"Refine Essence?" Sharlotte asked. "Lapis…this is the test subject you mentioned in your briefings?"

"Yup," the floating crystal said. "Pretty cool, right?"

"Cool?" Sharlotte shrieked. "That's downright horrible. How could you force a baby into your cruel and twisted experiments?"

"You know Sharlotte? You're the last person I want to hear that from. Plus, I didn't force slime boy, apprentice of mine. He wanted to do it. If anything, I forced bird boy, not apprentice of mine."

"Lapis is right," Alwin said. "I wanted to do this. And if anything, I'm the best person for the job. Who else can traverse the evolutionary tree but me?"

"Sure, you might have a point," Sharlotte said. "But evolution places a tremendous stress on the Core. You shouldn't go through another one until we can figure out what's wrong with yours."

"Nothing's wrong with it—I think," Alwin said. "If I feel weird, I'll let you know. Right now, it's Essence Refining time!"

"No!" Sharlotte shouted.

"Really, lady?" Alwin said. "You interrupted my big cool moment. Now I'm angry."

The Yin-Yang Slime growled, showing off his half-black and half-white teeth. He snapped his jaw shut, lunging close enough to make it look like he was about to bite the mean onion lady.

"I'm sorry for shouting at you," Sharlotte said. "But this is really important."

"So is catching up with my other selves," Alwin said. "If anything, it's even more important than whatever you're about to say."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Lapis said.

"Great," Alwin sighed. "Now my master MOM and my technically-mom are ganging up on me."

"Mom? Me?" Sharlotte said, taken aback.

"Yeah. You're my technically-mom. I'm assuming my real parents are dead based on that story you just told me. And you did technically create me by inseminating me with someone else's Core. So you're my technically-mom. If that makes sense."

"You could've phrased it better, but it makes sense to me," Lapis said.

"I guess?" Sharlotte said, voice rising in pitch. "But never mind that. How are you so nonchalant about all of this?"

Alwin shrugged, sending ripples jiggling through his jelly body. "I guess I've got more important things to worry about. Like me being the weakest amongst my other selves despite being the oldest. That is an unforgivable sin!"

Sharlotte looked at the diamond crystal. "You're positive that the mental and emotional inhibitors are disabled. Maybe there's still a lingering fragment that's causing this?"

"I'm so positive that I overflowed, and now I'm negative."

"What?"

"Can I translate, Lapis?" Alwin asked.

"Sure thing, slime boy apprentice of mine."

"Lapis is absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent sure that those weird inhibitors came off. And because of that, she's mad. I'm paraphrasing here, but it's something along the lines of 'How could my greatest piece of spellwork fail? This shouldn't be possible! I need to figure out what happened so that nothing like this ever happens again—assuming even more child soldier experiments take place. Which, again, I do not condone.' Did I get it right?"

"Pretty much."

"Awesome!" Alwin said, leaping into the air and performing a triple backflip straight onto Sharlotte's lap.

"Then this must be a symptom of the fractured Core. Tell me, Lapis. When did you first notice any anomalies?"

"And I should tell you because?"

"This is a child's life we're talking about, Lapis. This isn't the time for petty squabbles."

"Again, the only reason he's like this is because of you."

"And now I'm trying to fix it. What happens if his Core completely fractures? Will he just lose Cor's blessing? Or worse?"

"Wait, what?" Alwin said. "Lose my Core Skill? But then what if I get stuck in some gross evolution like Niwla's MODOC?"

"See, Lapis! He didn't even react to the or worse part."

"Because being stuck in one form is way worse than dying, duh!" Alwin said.

Lapis sat still, not moving a single crystal muscle. The two drones hovering next to her beeped and booped, before zipping down the secret passage that led to her basement laboratory. A second later, they returned with markers balanced atop their tips.

Without any hesitation, they scrawled on a pair of big, angry eyes, followed by a huge frown on Lapis' face. And just to make sure she got the message across, the drones added rows of large, jagged, menacing teeth.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"Slime boy's got a point. If he's stuck in some useless form, like a MODOC, then my experiments would have to be put on hold. For the sake of my experiments, I'll share whatever I know about slime boy. But, I won't be happy about it."

"Thank you, Lapis. Thank you."

"You are very much welcome," Lapis growled. "Drones, escort little miss crybaby here to the lab and show her my notes on slime boy."

"Thank you, Lapis," Sharlotte said. She picked Alwin up, setting him down in his seat.

"Nope!" Alwin yelled. He hopped and performed a cartwheel, landing in Sharlotte's weak noodle arms.

"What are you doing?" Sharlotte asked.

"Carry me downstairs. I don't want to walk, hop or roll."

"Sure," Sharlotte said, smiling at Alwin and giving him multiple pats on the head. His body jiggled up and down with every touch as the onion descended down the stairs to Lapis' chaotic laboratory.

The drones escorted the MOH toward a wide, cluttered table pushed up against the wall with a pinboard looming above it. Handwritten notes were scattered all over the desk, while pages, scraps of notes and barely-sticky sticky notes clung to the board. A web of red string crisscrossed and crosscrissed the board, connecting ideas that made absolutely zero sense.

"Have fun," Lapis said.

"Have fun," Alwin echoed, hopping off the MOH Express.

"Thank you," she sighed. "Don't worry, I'll fix you."

"Nothing to fix in my opinion," Alwin said, before rolling into the white room. Lapis trailed along with him, leaving the two drones to tend to the MOH.

"What Element are you going to refine?" she asked. "Fifty-Fifty Dark and Light?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Yes, maybe. Depends on my mood. So get everything ready. If not, I'm not going to work with you anymore."

"You must be entering your rebellious phase. Children grow up so fast. Just remember, don't take too long. You still have to attend class; if not, Milvee is going to give me a real scolding."

"Sorry, can't hear you. I think the cookies clogged up my ears."

Alwin closed his eyes and honed in on his Core.

How dare Niwla and Winal both get Tier 3 Evolutions before him! And how dare he not realize it sooner for some reason? It must be Niwla's fault, stealing all of the brainpower for himself.

"Can you stop blaming everything on me?" Niwla said, walking up to Alwin. Winal skittered in beside the MODOC, legs clicking softly against the floor.

"But who else can I blame? I can't blame Winal. He's too nice to me. And stop eavesdropping on my internal monologue!"

"Blame yourself. And I'm not eavesdropping, you just think too loud."

"We can argue later. But before that, I would like to have a discussion."

"Just because you would like to have something, doesn't mean you'll get it," Alwin said.

"Not now, Alwin. This is more important than your pettiness. This is about us."

Winal nodded.

"What about us?" Alwin asked.

"If what the Minister of Healing says is right, then Winal and I are a product of a fractured Core and not some sort of emotional trauma."

"And?"

"Assuming the Minister is correct and is able to repair the fractured Core… what will happen to us?"

"We become unstoppable monsters?"

"No, Alwin. There's a high likelihood that we might disappear."

Winal nodded, his mandibles dipped low, and his antenna sagged.

"I won't allow it!" Alwin yelled. "You're not going to disappear. Winal is not going to disappear. I'm not going to disappear."

"Honestly, you're at the least risk of disappearing."

Winal nodded again.

"Wait, why?"

"You're the original. We're not."

"Original-shmoriginal. You're me. And I'm you. That's the end of the story. No one is disappearing. Not on my watch!"

"That's the thing, Alwin. Winal and I… we might not even be you."

"What are you talking about? You're Niwla, that's Alwin backwards. You're all serious and uptight. I'm fun and downloose. You're totally me, just backwards."

Winal shook his head.

"Think back about what the MOH said," he signed. "About how the class came to be."

"The part where she took a dead monster's Core and stuffed them into eggs?"

Winal nodded.

"And remember when the Minister of Healing mentioned that Evolution places a tremendous amount of stress on the Core," Niwla said.

"Yes. My memory isn't that bad."

"So, think back. When's the first time that Winal or I came into your life?"

"It's um…" Alwin closed his eyes, scrounging through his memories. "Sometime after I evolved into a Fire Ant? I tried to trick my classmates by pretending to be Winal. Then, somewhere along the way, Winal suddenly popped up. We were practically twins until we firebombed the city and ended up in jail, then because of that, Uchronia became disappointed in us, and now Winal hardly talks because of how much that affected him."

The ant nodded.

"And me?" Niwla asked.

"Now that I think about it," Alwin said. "You also appeared around the same time as Winal. Back then, I just called you serious Alwin, and we kept fighting over who gets to control the body, until we eventually settled on the agreement—that you break a lot—and I gave you a name, Niwla."

"Are you starting to see the pattern?"

"Both of you appeared only after I evolved into a Fire Ant. Only after I really started to use my Core Skill. A Core Skill that was originally never mine."

Winal nodded.

"Are you starting to see why I'm worried? Why Lapis kept saying that you were possessed even though it was just us," Niwla said.

"Maybe. But that evidence is all circumstantial."

"It is," Niwla said. "But it's the most likely scenario, Alwin. Again, so what happens if the Minister of Healing repairs the Core? What will happen to us?"

"I don't know. And I don't want to think about it."

The slime rolled away from the owl and ant.

"Alwin!" Niwla called out.

"Not listening!"

Deep down, Alwin didn't want Niwla and Winal to disappear—even if Niwla was annoying and Winal sometimes ganged up against him. They were a part of him. They had gone through thick and thin together. They were brothers.

So, right now, he wouldn't worry about any of that. Right now, he would focus on catching up with his brothers. He was going to refine Essence. What kind of Essence? A balance between Light and Dark made the most perfect sense, but he didn't want that. He also didn't want to see Light.

Maybe it was time to go back to his roots. Maybe it was time to embrace his Dark side.

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