Miles wasn't dead.

It took him a little longer to deduce than usual, immersed in warm, sticky liquid that clung to his fur, his limbs intact, and seemingly even solid beneath the viscous surface, if an experimental twitch was any indication.

That latter fact was more surprising than the first, given what he remembered. Was the bloody taint only temporary? It would explain why he hadn't seen stray blood men running around before. Unless their liquid form was just inherently unstable, but unstable on this world of negative entropy seemed almost impossible.

He breathed, sulphur and sweetness flooding his senses in equal amounts as his brain caught up to the events before he had lost consciousness. It left him wishing for the warm embrace of oblivion once more, especially cradled in that soft, comforting warmth...

"I see that you are still alive, Miles Prower."

The warmth partially retracted. His eyes flicked open to reveal Cosmo's upside-down face staring at him, alien features lined with the mild distaste that he'd come to expect from the dryad.

That explained the sweet smell at least.

"I... guess you're right." Miles tilted his ear, allowing the thick yellow liquid of the pool in which he lay to slowly flow out, gradually taking in his surroundings. A dim shaft extended above further than any light could penetrate. He faintly remembered noting the endless acceleration as he fell, the lack of any terminal velocity as the wind blew past ever faster... Had the yellow liquid cushioned their impact? It didn't seem more than a foot deep. And what about surface tension? Some kind of special material? He sniffed it, following up by licking a droplet trickling down his jaw... Honey.

Par for the course for his eccentric predecessor, he supposed.

Wait. If her face was at that angle-

Miles sat up hurriedly, creating a small wave in the surface of the honey pool around him.

"Sorry about that."

Cosmo shrugged, motes of green energy crackling from her body as she directed a storm of leaves around her. A blazing bat tumbled below as its fire was choked out by clinging greenery. Miles glanced down after it. Lavafalls spilled endlessly from the ceiling of a massive cavern stretched out below them, feeding an ocean of lava dotted with islands of charred stone and towers of alien design.

Bat winged humanoids flew past in the distance, potshots of purple energy occasionally crackling through the air to crash against the vast pillars of ash and stone that supported their sky, as if they hoped to eventually bring the world above crashing down, even if that would crush them in the process.

Well this was a Hell of a way to wake up.

"You landed upon my legs on impact. Had I moved you would have drowned."

"Oh." Miles rubbed the back of his head with a sticky hand. He frowned. Was going to need to replace that glove. Pretty sure that was the hand the note from his "parents" had been stored as well. "Well, thanks."

"I have not helped you, Miles Prower." Cosmo shot him a dark look.

"I know." He nodded. "Thanks for not killing me though. I appreciate it."

Cosmo peered at him, her expression relaxing to mild disdain once more.

"Do you?"

"Do I what?" Miles blinked at her.

"Do you appreciate it?" Cosmo stood from the pool, yellow liquid dripping from leaves and skin. Like himself, her lithe body too appeared to be free of traces of the corruption that had plagued it in the lands above.

Not that he was staring. Miles looked away hurriedly.

"I… yes?"

"Then why did you fight, Miles Prower?" She sneered faintly down at him. "Why did Dante Xavier need to sacrifice his life to banish you here?"

Huh. That "no help" rule was clearly pretty comprehensive, at least for these two. Even though they seemed to want to help... Miles frowned, the memory of Dante's final moments looming to the forefront of his mind.

"I couldn't get away from them." He looked down at the surface of the pool. "Not in the rain."

"Lies." A leaf slapped against his cheek. "You believe they could keep up with your speed? That your mad struggle did not expose you to the blood moon's taint worse than simply fleeing to the depths?"

"I… wanted to help you people."

"Indeed? Were you not told that the forces of this world leave us unmolested in your absence Miles Prower? Did the Caretaker represent some grave threat against the dead of the catacombs that you must face him there and then?"

"Well-" Another leaf slapped across his mouth.

"Why were you smiling, Miles Prower?" She turned away from him, stepping out of the pool onto a ledge of natural ash, slender limbs finding easy purchase on the crumbling surface as she strode towards the edge.

Miles blinked.

"What do you want me to do?!" He surged to his feet, tearing the leaf from his lips with a snarl, yelling after her departing figure. "This is my fault! I have to do something!"

"Death is no absolution, Miles Prower." Cosmo didn't slow her pace. "It does not bring anyone back." Cosmo turned, the same cheerless smile on her lips as the day he met her, poised at the edge of the ledge. The orange glow from the cavern below cast stark shadows across her skin. "I know that better than anyone."

She stepped backwards.

"Cosmo!" Miles screamed.

He burst forward, world in horrid slow motion around him...

"Why do you stop me, Miles Prower?"

The dryad dangled from his grip, Dante's coat fluttering down to the lava below, a fabric bag clutched in her sharp fingers as they hovered above the sea of flame.

"Why the heck do you think?!" Miles grunted, frantically straining his tails to gain altitude, back towards the ceiling high above.

"You cannot help me, Miles Prower. And you cannot save your world." Cosmo rocked in his grip, refusing to grasp his wrist. "You cannot save your friends."

"I can try." Miles snapped. A spiral of purple fire screamed past his ear as a demon took notice of their intrusion into its territory.

"For how long?"

"As long as it takes!" He grunted as his tails gave out, hurling his grappling hook to barely stretch into a stalactite of pale stone dragging them upwards and sideways to a fresh outcropping. Panting, he flipped his exhausted tails to coil around Cosmo's body, using his hands to launch the ends of the twin grapnel into one wall after another. Demonic blasts exploded around them as he angled towards a higher ledge, sending ash crumbling into the depths below.

"And at what cost?"
Miles flinched, grabbing the edge of a stone outcropping and flipping her up onto it. He hopped backwards onto the pursuing demon's horned head, wrenching its wings off with his bare hands to send it spiralling down into the pit below. He launched upwards again, turning to glare at the dryad sneering down at his ascent.

"Any cost." He whispered through gritted teeth.

Cosmo smiled.

"Then see that you live to pay it, hero."

"I never said I was a hero." Miles scowled, alighting on the narrow ledge beside her. The wings clutched in his hand became a book, its abyssal letters unheeded as he slipped it away, not taking his eyes from the dryad before him.

"Indeed." Cosmo dropped the fabric sack at his feet to grab a fistful of fur on his chest, pulling him close. "Then slay all that oppose you, steal your prize from the gods themselves. Be my villain, Miles Prower, and show me the impossible I have read about you all these years. Show me the power of your greed."

Miles stared into her blue eyes, glowing softly in the dark light of below.

And he grinned madly as wheels turned in his mind, a mind that had wiped out the kukku, that had doomed the world in order to save it. The seed of a plan. One last sacrifice.

"I will." He nodded. "Thanks, Cosmo."

"I have not helped you, Miles Prower." Cosmo released his fur with a frown.

"I know." He nodded in sad agreement as he picked up the sack, twin eyes emblazoned upon it. "But thank you all the same."

First he needed to get out of here.