A/N: The above picture (which shows H.P. Lovecraft's Shoggoth) is what I imagine Cherub as.

I hated those split-second decisions. If we ran now, we took our eyes off of Cherub before understanding its capabilities. If we fought, we risked the possibility of not being able to defeat it.

Kira knew what to do. She swung her blaster and shot all wavelengths available. Green beams, blue beams, red beams, invisible beams. The best she accomplished was cutting corners off Cherub's formless black slime mass.

Cherub re-arranged its football-field-sized body, shrugging off damage with the ease of squashing pimples. It approached Kira until they stood feet apart. Then, it opened a tunnel-like mouth and spit green acid at the enhanced human. It dug through the black fabric of her suit and even her clothing, revealing exposed fat, bone, and muscle underneath her arm panels.

Kira screamed in pain.

I removed a navy-blue balloon-like weapon from my belt: The acid gun Crick had given me. Meanwhile, Cherub snatched Kira with hideous tendrils. I ran to the scene of the fight, pointed my weapon's end at the tendrils, and squeezed as hard as I could. Colorless hydrochloric acid squinted from my gun and tore the tendrils apart.

Cherub remained unimpressed. It was too massive and I had too little acid. My strategy felt like extinguishing a volcano with a water pistol.

I jumped backward, dodging the next spit of green vomit. Then, Kira grabbed my wrist and dragged me out of the way. She ran without sedating me with her singularity stone like in the forest or the Dragonfly. She lacked the energy. I felt the full force of her motorcycle-like velocity. The fog's headwind threatened to blow me away.

A wall came into sight. With her blaster, Kira cut a comfortably large hole into it. It started closing, but we passed it in time. Behind us, the wall sealed itself, blocking Cherub's path.

Kira stopped and dropped me like a foul egg. I didn't mind the impact, though since my muscles hurt like hell, I only lay down and rot. I needed a second or two to adjust to the fact that we weren't running like crazy anymore. My wrist still contained intact tendons, so, somewhere along our path, her singularity stone must have restarted working.

"Slept well?" a familiar voice asked and it wasn't Kira's.

I got up.

Kira leaned against the wall, recovering her dissolved flesh before she jumped at the sight of our new adversary.

Layla was back.

Unlike the last room, this one had access to functioning floodlights which illuminated an area smaller than the previous room. Layla stood not far from us, decked in purple armor and surrounded by red-and-black spider robots twice as tall as a human. Her rocket launcher dangled from her arm.

I straightened my back and assumed a confident posture. In this situation, it was best to pretend strength, regardless of how inauthentic it appeared.

"Where are the aliens you kidnapped?" I asked.

"Already traded them, pal," she said. "Unfortunately, we didn't get much out of the deal. Our partner is a bit difficult."

She left it at that. No further threats, no demand for us to go away and leave Mustafa alone.

"You traded with the monster, didn't you?" Kira asked calmly.

"S-so what if I did?" Layla answered.

"Lucas," Kira said, "the monster held back against us. It spit the acid after I tried to shoot it. Maybe it's more after Layla than it's after us. She stuttered when I mentioned it."

"Hell, yes, I'm scared," she snapped. "You know how hungry this thing is? When I gave it the aliens it wanted, it wasn't enough. It wanted a human - me! I think it even said it liked me because I fed its obese ass. Mustafa never told me it was this insane! He never told me it wanted to torture those aliens either!"

The walls melted from all sides. This room was barely larger than an empty warehouse. During our short conversation, Cherub had enough time to encircle the entire place.

It corroded the walls bit-by-bit. The noose tightened. Black bits of mire leaked through the crevices it carved itself.

Only the wall opposite to where we entered remained intact. Layla realized that, too, and aimed her rocket launcher at the wall.

She fired. Although she made noise, she didn't punch through her target. Why did she even think she could destroy a wall Cherub couldn't?

The place's borders blew apart. A cacophony of explosions seared the air. Cherub's formless mass closed in around us, its weapons swimming in the protoplasm. Weapons it likely stole from its former victims and incorporated in its slime.

Unholy scores of rocket launchers and laser turrets stared at us.

Its fire focused on Layla.

Missiles hit. The shockwaves knocked me and Kira off our feet. Layla was still standing, though her mechs were not. Colorful lasers sought to pierce the nanotech forcefields she had summoned. Her two mechs tried to self-repair, but each time they recombined, Cherub shot them down again.

With her arm cannon, Layla shot back. Grenades full of acid or tiny antimatter bombs hit Cherub. They wrecked critical weapon systems and destroyed chunks of Cherub's protoplasm beyond repair.

Cherub, however, reacted. It split its amorphous dark mass into several pieces. They were densely-space enough to prevent our escape, yet scattered enough to prevent getting killed all at once.

I rose to my feet and ran towards the wall. I didn't care for getting shot. If I remained where I was, the mini-slime monsters would get me.

Kira had already reached a wall. With her blaster, she tried to carve a hole in it. Futile.

Cherub's hellspwan came closer. Squirming bodies of Primogenitors, a baby Terrapod and several rotten alien animals swam under the weapons of these slimy demons.

Kira dodged a laser. I bet her singularity stone improved her reflexes and allowed her to dodge the moment a weapon pointed at her because you can't dodge a laser after it's already fired.

But I couldn't even do that. The moment I got targeted, I was dead. Where was my acid gun?

Layla's forcefield was depleted. She stood near the wall, next to us. She evaded attacks and shot back as much as she could.

Eventually, though, an unlucky hit slammed her against the wall. Invisible lasers speared through Layla's body. She dropped like a puppet with the strings cut. She wasn't dead yet, was she?

Couldn't ponder on it. A tendril coiled itself around my arm. One of these slime monsters crept right next to me, staring at me with its mountain of eyeballs.

Where was my goddamned acid gun when I needed it most? I couldn't find it around my belt. I had accidentally dropped it when Kira carried me away. Only my Gauss gun remained.

I pulled it out of my holster and shot the monster. None of the hits left as much as a bump. Bullets passed uselessly through the slime which reformed after every hit.

The tendrils cut through my suit, dug under my skin and into my nervous system. This thing, it wanted me to become part of it. Eventually, I could feel its fingers in my brain, accessing my translator device and trying to talk to me.

Then, I heard its voice inside my head. "You want to shoot me?"

I kept shooting until my finger hurt. My ammo ran out.

Again, the same question. "You want to shoot me?

I shot and shot and shot.

This time, Cherub asked the question in a tone of hysterical amusement. "YOU WANT TO SHOOT ME?!?!?!?"

I dropped the gun. It ran out of ammo.

Cherub exploded from laughter. "You fool! I can't die because I'm immortal! I'm a God, I create life and this is my garden!"

I had never seen anyone with a more bloated ego. This is coming from someone who worked for both Mr. Graves and Crick.

Kira had picked up her unconscious friend. I couldn't read her expression under the helmet, but she probably felt sorry for leaving me behind.

It's okay, I thought.

Cherub tugged me closer. It pushed its slimy body over mine, devouring me in the process. Dark mire buried my helmet and blocked off my sight of the outside world.

Despite this, I perceived the world around me. Cherub had crept into my brain. I was part of it. I felt its other pieces creep closer to the one that caught me. In Cherub's memories, I saw Kira dodge a missile in slow motion. Cherub thought so much faster than us humans.

After Kira's dodge, the missile punched a hole through the wall. Kira escaped through it with the unconscious Layla in her arms. Cherub followed.

I felt the other living beings Cherub had eaten. They were still alive. Their brains thought faster than they ought to. Cherub preserved and nourished them. The rest of their bodies rotted from decay while their heads remained intact. These poor creatures repeated a mantra that amounted to what Cherub had told me.

"You're a God, you create life, and this is your garden."

"You're a God, you create life, and this is your garden."

"You're a God, you create life, and this is your garden."

Over and over again.

I hoped Layla felt really, really guilty now, even if Mustafa didn't inform her fully.

I heard Cherub's voice whisper to me. It urged me to praise it too, lest it'd punish me with eternal torture.

Cherub couldn't read my thoughts yet, so, I focused on my transmission device.

"You're a God, you create life, and this is your garden."

As phony as I felt, Cherub sounded pleased. It expected me to continue.

"You're a God, you create life, and this is your garden."

I hated how my life ended like this.

Kira ran away from us. She ran through a maze of corridors, always finding the one corner that allowed her to evade our projectiles just a bit longer.

An explosion sent her to the ground. A laser pierced her as it did with Layla. She screamed.

I heard my name being called. "Lucas!"

It brought me on the verge of tears. She had done so much for me and now I couldn't return the favor. She was going to die! Why did Cherub make me watch this?

"Lucas, can you hear me? I know you think you're worthless, but I need your help! I can't beat this monster alone!"

She had dropped the unconscious Layla. Cherub grabbed her with its tendrils and ate her, too. Kira still had enough power to crawl away.

"When I said I only helped you because of Layla, I lied. When you saved me from that alien, i-it was the first time anyone did something nice to me ever since our abduction. I was too proud to admit it. I even opened the dropship to thank you. I'm sorry for calling you weak. You're better than you think!"

Kira stood up and limped away in a last-ditch effort. When she glanced over her shoulder, she noticed the same I noticed, too.

The singularity stone Cherub had consumed. It swam in one of Cherub's creations close to me.

Kira knew she had to get it. Only problem was she needed a distraction.

I was distracted, too. Not by Cherub invading my body, but by what Kira said. She didn't help me for selfish reasons. She appreciated what I had done. I couldn't let her down now. How could I help?

Another laser struck Kira.

Cherub didn't do anything to me, even though I thought about how to defeat it. It hijacked my transmission device which meant it couldn't truly read my mind. Only if I wanted to.

I remembered what I saw of Euphrat on the Dragonfly's screens. Trees growing in zero gravity capsules encircled it.

"Master!" I transmitted.

Kira looked at us, exhausted.

Cherub didn't attack.

"Master, is this space station not limiting for a God like you?" I asked.

"It contains all I need," Cherub replied.

"But you could have so much more! Even a being like you is limited by the laws of physics. You can't create matter and energy out of nothing, even though you should have the right to. You could grow so much bigger if you had more food."

"You wish to feed me?"

"Indeed I do. I have a friend who comes from the heavens above. They know a source of food deserving of someone like you. I can contact them."

Cherub considered for a moment. "You have my permission."

Time for another long-range transmission. As usual, I ignored everything else. Cherub didn't just swallow me and Kira wasn't facing mortal peril. At this moment, only me and Crick existed.

"Captain," I transmitted. "Captain, can you perceive me?"

The answer came with a delay. "Affirmative. Report on the current state of your mission."

"There's no time for this! Listen, I have someone important here who is very hungry. You see that zero-gravity tree growing around the station. Shoot some projectiles at it so that it comes closer to us. You should know my location by following my mindwaves."

I couldn't call Cherub a monster or anything, as I feared it might listen.

I thought about adding a "trust me on this", but that would have given Cherub the impression that I was planning something. Luckily, Crick didn't feel inquisitive today.

"Your friend wants to feed me?" Cherub asked.

"Yes, your food should come any second, Master."

"Oh, I can see it, I can see it!"

Cherub showed me what it had gathered from Euphrat's sensors. The tree moved closer to us as a heat dot.

Joy pulsed across Cherub's boundless body. All its countless eyeballs had turned to where it expected the tree to impact. Big mistake.

A jolt of pain struck my self-proclaimed master.

The tiny slime mound that crept before us had been sliced into two. Kira stood between its remains, her blaster in one hand and the singularity stone in the other. She held out the translucent rectangular stone she retrieved in my direction. I freed a hand from Cherub's slime.

Kira threw the stone.

I caught it.

At this moment, the universe itself held its breath. My body left Cherub's clutches step-by-step. Trillions upon trillions of nanobots flew into my nervous system, cutting the chains enslaving me to Cherub and purging its protoplasmic slime from my body.

They dissolved my muscles to reassemble them again. The stone in my hand lost its casing. Its disassembled boron atoms incorporated themselves into my new musculature. It was ten times stronger, ten times tougher, and ten times tenser than the old.

They even dissolved carbon Cherub couldn't hold onto and incorporated it into my new, diamondoid bones.

My senses and my brain got enhanced last. I heard sounds I had never heard before, saw colors I didn't realize existed, and smelled odors I couldn't even have imagined.

The singularity stone embedded itself into my left palm.

Fully strengthened, I jumped out of Cherub's mire. Through my new eyes, I saw Kira's face despite her opaque visor. She beamed with joy.

Cherub's thousands of eyes had a look of terror written over them.

Finally, I thought. I have my own singularity stone. I evolved into something beyond humanity.