Pink light grew in intensity under the Keratily’s armor. For a split second I readied myself for some kind of beam, or even an instant teleport. That wasn’t even close to what I got, and in retrospect, it was exactly what I should’ve expected.

Crystals. They sprouted all over the Keratily, reinforcing the parts of their armor that weren't already covered in platinum. But they didn’t conceal anything–they amplified. Every crack in the marble, every vein carved to look like real life, all put into focus through the lens of pink. The Keratily snapped arm down so their fingers were pointed directly at the ground, then swirled them up towards the sky.

A thin crystal blade formed in their hand. It wasn’t elegant, or even like any forged weapon I’d ever seen. It was one long, jagged needle of crystal that radiated primal danger in the same way as a raging river. Crystal thorns popped into existence around their armor’s armor’s crystalline coating, flowing in the slight breeze like a very disjointed scarf.

“At least you’re aesthetic.” I grumbled and shifted my mass of petal-scales. The weight on my mind doubled as I actively tried to control them.

It wasn’t anything unbearable, but it was a constant numbness on the borders of my awareness. My hydra lumbered up behind me, filled with enough battery to last her a few minutes of autonomy. Unless the Keratily was so fast and skilled that they dismantled her, I’d have the advantage for this fight.

I pulled my petal-scales close until they completely covered my body, then gestured for my hydra to charge. She readily and excitedly obeyed, then… jumped into the ground. Petal-scales parted to make room for her massive body, and turned back into solid stone when she rushed the Keratily with a speed I’d never seen from her. I really hadn’t expected a monster from Sotrien to do well in the water.

“Ergh. How difficult.” The Keratily muttered and took one step back. Crystals blossomed under their foot in a long trail that snaked towards my hydra.

Without needing to think, I ordered her to dodge. I got a weight on my mind that felt like confirmation, and the strain of creating petal-scales doubled as she ducked even deeper into the stone. The trail of crystals passed harmlessly over her. And didn’t stop in the slightest.

They were headed straight for me. As was their creator. I spat out a curse and raised my arms to defend myself, calling the petal-scales to join me.

Pink pierced right through like it was nothing. The thin needle sprayed oily petal-scales over my visor and screamed towards my face even as the trail snaked under everything and bubbled under my feet. Warnings screamed up at me from the destruction of petal-scales under my feet. I had no time to think over a decision, and from the look of the encroaching needle, even less to make one.

To my left was a wall. To my right was one of the other Keratilys, who were now shining with a pink light that scared the fuck out of me. I had no idea what was behind me, and in front of me was certain death in a shade of pink. Below was out for notification-based reasons, and above was just as dangerous for those same reasons.

If I’d had a few more seconds, I probably would’ve retreated. Taken the path of mystery and regrouped against the Keratily’s assault. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what I did. I shifted the shield of petal-scales with a thought, blasting them up as high as I could like a geyser, and charged at the now visible Keratily.

They didn’t even flinch at the loss of their weapon. It clattered to the ground and shattered, then seeped towards the Keratily who’d staggered before they ‘died’. I had to prepare myself for another one of them to join in eventually if I couldn’t manage to defeat this one succinctly.

A hand slammed down onto my scales, and the pink armor warred against them for purchase. My scales were like a flowing river–raging and dangerous, but nowhere near as solid as I needed them to be. That only came with actual commands, or from specific actions like swiping a weapon. I had to get used to this, or get a whole lot better at issuing mental commands.

My hands met theirs. I grunted and ducked to shift their body weight over my shoulder, then slammed my shoulder into their stomach. A grunt of surprise left them as their extremely heavy body tumbled over me, and they twisted to leave a long gash along my back as they went. It didn’t hurt in the slightest, and my petal-scales quickly reknit themselves into the coating they’d been a second ago.

The ground rumbled. I staggered backwards as everything shifted and tented under the massive pink spire that erupted from where I’d just been standing. It was tall enough to scrape the sides of the crevasse and poke through to the surface, with a perfect crystalline grain that seemed to trap all the light inside and taint it with sickly pink.

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Pink that grew a little sicklier with every moment. I frowned and risked a glance at the other Keratilys. Crystals sprouted from them like mushrooms after a rainfall. Specifically from the places that I’d injected petal-scales into their bodies, and which I’d left inert right after. Again, I needed to get used to controlling a lot of these things at once.

I… kind of blended them after that. My petal-scales liquified the Keratilys inside of their armor, which was gaining a frightening amount of battery to fight back against the constant death I was dealing.

“That spire’s fucking annoying.” I sighed and shook my head. “Is everyone who allied with Keratily a battery-sucking parasite like her?”

The Keratily shrugged helplessly. “It comes with the family. You should call off your stone-swimming familiar before it ends up as a meal for the obelisk.”

“Aw, a warning? How sporting of you.” I rolled my eyes sarcastically. “You’re aware that we’re supposed to be killing each other, right? Not having a friendly conversation?”

The Keratily seemed taken aback by that. “Of course I am. But we are both fairly powerful, and it would be such a waste to deal with you before I can properly preserve–I mean, persuade you.”

Preserve? Was that what they were trying to do with that massive pink crystal? I took it in as well as I could from where I stood, then took a few more steps back. They were standing as close to it as possible, touching the crystalline armor to it as sickly pink flowed from within the obelisk to their armor.

Were they recharging? Or were they trying to recoup some of the battery cost they’d just spent? I couldn’t be sure, but both possibilities led to the same solution. I needed to separate them from that obelisk, and I couldn’t get myself or my hydra trapped.

I extended my function for a second to get a better feel of where my hydra was. She’d swam a lot deeper than I’d expected–almost a quarter mile of stone now separated us–and I briefly wondered how the hell she’d managed to do that. So much transforming and untransforming stone should’ve drained her battery reserves dry, but she was still happily swimming about at speeds that were frankly terrifying.

With a command she started to rise. I shifted the stone under the Keratily’s feet into petal-scales. They dipped a little with a grunt of surprise, but their armor stuck fast to the obelisk. I took a step forward and expanded my petal-scale creation around the base of the crystal, swallowing all the stone that I could.

The Keratily snorted haughtily. “You imbecile. Neither of us are at the matria’s level where we could overwrite either one’s functions. All you’ll succeed in is slightly disturbing the ground around my feet.”

“Maybe. Maybe that’s my entire plan.” I grinned as I felt my hydra’s petal-scale disturbance getting ever closer. “Tell me something. Those other two–what was the point of bringing them along? You let them die before they even got a swing at me.”

“I owe you no words, traitor.” The Keratily stated as the pool of petal-scales under them grew ever larger.

I shrugged and pointed at the ground. “Suit yourself. Drag them down, girl.”

My hydra burst free from the rock in a spray of petal-scales. The Keratily flinched and snapped to stare at the awe that was my monstrous little lady blocking the light from entering the crevasse, then screamed out something that sounded like gibberish to me. It could’ve been untranslated curses, or some garbled names, but I was pretty sure it was just a lot of nothing.

She fell like the most graceful house you’d ever seen. The crystal and the Keratily disappeared in a spray of petal-scales that turned back into stone before they clattered against my armor. I gave a command to drag the Keratily down as deep as possible without getting drained or controlled, and got strained confirmation right back.

Images of sensations like overworked muscles flooded into my mind, and I knew my hydra was struggling with taking something else through the stone. For just her it seemed like a pretty easy task, but it looked like I wouldn’t be riding her through solid stone any time soon.

She sent me another sensation that echoed from a half-mile down. That would be plenty of stone for the Keratily to struggle through.

“Alright, girl, that’s deep enough. Take a… rest? Disappear? What do you actually do when I don’t summon you?”

My hydra dissipated as crystals lanced through her, stealing away the last precious battery I’d entrusted to her. The strange sensations didn’t go away, they just shifted to somewhere I hadn’t thought to look. Inside of my interface.

I opened it up and flipped over to my core, where a very small section of the petal-scales rose to form a tiny hydra that waggled its long-necked heads at me in enthusiastic greeting. Was that… safe? For something else with what seemed like a mind of its own to live inside of my core? Fuck, was that even possible?

Reality said it was, and I wasn’t in the mood to question it right now. There was still one more crystal to deal with after this, and then absolutely everything with Scalovera.

This wasn’t close to the end. I was just making sure we could safely stand at the starting line.