Testing the ship’s composition, the experiment knocks on the wood of the boat. Those planks didn’t have any gaps it could use to climb, even if it had the physical ability to do so. Before it could step back and take a look at the bigger picture, a gust of wind kicks up and throws it off balance into the water. At least it wasn’t that dense, since it could just swim over to the hold in the ship’s hull and get in that way. That was probably a bit less obvious than just going over the plank.

Fortunately, the hole in the boat was larger than a human, which made sense since it was sourced from a human smashing through it. It was smaller than the majority of humans, and easily fit through the opening, though the splintery shard would probably disincentivize a human that cared about their outer liquid container remaining intact. Within the ship, the experiment sees the crew quarters. Beds all over, and no actual crew. Apparently this was a conveniently empty ship, and it had just been sitting there in front of the warehouse for the guy with the bat to smash people into. Suspiciously convenient. It had basically been punching into this place, but basic was the least apt description of what the enemy did. Functionally, there was no limit to how detailed a scenario they could have retroactively crafted to suit their narrative, and weaving events around their projected model of its behaviour was well within their capabilities. The only real method to defend against that type of control was to be unpredictable, but the models at this point would note that it was going to attempt to be unpredictable and account for the variance in its actions. Any reasonable path for it to take would be set up against, and the moment it was in the correct position, the hammer would come down.

It supposed that thinking too hard about the overall strategy was not a good idea. That was what they had a dedicated think tank for. Instead it just climbs the stairs out of the sleeping area up to the deck.

The guy was just standing there, facing toward the fire engulfing the town. If it had been the one doing the preparatory work, it would have definitely set it up so that there was no logical conclusion to jump to beyond ‘the experiment is the reason this entire place is burning down’. It could try to communicate and make a last ditch effort at diplomacy to hopefully convince this ‘chosen of heaven’ that they were being set against each other by the arbiters of fate.

“You don’t know how much you’re being played. There’s a force at work controlling you, and the eternals are trying to make us fight. Could you give it a rest, for the sake of world peace?”

Turning around, the ‘chosen of heaven’ stares at it for a few seconds, then stabs the experiment right in the chest. The blade sticks in its ribs though, so it hits the rapier down to the side, tearing a rip through the front of the outfit. It was going to have to sew that up later, but it had absolutely no idea where to find purple thread.

Telegraphing an attack with the wooden stick, the experiment incites the guy to move out of the way of the slowly moving blunt object. For some reason, he took the experiment as some sort of physical threat, but given the general composition of the society around this place, that might have been reasonable to assume. If someone was worth fighting, they could probably fight.

Feeling a prick in its back, the experiment checks itself, and is ecstatic to find that the human had cut open the back of the robe. It hadn’t been able to chew through that before its human had stopped it from making the attempt, and now it was able to get its tail out through the newly made opening. Figuring that its job was to waste as much time as possible, and that humans usually didn’t do anything to jeopardize their health, it wraps its tail around the human’s neck. Stall tactics, because if he thinks it was strong, it would think that provoking it into moving would cause strangulation. It waves the tip of its tail in front of his face, signaling ‘no no no, don’t do that kind of thing’.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

That was when its human shot through the air and hit it in the side with a flying headbutt.

“Oof,” it says, struggling back up to its feet. Its human is far more affected than it is, having spun numerous times per second throughout its flight, and now started throwing up off the boat.

“Let me guess, you’re the one that beat up a small child for his playing card,” the ‘chosen of heavens’ states.

“I did not! I found that card fair and square, and he tried to claim it was his,” the human refutes, pulling the card in question out of its belt. “I was the one who put in the work to get to it, and he thinks he can just say it was his the whole time? No way, like anyone would believe that kind of excuse! If it’s laying out in the open, it’s finder’s keepers, and-”

And then the ‘chosen of heaven’ grabbed the card out of the human’s hand and slams the hilt of the rapier against the experiment’s skull. Figuring that the human was probably vulnerable to the standard human instincts to avoid being bitten by things with sharp teeth, the experiment chomps toward the ‘chosen of heaven’s throat, and the guy dodges away. That was exactly the reason it had been designed with this type of mouth. It definitely made eating less convenient, but a free disengage was a nice thing to have in a melee fight.

It would rather not have a melee fight in the first place, but the optimal situation pretty much never happened.

“Hey, get out of here,” the experiment tells the human, not looking away from the ‘chosen of heaven’ that definitely wanted to murder both of them.

“Right, sorry, I didn’t mean to get thrown here,” the human sarcastically quips, staying exactly where they had been standing, “that’s the only way off though.”

“Alright, just follow me off, then run,” it says, taking a couple steps before leaping toward the ‘chosen of heaven’ headfirst, arms at its side and mouth wide open. The ‘chosen of heaven’ jumps onto the dock, and the experiment lands heavily on the wood separating it from the water below. Immediately, the sword goes straight through the experiment’s chest and out the other side to lightly stick into the deck.

Its human jumps up the gangplank, because apparently while it was distracted the boat suddenly sank. They run off, so the experiment wiggles a bit. It doesn’t come out, but that was pretty much exactly what always happened. It can’t help but laugh a little. Nothing was ever easy.

Instead, it pushes up. Raising up against the force of gravity, it pulls its torso up through the rapier, the thin blade staying completely still until it meets resistance at the handle. With the addition of leverage, the sword pops out of its resting place, and the experiment is able to finish standing up.

The ‘chosen of heaven’ decides to respond to this by running away. He runs off to the warehouse they had been stuck in for a few minutes, and that seemed like the type of thing it was supposed to distract him from. That was irritating. At least it wasn’t being stabbed actively. Just passively.

Following behind, the experiment just walks all the way to the warehouse. There was no real need to rush, the ‘chosen of heaven’ was already ahead of it anyway, so whatever happened all the way down there was something it wouldn’t be able to affect even if it did put effort into catching up. He was just standing at the entrance to the warehouse when it caught up, so apparently not much happened.

Of course, as soon as it got close, the ‘chosen of heaven’ ran up to grab the sword stuck in its chest. Last time, biting worked, so the experiment snaps forward toward his opponent’s neck, only to find that it had been hit by a massive wave of wind and was flying through the air with a giant hole in the chest from where a handle had gone all the way through its body. Slamming through a wall, it lands right next to its human.

There are crates of indeterminate origin piled up in the room, and all of them smelled like fairly weak poison, the type that gave flavor to pretty much everything it could possibly eat. Spicy.

“Nice. How much to live here?”

“This is a liquor store.”

“You heard me.”