Chapter warning! This chapter involves our favourite awful ravenous rainbows, and there's some detail involving their, ah, eating habits, but otherwise I think it's safe! Either way, be careful!


He'll do better. He has to.

Verge wraps the blanket a little tighter around himself, burying his head in the threadbare covers. He can't bring himself to go back out there. He can't go and face that happiness, that loud cheer that he can still barely make out even in this bed, not when his purpose there is to take slimes from their homes.

Faintly, just a little bit louder than the rest, he thinks he hears the one in the corral laugh. The sound makes him curl up a little further.

"I can't do this," he says. The testing scores must have been flukes. They must have mixed up his results with someone else's. Back on Earth, there's someone who deserves to be here, trapped because of some technical error while he takes their place on a faraway world he can't even look at.

The last rancher had said that ne believed in him. Ne must have been wrong.

... He can't prove nem wrong. This job is something ne thought he deserved, wasn't it? Ne trusted him with this, with a home away from the world and with a world to explore until it was home. He couldn't just throw it all away. Waste nothing, he'd learned, had the message burned into him with every passing day, and this wasn't something he could ever waste.

Verge reaches out blindly for the laptop on the bedside table, sitting up and blearily letting the blanket fall off him. He pulls up a series of starmails, the existence of which he still doubts sometimes. It helps keep him going a little bit further, the memory that someone needs him to do this. And right now, he has to go further. He has to do more.

You can do it! I'll help as much as I can!

The message is in stark black against the white of the screen as he rereads. It goes on a little more in this vein of thought- I'll set something up for you, 'kay? A few of the other ranchers owe me some favours, see, and with your test scores in mind, there'll be no way for them to refuse! You deserve the special treatment, anyway- and he flips through a few more of the bubbly messages until he gets to the final one.

Sachie Lucillen was the last rancher here, the one who left him somewhere stable to start with. Ne had gone missing the day he'd gone into cryofreeze. The last starmail from nem had been sent the day before that.

It's almost time for your adventure, huh? It must be scary! I remember being so hyper the day before my flight! To be honest, I hate flying in general, but into space?! It's space! A thousand light years away! I'd deal with the motion sickness happily!

It's not as scary as it seems at first, though. Don't be so worried about everything there. The world can take care of itself pretty fine if you don't mess it up too bad! Just make sure you stay safe and the slimes stay safe and everything'll be right as weather! I built a place for you in a part of the ranch that's nice and dark, like you said you liked. The lanterns are so pretty! I'd send you a picture, but it'd be better as a surprise!

And... you're probably not gonna see me there for a few. I know- it's bullshit, right? But hear me out. I found this awesome place somewhere on the continent- not telling you where! It'll be much more rewarding if you find it yourself, trust me- and I want to explore it for a bit! It was hard to see, but I think there were some pretty rare slimes there! You know, the kind that can only be found in LeBeau's ranch. She's been refusing to let anyone study them for so long! Well, joke's on you, Beatrix! I can do my job better than you ever could!

Anyway, I wish you a good year in cryosleep! When I came out of it, I puked, but that's just what motion sickness does to a guy! Ask the ship help to prepare a bucket near the chamber if you've got the same problem. And when you get there, try and find my notes! I left a bunch of them near the obstacles I reset. It's a lot more fun learning about the world for yourself, isn't it?

Either way, you'll do great. A place further than the universe awaits! I hope you'll like it as much as I did when I first started.

Good luck, Verge!

He closes the starmail window, leaving only a blank desktop. Verge can distantly feel breath returning to his lungs.

Good luck.

He didn't think about the assignment, at first- of course he didn't think, he never thought, always so reckless and self-centred, like everyone else said- just tried out the online entrance exam. He hadn't expected the e-mail after, congratulating him on passing it. Hadn't expected a veteran rancher to come into his life, to be so excited about his essay answers and to start up a conversation. It had been an outlet. An escape.

He's escaped somewhere very, very far, hasn't he?

He has to make use of it.

Verge stands, shoving down the worry and the apprehension rising inside him. He can do this. He was sent here to do better than this. He's going to.

There's no time to doubt himself as he steps out of his comfort zone, as he leaves the little house that had been made just for him. He has a job to do. And no matter how he feels, he... can...

"Oh my stars."


The world is lit up, bright and beautiful, by slimes he's never seen before. They're a soft, pastel shade of purple, with a warm yellow light inside them that casts shadows that look almost painted on the Dry Reef's cliffs. There's a whole swarm of them, each one peaceful and untroubled and so, so enchanting. He can't bring himself to look away.

Blankly, Verge steps forward, reaching out and just barely brushing one of the new, floating slimes. Phosphor, he thinks, a phosphor slime. The pictures didn't do it justice.

The one he poked turns to him, meeting his eyes with a pair of black ones that make his heart want to melt into a puddle of goo.

Even their plorts are glowing a little. It's insane. He wants to watch this forever.

Almost instinctually, there's a lurch in his stomach, the kind that tells him stay back, stay away, you can't let anyone know you saw this, until its mantra is burned into his brain. Verge steps back, his hands quivering, and the slime warbles questioningly and floats a little closer. No, you can't, you can't do this, they'll find it and take it and you don't deserve this, you will never, never deserve this-

Something growls behind him, a low sound that reverberates through his very being like a cold chill. Verge freezes, his grip on the vac growing tighter. Fuck. Fuck. He knows what this is.

The rancher turns, stepping backwards, and comes face to face with a tarr.

Lucillen had told horror stories about the tarr. Amalgamations, the result of slimes consuming too many plorts that didn't belong to them, they roamed the Far, Far Range and wreaked destruction on any slime they met. Ne had hated them, he thinks, backing away as the awful grey thing shifts to reveal cracks spilling rainbow colours. They attacked anything that moved, from animals to slimes to...

Humans.

Keep calm, he thinks to himself, though the shivers going up his spine don't help with that objective at all. Run. He could run. Running was always logical. Is this punishment, he wonders, for wanting to bite one of the pink slimes just to feel it? To have a ravenous, possibly cannibalistic monster right in front of him?

It turns away, chomping down on a tabby slime that had been too close, and stars, stars, he can see its cute little expression morph into one terrified and hear a pleading little meow from it as it's eaten. Verge covers his mouth, feeling bile rise in his throat at the sight of it. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong-

Another growl from behind. Verge turns just in time to see what looked like a very large pink slime with cat ears- a largo? Is that right?- finish turning into one of those things. There's a small cluster of phosphor plorts near its mouth. He sucks them all into his vac, but the damage is done. The resulting tarr leaps at him, and he barely manages to jump out of the way.

Leaving the phosphor slime he'd touched right in the tarr's path.

He's scarcely realized his mistake when the phosphor slime squeals, a wing caught in the tarr's mouth. His legs move on their own.

Before he knows it, Verge is pulling the slime from the tarr's grasp, aiming his vac at it and sucking it in. The monster is too big to fit, of course, but that's not what he's here for. Instead, he takes careful aim and fires it straight into the Slime Sea.

The faint splash as it sinks is music to his ears.

"You're okay," he says uselessly, turning to the phosphor slime that had just barely avoided a gory demise. It still looks terrified, an expression that tugs at his heartstrings. He hates that he couldn't have prevented this. Hates it, hates it, hates it.

Verge sucks the other tarr in and makes absolutely sure it follows the last one's path.

The action draws the attention of several other tarrs, and a few start sluggishly making their way towards him. Their growls and low groans will be giving him nightmares for a while, he thinks, fear creeping back into his consciousness like a bug. Verge grits his teeth and keeps going, launching every tarr he can reach into the deep sea's waters. He has to pull a few slimes from their mouths, has to keep moving and moving and moving, but it's the only option he has. He's been doing a terrible job so far. He has to make up for it.

The only monsters where a splash attack does damage, Lucillen had joked a year ago. He thanks his lucky stars he can still remember nir advice.


Just in case, just in case, he sucks all the plorts he can find into his vac, expelling any food still there into the hungry mouths of the nearby pink slimes. They're resilient, he thinks almost fondly, watching as they recover quickly with the promise of fruit-based sustenance. He can't do much for the tabbies, sadly, but they seem content enough with chowing down on the chickens roaming the area. And in the distance there are a few blue slimes- rock slimes, he remembers- that only eat vegetables. He picks up a few carrots and hands them over, collecting the plorts they drop.

Will he have to do this the whole night? Will he have to stay here, keeping everyone as safe as he can?

If that's what it takes. He expels a rock slime that had gotten sucked into the vac and returns to his work. He was sent here to protect and learn about these things. What good is he if he can't even do that?

Hours are passing. Hours pass. His eyes are starting to sting and he has to stifle multiple yawns, but he keeps going. He has to.

As he walks, collecting whatever he can, there's a tiny, curious noise near him, one that sounds almost familiar. He turns and finds himself face to face with a phosphor slime, its general head area tilted slightly as it stares at him. It's oddly familiar. Really. He's not sure why, there really aren't too many identifying features on these slimes, but he thinks it's one he's seen before.

When he catches sight of the left wing, bent slightly out of shape and flapping more weakly than the right, he understands.

"I know I should have been faster," he apologises, breaking the stare it held. "I just- I froze, and I shouldn't have, and I'm so, so sorry- but that doesn't help you, does it? You're still hurt, and still some of the other slimes were eaten by those things, and- and-!"

The phosphor slime coos, bumping into his face meaningfully. It's... probably a boop? Some kind of comforting touch? He's not sure why it would do that, but- well, that's the only thing he thinks it can be.

"I'm sorry," he says again, offering it a weak smile. "I'll try harder next time. I swear."

There's a faint warmth behind him, something shifting in the colours of the sky, and- oh. The sun is rising.

The sun is rising!

"Stars." Verge reaches out, pulling the phosphor slime down a little. "You should get somewhere dark. You disappear if you don't, right? Stars, this doesn't seem right-"

His vac. He can try the vac.

"I'll do my best to make sure you aren't hurt." He swings the vac off his back and points it hesitantly. "As many of you as possible. If that's fine?"

Curiously, the slime nudges the vac. Before he can hesitate, Verge sucks it in, listening for the shocked little "whooooa!" as it enters the storage. Steeling his nerves, he makes a run for a small group of phosphors nearby, sucking them in too.

He's going to do right by them this time. He's going to prove he can.


Well! That's another chapter done! This one was really fun to write, let me tell you. Phosphor slimes and honey slimes are both my favourites in-game, even including the fan-preferred puddle slimes, and you can bet I'll be adding honeys as soon as I can reasonably do it! Maybe even a largo of them; who knows?

Reviews are very much appreciated! For now, though, thanks for reading!