“…eh?”

  Had she not been already barely able to move her hopelessly deformed body, she would have frozen entirely in pce, her scattered neurons sputtering as they attempted to process the statement.

  And eventually they reconnected, Alice lurching forward clumsily as she made an attempt at standing herself upright, misshapen hand wrapped about the bed frame before her as her twisted knees bent at angles they definitely shouldn’t have.

  “The fuck do you mean that’s me?! What part of that… that thing looks like me?!”

  “Based on your past usage of your… unique abilities, combined with your current state, I would say it bears a very striking simirity to you, Ms. Decaras. One that I believed you would also find much more immediately recognizable, if certain suspicions the council held are to be believed.”

  Willow simply continued staring at her through the sheer gss pane, arms crossed behind his back, several steps backed away from it like a guest at the zoo observing the lion exhibit.

  She snarled at his unbearably smug face as it peered through her, still fighting her own distended and aching limbs as she propped herself up weakly.

  “I dunno what you’ve got against me, but this is a real shit joke, y’know that?”

  He chuckled humorlessly, the single, small noise not altering his expression even slightly as he watched her struggle to ambute.

  “…you know, I honestly find myself unable to tell if you’re intentionally attempting to hide something about this all, or if you really are as clueless as you’d have us all believe. Which is decently impressive in and of itself, I suppose.”

  Alice grimaced at him, her left leg giving out somewhat as she gracelessly colpsed against the bed below once more, halfway holding her upper body up still with one elongated arm.

  There was a sound of loudly creaking bone, that enough to finally earn a shiver from Willow as Alice’s body nearly pulled itself apart just trying to move about normally.

  “Regardless of your willingness to speak with us on this matter, the Library is understandably in quite the uproar over this whole ordeal, and the simple fact of the matter is that we brought that… that disgusting beast back here and stuck it in this cell. Lo and behold, the next time someone thought to check in on it, we instead found you lying there in its pce.”

  He let out a mildly irritated huff, clearly unhappy with being tasked as the envoy for this interrogation.

  Alice however remained as hardheaded as ever, still attempting to stand herself up once more, her right arm bending in pces that shouldn’t have had joints, the limb coiling tightly around the aluminum frame for support like a snake wrapping around a tree branch, already short on breath from constant exertion on her drastically weakened constitution.

  “I… I’d remember looking like that… I’m not someone’s rabid dog, asswipe…”

  She panted between words, her head spinning, nearly colpsing backwards again as soon as she managed to sit herself mostly upright.

  Willow and Alice both opened their mouths once more to continue bickering uselessly at one another, neither side making an inch of forward progress towards clearing the thick yer of uncertainty and confusion they were both under.

  Before a single additional word could be uttered by either of them, however, a third voice chimed in, the only one not yet dripping with irritation.

  “Ahem. I believe I may be of assistance in clearing some… misunderstandings.”

  Alice’s good eye shot sideways, vaguely attempting to stare at the opposite socket, Willow instead being caught entirely off guard as he took a step backwards, frantically looking about the otherwise empty room they shared.

  “This facility is off limits to all Library personnel not allowed in for approved access, show yourself!”

  The veteran magical girl was immediately on the defensive, the calm facade he’d mustered from having that monster kept on the other side of the thick gss barrier cracking almost instantly at the introduction of an unexpected additional guest.

  “Well, I suppose I should apologize for not introducing myself on a previous meeting. It’s taken quite some time to adjust to my current circumstances, you see.”

  Willow slowly honed in on the source of the deep voice, scattered attention focusing in on the cell before him, worry rapidly becoming confusion instead as he stared at Alice, dumbfounded.

  “…what the hell are you--”

  “What I am doing is keeping the both of us from rotting away for the remainder of linear time! As long as you keep simply blindly denying everything they state, they’re only going to get significantly more thorough with analyzing you, which makes discovering my existence an inevitability I would rather give freely than have found out several months from now. Now would you please remove this bsted covering already?”

  Alice paused for a second, still rolling their mental argument around in her exhausted brain before huffing once more, clumsily pushing her eyepatch up and out of the way of Sclera’s orifice.

  Willow watched her move it aside with great interest, brow furrowed as he stared at her, almost instinctively looking away as the toothy, visceral wound previously occupied by her right eye was brought back into view.

  The muscles around the socket began to move, Sclera’s makeshift mouth now able to speak freely without the obscuring muzzle muffling their every word.

  “During our previous meetings, I was particurly unwell and wished to simply rest peacefully while I was able to do so. After being allowed to rest and recuperate unchallenged for these st several days however, I find my previous rudeness to have been quite unbecoming of one of my stature. So I fear I must beg your forgiveness for this deyed introduction.”

  The man outside the cell stared bnkly at the voice’s source, not a single scrap of information in all their own training and studying and experience giving them even the vaguest idea of how to address a particurly well-spoken gory eye socket.

  “I-I… ahem. The Library was unaware of any manner of… secondary consciousness present within Ms. Decaras beforehand. As an unknown guest of our organization, I… we would request a name and expnation of your presence here and your connection to one of our magical girls.”

  “Yes, of course. Scgole Islwe Aibanth Lans, magus of the arts pertaining to biological life and reted matters, at your service.”

  They spoke with a certain regal bearing in their voice wholly missing from when they spoke to Alice or Lonnie or Gwyn, as if they were attempting to posture amongst particurly indignant nobility.

  “Scgole… quite a mouthful of a title, but… one I vaguely recall hearing beforehand as well…?”

  “I would certainly hope a member of the Library Magus would recognize the name of one who has signed as many pacts as I have.”

  His eyes widened with recognition finally, connected the name to where he’d first encountered it.

  “Wait, surely you don’t mean… a pact entity…?! A-And fully corporeal nonetheless… I had no idea they could even…”

  Willow’s voice grew faint, muttering to himself under his breath as his interrogation attempts only left him with more and more questions piling up.

  Eventually however, he steadied himself once more, his bearing still somewhat off as his bewilderment bled through his posture still.

  “Well… ahem. The Library, to the best of my knowledge, has cked any direct contact with… with any of your sort before now, so I must apologize on our behalf for the treatment you have endured up till now.”

  “…oy, what’s that supposed to mean?”

  Sclera and Willow both ignored Alice’s reply, the girl grumbling to herself as she kept a distended arm coiled around the frame for stability, idly prodding at one of her barely functional legs as she was effectively barred out of the conversation at hand.

  “My previous treatment and current state are purely of my own volition, I assure you. Alice here has proven a wonderful host thus far, and my admittedly closer-than-average bond with her is merely due to an issue of her… weakened constitution when I first offered her a pact.”

  “…I see. I was unaware such a direct bond with an entity was at all possible, but my pool of knowledge regarding your workings is regrettably rather shallow. An issue I do intend to remedy once I’m not quite so busy with things like… well, this.”

  He smiled politely, sweeping an arm around as he gestured to the tightly sealed chamber before him.

  “Oh of course, of course. I wouldn’t want to take up too much of your precious time, and I require some time of my own to assist Alice here with readjusting some minor issues we both seemed to have caused for her.”

  Her other eye peeked up again as she was mentioned, pausing with her left leg currently lifted in one hand, having been in the middle of trying to wrench the structure of her knee inside it back around and into pce.

  “Eh? Oh, right, yeah.”

  Willow turned his gaze very slightly to the side to watch as she tried to forcibly reshape bits of herself like pottery cy, a chill running through his stomach as he rapidly returned his attention to Sclera’s socket without the slightest urge to look back.

  “Yes, well, as much as I would love to let us both get back to what we were doing, I don’t believe the rest of the council would appreciate me returning without some manner of expnation for our little monster here.”

  “Ah, of course, it had slipped my mind entirely. You refer to Alice’s transformation from earlier, yes?”

  He nodded, his back straightened, trying to make himself appear far taller than he actually was.

  “I am indeed. The appearance of a wild beast such as that has caused considerable panic amongst the civilian popution. It’s only natural we would wish to stop such events from occurring again, is it not?”

  “Your dedication to the city’s denizens and their peace of mind is quite admirable. However, I must say that the monstrous form you refer to is, regrettably, my own fault. I believe I was simply a bit overzealous in the amount of energy I shared with my host here, and… well, her cup overflowed a good bit.”

  “That was… your doing? Not hers…?”

  Willow’s eyebrow raised ever so slightly, but he refrained from questioning them any further.

  “It was. As you yourself said, manifestations such as my current state are all but unheard of, yes? I cked the foreknowledge of how my own application of additional magical energy may affect the recipient, and in doing so caused everyone here a good deal of worry.”

  Both sides stayed quiet for a long, perfectly silent pause, the only sounds the constant, irregur clicks of Alice testingly pulling and nudging at her misshapen limbs.

  “…hmm. In light of this wealth of new information, your expnation does seem to be the most logical reason for such an unfortunate event. I believe Ms. Decaras here to be a bit… overly stubborn and prone to acts opposing acceptable magical girl behavior, but something quite so drastic did seem beyond her.”

  Alice bit down on her tongue hard, doing her absolute best to hold back some incredibly choice words she could have offered in response to his offhand remarks, instead merely gring daggers at him while Sclera continued for them both.

  “She is certainly very direct in her approach to matters, but I must admit I find it quite the refreshing attitude to be paired alongside.”

  Willow stayed quiet for a long while, eyes closed as he remained silently in thought, breathing deeply as he considered how to proceed.

  “…I trust that now that the both of you understand your limitations somewhat better now? And events such as what occurred beforehand will not be repeating?”

  Alice shrugged, lopsided shoulders not even remotely aligned for the gesture.

  “Eh, probably not.”

  “…yes, most likely not. The recurrence, I mean. Er, we mean.”

  He sighed deeply, remaining motionless for quite a long while, eventually deigning to reach for several buttons out of side from within the cell.

  “…of course. You will find the holding facility’s door unlocked whenever you find yourself capable of standing up again.”

  “Ah, thank you for understanding, we--”

  “The council will most likely request extensive time to look into the unique circumstances at py with the both of you once you’ve both been given some time to recuperate. So do try and stay out of trouble and keep an open schedule for us all, no?”

  She waved dismissively, already turning her attention back to her attempts at realigning her skeletal structure by brute force, the sight once more making Willow’s stomach turn as he hurriedly returned to exiting the stark white facility.

  He left the duo to their retive silence, Alice almost immediately falling backwards onto the bed below with a huff, the constant fiddling with her misshapen biology having been at least somewhat a ways of shooing the unbearable prick away faster.

  “Well, sounds like they’re gonna try tossing us in a b now, so that’s lovely.”

  “It certainly beats the alternative of lying here half-dead until they do the same regardless, does it not?”

  The pair returned to conversing via internalized thoughts, giving both pairs of strained vocal chords a merciful chance to rest.

  “Yeah, yeah, sure. Just getting real tired of everyone being on my ass all the time, ugh.”

  “We should at least have all the time we need to get this body of yours slightly more… functional. I doubt they’re going to drag you off again while you can’t even stand up on your own.”

  “Yeah, that shitty little book really fucked me over, huh? Don’t think it’s ever been this bad right after I woke up.”

  The two of them slowly worked at readjusting and realigning segments of Alice’s body as they thought at one another, the constant sound of clicking and snapping and occasional tearing the only external noises filling the room around them as her heartbeat thumped in her ears.

  “What happened to it anyways? They confiscate it, or did it break itself, or what?”

  “…had you not noticed it yet?”

  “What? No, of course I… I don’t think I have it on me or anything?”

  “You don’t hear it? I’ve barely been able to ignore it since I first regained consciousness.”

  “I don’t hear a damn thing, can you just--”

  Sclera made an internalized shushing noise at her, cutting off her thought as she was begrudgingly silenced, letting her attention focus outwards for the sound they’d referred to.

  The room remained perfectly silent as they stopped attempting self-performed surgery for a moment, merely idly listening.

  Unfortunately however, even without anything else to disturb them, the only thing Alice could hear was her heart still beating its steady rhythm.

  Thump thumpthump. Thump thumpthump. Thump thumpthump

  “…?”

  “Ah, you finally hear it as well?”

  “It’s… it’s supposed to sound a little smoother than that, yeah…?”

  “Your heart? It should, yes. Unfortunately for us both, our newest guest has taken a liking to it while we were both out of commission.”

  Thump thumpthump. Thump thumpthump. Thump thumpthump.

  “…fucking hell, is that what that is?!”

  Her heartbeat continued thumping rhythmically as the sound echoed through her, a second heartbeat forcibly attaching itself to the organ as it joined in that repeating chorus, the imperceptibly slight weight of its new parasitic passenger impossible to ignore as soon as Alice turned her focus towards her blood-pumping organ.

  “I’ve already made attempts at dislodging it, but wanted to refrain from ripping an additional gaping hole through your cardiovascur system before you even managed to recover from your existing injuries… for what it’s worth, it seems to be content in keeping to itself for the time being--”

  “I don’t care how fucking benign my magic tumor is!”

  Alice was already cwing weakly at her chest, fingernails scraping over barely-healed skin, the sound of the second heartbeat now impossible to ignore as it drummed against her eardrums.

  She’d managed a few deep scores into her flesh before her limbs locked up, Sclera forcibly intervening as she tried to tear into herself blindly.

  “Are you mad?! You can’t just rip your own chest cavity open, you’re barely put together enough to be conscious as is!”

  “What, you want me to just leave it in there then?! I don’t even know what the fuck it is or why the fuck it made me into… THAT.”

  She gestured at the monitors still dispying the beast of bloodied meat that had apparently been her several days earlier, arm struggling to stay lifted and slowly beginning to lower again as her twisted muscles failed to hold even their own weight.

  “…your frustrations are wholly understandable, and yet I would still ask you to allow us to focus on expediting your physical recovery before returning to the subject of this… aberrant Focus.”

  Alice grumbled loudly, the sound halfway between a grunt and growl as she begrudgingly agreed with them.

  “Fine, fine. I don’t wanna keep being meat paste in here until they change their minds on scraping me into a vial or something. But when we are out of here, I still want that goddamn thing out of me, yeah?”

  “…of course, of course. Right, that’s probably the best idea, yes.”

  There was a note of hesitation in their voice as it echoed between her ears, the tone not escaping Alice’s attention.

  “What? You weren’t thinking of keeping it in there or something, were you?”

  “I… no, no. Well… it is difficult to say currently, but…”

  They grumbled quietly to themselves for a short while, struggling to formute thoughts that had been stirring in their segment of their shared mind for the st several days of solitude.

  “…I do not believe it to be… wholly antagonistic to the both of us, at least. Rather, I believe it was at least making some attempt of being helpful. A misguided attempt, but an attempt regardless.”

  “The hell is that supposed to mean? That I’ve got a third person taking up space in my head now?”

  “No, that remains simply the two of us for the time being. It is little more than a bundle of instincts and impulses, even while it was active before… strikingly familiar instincts and impulses.”

  Sclera sighed silently in their shared thoughts, the action eliciting the physical equivalent from Alice as she yawned, eye turned to focus on their occupied socket, awaiting an expnation.

  “I… have no memories of creating such a thing, either directly or indirectly, but… hmm. The energy output from that Focus is… unmistakably my own.”

  Alice would have jerked upwards if she’d had the strength to sit up, instead merely jerking her twisted figure upwards slightly with a muted crack from somewhere in her lower back.

  “Allow me to crify that as this remains my first physical manifestation in your world, I was not the one responsible for creating such a device. But the traces of energy emanating from it do inarguably originate from myself.”

  “Great, so you rented yourself out to someone making… I dunno, fucking bioweapons?”

  “I have not ‘rented myself out’ to anyone, hmph. The only ones who would have had access to my abilities would be those I have made pacts with in the past. Which would be… a rather substantial list, I’m afraid.”

  Alice grumbled again, thoughts churning away as she processed them.

  “…what about Lonnie’s sister? Cordelia, yeah? She said this thing was her Focus originally even if she didn’t ever use it, was she one of yours?”

  “Cordelia… the name is familiar, so it’s entirely possible, yes. Though it seems a bit too well-worn to have only been hers, in that case.”

  The duo idly brainstormed at one another as they pieced away at rearranging Alice’s inner workings like some manner of grotesque jigsaw puzzle, the sound of breaking and reforming bones only barely managing to drown out the percussive noise of her abnormal, doubled heartbeat.