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At some point during Maebe's training session, Lucky had appeared nearby. He was sitting beneath the shade of a tree, back against the gnarled trunk, arms wrapped loosely around bent legs tucked in close to his chest, deathly still in contemplation. If not for the movement of his eyes he might have looked like one of those Ouroboros-placed cadavers.

He stared dutifully in the direction of the lab building, but now and again glanced in Maebe's direction out of the corner of his eye. At least until he finally made eye contact with her, at which point there was a sudden flash of something across his face - it looked like guilt at first glance, but wasn't - and this time his entire body turned itself away.

"People do keep saying that," he commented unhelpfully. If he was concerned at all, his tone didn't indicate it. All the while he remained poised in the new direction of 'away from her', eyes and all. He took in a somewhat audible breath, and let it out in a quick nasal sigh.

And then one arm untangled itself from his contortion, to casually push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. He turned his head ever so slightly in her direction, putting on what he hoped was a friendlier face. All that changed was minimally-bared teeth and an upward twitch around the corners of his mouth. It looked like he hadn't used those muscles in a long time. "Hello, Maebe."

"Is that better?" he added after a few seconds had passed.

He clambered to his feet leisurely, grasping the tree for balance. Maebe briefly cracked whatever exterior Lucky had been trying to put up. He actually looked bewildered, which seemed much more... natural. Other than Mimsy and Robert, he'd never heard anyone else on the island actually say that. The question escaped him before he even realized it. "You do?"

"Uh, I mean," he scrambled to save face, rubbing his side where she had playfully punched him, "You don't have to vorry. I am okay, yes?"

Even mentioning their previous encounter should have scared him off, or at least make him go another fun shade of red. Instead he regarded her curiously as she explained why they hadn't gone three for three with fairly intimate encounters. Not that he minded exactly, as it was a lot easier to think now than the last two times. He still didn't grasp why she had thought of herself so negatively.

"Huh? Oh, no. That's not- you don't have to promise that." His hands made a few twitching nervous starts before leaping forward to grab one of her hands between them. He fixed his eyes on the three clasped together. "I, uh, liked you just the vay you vere."

"That promise is still kept," he garbled hastily, looking up with a startled intensity. He'd promised her he wasn't one of them - the Ouroboros - and currently, he wasn't. So everything was okay. Right?

Right.

The cluster of hands was dragged down, separated slowly. Lucky's returned to his side, and immediately searched for pockets to bury into. His phone was ringing in his pocket, a vaguely familiar melody translated into electronic tones, and silenced with the flick of a thumb across a switch before it could be placed.

His pale green eyes never left her face.

"Thank you," the life hunter ventured, if somewhat arbitrarily. He tried to smile again, but it still didn't look convincing. Then again, it was Lucky. Had anyone ever seen him smile? "For thinking about me."

"Vhat's wrong?" he pleaded as she stepped back. His knit brows furrowed at the brandished weapon. He might have still seemed unwitting to it all, except: "Are you afraid?"

"Oh!" He crossed his arms and laughed, leaning his head into one hand. His glasses were jostled, knocked askew, so that his now maniac gaze leered over them. Not that any doubt remained now. "Oh, Maebe. Please don't tell me you prefer the old version."

"I think you are overreacting." His weapon remained unsummoned even as the trident hovered inches from his unprotected neck. As if he didn't even need to, judging by his look of amusement between trident and hunter. "Can't you be happy for me? I can talk to you now, I can reach out and actually touch you. I've made so many improvements. No more uncertainty. No more fear."

The skin closest to the point of the trident flickered patches of empty black and stray pixels for a fraction of a second.

The pressure was removed for only moments, but it was enough time for him to take a small step backward, face screwed up in confusion. His hand slid up and around his neck, covering the spot she'd begun gouging into. When he removed it, the strange emptiness had been smoothed over into skin again.

"He and I vould both beg to differ."

But the rest of him was starting to devolve.

"Lucky" seemed oblivious to the damage. Half his face was now a twitching mess of pixels that disappeared at random intervals, until at least even they gave out and remained utterly dark, a hole in space with the vague outline of messy hair and glasses. All over, the facade was failing like pieces of a cracking eggshell, revealing a silhouette underneath it all in deep, impossible black.

The world became scrambled around them. The trees were a spray of pixels; they were inverted and broken and stamped infinitely into the distance. Training dummies x-ed themselves out of existence. Buildings grew tall, spindly spires. They were swarming with numbers and symbols that writhed like maggots. The sky wasn't blue - it was grey, it was empty. Huge square swaths of reality blinked back and forth between vivid color and lifeless simulation. It was all fake.

The thing with Lucky's face moved closer, fixing its gaze on her with one real eye and one abyss of darkness. It grabbed the base of her trident with one hand and the remaining pixels began to peel and curl away like they were burning. Wrenching the handle back, she was pulled violently forward. There was a smile on the half of its face that remained - not predatory, not maniac. Pitying.

"I'm -"

Everything jolted.

Maebe blinked, and reality reasserted itself in full. The training field was perfectly normal, as were the trees, the buildings, the training dummies, and herself. The only problem was, the space directly in front of her that "Lucky" had just been occupying was now conspicuously empty. He had, for all intents and purposes, vanished.