Saltwater coated his mouth and airway as he broke the ocean's surface and gasped in, coughing out seawater even as the bobbing waves hit him with more and threatened to pull him back under. Eyes stinging, he looked around over the floating pieces of wreckage, luggage and bodies to land on the only landmark he could see: a lonely lighthouse that loomed above the plane crash and flickered weakly in the moonlight. Water lapped in his ears and muffled his hearing but there were no sounds of other survivors. Only the ambient noise of crackling fire, creaking metal, and gentle waves.

He swam towards the lighthouse through the frigid water, and by the time he managed to maneuver around what he thought was the slowly sinking tail of the plane onto the steps that circled the base of the lighthouse, he could barely feel the rough surface of stone and smooth metal beneath his fingertips as he pulled himself out of the water coughing harshly. He felt his body tense before a more violent coughing fit took over, vomiting out seawater as he forcibly tried to dispel it from his lungs and stomach until he was left panting on the lighthouse steps.

Syrus spent several seconds trying to catch his breath from the near drowning, each inhale stinging his nose and throat painfully while he tried to blink away the salt from his eyes. All he smelled was salt, the night air agitating his lungs and drying the water on his skin. He didn't get cold easily, but he still shuddered.

Water lapped at his shoes as he pushed himself off the stairs and stood up, looking back towards the floating debris in the water. There was no movement aside from the bobbing of metal and other objects on the surface, the plumes of fire and smoke that were slowly becoming extinguished as more parts of the plane sunk, and the occasional burble of bubbles from the watery depths as the ocean claimed the wreckage piece by piece. He heard and saw no one else.

It didn’t seem like anyone else had survived the crash.

Given that Syrus could feel internal shifting of bones and skin stitching back together beneath his clothes, he could only imagine that the rest of the passengers had perished on impact or were knocked out to drown beneath the surface, as unlikely as the second one option was. He couldn’t tell from where he stood on the steps what was luggage, a seat, or a floating corpse.

He exhaled and turned away from the water, walking up the metal steps past bent light posts lining the stairs that flickered unpredictably to barely illuminate the ascent. Aside from the question of why humans would create a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean away from any landmass, he wondered just how long the structure had been around. He just hoped that whoever potentially resided inside would be accommodating. He already felt a slight gnaw in his chest from hunger.

However, when Syrus reached the top of the steps and saw the half-opened double doors, it made him think that no one was home.

Sniffing the air there was nothing but the smell of saltwater and the faint scent of moldy fabric and rust from inside, and past the doorway was pitch black. He should have known better.

Humans were nosy and loud. If someone had lived here, they would have very likely rushed outside to see the commotion of an entire wreckage less than a hundred feet away in the water. If someone had survived and made it to the lighthouse before him, he would have heard them rummaging around or calling for help inside.

“Tch,” Syrus let out a slightly irritated exhale but moved to step inside. Even if there were no current occupants, there seemed to be some power despite it being weak and sporadic. Perhaps there was a way to contact someone inside.

When he passed the threshold, his eyes weren’t given the chance to adjust to the darkness before there was the sound of a door creaking behind him, turning around just in time to see the door slam itself shut behind him. Baring his teeth, he prepared to callout whoever was around by lights in the room flickered on before he could utter a word.

Blue and yellow lights weakly illuminated the narrow entryway with the aid of the rooms rusted metal interior that reflected them. The large discolored, metallic bust of a man was revealed along with a sagging, tattered, and dirty red banner that waved lightly against the air. A crackling noise played from somewhere and echoed within the room, just barely able to be recognized as more vintage music after a couple seconds of listening.

Syrus narrowed his eyes at the display but relaxed slightly, the whole thing seeming automated on whatever power supply barely fueled the lights and mechanisms. He tested the closure of the front door lightly, the structure not budging at his more absentminded attempt, before walking around the plaque and bust in the center of the room toward one of the two open doorways in the back of the room.

He didn’t bother to read the plaque because he didn’t care for whatever human memorial or achievement the structure was meant to represent. But, as he brushed past the red banner, he noticed gold coloring reflecting in the light and was able to make out the words ‘NO GODS OR KINGS. ONLY MAN.’ through the stains and dirt.

“Petty creatures,” he murmured to himself, turning away and saw that the two open doorways in the back of the room led to staircases down. He descended the several steps down where the staircases met into a singular landing that turned into another staircase further down in the direction of the front of the lighthouse before splitting once more into another room. It made him feel rather claustrophobic but at the very bottom it opened slightly.

A round, metallic structure sat in the center of the room within a pool of water in the floor, taking up half of the space. It was hollow with a glass-windowed hatch held open to the side, the interiors lined with two rows of red seating and a lever at the back of the sphere.

This was it? There was a random lighthouse in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and all it contained was two claustrophobic floors, an egotistical homage bust, and an empty machine?

Syrus made a barely interested hum as he glanced around the rest of the small room for anything else, the only other object of note being a discolored plaque to his left on the wall that had the word ‘ART’ near the bottom with the rest of the plate taken up by combined artistic symbols. Turning back to the metallic sphere in the water pool, he wondered the purpose of it – aside from obviously seating passengers – and walked to its side for a closer look.

Other than natural discoloration and rusting, it seemed surprisingly functional if the dim but active light inside was any indication.

After a minute investigating the exterior, he decided to reluctantly check the inside for anything that could be considered a clue or potentially be of importance, bending slightly to step onto the red-colored flooring. He wasn’t fond of going into an even smaller space and froze when there was a light hiss behind him that cut through the sound of water gently lapping at the metal sphere below. Spinning on his heel he saw the open hatch start to close behind him with a slight fog of steam, stepping towards the closing glass.

“Hey!” Syrus was quick to rush forward and try to shove back against the windowed hatch to keep it open, was able to feel the pistons strain against him. A jolt that went through the whole sphere jostled him enough to make him step back to keep his balance, the hatch sealing him in with another hiss as he realized the sphere began to descend into the water.

He growled, moving back forward to try and forced the hatch back open but as the water level rose and the sphere was fully submerged, the water pressure aided the latch in remaining shut. Outside he could see the stone walls of the descending tunnel with statues lining the walls, plagues counting the fathoms the sphere lowered past, a measurement that was meaningless to him as he debated trying to break the glass open or ruin the machine.

It was already less than fully functional, a noise from the window like something else was trying to unsuccessfully open or close as the lights and statues gave way to an oppressive darkness that he couldn’t see through.

Syrus took a deep breath to try and settle his nerves even as he continued to scowl slightly, unused to and despising being in such a cramped space. Only the sound of creaking kept him from pacing around in his restlessness, in case any antsy pacing somehow affected the machines structural integrity. After about a minute of the intense blackout his eyes were suddenly assaulted by light, blinking as the sphere moved forward out of the stone tunnel into open water and an unfamiliar sight.

A large city stood in the oceans gloom, illuminated by neon signs and stage lights that littered the ocean floor and coral below the sphere, dimmer than ones freshly installed but still easily cut through the darkness that lingered this far beneath the ocean’s surface. The sphere slowly moved along an underwater track that weaved through buildings rivaling skyscrapers and superstructures, glass walkways webbing between them that refracted the lighting.

Fish and ocean life swam through the city unphased, even a humpback whale and its calf drifting above with a lingering moan.

Syrus was both impressed and perturbed, having never heard or seen anything of this caliber by humans. The closest was the legend of Atlantis but this was obviously a more modern construction in comparison to the centuries-old description. And, as the machine followed the track toward an entrance in the side of a building, it solidified that this was no Atlantis.

‘Rapture Transit’ glittered in the lights around the tunnel through algae and budding coral, a shoal of shimmering fish scattering as the sphere slipped inside and began to ascend.

Relief rushed through Syrus when the machine broke through the water and surfaced, even though the water outside was replaced by the sight of a dark metallic platform covered in rust with a tattered red carpeted walkway leading into the dark. Both were covered in dark stains and ragged scratch marks etched from carpet to metal at varying thickness and depth. He hadn’t exactly been expecting a warm welcome, but he still stiffened when the hatch hissed before opening, refusing to move other than wrinkle his nose in disgust and cover it with a hand.

The air reeked of rot and decay, mold and mildew, and the more room temperature air of the sphere was quickly replaced by a cold that leeched into every inch of the machine in a chill that settled uncomfortably on his skin. If the overtones weren’t so immediately repugnant, the saturated scent of blood underneath would have left his mouth watering.

Syrus listened for several seconds for any sounds past the creaking of metal and the water lapping under the sphere, eventually deciding to step outside onto the platform. Slowly growing used to the stench in the air, he lowered his hand and looked around as he walked the short path connecting the platform to the rest of the rooms more solid floor, glancing at the wall directly across from where the sphere surfaced. A tiger shark idly swam past in the illuminated gloom outside.

He frowned at the sight before he turned his attention to the rest of his surroundings.

The entryway he’d found himself in was in heavy disarray, furniture turned over and torn with old papers scattered on the floor and rendered illegible by old blood stains that covered everything. He noticed a peculiar shape splayed out behind the couch, a second passing before he realized it was a rotted yet mummified corpse.

The mixture of cold, humid air had affected the way the body was decaying, and he couldn’t gauge how long ago the human had perished.

If the room was any indicator of years of neglect, Syrus was surprised that the lights outside still held power and that the spherical machine had worked. Glancing back at the machine in question he silently debated whether to try and see if it could go back or not. But the only thing he had to return to was an empty lighthouse and the wreckage that led him here. So, he decided to travel past the torn apart entrance, staying quiet to listen for any threats over the creaks and groans of the structure around him.

The disarray extended past the entryway into the halls beyond, more knocked over furniture strewn about and making navigation through the bloodied halls slow. The air slowly lost some of the salty humidity the further he got from the entrance, making him sneeze at the increase of dust particles that he could see drift through the dim light.

Even though he was able to stomach the stench of rot that continued to permeate every breath he took, his sense of smell was rendered useless by the potency as he traversed the damaged maze-like halls until he came across the base of some stairs.

Syrus felt hunger beginning to set in as he climbed the steps to a more open room that looked like an entrance hall, intricate yet rusted interior surprisingly decently lit by both flickering lights above and whatever light from outside came through the glass. Once more, he wondered how any of this was being powered.

He felt his back straighten slightly at the sensation of being watched, looking around at the rest of the room. But he saw nothing except the large staircase on the other side of the room and heard nothing but the ambient groaning of metal around him. He frowned but stepped forward to walk across the room, thinking that whatever or whoever was potentially watching him would eventually reveal itself. His thought process was correct when something dropped to the floor on all fours in front of him not even halfway across the room.

The thing lunged at him before he could get a good look at it, forcing him to jerk back in surprise to narrowly avoid claws that glistened in the light. He was caught off guard by the things speed, claws hooking through the fabric of his turtleneck as it slashed at him once more, another swing digging into his side briefly.

Syrus exclaimed in pain and pulled away, making to grab the thing when it skittered several feet out of his reach and shouted, “You got some ADAM, little fish?!”

He hissed and tried to keep it in his sights, bracing himself when the creature jumped at him again. This time when he reached to grab at the thing, he was able to get a hold of flailing wrists and managed to hold on as the momentum from the lunge forced him back a couple feet, pushing his back against the nearest wall. He snarled at the creature, able to get a better look at it now that it was trapped in his grasp.

It wasn’t a feral creature in the traditional sense, but it may as well be.

It was a human male dressed in ripped semi-formal attire that was covered in blood and other miscellaneous stains, the glinting claws rusted over hooks the human was using as weapons and would give another human an infection if they managed to survive the initial swipe. The human wore a half-broken owl-esque mask that was askew, revealing a face deformed by lumps with a distorted grin and manic, bloodshot eyes staring back at him.

“Ooooooooh, little fish is feisty,” the man in Syrus’ grasp purred even though he was smaller and struggling to pull his wrists free.

If the human’s general odor wasn’t repugnant enough, his breath made Syrus grimace in disgust. He was tempted to attribute all the rotting smell to this one man.

Syrus shoved the human away from himself and watched the man contort in mid-air to land on all fours again, deciding to give the human a chance to back down from the idiotic endeavor of attacking him with a firm warning. “Back off or it’s going to get ugly for you.”

“Not unless you-” the human shifted on his hooks in agitation, lunging toward Syrus as his voice rose in both anger and volume. “- give me YOUR ADAM!!!”

Syrus was able to pull out of reach quickly now that he knew how fast the human was capable of moving, grabbing and wrenching one of the hooks from the human’s grasp while the other hook managed to scratch into his cheekbone. Striking the other wrist with enough force to hear a crack he was able to fully disarm the human and kicked the second hook away. Yet, despite being unarmed and having a broken wrist, the human continued trying to attack him.

He twisted a dodge around the smaller man when a punch was thrown towards him, kicking the human in the back and forcing him into the same wall Syrus had just been pressed against. Seeing that the human was dazed, he pinned the human to the wall with a hand when the other man tried to turn around and face him.

“Oi-!” the owl mask fell to the ground as the human glared angrily and started trying to squirm against the hand against his chest. “Git yer hands o-augh!”

Whatever furious tirade the human was about to spew was cut off as Syrus’ tongue darted out from his mouth and latched onto the crook of the human’s neck with a tip that split into prongs, quickly followed by his canines sinking into the other man’s flesh. He felt his teeth scrape against the bone of the human’s clavicle.

If the human’s smell was bad, the blood wasn’t much better.

Syrus’s nose wrinkled and his lips curled in disgust at the taste of the man’s unclean flesh and blood, stomachs churning as he simultaneously injected the human and began drinking from him. The flavor was repulsive, bitter and sour with something chemical that contaminated the human. He wanted to discard the man but felt his hunger urge him to drink.

He reluctantly indulged and ignored the humans’ struggles, deep gulps spurred by his injuries and the uncertainty of his next meal.

With each unenthusiastic swallow he felt the human’s frantic heartbeat weaken, the struggles and warmth fading within a minute. When he could no longer draw a full mouthful of blood from the human he unlatched with a heavy exhale and pulled away from the fresh cadaver.

Syrus apathetically watched the corpse slide to the ground while he licked the corner of his lips for any remaining blood. Feeling a trail leading down his chin he raised a hand and wiped it away, a shudder of revulsion going through him at the taste that lingered on his tongue and in his throat. Still, as much as his insides churned with disgust, he could already feel his body begin to absorb the blood. Soon, the cuts he received would be stitched back together as if he’d never been marked.

“I did warn you,” he told the lifeless body bluntly. Still, if this human had managed to survive then it was very possible that other humans were down here. At best, he could potentially find someone to help him leave this underwater coffin. At worst, he had a supply of blood to feed on for a while. The only way to find out was to press forward.

Syrus turned away from the corpse and walked toward the stairs he’d been blocked from, prepared to venture further.

------------------------------------

A new arrival was here.

It’d been so long since the last newcomers had come down to Rapture, at least weeks or months. It was hard to know the actual passage of time when there wasn’t a way to tell when it was day or night and none of the clocks worked to help keep track of time. Spending almost each waking moment trying to survive and constantly running on fumes certainly didn’t help. Rabbit hadn’t seen the newcomer yet, but they didn’t expect this one – or ones – to last any longer than other arrivals. A day or two maximum was the typical timeframe. If the newcomers even survived the first hour on arrival.

They never understood how the Splicers always knew when there was a new arrival, only that there was an increase of activity in the way of rushed scrambling and mutterings that echoed through the halls as each Splicer rushed to be the first to claim fresh ADAM. Of course, no newcomer held ADAM within their veins and the only reward for the senseless homicide was a fresh corpse to add to the decay throughout the underwater city. Most people didn’t show up eager to stab their arms with questionable needles littering the ground – not like ADAM and EVE were common anyways – and anyone who’d lasted long enough to try probably joined the frenzied Splicer population.

That was the nature of Rapture, destroying lives and sanity with the lingering addiction and greed that ran it into the ground in the first place.

Rabbit crawled through vents and used rafters to traverse to the Entrance Hall, following the sound of Splicers scrambling and muttering down the halls. While they continued to try and be quiet like they’d grown into the habit of, they weren’t as concerned about being noticed. Still, when there was a slow movement in the corner of their vision they still froze and carefully looked toward the source.

An abnormally quiet Spider stretched out from the shadows near them, hook digging into the same beam that they were also perched on.

Static prickled through their veins as the Spider looked at them with a smudged snake-like mask, staring at their own rabbit-masked face for several tense seconds before languidly turning away. The Spider skittered off the edge of the rafter beam and front-flipped to the ground below before crawling away on all fours toward the Entrance Hall.

A rare reprieve from the normal routine of being hunted on sight.

Rabbit exhaled slowly to calm themself down, waiting a few seconds before cautiously continuing for several minutes. The only indication that the newcomer was likely still alive as time dragged on was that they could still hear echoes of agitated Splicers. They mused that the newcomer was able to hold their own or they were managing to hide from the feral addicts loudly roaming the passageways when they heard a death-scream come from the direction of the Entrance Hall. Stopping, they tilted their head in thought.

They were tempted to return to their nest in Arcadia but the orchards were over hours away and new arrivals were rare. It was possible that the newcomer brought something of value from the surface, items like lighters, pocketknives, or even bottled water and some kind of snack. Any item common on the surface that they didn’t have the luxury of having access to in Rapture, things Rabbit valued that the Splicers would look over.

Rabbit huffed a little and decided to continue further since they’d already come a long way, crawling through the vents. In conjunction with the normal creaks and groans along with the expected noises accompanying Splicers they could hear occasional shouts that randomly cried out as they got closer. After a few more minutes there was a lull in active sound before another death-scream rang out close by.

Frowning, they peered out of the next vent grate to try and get their bearings and investigate, going still when they noticed someone standing in the hall below. A man dropped the body of a Spider and they saw a smear of blood at the edge of his mouth before he wiped it away with the back of a hand and looked around intensely, making them lean away from the light of the grate to avoid potentially being seen while examining him.

The man wore more modern clothes, a simply black turtleneck compared to the semi-formal and formal attire of Splicers, so this was the newcomer. And he managed to hold his own, it seemed. A couple bodies were near him and the dead Spider, but they couldn’t tell if he killed the Splicers or if they had been in the middle of killing each other when he dealt the final blow.

The only thing they were certain of was that he seemed uncannily unphased at his situation as his gaze swept across the room.

Rabbit waited for the man to finish looking around, his gaze landing on nothing in particular before he turned and eventually continued on further into Rapture. They tilted their head as they quietly trailed behind him in the vents, pausing every time the metal confines groaned enough to catch the man’s attention until he’d turn and walk along again. They were just glad to follow along with the knowledge that Splicers would attack the newcomer before them.

The newcomer was obviously unfamiliar with the metallic halls, stopping to look around frequently at each bend and turn to try and keep a grip on his bearings. Occasionally he’d mutter to himself briefly that was too far away and quiet for them to discern. Despite not knowing the labyrinthian halls of Rapture, he was unperturbed by the constant display of gore and decay of corpses scattered along his path.

It unnerved Rabbit.

They were used to newcomers jumping at every sound, panicked and scared at the underwater city. It was a welcome difference to the over-aggressive and familiar residents that would frequent the halls instead. They could almost live vicariously through each new living corpse who was blissfully unaware of the depravity in these depths, reminded of when they were first stuck down here. This newcomer was uncomfortably calm, even as they heard him let out frustrated mumblings below.

Still, disquieting as the newcomers lack of panic was, Rabbit also noticed a lack of Splicer attacks and activity as the minutes stretched on. It was something that was more concerning than the singular man below, but they could make the guess that Splicers were preparing an ambush somewhere along the halls.

Splicers, as arrogant, feral, and power-hungry as each one was, struggled to coordinate with each other. However, lately some of them were slowly figuring out that working together would increase the odds of finding ADAM. A few had managed to piece together a strategy that they’d used on the last arrival turned victim and Rabbit had almost died to one of the haphazard ambushes themself.

A rather basic premise, but one that went over most of the heads of the addled addicts.

Rabbit had to give the Splicers some credit though. Patience wasn’t a virtue that was common here and while they were certain the ambush would happen soon enough, the fact that it hadn’t happened yet surprised them immensely.

Claustrophobic halls eventually expanded into a decent-sized room after another stretch of uncharacteristic quiet, still in disarray with scattered furniture and bodies that littered the space of what had probably been a communal lobby area. Blood and Spider claw marks trailed along the floor and walls, ruining posters and papers that hadn’t succumbed to the salted air.

Rabbit crawled from one grate to the next to continue overseeing the newcomer, stopping when movement in the corner of their eye caught their attention.

Through the grate they watched as two Splicers peeled away from the shadows on either side of the room entrance that the newcomer just walked through, one armed with a shotgun and the other a bonesaw that glinted through rust in the artificial light. Simultaneously, two more Splicers with a wrench and rolling pin respectively crept out from behind nearby columns with faded gilding, three Spiders dropping down to the floor from the shadows above onto all fours.

The newcomer was very quickly surrounded.

“OI! Fish!” the Splicer with the bonesaw bellowed unnecessarily loud as it approached, pointing the rusted metal at the newcomer. Now disfigured from an average human man it was the largest of the group and was obviously whatever so-called Alpha that sat at the top of the hierarchy among the present Splicers. Rabbit was too far away to see but they could practically hear the sneer in its voice as the newcomer turned to face it. “Yeah, you! Be a good fish and give use your ADAM, or we’ll tear you apart for it!”

The other Splicers hiss and snickered at the proclamation, shifting on hooks and feet in barely restrained bloodlust as they began to circle the new arrival. Rabbit could all to easily imagine the unmasked ones gnash unkempt teeth in deformed mouths.

To their surprise, the newcomer SIGHED, of all things. As though his whole situation was more of an inconvenience than anything to be legitimately concerned with, making Rabbit wonder why he was so calm in this place of death.

“Are any of you going to tell me what this ADAM even is,” the newcomer asked bluntly. “I doubt it’s the name of a person given that nobody’s bothered to ask me mine.”

Rabbit tilted their head in almost fascination. There’d been a couple arrivals that talked back nervously, but none as brazen or uncaring as this one. It made this newcomer more interesting but there was something about him that kept them on edge aside from his response.

“ADAM is inside you. Inside all of us,” the Alpha replied simply, running a few fingers from its free hand up the front of its sternum slowly as though savoring the thought of the reward it didn’t yet have. Like every Splicer, the concept of anyone not understanding or even knowing the existence of ADAM was an impossibility to it. Almost purring, the Alpha added, “Don’t play coy, fish, and give it up.”

The newcomer scoffed; a sound that immediately made the Alpha stiffen before he even spoke.

“So, if I don’t comply, you’ll kill me. And if I do comply… you’ll kill me?” the newcomer asked, an actual tinge of amusement in the edge of his voice for a moment before it changed to irritation. “I have to say, you need to work on your pitch because no sane person would agree to such a deal.”

Rabbit exhaled slightly in their own amusement. They knew that there were no sane people in Rapture, but this almost unnerving confidence was a change of pace to the begging, crying, or screaming. Still, seven Splicers against one person was about to lead to the obvious outcome. He didn’t even have any Plasmids.

The Alpha’s arm with the bonesaw lowered from where it’d been pointing at the newcomer, scowling so blatantly that Rabbit could see it from where they sat in the vent. There was a moment of the Splicer tensing before lunging forward with the bonesaw, shouting, “We wasn’t asking!”

The other Splicers exclaimed collectively and jolted but didn’t do more than take a step toward the newcomer and the Alpha. The Spiders looked like they were struggling against invisible leashes, hissing and straining to not lunge into the fray as the group waited impatiently to allow the Alpha first blood, first ADAM.

The newcomer ducked out of the way from the Alpha as it swung its whole body into slashing with the bonesaw, taking advantage of the powerful but non-agile attack by making it overshoot. Before the Alpha could fully stop its charge and pull back from the momentum the smaller man shifted in from the side and lunged upward with his elbow, delivering a clean blow to the Alpha’s nose. With an unnatural cracking sound, the Alpha reeled back with staggering motions and raised a hand to its face, blooding dripping down to the floor.

The Alpha hissed. “Why you-.”

The smaller man didn’t make a motion when the Alpha stepped toward him again and raised the bonesaw for another attempt, the other Splicers clamoring for blood.

The strike never landed.

The Alpha’s foot landed wrong and its legs crumpled beneath it as it fell forward to the ground, bonesaw clattering out of its grasp. The excited hissing and exclamations from the surrounding Splicers faded to silence, the homicidal audience stunned by their impromptu leader’s fresh corpse lying motionless on the floor.

Rabbit also stared in shock behind their mask, taking in the fact that the newcomer was able to kill the Splicer with one strike to the nose in the brief silence.

Silence that broke to the remaining Splicers exploding into a frenzied free-for-all.

The Spiders were the first to lunge forward with the other melee-wielding Splicers rushing forward with varying timed swings that forced the newcomer from where he stood, the Splicer with the shotgun quickly racking it on the side. While the Spiders lunged indiscriminately in a fervor just to drag their rusted hooks into his flesh, the Splicers with the wrench and rolling pin tried to force him against one of the pillars.

Rabbit watched the fight with interest and bated breath, trying to get a better vantage point as they shifted to the next grate to try and follow along with the struggle below.

The newcomer ducked and dodged strikes, a hook grazing across his arm as he struggled against the five Splicers, a shotgun blast knocking one of the other Spiders to the ground when it got in the way. He didn’t seem experienced, but his reflexes were faster than any of the other arrivals Rabbit had seen, blocking a bludgeon from the Splicer with the rolling pin and grabbing it. He pulled the Splicer closer with surprising ease while side-stepping another Spider attack, his back facing Rabbit’s grate.

They leaned forward towards the grate and blinked as the rolling pin Splicer was pushed to the side, clutching its neck and screaming while the newcomer turned to face the others. Confused and distracted from the continued fight, they frowned at the shoved away Splicer, wondering why it let itself be shoved to the ground.

Rabbit’s eyes widened and a shiver went down their spine as the Splicer writhed for a few seconds before going rigid with its hands still at its neck, the screaming dying out as it stiffened.

The sound of the shotgun tore them from their shock, gaze snapping back to the newcomer as he stumbled back. They almost thought the blast missed him but fresh crimson was sprayed across the ground and as he pulled a hand away from his side they saw blood splatter to the ground. He just turned to the Splicer with the shotgun.

The newcomer ran forward even as the Spiders continued to try and rake hooks against his skin, jolting to the side to avoid the shotgun shell to the chest and grabbing the barrel of the shotgun before the Splicer holding it could pull away.

They watched the newcomer wrench the shotgun from the Splicers hold, throwing it to the side and proceeding to use the addict as a meat-shield against one of the Spiders, spinning around with the Splicer in his grasp to let the Spiders hook dig into its spine. The Splicer cried out in gurgled pain, struggling against the newcomer as he shifted it to take a blow from the wrench wielding Splicer to the back as well.

From their vantage point in the vents they barely saw something extend from the newcomers mouth and latch onto the collarbone of the Splicer in his hold, trying to identify what attached both the newcomer and Splicer as he continued to use the screaming addict as a meat-shield for several seconds.

Rabbit wasn’t able to discern what it was before it detached and disappeared back into the man’s mouth, the newcomer throwing the Splicer in his grasp at the remaining attackers.

They barely paid attention to the rest of the fight below, barely watched the newcomer as he continued to dodge and weave among the remaining Splicers. Their mind raced as he continued to stand and fight where he should have been dead, thinking of the deformed abominations that would rarely flee the Medical Pavilion.

Eventually the clamor of metal and shouting died along with almost every Splicer below.

In the aftermath the newcomer stood among the fresh bodies with one of the Spiders struggling weakly in his hold. Without the constant motion of dodging and fighting they could see that the newcomer was attached to the Spider by whatever appendage extended from his mouth like a hidden proboscis.

Rabbit could only assume that he – IT – was feeding in the bloodshed.

Hesitance and resolve fought within them as the newcomer dropped the Spider and stepped over to another one of the bodies and picked it off the floor, their hands twitching in confliction.

They didn’t know how or when it made it to the entrance hall or why the other Splicers were treating it like a normal arrival, but they had to stop it here. It didn’t matter that the thing didn’t seem to know its way around the halls or that it was traveling further into Rapture, they just knew that it was too dangerous to let try to reach the surface. It probably stumbled to the entrance hall and figured out that it couldn’t leave by the Bathysphere system.

Rabbit shook their head clear of contradictory thoughts, trying to ignore the way their mind thought of bright lights and cold metal beneath them, of leather bindings and their own reflection in an oversized monocle.

Their breathing shook, reaching for the edge of the grate with one hand as the other reached for their waistband. They had to kill it here.

------------------------------------

The stench of rot had gotten worse the further he walked down the metal hallways, permeating the entirety of his nasal passage and was only undercut by the smoke of a random fire he’d come across along his trek down the hall. He was certain the only way to rid the smell was by blowing apart the entire city and letting the miles of open ocean smother the remnants.

Having felt like he was being watched since coming across the first psychopath, Syrus wasn’t surprised when the cramped halls gave way to a larger lobby and several more humans tried to get the jump on him. The sheer number of feral humans and the use of a shotgun had caught him off guard, though. It would have been a more painful fight if he hadn’t fed on the humans he’d come across earlier, though he didn’t hesitate to drink from the fresh bodies that littered the room now as his body stitched flesh and skin back together.

Still, he grimaced as an intense shudder of disgust ran through him, dropping the drained corpse with blood just as repulsive as the rest and gave it a look of disdain.

The pungent unnatural taste of something chemical overshadowed the flavor of iron and remained as he retracted his tongue, feeling most of the length coil behind his ribs. There was a strain in his chest from how much he’d gorged himself, but he could already feel his body work to push the shrapnel from the buckshot to his side. If he wanted to keep from permanent wounds he needed to take as much blood as he could when he could.

Syrus looked up from the body at his feet to get a better look of the room without the distraction of homicidal humans, licking his lips in distaste to try and get rid of the lingering taste. He briefly thought of shifting in case he continued to be attacked but he knew the ever-present feeling of being trapped would worsen.

He shifted to start walking and heard something behind him, jolting to the side on instinct and cried out when the movement earned him a gunshot to the shoulder.

The bullet would have gone through his heart if he hadn’t moved.

A hand darted to press against the fresh wound as he tried to shake off the ringing in his ears and spun to face the new attacker, barely managing to jerk out of the way of another gunshot. Blinking through the white-hot pain that radiated through his shoulder at the action he bared his teeth at the human in a rabbit-themed mask who was pointing a pistol at him. They also wore semi-formal clothes, though in far better shape than the others.

They didn’t shout any insults at him, but he also wasn’t in the mood to wait.

Snarling, Syrus reached down and grabbed the corpse beside himself and raised it as a shield while ignoring the strain it put on his injuries, rushing forward at the new human to try and end this quickly. He saw them visibly hesitate and braced to bowl them over in his charge, wanting to take advantage of their indecision.

But they were quick as well, making the small snap movement needed to change their aim and he let out a pained shout at the explosive pain that blossomed in his calf.

It missed his bone but still caused him to stagger, seeing red as his already frayed nerves were overwhelmed by retaliative fury. Growling and sucking a pained breath through his teeth, his grip on the corpse shifted before he threw the dead weight toward the human, forcing them to dodge out of the way to avoid being pinned. A click reached his ears as the human pulled the hammer back on their pistol, but he reached them before they could regain their stance and aim.

Syrus was quick to grab the humans wrists and forced the barrel of the pistol upward. He felt them strain against him to pull their arms back down, baring his teeth and squeezed their wrists hard enough that he almost broke bone. Their grip quickly released on the gun and it clattered loudly to the ground.

The humans struggles turned to try and pull from his grasp, but he ignored the attempts to get away and opened his jaws.

Full from the blood of the other humans, he just intended to paralyze them and leave them here. He wasn’t even able to slip out the end of his tongue past his lips before his body was suddenly flooded with electricity and his vision distorted from the excruciating pain of an indeterminate amount of voltage coursing through him, the only warning a faint crackle.

With his muscles convulsing involuntarily, it took Syrus moments of agony before he was able to force himself to let go, practically throwing the human away from him and stumbling away from them.

He tensed as his body continued to twitch against his will for several seconds, gaze snapping to the human that pushed themself to their feet, blue arcs of electricity dancing on their skin. Narrowing his eyes from his initial shock, he bared his teeth as the human turned to face him and took a more defensive pose.

“What? You want my ADAM too?” Syrus snarled the rhetorical question angrily, braced for the human to attack him swinging like the others. The now askew rabbit mask stared blankly at him, offering no response.

Somehow the lack of response further incensed him.

There was a slight tilt of the humans head that caught his attention, glancing toward where he assumed they were potentially looking and saw the glint of the pistol on the ground just a couple feet away from them. He lunged forward as the human made a break for the weapon.

The human reached the gun before he could stop them, grabbing it and turning to face him but he was on them before they could try and aim. Grabbing their wrists again, he forced their hands up as a gunshot rang out toward the ceiling, his ears ringing once more. They struggled against him but he was easily able to hold them in place, ignoring the tingling of electricity as he wrenched the pistol from their grasp again.

“Why do you all insist on fighting me,” he snarled, throwing the gun to the side and grunting in pain as another wave of electricity traveled through the hand holding their wrists. Maybe he WOULD drink their blood to offset the nerve damage his body would have to repair.

Syrus squinted down at the human through the pain and was surprised when they shifted closer to him. Before he could think clearly through the crackling disorientation of electricity, they suddenly dead weighted in his hold. Assuming they were trying to take advantage of the electricity to deadweight from his grip, he was quick to try and tighten his grasp with his free hand, caught off guard when they pulled their legs forward and kicked him in the face and chest.

Coupled with an even stronger burst of voltage, he cried out as he was forced to release them, staggering back and reaching a hand up to his nose. It wasn’t pushed into his skull, but it was absolutely broken, feeling crooked cartilage under his touch.

He felt hot blood drip down his face and tasted it on his tongue, his palm and fingers stained red when he pulled away from his face. Hearing footsteps, he looked towards the noise to see the human darting away, not even bothering with trying to look for the discarded pistol that he had thrown aside.

There was only a moment before the shock gave way to fury and Syrus lunged after them.

He caught up easily, roughly shoving them to the ground and causing their rabbit mask to finally come off from the impact to the floor. They tried to push themself up but Syrus was quick to descend upon the human and pin them down with ease.

A startlingly normal human face contorted in pain, more electricity attacking him as he grabbed them by the throat and ignored their hands scrabbling uselessly at his own. He pushed through the voltage coursing through his veins, absentmindedly noting that it was weaker than before as he opened his mouth again.

Frustrated and tired, he just wanted to leave this underwater maze of homicidal humans. He no longer felt merciful with his patience frayed by several altercations. It would be so easy to just snap the neck of the human beneath him or choke them, but he wanted the satisfaction of dragging this out, wanted to take out all his current frustration and ire on them by making them suffer.

The humans eyes widened in fear when his lips parted, as if they knew what was about to happen. They tried to push themself up beneath him, their smaller stature and weaker nature doing nothing to budge him from his position. Still, he growled at the futile attempt in irritation, tongue partially slipped out as he lifted them off the floor briefly by the grip he had on their throat and slammed their head back to the floor with a sharp thud. Not enough to break their skull, but enough to hurt.

Syrus scowled as he paused, unsure of why he stopped until a part of him realized that the human hadn’t made a noise. He saw their mouth open, saw their eyes shut in pain from the impact and even saw the electrical impulses arcing from them to him weaken… but he didn’t hear anything.

Expression shifting to a confused and wary frown, he slowly retracted his tongue as he stared at the human blinking away a couple pained tears. Keeping his hand on their throat loosely, he used his other hand to grab the wrist of one of their hands that had been trying weakly to pull him off while they gasped in a breath, watched their brow furrow in scared confusion through a bout of what he could only assume was coughing.

They tried to pull their wrist free with weak electrical pulses, but he ignored them and brought the humans forearm up to his face. Not looking away, he opened his mouth again and saw them stiffen beneath of him before he bit down, feeling his sharper canines break skin.

The humans face contorted into a silent yelp of pain as they tried again to pull away from him.

“You can’t speak…” Syrus said in quiet realization, any leftover indignation giving way to surprise. He let go of their arm and they were quick to pull it to their chest, giving another go at escaping him.

The man let them, taking his hand off their throat and shifting aside as they scrambled out from underneath of him, watched them retreat several feet away until they stopped against a pillar and stared at him with confliction. Obviously, they were distrustful of him. Rightfully so. Yet something kept them from running off into the shadows, and that confused him.

“I suppose that’s why you didn’t answer.” He spoke softly, a whisper compared to his furious shouting earlier, but the human still flinched. He wasn’t surprised but he was trying to not give them more reason to run off. Raising his palms up in an attempt of good will, he added, “I didn’t know, I’m sorry.”

The human narrowed their eyes at him in a glare, not moving from their spot.

Syrus glanced around while trying to think of how to set the human at ease. While obviously more intelligent and lucid than the other humans he’d come across, he was still essentially dealing with a scared animal. Even if he couldn’t get them to trust him, he might be able to get a couple answers from them somehow if he made them feel safer, and his gaze fell on something that could help with that.

“Look, I won’t hurt you anymore,” he stated, very slowly getting up to his feet. Neither of them broke eye contact as he carefully shuffled across the room until he saw the glint he was looking for in the corner of his eye. Kneeling, he grabbed the pistol off the ground and saw the human stiffen at realizing what he had.

He didn’t hesitate to toss the gun toward the human and ignored the loud clatter of metal on metal while gauging their reaction.

They jolted and glanced between the gun and him as it stopped a few feet away from where they sat, but when he didn’t move they took the chance to cautiously scoot across the floor to the weapon. Picking it up, they examined the pistol for several seconds, likely trying to see if it was too damaged to use. From the way their shoulders relaxed slightly, it seemed to be in a satisfactory condition for them.

“I have some questions,” Syrus tried and succeeded in getting the humans attention, watching them carefully as they snapped their attention in his direction in case they decided to use the reacquired weapon against him. Thankfully, instead of pointing the pistol toward him, they tucked it into their waistband. He realized how ill-fitting the off-white dress shirt they wore was as the folds of it covered the handle of the gun.

The human barely looked away from him as they stood up, walking over to the mask that had fallen on the ground and sliding it back over their face. He hoped that they’d somehow respond to say that they would be willing to give him answers but instead all they did after covering their face with that blank rabbit stare was point at the man.

He frowned, not liking the motion, and asked, “What about me?”

The rabbit mask tilted slightly to the side, the silence continuing. It looked almost like they were also realizing the obstacle of being unable to communicate as they potentially mulled over how to say what they wanted. After several seconds, they shifted from pointing at him to the entrance of the room he’d come through.

“That’s the way I came from, yes,” Syrus replied slowly. He felt like it’d be easier to decipher what the human wanted if they weren’t obscuring their face, keeping him from being able to see by expression if he was off. He could tell by the slump of their shoulders that they weren’t happy though. Getting up from his knelt position, he started slowly walking toward them and began to add, “I understand you can’t speak, but perhaps-.”

He stopped when the humans hand flew to their waistband where they had tucked the pistol away, putting his hands up to try and placate them.

“I swear, I mean you no harm.” He spoke softly and resisted the urge to add that they had attacked him first. Their fingers still twitched and he partially worried that they’d attack him again. He doubted that they expected to win, but he didn’t doubt they’d do their best to kill him if they still saw him as a threat. Almost frustrated, he questioned, “How can I prove it to you?”

He’d already given back their weapon as an olive branch and was trying his best to not get too close to spook them off, what more could he do to try and reassure them?

Syrus was wondering how long he was willing to wait for any sort of reaction from the human before he either took matters into his own hands or completely left the room when they suddenly moved. This time, instead of pointing, they mimed taking something out of their pocket and opening it. When he just furrowed his brow in confusion, they repeated the motion a couple times. Still confused, he reached into his pockets to see if anything had survived the crash with him and pulled out the soggy remnants of his passport.

His wallet must have fallen out at some point while the passport and the fabric of his pocket clung together. But it seemed satisfactory, the human seemingly perking up at the sight of him pulling the book out.

He idly wondered the repercussions of losing his human identification as he threw the book toward the human but was far less concerned about it than he was about leaving. The human walked to where the book landed cautiously and picked up the passport, carefully peeling apart the drenched pages.

“My name’s Syrus.”

The human didn’t give an indication that they heard him in the first place, blank rabbit stare trained toward the contents of the passport in their hands. But whatever they were looking for it seemed like they found. The rabbit mask looked back up at him as they tossed the book back, something he caught with ease.

Pocketing his passport once more, he asked as gently as he could, “What’s your name?”

They stiffened noticeably at his inquiry, making him worry that he’d somehow overstepped a boundary he didn’t know was there. Thankfully they still didn’t run off, but they looked uncomfortable at his line of questioning and took a couple steps to the side, so he tried to reword it.

“What should I call you,” Syrus asked, hoping that they’d be willing to go along with it. He noticed they continued shifting away from him slightly, tensed to try and chase after them if they tried to run off without answering any questions. As they shifted between light and shadow, he noticed the discoloration on their skin where he had pinned them or held them in place and paused, taking a breath to temper his impatience and frustration. “Just let me know what to call you.”

The human remained frozen for a few moments, tensed as though they were more willing to bolt than answer him. But eventually, they slowly raised a hand and pointed to the mask that adorned their face.

“Rabbit?” Syrus asked for confirmation. He saw them shift on their feet nervously before nodding slowly. He made himself nod back, taking a step from the human and saw them stiffen before relaxing when they realized he was moving away from them, not closer. “I hope you’ll be willing to help me later then, Rabbit.”

The human – Rabbit – seemed confused. He would be too. But they recognized that he was giving them an out, another attempt of good will.

“Wait, they’re gone?” Trying to shake off my bleariness, I winced when it made my head pound more. The confusion wasn’t helping.

“Well, this invasion seems to be nothing more than a random provocation,” Dan Heng replied, crossing his arms a bit in thought. " As soon as the Doomsday Beast fell, the Legion retreated.”

“The Beast fell?” I blinked in surprise at him and something about the way his expression changed made me feel like I should know that the Beast had fallen, but I mostly just remembered pain and bright lights before being knocked out. 

“Yes…” Dan Heng said slowly, looking uncertain like whether or not he should tell me something. Instead, he shook his head a little at a decision he came to internally and handed me a small handheld device. “I’ll leave any further explanations to Himeko. I guess I’ll leave you to rest up a bit for the time being. By the way, what’s your beacon address? That way if anything happens, I can contact you.”

I took the offered device and looked it over absentmindedly, frowning in a bit of confusion. “Beacon?”

“We found it on your person after you passed out. I’m guessing you have no memory of acquiring it and the attack took priority, so it makes sense that it wouldn’t cross your mind.”

“Oh, uh… Lemme check what the number is then, I guess?” I said uncertainly. Thankfully, the device wasn’t locked with a code or anything, so I was able to get inside and Dan Heng walked me through how to navigate to where I could find my Beacon number. As we looked through, finding that the Beacon must be new with nothing to give clues about my situation, I asked him, “You happen to have anything to help with a headache?”

“Hold on.” Dan Heng looked up when he was finished writing my Beacon number in his own Beacon, pocketing it. He took out what looked to be a tiny unopened pouch of some painkiller and handed it to me. “Go see Himeko when you have the time. She said she had something to discuss with you. Try not to get into any trouble.”

“I’ll try,” I replied, not even sure what kind of trouble I could get into if there wasn’t an active invasion anymore. I had no water, but I took the painkiller dry. “You’re Aeon-sent.”

I paused. What kind of turn of phrase was that? Aeon?

The man seemed satisfied with my response, giving me a nod before turning around and walking off, leaving me alone in the middle of the space station. A space station I hadn’t navigated myself, something I didn’t even realize until he was too far.

“Wait, fuck,” I felt a jolt of panic run through me but winced when it caused my head to throb a bit more. I immediately deflated a little, sighing, “Ugh, I’ll figure it out…”

I waited a good while in the corner I'd woken up in for my headache to subside before getting up to figure out where I was.

It didn’t take long to see that I was still in the master control zone when I reached a balcony that oversaw the whole area, several researchers still milling about. Down below I could see Asta and Arlan near the center of the room with a tiny white thing by Arlan’s feet. What was that thing?

Curious and with no direction other than finding Himeko at some point, I wandered around until I found the stairs down to the first floor and walked over to Arlan.

“Hey, Arlan,” I said to get his attention from some other guys that I assumed were also security. As he turned around, I started asking, “Do you-?”

“Nova!” Arlan’s voice was entirely surprised as he looked at me, eyes wide. For some reason, I was caught off guard as he added, “You’re back to normal!”

“Huh?” I glanced myself over and realized he was caught off guard by my current size. Fair enough considering. “Oh, uh, yeah. It happened when the Doomsday Beast showed up for some reason. Whatever happened to me, I seem to be fine now.”

“Doomsday Beast…” he sounded about as confused as I felt about the situation, but I couldn’t deny the results and neither could he. Arlan shook his head to clear his thoughts. “How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Himeko,” I told him, putting my hands in my pockets. I just realized that he was around my height, able to look him in the eyes without difficulty compared to needing to look up a bit to talk to Dan Heng earlier. “Dan Heng said that she had some things to discuss with me. Or one thing? I dunno.”

“Hmm,” Arlan looked to the side in thought and crossed his arms, replying, “Well, last I was tracking, those with the Astral Express went back to the rail platform. I heard that Madam Herta is showing up later today in response to the attack on the space station, so it’s likely that one of the Express personnel will want to talk to her.”

“Thanks,” I turned around and made to go to the rail platform before remembering… I had no clue where it was. Rubbing the back of my neck, I looked back at Arlan. “Actually, could you point me in the direction of the rail platform? I can’t remember where it is…”

“I can give you a copy of the unclassified space station schematics,” Arlan replied, pulling out his own Beacon and unlocking it. I didn’t even want to know how he managed to put in such a long password, his fingers flying across the screen as password dots filled the bar.

There were a couple minutes of me fumbling to give him my Beacon number, waiting to receive the map, and him walking me through how to read it and where everything was before I felt comfortable enough to leave him. Satisfied after giving it another glance over, I turned around and gave Arlan a departing wave, saying, “Thanks, man! I’ll leave you to it then.”

“No problem,” he waved back in response before looking back to the few other security guys that had probably been watching the entire interaction awkwardly.

“Sorry,” I told them, turning around and remembering the white thing near Arlan that I had seen earlier. I wasn’t very used to needing to look down and turned my gaze floor-ward to see a fluffy white creature. A little dog, my mind supplied without any memories of interacting with one. Still, I knew immediately that I wanted to crouch beside it and give it pets.

“Aww, look at you,” I knelt in front of the dog, an arm-length away from a habit I didn’t remember acquiring. I slowly reached out my hand towards it and let it sniff my fingertips. It barked at me, but I knew it was friendly with its wagging tail and lack of snarling.

“That’s Peppy,” Arlan’s voice caught my attention, making me look up as I reached out and pet the furball. Thankfully, the other security personnel were walking away, so the bark didn’t seem to interrupt anything. “Asta’s dog. I look after it sometimes.”

Despite the slightly dismissive way he spoke about the dog, the fondness in his eyes when he looked at the little creature gave away that he cared for it more than he let on. For what reason, I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t going to bother him more than I already was.

“Well, they’re very adorable,” I said, using both hands to ruffle its long fur. I was tempted to pull off my fingerless gloves to get the full feeling, the softness of its fur against my fingers. They were a very well taken care of pup. My hands didn’t even smell like dog when I made myself pull away and stood up, more like a hint of floral scent. “I’m gonna get out of your hair.”

I didn’t want to leave the dog but I kept feeling a prickling at the back of my neck like I was being watched and, glancing around a bit, noticed one or two researchers staring. It felt uncomfortable, even though I didn’t know what their thoughts were as they looked at me.

Were their thoughts good or bad?

Arlan and I exchanged farewells again before I started to meander around the master control zone. The map showed that the rail platform was a ways away, but Dan heng hadn’t really said that it was urgent to come find Himeko so I just kind of explored slowly. There was also a point where, when looking at the map on my Beacon, I accidentally closed out of it. 

I ended up making myself look through the whole thing to familiarize myself with the device before deciding that it’d been long enough and that I should start heading towards the rail platform.

I almost made it to the elevator before my Beacon dinged, making me stop and check it off to the side so that I didn’t get in anyone’s way.

‘Hi. This is Dan Heng. Remember to go find Himeko.’ The text under Dan Heng’s name looked up at me as I unlocked the Beacon, making me tilt my head and shift a bit on my feet as I settled to reply.

‘I know, looking for her now’ I texted back, not bothering with punctuation at the end. When the little icon for him typing popped up, I waited patiently for him to respond. Well, as patient as someone with a bunch of questions and barely any answers could. Admittedly a bit impatient, I added, ‘I assume she’s at the rail platform with you guys?’

The little bubble with blinking three dots stayed for a second or two before disappearing, only to return again after a moment more. 

‘No.’ was Dan Heng’s initial response, before thankfully being followed up fairly quickly. ‘She left to go to Herta’s office when I got back.’

“Ugh, really?” I mumbled to myself in slight irritation. But, at least I didn’t go so far that turning around would be incredibly annoying. The office should be here in the master control zone if I remembered right. A bit annoyed, I replied, ‘I’ll head over there then, thanks’

‘No problem.’

I reopened the station map that Arlan had sent me, flipping through the pages to find the one with the master control zone again. Giving it a couple look-throughs, I noticed that Herta’s office was back up on the second floor that I’d come down from. 

Goodie. 

Well, at least I knew where to go. And the close proximity meant that there was almost no chance of getting lost on the way.

Taking the left archway from the elevator, I walked up the stairs and saw a figure with bright red hair near the railing. She noticed me coming up the stairs as well since she called out, “Nova!”

“Howdy!” I called back, finishing making my way up the stairs to join her. I ignored the researchers glancing towards me at our brief exchange since most just went back to whatever they had been doing.

“You’re awake,” Himeko said as I walked up and stopped in front of her, giving me a small smile. “I had March and Dan Heng stay by the Express to keep an eye on things. It’s almost time. She should be arriving any moment now.”

“Uh, time for what?” I asked, tilting my head a bit in surprise. Dan Heng had said she’d explain things further, but now there’s a different ‘she’? I blinked when I noticed footsteps behind me.

“I’ve only been gone, what? A few months?” a small woman walked up to us wearing what looked like a white dress with a black jacket and hat accented by purple lining and flower respectively. She stopped in front of us and put her hands on her hips, looking unamused as she finished, “And the space station is already in this state?”

Somehow the long light-brown hair she had also looked unamused, like any excitement had been straightened out of it.

“Welcome back, Herta,” Himeko greeted the much smaller woman, making my next question of who this was obsolete. Looking at me, she gestured to the smaller woman with a hand. “This is the true master of the space station, Genius Society number 83, Herta.”

“Uh huh,” I said slowly, still taking stock of the new woman. I couldn’t help but look at her joints, reminded of a ball-joint doll even though I had no memory of coming across one. “Number 83?”

“At least give me a proper introduction!” Herta exclaimed, making me jolt a little with her offended shout even as she grumbled under her breath a bit. “Genius Society number 83… Of all my outstanding achievements, that’s what you want to mention?”

“So, you’re a… robot?” I asked, having not really expected this when I heard Madam Herta was coming back. Nor was I expecting her to be so small… or seemingly rude.

“What you’re seeing here is one of my puppets. I’m using her to talk to you.” Herta stated it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, proceeding to completely ignore me as she looked at Himeko. “So this little twerp has the Stellaron now? Huh.”

“Wha- twerp?!” I exclaimed in my own offended shock, mind completely skipping over the second half of the question. Himeko, however, just nodded at the little dickhead.

“Hmm, I’ll have to take a good look,” Herta murmured to herself, looking back at me. Her gaze felt clinical.

“Good look at what?” I asked, still not very pleased with my current impression of the woman. From everything I’d heard about her beforehand, I didn’t expect to like her, but it was another thing entirely to feel the unpleasantness firsthand.

“You, of course,” Herta rolled her eyes. Turning on her heel, she started walking off and didn’t even look behind her as she directed, “This way.”

I frowned at the woman’s back as she continued, but a glance towards Himeko where she nodded in encouragement made me reluctantly follow along after Herta. She didn’t go towards where her office on the map was nearby, instead leading Himeko and I down the steps away.

“So,” I said quietly beside Himeko, trailing beside her. “This is Herta.”

Himeko laughed lightly at my displeased tone. It seemed to be a common enough feeling associated with the other woman since Himeko neither defended or rebuked her. “Yes, this is Herta.”

I made disgruntled noise, staring at the puppet’s back as we followed her around the corner to the elevator. I expected Himeko to say something else but, when she didn’t, I glanced at her and saw that she was looking at me from the corner of her eye. She was expecting ME to say something. I didn’t know if it was because I was easy to read or because she was already supposed to be explaining things.

I guess she wanted me to word my concerns.

“What did she mean by saying I have the Stellaron,” I asked.

“I mean, you have the Stellaron,” Herta answered just ahead of us as she hit the button for the elevator, making me jolt in surprise.

“Isn’t it rude to eavesdrop?” I frowned, her answer not even clearing anything up since it had just been repeating what she’d said before.

“Isn’t it rude to talk about someone behind their back?”

I felt a rush of indignation, bristling a bit and hesitating when Herta and Himeko stepped into the elevator as it opened. I only joined them because Himeko gave me a small apologetic smile and gestured beside her. Herta had her arms crossed like she couldn’t care less whether or not I even came with them.

“That still didn’t clear anything up,” I retorted, crossing my own arms over my chest when I stood beside Himeko. The elevator felt a lot smaller now. “I don’t have anything but my clothes and the Beacon thing.”

“Wrong.” Herta stated bluntly, pressing a button I didn’t care enough to pay attention to in my irritation. Before I could find myself incensed at her lackluster explanations, Himeko spoke up.

“What Herta means to say,” Himeko said, successfully gaining my attention as I looked up at her. I heard Herta scoff in front of us. “-is that, somehow, the dormant Stellaron that she’d been keeping on the space station ended up inside of you.”

I blinked dumbly at her, caught off guard.

“The room March and Dan Heng found you in is the same one that was used to harbor the inactive Stellaron,” she continued after I didn’t reply immediately. Her expression looked like she was trying to be reassuring but also had an alertness to it, likely trying to gauge my reaction. “We only connected the dots after you took down the Doomsday Beast.”

“Wait, I took down the Beast thing?” I asked in disbelief. I guess I understood now why Dan Heng seemed hesitant at my surprise when I heard that it was defeated. “How?”

“The Stellaron did,” Herta interrupted. The elevator doors opened and she led us out into another hall, glancing back disapprovingly at Himeko. “Don’t go and give them a complex.”

“We can’t say for certain whether it was only the Stellaron or if it enhanced their own abilities,” Himeko replied, unbothered by the smaller woman. 

“We’ll see,” Herta sounded unconvinced and unbothered as she stopped in front of a set of doors that had a card reader on the side and what looked like a biometric panel. I was saved from asking how useful that was considering she was in a puppet by her waving her hand past the card reader, causing it to beep with a green flash and the biometric panel to open up with an indent the exact shape and size of her hand. 

Circuit markings in the biometric panel glowed as she put her palm inside, turning green in acceptance. The panel reclosed when she pulled her hand away, the doors hissing as they opened. I shuddered at the burst of cold air from inside.

“Welcome to my private lab,” Herta declared proudly, walking into the room. Himeko followed first, then I reluctantly trailed into the chill behind her.

Looking around there was all kinds of equipment that felt vaguely familiar, and most of them completely foreign in the massive room. Walls of consoles and cabinets, cluttered yet organized counters full of beakers, stands, electronics, and other equipment, metal rows of counters cutting through the otherwise open space. There were massive clear vats of something in the corner of the room. Metal lockers lined walls unfilled by cabinets and counters. Another Herta puppet stood at one of the counters mid-action like it’d been frozen while working.

With how cold it was in here, maybe it had been.

“Alright,” Herta said, weaving between two rows of counters to a surprisingly empty portion of the room. As she approached a section of the floor opened and a metallic exam table lifted out of the ground. She stopped beside it and put her hands on her hips as she turned around. “Get up.”

“Uuuuh,” I made a prolonged uncertain noise at the direction, slowly walking up to the exam table. I put a hand on the table’s surface and shuddered as the metal leeched away whatever heat I had. I hoped that this wouldn’t take long so I could retreat from the freezing confines of the room. I unhappily hopped up to sit on the exam table, trying to ignore the almost painful goosebumps that I could prickling my skin. “What are we doing exactly?”

“Relax,” Herta said, walking off to the side to grab something. I watched her, vaguely recognizing the item as some basic medical device. “I’m just going to check your vitals and some readings.”

“Right..”

She was at least correct about it, even if she was thorough. Apparently, my heartrate was a bit high but still in the normal range and everything else rudimentary was normal as well. Same as any other flesh and blood human apparently. The ‘hmmm’s and ‘huh’s started when I was convinced to put some kind of nodes on my chest. 

Well, when I smacked her hands away instinctively when she peeled the back of one and reached for me, leading Himeko to convince Herta that I could put them on myself. The stickiness made me shiver in slight disgust but I put the nodes on as directed. At this point, my fingers felt numb from the cold, shoving them under my thighs to try and get some heat back into them. It only worked slightly with the metal I was sitting on.

“You were surprised earlier when I said the Beast was taken down by you,” Himeko said while Herta muttered to herself in the background. Looking up at her, I wasn’t sure if she was just trying to pass the time or distract me. Maybe both. “Can you tell me what you remember?”

“Uhh, I can try,” I said, not expecting to be put on the spot like this. I spoke slowly as I thought, answering, “I remember feeling panicked when I saw the Beast aim a beam or something towards March and running forward before I could stop myself. I thought it’d hurt, but it didn’t. Not at first, at least. I’m pretty sure I blacked out because I woke up in a void nowhere and there was some voice talking to me.”

“Did you recognize the voice?”

“I don’t know, maybe?” I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose, only able to think of it vaguely like a dream slipping through my fingers. “I just remember they said something like ‘they’ve noticed you’ or whatever and then there was a figure that looked shattered with gold eyes and gold scars and stuff.”

“Nanook?” Herta asked, speaking directly to me for the first time in minutes.

“I don’t know who that is,” I replied. Even if I was told about them, I’d been given so much information recently that it all swirled around together.

“Aeon of Destruction,” the smaller woman clarified, walking back over to the exam table and holding her hand out. When I just blinked at her, she sighed and grabbed my own hand, holding it still and pricking my fingertip with something before I could react.

“Ow,” I yelped, snatching my hand back as soon as she let go and held it to my chest defensively, glaring at her retreating form when she walked off to a microscope.

“I don’t know who the voice was,” Herta continued talking like she hadn’t just stolen a blood sample to look at, emptying the couple drops she nicked onto a slide and placing it beneath the scope. Her voice muffled slightly as she looked into it. “But if Nanook saw you, then you’ve garnered more attention from the Aeons than some of their own followers.”

“Do you remember anything after that,” Himeko asked, softly redirecting me from Herta’s ramblings.

“Um… a lot of pain,” I said, chuckling sheepishly, shifting to release my hand and rub the back of my neck. I rolled my eyes when Herta told me to quit moving and ruining the readings, but I put my arm back down. “I vaguely remember some guy showing up and a train, but that’s it.”

“That’s Welt Yang,” Himeko looked slightly amused at me referring to him as ‘some guy’. “He brought the Astral Express to the rail platform and forced you unconscious to subdue the Stellaron.”

“Oh…” was all I could say, unsure how else to respond. 

“Hmm, truly amazing!” Herta eventually exclaimed past her muttering science-y jargon to herself the entire time, making me jolt in surprise. She looked up from the microscope and walked to the nearest console to check on the readings. She walked over to me and held her hand out again. 

I just glared at her distrustfully.

“Take off the nodes, twerp.”

I scowled but reluctantly obliged, grimacing in disgust as I peeled them off and felt a sticky residue cling to my shirt when I pulled them out. She took them without complaint as she walked back up to one of the consoles to look at the recorded readings.

“I built a whole space station just to contain this unactivated Stellaron and keep The Blue from disaster… Yet someone was able to achieve that with this little twerp’s body,” she mused to herself, staring intently at the readings that just looked like random squiggles to me. Especially from this distance. “How did they do it?”

“Moreover, the Stellaron is still very stable in Nova’s body,” Himeko spoke, also sounding pleased as she walked over and leaned a little over Herta’s shoulder to also look at the readings. 

“You’re right. This little one’s body truly is strange…”

“Can you stop calling me ‘little one’?” I asked from where I remained sat on the cold lab table, watching the two women without any amusement. I was already irritated from the cold. Now that I had no nodes on myself I didn’t hesitate to cross my arms over my chest and hug myself, trying to warm back up again. “It’s degrading.”

“Hah! Compared to me, you are.” Herta laughed, leaning back from the console to look at me. “How old are you even?”

I narrowed my eyes into a glare. That one was a low blow, I couldn’t remember shit and certainly didn’t remember my Aeon-damned age.

“And that’s not even taking into account how you were found the size of a tiny figurine.” The smaller woman seemed far too amused at the prospect, giving me a smug smile.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover, Herta.” Himeko almost sounded like she was chastising a child. “Case in point, that puppet body of yours is actually much smaller than Nova is now.”

“That’s… beside the point,” Herta grumbled, almost immediately deflating. She looked back towards the readings for a second before looking like she just remembered something, turning her attention back to Himeko. “Hey, is this one the same kind as that March 7th? If that were true… Can I bring her in for some research?”

“Wait, now you're bringing March in?” I asked, not understanding what Herta meant by ‘same as that one’.

“What,” Herta looked irritably perplexed at my question, gesturing towards me. “No, I'm talking about you.”

“Oh. It's them, actually,” I automatically corrected, surprising myself a little with how instinctive that had been. Logistically, I knew that I looked and sounded more feminine, but something about it irked me in a way I couldn’t describe.

“Whatever.” she waved her hand dismissively, not even sparing a glance towards me. “Can I bring THEM in for some research?”

Well, I guess it was something.

“That’s not up to me to decide,” Himeko told the smaller woman, dipping her head towards me briefly. “You can ask Nova yourself…”

I was a bit caught off guard as both women looked towards me, giving me attention that I was not at all prepared for. Himeko’s expression was mild but Herta’s gaze felt like she was trying to punish me for the audacity of being given a choice. Nervously shifting, I said, “I guess that depends on what you’re studying….”

“Studying you, of course.” Herta rolled her eyes. She pushed away from the console with the readings and walked up to the exam table while I eyed her warily. “Your body contains a Stellaron, which, in some sense, is no different than storing a bomb. Who knows what might happen? Maybe it’ll blow you to bits someday.”

“What the fuck?” I blinked at how casually she said it.

“You should be grateful that this genius is willing to help you out,” Herta continued haughtily like I said nothing, putting her hands on her hips. “I still have some interest now, but once that’s gone, I’m not studying you even if you beg me.”

I was even more appalled, startled by the woman’s actual audacity, exclaiming a bit louder, “What the fuck?!”

“I’m very interested now, so there’s almost nothing I won't accommodate,” she continued proudly like it wasn’t the biggest backhanded compliment ever. An almost excited smile touched her lips, even if it was small. “A Stellaron in your body, how interesting is that! Be grateful that I’m offering to help you out. This is a service even the IPC can’t buy.”

I just continued to stare at her. I knew she was blunt, but holy shit. She definitely made it seem like I was more of a lab rat than even a test subject, and I wasn’t sure how grateful I should be at being a lab rat, even if it was to a supposed ‘genius’.

“You understand now, Nova?” Himeko asked, catching my attention. I looked past Herta to the taller woman just behind her. “Herta wants you to stay in her space station.”

“Well, I’m going to have to modify your wording here,” Herta interrupted almost immediately before I could even give it a thought, let alone an answer. She gave me an unimpressed look as she looked at me, vastly different from the near excitement just before. My mind created the narrative that the excitement was from the prospect of experimentation and the disappointment was remembering I was an actual person. “This little twerp can only stay temporarily until the research is done. Or maybe I’ll lose interest halfway through and they can just beat it.”

“And after that?” Himeko asked. Her expression said that she already knew what the answer was and it didn’t shift when Herta replied.

“Not my problem,” the ‘genius’ shrugged. It really drove home what little care she actually had.

A million insults crowded into my mind as my blood boiled, my fingertips tingling a little as I opened and closed them a little. What I wouldn’t give to have that baseball bat again, then I could just give Herta a solid swing to the dome. It was a puppet anyways, and one of many. I wouldn’t actually be causing any damage.

“Nova…” Himeko’s voice cut into the fantasy I was thinking of, making me blink as I refocused onto the redhead. “You also have another option. The Astral Express. If you want, you can leave with us.”

“With you guys?” I asked, startled. 

“The Express has its fair share of experiences with Stellarons. The thing you’re worried about, and the answers we’re looking for are one and the same,” she replied, nodding towards me in solidarity. Looking down at the smaller woman, she added, “Besides, we can come back any time to let Herta conduct her research. She’s absolutely fascinated now.”

“Hm,” Herta hummed a bit in thought, not even needing a couple seconds before shrugging and declaring, “Works for me. Keeps this subject fresh, too. And that way I won’t need to keep worrying about this little twerp all the time. Perfect!”

I looked at the smaller woman in thinly veiled disgust and irritation at her far too pleased ‘Perfect!’, almost snarling quietly, “You are the most self-centered person I’ve had the displeasure of meeting so far.”

“You should meet the others of the Genius Society,” she shrugged dismissively again. “Some of them will trick you into thanking them after they milk you dry. At least I have my honesty going for me.”

“That’s all you have going for you,” I snapped, not liking how uncaring she was about her own unpleasantness. 

“Just remember to come back often,” Herta said, walking back to the console and reading through it some more. “Make an appointment in advance with Asta or Arlan so I can make time to study you.”

I bristled, once more returning to the urge to smack her upside the head with something. Even if it technically did no damage, I felt like it’d be delightfully cathartic.

“There’s no need to rush into this, Herta.” Himeko interrupted violent thoughts again, making me stop glaring at Herta when I noticed the redhead looking at me. “Asta’s in the master control zone. Let’s let Nova have a talk with Asta first and decide for themself. Nova, I’ll be waiting for you on the platform. It’s no hurry if you still have things to do or someone to see. Come find me when you’ve made your decision.”

“Oh, uh, okay,” I replied, suddenly feeling deflated at the thought of her not being here with me. It was cold and Herta was a bitch.

Himeko gave me a reassuring smile that didn’t quite stick the landing, but I gave her a grimace of a smile back and a wave as she left. I watched the white of her dress disappear from the lab, wondering how the hell she hadn’t been cold given how much bare skin she had while I was shivering fully covered. 

Thankfully, Herta didn’t even make any attempts of piss-poor conversation, focusing entirely on my readings and the microscope. I wished I knew how to read them myself so that I didn’t feel out of the loop with my own body.

After zoning out for a few minutes just trying to ignore how fucking cold it was, I realized that it’d been a bit since I’d heard the woman mutter under her breath. Blinking in confusion I looked over to where the pupper was, seeing that it was poised over the microscope like it was about to look but there was no movement.

“Uh… Herta,” I spoke up hesitantly, not wanting to get up and lose what little heat I’d conserved. But, there was no response. Frowning, I shouted, “Herta!”

Still nothing.

“Oh, wh-what the fuck,” I muttered to myself, forcing my limbs to uncurl. I slid off the exam table and walked up to the puppet, tapping its shoulder. And then I bonked it lightly on the head with the palm of my hand. When nothing happened I narrowed my eyes, my arm gearing up for a second before giving the Herta puppet a solid smack upside the head as hard as I could.

Honestly, hurt me more than I hurt her.

I hissed as my palm stung from the hit, the puppet barely jostled from its position. Probably a good thing since I remembered after the impulsive smack that it was right above a microscope that I didn’t doubt was extremely expensive. Still, whatever catharsis I achieved was undercut by feeling lost and confused.

My Beacon vibrated in my pocket and startled me, making me jump in surprise before I pulled it out with numb fingers to see who was messaging me. I didn’t know many people, so the list was rather short.

However, imagine my surprise when a number already under the name ‘Herta’ was the one that sent me a message. I hadn’t given her my number.

‘Come to my office quickly! I’m waiting!’ it read.

I stared at it for a second, squinting my eyes in confusion before glancing at the puppet beside me and typing, ‘? But you’re right next to me’

‘[Automatic reply] Hi, I’m currently unavailable, and I won’t be contacting you later’ was my response.

‘???’ my fingers sent out the confused triple question marks before I could stop myself, only further baffled by the brief text conversation. I also felt a bit of anger warming me from the inside at the thought that she just fucking essentially up and left without letting me know. How long ago did she swap puppets?! I could have been out of this stupid room sooner!

I waited a few minutes for a response but, true to the automatic reply, there was no further contact.

“Son of a fucking bitch,” I grumbled under my breath, shoving my Beacon back in my pocket and my hands under my armpits as I walked to the lab doors. Leaving the lab, I was immediately grateful to feel normal warmth. I didn’t realize how cold the lab was until stepping out felt like stepping into the path of a heating lamp.

I continued to mutter insults and general irritated remarks to myself as I figured out how to backtrack back to the master control zone. Which took longer than I would have liked since I wasn’t paying attention when I was led down here.

“What took you so long?” Herta asked as I finally trudged into her office. Didn’t look like an office, but I also didn’t care right now.

“I hate you,” I replied irritably, walking up to her on the entire other side of the room. At least I didn’t feel like I was going to get frostbite anymore, nothing but the barest of pins and needles in my fingertips as a reminder of Herta’s freezing lab. “How fucking long were you gone from your lab before texting me?”

“First off, I haven’t moved,” Herta said, as though that was the issue I was having with the situation. “I just connected to one of my remote-controlled puppets all over the station.”

“That feels unnecessary. Didn’t answer my question.”

“I am working on a big project with a few colleagues,” she supplied not-so-helpfully. I felt like it was the closest to an answer I was going to get right now. “If we succeed, it will answer the ultimate question that’s been puzzling us for thousands of Amber Eras: The truth about Aeons.”

I let out a heavy exhale at remembering she didn’t exactly care about me. Why would she let me know that she left the lab? “Uh, Aeons?”

“Aeons… think about it,” Herta replied, with a surprising amount of awe in her voice. It caught me off guard to hear. “What mystical existences! Some Aeons used to be ordinary humans like you and me, but somehow they managed to obtain power beyond our imagination! They are mysterious, powerful, silent and terrifying! It’s hard to explain all the mysteries surrounding them.”

“Uh huh,” I made a noncommittal noise of acknowledgement, really hoping I wasn’t about to get a whole rundown. 

“How were they created? Why were they created? What were they created for?” she rattled off rhetorical questions in a quickfire before asking me, “Nova, have you ever thought about these questions?”

“I, uhhh,” I struggled to think of a response. If I had thought of these questions, they belonged to a different version of myself. A version without Aeon-damned amnesia. “What does any of this have to do with me?”

“Well, indeed, it’s got nothing to do with you, but we need you,” Herta looked disappointed at my response and irritated on having to rely on me for something, sounding like a teacher trying to get their student to volunteer for something. “Give me some time, Nova, I’ll make this worthwhile for you too.”

“Yeah?” I asked hesitantly, sensing a ramble that I wouldn’t understand right around the corner. 

And I was right as Herta explained something called the Simulated Universe, a program she was in charge of that could supposedly help understand Aeons, the closest thing to ‘traditional Aeons’ or whatever. I only half paid attention because she rattled off a bunch of information before metaphorically throwing me into it.

It didn’t help that I was getting my ass handed to me. Simulated or not, it still fucking hurt when a beam from some Antimatter Legion orb hit me.

“Oh, come on,” Herta’s voice echoed in my skull from within the program. “How did you manage to take down the Doomsday Beast when you can’t even dodge correctly?”

“I didn’t fight before the Doomsday Beast,” I snapped, wincing when I pulled my hand away from the wound site. There wasn’t any blood given the world’s simulated nature, but it felt raw and painful. I yelped as I dodged another attack, rushing to get a hit in before I ended up hurt some more. “I was fucking TINY, remember?!”

I managed to hit the orb, retreating out of the way as a spear sunk into the simulated creature. It was still very disconcerting that she managed to simulate Dan Heng and March. Even though I barely knew them, it felt like a massive breach of.. Well, just someone’s existence.

“I guess it doesn't matter how much fighting you see, you need to experience it to get better,” Herta sighed in my mind. “You can only go up from rock bottom. Good news for you.”

I huffed, watching the simulation March take a shot at the orb and psyching myself up for another go at the thing. As I picked up speed and ran towards the orb, prepping the baseball bat in my hands, I cried out in surprise as everything sputtered out of existence with a shout of “Nova!” from Herta. Worst thing was, it was both in my head and out of it.

“Huh, wha-,” I blinked rapidly as Herta’s office came back into focus, disoriented and confused as I looked around. My stomach churned with renewed nausea, barely able to keep from gagging as I doubled over a bit. This was feeling like an unfortunate trend already.

“Nova!” Herta shouted beside me, making my head throb. I just got rid of that after waking up earlier.

“What, what?” I held a hand to my head, holding a hand towards Herta like it would stop whatever she was about to say. Thankfully, this disorientation and ache was already starting to fade.

“Sorry I pulled you out forcibly,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. Her tone was somewhat serious, surprising me. “I need you back down to my lab.”

“Again?” I groaned, not wanting to return to the freezing room. “Why?”

“Something fascinating happened to your blood sample,” she answered excitedly. Almost too excitedly, putting a hand against me and shoving me towards her office door. “I’ve already contacted Himeko and Asta. Whatever you decide to do, whoever takes you off my hands is going to have to deal with this.”

“Wha- deal with WHAT?” I asked, turning to face the puppet. But it was already offline. Angry at the weird back and forth I was having with the woman, I turned to leave the office and growled, “Of all the people in the fucking cosmos, I have to deal with HER.”

I could not understand why other researchers looked up to Herta, but I also wasn’t a researcher… I think.

Reluctantly I re-backtracked my way down to Herta’s private lab, taking a lot less time than it took to make it to her office since I had a vague memory of the route upstairs. Reaching the door of the private lab I paused in front of it, wondering how I was supposed to get inside without Herta’s credentials when the doors hissed open. 

“There you are!” Herta’s voice snapped from inside before the doors even fully opened.

Apparently I still wasn’t fast enough.

I huffed and bit back a retort, knowing it wasn’t going to bother the woman and just hugged my arms to myself as I forced my feet to unplant from the floor and take me into the freezing interior of the lab. It wasn’t hard to tell where Herta was, both Asta and Himeko standing next to the shorter woman. Irritably, I complained as I walked inside, “Does it have to be so fucking cold in here? I’m going to get frostbite by the end of the day.”

“I don’t deal with live subjects a lot and my puppets don’t have a need for much sensory input. We can figure something out for you later,” Herta said dismissively, continuing to work at one of the consoles without even glancing up at me.

“Goodie,” I waited a second for her to say anything about why she had been in a frenzy but she was very glued to whatever she was looking at.

“Hello, Nova,” Asta greeted with a smile. Unlike Himeko, who looked perfectly unphased by the temperature and was focused on Herta, she looked a little uncomfortable with her arms loosely crossed in front of her. I didn’t miss the way her eyes glanced over me, the first time seeing me since I was back to normal-sized. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Y-You too,” I replied conversationally, even though conversation was the last thing I wanted at this moment.

“Arlan said that you met Peppy,” she continued lightly, sounding entirely comfortable with small talk. There was a softness in her gaze as she spoke. “Peppy apparently has taken a liking to you. Arlan’s words, not mine.”

“Oh yeah?” I tried not to sound too incredulous considering I just met the little dog once for only a few seconds. Still, dogs usually were pretty friendly to almost everyone that gave them the time of day. Though I couldn’t tell if the soft expression was because she was talking about Arlan or her dog. I also didn’t care enough to decipher it, finding myself a bit jealous of the others that didn’t have their teeth chattering, unable to stop myself from saying, “Sorry, but h-how the HELL are neither of you freezing?”

“Oh!” Asta looked a bit surprised, like one of my first sentences walking in wasn’t bitching about the chill. An apologetic look crossed her face, replying, “I guess I’ve grown used to how cold the labs can be. It helps keep sample deterioration away.”

“The cold just never bothered me much,” was Himeko’s response as she straightened from looking over Herta’s shoulder. She had an almost guilty expression as she placed a gloved hand to her chest. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were cold when we were here earlier. Here, take my jacket.”

“N-No, it’s really not that big of a… okay,” I trailed off from protesting as my words fell on deaf ears, Himeko shrugging her jacket off her shoulders. Not that it was really being used but still. I sighed in resignation as the jacket was handed to me, telling her, “Thank you, ma’am.”

I didn’t bother slipping my arms into the jacket arms, wrapping it around myself like a blanket. Somehow, despite her not even wearing the thing, the fabric was warm from some lingering body heat and I couldn’t help but relax slightly as my body absorbed it. She had to be like a Aeon-damn furnace, no wonder she left so much skin bare! Sadly, the residual heat didn’t last long.

Less than pleased when the cold returned, albeit less severely with Himeko’s jacket, I glared at Herta’s back and asked, “Are we ever gonna find out why you summoned us here, ooor?...”

“Ugh, I almost forgot how needy most people are,” Herta groaned irritably at my trailed off sarcastic question. There were a couple more keystrokes on the console before the screen went black, multiple holographic screens appearing in the air around us instead as she turned around. “Lucky for you I just finished compiling things.”

“What THINGS?” I stressed, just wanting her to get to the point.

“Your data and results,” she said, turning to start messing with some of the holograms. I felt like she was being infuriatingly cryptic on purpose. She focused on one of the screens, making some gestures around the thing before it blew up to be the largest, the rest shrinking around it. The lights dimmed automatically to leave the screen the main focus in the room. “Here’s your base biometrics: heartrate, breathing, etcetera. All the basic stuff.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, just seeing numbers and lines. Glancing between Himeko and Asta, it looked like they were having no trouble understanding the holographic board.

“Everything falls within normal range, which wouldn’t be noteworthy if it weren’t for the fact that you’re harboring a Stellaron,” Herta continued, flicking through other floating screens. “Anyone would expect that would have some kind of physical toll on the body, but yours seems to function just fine. Even your electrical activity is pretty normal. But, look at these readings.”

She flicked another screen and that one replaced the other data. It was still squiggles, but now they were overlaid on top of each other. The only one I recognized was a heartbeat. Jeez, was mine really that fast?

“What’s this reading?” Himeko asked, reaching up to point to one of many. It started off nonexistent before spiking and staying at the top of the chart.

“That,” Herta sounded pleased at the question, making keystrokes on a smaller screen to isolate the reading Himeko pointed out. “Is meant to gauge Stellaron influence. Most people don’t do well being near a Stellaron, let alone touching it, so there’s been development in creating software to see how much a person has been affected by one. It didn’t even pick anything up until the electrode was in Nova’s hands, and then it just spiked everything.”

“Sooo, that just means there's not really an external way to tell I have a Stellaron?” I commented slowly, looking at Herta. I felt kind of weirded out by how intense the focus from everyone else was on this. “Does that change anything?”

“For you? Probably not. But for research it changes nothing and EVERYTHING,” Herta said, sounding almost giddy like a kid getting a gift. Thankfully she was already full tilt into explaining before I had to ask. “Stellarons have driven people insane by proximity, yet here you are seemingly physically and mentally unaffected by one in your body, leading to the question of how. Actually, wait, I can’t say ‘completely unaffected’ anymore.”

I gave her a concerned look in surprise as she started flipping through screens again. “HUH!?”

“What does that mean?” Asta asked beside me. Her voice was calm but I also noticed a bit of concern when I glanced at her, and I didn’t like that Himeko also looked a bit more serious.

“While I had the little twerp test a project, I almost lost the small blood sample I took-.”

“Wha- how do you lose a blood sample?” I asked, feeling a little alarmed.

“I DIDN’T,” Herta snapped, glancing at me with a glare before making another screen overshadow the others. “I said I almost did. Even then, it never left the slide.”

I held my tongue as she turned back to the screen, now showing what I assumed to be my blood under the microscope. Which was weird because it wasn’t even really red anymore, more like a cluster of weird shapes with a pink tint with a bit of yellow in some places that looked like tiny strands. Apparently, it was a video because suddenly everything started moving.

“The yellow electricity appears to be remnants of Stellaron energy. Even though it doesn’t seem to affect you functionally, it does seem to have an affect on your body still,” Herta narrated, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked up at the screen. 

“Why are some of the cells different?” Asta asked.

“Inconclusive right now. But you’ll notice something in a moment.” Herta replied, not taking her eyes away from the screen as she moved the video forward.

I squinted up at the screen, not really sure what Asta meant by different cells. I didn’t even know which ones were the normal ones. 

There was almost a quiver that went through the cells on screen, almost like the way water rippled when something was dropped into it. My brow furrowed, focusing on the screen in confusion as a few more convulsions went through the mass of cells, jolting and blinking in confusion when the strands of lingering Stellaron suddenly flashed and caused the screen to turn white. 

When the scope refocused it was almost like there was no evidence of the blood that had been on the slide, the frame of reference moving around until more cells appeared. Even though I didn’t know the difference of the cells I could tell that something was off.

“Only the abnormal cells remain,” Asta exclaimed in surprise.

“Correct. The why is the biggest question, but I managed to slow down right before the Stellaron remnants blinded the microscope,” Herta’s fingers swiped another screen, pulling up a sequence of pictures. In a frame by frame replay as the Stellaron strands flashed, it looked like certain cells - the abnormal ones I guessed - lurched towards the other cells and wrapped around them.

“Okay,” I shifted to rub my eyes in frustration. I hadn’t even been awake long, but this whole thing felt draining. Re-tightening the jacket around me I asked, “What the fuck does this mean?”

“It shows your cells cannibalizing each other,” Herta answered, turning around to face me and flicking the holographic screens away. She put her hands on her hips as the lights came back on in the lab, glancing around at Himeko and Asta before her gaze settled on me. “Somehow, it seems like the lingering effects of the Stellaron triggered the abnormal cells to exterminate the others. To what purpose, I don’t know yet. But, it took the cell count down to almost .02 percent of the initial sample in less than a second.”

I stared at Herta in a bit of disbelief, an almost solemn silence falling on the room from the others after her statement. She looked a little taken aback by the silence, looking between all of us.

“Oh, come on, don’t get so serious on me now. It sounds a lot worse than it actually is,” she said, pausing and tilting her head a bit in thought. “Probably.”

“Not helping,” Himeko crossed her arms over her chest, seeming to get slightly frustrated with the other woman.

“Look. The twerp was found in my collection room, tiny but unharmed and perfectly able to function. They lasted potentially hours in this state before being found by the Astral Express crew,” Herta stated matter-of-factly, putting a hand to her chin in thought. “I can’t say anything for certain, but if I had to make a hypothesis right now I’d say that the abnormal cells are the ones they woke up with. How they were modified in the first place is a question for another day.

“But, that means that if your cells cannibalize themselves, it’s very likely that you’ll return to the same size you were found,” she looked directly at me.

Well that… was incredibly disappointing to hear. I also couldn’t help but zero in on a particular part of her sentence, instinctively repeating, “‘Very likely’? What’s the other options?”

“Well, there’s a chance that the modified cells are random and your body collapses on itself without the necessary cells to sustain itself, but I’d say the likelihood of that happening is less than one percent. I’d need a variety of samples to tell if only your blood cells are abnormal or otherwise. There’s also the chance that what happened to the blood sample isn’t going to happen to you at all since I still don’t know what caused it yet. Either way, I’d like to be able to monitor you for at least a few days.

“Which is why I called you two here,” Herta turned to the other two women while I mulled over a bunch of the information that was dumped on us. Like with everything else so far, it just kind of swirled in my mind.

“Oh?” Asta made a noise of surprise and curiosity.

“One of you is taking the twerp off my hands when I’m not monitoring them, and I don’t really care who,” Herta stated in her normal rude and blunt way, making me give her a disgruntled glance as she continued. “I took up their time and kept them from being able to talk to Asta about this whole thing, so now you all can figure it out and get them out of my hair for today.”

“Wait, I have to get this taken care of NOW?” I asked, a bit alarmed. I was kind of hoping there’d be some sort of lead in to figuring this out.

“I want to look over your biometrics again and you keep complaining about the temperature, so yes.”

I found myself appalled again by Herta’s dismissiveness. Everytime I thought that I had experienced the worst of it, I ended up unpleasantly surprised. Before my mind could decide between being pissed off or overwhelmed I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up at Himeko.

“How about we talk about this outside the lab? That way you’re at least out of the cold,” she suggested with a smile.

“Alright,” I huffed, glancing between Himeko and Asta, who nodded in approval at Himeko. I didn’t pay attention to the farewells both women gave Herta as I walked to the lab doors, only giving a lackluster goodbye to her myself. Herta didn’t acknowledge any of us.

That didn’t deter the others and I didn’t care enough to feel more insulted than I already had a couple times today. I just felt relieved when we left the lab and stepped into the comparatively hot hallway, shuddering as I felt my body temperature increase again. I let out a sigh of relief, not even realizing how tense I’d been to try and conserve body heat until my muscles uncoiled. I unwrapped Himeko’s jacket from around myself and held it out to her. “Thanks again.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, taking her jacket back. “Happy to help.”

“So, are we supposed to be discussing your stay while Herta’s helping?” Asta asked, seemingly a bit confused. To be fair, Herta kind of was just shoving me to be the other two womens problem without any consideration.

“Uh, I think it’s more like figuring out who’s issue I’m going to end up being,” I replied, feeling kind of awkward and rubbing the back of my neck. I sort of had no current connections to anyone or anything aside from the few people I’d met so far and I didn’t like having to rely on people I barely knew. Neither of them really had a reason to help me out and I didn’t want to force myself to bother them.

“It’s really not an issue,” Asta reassured me. “Despite everything, I’m sure I can figure something out to allow you a place to stay here on the space station until we can find out more about your past.”

“I’m sure you have your hands full with the aftermath of the Antimatter Legion attack,” Himeko told her. She didn’t sound condescending, just musing aloud even as Asta’s brows furrowed slightly. “I don’t doubt your abilities, but I’m certain that ensuring the space station receives repairs and all the researchers are accounted for take priority over looking into Nova’s background.

“The offer to join the Express still stands,” she looked down at me. “Like I said earlier, we have experience with Stellarons and traveling can help expand our search into your past.”

“Yeah, but didn’t you guys just show up to drop something off,” I asked with a frown, feeling like I was inconveniencing either way I leaned.

“We did,” Himeko nodded in agreement, crossing her arms in front of herself loosely. “But the Astral Express is about helping those in need as well and every one of us joined at different times with no connections to each other. We’re more of a ragtag group.”

I mulled it over for several seconds, still feeling very much on the spot and wishing I had more time to process everything and think this through. But I wasn’t given that luxury and ended up sighing in resignation, asking, “Are you sure it’s fine even with me needing to stick around for a few days?”

“I’m sure,” Himeko gave me an encouraging smile. “We’ll have to run it by the rest of the crew and Pom-Pom, of course, but I’m sure the others will be understanding given your situation.”

I nodded in acknowledgement at her words, shifting a bit on my feet as I said, “Then I’d like to take you up on your offer.”

“Excellent,” the redhead looked satisfied with my decision. “If you want, we can go to the Express right now or you can meet me there in a little bit.”

“I’d like to walk around a bit first,” I told her, rubbing the back of my neck.

Himeko nodded, asking, “How does thirty minutes to the rail platform sound?”

“Sounds fine to me.”

“Glad that’s taken care of,” Asta said. I was worried that she may take offense to me not staying on the space station but she just looked glad that something was figured out. “You’ll be in good hands. The Astral Express is very reliable, I still can’t thank you enough for your help against the Legion.”

The last sentence was directed to Himeko, who gracefully waved off the compliment, replying, “Nonsense. We weren’t going to just stand by.”

I had a feeling that the two were about to delve into their own conversation or a gratitude-humble stand-off, clearing my throat quietly and gesturing down the hall towards the elevator. “I’m gonna get going.”

“See you at the rail platform.”

“See ya,” I gave a wave to both Himeko and Asta as I walked off, letting out a heavy exhale when I walked through the halls and got into the elevator. I didn’t even know where I was going to go for the next thirty minutes, but I just felt like I needed SOME kind of time to myself.

Which ended up being kind of difficult when researchers and security personnel were almost everywhere I walked around. I eventually ended up just wandering around to explore and pass the time, ending up turned away at some point by security personnel from some blocked off hallway. But, that was fine since I figured I’d have to try and find my way to the rail platform. It took a bit longer than I meant it to, feeling a bit sheepish as I walked into the massive room, able to see the train from the entryway.

I made a beeline to the redheaded figure standing next to it, saying, “Sorry. I didn’t realize how long it’d take to find my way back here.”

“Well, it probably looked a lot different to you last time you were here,” Himeko looked unbothered by my tardiness. I wasn’t even sure when exactly the meetup time was in relation to leaving Herta’s lab, but it felt like I was definitely late. “I already talked with the rest of the Astral Express crew and explained your situation.”

“Yeah?” I said cautiously, not wanting to get my hopes up too high.

“Relax,” she chuckled a little at my wariness. Coupled with her small smile, I couldn’t help but untense a little. “Welcome to the crew, Nova.”

I was relieved, releasing a breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I wasn’t really sure what I would have done if I had been turned away other than maybe going back to Asta and seeing if she’d be able to help. Seeing my relief, Himeko let out a small hum and turned around, walking along the side of the Express.

“Come with me.”

I didn’t hesitate to trail after her, looking up at the metallic side of the train to take in the gray exterior. Moving past the initial engine, the rest of the nearby cars looked like they had windows, seeing bright lights lining the ceiling on the interior. Soon, I was led to a set of onboarding steps at the train door.

The door let out a small hiss of changing air pressure before it slid open as Himeko started stepping onto the onboarding steps, and I felt a slight hesitance before following her into the train. The slice of train that I supposed would be considered the entryway was a bit thin but allowed enough room on either side to make it feel like I could almost extend my arms out entirely. In comparison, the length to the other side of the slice was a decent size and there were doors on either side of the entryway. 

The space probably would have felt more oppressive if it wasn’t so brightly lit, gold trim and accents glinting in the light.

“I’ll take you to the Parlor Car first,” she said, starting to walk to the door on our left, the sound of her high heels echoing slightly against the metal walls. Reaching the door and placing her hand on the handle to slide it open, she gave me a small amused smile and added, “Our conductor wants to see you themself.”

“Okay,” I felt a bit confused at her amusement but once more followed her through the door when she opened it. And I couldn’t help but blink in surprise when we stepped into a surprisingly large lounge area. I knew the train was big considering we’d just been walking along its length outside but it was still another thing to see how large the interior was and I had the feeling that trains this large were uncommon. Then again, it was meant to travel through space.

“Ahem.”

“Gah!” I jolted in surprise at the sudden sound of someone that was definitely not Himeko clearing their voice, glancing around in confusion when I didn’t see anyone else. Himeko lifted a hand to her mouth like she was trying to stop from laughing, only furthering my bewilderment.

“I’m over here,” a voice said, lower than I realized. Looking down I saw a… creature in a conductor's outfit, looking reminiscent of a rabbit stuffed animal.

“Uuuuh,” I glanced at Himeko as I wondered whether or not I was hallucinating but she looked unphased. In fact, she started walking to one of the large lounge couches where a man, Welt if I remembered right, was sitting before I could try to protest.

“Hey, you there looking dumbfounded,” the rabbit-esque creature snapped lightly, recapturing my attention and making me look back down at it. Its eyes looked angry, but it was hard to tell whether or not that was just its natural expression. “Yes, Pom-Pom’s talking to you. Himeko told Pom-Pom about your situation and how you’re the reason we’re going to be spending longer than we should here.

“Now listen up,” this Pom-Pom demanded, stomping their small feet on the floor. “Pom-Pom will only say this once. Pom-Pom’s sure there have been lots of people telling you how special you are lately, but this is the Astral Express, and everyone on here has their secrets. Since you chose to board, you can abide by the rules. You’re not the only special one here. You’d best remember that.”

“Uhhh, okay,” I said slowly. I don’t really think I’d been called special necessarily, more abnormal, and now I was being preemptively berated by a rabbit creature about a potential ego.

“I’m Pom-Pom, the conductor. Just come and find me if you have any trouble,” Pom-Pom finished, tone less harsh than it’d just been. About as suddenly as the creature demanded my attention it turned and walked off, seemingly satisfied with its introduction of me.

Meanwhile, I was left reeling slightly from the last couple days. 

Actually, I wasn’t even sure how long I’d been knocked out, this could all be the same day I was found. Regardless, it was just one more confusing thing on top of my entire confusing situation. Shaking my head a bit to try and clear it, I looked around the lounge again, wandering slowly to where Himeko and Welt were at one of the lounge couches, uncertain of what to do. Himeko noticed my approach first.

“Don’t mind Pom-Pom’s antics,” Himeko said, amusement still on her face. “They’re actually pretty interested in you. It’s just that we haven’t had new passengers on the Express for a long while. If you have any questions, feel free to ask our conductor. But, what do you think? Does the Astral Express look the same as you imagined?”

“Well… it looks like a train. Just a lot bigger,” I answered, looking around the large parlor car some more.

“Everyone on the Express is a passenger,” Himeko mused lightly. “We’re all heading towards an unknown destination, like we are traveling together. Maybe that’s why the Trailblaze chose such a look.”

“Uh huh.” I made a noncommittal noise, feeling like I didn’t know enough to have an opinion on the decor of the train. My gaze eventually landed on the man beside Himeko. Part of me felt wary but I tried to be polite, stating, “You must be Welt.”

“I am,” the man nodded. I couldn’t help but glance him over, connecting him to the vague shaped man I saw after the Doomsday Beast showed up. A cane rested against his leg. “How do you feel?”

“I’m… fine,” I settled on the answer after a moment of thought.

“Your uncertainty is understandable,” Welt said. “Your situation is a unique one. In any case, I have to thank you for saving March.”

“I kind of did it without thinking,” I replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of my neck. Somehow it earned a chuckle from the man.

“Helping others without a second thought. That is the most important quality of a hero,” he seemed to feel like what I did was something brave instead of my thought of it being an impulsive lapse in judgment. But his expression turned slightly stern. “However, as long as the Stellaron is still in your body, you should be careful what you do. I don’t know if Himeko and I can suppress it again. But I won’t bore you any longer. So much happened at the space station, you must be tired.”

“Oh right,” Himeko spoke up again, seemingly just content with watching the conversation. “March and Dan Heng should both be in their rooms right now if you want to find them. The first passenger car is through the other door you saw when getting on the train.”

“Feel free to walk around and familiarize yourself with the environment,” Welt added, giving an encouraging nod.

I definitely felt like I was being pushed to explore around, but it also seemed like both of them were just trying to make me feel comfortable. They were so accommodating that it was sort of having the opposite effect but I nodded and said, “Okay. I’ll look around then.”

“Don’t forget to ask Pom-Pom any questions if you have any,” Himeko reminded me as I turned to leave the two alone.

I gave a wave of acknowledgement and told her “I won’t.”, walking across the Parlor Car to the door she’d brought me in from and sliding the door open. I closed it behind me and went through the small entryway to step into the next car.

It was a semi-open space with the vibes of a waiting room as a chair sat in the corner on my left with a couple counters, a hallway entrance on my right with the rest of the space taken up by a wall. Absentmindedly moving to the right it looked like the railcar was the same size as the Parlor Car, rooms were just fit to the left side of the car to take up most of the space.

I glanced out the window as I slowly started walking down the hall, looking out at the rail platform the Express was still stationed at. It was still pretty empty, but now there were a couple people near the entryway, likely researchers or security discussing stuff.

“Hm? Who’s there?” someone suddenly called out from the door behind me, making me jump in surprise.

“Uh, it’s Nova,” I answered, confused but felt my heartbeat settle after skipping a beat. I hadn’t even knocked or said anything, how the hell did Dan Heng hear me?

“... Oh, it’s you. The door’s not locked. Come in.”

“Oh, uhhhh, okay,” I said hesitantly. I hadn’t really expected to encroach on anyone’s rooms, but I also couldn’t say that I wasn’t curious about them. Walking up to the door, my hand barely grazed it before it slid open to allow me entry, revealing the initial sight of a space themed backwall with a slightly lifted glowing blue floor that stepped down to the gray flooring closer to the door. The sound of humming electronics became more noticeable than before.

I didn’t immediately see Dan Heng, leaning in and looking around to see him standing to the left of the door. Making eye contact with him as he turned around, I gave a cautious wave and stepped inside.

“Can I help you,” he asked. While he was blunt, he was at least better than Herta, sounding deadpan rather than annoyed.

“No, just, you know, looking around,” I replied, gesturing vaguely as I glanced around the rest of the room. It was definitely an odd shape with walls that slanted inward.

“Feel free. This is open to everyone on the Express.” 

Oh, so this must be another communal area, I thought to myself. 

I looked around a bit with slightly more interest, gesturing around and asking, “What goes on in here, then?”

Dan Heng looked back at the screen he must have been looking at before I walked in, remarking, “While many of the roads that Akivili traveled along no longer exist, I think it’s still meaningful to record our adventures as current passengers of the Express. I enter the collected data into the archives data bank. I try to catalog the people and places the Express encounters, and compare and contrast them with the existing records. 

“Do you see the terminal over there?” He gestured to the section with the raised blue floor, where there were a couple monitors that I could see. “It can be used to view information already stored in the data bank. Do give it a go.”

“Oh, okay,” I blinked in surprise. I didn’t really feel like stuffing my brain with more information than I already had with everyone’s explanations, but I also didn’t want to just refuse or stand there while Dan Heng was looking at me expectantly. I could just step up, mess with the terminal a bit, and then feign interest to hopefully placate him.

As I walked up the step or two onto the elevated portion of the floor, something on the floor caught my eye and I looked down to see a thin mattress with a singular blanket and pillow, both a similar seafoam green that Dan Heng had on his clothing.

“Wait, is this your room?” I looked back toward the man, who had almost turned back to look at the monitor in the wall in front of him.

“Yes, it is. Is that a problem?” Dan Heng asked, brow furrowing slightly in confusion.

“Well, no, I guess not,” I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly, feeling awkward at my own surprise. “Just… caught me off guard, I guess? I don’t know, feels like I’m intruding on your privacy now.”

“You're not trespassing, I encouraged it. Everyone usually stays out of the Archives anyways,” he shook his head at some internal thought, adding, “Himeko and Welt are far more experienced than I, and hold a wealth of knowledge between themselves, so they rarely need to look anything up. March, on the other hand… she’s not really one to seek out knowledge often.”

“Ah…”

“Ahem.”

A vaguely familiar sounding throat clear caught my attention, both Dan Heng and I looking back towards the doorway to see Pom-Pom standing in the entryway. I hadn’t even heard the faint hiss of the door opening.

Having successfully grabbed my attention as my gaze met the conductors, Pom-Pom declared, “Your accommodations have been prepared.”

The conductor waited barely a moment before turning around and walking left from Dan Heng’s doorway as they added, “Please, follow me.”

“Uuuh,” I glanced back at Dan Heng but he simply gave me a nod to encourage me to follow, and I slowly trailed out of the room after the rabbit creature. “Uh, coming, Pom-Pom.”

I followed Pom-Pom as they walked further down the hall, passing three other doors on the left after Dan Heng’s room and a couple small tables with single red lounge chairs. Led to the back of the passenger cabin, I stopped when the conductor stopped beside the door at the end to look up at me.

“Through here,” Pom-Pom stated as they opened the door and walked through the thin connecting passage between this cabin and the next. 

All I could really do was follow along into a cabin nearly identical to the last, almost yelping when I nearly ran over the conductor when they halted beside the first door on the left in this passenger cabin and I backpedaled a couple steps as they turned around.

“If you end up needing it, this is where the restroom is located for the nearest cabins. There’s more further down, but you don’t really need to worry about those since you’ll likely never use them. The door next to this one leads to a room that’s been converted into a supply room,” Pom-Pom gestured to each door as they spoke, eventually pointing their arm - paw? - to the doors further down the hall. “Your room is going to be the third one down, got it?”

Third door on the second cabin. Seemed simple enough.

“Got it,” I repeated back to the rabbit with a nod.

“Good,” Pom-Pom nodded back in satisfaction, looking away as they started walking to the aforementioned third door with me right behind. When they reached it they touched the door and opened it, once more stopping and turning to face me. “I’ve prepared your room with the essentials.You’re more than welcome to and will have plenty of time to fit it to your personal tastes.”

I peered into the room as the conductor spoke, taking in the rather barebones looking room. There was a full-size mattress on a basic bed frame with a black comforter and dark gray sheets, a basic nightstand beside the bed, and what looked like a desk built into the wall with a basic chair.

“Thank you,” I looked down at Pom-Pom with a small smile.

“Welcome to the Astral Express,” the conductor nodded, seeming satisfied despite the naturally angry expression. “I’ll leave you to get settled.”

Pom-Pom turned and walked back down the hall, and I watched for a moment before stepping into the room and closing the door behind me now that I was left to my own devices.

“What a day,” I huffed to myself, leaning against the door tiredly. “Or days… ugh, whatever.”

Questioning the timeline of my own existence could wait until later. For now, all I wanted to do was lay in bed for at least a few minutes, shrugging my jacket off and throwing it onto the wall desk as I walked towards the bed. I flopped facefirst onto the comforter. I didn’t mean to fall asleep but, as I mustered the energy to crawl up to the pillows, the last thing I remembered was my head hitting the dark gray fabric of one of the pillows.

………………………………..

“THAT’S all you’re collecting after all that?!” March exclaimed breathlessly, sounding appalled to my left.

Meanwhile, I glared off at nothing in particular to my right with my foot tapping impatiently on the metallic floor, covering my mouth with my right hand and biting my tongue. I felt more than saw the needle in my arm slide out, fighting against the bile at the back of my throat and some lightheadedness. I’d immediately retract my arm if it wasn’t still held in place by Dan Heng.

The only bright side was that the room wasn’t as cold today, though it was still cold enough for me to shiver and for me to feel a bit of the heat from Dan Heng’s hold against my skin.

“Two vials is plenty,” Herta said nonchalantly with the sound of some clinking and the weird, disconcerting feeling of the tourniquet being released from my upper arm. “You’d be surprised how little blood is needed for most tests, but two is in case the blood cell count suddenly diminishes again…. Actually, I might need more, but I can always have you all come back. Oh, right. You can let them go now.”

Spurred on by the statement of retrieving more blood I practically leapt out of the medical seat the second I felt Dan Heng’s hands wordlessly release from my left wrist and shoulder.

“Sounds like you better make the most of what you have then,” I snapped, holding my left arm to myself like it would protect my vulnerable inner elbow and snatching my glove from where it’d been discarded on the medical tray. I debated putting it back on now but my hands felt unstable even though they didn’t show it. I ignored it for the moment, crossing my arms over my chest and asking irritably, “If there’s nothing else, I’m going to assume I can just leave you to your tests, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re free to go,” Herta waved a hand dismissively, walking over to some kind of device on the nearest counter and putting the blood vials inside. “I’ll let you know if I need you for more testing.”

“Great.” I didn't look back as I weaved between the counters of scientific equipment and made a beeline to the door, rushing out from the laboratory. Once the doors slid shut behind me I shook off both the chill from the room and remaining jitters I had from getting my blood drawn, hissing, “Really fucking hate being used as a guinea pig right now.”

“I wouldn't call it being used as a guinea pig,” March's voice said behind me, making me look back to see her and Dan Heng walk through the sliding doors out of the laboratory. “Blood tests are a common practice. Besides, it's only your second day on the space station.”

“Has Herta asked YOU to go into her weird Simulated Universe thing?” I asked March with a glare. She just glanced at Dan Heng in confusion. “That's what I thought.

“Regardless, I never want to do that again,” I huffed sharply through my nose, finally putting my left glove back on. I flexed my fingers and crossed my arms, silent for a few seconds before awkwardly adding, “Sorry… for. You know… bothering you guys with this. And… sorry for biting you.”

I glanced over at Dan Heng, specifically at his ungloved hand where I had chomped down on the skin and saw the still visible bite mark. From what I recalled, he hadn't even flinched when I bit him.

“You're fine,” Dan Heng replied neutrally, shaking his head when I turned my gaze up at him. “I've handled far worse.”

“Hey! What about me?” March exclaimed, putting her hands on her hips. “You didn't make contact, but you still tried biting me!”

“I'm sorry for trying to bite you,” I said sincerely, but couldn't help the slight amusement I felt and chuckled a bit. I inhaled deeply and let out a hefty sigh to clear myself of nerves, this time a sigh of relief as I put my hands in my pockets. “At least we hopefully don’t have to go through that whole ordeal again anytime soon.”

An increasingly familiar ding caught my attention and I blinked in a bit of surprise before realizing the sound came from my pocket. Fingers wrapping around my Beacon device, I pulled it out and opened it to see I had a message from Herta that I clicked on.

‘Come back. I need more blood samples.’

My heart plummeted in my chest as I stared down at the words, feeling a nauseating feeling of dread that settled in the pit of my stomach.

“What’s wrong,” March asked, breaking through the dreaded stare that I was giving my beacon.

“Oh, it’s, ahem, nothing,” I cleared my throat to try and not have my voice stick, looking up as I moved to put my Beacon back in my pocket. Whatever lie I was preparing to potentially come up with died as I caught Dan Heng’s gaze. Despite how unreadable and stoic his expression was naturally, something in the slight intensity told me that he saw the message.

I didn’t hesitate to try and bolt down the hall away from the duo and the laboratory.

………………………………..

I cried out in pain as a blade plunged through my chest, staring at the inky void where a face would be as the Reaver hissed in my face, the edges of my vision turning to static as I ‘died’. 

“You know, this would be a lot easier if you didn’t insist on going through alone.”

I huffed in a bit of exertion and irritation as my eyes focused back in Herta’s office, looking to my left where she gazed at me disapprovingly. Feeling bile and nausea from the simulated death, I raised a hand to my chest and rubbed at the fading phantom pain with a scowl. “Aren’t you supposed to be running more tests on all the blood samples I gave you yesterday?”

“Unfortunately for both of us, I’m still waiting on results,” Herta replied, unphased by my attitude like usual. “So I decided to check on your progress in the Simulated Universe. Why aren’t you using the simulated teammates?”

“Because it feels weird that you have simulated versions of a bunch of people, including people I’ve met,” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Feels creepy at best, and unethical at worst.”

“If I wanted to hear lectures about ethics I wouldn’t have made an entire space station to be in charge of. Innovation shouldn't stop based on what normal people think. But, if you want to make the simulation harder on yourself go ahead,” Herta shrugged slightly. “As long as I get data, I don't care.”

I could feel my distaste for her deepen as I stepped back toward the simulation, hesitantly saying slowly, “Right…”

As I reached back towards the simulation portal and felt the staticky pull of the simulation start to encompass my mind Herta exclaimed beside me. I jerked away from the sensation, the near joining of my consciousness into the simulation being snapped off exacerbating the lingering discomfort from my ‘death’.

“What, what happened,” I asked Herta in startled concern. I wasn’t even sure if the noise she made was bad or not.

She didn’t react, eyes wide and staring at nothing. Lifeless. Yet, despite any animatedness missing from it, something about the expression on the puppets face told me that something had certainly caught Herta’s attention.

“Hello? Herta?” I waved a hand in front of the doll's face even though I didn’t expect any response. And I didn’t receive any. Still, for good measure I flicked the puppet on the forehead just in case and threw my head back with an annoyed groan at the lack of reactions. “Oh, for the love of-!”

Growling in irritation, I pushed aside my current discomfort and reached into my pocket, pulling out my Beacon. Getting to my brief message history with Herta I texted snarkily, ‘Is it terminal, doc? How long do I have to live?’

‘[Automatic reply] Hi, I’m currently unavailable, and I won’t be contacting you later’

Yeah, that tracks.

“If you can hear me, I want to reiterate that you’ve been the most frustrating part of my existence so far,” I told the empty puppet and flipped it off. “I’ll be horribly impressed if I end up finding someone more insufferable.”

The puppet did nothing and I didn’t feel like jumping right back into the simulation with the residual dizziness from ‘dying’ and cutting off the connection with the simulation portal so quickly. Not to mention the throbbing in my temples from it.

I decided to spend a little while looking through my Beacon to wait for the discomfort to fade as though something would have changed on it today. Like any other time looking through it the last few days it offered no clues about myself or my past. No pictures, no videos, files, or even apps that could give an inkling on who I was or any occupation I may have had.

It was a bare Beacon.

Decades of my life was gone or missing, if I’d even had an existence before being found. I felt slightly bothered by it but not nearly as much as I felt like I should be. Perhaps someone else would feel more alarmed or concerned about finding the answers but I just felt a little lost.

I suppose I couldn’t really miss what I didn’t remember. All I had was a hell of a few days with a whirlwind of emotions, though it did feel like something nagged at me if I tried VERY hard to remember anything.

Did I meet a researcher or something named ‘Kafka’ or was I making someone up after being introduced to so many people?

Eventually, the dizziness and nausea passed. Stretching and giving a glance towards the unmoving puppet I pocketed my Beacon, rolling my shoulders a little to get rid of some tension as I walked back to the simulation portal. “Let’s try this again.”

………………………………..

“Nova!” a cheerful exclamation and the sound of my room door opening jolted me awake.

“Gah!” I bolted half upright and threw something towards the source of the voice in surprise, hearing a clatter and startled ‘Hey, watch it!’ in response. My bleary eyes focused to see March at my open door, glancing between a fading cloud of shard-like light and myself. I exhaled in relief, rubbing a hand over my face tiredly as my body relaxed. “It's just you.”

“Yeah, it's me! Did you really have to throw things at me?!” The pink-haired woman asked, stomping a foot in indignation.

“Did you have to burst into my room while I'm sleeping,” I retorted with a slight rasp from sleep, pulling my hand away from my face and slowly pushing myself up to a sitting position. “What'd I throw at you, anyways?”

“A bat! I don't even know where you got it from, but it just exploded by my head,” March declared, gesturing to the wall next to her.

“Wha- I don't have a bat.”

I looked at March with confusion, glancing around like the aforementioned bat would show back up again. March, on the other hand, looked less than amused at my remark.

“Well, you just had one,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “And you threw it at me! All because I came to get you so that Pom-Pom wouldn't be upset by TWO people on the Express forgetting to eat!”

“I think it's more because you burst into my room,” I shifted to throw my legs over the side of the bed and stretched my arms over my head. Standing up, I walked over to where my jacket hung on the back of the desk chair I had, pulling it over myself to complete my outfit again. I hadn't really focused on getting pajamas. “And unless I see this bat, I don't believe you.”

“It was real,” March continued to insist as I slipped into my boots and started walking towards the door. She stepped to the side and let me pass her out into the hall before walking out herself. 

“Mhmm.” I just made an unconvinced noise as we walked side by side down the hall towards the parlor car, putting my hands in my pockets.

“Wait!” I jumped a bit when the woman exclaimed, looking at her in my peripherals. She looked like an epiphany had washed over her, commenting, “Maybe it's just something you can summon, like me with my Six-Phased Ice!”

“Six-Phased Ice,” I repeated, taking a hand out of my pocket to open the door to the next passenger cabin. I waited for March to step through first and closed the door behind both of us before we walked further down. “Y’all have mentioned it before, I think, but there's been so much going on it's hard to keep track of everything.”

“That's fair,” March nodded beside me, any previous irritation gone. “When I first got found it took me a while to adjust too. Sometimes I still struggle to understand everything. But, yeah, I can summon these crystals for my bow and arrows!”

“Didn’t you… Didn’t you JUST call it ‘ice’?...” My brow furrowed for a second, glancing at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, but that’s just what it’s called. I mean, ice can’t be that beautiful!”

“Sure,” I said slowly. I almost lost myself in potentially trying to think about the logistics before I decided that I didn’t really care. Maybe later down the line I’d worry about what her Six-Phased Ice actually was, but as long as she wasn’t bothered by it and it was harmless I didn’t see a reason digging into it. Besides, I was still tired from just being woken up. “Whatever you say, man.”

“Anywaaaaay, if you want, I can maybe help teach you how to summon that bat-thing back that you threw at me,” March suggested happily, giving me a slightly cheeky look when she added, “As long as you promise not to throw them at me again.”

 “I don't see why not.” I shrugged, part of me still not believing her despite vaguely remembering throwing something. I gave her a small mischievous smile. “IF there’s even bats to summon.”

“Wha- you still don’t believe me?!”

“Look, man, I just woke up and saw you look at some sparkles disappearing in my room. For all I know, you just decided you wanted to glitter bomb it,” I slowed my pace to open the passage to the parlor car for us to walk through. “And you best hope that whole bat thing is true, because if I have to end up cleaning up any glitter, I swear to-.”

“There you are!” 

The sudden irritated exclamation as March and I walked into the Parlor Car caught me off guard, making me yelp and jump in surprise. Looking to the source of the voice was Pom-Pom, who looked none too pleased.

“And here I thought I was going to have to worry about your eating habits as well,” the conductor sighed.

Glancing towards March, she shrugged at my reaction, remarking, “Pom-Pom worries about the passengers on the Express. Dan Heng’s gotten this lecture before.”

“Wha-lecture?”

“I may not be able to make you do anything, but I can always impart the wisdom of a seasoned conductor,” Pom-Pom declared. “I’ve dealt with all kinds of passengers, but all of you think that you’re too busy to take care of yourselves! Well, I’m here to tell you otherwise.”

“Have fun! I’m gonna go eat,” March said happily, giving me a chipper wave as she left me to my fate at the paws of the conductor.

“Now-,” Pom-Pom straightened their posture slightly, gearing up to continue.

I groaned under my breath like a slightly dejected animal. I wished I was still asleep.

………………………………..

“Nova, are you paying attention?” Herta snapped, making me shake my head to clear away the mental fog that had settled.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” I replied, nodding even as I had to blink to get rid of the glazed look in my eyes. When she continued to stare at me and I felt Himeko's gaze as well I nervously added, “You were talking about the concept of cellular multiplication or… something…”

“That was two minutes ago,” the scientist looked unamused with my response and sighed. “I was discussing the abnormalities in your samples and the results from the tests I've gotten back from my associates-.”

“Wait, you gave samples of my blood to other people?” I jolted in surprise. I mean, sure, she had wanted several more vials - Dan Heng had made quick work catching up to me - but I thought it had been because of my cells cannibalizing or whatever.

“If you were listening, you'd have known that. As great as my space station and I are, you’re still an anomaly. It's just proper scientific practice to do multiple tests with multiple scientists,” Herta sounded genuine about complimenting herself, making me roll my eyes. “Besides, if I tried to do all the tests myself with the station so damaged it would have taken longer.”

I made a slight disgruntled noise and resettled on the counter where I’d hopped up when Herta had announced that she was going to go through everything. There was a sudden warmth over my hand and I looked over to see Himeko pat my hand encouragingly. Sighing to lessen the irritation I felt, I gave Himeko a slight nod as Herta started to continue.

Just a little bit longer. Hopefully.

It was a struggle to stay focused on what Herta was talking about, showing more diagrams and graphs with more microscopic pictures of my cells, and using WAY too many lengthy words I had no context of. Himeko seemed to be following along decently though, so I figured I'd ask her any questions later.

I found myself zoning out almost entirely fairly quickly, catching myself and shaking myself back into awareness.

“- here’s what one example looks like,” Herta’s voice droned as she flicked through the floating screens before her, projecting another video of my cells. It was still weird to look at.

I watched with disinterest as the cells moved slowly beneath the microscope, yellow strands of Stellaron energy arcing across the screen. After a second of nothing a quiver went through the cells and the Stellaron arcs flared up. But instead of the scope being blinded and cells disappearing, the yellow streaks dissipated and left a… rather unremarkable finish to the video with cells remaining.

“Oh.” Himeko hummed beside me.

I slowly turned my head to look at her, wondering what she could possibly have gleaned from the footage. “Huh?”

“Don’t worry,” Herta interrupted, sifting through more files. “I have an example for those with a lack of perception.”

Bristling, I narrowed my eyes as she seemed to select something and an image projected in place of the video. It seemed like a snapshot from the start of the video saturated with color. Stellaron arcs were portrayed in an even more blinding yellow with my cells colored an actual blood red. Well, most of them. A few scattered throughout the screen were discolored with a purple hue and yellow overlays on amorphous shapes within them.

Were those shapes always there?

“This is a depiction of your blood, highlighting the difference between the normal cells and the abnormal ones.”

“Okay, yeah,” I sighed. I was ignorant about this kind of thing, but I wasn’t that dumb to not put that together. Giving Herta an unimpressed look, I added, “But what was the whole example of? The Stellaron stuff flashed, but the cells didn’t cannibalize like last time. Was the whole point showing that it can be stopped?”

“Yes and no,” the smaller woman tapped the small floating screen in front of her, scrolling through more comparison images of my cells so fast I couldn’t even register them. “In trying to see what makes you tick in these early stages, we’ve found that forcibly removing any lingering Stellaron energy invalidates whatever trigger seems to happen in the abnormal cells. However, doing so also kills the abnormal cells.”

“Wouldn’t that be… good?” I asked, frowning.

“Not when we still have no idea how to safely remove the Stellaron from your body,” Himeko commented, grabbing my attention. She held a hand under her chin thoughtfully. “Even if the Stellaron was somehow externally contained, there’s still no telling what kind of adverse effects it could have on your body other than losing the abnormal cells.”

I made an uncertain noise, frown turning into a slight scowl when Herta spoke up.

“She’s right,” Herta remarked, lights brightening as she flicked the floating screens away. “As much as I’d love to just dive into all sorts of other experiments, you’re one of a kind right now and I can’t afford to make too hasty of a decision.I can’t risk losing my only test subject before I lose interest.”

“Right… guess that makes sense…” I grumbled, still not at all pleased with her phrasing.

“That being said, you don’t mind if I take a few more different samples, do you?”

“... Can I say no?...”

………………………………..

I felt a rush of air leave my lungs a bit as the staff of the spear knocked into my chest firmly, not enough to cause more than a brief moment of pain but enough to knock me off balance and find myself falling back onto the thinly padded floor. Again. I looked up at the bright, metal ceiling and growled a bit in frustration, grabbing the offered hand that lowered towards me.

“Shouldn’t you be taking it easy?” Arlan asked from the edge of the sparring mat, watching Dan Heng pull me to my feet. 

Again.

“Probably,” I replied, huffing a little as my feet planted on the ground and Dan Heng let go. I felt tired, arguably fatigued, but it was probably from dealing with Herta so much. This was the first day since being found that Herta hadn’t asked me for tests, dragged me into some discussion of results, or made me use the Simulated Universe. It made me feel antsy. “I can’t learn to defend myself if I don’t practice.”

“The only thing you’re learning is how to get your butt kicked,” March chirped from where she stood near Arlan, shaking out another polaroid of my failures. She kneeled down with a grin to show the little white dog, Peppy, that followed Arlan around.

“I will not hesitate to use the bat YOU helped me learn to manifest and knock you over the head,” I retorted, focusing energy down to my fingertips to materialize said bat to shake at her lightly in half-hearted threat.

“Haven't you been using Madame Herta’s simulation to train,” Arlan inquired, glancing around like he's occasionally been doing this entire time. Like the Antimatter Legion would care about a slightly damaged training room over anything else if they came back.

“Yeah, but there's always the chance that Herta pulls me out, and that feels AWFUL,” I stuck my tongue out in distaste, even though I felt sort of off today anyways. Maybe I didn't eat or sleep right, but it didn't really matter. “There's not really anything else I can think of doing right now. I'm the reason we're here until Herta gives me the go ahead to leave. Makes me feel stuck”

That, and I still got my ass handed to me in the simulation anyways, so may as well try it out in real life. Turns out, the Simulated Universe didn’t really have all the ways my chest ached from sparring, whether it be the slightly tender spots where Dan Heng had used his spear to knock me down, the way my breathing was a bit rougher from panting in exertion, or the slight stitch in my side.

“Perhaps we should stop for now.” Dan Heng stated, giving me a brief glance that didn’t even feel like he was actually looking at me. It didn’t even seem like he broke a sweat from this whole thing.

“Aw, what?” I looked at him in slight disappointment even though a part of me was thankful at the thought of stopping. Still, stubbornness set in. “We haven’t even been here that long and Arlan even gave us access to the damaged zone to use the training rooms. Wouldn’t it just be a waste of time to not keep going at least a little longer?”

“Wouldn’t it also be a waste of time to continue when you’ve made almost no improvement?”

He said it in such a natural way that I knew he didn’t mean anything by the comment, stating an observation, but it was also spoken in such a way that I couldn’t help but blink a bit in surprise. 

“Dan Heng! You can’t just say that,” March chastised from the sidelines out of my field of vision. “What have I said about being more approachable?! APPROACHABLE.”

I let out a small scoffed laugh, quiet for a moment as I nodded slightly in acknowledgment of his question. I found myself a bit irritated and chagrined by it, but did my best to temper it as I crossed my arms over my chest as much as I could with the baseball bat in hand. Shrugging a bit, I remarked, “Maybe I would have actually gotten a bit better if you were better at giving ANY feedback.”

Dan Heng’s expression shifted ever so slightly, the only indication that it felt like he took my words in with how neutral his face naturally was.

“Just saying ‘be more vigilant’ or ‘aware of your opponent’ is some of the vaguest shit. Like, how, man? Not to mention, I’m barely able to stay on my feet for more than thirty seconds to even learn on my own with you knocking me over so quickly. Also, you were the one to tell me that training takes time at the start of this-,” I uncrossed my arms to gesture at him indignantly with the bat. “-so I don’t know what sort of rush has you in a, uh, uh… a-a tizzy.”

“‘Tizzy’?” Dan Heng’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“I… It was the first word that popped into my head, alright?” Exhaling in exasperation, I reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose briefly before looking back up at the man. “Look, just one more go. With a bit of a set of different rules. Instead of going until you almost immediately knock me down, how about we spend like… ten-ish more minutes on general sparring, or until I tap out. Maybe hold back a little since I'm obviously not experienced like you. Then we can all go about our day, yeah?”

Dan Heng just stared at me for a couple seconds, expression unreadable as his gaze flicked over me but I just continued to stare back expectantly. Either he'd say yes, or no. And eventually, his eyes closed in resignation as he sighed, “Fine. One last match.”

“Fuck yeah!” I exclaimed, doing a small fist-pump in triumph.

“Don’t forget, LAST ONE,” Dan Heng repeated sternly, catching me off guard a little bit, especially with the way his eyes narrowed slightly.

“Uh, yeah, man. Last one, that's.. Fine,” I said, a bit confused. After all, that had been part of the agreement, but maybe he thought that I'd ask for another round afterwards anyways? “No more after, cross my heart or hope to die.”

I made an X over my chest with my free hand, hoping to potentially placate the odd, serious man. 

“... It's ‘and hope to die’,” Dan Heng stated bluntly after a couple seconds, stern glare dissipating. Without another word, he turned around to walk several feet to where he's been starting the few sparring matches we've had.

Blinking in surprise, my mouth opened and closed a couple times, not even sure what to think after the interaction. I ended up just shaking my head to clear my thoughts and looked over to Arlan. “You cool with counting down, Arlan?”

The other man nodded and replied, “Yup. Let me know when you're ready.”

“You got it.”

After taking up my own position on the sparring mat, Arlan gave a countdown like every other time to start the match. And, before I registered Arlan reaching the end of the count, the last sparring match had begun.

Almost immediately I felt like I probably should have taken Dan Heng's suggestion of stopping before this. Given how fast he had been knocking me down before, I didn't even realize how taxing surviving a minute was going to be, let alone supposedly ten. Now, instead of finding my leg swept out from underneath me or the hilt of his spear pushing me to the ground to end the sparring match, I was instead finding that I was now expected to roll out of the way of a secondary hit towards me when I was knocked down.

And he was definitely missing on purpose.

“Focus on rolling your torso aside first,” Dan Heng didn’t sound winded at all as he twirled his spear in his hand again before aiming to jab at my heart, something I barely pulled back out of range from after getting back to my feet. “Protecting your vital organs is priority.”

Oh, NOW he was giving advice. It was less vague than being told to be vigilant, at least.

“Th-Thanks,” I barely thought to grunt out the small acknowledgement, trying to focus on just mitigating being knocked around some more. More advice was sparsely given in between my attempts to dodge and block the man’s spear hilt, able to stop a couple impacts with a metallic clang everytime the wood struck against my bat.

How long had it even been since we started? How was there still more to go?!

I could feel myself slowing as the minutes dragged on, pausing to let out a heavy exhale and turning to face Dan Heng only to see him missing from where I’d last glimpsed him. A jolt went through me and something like a shudder went through my spine, urging me to face the threat behind me.

I strained against the force of his spear as I barely reacted in time to spin and block a strike downward from the man with my bat, an uncharacteristic shower of sparks from it from the impact as my arms shook a bit from exertion.

There was an odd twinge in my chest as I let out a labored exhale glaring stubbornly up at Dan Heng’s calm gaze.

“You can’t use your strength to move from the block,” he stated. “You need to try and use dexterity.”

My gaze flicked down to the bat barely keeping Dan Heng's staff at bay as it seemed to wobble slightly in my vision, wondering if it was a trick of the light. I shifted a foot to test my footing and gauge if I could try and roll away, but from the way my stance twisted slightly at the small movement, I didn’t think that I’d be able to ‘use my dexterity’ like he was telling me. I could sense him barringhis strength while mine faltered. 

Otherwise, my bat would have been wrenched from my grasp.

Spite welled up within me and an almost electrical sensation built up in my chest before I could register it, eyes widening at the weird feeling. But, when the surprise jolted through me it stopped like a candle suddenly snuffed out with more sparks appearing along my arms.

As another pang went through my chest and I felt an additional strain that threatened to temper my already labored breathing, arcs crackled along the bat and my fingertips, with the man's gaze following mine as both of us watched the bat flicker in my hold. 

I was barely able to duck out of the way when it distorted in and out of existence, stumbling back as Dan Heng’s spear jerked down in the split second my bat faded just enough to no longer block the hilt properly, the man himself caught off guard from the lack of resistance.

“Uh, Nova?” March asked, right about the same time Arlan asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I think I'm fine,” I replied automatically, even as I looked at the unstable bat in my hand with a bit of concern. My other hand came up to my chest absentmindedly.

“Are you sure?” Dan Heng straightened from where his momentum had caused him to overstep slightly. His eyes glanced me up and down yet I knew he wasn't taking in my appearance. It felt like he was looking through me, again.

“Probably just, overstraining myself or something. No big deal,” I stated dismissively despite the bit of lightheadedness and continued strain in my chest. I dissipated the bat with the thought process that doing so would maybe help my energy, but it ended up backfiring slightly as it felt quite the opposite, like I'd just released a small wave of energy that caused the dizziness to increase momentarily. “Wouugh, or not?”

My vision swirled a bit and everything suddenly sounded too muffled, barely registering the others saying something as… pressure or something welled within me. I opened my mouth to maybe suggest sitting down a little, but I don’t think I managed to say anything before my vision completely blurred and faded to dark.

It felt like I came back to almost immediately,  but something was definitely wrong as I struggled to regain my awareness, even if it was difficult to focus on anything past the loud voices near me. I had to keep my eyes shut against the bright light when I opened them.

“-sn’t supposed to happen, was it?!” March’s panicked  voice asked somewhere above as I groaned and sat up on the mildly pliable sparring mat with a  hand against my head. 

The sparring mat that twitched beneath me as I did so, making my eyes snap open in surprise and confusion. The sparring mat had been a rather neutral brown color to clash with the metallic spaceship interior, not a pale, flesh color with shallow crevices.

“Heh?!” my spine straightened almost painfully quick as a jolt of slight panic went through me to look around at everything. With Arlan and March leaning over Dan Heng’s palm while he also looked down at me, I couldn’t really see much past them. Not that I needed to. “Wha-?! What happened?!”

Dan Heng glanced up at the others as Arlan opened his mouth to speak, but March beat either of them to the punch.

“You didn’t look very well when you got rid of your bat and kind of swayed on your feet, and before we knew it there was a big flash of light,” March exclaimed, making me wince at how loud her voice was. I half-cupped a hand over my ear and ignored it as she continued. “I thought you had just vanished, but Dan Heng lunged forward to catch something, and it ended up being YOU! You came back pretty much immediately after that.”

Well, better than potentially dying to my cells cannibalizing or whatever. Still, a lot to process and I’d gotten used to a far larger size anyways.

“Are you feeling alright,” Arlan asked with some concern. “We should find one of the medical staff.”

“No,” I interrupted and shook my head, placing a hand against it when another wave of lightheadedness caused my vision to swim. I ignored the way the other three stared at me with a bit of surprise, waving my other hand and adding, “No, we should try getting a hold of Herta or something. Maybe go to her lab?...”

A shudder went down my spine at thinking of the cold lab and cold demeanor of the ‘Genius’, but she was the only one I could think of that could potentially figure out a way to fix this. On instinct, my hand went to my pocket where my Beacon usually was, and to my surprise it had shrunk with me. Any questions on the logistics could be asked to Herta later, but for now it was figuring out what to do now.

“Woah, your Beacon stayed with you?” March sounded surprised like I had been when I pulled it out. Arlan looked like he was halfway through pulling out his communicator.

“I guess so,” I opened my Beacon and went to message Herta, typing, ‘Herta, just shrunk in the sparring room. With Express Crew and Arlan.’

‘[Automatic reply] Hi, I’m currently unavailable, and I won’t be contacting you later’

I’m fucking killing her.

“Ugh,” I growled under my breath and shook my head. Pocketing my Beacon once more, I angrily snapped, “Of course she didn’t answer.”

“We’ll go to her lab then,” Dan Heng stated, making me yelp as he stood up from his knelt position on the sparring mat. With a quick spin he reattached his spear onto his back with a grace and ease that had me sticking my tongue out at the unintentional show-off. “Hopefully she’ll see your message.”

“We can only hope she CARES enough to see my message.”

I just thanked whatever Aeons were out there that I hadn’t somehow shrunk while on my own, I could only imagine how long the trek back to the lab would take, and that wasn’t even taking into account potentially being stepped on or how other personnel would react to a small being just running around on the ground. With the trio escorting me, it only took about half an hour like it usually did to walk from the Express to the lab, though Arlan had to leave for some security thing halfway to Herta’s lab. Something about misconduct.

Still, the lab’s doors opened with no difficulty, unlocked like the times I’d gone in before. It was mildly unexpected considering we didn’t know where the scientist was.

“THERE you are!”

Nevermind, we knew where she was.

“Huh? What are you talking about?” March asked as we entered, voicing my own confusion.

“I received the message that the twerp had shrunk almost half a system hour ago,” Herta snapped from a puppet near the closest science table. Still, her irritation was pushed aside somewhat with a cold excitement. “Now, where are they?”

“Why were you expecting us here if you didn’t answer my message,” I asked, shivering in the colder laboratory air. It only accentuated the warmth from Dan Heng’s palm beneath me in an almost unnerving awareness.

“Where else were you going to go? The lab is the most obvious answer,” the woman replied, walking over towards us. Since I’d spoken, her gaze immediately dropped to where I was sitting in Dan Heng’s palm. “Oh, wow, look at you. You really are small! At least your body didn’t cannibalize itself unevenly, and you didn’t end up exploding on my ship.”

I was worried that given her callous nature, Herta would have attempted grabbing me from where I was, but thankfully she just stood at the unnerving perfect height with Dan Heng's hand to stare at me with a calculative gaze. I didn't particularly like it. “No shit. I'd like to go back to normal.”

“You can fix this, right,” March looked at Dan Heng with concern but he just gave a small shrug and a ‘We’ll see.’.

“This IS their normal,” Herta stated indignantly and put a hand on her hip. Sounding borderline offended, she added, “And yes, I can ‘ fix this’. Luckily for you, I’ve been working on cleaning up the space station anyways so this is the perfect time to test my hypothesis.”

The short woman turned around on her heel and started walking to the back of the lab where a new glass chamber sat near the vats in the corner. Obviously she expected the other two to follow, and in turn, me. I glanced up to see Dan Heng and March exchange a glance before doing so.

“What correlation is there to cleaning the space station and Nova’s situation,” Dan Heng asked with slight curiosity. Thank Aeons, cause I was about to irritably ask the same thing.

“Simple,” Herta stopped next to the glass chamber and started tinkering with a panel next to it. Several flexible tubes led to the glass chamber from the shadows and walls. “While the why’s and how’s of their physiology are still unknown, there’s one thing that I can say with a high certainty.”

There was a beep from the panel and a hissing noise as the glass chamber door opened with a pressurized sound. The woman turned around and gestured to me. “You said that you didn’t become ‘normal-sized’ until the Doomsday Beast showed up, right?”

“Uh, yeah?...”

“Well, the Doomsday Beast radiates enough antimatter that it messes with the stations instruments just by being in the vicinity, let alone practically getting INTO the station,” Herta stated, starting to pull up a holographic screen in front of her and sifting through files until she pulled up staticky footage of the rail platform with the Doomsday Beast and the Express Crew fighting it. She zoomed into an area that felt inconsequential until I saw my own figure running along the floor. “As the Astral Crew fought the Doomsday Beast, your body slowly grew in size until you just charged in front of the blast meant for March.

“I’m almost certain that somehow the Stellaron and your abnormal cells metabolized the antimatter into a sort of food source for- Are you even paying attention?!”

I jolted a bit in surprise as Herta snapped at me, feeling my face flush slightly as the other two also looked at me with the remark. Rubbing the back of my neck sheepishly, I replied, “I mean, I’m trying, it’s just… a lot.”

Herta glared at me with a frustrated frown, eventually sighing and motioning to the glass chamber impatiently. “Antimatter is what makes you bigger. I need to make some synthetic formula’s for you before you can leave the station, but because we need to rid the space station of lingering antimatter anyways for our equipment, I’ve been able to store all of it in specialized containers. You just need to be in the glass chamber and I’ll release the compressed antimatter inside.”

“Didn’t you say that it was just a hypothesis,” March asked, looking hesitant like she was the one being tasked to go in the glass chamber.

“We need to test a hypothesis to know whether or not it’s accurate.” The other woman shrugged. “The chamber’s covered in sensors that will collect data, so even if it doesn’t work it’ll help them.”

“Still…” March frowned, glancing down at me to my surprise. “Are you gonna do it?”

“Well, I mean… it’s either try it or be stuck like this for who knows how long,” I replied. “I can’t exactly argue with the evidence she has.”

“As long as you’re certain about it…”

Dan Heng didn’t question my resolve, stepping into the chamber briefly to allow me to slide off of his palm, but as he retracted his hand and stood back up he told me, “We’ll get you out if something goes wrong.”

Well, I hadn’t really been thinking that things were going to go wrong but now I was questioning things if Dan Heng was making that statement. “Uh, I will.”

He nodded and stepped back out of the chamber to rejoin an anxious looking March.

The glass doors hissed as they shut, leaving me in the glass chamber that was massive to me. I think if I was my larger size and the doors shut I would have felt claustrophobic despite the clear walls.

“Starting antimatter compression,” Herta’s voice sounded over a speaker somewhere within the chamber. Her voice echoed uncannily as more hissing started to sound. I wondered if the chamber was soundproof given the presence of the speaker but the thought quickly left my mind as I felt the odd feeling inside my chest again.

Looking around inquisitively where the tubes led into the chamber I squinted a little at what I thought was discolored air. I thought it was perhaps a trick of the light until after a few seconds I noticed that the air was definitely discolored, a sort of purple-ish blue that had flecks of gold flitting around, similar to how the Antimatter Legion dissolved when the space station was being attacked. I suppose the appearance would make sense.

I placed a hand against my chest as it felt like maybe the Stellaron within me pulsed, able to SEE the way the discolored cloud slowly filling up the chamber floated down to me, as if there was an air current pushing it on me.

“Oough, still a weird feeling,” I muttered to myself as the pulsing spread to my fingertips, able to see past the antimatter haze that I was starting to get taller again. Outside, I saw March make some sort of exclamation to Dan Heng, looking pleasantly surprised while Dan Heng had a curious and calculative expression. It didn’t give me the creeps like Herta’s did though, so I didn’t really care as he responded back.

I gradually felt better and more energetic as more antimatter filled the chamber, only absentmindedly paying attention to the way Dan Heng and Herta started some sort of discussion outside as I glanced myself over the larger I got. All the aches and pains from the sparring also slowly faded, making me feel a sort of relief as I seemed to reach my full height after a few minutes.

I think, at least. At this point, the antimatter in the chamber was so dense that the dark, glittery cloud inside acted almost as a smokescreen to see the outside. Summoning a spark didn’t really help, just making the cloud seem brighter than it was.

Still, I wasn’t very concerned, dissipating the spark and waiting to eventually be let out.

Herta said this thing was covered in sensors and while I still didn’t know the Astral Express crew very well, I trusted that they at least wouldn’t sit back if something ended up wrong. But, nothing bad was going to happen. I was just in my head a bit because of what Dan Heng had said before the doors closed. It definitely wasn’t a little concerning that it felt like I was in here too long if the goal was just to get me back to a more normal size. The others probably just couldn’t see me very well like I couldn’t see them well.

Surely the pressure I was feeling in my chest was just a figment of my overactive imagination, right?

The Stellaron in my chest pulsed again, but this time my breath hitched in my throat a bit as discomfort spread through my ribs. Placing a hand on my chest I tried to shake off the growing sensation, reaching for the nearest glass wall in the murk and rapping a knuckle on it. 

“I think we’re good,” I called out, just hearing my own voice echo back to me. I doubled over slightly as another pulse built the pressure inside myself again, gasping at the almost painful sensation. My mind went directly to before I blacked out with the Doomsday Beast, feeling a surge of worry for the other two and the ship. “You can stop the chamber!”

Still no response, my vision spotting slightly as my chest pulsed again, this time sending a wave of pain through myself. 

This wasn’t near instantaneous like getting struck by the Doomsday Beast. This was a slow build-up that I struggled to contain, leaving me gasping as gold streaks started arching from my skin. I tried to keep a hand pressed to my chest like that would keep the golden flares inside, nervously fearing that the same thing on the rail platform would happen. Why wasn’t Herta stopping this?!

I struggled to concentrate, summoning the bat back into the hand not pressing against my chest. All I knew was that I had to break the glass before I ended up like a bomb again.

“T-Turn it off!” I shouted, trying to focus all the excess energy down into the bat as a conduit, as far away from my core as possible. Reeling my arm back, I struck the glass as hard as I could, unable to hear anything past the blood rushing in my ears. What I saw though was the end of the bat exploding into a burst of light and energy that didn’t seem to affect the glass through the haze. I vaguely saw the shapes outside moving though.

I hit the glass again, feeling the slightest bit of pressure release from the bat’s explosion, though I was left panting from the pain and exertion. Releasing the energy was good, but this wasn’t nearly enough to stop the buildup welling up inside me. How can I get rid of it quicker?!

Alongside the pressure inside of me I felt the almost electrical sensation from the sparring earlier. I almost tried to suppress it but something stopped me. Maybe if I leaned into it it would somehow help? It was similar to the pressure but distinctly different.

What did I have to lose?

I tried to take a steadying breath and closed my eyes to try and focus on the electrical sensation, brow furrowing in almost pain but I could feel the action somehow transferring some of the energy from the pressure spot in my chest to the electric sensation. I forced it to build, uncertain of what would even happen as it just felt like another thing about to burst out of me. Before I could try and backtrack it, conduct the energy elsewhere, the sensation burst like a firecracker.

Crying out in both pain and exertion, my eyes squeezed shut as it felt like a flare exploded from my body outwards. But, it seemed to work for the pressure, no longer feeling like I was going to burst at this moment. 

If the antimatter continued though, I wasn’t certain I could pull off another flare up.

I tried to open my eyes and step forward, but my vision swam and legs buckled beneath me, feeling the antimatter slowly continue being absorbed. Blacking out, I only had the thought of guilt for blowing up the ship. Except I was pulled back from a dark haze as someone shook my shoulder, groaning for a second before gasping and jolting up in panic, thinking that I had to expend more energy.

“Calm down,” Dan Heng’s voice said, catching me off guard as my vision focused. He eyed my arms warily and I noticed gold streaks arcing from them in my panic.

“What happened?” I asked, forcing myself to calm down and placing a hand against my head. “I thought I was going to explode. Again.”

“Madame Herta refused to turn off the chamber, that’s what happened!” March answered angrily, catching me off guard. I think she was the angriest I’d heard or seen her be as I looked up past Dan Heng’s shoulder and saw March hovering at the glass chamber entrance while giving Herta death glares. “She only stopped because Dan Heng threatened to spear through the panel!”

“No, I only stopped because I knew that the twerp had reached their limit,” Herta replied calmly out of view, voice sounding from behind where the panel stood. “That, and they broke my chamber.”

“What? No I didn’t,” I said groggily, looking around at the glass. The glass that had stood up to two swings from my bat. But, I was a bit startled to see that there were cracked fissures along the sides now that hadn’t been there before.

“That’s worse,” March told the shorter woman as Herta stepped out from behind the panel. “You can’t just go around doing that. What’s the point of it anyways, aside from being needlessly cruel?!”

“Would you calm down? If I knew you were going to be this upset about it, I would have sent you two outside of the lab before starting the experiment,” Herta sighed in exasperation, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Bring them over to the examination table.”

“Experiment?” Dan Heng’s voice was displeased, but he helped me to my feet easily. I thanked him and gently waved off his offer to help me walk to the examination table.

“Yes, experiment,” Herta replied chipperly as I begrudgingly walked over to the cold examination table, though I didn’t get on it just yet. This seemed to annoy her, making her roll her eyes. “I knew you weren’t going to be happy with me, but it was the perfect time to take care of multiple tests.”

I frowned at the woman tiredly, narrowing my eyes. I really hated how she didn’t get to the point sometimes. “Elaborate.”

“Yeesh, so impatient. Well, firstly, it of course allowed me to test the hypothesis of your body actually using antimatter for cellular fuel,” she sounded proud of herself for this ‘experiment’, continuing with a pleased tone like she was just talking about the weather, “Secondly, it allowed me to test what sort of dosage you need to both get to the larger size AND what threshold your body has before the amount of antimatter overstimulates the Stellaron, giving me an accurate range to give you in antimatter contamination per square inch in gaseous form. Of course, I’ll be converting it to liquids since it’d be hard for you to drag an entire chamber everywhere.

“And finally, it allowed me to test a synthetic antimatter that I’ve been working on since before the whole Antimatter Legion attack,” Herta finished. “It seemed like the perfect opportunity to see if it functioned like the real stuff if your body uses antimatter.”

She stood by the exam table seemingly waiting for praise, but I don’t think any of us had fully processed all the information. Dan Heng was the first to break the silence.

“Synthetic antimatter?”

Herta went from proud to annoyed, responding in exasperation, “Duh. How else do you think I’d have enough to return them back to human-size? There wasn’t nearly enough lingering antimatter to simulate the Doomsday Beast’s Antimatter Engine.”

I blinked at the woman dully, grumbling, “Have I told you how much I hate you sometimes?”

“Yes, but I get you results while you give me a fascinating mystery. Now get on the exam table.”

………………………………..

“Thank Aeons we’re getting out of here,” I let out an exhale as the train pulled out of the rail platform. After two more days of prodding from Herta, the amount of relief I felt when she gave me a case of vials and said that I was good to leave the station for now. Well, it almost had me giving a holler of joy.

“Don’t be rude,” Himeko said lightly, walking up beside me as I watched the space station turn to the stars outside the window. Looking up at her, she wasn’t actually reprimanding me and actually looked glad on my behalf. “She’s just eccentric.”

“Well, now she can be eccentric away from me,” I stated, earning a chuckle from the other woman. Tilting my head, I asked, “Where are we going again?”

“Well, once we’re far enough from the space station, we’re going to check on a planet called Jarilo-VI,” she replied. Giving me a small smile, she suggested, “Why don’t you go sit down? Warping takes some getting used to.”

That… hadn’t really been what I had expected when I asked him why he seemed to be acting odd today when he walked into my room at Cocytus Hall to give me something, kind of freezing when some sort of realization went over him.

I couldn’t help the way my heart picked up the pace anxiously, despite having come across multiple situations similar to this one. Seeing Solomon with a similar hunger to Beel that was uncharacteristic of him made my anxiety spike a bit. “Buuut, you’re not. Right,” I asked nervously, unable to NOT notice the way his eyes glowed slightly as I lowered the book I’d been reading. I couldn’t help but keep my desk chair facing him, something instinctive decidedly not wanting to turn my back to him despite having been in far worse situations.

It didn’t seem to matter much as he touched his throat lightly, stepping slightly closer and replying, “I don’t think I could actually stop myself if I wanted if this keeps up… Kat, I know this is a sudden request but… would you mind if I drank some of your blood?”

“Wha- blood?” I blinked a bit in surprise, feeling a slight epiphany as I realized. “Ooh! I thought Vampiritis couldn’t affect you. Or did your hubris come to bite you?”

I intended no pun, but Solomon still let out a snort of amusement, though he also looked a tad sheepish like I had hit the nail on the head. I had told him that he should still be careful with the brothers himself, but he’d mostly brushed me off and said that he needed to keep his ‘precious apprentice’ from either catching Vampiritis or becoming a human-sized CapriSun to the afflicted demon brothers while that whole situation was figured out. But, it seemed like his rather attentive nature to me hadn’t extended to himself and he ended up contracting Vampiritis despite all boisterous assurances that he wouldn’t.

“Unfortunately, it appears that being around the brothers so much has infected me,” the sorcerer sighed, looking a bit dejected at having contracted the disease. His eyes seemed slightly glazed over and unfocused like he wasn’t fully in the conversation.

“Well, Barbatos might still have some of the antidote,” I replied, seeing him perk up slightly at the reminder, eyes refocusing with his normal clarity from the pretty obvious distractions on his mind. I set my book down on my desk and started to get up, adding, “I'm sure Diavolo will be able to-."

I yelped when there was a sudden weight against my shoulder and I was shoved back into my chair, looking up at Solomon with startled eyes. His own glowed slightly as he unintentionally loomed over me, looking caught off guard at his own actions.

“Uuuuh, Solomon?”

“I'm a bit a-... worried that I may not be able to hold back against my current thirst on the way to Diavolo or Barbatos,” Solomon admitted. “I'm afraid that if something isn't done NOW that I'll quite literally see red.”

“Really? Did you really try to make a shitty joke in the current situation,” I asked, but I couldn't make myself add any bite to it. His grip on my shoulder was firm and I could feel it tightening slightly each second, able to feel the shake in his grasp. Feeling overly aware of him with the proximity, I could barely hear the slight pant beneath his breath. I took a steadying breath of my own. “Look, I'll give you a LITTLE bit of blood. Just enough to hopefully ebb the hunger pangs, alright? Then we can go to Diavolo with your mind clearer.”

He jolted slightly at my suggestion, or maybe it was just my voice, and a conflicted expression passed across his face. He opened his mouth to say something but it didn’t come out for a few seconds, straining before saying, “I… Yes. Yes, perhaps that will help abate the hunger.”

I didn’t like how he hesitated as he said it or how his expression looked both extremely guilty and eager. But, despite the anxious feeling settling in my gut, I trusted him. To a point.

“Alright, well, first of all, you gotta back up a bit there, bud,” I planted a hand against his chest and shoved at him. His lips twitched in the barest frown before allowing himself to be pushed back away from me, giving me some much needed breathing room and some relief from being pinned by my shoulder to the chair. Absentmindedly rubbing the back of my neck, I thought aloud, “I kind of don't really trust you with my neck, so we're gonna go with… a wrist, I think, yeah.”

“R-Right.” Solomon looked like he was barely paying attention, hands shaking slightly as he bit his lip, seemingly trying to keep his mind clear enough. I saw a bead of his own blood from it.

I reached down and began to roll my sleeves up nervously, only slightly comforted by the sight of the protective charm on my right wrist. Once my sleeves were rolled I felt a bit awkward as I kind of held both out towards him. “Uhhhh, take your pick, I guess. Just don't bite too deep? I'm not sure if you could break my wrists by biting them, but I'd like to not test that too much.”

“I'll do my best,” Solomon presumably tried to give me a reassuring smile but it came out as more of a grimace. He gave up pretty quickly and carefully grabbed my left wrist like it'd snap at his touch. If Vampiritis gave him the cliche super-strength that movie vampires had, maybe it was for the best.

I was a bit surprised when the sorcerer kneeled to get better access to my wrist, feeling more than a little awkward - I probably should have stood up or figured something else out before offering my blood to him since he wasn't really in the headspace to think clearly - but the awkwardness was tempered by a familiar squeamishness that settled in the pit of my stomach. It was similar to, but wasn't quite as bad as, the nauseous anxiety I felt anytime I had to get my blood drawn or a shot. 

I managed to watch as Solomon raised my wrist slightly to his face, saw him open his mouth to reveal a glimpse of the elongated canines that were a symptom of Vampiritis and felt a bit of his breath against my skin. But I felt myself pale right as he opened his jaws wider and averted my gaze before he bit down, warned by the slight tensing of his hold on my wrist. 

There were two points of pain that suddenly bloomed along my wrist vein as the skin was pierced, making me yelp and stiffen. I managed to mostly resist the urge to pull away as I bit down on my tongue, but my heart skipped a beat as a twitch from my arm told me that he probably wouldn't have budged if I had tried to pull away properly.  

I swallowed thickly, wondering if he could taste adrenaline in my quickened pulse for a moment before the pain in my wrist faded startlingly quickly. It was cold and numb, like novocaine to my system, and I couldn't help but blink in surprise and look back. 

Only to immediately avert my gaze again with a fresh wave of dizziness and queasiness. 

"Okay, nope," I muttered to myself, trying to push aside the image of Solomon latched onto my wrist with a thin stream of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and an almost blissful close-eyed expression out of my head. At least one of us was having fun. 

Thankfully, it wasn't too long before I heard the small gasp and slight panting as he detached from me. It had maybe been several seconds, probably enough for a full mouthful or two with the smaller veins in my wrist compared to my throat, but it had felt awfully long, and I felt the lingering squeamishness that I knew would remain for the rest of the day. 

"I hope that helped clear your head a bit," I pulled my wrist back to myself and gingerly touched a finger to the two beading puncture wounds as I started to turn my head to look at Solomon. My hand had a pins and needles feeling.  "I was a bit worried you'd-." 

My voice immediately became muffled as my mouth was covered by a hand, eyes widening and crying out in surprise when the force of Solomon lunging upward caused the desk chair to fall back. It hit the desk edge first before sliding to the ground, rattling my skull as the chair back hit the ground, making me grunt from the fall and ending up pinned beneath the feral sorcerer. 

"Mmph!" I blinked away my brief daze, looking up at Solomon's face in the shadow of the desk as panic flared across my pacts. His slightly glowing blue eyes were replaced by an intense red and I could see streaks of my own blood from the corners of his mouth. The feral looking expression was something I'd never seen in him before, but I couldn't summon anyone or use a spell with my mouth currently covered. 

There was a sharp tug against my neck as my choker was broken off, jolting me from my frozen shock. I squirmed and bucked beneath the sorcerer, twisting up and elbowing him in the face. The man HISSED at me and I took advantage of his surprise to shove his hand off of my mouth. Kicking at his chest to push him off me and retreat further beneath the desk, I began to recite a summoning spell. 

"Hear me and heed my call," I exclaimed as quick and clear as I could, feeling a pressure behind my eye. Solomon was sat from where I'd pushed him back, hand against his cheekbone where I'd struck him. His expression went from indignant surprise to one of uncharacteristic, raw fury. I saw him tense like a coil before trying to push forward off the ground to lunge towards me again. I quickly raised my leg, shoe planting firmly against his chest as it barely stopped him, knee almost buckling painfully against the force. “In the name of the sorcerer Katherine, I draw upon my pact with the ring of li-GHT!” 

My voice hitched as Solomon grabbed the ankle of the foot against his chest, pulling it to the side and yanking me closer. My heart raced, gritting my teeth as we scuffled in the cramped space beneath the desk. I tried to not fuck up saying the summon, while trying to stop him from stopping ME from saying it, while also trying to get my foot loose and scramble further back again. 

“Come forth, Mam-mphf!” I narrowed my eyes and grunted as Solomon let go of my ankle and managed to wrestle both of my wrists in one hand, covering my mouth again with his other. The pressure that had been building behind my eye fizzled out and disappeared dead in its tracks.  

The sorcerer wasted no time in descending on me, making me gasp in pain as my throat was bitten. I squirmed but could do nothing as restrained as I was, my pained panting lessening as the numbing began to settle in my neck, my hand still tingling from loss of feeling in the wrist. I heard the first swallow as he began to drink greedily and felt a rush of lightheadedness. Lightheadedness that lingered as more blood was stolen and less was able to reach my head properly, making my thrashing lessen alarmingly fast.

I tried to call out Solomon’s name, to try and appeal to him past the feral fervor that had overtaken him. But, of course, it came out as an easily ignored muffled shout that I barely heard over the blood rushing in my own ears and the sound of gulping.

Time slowed painfully as I remained pinned beneath the sorcerer, the lightheadedness and weak feeling in my body increasing every second. My limbs felt more and more like lead until my arms simply hung by my wrists in Solomon’s hold, now struggling to just keep my eyes open and focus on the wooden grain of the desk underside above, trying to not pass out with the fear that if I closed my eyes that I wouldn’t open them again. However, even that became too much effort and my eyelids slid closed.

I felt cold and tired.

I wasn’t sure how much time passed with my eyes closed but I realized that I was being nudged, barely able to focus on the voice, “Sh-Shit, Kat? Kat?!”

“Nnngh,” I groaned at being nudged again, eyelids twitching a few times before I managed to groggily force them open. My sight was blurry and I had to clear it with a couple blinks to look up at Solomon, who gazed down in worried panic with slightly glowing blue eyes rather than the red from before. I just felt an overwhelming wave of relief at seeing that he seemed to have come to. “Oh, thank god..”

I let out a relieved sigh, eyes closing again tiredly, adrenaline either long gone or drained and feeling exhausted relief at seeing Solomon alright. My brow twitched and furrowed as I was shaken, struggling to get out of the dazed stupor I’d almost immediately fallen into without realizing it.

I just wanted to sleep now, man, leave me alone.

“Come on, stay with me,” Solomon said, something brushing against my neck as he murmured some words under his breath. “I can’t have my adorable apprentice dying on me.”

“Mmmn-n-not adorable,” I grumbled weakly, managing to open an eye in an attempt to glare at him. He pulled his hand away from my neck and the glow of a healing spell dissipated in his palm. The healing spell didn’t clear away the blood on his hand and chin, making me wonder how bad I looked if HE looked this disheveled and blood-covered.

“I can’t believe that worked. You’re ridiculous,” the sorcerer laughed, but it was strained. He reached for something nearby and muttered another spell, adding louder, “Just try and stay awake while I try to fix this before the bloodlust becomes unbearable again. If this is how Beel feels all the time, no wonder he goes mad with hunger as often as he does…”

I groaned in acknowledgement, fighting to keep my eye open. I gave up and lifted a lead-heavy arm to drape lethargically over my eyes. “How much blood can I lose before dying?”

“Well, the average person can lose up to a fifth of their blood on average before going into complete shock. However, more than forty percent is almost certainly lethal.”

My lips pursed at the information, quiet for a few seconds before lifting my arm slightly from my eyes to peer at him and  mumbling, “I don’t like that you just know that.”

“You did ask,” Solomon replied lightly in an attempt to lighten the mood. He seemed satisfied with whatever he cast and started reaching for my neck again. His expression fell when I involuntarily flinched slightly away from his hands. 

“I-... s-sorry…”

“No. No, it’s… understandable,” he sighed slightly, grabbing my other wrist instead. My hand curled defensively as he lifted it up and tied my choker around the wrist. 

I let out a surprised noise as I felt a sudden surge of energy and slight warmth, having not realized how chilled I was with my lack of blood. Not enough to be jumping up and down or anything, but I didn’t feel like I was about to die anymore. I blinked at not feeling like death and gave Solomon a bleary quizzical look.

“It’s to magically help your blood levels. I can’t make something from nothing, especially in my mental state right now, but it'll keep you from dying to blood loss,” Solomon explained, giving me a guilty, apologetic, and shameful expression. He sighed and I felt like his eyes flickered for a second. “It's also to help you breathe and hopefully keep you clean.”

“Solomon. I don't like that you said that…,” I narrowed my eyes at him and shifted to try and push myself into a sitting position, yelping when my elbows buckled beneath me. Yup, still too weak to move much. 

“Don't strain yourself,” a hand planted against my shoulder to keep me down as the sorcerer looked at me with concern. He tried to give me a reassuring smile despite the obvious mental strain it was taking him to maintain control. 

Probably would have been more effective if there wasn't a slight discoloration on his face where I'd elbowed him as bruising started setting in, he hadn't literally just overpowered me, was on the verge of relapsing, and we were both covered in my own blood. In my slightly delirious state, I had to internally admit that it was quite a look.

“Sol-.”

“It's nothing you haven't handled before,” the sorcerer continued, interrupting whatever further protests or questions I had before he started reciting the now very familiar shrinking spell I’d grown accustomed to hearing from the brothers. 

Almost immediately the lightheadedness and vertigo took over, dazing me and making my vision swim. I barely registered the sensation of being lifted from the ground, my eyesight refocusing in time to see Solomon’s mouth open above me. The elongated canines that had punctured my skin minutes prior now framed the dark confines of his bloodstained jaws and the warm, shaky exhale that washed over me was saturated with the scent of iron. My heart skipped a beat.

I knew any protest or words would fall on deaf ears but as I was lifted closer to Solomon’s open mouth with his tongue extending slightly to lay over his lower teeth I couldn’t help but weakly say, “If this ends up killing me, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

There was another, sharper exhale from the sorcerer and a slight upturn at the corner of his lips before I was transferred from his palm to the slick, textured surface of his tongue, the muscle curling behind me and drawing me into his jaws. Saliva instantly soaked into my clothes as teeth lightly clicked shut behind me to leave me in darkness, able to hear and feel everything around me flex as Solomon instinctively swallowed some excess saliva.

His breathing was more noticeably ragged from within his jaws, huffing as his tongue quivered beneath me. I was confused, laying in a tired daze and wondering why nothing was moving, used to being tasted, sometimes with aggressive fervor. From the way I could feel drool pooling beneath my back I could tell that I was appealing to him, but the question of whether or not it was brought on by the Vampiritis would have to wait until later. I realized when his tongue only gingerly lapped at me a couple times before gravity began to shift that he seemed to be desperately holding himself back.

“Right,” I mumbled, letting myself slide toward the back of his throat. “Kind of attacked me.”

Solomon probably didn’t want to hurt me more.

I grunted slightly as a swallow quickly dragged me into his gullet and more hastened my descent down his esophagus, breathing restricted by the tight confines and each inhale laced with the tang of blood. Slipping past the collarbone was more constrictive and I was able to hear the sorcerer let out an exhale of relief, felt the odd sensation of being tightly hugged on all sides by peristalsis pulling me yet able to discern the sensation of him leaning forward slightly.

“I can’t tell how much of it is the Vampiritis but… this is unnervingly satisfying,” he admitted, voice resonating down to my bones in my descent. “I really hope you’ll be able to breathe. I guess I’ll find out if you don’t flail.”

There he went, mentioning breathing again. I was almost confused but as I felt the slight pressure beneath me that precluded spilling into a stomach, I realized that he quite literally had his fill of me. There wasn’t even a splash as I was forced into the organ, just slipping into a chamber of blood that I was thankful I couldn’t see. Whatever he did to my choker was allowing me to breathe, which I was thankful for considering I hadn’t exactly braced myself to hold my breath, and oddly enough each inhale was clean air instead of iron-saturated liquid. Potentially some sort of personal breathing bubble, I wasn’t exactly going to summon a light source in here.

“You’re good, Solomon,” I mustered the energy to shout up, feeling for the nearest stomach wall in the space expanded with my own blood. I tried not to think about it too much.

“Thank goodness,” Solomon let out a sigh of relief. Everything sort of sloshed around as he moved, the force of him shifting and standing up making me sink a little. “It seems eating you has tempered the bloodlust slightly. I was worried that I was going to drain you, felt like I was starving and greedy even though I feel full. Now, to get Barbatos and-.”

Solomon was interrupted by the sound of the door breaking open and slamming against the wall, Mammon’s voice shouting in a panic, “KAT!”

“Uh oh.” Solomon and I muttered at the same time.

“I assure you, this looks far worse than it is,” Solomon told Mammon, and considering how bloody and disheveled the sorcerer and my room was, I didn’t think the demon would believe that.