hissed, pinching his nose at how putrid of a smell escaped to his sensitive nose.
When he looked to his side, he was shocked to see Obsidian have a fluid tentacle wrapped around his nose.
"I had come here remember, you think I wouldn't be prepared?" Obsidian justified his action and was followed with a laugh.
Lank furrowed his brows and wasn't at all pleased with what he had inadvertently been put through. "That's not fair!"
"Happy now?"
Lank took in a deep breath and exhaled. The putrid smell had greatly been reduced and he could smell properly to his relief.
"If you'd ask me, I'd prefer the one on you." He pointed at the makeshift mask on Obsidian's face.
"It's not a part of you, so deal with it. You wouldn't want it strangling you instead." Obsidian laughed it off while hinting at the thoughts it had towards anyone other than its host.
"Tch–" Lank scoffed and walked in with the roll of his eyes.
As the mist dispersed, he could see several transparent jars containing strange liquids.
Blue, red, green, pink, yellow, black, maroon, orange... It had all the colors he could think of as he stared at the cast number of the lot on shelves.
"What in the..."
"Yeah, weird shit huh?" Obsidian walked to his side and deactivated the tentacles and the glow in his eyes stopped.
"This is beyond weird." Lank corrected. "What is in that stuff?"
He had wanted to touch one of the jars when his wrist was firmly held in place by Obsidian.
He shook his head and made a hush gesture with his index finger. "Look."
Lank looked to his right in the direction that he had been made to look into.
On the wall was a metal signboard that read, "Hazardous energy, keep away or risk unprecedented mutation."
Lank gulped as he reread and replayed the information in his head, thinking of various scenarios on how that would have played out if it weren't for Obsidian's intervention.
As he gradually came to terms with the decision he had almost fallen for, he felt thankful and was determined to make Obsidian know this, "you're a real–"
"You're pretty stupid," Obsidian spat and shook his head, "no wonder you were having the weird thought that I was going to kill you."
With that Obsidian clicked his tongue and shoved his hands into his fitted green jeans pants.
Lank was left stunned as he was temporarily unable to speak after the incident and watched Lank walk in the opposite direction and towards another stack of jars on another shelf.
Left with no choice, he followed Obsidian until he crashed into the back of Obsidian with his unprecedented stop.
Rubbing his forehead, he was surprised at how bad that hurt, "you've got iron in there or something?"
Rolling his eyes to the words, he chose not to speak more on that and pulled out a jar with glowing white liquid spiraling over a sense black one below.
Lank's jaws dropped at the action. He had been shown that it was dangerous to get in contact with the jars, yet it was okay for Obsidian?
"Did you trick me?" Lank questioned, raising his chin and narrowing his eyes.
"Be chill," Obsidian hushed and had a smirk on his lips, throwing a wink his way.
"I am built differently, you know that."
"Built differently my ass." Lank retorted, feeling threatened by what he was implying.
Even though Obsidian looked and acted like more of a perfect version of what the organization had always wanted, deep down he just wished that he had the same privilege.
Observing Lank's downhearted mood, he proceeded to hand him the jar. "I had said we would have some fun..."
Lank stared at Obsidian's outstretched arms and wondered if it was safe to take the jar, or if it was merely because of guilt that he was responding.
"Why are you giving me that?" Lank questioned and was a lot inquisitive about what all of them meant.
"It's the safest and most pure out of all." He pressured once more for Lank to reconsider.
Shaking his head, he took a step back, careful not to hit the shelf behind him.
Lank tilted his head in confusion as to why he was trying to avoid him. "Don't you want to know what all of these are?"
Lank paused and cast a long hard look at him. "It's about time I was told what is going on."
Obsidian looked around them and shrugged. " It was only fair that I do some touring first before we decide to cause some havoc."
He rubbed his hands together and let out a maniac laugh.
Lank immediately picked on the words' 'cause some havoc.' He should have pointed it out but was too confused as to how they were going to carry it out.
"That's right," Obsidian nodded his head as if he could read his mind so effortlessly. "Where's the fun in all that if we don't have that in the very place meant to be secret?"
Lank's lips drew into a thin line as he wondered what was going on in his head. He still had not known what was in these jars.
"What are these?" He questioned and folded his arms with a straight face while he pointed at the majority.
Obsidian gulped at how adamant he was about knowing about the truth he very much wanted to rot and burn.
"They are the extracted life forces of the mutated core members of this organization. I had heard of this tale from Mr. Zhao but had thought it was some sort of fairytale."
Lank nodded his head, temporarily understanding what was said, and needed more info. "Why are you showing it only to me when you have the aim of destroying it anyway?"
Obsidian shook his head and quickly chipped in, "When I mean core members, I mean all of the core members since the founding of this organization."
"How the heck are they here?" Lank hissed in reply, shocked by the news and the meaning it had to each of the jars.
Placing the jar back onto the shelf after he had realized his eyes glowed in response. Obsidian rubbed his eyes and took steady breaths of air.
Obsidian licked on the back of his palm and brushed onto his ear, temporarily feeling the need to calm himself before he continued.
"These are the remains and essence carefully preserved in this weird chamber. That would explain the putrid gas you had smelt a few minutes ago." He explained.
Lank scrunched his nose in disgust.
"Those scumbags!" He exclaimed, suddenly enraged that such a compartment was present.
The organization had fooled the entire city that they had given a befitting burial for every one of its members who had died while on duty–lies!!
"Why didn't you tell the others about this?" He continued out of curiosity.
Obsidian looked the other way immediately at the accusation. He had thought of involving Nix, but when he had considered his ties with Lumina, there was no way he could think properly if he knew what was hidden inside that glowing liquid on the shelf.
'It's better to burn it all down, leave no trace of it ever used for evil.' He vowed in his thoughts.
Refusing to speak on that, he chose a topic of distraction, the very one that could delay what he had planned.
"You are the only one that I could reach out to first and this could strengthen our friendship. Don't you think so?" Obsidian offered his hand for a shake.
Lank stared at his hand and wondered if he could go through with it. These were proof that the organization was lying, why burn them?
Noticing that Lank was reluctant in accepting his offer, he smiled and spoke up again. "Do you know what they use these essences for?"
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