We were aboard the S.S. Madhouse for over a month before we finally arrived.  

Even with Dragoon’s genius idea to have us train together, she had to add additional sources of entertainment to prevent the incubation of cabin fever.  Admittedly, my friend’s next great idea to help us kill the time was a simple, yet elegant, solution. 

Dragoon had Chemtrail manufacture alcohol.  

Our ship turned into a veritable Valhalla as we drifted ever onwards.  We developed a schedule of fighting, drinking, sleeping, and repeating.  The rhythm gave us some sense of normalcy and ability to maintain a waking/resting cycle; even though Titan wasn’t thrilled to relinquish control to Dragoon, he freely admitted that she was doing a fantastic job creating the sense of unity that he had struggled to achieve.  

He might have recruited us, but she was making us work together and get along in a way we hadn’t thought possible.  

Getting back into the habit of practicing allowed for all of us to work on finessing unwieldy gifts.  Parasite and Ragdoll found themselves training people in hand to hand combat more frequently.  Shockwave and Clemency worked with Projectors and taught many of those from Vuuldar how to concentrate their gift or direct their power in a more efficient manner.  

I found my niche becoming a new strength test for people.  Those who wanted to seriously test their skills fought the guy who could constantly get bigger to match.  On the flipside, I challenged myself to use as little mass as necessary.  Some opponents required only a few hundred kilograms of growth; people like Overwhelm required at least two-tonnes to reasonably fight.  One of our highlight fights was of me versus Shockwave.  While it would have normally been a shoe in for him, he couldn’t go full swing without killing someone.  I was confined by the fact there was a ceiling and Repository gave me limited protein to devour.  

Even at six-tonnes I still lost.  Shockwave was admittedly sweating bullets when I tore myself free and forced him to deal with two targets.  I took pride in having at least made him work for it.  Despite him being the victor, I was proud of myself; back on Tso’got, I had ‘fought’ Shockwave before Feast Day.  Calling it a fight wasn’t doing it justice since it had been a one-sided smackdown I barely survived. 

And then, finally, after thirty-seven long days in space, there was finally something on the horizon.  We crammed into the flight deck, shoulder to shoulder, to look out and see where Infinite had been taking us all this time.  As we took another disorienting jump, we found ourselves on course for what looked like a massive beige marble.  

Several people looked to Infinite, like she had made a mistake.  

“Almanac,” Dragoon asked, getting ahead of people, “You know where we are?” 

The acne-ridden Adapted shook his head, “Uncharted planet.  I don’t really have a great description for it.  Far as I can tell, it doesn’t belong to the Trillodan.  I tried searching for Trillodan colonies and this place didn’t come to mind.” 

While not entirely reassuring, at least we weren’t going into hostile territory.  

“I can get us to the ground,” Infinite volunteered.  

“No.  Guardian, work with Powerhouse and shield the ship as we go through the atmosphere.  Interface, take over and pilot us for landing.  Infinite told you where to go?”

“She gave me a set of coordinates.  The ship has navigation tools that will do the rest for me.”

“Make it happen,” Dragoon said with a nod.  

The androgyne Adapted saluted and took a seat, leaning forward as their body went limp so Interface could literally inhabit the ship’s controls.

“I recommend that everyone else batten down the hatches and get ready for a fun landing,” Dragoon said.  That was enough prompt to get people to file out and scramble to their rooms, strapping themselves down so we weren’t pitched around the metal cabin.  

We’re going to meet whoever was responsible for us.

It was a thrilling and terrifying prospect to entertain.  Both Eldritch and I had spent a lot of time over the last month wondering what sort of person made us, and how exactly we came to be.  Even though Eldritch was a cognizant Adaptation, it wasn’t any more informed about it’s creation than I was.  

“Some people have already met them, at least a little.  Something about a weird spider-humanoid thing in dreams.  Plenty of people have had them.”

But not us.

“We can’t always be the special one,” I pointed out.  “Besides, Titan hasn’t met this person either.  We’re hardly being singled out.”

Other people haven’t eaten a militia.

“Others have definitely killed Adapted or innocent people.  Very few people on this ship are blameless.”

I ratcheted straps across my chest and hips and cupped my head with a pillow as the ship started to shake.  

Here’s hoping that Guardian and Powerhouse can keep us alive.

“Guardian has made force fields that dealt with Trillodan artillery,” I shouted over the roar of the ship barreling through the planet’s atmosphere.  “He’ll be fine!”

The ship continued to shudder for a small eternity until quickly replaced with an unsettling sense of free-fall.  My stomach settled back to its regular place as the engines kicked on and Interface started chugging through fuel.  This ship was still like the hippo of the skies; fighting gravity was not its strong suit. 

I really hoped Interface could keep us from crash landing and doing the Trillodan’s job for them.  

It might not have been particularly smooth, but we did come to a stop and the ship didn’t explode.  I decided that was probably as good as we could have asked.  No sooner had we stopped than an intercom chimed to life.

“Ladies and gentlemen and anything in between, we have now safely arrived on planet I-have-no-clue!  I hope you have enjoyed riding with Adapted Skylines.  I’m your pilot, Interface, and I hope you choose to fly with us again soon.”  Interface stopped, probably to snicker to themselves before continuing.  “We’re going to have an expedition party.  So, would the following Adapted please come and meet our fearless leader in the galley: Parasite, Shockwave, Beleth, Hydra, Overwhelm, Titan and Eldritch.  Everyone else, get comfortable for a bit until we have the all clear.  Those of you responsible for refueling this metal monster, get to work!  Thank you, and have a nice day!” 

I was a bit surprised to hear my name called out, but Dragoon had ensured I kept Eldritch fed and ready in case of emergency.  

You idiot.  She wants her friends to be with her along the way.  You have all been there since the start, she wants to see it through with you.

“You shouldn’t have more common sense than I do,” I grumbled as I removed the straps and stretched, stepping awkwardly to the door and out into the hallway.  Other Adapted had pulled themselves free and were talking in hushed whispers with one another.  I felt a few people glare at me as I walked by; I didn’t like being singled out, but I hadn’t tried to convince Dragoon to bring me with.  

I was the last one to the galley, though one more person had tagged along: Infinite.  

“I want her to stay with the ship, Titan,” Dragoon insisted.  “I want her to ensure that this place is unassailable.”  

Titan folded his arms, glaring back at my friend.  “She’s coming with.  She is the one who found this place, she’s the one who heard our maker calling.  She deserves to meet them.”

Hydra, a Vuuldar native, rolled her eyes.  “How about we ask Infinite herself.  How about the two of you stop talking for her.”  Both Dragoon and Titan nodded in deference to Hydra.  If Titan was the paragon for all Adapted from Tso’got, Hydra was Vuuldar’s equivalent.  Her gift made her capable of mimicking and distorting organisms she had seen.  Hydra could turn herself into a giant insect with four sets of arms or a dog that could breathe fire; her options were almost limitless but every form came with an incredible regenerative property.  Even the ever arrogant Adamant admitted he wasn’t sure if he could beat her.   

Infinite put a hand on Titan’s shoulder, “I want to come with.  I can practically feel that voice calling out to me, guiding me.  I want to meet them.” 

Dragoon frowned, “We’re not even completely sure we’re going to meet-”

“We will,” Infinite replied.  

“Fine,” my red-headed friend finally ceded.  “You can come with.  We should have enough power back here to stop anything too drastic from happening.”

I glanced around at our little expedition party, knowing that we had enough destructive capacity between us to level a city.  Dragoon had talked about our maker as a nice person or at least as someone who wasn’t threatening to us; did we need all this power to say hi?

We trekked down to the ramp that would lead us out.  The airlock opened and the nine of us stepped out onto a sandy plain.  There were rocky outcroppings with the occasional tree scattered around here or there, but the landscape was otherwise desolate.  

“This is where the people who made us are hiding?” Parasite asked. 

“Beleth, start looking,” Dragoon insisted. 

The bald man nodded and dug his feet into the sand, closing his eyes to enhance the sense given to him by his Adaptation.  

Infinite pointed towards an outcropping in the distance.  “It’s there.  There’s a cave back there with our maker hiding in it.”

Beleth’s eyes popped open as he glanced at Infinite, a little dubious.  “If we get closer, I can confirm.”

“For what it’s worth,” Overwhelm said, “I trust her.”

Without any debate, we all hurried and marched across the sand, eager to get out of the blazing sun.  Going from a controlled environment to a scorching desert was definitely something none of us cared for.  As we got closer, Beleth corroborated Infinite’s finding; there was a whole cave network under our feet, one big enough to house dozens of people.  It was large enough to extend beyond the reaches of his extra sense.

Nearly hidden among the outcropping was a metal plate door; crude but definitely effective at keeping any kind of wildlife out.  

As we approached, it opened for us.  

“Anyone else find that ominous?” Parasite asked. 

Titan grit his teeth and led the way, his purposeful gait practically dragging us all with him.  

Immediately inside was a landing that had a wide set of stairs at the end; all of us went down, wordless but on guard.  The floor below was lined with tubes that had bioluminescent bugs running around, casting the whole hallway in a soft glow.  A few wires were run along the floor which made me wonder how someone was powering anything here.    

“Beleth,” Dragoon prompted. 

“Not much going on down here,” he said, feeling for any kind of vibration through the ground.  “Besides us, I felt one source of movement down to the ri-” he stopped, turning his head, “It’s coming to us.” 

All of us turned, staring down the cave as a figure stepped forward.  I had to fight recoiling as I saw a ghastly and gaunt humanoid walk forward.  Their eyes were massive black orbs which contrasted with their pale skin.  While the upper half looked human, the bottom half was a flesh colored spider abdomen that shifted to the side as they drew closer.  

Half of us were surprised, but half recognized the figure.  

“You?” I spit out, “You’re the thing that made us?” 

The figure smiled softly, “You have a number of questions and I have answers.  Come.” 

“Everyone will want to hear-”

“I’m borrowing Interface,” they replied.  “Your friend is doing me a service and will be broadcasting our conversation on the ship’s intercom.  They will all hear.” 

Infinite winced at the figure mentioning ‘borrowing’ someone else.  

“You shouldn’t be using people like that,” Dragoon growled, stepping forward and putting her foot down.  “Even if you made us, you aren’t entitled to simply use us as the situation requires it.”

The figure sighed, “Ordinarily, Dragoon, I would agree with you, and your outrage is not misplaced.  Unfortunately, I fear that time is going to be of the essence.”

“So we go to the ship and leave.  We have this conversation in space,” Shockwave said, taking the common-sense approach.  

“Most of our fuel was stashed in Collector’s storage,” Dragoon muttered.  “We have to give Chemtrail and the others a chance to get fueled up before we can consider taking off again.  We’re likely going to be here for an hour at least.” 

Our unnamed maker started walking backwards, leading us with a wave, “Please, we can at least sit somewhere more comfortable while we talk.  I also get the impression that you wouldn’t mind a few minutes off that vessel.” 

No one raised a voice in protest.  Titan followed them and we all fell in line.  

We followed them down a side tunnel and through an arch that opened up into a spacious cavern that was brimming with broken technology.  Shattered glass was scattered around the floor, massive cryo tubes were fractured, computers smashed to bits, and equipment I didn’t recognize had been melted down.  The only clear spot in the whole room was one table that had been neatly set with ten places and ten cups of what looked like tea.  

Tentatively, we all took a seat.  

“I’ll ask the obvious question,” Beleth led, “Who the fuck are you?”

“Also, what are you?” Shockwave added.  

“My name is Skaberen,” he said gently, “And I am one of the last Goln.”

“One of the last?  What happened to the rest?” I asked. 

Skaberen donned a sorrowful smile, “My species was the first to suffer at the hands of the Trillodan.  We were the very first ones to be persecuted near extinction.”

“The first?” Dragoon said, “That would make you ancient.”

Skaberen nodded, “That’s because I am.  By your estimates, I would be about sixteen-hundred years old.” 

 All of us stopped, unsure of how to exactly interpret that information.  “But…how?” Infinite said.

“The same way that the Trillodan are living to be so old: we have learned to manipulate biology to the extreme.  The Goln learned how to perfectly regenerate and repair telomeres in the cell to prevent aging.  Well,” Skaberen smiled to himself, like he’d been reminded of a joke, “I’m simplifying things, but that’s the gist of it.”

“Why did you call us here?” Titan demanded, pulling the conversation back on track.  

Skaberen’s smile fell, “I have been watching you all for a long time now.  I had hoped that the Trillodan wouldn’t intervene as early as they did, but fortunately you thought ahead, Titan.  However, you were never going to win a war game with Zellig and it has created some…complications.  Vaneel is dangerously close to unlocking the secret of the Adapted; he’s even managed to produce a few promising results.” 

It was like the air had been sucked out of the room.  Our most valuable life-line was our importance to the Trillodan.  We were only still breathing because we were valuable to them.  If we became superfluous, we became vulnerable.  

“Why not tell us in another dream?” Dragoon demanded, “Why divert us?” 

“And sow seeds of superstition among everyone?  Cause everyone panic while you are all trapped in a metal box?  You think Zeal would be the only casualty?” 

Parasite raised his hand, “How the fuck do you know all this?  In fact, what the fuck is all this?” he demanded, gesturing to the demolished lab behind Skaberen. “Where is everyone else who had to have lived here?” 

Skaberen raised his hand to stifle Parasite’s barrage of questions.  “When the Trillodan destroyed our colonies, a few of us managed to escape and hide.  We ended up waiting out the worst of things in cryostasis.  Later, my colleagues and I found this unsettled planet, one that was survivable albeit relatively void.  A new beginning that was a hollow echo of the great society we used to have.”  He let out a slow exhale, “This facility was our new research and development that had one goal; we had to stop the Trillodan.  The problem was how far back we were set.  Even though me and my colleagues had incredible longevity, we were struggling to reclaim the basics.  We had to steal and slowly rebuild our technology, all while remaining invisible.” 

Hydra frowned, “The Trillodan seldom follow up hunting the species that they enact Protocol 37 on.  They aren’t hunting humans, just us.  Why did you have to stay hidden?” 

“Back then, the Immortal Matron wasn’t in charge.  Back then, the Trillodan were headed by a man known as Kardan the King.  For a long time, the Goln and the Trillodan were sister species, two of the first species to overcome the series of great filters that plagues all sentient species.  When we found one another, we fed off of each others development.  The Trillodan had unparalleled technological prowess while our research was more aimed at biology and the study of life itself.”

“You helped each other,” I said, mystified.  “But, they’re tyrants.”

“Back then, they were just another race, struggling to advance.  Our integration with one another led to an explosion of development that has yet to be paralleled.  The problem was that with the ramp of industry means the potential escalation of destruction.  Kardan feared that the Goln would turn on the Trillodan; to avoid any potential conflict, he struck first and wiped out the six planets we had colonized.  Fourteen billion dead, in a matter of hours.”  

Skaberen drew his lips together in a forced smile, “Kardan’s assault on their greatest ally caused a rift within the Trillodan people.  Half believed that he was right, that there could be only one supreme power.  The other half believed that we were supposed to live together, working in harmony forever.  That we were to be-”

“Immortal,” Titan extrapolated.  “The Immortal Matron took over in his place, didn’t she?” 

“Yes.  She did.” 

“But, isn’t she just doing exactly what that lunatic was doing before her?” Shockwave asked.  “She’s still exterminating races left and right.”  

Skaberen frowned, “I can’t pretend to understand all of what is going on inside my old friend’s head.  However, I know that Iilena Lamak sees her doing as a form of altruism and balancing for the universe, to prevent anyone from being perfectly oppressive.” 

“Wait, old friend?” Parasite said, shocked, “You know the Immortal Matron?” 

“Yes.  Well, I did know her.  But that was…a long time ago.”

Beleth leaned forward, “So, what the fuck did you do to us?” 

“To you, specifically, nothing.  To your parents, we introduced an experimental micro-organism we named Kelotan.”  

“Our…parents?” Dragoon asked, perplexed. 

“When we discovered that Earth was slated to be subject to the Protocol 37, we distributed an aerosol with Kelotan distributed within.  Our hopes were that it would ingratiate itself with the host’s cells, becoming another power supplier like mitochondria.  Our hope was to observe the survivors in exile to see what had become of our experiment.  Initially, we had assumed our work a failure.  All your parents were…normal.”

“But we weren’t,” I said, realizing how incredibly obvious that was.  “How the hell did a microorganism make us…Adapted?” 

“Our initial goal was to create a quantum link with the Kelotan.  They were supposed to be conduits for energy, to provide limitless energy for their host.  It was supposed to make any species hyper-efficient and capable of profound accomplishment.  They would have a robust immune system, have no need for rest, be able to endure stress, etc.  What happened, however, was that the Kelotan ingratiated itself perfectly with the cells of the offspring and then lay dormant.  With the Adapted, the Kelotan were effectively shaken to action.  It’s quantum link, instead of granting energy on a cellular scale, became the ability to manipulate the elements on a macro scale.”  Skaberen paused, “Essentially, each one of you is tied to another reality.  Whenever you use your Adaptation, you are exhausting resources from that reality.”

“But…how?” Beleth asked.  

Our maker grinned, “It took us centuries of work to create the Kelotan and another century to create a version that would self-propagate.  And, while I may not be the smartest man alive, I like to think that my colleagues and I were at least some of the brightest of our species.” 

“We were experiments,” Parasite said, his voice hollow.  I turned and saw his face crestfallen.  “You…used us.  You used humanity, unwittingly!  You tested on a race of unaware people.  You abused your scientific prowess and quietly used a whole population.”  Parasite clenched his fingers, his arm shaking.  “You’re no fucking better than them.  At least the Trillodan have the decency to be outspoken.”

Of all of us in the room, Parasite had been the only one to experience being tested on by the Trillodan.  I had been tortured by human scientists back on Tso’got, but it was nothing like what he’d endured.  

“Don’t you have an answer for yourself,” Dragoon demanded, putting an arm around our friend.  

Skaberen let out a long exhale, finally looking Parasite square in the face.  “We did.  And nothing can undo our methods.  Nothing can undo our lack of morality.  Nothing I can do will atone for our deplorable actions.  We were so tired of watching years spin by with limited results that for us, ends would always justify the means.  It may be a hollow apology, but I am sorry.”

“Were you always going to have us throw ourselves at the Trillodan?” Titan demanded.  “Were you going to always draw us together and have us fight your war for you?”

“Our war?” Skaberen said, sounding affronted.  “Last I looked, Titan, your home is in shambles too.  Last I looked, many homes are barren wastes, monuments to what the Trillodan perceive as ‘order.’  We might have been the first, but we are hardly the only ones who have suffered at the hands of the Trillodan.”  The Goln took a breath and wrung their hands, “But, no.  Ideally the Kelotan wouldn’t have made such drastic alterations to your physiology.  Ideally, we could have observed how it impacted humans and had a more refined product before deliberately introducing it to a race and groom them for a fight.” 

“So we are…accidents then?” Hydra demanded. 

“In a sense, yes.  You were more than we could have possibly dreamed,” Skaberen replied.    

“Why did you call us here,” Dragoon asked again.  

“I don’t believe your next stop should be Marn,” Skaberen said bluntly.  “I believe that you will face an even greater defeat there than you did on Vuuldar.  The Matron’s champion will now be using his own, monstrous, Adapted to fight you.  If you thought his elite were bad before, they are only going to get worse.  And the longer you keep engaging with Zellig, the worse each outcome will be.  There is a reason the Matron has unofficially made him her champion.  He is a product of near perfect engineering and unparalleled dedication.  He is as determined to defend his empire and preserve it as you all are to destroying it.” 

“You think we should just, battle charge the Trillodan home world?” Dragoon asked.  “Shouldn’t we have more time before Vaneel can master the thing that took you centuries to create?” 

“Most of our time was spent creating a quantum-entangled organism that would self-propagate.  By obtaining and isolating the Kelotan, Vaneel already has the majority of our work at his fingertips.  He’s now just expanding upon it.” 

“But there is strength in numbers,” I said.  “Even though Vuuldar wasn’t…ideal, we still ended up with more people onboard for our cause.  The last thing we want to do is attack the Trillodan short-handed.” 

“And you must remember, the moment they don’t need more samples to fuel Vaneel’s research, you are all expendable.  They can make a targeted plague to kill you.  They can flatten all of Marn to ensure there is no more Adapted resistance.  These are not mindless sociopaths, the Trillodan are run by the most dangerous monarch ever.  And the Immortal Matron is beset with a righteous fervor that will mean there is no reconsidering or remorse.  She will act with the intent of preserving both her people and ending the threat you pose to the rest of the universe.  You must-”

“No,” Dragoon said, slamming her hand down.  “No.  You do not control us.”

“I-”

“You might have made us, you might be able to hijack our nervous system, but we do not answer to you.  You will not deprive us of our agency.  We have a plan to go to Marn, we have a plan to bring all of the Adapted together to siege the Trillodan homeworld.  It may be ill-advised, but is it our plan.”

Skaberen opened their mouth to answer but then thought better of challenging her.  “I understand.” 

There was a tense silence that fell over the room.  No one wanted to be the first to speak up, to lift the weight Dragoon had placed.  However, there was one outspoken visitor who still had questions and cared little about the tense silence.  

I want to know how we met.  I want to know what I am.  Ask Skaberen before someone demands we leave.

“How did we find each other?” I finally asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“Because I went looking for-” Titan started.

“No,” I said, “I mean, way before.  Most Reckoner groups on Tso’got were friends banding together.  Most Scoundrels were grouped up before they Adapted.  How?  That seems…impossible.  How could we have all met by accident?”

“You didn’t,” Skaberen answered.  “The Kelotan lay dormant in most, but its activation had multiple stages.  The first threshold would generally show up by the time you were six or seven. And, at least in humans, the biggest indicator was stress.  Most of you dealt with chronic stress.”  He glanced between myself and Dragoon, “Something like fear of your parents.  Or maybe their absence.  For others,” he said turning to Beleth, “Poverty and constant misery pushed you.”

All of us shifted, feeling unnaturally exposed.

“You were all causing some start with the Kelotan, giving it some kind of agitation and reason to wake up.  My theory is that the Kelotan is so meshed with the host that it amplifies basal truths.  You are all humans, and humans have lived for ages in social groups.  It would make sense that the Kelotan called for like-minded souls to form some kind of community.”

I glanced between Parasite and Dragoon, all of us unsure of how to feel that our friendship had been prompted by some alien organism that had infiltrated our body.  

“So the way it manifests?” Infinite asked.  “Is that tied to the host as well?”

Skaberen tapped his fingers together, “I believe that the expression of the Kelotan is more nuanced and much more imprinted.  In most circumstances, I believe that it takes on an expression of what is most needed in that moment.  It supplies a demand.  Eldritch, you needed to become the monster to survive.  Dragoon, you wanted to know how to solve the problem.  Parasite, you needed a helping hand.  Overwhelm, you wanted to reach a little further.  Hydra, you wanted to be anything else.  Beleth, you vowed to move the world.  Shockwave, you wanted to fire back. Titan wanted to see it all burn.  And Infinite, you were willing to do anything for the power to fight.” 

All of us were aghast, our privacy violated.  The nature of our power was so tied with our being, our core person, that it felt wrong for someone to point it out.  

“You’ve gone too far,” Shockwave said, sounding uncharacteristically somber.  “You shouldn’t be in our heads like that.  We might be an experiment, but we’re still fucking people too.  We are entitled to some privacy.” 

Skaberen nodded, solemn, “We have been watching you all with rapt interest for the last fifteen years.  Our desperation and impatience for results has made our methods-”

“Unethical?” Parasite interjected. 

The Goln winced but didn’t deny the allegation.  “All we can do now is move forward.  I know that I will be called upon for my crimes against you all, and I will answer that when the time is right.” 

“That could be now,” Beleth said.  “All we have to do is think and we can kill you.”

Skaberen raised a hand, smiling softly, “I have no doubt.  But, I do have something else I would like to offer.  Something I couldn’t deliver in a dream.  Something of substance to help you in your war.”

“What could you offer us besides these weird gifts you thrust upon us?” Dragoon demanded. 

“Information about the Trillodan capital. I know where Vaneel’s research is happening, where their garrison installations are, and where the new surge of Adapted are being produced.  Whenever you decide to attack Xalanni, it will all be useful to know.”  Skaberen walked over to a counter covered in shattered glass and grabbed a small metal sphere, handing it off the Dragoon with a nod.  “My people have spent so long watching, I think someone should finally do something with all of our surveillance.” 

As Dragoon took the orb, the soft blue glow of the cave changed to an alarming red.  

“What the fuck?” 

Skaberen’s sad smile fell.  “The reason that all my colleagues ran and we destroyed this laboratory is because we had this suspicion.  We were worried that the Trillodan would follow you here, that they would find you steered close enough to a planet to trigger a proximity alert.” 

Dragoon gritted her teeth, “Skaberen, come with us.  We’re all leaving.  You have way too many questions to answer.”

“I believe that this-”

Dragoon glared daggers at him, “You dragged us here and have hijacked our bodies on multiple occasions now.  For better or worse, you’re involved.  You are part of this now.”

The Goln finally nodded, “Very well, Dragoon.”  

We all hurried for the exit as quick as possible, pausing only for a moment as Skaberen grabbed a lever that had been hidden amongst the rock.  He took a deep breath and pulled it; below us the ground shook as dozens of explosions went off, ensuring that nothing survived for the Trillodan to recover.  

Skaberen’s home for centuries was gone.  

Like us, he was now adrift, on the run from the Trillodan once more.  

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

It had been a week since Titan had officially handed over control of the crusade to Dragoon.  I had been worried that there would be an insurrection from the other Adapted on-board as a result.  To my surprise, there weren’t any outspoken groups who threatened the new order.  While it was in large part because of her popularity, it was also because she had the emphatic support of both Titan and Infinite; it was hard to threaten someone who had the universe’s most powerful bodyguards in their corner.  

With the change in leadership, things almost went back to being normal.  At least, as normal as a group of Adapted this big could ever get.  

If nothing else, there was a steep decline in the number of people getting their brains boiled.  

A few people held out in disbelief, not wanting to accept that Dragoon was a fit leader.  She didn’t have clout with a number of the heads from Vuuldar.  To her surprise, Adamant came through and vouched for her.  While many of the other Vuuldar Adapted didn’t seem fond of the arrogant and brash Adapted, they did respect him enough to get in line.  

It actually seemed a bit strange to me that he’d bother.  Adamant seemed fairly self-centered for the most part.  But while we were adrift through space, he seemed fairly buddy-buddy with Dragoon. 

Parasite stopped omitting himself from our group and would come by.  While I understood his desire for space and alone time with Ragdoll, it felt good to have my best friend back around.  He had to explain to Menagerie about why he had been so absent, but she empathized at least a little.  His ability to own up to being so absent prompted her to confess that she had been furious he had come back without Geyser in tow.  

The day after Dragoon was instated, Infinite began making more regular jumps.  This time it was a lot smoother since it wasn’t someone else trying to pull the strings; even though this mysterious figure had helped create us, they didn’t know how to pilot us.  

Even though we managed to solve our primary conflict, there was one unstoppable force that Dragoon’s leadership didn’t have a good answer to:

Boredom.  

As much as I hated it, Titan’s outburst and divisive behavior had at least instilled a sense of conflict that we all thrived on.  Without confrontation or some kind of fight to endure, we all fell into this sense of listlessness.  One could only play so many rounds of Yahtzee before you started to go a bit mad.  

A week after the exchange of power didn’t see any real change in scenery.  Even if Infinite could pull us through one-hundred million kilometers of space every day, we were still just floating adrift in the void.  It was the worst case of spinning our wheels and feeling like we were going nowhere.  

Parasite did his best to kill time by helping train people on hand-to-hand combat, to help give people an edge with or without a physical Adaptation.  The most perplexing figure to watch work with my best friend was Siphon, the first Adapted who had seriously kicked the absolute crap out of us.  Siphon was one of Shockwave’s enforcers who sapped strength away from his opponent which had proved to be a perfect foil to my friend.  Our first big loss had come when Parasite and Dragoon went out without me, trying to thwart a bank robbery.  He’d been robbed of his agility, his strength, and his natural resilience and had been beaten so bad it took his days to heal.  

Watching the two of them work together, it was strangely empowering to see them exchange ideas and give tips to one another.  The other surprise guest to his little courses was Goliath.  It was strange to think someone who could turn into an eight-foot tall wall of muscle would need hand to hand training.  

Dragoon took Parasite’s idea and turned it up a notch, demanding that people get to know one another by doing what we did best: fighting.  While there were a few exceptions, nearly all people were required to have a training bout at least once a day to keep themselves sharpened and to learn the strengths and weaknesses of their new allies.  

It was met initially with reservations.  People were afraid that there would be fatalities and serious injuries, but Dragoon didn’t share their apprehensions.  She encouraged more senior Adapted to work with those who hadn’t learned to fully reign it in yet in a kind of forced mentorship.  

I made a point to keep myself out of it the first day; the last thing I needed to do was show people the monster that had terrorized them and possibly eaten their friend.  It had been nearly two weeks since we had escape Vuuldar, people didn’t need to relive that horrifying few hours.  No one needed to see my grotesque transformation into a wall tendrils.  Eldritch was eager to get loose and have some physical manifestation, but was still leery of giving him an outlet and flesh to consume.  

Later, I was greeted with a frustrated looking Dragoon at my door.  

“You’re skipping out on training?”

“I-“

“Played hookey,” she replied as she shouldered past me.  

“Most other people don’t have an Adaptation that has a mind of its own,” I grumbled.  “We both know how out of control I can get.  The last thing I need to do is eat a few other people.” 

Dragoon rolled her eyes, “That’s a weak excuse and you know it.  The only times you’ve lost control were because of extreme duress.  On Vuuldar you were hit with an orbital cannon and had a literal tonne of explosives detonated under your feet.  That’s not going to happen here and we’re not going to start you off with tonnes of material.”

I frowned, “And when other people see the fucked up thing that killed their friend?”

“They’ll deal with it.  They’ll also see the thing that wiped out most of the Ellayan militia.”

“A fact I’m still not proud of,” I admitted, feeling a pit at the bottom of my stomach.  Even though Adapted were surprisingly resilient to mental strain, that one had done a number on me.  “I felt those people scream and thrash around as they died, Drag.  Hundreds of them.  It was just like Feast Day all over again, this time I had better direction though.”

My friend sighed and rubbed her temples, “Listen, Nick, I don’t understand how you feel.  I’m never going to understand how you feel.  But, I need you to appreciate that no one is going to trust you if you continue to hold yourself back like this.  I’m getting murderers to train teenagers how to fight; while it’s not an ideal scenario, it is working.  I need people to know that you aren’t just a monster.  I need people to know that Eldritch is more than a walking, talking monument to hunger.”

“And what do you do with me if I eat someone?” I shot back, feeling my fists clench involuntarily.  “I don’t want to put my friend into a corner like that!  I can’t have you be accountable for me time and time again whenever I lose control!” 

The words pouring out of my mouth surprised me as much as they did her.  But, it wasn’t a lie.  We had put her in charge which meant that the buck stopped with her.  If I was to go on a rampage, there would need to be some kind of tangible consequence.  The last thing I needed to do was start a mutiny because people saw her as playing favorites.  No one could defy Titan and Infinite, but plenty of people could defy Dragoon.  

On the flipside of that coin, I didn’t want to put her in a place she needed to have me put down like a wild animal.  She had already carved me free of Eldritch once; I didn’t want her to suffer any more because of my primal Adaptation.  

“There has to be a baseline trust somewhere,” she finally said softly.  “We have to be willing to embrace what we have, no matter how weird or fucked up it might be.  I know you don’t like your gift, I know that it’s ugly and destructive,” she said.  “But, the reality is that it’s powerful as hell.  You survived a laser from space that left behind a literal crater.  You took on six of the most powerful Adapted and then withstood Psycho running an army of monsters into you.”  

I winced at the reminder.  

“But I know that you are a lot more.  I remember when you were afraid to control more than a single tonne of growth.  I remember watching you struggle to fight back against Shock and Awe.  I remember when we were trying to figure out the rate at which you developed mutations.  Other people need a chance to see you on a smaller scale, to see that there is a person beneath that wall of tentacle.  People need to appreciate the person Eldritch, not just the beast.” 

“I think this is a shit idea,” I said after a pause.  

“And I think you and Murphy put my happy ass in charge,” she said with a smirk, “Talk to Repository for a dump of material to consume.  You will be training with everyone tomorrow.” 

---

Even with all my reservations about using my power again, I found myself in the galley that had turned into our makeshift training ground.  Depending who was training, a few different fights would be going on at once, or just a single pair would have all the eyes glued to them.  

There were easily four dozen people lining the outside of the room, all transfixed on the duel going on. 

Ragdoll against one of the Adapted from Vuuldar.  Clad in a red tunic with black pants, the stranger kept distorting the space around Ragdoll.  Where a punch should have landed, Ragdoll seemed to slide backwards.  A kick should have cleaned his block, but it was like something kept dragging Ragdoll back towards the center of the room.  

“Who is that?” I asked, noticing Lightshow standing nearby.  

“Cantrip.  Seems to manipulate people’s movement somehow, like making them slip or glide backwards.  From the looks of it, the more subtle the movement, the easier it is for him to pull off.”

“Seems like a shitty power,” I muttered.  

“Until he does something like this,” she said.  “Watch.”

Ragdoll wound up again and brought a leg around; Cantrip stepped backwards and tilted his head.  Ragdoll’s foot touched down and was yanked out from under him and landed him flat on his shoulderblades.  Cantrip bolted in, yanking a shiv from his sleeve.  I gasped, but Ragdoll kicked his legs to build up momentum again, coming around like a human top to upend Cantrip.  As he hit the ground, Ragdoll flipped over and landed on Cantrip’s chest, pinning him.  

“Good try,” Ragdoll said, “But you’re too passive.  You banked on making one good opening too hard.  If you’re going to do that, you gotta have a backup,” he added as he helped his opponent back up to his feet.  

Cantrip and Ragdoll shook hands and there was a round of applause from the ring.  

“Who’s next?” someone inquired.  

“He is,” a clear voice said, cutting above the rabble.  I spotted Dragoon on the opposite end of the room, pointing a finger at me.  “Who wants to take a crack at Eldritch?”

My chest tightened as everyone went silent, all staring at me.  I hated being this put on the spot, being this singled out.  But, Dragoon wanted to be fair.  Everyone who could fight had to train.  I had been given a hundred kilograms of material from Repository to burn, letting me have four tonnes of growth for fifteen minutes or half that size for a full hour.  

While I wasn’t going to be flattening any cities, it was still enough to do some serious damage.  

Finally, one brave volunteer broke the silence.  

“I’ll take him on.”

From the human cage around me, one woman stepped forward and rolled her neck, getting ready to brawl.  Tanned skinned and with brown hair pulled into a ponytail, she looked like she had a rough life.  Her face was spotted with pock marks and scars, her hands clearly weathered and calloused.  She was wearing a pair of jean shorts and black t-shirt which seemed strangely understated given some of the flashier outfits from people who had made a career out of being a Reckoner.  However, that intense glare in her green eyes sent a shiver down my spine.  

“And for everyone who doesn’t know you, your name?” Dragoon called.  

“Overwhelm,” she replied without taking her eyes off me.  

“Eldritch,” I said when Dragoon pointed to me.  

“You sure as shit don’t look like Eldritch,” someone called from the side.  I glared and saw Adamant standing with Exchange, a smirk at the corner of his lips.  That smug bastard was enjoying every moment.  Easy for him to be cocky, he couldn’t lose in a scenario like this.  

I stipped off my shirt and pants, ignoring the whistling coming from Lightshow and Parasite.  I opted to simply demolish a set of underwear and abstained from stripping down into my birthday suit in front of everyone.  Reaching into my storage, I ignited half of my supply and called for two tonnes of material to sprout from my skin.  Gasps and sounds of disgust were heard around the room as I went from being a scrawny and pale kid into a ten-foot tall mass of tentacles.  

The whole room came into view as I saw through all the growths, forcing me to direct my attention to the woman in front of me who was one of the only people who hadn’t flinched while I transformed.  

“And, have at it!” Dragoon shouted.  

Even though I was still in control, I felt Eldritch push forward, invigorated at the prospect of a fight.  It was thrilled to be animated, to have some means of expression and stimulation through its own form.  For a moment, it was given the right to exist.  The room seemed to fade to background noise as I lumbered forward, taking massive steps with practiced ease now.  

Just a few months ago, I walked around like a drunk giraffe.  Now the movement was fluid, easy to execute.  I could rely on Eldritch to finesse the individual growths, to call all the swarm of Neklim to task as I guided us and strategized.  

We weren’t fighting, we weren’t at war with one another.  We had a clean, clear cut division of labor.  

I closed the gap between us and Overwhelm and reached forward, aiming to engulf her and end the fight immediately.  

As I reached forward, my arm literally bounced back.  Overwhelm stepped forward and planted her feet, pushing a hand forward.  

It felt like a giant fist slammed into my torso, crushing several dozen kilograms of mass and knocking me on my ass.  Overwhelm took a step forward and planted her foot, swinging a hand down; another invisible hand crashed into me and tried to flatten me against the floor.  I snarled and pushed back, feeling the pressure on my body alleviate a small bit.  

She’s having to move too.  

Sure enough, as I toiled against it, Overwhelm’s hand was slowly being pushed back, like she had some kind of telekinetic arm attached to her real arm.  Overwhelm furrowed her brow and pulled her arm back, letting me sit up.  

I shifted forward, allowing myself to bear crawl forward at my opponent; Overwhelm planted her foot and swung her arm.  Another invisible slap knocked me down but I was able to roll with this one and orient myself to keep charging before she could pin me again.  Overwhelm grimaced and drove an open hand forward; I felt like I slammed my face into a wall.  

She is expending strength to hold us back.  Apply pressure. Tire her.  We don’t exhaust like she does.  

I took Eldritch’s advice and drew an arm back, slamming it against the invisible barricade.  Overwhelm sneered but kept her hand forward, keeping the wall between us intact.  She steadied herself and curled her other hand into a fist and punched lower.  

My right leg was shot out from under me, forcing my right arm to plant down.  Intuition told me that she was going to adjust her wall and try to position for something that could do more damage; I allocated mass from my leg to arms and literally pulled myself forward, slamming my bulk into her wall.   Overwhelm’s eyes widened as her firm stance broke and she stumbled back.  I lurched forward, no longer impeded.  

I raised my arm and came crashing down but Overwhelm was nimble when she wasn’t holding me back.  She rolled to the side and spun back around to face me, throwing both hands forward.  As I took a step back, the impact slid her across the floor, making space between us again.  Overwhelm stomped her back foot down and established a firm base before drawing her hands together like she was going to clap.  

I felt like I was being put in a trash compactor as I held back against her telekinetic limbs.  Tendrils were being crushed under my own exertion as I fought to keep her from crushing me underneath.  While Eldritch might have been right that we were stronger, it was too easy for Overwhelm to make it hard to struggle against her.  She could adjust faster than we could and we were being punished for it.  

An idea came to mind, but it required a mutation to properly work.  

Burn the rest.  

I reached into my storage and ignited the rest of our supply, growing another tonne of mass and extending the duration of the growths for another fifteen minutes.  Overwhelm sneered as she continued to pressure me, trying to crush me.  All my new growths were struggling to survive with about half of them dying immediately to her crippling hold.  

Mutation: Separation.  I can do this without you. Go.

Collecting two-hundred kilograms of growth that was immediately next to my person, I let my connection with the rest of Eldritch sever.  The chest cavity of the monster broke as I tore myself free, my body covered in an extra two-hundred kilos of Neklim tendrils.  It all wove around my limbs, acting like my own muscle as I hit the ground running.  

“What?” Overwhelm gasped.  She drew her hands back and tried to push me away, but I was much more agile and able to throw myself to the side.  I lunged forward, my fist slamming against a telekinetic wall as she raised her hands to shield her face.  

Then the rest of Eldritch came lumbering forward; two massive Neklim arms smashed through her barrier and pressed her against the floor.  Before she could do anything, Eldritch engulfed her with an arm, covering all but her head in a mass of black tentacles.  Overwhelm’s eyes went wide as she stared down at the arm holding her, and everyone around the periphery of the room mobilized.  

“Wait!” I shouted, “It’s not going to eat her!” 

I made a point to stay disconnected from the greater mass as it lifted and set down Overwhelm, putting her back on her feet.  Everyone held back, but barely.  The hunkling form lumbered and scooped me up next, shoving me back in the chest cavity.  

I’m not a mindless beast.

I knew that, and now everyone else had been given a chance to see that too.  

I dismissed away most of the growths, reducing myself down to two hundred kilograms.  I would have completely dismissed Eldritch, but I didn’t want to be standing there naked in front of everyone.  

Overwhelm stared at me, finally having caught her breath after what she had assumed would be a near death experience.  “I don’t understand,” she finally said, breaking the tense silence of the room.  “You were an animal on Vuuldar!  You killed my friend, Challenger.  You killed Drought.  You ate four others!  Why didn’t that thing just eat me?”

I moved the tendrils off my face and did my best to ignore the impending headache from using my eyes and receiving visual input through the tentacles.  “It’s a part of me.  It might be an animal, but it’s intelligent.  It was desperate and starving.  And I’m never going to let it be that desperate again.  I refuse to be a mindless monster again.”  

Overwhelm nodded slowly, eventually extending a hand.  “Good fight.” 

“Good fight,” I echoed.  

“Alright, back up people,” Dragoon shouted, “Who’s next?” 

I stepped out of the galley and hurried back to my room to get a change of underwear, leaving the din of our training arena behind me.  As the door slammed shut to my room, I took a look at myself in a reflection from the wall, almost admiring the smaller and more refined suit I was wearing.  

We don’t always have to be a massive, hideous monster.

“So often we need to be,” I replied softly to my reflection.  “Most can’t do what we can.”

You struggle against me.  The times we fight best are when we are together.  You fear power.  You fear what we are capable of. 

“I’m afraid of losing control,” I corrected.  “You are unwieldy when we get big.  Your instinct and interests feel like they begin to occlude mine.  Your hunger becomes my hunger and I start to lose sense of who I am!” 

How do you think I feel when there is no growth?  When there is no food for me to consume?  I am a passenger, a spectator.  

“And how do you think I felt on Vuuldar?  I watched you eat our friends and family!  I felt you fight against Clemency and Psycho.  I felt you hunger for more power, for more consumption to become unbeatable.”

I didn’t want to fail and fall apart!  If I was to break, we would have been captured and taken by the Trillodan or killed.  It would have left you vulnerable and exposed!

I recoiled from my reflection.  “You were…protecting me?” 

You are my host.  You can survive without me.  The inverse is not true.  On Feast Day, I did my best to shield you from Beleth and everyone else; back then I had never been so unrestrained or given such access to your mind.  I was drowning in stimulus I didn’t think possible.  That was the only time I had ever truly lost control and been an animal.

“So…on Vuuldar?”

I ate them to preserve you.  

As aware and sentient as Eldritch might be, it was still a Neklim.  It was still a cold and calculating predator who only looked out for their own self-interest.  “We can’t do that,” I said softly.  “I appreciate you trying to take care of me and protect me, but you’re right.  We do work best when we work together.  When you started eating people, that wasn’t us in harmony.”

Without consuming-

“We don’t know what would have happened,” I corrected.  I stuck with the conviction Titan had given me, to not simply curl up and let everyone else speak for me.  Eldritch needed to hear this as much as I needed to say it.  “We both need to be willing to trust the others.  I need you to be able to respect them like you did Overwhelm earlier.”

Eating her would have gained us nothing.  It would have jeopardized our survival.  

“More than that,” I insisted.  “Since you didn’t eat her, she is going to be able to fight in our next battle.  Because shes is able to fight, she may be able to defend someone else, like Repository, who can make us a nearly endless supply of mass to consume.”

You’re speculating.

“I’m thinking ahead.  I understand that Neklim are solitary creatures, but humans aren’t.  We need community, we need people to lean on and draw strength from.  Think of it this way, Eldritch, if you eat any Adapted or human you are going to be harming your host.”

I felt Eldritch grapple with that idea, but I got the sense that it was finally starting to stick.  

Then know that keeping me from having any physical expression for so long is maddening.  

“Well, then say thank you to Dragoon for insisting that we have these training bouts every day then.  For now, that won’t be a problem.”

Right on cue, the door to my room opened revealing my red-headed captain with a smug grin on her face.  “Fucking knew it would do some good for you two to get back in sync with one another.” 

I rounded on her and pointed at the door, “Get the hell out of my room!” 

 Dragoon shook her head and took a seat on my cot, turning away.  “Get changed, I actually want to talk to you for a minute anyways.” 

I glanced back at my reflection and shrugged.  I dismissed the remainder of the growths and hastily threw on some clothes.  “Okay, what?” 

Her face went alarmingly somber as she took a deep breath.  “This doesn’t leave this room.  Understand?”

I frowned, “But, I thought we weren’t going to try and keep secrets from everyone else.  I thought part of your goal in being different from Titan was to keep everything above board and honest with the rest of the Adapted.”

She winced, “This is…tenuous.  Believe me, this isn’t easy to stomach for me either.  But, I worry that telling everyone is going to start affecting things.”

“Affecting things?” 

“Clairvoyant has seen something,” she replied, and it’s a couple of specific visions that are making me concerned.  Three, three, and three split, so it seems very likely that one of them will happen and exclude the others.” 

I felt a chill run up my spine.  Clairvoyant could see snippets of a possible future; the more regular the vision, the more likely it was to come true.  “What did she see?” 

“There is a Trillodan attack and one of two things happen: we either lose Titan or nearly twenty Adapted.  Clairvoyant gave me names-” 

I raised my hand to stop her, “A fucking disaster either way.  I get it.  What was option three?” 

Her face fell, “The last vision was of all of us dead.  All of us, that is, except for Infinite.  Something caused her to snap.” 

I suddenly understood why she was reluctant to tell anyone about what our soothsayer had seen.  It had the potential to reignite the animosity towards Titan and Infinite that had caused Zeal to lose his head.  There would be people calling for Infinite to be thrown out into the void of space.  Others would demand that, when the time came, Titan sacrificed himself for the cause.  Either way, it would divide the ship and there was no telling if trying to change the future would make it better or worse.

“The least bad option is to lose nearly twenty Adapted,” I said with a grimace, “That’s a huge blow, but Titan is too powerful to give up.”

“I might be in charge, but his authority behind me is what gives me credit and sway over anyone else here,” she muttered.  “Right now, I’m a girl.  I don’t even have a set of power armor made.  I can’t fight, I can’t do anything on my own!”

With no one else watching, the stress could finally come out as she took a shaky breath.  

“Jesus, Nick,” she whispered, “I don’t know how to do this.  I’m trying to go forward and there’s a fucking disaster waiting just around the corner.”

I thought about my conversation with Eldritch and how much of our conflict had come down to a matter of identity.  “You shouldn’t abandon who you are,” I said, “You are known for being a chick in power armor.  You’re known for being the only Cognate on board who volunteers to fight.  I think you need to get a new set of armor so you can respect yourself again.”

She sighed, “You aren’t wrong.  But… what happens if we lose the guy who started all this?  What do we do if everyone starts dying left, right, and center?”  

The silence between us spoke volumes. 

“Yeah,” she said, shaking her head, “I don’t know either.”  

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

“I could kick the door down,” Murphy suggested as the four of us stood outside of Dragoon’s room. 

“That seems a little heavy handed,” Organelle replied.  “Maybe we should at least try knocking.”
“Dragoon didn’t come out of her room even when Infinite warped us.  I really doubt she’s gonna open it for us,” I said.

Lightshow rolled her eyes and rapped her hand against the metal slab separating us from our drug addled captain.  “Drag, open up.  I know you’re in there.”

“Busy,” was the muffled and laconic reply.  

“Drag,” Lightshow groaned, “Open the door or I conjure someone who can melt the damn thing.” 

It took a moment, but our red-headed captain opened the door, sneering when she saw me and Murphy in tow.  “What the fuck do you guys want?  You here to-” she stopped when she saw Organelle.  “What are you doing here?” 

“We want to talk,” Organelle replied gently. 

Dragoon’s doubt was palpable.  “What would be so important?”

“A promotion,” Lightshow replied, “And a big one at that.”

It was enough to at least interest Dragoon and get her to step away from the door.  “What the hell are you talking about?” 

All eyes turned to Organelle: this was her circus, we were going to let her ringlead.  “Dragoon, I’m guessing you noticed the ship jumping earlier.”

“Yeah.”

“Infinite took us off path.  She completely changed our trajectory and it caused a bit of panic,” Organelle said with a clinical candor.  “Needless to say, a number of people were…uneasy with the abrupt change.”

It was disturbing enough news to cut through Dragoon’s paranoia and fear to evoke some genuine curiosity.  “She’d tell Titan or Command though.”

“That’s the thing, she didn’t,” I said.  “She just acted on her own, like something prompted her to do this.”

“Fabulous,” Dragoon replied, almost disinterested.  She just wanted to get rid of us. 

“Zeal was the first to raise serious concern with Infinite,” Organelle continued.  “While he was a bit radical in his suggestion, his dissent is hardly isolated.  While others weren’t going to dare and be vocal like him, there are plenty who are wary about Titan and Infinite.”

Dragoon seemed to detect that she wasn’t hearing the full story.  “What happened to Zeal?” 

“When he suggested that we throw Infinite out an airlock, Titan cooked his brain,” Parasite replied.  

“I’m afraid that the longer we are stuck in space, the longer tensions are going to wear and erode relationships between everyone else and those two.  And, the reality is that those two are people in positions of power who can’t be challenged.  There can’t be a coup thrown; it would end in a slaughter.”  Organelle sighed and laced her fingers together, “That’s why we came to you.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“I want you to take Titan’s spot,” Organelle said.  “I think that you’ll do a better job than he can.”

Murphy and I glanced at each other, leery of what kind of reaction was going to come from our friend.  Alexis wasn’t the best with surprises; someone telling her that she was to become the captain of this whole ship and Titan’s entire crusade was quite the surprise.  

“Oh, fuck off,” she finally replied.  “Are you serious?  You want me to try and take over after Titan literally melted a dude’s fucking head?  Fuck that shit!  I just want to be left alone so I can make-”

With an alarming quickness, Organelle shot forward and latched her hand around Dragoon’s wrist.  

“Wha-”  Before our friend could finish the word, she tried to rip her arm and away, frantically clutching at her chest with her free hand.  

“I’m really sorry,” Organelle whispered, “But I think we should be having this conversation sober.”

Even Lightshow was thrown by this uncharacteristic course of action.  “Organelle, this isn’t what we agreed to!  We were going to try and appeal to her, not use fucking force!  What the hell is a matter with you?”

Dragoon sank to a knee, gasping for air, her face deathly pale and ashen as she shook.  

“You have literally had to make a copy of me to help out with the number of broken and battered Adapted on this fucking ship,” Organelle snapped.  “The last thing we need is to fight amongst ourselves.  I will not sit back and be passive while we kill ourselves!  We need someone new in charge to avoid a massacre!  What happens if Clemency gets in a fight with Siege?  What happens if Beleth and Psycho really go at it?  What happens to everyone in their way?” 

“You’re going to kill her!” Murphy shouted.

“No,” Organelle said, “I won’t.  I’m keeping tabs on her heartbeat and oxygen saturation.  But, seeing her speed through her withdrawals is going to be unpleasant to watch.” 

Dragoon looked up, mortified.  Her pale face now covered in a sheen of sweat.  It didn’t take long before she turned and started dry heaving.  

“Organelle, let her go,” I pleaded.

Our medic shook her head, “I told Titan I would help his cause, no matter the cost.  I don’t like doing this, but we need her at her best.”

I wanted to shout, to scream, to say something to make it stop.  I didn’t care for Organelle’s cold pragmatism; she was torturing my friend and was seemingly oblivious to the incredible pain she was causing.  

She knows how much it hurts your friend.  It hurts her too.  Look at Organelle’s face.

As shocked as I was that Eldritch had said something besides a readout of weight, I obeyed.  It was right.  Organelle was doing her best to put on a resolute facade, trying to look like a hardened killer, but it was so foreign.  This was as much torture for her as it was for Dragoon.  She was fighting her nature as a healer and as a disciple of Titan.  Having to rebuke all of us for trying to be empathetic and human only made it that much harder.  

“No matter the cost,” I echoed.  Maybe the only good thing Titan had done in the last few days was tell me to find my voice, to be more vocal, to be more sure of myself.  

“Nick-”

“Let her do it,” I said softly.  “We need Dragoon sober to make a decision and we can’t wait for her to detox.  People might be killing each other in a few hours over this shit.  We can’t wait until after this ship starts tearing itself apart.” 

It was a painful handful of minutes.  The only sound was our anxious shuffling and the constant dry heaving of our team captain.  Occasionally Dragoon would look up, trying to find some support, but none of us interrupted Organelle.  This was too important to stop, too important to let our emotions dictate.  

As I watched my friend suffer, I realized a few months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to do this.  Watching something so torturous would have broken me.  But now it was almost easy to assure myself that I was doing the right thing, that it was going to be for the best.  

It was still a great relief when the dry heaving stopped and Organelle finally let go of my Dragoon’s wrist.  

“Blanket,” was the first word that Dragoon managed to expel.  Parasite stepped forward and swiped the blanket off her cot, tossing it down to her.  She snatched it out of the air and drew it around her shoulders, sitting with her knees pulled to her chest.  Even though Organelle’s fast-tracked withdrawals had stopped, she was ashy and looked sickly.  “Water,” was her next demand.  

Lightshow grabbed the water bottle beside her cot and took a seat next to her, wrapping her arm around our captain.  Parasite and I followed suit, going to the opposite wall.  Organelle sat down between us, like she was at the head of the proverbial table.  

“First off,” Dragoon said, her words still shaky, “Fuck you, Organelle.”

“I deserve that,” she muttered, her resolute and stoic facade melting away.  “I-”

“If I didn’t feel like puking my guts out, I’d fucking beat the shit out of you,” Dragoon grumbled.  

“Right, I-”

Dragoon shot a glare at Organelle that immediately stopped her attempt to defend her position.  “And fuck the three of you for letting her do that,” she gumbled.  “Y’all are a bunch of assholes.” 

“You are the one who threatened to assault me earlier,” I replied, “You’re hardly innocent.” 

She took a drink from her water bottle and rolled her eyes.  “Well, you got your wish for me to get clean.  I feel like you could have at least asked me to sober up before springing this bullshit on me.”

“I thought we were going to use a softer touch for this,” Lightshow said, glaring at Organelle.  “Or, at least that was what I was operating under the assumption of.  But, hey, what do I know?” 

Dragoon shook again, turning to look at our mutual friend.  “Murphy, where the fuck have you been the last couple days?”

He hung his head; I nudged him and shook my head ‘no.’  I didn’t want him to be ashamed of his own baggage; he needed to own up to it.  He explained to both Organelle and Dragoon why he had been so hands off and muted the last few days.  What I wasn’t prepared for him to admit was that it was hard to look at me in particular.  On Vuuldar, he had seen me start to slip into the beast’s control and he felt guilty fighting.  He hated that Titan had set me up for such an outcome.

It had only made him feel more ostracized to harbor animosity against our leader.  

“All the more reason someone else should be in charge,” Lightshow thought aloud.  “You can’t be the only person who is feeling some misgivings for how Titan moved us around.”

“I’m still not thrilled about nominating myself if he’s fucking melting people’s heads,” Dragoon said with a shudder.  “Zeal might have been a huge prick and all, but he was still one of us.”

“Zeal threatened Infinite,” Organelle noted.  “Titan is fiercely loyal to his people and his cause; for someone to threaten his lover and ally was bound to rub him the wrong way.  You aren’t going to be threatening to chuck anyone out into the void of space.”

“You’re right, I’m just going to suggest he relinquish leadership of the crusade that he spent years constructing.  I’m sure he’ll be really receptive to this idea.”  Dragoon sighed, “No matter how good and objective as Titan is, he’s still human.  He’s not going to want to step down when he’s invested so much time and effort into this.  The reality is that he did this, incredibly successfully I might add, for three years.  It’s only gone tits up in the last few weeks.”

“By far the most hectic couple of weeks,” Parasite pointed out.  “He was used to navigating around a government and Adapted butting heads with one another.  He wasn’t truly prepared for fighting against the most oppressive empire in history.” 

“And I am?” Dragoon said with a scoff.  “If you ask me, it sounds like you’re grasping at straws, Organelle,” she replied, her tone cold.  “If you really think I can do better than Titan, who has had nearly three years to prep-”

“You can,” Organelle insisted.

“Why?  Why in the hell would you single me out for this?”
“Best mindset,” Lightshow answered.  “You’re used to fighting from a disadvantage; Titan has never been at a disadvantage before now.  He’s a fucking walking, talking natural disaster; why would he be used to losing?”

“You’re well liked,” Parasite added.  “You’ve established relationships with almost half the groups on the ship.  Even when we were back on Tso’got, you made a point to look for other people on Server’s forums.  You were the one who constantly reached out, constantly tried to bounce ideas off others and improve.  People know you and respect the hell out of you.”

Dragoon shook her head, “And so what?  Ragdoll fits all of those criteria.  Shit, Beleth fits all those criteria.”

“They aren’t ambitious like you,” I said.  

“Not ambitious?  Beleth controlled a goddamn city!  He ran the dart cartel in Ciel!”

“Did he expand?” I countered.  “Did he ever man up and truly challenge Shockwave?  Did he ever try and bulldoze Suppression?  Did he ever really chase down Vermin?”

“No,” she whispered.  

“In a few weeks you: recruited more people, dethroned two of the biggest mobsters in Ciel’s history, and helped kill the most notorious domestic terrorist in Ciel.  Beleth and Shockwave had been in power for nearly a year and a half before we came along.  Two months and both of them were gone.”

“Yeah, because Psycho and his Lunatics showed up,” she pointed out.  

I shook my head, “We aimed to pit Shockwave and Beleth against each other, to finally get them to commit to a brawl so we could pick up the pieces.  I’ ve talked to both of them,” I said, “And they both would have fought the other.  If it wasn’t for interference, your plan would have worked.  And besides, we still fought Beleth and the whole Surface Dwellers and lived to tell the tale.”

“Beleth had killed entire Reckoner teams on his own too,” Parasite noted.  “Rookies or otherwise, we held our own.”

Dragoon looked frustrated, like she was desperately scraping the bottom of the barrel for a reason to shrug off this prospect.  “I’m still an eight-teen year old girl.  Shouldn’t we get someone older?”

“Older?” Organelle asked, “How are we going to get anyone really older?  The oldest Adapted, far as I know, is Titan at twenty-six.  I’m only twenty-two.  Playlist has been Titan’s fixer for almost a year and is only sixteen.”

“We’ve all had to grow up,” Parasite said softly, “I don’t think age really matters at this point.  You kept a level head on Vuuldar when we were under constant attack.  You made the hard call to cut off Lightshow’s arm.  You made the hard call to let Mutant go.  You made the hard call to let me go,” he added, his voice cracking.  

Her eyes widened, “Murphy, I-”

“I know,” he said, tears starting to well up in his eyes.  “I’m not judging you.  We were losing.  Hard.  Better just one captured than everyone.  You’re the best of pragmatic and empathetic.  You can dig deep and sacrifice for people but you can also be cold and calculated when it’s needed.”  

Parasite ran a hand along his arm, feeling for something that wasn’t there, trying to massage away an injury that wasn’t visible.

Dragoon started slowly shaking her head, overwhelmed.  “This is…this is insane.  I can’t be the leader of this whole fucking thing.  I, I’m just-” she looked around at all of us, looking for someone to second her; none of us made a sound.  “What if I lead us all into the fucking abyss?  What if I can’t get everyone to rally under one banner?”

“Then you are no worse than Titan is now,” I said.  

“Why not someone more iconic, like Clemency?  I’m just a bitch in power armor!”

Lightshow scoffed, “Clemency has the leadership skills of a fucking sponge.  He’s a great fighter and all, but he does almost everything solo.  That man is one of the few Adapted who never opted to be in a Reckoner team back on Tso’got.  Dude is way too headstrong; he’s not going to lead dick.  He follows Titan out of respect alone.”

“Alexis, you can do this,” I said sincerely.  “You have all of us backing you.”

“The Flagbearers will back you,” Parasite added, “And not just because I’m on good terms with Ragdoll,” he said, glaring at Lightshow.  

Her snicker was telling.  

“Titan’s family will work alongside you,” Organelle said.  

“You sure about that?” Dragoon asked, “The last thing I need is Playlist splattering my head against a wall with that destructive telekinesis of his.” 

“We all know that without you, we would have died a long time ago.  Titan may have recruited us, and we’ll always be loyal to him, but we aren’t stupid.  Interface knows we need a change.  Playlist has his doubts.  Almanac is concerned.  Clairvoyant is anxious.  So many of us are ready for something different, for something to give.”  Organelle sighed, “Forest dying ripped a hole in Titan.  It did damage to him in a way no one thought possible.  He might be one of the most destructive forces alive, but he’s a wounded animal.”

Dragoon raised her hand, stopping the medic.  “I get it.  You’re not giving me a lot of room to say ‘no’ to any of this.”  She rubbed her temples, groaning, “Fucking hell.  I still hate this.  I hate everything about this.  I don’t want to fucking be responsible for so many people.  I don’t want to be accountable for all this shit!” 

“Heavy is the head,” Lightshow muttered.  

“Yeah, and all you asshats are trying to put the damn crown firmly atop me.”  Dragoon let her face fall into his knees and groaned again, “God, I want one of Shockwave’s cigarettes.”

“I could ask him-”

“I’m being facetious, Nick,” she snapped.  “I haven’t managed to pick up smoking yet.  Though, I might in a few hours.”  She raised her head and looked at Organelle, “So, since you clearly thought of all this shit, how do you reckon is best to go about starting this off?  I feel like storming in and strutting up to Titan demanding he abdicate the throne is a bad call.”

Parasite shrugged, “It’d get a reaction at least.”

“Yeah, Zeal got a reaction too.  How did that go for him?” Lightshow shot back.

Organelle cleared her throat, shutting up the two jokers.  “Titan might be rather reactive to aggression, but he should still be able to tolerate an actual conversation.  I think your best approach would be to be honest with him.  Engage in a conversation and voice concerns and a possible solution.  It will give us a chance to show support for you.”

Dragoon frowned, “Which puts you all in the danger zone with me.”

“Titan’s not a loose canon,” I said.  “We aren’t going to threaten violence like Zeal did.  He’s not going to start torching people left and right because we make a suggestion.  I talked with him after the Zeal incident,” I explained, “He was…. rattled.  There was some self-doubt creeping in, leaving him wondering if he was doing the right thing.  I think if we offer to take the torch from him, to help finish what he started, he might play along.”

“Okay.  Yeah, I like that,” Dragoon said, the wheels clearly turning.  “Organelle, set up a meeting with me and Titan.  Murphy, Nick, I want you two to come with me.  It started with us three, so, you’re both in this shit with me.”  

Lightshow gasped in faux offense.  “So exclusionary!” 

“Do shut up,” Dragoon said with a grin.  

Organelle nodded, daring to smile, “I’ll talk to him and let him know you want to have a sit down.”  

I felt a tremor of excitement and anxiety; it was no longer a theoretical request or a lofty notion from Organelle.  This was going to happen.  

“Well, I’ll just say it now: all hail the queen,” Parasite said, his impish grin finally returning.

---

It didn’t take too long for Titan to agree to chat.  Organelle explicitly said that she wasn’t going to explain why, just that we had some concerns to voice to him.  

She wanted the true weight of the idea to come from Dragoon, not her.  

Titan called us to his and Infinite’s quarters.  I was expecting something more grand than our typical rooms which were just a six by three meter cell; in truth Titan’s room was a touch bigger, but not much.  His captain’s quarters were maybe an extra meter long and wide, but hardly luxurious.  

At the far end, Infinite was laid down on a cot, still fast asleep.  Titan sat in front of her, like some kind of guard dog.  

Organelle had been kind enough to arrange for us to actually have chairs for this meeting.  Even though they were just folding chairs, it beat sitting on the harsh metal floor.  

“So, Dragoon,” Titan said as we took a seat, “What’s going on?” 

For a moment, I was worried that she was going to fold and back away, just get up and leave without saying a word.  

No, she’s ready.  Look at those eyes of hers, those belong to a predator.

A little over three months ago, we had just been idealistic kids in Ciel.  We had been naive Reckoners who had gotten ourselves in over our head.  Looking at my friend now, she was gone.  All those nerves, all that anxiety, it didn’t show.  She looked determined.  She looked unstoppable.  

“I think you need to step down,” she finally said, wasting no time to get to the point.  

Titan raised an eyebrow, “I beg your pardon?”

“I think you need to step down,” Dragoon repeated.  

“I think you should mind what you say next,” he cautioned.  

While Parasite and I were wary, Dragoon showed no such concerns.  She knew what she was doing and had expected this.  

That, or she had the best poker face in the universe.

“Titan, you melted Zeal’s brain earlier today.  You killed one of our own.  I understand why you did it, but you still did it.”

His lip curled in frustration, “Are you saying you wouldn’t have done the same if they had threatened to toss Eldritch out an airlock?” 

She shrugged, “I don’t know, honestly.  I might have, but I’m not able to do it so nonchalantly like you.  I can’t snap my fingers and melt everyone around me.  I can’t turn this ship to a pile of slag in the blink of an eye.  You can.  You’re a monster, Titan.  None of us can stand up to you.  The only person who can,” she said, looking past him to Infinite, “Is fiercely loyal to you, and only you.” 

“So, I should step down because of a single lapse in judgement?  I should step down for defending my girlfriend?” he growled.  

Dragoon shook her head, “No.  You need to step down because tensions are high and your existence is causing unrest.  While everyone from Tso’got might know who you are, the people from Vuuldar only know you as a calamity that wears a leather jacket.  Scarier still, a woman who dismantled Eldritch and snuffed out life in a one-kilometer radius only answers to you.  They’re scared,” she said with concern.  “They don’t have the experience with you to know that you have their best interest at heart.”

Titan took a deep breath, “I know that people are afraid.  I know that tensions are high, but that should be alleviated when Infinite is awake and can explain herself.” 

“Titan, this isn’t the only reason for you to step down.  You’re taking too many risks, too many gambles.  You’re too used to fighting with an advantage and don’t have one.  Even with all our power, the Trillodan outgun us.  Infinite can warp us through space and the Trillodan still beat us to Vuuldar.  Eldritch can devour a city, but they can bombard him from orbit.  Forest could make a landslide, but they still burned her to the ground.” 

He winced but didn’t have a reply.  

“We know you’re doing your best, but you have to recognize that this… this isn’t the same as it was on Tso’got.  Back then, you were playing a totally different game. You founded a secret society and network of Adapted to help one another.  Thanks to your work, you kept us from being taken by Suppression.  You kept Eldritch from sure death by dispatching Playlist and Interface to save us back then.”  Her look of purpose and raw determination shifted to one of gratitude and genuine amazement.  “You did things that no other Adapted had the balls to do, and you did it all in secret.  You organized this whole thing. You had ambition that put everyone else to shame.”

“But, no plan survives contact with the enemy,” Parasite said.  “The Trillodan were a bigger force than any of us could have guessed.  You assumed that we would be able to pull ahead because of their need to keep us alive; Zellig’s elite fighting force however have shown time and time again that they are comfortable fighting from a deficit.”  

“It’s not how you are used to fighting,” I added.  “You’re overwhelming.  You could use shock and awe tactics on Tso’got because no one could stop you.  But the Trillodan, they can answer blow for blow.”

Titan looked like he had been slapped in the face.  “I devoted my life to this.  I gave up any semblance of normalcy to make this possible.  I gave my everything to this crusade.  You want me to just….bow out?” 

“No,” Dragoon said, “We still need you.  We’re going to need your raw firepower.  We’re going to need your ability to inspire.  But,” she added solemnly, “We need someone else steering the plans for now.  We need someone who can be more risk averse.  We need someone who knows how to fight at a deficit.  We need someone who can roll with the punches.  We need someone who can be a little more objective than you can.”

Titan looked her square in the face, his red eyes boring into her.  “You want to take my spot.”

“Yes.”

He let out a ragged exhale.  “You can’t possibly appreciate the weight of this.  You don’t understand the pressure of leading this.”

“Maybe not,” Dragoon conceded, “But I can appreciate the burden of leadership at least a little…and I know what it feels like to feel small.  I can empathize with the rest of them in a way you simply can’t.  Titan, you drugged me because you were scrambling.  Your plans on Vuuldar fell apart in a matter of hours.  You relied on Eldritch turning into an almost unkillable beast to thwart an army and that backfired when he ate four of us.  You put Infinite in a place where she would be vulnerable and it cost us a dozen lives.” 

Titan bristled but held his tongue.  

“There’s a big difference between amassing an army and running it,” she concluded.  

He looked between the three of us, his gaze ending up on me.  “Do you feel the same way?  Do you think I’m guilty of misleading us?” 

I swallowed a nervous lump, reminding myself that he wasn’t going to melt me if I spoke out against him.  “I think you’ve done the best you can.  I think you’ve put a damn good effort out there, but you just aren’t the man for the job.  You do a great job with a long, drawn out strategy but you can’t adjust on the fly well enough.  I think Dragoon is better at shotcalling in the immediate.” 

Titan let out a wry chuckle, “I told you to find your voice.  I guess you went and did just that, didn’t you?”  His gaze turned to Parasite.  “Do you agree?” 

“Dragoon has the right blend of pragmatism and empathy to do right by all of us.  She won’t let us down,” he assured. “I agree with Eldritch that you have done the best you could; the problem is that you won’t beat Zellig in a war game. You got this whole thing started, let her finish strong.” 

Titan opened his mouth to reply, but a soft voice cut him off.

“They’re right, Max.”  All of us turned, surprised to see Infinite sit up.  She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and smiled gently to her boyfriend, “I think we need someone who understands the others better than we do.”  She looked past him to Dragoon, “She’s one of the brightest on this ship and the best connected.  No one is going to go to fight against her.  We’re leading with fear, Max,” Infinite said sadly, “Dragoon won’t have too.” 

Titan struggled with the idea for a minute; finally his shoulders sank as he admitted defeat.  “Okay,” he said, his voice barely audible.  “Okay.  Dragoon, you’re up.”

For a split second, Dragoon looked perplexed and dumbfounded that he had actually relinquished his position to her.  But, as soon as it started, that moment ended.  

“First things first,” she said, “We need to know what the fuck you’re doing, Infinite, and where you’re taking us.” 

Infinite lurched forward, nearly falling off the cot.  After a second, she sat back up, her eyes glazed over.  “I’m so sorry for not letting you know,” she said, but it sounded wrong.  The timbre and cadence was different, like someone was speaking through her.  “But I’m having her bring you all to meet me.” 

While I was confused, Dragoon clearly recognized the speaker.  

“Drag?” I asked, trying to get some context.

“You,” she said, raising a hand and pointing at Infinite’s possessed form, “You’re the one in our dreams, aren’t you?  You’re the person who made the Adapted!” 

“Yes, Dragoon.  And I think it’s high time we all met in person.” 

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

“What the fuck do you mean we aren’t heading to Marn anymore?” Beleth shouted, his voice cutting through the crowd.  

Almanac raised his hands defensively, “It seems like she’s going to try and take us to another solar system or something. You have to remember we are fucking hundreds of millions of kilometers from any planet.  I have no idea where we’re going; I’m just along for the ride too.”

“Maybe we should hear it from our top two about where the fuck we’re going,” Adamant suggested.  “They might have answers for us.”

I could practically feel the unease in the crowd, like a miasma covering the whole room.  For as much collective firepower as we had in this room, none of us were able to do a damn thing about Infinite going rogue.  

The beast under my skin reacted to the unrest, rearing up as if it knew I might need to tap into that power.  It reminded me how much people weighed and how much mass I could pilfer per corpse.  

“We should have some faith in Titan and Infinite; they are going to act in our best interest,” Clemency said, hovering over the crowd.  “They have given up way too much to suddenly abandon our mission now.”

“And so have we,” Zeal barked back, the people around him echoing his distaste.  “We’ve all lost our home, our friends, everything!  I don’t think they get a fucking pass, Clemency.  Especially since Infinite killed fucking twelve of us!  She’s got a bigger Adapted body count than any of us.”  

Clemency glared daggers at Zeal, “You almost sound envious.”

I could see the room splitting in half before my eyes.  People who had been forced into Titan’s crusade, like Zeal, were gearing up to march on the Prime duo and demand an explanation.  However, there were just as many devoted to Titan and his cause who were at odds with the insidious implication behind Zeal’s words.    

There had to be seventy Adapted in this room, all of them extremely on edge; I was in the middle with no power to use should a fight break out.  My heart hammered as anxiety washed over me, making me want to flee and freeze at the same time.  

“We shouldn’t just follow along, blind,” Zeal growled, emerging as the ringleader for one faction.  “If anything, we shouldn’t trust a fucking thing Infinite does!”

“And if it wasn’t for her, you would be a stain back on Tso’got.  She got everyone off Tso’got in one piece, or did you conveniently forget that,” Clemency fired back, traces of color starting to dance around his hands.  

“ENOUGH!” a commanding voice bellowed, quelling all the arguing.  

In the entry was Titan himself, leaning heavily on a crutch with Playlist beside him for balance.  

“For the love of Christ, shut the fuck up, all of you.  It’s been four days; if we start fighting now there won’t be anyone alive when we finally land,” Titan muttered, creeping forward at a snail’s pace.  

“You can’t just-” Hive started to insist.  

Titan glared and shut her up.  “It wasn’t my idea,” he admitted. “And truthfully, I don’t know what Infinite is doing.  She… acted like someone was directing her.  She grabbed ten powers on her own with no warning to me or Command.  Our jumps caught me off guard just as much as it did all of you.”

“So, she’s gone rogue then?” 

“No, Zeal,” Titan snarled, defensive, “She has not gone rogue.  She has not put us in any danger, she has not had a sudden lapse in sanity or entered any kind of dangerous delirium.”

“If you don’t know what she’s doing, how can you be sure?” Zeal pressed. 

As Titan straightened himself, I noticed a slight green aura radiating off Playlist; around me the room seemed to take a breath as we collectively relaxed.  I was used to him using his power for destructive purposes; I almost forgot that Playlist could be a fairly potent emotional manipulator.  

“If she had gone off the reservation, none of us would be breathing anymore.”

Titan’s cold statement quieted the room.  

“But,” he continued, his face falling, “Something is influencing her.”

“Something is controlling the most powerful person alive?” Shockwave demanded.  “Something is having her go millions of kilometers off course?  You’re sure that something isn’t the Trillodan having a laugh?”

“If it was the Trillodan, they would have dumped us back on Vuuldar days ago.  Why would they wait this long?  Why let her kill a dozen of their precious specimens?”  

“Why don’t we ask her?” Interface suggested, cutting in before Zeal could open his mouth and offer some cynical retort.  “If Infinite is lucid, maybe we should hear from her and stop making assumptions.  Maybe, just maybe, there is something Infinite can see that none of us can.”

There were some murmurings around the room, but no one spoke up to formally object.  

“She’s unconscious,” Titan confessed.  “She cycled powers too quickly.  To avoid another eruption, she sedated herself.”

Even with Playlist actively calming the room, I could feel the unrest ripple out.  “Maybe, just maybe, we should fucking kill her while she can’t fight back,” Zeal spat.  “None of us can stop her,” he insisted, not letting anyone else butt in, “And she just knocked herself out to avoid smothering half of us death.  I don’t care if it takes us longer to get to Marn, I want to get there alive!” 

He broke free of the crowd, stepping forward, defying Titan.  

“Maybe we shouldn’t just accept what you have to say at face value,” Zeal snarled, “Maybe we shouldn’t be in this fucking ship at all.  Maybe we would have been better off if we never got roped into your fucking bullshit crusade.”

Titan pushed Playlist lightly; the adolescent gulped nervously but stepped back, letting Titan stand on his own.  

“Look at you!” Zeal shouted, taking another step closer, “You’re fucking broken.  You’re finally like one of us.  No more Forest.  No more being untouchable.  You finally get to feel real loss!  All of us, we’re expendable to you, just little fucking pawns in your galactic game of chess!”

Titan’s lip curled in frustration.  

Of course, Zeal noticed.  Even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew that he was wearing a manic, psychotic smile.  “You think you’re so good at this little game too!  You really thought you could out-wit a Trillodan general who has been doing this longer than any of us have been alive!  You thought it was a brilliant idea to make a giant monster rampage through their ranks; did you think Zellig wouldn’t expect that play?  Come on!”  Zeal took another defiant step forward and the throng held their breath, unsure what would happen.  

No one had dared pressure Titan like this.  No one stood up to any of the Prime Trio before.  On Vuuldar, Zeal had told us he hated Titan and how he’d lost his home on Tso’got; I had no idea he harbored this level of resentment.  

“Maybe we need some new management around here!” 

“And you think you’re the best that we have to offer?” Titan replied, his voice dangerously cool.

Zeal laughed, “I’m a far cry better than you and that unstable bitch you keep relying on.”

“Don’t-”

“Don’t what, huh?  Don’t call it how it is?  Don’t point out that she killed more of us than I have?  I’m the fucking psychopath here, right?  I haven’t murdered anyone since you forced me into this bullshit outfit you cobbled together.  I have played nice and gone with the flow as best I can but enough is enough.  I’m not letting that crazy bitch stay on this ship if she’s started going off the fucking rails!” 

“Shut your mouth,” Titan growled.  

“Or you’ll what?” Zeal challenged, throwing his arms to the side.  “You’re going to torch me?  You gonna be the big man and prove that you’re sooooooo strong?  Come on, Titan, I thought you were better than the rest of us!”  Zeal turned around, showing off a smug smile, “Look everyone, the guy who insisted we were family doesn’t like when someone challenges him for his patriarchal spot!” 

“Zeal, that’s enough,” Organelle snapped as she took a spot near Clemency. 
“No, it isn’t!” he screamed.  “Don’t you get it?  We can’t just blindly follow this man until we’re all locked up!”  His head snapped to the side as he pointed into the crowd.  “Parasite, you’ve been in one of those prisons.  You wanna tell the rest of the class how it felt?  You wanna tell us how it felt seeing your teammate sedated and behind glass.”

I hadn’t noticed Parasite on the opposite side of the room; from the looks of it, he wished no one had noticed him.  Ragdoll patted him on the back, giving him enough courage to reply.  “All those people, people I had seen and watched fight…all just stuck there.  Dozens of them, just trapped.  They couldn’t struggle, they couldn’t object, they couldn’t fight back and try to save themselves.  I only woke up because of a freak chance; no one else is gonna get the same break I did.”

Zeal turned his attention back to Organelle, “You still think that I’m taking things too far?  You think I’m the one who’s crazy here?  Did this shit ever happen before Titan got involved?  Did any of us end up in fucking specimen tubes?  Did we have to worry about running from the universe’s most dangerous and successful tyrants?”  He turned back to Titan, his rage boiling over.  “You made all this shit happen!  You should have left us back on Tso’got, to have normal lives!  Instead, you fucking interefered!  Instead, you decided that you could just assert yourself because you’re fucking Titan!  No one could tell you no; you’d just turn them into ash if they denied you!  So go on, Titan, prove my point!  Burn me down!”

Titan stood still, trying to control his breathing.  

Zeal lowered his arms, chuckling.  “There’d be another twelve people alive in this room if we didn’t have her.  And, you know,” he said, his laugh growing, “Forest enforced a strict no-fighting policy!  Imagine what she would have done if I killed a dozen people!” 

Titan’s eyes widened. 

“So, in memory of our dearly departed Forest,” Zeal giggled, “I say we chuck Infinite out an airlock for her cri-”

I only got to hear the noise for a split second, that sound like an acetylene torch being spun up.  The air around Zeal’s head erupted, a layer of molten silicone bathing his cranium before turning into an inert lump of silver rock.  Zeal’s body toppled, slamming into the metal floor and shattering the crust of silicon that Titan had constructed around his head; inside was a flash fried human head with most of the skin cooked away to reveal a charred skull beneath.  

The room fell silent.  

Titan looked at us with an expression I’d never seen on his face before.  He wasn’t in control anymore, not really.  For the first time since Vuuldar, I felt something from Eldrtich besides hunger: a strange pang of empathy.  It understood that sensation of being cornered that Titan was feeling now.

“Titan-” Organelle whispered, her voice trembling.  

“Anyone else thinking about trying to throw Infinite off the ship?” he roared, taking a haphazard step forward.  “Anyone else wanna remind me of how shitty this has all gone?  Anyone else think they can do better than me?” 

It was hard to watch, not because Titan was angry, but because he was hurt.  All of us knew, we empathized with his pain; all of us felt conflicted though since the acrid smell of Zeal’s burnt brain lingered.  

Titan took a second to catch his breath and some semblance of composure.  “There was no getting away from this.  There was no scenario where we didn’t face the Trillodan.  Zeal’s delusion of a ‘peaceful’ life back on Tso’got is just that: a delusion.  The Trillodan didn’t show up on our doorstep because I was making a coalition; they showed up because we made ourselves a fucking public spectacle!”  He pointed a hand forward, causing the whole crowd  to wince.  “Beleth, tell all these people what the head of Suppression told you back home.”

It had felt like an eternity since I had thought of Suppression: the special brand of police on Tso’got dedicated to locking up and exterminating Adapted.  

Beleth sighed, “The head of Suppression wanted me to put down the Rogue Sentries because they had spotted a Trillodan monitoring probe in the atmosphere.  Suppression wanted the brawls between Adapted to slow down enough so they would lose interest.”

“Was that before or after Feast Day?” 

“Before,” Beleth said.

Titan wobbled on his crutch as he tried to step forward, “This was happening, regardless!  If Eldritch didn’t start it off, something else would have!  If I didn’t have all this shit planned out, do you think the Trillodan would have been content leaving us alive on the surface?  Do you think the Zari would be fine with having Adapted in their midst with the Trillodan looking for us?  Do you think humanity would keep us if we brought about their second encounter with the Trillodan?  I’m not perfect, but at least I’m not going to kick you out!”

“What about him?” Adamant asked, pointing to Zeal’s corpse.  

“You can voice your dissent against me all you want,” Titan replied, “But the second you threaten the woman who is responsible for getting us this far, you’re dead to me.  I have done my best to not rely on Infinite to avoid having her cause collateral damage and she has done her best to control herself!  For Zeal to threaten her while she’s comatose without giving her the benefit of the doubt, that was over the line.”  Titan narrowed his gaze and scanned over the crowd, “So, is there anyone else who thinks we should toss her out into the void of space?” 

To everyone’s surprise, Interface stepped forward to the front of the crowd, their hands raised defensively.  Titan himself was flabbergasted, unsure of how to react to one of his most loyal stepping out in protest.  

“Titan, I’ve been with you from the beginning, but Zeal has a point.  We need to hear from Infinite.  We need to understand why she’s suddenly altering things.  We’re living this reality too.”

“Interface,” Titan whispered, “You know she doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

“I know that, but they don’t.  They don’t have the same history with her that I do,” Interface replied.  “All of us need to be on the same page, we can’t have you melting more people because of a misunderstanding.”

Titan looked like someone had slapped him, his cold and violent air wiped away.  “Y-yeah.”

“So you get us back here when she’s awake and we talk about this, like fucking adults.”

Before Titan could offer any kind of rebuttal, Interface stormed past him.  It didn’t take long for others to take the hint; the spectacle was over and there wasn’t going to be anything else to see.  As everyone filed out, Titan motioned for me to come over to him.

“Can you deal with this body?” he asked softly, still clearly rattled by having one of his most devout put him in his place.  

Most people had left, but there were still a few around, all of them looking to Titan, and by extension, me.  “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” I confessed.  

“I’m not letting his body go to waste,” Titan insisted.  

While Interface might have been comfortable with verbally slapping Titan, I wasn’t about to challenge him.  Wordlessly, I placed a hand on the body and watched the tissue fade away as I added it to my storage.  It would spoil long before I could ever make use of it but Titan didn’t need to know.  

Even if Zeal was a psychotic, murderous son of a bitch, he was still one of us.   We could offer him a little more dignity than being a popsicle in the void of space.  

As the last few people left, I was alone with Titan in the galley.  I turned to leave, but he called after me.  “Do you think I did the right thing?” 

I raised an eyebrow, “By killing Zeal?” 

“By…any of it.  He might have hated me and what I was doing, but Zeal was right that I upset everything.  I actively broke people out of prisons back on Tso’got.  I helped tons of Adapted group up; maybe I escalated things.  Maybe I am the reason all of this happened.”

I struggled for a second, understanding the exact brand of guilt he was coping with; I still blamed myself for the Trillodan disrupting everything since Feast Day had been the final straw to get them to come in person.  “I don’t think so,” I finally said.  “I think you’re right that it would have eventually happened.  The reality is that we were fighting amongst ourselves for any reason.  We made it into a spectacle that everyone bought into.  My first night as an official Reckoner, I fought against Shock and Awe.  The next day at school, I saw kids watching that fight on their phones and I felt a weird sense of pride.  It was like a drug and I wanted a new fix.” 

Titan gave me a soft smile, “Thanks, Eldritch.”

“We all fight.  We all love to fight.  Even if we had stayed on Tso’got when the Trillodan came, I don’t think we would have hid.  That’s just…not how we seem to operate,” I pointed out.  

He gave me a curious glance, “You’re not the same kid I pulled out a mess of tentacles back on Tso’got.”

I physically recoiled, unsure what to make of that.  

“Don’t be so quiet next time,” he insisted, “Even though we just see you as a monster, you’re a lot more than that.”

“I, um, yeah,” I said, tripping over my words.  With nothing else to say, I hurried outside and was surprised to see a familiar face waiting for me.  

“Hey, Nick,” Murphy said.  

I felt my heart rise, and sink a little; he wasn’t sporting his usual smug smirk.  “Hey.  Where is your plus one?” 

Murphy blushed and looked down at his feet, “Ragdoll said I should probably take some time and hang out with you a little; I’ve been kind of avoiding people I know and he called me on it.”

“It has been a little weird being around you lately,” I admitted.  “Competing for your attention against Ragdoll is tough; he’s way hotter than me.”

Murphy finally smiled and reached out to push me, “Shut up man.”

I led the way back to my room, debating going to Dragoon’s room to try and confront her again about her substance use; I decided against it for now.  Things on the ship needed time to sit and calm down. Tensions were too high and I figured Murphy needed some time to process that the other member of our triad was drugged out of his mind.  

“I’m sorry for making you play third wheel…but it’s not quite what you think.”

I raised an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”

“I-” he started, shaking his hands in frustration.  “It’s hard to explain.”

“Well, try anyways,” I said.

Murphy frowned, “It’s like I’m not me anymore.  There’s just something that snapped inside me.  Seeing our friends in prisons, being isolated like that, it was like I had to turn into an animal.  It was like I stepped into a nightmare that I can’t wake up from,” he said, his voice trembling.  “And seeing you, or anyone else from the Sentries, it’s just a reminder of what I used to be, what I used to be a part of.  It’s like there’s this giant pane of glass between us; I can see it, but I’m never going to properly belong again.”

“You know you’re always one of us,” I insisted. 

Murphy winced as we stepped into my sparsely furnished room.  “See but that’s easy for you to say: you’ve never lost your power.  You don’t know how this feels man.”

“I’ve felt literal tons of flesh torn away from me and felt my own body rebel against my mind, twice.  I’ve had to grow up and accept that there is a crazy, primal predator that is a core part of my identity for probably the rest of my life.  I have to come to grips with the fact that I literally consumed the flesh off my parents’ corpses,” I replied, feeling a little insulted.  “I think I understand a fair bit more than you give me credit for.”

“Fair point,” Murphy admitted.

“So, try to explain it,” I implored, “I want to know.”

Murphy raised his hand, looking at it like it should be doing some kind of trick.  “I got used to feeling that thing under my skin.  I relied on it, and I had some damn good control of that little organism.  It was a part of me like my arms or my legs are a part of me.”

“And it’s gone,” I extrapolated.  

“Worse,” Murphy corrected, “It was taken from me.  It broke in an effort to keep me alive.  And now, I have this hideous strength.”  To emphasize his point, all his skin flipped from a light tan to a deep red, and then back again.  “And the shittiest part of it, even with that, Zellig still beat the shit out of me.  My body turned my power into a toxic, ugly thing, and it still wasn’t enough.  I have phantom pains,” he admitted, “And they just happen!  Just, all over!  I don’t even know how to describe how bad they are, and they’re under my fucking skin!  I can’t even massage the pains away; at least Lightshow can rub the stump of where her arm used to be!” 

I felt my throat constrict as tears started to roll down his cheeks.  “Murphy, I-”

“They get worse when I see you guys,” he managed to eek out.  “I want to hide it, to pretend it’s okay and that I can be a member of the team again…but it hurts.  It hurts so bad, Nick.  I look at my best friend and all I can fucking feel is an ache where something used to be!” 

Part of me wanted to run, to make it so he’d never see me again, to let him bury that part of himself and avoid the pain.  But, the other half of me won over as I stepped forward and pulled him into a hug.  For a second, Murphy pulled away from me, but then let himself slump forward, resting his head on my shoulder.  

For what felt like a full minute, we just stood there. 

The silence was broken with a declaration of, “Dude, you’re gayer than me.”

I let my friend go and promptly shoved him as hard as possible, “And you’re a fucking asshole.”  A snicker escaped, “Or do you-”

“Dude!” Murphy said, immediately blushing, “Come on!” 

Before I could continue to push this envelope on how much I could embarrass him, there was a knock at my door.  I opened it and Lightshow brushed by me, “Oh, well come on in.”

“I planned to,” she replied confidently.  “Murphy, good to see you around.”

“Hey, Rachel.”

She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing him, “I half wondered.”

“Wondered what?” I asked. 

“Phantom pains,” she said, “I wondered if that was why he was staying clear of us.”

Even Murphy was perplexed.  “How-”

“Come on,” she said, gesturing to her missing arm, “I know how they feel, and the way that you rubbed your chest when I walked in.  There’s nothing physically wrong with you, and who rubs their chest due to nerves?  Wringing your hands or something you can pass off, but not massaging your pecs.”

“Who knew Altering would make you a fucking super sleuth,” Murphy said.

“Who knew Altering would finally get you laid,” she shot back with a smirk.

His blush returned with a vengeance, “Hey-”

“You deserve this,” she interrupted.  “Do you remember how much shit we gave to Nick back on Tso’got?  We made hundreds of shitty jokes about him and Xana’s relationship.  You’re just finally paying your dues.”

Murphy glared but couldn’t clap-back with a witty retort.  

Lightshow glanced at me, “Have you told him about Drag?”

“Not yet.”

“What’s up with Alexis?” he asked, concerned.  

I explained what had happened earlier and how Goliath had tipped me off and how Dragoon had all but assaulted me when I called her out on it.  I explained her rationale which made Murphy all the more somber.  

He knew first-hand how powerful fear could be as a motivator.  

“Are we going to stage some kind of intervention for her?” he asked at length.  

“I don’t like the idea of her being strung out,” Lightshow said, “We need her to be clear headed when we get into a fight next.”

“I’d also she rather not melt her head,” I muttered, “She’s basically overclocking her brain; what happens when her body finally revolts against her drug abuse?” 

“We could do it by force,” Murphy suggested.  “She might be able to beat you in a fist fight, Nick, but she won’t beat me.  No powers necessary.”  

“That seems a little barbaric,” I said, “She’s still our friend.  I feel like we owe it to her to at least try and go with the diplomatic route first.” 

“Do you think talking to her is really going to do the trick if she was willing to attack her best friend?” Lightshow countered.  “Come on, Nick.  I love your optimism, but let’s be real.  Shit is crazy on this ship and we need her to come back to reality as fast as possible.  Titan just killed a dude, Infinite is taking us…somewhere, and we have no captain.  We need her back on the level as of yesterday.”

“I can help with that,” a muffled voice called.  

All of us turned to my door, surprised.  “Organelle,” Lightshow finally asked, “What the fuck are you doing eavesdropping?”

I opened the door and the ship’s medic walked in, still looking a bit frazzled.  “I’m sorry, I could hear you all talking and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“What do you mean you can help with our issue?” I asked.

“And…why?” Murphy added.  “Aren’t you basically running yourself ragged with people who are still injured from Vuuldar?”

“I am,” she replied, “But, detoxing someone isn’t nearly so hard as regrowing bones or undoing serious organ trauma.”  She took a deep breath before continuing, “Titan is slipping.”

“You don’t say,” Lightshow interjected.  

She shot a glare at Lightshow but said nothing.  “Contrary to what Zeal insists, he doesn’t see people as pawns in a chess game.  While he values all of us, Forest was his best friend and confidant.  It was also a huge wake up call to him that they are vulnerable.  Titan had gone so long effectively being unstoppable; for all of the Prime Trio to lose in a single battle rattled him more than he wants to admit.” 

“Which means now the ship gets to feel his insecurities,” Murphy said.

“Exactly.  What he needs is a new person to step up, someone who isn’t afraid to tell him how it is, and someone that the whole ship respects and will listen to.”

My eyes widened, “You want to make Dragoon his new right hand.”

Organelle shook her head, “Not quite.  I want to make Dragoon the new head of this operation.  Until Titan gets his head back on straight, he’s not going to lead well.  He’s going to take risks because he’ll assume we can brute force through them.  We need someone who is willing to be more cautious and more grounded.  Dragoon is all of those things, and is possibly the most liked person onboard.  She is used to fighting at a disadvantage which is something Titan doesn’t fully appreciate; now that he’s having to experience it, he’s crumbling.”

“It takes the pressure off Titan and Infinite if there is someone else running the show and immediately cuts the animosity between everyone who just watched Titan murder Zeal,” Lightshow summed up, giving it a nod of approval.  “Man, Organelle, I would have never thought of you to be so calculating.” 

She gave a soft smile, “Never count out the quiet ones.”

“Does Titan know you want to supplant him?” 

“Not yet,” she confessed.

I laughed, “We just watched him kill a guy and you want us to suggest he hand over the reigns of his cause to Dragoon?”

Lightshow raised her hand, stopping Organelle before she could try and argue, “How about we get our ducks in order first.  Regardless if we want to oust Titan, we need Dragoon to be clean.  I think then we should stop assuming positions for her and ask for her take on this situation.”

All of us nodded, feeling foolish for getting ahead of ourselves. 

“Well,” Lightshow said, far too upbeat, “Let’s go have an intervention!”     

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter  

Four days since our war on Vuuldar.  

Four days since my latest lapse of control.

Four days since Forest had sacrificed herself to ensure our escape.  

So many of us had come back injured that it had overwhelmed Organelle and Lightshow.  The most critical injuries had been treated, but at the cost of Overexposing our medics. 

Even though there were more people on this ship, it felt so empty.  The Ark vessel was immense, capable of comfortably holding five hundred people.  If you didn’t want to see anyone, it was easy to find your own metal clad room to hide in.  The first two days I had kept to myself almost exclusively, terrified about what people might think of me.  

I had eaten four Adapted and assimilated their powers.  I had killed two more of the six who tried to put up a fight and prevent me from eating anyone else.  Surely everyone had to loathe me and want to see me ejected out an airlock.  

But to my surprise, people hadn’t been too upset.  Unlike Feast Day, there was some precedent.  There was worry about me lapsing into a frenzy and ripping things apart; while no one was thrilled I had eaten their friend, it didn’t care the same toll that Feast Day had for many.  

Where the rage ended up being directed was at Infinite.  

She had snapped and had an episode, snuffing the life out of a dozen of our allies in a blink.  Even so, no one spoke up against her.  We all needed her to leapfrog us through space when she was finally up to it again.  Infinite was the only person who could take the six month voyage and turn it into a three week voyage; pragmatism demanded we all keep our mouths shut and leave her be.  But, for now, she hadn’t been seen much, instead hiding out with Titan. 

As I trudged into the galley for some breakfast, I caught sight of our fearless leader and involuntarily winced.  Thanks to Organelle being Overexposed, his legs were still broken.  Our normally tall and proud general was confined to a wheelchair.  Where he used to look so in command and confident, he was downtrodden.  He had seen so much death and desolation that we had all assumed he was just numb and immune to the sting.  But, losing Forest, it had finally cracked something in him.  

We all knew that pain of loss, but we needed him to rise above it, to show that it was possible to overcome.  With him still in the dumps, it set a dangerously morose tone for the rest of the ship.  

I took my plate of conjured protein and gave a quiet ‘thanks’ to Repository.  

One-hundred and seventy-four grams.

My blood ran cold as Eldritch read out exactly how much mass I could consume if I simply fed them the plate.  It was enough to make four kilograms of material.  Enough to make a sleeve of tendrils and fight from there.  For a moment, I swore I  saw the smallest of growths manifesting on my forearm.  

I shook my head, clearing the notion away like a persistent cobweb.  More and more of those impulses and hallucinations had been cutting through after the fight on Vuuldar.  I kept seeing things through a predatory lens with my power making suggestions.  When I looked at people, I felt a small impulse to devour them.  I felt an itch to use my power, like some kind of junky who was after his next fix.  

“I am Nicholas Weld, not Eldritch,” I reminded myself as I sat down.  

There were a few people in the galley, but most of them were keeping to themselves, idly dragging forks along plates and staring at the protein paste we had.  A few quiet conversations were the only thing that kept it from feeling like a mausoleum.  

“Mind?” a gruff voice asked from behind me, nearly making me jump out of my skin.  

A shorter man in a tattered hoodie and frayed jeans.  It was hard to believe that this rather unimposing guy was the musclebound juggernaut Goliath.  

“Uh, yeah,” I replied, a bit nervous.  Pyre had been one of the unlucky few in my way when I lost control.  Pyre had also been Goliath’s fiancée.  I felt a nervous lump form in my throat as he sat across from me; while he didn’t look enraged, Goliath was known for being even-keeled and hard to read.  His lack of emotion honestly made me more anxious.  

He took a bite and then looked up, studying me.  “You know,” he finally said, “When Feast Day happened, I wondered what kind of monster was responsible.  You fucked up Beleth, you fucked up half of Ciel, and you put a living tumor in my arm.”

“Listen I-“

He glared and I shut my mouth.  “When we all saw you, most of us weren’t sure what to think.  You were just… some kid.  Some asshole.  Some Reckoner twat who was in over his head.”  Goliath took another bite and I stayed silent.  “Then we come here, and we have a fucking repeat.  We see this monstrous, black, thing just start eating everyone.  This time, we cheered.  We were thrilled to see our monster kicking ass.”

“I-“

“But then, hey, lasers from space.  That’s fair,” Goliath said with a chuckle.  “You lost control.  You went ape shit.  You were more like a wounded dog than anything else.”  He took another bite and stared at me while he chewed.  “We can rescue some of the Adapted, at least according to Parasite.  They are alive in tubes being studied.  But, thanks to what happened, I’m never going to see Pyre again.”  Goliath’s hand trembled as he squeezed his fork hard enough to bend the metal.  “The shitty thing is, I can’t blame you.  I want to be angry at you, Eldritch.  I really do.  I want to just tear your head off.”

I took a nervous gulp and felt the color drain from my face.  I had no mass at my disposal by design; if Goliath wanted to kill me, there was literally nothing I could do to stop him.  

He waved his hands, “I’m not going to.  I know you wouldn’t hurt her if you had a choice.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry,” I said, wishing I had more to offer.  

Goliath shrugged and took another bite.  “I know you are.  I just wanted to find you and be the mature one here and say that I forgive you.  We all knew the risk that was posed when you went supersize.  Hell, we all knew the risk that came from joining up with Titan when we heard his fucking cockamamie plan.”  He shook his head and let out a long sigh.  “In a way, I guess we earned this.  Well, the Surface Dwellers.  Beleth killed your parents so you killed one of his.”

I frowned, “I didn’t try to single her out.  I just…grabbed whatever was in front of me.  I just wanted to get big and strong again.  Pyre was just in front of me.  She was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Wrong place, wrong time,” Goliath echoed.  “What a fucking shitty reason to go.”  

There was no arguing with that.  

“Did you just come here to bring up how I accidentally killed your fiancée?” I asked after a few moments of silence passed between us.  

“Partially,” he confessed, “Though I wasn’t meaning to guilt trip you too hard.  I’m sure you’re doing enough of that to yourself.  The other thing I wanted was to give you a heads up.”

“A heads up?  To what?” 

Goliath frowned, “Your captain, Dragoon, she’s not in a good way.”

Dragoon had been keeping herself busy with modifications to the ship as we flew and doing last minute maintenance.  Purportedly she had also been locking herself away and working on designs for new armor since her last set had been trashed by one of Zellig’s elite.  “What’s going on with Drag?” 

“She’s been visiting Chemtrail a lot lately.  I could be wrong, but I’m pretty damn sure she’s getting more of that power boosting shit that he makes.”

“But she hates that stuff.  She complains about it giving her migraines.”

He shrugged, “And no alcoholic likes a hangover.  It doesn’t stop them from drinking,” Goliath said bluntly.  “It’s not my place to interfere.  I just thought you should know.” 

In some ways, this made me feel sicker to my stomach than reliving devouring a handful of Adapted.  “Thanks, I think.”

Goliath took the last few bites of his protein paste and gave me a nod.  “See you around.”  

I gave a halfhearted acknowledgment but I was quickly running through how this sort of thing could be happening.  Dragoon had been so adamantly opposed to drug abuse after watching her parents smoke and drink their money away.  She had so much animosity for her dead-beat mother that I would have thought she’d be almost allergic to drug use.  But, then again, addiction was almost hereditary.  And right now was the most frantic and desperate time of our lives.  It wasn’t out of the question that Alexis would want an edge to help keep her and her friends alive.  

“Fuck me,” I muttered. 

Seventy-eight kilograms of meat.

I had a little start at the cold readout.  I hadn’t even really noticed that I was glancing at another Adapted.  One of the people we had picked up on Vuuldar, clad in green and blue, and glaring back at me like I had gone nuts.  Blushing, I took the last bite and bussed my tray, wishing I hadn’t been caught staring.  

In the hallways, I found myself still looking around for little vines or roots tucked in the little nooks and crannies.  It still seemed so impossible that we had lost Forest.  She had been so overwhelming, a literal force of nature that had retaliated against the entire Trillodan infantry on her own.  They had blasted her with that orbital canon and enough explosives to level a city and she had kept fighting.  

No matter how hard I scoured the dark corners, there was nothing.  No trace of our ever-present watcher.  She was truly gone.  

Our Prime Trio had been cut to a duo.  

“Nick,” a familiar voice called out.  Leaning against the wall with his hair wet and slicked back, it looked like Shockwave had just sauntered out of his shower for a cigarette.  

“You ever going to cut down on smoking?” I asked.  

As if to prove a point, he took a long drag.  “Fuck do I care.  I figure the air in here is like 75% nitrogen thanks to Repository.  Since we aren’t in an oxygen rich environment I see no reason to stop.” 

Shockwave was the epitome of someone I shouldn’t judge by his cover.  On the surface, it seemed like  Shockwave was an absolute sociopath, someone who seemed hellbent on being self-serving.  The reality was that he was passionate to benefit his own group.  He had essentially piggybacked on Imperium to buy a high quality of life for all of his fellow Adapted enforcers.  Shockwave only fought so furiously because neglecting to do so would have jeopardized his groups standing.  

Even with the hell we’d put Imperium through, Shockwave didn’t harbor a grudge.  If anything, he had started looking at everyone onboard like a member of his own clique.  

“How are you doing?” I asked.  

Shockwave shrugged, “Shitty, just like everyone else.”

“Yeah,” I muttered.  Even though he was practiced at wearing a straight face, there were telltale cracks in his mask.  Watching Mizu be frozen had shaken the former head of Imperium.  To make matters worse, he’d lost Collision when Infinite had gone unhinged.  I leaned my back against the wall as he took another drag.  “Goliath told me that Dragoon might be dosing herself with that drug.”

“Wouldn’t put it past her.  I’ve had to make a point to talk Toolkit away from it.  Stuff’s most dangerous for Cognates.”

“Why?” 

He scoffed, “What the fuck am I going to do with a power booster right now?  Punch holes in the ship?  All the extra firepower in the universe does me fuck all right now.  I can’t use any of it.  But Cognates, they just think.  They can create an infinite amount of weapons or ideas at any time of day.  There’s no time when they can’t use their gift at least a little.” 

“Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever,” I thought out loud, daring to play devil’s advocate.

“Dependency is dependency.”

I shot him a quizzical glance, “For someone who doesn’t claim to be smart, you usually have stuff well thought out.”

He smirked and gave a nonchalant shrug.  “Maybe I’m just not arrogant about it like some people are.”  His eyes went down the hallway as a half-dressed woman started making her way down the hall.  “While I love catching up, she gets more of my attention than you,” he said as he turned and strutted down the hall.  

“Everything has gone to hell and he’s still somehow getting laid,” I muttered, jealous as I watched a door shut behind him and Toolkit.  

The rest of the trek to Dragoon’s room was uneventful, though I noticed people giving me a sideways glance; a few even whispered apprehensively as they passed me.  I did my best to not read into it too much, reminding myself that the Adapted who joined from Vuuldar had never seen a 15 meter tall Neklim.  After all, it was a truly terrifying sight.  

What was obnoxious was the occasional cut in from Eldritch, informing me how much people weighed and how much material we could print if we consumed them.  Even when I hissed at that voice in my head, they didn’t respond.  No matter how much I pushed, it seemed to have reverted to a cold, clinical, evaluative presence.  While I had been upset with its first gain of intelligence, now I missed having that extra voice in my head, that extra bit of input and mental grounding.  

I put it aside, knowing I would have plenty of time for mental exploration and adjustment as we slowly trekked to Marn.  

“Dragoon,” I called as I rapped my fingers against a metal door.  “It’s Nick.”

It took a second, but the door opened and my childhood friend stood in the doorway, wearing a white tank top and sweats.  There were bags under her eyes and she looked a bit disheveled, like she hadn’t taken a shower or slept in a few days; I reminded myself that a lack of hygiene didn’t mean drug addiction.  There were plenty of people onboard not taking care of themselves because of the depressed vibe that persisted.    

“What’s up?” she asked, her words a bit hurried. 

“Mind if I come in?” 

She stepped aside and I stepped in.  I wasn’t really surprised to find tons of paper strewn about, much of it littered with designs and schematics for things she wanted to build.  Though, as I looked closer, some of them looked alarmingly familiar.

“Is this one-“

“Tol’s armor,” she replied, sitting on the edge of her cot.  “I’ve had Siege replicate it for me to study.  I’m pretty sure I can make a version of it with enough time and resources.  I need something that I can purposefully fragment; I can’t let that bastard liquidate my entire set of armor in one shot next time.”

The last time Dragoon had fought with the Trillodan was when we had lost Parasite.  Even though we had gotten him back, she hadn’t forgotten how one of Zellig’s operatives, Jai, had turned her armor into a pile of green slag.  I had to remind myself that for Dragoon there wasn’t a way for her to fight without her armor.  For her, getting a new suit meant that she could contribute again.  Unlike other Cognates, she was determined on being in the thick of it.  She refused to simply hang back and play it safe.

“How long has it been since you’ve slept?” I dared to ask.  

She frowned, “I got a couple hours of sleep yesterday.  I’m fine,” she insisted, her words curt and snippy.  “Why?”

I let out a slow sigh, “Goliath talked to me this morning.  Told me you keep visiting Chemtrail.”

“Guy’s a dope chemist and knows a fair amount about how to better make a power supply.  Why wouldn’t I talk to him?”

“Is that all you’re seeing him for?”

She scoffed, “What?  What, do you think I’m going to him to get laid or something?”

As quick as I could, I scrubbed that image from my mind, wishing I hadn’t thought about a zit-pocked nerd groping my childhood friend.  “No, no.  I more mean that stimulant-“

I stopped as Alexis glared at me, deathly serious.  “Nick, don’t.”

“Alexis-“

“Nick, I’m serious.  Don’t push this.  I’ve done so much to keep people from killing you in the past, don’t you dare fucking press this.  You owe me.”

“You’re on it now, aren’t you?” I asked softly, wishing I was wrong.  

Her silence was damning.  

“You said you hated that shit.”  

“You know what else I hate?  I hate having my fucking power armor melted off my body.  I hate watching my friends die.  I hate-“

“Oh, stop,” I implored, raising a hand to stop her.  “Whatever your reason, if you’re just non-stop drugging yourself, you’re an addict!  Alexis, you can’t do this to yourself!  I mean, do you know what kind of prolonged effect it might have?  I’m pretty sure that Chemtrail didn’t exactly run clinical trials.”

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered, shaking her head, “Wake up, Nick!  Who gives a shit, huh?  We lost like forty people on Vuuldar.  As long as it doesn’t kill me in the next couple weeks, who cares what this shit does to me.”

“The Rogue Sentries do!  Murphy does!  I do!” 

“And I’m sure a lot of people wish you’d stop eating our friends!  I’m pretty sure Goliath wishes you didn’t fucking eat Pyre!” 

I felt Eldritch squirm inside me.  Their voice reminded me that Alexis had fifty-eight kilograms of meat on her that I could consume if it came down to it.  “He actually forgave me,” I replied, my voice cold.  

“Good for Goliath,” she shot back.  “That’s awesome!  I’m glad he’s able to be such a big man about it.  But you know what, he doesn’t have to worry about going into a fight without his power.  You think these fucking designs are going to help me?” she shouted, grabbing a handful of papers and throwing them at me.  “You’re right, I hate this shit!  But you know what, I don’t think I can afford to stop!  I don’t think I can risk my own head being fucking ripped off my shoulders!” 

“Let other people help you then!  It smells like you haven’t left this room this whole time!”

“And maybe someone should learn to help you control your fucking feral impulses.”

I glared at her, knowing that this wasn’t her.  This was an addict defending their habit, no matter how caustic they had to get in the process.  No matter what I said, she wasn’t going to budge as long as she had another fix waiting.  “Where is it?” 

“Fuck you, Nick.  Just, go.”

“No,” I insisted, looking around the barren room for where she might have contraband stored.  “I’m not just going to let you-”

A firm grip squeezed around my elbow.  “Nick, get out of my room or I’m going to throw you out.  You don’t have any mass to grow and I’ve spent a lot more time training hand to hand combat than you have.”

She had a point and that primal determination in her eyes was enough to dissuade me from pushing any further; I didn’t want to get in a fight with my friend, and she would probably beat me half to death before feeling any remorse.  

I took a step back and raised my hands.  “Fine.”

Before I could turn around and argue any more, she shoved me out and had the door slam shut.  As soon as it did, the wind fell out of my sails.  Part of me felt like I had somehow failed, that I should have been able to convince her that constantly being strung out wasn’t going to help anyone.   But I also understood her, at least somewhat.  Her heart was almost in the right place, but our team couldn’t afford her to be so self-destructive; too many people relied on her.  Beyond just our group, no one else could fix up the ship if it started coming undone.  Many other Adapted relied on Dragoon and Toolkit to make them tools or weapons.  

Dragoon had always done a good job networking and had made herself an invaluable player among the Adapted.  The whole ship likely needed her clean but there was no way I could get through to her on my own.  

I wandered through the labyrinth of hallways trying to remember exactly where Lightshow and Menagerie had set up shop.  The two of them had opted to share a room, neither of them really wanting to be isolated for our voyage.  Lightshow was still on edge and prone to lashing out thanks to what Tol had done to her on Vuuldar and Menagerie had quietly sunk more into herself.  While she wouldn’t own up to it, Parasite coming back without Geyser had only made Menagerie more depressed.  Even though Murphy had apologized and done everything he could have, Zellig was still Zellig and nearly impossible for most of us to fight.  

Lightshow answered the door before I knocked, catching me off guard.  “Um, hi.”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”  She waved me in and let the door shut behind us.  Their room was more cramped with it housing two cots and a desk.  As I expected, Menagerie had her notepad open and a pencil in hand, sketching rapidly.  

“Eldritch,” Menagerie greeted without looking up.  

“Hey,” I said back, taking a seat on one of the cots.  “We need to have a talk.”

“About what?” Lightshow asked, sitting across from me.  

“Dragoon.  She’s hooked on Chemtrail’s stimulant.”

It was shocking enough news to get Menagerie to lift her head from her notepad.  “The power booster stuff?”

“Yeah,” I replied.  “Titan had her dose up with it when he was trying to get the ship in ready order.  I know she was using basically constantly then, but I assumed that she had stopped when we had taken off.  I had no idea it had continued.”

“You avoided her for three full days?” Lightshow asked, clearly dubious.  “You seriously couldn’t tell that she was wired up on that stuff?”

“I… no,” I finally replied.  “No, I’ve been avoiding people again.”

“Isolating isn’t a good look for you.  You’re the last person we want unstable.”

“You even have Parasite back onboard man,” Lightshow pointed out.  “There are a hundred and sixteen people onboard; might as well hang out with someone.  No one on board hates you.  I even talked to Beleth; he’s not upset and you killed one of his guys.”

I grimaced, “I keep seeing people and getting a weight from my Adaptation.  It keeps telling me how much people weigh, how much mass I could gain if I ate them.  I’ve been avoiding people because I’m afraid of it trying to act out.”  While I hated vocalizing my concern, it felt good to finally get it off my chest and distribute the stress it had been putting on me.  “I know people don’t hate me for what happened on Vuuldar, but I’m not sure what’s going to happen now with my power.  After Feast Day, it was suddenly smart and communicative.  And now it seems to have reverted.  I have no idea what it might do next.” 

Menagerie closed her notepad and set her pencil down on the desk.  “That isn’t good.”

“No shit,” Lightshow replied, gently massaging her stump.  “Maybe you managed to find a way to sort of Overexpose?” she suggested.  “Maybe you used so much of your power that it made it kind of hibernate?” 

“I don’t think so,” Menagerie muttered, inspecting me more closely.  “Eldritch’s hallmark has always been his limitless ceiling as long as he can eat.  But, consider what happened to you.  You were blasted by that cannon twice.  You had a whole minefield go off around you.  You had six of the most powerful people fight you and blast you to pieces.  Psycho ran an army into you.  And then Infinite made a custom power to literally dissect you.”

“Thanks for summing that up,” I mumbled.  

Lightshow’s eyes widened, clearly cueing into something I didn’t.  “Yeah that actually makes sense.”

“What does?”

“Your power had a voice and mind of its own, right?”

I nodded.

“So, after being subject to all that, maybe it finally cracked.  Who is to say that it can’t be experiencing some kind of psychological trauma?  You said that it pulled from your intelligence and memory, right?” Lightshow pressed, leaning forward, way too interested in this for my comfort.  

“Yeah.”

“Imagine if all that stuff happened to you.  How would you be doing?” 

“Terribly,” I said.  

“The last thing you need to be doing is making a more hostile environment for your own power,” Menagerie added. “If you isolate, that thing inside you is isolated too.  I would have thought you would be hanging out constantly with Parasite.”

“Murphy’s been wrapped around Ragdoll lately,” I divulged.  

“Hot,” Lightshow replied with a smirk.  

I shuddered, “Ew.  I don’t need the literal image.  The two times I tried to hang out with them I felt uncomfortably like a third wheel.  I didn’t have anything to offer  a conversation so I just, kinda, gave up,” I confessed. 

Lightshow rolled her eyes, “God, you are such a pushover.  Grow a pair man.”

“I feel like we’ve gotten woefully sidetracked from the fact that our captain is addicted to drugs and nearly assaulted me when I tried to call her out on it,” I said, trying to pull attention away from myself.  

“It wouldn’t be the craziest thing if she’s using,” Menagerie said, strangely calm about the whole thing.  “Back on earth, people used drugs during wars and would simply quit when it was all over.  It isn’t unheard of.”

“It’s clearly making her volatile if she’s ready to start swinging at her best friend when called out on it,” Lightshow replied, taking my side.  “We need her to be on her A-game the next time we find ourselves in a scrap.  If she falls apart, so do we.” 

“Well,” Menagerie said, raising her hands in defeat, “Maybe-”

The ship suddenly lurched, inducing a strange sense of vertigo before everything was thrown around  the room.  Before I could figure out what happened, another wave of centrifugal force slammed me back, tossing me off the edge of the cot and onto the metal floor.  

I had felt this before, but it had felt like an eternity ago that Infinite had been jumping us through space.  And last time, we had been warned that we were going to jump so we could all brace ourselves.  Not to mention it hadn’t been so rough the last time around.

“What the fuck,” Lightshow groaned, nursing her stump.  “Why the fuck are we suddenly jumping?”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled, opening their door.  Like us, dozens of Adapted were pouring out, all of them equally confused as to why we were abruptly ripping through space without any kind of heads up.  

The three of us joined the flow of people who made their way down the galley, all of us muttering between each other, no one having a sure answer.  To make matters worse, there was no sign of Titan or Infinite amidst the throng.  With no one else taking charge, Clemency levitated above the crowd, giving all of us a point to direct our attention.

“Clemency,” Beleth called out, “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“None,” he replied.  “But I’m assuming it’s a good thing if we’re teleporting again.  It means Infinite is back in fighting shape.”

“But she did it without me,” Command shouted, calling attention to him.  “She’s never done any jumps without using me to help stabilize her.  Titan didn’t ask me to help; I was just as blindsided as any of you.”

“And there’s a bigger problem,” a nasally voice added.  A scrawny guy wearing glasses stepped out from under Clemency, getting all eyes turning to him.  I hadn’t seen much from Almanac since Titan had revealed his secret weapon back on Tso’got; Almanac was an Adapted who knew where everything was and was the only reason we could navigate the stars.  “We were on a course to Marn but Infinite changed direction.”

“What?” Clemency asked on behalf of everyone else listening.  

“She’s taking us…somewhere,” Almanac said, “But I have no idea where.  All I know is that she sure as shit isn’t heading to Marn anymore.”  

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