From a sliver thin vantage point, Tremble saw something horrible.

  The exquisite 51 was being boiled alive!!! By Devon Near, no less!

  It was not the fact that she was doing this that bothered her, no. It was the fact that somehow, in that very annoying Devon way, the girl had forgotten her place.

  ”You’re supposed to be dead,” she whispered from her spot at the top of the stairs, kneeled next to the door. “Dead!”

  “She clearly isn’t. Move.” Lemsk pushed her aside. “I wanna see what’s going on.”

  Tremble fell back with little resistance. As much as she loathed it she couldn’t buck the hierarchy, not when she was outnumbered (This was a pun but Tremble’s mind was too haphazard and preoccupied to notice. She also had no sense of humor, although she assumed she did, as anyone without a sense of humor does).

  Trav sauntered past her and gave a slow smile. He took a seat next to Lemsk as the girl leaned forward to the crack, giddy with excitement.

  ”Be careful,” Tremble warned, “such sights should be rationed.”

  Lemsk whipped her head back. Her raven red hair flew everywhere before coalescing back into that atrocious bob cut. “It’s fine, you stool scraper. 51’s wiping the floor with her.”

  She whipped back. There was a pause, then a full body shudder. Lemsk moved backwards in a daze before falling down next to Trav, who looked at her with a blank stare.

  ”What's wrong?” He asked.

  ”She’s… she’s cooking them. She’s making a stew.” Lemsk held her head to try and stop the shaking. “There’s no honor in it. She was so calm too… she wasn’t even reveling in the joy of violence. Fucking… fucking two-legged crawlcow. Fucking… awful. Just awful.”

  Tremble could have been smug here, but she was a very polite person and would never put salt in a wound. Figuratively.

  Literally, she was all for it.

  She really liked doing stuff like that for real, actually.

  The crack and Tremble’s eye were back together again. She had slipped past the now catatonic Lemsk without another word. Maybe the girl wasn’t cut out for this life. She talked a big game about being from a noble family from a city far away. Tremble assumed she would be used to atrocities far richer if that was true.

  She was still boiling them. And with her hand in the pot as well! It was disgusting, it was breaking every known law and practice of a duel, stamping on centuries of tradition.

  It was beautiful.

  Suddenly, 51 remembered their rank and pushed themselves and Devon out of view, Adam’s Remark dashed in the air after them. She heard strange sounds of squishing flesh and organs. It implied a transformation she desperately wanted to see. Who was evolving, and what would be the consequences?

  What if she opened the door? What if she joined in the fight?

  Her Remark, ThatDeclaires, was a beautiful piece of psychic craftsmanship, but her actual trick was annoyingly simple. She could ruin things, make entropy take its course far faster than it should. But she didn’t have that much fine control yet. She was practicing, but her living quarters had paid for it. She lived in deceptive squalor. Whenever she had guests over (which was never) she always had to explain to them that she wasn’t living below her means, it was her Remark, you see.

  Everything she touched went wrong.

  So she stayed back. Who would she even fight for, anyway? She hated both of them, through the hate for 51 was new. They were showing they didn’t deserve to hold their position, and Devon was Devon. She was supposed to be a failure. But instead she had stolen poor Adam’s Remark, and thought that gave her providence.

  She had gotten this all second hand. Some sort of prophecy was relevant, the end of the world or such. Grand she hoped that wasn’t true. She had barely had time to even see the world! She wouldn’t let it end, not on her watch.

  ”What’s- what’s going on Tremble?” Trav asked, his meaty fingers brushed her shoulder. She wiped him off like his digits were floatrats.

  ”Gaze at some more dream-dust, cretin. The fate of the world is being decided, the tickets sold out.” That was what she could surmise from the sounds. Screams, unclear whose. Blood spattered the walls then. It was pinkish and viscous. Again, unclear who’s.

  Trav muttered something about how she didn’t need to be so rude and wandered away. She heard a plastic baggy open, and then a contented sigh behind her. Guess he took her suggestion.

  She could still hear the grunting and shoving of the fight. But much was missed when you couldn’t see it yourself. She’d open it, just a crack. Maybe she’d get a reward for witnessing the death of the loser. She could use a reward, especially considering it was her who had ushered this weapon of destruction into her city’s gates.

  A pale being with a smooth eyeless face was catching its breath. It was monstrous, with 51’s Remark attached to its face like an ocular oxygen mask. It was 51!

  Had they won? She couldn’t see Devon. The sludge could have been lurking behind the table, or a corner. But 51 had sheathed their humanity. The sort of primal transformation that only comes from victory.

  So they must have won. They looked too terrifying to have lost.

  ”You retain your title, and you retain my respect, excellent work!” She said, perhaps a bit too loud.

  51 heard her, and turned to her. Their lips pursed, and smiled.

  And then Devon came out from a corner screaming and pushed 51 out of sight. They bumped into walls, caused photos to clatter, and then there was a crash.

  She scampered around the corner to find the window of the living room broken. The blue grey of the Drum splayed open for miles.

  .

  .

  .

  WHAM

  They broke through seconds after free fall. The flimsy construction of the roof and how easy it gave way didn’t bode well for the floor. But Devon was relieved when she hit the ground and stayed there.

  It was cold comfort. She was still sore as fuck and had the wind knocked out of her.

  ”Let me get that”

  Well, no longer! Like a switch had been flipped, she could suddenly breathe.

  51’s egg shaped head poked out from the hole above. Their face a gnarly piece of work complimented by a ugly grimace. “How the Grand are you still alive?”

  ”I could say the same for you!” She shouted back. Her eyes did laps around the room. It was one of the many shanties that dotted this level of the Drum. Barely anyone lived here now, one of Lemure’s first decrees was to consolidate the local towns and burgs built into the Drum and bring the population into GutWorth. Whoever used to live here was long gone, the house exactly as they must have left it. Even their breakfast, half eaten and moldering, was still left out.

  “I have survived several campaigns of the Deluge, dear madam, to die here would be a mockery of war as a profession.” They raised the ForLovers into view. It had been changed into a hammer, the many organs and flesh tumors now blunt and blocky, the tube that connected it to their face, and kept them alive, a mere afterthought. “Do you like what I’ve done to my Remark?”

  ”I can’t really see it too well,” Adam danced into her hand, and she aimed it at 51’s forehead, “how about you come down so I can give it a closer look?”

  They laughed hoarsely, and moved out of her view. Now it was just the Drum, it’s faded blue finish the closet thing she had to a sky.

  “What are they planning?” Adam asked. As if she would know.

  ”I don’t know, I don’t know, you could always buzz over and check, seems like we both need a breather,” she muttered under her breath, “Hhow- um, how am I looking?”

  ”Physically you should have been dead three times over, but that shouldn’t trouble you. Mentally I am concerned for your wellbeing.”

  She opened the door at the front of the room, it opened up to air. Below them was a cluster of buildings that grew from the Drum like a fungus. They jutted out enough that if she had to jump she could make it.

  ”Yeah, yeah. All this shit’s probably pretty traumatizing I bet.”

  ”It’s more that your brain seems to be enjoying all this that I find troubling.”

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  “No.” She said, unable to even muster up the enthusiasm to pretend to be shocked, “are you sure that's not your doing?”

  Footsteps above. 51 was clomping about, the heavy sound of their Remark dragging behind them. They seemed to be walking in circles.

  “I have done this many times, I am aware of the line between your natural brain chemistry and my improvements. I am mostly numbing you from the fear and shock. The joy you feel is yours, and it’s not a side effect from the shock. It’s lighting up the same way it would be if you were watching a show you enjoy, or- , some sort of hobby.”

  “I don’t really have hobbies.” She said. There was a thud from above which quickly became a rhythm. The house shook, the 15 year porridge fell from the table and shattered.

  “Do you think I could make this jump?” The hole in the roof was fifteen feet above her.

  ”You could, the issue is the physical shock when your feet hit the roof, I’ve been ambiently increasing the capabilities of your skeleton by turning free radicals into bone marrow, but it will take a few more hours until-“

  She made the jump. Outside of an audible crunch from her knees, she felt fine.

  51 turned to her, surprised. They were hacking into the house’s supports.

  ”Pretty cowardly not to fight me one on one.”

  ”Two against one,” they corrected, before swinging the blunt force of the FourLovers straight at her. The strength of their swing was so strong it chipped through the Drum. She jumped back. A quick shot of pain. Oh, her knees weren’t fully recovered. No matter, she was feeling high in a sort of risk free delirious way.

  She twirled Adam around in her left hand, barely registering the many knicks and cuts she got from inexperience. “How’s your head doing by the way, do you need a cold towel? Maybe a compress?”

  They ran across the roof towards her. She stayed low, minimizing movement around her knees, and slashed them through the calf.

  51 tripped and doubled over themselves, about to somersault off the wooden roof.

  But then they squeezed their Remark. With newfound speed they twisted around and brought the hammer side down on Devon’s crouched form.

  The Remark went straight through the flimsy roof and wall, and Devon came with it, only able to get free once there was no longer a need for it and they were both in free fall. There was blood in her vision, the only thing that had saved her from getting her skull split was her hands jutting out and taking the brunt of the damage. Adam again, she would have been dead ten times over without him.

  Then again, she wouldn’t be doing any of this shit without him.

  “We win if you can get them to disable their Remark. Aim for the wrist.”

  “Which one?” She yelled.

  Free fall lasted a single second.

  Splat! This roof was made out of stronger material, thankfully. She bounced once and then twice like a singtrout being thrown into a boat. An ornate but rusted fence surrounding the black roof guarded her, checking her side and preventing her tumble off the edge.

  This was a much larger house than the one above. The roof multifaceted and with a large triangular tip in the middle that hid half of it from view.

  She made to get up but the pain was too much. Why couldn’t she move?

  “Just a second. This was a bad one, seventeen bones broken, left arm dislocated… do not look down at your legs. In the coming weeks your base strength will increase and you won’t have to worry about every single physical action taking so much upkeep. But at the moment, we need to take a second, through this will have consequences.”

  51 walked out from behind the roof, the punchline to a very bad joke.

  ”Oh! There you are, good to see you made it.” They said.

  ”Whatever you can do, do it fast. They’re gonna fucking kill me and I can’t even move.” She thought.

  51 walked over like a commuter first in line for the bus. “Grand, you look bad.”

  There was a pulse of energy that surprised the both of them. Excruciating pain for a second, so bad it was comparable to torture. But when it was done Devon felt better than ever, like all of the damage she had been through the past hour had never occurred.

  ”I told you this would only take a second. Don't ask me what that was, we’ll both pay for it later.”

  “That was incredible-“ 51 said, in genuine awe. “Now, imagine that power in the right hands.”

  Devon rolled out of the way of another strike, she attacked from a distance, throwing Adam at 51 and then catching him a moment later on the rebound. It was no good, they were going for the wrists, but 51 deflected each, wielding their Remark with ease.

  ”You’re running out of space!” They taunted.

  That she was. Her body leaned against the railing. With a grunt she jumped over and down to a small deck she had spied earlier. The deck chairs here were in good condition, and an ashtray on one of them was still smoking. She backed up to a pair of glass sliding doors and tried them.

  To her shock, they slid open. She crawled in out of sight.

  ”We’re not alone.”

  Hands grabbed her by the mouth and pulled her back. They reeked of clay. The house was dark and sterile outside of a counter with a stuffed paper bag. An entire life seemed to be contained in it, which made it all the stranger that the rest of the house was bare.

  “Don’t freak out miss.” the voice fit the hands, powerful and weathered. “You need to leave immediately. This is my house, and it’s a good house. Barely any aberrations, better than paying rent to a tyrant. I’m a wanted man, I killed the wrong people, you don’t want to be added to that tally, okay?”

  Overpowering him was shockingly simple, she just needed to wiggle a bit and the strength Adam gave did the rest.

  She turned around and saw a man in a scruffy hoodie, his demeanor changed instantly now that she wasn’t prone.

  He threw back his hoodie and took a defensive pose. “Woah woah woah, let's not do anything drastic. The name’s Drome Larceny, and that whole bit about killing people was not real. I made it up. I try my best to not cause any trouble.”

  She put a hand to her mouth and pointed to the deck outside.

  As if on cue, 51 landed and rattled the deck chairs.

  ”Oh fuck, isn’t that the head of-“

  Adam flew out from her hand and straight at Drome’s throat. He got the message, and mimed zipping his lips.

  They hid behind a kitchen islet. The floor was beautifully marbled, and looked like it had been installed yesterday. Something constructed by the first settlers no doubt. Houses like these had self cleaning capabilities, and robust security systems. The latter was what kept most of them abandoned, any traveler who stayed in one for too long was viable to deal with a groggy AI angry at being woken up. Drome probably hadn’t been here long enough to trigger it.

  The glass door slid open.

  “Oooh, nice place.” Their voice was a knife aimed at her neck.

  51 walked into the room confidently, through a limp was clear in their stride. They looked around blindly, mouth slightly opened, hanging in a stupid way. “Devon, I don’t think you understand how kind I have been up to this point. To this point. No longer.”

  “Why are they dressed as a maid?” Drome whispered.

  51 whipped their head towards the sound. Devon dipped behind the counter and held her breath as 51 charged.

  Suddenly, Drome shot up and spread his arms wide, moving away from the islet and redirecting 51’s attention. “Woah woah woah! It’s just me! It’s just me.”

  ”THE GRAND WERE YOU-“ They cleared their throat, and when they resumed talking it was like a different, nicer person had taken 51’s place. “The Grand were you doing there?”

  Drome struggled through some excuse about looking through the cupboard for something or other, she was surprised the guy was going through this level of trouble to save her skin. Then again, his life was on the line now too.

  She scooted around the corner as 51 rounded it on the opposite side. They missed her by an instance. “So you didn’t hear anyone come in?”

  ”I heard a thud from outside, yeah, but I was too busy fixing the cupboard there, trying to uh, disarm the security system. I didn’t, couldn’t…”

  She held Adam out in front of her. While dirty and covered in scratches, he still worked as a mirror. She could see them.

  In the reflection 51 squatted down, their features slightly warped. “I am going to open the cupboard, just to check.”

  Drome looked towards her, and his eyes went wide, “Y-yeah, by all means.”

  She saw a slender hand reached for the cupboard. She knew that hand was inches away.

  Without even thinking about it or coordinating, Adam and Devon acted as one.

  Adam zipped straight into 51’s closest wrist while Devon turned the corner a moment later. Their makeshift mask disappeared along with their Remark, and was able to meet that horrified shrieking mug with a powerful left hook!

  It felt good to watch them fall.

  The burns had not healed, the mask had only paused the effect. Their flesh, now exposed, resumed melting as if no time had passed at all. Their hair fell out in massive clumps.

  They tried to bring back their Remark but their concentration wasn’t there. A disgusting thing of teeth and limbs appeared for a second before disappearing.

  She put a hand on their wrist, content to watch them die.

  ”You should put them out of their misery.” Adam suggested.

  She smiled. “Why?”

  Even with their vocal chords liquified, 51 found a way to speak. “Your father… was pathetic… I gave him so many chances… he begged for his life when he died… and you’re… and you’re-“

  THUNK. Adam flew into their head.

  It was only a second, but Devon saw a smile bloom on their face right before they died.

  She stepped back then, suddenly self conscious. Drome didn’t seem to know what to do. He kept his hands held high.

  “You know, they had it coming for a while, you just did what a bunch of folks would have done. I don’t, uh, know exactly how you did it, or why their, um, face suddenly started burning, but that's not for me to know! So uh, good job.” He smiled in a sort of pleading, please don't kill me way.

  “Oh! No! Don’t worry. I’m nice! It’s not like I’m gonna start murdering people indiscriminately,” she said. “I’m only going after the… bad guys.”

  The room was spinning, and the ambient hum of the room was now splitting her eardrums, it felt like every one of her senses were competing to murder her. She placed a bloody hand on the island to steady herself, to no avail.

  ”If you’re not… a bad guy… you’ll be fineeee.” Her speech was slurred, she felt like she had had every drug at once and it was just hitting now. “Is this- is this normal? I don’t- everything’s annoying and toooo bright.”

  ”This is what I meant about paying for it.” Spoken like a trip sitter. Devon had had experience doing that, it wasn’t fun. “You’re gonna be out for about 40 hours.”

  “Wha-“

  Like a mechanical that had been unplugged, everything went black.