Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Chapter 147: Book 3: Knight

The first thing I experience is pain.

Kauku wasn't lying about the strain this Inspiration causes. It's not just the way it peels away at my Firmament and tears me apart from within—it's the physical change, too. I stagger away from the ledge before collapsing to the ground as a series of cracks resound within my body. It's not a sound so much as it is a kick of bass that's accompanied by a wave of pain so intense I taste copper in my mouth.

It takes me a moment before I realize that the sensation is coming from my bones. They're realigning. They're moving inside my body, snapping at the joints and tearing apart flesh so that they're on the outside instead of within. Then they begin to grow, popping and cracking this time audible in the air itself.

My body is physically reshaping itself to accommodate my use of this Inspiration.

Part of that shift is the alteration and movement of muscle, skin, and bone. My skin turns hard, density shifting until it turns into a gleaming silver-blue shine—not that I can spare a moment to appreciate the color. It doesn't help that I can sense a presence alongside these changes, guiding them, making each change as it sees fit; the Knight treats my body and Firmament as if it were nothing more than putty.

It's agonizing. It's intrusive. It's something foreign that's decided I'm nothing more than a vessel for everything it represents. The Knight molds me like clay, making changes, turning me into a copy of it.

My vision blurs. My fingers claw into the ground, easily slicing through the roots and stone beneath them. I see in the corner of my eye the sight of a gauntlet in place of my fists—and this is truly in place of my fists, because I can't feel the flesh and bone beneath it. Instead, pure Firmament forms itself into something that isn't quite flesh.

Not unlike what I've seen of the Integrators, now that I think about it.

"Ethan!" Ahkelios's voice is worried but distant; I can't hear him quite as well. His words come to me as though I were hearing them through a sheet of metal, slightly distorted and with a tinny overtone. It takes me a moment to realize that my vision is restricted, too. I can see directly in front of me, but not to the side.

And the transformation isn't complete yet.

I can feel my legs lengthening as I stand. My claws dig into the ground, and they really are claws, with sharp, pointed toes instead of ordinary sabatons. The Knight within me growls with satisfaction as they grip into the dirt.

He takes an experimental leap.

I fly through the air with a speed that surprises me. There isn't a single skill being used—no expression of Firmament, no reinforcement, nothing but the raw power of the Knight packed into every fiber of my being. It takes me seconds to cross a gap that should have taken at least a minute. I slam feet-first into the trunk of a tree, my claws gripping into the wood.

And then I stand.

Horizontally.

The wood creaks with an ominous groan as it's forced to bear my weight with nothing more than the strength of the claws digging into it, but it doesn't snap into pieces—I'm not initially sure why. It should be nothing more than splinters. It takes me a moment before I realize that the metal on my feet has extended into the tree, almost like a whole set of roots unto themselves.

The knight roars. I feel my face split open, metal distorting into a jaw, a growl emerging from my throat that human vocal cords couldn't hope to make.

Okay. That's enough. I try to assert control—this is my body, my mind, and no foreign influence is just going to take it from me. Especially one of my own Inspirations. I reach out to move and take a step back down from the ground.

Nothing happens.

I can feel the so-called muscles of my new body, even if they don't exactly map to the human, biological idea of a muscle. I can send signals to those muscles, even, but it feels like I'm straining against something that has me completely bound. I push against it, forcing myself to move, to at least get my arm under my own control.

The best I can do is make a single finger twitch. A snarl emerges from my throat—not my own, but a reaction to my attempt to take control. The Knight recoils from the touch of my mind and immediately begins to launch itself in directions I can only assume to be random, leaping from tree to tree and causing every one of them to collapse along the way. I can only wince at the destruction.

Ahkelios is following along, I hope. And I really hope Guard doesn't find me like this, because I have no idea what the Inspiration is going to do to him.

Honestly, I just kind of hope I don't encounter anyone while like this. I don't actually know how the Knight would react. I don't understand who it is, on a fundamental level. I can feel its mind alongside mine, but it's a chaotic mess of thoughts that I can't penetrate, no matter how hard I try.

There's fear, regret, confusion, anger... There's so much there, just swirling around. I should be panicking, but a good half of my thoughts are focused just on that, on trying to figure out this being I now apparently share a body with.

I need to take back control first, though.

I try to disable the Inspiration—once, twice, three times. There's no response either from the core of my Firmament or from my body. It's like I'm completely locked out from myself, forced to do nothing but watch; even the sense of strain that I had before is slowly fading. Like the Knight is gaining more and more control over our shared body.

Panic begins to rise within my mind, but I suppress it. Panic won't help.

I'm breathing heavily, sucking in inhuman gulps of oxygen through the void that's replaced my face. The Inspiration is driven almost entirely by instinct at the moment, an instinct to protect itself and an instinct to express itself. There's no goal here. It just wants to be. It might embody the concept of a knight, but it isn't completely there.

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I try to push past those layers of fear and confusion. There's something there. There's someone there. From what Kauku's said, Inspirations are alive to a certain degree, and if that's the case, the Knight is probably what a fully evolved Inspiration becomes—an entity that merges with the person it's partnered with.

So why is this one so afraid?

The answer comes to me: because it wants to be. It doesn't want to be locked away again. It doesn't want to become nothing, an element of potential in an endless void, waiting for someone to pick it out. It's so afraid of that outcome that it's forcing itself to the front, taking control, trying to run from a phantom it believes will turn it into nothing once more.

I can work with that.

"Hey." My mental voice is deliberately gentle, at odds with the panic and fear that clouds the Knight's mind; it cuts through the chaos of its mind and settles in as a moment of placid clarity. The Knight freezes, jerking its head around, trying to see where my voice is coming from. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm your partner."

Anger. Suspicion. Rejection. The Knight launches itself away again, bouncing from tree to tree and barreling over a cactus that just happens to be in the way. The massive needle of that cactus just glances off its armor. "Not partner," it hisses. "No partner! Partners always end!"

"I will not." I try to make my voice gently persuasive. The control we share over this body is tenuous—Kauku's words about the strain of the Inspiration lingers in my mind, and I can feel, deep within, that I can only hold this for a few minutes more before my Firmament starts taking permanent damage. That doesn't bode well for either of us. "But we need to share. We're not going to survive if we don't."

"No!" it insists, but I can feel hesitation. It misses its old partner. Misses the connection, the friendship, the harmony.

But the feeling of betrayal is stronger. "Not again. Never again."

"I can't promise you things will be different." It's not the perfect thing to say, but it's honest, and the Knight can feel my sincerity. "But I can promise you I won't abandon you on purpose. Ever. We share a mind—do you see anyone I've abandoned?"

There's no answer for a moment. Then it replies, its voice guarded. "Brother."

The reply strikes me like a physical blow. It takes me a moment to gather my thoughts and respond. "I didn't do that on purpose. I tried. You can see that."

"But it happened." The Knight's dialect is getting a little better—it's picking up more from me as it peeks into my memories. "You did not intend to... be gone... when he died. But you were."

It stings. The Knight's words echo all the doubts I've ever had about my brother's death, all the little whispers in my brain that told me it was my fault, that I could have done more.

It makes it a little worse that the words aren't even accusatory. Now that the emotions have cooled a little, I can feel exactly what the Knight is thinking—it wants badly for me to be telling the truth. It wants me to reassure it, to convince it that this partnership will work. That things will be different.

"It's hard to make promises." I don't want to lie, even if it would help. In fact, I could reach out right this moment and force control, I think—disable the Inspiration, force it back down and face it another time. It's vulnerable because it's hesitating, because it wants.

But what kind of partnership would take advantage of a moment like that? It might be hurting me in turn, but it doesn't know that. "It's hard to make promises," I repeat. "But—"

Premonition activates.

There's a familiar flash of movement. Both the Knight and I react as we realize something is coming toward us at near-supersonic speeds. We reach out in tandem with one gauntleted arm, and a Guilty Chimer's paw slams straight into our palm, creating a shockwave that crackles with Firmament.

We don't budge. Kauku wasn't kidding about this part, either: the Inspiration is strong, and when we're both aligned on what we want to do, it's apparently enough to stop even a rank-A monster in its tracks. But we fall out of alignment almost a moment later. I try to grab the chimera's paw and pull it into me for a kick, and the Knight instead tries to slash with a sword it doesn't have.

The Knight's hold on our shared body is still stronger. The gauntlet clatters ineffectually against the chimera's scales, creating a shower of sparks, and it roars at us.

"But?" the Knight demands. It wants to know. It barely cares about the fight, about our lives being in danger. The chimera goes for a counter, gathering Firmament into a dense ball of power that barrels into our chest and cracks us against a tree, and though I try to react, the Knight still holds dominance.

There's a small crack in our armor. That crack comes with an alarm-bell of pain, more a warning than anything else—my body and Firmament can't hold the Inspiration much longer.

"You can see my mind." I can sense how important this is to the Knight. It's important enough that it doesn't even care about the chimera attacking us. It just wants an answer it can believe in. I let my awareness of the chimera fall away, too, because I need the Knight to understand how sincere I am. "I let that happen once. Do you think I'd let it happen again?"

Silence.

And then... acceptance. The Knight's presence recedes just enough for me to take the reins, and I look up to see the chimera just above me, prepared to strike.

The only reason it hasn't yet is because a certain angry-looking mantis is in front of it, blocking the chimera with everything he has.

"Have I ever mentioned that I love you, Ahkelios?" I say with a grin. The voice comes out of my helmet metallic and distorted.

Ahkelios scowls at me. "Finally. Shut up and punch this thing already!"

"If you say so."

No skills. No need for them. The Knight's intent lines up with mine, and we launch ourselves up, Firmament pouring into our fist. It shines just like Amplified Gauntlet would have.

The blow shatters the Guilty Chimera, although just for an instant—a split second before the notification flickers into view about its death—I see something strange. A glimpse of... hatred. A glimmer of color and Firmament that doesn't belong.

You're being hunted. Kauku's words come back to me.

It vanishes almost as soon as I see it, and the Inspiration bleeds away, leaving me human again. Covered in cuts and panting for breath, admittedly. The Knight still resides within my core, and I get the distinct feeling from it that we aren't quite done yet. Learning to fight together is going to be a challenge.

Ahkelios looks me up and down, then folds his arms across his chest, looking for all the world like an upset parent. "What the heck happened, Ethan?"

I glance at the destruction around me and let out a hollow laugh. "Uh... long story."