Yvette moved through the shadows with a primal hatred burning in her veins - a fury older than memory. Following the skittering echoes through twisting passages, she emerged into a cathedral-like cavern.

  The chamber yawned vast, barnacled with dagger-like stalactites pointing accusingly downward. At its heart gaped a chasm filled with bones. A blue-white phosphorescence rose from rotting remains - humans, beasts, even the skeletons of giant rats lay jumbled in profane communion. Yvette's torchlight glinted on ribs spearing through skulls, leg bones wedged between vertebrae. The ossuary stank of decay, its broken anatomy writhing with scuttling vermin.

  There, enthroned upon a bone mountain, coiled the queen.

  Even curled in foetal position, the bloated horror exceeded an elephant's bulk. Patchy skin hung slack where fur had rotted away, its faceless head crowned by shriveled rat-like ears. The monstrous abdomen stretched translucent, revealing clusters of fetal rats squirming in amniotic fluid - a twitching sac of cannibal spawn. Each embryonic rat tore at siblings, devouring the weak. This was no creature, but a blasphemous womb extruding endless nightmares.

  Her blade hand itched. Then Ulysses gripped her arm.

  "Listen."

  The warning came as chittering tides erupted from every crevice. Hundreds... thousands... a tsunami of fanged fur swarmed the bone pit. The guardian rats ignored fire and pheromone disguise, scarlet eyes blazing. Yet when the intruders retreated, the horde reluctantly withdrew.

  "Barrier," Ulysses murmured. They watched smaller rats cross the bonefield unmolested - workers provisioning their queen. One exit tunnel's promising darkness beckoned beyond.

  Yvette surveyed the chasm. "We kill it. The hive breaks." She proposed madness: Gunpowder detonation catapulting her onto the queen's nest.

  Ulysses countered with calculated insanity. "My arms for your wings." They armed a makeshift grenade, split between Greek fire and shrapnel. No time for fear - Yvette became the spark.

  Ulysses' boost hurled her over darkness as guardian rats erupted in black waves. Mid-flight, she ignited oil-drenched clothes - brief human comet repelling leaping foes. Flame kissed flesh. She crashed rolling, blade plunging into the queen's pulsing belly. Ripping downward screamed her fury: bowels spilled like burst cyst, amniotic filth drenching bone throne. The hive mind shrieked.

  Yvette's grenade found the gullet. Detonation painted the walls. Headless, the queen thrashed in final paroxysm as guardian rats froze leaderless.

  Another abyss closed. There would be more.

  The island's aberrant rat colony functioned through grotesque hierarchy, with sterile underlings stripped of reproductive and cognitive abilities. Their insectoid reflexes instinctively avoided geothermal hazards across the volcanic terrain, mindlessly executing commands from their Queen. Her demise left them deranged - twirling automatons bereft of programming, performing endless pirouettes and backwards tumbles. Though "Disorder Syndrome" commonly afflicts rodents, the epidemic-scale outbreak following the Queen's death carried ominous undertones.

  Humanity would shudder at such collective madness, but witnessing it in vermin invoked only macabre absurdity.

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  Yvette observed the waltzing rodents in their subterranean ballroom, knowing they'd soon join the ossuary beneath their paws. The realization kindled perverse elation within her - a symphony of annihilation resonating through her nerves.

  She choked back giddy laughter.

  Success... Wait. Something eludes me...The tainted Seeds...I purified them...Before the descent, I... The dawn comes...Lesser beings return to dust...Must remember...I am the Blade of Vengeance, reaping tainted souls...

  Dual consciousness sparked through her mind. From the depths of Essence flowed rapturous enlightenment - her psyche refracting cosmic wisdom from an Elder Entity. Knowledge and spirit fused perfectly: Total surrender to this radiance promised emancipation from mortal shackles.

  This was Apotheosis.

  Yet her mortal remnant screamed rebellion, fixated on trivial worldly concerns.

  "Sir..."

  Spiritual influx should have consummated her ascension - gaining passage to higher planes, shedding earthly attachments to evolve into sublime perpetuity. But mundane distractions anchored her to filthy reality.

  No answer came. Terror jolted her from divine euphoria - like awakening into icy rapids.

  Her nape prickled.

  With maddened rats offering no resistance, she scrambled from the pit. There sprawled Ulysses upon a mound of rodent carrion, limbs savaged to bone. His ravaged left orbit cradled a shattered eyeball.

  Icy realization struck like a blizzard.

  Why hadn't she reconsidered? Had she been the flaming decoy while Ulysses struck the fatal blow... No. Obsessive compulsion to personally execute the Queen had overridden reason.

  The gory tableau paralyzed her. Numbness spread. The neck-itch intensified. Shadows swelled. Primordial frenzy erupted.

  Schlick. Her spine ruptured like a bursting peapod. Crimson tendrils bloomed weightless - vascular marionette strings or phantom wings. Neural extensions magnified her powers beyond recognition. If this was strength, what pitiful imitation had she wielded before?

  Aberration. The Organization's condemned metamorphosis. Salvation or Termination awaited such transformations.

  So be it. All existence trends toward oblivion. Omnipotent yet ignorant. Deathless yet profoundly alone.

  Yvette willed reality to dissolve, but blood-stench anchored her in grim wakefulness. The dream died. Darkness reclaimed her.

  In void, someone daubed her tear-stained face.

  "No tears...Told you...Immortal..."

  Through bruised lips, the words reeled her earthward. Despair was luxury she couldn't afford.

  Her body moved before conscious thought, clasping Ulysses' limp hand. His pulse hammered stronger than nature allowed.

  When relocating him, she discovered fibrils extruding from his wounds - feeding tendrils plumbing rodent carcasses.

  Survival ensured...But what manner of being healed through necrotic vampirism? His morphing flesh suggested protean slime mold over human biology.

  Yvette traced her own spine's fissure and floating tendrils. Neither qualified to judge.

  She resembled some coral monstrosity...

  Only when Ulysses' filaments retracted did she erect stone barriers against deranged rats. Evacuation loomed critical - rescue ships depended on his cryptic contacts. Volcanic fumes required verification.

  Poorly controlled self-immolation left her scorched and barely dressed. Precautionary rat sacrifices would test for residual toxins.

  Fortunately, sea winds scoured the lethal haze. The spinning rodents might dance themselves to death before starvation.

  Ensuring air safety, she retrieved Ulysses through labyrinthine caves. Their sub-island camp lay across the channel - problematic without swimming aptitude or dry passage for his wounds.

  Metamorphosis offered solutions.

  Normal thermal regulation merely shifted existing heat. Now, she could create energy voids.

  Facing the strait, her tendrils siphoned oceanic warmth. Ice bridges crystallized underfoot - each step extending the frozen path.

  The returning camp appeared untouched save the asphyxiated raven. Ulysses slept on, compelling her into desperate busywork. Foraged seafood proved useless until coconut trials.

  Attempting oral feeding, a pseudopod extruded from his cheek to drain a coconut - discarding its sweetness while absorbing sugars.

  Understanding struck. She scrubbed the turtle-shell basin, creating a saccharine bath where his tendrils actively fed.

  The hydroponic gardener analogy amused despite everything.