The big splash.

A quick swim in the murky, warm waters of Floor 5.

Hummer struggled along, the wound in her stomach sending her grasping in pain with every passing moment. But still she kept on towards the shore. Amelia took her hand and pulled her along, but she mostly did not need it.

But then, suddenly, Hummer’s strength all but gave out, she stopped pedaling her feet, stopped heaving her free arm, and started to sink into the waters.

Amelia pulled on her harder, and harder, and quite literally dragged her through the water. It was freshwater, but so filled with dirt and darkness that it still had some salt to it.

Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die, she thought.

And then they reached the shore, with Hummer crawling a few steps before falling over on her back, coughing but alive. She moved her head up and looked at the synth facility, burning rapidly in all sections, all wings. Amelia turned and looked as well.

A beautiful masterpiece of destruction.

The smell of ash and mana floated through the air, soaked their clothes, made Amelia’s nose turn up in disgust. All of that energy wasted on fire, but wasted for a very good cause.

“What a mess we made,” Hummer said softly.

Amelia looked down at the piece of shrapnel still embedded in her stomach, and the pile of blood spilling out of it.

“You’re bleeding out,” she said.

Hummer laid her head against the sand-and-dirt shore and began to cry. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”

“You won’t.”

She searched around her bag, Hummer’s bag, both soaked in water but still filled with supplies, looking for some emergency item that could save her. A healer’s potion, a disinfectant spray bottle, a pack of preserved blood, anything. But none of it was there. She found a first aid kit, but in the process of swimming the kit must have opened, and the bandages had washed away into the water. Behind her, the water flowed just fast enough that there was not a trace of anything that had fallen out. She also found a sewing kit with a string and needle. But Amelia knew her sewing skills were too weak to perform something so risky.

There was nothing here. Nothing she could use to save her.

Her soul jittered in fear as she looked at Hummer, the color draining from the woman’s once-vibrant face, now covered in tears.

“Save me,” she whispered.

“I will. I will.”

But as Amelia’s reassurances left her mouth, Hummer’s hope similarly dropped off. “I never got to say goodbye, Amelia. I never got to say I love you. Three small words. That’s all I needed, and I... blew it.”

“Not yet, you didn’t.”

Hummer only had ten, maybe fifteen minutes left before she went unconscious. Not much longer before she would outright die.

A plan formed in Amelia’s mind. A ridiculous, risky, and very stupid plan. But the only one she could do that would not guarantee this woman’s death. She had one tool at her disposal, and that was herself.

“Will you say goodbye for me?” she asked. “Will you say... I love you?”

Amelia ripped off Hummer’s light armor and tore open her shirt to clear out anything in the way of the woman’s wound. Then she dug out a pair of socks out of Hummer’s bag, gushing wet, and wrung the excess water out.

“I don’t know who you love, and honestly I don’t care,” Amelia said. “You can tell them yourself, because I’m not doing it for you.” She offered the pair of socks and put it up to Hummer’s mouth. “Bite down. Try to stay awake. This is going to hurt you a lot.”

Reluctantly, Hummer bit down on the socks, and Amelia got to work.

She activated her Repair Module.

Repair Module initializing...

...

Warning: Repair Module is for self use only. This module has not been tested on other individuals and may result in further harm.

Amelia, do you understand the warning?

You do not seem to understand the warning.

Amelia ignored the messages on her HUD and let the ring and pinkie fingers of her right hand morph into a repair unit with targeted heat technology. This was meant to help solder on chipped-off rock or cut off excess growths. Not meant to perform emergency surgery on a glossal being.

Ed had not taught Amelia much about the bodily functions of humans or any other glossal. All she had to go on was her own experiences repairing damage to her flesh, but her lack of most internal organs really made things hard.

But she was not willing to wait any longer.

So, gentle at first, then sudden when she felt confident, she yanked the shrapnel out of Hummer’s stomach. The woman screamed and screamed, but bit into the sock in her mouth to save her teeth.

Spurts of blood went everywhere, including over Amelia’s face. Seeing as she had just murdered about five people today and came off relatively cleanly, this was a deserved bit of divine retribution.

The wound was not deep. It had not pierced far below her skin, not that Amelia could tell, so despite the blood everywhere, it did not risk rupturing her entire stomach. It was probably the sheer luck of it that Amelia came off so well here, because she had no idea what she was doing.

And then came the part she dreaded. The part that Hummer surely knew was coming.

She took the targeted heat unit on her hand and blasted it into Hummer’s flesh. Low power, just enough to sear the wound and cauterize it. Just to prevent infections.

Hummer’s screams grew furious, grew so pained that Amelia nearly paused, but she knew that would only make it worse. Her arms thrashed, and Amelia had to hold one down to keep it from striking her. Then, after a few seconds, the pain grew too large, and Hummer ceased to move altogether. She passed out, sock still in her mouth.

The blood in her wound sizzled then vaporized. The wound closed, and the bleeding stopped. The smell of burning flesh, though, did not go away, and Amelia winced at yet another strong, unpleasant odor filling her nose.

She had just used her Repair Module to treat another person, to cauterize her wound. Ed would be extremely angry if she ever found out about this. And, hopefully a little proud, too.

Now to bandage the wound, just to help cover it in these damp, toxin-filled caves. Just to wipe away all the blood that still remained.

The first aid kit was out of bandages, and any that might have remained would have been flooded with dirty water anyway. She searched Hummer’s bag for anything sealed, any clothes that might be clean enough, even if wet, and found just one undershirt that looked alright enough. She pulled it out and wrung out the water, and then she noticed one still-sealed package, its contents dry: A pack of menstrual pads, cotton, still fresh in their original seal.

What a lifesaver. Amelia had forgotten entirely about menstrual pads, or else that would have been the first thing she sought after. They would not have contained the bleeding, but they might have saved Hummer’s life even if the targeted heat had not been effective enough.

She ripped open the packaging and placed several pads over the wound. Then she wrapped the undershirt around Hummer’s stomach and tied a knot. Not too tight, but just enough to keep the pads in place.

Amelia took her first breath in what may have been several minutes. She sat her head back against a nearby cavern wall and let her mind rest.

“I need to learn from a healer,” she muttered to herself.

Hummer was passed out, but safe. Now Amelia was alone in the cave with time to collect her thoughts for the first time since before she entered the secret meeting. But there were so many thoughts that she was unsure if she could even manage them all.

Fourland’s synth facility was destroyed. Their drug operation was surely crippled beyond repair, and with some time, perhaps the addicts could recover, and the city would turn a more pleasant place. She actually accomplished what she set out to do, and only came away with bruises and flesh wounds in the process. It was a miracle beyond miracles.

She even had a new target: Castien Brielwa. He was connected to Fourland, to North Sunwell, to Fleet’s Pride. She did not even know what the last of those groups was, just some rebel group apparently. But they were certainly part of this whole machine of corruption and exploitation. This man was an accountant who dealt in secrets with people deep into the criminal underworld, deep into opposition with the very company he worked for, and his knowledge made him an invaluable target for Amelia to capture. Alive, preferably. Because he might have been the only one with knowledge on the location of...

Ed.

Her mind refused to let the image slip away, refused to allow herself to forget that image of Ed’s inquisitive face locking eyes with her for just that single, permanent second.

Why was Ed even there? What was she doing? Allied with Fourland, with Fleet’s Pride, with Castien... Something was going on far deeper than Amelia had ever realized, and if her girlfriend was a part of it, that meant she was already in the thick of it.

They would meet again. She was sure of it. She would search the ends of the city until she saw those gray eyes and that red hair one more time.

In the distance, a pack of howl apes performed their namesake, screaming out until it echoed throughout the cavern. She could not see them, but she wondered if they could see her and her delicious, unconscious friend. And, if howl apes were lurking around even as the fire burned close by, that likely meant melanoids were not far behind.

Amelia stood up and stretched. It was about time to return and reunite with the others on Floor 3. She had no good idea of how to get back up, but she was sure she would find a path easily enough. The hard part would be carrying Hummer on her sh—

Suddenly, a tight pressure formed around Amelia’s left leg.

Without another second to consider, she was suddenly on the ground, being dragged quickly back into the waters.

A tentacle wrapped around her.

“Shit.”

Then, out of the water, a large mouth emerged.

The daika, the legendary beast of Floor 5, had come to make her a tasty mana-filled snack. Not the defenseless one, but the one whose body essentially acted as half a juicy meat steak and a sweet-as-molasses core at the center.

She gripped down hard on the shore, but the sediment was too thin, too wet, and she could not get a firm grip.

When the mouth got close, she kicked it, knocking a tooth out and making the beast silently lash out.

That meant Amelia went flying, thrashed about in mid-air. She was currently being tenderized, and too stunned to actually do anything about it. In a few seconds, she would likely be dropped down into that gaping maw below and consumed whole.

As she continued to spin around wildly, she unzipped her pockets and grabbed as many soul gems as she could take—the rest, naturally, fell out and splashed in the water around the daika. Then she pressed all of them against her core at once.

A huge sum of soul energy—FAR TOO MUCH soul energy, entered her at once.

Many new souls detected. Would you like to incorporate or convert?

“Convert! Convert!” she shouted. “Upgrade my damn Combat Module!”

Converting soul 1 of 15.

...

...

“Faster!”

Upgrading Combat Module.

I will convert the souls later.

You may run dangerously low on mana in the process.

“Got it. Reactivate [Slice] for me, please!”

Understood, Amelia.

Please be patient as your new power comes online.

...

...

Processing [Slice] skill...

A brand-new power in her Combat Module, or rather a power that she had lost in her malfunctions over the past year. [Slice] was exactly, precisely what she needed right now to survive.

[Slice] is now reactivated.

Enjoy your upgrade.

Immediately, Amelia used the skill, and her right arm shifted shape. The rocks that made up her arm and hand rearranged themselves and altered into a long, sharp sword. Thin but fast. It cut her jacket sleeve away, but at this point she did not even give a second thought to her clothes being obliterated in these battles.

Just as the daika’s tentacle hovered over some water and not its mouth, she cut it and released its grip on her. It writhed around in pain, not making even a sound, as Amelia fell from the air and splashed again in the water.

She opened her eyes, only to see another tentacle coming straight for her. Another swipe, and it was cleaved in half. But now the daika knew where she went; she entered its domain.

The creature sunk to her level, and for the first time she could see its entire face. Dozens of eyes scattered all across what could charitably be called a face. A giant, hundred-toothed mouth waiting to consume anything that came by. And a pained hesitancy to attack her once again.

The daika thought it could sneak up on Amelia and end her existence. Perhaps it sensed her mana even when it first saw her on the walkway, and perhaps it had been waiting all day for such a mana-filled meal.

If it was mana the daika wanted...

[Mana Burst] would have to do.

Her hand reconverted into its normal form and she blasted away at the creature. The sparks of energy traveled strangely through the water, spiraling in all directions, but some of it hit the daika and stunned it. Then she kept on going.

After a few seconds of wounding it, it turned tail and swam away into the dark, deep depths of the Floor 5 waters.

She swam up to the surface, took a deep breath, and nearly died right then and there from the sheer exhaustion. She hobbled back over to the shore, where she collapsed on the ground next to Hummer and let herself catch her breath.

Hummer laid still, resting peacefully from her grievous wounds and the pain of cauterization. It figured that the daika would leave her completely untouched, because it seemed singularly focused on the biggest meal. If only it had deigned to grab her too, that might have been a much less fortunate fight. Luckily, the daika did not seem particularly smart, so the day was saved with minimal damage, except to Amelia’s morale.

She had enough of fighting for the day, she realized. Enough of fighting for this very, very long day.

The howl apes stopped making sounds. They were likely scared off by the daika, or else they were lying in wait to ambush Amelia as soon as she left the banks of these waters. Either way, she decided she would simply avoid all conflict from here on out, until she could rest and recuperate from the day’s events.

Amelia put her jacket around Hummer to keep her modest and warm, then hoisted her up on her back. She abandoned the water-soaked supply bags and went searching for any way back up to Floor 3. But before she left, she took one last look at the Fourland facility.

What a mess they had made, indeed.