In the end, instead of borrowing some from Steve, we killed the Minor Warden next to the blast door and used its blood to fill up our Glitch Hunter Hearts. The Birthday Brat had commanded his army of mind-slaved ants to defend him and they weren’t letting us get close.

  “It was just a joke,” I told him. “You can come out now.”

  “I refuse!” he yelled from within the clump of ants.

  Tina lifted up the black squishy tube which sloshed with the foul-smelling blood of the Warden. I mimicked her.

  As one, we both blew into the ends of the hearts as though they were alien instruments.

  The resultant sound was very strange, almost like a giant’s sneeze, but melodic somehow. The white blood exited the tube hearts as rings of smoke, which flew through the air until they hit a wall and popped like water balloons.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Motherfuckers!” I exclaimed as I read the first part. Then I hurriedly went through the options, before deciding on ‘Blink’. ‘Nine Lives’ would’ve been a good passive if not for that last part. As it stood, I was better served with my Respawn passive, though I hoped to never need it again.

  “Steve, get the fuck out of there! We’ve gotta go!” I called. “Agents are coming!”

  Steve peeked his head out from the pile of ants. “Huh!?”

  The banshee wailing I’d heard earlier when the Glitch Hunters had appeared sounded throughout the Hive Ship again. The papery floor trembled slightly as the blast door behind us burst open and a horde of ants came out. All of them had deflated gasters, but there was a crazed look about them, as though the wailing had altered their minds in some way. They moved past us without even seeming to register our presence.

  “Where are you going!?” Steve yelled to his enslaved ants as they all followed after the horde.

  Tina went through the blast door first and I was right behind her.

  “Get your ass in gear!” Panda called to Steve from my shoulder.

  Moments later he caught up to me as we moved into a different part of the Hive Ship. The blast door we’d used shut behind us and sealed us in. Immediately beyond the door was a massive room that, although still made of the papery material, had tall pillars holding up the ceiling. Pathways snaked up the pillars and led to balconies higher up, though I couldn’t tell for what purpose. There were also pod-like huts clustered around along the walls, almost like the rooms of a capsule hotel, and I guessed the ants used these for sleeping.

  Steve moved up front, since he had a mapping ability, but before he could point us in a direction, Lordie sprang out from the transport cage. Tina stopped and tried to pet him when he appeared, but the little bastard had other plans as he quickly scuttled off.

  “Come back here doggie, I just wanna pet you!” she yelled, running after it.

  “For fuck’s sake, Lordie! Where are you going!?” I exclaimed as I followed them. Steve started falling behind as Tina and I pushed our speed to the limit.

  “Meow!”

  “What did he say?” Panda asked.

  “He said he smells something? I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “Well, you’d better catch him. If he dies, you die too, remember?”

  “You don’t need to remind me!”

  We followed the hand-spider through a doorway recessed into the wall left of the entrance. Steve was yelling about us going the wrong way and pointing towards the far end of the pillar room, but I wasn’t paying attention.

  From the pillar chamber we ran through a wide hallway that led to another blast door that was open. In the threshold of the doorway lay a dead Queenguard with a powered-down shield and next to him were several dead soldiers. The door itself had a strange Rubik’s Cube attached to it.

  “That’s from Bee’s Puzzle Lock ability!” Panda exclaimed.

  “She isn’t this way,” I said. The tug was pointing in the same direction Steve had wanted us to go.

  “But we know she came through here!” the plushie insisted.

  Tina nearly caught the hand-spider since she was somehow faster than me, but then she suddenly just dropped to her knees and covered her face while screaming.

  Lordie didn’t stop and went through the doorway, climbing over the corpses to get in.

  I came up next to her, but before I could ask what was wrong, it hit me.

  WARNING!

  You have been infected with ‘Eau de Tonsil-Stone Eye-Bleach’!

  Time remaining:

  N/A

  “My eyes!” I screamed, while trying to blindly crawl out of the range of the smell.

  “Not again!” Panda exclaimed and hopped from my shoulder to safety.

  Steve caught up to us and was laughing at our display from a few feet away.

  Then he paused as the sounds from Tina morphed into genuine despair, probably realizing that it was quite serious.

  My vision had gone completely white and there was a ringing in my ears. I was pretty sure my gums were bleeding and my brain was starting to swell. It felt like acid and fire were melting the skin off my face, while a hundred bees stung the inside of my mouth.

  From the sound of his footsteps, I heard as Steve hurried over to help Tina, but he only managed to fall into reach of the foul stench as well.

  “What is tha—? Oh my fucking fuck!!”

  A thud came from the Birthday Brat as he collapsed to the floor, while other sounds seemed to indicate that Tina was having a seizure.

  “Somebody pop me, I want to die on my own terms!!” Brock squealed in desperation.

  “Blink!” I yelled, trying to use my new ability to escape.

  ERROR!

  No target.

  It didn’t work since I couldn’t see.

  I also tried to use my Fuck Gravity to pull me back the way we’d come, but it was impossible to concentrate enough to use it.

  Nina’s ominous voice rang out briefly, “The Monstrosity of Joy…!” she warned.

  Then I blacked out.

  I came to what might have been hours later or maybe just a couple seconds. The stench was gone and my vision was back, albeit blurry and miscolored.

  “Holy fuck, I can’t believe I survived,” I muttered.

  “Bee must’ve been desperate to use that against them,” Panda commented.

  “What happened?” I asked, as I pushed myself to my knees.

  Tina lay unconscious nearby, while Steve was writhing in obvious pain, which was unlikely to be a good sign.

  A white t-shirt landed in my hands, just as Lordie sauntered back into the wide hallway. Half of a familiar puzzle box was sticking out of the mouth that sat in the middle of his palm.

  “Lordie, did you eat the box?”

  “Me-ow!” he answered in his Morgan Freeman voice. Then, with a loud slurp, the rest of it vanished inside his ‘mouth’.

  I brought up his stats to see if something had changed.

  “He’s ‘pleased’,” Panda remarked, worried.

  “Holy crap, eating that box gave him at least 20% extra maturity!” I muttered.

  With a gasp, Tina woke up. “Where am I? Where’s Irene and Adam!?”

  Then her eyes realized where she was and she seemed to calm down.

  But only for a second, as Steve started to buck and writhe aggressively on the floor next to her.

  She ran over and grabbed my right arm, pulling me to my feet.

  “The Monstrosity is coming!”

  I blinked, momentarily confused, until a sinking realization hit me.

  Steve had reached 100% Insanity and was turning into a Boss Monstrosity.