Magenta sprinted through the jungle, digitigrade legs outrunning the underground fires as goopy film sloughed off of her body. She was losing bits and pieces of unhardened flesh that should have become her armor. Unfinished.

She was unfinished, half-formed, all she knew was her name, her mission, and basic information harvested from thousands of Gadverans. Everything the Polyp knew about the Vessel had been given to her, along with a deep rooted sense of enmity.

More than anything, she wanted to kill the Vessel and return his soul to One. It was her purpose for existence, and more than that…it just seemed like a fun, rewarding, fulfilling thing to do. What else would she do with her time?

Human concerns like breeding and familiarity caused a sense of physical discomfort. She wanted to kill the Vessel just for being one of them.

But right now she couldn’t simply attack the Vessel. Not while his ‘friends’ – Magenta shuddered at the thought, feeling like something disgusting was working its way up her spine – were still helping him.

The Vessel regained his power through females, and his summoned familiar could do the same. There were two ways this could be remedied.

Remove the summons he’d left behind and prevent him from using more…

Or…Kill all the human females on Marconen.

Either plan didn’t really bother Magenta, but the latter seemed like it would take a great deal more effort.

Better chance of working, though. Perhaps One can come up with something to that effect.

Origin’s original host was quite skilled at biomancy, but that wasn’t Magenta’s speciality.

Come to think of it, Magenta thought, slowing down in the middle of the jungle. What is my speciality?

A voice brought her out of her thoughts as four wide, muscular bald men stepped out of the forest, their skin grey.

Genosians, her generalized knowledge spoke to her. Man eaters.

Two held bows, a third had a stone axe, and the last was fat, bearing several weapons strapped to his waist.

They looked at each other and grinned, practically salivating as they approached her.

Don’t let them think.

Magenta broke into a sprint, dashing toward them. The genosians with bows were confused for a fraction of a second, allowing her to get three steps closer before they fired on her.

One arrow hit her shoulder, the other glanced off her hip.

Non-lethal.

Before the foremost archer could nock a second arrow, Magenta was on him. She reached out and grabbed his bow, and while his hands were occupied trying to wrestle it out of her grip, she sharpened her fingers into a spear-point, jabbing her fist through the man-s eye socket.

The orb popped, but she didn’t stop until the man’s orbital cracked wider from the pressure of her palm passing through it.

She dragged the shivering body to the side where it absorbed a second arrow from the other bowman.

The axe-wielding genosian shot across the distance between them with some kind of Ability, arriving above her before she could fully react.

The obsidian axe laid a large gash across her shoulder and arm while she caught the wielder in the chest with all the strength of her other fist.

The Genosian stumbled back in stunned surprise as his ribs nearly broke from the force of the strike. The wind was knocked out of him. Magenta took the opportunity to jump up and wrap her legs around the muscular man’s arm and the axe it carried with it.

With a quick wrench, the wrist broke, and he let go of his axe, which was a mistake.

Magenta caught the axe and put it through the warrior’s skull before turning on the last two Genosians.

They no longer looked like they wanted to hunt her. They looked afraid. Good. The fat one snarled something at the bowman, and the bowman ran while the fat one did something with his hand.

Don’t let them think.

Magenta charged forward again, aiming for the fat one.

A burst of green smoke erupted from the fat ones’ fingers, turning into a skeleton, then another Genosian warrior, somehow even more muscular and battle-scarred than the others coalesced. He raised his arms wide with a confident grin, acting like a shield as the fat one turned to run.

Magenta swung the axe forward, and the summoned genosian caught it easily, catching her with a brutal backhand in the process, knocking her to her hands and knees.

The moment the creature’s skin came into contact with hers, some fire inside her that had never had a chance to burn was suddenly lit, setting every nerve in her skin alight with energy.

Something began pumping through her body, welling up from inside and emerging from her skin, forming a narrow cloud of magenta energy around her.

Magenta pushed herself up and launched herself up and at the enemy, aiming to kick it in the crotch, where humans were fragile.

The summon caught her kick with an easy smile, opened its mouth to say something, then it popped. The Genosian seemed to unravel into green smoke in incredibly high speed from where it touched her aura, almost too fast for the summon’s confused expression.

Where the green smoke touched the magenta coating hovering around her body, she felt distinctly uncomfortable, as if something were stretching her joints the wrong way. She pulled herself away from the cloud, then resumed pursuit of the running fat man.

She had the satisfaction of seeing him look over his shoulder with a horrified expression before she buried the hatchet…in his expression.

So this is my specialty, Magenta thought, tugging the arrows out of her body. There was very little blood and the wounds sealed quickly, as if she were made from some kind of space-age, self-sealing material.

Where did I get that information from?

Magenta glanced up and spotted that the archer was long gone, presumably to report her existence to a larger force.

It’s fine. I got enough Warp from the three men for the first Break.

She could feel the Polyp’s pre-planned mutations kick into gear now that they had reached the critical level of fuel. She should have had the Warp fed to her by the Polyp’s Scrubbers, but life had a way of dicking your plans around.

She just had to find a decent place to sleep it off, and a food supply.

Magenta glanced down at the corpse with an axe buried deep in it’s face.

She shrugged. Good enough as any.

Magenta kneeled down and began to eat. She marveled as her face stretched wide, her cheeks opening up to reveal a massive set of meat-eating teeth hidden behind a façade of dainty human teeth.

I really like being me, Magenta thought as she gulped down large chunks of fat and meat without swallowing. Maybe the Pollyp had designed her to be comfortable in her own skin, and maybe it had designed her with a deep-seated need to kill the Vessel, not necessarily giving her a choice in the matter, and for some reason, it had given her enough sapience to self-analyze this lack of choice.

But…she didn’t really care…because the polyp made her that way.

Magenta shrugged again. If she couldn’t bring herself to care, she couldn’t bring herself to care. The only thing she wanted to do was kill the Vessel.

Now, how is the best way to go about doing that? She thought as she stumbled off to sleep, her stomach distended with Genosian. She spent the next few minutes on her hands and knees, rapidly getting sleepier as she dug herself a burrow. once it was big enough, she crawled in, covered herself back up with dirt and plants, before falling asleep.

***Calvin***

Karen’s boots were up on the seat next to her, chatting with the Hash’Maje, picking a bit of meat out of her teeth.

“I’ve never been partial to Juntai chicken myself,”

“Oh?” Kala’s father asked, fingers clasped as he studied Karen intently.

“Not gamey enough.”

“Not gamey Enough?” the Hash’maje asked with raised brows and a chuckle.

“You live out on the edge of the wilderness long enough, you come to expect a certain level of gameyness. Without it, it’s just kind of…disappointing.”

“I’m sure I’d love to try your cooking sometime.”

“Not gonna happen.” Karen said, taking a sip of wine, her cheeks colored from the alcohol. “Probably not gonna happen.”

“There you are!” Calvin said as he approached. He caught sight of Kala’s dad watching him with an amused gaze. “What is this? What are you two doing?”

Calvin pointed out the window. “There’s an entire kingdom out there that needs cleanup, and where were you two during the fighting?”

“Calm down,” Karen said with a sigh. “for your information, Giles and I –“

“Not my name.” Kala’s dad said, shaking his head.

“We were waiting to see if we needed to step in. I thought for sure there would be some epic fight that would turn against you at the last minute and I’d have to step in at a dramatic moment, but here we are. You handled everything by yourself.”

“Well, I thought for sure that you had been taken over by a worm-thing and turned into some kind of Calvin-killing machine designed to prey on attachment to you, and we’d have to fight each other in a dramatic final battle!”

Karen cackled, slamming the table with her palm and rattling the empty dishes that spanned the massive piece of wood. “Oh, you’d be so screwed!”

Calvin glanced over at the Hash’Maje, who looked suitably chastised.

“I may be Eighth Break, but my build is more suited to leading than fighting. When I do fight, it takes a lot out of me, and my people. I only fight as a matter of last resort.” The Hash’maje said with a guilty shrug.

“That and your mother’s pregnant.”

Time stopped for a brief moment while Calvin tried to unpack those words.

Calvin cocked his head to the side. only women and animals get pregnant. Karen is KAREN. That doesn’t…how…

“WHAT!?”

“You know that thing with Ghol?” Karen asked, blushing as she spun her finger around the edge of the cup of wine. “Well, you weren’t just making it up.”

“But you’re so o– “

“Don’t say it!” Karen said, glaring at him.

“ooold.” Calvin finished, unable to stop the momentum of his mouth.

“I’m only forty-two.” Karen muttered, slumping in her chair while the ruler of Gadvera patted her shoulder apologetically.

That sounded pretty old to Calvin.

“Calvin, your mother has very high Endurance, and a few sources of Damage Reduction, which means she’s able to get…erm…

“Knocked up?” Karen supplied.

“In the family way,” the Hash’Maje said with a wince. “For a relatively longer time than most women. She came to me to ask how that might be possible. It’s a generally poorly known side effect of being high-Break. Something Royals have more experience with. My mother was sixty when she had Bekvah, for example.”

“Something I was blissfully ignorant of,” Karen said, with a sigh, rubbing her eyebrows as she stared at the goblet of wine in front of her.

“Excuse me,” Calvin said, picking up the wine and taking a sip. Just juice. “Nevermind.” He put it back down in front of Karen as she gave him an angry stare.

“You’re lucky you’re my kid or I might have broken some fingers,” Karen said, snatching the goblet back before she resumed brooding. “Elaine was always trying to trick me into getting knocked up. Turns out all it took is a well-built couple who smell like fire.”

“Couple?” Calvin asked.

“Yeah, Ghol’s wife had this thing she did where she put her finger in your –“

“Stop.” Calvin said, holding up his hand. “I think I’ve heard plenty.”

Karen shrugged.

“Anyway. Running around at sonic speeds and getting knocked around by monsters isn’t exactly conducive to keeping this thing alive.” Karen said, patting her belly. Now that Calvin could see it, there was a baby-bump forming there.

Calvin hadn’t even thought of it as anything more than another sign of his mother getting old and fat. Stupid!

Well, your natural intuition is terrible.

Calvin still had some gaping gaps in his intuition, mostly from inexperience, since he would have never thought of Karen as a being that could create life.

“I had to avoid Jinnei the last couple weeks. For some reason I was ashamed of her knowing. I was only gonna step in if you were in danger of losing.”

“Don’t want me knowing what?” Jinnei asked, ducking her head in the dining room.

“Calvin, don’t –“

“Karen’s pregnant.” Calvin said, glancing back at his sister. Jinnei had taken off some of her light armor in light of the recent turn in the war against the invading creatures. They still popped out of the breeding flesh, but it was regular and light, completely uncontrolled and uncoordinated.

Calvin had inadvertently killed whatever was controlling them. Now all they had to do was clean it up.

“YES” Jinnei fist pumped before dropping down on her knees, hands folded in prayer. “Sweet Elani, thank you for this gift of life. I finally get to be a sister.”

“Hey!” Calvin said with a scowl. “Don’t I count?”

“Barely.”

Karen rubbed her forehead some more.

Jinnei leaned over and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Who’s the father?”

“Ghol and his wife,” Calvin replied quietly.

“And his wife?”

“She did this thing with her finger where –“

“Stop,” Jinnei said, holding up a hand. Her gaze flickered over to the goblet of dark juice and a moment later she stepped forward and snatched it up, tasting it before Calvin could tell her otherwise.

“You’re good,” She said, setting it back down in front of Karen.

“Alright. Get out you two.”

“But what about – “

“OUT!” Karen spoke, her voice reverberating in his bones and sending a shock of primal panic through his heart.

Calvin and Jinnei leapt in place and scurried out of the royal dining room like frightened animals before they were able to collect their thoughts.

“How does she do that?” Calvin asked aloud.

“She’s our mom, duh,” Jinnei shot back.

“Nah, that’s gotta be some kind of Ability.”

“Pretty sure it’s not.”