Romeos mind was currently a mess, the monsters words kept squirming around in his mind, he kept blacking out, discarding the compromised mental faculties as quickly as he could, however he only felt his mind getting hazier.
His memory had gotten shakier, as time passed, he had forgotten quite a lot over the years and he didn't remember a fair bit about himself, amongst the many artifacts scattered about the universe from the advent of that madman and deep space he had hope for one that could probe memories.
The war had left many things they didn't understand behind, it was like when the two dimensions fused everything become thrown out of order, the very essence of things bent and warped, but the federation welcomed artifacts, they had many uses and some could be tamed.
"Save me, save me". The doll continued to chant, wings manifesting from the creatures back only to be to apart by the shadow tendrils "Save them, save them". It continued to struggle, the space around it deforming becoming contaminated by the creature's power.
"Kill the usurper"
"Contaminated one"
"slaughter the blasphemer who killed god"
"Slaughter the one known as…"
Romeo extended morphed his shadows into various weapons, he couldn't, no he mustn't allow it to speak the mad-mans name, not here, he stabbed and pierced the giants body, wrapping it in tendrils and pulling it down into the depth of his vast shadow.
"Shut up!" Romeo screamed mentally and started to attack the creature's heads, all of which were left to their fates except one which had been defended by numerous hands, one of those many hands was extended toward the center of the mass of shadows in a grasping motion.
His body froze and his tendrils grip loosed, the dolls last remaining head opened its mouth "Death… to Xavier maximus" purple lighting descended from the sky upon them, The dolls body shattered and the shadows dispersed as Romeo let out a wail of pain, the multiple shadows had formed into mouths that emitted ear piercing shrieks albeit they were buried by the sound of an explosion and yet the ground remained untouched.
Romeo had returned to his human form, his body burned black and even his regeneration slowed, across from him lay the true body of the doll, half of its body melted and only the lower half of his head remaining, but the doll continued to speak slowly reforming itself from the soil.
"the contaminated… one…. blasphemy…Justice" It extended its remaining hand towards Romeo "…Seek justice", its clay like flesh had stopped to squirm, black feathered maggots starting to crawl out from its husk, it swatted and crushed the ripping off chunks of its own skin.
The dolls last head bulged spitting out a large marble that flew towards Romeos unconscious body and landed on his for head slowly sinking in, 'Fuck it's trying to consume me' the more it sank the faster Romeo recovered but just as it fully sank, he strained turning his own shadow into a guillotine and decapitating himself.
The sludge beasts immediately stopped and collapsed returning to mud and ceasing their chants, Romeos severed head however seemed to be undergoing a struggle, its eyes moved from side to side and what looked like faces pressed against his skin, the sound of the bones in his skull fracturing and breaking was eerily loud.
Romeos body remained immobile, while his head grew spider like appendages in an attempt to flee, when the heads mouth suddenly moved, voicing out with great effort "…. Xavier…. Maximus" the moment the head completed those words, black feathered maggots burst forth from the heads mouth. The contaminated head rapidly began to rot, falling to the side.
A small translucent bead shot from the forehead, it glowed, reducing the infested head to ash, its glow dimmed, pulling the soil around it the bead rolled but it was restrained by an increasing mass of shadows. The bead pulsed releasing a wave of light that scattered them, but they only continued to swarm it the more it blasted them away.
That however didn't last long, Romeo may have regenerated, but he could no longer move, nor was his psionic energy infinite, it was now a battle of endurance between him and this tiny little artifact, Romeo thought himself quite adept at magic, more so than his own abilities, but those spells weren't suited, too costly or required preparation, however he had a wonderful idea.
The shadows formed into mouths and started to shout "Xavier—" this time it would seem he wouldn't even be able to say the mad man's full name 'That's fine'. The other mouths continued, being destroyed by various strange phenomena.
With each new event the bead expended more power to combat them, however, Romeo looked at his own body, dark cracks that oozes out dark feathered maggots started to from on his body, he was receiving backlash as well from this stunt, but he only wanted to contain it.
After what felt like an eternity the bead had stopped shining and remained inert, exhausting the last of its strength for now, Romeo coughed the only uncontaminated part of him remaining being his head, and soon he would loose that as well, or that would be the case fi mercury had not removed his head with her strings.
"Hold this would you?" She said tossing her fathers head to the red skinned woman, his eyes remained closed and the warmth from his flesh was draining slowly, but he wasn't truly bleeding as one would expect.
"how fascinating" she said, her acid green eyes focusing on the obviously deceased head "You say he can revive from this state?". She asked, prompting his daughter to respond with a nod as she drew a small circle with symbols on the ground. "You are familiar with magic as well?"
"Do you need to ask about everything? She looked at the woman with a frown but quickly looked away, "Forget it, yes, I am" she could almost swear she saw the acid like liquid in her eyes swirling, it reminded her of how vomit was depicted and thus she just looked away.
Mercury patiently drew the magic circle and began chanting while the red skin continued to curiously examine the decapitated head in front of her and air random questions to no one in particular " I wonder what principles govern his regeneration" she poked the side of his cheek with a finger and scratched him.
"Amazing, but he obviously had shadow abilities, then is it perhaps a curse, but there shouldn't be any living much less capable individual who could cast such a strong curse that one could even elude death"
"Aren't you a scientist?" she asked, the circles runes lighting up and beginning to contract around the marble.
"I fail to see the relevance of your query, are you implying I sound fanatical?". Mercury scrunched up her face, she didn't like this woman, she was acting weird, even by her kinds standards, but it was too late to kill her now so she would have to take her with them.
The bead soon turned from translucent to red and Mercury carefully placed it into a cylindrical container and packed it full of the sand where the runes had been drawn and sealed it shut before inscribing something on the container and whispering "Lock".
"Gods this was traumatizing" she pulled out a communicator and started typing away while she walked "Hey red skin, get that fat ass of yours moving".
"Hm? Oh yes I'm coming". Mercury continued to type away even on the transport ship, a content smirk plastered on her face the entire time.
"I do wonder who you're speaking with, a friend? Lover ? child?" the red skin looked Mercury over for a bit and squinted "You…are, human right?" Mercury gave her a suspicious but judgmental glance and slowly nodded. "Okay so let's eliminate the child bit then".
'Maybe I really should just kill her, no one would know, no one at all'