Tim carefully moved his arm back to where it was on the corpse, giving extra care to hide the liquid on it from view. Sure that he was successful, Tim wiped off the residue potion on the dead ogre and turned back to Olivia and knife boy. He turned none too soon.

“Well, we did-”

‘Oli. Stop right there. Do not say that we have them.’

“-not find any potions when we went into your camp.”

‘For what reason are we lying?’

‘I think I broke all of the potions when we got dragged underground. There might be some left, but let’s not dig ourselves into a hole.’

Tim directed his gaze at the now slumped boy gritting his teeth.

“Damn it. Why? Why? She won’t make it like this.”

He only realised company was still around a moment later and turned to the other two. Instead of the confusion and small traces of hope they held earlier, his eyes bore down on the two with renewed hatred.

“You’re lying.”

Olivia, still working out how to covertly check Tim’s bottom for any surviving potions was jarred out of her contemplation.

“Excuse me, What did you accuse us of?”

Heat never left his gaze.

“You heard me. You’re lying. You’re another one of that monster’s minions. You took the potions. I saw that thing’s,” He pointed at Tim, “Leading into Harry’s tent. So where did you put the potions?”

He punctuated the last question with a jump forward. His daggers glinted in the moonlight, pointed towards Olivia.

Tim cut off the attempt on her life with a heavy slam. After the thud of impact and clink of daggers hitting some stones, he was pinned down face first in the earth. He struggled and Tim’s grip held firm, a little tighter than before.

“Let. Go. Of. Me,” Screamed the captive, each syllable enunciated through a grunt as he thrashed about within Tim’s grasp. Olivia took the cover Tim’s larger body afforded and snuck behind him to search for the potions.

‘Tim. Where did you place the potions?’

‘It’s in the butt.’

‘I don’t recall you having a butt.’

‘Bear’s butt. The bear’s butt.’

‘How should I access it then. There does not seem to be an opening for me to search.’

‘I’ll help with that, wait a bit.’

Tim lowered himself gently into a kneel. The drooping rump was now supported by the ground and Tim could untie the paws around his waist. The act itself was rather difficult with Tim using only the sword arm with the other still occupied. The simple knot was undone eventually with the sword guard. With a plop, The bear’s rear fell free, depositing a mess of splinters and shards down Tim’s back onto the ground.

From Olivia’s mouth came a [mana construct], a hand. Riffling through the colorful mix, Olivia managed to pull out three intact vials. The sight brought a new conclusion into being within the human’s mind.

“So you did take them. Give them back. NOW.”

‘I am really regretting not knocking this guy unconscious.’

‘You are well aware that you will not do so. No, let’s offer the desperate what they desire.’

“I will provide you with the potions, under the prerequisite that you do not engage in any act of violence against us. I will stress again that we mean you no harm.”

She took the silence as a “yes” and deposited the vials in front of his face. Three arms snapped up the vials and the boy ceased his resistance. Tim eased the pressure steadily, reflexes tensed to push him back down at any sign of sudden movement. The hand eventually came free and Tim did not have to slam it down immediately. The teen slowly pulled himself to his feet, dusting off the dusk from being pressed. He stared down the two for a moment before beginning to move backwards. Olivia intervened.

“As we have assisted you, we would like remuneration.”

At his face of doubt, Olivia quickly continued.

“Do not worry. We simply need your confirmation. Does the appearance of your attacker match that of a blonde little girl?”

The description created a pause, the two nonhumans waiting for a reply while the human froze. After a second of just staring into space, a shiver heralded the return of the teen and his reply.

“Yes. That’s what it looked like,” he spoke shakily at first.

“What’s it to you?” he continued confusedly.

“Wait,” he stepped back.

He did not deem it necessary to share his conclusion and hurriedly turned around. He sprung with an inhuman intensity and was soon out of their sight within the trees.

‘Alright. That was. Something. Definitely something.’

Tim turned back to the pile of bones that resulted from his efforts.

‘Hey Oli. Think we can work something out to use these. Feels like such a waste leaving them here like this.’

‘We will consider options at another time, Tim. But first, could we follow that male back to the camp?’

‘Um. Yes? Why though?’

‘Regardless of his hostility, we should still endeavour to help. An additional reason would be the possibility that his plight stemmed from Creator.’

‘Alright. Redemption and all right? Ok, let’s go then. I just hope it doesn’t come to too much violence.’

Tim wiped off his butt and put on the bear rear again. They moved relaxedly, not much care taken to be quiet lest their approach be taken for an ambush. The effort proved to be rather pointless. A voice sounded out from ahead of them, skepticism and hostility evident within it.

“What are you doing following me?”

The exclamation was followed by an arrow falling just at Tim’s foot. Undeterred, the two pressed on to where they remembered the camp was. More arrows came, direct shot at them instead of warnings. Tim walked on, crouched to minimize his size and maximize the armor coverage. Olivia hung close to his chest for protection. The shooting ceased completely once they got within a certain distance of the camp.

Tim was already sporting a few arrows in his furred parts when they got to the camp. He could not even begin to remove them when a burst of movement popped up is his peripheral vision, highlighted by the now relit campfire. The same movement appeared again, revealed under better observation to be the boy carrying the girl between the tents. Both dashes were leading away from Tim and Olivia. Knowing clearly their intentions, Tim made his doubts known to Olivia.

‘Hey. I don’t think they want our help very much. He made it abundantly clear with shooting and now running away from us.’

Olivia mulled over the response before giving back her own.

‘I supposed. The female’s condition should have improved for him to move her.’

Just as she finished the transmision, the boy made another leap, one that would take him into the cover of the forest. Already in the air, the boy was caught by surprise with his companion’s irregular limbs suddenly flexing and digging deep into the ground. The sudden anchorage of her limbs removed the passenger from her position of his back. The small pull to the boy’s back resulted in him falling on the same portion of his body. The girl’s extra legs soon gave out and she fell to the ground, writhing. The boy got up and went to her care, settling her into a lying position with the spider legs splayed out and cradling her head in his lap.

“It’s going to be ok, Rachel. Here, drink.”

He lowered a vial on her lips and gently tipped it back. The girl swallowed a mouthful before coughing profusely and clutching at her heart. He looked questioning down at the vial and took a small sip for himself.

“It’s disease heal. Why is it making things worse?”

Rachel held off her coughing and lifted a hand to his face.

“It is fine John. See, I’m better al-. ARHHHHHH.”

The pained scream preceded a sickening transformation. Her mouth opened wide from the scream stretched further and further until, with a wet tear, it split, leaving its inside bare for all to see. The loosed lower jaw began to grow out scabs of brown chitin over her skin. Once the outside was coated, the shell moved onto the insides of her mouth covering all of her teeth with the sole exception of the canines. The two exposed teeth began to enlarge and curve inwards. Once her lower jaw was split into two fanged insectoid appendages, the girl gurgled out another scream as they slowly turn upside down and folded themselves to fit against the roof of her mouth.

Snot and tears were streaking down her face when her eyes widened, herself feeling another bout of pain coming on. From her elbows sprouted coarse and sharp black hairs. The patches of hair growing steadily towards her hands, piercing bloody holes as they emergence. John could only stand by, helpless to do anything but watch as she slowly changed and screamed her throat raw.

She finally lost consciousness once the hairs have completely covered her skin. John took a temporary reprieve in her freedom from suffering. Guard dropped for one second, John failed to see the four bladed legs converging on his position and paid with four corresponding gashes to his calf after jumping back a second too late. He still managed to clear himself of the death trap and scuttled backwards from the slowly rising body.

The girl’s catatonic body now dangled off of the four legs and ambled forward. It began slowly with the legs not distributing the weight correctly and tilting slightly. Each step after was adjusted and a smooth stride was soon achieved, directed straight towards a back-pedaling John. Just before it was within reaching distance of him, Rachel regained consciousness and spider legs lost all of their synchronization, tripping over themselves and dropping her down to the ground.

The girl did not remain on the ground for long and was soon pushing herself up and saw what she had done. John was staring straight at her, confusion, fear and disgust on his face, his leg bleeding and body shaking. Tears ran down her face again that night. His leg healing up and body calming down, John took a tentative step towards Rachel.

“No. D...Don’t come over here John. I. I can’t. I’ll hurt you again. Just. Just stay there. Give me a minute.”

“O...Ok. I’ll wait.”

John held out his hands placatingly and settled down.

Tim and Olivia watched on from the side as the whole sequence happened, the large one filled with compunction about stepping in and the other too focused on the process to do so.

It was Olivia that moved first, not towards the two suffering bodies, but to the forest. Tim was already forming the thoughts to ask about her intentions of entering the woods when she emitted a fairly familiar sound. A reverberating howl sounded out within the clearing, the sound a little off in pitch and volume compared to that of a natural dirius.

‘Why did you do that? We’re supposed to help them. A pack of dirius coming here is not helping.’

‘Please. Trust me.’

‘I do. Now is there anything for me to do then?’

‘Be prepared to kill.’

Tim silently lifted his sword from its place being dragged behind him to a middle stance. Behind him, the sobbing has subsided and John has settled into telling silly recounts of past experiences to calm the girl. They were passed his recounting of that time he tried to have a puppy dirius and almost succeeded before his dad intervened and the bonus content that he tried again soon after, only to be stopped by Rachel’s teacher Max.

The current story was a little more serious with John revealing his desire to go join Rachel when she eventually went to the training camp for warriors. He was going over his reasoning when the first responders came. The dirius bursted out from a bush. It laid eyes on the two seated humans, careless of their insect appendages, and charged. It made one jump and bit deeply onto a moving blade. The canine missing the top half of its skull skidded to a stop in front of the crouching boy and shivering girl. The sudden bout of action reminded John again of the two other residents of his old camp.

“What are you still doing here?”

His voice also alerted the unaware Rachel and she scuttled back as fast as she could from the undead.

“On. At. It. at.”

She forced out from her throat without a mouth to shape the sounds.

“They’re just some undead looking for that bitch. And speaking of that. STOP. FOLLOWING. ME. I AM NOT TAKING YOU TO HER YOU BRAINLESS UNDEADS.”

John finished with a yell at Tim and Olivia, both not paying attention to him.

‘Alright. What do I do now?’

‘You next task would be to restrain the human boy.’

Tim nodded and was headed steadily towards John. The target was quick to react and was already in a lowered stance, daggers at the ready, eyes trained on the approaching offender.

“Stop right th-”

Tim rushed forward, faster than John remembered the undead moving from his fight before. A ursidane’s paw impacted his chest as John took a clothesline from Tim. Tim added a spin to his hook and held John tightly to his chest in the same movement. John frantically struggled, but could not breakfree. The shaking was putting the human dangerously close to many of the spikes on Tim’s body. He forcefully sat them both down, putting some space between John’s back and his chest.

‘So. I just keep him like this right?’

‘Yes. That would be the last of your tasks.’

Olivia now floated over to the unguarded girl. She flinched back, but the staff just moved on passed her and towards the dirius corpse. A handlike [mana construct] pulled the body towards Rachel. The girl backed up further. Olivia moved closer. Rachel hit her back on a tree and could move no further. The corpse arrived at her feet and she could only inch closer to the tree for distance.

Yet, as she looked to the body and the blood, a familiar sensation began to come over her.

“Oh. Oh. Oh.”

She forced the air frantically in and out of her deformed mouth, the desperate no’s never truly formed. John was quick to react to her plight, struggling even harder within Tim’s grip, spewing profanity at every movement.

“Let me go you piece of shit. Can’t you fucking see Rachel is hurt? What is that bitch staff doing to her?”

Tim’s grip tightened at the slur directed at Olivia and contemplated actually following through with knocking the guy out. The idea was scrapped as he did not know how to effectively knock someone out, the risk of using excessive force a very real possibility. Olivia pulled back away from Rachel to hover next to Tim.

The girl’s incoherent muttering of no has already stopped as she again entered the realm of unconsciousness. Her nonhuman appendages, without her conscious effort to control them, moved on their own. The first movements were to tentatively check their range of motion and, once that was established, raised Rachel’s body.

The legs carried her over the fresh body at her feet and steadily lowered her head over it. Her mutated mouth part reached the dead monster and plunged its fangs into the corpse. It remained attached to its prey and the meal began to slowly liquify from the puncture wounds. The closest layer to its mouth now a viscous mush, the thing slowly walked its fangs forward, to both reach a new area and pulled the already digested material to its gullet. The process of injecting digestive enzymes and moving processed food into its mouth continued, framed by John’s incessant struggling. A conclusion came to him and was made known.

“You’re making it worse. YOU’RE FEEDING THAT THING! You were never helping me. You faked it all like those ghosts with Harry and Eddie.”

After more ravings on the wicked nature of Tim and Olivia, John’s volume began to lower.

“We never made it out. She just left, but sent you. Now you’re taking us back, aren’t you? It was just to rub it in how trapped we are.”

His ravings were switched for desperate mumbles on his fate and Anne’s cruelty.

“Doing those t...things to dad, Max, Martha, Agnes, Eddie and Harry. Rachel was still alive, human. And now?”

He choked back a sob.

“Sh...she looks like that. I ran and I hoped. I hoped we got out. Going to the curse support group. And it’s gone. IT’S GONE. SHE’S NOT HUMAN ANYMORE.”

Hysteria was back in John. Tim was unsettled from what he heard, holding down the boy something he began to have second thoughts on.

‘This doesn’t seem right. Why are we holding him down again?’

‘I have asked before, but I will ask again. Please trust me. This is to help.’

Tim nodded, again determined to believe in Oliva, heedless of the ramblings of John. Rachel’s body continued to eat over their conversation.

The dirius was reduced to just the abdomen and hind legs when the feeding came to a halt.

Rachel’s body’s transformation began anew.

Her head of dirty red hair began to bulge out in six points, the protrusions lining up in a ring parallel to her hairline. The bulges eventually split and flowered out into patches of brown covering her hair and part of her forehead. From the center of each patch rose a glassy black half sphere. As both the brown covering hardened and the sphere shifted, it became apparent that a spider’s head was being developed over her scalp.

The arms covered in rough sharp hairs had their surface gain a slight sheen. Her hands sprouted two forearm long claws from the index finger and thumb. The same sheen and growth appeared on her legs and foot.

Once the changes completely settled upon her body, Rachel gained back her consciousness with a heave of her bug mouth.

With her awakening came the reversion of the newest changes. The shells began to fall of en masse from her body. The coating of hair on her arms were the first to fall off, revealing pristine skin. Next came the more grotesque reshaping of her mouth. Like when they first settled into place, the two mandibles reversed themselves, though lacking in pain as evident by Rachel’s mild response of just tilting her head upwards to give them more room to move. Once in the position of her old jaw, the insect parts began cracking and peeling off, again revealing unblemished skin underneath.

Once all of the casings have been shed off, Rachel was once again human looking, albeit with small gashes still noticeable on her cheeks and between her chin.

“Am. Or. al?”

From her now split opened jaw showing a row of sharpened teeth, the cuts were not purely leftover scarring of the transformation. Rachel flinched at her own clumsy bodily control and shut her mouth once again. She moved her jaw minutely, seemingly testing out the new additions to her mouth. Once she had gone through all angles of movement she could think of, Rachel was confident to try speaking again.

“I’m. I’m normal. I’m normal again.”

She took a moment to enjoy the sound of her voice, a light and slightly high sound she was certain just a few minutes ago was forever robbed from her. The revelling only lasted so long before she returned to reality and the others around her.

John was staring slack-jawed, tears again down his cheeks. Tim looked on, amazed as well. He turned his head towards Olivia. The silent praise was accepted with a nod and she moved over to Rachel’s side once again. The girl was shuffled back immediately, kicking away the rest of the corpse and slammed her back onto the tree trunk. Olivia paused in her advance, more time available now to make a more delicate approach.

“There is no need to panic. We do not mean to harm you. I just need to take a-”

“NO. YOU ARE NOT. DOING ANYTHING TO HER.”

John’s hostility towards the well-meaning monsters was still everpresent. Olivia paid him no mind and continued on.

“As I was saying, I simply need a moment of your time to confirm your-”

“NO YO-”

Tim brought the sword arm over, careful to not cut John, and slammed the dead bear’s paw onto his mouth.

“To ensure my theory on your state was correct, I require you to remain still.”

“Please,” Rachel was on the verge of saying no when she reconsidered. John was only detained for obstructing whatever goals the two beings. Said goal was clearly not malignant, at least towards them, given her and John’s unharmed states compared to the casually slain Dirius. The killing itself was even more evidence in favor of hearing the staff out with it being the cause of her reversion to being almost human.

“Ok, I’ll stay still,” Rachel spoke with a bit more confidence.

“Thank you.”

Olivia got to work with her scan, the shroud of mana already encompassing half of Rachel. The process was soon finished a moment later.

“That will be all. Your condition is as I have speculated.”

“Thank you? But what is my condition?”

“You simply lacked the requisite nutrients to complete the merge. I corrected the deficiency.”

“Why does that lead me to not control my body and doing. All of those thing?”

She paused and shivered at the thought of the sensations she had when her body’s control was wrested from her.

“That was the animalistic essence within you subsuming control to ensure mutual survival.”

“So I hurt John just to live. Not some deep buried hatred coming out.”

“That would be the case. Though the hatred is still an existent possibility. I do not have knowledge of your psyche.”

John seemed to have changed his rude habit of interrupting and was rewarded with his mouth’s freedom from the grasp of a dead bear.

“Really? She needed that?”

“I am positive.”

“How did. How did you know?”

John changed his tone mid sentence, dropping the wonder and small curiosity for the standard doubt and contempt he has been directing at the two since he met them. Olivia delayed her reply.

“I have experience regarding this matter.”

“And that would be?”

The prompting elicited another halt from Olivia, this one lasting much longer than the last. The disgust and shame Tim felt from his connection when Olivia relived whatever memory was enough to prompt the silencing of John again. Just as the paw was closing on John’s mouth again, Olivia spoke.

“I have seen and aided in these ‘experiments’ before.”

Tim’s arm continued on its path, its owner knowing full well now what kind of thoughts John’s words must have invoked. John did not hear what he wanted to.

“You really were her minio-”

‘Alright. I’m not letting him bother you anymore.’

‘It is within my capabilities to handle his bothering.’

‘Uhuh. Stop the tough guy act. And you going to want to settle things with the girl.’

Tim tilted his head towards the girl still staring at them. Olivia turned back to her original conversation partner.

“I apologize for the abrupt pause in our conversation. Are there any more queries you might have?”

Rachel, still a bit stunned at Olivia’s reveal of her association with Anne, blurted out.

“What are you two?”

Realisation of how rude she must have sounded to the two very threatening individuals had Rachel quickly covering her mouth. There was no tension to be had.

“We used to be creations of the necromancer.”

John’s state of agitation continued to exacerbate. Rachel remained calmer.

“But you don’t follow her any more.”

“We do not.”

“That’s good then. But why did you help us?”

“Redemption. I wish to repay some of the debts I have incurred. And helping you would be one method of doing so.”

Caught onto the last sentence, Rachel quickly followed up.

“That’s one, what are the others?”

“Orchestrate our Creator’s death.”

It took Rachel a second to fully comprehend the utterance, but her shock was immediately conveyed once she did.

“YOU’RE GOING TO KILL HER?”

Olivia nodded.

“She’s too powerful. Death maidens and revenants are not low tier undeads. You can’t.”

“Worry not, I am confident in my chances.”

Rachel was about to continue her efforts to dissuade Olivia when clapping emanated from the forest behind them. The rhythmic sounds continued at a subdued pace and slowly got louder. With a rustling of leaves, a small figure entered the clearing.

“Oh really now, tool. What could your confidence stem from?”