The island broke and drifted apart. Large chunks sheared from the cliffs, little islands in themselves scattering, as sediment, trees, and ice spiraled into the swirling abyss of neon green and indigo. Most of the larger chunks remained buoyant in the horrid skies. This island would eventually become a small chain of independent islets, and, maybe, something special would develop here over time, but Trinch didn’t care at all. He was as done with the place.
He flew the ship between the drifting rocks with the grace and skill expected of someone who was a true master of themselves, their domain, and their fate. He grinned with the humanoid teeth buried inside of the mantis-like skull and dreamed of what kind of body he would get himself next. Not that he hated the mantis form, just that he wasn’t a fan of how simple the elemental theming was for the monsters. They weren’t meant to be genuine challenges and the fact that the Winter Queen found his corpse was the only reason she grew as quickly as she did. His beating heart had provided a solid foundation for the Chroma Visccera. In truth, he admired the Winter Queen’s ingenuity. It was just a shame she wasn’t his type — too clingy.
Whistling without lips is a difficult skill, but Trinch adjusted his mandibles and started up an old tune from his homeworld as he set the controls on the ship to navigate to the nearest island with a decent population. Hopefully, someone there would be pretty.
###
The Mubilashi flowed through the tunnels in the island, not rushing, but savoring the sour tastes of stress and fear that permeated the musty rocks and turgid air. It was a new thing, and though it wore the nature of an ancient creature, it still marveled at the inside-out view of the world, a way of being where the thought is more solid than matter, and through the gaps in understanding it flowed.
The creatures it hunted, those walking memories of betrayal, lay not far ahead. It could already taste them in a hundred futures, and its own death bubbled in a hundred more. The Mubilashi slid along that razor's edge of possibility with growing excitement.
But then it tasted something new.
Something it never thought it would taste.
Something from the memory of a past life.
Something dead.
The betrayal of the one that wore flesh.
It was faint, and fading, but it was close enough to the Mubilashi that it abandoned the instructions of the Witch and dove through a crack in rock no wider than a hair. It raced through shadows and boiled through porous stone until it erupted into the air like a net in the wind.
A ship raced beneath it, and at the helm sat the betrayer in the flesh, and the Mubilashi laughed and screeched and attacked with the joy and the pleasure of its nature.
###
Zoe’s heart ached with exhaustion, but her flesh felt invigorated to levels she never imagined possible. Energy thrummed through her. The drooping of the cavern ceilings and the splatter of black water that etched its way toward the heavens below were all signs of impending doom, but she felt unbreakable.
the Smith’s blessing smoothed over the harsh edges that came from imbibing so much power, she could feel her misaligned stats altering. If she gave it enough time, the imbalances in her build would correct themselves. Not all of them though, for if she adjusted all those imbalances she wouldn’t be herself.
Bella was saying something, and Zoe had to focus on and reduce her Insight in order to hear her. Would it always be this way? She supposed not, but the sudden leap in her abilities made her feel more than human, or rather, everyone else was suddenly less than human. Certainly, as her eye played over the survivors as they picked through the remains of the laboratory she realized these people were like walking tissues. So frail, as though they were only built to soak up misery.
The energy thrumming through her veins made even such a thought fade away. She could see the weaknesses in people, and the world, and what needed to be cut away to strive for perfection, or she could see it for what it was — see the opportunities that lay in not just seeking power and growth. It felt as though her mind’s eyes were split into two, but looking down two paths didn’t help when you couldn’t figure out which one was which.
Could she still hear hammers? Or was that simply the hammering of hearts in fear? There were so many people around her, and they were all so loud, and bright. She closed her eyes and willed the rushing noises to stop, and they did.
“What?” she asked Bella.
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Bella stopped speaking halfway through a sentence, caught unaware by Zoe’s questions, before she smiled and shook her head.
“Is it always going to be like this with you?” Bella asked.
Rather than follow up on the obvious choice, Zoe asked what was really on her mind.
“Are you alright?”
Bella’s smile faltered. She frowned and slowly shook her head.
“No? Honestly, how am I supposed to answer that question, like, ever again? It feels like the apocalypse has really set a baseline for insanity and now everything else has to follow. You know, is this what dating in the apocalypse is going to be like? Right now it feels like I pulled myself inside out to climb out of the keyhole to a feverish nightmare, but in a year I might just say it was an amicable breakup and we’ll probably stay in touch to co-parent a corgi or whatever the hell corgis mutate into once the Crimson Armada has had their way with…”
Zoe placed a hand on Bella’s shoulders.
“Breathe,” she said. “Just breathe… mate?”
Bella snorted, and the stress melted from her face as she laughed. The laboratory felt a little lighter, as though the darkness shrank, or maybe it was the swirling lights of the apocalypse sky viewed through the rents and cracks in the walls.
“So,” Bella said. “As I was saying, Anton took the head of some guy to go see his demon friend and the floor is definitely going to collapse soon. How are you feeling about opening a portal and getting the hell out of here?”
“Sounds good,” Zoe said. “We just waiting for Anton, then?”
“Yeah,” Bella said. “That, and we need to know where it is we’re actually going.”
Zoe nodded.
“Sure thing, give me a moment, and I'll look up on the map.”
Bella nodded.
“Yeah, Skidmark and I will round up the survivors. Take your time, just, you know, not too much time?”
“I get it,” Zoe laughed.
Bella walked away over to Skidmark, and Zoe focused on narrowing her hearing so that she wouldn’t intrude on their conversations. She shuttered her senses slowly one by one until she felt only herself. The power inside her pulsed throughout her body. With every pulse, it spread and left a trace of itself in her cells, in her Skein, and then retreated to the nucleus in the center of her being. The pulses slowed, ebbing in intensity, growing fainter, but the traces left behind made her all the stronger, all the brighter, all the more powerful.
She examined the Smith’s Blessing as it directed her power and capped off certain areas, tightened, leashed. It felt like a harness, or a handle, something with which she could grip the power. Carefully, she opened her torn jumpsuit to gaze at the star of the Mirror on her chest.
“What do you think, Moth?” Zoe whispered. “Is this a good thing?”
A flutter came across her heart, and Zoe listened, hearing more now in those soft movements than ever before.
“I agree,” she said.
[Mind’s Eye Incision]
Her hand flashed, and a psychic scalpel formed. She no longer needed to scout inside her body, the advances in her Insight told her exactly where the Blessing was on her soul, and with a swift movement, she plunged the scalpel inside herself. The blade dug and grew. What was a simple scalpel extended and split into fluid pliers that seized the Blessing.
It rejected her grasp. Tentacles of leaden psychic energy spread through her, split, multiplied, hooking themselves into her, gorging themselves on the energy of her overloaded level up, and wrapping themselves through her Skein and skin in equal measure.
Zoe closed her eyes and pressed her other hand upon the handles of the scalpel. Her friends hurried over to her. Anton’s silver eye glowed beyond her visions. She could sense them even with her mind turned inward. They were worried, but a quick pulse of her Willpower forced them back a step. This was something she felt had to happen. The hounds in her blood bubbled and snarled. Earth’s System had been weak, an echo of a thing never truly heard, but the instincts it lent guided her hand.
Zoe took a deep, shuddering breath, and pushed the scalpel deep. The psychic energy flushed inside her, no longer branching but flowing, and it wrapped around the Blessing like a liquid blade. With a steady hand, she pulled the blessing free. It emerged like a metallic octopus from her chest and she flung it away from her. The survivors backed away, horrified, but the octopus ignored them. It raised itself up on its legs. Bubbles formed in its skin as it slowly melted under the pressure of existence. A large white eye blinked and gazed even as it burned itself away like a vampire in the sun.
Hammer rang like booming laughter in a distance that had nothing to do with space.
[How did you know?]
Exhausted, Zoe raised a middle finger at the melting Blessing.
“Nothing is free,” she said. “Nothing is as it seems.”
[The Blessing would have helped you harness your power. What is a modicum of control in exchange for comfort? A question for you to ponder as you position yourself at the top of your planet’s food chain]
The octopus dripped down into a puddle of slime that slowly evaporated in the wind leaking through the broken walls.
“What the hell was that?” Bella asked.
Zoe shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said as she lifted herself to her feet. “I’m ready to look at the map.”
“Finally,” Skidmark said. “No offense, but this island sucks.”
“None taken,” Anton said as he walked back into the room with a shining gold pill in his hand. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
###
The Mubilashi’s endless teeth sawed away at the ship’s metallic exterior. Tongues drilled into holes and reached through with splitting fingers at the soft flesh trapped within. Even as the ship barrelled and careened through the howling sky in an effort to dislodge the formless monster, the Mubilashi gripped and tasted the delicious fear.
[Mubilashi…]
The Witch’s voice struck the Mubilashi like a whip, but it resisted. It wanted to play with the one who wore flesh. It wanted to taste the betrayer turned inside out. The Mubilashi was not to be commanded.
[Heel]
The word constricted like a barbed leash around the Mubilashi’s spirit. With a growl and a laugh, the Mubilashi released the ship — because it wanted to — and let the vessel list away into the distance.
[Return]
With a dejected air, arrogance, and playfulness, the Mubilashi swirled on the wind and blinked endless eyes at the floating island. With a thought that was not a thought, it narrowed like a needle and darted toward the rock that housed the original targets of the hunt. It was a Mubilashi, and it was nobody’s to command, but it would serve the Witch, because it wished to play, and she knew where all the best toys were.