For Montanna Novak, there was no greater pleasure than to hear his name yelled. They would never know his name was a spelling error away from a State, or the on the nose meaning of Novak. Everything about him was a private joke.

Of course when Hailien shouted it with a fury reserved for few, it was clear she didn’t get it. She came at him with that slab of a Remark. He saw his reflection in it right as he turned away.

WHAM! It came down with such force the whole of the Helot seemed to creak. Chuckle let out, he took stairs by the half dozen. This body was more athletic than his old one, it came in handy for moments where he didn’t want to die. The overgeared brute yelled something unintelligible, he thought he was out of her range.

But then on the next landing came her Remark. It sailed past him, clipping his back.

Fuck.

He landed head first on the next flight up. Fingers slipped on the frictionless fared step. Heavy breathing on his neck. She was right behind him, wasn’t he?

He didn’t dare move. Another pair of footsteps scampered up and stopped right next to him.

”What are you doing? Kill him or don’t, you’re just… staring at him.”

Devon’s shrill voice, like a Veronica Taylor character with a slightly richer tenor.

”We need information. He works directly with the Shadow of the Arch. Her head is blazing purple, and look at his bandanna. Same color. Same exact color.”

Montanna winced. Fuck, maybe he should have taken off the bandanna. He got cocky, just like they said. He was glad they couldn’t see him smile. He flexed and unflexed his hands, making as if he was only now regaining consciousness.

A harsh snap, right in his ears. A sword through his throat.

A second snap followed and he was alive again. Intense terror, a panoramic vision of your death. The infinite quiet you glimpse just for a second. Everything they said about her Remark was correct and then some. While the gaping wound in his mouth had disappeared, the cut on his back remained. It stung like hell.

”Ah, now he’ll cooperate.”

”Does it have a name?” He tossed himself frontward but leaned back at her grimace. Hailien’s face was a well cooked turkey bisected, the bottom half replaced with a rusty bear trap of a jaw. He wondered what it must be like to have tetanus of the tongue.

”My Remark?” Hailien asked. Devon poked her head out behind her, a puppy hiding behind the den mother.

”Who else?” Montanna said. He didn’t care about Devon, however she got Adam’s Remark wasn’t his concern. “Every Remark should have a name, it breeds familiarity. And it seems a shame to be murdered by a stranger.”

“Time Consumer” she said immediately. “Need another demonstration?” She held it up high till it pierced the ceiling.

”Nah, not at all.” He licked his lips, thanked his luck. She had teed him off perfectly. His hand whisked quickly to his back as he said, “like the Coheed and Cambria song?”

”What?”

And right there. That moment. As Hailien took a second to try to puzzle out what a Coheed and Cambria was, he summoned Outer Context Problem. She yelled out in shock as the effect set in. It was a strange Remark, its own form he could barely describe. Every element of the periodic table at once, on a stick.

He waved it wildly (as he always did) and watched them sputter and struggle to stand. Their whole conceptual framework of reality had been pulled out from under them, the Remarks in their hand foreign to them, completely alien to anything they knew.

Just as it was for him.

He kept running, taking the glee to go instead of savoring it. There would be plenty of time for that once Gutworth was a footprint, and then he could go back to home base and talk to the others, see how their local accelerationist projects ended up.

Maybe they’d finally stop making fun of him.

…

The door to the Helot’s brain squealed open. Montanna took out a lantern (here they were called spark vases, but that's just “calling a rabbit a smeerp” shit and Montanna was better than that) and shined it up until he could see the limits of the massive chamber.

And there she was.

Wrapped up like a Christmas present on top of the concave ceiling, she was all the more beautiful up close. The way her chains dug into her eyes, leaving no trace outside of the twin smears of blood still brightly flowing down her dark bronzed features, was kismet. The Shadow would be happy to hear this, all they had to do was paint the chains purple and they could easily rope her into the existing scripture.

A sharp pain in his back. His arm cracked and not in a healthy way. It was time to entertain.

He placed his hand crank lantern down and stared straight in front of him. He coughed a bit, and wiped something unidentifiable off his shirt. It left a red stain. “We’re all dying, you know.”

His voice seemed custom made for this room's cavernous acoustics. The brain of the Helot was behind him, but he stared forward, addressing a crowd he could not see.

“Not even in a metaphorical sense, I mean that this world has a ticker thats always counting down. But you know that. Everyone who wears these knows that,” he pointed at his bandanna. “That's why they locked you up here? Cause they wanted things to end, they were scared of eternity.”

An impossible breeze shook the chains.

“The dogma of religion is our lifeblood. Religion is action, action is proof that you exist.” He took off his shirt. There was a bright bloodstain right where Hailien had nicked him. “Action is a requirement for change. Change is what creates dogma, which in itself is usually a reaction to change.”

Another cough. He slapped himself hard. After a look of confusion, he slapped himself again. Then the speech continued as if there had been no interruption.

“So our dogmas keep things the same, even as things change. You could call it a stagnancy. But stagnancy is the end goal here, we cannot live in interesting times if there’s ever the risk of things truly changing.” He weighed the options with his hands. “I don’t know for sure which comes first, the need for stagnancy or the need for dogma, maybe it doesn’t matter. It’s awfully cold in here.”

He looked up to the woman. For a minute he stared at her and did nothing. Then he pulled a crumbled note from his pocket and read aloud.

”Let me tell you about a girl made to stop the end of the world.”

The lighting changed from a demure yellow to a pulsing red. It continued to get brighter as he recited text he didn’t really understand.

”When Serach’s Diving Bell screeched through the heavens and pierced God’s sinew, there were two who held close, their bodies intertwined in prayer.”

Devon awoke from a nightmare to find Adam back in her hand. She told him how he had been replaced by a monster. Hailien took her roughly by the shoulder of her bad arm and pulled her up. “No time, no time for any of that.” She pointed Time Consumer at a climber cresting the nearest wall. “We take that to the top, then kill him.”

“There was much rejoicing that night. For they had found heaven. And even though it had teeth and the color burned the eye, they knew it was good. For Papa Patriarch was on board, and Papa Patriarch had an open line to God. God told him they were safe. Their paradise just needed time to form. That was all.”

A hijacking of a climber. Hailien surged roughly and tossed aside a layabout taking up space. She hit the top floor button hard enough to break it. With a hissing reluctance the climber’s claws scraped upward. “He’s the cause of all this.” She said to Devon, “He’s the cause of all our misfortunes.” Devon was huddled in a corner, whispering to herself.

“The two intertwined in prayer never admitted it but they expected to die. They spent each night afterwards thanking the other. Besides themselves and marveling that eternity would now be theirs.”

A massive pulse from the Helot’s skull. The Climber shook and stone broke free. Alarms sounded and the tightness of the Climbers Bio-Mesh became a problem. “We’ll go out the top” Hailien said, making sure to snap once before she jangled the pustule at the tip. Devon was too busy looking at the open wound that was her right arm to reply. There was a trilling outside, worming its way inside. “We need to leave, something powerful is waking up,” Adam said.

“The Diving Bell caved open and the amniotic fluid bled out and dispersed reality. Here was their paradise, Papa Patriarch proclaimed. And they all admitted it was good. But the two intertwined were more alone than ever. They both found shelter in the statue of Serach, the girl who would live forever. Things were nice until the Pocket curdled.”

Strings by the dozen poured in through the broken button plate. Hailien had just loosened the opening up to stick an arm in when the sliding doors were pushed outward by claws of pure black. “Hailien and Devon! It’s Stumble and Tremble”, said the voice of someone dead. The strings came in like water on a leaky boat and the bulk of something very long and hungry destroyed what was left of the door. The climber died screaming.

“One day the sky turned from blue to red, The Visionary spoke to them and he said “You are in Gehenna. As above so below, aren’t you happy you escaped heaven?” But they didn’t know how to respond. Papa Patriarch was replaced by a pretender and said pretender was killed and eaten. The Visionary stuck to our skin and we learned this was a gift. The aberrations came soon afterwards, and through trial and error both sides got better at killing. The Wyrms feasted and some people became gods for a time. The two intertwined separated, one of them died.”

Beyond them the walls of the Helot were growing flesh. What were once passageways revealed themselves as blood vessels. Placebos flooded the changing interior and dissolved into a pink mass that covered everything. “Good for them!” Tremble rasped, having no idea what was going on. Devon was overwhelmed by thick string that pulled and made her skin bleed. The laughing face of Stumble slithered on it as a pattern. Dozens of eyes locked onto Hailien and for the first time in so very long she felt scared. The feeling intensified with a punch to the throat. She hit the side of the climber and Tremble kicked the climber free and they were loose from the edges of what was now clearly skin and they were falling, falling.

“The other was swept up in sentiments of preservation. Their society had fallen into murder and this way they thought was ruin. But no, she knew the truth. You knew the truth, you understand the oxymorons. You get why it’s funny. In the end it’s all so fucking simple.”

Hailien snapped right before they hit the water. Tremble looked at the space Hailien had just been and screamed. “The fuck was that.” She looked at Devon and Adam, too busy dealing with the laughing string to explain. She poked her head out. Screams wafted from everywhere as the Helot cried pink, its body gaining color that was vibrant and unnamable. There was a clang from above, a snap as clear as lighting, and then a giant wave washed them all away.

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“To kill is to live. To sustain is to deprive. Stagnancy is change, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” The room around him was now clearly a skull. Vacant sockets appeared in the roof, the Helot’s chained human body was covered by flesh. A massive tongue grew out of where Montanna had entered.

”And you understand what you must do now, right??” He shouted. His greasy hands held the instructions tightly. One final sentence, then she would be activated. Then Gutworth would be fucking crushed. Overkill, maybe, to use a giant flesh mech for one backwater, but he was just following orders, and had been for years, why stop now?

“There’s a town close by filled with those who want to end the world. You must teach them the beauty in life through death, you will leave no one alive in the town of-“

And then Montanna was crushed by bone matter. The Helot’s physical reconstruction did not account for the man telling the story, and so she never heard the ending.

Which was a shame, as she was rather enjoying it.

…

The dead climber was on its side. A reasonable compromise to a life raft, the opening faced upward so it was like a canoe. The slight shape of Adam rose from it, silhouetted by the massive calf of the Helot, now animate. Her every step was a tidal wave, she screamed and brought down birds. The sea was a mess of retreating ships, corpses bobbing, and corpses soon to be. Thankfully, the initial wave had thrown them a good half a mile, and the Helot was walking away. To who or what they did not know.

Devon stuck her head out. Immediately she received a face full of cold ocean spray. She spit it out along with a bit of blood.

“Bleh, bleck!” She wiped her face frantically, the way a float rat cleaned its fur, before having to stop due to the severity of her hand and how much it stung.

“Your hand is still damaged.”

“I know.”

It was so raw that even the cold sea air stung. She glanced down at it reluctantly. Maybe 20% better. 30%? The borders of her flesh giant barriers slowly being expanded.

“An eye for an eye.” She said to no one.

”Makes the whole world blind.” Tremble finished. She was looking normal as she panted and shook like a broken toy, leering down at Devon from an impossible perch.

”Fuck!” Devon was on her like the waves, ferocious and screaming. Tremble scampered out of range, laughing before falling into the water. She came out a second later smiling, head bobbing as the Helot crushed ships behind them.

“Don’t attack, don’t attack!” Tremble said, splashing about with glee. Adam moved forward till he was inches away. “No seriously, don’t attack.”

Something large was coming towards them. What at first Devon feared to be a burst whale was the floating back of-

”Hailien!” She clawed desperately at the water as the choppy current brought the woman forward in stops and starts. Many strings pushed her massive body onto the climber. There were two eyes staring at her from the water, the pupils the raw copulation of a hundred lines.

She checked for a pulse. There was none.

With the force of a city, The Helot walked. The strange creaking of her limbs like an angel being pulled apart. Tremble was laughing.

”Devon, there was nothing you could do. She must have died when she hit the climber.”

Tremble was laughing.

Devon slapped Hailien. Once. Twice, then again and again, each slap more desperate. Tremble was laughing.

”Devon, you don’t know what you’re doing” She had seen her dad do the same whenever someone went overboard. She didn’t understand how it always worked for him when it wasn’t working now.

“Yeah Devon,” Tremble sang, “you don’t know what you’re-“

”SHUT UP!” There was a ripple in reality, something akin to the Visionary was glimpsed, Devon felt it like fire on her fingertips. Adam was in her hand now, slick and wet. She pointed him straight at bobbing Tremble. Piece of crawl shit Tremble.

“I hereby challenge you to a duel.” She yelled. Her voice carried out as a ripple through the sea, circling out a good 50 feet before disappearing in the waves.

”Do you feel that? Devon, I think we may have just moved up a Sphere.”

She had no idea what that meant. But she did feel powerful, like some potential within her has just been unlocked.

“Oh that’s fine, that’s fine.” Tremble said, far too casual. “My friend just needs to do something now.” An insufferable beat where Tremble had control, then “Okay, she’s ready.”

”Devon”

Hailien’s corpse was gone. Then it burst from the water wrapped in seaweed covered tentacles that rose out like Leviathan.

“You remember Stumble? She’s back, in string form! She’s learned the secret of the world and she’s all the better for it!”

She was envious, despite not knowing why.

She was always envious, recently. It didn’t make any sense, she was strong as shit! Her feelings hadn’t yet caught up with her reality. Like the version of her who was worthless was still clinging-

“You’re not worthless, you were never worthless.” Adam said, his voice a salve. Thanks buddy, happy to have ya. She got into her now familiar pose and the space around her crackled. Hand raised over face, other hand forward, Adam held out like a promise. Tremble rose like a threat.

Her body a clever compromise between her standard self and Contrarian form. Slightly curvier, slightly larger, and far more menacing, but what really stood out was her claws, furry and brutish. Devon had experienced them for herself, but seeing them here was far more terrifying. Her tail swished with obvious glee. She had a tail now, braided with bone. There was something inherently authoritative about her body, and it was hard to miss the way she effortlessly walked on water, bits of the Visionary appearing as platforms with each step.

“So here’s the deal, Hailien snapped her fingers again, right before she hit the climber and broke her neck.” With a shit eating grin she fanned out her hands and created a picture frame with claws, with Devon right in the center. “But it’s okay, you just need to beat me, then we’ll give you her corpse.”

Stumble (or the strings that Tremble claimed were Stumble) did a little dance with Hailien’s body, the effect was ghastly.

“And then, if you just uh, manually snap her fingers, the effect should be reversed. Probably.”

Devon had no way to know if that was how Hailien’s remark worked. She didn’t trust Tremble of all people to know it, but she certainly didn’t want these two freaks to have her mentor's corpse.

”Is that what Hailien was to us?” For the most part, yes. She had become strange on the Helot, but everyone and everything had become strange there. Even the Helot itself! It had just risen from the water and walked off to greener pastures, and with it gone, there was no reason for Hailien to still be Hailien if she could be revived.

“How do I know you won’t cheat?” She was keeping a close eye on Stumble, as the strings made Hailien’s corpse blow a kiss. She had not known Stumble long but she couldn’t quite understand the transformation from reliable crew member to vicious puppeteer.

“There’s something weird with her ADM, it’s like it’s not fully her.”

“I won’t need to, I’m ready whenever,” Tremble said, her face beaming. Her clawed hands hung loose as she rocked on her heels. “Tell me when the duels commenced and we’ll go. No, have Adam do it.”

Devon said nothing.

Adam said nothing.

Tremble stopped pacing and cocked her head, her expression that of a disappointed parent. “Now guys, don’t tell me you both forgot how to talk.”

Adam folded in on himself and exited reality. Devon held her now empty palm out for Tremble to see. In another life she could have been a magician.

Tremble wrinkled her nose and raised an eyebrow. “Now why would you-“

“The duel has commenced,”

Adam skyrocketed out of the Visionary into Tremble’s back, reusing the move they had tried and failed to use on Karol. Devon ran across the climber and grabbed onto Tremble's bleeding torso, all while feeling around in the oozing hole that Adam had drilled.

“Oh don’t do this half assed!” With a rapid fire wink, Tremble moved Devon’s hands aside and feasted around for Adam herself. She folded up till her spine was a circle, digging far deeper into the wound than what was physically possible. “Where are you Adam, where are you?”

Adam spit out like a loose tooth straight through Tremble's eye. She bled Visionary.

With her good arm Devon punched her again and again but it was pointless. The nature of the battle had changed, Tremble wrapped around the arm Devon should have been protecting and laughing. Straight up laughing.

Adam finally came to her hand and with a yell she caved Tremble’s head in.

It cracked like porcelain, the web like breaks oddly symmetrical. Adam hooked onto something damp and sticky (her brain?) and it flew out with surprising ease. Devon dismounted and breathed in sharply, watching Tremble as she slowly died. Adam stuck out of her, a spike through her head.

Oh…” Tremble was the girl next door. Tremble had given Devon notes that could have been love letters or could have been death threats. “… she takes her last breaths then, Tremble the pathetic.” Tremble was the kid who had always asked Devon to go fishing and when she actually did she would stare out into the sea in silence and say nothing, looking mad whenever Devon tried to start a conversation. “The weak little thing they tried to break is finally broken, and she falls to the ground like so.” Tremble embraced who Devon was when she came back changed. Or atleast, the threatening notes/love letters didn’t stop, she was still treated the same. “But from this corpse, something worthwhile forms.”

Nothing Tremble was saying was actually happening. Devon had stepped away, grasping her raw arm and watching Adam drill into her head like a semi precious stone. The cracks had spread but had taken strangely planned designs, like tattoos. Somehow, Tremble had never looked more powerful. Which wasn’t hard to achieve, admittedly.

A large curtain of Visionary bubbled and groaned. A massive blade of two points that curled and wrapped around each other, Tremble grasped the Remark and let out a little coo.

”Devon, she's like the Placebos, there’s nothing there.”

Adam ripped himself free, shattering most of her head. What remained was a broken bowl. Or a broken eggshell. The mouth, unfortunately, was untouched. She was all broken angles.

“I HAVE BEEN BLESSED BY THE VISIONARY!” She bellowed, wielding her new Remark with surprising skill “THEY SCREAM AT ME IN MY DREAMS!”

With a flash she came at Devon, moving so hard it was like she intended to plow through her. Devon tried to dodge.

Tremble caught her by the face. She was thrown up in the air and came back to the ground. Her Twinblade pierced the Climber but not Devon. With a snarl she was back on her feet and went in for a wild tackle.

Tremble took it like Devon was a Child. Letting the smaller fighter cling clumsily to her skin before falling to the ground. Devon didn’t let this distract her from what was most important, which was hurting Tremble hurting Tremble hurting Tremble

”My, you’re feisty. I’m starting to think you might actually care about Hailien.”

She was slicing at her feet. Then her ankles. Then her knees. All the while Tremble kept talking.

“My name doesn’t describe me anymore. It describes those around me.”

Devon felt the life slip away from her as Tremble squeezed and squeezed. Adam fell with a clatter and into the deep. She could hear him but he was muffled, like being beneath columns and columns and columns and

The Twinblade Remark pierced clean through. Devon gasped.

Organs burst, ribs were shattered. Adam couldn’t hide away the pain as her vision blurred.

She was able to rip herself away from Tremble, but that was only because there was less of her body. As the blood rushed out like a river and her legs struggled to stand, she raised her fists into a stance Hailien had taught her.

Left hand over right, guarding your face. The type of stance you took when a street fight got bad.

Feet opposite, left back and relaxed while right primed and centered. She bellowed lighting and attacked with a right hook.

Tremble dodged it, laughing. “Your organs are falling out, the bleeding is internal!”

Pivoting on her left leg, in a move she knew was badass, she faked left and then attacked again with her right.

Tremble dodged again, jumping up from the sinking Climber and landing with impeccable grace. ”Now this is a duel! You hate me so much!! You’re gonna die before you land a decent punch though. Too bad hahahahah!!!”

Tremble glanced back then and saw there was no more space.

That was when Devon kicked her straight in the face. Knocking off some more flesh, and finally getting a scratch on those perfect black teeth.

Tremble fell in comically fast, sinking like a stone. Devon, the effect of being exsanguinated finally catching up to her, tripped, fell-

And sank to the bottom of the sea.