Pouf screams and screams and Palm is tempted to say to hell with Gon's plans and dart forward to tear this monster's throat in two. But, she reminds herself, this...'man' has raised a baby from adulthood. A baby that has the power to undo all their hard work.

'How hungry does she get?' she murmurs thoughtfully, not even attempting to break into his screams. 'You should listen; I have more power than you right now. I can choose to educate you about Hisoka, but only if you give me something in return.'

Mercifully, something in her voice reaches him and he decides to give her eardrums a rest. He glares at her, something black and segregated still attempting to weasel its way out of his mouth. She watches with no little amount of trepidation as he draws it back in, almost instinctively.

'Enough to devour a mountain,' he states, an element of false calm running over his face. Then he smirks. 'But who knows how many eggs she has laid in the meantime.'

'She's not physically mature yet,' Palm says steadily. 'She may be hungry, but I doubt that hunger has ever been put to proper use.'

Pouf gives nothing away and his steady, superior smile enrages Palm. She breathes fiercely, palms clenched at her side, disturbed, not only at his smugness, but how he can alternate between fury and this, this stone-faced cockiness within seconds.

'It does not matter,' she says, pretending to believe her words. She can lie better this way. 'She's too dangerous. There are many, in the Hunter's association or will never stop tracking her, never stop hunting her until she is dead. And you are no longer in the NGL. Humans have social security numbers here, there are electronic systems that can tagged when they go missing. This queen will never possess the same anonymity your first one held, if only briefly. People will always vie for her death. And you cannot protect her from that.'

The smile slides from Pouf's face.

Palm leans closer, enjoying the fear that swells in his eyes there, the fear she hammers into him with every word she speaks. 'But we can keep her alive. If and only if, she never gives this world another Meruem.' She slides her face closer, almost as though she wishes to shift her cheek against his own, in parody of a nestling lover. 'In other words, we can keep Komugi's child alive, so long as she never gives birth to one of her own.'

And somewhere close by, hidden in the darkness, Hisoka smiles. 'Well now,' he says slowly, 'we can't have that, can we?'

The queen stares down at the palms Gon holds up for her to see. They're riddled with calluses, and the shifting hash of lines that dip and harden above the green-blue swish of veins she can see swimming beneath his skin, enchant her.

'I'm not a fortunate teller,' she says with no small amount of confusion. 'I can't read your lifelines.'

Gon laughs. 'No, I didn't really expect you to see meaning in them!' But then the laugher fades from his face and he draws his hands back to his side. 'You remember what I did before, when I freed you? The light you saw on my hands.'

She nods. 'You're a mage?' she says firmly. Then hesitates. 'Some form of wizard, yes?'

She hears something sputter from the white-hared boy in the shadows. It sounds, to her sensitive ears, like the aborted sound of held-back laughter, and the mere thought of it sends fury spiking into her pulse like a shard. She refuses, however, to send him so much as a look.

'No,' something flickers across Gon's face. She can't make out whether its disappointment or pity before it's gone. But it does nothing to appease her anger. 'No, it's...it's nen. Life-force. I guess Pouf never showed you how to handle it.'

'He says it's too dangerous.' She shoves down the flicker of churlish disappointment she feels at the memory before it drifts over her in the form of a full-blown sulk. 'But I can see it. Sometimes even feel it. But I didn't know it could be used...like that.'

He smiles again. 'I can show you some stuff. But will you make me a promise first?'

She eyes him. 'A promise?'

'Yes. You have to stop eating people.'

She blinks. 'I...' It makes sense, she supposes. 'I get very hungry,' she says cautiously. 'If I limited myself to just animals I suspect I would drive many of them to extinction.'

Gon frowns but the look on his face is insistent.

She sighs. 'I can try. But Shia-Pouf won't like it.'

'You learning nen?' Gon asks. 'Or you not eating people?'

She smiles. But there's no trace of humour in the line of her mouth. 'Both.'

'Hmm,' Gon eyes her. 'But you don't do everything he tells you, right? Besides, you're the queen! Doesn't he have to do what you tell him?'

'Only within reason,' she argues. 'Or would you do everything a child tells you?'

Killua snorts from his corner. 'You don't look like a child to me,' he points out. 'Or if you are, you won't be for long.'

She hasn't thought too much about it. But it's true. She knows Shia-Pouf is waiting for something to happen. For her to settle down, like a proper queen and start fulfilling her life-purpose. To give him a colony, a king. He expects great things from her. And sometimes, in quieter moments, she expects them from herself.

'I don't want to spend the rest of my life laying eggs,' she says slowly and it occurs to her, suddenly, that it's true. 'I liked doing other things, long before...'

Before what? Before listening to the restless shift of her blood, to the ache in her muscles that screams at her to sit, to eat, to start...well, to start the strain of being a mother?

'But,' she says firmly. 'I don't think I can stop it. I'm a queen. At some point, I'm gonna start laying eggs.' She pauses. 'I know you want me to stop. You'll probably end up killing me, or at least trying to.'

Gon stares at her. 'You know,' he says suddenly. 'I killed the guard who protected your mother. Their name...was Neferpitou.' He speaks, sounding both low and calm, but the queen finds herself cringing away from him, from the steady, adult-like detachment she can hear in his voice. 'But there was a price. I couldn't use nen for a while. I had to relearn it from scratch.' He smiles dimly and the queen is now put in mind of the sun breaking out from between clouds, letting a misty trace of gold trail through the atmosphere. She relaxes. But only slightly.

Gon, for his part, looks amused. 'It's not something I like to think about too much. But it's there.'

But then his head flinches away from, almost at the same time as her ear twitch. She can hear it, about half a mile away, the quick flicks and thuds against cave walls that resembles fist striking stones.

'A battle?' she asks carefully. She can't match the movements to Pouf – he can fly and dart in a way gravity doesn't usually allow other combatants.

'Yes.' Gon turns to her and bites his lip, giving an unsteady nod as he does so.

From behind him, Killua sighs. 'This,' he grumbles, 'is a stupid idea.'

'Maybe,' replies Gon, 'but I have a feeling, she should come.' He smiles at the queen. 'How about it, then?'

Youpi tenses. Morel breathes in and then releases a long, snakelike trail of smoke.

'Ah,' he says. 'They're going at it, huh?'

But Youpi isn't fooled. He sees the frown, too high up on the man's forehead for his sunglasses to disguise, and the way his upper lip lifts, just enough for a hint of teeth to shine through and grind down on the thin edge of his pipe.

'I could help you,' Youpi says levelly. 'I don't care about any of you humans here. And the fight could take place near where my queen is, where she's helpless. I would be stupid to betray you.'

Morel looks at him, his face ashen but still alien enough, without the glistening shine of human eyes, to be unreadable.

It takes everything Youpi has, not to start shoving at the rock that barricades his chest. So he goes for honesty.

'I'm too weak to beat you now,' he states. Then pauses, before adding a surly: 'maybe.'

Morel's lips twitch. Then, with a quick motion, he whips his pipe out of his mouth, twirling it round so that the thick pot-like end is pointed towards the ceiling. Youpi watches it, suspended above his head like a mighty fist of a god, just waiting to rush down and crush his skull into nothing. And then Morel moves. His pipe races down, not vertically but in a diagonal sweep, cleaving the rock into a tumbled mass of jagged pieces, so that it resembles the broken down rubble of an old road.

Youpi stands there, stunned, for a few seconds.

Then Morel stands. He shakes. Then he laughs.

'I really am-' he forces out, between starts and sputtered out breathes, '-the worst interrogator ever.'

Youpi shrugs and then turns on his heel, trying to hold back the instinctive wince as his chest groans. He can feel ripening with bruises that crawl their way up against his torso, much like a snake and he forces himself not to look down, to see the colour his skin has become stained with. He always dapples horribly. But it will not prevent him from running.

Behind him, Morel follows at a half-run, still flailing ungracefully as he chokes the laugher down.

Palm hisses and flinches away from a motion, one that had she stayed still, would have lost her her arm. Within seconds her hair is flying out, burying the muscles in her arm under thick coils of black; the colour hangs heavy on her, sweeping over both her body and clothes until only her face remains, like a pale mask eclipsing a statue. And the hair shines, with a fierce glimmer of white that plays on the dark like a ripple over water, making the motion beneath seem smooth, like liquid ink, all under the limited lamplight she's allowed herself to have.

But Hisoka is not someone who would whistle in appreciation at an opponent. Why whistle when there are so many delightful words to choose from instead?

'Mmm,' he purrs, and feels a flicker of disappointment that he has instinctively gone for a sound despite his thoughts. 'Lovely. That armour suits you.'

'Oh,' says Palm flatly. 'It's you. The clown who likes to prey on children.'

Killua's told her enough tales to have thoroughly soured her opinion of him.

The next moment she ducks, low and fast, as his arm snakes forward and erupts into a blurred line of grey, one that just narrowly misses the top of her head. He re-adjusts in mid-thrust, curving his hand back round with a deft twist of the wrist that puts Palm in mind of a magic trick. She barely has to think; she twists her head round and there's a slight clink, almost metallic-sounding as his nails clip against the side of her ear. She feels her lips lift into what she hopes is a smirk of satisfaction, one that only grows wider as she sees him frown and inspect the ends of his fingers. They're looking distinctly less pointy. As though someone has come down to brush against the very tips with sandpaper.

'Sharper than razor wire,' he says approvingly. 'My, my. I guess sometimes the best offense is defence, isn't it?'

She grits her teeth. 'Annoying,' she hisses, letting some of her anger seep into her voice; she can feel it unfurling beneath her vocal cords, resounding deep in her chest, that familiar, chaotic, spread of rage. 'I want to let go; it's been so long since I could. But you're not the sort of opponent I can fight against like that.'

Hisoka observes her, amused. 'An enhancer, then?' he asks, almost as if he is trying to do nothing more than allow a conversation to spring forth.

Palm growls, lowers her head like a rhino, and charges.

Pouf watches. He shouldn't care; in fact, he doesn't. But something in their motions speak to him, a flurry of a dance that darts out in front of him before shifting and moving round his imprisoned form. Palm moves simply, the shift and shine of hair adds a twirl of casual complexity to her motion, similar to the way water appears to flow more readily, when it is vibrantly illuminated by sunlight, the sparks of natural light catching in the jitter of ripples and waves. But Hisoka is a like a paragram made flesh, utilising both simple strikes, ones fast enough to hit, and combining them with dexterous bends and swoops. He springs and jumps, more monkey than man while Palm portrays the rigidity of the human form, or at least one when it is weighed down with armour. She isn't fast enough to hit him, though he however, is not quite strong enough to tear through her protective hair.

But there's no stalemate to be found here. Only a possible checkmate, a result that swims into view but Palm stumbles and falls, her foot caught in a swish of artfully hidden bungee gum. Another attached itself to her side, tugging insistently on the hair that protects her ribs. Palm grimaces as Hisoka's fist dives under and up, right onto the part of her body under the strain of a secondary force – though no matter how much it tries, the gum isn't strong enough to rip off her armour. But it is, however, insistent enough to peel it from her skin, just for an odd second or two.

But then that odd bound of time is all Hisoka has ever needed. His punch digs in, quick and clever. It's more than enough to make a bone break through into the squish of red it should be protecting, to make the heart pound, the pulse flutter. It's more than enough to make Palm shudder. And fall still.

'Will Gon be upset if I kill you?' wonders Hisoka out loud, though it's clear by the sheer glee in his voice that's it's a question he doesn't expect her to answer. 'Will he try to kill me if he sees your broken body on the floor? Oh, I do hope so.'

Palm's eyes dart up, quick enough to detect the flicker of white and red that announces the arrival of a playing card from between Hisoka's fingers. A second later it turns invisible – But Palm is skilled enough to predict the blur of its trajectory and concentrates, allowing a coil of her hair to untwist itself from the rim of her artificial hat. It shudders out, more of a spur now, or perhaps just an ebony tusk, reaching out to pierce the playing card and rip it into two diagonal chunks, effortlessly. The pieces fly past Palm's face harmlessly and she can't help but growl – one of those had come dangerously close to her eye.

'Wasn't the king enough for you?' she sneers. 'Or have you decided to become the executer of their species?'

Beside her, she sees Pouf tense, his fists curling beneath the grey pressure of the rock.

'Oh, it was far from enough,' Hisoka says smoothly, his eyes fixed on the shuddering mass of her hair – it spikes in her rage, becoming a meandering, restless thing, more alike to liquid than the make-shift steel it should imitate. 'I actually wanted a challenge.'

'How dare you.' Pouf's voice drifts out from his lips, in a tight cold sound, one reeking with distain. 'The only rightful king this sorry world has ever seen – and you dare say he was-' he chokes briefly on the past tense, before raising his eyes, perfect mask in place. 'You dare to say he wasn't enough?'

Hisoka just looks at him, a thoroughly bored expression on his face. A playing card emerges from between his fingers once again and Pouf's fists clench tighter together in response.

'No. Not as he was then. And you know it too. I dare say you are far weaker now then you were originally. I can sense it, you see. All that squandered potential.' A quick twinkle appears in his eyes and it gleams like a very small star, cold in its foreign light. 'Netero was a clever bastard.'

Palm hisses from between her teeth. 'And what was Komugi then? We both know any possible potential of her wouldn't have...suited your tastes. Was her death simply an afterthought?'

This time the look Hisoka flashes her is one of surprise. 'What? You think I-' he pauses, and then chuckles grimly. 'No, I am many things. But I am not wasteful.' He shudders at the very thought. 'Why would I kill the last surviving parent and leave the baby to starve? Especially when I wanted the baby, oh, so badly, to live?' He turns, fixing Pouf with a sly look. 'You'd know more about killing out of...mmm, shall we say jealously? Wouldn't you? You seem the type.'

Palm freezes. And despite everything despite her training, Pouf senses, rather than see, the look of dawning horror on her face and just how badly, she wants to turn to him, to turn to him and run him through.

What a stupid, impulsive woman. Clearly not fit to be a warrior. Just like Youpi.

'In the end,' he says slowly, frowning somewhat at the new, brittle quality to his words, 'I realised that the king and I were the only fit ones to lead the new kingdom. Pitou was too sentimental – they valued the king's flights and fancies too much and strove to make him happy above all else, instead of attempting to guide him into being a better leader-'

'You mean they valued Komugi's life,' breaks in a new voice. Killua strides through the gloom, the tell-tell sound of electricity beginning to crackle within the gloom. His hair is already beginning to glow with an un-sprung fire, as blinding as snow caught under sunlight and his eyes find Palm's slumped over form and harden.

Pouf if he could have, would shrug. 'And Youpi was too easily lead. More of a soldier than a guard.' He pauses, his lips twitching. It is as close as he can manage to laughter. 'You should see the way he reacts to her. The queen, I mean. Like an bodyguard or an dotting old bloodhound, content only with her own level of comfort. In some ways he was worse than Pitiou. Sometimes, I wonder if I shouldn't have killed him.'

'You considered killing your own comrades?'

Killua's eyes dart back as Gon steps out behind him, his face carefully blank.

Pouf grins, with a sharp feral twist to his mouth. 'Oh no,' he says softly. 'I'm pretty sure you were behind the death of one of them, weren't you? Neferpitou – the kindest one, of us all.' He's only half joking – Neferpitou was far from kind after all. But it's worth it to see the blinked-back strain of suffering that crosses Gon's face, one that arranges itself to accept the surge of rage and disbelief that infuses it. 'Pitou was, after all, the only one of us in the end who wanted that woman to live.'

'You k-ki-killed her?'

The question is a soft one, tentatively asked. But as soon as it touches Pouf's ears, it's as though the world has crumpled to a halt. He watches dully, as out before him steps the queen. Electricity jumps and darts by her side and Pouf sees her, more child than adult in the way she holds herself, eyes awash with something close to understanding.

'You killed my mother.' It isn't a question this time. 'You killed her and tried to stamp out whatever she might have left in me.' She smiles and Pouf's heart clenches at the faint line of bitterness that comes to rest there. 'No wonder you hated playing Gungi so much. It must have really frightened you.'

Her eyes flicker out to the weaving jump of sparks that fly out over Killua's hair; but it's not the ripple of temporary halos that truly catch her eyes, or the way they break on the jagged spikes. It's the colour, and the shape beneath, that hold her breath. 'I...might remember now. I don't have any pictures, not really but her hair...it was spiky to the touch.' There's a wistful tint to her smile now and it almost overcomes the bitterness. 'I wonder what she would think, knowing how many of her fellow humans I've consumed?'

Gon turns to Hisoka as her words fall silent, the strain on his facial expression now fully accepting of the rage that falls there. It comes to life in his eyes, fully at home there as they flicker toward Palm.

'Get out. You've hurt my friend.'

Hisoka pouts. 'So cold. Besides Gon, if you really thought you could win against me, you would have already attacked, wouldn't you? And what you're doing here, I simply can't allow.' He gestures towards the queen. 'Not when there's a chance to create another king.'

It's stupid but for one brilliant moment, hope flares in Pouf's chest, reaching out to capture his heart in a rough squeeze.

'No,' says the queen loudly. 'I don't want to be a puppet. Not to my instincts, not to you-' she motions to Hisoka with a tentative tweak to her head and Pouf is gladdened to see her survival instincts are still somewhat intact, ' - and now, no more, to you.'

Her eyes find Pouf and he is startled to see just how miserable they are. Meruem would never have worn the look of betrayal so openly. He wouldn't even have allowed the idea to touch him, to scar him quite so openly. 'I don't want to have ten thousand babies. And I don't want to eat ten thousand people either.'

'Good choice.' The new voice is low, reverberating. It flows with a sort of a glad spirit, though that's probably not the reason Hisoka narrows his eyes at it.

The voice is replaced with a series of soft, steady steps, ones that don't quite line up with the large form they support – that more than anything else alerts Hisoka to the skill level of this man as he appears, his humongous pipe slung against his back with the same casual sort of grace a backpacker might wear after a brief foray into the mountainside. Behind him comes somebody who makes Killua whistle and allows surprise to cross over Gon's face.

The queen starts to dart forward, joy springing onto her face at his appearance, before both Gon and Killua's hands clamp down on her elbows to yank her back. 'Youpi!'

Youpi grunts and then nods, eyes narrowing slightly at the hands still wrapped round her arms before his gaze drifts down to his own limbs, ones snaked over with bruises from the rock that held him. With a colossal effort, he shrugs away the anger that jabs at his thought, at the need to rush forward and snap off those human arms still attached to his queen.

'Ah,' he remembers, 'you were telling the truth.' He nods to Morel. 'Thank you.'

Morel shrugs at Gon and Killua, as if to say, see, I haven't lost my mind after all. Then he turns to Hisoka.

'I'm glad to see you made it. You remind me of another ant once, who made a similar choice. And I'll tell you what I told him – if you stick to it, I'll protect you with my life.' Morel inclines his head to her briefly before puffing out his chest, thumb plunging down against the shirt that stretches tautly across it. 'My name is Morel. It's nice to meet you, Kokoriko.' And then he turns to Hisoka. 'Hey there. I'd say the odds have evened out a bit, wouldn't you say?'