Cobalt didn’t know what she was thinking when she pushed aside the giant furred arms of the Forest Kin elder and rushed towards John’s position. Well, to be honest that wasn’t the truth. She did know what she was thinking, and that was nothing at all. Rather, instead of thinking she was falling into her old habits, letting emotion cloud her rationality and judgement as her body moved of its own volition.

She would not accept losing anyone else.

She had ran under the titanic metal fist of the metal colossus without any plan besides the need to prevent it from crushing John more than it already had. She had watched him hold his ground impressively as he fought it, even displaying new abilities in the middle of combat, the true measure of a Cultivator’s evolution. But each blow inflicted upon him was crushing, while each of his attacks managed to inflict some damage on his assailant but that was as far from good enough as a grain of sand was from a mountain. And as far as she knew the golem was a mindless killing machine that would not stop until he was nothing but a stain upon the floor and a memory in her mind.

She didn’t expect the bullshit she spewed out in the heat of the moment to elicit an actual response in words from the iron giant. And the fact it could have spoken the entire time almost pissed her off more! Supposedly it spoke for the entire forest, whatever that meant, yet it refused to fucking talk like an adult? Wasn’t wisdom meant to come with age or something?

Then again, her dear old departed dad would be evidence to the contrary.

So here she was. Sitting awkwardly opposite a machine easily more than twice her transformed height and girth and probably eight times as dense. Hovering over the once again unconscious form of John, not taking her eyes off the fungus infested machine for a second. The Si pouring off it and into the air was calmer at least, that was indication that its willingness to actually communicate this time around was more than just empty promises. But she did not want to test that for a single second.

By now most of Gorekin’s people had emerged from hiding, and she could feel the presence of the tribe elders watching her back, glued upon them almost as hard as her eyes were glued upon the machine. None dared to step close and interfere though, all holding the massive machine in some sort of reverence apparently. At least lending some credence then to the claim it was in fact truly connected to the rest of the forest, she had felt the massive elder’s power and doubted the monstrosity of iron and wood would be much of a threat to her.

A series of coughs brought her mind snapping back to the present, her eyes widening with concern as John roused from his unconsciousness. He made a heaving motion, and she quickly moved to lift the mask just long enough for him to spew out some vile smelling greenish slime. The same sort of slime Nicole produced as a healing elixir by the smell of it. Placing the mask back on once he was done emptying his guts, Cobalt grabbed him by shoulders and stared through the cracked glass eye holes to look into his similarly cracked looking irises. Confident that it was in fact John in control she let out a sigh of relief and embraced him.

“Wh… what happened?” John asked weakly, still coughing out some of the last drops caught in his throat.

“You passed out after that Rustbucket threw a tantrum on you that’s what!” She scoffed, shooting a glare at the massive machine’s singular red eye. “But now we are all properly gathered, we can talk like adults!”

“Like adults? We were simply-” The giant tried to say before she shot it a vicious glare.

“I don’t want to hear it! You nearly killed him on a hunch!” She growled.

“I’m sure they… ugh… had their reasons…” John said, pushing his way out of her arms.

“Surely you can’t be defending their actions!” She gasped.

“No I am not… but that’s not to say I don’t fully understand. It’s coming back to me now…” He grunted, evidently working through quite a bit of pain. He lifted his right arm and all of the eyes studding the limb pointedly twisted to stare at the metal giant. “I am guessing you picked up this guy when you looked at me right?”

“The lines between you are blurred. The neural patterns between you and the machine are unnaturally closely linked. A mistake was made based on previous data, though upon closer inspection you are not quite a Homunculus.” It answered. Raising the obvious question of what this Homunculus it was speaking of was.

“You said the lines were blurred but Artos was only able to speak to me in the middle of our fight.” John murmured to himself.

“It spoke to you?” Cobalt couldn’t help but yell, getting up and grabbing him by the arm to look over its disgusting cords and plates. Very notably the eyes turned to stare at her, and she got the distinct feeling there was indeed something in there looking back.

“Yeah, I figured out there was this weird blockage in there, and I sort of you know…” John made a bunch of vague gestures with his free hand that she wasn’t sure he even knew the exact meaning of. “Removed it?”

“Every day you find new ways to remove it.” She sighed.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“What is your exact relationship with the entity?” The representative of the Mother Forest asked.

John hung his head deep in thought for a moment before answering. “It called itself a symbiote not long after we met. The old books said that meant something that lives inside something else to help them. Things have changed though, and I don’t think I can survive without it anymore. It's too close to my… everything.”

“We see.” The iron giant noted. “Scans indicate it bears signs of consciousness distributed across its neural network. Is it sapient?”

“Yes.” John answered simply. “Would you like to talk to it?”

“John! Are you crazy?” Cobalt hissed.

“There's no point hiding it. Sooner or later I imagine they would pay the secrets out anyway.” He responded with a shrug. “So, what do you say big guy?”

“Show us.” It demanded simply.

In an instant the air around John violently shifted as she felt something pulse within his Si, and when his eyes turned to face her once more they were colder. Disconnected in that same eerie way as when he lost control of his body to the thing back during the siege.

“You implied you met others like me.” Artos in John’s body said in that inhuman monotone. “Elaborate.”

“The machines on the coast do not target our main mass, for it appears they are focusing the brunt of their effort destroying the humans to the south. However they have sent forces our way, and we have taken them apart accordingly.” It answered surprisingly straight to the point. “Recently they have begun to send in abominations, stitched mixtures of flesh and machinery sourced from human bodies. And they have even attempted to take some of our own children for those twisted experiments. We would not brook such disrespect.”

“Are they of the same make and model as I though?” Artos asked.

The golem shook its head. “Yours is more archaic, less stable, a different mechanism. You have not supplanted the host entirely, I see that now, but we cannot distinctly see where one ends and the other begins. Yours is of the Ancients, secrets so old they are lost even to me.”

“I see.” Artos said flatly, though it was difficult to discern its true emotions at the best of times admittedly. “Thank you.”

“Is that enough for you?” Cobalt asked the giant machine, eager to get John back in control of himself.

“It is sufficient.” It answered.

“Alright! That’s simply imp! Can you get out of my friend’s body now?” She glared at Artos.

With a horrible shudder John’s whole body shifted again and he half-collapsed to the ground panting. Cobalt grabbed him and stared into his eyes through the glass, reading the subtle fluctuations of his Si and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw something human underneath.

“That was stupid, never do that again!” She hissed at him.

“...i’ll try not to…” He answered far less confidently than she would have liked. What did she expect honestly, she knew him too well to believe otherwise!

“While there is much we have not uncovered it is evident we have done you an injustice.” The machine said. “Let us make it right.”

With a loud warbling sound that did not come from the machine so much as the entire forest all the gathered furred folk suddenly jolted straight as though addressed by something directly. A series of growling noises erupted from the trees, carried in clouds of spores, the language of Gorekin’s people she realised. They were being addressed by the forest itself.

Gorekin was the first to move, coming right up to them waving his large arms around in what she could only assume to be ecstatic excitement. “Mother Forest vouch you! You no worry about earn trust now! Though sure you no want stay in place you no breathe, you now welcome as long as want!”

“That’s great!” She squealed genuinely. “Does that mean your tribe is no longer going to exile you now!”

Surprisingly Gorekin actually flinched at that. “I- no think they have reason to. But I still-”

The machine drilled its gaze into Gorekin with its blood red eye and exchanged words with him in his native tongue. Evidently something passionate and personal based on the way Gorekin was gesticulating and the tone of his voice alone. Though she had not a clue what it was about. By the end the machine expelled some deep purple slime infested with mycelium threads and handed it to Gorekin, who received it with something like religious awe.

“He wants to join you. Very few of his kin seek to leave our embrace and hospitality, but the Sasquach are more like their creators than they themselves realise. We always understood this would happen eventually.” It explained before rising to its full height. “Besides we are curious about you strange humans, and we still believe someone must keep you in check should the worst come to pass. He will… what was the term… kill many birds with one stone?”

Gorekin gobbled down the disgusting mixture like it was something actually edible and exploded into a wave of thanks both in his native tongue and his butchered Glish.

“One more thing, before we leave.” It said, turning towards John and her and spewing out some Si rich yellow slime which was somehow even more disgusting than what it gave Gorekin. “We extend our hospitality to you for the duration of your stay, consume this and your body will be changed. The spores will no longer harm you.”

Before she could protest the slime was practically shoved into her hands, forcing her to stare at it incredulously. She knew it was somewhat hypocritical coming from someone who ate human flesh and distinctly liked it… but this had to be among the worst things she had ever contemplated eating.

“John, what are we-” She asked before realising the Aurelium boy had already lifted open his mask and disgustingly shoved the slime down his throat.

She stared down at her own sample, and felt something staring back. Shakily she began to remove her mask to choke it down, praying it tasted better than it looked somehow.

As it turned out, it didn’t.