The sensations of tens of thousands of people spread out over thousands of years washed over my armor, seeping through the thick metal and near magical empowerments to strike at my very essence. I felt everything that had ever been felt in Rainbow Basin. I heard everything that had ever been spoken, saw everything that had happened. And it wasn’t enough.

My sense of self stayed immovable through everything. I wasn’t someone else experiencing these things–I was myself. Thousands of years passed by in the blink of an eye, and when it had passed, all I could do was stand still and stare at my hands as the ethereal sensations bled away to the back of my mind like passing dreams. Somehow, even though I’d felt everything, I remembered next to nothing.

I wiped my hand down my visor and glanced up at the ceiling, expecting to see a cracked reservoir leaking the last of its contents down onto me. The remnants of sounds echoed against my armor all around me like laughing friends at the end of a long day of work. But that wasn’t at all what I saw. Water flowed out from above in a slowly falling waterfall, as if only it had been partially frozen in place. I blinked in surprise and turned with a question bubbling in my throat.

Instead of Jun, I saw someone else. A Staura with wide eyes the colour of blonde roast coffee beans, staring at me in terror as the water pooled around my feet. She flailed backwards through the water while making incoherent noises of terror and awe, then turned and scrabbled at the edge of the pool in an attempt to escape.

“Matria Acasiana! You’re back!” Another voice said shakily, like a kid who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “What happened to the conference at Tora Eddiy?”

I raised an eyebrow and took a step back. An outline of a fully armored Acasiana appeared right where I’d been standing, one arm held at her side as the other… wasn’t there. A dripping wound and sheared metal began where her right arm should’ve, and for some reason none of the Staura around her seemed to notice. She hissed in frustration and bent down, drank deep of the waters, then gasped and shivered as her armor worked to repair her injury.

“Matria Acasiana! You’re back!” The voice repeated exactly as it had before. “What happened to the–”

“Shut up. Just… shut up.” Acasiana said in a tone barely above a whisper. “I know what you are. And I know you’re treading on very thin ground. It’s me you want, right?” She gestured at all the Staura around her, all with the same blonde-roast eyes that almost seemed… dead. Or dying. “Let them go and I’ll forget any of this ever happened.”

The Staura that had swam away from Acasiana laughed maniacally, then spoke in the exact same voice as the other one. “Oh, you think you’re so intelligent. But somehow you don’t realize that, just by acknowledging the situation, it means none of you are getting out of here alive. Especially not you.”

Acasiana looked away as a horrible cracking sound echoed out from the scared Staura’s open mouth. Her neck twisted at an off-angle, splintering apart like a dry twig being sheared from two separate angles. Gurgling silence followed as the Staura’s blood and drool mixed with the not-quite-as-prismatic waters.

“I know.” Acasiana whispered. The exact same symbol she’d given us as clearance flared on her chestpiece, and everything seemed to grow less real. “How many times have we done this, Endra? This little dance, with you pressing the rules set in place by the Primordials and me being forced to fight you alone?”

Endra’s possessed Staura smiled wide. Then wider. His cheeks split with a horrible wet rip, revealing all of his teeth to Acasiana, who didn’t even flinch at the display.

“This would be the… ninth, if I’ve kept count correctly. And the first that I’ve managed to infiltrate your little holy sanctum.” Endra said giddily. The man she possessed reached down and ran his fingers over his arm, which split open like a banana peel to reveal the flesh inside. Infested with tiny white worms. “You really should have better security. Everyone in here is mine now, and you know I’m not the type to give up on what I want. So, what you should be asking yourself is what you could give me that I want more than this.”

Endra gestured grandly at the facility and the other Staura, who were going about their day as if nothing was wrong. “What could I want more than everything I’ve ever wanted?”

Acasiana’s shoulders fell. “Me.”

“You.” Endra confirmed with a grin. “I know you’ve seen all of my plans. There’s another species coming to the all-world in less than a century, and I need a suitable host for that time. When the world is ripped open and bleeds to let the newcomers in, I will be the parasite who infests the open wound.”

I waved my hand through the air and tried to pause the vision as if it were a recording. Instead of stopping completely, everything slowed down to a near crawl. I pulled myself out of the pool and took a seat on the stone, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

“Is Endra talking about humanity?” I wondered aloud. “No. This place has been abandoned for a whole lot longer than a century. So this happened the last time a species came to the all-world, or maybe even two or three species ago. Confirms my theory that Endra only came through because Humanity came to the all-world, though, which is good to know.”

Though with that confirmation, a new worry entered my mind. Endra had been doing what she’d done to Danday and Nia for a lot longer than I’d thought, which meant Rainbow Basin might not be the only place she had agents. No–it definitely wasn’t. The difference was that I was one of the only people that knew exactly what she was, except for Inopsy’s group who had sworn her a truce. And… honestly, I didn’t know how many of them were still alive. It could be just Inopsy, for all I knew, and Keraitly might’ve killed him. Though he had managed to survive a system notification telling me he was dead, so maybe he was more of a stubborn weed than I gave him credit for.

I shook my head and leaned on one elbow. This could be a perfect opportunity to learn more about how Endra did what she did, and if Acasiana was actually one of Endra’s chosen in disguise. Or in hiding. The scene returned to normal speed with a simple thought. Acasiana raised one arm as the symbol on her chest glowed softly, then died out completely. She sighed in defeat and raised her hands, then slowly made her way toward the possessed man.

“I know when I've lost.” She said bitterly. “How does this go? I’ve never been chosen before.”

“Of course you haven’t. We wouldn’t be having this little conversation if you were.” Endra said with smug satisfaction. Her possessed Staura raised both of his arms toward her, and the little white maggots inside began to squirm. “Take in my flesh and you’ll be mine. Don’t try to fight it; you won’t be able to resist. Once it starts, it happens.”

Acasiana started to say something, but reconsidered halfway through. “I know that’s not true. You need me vulnerable somehow, and if I really wanted to, I could get my armor to reject your choosing. I’ve drank more than enough of your tainted waters to know that’s the truth.”

Endra clicked her tongue, which split down the middle to reveal thin white dots spread throughout it. They stretched to meet each other, then pulled the severed organ together in a small drizzle of clear blood.

“That’s only how it works indirectly. If you accept me of your own volition, and directly from the source, there is no going back. Not that you’ll want to once your mind is mine.” Endra gloated. She leaned in close and pressed her hands to Acasiana’s arms, flesh digging into metal as if it were soft clay. “Matria Acasiana. It will be so satisfying to live your life. You’ve already brought yourself so close to influencing the Staura as a species, yet you never took that one last little step.”

The maggots burrowed deep into Acasiana’s arms. She didn’t make a sound. Endra frowned and let go, but her victory quickly overtook whatever she’d felt was wrong.

“I won’t be so weak.” She laughed as Acasiana’s arms began to shake. “Your body will be the perfect cocoon for my intrusion. Take good care of it for the next few years, and maybe I’ll make your death quick and painless.”

Acasiana raised her arms and took a ragged breath. “What’s your plan, Endra? What do you do once you get my body?”

Endra tapped Acasiana on the chest, considered for a moment, then nodded. “Well, puppet, now that you’re mine, there’s no need for you to know anything. Just do what I tell you when I tell you, and you won’t even remember that it was my influence that made you do anything. Maybe I should make you forget that you’re even my chosen. No, no, I want you to remember. Remember what you brought on yourself for the sake of people who will be dead in a few hundred years.”

The shaking spread up Acasiana’s shoulders. Her neck followed. She forced out a strangled little noise as the maggots made their way to her head, and then the shaking stopped. Acasiana stood perfectly still, the dead symbol on her chest beginning to fill with an unimaginable gravity. It stole away everything, drawing my mind and body toward its center with an inexorable pull. Endra stared deep into it, with a mind clouded by confusion and whatever it was Acasiana had done. Her symbol glowed like iron fresh out of the forge, and then–

Everything blinked back. As if the last few minutes had become corrupted, and the time they’d filled had simply ceased to exist. Acasiana’s symbol flared to life, and the man Endra had possessed began once more to smile wide enough to rip his own cheeks.

“You don’t have anything on me. Not anymore.” Acasiana whispered sadly. Her armor flared, and the functions I’d seen her use before spun into being. Power beyond anything I’d ever seen filled the room, and before Endra could get a single word in, everything simply disappeared. All of the possessed Staura dissipated into colour, which filled the air with the same sort of miasma that I’d felt in the modern-day version of the facility.

Pale white maggots splattered to the ground and coated the stone. Acasiana pressed her thumb and forefinger together, then gestured forward as if she were conducting an orchestra. One of her orbs simply blinked to the center of the room and began to draw in only the remains of Endra’s control.

Acasiana watched in somber silence. She pressed her hands together, then bowed slightly toward her own function. “Goddess of innocence. She who speaks in the quiet between wars. I did what I had to, and I send many children off to their final deaths long before they were due. Yet my work is still nowhere close to finished.”

She tightened one hand into a fist, then wrapped the other around it. “They will not forgive me, so I ask not for forgiveness. I will flee for the embrace of a false you. Endra will not relent, but without someone like me, she will not find her chosen vessel for far too long.”

Her fist slowly crept open. Inside of it, she held many highly discriminate ends. Ones which would cleanse Rainbow Basin of Endra’s plague until we brought it to the city’s doorstep once again.