Being distracted by everything happening with the core nearly cost me my head. Kovack lost the fight for control of his body, lurched back to his feet and swung his glaive at me. Nakoda saved me by parrying it away with his lance. Slime kept gushing across the floor as he shifted his weight forward, preparing to launch himself at us.
He suddenly shuddered and blood burst from his mouth as a jagged, scale-covered object erupted from his chest. The object then sliced upwards, through Kovack’s collarbone and out the side of his neck. His eyes returned to normal for a single, tragic heartbeat. The corpse then collapsed face first into the slime.
“…I am the captain now,” Alton whispered hatefully down at the body, his chest rising and falling rapidly with adrenaline. The flesh of his right bicep had warped and expanding, replacing the missing arm with a long, deadly sharp shark fin. Kovack’s blood dripped from it…
BANG!
Paco’s shot spooked Alton, making him flinch like an anxious animal. The shot wasn’t meant for him, though, but for Lizard Lady. It struck her in the side. It nearly knocked her back onto White Witch and the skeletons. By this point, they’d ripped off most of her hair, left deep gashes all across her naked body, and they’d torn free and tossed away Onyx’s head and remaining arm. She was so tired that she didn’t have the energy to scream. One skeleton wrapped both bony hands around her throat and began squeezing the little life that remained out of her…
She reached out a trembling hand and mouthed a word.
There was a flash and the hellhound, just like one of Lilian’s, appeared. It tackled the skeleton off of her. White Witch collapsed onto her hands and knees. She still had two more skeletons looming over her. I almost felt bad for her.
Almost.
She started to raise her hand again, as if to ward off her enemies or cast another spell. But before she could, something smacked her straight in the face.
One of Sapphire’s bombs.
White Witch was frozen solid by the resulting blast. If she was still somehow alive after that, it wasn’t for long. Her frozen body was pulled apart by the two skeletons on standby. The hellhound attacking the third disappeared with a loud pop, signaling its master’s death.
Again, almost sorry.
But Nakoda and I had more important, fishier things to worry about. “Alton,” he called over cautiously. “Alton, can you-?”
Alton’s head whipped around to face the core. He titled his head, listening to the core’s many voices, understanding them…
There was a thump of a body hitting the floor.
It was Lizard Lady’s. Salim had command his shade to enter her body and hold her in place as he rammed an arrow into the side of her head. The shade was flying out of her mouth, allowing the corpse to drop, as its master approached the orb. He raised a hand, began speaking words I didn’t understand but were in the same tongue as the orb’s. The monstrous sphere spun in place of its own accord to face Salim.
“Need that,” Alton said, trudging towards it.
“Alton!” Nakoda cried.
“I need that!”
The orb turned away from Salim, to face the approaching man. A giant eye with a slit pupil appeared inside the gaping maw. Alton stared right back, completely unfazed.
“YOU! NEED! ME!” he howled like a man possessed. He leapt forward and rammed his fists down across the orb, somehow managing to make the entire thing shudder. “YOU FIX ME, DAMNIT! FIX ME!”
The mouth smiled and the eye twinkled, clearly amused. A geyser of green energy then erupted from the pupil, into Alton. It picked the man up off the ground and held him in place ten feet up in the air. I rushed over with Nakoda, only to feel a wave of evil energy push against us. Paco on Turtle, Sapphire, and Lilian were on their way, trying to push through. Lilian’s skeletons stood no chance. They were swept away and knocked into the walls, breaking them all to pieces. Pop, pop, pop, they went. Only Salim stood unaffected, looking up in awe at the orb and Alton.
“MORE!” the man in question screamed, his voice like a thunderclap. “I’M THE CAPTAIN OF THIS SHIP! GIVE ME MORE!”
As if to appease him, the core’s layers were breaking off at an accelerated rate, setting free more of the monster’s energy. Sea water was now pouring out of it, leaving all standing in a small ocean of it. It flowed into the White Witch’s, Lizard Lady’s, and Kovack’s corpses. It ate them from the inside out like acid. Claiming them.
“Is that normal?!” Paco screamed at Sapphire, pointing with his gun at the core.
“No!” she cried back, shielding her face with one arm. “Definitely not!”
“Okay?! What do we do?!”
Before she could respond, Nakoda screamed with all his might, “Alton! This isn’t you!”
Alton shuddered and then looked over his shoulder, down at us.
“…Na…Nakoda?”
“Yes! I’m here! Your friend!”
One of Alton’s eyes looked ready to burst with all of the energy it was containing, but the other was…was just crying. “…I…I don’t know what…what I am a-anymore…Kill me…p-please…”
“Alton.” Salim approached the floating man, arms cast out. His smile was gentle, loving, and proud. “This is what we’re here to do.”
Alton looked down at him.
Half of his face sobbed.
The other half smiled.
“…Breathe…me…in…”
He drove the shark fin up into his stomach, sliced it open.
Blood poured from his body, into the core’s mouth. The entire thing shuddered as it drank. As it did so, the last few layers became transparent, giving me a view into the evil thing living inside. The thing seconds from being set free…
“PACO!” Lilian screamed. “PUT IT TO SLEEP!”
The gunslinger looked at her, confused, but then shrugged.
“Yeah, okay.”
He raised his hand, palm facing the core. There was a flash of purple. I heard soft, comforting music in my head that did little to assuage the attack my sanity was experiencing from the sight in front of me. After that, nothing happened.
At first.
The core’s mouth dropped open, into a yawn. And then water erupted from the yawning mouth. It poured across all of us, filled the entire bridge. The creature inside the core then inhaled, pulled us in, and swallowed us all whole.