*Mr. Comedian POV*
He broke through all of the floors until he reached the bottom floor of the dome. He was originally going to do things the long way with Hirune so that she could gain experience in the field, but now he could just wing it and hope he did things well.
He found himself face to face with a gold neon casino, but this was too convenient for him, even if this was the bottom floor, "This is an illusion. Show me the truth."
The casino disappeared, and so did Mr. Comedian's ability to use his hands as vine hand cuffs flew onto his wrists, held them together, and penetrated into his wrists. This not only made it so he couldn't use his hands, but he also couldn't use his artifact powers anymore because of the vines going into his wrists.
The two hooded people appeared from behind him and grabbed him, though they now had a third. He tried to fight back but couldn't as they knocked him out and took him off somewhere.
When he woke up, he found himself sitting in a cell with a blue haired girl sitting beside him looking down at him. She seemed excited, then when she realized he was opening his eyes she sighed in disappointment, "Man I thought I was going to feast tonight! Well, hi~!"
Mr. Comedian sat up and looked at her up and down, "Who are you?"
"Resident shark-girl resident Kala," she responded.
"Kala? Oh, you're Hirune's friend. Hello, my name's Mr. Comedian, I'm Hirune's friend," he said feeling as though he lied to himself. "How do we get out of here?"
"We can't. Our only hope is for Hirune to get someone named Ellen."
*Hirune POV*
Hirune busted into the facility through the window and devoured everything in front of her, of course, this had its backlash as she started throwing coughing up liquid metal, but it caused everyone to clear the room. Francois hopped in after her and looked around, the sealed the doors shut with swords that jammed themselves between the doors hinges and melted them in place. Hirune got up and looked around, spotting a small purple glowing rock in a flask. She took the rock out of the flask and swallowed it before turning back to Francois.
"Now that I think about it, what even are you? I heard Mr. Comedian invoke you and then the person next to me called you a Living Shift Weapon artifact, but besides that I don't know anything about what you could possibly be," Hirune asked as Namulenza informed her of her new basic incantation less abilities.
She could now make people fall asleep if she touched their face and she could also change her appearance as long as it wasn't too far off from her original appearance.
"I mean there's nothing much to say. I'm a Living Shift Weapon artifact, one in a dozen. There's Living Shift Item artifacts too, there's a variety of Living Shift artifacts," Francois voice then progressively got lower and lower as she spoke.
"We originated from someone having a kid with a lava maid from an artifact... Now that I'm telling someone about this it seems way worse than I thought it was."
"Depending on how hot the lava maid was he was valid for it," Hirune answered simply as she looked at herself in the reflection of one of Francois emeralds and made her hair fully black.
"That's pretty neat," she said as she turned her hair back to half silver half black.
Francois suddenly collapsed onto her knees her eyes flooding with tears, "No! No! I take my eyes off of him for one second and they caught him! Yep, great, that's just fantastic!"
Hirune looked over her shoulder as she shifted through some documents that they were making on the artifact shard, "Hm? Who caught him?"
Hirune didn't actually care about who the "him" Francois spoke of was, as it was pretty obviously Mr. Comedian.
"The people we fought are a part of an organization called the Gambler's that works to maintain the casino artifact in power. And they just caught him," Francois explained sobbing.
Considering her reaction, it was clearly a horrible organization that wouldn't pull back their punches. If it was up to her and she'd learnt about it from some stranger, she wouldn't have done anything believing it was a lie. But this wasn't some nobody telling her this, it was Francois, his own Living Shift Weapon artifact telling her this.
"Alright, I'm doing this for you, where is he? Considering how you know they caught him; his location suddenly changed for you. Meaning you can detect where he is, so lead me to him. If I'm sneaky enough it'll be easy, if not, then things are going to get bloody," Hirune said as she fine-tuned her control over the devourer jaws and shredded the papers to snow.
Francois looked up at her, "But he gave you a command. You have to follow it."
"Not anymore," Hirune answered. "He gave me a lot of valuable information, and you haven't done anything for me to hate you. Let's go save him and then go look for Kala."
Francois stared at Hirune as she approached the window and looked back at her, the sun shining through the imaginary night overpowering the holograms for the first time in a decade.
Francois heart drummed with hope, she'd experienced the tyranny of the Gambler's firsthand a decade ago. She felt hopeless against them, put in a cell to live her entire used as a slave to make more Living Shift Weapon artifacts. To be treated like a tool and not a living thing, it was the most painful thing she'd ever experienced. Until Mr. Comedian broke into their old base and pulled her out, turning her from a hollow husk into a sassy bitch that could control her sass and didn't take shit from anyone but him. He was a beacon of hope in a time in her life were not even the concept of hope existed, that was the first time that she felt the real heat of the sun on her skin, the first time, she saw the beauty of the real outside world.
And in a moment where it felt as though her beacon of hope had been knocked down by a force of darkness she thought she'd escaped, a new one arrived to wash away the darkness and rebuild the light.