A spray of pebbles rained down on the signaleech from above. Electricity crackled and burst up through the shelves, bringing forth a chittering shriek of pain from the slyk that was so far above anything it had produced to that point. I clenched my fists and drew from what little battery I had remaining to weather the storm that was inevitably coming, forcing myself into a sprint to take advantage of the resilience and battery regeneration bonuses from my armor. I’d only managed to kill the quarter signaleech through forcing it into a node, and that was still my endgame. Even if I hadn’t exactly told Okeria that.

One of Okeria’s drones blinked into existence next to my left ear and stayed that way for the immediate future. “Keep on yer toes. This thing can belch out one of its oil-web-wave things in less than a handful of seconds, and if ya get caught in that it’s lights out for the both of us. In fact, yer stat drain is a whole lot more useful ta me than any damage ya might manage ta do, so I’ll try and keep ya outta harm’s way as well as I can. Keep yer eyes and ears open.”

“Will do.” I replied. I didn’t like my odds going up against the signaleech anyway, but I had a bad feeling that it would come after me the moment Okeria truly got the upper hand. A quarter of it was smart enough to recognize that I was draining its stats, so why would the other seventy-five percent be any different?

Shrieking and thundering overtook any other sounds the warehouse had. Bolts of dirty lightning scoured grooves in the floor and ceiling, shattering shelves left and right. It was like being in the middle of a sentient thunderstorm, and it really hated the two living things inside of it. Something smashed into the back of my head and I went down like a sack of wet bricks, smacking my visor against the ground with enough force to slightly crack both of them. A warning indicator flashed over my dim vision telling me that my armor was working to heal me from a concussion and a shattered skull, both of which were draining what little battery I had left alarmingly quickly.

I needed to keep moving for my regeneration buff. I struggled to push myself up while staring straight down at the crack I’d just made, hoping against hope that it was a piece of debris that had beaned me and not the signaleech proper. Nothing killed me while I was standing up, and I took that as a very good sign that I was at least slightly safe for now.

Unfortunately, I was constrained to the speed of a drunk old man with a walker. I shakily reached a probing hand to see what kind of damage had been done to the back of my head and felt something slick and sharp at the same time sticking out of my helmet. I closed my hand around it and pulled, but all that served to do was give me a very nasty electric shock and a few points of damage to my armor’s plummeting integrity.

“Ohfuck.” I breathed, brushing my fingers against the shocking debris. I had to make the choice between pulling it out and dealing with whatever it might be holding in or letting it sit and make my armor try to heal around it. Neither option was very enticing.

“Signaleech’s moving towards ya. Get a move on.” Okeria warned, his voice garbled and quiet as it passed into my severely injured mind. “Human? You’re not moving so quick. Why’re… oh gods, that’s not supposed ta be there.”

The very slight buzzing of Okeria’s drone lowered, and I heard the man gasp. “Heavens above, you got made into a pincushion in the ten seconds I wasn’t watching ya. They’re all pulsin’ with electricity and oil, too. I’ll be there in a second. Stay conscious for as long as ya can.”

That wasn’t going to be hard, since my armor was doing all of the work. It was the ‘avoiding the signaleech’ part that was going to be a massive problem. I gripped the stone shard as well as I could and pulled, ignoring the electricity that jolted through my body as well as I could. My vision went completely black for a split second before blinking back in clearer than ever, but there was a sort of dark tinge to it. Like I was looking through sunglasses, or a very smoky day.

“Well, that can’t be good.” I laughed, and something laughed along with me. I froze as the echoing laughter faded away to nothing, the familiar voices calling me to action.

{Mortician? Did you just do that?} I asked my interface, and got an answer in my own mind.

“Yes, it was us. The End informed us that we needed to infuse you with ourselves, and this was what we came up with.” Mortician said with innocent pride. “Our oil has sufficiently soaked into your genetic makeup, and our signals have entwined with yours, so you are free to remove the splinters at your earliest convenience.”

Right. Completely free. I groaned and twisted to grab one that had embedded itself into my back, pulling it free with a wet pop and a burst of blood that wasn’t exactly as red as I remembered. I stared blankly at what was apparently my blood for a little longer than I probably should’ve, but I’d never been genetically modified before. If this didn’t do anything fucky, I’d be overjoyed.

“That really don’t look too good.” Okeria winced, landing from a hover that he changed into a quick walk. He pressed me to match his pace as the slyk gained on us, ripping splinter after splinter from me as we went. “How’s your battery doing? Did the signaleech take all of it from ya?”

I shook my head to clear my thoughts, then opened my interface to check. “No, it’s the same as it was before. Is that a good thing?”

“Heavens above, I don’t know. I haven’t gotten close ta dying ta one of these things in decades.” Okeria said worriedly. He ran his fingers around the entry wounds as my armor worked to seal them shut, then sighed and forced something into my hand. “I didn’t want ta have ta use this, but you’re too injured now. Chew that and you’ll be swapped out with Keratily. She’ll make short work of the signaleech, but there won’t be much of anything left of it ta harvest materials from.”

I almost popped the gumball-like pill into my mouth without thinking, but something gave me pause. “If Keratily obliterates the signaleech, what’ll happen to all the pods here?” I warily asked, a bad feeling rising in my gut that I already knew the answer to my question.

“They won’t be pods for long. Abyss below, there might not even be a warehouse here when Keratily’s done with the slyk.” Okeria said grimly. “But your safety comes first. And not just because Juniper and Keratily would flay me alive if I came back with slyk materials and a human corpse, either. I like ya for some odd reason.”

“Thanks I guess?” I chuckled, staring down at the pill in my hand as no more messages came through. I needed to ask the question. I didn’t want to ask the question. But I really needed to.

It wasn’t for Okeria. {Who’s more important; Mortician or me?}

The End’s response came along with a ringing in my head like I’d been standing in a warzone without ear protection. It radiated sadness and anger at once, but absolutely none of it was directed at me.

//DESTROY THE MONSTER YOU FIGHT.

//AND NEVER.

// NEVER.

//ASK THAT QUESTION AGAIN.

//YOU ARE BOTH INVALUABLE.

//YOU ARE MY TREASURED CH… EMISSARY AND MORTICIAN IS MY TREASURED PROTECTEE.

//THERE IS NO FORCE IN EXISTENCE THAT COULD FORCE ME TO CHOOSE BETWEEN THE TWO OF YOU.

//BETWEEN ANY OF MY PROTECTEES.

//IF IT TRULY COMES TO IT…

//I WILL INTERVENE SOMEHOW.

{But not for Nia.}

//NO.

//NOT FOR PERSEPHONIA.

{Why?} I asked, feeling a lump form in my throat as I picked up speed alongside a very confused Okeria. He was screaming at me to eat the pill, but this was more important. {She wasn’t worth intervention?}

//YOU WERE MEANT TO INTERVENE, SEBASTIAN.

A cold shiver ran down my body.

//ENDRA SHOWED ME THAT RULES ARE ONLY AS IMPORTANT AS THEY ARE ENFORCED.

//LOOPHOLES ARE NOT MEANT TO BE ABUSED, BUT CLOSED.

//PERSEPHONIA’S DEATH WAS A SENSELESS TRAGEDY AND BETRAYAL, BUT IT WAS ALSO ONE SHE SAW COMING.

//SHE TOO UNDERESTIMATED THE LENGTHS ENDRA WOULD GO.

//ONCE YOU FULLY TAKE IN HER INHERITANCE, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND.

//YOU WILL NOT AGREE, NOR WILL YOU LIKE IT, BUT YOU WILL UNDERSTAND.

I needed to take back my words. The End had intervened, but it was playing by the rules. It gave its chosen, me, an advantage to try and bring forth what it desired. It warned me about Inopsy, knew he would take Nia’s side in the end, and gave me that room that Okeria was using to launder the eel we’d killed. It was enough until Endra shattered the rules with one dead Staura.

{We need to have an actual talk soon. I have… a lot of questions.} I admitted. {If I’m going to help humanity, I need to know so much more about this world. Starting with the Staura.}

//IT WILL BE SO.

//NOW DESTROY THAT STONE-OIL-INSECT ALONG WITH YOUR SHADY NEW FRIEND.

//THE TWO OF YOU HAVE WEAKENED IT FAR BEYOND WHAT YOU ASSUME.

{We too believe in you!

-Mortician}

A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. Belief wouldn’t do much in the face of overwhelming power, but it was much better than nothing. “Have you checked the signaleech’s stats since you started fighting it?”

“No. Damn it.” Okeria hissed. He swiped his hand through the air, looked back at the slyk, and skidded to a stop. “How in all the gods’ graces did we manage ta do so much damage ta this thing? It’s just barely less lethal and dangerous than it was at the beginning, but we should be able ta kill it now.”

“Reminder ta future me: check things’ stats a whole lot more often.” Okeria muttered to himself. “Ya go for the eyes with your weapon-thing. I’ll blow this thing full of so many holes that it’ll be more leak than anything else.”