Nico regained his senses to feel his left leg pointing in two directions, neither of which were right. Now that’s more like it. He opened his eyes cautiously this time.

Atomic’s face was a breath away. He had the tips of his gloved fingers pressed against Nico’s temples, each one like ice, and feeling surprisingly soothing.

“How I do?” Nico said, smiling.

“You butchered it.”

“Thank you.”

Atomic tilted his head. “In a bad way. You didn’t--

“Die, right, sorry about that. Maybe next time?”

“Messy work,” Atomic said, pointing directly above him. “You shish kebabbed the poor fucker.” The Sky Rider was impaled upside down on one of the branches with the upper half of its body gone. Purple goo slid down the trunk at a smooth, oddly satisfying rate.

And that’s why Rubber Flesh sucks. There was no point to great healing if you died in one hit.

There was a path up, a spiral of branches made from the way the trees intertwined. Getting up there was a piece of cake, Nico would have said had he had functioning legs. He ran out of Energy. The next one was going to regen in 42 minutes.

Nico glanced around quickly—everything was dead.

The worrisome thing about that was the six-minute window in which he could use Siphon on the things he killed. All his work could be for naught if he doesn’t Harvest it. With that, Nico began clawing towards the tree. He pressed his hands tightly against it and dragged himself up the balk. “Where is Riguel?” Nico asked.

“Bumping her way towards the 3rd city or something,” Atomic scooted back to lay against the tree with his ankles crossed and his arms folded behind him. “You sure you’re not going to regret that?”

“Regret what?” Nico lucked out. The tree’s half-moon shape was working in his favor.

“Destroying the better half of your body? Actually, why are you not bawling your eyes right now?”

“I’m a tough man.”

“So this is what your Enhancement does?” Atomic said, whistling. “You got the whole world fooled—you can just ask for help, you know.”

“I’m good,” Nico said. The branch he was holding onto snapped. It sent him tumbling down, bouncing but mostly snapping everything below him. A whole bunch of metal pieces fell on top of Nico after hitting the ground. He protected his head, but everything else seemed worse for wear.

“Clumsy,” he said, chuckling.

“So about that help,” Nico said, sighing. “What do you want in return?”

“I won’t kill you, I won’t help you, but I will trade information—three questions for every one of yours.”

Nico wasn’t that bad at math. “T—"

“You’re in no position to negotiate, speak, nor breathe without my whimsical permission—you need me a lot more than I do.”

“I think I’ve already earned the right to live.”

“I don’t care,” he said.

“My still beating heart says otherwise,” Nico said.

“So you’re declining?” he said, after Nico got a few pulls up. He clicked his tongue. “You’re too little to have that much pride. Don’t you want to find out all sorts of stuff? Who we actually are? What’s going to happen to you? All good questions, I would say.”

Half-way. Nico wrapped his hand around a branch and tugged at it. The metal felt flimsy under his fingers, but it held his weight. He pulled up, grunting to get a few more inches. He rested his back on top of it to catch his breath. “You’re asking a lot of questions for someone that doesn’t want to answer any.”

“Oh wow,” he said, his voice turning monotone. “Stellar response for a corpse.”

Nico’s branch snapped. He threw his arm up on instincts, catching a different branch just below it. It held his weight for a deceitful moment before that one broke too. He tumbled down, feeling more annoyance than pain as he struck his head twice, once from the back and once on the forehead. The soft ground didn’t feel soft when he landed on it with his face.

“You know,” Nico said. Looking at his legs made him queasy. His bones were clearly sticking out, causing blood to dip down wherever he crawled. It wasn’t a pretty sight. “At this point I’ll bleed out, the monster I’m trying to Siphon will run out of duration, negating a possible power up, and you would have broken Riguel’s promise. I would say you need me alive more than I need me.”

“I promised not to hurt you,” Atomic said, shrugging. “And I ain’t hurting you. Forget that—the Locust lets you take other people’s skills, right? I saw you fiddling with the Rider’s body and then you got its shells. Your Fragmentation Blast is like the fairies. So the Locust lets you combine the two, doesn’t it?”

“Right,” Nico said, pushing himself upright. He looked at the bottom of the branch he had yanked. He didn’t find anything suspicious. A coincidence is the conclusion Nico would have come to if Atomic wasn’t whistling so loudly. “Um, Mr. Atomic?”

“Yes, Mr. Nil? Stupid name, by the way.”

“I wish I can say the same for you, but I actually like yours.” Atoms were the smallest building blocks in the universe. “You do make up everything. Anyway, can you stop that?”

“How dare you accuse me,” he said, though his tone hardly changed.

“Can you move away from the tree I’m climbing?”

“I can.”

“Well okay then.” Nothing else came to mind. He stayed where he was, breathing in and breathing out. All the mayhem and his dwindling life hadn’t given him a chance to just...sit. After all those years holed up in the city it was nice to get out occasionally.

“Giving up?”

Nico nodded. “Might as well enjoy my last minutes in peace.” A few more seconds passed in relative quietness. He closed his eyes and tried not to think. He’d been doing so much of it lately that he felt his brain overheating. He even considered sleeping. It has been a couple days.

“But if you—”

“No,” Nico said, opening his eyes reluctantly. “One question for one question, one favor for one favor. I am not going to accept any more or any less.”

Atomic began humming. He crossed his knees. “Even if that ends up in your non-existence?”

“The easiest people to manipulate are the ones that don’t know their own value,” Nico repeated from some book he’d read. He wasn’t sure which one it was. “And those afraid of death.” If Atomic wanted Nico to die, he could have easily done it, but if he wanted to control him, then that he couldn’t do without Nico’s cooperation.

“I get the first question,” he said, folding his legs under him with his feet tucked in.

Nico tried to do the same, but failed for obvious reasons.

“So you blew up the Fungai Shell with Fragmentation Blast,” he said, nodding. “Risky. So many unknown variables. Very stupid. Highly entertaining. Why didn’t you run around the tree, and blast it the moment it pokes out?”

“It was a fifty-fifty, whether it would have came from the direction I expected. I thought baiting it with my arm had better chances. What are you guys trying to accomplish?”

Atomic replied immediately. “Stupid question, which makes you stupid. How is that going to help you survive? Unbelievable. Out of everything to ask. No. Ask a different one. I can’t answer that.”

“A deal is a deal,” Nico said. If he wasn’t curious before, he was now.

Atomic took his time to respond. “We all want different things.”

“Not a good answer.”

“I fucking told you it won’t be.”

“Then what do you want?”

“For things to change,” he said.

“Things? What things?”

“How many people have you transmuted into Energy?” Atomic asked.

“One. How come Riguel made me hunt the Elite? It was unlikely for me to survive, but I would argue I had a decent enough chance. I don’t see a reason to just gamble on it if the stakes are high—so her real condition for me to live must have been to be a certain level of good, but why?”

“How would I know what the dimwit thinks?” he scoffed. “Ask her.”

“So one thing I don’t get—”

“One thing?”

“One of the many things I don’t get,” Nico said. “If I’m such an unknown factor, and let’s be real here, the Locust definitely falls into the Forbidden category, why aren’t you killing me and taking it? Or at least capturing me?”

“Riguel told me not to.”

“If that was enough to convince you, then Riguel wouldn’t have needed to talk with you more while I fought the thing.”

Atomic clicked his tongue. “I was born a Rat,” he said. “Do you know how many of us make it to Rank V?”

“There are 8 in the 3rd City. Yeah, I do know how most fail, how the few that succeeded did it through the Gauntlet, how they left it, and how they never came back.”

“There was once a kid that I dared to have hopes for,” he said, his tone lowering. He spoke slower. He didn’t sound angry, just disappointed. “I thought he would show the other stupid Rats that it can be done. That even when you are dealt a bad hand, you can still be something amazing—but you know what that kid did?”

“He disappointed you—you—of all people.”

“He ruined his future, he ruined the future of other Rats, and he ruined his family’s future, all because he was too prideful—tell me, Undying,” Atomic said, leaning close enough for his eyes to peek through his mask. They were light brown. “Did you win that match knowing the consequences it would bring about?”

Nico stared back at the mask.

Atomic stood up. He stared down Nico, his face hidden behind his mask. With a shake of his head he ran up the tree. A moment later, the fairy fell through them just a short distance away. Atomic jumped down and tossed it in front of Nico. “You’re just like every other Rat—hardly something to blame you for, though. You’re just a child in a confusing world.”

So stop doing it. Nico looked at the Sky Rider. Now that he thought about it, it did seem a bit suspicious that the it landed there out of all places. He didn’t doubt it much because of how his luck has been lately.

Energy of an Elite Sky Abomination

Consumes 1 Energy to provide 2 Charges of Kinetic Burst. These Charges last 3 seconds.

Cooldown: 1 second

Rubber Fungai (Epic III) (Roll 11+)

Grows Rubber Shells containing the effects of your skills. You have Rubber Flesh.

Against all odds, the jiggle made him smile.

Kinetic Burst. It why the fairy was able to move the way it did. It exploded air from behind it, propelling it forward. It was one of the more popular skills for Kinetic users, the only downside being how difficult it is to utilize fully.

Nico rolled for the skills.

Transmogrify (Uncommon II) (Roll 7+) < 9

Rubber Fungai (Uncommon II) (Roll: 8+) > 6

Kinetic Burst (Rare II) (Roll 10+) < 11

“Hehe.”

“Never make that sound again,” Atomic snapped. “What’s wrong with you.”

“Not enough things,” Nico said. He chose the Kinetic Burst. The Energy turned into a bright blue Memory Card. It showed the image of a faceless gray person with a green left arm standing on an empty field of dirt doing a throwing motion below them. The next image played. The background stayed the same, but the wielder of the Locust was now in the air.

Neat. Not only did it provide written instructions, but also moving pictures.

Kinetic Burst (Rare II)

If Base:

Consumes 1 Energy Point to fire a strong burst of Kinetic Energy from the Locust. Has Moderate Knock-back effect and High recoil. Based on your current weight you will travel 14 meters.

If Fragmentation Blast becomes Enhancer

Adds a 2-6 Charger, dealing 1 Shield damage and increasing range by 1 meters for every second charged.

If Fungai Growth Becomes Enhancer

Creates a shell that sends all objects within 2-meter range forward from the impact up to 14 meters. The closer to the center, the further the objects will be launched. Weight and angle will effect distance traveled.

If Enhancer for Fragmentation Blast:

Increases the range of the Fragmentation Blast by 2 meters for each 2 seconds charged. This will decrease the area of effect. Adds a moderate Knock-back effect and High Recoil.

If Enhancer for Fungai Growth:

Creates a shell that sends all objects within 2-meter range forward from the impact up to 14 meters. The closer to the center, the further the objects will be launched. Weight and angle will affect distance traveled.

Life was good. Life was very good. Nico saw two options here—either he made his Kinetic Shell as his base skill, using Fragmentation Blast and Fungai Growth as Enhancers. Or he can make Fungai Growth as his base skill. That would give him access to Kinetic Shells, Frag Shells, and possibly Healing shells.

The former was objectively stronger. It pretty much allowed Nico to combine Kinetic and Frag shells in one skill, allowing him to use it defensively or offensively, all for 1 Energy.

Nico went with the former because he wasn’t delusional.

This wasn’t about him. He needed to find the Nightmare. His healing shells will come into play then, but he also needed the Kinetic Burst, because an immobile Healer was usually a dead one. With Kinetic Shells and Healing Shells, he’ll be able to quickly move through the battlefield. Just with these two skills alone Nico was a fully-fledged healer—the only thing left was to practice it.

If that fails, then he can still switch his Kinetic Burst into his Base skill later. I’m starting to think Devi didn’t randomly toss me. These skills were far too suitable to Nico to be a coincidence.

“What are you waiting for?” Atomic said, glancing around him. “Hurry up and Heal.”

“Oh yeah…about that,” Nico said. “I kind of used this corpse to gain one of its skills, so—”

“So?”

“Got a health potion?”

“Let me get this straight,” Atomic said, his anger doubling with each word. “Not only am I not killing you, but now I’m supposed to save you? Why in all hells would I do that?”

“Because killing a 3-star Elite is an accomplishment I, who is just a poor child in a confusing world, should be rewarded for,” Nico said. “Or am I misremembering?”