...Fine. 

Warning for injury and body horror.

When the message went out that X was going to be installing a minor update, Impulse didn't pay it much mind. He was busy collecting output from his wither rose farm, and fixing it after it had broken again. A wither skull slammed into him full force, but he took it in his stride, fixing up the farm and then downing a regen potion to combat the wither effect.

Once he got back to the Overworld, a distant screech instantly made him aware of just how long he'd been in the End. He sighed, drawing his sword to fight off the phantoms. The death-bats got in a few good hits on him, to be fair, but all in all he was alright. He dusted himself off, and took off towards his (new) base to patch himself up.

As he finished drinking the healing potion, he noticed that it was making him feel a bit queasy. Maybe it was just a reaction from the battering of various status effects he'd just been dragged through. Yeah, that was probably what it was, he decided, instead of thinking about how even after that, healing of all things shouldn't be able do that to him.

He looked at his hand, the fingertips blackened from the wither effect. It wasn't gone, and didn't even seem to be receding, but he figured it was probably just a trick of the light, his confused and tired mind trying to scare him. It would be gone by morning. It would be, he told himself, as he moved over to his bed, and collapsed on top of the sheets.

Of course, the staining wasn't gone in the morning. If anything, it almost seemed to have moved up his fingers a bit. He wiggled his hand experimentally. It didn't seem to actually be harming him in any way, but he should probably check in with X anyway. Maybe there was a minor bug in the latest update that caused visual aspects of status effects to become persistent.

When Impulse showed X the effect, he was instantly concerned, immediately pulling up Impulse's code to check for any issues. The latest update had provided some minor changes to player models, he explained, and some permanent effect may have accidentally been shuffled in as the language that made up the fabric of their existence shifted into its new position.

He scrolled through, but the only thing that seemed off was that the code around it seemed to be treating Impulse as a hostile undead mob, but there was nothing in the file itself to suggest why this was. With a gentle frown, X closed the window, and let Impulse know that it was probably nothing, but if any other strange effects were to occur, Impulse was to let X, - or if he wasn't online, Tango - know.

For the next few hours, there didn't seem to be much of anything. Impulse had a faint ache all over his body, but that had started when he'd landed badly in X's base. Still, he decided that if it got worse, he'd tell someone, just in case it was part of whatever was happening to him.

What he didn't expect was that when in got worse, it got so much worse so quickly that he was incapacitated before he could say anything. A fire spread through his bones, condensing in his ribcage and at points along his arms and legs. He collapsed to the ground, screaming like hell as he felt his skin rip open, and something form around the wounds.

The excruciating pain lingered for a good few minutes, and Impulse remained there, curled on the floor of his base, whimpering, eyes screwed shut. Even when the pain subsided enough that he was able to return to his senses, he wished he hadn't opened his eyes. The sight that met them chilled him, well, to the bone.

More specifically, it chilled him to the bony growths wrapping around his arms and legs, still gently bleeding around the edges. He took a deep breath to try and stabilise himself after seeing the horrifying change, before being reminded of the pain in his ribcage. His hand drifted to his chest, and he felt through his shirt that his ribcage, too, had migrated to outside his skin. Lovely.

He tried to stand, but his legs still ached too much to get up, so he resorted to reaching for his communicator. Immediately, he was startled by the fact that the eyes of his reflection were faintly glowing, and his pupils were starting to fade. That probably wasn't exactly the best thing. He brushed it off for now, adding it to his ever-growing stack of things to freak out about, and messaged X about the development.

When X flew in, he gave a little startled gasp at the state Impulse was in. Impulse gave a weak smile in reply. He'd started to feel a gentle ache on his shoulder blades, so that was the most he could muster in that moment. X knelt down, and pulled Impulse into a gentle hug, careful not to apply too much pressure to the areas that Impulse had said in his message were still a little raw.

It was while X was running through Impulse's code, poking things here and there and asking Impulse questions on how he felt, that the next wave struck. The ache on his shoulder blades erupted, and he let out a cry. X immediately made his way over to where Impulse had propped himself against the wall, supporting Impulse as he crumpled forwards.

Impulse felt something on his back begin to grow, twisting his shoulders and ripping through the back of his shirt. He let a few tears fall, which ran off X's waterproof armour onto the concrete floor, as he felt the growth twist and contort and shape itself. When it was over, he felt a strange weight on his back, as well as the feeling almost like another pair of arms.

Oh Vex have mercy.

He had wings.

"What's happening to me, X?" Impulse asked, quietly.

"I don't know." X whispered. "I don't know."

And I'm going to end there!

What, you thought I'd give you resolution? Hell nah! It's late at night and this just passed the 1000-word mark! I'm done!

Anyway, here's the art to go with it:

This was inspired by the Herimtcraft Fusion generator, you can find the link in the other chapter I did from it.

I've been Entropy, peace out from the present!