The merc HQ might have been the first thing to catch my eye, and the mural had done a good job of knocking me on my ass for a second, but I had to admit… in spite of everything, our new home was cozy.

Well, not the first floor.

The first floor was a nightmare of white walls, sterile surfaces, and way, way too many surgical tools. Standing there for even a few seconds did funny things to my stomach.

I would have to get used to it, of course. I refused to leave Amelia alone during her working hours, so I'd be playing the role of bodyguard. Still, I made sure to confirm where all the downstairs bathrooms were, in case I ever needed to hurl.

The upstairs, though? Maximum coziness.

The building was large, but the upstairs contained a grand total of one living room, two bedrooms with attached bathrooms, and a tiny room that could be converted into whatever the owners wanted. At the moment, that meant a small office for Amelia, which she kept gushing over. She really liked the idea of having her own 'solemn business space.'

We were totally going to have popcorn, watch a movie, and make out in there later. I just knew it.

Anyway, the low number of rooms meant they could all be described with one word: spacious.

The living room was massive. The center of the floor contained a large pit area fitted with a mattress and filled to the brim with pillows and blankets. It looked like a nest, truth be told, and I saw the way Amelia's eyes lit up when she spotted it.

The 'main' bedroom featured a ridiculously large and bouncy bed, a work desk, and a bunch of empty shelves. There was a wardrobe there too, but I had limited access to that. Amelia had snatched away my meager clothes collection and set about organizing everything.

I expected my section of the massive wardrobe to end up being miniscule, but Amelia soon blew that idea out of the water. She chattered happily about how she was going to get us a bunch of new outfits we could wear together. She was taking the whole thing very seriously. I just agreed to let her handle it and backed off, employing the same caution I'd typically afford a ranting druggie waving a knife at me in some grimy alley.

I wasn't making an empty comparison there. I'd lived through both scenarios, and Amelia scared me just as much as the gaunt man had.

The one thing my lovely roommate complained about was the kitchen. Which, well, didn't really exist? A tiny section of the living room contained a small fridge and a couple devices for heating things up, but the whole thing looked more like a snack bar setup than anything else.

It was a good thing we preferred ordering in food, I suppose?

Regardless, as I said, the place had definite potential. Once we'd indulged in a long, cold shower in our fancy new bathroom, Amelia and I collapsed in the cuddle pit and just tried to relax.

It worked. For a little while. There were still boxes around, reminding me of the fact that we weren't fully moved in yet. And then there was the large set of windows on the other end of the room that afforded us a lovely view of the block…

A view which prominently featured the merc HQ.

I knew we were there because of them and everything. Still, the fact that our living room peeked right out at the lair of mercenaries was going to give me a bad case of the nerves. How was I supposed to relax and do nothing when a casual glance out the window let me spot anyone coming and going at the HQ?

Speaking of, I spotted several people leaving through the building's main entrance. They were all dressed to the nines in merc gear, toting bags I could only assume contained guns and other equipment.

My body locked up, ready for conflict. I was well aware that they didn't know we even existed yet, and I still reacted that way. In fact, they unnerved me enough that I triggered my Clairvoyance, just to be safe.

Reality fell away from me, replaced by the vision of a future where every face was replaced by the flickering features of a shadow.

The mercs did nothing suspicious. They headed towards their cars in a leisurely manner, laughing and chatting.

But… Amelia was right there. And I was facing a potential threat nearby. I couldn't let anything happen to her.

It was stupid. Pointless. Entirely too much, even. Still, I pushed my Clairvoyance harder than I ever had before, eyes darting from merc to merc and scanning for any sign of trouble.

That was when something… shifted.

A well of power inside me, hidden just behind my navel, opened up. The energy that escaped it was a mere trickle, but it still zipped up through my body, across my neck and cheeks, and pooled within my eyes.

It was like they suddenly grew both hot and cold all at once, and my vision sharpened more than it ever had before. Simultaneously, my Clairvoyant visions stuttered and shot further into the future.

I hissed in a startled breath as reality began to branch. Two, three, then four phantoms overlaid each member of the mercenary corpse I was watching. Each phantom did slightly different things, their reactions ping-ponging off of each other and altering the future in subtle ways.

A hiss escaped me, and not solely because I was startled. The longer I watched, the more my head began to hurt. Phantoms blurred together, the future shifted, the well of power inside me protested, and —

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The slap sent my head snapping to the side several times over. I saw it coming through every possible future. I tracked its trajectory. I could do nothing to avoid it, though, because my body simply refused to cooperate with me.

Then I was left blinking owlishly as the flesh-and-blood hand impacted my flesh-and-blood face. Reality fully reasserted itself, the Clairvoyance melting away like a bad, half-remembered dream.

"Wuh?" I asked, once more displaying my amazing intelligence. My head creaked slowly over, and my eyes met the worried green orbs of Amelia.

"Don't you 'wuh' me, mister! Look at this! Really look at it!" She shoved her hand, the hand that had rocked my world, in front of my face. I blinked in confusion again before I realized the hand was stained black.

Oily black.

Like, I don't know, the weird tar-like blood which now ran through my veins.

I looked down at my chest, then let out a groan of pure annoyance at the sight of the wonderful shirt Amelia had picked out for me. A shirt which was now covered in the stupid shadow tar that seemed set on staining every pair of clothes I owned.

"What happened?" I asked.

"What do you mean, what happened? You tell me. One second you're hugging me to your chest, the next you tense up and start shaking, and I feel weird, wet shit in my hair. You know I don't like getting weird fluids in my hair, Adrian!"

I flushed scarlet and reached for some kind of excuse, but I really resembled a fish trying to breathe out of water. It was only when I spotted the teasing grin on Amelia's face that I realized she knew exactly what she was doing.

Well, at least her plot had worked. She'd managed to knock me out of the lingering daze that had been plaguing me. I still made her regret her teasing when I ran my hand over my face and then plopped it right on top of hers.

It was her turn to gape at me.

"You never said anything about getting weird fluids on your face," I cheekily reminded her, then broke out into laughter when she growled and went for my throat.

It was a valiant attempt to strangle me, but we somehow ended up in the bathroom with my upper body clothes off, desperately trying to wash the tar off of ourselves in the large bathroom sink. Amelia was doing the same, though by the disgusted expression on her face, she was on the verge of giving up and taking another shower.

I didn't blame her much. Washing shadow-blood off of my skin was difficult enough. Washing it out of hair? Ugh.

"So, gonna tell me what happened now?" Amelia pressed, still trying valiantly to clean her hair with a wet towel and lots of enthusiasm.

"I… I spotted mercs coming out of their building and, urm, I think I had a minor panic attack? I mean, they were right there, and you were on my lap, and…" I trailed off, but the look she sent me was tender and understanding. "Anyway! I pushed Clairvoyance a bit harder than I usually would, and — and I think I used Essence to boost it."

"You think?! Oh come on! No thinking. Check! Check now!"

I chuckled wearily at her insistence, but I did obey. With a moment of focus, I brought up my stats.

Adrian Flinn

Strength: 9

Reflexes: 20

Acuity: 20

Physique: 10

Recovery: 3

Stamina: 8

Soul: 19 → 20

Adaptability: 19 → 20

Tolerance: 16 → 21

Cognition: 20

Essence: 7/28

Mind Synchronicity: Reluctant Symphony

Body Synchronicity: Sharpening Harmony

Shadow Runner Package:

Clairvoyance 2 (99/100) → Clairvoyance 3 (24/100)

Programming 1 (99/100)

Movement 2 (0/100)

Quickhacks 1 (69/100)

Assault 2 (24/100)

Tongue of The Ravening Observer

Unseen Stalker Package:

Stealth 1 (84/100)

Tracking 2 (62/100)

Focus 1 (58/100)

Grace 2 (12/100)

Faultline 0 (42/100)

Seven? I'd managed to drain myself down to seven Essence?

More importantly… Clairvoyance 3? With that much progress? How?! When?! Didn't I need a knowledge download for my skills to progress?

Except, as I poked around my own head, I realized that new knowledge was welling up from somewhere. Understanding of my Clairvoyance, of how it worked, of how best to use it paired with Essence… it all permeated my mind, becoming an indelible part of me.

Then again… to say that I'd be 'using' Essence alongside the skill was a misnomer.

According to everything my new knowledge suggested, tapping into Essence should have come to me instinctually. I was my Essence. It was the purest expression of me.

But that wasn't quite right, was it? I'd had to call on it first. Still, I had done that on instinct, and — and —

"This is a mess," I groaned, letting my face fall into my hands.

My mind swam between what were, heh, 'essential' instincts of a shadow, and what my mostly recovered human mind was telling me. Not that I was sure I could consider myself all that 'recovered' anymore, all of a sudden.

"You realize I'm here to help, right?" Amelia's voice came from the side. When her hand landed on my shoulder, I felt some of the tension melt away.

"Sorry, sorry. Just having another brief identity crisis. You know, the usual. Anyway, our skills can be used in tandem with Essence. Did you know that? Because Clairvoyance levelled up, and it was way too effective when I used it, which is what started this whole mess. Also…" I took a moment to register what my senses were telling me. "I'm sucking down ambient Essence again."

"Wait, what? Let me check. You are!" Amelia proclaimed with awe, her eyes slightly unfocused as she fell into a half-meditative state with an ease that still made me feel a little jealous. "Fuck, you're really affecting all the Essence within, like, half the block, ain't ya?"

"Yes." I winced, looking around anxiously and feeling a torrent of the stuff trying to fill my Essence pool back up. "Yes I am."

There was another thing I was feeling, though. Just like when I'd triggered the process myself, my cybernetics were greedily gulping down some of the surrounding Essence. They filtered and altered it before feeding it to the non-cybernetic parts of me.

The torrent pouring in through the rest of my body was diluting this altered portion of Essence, sure. But… it was still there. My body was still receiving it from my cybernetics eagerly. I imagined I could feel every corrupted fleck sinking into my flesh, bones, and blood, bonding itself there and altering me.

This state I was in was amazing for my Essence regeneration, and I was willing to bet it was benefiting my body somehow, too. However, it came with the caveat that my own cybernetics were ever so slowly poisoning and corrupting me.

It might not become relevant tomorrow. Maybe not even within a decade, either. Not with how diluted the poison was. One day, though… one day I'd find out exactly what the corrupted Essence was doing to me.

And I wasn't sure I'd like it.

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