The experiment took stock of its limbs. Broken shoulder, snapped tailbone, shattered tail bone, and probably a few ribs smashed. It had managed to remotely guide the leg to minimize the force of impact on the human throughout that whole ride, but it was a lot of effort to manually control two bodies worth of momentum using a single leg of a two factor propulsion system, while running, using telekinesis, blind. It would probably be fine again in a few minutes, except for the fact that this new person seemed to have living plants literally growing around them. How was it supposed to heal when the feedback was constantly causing cellular damage? Inconsiderate was what that was. It had actually gotten used to not having to deal with the constant low level pain from nearby plants since they had entered an actual habitable space instead of an endless road with plants everywhere.

“Now that the Chaotic Demon Sect has found this hideout, we need to evacuate. Don’t worry about who we are, or why we need to evacuate. Just know that I’m a powerful wood cultivator, and if you don’t do what I tell you to, I’ll plant seeds in your eyes and dump enough energy into them that they replace your entire circulatory system with roots,” the human says, pulling out a seed of some sort, which immediately sprouts green tendrils and wraps around their arm.

That would be irritating, to be sure. It might also be fatal for humans, it wasn’t entirely sure. It knew that the blood was supposed to be inside of them, but really any of that biological information was more of the forty-five series’ wheelhouse. It’s education had been closer aligned to the ‘get learned how to make stuff more deader’ school of thought.

“Yeah, fine. Get on with it already,” the experiment says, laying in the experiment shaped depression in the ground. It really didn’t want to have to move until either it was healed, or it got bored. Coin flip on which of those would come first. It would probably have to start moving before that either way, which was also irritating. Bones made a really, really annoying sound when they started grinding against themselves when it was using them while they were in more pieces than they were supposed to be. Moving around also tended to make the healing take longer, probably because the bones not being in the right place meant they couldn’t reconnect as easily.

With a grimace, the human continues, “Whatever horrible noise that was, I’m going to assume you have the slightest amount of rational self interest, and have chosen to accept my generous offer. What I desire from you is simple. Distract the Demon Initiate. Keep him from reporting to his sect and getting reinforcements. A weakling like that is nothing we can’t prevent from interfering in our business, but one of the powerhouses of the dark sect would ruin everything.”

“Got it. Run around in circles, don’t get caught. That particular human is male. Technology hasn’t progressed to the point that a phone call is a reasonable course of action.”

Hold up, did this human just indicate that it couldn’t understand what it was saying? Ah right, the implanted translator was one way, for budget reasons. It would need to have another one installed for the other direction, and it really hadn’t wanted to do that back when it was a feasible implantation. ‘An optional surgery to implant a translator that only made other people understand you, and that only could be attuned to one language’ wasn’t on the short list of its priorities. Much better to just spend all that time that it could have used for ‘socializing with humans’, which would have been the only time that kind of implantation would have been useful, simply taking a nap.

Naps are great.

Now look at its situation though, it had to interact with humans anyway. It was like an ironic punishment for some sort of cosmic betrayal. Other than the cosmic betrayal, it had no idea what could be causing that kind of thing to come about. Well, it had a human for these purposes.

“Hey human, tell the human with the bat that we’ll do it.”

What a stunning lack of compliance. Sure, it could have phrased it nicer, but… the other human hadn’t had the helmet on this whole time. No wonder they’d been so easy to deal with recently! If they couldn’t understand what it was saying, it couldn’t be saying anything that was incredibly anti-social and probably insulting. Well, it had seen the helmet over on the human shaped card table during its horizontal impromptu skydive. Pulling the helmet out of the wooden fingers, breaking them off in the process, all the way over, and shoving it onto the human’s skull, the experiment shoots its tail around the standing human’s throat as they react to its movement by shoving another seed through its eyeball.

“Human. Would you kindly inform this other human that I don’t respond well to threats.”

Tendrils of green growth explode inward into its skull, attempting to cannibalize its flesh and ichor to fuel constant expansion. Unlucky for the seed, since its entire makeup was innately hostile to life itself. Ignoring the lack of eye ball on the right side of its head, the experiment locks its gaze on the human. Now was not the time for joviality, so rather than smile at the human it instead lowers its lower lip to expose its teeth in an open mouthed frown. At about this point, the plant in its head should be about done burning through the nutrients in its endosperm that the germ would have had access to, and be forced to either use what it could dig out of its flesh for its growth or die.

From the fact it didn’t feel any thing wriggling any lower than its chest, it was going with die.

“The beast says it doesn’t respond to threats in a positive manner,” chimes in the human, not having moved yet. Humans were not as resilient as it was, so hopefully they were all right. It was not supposed to harm employees of the company, and this one had been inducted back on the mountain.

In its throat down ward, the wriggling stops.

“You may not have seen it,” the standing human says, not moving from their position inside the experiment’s eye cavity, “but I showed that this is not a mere threat. Even now, the seed I planted into your beast has rooted itself firmly in the head. It tried to attack me, and I’m afraid your beast had its brain and organs replaced by wood.”

Well that was patently untrue. A full half of its body hadn’t even been touched by the plant. Granted, its face was currently stuck from the roots having locked everything into place, but it would be recovered in a few minutes. To show it meant business, it squeezes its tail tight around the human’s throat.

“Hmm. A slight contraction, probably a spasm from residual electrical impulses after death. As you’re wearing a shenyi of the imperial clan, I’m sure you’ll be more reasonable in accepting my terms than the mere humanized beast you were using as a body guard,” the human continues, shaping their bat into a wooden knife and slicing off the end of the experiment’s tail before standing up straight.

“It’s impossible for you to have killed him, he’s immortal!” declares the experiment’s human.

Correct, but how they figured that out it wasn’t sure. Oh right, it had the helmet. Never mind, mystery solved.

“Simply raise your head and see. I keep my promises, and should you not accede to my humble request, I’m afraid I’ll have to repeat the performance with your own self.”

Ugh, it had an uncomfortable pressure behind its left eyeball now, that was going to be really annoying in a minute or two. At least the plant seemed to have died. Too bad infusing a plant with a truck load of activating energy didn’t actually do anything if you didn’t give it something it could digest, human!

“Like I said, I’ll do it, but I don’t respond kindly to threats.”