The Knight however heard something else.
[Offspring Acquired]
Why such a thing would have been was really just so – 'Annoying! I have believers, followers, vessels, spawn and a tamed disaster – and now I have to deal with an offspring… sure I can keep track of them and in some way, they help move things along, but I know what they truly are, an irritation I can't ever scratch. I was fine with the followers, and even Red Scorch, but some are just outright disturbances. She better pull her weight… This must be that damn [Greed] skill's doing… come to think of it I should just kill her and save myself the trouble.'
It continued like this and eventually moved its attention elsewhere, to the fact that the whisper had done this of its own volition.
'I knew it could do more, but extending its system to cover another being is something I'll have to look into.'
These thoughts the Knight had were kept silent from Mugaw and whisper – a capacity it had acquired after heightening its knowledge stats. As it though, it was suddenly brought back to the situation at hand, by a very disturbing experience (feeling).
***
Who am I?
I can remember just bits, and the rest is strange but also my feelings...
What's actually happening is that Yellow and the Vermin had become a single entity, and thus the simple reparatory programming inside the Vermin are being confused with her personal emotions. These programs include – Knight is home/master, good skill – consume, consume soul per decade, follow [Greed] skill instructions – and more similar commands – all just basic to the point.
She kept walking around stretching her body, trying to make sense of herself.
I used to be a researcher, no, that's not it? I used to be a void being following the Vile Knight, no, not it either? I used to have high Knowledge stats, no – can't be? I used to have none at all, nah? I had relations with people, really? I consumed their souls, not quite?
She kept circling around the Knight, both of them lost in though. She had been trying to accept that she somehow is and isn't Yellow. Actually, all these confusing thoughts…
I'm sure of one thing though, I can always go home, back to the… to the dark… comforting… eternal… the steadfast… the place I belong… I can rest in…
As she said this, she raised her head looking up, having finally stopped her roundabout pacing. She reached her hands out and walked forward, a step at a time. Then she wrapped her arms around the Knight's cold steel body. Embracing him with a hug only a child could give. She smiled – and for the first time, she found something she was sure of.
This feels so right… As he cold face snuggled on the armour.
And just like that, she finally concluded her thoughts for now. Having lost most of her memories, her conscience, and person… the internal strife within… resulted in her identifying the feeling of someone she used to know, and the instinctual habits of all Vermin without a vessel, which was to return to the Knights body – into its embrace… this hug that somehow calmed her senses to absolute state of peace, looked out of place.
She and the Vermin both are one, and as such their beings have blended other parts of themselves. The Knight also made her being feel complete, when on it.
***
It was so strange…
Having observed this simple action happen to others, and having once being human did not help one bit. It had never thought it was something to guard against. As such, it was caught of guard by her embrace.
The Knight didn't feel disgusted, or even jubilant in any form – it just felt this to be an unwelcomed experience. It felt a connection – but that was because it could feel the Vermin's attempts to join the body, a normal action – but currently it was incapable.
The Knight reached down and grabbed her lifting her up and off itself. She was just a metre tall, and the Knight stood at four, so she felt like a little child, making the whole thing about acquiring an 'offspring' earlier make sense. She had this oddly satisfied smile on her face as the Knight lifted her up with her shredded suit.
"Are you gonna put me down?"
The Knight kept starring at her, which made her continue.
"Starring is bad."
…
"I thought that would work. Anyway, what are you doing – it's me? Wait, it's her? Who cares. I certainly can't." She was just so carefree.
The Knight then put her down.
She had changed though – not too much. Now her hair was almost as long as her, and even so dark, night vision couldn't peer through it. Her nails had become black as obsidian, and her skin was even darker than a simple tan. She was short but she had gained a couple of inches. Her teeth were a shade of rotting green, but remained chiselled like diamond fit ins.
Her eyes however were a constant distraction, every time she blinked they switched between a peerless void, and a pair of yellow pupil shining eyes – they shone like sunlight. Making a contrast so high, it was hard to ignore.
She landed and dusted herself off.
"Thank you. Now tell me, what are we doing in here, I'm kind of getting bored."
She then started teleporting around as if it was natural – as it was to all Vermin. Even she hadn't notice herself do this with a veteran's level of experience. She kept looking around, passing all the dead bodies – inspecting them. She hadn't noticed how clear she could see through the darkness, for it was just there.
She then stopped by Tyun – "Creepy."
Then by Vile hunter – "So soft." She said as she played on its back.
She passed through Sirus and didn't burn – "Cool."
She moved her hands across Foiga's scales – "Nice."
Yuva, the though spirit was a though manifest, so she just stared at it saying nothing at all.
She then moved to Dsace. After taking one look, she made this disgusted and angry face – "I don't like you!"
Unlike her however, not only did the other Vermin lack such conscience, but they could not reply to her, or even grasp what is it that she means by all this. But she still scowled at Dsace regardless.
She was about to say something to the Knight as she poked at Axis' lifeless body – "What happened to this…"
That's when she turned her head and saw the Knight approach Guilos, and without thinking, she teleported and stood between them. With her arms stretched out like a wall.
'This would be the first time that the followers have outright stood against me – I really should just kill her.'
Then the Knight finally spoke to her again, since noting she could speak, "Move out of the way."
"No – you can't kill this one."
'She really is pushing me.'
"Move, I'm not going to kill her yet. I have plans for this one."
She then furiously shook her head. "No!"
The Knight then grabbed her again and put her aside – "I'll deal with you later, I'm just teleporting us elsewhere, I already accomplished all I wanted to accomplish here – and I despise wasting time."
She lifted Guilos in her arms – all dainty like – even with the size disparity – and said, "I'll take her then."
"Do you even know where we're going."
She looked away. A second later, the whisper sent her co-ordinates. And just like that the raid/rescue in Abio research centre was over.
In this path – the one left by the Knight – those who knew too much for their own good, would come to realise nothing but the darkness could have left a trail like this.
The craters lacked the rubble usually found in them – for even the rubble had been erased. The living facilities in ruin. Strange distortions left in the air itself. The equipment specially made for this place forever lost. Substances and tools that could only be described as illusive. The wind that blew through here, was strangely stale. Having lost the essence of wind. The disturbed fauna possessed footprints of the forever lost.
The mangled and grotesque corpses all lay there. In the silence. In the dark. Only a single hole in the ceiling to let the light from the leaves came in. In a world like this, some plants had adapted to glow slightly at night due to absorbing too much light – but in the woods of Elleria this was more pronounced – replicating green moonlight.
The centre itself, located far off into the distance lay in ashes. The corpses there had suffered better fates but painful deaths. The place had stirred quite a ruckus, and there being a town nearby, meant many had come to see the 'upstanding' centre gone.
Further research would find that none of those dead were traceable – for none of these researchers existed on any record. Some having been in there for over a millennia, others just a century, even the guards had been living here for just as long – because the only thing that ever-left Abio centre is progress and progress alone. Only information and the right minds to bare it could and would ever even remember this place.
Many of these strange things would go unsolved as HQ scrambled to cover up the fiasco. But of the details the public knew, this place had been a normal centre as far as they remembered. The day staff never returned. The inconsistencies in reports and rumours regarding how it fell and what actually went on inside, including the lack of flow of information, would make this and its story forever etched into the memories of the town as – 'The reach of reason.'