Immersed in the dark humid blood-infested atmosphere, Lure was in a euphoric state, convinced that time had stopped. He had succeeded, although he could hardly believe it, despite the bloody substance dripping down his broken arm. The logic of the situation still escaped him. The Big Bro Sligs were undefeatable, invincible, which was why many young recruits saved up to undergo the dubious treatment of the Vykkers to become like this. They were the embodiment of true power.

And yet, Lure was the one who stood tall. Lure was the one who had survived. Lure, the small, insignificant, helpless, crippled insect, wounded beyond belief, with broken limbs. Lure had overcome this personified power. He was above this so-called power.

He loved that feeling. He wanted to enjoy it much longer.

"Ah ah ah ah! So?" he exulted, addressing the corpse. "How d'ya like that, loser? How does it feel to be crushed by a little shit?"

He wanted to give it a good kick, but his mechanical leg went in the wrong direction and threw him off balance. He toppled backwards, letting out a curse in his language as his aching back hit the ground.

"Ouch! Ah shit! Ah ah ah! Hey Sam! It's safe, you can come! Ah ah! And uh... I could use a hand actually!"

Since there was no answer, he rolled a little to find himself on his stomach, facing the dozens of doors presented to him by his cracked visor.

"Hey Sam? Ouch! Ah that bastard! Big girl! It's over, everything's fine!"

In the other room, all he heard was a groan mixed with heavy gasps. Lure felt his smile fall.

"Sam?"

Then he suddenly made the connection. What an idiot! She was hurt, how could he have forgotten? He ranted at himself vehemently.

"Oh fuck! I'm coming Sam!"

He swung his legs in the air, but the usual angle to straighten him out was no longer right. One leg stuck rigidly while the other flailed uselessly in every direction "except the right one.

"Oh no, no no no no no no NO! Not now!"

He punched his right leg angrily and squealed as a sharp, familiar pain shot through his shoulder. In desperation, he crawled away on his tentacles, leaving the dead weight of his pants behind, fearing the worst.

"Big girl!" he called, overwhelmed with anguish when he saw her, broken on the ground. "Bloody hell, faster! Big girl!"

He saw her clench her teeth and squirm. She was alive, at least for the moment. When he finally reached her side, Lure felt his heart stop.

The bullet she had been shot with had lodged in her lower abdomen. He could not see the wound, but she desperately pressed her large hands over it in a vain attempt to stop the massive flow of blood.

"Oh fuck no... no!"

His panicked gaze went from her hands to her face, unable to know what to do. He saw her multiplied tears, and felt his own rising. He tried to breathe in, half choked, and managed to put his hand on her trembling shoulder.

"Sam I... I...I'm here. It-it's gonna be o-okay... right?"

If only saying beautiful sentences could force reality to follow. If only, then even he, with his own trembling desperate voice, which he struggled to control, even he could do something. His voice would give her all the support she needed, and he wouldn't have to do more. But you don't twist reality with helplessness, nor shame, nor even with sobs at the edge of your lips.

He noticed that she had opened her eyes. He saw the glow of absolute distress in them. This scared him more than anything else.

"Sam!"

She searched for his face in the dark, struggling to focus on what remained of his red shining visor.

"L-Lure?"

He tightened his grip on her shoulder.

"I'm here Sam! Oh fuck fuck fuck... b-breath!"

He tried to remember how she had managed to calm him down, how she had gotten him over the panic after he had his nightmares. She had made him breathe, or something. He tried to push back the panic that raged inside him, to think, not to give in to the urge to beg her to get better, to beg anyone. But before he could do anything, she grabbed his able-bodied hand and squeezed so hard he almost screamed.

"M-my babies..."

That was all she managed to articulate before she completely lost her mind in front of him.

"Help me! They-n-no! Th-they need...! Lure! You have to...! Oh please! Please help me!"

Her last words resonated within him as if he had become an empty, frozen shell. She was begging him. It was she who was begging him. But what could he do? He knew how to make holes with bullets, not how to fix them!

"Lure!" she screamed, completely appalled.

The Slig thought he was going to suffocate.

"I-I-I... what should I do? Tell me!"

She was no longer in any shape to answer. He had no answer. But she continued to cling to him, to beg him as if he were her only hope.

"Save them! SAVE THEM!"

"I can't!"

She let go of his hand to press it again on her wound and let out an abominable shriek. Lure felt his heart break in two. He hadn't wanted this. This wasn't what was supposed to happen! They were supposed to go away together, away from all this madness. She would have been happy, she would have given birth to her tadpoles without worry. And he would have stayed by her side, he would have protected her, against the whole Cartel if he had to. That was what he had said to himself in his locker before this disaster, half-serious, swollen with determination, impatience and boastfulness.

So why did this happen?

Why couldn't he do anything?!

...no.

There was one last thing to try. It would save her, no doubt. And it could save her children, maybe.

He crawled back to the front door, planting the end of his broken arm in the ground to go faster, trying to ignore Asameera's cries, her pleas, her begging. He remained deaf to her strong need to be with him. He concentrated solely on the voice identification detector, pulled himself up as high as he could in front of the transmitter. He shouted a Slig code, different from the usual one, and a secret compartment opened in the wall, revealing a button and a phone. Finally, despite the horrible sensation in the pit of his shoulder, he managed to reach out, pushed on his tail, grew as tall as he could to reach the button. He felt it under his fingertips and, teeth clenched, he pushed until it sank in.

At that moment, the general emergency alarm was turned on. Rhythmic with an aggressive flashy red light that pulsed intermittently, it began to echo through the entire factory and down his spine. Lure tried to plant the tip of his prosthesis into the wall to hold himself up, he didn't want to fall back down just yet. After all, there was no guarantee that he would be able to pull himself up high enough again. Only a tiny part sank into the wall, barely holding him in place. He gritted his teeth and muttered under his breath, trying to ignore the fact that his body would not hold much longer.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon! Hurry up! Come on, hang in there!"

To his relief, what he had been waiting for happened before he gave in: a shrill ringing sounded nearby, almost covered by the unstoppable alarm. The wall vibrated with the sound and the metal arm shook, scratching the wall as it fell, but Lure had already grabbed the phone's receiver. He sprawled on the floor, panting from the effort he had just made, and pressed the device against his ear. A rather annoyed Slig voice, probably from being woken from his sleep, came to him with difficulty in the middle of crackling noises.

"Zulag 9, I record here an application of the GIZ915 protocol, namely the activation of the general alarm from your precise position. Do you confirm?"

Ordinarily, Lure wouldn't have even waited for his interlocutor to finish reading his pre-written tirade, but he was too exhausted for that. He gave himself a few more seconds to take deep breaths before answering.

"Affirmative. I... I request an emergency dispatch of medical assistance."

"Yeah right, what else? An Expresso maybe? Fix your own boo-boo yourself, loser! Disturbing me for such bullshit in the middle of the night..."

"She's been shot! If Gottlieb... if she dies...! If she dies, Gottlieb will have us all flayed alive and you will be the first for having ignored a direct order!"

"What're you talkin about, sucker?"

At least he sounded hesitant and less likely to hang up on him.

"Look, I'm telling you it's fucking urgent! So either you send me a rescue team..."

"We don't have a fucking rescue team!"

"Just do something! Or transfer me to the line of this Gottlieb asshole!"

"Errrrrrrrrrrr..."

The guy on the other end of the line suddenly started stammering, which didn't help Lure's nerves.

"Hurry up, moron!" he fumed. "There's no ti...!"

"Ha, uh, ha, g-g-good evening boss? Nice evening isn't it? Ahah! Uh... this is... this is for you I think... maybe?"

For a second, Lure was stunned, then quickly did the math. He could picture the poor Slig with the armband in the communications room flailing uneasily in his seat at the furious silhouette of the Glukkon who had probably just entered, just in time to hear what Lure had called him. It was very strange, but for the first time in his life, the Slig was not afraid of the consequences at all. If the situation had been different, he would even have burst out laughing.

"What's going on here?" Gottlieb's icy, murderous voice rang through the receiver, a hair weaker than his lackey's from probably standing further away.

Lure wasted no time. He didn't have that luxury.

"The future Mudokon Queen has been shot. Medical assistance urgently required."

He thought that would be enough. But as he heard only a sizzling silence, he repeated.

"Medical assistance urgently required! The future Mudokon Queen has been shot! Medical..."

"What... what are you talking about? There is no Mudokon Queen in my factory!"

… what?

Lure was speechless for a moment, taken aback by what he'd just heard. For a moment, he looked in Asameera's direction as if to verify that she was indeed there. Still lying on the ground, holding her stomach and looking up at him pleadingly, she was chanting silent prayers, but he could hear them as clearly as if she were speaking directly into his head.

Save them, save them...

He automatically brought the phone up to his mouth.

"Medical assistance requiered..."

"I'm telling you there's no Mudokon Queen here you moron! Hang up now!"

The command was probably directed to the other Slig. Lure felt a cold sweat come over him.

"Wai..!"

"A moment please."

Another voice had just interfered, preventing the line from being cut off in extremis. Lure tightened his fingers around the handset in a silent prayer, but also with unease. His gut was sending him a warning signal that had nothing to do with the one that was assaulting his eardrums at the moment. Something in that high-pitched voice was terribly familiar to him and he hoped he was wrong. But he had no time to think.

"Good evening" he heard again through the receiver "You just mentioned a 'future Mudokon Queen' if I'm not mistaken?"

"My dearest friend, don't listen to that nonsense, that bungler is probably soaked in alcohol!"

Lure could hear the growing panic in Gottlieb's voice, and he would have given anything to be able to listen to him for hours. But certainly not at the cost of losing the only person who mattered to him now.

"She had been shot" he repeated, detaching each word. "It's an emergency! She might lose her kids! We need a doctor!"

He thought he heard a little laughter and suddenly he knew exactly who, no, what creature was at the end of the line.

"You are lucky, you are talking to one of them. Where are you right now?"

The Glukkon's stammering filled the background without the Slig really hearing it. He had only a high-pitched voice, small yellow eyes and a purple body in mind. He was probably making the worst mistake of his life. He looked at Asameera, who looked more vulnerable than ever.

"Save them..."

He spoke without even realizing it.

"Zulag 9. The comm guy can show you the exact location on his screen."

"The flashing red dot?"

"Er..." the other Slig's voice echoed. "Y-Yes, it indicates the place where the alarm was triggered."

"I'm telling you this idiot is talking nonsense and...!"

"I will be the only judge, if you please" the Vykkers retorted.. "If you have nothing to hide, I would have just wasted my time, wouldn't I? Well, my Interns would have wasted theirs anyway. Go on, then!"

The order snapped, implacable, and despite Gottlieb's vociferations something must have happened, because Lure finally heard:

"My team is on its way. I told you, you're lucky... code 583."

His breath caught in his throat and his mind suddenly froze. He knew who he was. He knew he had escaped from the laboratories, leaving behind a destroyed room, ransacked equipment and an enraged Slig Queen. The Vykkers had certainly come to demand an accounting from his ex-employer, that was why he was here. And now he was going to find him. And then? Would he bring him back to this horrible place? Would he survive long enough? What would happen to him?

"M-make it quick" he managed to stutter.

He wondered if he should add something else, deny and lie, before realizing that the line had probably been disconnected for a while. He dropped the handset and it hung in the air, bumping against the wall intermittently. The slow 'knock...knock...knock...' it produced suddenly sounded like his own countdown.

"Lure..."

His mind was spinning dangerously, he had lost too much blood. He let himself slide against the wall in his turn, unable to join her again.

"Yeah Sam?"

He became acutely aware of his many wounds and the thick blood sticking to his palate. He could hardly breathe. The alarm continued to roar, covering Asameera's faint voice. In a shaky and painful gesture, the Slig managed to take off his mask and spat weakly to the side.

"Now... looks like... I'm in trouble, ahah! They'll probably shoot me on the spot... seeing my ugly face. Ahah jerks!"

He was only half joking, but bitterly regretted it when he realized she was sobbing further.

"Don't say that!"

Lure felt the world capsizing slightly around him.

"'scuse me, big girl... oh shit. Well, don't worry, right? They're coming with all their equipment or whatever. They... they don't... no wait... they better not lose your tadpoles, they're... ah... they're too precious... not like us... shit. It's going to be okay..."

"Lure wait! I! I! I'm going to...!"

Lure couldn't see much, but he thought he could hear wings flapping as the room lit up slightly. But then it faded away with a painful rattle, taking the birds with it.

"Stop it Sam. Save... yer strength. They need it... right?"

He was capsizing in turn, dangerously. Soon he would lose his balance. He barely heard her call out his name in terror. His voice was only a breath.

"Hey S-Sam? You... you would have come... with me... right? With me..."

She shouted something, something charged with this unknown power he hadn't had time to understand and that filled him like a soft light. Unable to resist, he finally gave in to the vertigo and fell into nothingness.