We return to Skyhope unaccosted, and I am immediately thankful that Penta stopped me from fucking around with my soul. I don’t know if other people would be able to sense that, and, for some reason, Templars are everywhere.

Is it war? Doesn’t seem like it. They didn’t stop Penelope or me at the gate, so they’re probably not after me either. Are Lyn and Rowan okay…? Rowan is working with the Templars, but Lyn is wanted by them. It’s a toss-up on whether or not this is actually good. What the heck is going on?

“I had completely forgotten Hiverock was passing over tonight,” Penelope comments, staring at the sky.

I follow her gaze towards tonight’s incoming island, a monstrous, vertical ovoid covered in artificial fortifications. The best guess people of Skyhope have is that the entire inside of the island has been hollowed out to make them, the creatures living within consigning themselves to eternal darkness as they built their nation inside.

“Oh yeah,” I murmur. “Me too. It’s kind of been a crazy few days, huh? Explains the Templars swarming all over the place.”

“Mmm,” Penelope hums noncommittally, staring up at the island. “I suppose we’ll be drafted, since we’re hunters now.”

“Do you think they’ll attack us?” I ask.

She scowls, thinking. Staring out at this distance, there’s no way I can make out the thousands of bug-people that might be crawling along the outer walls, ready to drop. Though the island passes over four times a year due to its quick orbit, I’ve never actually seen any of the battles, only heard the chaos. Street rats know better than to wander out of hiding on Hiverock nights.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what Hiverock will do, Vita. They haven’t attacked in over a year. With luck, we’ve finally convinced them we’re not worth the effort. But perhaps they’ve simply been preparing.”

I nod. What a pain. ...Although, if there was a big battle, maybe I’d be able to collect a bunch of human souls. That could be good.

“Woah there, that took a sudden turn,” my mouth murmurs involuntarily.

Penta! I… I didn’t mean it would be good if people died, I meant that, you know, if they’re going to die, I may as well—

“We are going to need to find somewhere private to talk,” Penta whispers quietly. “Soon, please.”

Okay, okay. I’ll figure something out.

“If you could not embarrass me by talking to yourself in public, Vita, it would be appreciated,” Penelope says flatly. “We still need to alert the guild’s branch leader about Remus. Or I suppose we could go right to the Templars, with all of them out and about.”

“Yeah, no Templars,” I insist. “Let’s handle the branch leader.”

“You’ll need me there, then,” Penelope replies confidently. “Honestly, I should do it all myself. He’s not going to want to talk to you.”

“Rude,” I comment, wrinkling my nose. “So he’s going to want to talk to you, then?”

“I am a noble of house Vesuvius,” she responds haughtily. “He’s obligated to talk to me.”

"What are you going to tell him?" I ask. "I don't wanna contradict you by accident."

"Just the truth," Penelope answers. "No need for a complex lie."

I frown, quickly ushering her into an empty ally.

"You're not gonna tell him about Penta, are you? Honestly, I'd rather not be the one called out for saving us, either. Can you take credit for that?"

She scowls back at me.

"You're still hiding more things, aren't you?"

"Yes," I say bluntly. "So let's not talk about it out here. Please?"

"I don't like this," Penelope tells me. "I don't like this at all. You're suspicious. You're foolish. You're dangerous. You just want me to go along with it? I won't. You're already asking too much of me just to keep that thing alive."

"Hey, she saved our asses back there," I whisper.

"It saved itself. We're a bonus. That thing isn't human, and it isn't your friend."

"Penelope, it will be fine. I can—"

My words suddenly cut off, a jolt of fear running through me as my body stops being my own. I clutch at Penta's soul, ready to rip it out.

"If I may speak for myself?" the slime asks sweetly. "I'm no longer a threat to you, Penelope. In fact, our positions have been thoroughly reversed. I am the prisoner now. Surely that poetic justice is satisfying to some degree?"

"You look free to me, monster," Penelope growls. "Vita will sleep eventually, and nothing will stop you from taking another body and running."

"Gratitude will. And if you don't believe that, fear will."

"You can become anyone. Anything. You have nothing to fear, you liar."

"I fear Vita," Penta tells her, as pleasantly as ever. "And when she tells you her secrets, you will too."

That's enough, I demand. My secrets aren't yours to hint at.

"Oop, I'm being put back in my cage," Penta says. "Ta-ta for now."

Hey, that's—

"—not what this is," I protest, but Penta detaches from my spinal cord and sulks around under my skin, unable to hear for now. I scowl. Where did that come from?

Penelope glares at me in silence for a while before responding. She sighs in a huff.

"...We'll keep doing it your way, Vita, but only if you promise to tell me what you're up to."

I take a deep breath. Fuck. Well, the girl that literally has all of Penelope's memories recommended it, so... I can take a leap of faith, I guess.

"I will. As soon as it's actually safe to have a conversation. Okay? I promise. Just hear me out until the end, okay? It's... a lot."

"I'll promise to hear you out. I won't promise to agree with you. And I won't lie about you killing the slimes."

I scowl. Not ideal. I don’t want my kill-power public, but I guess I have to compromise somewhere.

"...You won't mention Penta?" I confirm.

"I won't," she answers begrudgingly. "I won't help you hide that thing, but I won't bring it up."

"Fine," I agree. "I need to go home and help get everyone safe for the Hiverock. We'll meet up at the guild later, okay?"

She opens her mouth to protest, but ends up just huffing out air.

"Okay," she says instead. "Make sure those kids are safe."

I grin. Aww, she cares!

"Okay!"

Running off towards home, I poke at my neck a bit. Is Penta sulking? I keep prodding at her until she takes control again, our run not even stuttering. She was getting good at that really fast.

"What?" she snaps.

"You... seem mad?" I prompt. "Is everything okay?"

"Not particularly, no. This isn’t exactly the relationship I had in mind, Vita. You seem to want to help me out because you want to be my friend, but you keep amending that statement with 'and if she's not my friend, I can just fucking murder her!' Believe it or not, feeling someone hold a drawn bow to my head whenever I do anything is a little stressful!"

"Sorry," I murmur. "But if you run away or start splitting you're kind of a huge threat to countless people."

"Oh, like you're not," Penta scoffs. "So much for sympathy between monsters. Oh, and your mental musings on 'letting me replicate' in order to 'farm my children' are just extra fun to sift through."

"That was not... it's just an idea that popped through my head! It wasn't a serious consideration!"

Unless she was amicable. I don’t know if she can like, not replicate? So if that’s happening regardless it might be a mercy to—

"You're literally considering it right now," Penta points out. "Look. Vita. I get where you're coming from with this. The longer I stay in you, the more I get where you’re coming from with this. But the reverse doesn’t seem to be true. Learn to empathize!"

"I can empa—"

"Don't argue with me on this," Penta says, cutting me off again. "Please? If you keep thinking of me as a tool, that’s all I’m going to end up thinking of myself.”

I scowl. I don’t think of her as a tool, do I? I think of her as a person. I saved her life. I let her live in my body. What more does she want from me?

“Sorry. Never mind, forget I brought it up,” Penta says sulkily. “Can you at least get along with Penelope so I don’t die?”

Duh, I want to befriend Penelope anyway. Although I’m curious...

"Can she—"

"Yes, she can kill me. Of course she can. I might be able to counter her biomancy plagues, but she came up with half a dozen that could end my life from a distance and I've no doubt she could come up with more."

Counter how? I think, giving up on speaking aloud.

"She's a learned biomancer. I have her memories. So, I'm a learned biomancer."

Sick!

"No, the opposite of that."

You literally can't not know what I meant.

"And the fact that you are both aware of that and okay with it is intimately disturbing to me. Aren’t you worried about your secrets?"

I mean, it’s not like it isn’t freaky, I think. But ultimately I don't really like keeping secrets. It's necessary, not desirable. So it’s kind of nice to have another monster to share with.

"Believe it or not, I don’t actually want to be a monster at all. Let’s hope your family doesn’t think of us that way. We're almost there."

I know.

I finish my sprint to the shack, still feeling energetic from my recent soul-gorging. I knock on the door, and Lyn pulls it open to grab me into a massive hug.

"Vita! You're back!" she cheers. "Just in time! Is there any chance you can stay home and help defend for Hiverock?"

"Oh geez, uh…” I blink, not having considered that. “I want to, and if you need me I probably can, but I promised to head back to the guild cuz there's a lot going on? Can we head down below maybe?"

"Uh... yeah, sure," Lyn says. "You okay, kiddo?"

"Down!" I insist. "Down, down, down!"

I hop down the ladder, a concerned Lyn following. It's not that much of a drop, but it's really cool that I can just jump now and not worry about hurting myself. Rowan is already down there, and he turns and flashes a huge grin at me when I drop in.

"Vita! Hey! How are you doing?"

"Really weird!" I answer, running up to hug him.

He grabs me and returns the hug, spinning me once.

"Weird how?" he asks.

Lyn finishes closing the hatch and drops down afterwards, looking thoughtful.

"Well... do you guys think I'm not empathetic?"

"Uh… well, I wouldn't say that," Rowan hedged. "But I do think you have a very different worldview than most people. You tend to filter things through that."

"That's totally normal though," Lyn adds. "Everyone does that. Why are you asking?"

"Well, the parasite who lives in my brain and has access to all my memories says I'm not empathetic enough."

There's a beat of silence.

"I mean, normally I would just assume she's being a bitch," I continue, "but she'd probably know, right?"

Rowan and Lyn look at each other, as if to confirm the other was feeling just as confused and horrified as they were.

"...Vita, what did you do?" Rowan asks.

"Nothing!" I protest. "Okay, technically a lot of things, but… okay. Look, so like, on our way back from the mission, Penelope and Remus both got infected by these mind control slimes that are only as smart as whoever they're controlling, right? The one in Remus is a huge jerk that tried to infect me, but the one in Penelope was super nice and helped heal the kids and stuff. So when I found out they were all slimes I didn't want to kill her, but she has to be in somebody's body, and being trapped in her own body was a waking nightmare for the real Penelope so I had to let her hang out in mine. Her name is Penta, because she's like an amalgam of me and Penelope's heads. Also, if anybody else finds out about her she'll probably die. Wanna talk to her?"

"Sure!" Lyn says, deciding to embrace the crazy.

Penta takes full control, smoothly altering my posture to be more like how Penelope carries herself. She didn't normally; perhaps it was for Lyn and Rowan's benefit.

"Hello, you two," she says. "I know a lot about you, but it's nice to finally meet in person."

"Hello... Penta," Rowan says slowly. "What are you, exactly?"

"I am a translucent pseudo-liquid approximately two inches in diameter when condensed into a spherical shape. I am capable of permeating flesh and integrating with a body's nervous system in order to read and spoof commands. In other words, 'mind control slime' about covers it."

"And you can just... do that?" Lyn asks.

"To anyone, yes," Penta says. "At least so far as I know. Although you don't have to worry. If I attempt to leave Vita's body, she will kill me."

"So for now, we're taking turns!" I chime in.

"Which is to say I’m mostly just hiding. Vita's natural abilities make me a non-threat to her, as for some reason she can still use them when I'm in control," Penta finishes.

"You know," Rowan says, "just when I think I can start to relax about you, Vita, you always find some way to make me utterly terrified again."

"She's a teenager," Penta says. "That's how fathers are supposed to feel."

Rowan chokes on something and starts coughing. Hey! Rowan isn't my dad!

"Vita, Rowan could not possibly be any more your dad. Just like Lyn is—"

Lyn's face twitches dangerously.

"—your big sister," Penta finishes, not missing a beat.

Lyn grins, suitably mollified.

"Welp, I like her!" she says.

"This is betrayal!" I protest. "Lyn is totally my mom and you know it!"

"Can we stop arguing parental lineage and address the fact that you have a slime from outside the walls living inside your head?" Rowan asks, exasperated.

“Yes I’m going to need a place to hide, I suspect,” Penta says.

“Will you?” I ask. “Biomancers can’t even detect you, right?”

“I was lying through my teeth about that,” Penta explains. “I could absolutely detect myself with Penelope’s spells. I wouldn’t be surprised if the hunter’s guild has other ways to deal with Nawra as well, since they’re aware of us.”

“But where would we hide you…?” I murmur, glancing at Lyn and Rowan.

“Hell no,” Rowan says firmly, holding up his hands. “Vita, I love you to death, but the fact that you somehow managed to make yourself even more existentially disturbing is both impressive and not something I want a part of.”

“Yeah, please don’t put your parasite in anyone, honey,” Lyn says. “No offence to Penta, but that’s… not going to fly here.”

I frown, but nod. That makes sense, having my body controlled by a slime wasn’t exactly the most fun thing in the world.

“Sorry,” Penta murmurs.

It’s fine, I think back. I knew it would be like that when I took you in. But now we’ve got to figure out how the hell to hide you. How long can you live outside a body?

“Not long,” Penta admits. “I’ll start to starve after a few minutes without a host. Knowing what I know now, I think my body starts to consume my soul for energy to survive that. I think that’s what causes me to lose memories.”

I frown.

“Interesting. So you can eat souls too?”

“No. Not like you do at all. But you’ve seen that sick and dying creatures have strained souls, right? My species is always strained outside of a host. Our bodies aren’t designed to function on their own. Yet instead of dying like we should, we consume our very beings for fuel.”

“So can we just put you in a rat…?”

“It would certainly help, yes. But a rat’s brain can’t do what I need a brain for anymore. My soul is too big. I’d probably still start to lose myself after a while.”

“I thought Penelope was disproving the whole brain-soul link.”

“I have my own theory,” Penta said. “We can use you to confirm it. But later. Surviving the day comes first.”

I glance at Lyn and Rowan, their faces placid as they wait patiently for me to stop babbling to myself like a crazy woman.

“I’m honestly surprised you don’t even question the mind control slime,” I tell them.

“Eh, it’s less surprising than the animancy thing,” Lyn says, shrugging. “By the way, we got you another rat bucket to celebrate your return.”

“Oh, sweet!” I cheer, grinning.

“Told you she’d like it,” Lyn says, nudging Rowan. He puts his face in his hands.

“Watcher, why is my entire family insane?” he asks ruefully.

“Cuz you like ‘em crazy,” Lyn purrs, running a finger down his cheek.

Gross. I retrieve my bucket of rats, happily tearing out a handful of souls. The rats screech in terror as their kin die in droves, trapped in a pile of soon-to-be corpses, unable to escape. I toss their souls in my mouth like popcorn. Yum.

“Save one for me to hide in until we get a better plan,” Penta insists, halting my hand. A flash of fury passes through me at the takeover, but I take a breath and let it pass.

“Okay. Good idea,” I admit. “I also wanna see if we can use one of the rat corpses to make a me-slime Revenant. You know, of the Nawra that Remus put in me? I’ve been hanging onto that soul since I figure it’ll probably have good information.”

There’s a long pause before Penta responds.

“...Well, go ahead,” she answers eventually. “I had no special attachment to her, and she might have good information.”

“Woah, hold on!” Lyn says. “You wanna make a zombie in the house?”

“No,” I say. “I wanna make a Revenant in the house.”

“Is that safe?” she asks.

“Vita controls them,” Rowan says. “I’m not sure if the Templars can detect that, though.”

“There aren’t any nearby,” I reply. “Everyone within two hundred meters is way too small-souled to be one.”

“Still, it seems like a risk,” Lyn says hesitantly.

“Eh, if the Templars can sense soul weirdness we’re probably fucked anyway. I think mine’s about to hatch.”

“Hatch?” Rowan asks. “What does that mean?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

I pluck a corpse out of the murder-bucket, nabbing Slime-Vita’s soul as well. Putting the two together, I find that this time it sticks just fine. The rat looks around in confusion, and squeaks.

“Hey there,” I tell it. “Can you understand me?”

The rat nods. It looks around rapidly, then scurries over to a dirty part of the floor, starting to scratch something into the ground. I’m not a good reader, surprise surprise, but I’ve slowly picked up the alphabet and can sound out small words. The ones here, I understand.

HI MOM!

...This must be how Lyn feels.