Trenn’s scream echoed in his skull.

  He yanked on the empathic leash, commanding the Gem-Croc instinct to attack the intruder. Fight him! Bite him!

  The beast didn't fight.

  The ancient reptile felt the intruder's cold touch. It didn't feel an enemy; it felt a master. It recognized the cruel hand that had held its leash. The Gem-Croc’s instinct rolled over, exposing its throat.

  The One-Eye laughed—a psychic shockwave that shredded Trenn’s defenses.

  Mine again.

  Trenn stood up. His lips peeled back in a smile that wasn't his own. It was a baring of teeth, a pilot seizing the controls of a new machine.

  "Trenn?" Mara stepped forward, bow lowered, confusion clouding her face.

  Trenn tried to warn her. He tried, but his muscles betrayed him.

  Its gaze snapped to Mara. The left eye was a tear in reality, a swirling void that drank the cavern's light.

  "Trenn is gone."

  The voice wore Trenn’s timbre, but the cadence dripped with a slushy, reptilian slur.

  The massive golden tail swept the floor, testing the weight. "And this... this is magnificent."

  Its gaze flicked past Mara to the nesting mound at the back of the cavern.

  The Armored Dog stood over the shivering form of Dawn. The rooster god lay in a heap of tarnished feathers, bleeding sluggishly. The dog was cleaning the rooster, licking the ichor and grime away.

  Through the red haze of his hijacked vision, Trenn saw the hunter eclipse the friend. She lunged.

  Black-green light trailed from her necrotic claws. She aimed a cross-body slash, twisting her wrist at the last fraction.

  The One-Eye raised the White Metal shield.

  The impact shuddered through Trenn’s arm bones. The White Metal, forged from the armor of the dog god, caught the necrotic claws and held them fast.

  Mara’s eyes went wide, and her mouth slacked.

  The One-Eye sneered. It raised the God-Bone club, the runes along its ivory shaft flaring with hungry light.

  The club began its descent toward Mara’s skull when two red blurs shot across the cavern.

  A mechanical grappling hook bit deep into Trenn’s bicep, piercing his leather armor. A second clamped around the tip of his golden tail.

  He screamed as Ezy slammed the Crusher’s control levers in reverse.

  "Get away from her!"

  The winches screamed. The cables snapped taut. The One-Eye was yanked backward, his swing pulled wide.

  Mara scrambled back.

  Zeen stepped into the gap.

  The gnome’s face was masked with fury. He leveled his soul-bound musket at Trenn’s chest.

  "For Gil!"

  The muzzle flashed. A concentrated ball of kinetic ash and embers struck Trenn above the hip.

  The explosion engulfed his chest with a deafening boom. The force knocked him back a step; the heat seared the air.

  The One-Eye screamed in surprised rage.

  Trenn’s breastplate was hanging open. The skin beneath was a ruin of blistered red flesh. The burning ashes spread up his back, chest, and neck. It singed his hair and scorched his scalp. He felt the agony, the panic, but the entity controlling him ignored it.

  The One-Eye planted Trenn’s feet. It dropped its center of gravity and torqued its hips. The massive golden tail whipped violently to the side.

  The Crusher lurched, one leg lifting off the ground. Metal groaned. The grappling hook on the tail couldn't hold the divine strength; it tore free with a screech of warping iron.

  The One-Eye grabbed the remaining cable attached to his arm and yanked.

  The Crusher skidded toward him, sparks showering from its locked feet as the cables snapped.

  Above, Almitad kicked her boot free. The bones of her foot separated, hovering for a split second before launching like bolts.

  They streaked downward and punched through Trenn’s ruined leather armor. Blunt force hammered his abdomen. One bone drove deep, fracturing a rib with a snap.

  He staggered, dropping to one knee. He looked down at the bones piercing his armor. Ichor pooled around them.

  He spat blood. The One-Eye seethed. But the rage triggered a response. The Gem-Croc answered. Deep in the marrow, the beast woke up and offered its strength.

  The One-Eye reached for that power, intending to use it as a weapon, but the connection was a floodgate, not a tap. The animal god wasn't reacting to a leash anymore; it was surging to protect its owner.

  Trenn’s eyes went wide as the beast’s biology overrode the One-Eye’s will.

  "Too much—"

  Golden scales erupted from his pores. The force shredded his leather armor into rags.

  His spine elongated with a jarring sound. Vertebrae multiplied, forcing his torso low into a predatory crouch.

  Shoulders broadened with the crack of expanding bone; arms stretched and thickened. Jagged clusters of emerald and ruby burst from the joints.

  Trenn screamed. Gold plates retracted from his neck, sliding upward to interlock over his jaw and scalp. The maw of the Gem-Croc Kin sprang and snapped shut, sealing his humanity inside.

  The void in his left eye vanished as twin orbs of green fire ignited within the helm.

  The Golden Avatar dropped his center of gravity and spun in front of Mara. The massive golden tail whipped around, a blur of muscle and gemstone aimed at her side.

  She recognized the movement instantly. It was the same attack she had replayed a million times in her mind.

  Fueled by the Giant Pill, her muscles fired with supernatural speed. She side-stepped, tucking her knees and bending with the Gem-Croc Kin’s movement. The golden wrecking ball’s wake ruffled her fur.

  The monster rode the momentum. He spun, driving a massive fist into a vicious backhand. The blow hammered Mara’s armored bicep. She rocked back, planting a boot to regain her footing.

  “Get off her!” Ezy roared, triggering the Crusher’s forearm rifles with loud detonations.

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  A slug sparked off the slope of his scaled back. The other hammered the helm dead center. The lead flattened and spun away, leaving no scratch on the divine gold.

  Almitad floated over the melee. Her skeletal fingers weaved patterns in the air. She pointed at the wounds Trenn had taken in his human form—the bone-bolts, the chest seared by Zeen’s fire.

  "Rot."

  The golden scales covering those spots lost their luster. They tarnished instantly, turning a sickly black-green as gangrenous corruption spread outward.

  The Gem-Croc Kin flinched, a hiss escaping its helm as the necrosis ate into the divine metal.

  Zeen saw the weakness. He stepped out from behind the Crusher.

  “Wait Zeen, that’s Trenn!” screamed Ezy as he leveled his musket at the Gem-Croc Kin’s wounded side

  "No! It’s the One-Eye!"

  He fired.

  The ball of kinetic ash slammed into the weakened armor. Blackened scales ripped free, exposing burnt, decaying flesh.

  The Gem-Croc Kin flinched and screamed with indignation.

  Mara circled the flank. She raked her necrotic claws across the exposed back.

  The strike sheared through golden plates, shattering a cluster of raw emeralds. Green dust mixed with a spray of golden ichor. The gouges instantly blackened, rot eating into the divine flesh.

  The head snapped toward her. The tail whipped around, a massive counterweight that spun the monster on its heel. Black-green flames burned in the eye slits.

  No!

  The jaws opened.

  Don’t you dare! Not her!

  Trenn threw his entire consciousness against the command, trying to shut the crocodilian maw, but the Gem-Croc Kin’s will was a tidal wave against a sandcastle.

  Black-green fire ignited in its throat, mixing the Sound Element with the discordant hum of Necromancy. The air buzzed. The monster inhaled.

  Almitad dropped from above.

  "DIE."

  The Power Word fired—a beam of entropy and sound aimed directly at Mara. She couldn’t move, even with the Giant Pill; she was no match for the speed of sound.

  A flash of teal and bone intercepted the beam.

  The Power Word struck her skeleton full force. It rattled her bones, blowing a necrotic leaf from the Mana Bloom. The energy washed over her and found nothing to kill.

  "You cannot kill the dead."

  The recoil tore through Trenn’s usurped body. The feedback loop boiled his blood. Muscles seized in a tetanic lock.

  The One-Eye’s hold shattered. It clawed at Trenn’s mind, desperate for a grip, but found no purchase.

  Trenn seized the opening. He pushed. He drove himself through the agony. He screamed—a ragged, tearing sound—as he forced the burning entity out of his soul.

  The expulsion tore everything loose. The control of the amulet snapped; the possession of the Gem-Croc shattered.

  The golden scales retracted violently. Plates ground against ribs and spine as they withdrew, a thousand serrated knives retreating into his marrow.

  He collapsed to his hands and knees, naked and shivering. Blood wept from his tear ducts. The hum of the Sound Element flickered in his chest and died.

  His side was a crater of blistered red flesh where Zeen’s fire had struck, the edges festering with a sickly black-green rot where Almitad’s magic had taken hold.

  Four deep, weeping furrows crossed his spine where Mara’s claws had slashed. His hair was a singed mat of ash, and his face was scorched, the skin angry and tight.

  Trenn’s brain was a soup of static and pain. He tried to stand, but his knees buckled. He pitched forward, dead weight falling toward the stone.

  A purple blur shot under his armpit.

  Skate hardened instantly, transforming into a rigid black stone crutch that caught Trenn’s weight.

  Trenn gasped, leaning heavily on the living stone. "Thanks."

  The slime softened, flowing up his arm to reclaim its perch on his head.

  A shadow hemorrhaged from his sweat-slicked skin. The One-Eye was loose.

  It shot toward Zeen.

  The gnome froze, raising his musket with wide eyes.

  "How dare you!" a spectral voice roared.

  The ivory stock flared blinding white. Gil’s spirit manifested in a bright light, intercepting the shadow mid-air.

  The One-Eye panicked. Mara was dashing towards the amulet.

  It jumped into Mara’s mind.

  The impact knocked the wind from her lungs. She gasped, her forward momentum arrested as if she’d hit a wall. Her hands flew to her temples, claws raking her scalp, drawing lines of blood through her white fur. Her back arched in a grotesque, snapping spasm.

  "Not… Again…" she hissed through gritted teeth.

  The One-Eye was a deluge of alien will. It drowned her. It flooded her senses with the memories of Tyndral’s death, of the burning forest, of every failure she had ever tasted. It tasted the Alchemy coursing through her veins—the Giant Pill—and laughed.

  It dug its claws in, hijacking the artificial power of the potion to overwrite her nervous system.

  Mara’s hand dropped from her head. Her posture shifted, losing the hunter’s crouch and adopting a stiff, regal arrogance. She turned to Trenn, her amber eyes dull and flat.

  "I will wear this skin better than you ever did," the voice rasped from her throat—a dual-tone harmony of Mara’s growl and the One-Eye’s slushy lisp.

  Her hand moved to the kris knife at her belt. She drew it with a blur of speed, leveling the blade at her own throat.

  "Surrender, or I spill her blood."

  "NO!" Zeen screamed, lowering his musket, paralyzed by the hostage.

  But inside the cage of her mind, the hunter was not dormant. Mara screamed a primal refusal. She seized control of her left arm.

  Her left hand shot up and grabbed her right wrist. The blade quivered inches from her jugular.

  "GET. OUT."

  Muscles bulged, tearing her sleeves as she fought her own strength. Capillaries burst in her eyes, turning the amber to red. She twisted her own wrist. There was a sickening pop of cartilage. She didn't care. She torqued the joint until her fingers went numb and the knife clattered to the floor.

  She forced her body to bend. She reached out. She closed her hand on the black amulet lying on the stone.

  The One-Eye shrieked in her mind—a sound of pure, concentrated hatred that promised eternal torture. It demanded she toss the amulet in a crack of the ground. It tried to fire her neurons to make her legs run.

  "I said..." Mara gritted out, blood leaking from her nose, "...NO!"

  She forced her arm back. Tendons snapped audibly against the parasite's grip. She meant to hurl it into the wall, to shatter it.

  But as she released, the One-Eye seized her tricep. Her arm locked in a violent spasm.

  Trenn tracked the arc through a mask of scorched, tightening skin.

  His side was a crater of blistered flesh and black rot. His back was a ruin of weeping trenches. Instinct bypassed the screaming nerves and fired the dead muscles. He lurched on legs that felt like wood, widening his stance to fight the vertigo.

  The amulet tumbled wide.

  He twisted his torso. The movement tore the necrotic crater in his side wide open. Dead skin ripped; raw nerves hit the air. The gouges along his spine screamed as muscles bunched, pulling the wounds apart.

  Blind agony eclipsed the fire on his face. He lunged through it, extending past his balance point.

  He didn’t have the muscle to swing. He lifted his arm, locked his grip, and let gravity take his dying weight.

  The ivory club descended.

  But as the God-Bone closed the distance, the One-Eye sensed the end. It abandoned Mara. It abandoned the amulet. In a final, desperate bid for survival, it lashed out psychically at Trenn.

  Trenn froze. The club hovered inches from the black stone.

  “We are the same!” the One-Eye screamed in his thoughts, its voice a desperate, clawing thing. “You discarded your humanity for power! You used the dead! You crushed the weak! Do not destroy me, brother! Bind me! Wield me!”

  It showed him a vision—Trenn, clad in golden armor, wielding the amulet, ruling the Twin Cities. Safe. Powerful. Alone.

  Trenn looked at the vision. He felt the cold, seductive pull of the void.

  Then he looked at Mara. He looked at Zeen. He looked at Ezy. All broken but unbound. A chosen family.

  "I'm nothing like you," Trenn whispered.

  He poured every ounce of his will, every drop of the Gem-Croc’s lingering fury, and the raw weight of his guilt into his arm. He broke the psychic hold.

  The ivory club met the black stone.

  The weapon of fused blood, bone, and organic metal was a masterpiece of necrotic enchantments. The point of collision hissed and turned grey before the stone launched, trailing black smoke and violet light.

  With a loud clap, it smashed into the obsidian wall.

  The amulet screamed.

  It was a high-pitch tear in reality that shattered glass on the Crusher’s dials and brought everyone to their knees. A shockwave of violet light erupted from the impact point, illuminating the cavern in a harsh, dying strobe.

  The sphere shattered.

  For a heartbeat, a shadow hung in the air—a writhing, shapeless mass of smoke and malice, shredded into harmless motes of black dust that rained onto the floor.

  Mara collapsed, the black void fading from her eyes.

  The dust settled. The deafening roar of combat was replaced by the sound of Trenn’s laborious breathing. He was on the ground. Lying in a pool of his own golden blood.

  Mara's seven-foot frame slumped against the wall, her chest heaving, the red haze fading from her eyes to reveal raw exhaustion. Ezy leaned her head back against the Crusher’s seat, staring blankly at the ceiling. Almitad flew down to Trenn, her footless left leg dangling above the ground.

  Zeen dashed at the One-Eye’s amulet. He picked up the cracked sphere. The interior was smooth and hollow, scorched clean. The black dust settling on the floor was all that remained of the entity.

  “Is it over?” he asked, staring at the empty casing.

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