"So, what happened while I was under?" I asked, looking around at the damage, "I didn't attack anyone did I?"

"Nah, a lot of this is on us really," Omar admitted, gesturing with the blasted, burnt stub of a metal rake in his hands, "Not long after you started equipping your bloodline thing this thick rainbow goo spurted from your mouth and started to cover you. We all kind of panicked a bit at that."

"Reasonably so I'd say," Matilda huffed, cleaning one of her blackened antennae and perched on Jerry's back, a burnt hole in one of her wings, "The stuff looked to be completely unnatural and I was afraid it was trying to drown you."

"Did it attack you when you tried to stop it?" I asked worriedly, my eyes dancing between the many patches of embers and soot clearly visible in the bright moonlight. Did this ooze spit fire at them?

"Not, directly, no." Matilda grumbled.

"She tried coating it in her silk. The living rainbow stuff set it on fire and blasted it away on contact," Omar laughed, gesturing to the soot marks I'd been eyeing. "We thought maybe it was some defensive field or something since it didn't seem to be hurting you, well, until it reached your hat."

"What did it do to my hat?" I asked, unable to keep the worry from entering my voice. I nearly ended up cutting my own eye out as I forgot I had roughly forty inches of curved metal growing out of the end of my tail when I went to feel for my hat atop my head only to find it bare.

"I'm afraid it wasn't any kinder to it than Matilda's silk." Damian squeaked sadly holding up the ruined remains of my hat. It looked like someone had set an M-80 off under it. The old hat had been nearly torn in half from contact with the ooze. A massive rent was torn through it, going from the rim clear through the crown, and the front brim heavily blackened. It barely held its shape anymore with the leather sweatband on the inside of the hat half torn free and the outer band was just simply gone. Even most of the inner lining had been blasted almost completely off and what remained still seemed to be lightly smoldering.

"Oh." I stated weakly. I held out my tail to take it back, which Damian hastily returned. But what was I supposed to do with it now? It was absolutely destroyed and we had no way to fix it. I should probably just throw it away, but that felt so terribly wrong to do to the old thing. Burning it like a retired flag? It was such a stupid small thing but it left me feeling suddenly so very very lost.

For the first time since the Event I was glad I was a snake as it meant I couldn't cry.

"You gonna be okay man?" Omar asked, stepping up and giving me a rough slap to the side. "I thought it was just the hat you used for that cowboy costume of yours."

"Nah," I managed to just keep from choking, "The old thing was a souvenir from when I was ten and we went to some old west style ranch with my family. Can't for the life of me remember the ranch or much of what happened there, but I remember the whole family loving it. I always found it funny the thing still fit like a glove after I was all grown up. Even still fit me now somehow." I gave a soft laugh, "It's a shame, it was a nice hat."

"I could try and fix it." Matilda offered, "I've knitted up plenty of clothes for my nieces and nephews."

"If you feel like it when you have some time," I passed the ruin over to her before giving myself a good shake, "Moving on, what happened after that, I assume the rake was involved."

"Yeah," Omar muttered, looking unusually awkward. "I thought the rake would be able to scrape the stuff off you and it being metal it might hold up better."

"Ended up throwing him something like ten feet away," Jerry snorted, "And then he got back up and tried again. Third time he tried it the damn rake exploded and we only narrowly avoided getting people impaled by the shrapnel."

"Thanks for trying my bean," I nodded at my old work friend, "I appreciate the attempts."

"It's fine cracker," he seemed to visibly relax and smile back, "I know you'd have done the same for me."

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"Nah, I'd have tried way dumber shit than what you tried," I waved off, "Anything else interesting happen before, what? The ooze soaked into me? Evaporated?"

"Soaked into you.” Jerry stated and I shuddered a bit, “Both myself and Michelle here tried to attack the ooze and knock you out of it since we both have fairly strong attacks." Jerry gestured to the yet unnamed emu, who I now noticed was missing one of her leg warmers. "It didn't end any better than Omar's attempts."

"I'm still thankful for the attempts," I gave them both a smile, "Thankfully it wasn't necessary. We do now know it's probably best to be naked when evolving and not to mess with any rainbow goo. Hopefully full evolution doesn't come with any new surprises, but we should probably be ready for such eventualities just in case. Damian?"

"Yeah boss?"

I gave him a scathing look at that before continuing, "Would you be willing to be the first to attempt an evolution among us?"

"I- Yeah, yeah. Okay." He nodded and took a deep breath as he started removing his crusty blood soaked shirt, "Makes sense it would be me. Small, expendable, harmless-."

"Trustworthy, level headed, and brave." I finished for him. "I experienced a bunch of hallucinations with the bloodline, so be ready for that. Whatever happens, try to take it slow and be smart about whatever you encounter. And thank you for being willing to do this for us."

"Anytime boss." He smiled up at me before seeming to zone out, his stance widening slightly as his body seemed to sag. After that he just stood there, seemingly completely braindead to the world as his mouth dangled open and he drooled all over himself. I hated having to send him through this first, acting as both a scout and a sacrificial lamb all because I was too damn afraid about possibilities and maybes that lingered behind that single word floating in our status bars. All those excuses that I'd given were nothing more than my craven ass trying to put someone else between myself and potential danger. It was for the best that I move on in the next day or two so that I'd stop throwing these poor fools, that had the misfortune of trusting me, into the fire for my sake. The fact that nothing worse had happened to any of them thus far was clearly nothing more than an act of divine providence as God did his usual thing of watching out for fools and children.

I was snapped from my self recriminations by the sudden appearance of a bright rainbow glow that began to pour out of Damian's slack jaws. The glow looked to be pure light, but its behavior was more akin to mud or living molasses as Damian vomited it forth like a fire hose. Even then it seemed like his tiny jaws strained against the flow and I felt myself concerned it was going to break his jaws. As it pooled to knee deep around our little raptor catbug the shimmering churning rainbow of light seemed to spring to life, unfurling long tendrils of fluid light that latched around the man with predatory ferocity. In the blink of an eye Damian was fully enveloped in the stuff with not an inch of skin showing.

"Yeah it was like that for you as well," Omar said. I flinched in surprise his hand resting on my side, "Took a little longer since you're such a fat fuck now, but you can understand why we all freaked the fuck out a bit, yeah?"

"Yeah," I echoed. Everything about this was off putting to me. The way the light moved, the way his silhouette was still visible inside the living rainbow slime, and the way it was beginning to bubble and roil like a stormy sea. I was having to fight from lashing out and trying to tear him free of this abomination. It was only by reminding myself that it wasn't hurting him that I was able to-.

*SNAP*

Damian's leg visibly broke as the light slime began to swirl like a whirlpool at the break, visibly forcing itself into him.

*CRACK SNAP CRUNCH*

More limbs shattering, his body began to visibly distort and smear under the rainbow slime and I acted without a thought. Everyone's attempts to save me from this stuff had failed, but the memory of cleaving through armor was still fresh and I had to hope I was able to free Damian before he was completely torn apart by this amalgamation of light, fluid, and monster.

The tip of the blade at the end of my tail slammed into the stuff and I felt like I'd just kicked a brick wall as hard as I could with a single toe. Pain rocketed into my brain as I felt said wall kick back into my already stubbed toe with ten times the force I had attacked it with. However heavy I was now, it didn't matter as I was sent spinning across the parking lot and collapsed with a weak hiss, briefly overwhelmed by the pain and dizziness. I forced my head to stop spinning and ignored the several people rushing over to me as my eyes focused fully on Damian as I could see his now slightly larger form emerge as the last of the rainbow vomit sank into his flesh leaving impossibly dark scales and fur in its place.

This four foot tall vantablack dinosaur shaped hole in reality seemed to be examining itself as it moved in absolute silence in the night. The two tall triangular ears atop its ears flicked about without any apparent conscious direction at the slightest of sounds, including some I couldn't hear. This new form seemed far more cohesive than Damian's old body, his ears and eyes now seamlessly meshed into his physiology in a seemingly natural way instead of being body parts that had been randomly slapped on. A chuckle bubbled up from his throat as he asked, "You tried attacking the goo didn't you Joe?" He still wasn't looking my way, apparently he'd finally broken his habit of looking around.

"It was breaking your bones," I huffed defensively, "I feel my reaction was justified."

"That, admittedly didn't happen with your bloodline," he admitted, slinking forwards as silently as a shadow. "Glad I didn't feel that at least. A half hour of breaking bones would have been rather unpleasant."

"A half hour?" Nolan gruffed, "You were barely in there for a minute."

"So a highly accelerated perspective while you're in there. Noted, anything else?" I inquired.

Damian went on to explain how you were given three evolutionary 'lines' to pick from that were supposedly based on our actions thus far and then given options to buff the stats of your pick using those points we'd been earning from quests. Each of the lines apparently came with a couple free slotless abilities, in his case detection radius decrease and bonus damage to attacks while undetected, as well as a symbol that was likely tied to something. After that you were whisked away to the Cube to spend your remaining points on skills and mutations before being given a final confirmation.

"Well despite how disturbing it seems to be from the outside it doesn't seem like there's any serious long term consequences." I silently tried to assure myself that I was right despite it being far to short a time to determine 'long term' consequences. "Shall we go ahead and take care of this evolution stuff before we call it a night?"