The Mech Touch

"What is your name?"

"What were your positions in phase whale society?"

"Where can I find more phase whales?"

"Do you know the coordinates of any phase whale enclaves?"

Ves asked one question after another to the most powerful prisoner of the previous battle.

Much to his disappointment, the interrogation of the salvaged spirituality of the unclean whale did not proceed as smoothly as he thought.

Each time Ves asked a question, the raw and damaged spirit violently tried to resist his captivity and leverage as much power as possible against his killers!

"What did you do to condemn yourself to the Palace of Shame?" Ves inquired again as he stood in front of his floating cyborg cat.

RAGE! GODBLOOD! DESTROY!

A burst of lethal fury emanated from the new cat's belly! Ves could almost see the manifestation of the unclean whale trying to drill his way out of the small but surprisingly strong prison!

Ves was not amused.

"Blinky, help me out here. This whale needs to learn he's not the top dog anymore now that he has been divested of his body."

Mrow.

The purple companion spirit dove out of Ves' head and began to hover right underneath the cyborg cat.

"Myaow!"

"Hey, it's okay, buddy. Blinky won't harm your tummy. In fact, I don't even know why I have to say that to you as you're just another incarnation of myself. We are all the same people!"

This was starting to get complicated. Ves had split himself up so many times that he now had four different incarnations: his original self, his companion spirit Blinky, his external incarnation Vulcan and his new and as-of-yet-unnamed divine artifact.

Although his evolved and partially ascended mind allowed him to keep track of what all of them were doing, it was not an easy burden.

Human mentalities simply weren't designed to think in parallel tracks. The more Ves tried to split his attention, the more he distanced himself from his humanity, with all of the downsides that came with becoming an impersonal hivemind.

This was why Ves preferred to keep himself grounded. He found it better for his sanity and his life if he just left his incarnation to their own devices. They already possessed autonomous personalities of their own, so they could easily be ordered around as if they were his own subordinates.

That also caused him to feel a bit weird. He wondered whether it was good for him to maintain his distance from his incarnations all of the time. What if they became so adapted to their autonomy that they might become willful enough to refuse his orders?

"None of this is easy." He sighed.

Ever since Ves chose to pursue the route of Spiritual Ascension, he already had an inkling that he would have to go through completely different challenges.

The possibilities opened up by having multiple incarnations were too good to pass up. Ves willingly braved all of the dangers and inconveniences if it meant he gained additional ways to empower his mechs.

He turned his attention back to his captive. The creature's rage temporarily paused as Blinky used his sharp claws and teeth to harm the rebellious spirit.

Unfortunately for Ves, rather than making the unclean whale comply, the stubborn spirit instead lashed out even harder!

RAGE! DEATH! RETRIBUTION! PUNISHMENT!

Ves wanted to slam his head against a bulkhead.

"Can you speak like a normal sentient, at least?" He requested. "This dialogue can be much more productive if you can get over your painful death and talk to your new boss in a civilized manner. I have always heard that phase whales like you are among the most powerful, advanced and arguably the oldest remaining sentient species of this dwarf galaxy. I respect that. I really do. That is why I made sure to harvest your spirit from your corpse so that I can give you a chance to live again."

The entity trapped inside the cyborg cat's belly lashed out again and again! Each word that Ves spike seemed to stimulate all of the wrong emotions from the unclean whale!

KILL! GOD! CONDEMN! FAILURE! ABOMINATION!

Ves looked intrigued. "What do you mean by those terms? What do you consider to be a god? Are you condemning me or is this a reference to your status? Do you consider yourself an abomination, or have your fellow phase whales unfairly stuck you with this stigmatizing label?"

The dialogue did not progress in the slightest. Ves had the sense that he was continually talking to a wall that was made out of pure irrational rage and resentment.

Ves sighed in frustration. "I can't work with you when you are refusing to calm down and consider your new situation like an adult! It's no wonder the phase whales locked you away in your Palace of Shame. You are truly a disgrace to your species!"

That happened to be the wrong thing to say, because the unclean whale became twice as aggressive all of a sudden!

SHAME! RAGE! UNDESERVED! UNWORTHY! GODBLOOD! GODBLOOD! GODBLOOD!

At least Ves was able to confirm that the captive spirit hadn't completely degenerated into a feral rage machine. The unclean whale could still register and interpret his messages.

The damn whale idiot just chose to respond with violent threats and emotional outbursts.

"Myaow!"

In the meantime, his poor cyborg cat suffered from a progressively more painful tummy ache. The divine artifact's 'food' truly wasn't agreeing with its jailor at the moment!

Ves was running out of patience.

"Hit him harder, Blinky."

Mrow mrow!

RAGE! PAIN! TORTURE! DEFIANCE!

It didn't help. Ves had the impression that he was perpetuating a cycle of violence and hatred.

He had thought that a week of waiting would have cooled the unclean whale's temper, but instead the creature was just as irrational and filled with rage like Zeigra used to be when the Crown Cat initially died.

Ves had encountered relatively few angry and irrational spirits, and each of them were difficult to deal with as they all treated him as their enemy.

So long as the spirits couldn't see reason, there was no basis of cooperation!

"Let's try this, then."

Ves pulled out a small totem of Lufa from his toolbelt and called down the Angel of Tranquility.

"Come help me calm down this angry spirit."

It didn't work. The unclean whale possessed enough spiritual strength to shrug off Lufa's tranquil domain. The agitated creature clung too tightly to his irrational fury!

"Okay! I give up!" Ves threw up his hands in the air! "If you can't look past your demise and talk to me like a civilized sentient being, then I will just have to treat you like a feral beast. Are you happy now, Mr. Whale?"

RAGE! INSULT!

"Yeah, I thought so. Blinky, keep hitting him. I don't want this guy to enjoy any reprieve."

Mrow mrow mrow!

He contemplated his options. There was no way he could make productive use of the salvaged spirituality when the beast was locked in his bottomless rage spiral.

Ves had so many questions about the phase whales and the Red Ocean. The depth of the new frontier was much greater than he initially thought, and he believed that the phase whales were the only natives who knew the most.

No matter whether the unclean whale was a pariah among the phase whales, the creature should definitely be able to provide the answers to some of those burning questions.

Yet... given the current state of the unclean whale, it didn't appear the damn beast was ready to calm down for a long time.

Was Ves willing to wait an indeterminate amount of months and years for the violent spirit to calm down and be ready to talk?

"I don't have the time."

Just like back when he was alive, the unclean whale posed a significant threat to the Larkinsons.

Who knew what kind of powers the unclean whale possessed. If Ves tried to imprison him in a P-stone placed inside his B-stone lockbox, who knew if the creature was able to phase through this cage.

Ves also feared that as long as the unclean whale remained alive, the prisoner was somehow able to transmit his coordinates and maybe a description of his human captors to his phase whale buddies.

There was no way that Ves wanted to be confronted by an angry pod of phase whales!

Seeing that he had no way to secure or subdue a powerful and uncooperative spirit, his thoughts turned to a direction that he hoped to avoid.

"If I can't make use of you when you are still alive and whole, then I'll make use of you in another way!"

Ves turned around and pulled out a totem of the Phase King. The powerful design spirit had been paying close attention to what was happening here and easily manifested a small image of himself.

"Hey there, my friend. What do you think about our guest here? Is this phase whale just as impressive as your progenitor?"

The Phase King regarded the unclean whale with a mixture of awe and disappointment.

The design spirit had lived over a million years in relative isolation. That gave him an awful lot of time to dream about the phase whales who his species was derived from. How powerful was the race of his progenitor? How magnificent would it be for him to meet another member of this fabled race? Would he be able to obtain an answer that could explain the meaning of his existence?

Though the Phase King's childhood memories had faded to the point where he could no longer visualize the Flesh Conqueror, the design spirit had always maintained high expectations of the phase whale race.

They were literally his gods as far as he was concerned!

Yet now that the Phase King finally encountered the unclean whale, his entire impression of the phase whale race had collapsed!

No matter whether the unclean whale was the exception rather than the rule, just the fact that such a degenerate could exist showed that the phase whales were not as perfect as he initially assumed.

A profound sense of disappointment radiated from the Phase King. The design spirit felt as if all of those years spent on building up a perfect utopia about the race of his makers had gone to waste.

"Do you see now, Phase King? Gods can never live up to their reputation." Ves contemptuously spoke. "For all of their ego and boasting, in truth anyone who claims to be a god is actually just a prick with too much power in their hands. This degenerate phase whale isn't even a proper god in local terms. His phasewater concentration was disappointingly low and he never even made much progress in understanding all of his stolen phasewater organs. Now that his physical form has perished, he can't even accept his death with grace. Is this the god and progenitor race that you have always wanted to worship?"

The Phase King radiated a strong feeling of denial while continuing to express his disappointment. There was nothing redeeming about the unclean whale in his opinion.

This was exactly what Ves wanted to see. His lips curled into a smirk.

"What do you say about getting back into old habits? This unclean whale has earned his infamy by eating his fellow phase whales. What do you think about devouring this beast in turn?"

A sense of shock spread from the fish-whale king!

Though the Phase King would think nothing about eating the remains of his fellow fish-whales, doing the same to a member of his progenitor race had always been a taboo among his species!

Ves did not leave this be. "The unclean whale is not a god, my friend. He's a fraud. He's a pretender who wished to become powerful but never put in the hard work needed to become a worthy member of his race. The Red Ocean would be better off if we got rid of him, and what better way to do so than to allow you to assimilate much of the strength and power that he has been wasting all of this time?"

The Phase King could not come to a decision.