All of this was such a terrible setback, plunging Calypso back right to square one.

A maimed girl, being used as a skinsuit.

Calypso didn’t know what happened. Was her arm blasted off? Ripped open, letting this beast out of her? It didn’t matter—as the Grim Consumed’s arm was practically swiping at Gale.

Moss-covered, decaying bones. Sharp bone claws that were an inch too long. And whatever black “flesh” that hung from this structure, it didn’t get in the way of the nimble speed it contorted itself forward.

Her body was like a ragdoll, the Grim’s arm propped her from the ground with its manic energy, and her back was beginning to ache due to being repeatedly slamming down. It was insanity, because it wasn’t like Calypso’s energy, being taken—being used against her will. She could not feel what was once her arm, there was nothing there. This frantic motion, and the energy behind it, came from another place.

Gale was shouting by the wayside, hunched over in worry. Calypso couldn’t hear her, what she’s screaming from the depths of her lungs, because the chanting reached fever pitch all around them. While it wasn’t a mystery, what they were chanting, but it became so loud that the phrase wasn’t a phrase anymore—it was just noise.

But that was the least of Calypso’s problems right now.

With a squeeze of both eyes, Gale raced over with outstretched arms, towards the downed girl. Right into the monster’s claws, if not for a few seconds more.

She wanted to yell at her, wanted to use her legs to kick the girl square in the stomach for doing such a dumb move. But Calypso knew more than anything that one cannot waste any moment in these situations, and motioned to wrangle the Grim’s arm with her only one.

So what happened a second later, caused Calypso’s eyes to widen.

The girl—she gained control of the Grim Consumed’s arm. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t exactly control, but it started to physically stutter, twitch in place. And Calypso could feel the “fight back”, her struggling ricocheting within this monster’s flesh.

Calypso snapped her head back at Gale, producing so much of her concerned anguish that it rocked the throat that came out of it. Practically screeching at Gale to keep back, but it fell short. Even at max volume, without the cacophony of zeal surrounding them, Calypso’s voice always fell short compared to normal humans. It didn’t matter, she continued to try—ward away someone that—

The Grim’s arm interrupted Calypso’s line of thought, as it flung itself and gripped onto the poor girl’s bulging throat. And began to squeeze, and squeeze.

The poor girl’s eyes watered, drowning her vision. It was Calypso’s turn for her muscles involuntarily twitch, scrapping the back of her head as her back arched until it stiffened. Her pain, her senses slowly began to dull, as she felt the pressure swell against her neck.

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She couldn’t see well anymore, but Calypso was certain. The looming shadow only confirmed it, as her neck started to fell a pull against the push. Gale had to come over, and is feebly trying to save her life.

There was also…Something wet trailing down? It took Calypso to realize… Oh right, the monster also had claws, versus fingers… So not only being choked to death, but being sliced open at the same time.

Maybe it was the lightheadedness. But Calypso drifted into her stray thoughts, the only things she could control… Hold onto... Probably the only stable source of comfort that wasn’t Alice, Sal… Her father… And they greeted her as a friend…

Calypso… Calypso ruminated… This was always… The danger of it all. Now she’s facing it, dealing with it… And yet she didn’t properly pay for this. She didn’t commit, as hard as this punishment warranted. All she did was wave the gun around and shot at a tree. Now a senior gangster is blowing her away. She could’ve done more…

… She would have done more.

In turn, Calypso’s inner darkness flared up in response.

All at once. She gasped out to taste that sweet air, her ears tuned at Gale’s shrill and panicked cries as she tugged her hand away. Her vision focused to see the red-blue skies…

Calypso was pulled into a grapple, Gale hugging her tight while holding the back of her head.

“Oh my god, oh my fucking god—” Gale had trouble forming the words. “Oh my god, Cal, it’s over, thank Christ it’s over—”

Gale shifted her hold over the recovering girl, now cradling Calypso in her arms as she looked down upon her.

Her expression said it all, as it immediately tensed in shock.

Calypso felt she couldn’t talk yet. So she did what she thought was the next best thing. Taking her finger, dragging the two against the neck, then looking at them. Red, if not crimson already.

Before taking a short inhale through the nose, using the ring finger of the same hand, directly dabbing it against the still fresh wound, feeling it close in real-time before moving it away.

Black.

And not only that, her fingers were not fingers anymore. But not exactly the claws she wanted—needed, either. An odd fusion that was incredibly unsightly, but something that was very familiar to her. Exaggerated “prongs” that thinned themselves sharper as they stretched onward.

Flashes of recognition, the odd moments Calypso wrote off before. Her looking at her “hand” during the first Sal confrontation, when she knew she was losing herself.

“M-my face, Gale… What does it look like…?”

“Scary. Super scary a-and like… Stuck. Like, stuck in-between.”

And just to be sure, to confirm her running hypothesis, Calypso gestured with her left “prongs” and the familiar flash appeared.

Unveiling her Illuminator was completely fused within her skin, deep inside with the flesh surrounding it submerging such in a bulbous ring.

“An in-between state then…” Calypso sighed, feeling her twisted features not budge against the motion. “I’ve been this way before, and it usually signaled the start of the transformation… Ah well. This is honestly better than what was a few seconds ago…”

A large rumbling put an end to that vain hope.

“I really need to stop talking.”

Calypso glanced over, towards the new problem… Only to realize in a startle that morphed into pained sorrow, that it was only the old one merely presented in a new way.

Now it had legs that was a mix between insectoid and an elephant’s. Avian wings that folded against a hide that belonged to a deep sea creature. The serpentine body perched and merged with all of that. But it was more or less “accents”, to make the somehow larger jaw more pronounced.

“And just… As I thought my day was fortuitous to me enough… Clearly, this is a gift from Providence.”