The next morning,—or afternoon to be more precise,—outside the simulation, Lukas put down a silver tray filled with lunch down next to Max, sleeping in his bed. He put it down with a little too much force, shaking the entire bed which woke up Max.
"The fuck!" He muttered as he stood up, "Why are you so loud? I'm awake already, for like the past hour." He lied to Lukas, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He dropped his legs to the ground and took a look at the food filled tray. In his eyes his surprise was evident, seeing the food woke him up completely. "Is that for me?" He asked with a ginormous smile decorating his face.
Lukas looked into Max's joyous eyes with disgust. "Yes, the food is for you, but if you keep looking at me like that, I might change my mind."
Max stood up, standing in his pyjamas( a full body Teddy costume, yes, I really own one) and picked up the tray of food. "Hey, have you checked the simulations yet? During the semi-finals yesterday, there was a notification for extreme rage from the Teddy Emperor. Would like to know what was going on." He asked, carrying the food into the laboratory.
"Haven't checked, you can do that now…" He then realised something, the test subject was with the Teddy Emperor right now. If Max finds her, he would delete her. "You might want to check on the Geddos Alliance first tho. Don't know if you actually turned off time flow or just changed the speed settings because you were rather sleep deprived."
Lukas hurried after Max into the laboratory and turned on his own computer, loading the simulation window and checking up on the Teddy Emperor, Lana and the test subject.
Next to him, Max sat down and loaded his own simulation window. "Shit!" He exclaimed, "You were right! Did not pause it but turned the time flow to flow thrice as fast! At least I did not miss the finals. Still a few days left until then. But the Teddy Emperor I can forget about." He laughed at the last sentence.
Lukas felt relieved as he heard these words leave Max's mouth.
⟪⚪⟫
The cloaked Geddos was walking through his laboratory, scanning the room with his gaze. Something felt off. It felt as if someone was watching him. He was holding his blowgun in his hand, ready to defend himself if someone was actually in his secret base.
"Close every door, only open them for me. No exceptions!" He commanded. Hearing each and every door in his base close, he started to pace through every room, searching for the intruder.
Due to the size of his facilities, it took a little over an hour to search every room. "Nothing… hm…" He muttered. He left the last room and made his way back towards the main laboratory. "Recall on my last command." All doors opened again.
As he entered the main laboratory again, he sighed. Such a waste of time. He took off his cloak again and threw it on top of the table which he uses to upgrade it.
"Is the little goose chase over?" A voice asked smugly, "And what is this device over here, it states to have sent out a signal with our coordinates."
The Geddos jumped back, sliding past the table and grabbing the cloak. "Who—" His voice trailed off as he looked up at the person who spoke to him. "Captain Teddy? What are you doing here and how did you find this place?" His clutch around the blowgun tightened.
"No need for aggression, should have used this… new science(?) you created to hide, not normal technology, over which I have full control." She teased and jumped down the slightly higher platform she was on. As she walked up to him, her eyes filled with curiosity and wonder as she glanced around, his clutch relaxed. "But what was that signal, it seems to ignore the section of the Geddos Alliance, so you're no traitor, but who are you trying to attract?"
"There still are three different citadels aside from the Geddos Alliance out there." He told her matter-of-factly. "Two wanted to join us, but had to flee when you were captured. The third is the Emperor's citadel. He wanted to meet us as payment for saving you because he was all alone since the beginning of the citadels."
She walked past him, her hands hidden behind her back. As he turned to look at her, he noticed her playing with her little tail. "Cute…" He whispered before he could stop himself. He quickly threw his hands in front of his mouth to stop himself from speaking, but kept his eyes fixed on her tail.
Captain Teddy turned to look at him over her shoulder and followed his gaze. "Thank you." She told him before dropping her hands to wave next to her waist. A smile spread across her lips as she turned away from him and continued walking through the laboratory.
Geddos could feel himself blush but was happy it did not show through his thick fur which was covering his body. "So what do you want from me? There must be a reason for following me here." He hurried after her, scared she would break something.
"No… I was just taking a walk around when I noticed the door." She picked up one of his blowgun prototypes and looked down its barrel. "What does this do?" She asked before pointing it at Geddos and—seeing his relaxed expression—blew into on side. Instantly, a dart shot towards Geddos who did not bother dodging.
The dart collided with what seemed like an invisible wall before it disintegrated.
"If I wasn't wearing my cloak, I would have gone up in flames and died a slow and gruesome death." He walked up to her and took the blowgun out of her hand aggressively and put it back onto the table.
"Well, don't keep such dangerous weapons laying around."
"Nobody should be in here but me!" He yelled at her. He grabbed her wrist and started to pull her towards the exit.
"So I was right? You're that Geddos murderer?" She voiced her questions like they were statements. Her legs started to hurt due to the size difference and speed between her and Geddos. "Slow down!"
He turned back towards her: "Yes I am! And now you will leave, yes?" He tried smiling but it came out weirdly.
She grabbed at his upper arm and squeezed, making Geddos jump in shock and making him squeak outloud. "Your arms are thicker than the arms of other Geddos copies. I did not know we could grow muscles." She continued to squeeze his arms as she was dragged out of the laboratory, "I like this." She stated.
"What? Being annoying or pinching me?" He asked, confused, as the two of them left through the wall which acted as entrance and exit into and out of his base of operations.
"Both? And next time you kill another Geddos copy, I will hunt you down." Captain Teddy started to walk away and vanished into the crowd of Teddys and Pheddies who were walking together through the citadel.
The sight of Teddy copies and Pheddie copies being together seemed so natural, so normal. But the image of Captain Teddy holding hands with another Pheddie copy, for some reason he did not yet understand, made him angry.
He turned back around and walked through the wall back into his base.