Now, look, I ain't one for sentimentality, and I'm damn sure not the type to let my emotions cloud my judgement.

  So why'd I hesitate? Why, when that little bundle of arcane wrath detonated in the narrow entry way, did I feel a touch of regret? Why did I fail to seek immediate shelter from my own damn bomb?

  The world will likely never knew. I sure as hell didn't, not as I was flyin' through the base of an undulating mass of thaumaturgic cancer faster than a bullet. And certainly not when I slammed into the overgrown brick work behind said growth, smokin' like a witch at the pyre.

  Mostly the only thing goin' through my head just then was a keening ring, and the vague notion that maybe, just maybe, I had fucked up.

  "...oche!"

  A tiny, distant voice called over the chorus of demons that rose to replace the ringing. My vision swam, mundane sight nearly gone thanks to the flash of alchemical fire, but magical sigh just intact enough to see the pillars of seekin' flames, the fire snakes themselves, ravaging the fleshy forest, all while three or four little red scaled women rushed for me.

  "Oh fuck!" Said the quartet of Shortys in unison as they bent down to lift me from the soft mulch.

  Everything, and I do mean everything, hurt.

  But, blessedly, most of the potency in Shorty's explosive lay in the magical after effects. This was in fact the second time I'd survived a close encounter with her bombs, and while I could attest to the lingering sting and discomfort, it wasn't enough to put me down.

  I coughed up a bit of smoke and looked up into the face of a very worried and somewhat pissed off woman.

  "What the hell was that?!"

  "That's, uh, that's a great question," I wheezed as I stood, the fancy fabric of my coat and shirt already drawin' on my magic to patch the burst and clean off the clinging slime.

  "Well? What was it?! I saw the flame and then you came flying out like a fucking cannon shot."

  I blinked a few times, clearing the fog from my sight.

  "Yeah. Yeah I, uh, hey. I think I know the monster?"

  Shorty stared at me, her eyes flicked to the sizzling ruin that was the blister building.

  "Knew, you mean?"

  I shook my head slowly as the shattered roof collapsed in and the swirl of mana eminatin' from the wreck began to change. The orange tide of invoked fire seemed to part from the center as a torrent of Entropic black drained the energy from the blast. The remaining fire snakes hissed and died in the air as all the power that animated them was sucked up into the dark.

  And then, just as I feared, a shape rose, and with it, the weight of watchin' eyes.

  "Nah. She's still kickin'." I said as I dragged Shorty behind me and drew a pistol, "take cover, and don't shoot until I say."

  "Oh..." Shorty said as a massive form emerged from the cloud of wicked magic, "oh fuck."

  Yeah.

  'Oh fuck' was right.

  Songbird stood there, her body ripplin' and changin' even as we watched. Her fancy braids fell out in clumps, some of the still smokin' with lingering embers as she shook off the wreckage and gore. Her dark skin stretched and warped as further changes wracked her already distorted form. Had I a little more sense I might've wondered why, and how, I had such a thoroughly romantic encounter with such an obviously afflicted woman.

  While I'm not the type to judge on appearance, I'm not too keen on bat's ears and six inch claws. And while there was some shadow of her feminine charms left in the curve of her hips and the swell of her small breast, the rest was nothin' but monster. Legs bent like a dogs, arms as long as I was tall, her once pretty face split into a permanent snarl, her lips traded in for a may filled with so many teeth and fangs, that she'd make a shark feel envy.

  The only part of her that truly remained, the only indication that the seven foot hulk of mutated murder was once a woman, was those icy eyes.

  Those eyes like fire and ghost light, sweet perfume and the heat of the sun.

  It had been her the whole time, watchin' us as we came down, lurin' us to this lair beneath the earth.

  Was this, was this irony?

  I still didn't know.

  "Hey Songbird. Fancy meetin' you here, what's girl like you-"

  Blur.

  The sound hit a moment before the impact.

  Just long enough for me to clear leather.

  Boom.

  The world shifted, the recoil of my shot converted into reality defyin' movement thanks to Douce et Doux Drift. My shot had gone wide, but the next wouldn't. I stood three paces to the side of the murderous titan, her fist buried in the wall that had caught me just a few seconds before.

  I drew my second pistol and fired into her back, dancin' away with my Ability as she raged. The impacts barely split her midnight colored hide, only a single fleck of red appearing where my slugs had struck.

  "Roche! She's a Cihaute! Bullets won't work!" Shorty screamed before the roar of my scattergun exploded from behind the cover of a flesh pillar.

  While lead seemed impotent before the might of my mutated paramour, the Scaras' Steel Pix shot tore into her hide and opened a great gash across her back. Rich red muscle was exposed as her dark hide burned away, the glitterin' dust from the Warrior Fey's scales doing far more than I had.

  But still, the Cihaute was on me as sheer rage and speed took over.

  "Roche!" She screamed, her voice distorted and monstrous, but no less sweet than when we'd shared a bed, "you, you left me!"

  Glowing eyes fell upon me, and the weight of them was crushing as the woman took to all fours, her clawed hands and feet tearing divots into the ground as she launched herself at me.

  I tried to cock the hammer and squeeze off a shot, but I was frozen still, even as the Cihaute charged and Shorty fed her another load of pix dust. My breath didn't come, my muscles remained slack and dumb. Not even that part of me that had always been able to respond to life and death situations was workin'.

  Like a mouse before the snake, I was stunned, and in a moment I'd be devoured.

  "Godsdamnit it!" Shorty screamed as the monster lost it's feet, tumblin' into a bloody tangle, "you got yourself thralled?!"

  While I could hear my partner's words, I couldn't seem to parse any of their meanings. I was too focused on the monster that was standin' and limpin' toward me, a snarl of rage and pain writ large on her face. It wasn't just the fury of a monster, no, there was terrible humanity mixed in with it.

  A mind and soul imprisoned by a body no longer her own, now a battle ground for instinct, and a twisted parody of memory.

  I knew a bit about that.

  Knew what it was like to be locked away in your own flesh. It had only been for a minute or two, there at the entrance to the Vault after the Wyrm had snapped my neck like dry firewood, but I still recalled the fear, the panic, and the frustration.

  The helplessness.

  "Wake the fuck up you idiot!" called, a small, insignificant voice. I could barely hear it as the darkness all around grew, as the world that existed between me and the Songbird seemed to drown in the hurricane of dark mana that flowed from her.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  She limped, blood oozing from her wounds, and I could feel the pull of her eyes. Feel the weight of her mind and will. It was like she was callin' on something primal, some promise made in the heat of passion.

  She needed something from me, needed somethin' to fix this.

  Something white and wicked tore through the barrier, but died in the cloak of Entropic mana. Only the sound of whatever had propelled it reached our ears.

  My twisted paramour cleared the bare distance with agonized speed, and as her jaws opened wide, and her claws rose to embrace me.

  I didn't feel any pain then, not even the bone deep hurt that always seemed to linger in the depths of my soul. As her fangs tore into my throat I felt warmth surge through me. Like a cleansing fire it drove away all emotion, the fear, the terror, the dread. All of it sucked into the dark just like the fire snakes had been.

  My arms wrapped around her of their own accord, the tendrils splitting and tearing through my gloves to grasp her burnin' hot flesh.

  I could feel something important being drawn away, drank down along with the torrent of blood that spilled from my neck. And then, as she feasted, the exchange seemed to reverse. My tendrils, wholly beyond my control, began to drink as well.

  They burrowed into her wounds before my stolen lifeforce could seal them. They delved into the meat of her, seeking her heart. And the moment they did?

  I too drank.

  "Stop, stop fighting, love," she said as the world faded to black, and the last bit of myself, the part that had once been a man, slipped away, "just let go. You owe me this, don't you?"

  The darkness rose to claim us both, and I couldn't help but think, did I?

  Wait...

  No.

  Now hold on a moment. Thoughts and memories flooded back as our unholy embrace seemed to change, the formerly once sided flow of energy stabilizing into a loop. The haze of the thrall fell away as I found purchase in the dark mana that was pourin' out from the beast, and soon the tendrils of my own soul, the ones that had burrowed into her flesh, were not simply drinking, they were takin' root.

  I could see the shape of her mind, feel the echo of her memories and dreams, and all the while, she could do the same to me.

  And as I felt reality resolve in my senses, I heard her scream.

  "Agh!" She pulled away, her mouth filled with my blood, her eyes wide and wild. My tendrils still connected us even as she fled. Like the tentacles of a jellyfish ensnaring a doomed swimmer, my mutation kept her near. They pulled as she did, they warped and scattered as she desperately tried to claw them from her weeping wounds.

  "Oh gods," said Shorty from behind, and a second later I heard her wretch. The smell of bile joined in with the fecund stink of the cenote and the metallic tang of gore.

  The riot of sensation reached a feverish peak as the Songbird's shriek reached a crescendo. The sound was inhuman, even worse than when she had first appeared. And all the while my tendrils, the things that had become a part of me, dug deeper and deeper, taking root in the flesh and bones of the beast.

  My sight was blurry, but the world was still made clear by the light of my Arcane Eye, and as the last bit of Songbird's strength fell away, I was finally able to take control of my Cthonic limbs.

  On instinct I tore them from where they sought to end the Cihaute as she rapidly diminished in stature, grotesque features rotting off to reveal the face of a dying, desperate woman.

  I was godsdamned far from makin' sense of this all that I just watched, and tried to do my best to stop the flow of blood from my ruined throat, even as a dozen more questions and a thousand regrets filled my head. Bleedin' out wouldn't kill me, but it would damn well put me down. While I thought Shorty capable of finishin' off the monster, I wasn't so sure that was still our biggest problem.

  In the haze of the battle I hadn't quite noticed it, but now as I stood there, bleedin' and dying, my eyes finally absorbed the state of the world around.

  Just as the Cihaute had consumed the blast of the fire snake, so too had the forest all around. I was reminded of the way a day of rain could turn the dry plains to the east of my village from a dusty yellow to a vibrant green. One day it was barren and empty, the next, it was full and alive.

  That was the best way to describe the cenote, or whatever this place was.

  Our little drop of mana had sparked some kind of chain reaction. Where before the jungle of biomanced flesh was content to gentle sway, barely clinging to existence thanks to the trickle of some unseen arcane spring, now it was a storm, a frenzy of movement and growth. In real time the blister buildings began to swell and bloom, their sphincterous doors opening wide as frothy evil boiled out. The trees and pillars and bony limbs flexed inward, like the whole damn chamber was takin' in a breath.

  Above the crystals of mana dimmed and began to crack, and I watched the cenote draw out torrents of raw magic from them.

  "Fuck." Shorty muttered from beside me, "fuck, fuck, why does it always turn out like this every time you and me work together?"

  I couldn't answer. Literally. I was pretty sure the Songbird had severed my godsdamned vocal cords with those curved, needle teeth.

  Slap.

  "Get up you dumb son-of-a-bitch!" Shorty shouted as her small scaled palm struck me like a thunderclap.

  The cenote rumbled and shook with something like an exhale of breath as a foul wind raced through the cavern nearly forcing me over. As I blinked the stars out of my eyes and my will to survive finally woke up from its Cihaute induced coma, the Outcast girl was already at work.

  "I can't carry you," she said as she bent and thrust her free arm under my shoulder, liftin' with her legs to get me to stand, "so you need to-"

  "Roche!" mewled something small and wet from the mess of broken flesh and bone where the Cihaute once laid. A pale hand, covered in black and rotten flesh reached from the pile and grasped for us.

  "I think I'm finding religion after this..." Shorty said with a look of horror and disgust as a naked Songbird, head bald, skin smeared with ichor, crawled from her own damn corpse.

  Before I could think to look away, her icy eyes found mine, and I felt that weight again. The pull of a soul that had once known mine, had shared a part of itself with me, and was now callin' me back. Tears welled in her eyes, and I feel fear so profound...

  "Help me." She whispered. A command. A plea from the depths of what humanity lingered in her.

  I couldn't find it in me to do anything but comply. Not because of her wicked magic this time, but for a much simpler reason.

  I just plain couldn't stand to see a pretty girl cry.

  Even if she was bald and covered in her own filth.

  A man has to have some principles, after all.

  I dove forward, fighting through the pain and trying to ignore the way my vision flickered in and out, the way my heart struggled and beat like a drum. My tendrils formed into a hand and I grasped hers, haulin' her out and over my shoulder.

  "No! You're still thralled?! Dammit, Roche!" Shorty shouted.

  "Go." I croaked, barely able to manage the one word.

  The Outcast stared at me, then looked over her shoulder as the cenote gave another great rumble. Her teeth clenched and her yellow eyes shone with wicked light as she glared back at me and our former enemy, but it seemed like she came to a decision, because she nodded and moved. As the first massive crystal, now drained to a lifeless black, crashed into the forest behind us we ran.

  I could barely keep up with the little Outcast as she scurried up the slope toward the opening of the waterway. The filthy moss choked water spilled out and into the cenote with every rumble and shake, turning the already difficult climb into a nightmare. I felt more of my devastated reserve of lifeforce drain down into my boots as I nearly tumbled back down, the weight of the Songbird slowing me to a crawl.

  Mercifully it seemed my fancy boots were good for more than just walkin' quiet because my footing steadied, the sticky moss becoming a solid platform under foot with each step.

  "C'mon!" Shorty screamed, already a hundred yards ahead, the light of her torch shining in the narrow, water filled tunnel.

  I followed, my arms, legs and lungs on fire, each foot fall a battle against the gravity that dragged at me. But the world wasn't done, and as the last crystal shattered and the cenote drew in its final breath, a wave of thick, pink sludge began to bleed from the walls and ceiling. It moved slowly, a thick and viscous thing, but it sizzled and smoked as it came into contact with the rest of the biomantic cancer.

  I screamed when it began to fall as rain, and so did my burden.

  The woman writhed and tried to fight from my grasp as I ran up the slope, likely too damn lost to pain and fear to realize she was bein' a fuckin' pain in the ass. I could hear the roar of the sludge begin to fill the cenote and splash of crystal chunks and rubble as they fell into the growing tide of acid below.

  Just before I crossed into the relative safety of the derelict aqueduct, one of the largest mana crystals finally gave up the ghost.

  I didn't need to look back, thanks to the terror on Shorty's face and the sound of the explosion.

  The woman on my shoulders screamed as a wave of hot air and pressure hit us, and a shard of mana crystal the size of a house exploded into the will just above the waterway's mouth. Yet more destruction followed as Shorty and I made a mad dash through the crumbling tunnels, our path now littered with chunks of smoking stone and a fine mist of that horrible pink sludge.

  I dodge as chunks of brick fell and vaulted over gaps where the path had split thanks to the quaking breaths of the cenote chamber. We weren't far now, and I knew we'd make it if only...

  The roof groaned and the ground rumbled.

  "Hurry, hurry, hurry!" Shorty shouted, the echoes of her voice drowned by the collapse of the ancient aqueduct behind us.

  My legs gave out as I took one last, leaping stride, my boot slipping in the muck, but luck was just barely on my side as I cleared the archway that separated the waterway from the canal.

  Boom.

  As the earth shook and the last bits of the ancient waterway came down, a great cloud of dust and debris billowed from the archway. The world was lost in a choking swirl of stone, spore, and slime, but just as the last bits of the ancient tunnel were destroyed, a tiny, glowing hand appeared from the gloom and grabbed me.

  "Get the hell up! Roche!" Shorty shouted, dragging me up a step along the spiral stair.

  The woman on my shoulders was limp and I was so damn tired, that I couldn't quite fathom why Shorty was still in such a hurry. We were safe, weren't we?

  As the dust settled and I stumbled up another step after my partner, I saw exactly why she was till running. The rubble that used to be most of the waterway began to sizzle and smoke as pink acid ate through the stone and bled out the widening gaps.

  "Fuck!"

  We took off up the narrow steps, and this time, we weren't slowin' down.

  Not for a second.