'Whose teeth are these?'

My question slams into the construct with the force of a freight train. It's globlets fly away and smash into the walls with enough force to leave dents–far more than anything else we've seen so far. I look down at my palm, at the few rotten teeth that were ripped from the construct, then close my hand around them.

Just because some teeth are rotten doesn't mean the entire jaw is done for. Extracting the teeth and treating the disease can save everything else. There's one true monster inside of that construct. And a dozen possibly innocent people have been forced to live with them–no, live as them–for untold hundreds of years. Possibly even thousands with the time dilation.

I cock my head to the side and force purification into a coin. "They're yours, aren't they? Burnt out at the roots, rotten to the core, and sickening the whole. What was your name again?"

A silent wave of distortion fills the room with rage. I tap Euro on the shoulder and discreetly motion for them to go into the room as plastic and electricity crackle in equal amounts. Jumble can't have known what I'm about to do. She just wants this thing to die. And maybe all of it will.

But I want to give each of them the chance.

"Should I go too?" Jumble whispers.

Euro stops to wait for my answer. "No. I'm going to need you here with me."

Jumble sets her mouth into a grim line and nods. She gestures for Euro to go without her, and the rogue disappears into a fairly obvious shimmer with a flourish of their hands. The construct remains in its pile near the exit, the only moving parts being those belonging to the one who got shocked to death. I'm not even going to try to remember his name.

He doesn't deserve it.

I spread my arms wide and take a confident step forward. "Did the system purposefully give you more control over the construct, or is it just a universal constant that asshole psychopaths always bulldoze everyone else for their own benefit?"

Anger billows free in a wave of heat and emotion. Arcs of electricity crackle across the room. I throw up a shield to protect Jumble and I, then discreetly flick another shield to cut off the room Euro just ducked into. My heart thunders in my chest, but not out of fear. Hate boils in my veins as I summon two more projectiles in preparation.

"Stopped using the messenger, too. Just gave up all pretense of being a decent thing once you saw we were going to get out of here." I cock my head to the side with a vicious, toothy grin. "Or maybe this is exactly what was supposed to happen. Scare the hell out of everyone who finishes the subquest so we run away with our tails between our legs. I'm not scared of you. But you should be scared of me."

My awareness screams as an arc of lightning scours my shield. It barely wavers and holds strong. Stronger than it has any right to hold. I glance over my shoulder at Jumble, whose eyes are fixated on my back as she quietly whispers words that slide into my brain without having to be heard. She offers me a nod of encouragement. I offer her a genuine smile and turn back to the enemy.

"Talk to me." I say sarcastically. "Why don't we solve this with words? Nobody has to die. Is that what you said to your victims before you killed them? How many did you dispose of for the system? Dozens? Hundreds? Did everyone else cower in fear as you did it?"

"THERE IS ONLY ME!" The construct roars in a cacophony of voices. All but one of which are cowering in fear. "WE ARE ONE! THE SYSTEM IS PERFECT! HOW DARE YOU INSINUATE THAT IT IS ANYTHING BUT, ESPECIALLY WITH ONE OF THOSE VERMIN AT YOUR BACK?!"

Cold hatred snuffs out the seething rage as Jumble winces behind me. I look down at the coins in my hand–one projectile and one purification. With Jumble's help, it's enough.

I flick the purification through my knuckles, watching the blobs squirm closer together by the second. "How can you talk about your own people like that? Just because she's a second wave and you're first, doesn't change the fact that you're both paindne."

"It changes everything!" The construct begins to reform, starting from a skeletal jaw that's missing a few teeth. "They are scum birthed from the tainted flesh of the megalodane! Like maggots squirming from rotten meat, they deserve nothing but to be dealt with! All of them! ALL OF THEM!"

In the construct's voice, another raises. A brash, angry tone that speaks the same words–but with a cadence so betrayed and hurt that it stabs me right in the heart. Almost like this voice is questioning the veracity of the construct's main voice.

I crush one tooth. It dissolves into plastic. Plastic stolen from the shellraisers and twisted to give control over the paindne. Pain flares up my arm as the rot tries to sink in, but a quick crush of my purification coin utterly ends the rot. One by one I crush the other teeth, creating a mass of plastic that's mine by right of destruction.

"They're people just like you." I state emotionlessly. "Betrayed by the system and forced into a world they knew nothing about. But unlike you, they didn't keep worshipping a god that despises their very existence. Their prison is here–and the system wants to bring it back into the real world. How can you do that to them?"

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"I don't care! I don't care!"

The construct screeches and grabs its head with newly formed skeletal hands. More voices cut through the roar, joining the main with equal strength and different tones. Some openly voice their despair. Others guilt. One in specific sounds way too young. Like a child.

My mind flashes to the scene between blur and body. What if… the amalgam. It wasn't an accident. The construct waited in this room, killing all the tenants who came through that weren't openly in love with the system. So two of the voices in the mass belong to the body and the blur.

Murder victims forced to live forever with their killer.

I put on a plastic smile for the plastic murderer. "I know you don't care. That's why I hate you. People like you. You just do things because you want to. Whatever damage it does to other people, the amount of lives it ruins–none of that matters to scum like you. As long as you're amused, or feel like you belong, it's all good. My question is–did the system turn you into a psycho, or were you always this way?"

"I AM ME!"

The construct screeches and launches itself. I stand my ground as my shield shatters uselessly in the face of a mass murderer immortalized in plastic. Another purification appears in my hand as I slam the mass of crushed teeth against the thing's forehead, shoving my thoughts and intents into the plastic as it forcefully rejoins the whole.

Electricity arcs through my body. My hand crushes the purification as my entire body tenses, current lancing straight through my heart in one of the most painful things I've ever experienced. The floor crackles under my foot. Jumble screams and steps in to try and help.

Plastic detonates away from the construct in a massive torrent of glistening grey. Gallons of the stuff coats the room behind it as the electricity dulls to a mild ache, my heart beating horribly out of synch from the jolts. Purification soaks into my flesh, scouring away the damage done by the thankfully magic lightning and slams on my heart to shove it back into a proper rhythm.

"Shelby?! Shelby!" Jumble cries.

I'm… looking up at her. When did that happen? And why's everything getting so dark? I open my mouth to try and say something, but a sharp pain in my chest stops me dead in my tracks.

Tears stream down Jumble's cheeks as she summons a deep, violent crimson potion and tilts my mouth up to pour it down my throat. It tastes like blood and burns like fire, but within seconds my vision returns to me and I sit up with a groan. Jumble throws her arms around me and silently weeps.

"Hey, hey." I gently pat her on the arm. "You had a healing potion. I was always fine."

"But… but…" Jumble sniffles loudly. "That was paindne blood operation. It's only supposed to work on people with the megalodane's blood in them."

I shake my head and laugh. "Surprise, I guess. Now–I'm not going to force all these people to do something they really don't want to do."

Jumble raises an eyebrow while holding tight to my neck as I stand for both of us. "All these people? I just see a bunch of… moving… plastic. Shelby… what did you do?"

I can't help but grin. "I gave them a way out, just like the system forced them in. All I needed was a little bit of plastic for them to grasp onto."

"The… the teeth?" Jumble asks in disbelief. "I… I just… okay. I believe you."

My grin softens into a smile. "Thanks. It's a shellraiser permission thing–I'm just glad Pearl caught on without me having to say anything."

Pearl blinks. "Me? Shelby, I didn't do anything."

…What? "Pearl, you put the command in the plastic that separated all the different consciousnesses. I can't do that on my own."

"Apparently you can." Pearl laughs. "I bet it's because you filled the plastic with purification–not a command."

That's still not… hm. I guess that actually could work. With tentative acceptance I step forward towards the skeletal construct standing dumbly right in front of me, all the wind torn from its sails as pitiful amounts of electricity sputter from its claws. It looks up at me as I approach.

"What did you do to me?" It asks quietly.

I press a projectile to its chest that sinks in deep. "This."

As I take a step back, I summon a shield around the construct and detonate the projectile. A whirl of violent salt and magic eviscerates the thing into a thin slurry of vicious and vile plastic containing the mind of someone I hope I never learn anything more about. Real screams fill my ears as the thing dies over and over again, its connection to the system severely weakened as a result of my attack.

There's only one way to finish it off. I place my hand on the shield, stare deep into the last moments of the construct's wretched existence, and claim victory over the system's creation.

"Repurpose."

The construct screams one final time, then falls silent as the plastic inside the tube solidifies. It twists and shifts until it settles on a shape; a grey pocketbook. Jumble gasps at the sight of it, then turns to me with eyes glittering not an inch from my face. I motion for her to go ahead as I lower the shield, and before I can take a single step, she's on it. With lightning speed she flips through the pages, her expression and resolve hardening as one with every word that I can't read.

"It's just names." She whispers. "Thousands upon thousands of names."

"Either that the construct killed, or every paindne that was made into a construct." I say as I kneel down next to her. "Do you want to keep it?"

Jumble nods. "I'll read through it later. Maybe… maybe I'll see some old friends again. Except for this–this is yours."

She tears a page from the book and puts it in my hand. I look down at it, and on it is a simple drawing; a tooth surrounded by lightning. My fingers twitch as my vision swirls around it with a sense of vertigo that twists my stomach into knots and sends jolts of stimulation through my… well… everything.

Spell Learned: Infusion.

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