The dark figure stands in the doorway, and this time I know for sure who it is.

Lager.

Then the figure takes a step into the room, and doubts start to creep into my mind as it starts walking closer. If only I could see the eyes. Are they gold, or orange?

"Is that you, Lager? Or should I say End?"

The figure pauses, and there's silence for a few seconds.

"You told her." A voice rumbles from the darkness, Lager's voice. His statement clears any doubt I had left, and my throat goes dry as the heavy truth finally settles on me.

It all adds up. End is Lager, and Lager is End.

"I only told her the history of Dalton." Adviser Cecil suddenly speaks up, snapping me out of my daze.

I look at the many murals all around, before my gaze finally goes back to the area I had heard Lager's....or End's voice coming from.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I decide to ask first, but then that one question releases the flood of questions I had just waiting to burst out. "This whole time it was you watching me, pretending to be friends? Is End even mute, or is that just a ploy so I wouldn't find out who you really were? What would you get from hiding the fact that you were End?"

I stop myself from saying more, worried my frustration will lead me to make some unpleasant accusations.

He's silent, and I'm tempted to glance to the side to see Adviser Cecil and his reaction to my embarrassing rant of questions, but at the same time I'm scared to move my eyes away from the darkness where he lurks.

Then there's a sound, and I realize it's footsteps and they start to get slightly louder, meaning he's coming this way. I focus my eyes on where the footfalls are sounding, and soon enough I see two golden disks.

I let out a sigh of relief, seeing that it's Lager in his right mind and not the version of End that's been acting oddly.

My relief is short-lived though....very short-lived, because the gold orbs flicker momentarily, turning a deep shade of marmalade orange. The next mili-second they're back to gold, and I watch with a small anxiety building up as the next moment they're back to dark orange.

Soon he's at the edge of light that the Adviser Cecil's orb reaches, lurking in the shadows and not fully stepping out, eyes still flickering back and forth like they can't decide what color they want to stay on.

"Stay back, Ashley, he's unstable right now." Adviser Cecil warns, and for once I heed an actual warning, taking a step back and closer to Adviser Cecil.

Wrong move though, cause Lager's eyes flicker to orange and stay orange, and he takes another step into the light.

I inhale sharply, looking at his barely visible torso, which is covered in his usual black tunic, cape hooked onto the clasps on his shoulders, but around the torso swirls a darkness, seeming to attach to him in certain places like a second skin.

"I don't understand." I mumble lowly to Adviser Cecil. "He was purified or whatever you called it. I saw it myself at Mount Lux, so why is this happening?"

"In case you had severe amnesia in the past few minutes or so, I would like to remind you that you obtained a very serious injury and spilled blood into the earth of Dalton. Therefore Dalton's power has significantly increased along with his control on Lager." Adviser Cecil says very stoically.

I exhale, taking my eyes off Lager to look down at my shoulder, and the bandages that are coated in dried blood. This is all my fault. If only I hadn't followed Zero, or called Lager's name. If only the spear wasn't aimed directly at Lager.

I absolutely do not regret stepping in front of the spear though. Could Lager have protected himself in time from it? Debatable. Could I have lived with myself knowing he got stabbed because I hesitated in protecting him? No.

There's still time. Dalton doesn't have all the blood he needs, which means I can go to Core and have him work his magic to re-seal him. Yes that should work. It has to.

"Lager." I say suddenly, looking up at him with a newfound determination as his eyes flicker to gold when I call his name. "I know you're struggling right now, but I have a very important favor to ask. I need to see Core, right away."

"No." A voice hisses from Lager, his eyes turning back to orange. Then there's a grunt and the orange morphs to gold again.

"A-Ashley." He manages to grit out, and almost as if pulled I take a step toward him. "I'm sorry." He continues. "I should....should have told you about this sooner....I just....".

His eyes turn orange, and I hurry to speak, saying his name cause it seems like his name helps in keeping him from turning into dangerous End.

"It's okay Lager, we can talk about that later. Do you think you can do shadow transport?"

"Yes-" He lets out grunt again and I take another step forward only to feel Adviser Cecil's hand wrap around the wrist of my goo arm, giving me a gentle yet firm tug back.

"It's not safe." Adviser Cecil warns. He should've taken his own advice, cause out a nowhere a tendril of darkness shoots out, shoving Adviser Cecil forcefully back. There's a thud as his back hits the wall of one of the murals, and I whirl to face Lager, who has a wicked smirk on his face, eyes dark orange.

"Why did you do that?! Adviser Cecil is your friend, Lager." I emphasize his name, desperately trying to call him back from turning into End.

"What can I say? I'm a bit unstable at the moment." The Lager-turned-End taunts the word Adviser Cecil had sued to describe him.

Looking at the state he's in there's no way he'd be able to use his powers without Dalton getting a hold of him and forcefully turning him into End. That means I need to find another way to get to Core.

Adviser pushes off the wall, and I'm entirely surprised that the sheer force didn't knock him to the ground. He brushes himself off and we make eye contact for a short second, but that one second is enough to understand each other and communicate the goal: Get to Core.

"Go, Ashley!" Adviser Cecil yells as he forms an orb of light and flings it at End, who hisses and dodges it.

I don't look back, sprinting towards the direction of the huge doors. Thankfully, Adviser Cecil made a tiny orb of light which floated beside me, following my movement and lighting the small area around me.

Make it to the doors, I keep chanting in my head, praying that I don't trip and fall like an idiot at such an important moment.

"Ashley!" A voice calls. Lager's voice.

I know I should keep running, but hearing his voice and not the hiss of the evil End's make me falter for a second, and that second is all it takes, for a tendril of darkness to shoot out and wrap around the tiny orb of light, shutting me into the darkness.

I can make out Adviser Cecil standing all the way on the other side of the room, three light orbs circling around him, but End is nowhere to be seen.

"Where are you, Ashley?"Adviser Cecil calls, and I being to respond when something covers my mouth, feeling almost like what a solid ribbon of mist would feel like if that was a thing. It must be darkness.

I raised my good hand, trying to grasp of hold of it, but of course I should have known that darkness is not an easy object to grapple with, or even an object at all.

Get off! I yell inside my head, and am just about to start having a panic attack because of the horrible helpless feeling, when a faint blue light from my chest starts to glow.

The necklace!

It glows brighter and brighter, until I can make out the tendril of darkness covering my mouth, and then suddenly the tendril completely evaporates, dissipating into nothing.

There's a hiss as another tendril comes shooting at me from the dark depths of the room, but it immediately vanishes when entering the circumference of light my necklace exudes.

A small smile grows across my face as I look down at the necklace.

Thank you, Core.

Remembering we're kind of on a tight schedule at the moment, I jerk my head up to meet Adviser Cecil's eyes across the room.

"Goodluck!" He calls. "I'll keep him here as long as I can."

I nod, before turning towards the doors which are a few yards away and running. I hear a few more hissing sounds as tendrils of darkness try to stop me, but the necklace takes care of them.

I reach the doors and come to a quick stop.

The doors!

If I remember correctly, Adviser Cecil had used darkness as the key to unlock them, but I'm not a Darkling. The hiss of another tendril entering the protected area around me, catches my attention and I think I have an idea.

I turn around, watching and waiting. I miss my opportunity a few times, hearing the hiss as the darkness tries and fails to get inside the protected circumference of the necklace's light, but for a split second I see movement within the darkness and I take action, lunging to the side in time for the tendril to fly right pat me and hit the door.

Please work, please work, I plead inside my head.

I hear the click and nearly jump in victory, rushing back towards the doors and heaving them open with all my strength.

I slip through and pause. I know I said I wouldn't look back, but I go against my earlier words, taking a quick moment to glance back and see Adviser Cecil standing now in the middle of the room, a huge orb of light between his hands that still seems to be growing.

I would almost feel bad for Lager if he wasn't being nearly controlled by Dalton at the moment.

I quickly finish exiting and pushing the door closed behind me, hoping that End doesn't have the bright idea to escape after me.

I start sprinting down the hallway, climbing the steps in a hurry, legs burning as I push myself to go faster with sweat dripping down my face. A very lovely sight I must be at the moment.

I run and run, taking different turns and praying that this is the correct way to the doors outside.

I emerge into a larger hallway and at the end of it spot the two huge doors and the two Darkling soliders that guard it.

I nearly laugh in relief, running towards it and feeling like I'm just about to win the race, when something catches my foot and I trip and fall.

No, no, no!

I manage to just barely stick out my good hand, which mostly catches my fall but it stills jostles my bad shoulder and I bite down on my lip hard, grunting in pain as my vision slightly blurrs for a second.

Something slithers across my ankles and binds them together, and I look down, wondering if End had caught up to me and this was it, only to see a familiar blue colored snake wrapped around my legs.

"Max!" I yell, wanting so badly to strangle him in that moment, but at the same time also extremely happy. "You're just the person I wanted to find!"

He lifts his snake head and blinks in confusion.

"There's no time to explain, but basically Lager's gone nuts, which i think you already knew seeing as how you wanted to keep me away from him, and in order to fix him and save the whole island from being taken over by Dalton, a being just as powerful as Core, I need to get to Core immediately."

He blinks again.

"I know it's a lot to take in." I huff out. "But I need your help. We have to get to Core. Can I rely on you?"

His snake eyes narrow, going to my shoulder and back to my face.

"My injury will be fine! It'll have plenty of time to heal after we save everyone!" I exclaim.

He sighs, and I don't think I'd ever get the chance to see a snake sigh in my life again, but then he lets go, slithering away.

I climb onto my feet, a little wobbly, and start jogging towards the exit, ignoring the pain every step sends to my arm, Max slithering beside me.

The guards, who watched all this happen with wide eyes, don't even question us and just start typing in the code while I catch my breath.

The doors start opening and I impatiently slide through, Max right behind.

"Do you think you can transform into an animal that can get me to Core fast?" I ask, turning to Max.

He bobs his snake head in a nod, and I look away in time to avoid the flash of light, before turning around. I expect to find a horse, and instead come face to face with a giant blue gorilla.

I pause, before shrugging my good shoulder. I start to move to the back of Max, thinking I can climb on and hold on, but I should've known that I wouldn't be allowed to with my shoulder, because the next moment I'm being carefully picked up by Max and held in one of his arms.

"Nice, Max. Let's go." I say pointing towards the jungle in the direction of the Core.

He lets out a grunt and starts to run in the weird way gorillas do, using his free arm to propel him forward while I chill in the other, lifting my feet so they don't brush against the ground or hit his legs.

I hope it's not too late, I think as we reach the jungle.

It's time to save Dalton, but most importantly:

It's time to save Lager.



Dear readers, not gonna lie, this chapter was kin of rushed. Well the end of it was, since I forgot I had plans tonight and promised a chapter today soooo yeah. I hope you still enjoyed though! Stuff is starting to go down and now it's all on Ashley to save Malia, Dalton, AND Lager, Tom Cruz style, lol. In case any of you were wondering the title is "lager" and "End" combined. I really hope everyone's okay with all that's going on and I wish I could write more but I really need to get going. Vote, comment, and stay on time cause rushing is very tiring and annoying! Lots of love,

Dangerosutoken