There is something in the air, a diffuse feeling of terror, emanating from the beast slowly rearing its broken head. A break runs along its body, the insides writhing with moving shards of ice and bone, slowly pulling themselves together. It does not seem to be aware of anything yet, but its words still echo around the clearing, causing a foulness in the air, a sort of auditory shiver in us both.

We're standing stock still, crouched behind a nearby tree. Our voices are but whispers.

"We have to get out of here." I say.

"What issss that thing?" He asks.

I chance a glance at said thing - its neck is slowly closing up, chunks of ice, rock and bone slowly crawling up the substantial bulk.

"I've met it before, in my homeworld, but I thought it was dead! Run through by a boat, and shattered in two!"

"Obviousssly it has recovered." His attempt at masking the terror was poor.

"Obviously. We have to get out of here." I reiterate.

"That will not be easy, I'm afraid," He grows more anxious. "The prossedure is experimental, and as such, untesssted on this ssscale! To my knowledge, there are two waysss - one, thossse outssside disssconnect forcefully, in which cassse we both die, two, the problem iss sssolved and the mechanisssm disssengagess naturally."

"Oh, that's just great! Was a failsafe too much to ask for?"

"It isss not me who isss at fault! I only..."

At that point, the beast behind us had finished assembling itself. There was a rush of wind, and it lifted off, gliding through the air. Blazing blue eyes quickly located our hiding space, and it dove.

"Move!"

It swept down, not breaking across the floor, but diving into the black surface that seemed to make up the soil here, waves rippling out as though it were water. At the same time, I felt a spike of pain within my skull.

Clutching my head, I grabbed Hassem, who had been caught in a wave and fallen over, by his arm and began running, not sure where to go.

I saw a flash of electric blue below my feet, refracted through the strange surface as though ice, and only just managed to jump aside before the beast's head emerged from below, the icy angles and blazing eyes breaking through the ground and passing through where I'd just been standing.

"I AM THE CRYSTAL SERPENT! NONE STAND BEFORE MY MIGHT!"

It roared, winding through the sky above, inner light creating a stark contrast with the darkened background.

I followed Hassem's running form through the forest, catching loose branches with my face and hands, while the monster continued bellowing above.

As we slipped into a clearing through the underbrush, the beast's eyes homed in on us once more (It seemed to be unable to track our position from the sky?) and it coiled itself into a tight spring, before shooting straight towards us.

I pulled Hassem back, and the serpent landed with a mighty crash, not breaking the black surface this time. It towered over us.

"I HAVE SENSED YOU BEFORE, MORTAL! WHO ARE YOU TO STAND BEFORE ME AS THOUGH WE ARE EQUALS? WHAT A RIDICULOUS NOTION!"

It threw its enormous head back with hideous laughter. It was a cruel sound.

When its head lowered again, it peered down at Hassem trembling beside me.

"AND WHO MIGHT YOU BE, SEL-TA? BOW BEFORE YOUR GOD, MORTAL!"

To my disgust, Hassem did just that.

"Yess, my Lord! I bow before you, pleasse ssspare me my life!"

"Traitor! You would submit to this... this snake?" I hissed at his kneeling form.

The snake seemed pleased at his actions, though, and arched its neck.

"DO YOU SUBMIT, WEAKLING! DO YOU PLEDGE YOURSELF TO ME?"

"I... I do, Lord! Please, don't kill me!"

"THEN LOOK AT ME, AND RECEIVE YOUR REWARD."

Hassem did.

And the snake dove towards him.

***

I watched, frozen in horror at what I was about to see, as the gigantic snake's head approached Hassem's equally frozen form - no, not frozen, utterly...

The head impacted onto Hassem.

There was no splattered gore, no screams of terror - not even a single drop of blood.

No, something even more horrific was happening.

The snake, which was many times larger than Hassem's entire body, was entering his mouth in a sickening twist of space, both their bodies growing at the same time larger and smaller to accommodate the other, warping and bending things in ways that they should not be bent or warped. The ground shivered, and I was sick from the sight - I had to look away, dry heaving on the floor as I continued hearing the sickening crunches and grinding and sliding oh my god-

And then it went still, save for the sound of a body hitting the floor.

I cautiously looked up, not sure what I should be expecting, but sure in the conviction that it would be horrible.

It was surprisingly un-horrible, at least at that very moment. Hassem's body lay crumpled on the floor, breathing shallowly, but steadily - I hesitantly touched his hand, and the world shifted, as though I was being pulled upwards through a narrow tunnel, until I felt myself slammed into a chair, which was rather uncomfortable alongside the stiffness in my muscles. Around me, assorted beings in white robes were bustling, and something was retracting upwards into the ceiling, what-

And it all came back to me. The mist, the snake-

Wait, the snake! What happened? Why were we outside? Hadn't Hassem said 'Until the problem is solved'? How was the problem solved? We hadn't beaten the snake, it was still inside... it was still...

Oh fuck.

Hassem's eyes opened.

They were glowing in an electric blue.

***

"Wearing meat is always so... restrictive, wouldn't you agree, 'Ara'?"

It said, its voice still holding traces of Hassem's, as though in cruel mockery.

"Of course, you wouldn't know anything different, would you..."

It continued, examining its stolen hands, oblivious or uncaring toward the rest of the room, which had gone deathly silent. Everyone was staring at who they thought of as a colleague.

"I would like to thank the donor, of course, but... well, nothing is more delicious than a willingly sacrificed soul, as they say."

At this, one of the technicians dropped what they were holding. The sound seemed to last forever, and the beast inside Hassem's body moved his head with unnatural fluidity. There was no sound as it rotated along its axis, the rest of his body staying seemingly relaxed. The offending labcoat tried to take a step backwards, but found himself seized, unable to breathe or move his head. The look of fear in his eyes was almost feral as his feet lifted off the ground and he soundlessly floated toward us.

"And there is the moment-ruiner, ah, such exquisite fear... you should be commended. Most beings would have soiled themselves by now."

It raised one of Hassem's hands and slowly began to close it, and the Technician's face began to grow red. I tried to jump up, to help him, to do anything, but a single glance from the Beast inside Hassem saw me as immobilized as the choking tech. Finally, it snapped the hand closed abruptly, and his victim's neck snapped with a sickening crunch. He toppled to the floor bonelessly.

"Now that that is dealt with, I wish to ask you a question, Amelia."

I tried to shake my head, to say anything, but it was of no use. I couldn't use, whatever magic he'd used to immobilize me was too strong.

"We first met in your home world, isn't that right? I had thought that maybe my brother would destroy you, but obviously he has failed. You are part of a very exclusive group, did you know that? Not many defy my kind and escape, and they are all eventually found, just as you have been."

I continued struggling, but it was of no use. It used Hassem's mouth to form a cruel smile.

"Imagine my surprise, then, when I tried to contact my brother, and received a weakened reply. Gravely injured, he said. Lost. Your Name."

I tried to ping my LD, and to my surprise, it worked. Appraise, I thought desperately, targeting it. Perhaps it would reveal a weakness.

Ņ̴̀a҉̵҉-͘͢͞è̵̷̢͜͢͞

[͡҉]́҉̢̛̀

T͘͝y͏̷̀͡p̵̛̛͠͞è̵̵͏̶̧̀͠

[̶̢̡F̧̢͟͝-̡͞҉R̷̢̕M̀͟͞-̀͠҉̧-̵̷̕͟S͏͜͜-̧̛͜͝]̢͏̵͟͡͡

D͜e͟͝s̨͢c̶̢̡͟-̸̵̶̛͏-͡t̷͘͟i͜͜͞o̷͞͞ǹ̵̵̸̨͜͢

[̵́͜]̧̡

Singularily unhelpful. Didn't know you could appraise living things, though.

"I tracked you down, until... well. I have my theories as to where you went. You have something which I want, though."

As it looked at me expectantly using Hassem's face, one of the beings outside its field of view began scooting closer to the door. Without batting a single eyelid, the beast snapped their neck, and their body did a full rotation before falling down. Two more fell with a sickening crunch when they tried to bolt.

"I searched and searched, but I just couldn't find it. You couldn't have been there, it would have killed you! No, it must have been there somewhere."

I had a sinking feeling in my gut when I realized what it was talking about.

"No, the only conclusion is that you must have been there and taken it. This explains your arm, too."

I redoubled my efforts to come free, but it was of no use. It felt as though every inch of me was bolted down, paralyzed and frozen at the same time.

"You thought you could escape us, didn't you. You could take what is ours, by right of conquest, and get away with it?"

Right of conquest? But that means...

"Where is the Stone, Human? Where have you hidden it?"

***

We stared at each other. It held an expectant face, but too still to convince anyone of its life. I simply willed myself to get free, to just move-

"You have not hidden it anywhere, have you."

I stilled, a deep, cold panic settling into my body.

"You have it with you right now. I can sense it. How did you shield it so well? I can barely make out its power."

It held its hand out as though expecting something, as though it was the world that should cater to it, not the other way around, and I felt a rustle in my pocket.

Out floated the Stone.

"And there it is. A Heart-stone, untouched and unsullied by the lesser races, holding enough power to..."

It paused, a puzzled look on Hassem's face.

"Curious, I can still only sense an echo of its power, how did you shield it so? What kind of magic did you use on it?"

It moved both hands around the floating Stone, puzzlement making way to bewilderment, and slowly, anger.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? WHY IS IT INERT, EMPTY, DEVOID? YOU FOOL!"

It rose, ire and wrath showing plainly on its face as it stalked toward me. One of the technicians gasped, and was instantly consumed by white-hot flames. He did not have time to scream.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, YOU FOOLISH PRIMITIVE!"

Where was the power? From the Stone, into me...

"HOW DID YOU EVEN ACCOMPLISH THIS?"

The power had gone into me, hadn't it. It had settled into my flesh, my bones, my very soul...

"I SHALL TORTURE YOU UNTIL YOU DO NOT KNOW YOUR OWN NAME!"

I felt inwards, downwards, toward my heart. Feeling its beat, ignoring It's wrath, I listened deeper and deeper, feeling inward. I drew upon my experience with this kind of thing, navigating my own consciousness slowly, but effectively.

I felt a sharp pain behind my eyes, shaking me a little from my concentration, and chanced a shift of attention outwards. It had stilled, and was looking into my eyes with unnatural intensity. I could feel something worm its way into my mind, seeking, probing, and quickly shifted back down.

I reached out, descending past my memories, my conscious, then my subconscious - a ball of awareness, deeper than I'd ever tried to go before. I followed a trail laid out for me, a line of golden-green stretching even deeper, past areas and parts of the mind humanity had never discovered, and thus never named.

The green grew stronger, pressing against me from below, and I reached for it, grasping a single thread. Holding it in active thought, I snapped back up and pushed it out.

All Hell broke loose.

***

Slumped in the chair, I watched bleary-eyed as the body worn by the beast stumbled around, trying to catch on the jagged edges of stone and steel. It tried to catch itself on a softly burning part of the wall, which broke outwards, bringing the remaining segment with it. the beast continued holding on as it did so.

I used my metal arm to push myself up, cradling the bruised biological arm in the process, and looked around.

The room was a mess. There were bodies around, not all of which the beast had killed, I realized somberly. The outer wall had burst, and there were smoldering fragments and soft fires scattered around the chamber. I was miraculously unharmed save for a cut along my cheek and a small scratch in the metal arm, but I felt weak. Incredibly so.

After bending down to pick up the small, unmarred Stone lying in a pile of ash, I stumbled through the broken doors into a deserted corridor and began walking toward the elevator. The beast was most likely still alive and recuperating at that very moment, and I wanted to get out of here right now.

The elevator attendant stood up from his desk and walked toward me, but I shouldered through beside him and grabbed my stuff. The sword probably wouldn't be useful against It, but I didn't want to leave something behind.

The elevator was as fast as I expected, and I took the time to catch my breath and shake off the exhaustion. About halfway down, a piercing wail sounded throughout the building, and I was almost overrun by armed personnel while exiting the elevator. Luckily, nobody stopped me, and I managed to walk outside.

Not seeing Ska'an anywhere, I quickly dodged into side alley after side alley, making sure I wasn't followed, and called up a local map on my LD. Ska'an had said they'd be in some administration building, so I set my target for that. With visual directions, I quickly dodged my way there. All the while, I saw more and more aircraft bristling with exotic weapons rushing overhead, hovering transporters flying low, as well as armored examples of the mechanical soldier I'd seen earlier that day marching. All of them were travelling in one direction - where I'd just come from.

I was briskly walking along one of the bigger streets, military vehicles passing left, right and above, when I spotted Ska'an floating with purpose. They didn't seem to spot me, so I waved my good arm at them. They quickly floated across the street at my beckon.

"Amelia, what-"

"No time, we have to get out of here. I think I'm being hunted."

***

We began making our way toward the nearest portal, and Ska'an began filling me in on what they'd been doing.

"Your name has officially been 'changed', so you are no longer Ara Jhay. I was on my way out of the administration office when I caught the newscast, and that some sort of dangerous being had emerged in proximity of the Hospital, so naturally, I was quite alarmed. I made my way as quickly as possible, and well, then you flagged me down and we met up. Do you know anything about what is going on?"

As if to punctuate them, there was the sound of an explosion in the distance, and we moved quicker. Ska'an motioned for me to continue.

"I do, yeah. In fact, I was pretty much at ground zero."

"Indeed? What happened?"

"Well, when I finished up with my arm-" I showed it off, and Ska'an looked with a critical eye-light before nodding "-I went to the mental evaluation. Met a doctor with a strange accent, and we scanned my mind. Pretty much found what I expected, and the Doc said that there wasn't much they could do with their available equipment."

Ska'an somehow managed a puzzled look without actually having a face. Not sure how.

"So he goes on to tell me about an experimental treatment. We would enter my mind, and repair the damage from within."

"What?"

"I know, right? It was a crazy idea. So naturally, I went along with it."

"WHAT?"

There was a tremor in the ground, as well as a flash of light from the general direction of the Hospital. I shot Ska'an a quick look, but they urged me to continue. I still sped up my steps to a jog.

"I was led to a room with an apparatus in the middle, we both sat at opposite edges, and they turned it on. Next thing, we find ourselves in a foggy void."

"Fog? That is... most unusual."

"Well, yes, but it wasn't natural. I sort of... began questioning some things," I looked sideways at this point, feeling bad about having suspected Ska'an and Neetu of malice when both of them had shown concern for my well-being at multiple points ", and broke through some sort of mental barrier. It felt as though my mind had been dampened up to that point, actually, and I just followed the feeling to its source."

"Now that sounds familiar. I have not studied the mental arts much, but that is a classic symptom of many hostile mind magics."

Magic! Now there was something I wanted to know more about. Well, maybe once we were safe again. One of the military aircraft flew overhead, one of its engines burning, and the other stuttering. Miraculously, it didn't crash into anything and simply vanished into the skyline. I looked after it wide-eyed while jogging on.

"Well, I found the source, which was the first memory I had of seeing the shadow-monster's face. It was spewing the mist into my mind. I smashed it onto the ground, and it... died, for lack of a better word."

"It died?"

"Yeah, it let out a really scary scream, and then began dissipating."

Ska'an's cowl turned toward me, eyes bright in shock.

"It screamed? Are you sure?"

"Definitely."

"That is indeed worrying, and not something I've seen before... however..."

"Yes?"

"Well, the mental magics I have studied were rather dark in nature, destructive mainly. I'm not exactly comfortable thinking back at those days, but during said studies, I stumbled upon an older text describing hypothetical forms of mind magic, one of them being the weaving of a simple animalistic intelligence into the spell itself, so that it could adapt to and resist the mind's natural defenses by applying its own will."

I thought back to the mist slowly dissipating. That sounded plausible. There was a tremor in the ground, and another, larger cloud of dust rose above the skyline. I began jogging faster, and continued to listen.

"However, the researcher and I concurred at the time in that it would not realistically be possible - the intelligence would have to be curated by the caster for a time, essentially split off from their own and then selectively grown, a process that would leave anyone... quite mad. The active mind was not made to host two consciousnesses, one would always dominate the other and extinguish it."

"So the question is, what the hell is the shadow-monster that it has this power?"

"Indeed. I am sorry for the interjection, you may continue your own tale."

I filed this new knowledge away. The shadow-monster had more and more mysteries associated with it and I didn't like it one bit.

"Alright. Well, after destroying the memory and the enchantment, the Doc began hearing some sort of garbled chant, and we followed that. Along the way, the featureless black plane that was my mind quickly began growing into a forest. It was quite beautiful, actually."

Ska'an gave me a side-eye at that, but I didn't know why.

"Well, we found a mountain of ice in a clearing. Said mountain was the source of the chanting, and it was slowly pulling itself back together into a snake."

"A snake of ice... wait, didn't you tell me and Neetu about..."

"I did, and it was that very same. Why was it in my head? No idea. Wait, actually, I might have an idea about that, but that's not important right now. Well, we ran from the snake, I mean who is stupid enough to take on a mile-long serpent made from ice while unarmed? Not me, obviously."

"Ah yes, obviously, Miss 'I have a daemon living in my reflection'."

"Shuddup. At least I'm not a thready blanket."

They actually looked slightly offended at that, so I continued the story.

"It didn't seem to see us in the forest, but being stupid, we soon entered a larger clearing. I pulled the Doc toward me, and the snake landed before us. Demanded we kneel and accept it as a god or something, which I obviously didn't do. But not the Doc, oh no! That damn coward actually did it, called the snake 'Lord' and all. Though I have to admit, it was really fucking scary, and I'd seen it before."

"Was that before or after you ran it through with a boat?" They said with a bit of mirth.

"Damn you."

"Anytime."

"Alright, so the Doc surrenders, and the snake begins asking really, suspiciously specific questions - something like 'do you surrender yourself to me', which I think was in some part connected to what happened next."

"Some acts do indeed require specific phrasing, perhaps even specific languages."

"That makes sense, yeah. Not that I ever want to learn how it did what it did, because it essentially violated space and time inside my head and flew, at its right size, into the Doc's mouth, which was also the right size. The sounds were indescribable, let me tell you that."

Ska'an looked sick.

"So I move to check on him, and we're suddenly pulled out of my mind, something the Doc said would only happen once 'the problem is solved'. Guess what happened next."

"Oh, no... the snake went into him, didn't it."

"Oh, ho, you don't know the half of it! This fucking snake begins to monologue about eating souls and starts murdering people for breathing, all while I'm unable to move a single muscle. I think I felt more vulnerable at that moment than any before."

We'd reached the portal. There was nobody there, and the explosions in the background had increased in frequency and size. There were some bigger, angular shapes moving farther overhead.

"How did you escape?"

Ska'an was at the operator's station, and started punching in keys.

"I'm getting to that, don't worry. Well, the snake in the guy starts snapping people's necks left and right, and eventually tells me that they were after..." I leaned in closer "... the Stone."

"The ston... the Stone?"

"Yeah. Snake-man-snake levitates it out of my pocket and looks at it, and then gets really angry because it's inert."

"Because you now hold its power inside yourself, right?"

The portal opened, a hazy surface between two vertical columns.

"Yes, and that's what I realized in that mom-

We stepped inside, and the transit cut my response in half.

"-ent as well. So I try to tap into that power, use it to free me or kill snake-man-snake or do anything, and snake does something with his eyes. It felt like something worming its way into my brain through my eyes, actually."

Ska'an answered just as Neetu opened the door and greeted us with a worried look on his face. Behind us, the gateway orb shut down and sank back toward the floor.

"That sounds along the line of mental magic, but it's usually not that noticeable. The Snake must have been using considerable power and not much finesse."

"Well, he was angry alright. He even..." I was interrupted by Raven, who took that moment to land on my head and caw once.

"Hey there, Raven. Anway, I eventually managed to call upon the power of the Stone, and blasted the entire room to pieces. I don't know how much I hurt the snake-man-snake, but I think it had more of an effect on him, seeing as how he was connected to my mind at the time. He stumbled around a little and then fell out of the hole in the wall. From the commotion, I doubt he actually died, though. After that, I exited the Hospital and then found you."

Turning to Neetu, I greeted him as well, and he ushered us toward the mirror at the back of the common room, from which Ref was waving excitedly. I said Hello and she told me we'd talk later, pointing to Neetu's worried face.

He pressed down a segment of the wooden desk, and something else winked into place instead of the mirror surface - some sort of aerial footage. Of the Nexus.

Or rather, of its ruins.

"The footage is live. I've been watching and worrying for a bit until you arrived. They're saying some sort of entity is rampaging through the city, and anyone or anything that gets close to it is violently destroyed."

I watched in horror as one of the skyscrapers I'd passed collapsed into a smoldering ruin, and Ska'an relayed my story to Neetu in a few short sentences.

As I continued watching, I saw one of the large, angular ships move across the screen, firing some sort of beam weapon at a single point of the surface. The beam seemed to fracture on the ground, and the splitting tendrils of energy found several smaller floating vehicles, causing them to explode violently.

The large, wedge-shaped ship turned until it was pointing directly downwards, and its tip split into two halves, revealing a very technical-looking array of glowy bits and metal. Said array steadily became glowier, until it switched over and became the opposite of glowy. There was a small blob of darkness condensing between the antennae of the device, slowly growing larger. A few minutes later, it was apparently large enough, and the array released it, the two halves of the vessel's tip quickly snapping back together - and not a moment too soon, because the blob of darkness impacted the surface and quickly began to suck up everything around it, rubble, buildings, crashed vessels. Once there was nothing more in range, it began shrinking again, and eventually exploded in a white flash that temporarily blinded the recording camera. While the image cleared again, several of the ships present seemed to be wrapped in bubbles of light which were flickering under the onslaught. One after another, the bubbles winked out and their ships exploded soon after, all except for the wedge-shaped vessel and the one recording.

All four of us watched until the orange light cleared out, the molten glass and dust settling into a sizeable crater along the visible surface of the Nexus. The image was eventually replaced with a newsperson, who looked to have dressed rather quickly, reading out numbers. I realized what they were - death tolls.

***

Not much else happened that night. Neetu, Ska'an and I talked for a bit, while the shoddily dressed newsperson continued reading out updates to the situation in the background. Eventually, I fled into my own room and fell into bed.

I dreamt only of a pair of ice-blue spotlights trying to locate me in the dark.