“Watch out!” Jacent called out to Simon, tackling a Hunter unit to the ground.

“Ngh... busy...” Simon muttered anxiously, his and Kenny’s swords locked against the namesake of a huge Clamp which menaced them with its hydraulic strength.

“I’ll get it!” cried a mountain of a man, barreling down the hill with a hunter’s jaws champed down on one arm and the upper torso of a trooper hanging onto his torso. He charged a group of former Nhiloids and slammed into them with explosive force, sending them scattering with a triumphant roar and a deep laugh that carried through the trees as his allies dispatched their respective foes. “And that’s that!” he declared, sloughing off his remaining hangers-on with all the difficulty one would have tossing their jacket on the couch after a long day at work.

Jacent laughed pleasantly. “Thank you, Jonesy.” He waited for the Flood Fill to subside, leaned back on a tree and slowly slid down it until he reached a sitting position- at which point he let out an exhausted sigh. “Is everyone alright?”

“I could go another round or five; these things practically fall apart on their own!” Jonesy answered jovially, attempting to find his coat in the mess. His enthusiasm was a refreshing injection of optimism for the group, but it was far from a shared emotion.

“No problem here, I could go all day,” Daxton answered, no small part of it an attempt to speak his preferred reality into being.

“Not me, I’m tired,” Quincey whined, sitting down. She’d only been brought in for support, but even that was exhausting.

“I’m plum tuckered out, m’self,” Laila admitted.

“Too old for this,” Talon said flatly.

“I’m gonna sleep for a month when all this is over.” Jessalynn arched her back until it popped with a wince.

“Oh, Kenny, you’re hurt...” Quincey noticed a cut that had pierced the fabric between his armor.

Kenny rolled his arm in a circle. “It’s fine, Quincey, it’s just a scratch.”

A very large-breasted lizard by the name of Dr. Roselyn Dubois entered Kenny’s view, looking down at him with congenial, professional concern. “Hey there, kiddo, do you need any healing?”

Kenny tilted his head pleasantly. “I’m dying.”

Daxton bark-laughed.

Simon, for his part, said nothing. He put his hood up, pulled the drawstrings tight, turned his mask on... and began playing a relaxing jazz piano piece in the air. The power of music soothed his companions’ souls, and the tension of this latest of many, many battles slowly melted away. 

Talon walked over and sat opposite Jacent. “Nothing like a little after-dinner jazz, right?” he joked.

“Dinner sounds amazing right now, jazz or no,” Jacent remarked, staring up at the Ring space station in the sky.

Talon rested his wrists on his knees. “Speakin’ of Jazz... is the gremlin alright?”

“She’s... resting,” he explained enigmatically.

“I bet she is,” Jonesy agreed, looking over the fallen Overnaut that dominated the street. It looked like it had been hit by several meteors, and in a few places, it was tough to tell what the components of the iron giant had originally been. “It was an impressive display!”

Jacent smiled and shrugged. “No one’s stronger than my big sister,” he declared with some mixture of amusement and comfort. The haggard boy raised his wrist to his face and spoke to his PET. “Clip, this area is secure; we’re ready for pickup.”

“We’re still five minutes out, just hang tight,” it chirped back at him.

The bunch of them relaxed and took in the horizon. It was deceptive how peaceful things looked from here. They’d managed to minimize damage to the city with the use of Flood Fill and expeditious force. That undisturbed skyline belied the true carnage they had seen collectively in the past few weeks. “You know...” Jacent began. “You’ve been amazing allies to me in this, my time of need... I really can’t thank you enough for your courage. But, in my selfish moments... I can’t help but want, so badly, to see my pack again...”

“Then see them.”

Everyone’s eyes widened at the thunderous voice and the sudden lightning crackle of an inter-dimensional portal ripping open over the crest of the hill. Through this inexplicable hole in reality stepped every last one of the friends Jacent had been missing. A swell grew in his chest as he beheld his dear friends, his heart having ached at their absence- and from the grins on their faces, the feeling was more than mutual. Samantha sprinted down the hill, spread her wings, pulled up and literally flew into his arms. He caught her, spun around and clutched her to his chest like the most precious thing in the world.

“Ah?! I missed you so much!!!”
“Me too, I-”
“I spent every day thinking about you-”
“Me too!!”
“I-I-I don’t, I can’t-”
“Me... me, too.”

Jacent and Samantha kissed then, desperately and like they could be separated again at any minute. But they were together again, and nothing would take them apart this time- an implicit promise delivered wordlessly, breathlessly with each desperate embrace. When they finally parted, tears in their eyes, it was all they could manage not to weep openly in front of everyone- so they settled for a warm embrace. Before they knew it, Widget had run up and silently hugged Jacent around the waist, unable to stop herself. “Oh!” Sam laughed delightedly.

Carrie grinned and cracked her knuckles threateningly. “Hell yeah, I’m gettin’ in on that hug action!”

Natalie ran after her, the gravity of everything that had happened lifting off of her shoulders. “Not without me you’re not!”

Gren and Ten looked on eagerly. “Me too!”
“Me three!!”

Max grinned wide. “BANZAAAAI!!”

One by one, Natalie’s entire pack embraced Jacent in one big, cumbersome group hug, toppling the boy and refusing to let up even then. Their friends gathered ‘round and welcomed them back, happy to have them back again, and for every reason. It was a moment that was only interrupted when a gigantic ominous black and red monolith appeared above them, making Nat and the gang look up in fear.

“Oh, right,” Jacent laughed. “Um, there’s a lot to explain.”

 -
- -
 -

Natalie and her pack received a hero’s welcome aboard the Ink Well- something that struck the wolf as very funny considering the circumstances when she left. But even that wasn’t half as funny as when she asked who was in charge, and found out.

“Welcome aboard the Ink Well, Natalie!” Lorna greeted her with the kind of grandiosity that she would only have heard from her daughter, rather than vice versa. “And welcome back- it’s so good to see you again.”

Natalie wheezed with something between disbelief and laughter. “Mom are you KIDDING ME??”

Dr. Grayswift gave her daughter a lopsided smirk, stirring her coffee. “Stuff’s gone to hell without you, kiddo. They even needed the help of a supervillain.”

Natalie tried to stop laughing, and failed. “I-... I love this for you. I love it?? It’s great???”

Lorna gave her a big, loving hug. “You know, I feel the same way.” She winked. “Still, I’ve got work to do. We’ll catch up later.”

Widget hung back, looking at all the Automa running this place. “Uh. Hey, Clip.” She gave the girl- now wearing a pistachio green frame in the shape of a short office worker, complete with metal tie- a wry grin. “You get banished too?”

“We all are!” she said cheerfully, her hand interface stationary on a metal contact, yet typing impossibly fast on the screen. “And when everyone’s banished, nobody is. Welcome to the new normal.”

Widget smirked and folded her arms, just as smug as could be. “I win.” With that, she caught up to her friends.

Getting up to speed with everything ended up being an all night affair. Her pack had been reserved a spacious room reminiscent of the one they’d had on their trip to Anchorsway. Her friends took turns eating, talking and taking showers as Jacent briefed everybody on what had gone on while they were away- and everyone else, in turn, regaled him with their adventures in alternate worlds... barring a few revelations that seemed just a bit too heavy for the moment.

One, however, demanded addressing. Natalie looked to an unsure Widget, then at Jacent, pushing her on. Widget gathered up her strength, walked over and sat down next to him. “Um. Jacent. I-... we need to talk.”

He regarded her guilelessly. “Oh?” 

Widget’s hologram went from beetle to pre-splice human. Freckles dotted her face, and her eyes gazed up into his. That very same form from when they’d met in the undercity. “The thing is, Jacent... um. I... know you.”

He stopped. “... Ah.”

She winced, her momentum faltering.

He found it hard to look at her. “I have a confession to make, Widget. I... know who you are.”

A hush fell over the room. Widget was completely taken aback. “What?? How long have you...??”

He ran a hand through his hair. “... It was after the mall. When we talked there, my memories began to come back. At first, I thought they might have been false memories, or some sort of mistake; my mind is... a mess, at best. The longer I thought about it, though, the more sense it made, until I really began to recall our life, our... friendship.”

She tilted her head. “I... I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t you say something?”

Jacent looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t quite know what to say. How do you admit to just forgetting about one of your only friends in the world? The shame of it overwhelmed me. But even that was nothing next to... her.” He pursed his lips. “I had no idea how to bring Jasmine up to you. I know how you felt about her, and I just never wanted to hurt you by opening up that old wound again. So I thought... maybe we were both pretending to be strangers after a while. To make the pain a little more bearable.”

Widget looked down at his chest... then to the floor. “I can’t believe it. We both lied to protect each other, and in the end neither one of us got what we wanted.”

Gren frowned and leaned forward, bleating “That’s so sad!” 

He nodded morosely. “A ship of fools.” Jacent looked down at Widget. “Let me ask you something. Do you regret holding onto your memories?”

Widget’s brows creased. “No. Never. I don’t care what it cost, or how much it hurt. I’ll never regret hanging onto them... onto her.” Her voice faltered to a whisper on that last word.

Jacent looked down and gingerly took her hands. “Then maybe... just maybe... if we both carry on her memory..... she can still live on.”

The girl squeezed his hands and trembled, the bittersweet emotions overwhelming her.

That’s when Jasmine sat down between them, leaning on one hand. “Hey, bitch. Miss me?”

Widget looked on in awe. “Oh god... it’s like she’s right here in front of me...”

Jazz grabbed Widget by the cheeks and grinned in her face. “That’s because I am right here in front of you, you silly-ass punk.”

Natalie’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “What the hell, that’s Jasmine?!”

Widget’s eyes widened. It was at this moment that she realized everyone else in the room was staring at her too. This was not a hallucination or some melancholy phantom memory. Her best friend had come back to life. “Ohmigod. OH MY GOD?! WHAT!!” She stood up on the bed. Jasmine stood up with her, grabbing her hands in hers. “WHAT! WHAT?! HOW?!?!” She screamed, crying in shock and delirious joy, afraid to believe it. “I-... I-!!... WHAT?!”

Jasmine pulled her in close, rubbed noses with her and planted a big, fat kiss on her lips, making the other girl’s digital heart flutter. “You should’ve known better than to doubt the power of the Dragon!”

Widget held her for a long time, sobbing and muttering and finally parting from her. “I don’t-... I don’t understand. You died.”

Jazz made an incredulous face, then ~THUMP~ed Widget on the head. “You died before I did, stupid!”

“OW! Ahahaha! Okay, okay!” She grinned despite herself, pushing Jasmine off of her. “But what happened then?”

The girl sat on the table. “Ah, geez. You want the whole story?”

“I’m dying to know,” Natalie said with breathless excitement.

“Yeah, tell us!” Aren cheered.

Jasmine folded her arms, and looked at the wall thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see.”

~(_)~

“Doc Nhilus liked to think he knew everything, but he didn’t. He never saw it coming that his experiments to give kids psychic powers would end up killing them. He never cared about Jie Xian’s abilities, and he abandoned Widget the second she stopped being useful to him- the son of a bitch- but I was different. He always said I had ‘the most potential’ and other weird things like that. I couldn’t tell you why, of course, nobody knows that but him. But one thing was for sure- when it became obvious I was going to kick the bucket somewhere down the line, he pulled out all the stops to try to make that not happen.

“He restarted Jie Xian’s research track and double-timed it to see if he could use his powers to fix what was wrong with me. Ran all kinds of tests, tried out everything he could think of without even bothering to see the results of the last thing. A lot of it was cruel and unusual, just some real sick shit. The worse my health failed, the more intense things got. It was clear he was completely willing to sacrifice Jie Xian to keep me around.

“It was probably the one thing they had in common, really- they both wanted to save me at any cost. And they got close. At one point when it became obvious his abilities weren’t going to help, instead of developing Jie Xian’s powers, they started doing experimental stuff to link his mind to mine- to let him use my powers instead of his own. It was a real watered-down version of mine, though; he couldn’t even lift stuff with his mind, he had to move it first so he could make it move faster. No acceleration, only top speed.

~(_)~

“Wait a moment,” Samantha interrupted, clutching a note in her hand. “I’ve been reading this primer on PSYCOs that Mr. Tjulla gave me, and I thought I understood what this chart meant, but. You say you’re the one with telekinesis?”

Jasmine sniffed, cracked her knuckles and pointed to the bed. “Check this shit out.” She made a mysterious motion, turned her shoulders to hide one arm away, and without so much as a grunt of effort, lifted the entire bed- with no less than five people on it- a foot off the ground.

“Whoooooaaaa!” Natalie fangirled, her tail thumping against her butt like a pair of excitement bongos. “That’s so cool!”

“Wow, how does it work??” Gren asked, crawling over to the edge of the bed to look down at the mysterious force lifting it.

“Ah ah, hey!” Jazz let everybody down gently, showing that she had not just the power to lift, but that she didn’t need motion to use her abilities. “Don’t spoil the magic!” She grinned and shrugged, seeming rather eager to hide the secret. “That bird dweeb said it’s possible I’m the strongest PSYCO in the world. Which would make sense, because the-... oh god I forgot what he called the disease I had, it was a lot of long words. Basically, my brain was too weak to deal with how awesome I am, so I started dying.”

Samantha nodded. “Right, and Jacent and Nhilus were trying to save you?”

Jasmine nodded. “Yeah. And so...”

~(_)~

“The experiments got rougher and rougher on Jie Xian. Each new desperate attempt to make him able to use my powers better started destroying him from the inside out. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that my little bro-bro has some memory problems- well, that’s where those came from. It just became worse and worse. It got to the point where I just couldn’t stand to see him like that. Then Widget passed away, and the writing was on the wall for Jie Xian too at this rate. I just... couldn’t let him go like that. So I threatened to plug myself if they didn’t stop. They both begged me to keep going, but I wasn’t about to let the only healthy one of us sacrifice himself so I could maybe get better.

“I found out later that Nhilus blamed Jie Xian for it. Beat him really badly, and the doofus didn’t even fight back. If I hadn’t been on enough drugs to drop an elephant, I’d have killed the old man for that. But in the end, all I could do was slide into the great beyond.

“Or so I thought. Jie Xian was by my side when I kicked the bucket, and I don’t know if it was the experiments or what, but instead of going to oblivion, I got pulled into his mind! My... ‘soul,’ I guess you could call it, went to him. He saved me after all!

~(_)~

“What???” Widget asked, incredulous. “You went into his mind??”

Jazz nodded resolutely. “And that’s where I’ve been ever since.” She hung on his shoulder, smirking at him. “The imaginary friend of a buff nerd who’s too nice to people.”

“I would say I’m just nice enough,” countered Jacent. “But yes, only I could see or hear her until Monica from the Mind’s Eye Society intervened. Apparently this was something we could do the whole time- we just never knew how.”

“Wow,” Natalie marveled. “I never thought I’d get a chance to meet you. Jacent thinks so highly of you.”

“He should, I’m great!” she joked. “I mean I taught him how to fight, and I’m his big sister after all. I think I could teach you a thing or two if you want!”

“Really??” she asked. “That would be great!”

“Wait though! We wanna play with Jasmine first!” Aren exclaimed.
“Yeah, play with us!”

Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Ugh, do I really have to play baby games with the babies- PSYCH!!” She used the momentary misdirection to ruthlessly tickle Aren’s sides, then picked him up and threw him on the bed. “BODY SLAAAAM!” she cried, flying in an arc, and... phasing completely through the bed, thumping onto the floor underneath it. “OOF.”

Gren and Ten lost it, giggling hysterically. Carrie flashed a wicked grin. “Lemme show ya what a body slam really looks like!!” She threw Gren onto the bed right next to Aren and leapt up, the children shrieking in faux-terror as her chest came crashing down.

Jasmine levitated up through the bed again. “YOU DIED.”

Max cannon-balled onto the bed. “Hold on I’m coming amigos!!” He got Carrie in a headlock with dramatic flair. Carrie let up, freeing the kids from the confines of her huge breasts, and they gasped for air between laughing fits.

This carried on for a while, until all of the excess energy had been run out of the youngest members of the pack. Preparations were made for bedtime. Showers were had. Snacks were eaten. Beds were disassembled, their various comfy parts thrown into the circular conversation pit. The bottom area was transformed into a massive mattress in the floor, and the sitting area was now a pillow rim.

“Oh, uh... Natalie...”

The wolf turned around. “Oh? What’s up, Widget?”

“Well, like, it’s just. There aren’t any beds now.”

“Right!” she responded cheerfully. “We’re all sleeping in the pit. One big pack snuggle, to celebrate being back together!”

“Oh!” She nodded. “Well, that’s great! I just, um. You know, wondered, what about... us?” She gestured to herself and to Jasmine across the room.

Natalie snorted. “What about you?”

Widget flinched, dismayed. “Uh. Well... sorry, I... yeah, it’s silly. She’s a ghost, and I can just... sleep standing up. It’s fine.”

The wolf girl blinked, giving her best quizzical dog look. “What are you talking about?? ‘Pack snuggle’ means the whole pack, so get your jammies on already.”

“W-... Wait. What??”

Natalie gave her a warm, genuine smile that kindled the heart. “Did you think just because you had secrets, that we don’t trust you anymore?”

She glanced aside and fidgeted. “Well, I... did kind of lie to you about who I was and why I was around...”

The wolf looked up. “Well, let’s see. Before, you were a robot that would do anything for your friends. And now...”

Widget smiled, embarrassed. “I’m. Still that, yeah, very clever.” She snickered, the freckles crinkling on the bridge of her nose. “You win, Natalie Grayswift.” She manifested pajamas on her holographic form. “I was never a match for you anyway.”

 -
- -
 -

“Daxton?”

The corgi glanced aside from his hospital bed to spot a thin panda with blue hair looking at him from the entryway. “Uh, yo.” He ran his hand through his hair for the tenth time, unused to not having his hat- and previously, his STOP- on him. “What’s up?”

“Hi,” she said, somewhat bashfully, followed by a sheep, weasel and beaver. “Um, I’m Mandy, and this is my pack: Bo, Jordan and Gus.”

“Nice to meet you,” Quincey greeted them in turn, smiling. Locksmouth was a much friendlier place for the Inked, which was one of the few upsides of being stuck in this situation.

“Likewise,” Bo said. “We won’t take up much of your time. We just heard that your inkling- Lumina, was it?- got hit pretty hard when you were out in the field.”

“Ah. Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his head, feeling a little self-conscious about that. It was nothing to take hits on his own, but Lumina had fallen on that metaphorical grenade for him, and he still didn’t feel quite right about it. “I should’ve been faster.”

“Right.” The sheep nodded. “Give us your hands, please?”

Daxton tilted his head, blinking. He didn’t get any kind of threatening vibe from these teens- much the opposite, they were about the most hunky-dory group of friends one could imagine- but it was a weird request. “Uh.” He looked to Quincey, who shrugged, then after a moment, he decided to oblige them. 

Gus, Bo, Jordan and Mandy made a circle with Daxton, closing their eyes. Bo inked over- covered in grey goo that embraced her with a comfortable ease that spoke of how well she got on with them- and began to shine with barely-perceptible power. Daxton felt life itself begin to flow into him, more than he could’ve ever expected on his own. White and yellow pools of liquid began beading, then puddling to the surface. His eyes grew wide as the kids focused four people’s worth of prana directly into him, and before they he knew it, he was looking through those golden eyes again.

“Lumina!” Quincey gasped.

“Ahhhh.” Lumina sighed with relief, a hand on her chest. “Thank you, Baldir, you didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Bo’s inkling responded, smiling. “You always looked out for us. Besides, your host is a strong one. We need his strength- and yours- to keep our home.”

Lumina chuckled. “I was going to let him stew in it a little while longer, but you’re right.” She looked around at the group, who looked tired, but happy. “You’re good kids.”

The scene froze, as if time itself had stopped. The view pulled back to Daxton sitting on some ethereal step, a smile on his face. Lumina appeared next to him, flickering in like a candle light. “You’ve rewatched this memory three times tonight.”

He grinned. “Yeah, well, what can I say? It’s nice to get a little gratitude sometimes.”

Lumina tilted her head, then looked back to the memory. “... Yes, yes it is.”

 -
- -
 -

“Alright, is that everyone??” Lorna asked, surveying the conference room.

“I’ve got my people here,” Natalie answered. She sat on the back of a couch, feet on the cushions, carefully weaving one very colorful braid into her dreadlocks with Max’s occasional adhesive help. “Thanks for the donations, by the way, everybody,” she said with a sunny grin that lit up the room.

“Aw, tweren’t nothin’,” Laila said with uncharacteristic graciousness.

Lorna rolled her neck. “And what about the rest of you?”

“I believe that’s it, Dr. Grayswift,” Quincey offered with some confidence, sitting between Daxton and Laila.

“Very well then.” She swirled a cup of something dark around in a mug before taking a swig of it. “Thanks to your efforts, as well as the citizen volunteers helping make all of this work, we’ve driven back Mixer’s insurrection from all of their important outposts above-ground. We’ve successfully liberated the city from their heretofore unexplained conquest.”

“Aw!” Jonesy complained. “I missed out on most of the fun part!” 

Roselyn smiled. “Oh no. How terrible.”

“Hardly,” Dr. Grayswift responded. “The ‘fun part’ has scarcely begun, because what we just got done with was the easy part.”

“She’s joking, right? She has to be,” Kenny asked.

Natalie shook her head. “My mom’s jokes are way more groan-worthy than this; she’s serious.”

Dr. Grayswift motioned to a hologram of the city. “Until now, we didn’t  understand why they were holding these seemingly unimportant places around the city. But thanks to Monica doing a little bit of astral projection spying,” she gestured to the bunny girl, who was sipping from a juice box on a too-large chair, “We found out their plan.”

“They wanna open up like ten Rub ‘n Grubs,” Talon guessed sarcastically.

“Ohhhh, I wish,” Lorna broke kayfabe for a moment, betraying how exhausted she was. “There was one on my section of the Ring and I miss it every damn d- ahem. Sorry.” She straightened up and clicked the remote, changing the hologram to a very large robot. “The Overnaut. Familiar to anybody who was in the initial attack, the follow-up shock last night, or anyone who’s read the right comic books. They’re massive, destructive, and even if you can take one down, collateral damage is almost impossible to avoid. One of these can take out a city bloc.” 

“You’ve been fighting overnauts??” Natalie exclaimed, brows knit in worry. “Holy crap! I thought the bots just wasted a Harvester when we got here!”

Jasmine, who was sitting with her legs around Widget’s neck, let out a sigh of disgust. “I hate those fucking things. It’s bad enough that they’re sturdy and break everything- even if you beat one, you have to completely obliterate it or you turn every bystander into street pizza.”

Daxton punched his palm in determination. “No problem! With all the power we have together, we can turn one to dust!”

She clicked again, and the colossus multiplied into seven similar units. “This is how many they want to put on the surface.”

Daxton frowned. “Oh.”

Dr. Grayswift cleaned her glasses. “Folding space takes energy, and the more mass you’re trying to move, the more energy it takes. Nhilus, when he wanted to transport one of these things, would plug in to the New York City power grid and pull what he needed. Like every other sensibly modernized city, Locksmouth, as I’m sure you know, doesn’t use a ‘grid.’ Fusion Power has made electricity generation a lot more atomized, and as a result, they can’t just ‘plug in’ anywhere.”

Quincey’s eyes shone with comprehension. “So that’s why they needed all those big places! They needed to power their transports!”

“And why it was so important we kick ‘em out,” Talon agreed. “So, we win, right? Job well done!”

Lorna smirked. “Yes, but no.” She clicked over to a shot of the undercity. “They’ve been trying to use our power supply because it would be easier and more convenient to pull them up here. But now, they’ve elected to build more power devices down there, in their base of operations where they’re holding these things. Needless to say, if they finish? We’re finished.”

Jessalynn looked discomfited despite reclining amongst her pack, who had crowded their own couch for themselves. “So. Belly of the beast, then, huh? We’re taking it to them.”

“Good,” Selina intoned with determination, leaning forward with her fists clenched. “It’s about time we kicked them out of our town.” Jessalynn smirked and put her arm around her.

“It’ll be more dangerous than ever,” Lorna warned. “Before, you faced Mixer’s forces as they stretched  through the whole city. Now, they’re going to be concentrated in one place, and it’ll be a frontal assault.”

Silence permeated the meeting as they all processed just how much more dangerous that would be. They’d been fighting Mixer’s forces for weeks now, facing deadly machines that knew no fear or hesitation. Taking down a platoon here or there was one thing- but now they would be going up against the entirety of them, all at once.

Natalie stood up. “First of all, I just want to say ‘thank you.’” She gazed at her allies one by one. “When we called for help, you answered, and I’ll always remember that. I know everything’s gone over the deep end, but that just makes it so much more important that we have each other’s backs- and that’s not something any of us should take for granted, least of all me.” She extended a hand. “Can I count on you to help me, this one last time? To take our city back, and finally close the book on Mixer’s forces?”

“Of course we’ll help you, Natalie!” Quincey said with enthusiasm.

“We can’t just quit now,” Daxton resolved with a smirk.

“It’s my city too!” Jessalynn nodded.

“You couldn’t keep me away,” Jonesy affirmed.

Natalie fistpumped excitedly. “Then let’s do this!”

“YEAH!”
“Let’s go!”
“The final battle, y’all!”
“We’re gonna do it!”

“Ah, before you leave,” Lorna said serruptitiously. “I have a couple of things that might help you quite a bit out there. One of these was very hard to get, so hang onto it.” She put a lock of brown hair in her daughter’s hand, and then a plastic ladybug.

Natalie’s eyes shone with realization. “Right. Thanks.”

 -
- -
 -

The closest they could get was the Automa city.

Strange, alien, and fantastical, it felt a bit like an Alice and Wonderland play with a massive budget created by Electronica Pop stars. It was friendly territory, however, even with no Automa in it, and that was important. 

“Man, it’s so weird,” Widget realized as they made their way from one undercity to another. “This is two homes I’ve had to leave in one.”

“Oh yeah, you guys are from here, aren’tcha?” Talon realized. “Feel good to be back in your old stomping grounds?”

“Not to be dour,” Jacent responded, “But any city without people in it is no city at all. It feels strange and wrong to be here. There are no drivers, no vendors... no rats.”

Max grinned. “I could introduce you to some rats.”

Jacent frowned, leading them through the streets he was more familiar with than anyone else. “If this is another attempt to fluster me by making me talk to a boy with a nice butt, I’ll have you know Wen-Lo and I speak semi-regularly now.”

Samantha smiled. “Oh, lovely, I’ll invite him for lunch sometime.”

Jacent blushed. “W-Wait.”

“... Yeah, hey. Wait a second,” Jasmine said curiously, pointing toward an abandoned carnival. “Didn’t we... waste this place...??”

Sure enough, there it was: the same carnival Jacent, Jasmine and Grendel had reduced to a smoking ruin. Yet it was as if that day had never happened: The teacups, the roller coaster, the water gun game- all of it was intact.

“I remember this!” Natalie exclaimed. “From when we had to fight Authoritus!”

“... Quincey, what’s wrong?” Daxton asked his girlfriend, noticing her quivering.

They all followed her gaze to see two pre-splice human cheerleaders walking along the path. Their stares were piercing, unwavering. When one of them passed at a certain angle they saw a flash of her skull underneath the flesh, a ghostly visage.

“I-... I don’t think I like this place,” Quincey answered. It wasn’t lost on the others, either; a feeling of pressure began building around them. More pre-splice people began appearing- buying concessions, playing carnival games, speaking terrible, forgotten secrets to one another. Each one staring, each one hollow with the face of Death.

Kenny held his shield close, looking very perturbed. “This is impossible...”

“It really is,” Jacent said, looking around with a loping gait. “I know for certain that Jasmine and I completely destroyed this place.” He walked over to a concession booth as the two cheerleaders reached them.

“JACENT, STOP!!” Samantha cried out.

He froze in his tracks as the cheerleaders passed within inches of him, before stopping in front of him. He looked around, then back at her.

“Can’t you see them??” Erwin asked, incredulous.

“See what??” he responded, confused. Masses of spirits began to converge on him as he walked over toward a soda fountain, ill intent on their deathly faces as they crowded around him.

“The flickers, dude, the ghosts!” Daxton exclaimed, exasperated. They grew and grew, surrounding not just Jacent, now, but all of them, crowding everybody as the sky became a sickly green and blue swirling vortex of terror, foretelling the imminent imposition of a terrible hell world. Its presence was oppressive in the extreme. “How can you not see all the dead people??” 

He stared at his friends, perplexed. Then, realization dawned as they moved for him, long fingers reaching for his body. He raised his hand in front of his face... and snapped his fingers. “Psycodrive.”

Jacent’s eyes became all white sclera, his pupils and irises disappearing entirely, his aura extending beyond him like a burning green flame fueled by sheer determination... and every last ghost disappeared like the smoke from a snuffed out candle, leaving behind a merely slightly eerie location.

“Whoa,” Natalie marveled. “That’s a look for you.”

Make that almost every ghost. “OoOoOo~!” Jasmine wiggled her fingers in front of her face. “Are they gone now?”

“Y-... Y-Yes,” Quincey managed.

“Ah, so this is that Genocide Engine thing I remember reading about,” Jonesy remarked, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. “Very interesting.”

“Ugh, glad we’ve got you around,” Kenny said to Jacent, getting out of his defensive stance. “I do not like that.”

Natalie rubbed her head. “Why didn’t having Jasmine here stop it?” 

“Sorry,” she floated around freely.  “My psycodrive doesn’t do all that nice protecty stuff, it just lets me access my powers. And, you know, exist.”

“Well, if the get-in-your-head effects are happening,” Talon supposed, “That must mean we’re gettin’ real close.”

“... Hey,” Widget noticed, pointing to a mass in the shadow. “Doesn’t that merry-go-round look familiar too?” She gasped in surprise when it powered on.

“What...?” Quincey puzzled. “How can something that old still work?”

Lights on the side of the ride glowed to life. It lurched into motion, and with that motion came sound. The mechanically timed whistles of a calliope tooted out something familiar to most anyone of the era: a jaunty, octave-jumping style of music synonymous with circuses, carnivals and other simple, traveling delights. But there was something very slightly wrong with it. The song it played was discordant, or perhaps the instrument was out of tune, but no matter how close the carousel came to its normal operating speed, the song never stopped feeling uneasy, disorienting, disquieting. The crown of the ride lit up, illuminating multifarious clownish faces frozen in exaggerated expressions of mirth.

Kenny adjusted his sword grip. “Well that’s not creepy...” he muttered under his breath.

The sculpted horses in the middle were barely visible, as the lights in the middle of the ride weren’t lit quite yet. But what they could see, were faces. The eyelights and mouths of Mixer, Winch, Crunch, Paste and Plaster oscillated with their inanimate steeds even in the darkness.

Carrie’s brows knit together in disdain. “Are they mocking us...?”

The loud ‘pop’ of an electrical solenoid sounded, preceding little spotlights activating over each of Mixer’s crew. What at first looked like a carefree ride quickly turned grotesque, however, as the automa villains had been run through- they were as completely impaled as the plastic ponies they rode. Winch in particular was frozen in a pose of fear, hands above her, locked in place by the golden pole that ran through both hands, chest and legs. Their faceplates flickered erratically, indicating that they were barely conscious in this horrific semi-crucified state, bleeding cobalt lubricant all over themselves. 

Carrie’s eyes widened as she refocused on all the junk around the park, which they all began to correctly identify as gear slaves. Robots large and small had been crushed, smashed and sliced into molten halves by the hundreds. “What the fuck...??” she whispered.

Two eyes opened in the darkness. Two bands of burning cobalt in the utter black illuminated the rider.

“Oh, son of a bitch,” Jasmine swore.

Grendel wore a smile and much more. A carefully tailored, multilayered red and black dress with bows, frills, buttons and laces adorned her body, black arm-sleeves and red stockings on her limbs, ending in a pair of neatly polished buckled shoes. She rode the carousel wordlessly, gently oscillating for what felt like minutes. Finally, the song stopped, as well as the ride. She stepped off the horse, hopped off the platform and walked over to the menagerie. “Hello Natalie!” she greeted cheerfully, which was off-putting in its own right. “And friends,” she gestured grandly.

“Grendel,” Natalie acknowledged with gravity, looking around at the carnage. “What... happened...?”

“Mm, well... I kept telling them I was bored, but they kept making me sit out all the fun.” She tilted her head. “I got impatient.”

Talon looked around. “You were bored. So you... killed ‘em... and their whole army.”

“Yes,” she answered simply. “And now, we’re going to use their pieces to play a new game.” She snapped her fingers, and six beacons shot up throughout the dead city- red columns of light reaching into the false sky, portending something ominous. “The Overnauts. Mixer wants to use them, you want to stop them, and I... just don’t care either way,” she said with cavalier indifference. “If you can reach them before they activate, and destroy them, you can save your precious city. If you can’t? Well. I’ve seen cities come and go.” She smiled cruelly.

Natalie frowned. “... What’s the catch?”

She grinned. “Smart girl. The catch is... I need someone to play with. At least two of you need to keep me occupied at all times, or I start murdering your friends indiscriminately.”

Natalie’s whole world slowed to a crawl as she took in a whirlwind of information all at once. This murderous mechanical maniac had stolen a compound doomsday device and re-purposed it into her own personal blood sport arena, with stakes as high as the sky. It was going to take a mountain of effort to take down just one of these metal colossi, much less six. The sheer enormity of the task ahead sent her mind reeling. Which was the bigger threat? The Overnauts weren’t activated yet, which technically made them sitting ducks- just, very ponderously large sitting ducks. On the other hand, if they failed to take down even one of them, the destruction would be unimaginable. 

Grendel stared at her with intent, pointing the gun at her. “The clock is ticking, Jet Dragon!”

Natalie flinched at that, and it was at this moment something finally clicked in her mind. Being burned in the battle against Alliston; passing out in front of Grendel at the foundry; getting punked by her alternate universe self if not for a desperate psychological gambit... she’d been chasing Captain Comet’s shadow this entire time, trying to be him. But she wasn’t him. Hell, he wasn’t him- it turned out that Captain Comet was the creation of two desperate orphans fused together under cruel circumstances. Cap, Juno Blue, whatever athlete or performer caught her eye... thinking about it, she’d always tried to be someone else. But even Echelon’s powers didn’t work like that- she could only ever be a pale reflection of them. She couldn’t be him, or them, or anyone but her. 

But she... was someone worth being.

“... I’m no dragon,” she answered defiantly. “I, am a wolf!” Confidence swelled within her. “Everyone, I’m assigning you teams! Get to your assigned beacon points as fast as you can, and then call me over once you’re there!” 

Her allies, buoyed by her decisiveness, leapt into action.
“I’m calling this one in, we need the big guns!”
“Jonesy, gimme one o’ them rifles, I still remember how to use ‘em!”
“Help me with the Shock Box, you know what time it is!”
“YEAH!!”

Within moments, they were all headed to disparate parts of the city to stop the advance of the overnaut menace. That left Grendel, and the only two of her allies that hadn’t moved an inch. Jacent stood ready, gaze unwavering, confident like he’d never been- and the reason was right next to him. Jasmine stretched, test-swung her metallic pink bat, then stood on one leg, holding it forth like a Chinese sword, her stance fitting perfectly into Jacent’s. “Are you ready for the savage beating you’ve earned, you sadistic little shit?”

The back of Grendel’s dress bulged, glowed, and the entire thing immolated off of her in seconds as she test-fired her back jets, power core burning in her chest. “Come on.”

 -
- -
 -

Daxton held onto the back of Jessalynn’s jacket as they surfed along her shadow through the dark, dingy streets of New York City. Cars long unable to run littered the road and sidewalks, alluding to the last desperate event that anyone who lived there had bore witness to. “Right there!” he said, pointing to a storefront that was exactly that- a front. 

The enormous head of an overnaut stared out hatefully from behind the glass, showing that it was merely a way of disguising a launch bay for the thing, which reached deep underground to house it. If they’d had to find this on their own- as Mixer had no doubt intended- they probably wouldn’t have made it in time. “Ah,” Jessalynn acknowledged, sliding to a stop. Troopers walked out of several store fronts and began marching toward them dutifully. “Looks like they don’t want to let us have it.”

“Then they shoulda brought way more than this,” Daxton rolled his arm and grinned.

The two teens fought back-to-back, their time together having brought them a modicum of practice and unlikely teamwork; Daxton already respected Jessalynn’s boxing skills before having ever met her, and Jessa respected the corgi’s dogged determination.

“Heads up!” 
“Got ‘em!”
“Watch your right!”
“No problem.”
“Switch up?”
“Do it!”

“HOOAH!!” Daxton sent a trooper flying with an exploding uppercut. It hit the pavement heavily.

“Nice hustle,” Jessalynn commented, patting the momentarily confused boy’s pert muscle butt. “Grayswift,” she said into her PET. “Coast is clear, come wreck this thing.”

 -
- -
 -

Natalie had seen a lot of violence over the last few months. A stark contrast from the boring, ho-hum life she’d gotten to know, there had been clash after clash, and she’d been at the center of most of them.

The explosion of force at the center of Jacent, Jasmine and Grendel’s battle, however, was like no other. If she was being honest, it was mostly Jazz’s fight, with Jacent running feints and strategy- and good thing he was so agile, as Grendel’s overwhelming strength was something Natalie remembered well- but Jasmine’s might was titanic. Every swing, every vicious kick and haymaker from the tiny girl moved air with a baritone ~WHOOSH~ that promised doom were they to connect. An errant bat swing shattered masonry and ripped piping out of walls like it had been shot by a cannon. She watched with morbid fascination as Grendel just barely got out of the way of a flying dragon kick from the ghost tween; the car she’d been in front of was smashed to a pulp when she hit, sliding it across the street in a shower of sparks and glass, then flipping it over a stone bench.

Grendel examined a piece of her leg case that chipped off from flying shrapnel. “Uppity little brat,” she sneered.

Jasmine lowered her head and gripped the bat tighter. “Stand still.”

It was clear now what the power behind Captain Comet had always been... and why Jacent feared it so much. Jasmine’s strength was reckless and overwhelming, a hurricane that couldn’t be focused or restrained- and the growing carnage around them was proof. Hell, half of Jacent’s maneuvers were just getting out of her way, which was why Natalie hadn’t joined in the effort; she wasn’t looking to lose an arm in a reckless plan to help.

“Grayswift.” 

“Ah?!” Natalie was taken out of the moment, responding to Jessalynn on her PET.

“Coast is clear, come wreck this thing.”

“R-Right!” Natalie backed even further away from the wreckage, digging a compact mirror out of her hoodie pocket. 

 -
- -
 -

Jessalynn held the compact mirror with ‘J’ written on it out and away from her. From it, Echelon’s head and shoulders popped out. She got stuck at the hips for a few embarrassed moments before finally squeezing free and rolling to a standing position.

“Ah! I’m here!” Natalie managed. “Where is- oh wow, you guys really wrecked shop here.”

“This is nothin’!” Daxton boasted. “You should’ve seen us before! We’ve been outnumbered since I got here.”

“Wow, it’s really been bad, huh...” She thought out loud. “Ah, I’d better get on it!” Natalie hustled over to the facade of the barbershop, finding the door open. “I’ll just be a little bit, you guys, hang tight.”

“Don’t sweat it Grayswift,” Jessalynn waved her off. “We’ll keep watch out here.”

“... Hey.” Daxton’s newly installed eyes stared at a quaint little 1950s style diner across the street. There was an odd blue light pulsing inside. “Weird, right?”

Jessa nodded slowly. “... We should check it out.”

They opened the door and let themselves in. It was a nice place, if one allowed for the fact that it hadn’t been inhabited or maintained in a handful of centuries. The decor was cute, but actually a little more understated than Jessalynn was used to- it was obvious now that modern interpretations were a lot more exaggerated and busy than this.

“What’ll you have?”

The teenagers’ heads whipped around to identify the owner of the icy voice.

It was Grendel. Sitting behind the counter, head resting in her hands.

“What the hell...?” Jessalynn wondered. “If you’re here, then-... oh no...” 

Daxton grimaced, realizing the implications for himself. “Are you serious??”

She walked out from behind the bar and fixed a cold glare at them. “Very.” The robot whimsically thumped a jukebox, prompting loud Electro Swing to fill the air.

“... Fine, fuck it, let’s go!” Daxton cried.

A single snowflake falls from the sky amidst a solar eclipse. The forces of light and darkness push this way and that, hot and cold gusts of wind vying to grasp it. The flake dances playfully on the currents, rising and falling and twirling beautifully in the air.

“RrrRAGH!!” Daxton explosively punched a chunk out of the bar in a burst of light- a follow through that had been intended for the frustratingly slippery machine.

Grendel hoisted him by his shirt collar, staring into the eyes of the fierce boy. “Such a mean face for someone who’s having so much fun.”

Daxton responded by headbutting her in the face, whipping her head back and taking a small chip out of her faceplate. 

“Ugh.”

In one fluid motion, she twirled, grabbed his arm, whipped him around and sent him bodily through the entire structure of the bar, an explosion of splintered wood erupting from his trajectory. He felt it through his inkling, through the adrenaline, everything; it was slam like nothing else, his own private hovercycle crash. He instinctively powered through it, but his body rebelled, leaving him writhing before he could manage his way to his feet.

Jessalynn tried not to let this get to her. “It’s just another robot,” she muttered, hunkering down and pushing in for the offensive.

Some boxers had technique. Some had power. Some had endurance. Jessalynn had agility. She never let herself get hit unless it was to help deliver a knockout blow, and the microscopic hairs on her flesh allowed her to feel what was coming before it hit. When she was in the zone, she could just let herself go, instinctively moving out of the way of everything that came for her like a fish through currents- and as Grendel’s fists moved for her face, the loud whoosh that filled her ears time after time told her that she really, really didn’t want to get hit by them... but that was just about all she could manage. 

~CRACK!!~ Grendel punched through the counter, sending huge chunks of lacquered wood flying.

Searching for an opening was hellacious, like trying to pull a scrap of food from a bear trap. Just the idea of misjudging her timing was a prospect she didn’t want to see the other end of, and without the ability to wait for the opponent to get tired, the strategy was a narrow one.

~CRASH!!~ An entire table sailed over Jessa’s head and into the pile of rubble Daxton was still stuck in. She manifested her shadow double and began throwing hooks, straights and uppercuts in a flurry.

Grendel didn’t stop. Incredibly, she just kept coming, moving around the oncoming hits and sending out many- too many- of her own. 

Daxton crawled out of the rubble and growled as he joined back in the fray. Infuriatingly, against even three opponents, she was too fast, pushing them into each other and making them have to back off lest they hit one another. And yet, finally, she misjudged one swing and got sandwiched between a shadowboxed right hook and a light-charged haymaker, detonating and cracking her armor. “YEAH!” Daxton cried. “Take th-”

Grendel kicked Daxton away, then rained down on Jessa. She was pummeled furiously, water-like waves of ink reverberating all over her body. A final uppercut sent her sailing out of Foscor’s skin, completely separating host from inkling. Jessa crashed through the glass, landed hard on the concrete outside of the diner, and watched as her inkling was punted, splattering against the fire hydrant behind her. “AH!! Foscor!” She lunged for him, curling around him protectively.

Daxton rose and hit her in the gut with another savage light-charged punch, sending her reeling, but his follow-up hit got caught. She gave him exactly the same treatment she’d administered to Jessa moments earlier, laughing maniacally as she slammed into him with breakneck speed over and over. She ripped Daxton and Lumina apart, spun around, slamming them into tables and chairs, and hurled them away. Daxton landed upside down on a bench, sucking air through his teeth. “Shit...” His face twisted in pain. “Hhgngh... Jessa... you good?”

“No!” she responded curtly. “Sh-... She ripped out one of my arms!” She clutched her side. “It was just a tertiary... but, ah, fuck, it stings so bad...!” The spider’s groans of pain gurgled in her throat. “Hope you’re better.”

He let his hand down as a trail for Lumina to get back to him. “Broken ribs. For sure,” he hissed, pissed off more than anything.

Grendel paced toward her fallen opponents, eyes blazing. “Aw. Did my toys break on me?”

Daxton growled. “We’re not gonna let you get whatever it is you want.”

She laughed, cold as ice. “What an empty lie. I could offer you the same thing a hundred thousand different ways, and you would say ‘yes’ every single time.” She stared at him with manic excitement, grabbing either side of his head. “Because what I want, is what you want, and that thing...” her grip trembled as she inched closer, eyes burning with desire. “... is mayhem.”

Daxton’s brows scrunched in confusion. This was not the villain speech he expected. “The hell...??”

“Unfortunately, this doesn’t count as engagement,” she said sadly, like a bureaucrat chained to procedure, and pulled her knee back parallel with his face. “So, it’s killing time.”

Daxton remembered scrambling to do... something, really, anything, but what he saw was Natalie run unnaturally fast in a beeline for Grendel, and instead of getting punked from behind, the robot spun around and met her with a right hook.

“HAH!” Natalie cried triumphantly, having immediately shifted from Actima to Arus without stating her intention, and blocked the massive swing with her arms. “Too slow!” she taunted.

Grendel ground her fist into Natalie’s forearms, shaking with murderous intent, failing to make purchase. “Nnnh, finally, now I can-”

~click~

Grendel paused. “What was-”

~j-weep!~

In her place, Talon smirked, holding a remote control unit. “Ah, so sorry! You shoulda been lookin’ at the right hand, not the left, please play again.” He tilted and shook his head with a grin, slapping hands with Natalie.

“Nnnwhere’d she go...?” Daxton winced.

“Ah, Clip said those little magnet nodes are set to take you to the Moon, so, y’know, thereabouts.” Talon did a little hand gesture of estimation, which made Natalie laugh. “You guys need a doc?”

“Yeah,” Jessa nodded, pressing her hand to her side. “Sorry, Grayswift...”

“No, no, you did as good as anyone could’ve,” Natalie assured them, helping Daxton sit up on the bench, suppressing his pain response with Mhend’s powers. “There was no point fighting that thing fairly. It wasn’t a person, it was a monster. I just hope Jacent’s okay.” She tried to call him several times. “... C’mon, pick up! Ugh, Jacent...” She frowned. “Well, at least the app Rose let us have shows his vitals are okay. I have to move on, Max and Carrie are messaging me that they found the next overnaut.”

“No problem,” Talon waved her off. “I’ll make sure the doc gets to these guys, and I’ll check up on the J-Man after that.”

Natalie leaned back on her heels into a backward walk, looking grateful. “Thanks, Tal.” 

 -
- -
 -

Kenny and Simon sat atop the heap of clamps that had been guarding this water tower. They’d sneakily waited until the duo had climbed the tower to fight with them, attempting to throw them off- a decent plan for a bunch of grunts, and one that might have worked on a pair who hadn’t already fought many dozens of them by now.

“You called her over, right?”

Simon silently nodded, his features hidden.

“... No idea when she’ll be here then.”

Simon looked at Kenny and shook his head slowly.

Kenny sighed quietly and stared out at the dead cityscape, watching his favorite butterfly flutter at a distance, “keeping watch,” as she put it. His mind wandered to the night previous.

~(_)~

Shelly Iverson stalked the halls of the Inkwell with singular purpose. Her multifaceted eyes scanned the periphery for two specific shapes- and when she found them, she gasped. “Finally!”

A worn, battered Kenny and Simon watched the butterfly bound over to them, bouncing mightily in her long night shirt. 

“There’s my lil’ guys!!” she cried, taking both boys’ heads  into her arms and hugging them to her possessively- this translated to the both of them being stuffed into a mile of sideboob, but their bashfully smiling faces suggested it was a position they knew and loved. “Hug me hug me hug meee!” she demanded, and the two diminutive boys dropped their equipment and acquiesced, wrapping their arms around her.

“Mmph... mnhrmn... h-hey, Shelly,” Simon said, offering a rare smile. “I thought we wouldn’t get to see you tonight.”

“I’m seventeen, I can go to bed  when I want,” she said matter-of-factly. “Besides, I missed yooouuu! Interdimensional adventures are such a drag actually! That whole time I was thinking about how much I just wanted to go home and snuggle up to my Ken-bens and Simey-wimeeey...”

Simon blushed brightly at the use of her nickname for him, his heart thumping. “Um, I’m glad you’re back,” he mumbled into her chest, hiding his face in her cleavage.

“Are you two okay??” she studied the boys momentarily. “They told me they’ve got you like, totally fighting a war out there! It sounds really dangerous.”

“Mmm...” Kenny rubbed the back of his  neck. “To be honest, it’s been rough.” He took a deep breath. “The enemies are endless. Sleep’s been hard to come by. There’ve been so many close calls...”

“It’s really hard...” Simon breathed, at once sounding childish and ageless in the sentiment.

“Yeah. You said it, little bro,” Kenny affirmed. “It’s been... really hard.”

[... without you.]

Shelly stared at the text on her PET over Simon’s shoulder, realizing the context of their distress now. “Awwww!” She hugged them closer, tighter. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for you.” She thought it over  for a second, then rose to her feet, taking their hands in hers. “C’mon back with me. I think my two brave knights deserve a good, long snuggle.”

Kenny and Simon basked in the radiance of their Lady of Locksmouth for the first time in what seemed like months, and all the fatigue and dread of their battles fell away.

“Oh, Kenny~”

~(_)~

“Kenny...”

“Kenny!”

“Ah!” The lemming started, snapped out of his reverie by the same person who’d put him in it.

“Natalie’s like, done with Max and Carrie’s outpost. Open your mirror and junk.”

“Right, of course!” Kenny opened his mirror hastily. “Ready when you are!”

Echelon came out of the mirror all at once, looking to avoid any embarrassing sticking situations- but as a result, she’d come out with some velocity, and so her huge black jello butt knocked Simon over and completely eclipsed his entire head. “Phew! Easy landing at least.”

“Ohmigod like, Simon! Are you okay??” Shelly fretted.

“Huh??” Natalie looked under herself and discovered the squirrel had broken her fall. “Oh, whoops!” She stood and helped the blushing, disoriented squirrel to his feet. “Sorry about that.”

Simon tried to say something, anything, but flustered breathing was all he managed as he tried desperately to stare a hole in his shoes.

“He’ll... be okay,” Kenny assured her. “The overnaut’s at the bottom of the tower, but you have to access it via the roof.”

“Right!” Natalie nodded. “Let’s go!”

“We’ll stand watch out here,” Kenny clarified.

“...” Natalie paused. “I-... Okay. Alright. Sure. Yeah, see you guys in a minute. S- uh.” She looked around. “Stay safe, okay?” And with that, all three of them watched her bound up the mesh stairs.

 -
- -
 -

Roselyn Dubois was used to treating people with injuries gained doing feats from which they should’ve shied away, but she had to admit, it was unusual for the aftermath of a fistfight to resemble an automotive accident like this.

“I still say I could’ve taken her,” Daxton said, grimacing as his ribs were set for a jiffy-knit courtesy the doctor’s inkling.

Jessalynn laughed silently, laying on her coat, letting her newly regenerated helper arm flex and actuate. “I know what you mean, but I’m kind of glad the bell rang when it did. That was getting ugly.”

“And could’ve gotten much uglier,” Dr. Dubois opined. “I don’t know exactly how, but if these scans are right, you were both very close to rupturing organs.” She pulled her glasses off and rubbed the top of her snout thoughtfully. “This is nothing like the damage I see gear slaves doing.”

“Hey!”

From out of nowhere, Jasmine leapt down, landing beside the lot of them. “Where is she?!”

“Oh, hey, good to see ya,” Talon greeted. “If you mean Grendel, she got sent on a one-way trip to the Moon, courtesy the Inkwell’s teleporter things.”

Jasmine frowned. “Oh. Shit.”

Roselyn tilted her head. “Why don’t you sound happy about that?”

Jasmine looked at her gravely. “Because teleporting’s how she ran away from our fight in the first place.”

 -
- -
 -

There was a loud grinding sound, then a familiar static discharge.

“Excuse me.”

“Ah?!” Kenny started, shocked when he saw Grendel round the corner, having appeared without a sound. “Where did you come from??”

She dropped a handful of white powdery rock from her hand and used the other to brush her hair aside in a blithe flourish. “I heard a little doggy’s in this tower. She and I have business, children, so move aside.”

“No!” Kenny said commandingly, readying his sword and shield, interposing himself between them. “You’re not getting any closer. Flood fill.” As the world filled with black and red, Simon drew his sword and sidled up to his comrade-in-arms, expression unreadable behind his mask.

Grendel stopped. Her eyes flickered, as if considering something. She grabbed the guard rail, shot two ends of it, and holstered the gun. What had once been a section of safety railing was now a staff, which she twirled around her body menacingly. With a flourish, the scene changed; they were no longer at the top of a water tower- it was now a large, grandiose castle battlements, complete with the distant sounds of pitched fighting. “Let’s see how good you are.”

The boys attacked her- at once, then in syncopated strikes, blocked and parried one after the other with clockwork precision. She swatted Simon on the side following one of Kenny’s hits, then overhand-smashed the pole into Kenny’s shield following a parry on Simon’s swing. The thundering impact of the strike vibrated the defensive arm, sending a low ring through the air. Simon raised his sword up and let out a mighty cry; Grendel caught his overhand swing on her staff, but it cut down the middle completely.

“You’re more fun than I thought,” she said with mild surprise, now swinging and twirling the two shorter poles like kali sticks.

The two of them circled the small arena opposite Grendel, sweat rolling down their brows. Kenny motioned to Simon, who recognized the sign for one of their most practiced maneuvers. The lemming dashed forward, coming in for a swing, but feinted. At the same time, Simon flanked from behind with an overhand smash. When Grendel of course went forward to avoid this, Kenny shield bashed her with all of his might, sending her over Simon, who scored her armor deeply with his blade as she sailed overhead.

She seemed deeply entertained by their display. “Hmmmnrh.” She advanced and swung with terrifying dexterity, slapping strikes out of the air and answering in kind on the bounce back, slamming Kenny in his shield and armor and smacking Simon in the knees and shoulders. “You know, I protected someone, myself. An old man, just skin and bones. Barely anything.” The metal of the knights’ blades and plates vibrated with the force of her blows, eliciting an eerie chorus. “Have you ever thought about how addictive it could be? To turn on your charge, and crush them? The look of helpless betrayal??” At a crucial moment, Grendel bought both sticks down on them, locking blades with them and pushing both of them down at once with terrible power, overcoming the combined strength of four lifeforms working together against her. “It’s better than any pleasure you could imagine.”

Kenny grabbed Grendel. That wasn’t to say that he walked over and put his hands on her. No, he gestured with Polaris’ magnetic powers and seized the robot in midair before she could make another threatening gesture. “Alright,” he declared, “The show’s over. I’m through pretending you had a chance.”

“Ohhhh?” She struggled, floating helplessly. “Magnetism.”

“Yeah, and you, all made of metal,” he said matter-of-factly. “Tough luck, sometimes you just lose on sheer typing. You’re insanely dangerous, so I’m gonna pull you apart now.” He gestured with his hands as if he were drawing a bow, and Grendel’s components creaked and snapped and groaned under the forces at play. Simon stood in front of Kenny with his sword drawn to make sure she had no chance of interrupting. They were through underestimating the threat she posed, and wouldn’t feel better until she was in pieces on the floor.

Which made it incredibly upsetting when she vanished in a flash of green static.

Kenny started. “Where did she-?!” His fur stood up on end as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Oh look! A chance!” she chirped excitedly. With a flick of the wrist, the blue blade of her burstgun’s sword sailed through his neck, separating Polaris’ head from his body.

Simon shudderd. “NOOO!!!” he cried, swiping furiously at Grendel, cutting rail after safety rail clean in two.

“KENNY!!” Quincey screamed, having seen this over holographic display.

All of  this, and now Simon had to defend them entirely one-on-one with Grendel. His courage was fiery, his spirit bottomless, his power great... but his strength wasn’t without limits. She brutalized the boy, hitting him so hard he bounced off the mesh floor- and with another well-timed blow, Adama was ripped from his body. “Ungh! No!!” he cried.

She laid into the boy relentlessly, peeling off Fortis, tearing out Umbra, and even blasting away Jikan. His inklings cried out for him, like family being ripped away from one another. All that remained was Lizbet, a small, cream girl who trembled before the terrible might of Grendel. “One more...”

“NO!” Simon forced Lizbet under him, coming to the surface as his vulnerable flesh self. He held his sword tightly in front of him, tears in his fiercely determined eyes. “No.”

Next to Quincey, far from this battle, Daxton’s entire body filled from head to toe with rage. Pure, unrelenting fury pulsed through his veins like kerosene, igniting him like a road flare. Ink receded from his flesh as he became bolder, more saturated, larger than life. He exuded Lumina’s essence from himself. And then, from a mile away, he hit Grendel like a bolt of lightning around which reality undulated. Instantly, in one moment, he cleared the entire distance, headbutting her in the gut with a destructive ~CRACK!~ and sending plates and rivets and shards of glass everywhere. The robot’s body was sent sailing through the air, but he still wanted more- the depth of his vengeance knew no end. Again, he closed the distance, slamming into her chest with his fist before she could even hit a wall, much less the ground, accelerating her flight. Again he screamed with rage and bolted to her, kicking her back as she tumbled in midair, shocked, her armor blasting away- and finally, she blew right through the guard rail, then another, then the wall of a building, and tunneled countless yards into it, sending dust and debris flying. 

Daxton let out something like a half roar, half howl of grief and fury as all the energy left his body, and Lumina receded completely. “K-... Kenny...” he managed before collapsing.

Natalie emerged from the top of the tower, looking down with horror. A decapitated Kenny stood motionless, and Simon gathered his inklings to him desperately. “Oh no...” She rushed to them, swinging down over guard rails and landing from dangerous jumps. “Grendel...” she concluded. But something was weird about this. Why was Kenny standing up without his head?

The answer made itself clear as she looked to the side. Shelly was gesturing at him with the most intense concentration she’d ever seen on her, glowing with orange and violet purpose. It was then that Kenny’s head began to, incredibly, pull toward his body.

“What...?” Natalie wondered, until she looked closer. Kenny’s head had not, in fact, been severed from his neck. There was the tiniest thread of inkling flesh between them, the smallest possible strand of connection that Grendel couldn’t sever as Lastik’s powers took hold on him before she’d hit, stretched like a noodle. Natalie carefully helped his head get back to his body without tensing the stretched out string, and once it was firmly on him again, Kenny began to move.

A gasp elicited from the inked lemming, and Polaris looked at Shelly with gratitude. “Thank you, milady.” With that, he receded, and a completely whole Kenny emerged, before falling backward.

Daxton, barely conscious, looked up. “Is he-...??”

“... I’m alive,” Kenny panted.

“Damn right you’re alive,” Daxton’s face planted into the mesh floor, still exhausted from his own injuries. “I’d kill you if you died.”

Kenny looked over with a confused expression. “You’re so stupid,” he laughed, getting to his feet, getting dizzy, then thinking better of it. Polaris was not coming back this fight. “Oof!” He winced as Simon raced over and hugged him- then again as Shelly did too, half-falling on the two of them in her complete exhaustion.

Natalie breathed a sigh of relief, but it failed to release her from a sense of dread. This was not how things were supposed to go. None of this was going according to plan, and despite having only one real enemy, she’d nearly lost several allies fighting her battles.

“Natalie??”

“Ah!” She looked at her PET, which displayed a visual of Erwin and Kei. 

The fox was sitting on a very creative sculpture made of several gear slaves. “We’re ready for you!”

“R-... Right.” She looked back. “Are you guys-”

“We’ll be okay,” Simon said, his eyes dry, his courage redoubled. “You can go.”

She paused, then nodded. “Okay. Thank you.” She turned, then looked back. “I’ll... make it up to you, somehow. Promise.”

 -
- -
 -

Laila couldn’t help but be amazed as she stood atop an extremely tall building amidst other similar colossi. The street below seemed tiny in comparison to the marvels around it- a giant’s alley. The sheer scope at which pre-splice people built was something altogether different from anything she’d known living in her farmer’s paradise.

“Whoooaaa...” Aren marveled.

“It’s really high up...” Gren agreed.

“I’m surprised these structures could survive this long,” Jonesy admitted. “Five hundred years is a long time.”

“It normally wouldn’t have,” Widget explained. “But as well as it being down here rather than up there, some of us take it on ourselves to restore these old buildings. Being a Gravekeeper means maintaining the grounds, after all, and, well, that’s what it is.” She leaned over the side. “We took painstaking models of every building, every car, every street light.”

“Seems like a lotta trouble to go to, on account o’ you couldn’t preserve the people with it,” Laila remarked, pushing her hat up.

With a new appreciation for the possibility, Widget shook her head and responded, “Trust me, it wouldn’t have worked out.”

Jonesy put his coat back on, having taken it off from the sweat he’d worked up fighting a seemingly endless supply of gear slaves on the way up; if the novelty of doing so had worn off, he hadn’t said so. A spiraling staircase had been built around the overnaut for which Mixer’s gang had turned this building into a launch silo. Upon donning his coat once more, he reached into the pocket and pulled out his PET. “Natalie, ETA?”

“Just finishing up! I’ll be there in a sec!”

“Good, see you then.” He switched channels. “Clip, can I get my suit sent to this location?”

“Ah, yes! You appear to be close enough. Sending!”

Jonesy smiled as green static heralded the transport of something that had been too big to take with them. He grabbed a huge sealed steamer trunk and dragged it over to an area that had open space. 

Natalie landed on the roof with them, emerging out of Laila’s mirror, then double-took, staring at the sectioned and very large custom armor. “Is that... grav-trooper gear??”

“That’s right!” Jonesy said, full of verve as he lifted a massive chunk of it effortlessly. The mole began to entomb himself in the thing as he spoke. “Belonged to Granddad. I fixed it up, hunted down the schematics for all the options, and managed to get it running again.”

The building they all stood upon began to sway. Metal creaked and whined. The sound of rivets snapping disquieted them, and a rhythmic metal pinging was getting louder and louder. Finally, the roof erupted, the head of an overnaut coming up through the floor they were standing on, as the building wobbled dangerously.

“Oh god it’s already moving!” Natalie’s mind scrambled for a way to take the thing down as its hand punched through the roof, gripping onto it. Its singular ruby eye glowed ominously. “No no no no no no-”

“HIT THE DECK!” Widget cried, taking Gren and Aren down with her as a hot pink beam the diameter of Laila’s height swept overhead, obliterating anything it hit. Antennae were disintegrated, concrete was shredded, and a rival building was scored into.

“... Holy shit!” Natalie cried, disbelieving the sheer carnage it caused. She’d seen it happen in comic books, but witnessing it in person was something else entirely.

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” Jonesy cried. He leveled a gun the size of Simon at the overnaut and let loose a pill-shaped projectile into an opening in its neck. The shockwave was palpable as the overnaut’s entire head was blasted off of its moorings with a fiery corona, flipping like a coin through the air, falling for a long time, and landing on the street far below. Concentric rings of molten metal seethed like the most violent core sample ever retrieved. The metal giant sagged.

Natalie stared at the wreckage, then looked up at Jonesy’s suit. “That was so fucking cool.”

Aren grinned. “I want one of those.”

“See that, Rosie?” Jonesy pulled a thick, chunky component of the gun and changed the ammo types. “I told you the tankbuster rounds would come in handy!” he declared with all the joviality of a suburban dad remarking on his brand new sprinkler system. 

A loud grinding sounded behind them.
Looks like fun,” an ice cold voice said with interest.

“No... way...“ Natalie couldn’t believe it. In a cloud of green static, Grendel stepped back into their lives. Her armor was worse for wear, having been visibly welded back together from being nearly shattered. She seemed to deactivate the gate with something in her forearm, which glowed. “How do you keep coming back??”

“I have been more than generous with the terms of this game,” Grendel said coolly. “And yet you all insist on cheating in ways that ruin my fun. It’s quite irritating, really,” she said curtly, activating her boosters and hovering in front of them. “So now the terms are changing. If I reach the top of this cave, I’m launching the rest of the robots immediately. Stop me, or everyone dies,” she said with sociopathic indifference, shrugging and immediately jetting upward.

“Shit! Anyone who can fly, go! Go now!!” Natalie said to anyone who would listen.

“Right!” Laila grabbed her gun and shot upward.

“ShockBUSTEEERRR!!” The kids cried in unison, forming the gestalt being once more. It was hellacious trying to transform in midair, and debris threatened to jam up the process several times, but they managed to fully assemble and fire their boosters in time

“Verticality was always the weakness of skiffs,” Jonesy noted, itching to go up as well.

Natalie offered him a hand. “How about a little boost from Captain Comet??”

Jonesy grinned and took her hand in his. “There’s one more overnaut at basement level! Go take care of it, we’ve got this!”

“Got it!” Natalie spun the hovering mole around in increasingly rapid circles which tilted until she jumped up in the air and flung him with what remained of Jacent and Jasmine’s joined abilities.

“She won’t see this one coming!” He cried triumphantly, activating his jump jets for all they were worth. Grendel, Shockbuster, Laila and Jonesy were now screaming upward in a speed tunnel, the thrust of each other’s jetstreams pushing all of them faster and faster. Shockbuster banked and rolled, engaging Grendel in a midair ballet as Laila struggled to set up a shot. Jonesy continued his rocketing ascent as he skiffed up the radio tower on top of the building, loading up and taking careful aim.

~K-THOOSH~ went an armor-piercing round from his personal variable cannon, shooting a hole in Grendel’s hair and exploding debris from the cave ceiling beyond her. “Oh, not yet~!” she taunted, tackling Shockbuster, leaping frightfully fast, kick-bouncing Laila off the robot and dragging her claws across the radio tower in a trail of sparks as she pursued Jonesy. His instinct took over the second her hand was in range, using his free hand to grab her wrist and flip her over in front of him. He held her in place for a high powered AP round, but she cottoned to his plan and shoved a taloned foot in his face before he could finish; it skipped upward against a giant stalactite like a stone instead. He grappled with her intensely as they both ascended, mechanical power against raw brute strength. Her face pulled in close to his, grinning maliciously inches from him. “You. You’re different.”

Shockbuster finally caught up again, using their big electric yo-yo as a lasso, yanking Grendel upward and twirling her around to baffle her boosters. The electric current burned contacts and surged her power. “Laila, take the shot!!” Shockbuster cried with a childish bent.

“Nnhgghh... hahahaha!” Grendel burst out laughing as the giraffe underneath her readied her fusion cannon, looking up into the other robot’s eyes with morbid fascination. “Can you really do it, Widget? Can you live with the consequences??”

“What’s she talking ab- AUGH!!!” Shockbuster suddenly listed hard and caught the edge of the beam themselves, ink and metal burning in the white hot shot. Grendel shook free and kicked them against the tower hard enough to bounce several times on the way down, the gestalt fighting robot just managing to fire their boosters before hitting the roof.

“I-... I know I aimed that perfect! What hap- GHLK!!!” Laila didn’t get time to think about it before she was jack-knifed back down to earth herself, absorbing the brunt of a rough landing.

And that left two. They sailed over the tip of the radio tower, climbing into the night ‘sky.’ Jonesy’s jump jets fired hard, carrying his considerable weight into the air alongside the cobalt-eyed monster.

The mountain reaches up into the cold, howling wind, a foundation of rock cutting through the blast like a river rapids.

Bombs arced. Fusion cannon fire blazed. They began falling now, unable to continue their ascent while entangled.

Monstrous hail rains down, an assault on the hardy mountainside.

Grendel bashed Jonesy into the side of a building, crumpling it. Jonesy threw Grendel through a system of rafters.

The storm abates, only to redouble its fury.

They grappled, keeping each other’s weapons just barely away. Hot plasma and artillery blew gigantic holes in an office building, desks and chairs and boards and concrete raining down in a flurry.

The ice, the rock, smash against each other, chipping away at both.

Jonesy’s gun lay in pieces on the roof of an apartment building. Grendel’s burstgun glowed, overheated and inactive. “You’re like me,” the machine gushed. “Made to destroy. And it feels so good to give in, doesn’t it.”

The mole’s muscles bulged as he felt himself drawn in to a mania he’d only ever kissed the edges of before. Something scintillating pushed at the back of his mind, pressing him forward. Jonesy saw himself teetering on the edge of a hole, a pit where only chaos reigned. He’d had every reason to skirt its edges, but now that it was right in front of him, his only repeating urge was to leap in, head first.

“There’s nowhere left to run,” Grendel cooed, her hands shaking with anticipation. “No more excuses. No reason to hold back- I’ll murder every last thing you love if you don’t stop me!” Her core began to glow brightly. “Give me what we both want: a gut-wrenching blood frenzy!”

Jonesy’s fists clenched. His head ducked down, then reared back as he let out a war cry that echoed throughout the dead city.

The storm cries.

They both hit each other with the force of a truck.

The water rises.

Plates buckled.

The trees bend. Break.

Concrete cracked.

Lightning strikes the earth, tearing it asunder.

Jonesy looked down at his gut, pierced now by Grendel’s clawed hand. “Hrngh...” He coughed up blood as she skewered him again and again.

The ground swallows the ice.

Jonesy gripped her arm on its last jab, then her shoulder, screamed in rage and ripped her arm off of her body.

Rock and ice mix in a slurry, a flood that washes everything away.

Grendel stared wildly at the man now appearing to try to hold his guts in, their blood splattered all over each other. “No backing out now, let’s-” She stumbled as the building lurched. their wanton firing heavy ordinance had hollowed out what was left of the ancient place’s structural integrity. The building began to fall not unlike a tree by an axe. “Ahahaha! COME ON!”

Jonesy tried to intercept her remaining arm as it swiped the one he’d ripped off, but he’d been just milliseconds too slow; now he held up a hand to defend against the unhinged assault of her beating him with her own dismembered arm. It wouldn’t have been a terribly difficult prospect if not for her increased power and speed, his torso being in a terrible state and the small issue of the fact that his footing was becoming increasingly vertical as the building sailed toward the ground.

“Jonesy!”

“Mrnh... Rhend... that you??” He grunted between bludgeonings.

“This is bad!”

He grinned. “Are you kidding? This the most fun I’ve ever had.”

“We have to get away!”

He shook his head. “Can’t,” he said with finality, before losing his footing for good.

“It’s been fun! Goodbye!” Grendel cheered, pulling the disembodied arm back, sending a jolt through a sensor that made it stick straight out, and chucking it claws-first into Jonesy’s head like a spear. There was no time to react; it sailed right for his face.

Which is what confused her when, despite him not managing to move out of the way, her arm evaporated into him.

Grendel looked at him with confusion, then consternation. Then it began to dawn on her what was happening. All of this was irrelevant, however, because she was smashed into at speed by Jasmine, who screamed “STOP FUCKING RUNNING AWAY!!” before disappearing over the horizon with the robot in violent tow.

“... Eh??” Surprised by all this, Jonesy blocked an oncoming fallen chunk of concrete, but it melted in his hands like it was made of sand, as if he’d erased it by touching it. He looked at his body, which was enveloped in energy in a way he recognized by seeing it second hand. “Rhend?? Are you doing this???”

“I-... I am! I have an ability! I remember now! A-And I’m shading!!”

“Congratulations!” Jonesy said with genuine encouragement, which sounded quite funny as he plummeted toward the earth.

“Uhhh... I-I don’t know how to stop though...” Rhend admitted.

“Gonna pass out soon?” Jonesy asked.

“... Yeah...”

“Keep it going!” He smirked, looking earthward. “We’ve got one more thing to do on the way down.”

“O-... Okay!”

 -
- -
 -

Natalie was having a rough time. It was bad enough that she hadn’t reached the other overnaut in time- it seemed that this one had activated as well. Grendel had cheated, probably out of spite. “Damn, damn, damn...” she cursed; it was all she could do to keep the thing busy using Floe’s ice powers and Polaris’ mastery over magnetism, and if she left it alone, she was sure it would transport up to the surface at any second. 

Matters got considerably worse when a building came down, forcing her to cover her eyes and mouth. She’d stopped engaging, however, which gave the colossus a moment to ready its ruby death weapon.

“Ah, SHIT!” Natalie rolled over a massive beam of energy, the residual heat scalding her even through her clothes; she landed with a grunt, finding the street around her smoldering. “Alright! Gotta pull something serious outta my pocket here...!”

~SCHOONT~

Natalie blinked, thinking she’d seen something land on top of the thing’s head. It stood eerily still. Then, with a rippling series of explosions, it ripped its own body in half, blowing apart from neck to toe. Tons of metal blasted to either side, giving an almost diagrammatic look inside it. But the most bizarre thing was that, to either side of this enormous death robot banana peel, laying in the rubble of its foot... was Jonesy.

He seemed completely devastated, thinner somehow. “Best... tunneling... I ever did...” He wheezed, grasping a device that had exploded into a pile of green safety foam, which he now laid in. “You were right, Rosie... it did come in handy...”

“Jonesy!” Natalie cried. “Are you okay?!”

“Honestly... thrilled...” he laughed, wheezing and coughing. “But, could probably use a patch up...” he managed.

Natalie realized now that the man’s internals were, well, trying to become external. “Oh! Uh, h-hang on!” The wolf reached out and laid hands on him, summoning Mhend’s powers. She was low on juice after running around and fighting the overnaut, but she managed just enough to fix his most visceral wounds. “Huff... huff... agh... that’s all I’ve got...”

“It’s all good, I’ll walk it off... mrngh...” 

Jonesy tried to get up, but was stopped- not by a physical restraint, but by the authoritative maternal voice of Roselyn Dubois. “Lay down.”

“Agh... caught me.” Jonesy laughed, coughing again.

“Natalie! Jonesy!” Shockbuster landed, Laila in tow. “Are you guys okay??”

“Thank you for the emergency aid, Natalie,” Roselyn said graciously. “I’ll be along momentarily to take care of this big lovable fool of mine.”

Nat slowly sat herself on the street, looking exhausted. “We couldn’t have done it without him. Without all of you.”

Dr. Dubois tilted her head. “Does that mean you already got the one past this point? The last one??”

Her eyes widened. “Oh no...” Natalie got up, then stumbled and fell, having wrenched her ankle. “Ungh!” She watched in the distance as a tell-tale trace of green static the size of a building appeared, then vanished. “Augh! Mom! Come in!” She reached for her PET. “The last one got out! C-Can you trace it?!”

Lorna appeared on the comm, her image and sound distorted due to the poor signal. “We were waiting for this. I’ve already deployed a countermeasure.”

 -
- -
 -

In the midst of the residential sector, a massive black invader materialized out of thin air, enshrouded in green electricity.

On a building several dozen yards away, another, much smaller figure appeared: A brown fox with a baseball cap.

The overnaut turned its gaze to the girl.

Leihanne Veviroux turned her hat to one side and grinned a mouth full of eager teeth. She pumped borrowed prana- given to her by citizens onboard the Inkwell- into her static-colored inkling, feeling the raw power of Shading wash over her body.

“We could do this normally if you were good...” Gliche mentioned shyly, as everything around them in a huge radius began breaking down- lights popped, circuits burned out, even gears jammed to a standstill.

Leihanne walked calmly over the sky bridge as the overnaut’s hand lost function. Then, as it looked to its hand, the eye light began to flicker, and the entire metal giant began to convulse. “Good? Bad? I just wanna have fun.”

 -
- -
 -

As she mirror-slid over to the central location they’d started from, Natalie dropped her PET in sheer exhaustion. “We... we did it.” She panted, glancing over to her friends and allies, who were collectively piled in a tired, injured heap. “We saved the world.”

Jessalynn barely managed to raise a fist before dropping it to the ground. “Yeah...!”

“We did it...” Kenny wheezed.

Amidst those still conscious, the delirious laughter of relief began to fill the air. They said nothing to one another, merely trading glances and more exhausted chuckles.

“Ah... yeah...” Natalie sat up finally. “Hey, did we ever find Jacent?” She panted softly, looking around to a bunch of negative reactions. “A-And what about Grendel? I last saw Jasmine brawling with her, but... it’s kinda quiet now, right?”

“Yeah...” Talon agreed. “Now that you mention it, I’d expect a lot more racket.”

Lorna’s image appeared again. “Alright sweetheart, looks like the mission’s complete! Are you ready to come back?”

“I can’t, Mom,” Nat explained. “We’re still missing Jace and Jazz.”

“You have a lot of injured friends, Natalie,” Lorna said patiently. “Let me send down some Automa. They don’t need to fight to look for your friends.”

Natalie’s ears folded back as she frowned. “Well.” She looked at her pile of allies in various states of hurt and exhaustion. After everything she’d seen, the weight of responsibility felt much more consequential. ”... Okay. But I want all the robots you can get down here!”

Clip edged into frame. “You got it! Nobody knows that city better than us! We’ll find the Destroyer in no time!” She paused. “Uh I mean Jacent. We’ll find... Jacent in no time, okay starting the transport!”

 -
- -
 -

The Ink Well was bustling with activity as always, though the circumstances were auspicious. Mixer and her underlings had been captured and placed into something Archimedes described as a “slave bay”- an ominous name for what ostensibly looked like a five-fold casette deck for sandboxes.

Dr. Grayswift oversaw the imprisonment of Mixer’s gang, making very sure to get a nice picture of Natalie, her friends and herself putting away the crazed killer robots that had started all this- it was probably unnecessary to make such an obvious photo op out of it, but Lorna was all too happy to rub the noses of her naysayers in it, and Natalie was beginning to appreciate the virtue of being positively perceived in the eyes of strangers.

As Natalie walked through the halls, she saw families reuniting- people happy the conflict was over and the city hadn’t been almost reduced to rubble yet again, thanks to the judicious use of Flood Fill. It felt surreal to say ‘hello’ to her classmates, making soft promises of playing another game of netball or showing off her gymnastics again. There was a strange quality to the people of Locksmouth- they were all too ready to shove aside even something this life disrupting and move on as if nothing had happened. Was it the invasion? The many episodes that had happened after it?? Or was there just something about this town that made it resilient to outlandish events? It was hard to know.

Natalie took the elevator up, finding her friends and allies recuperating in the meeting area.

“Man!” Max complained. “You guys get all the luck, I wanted to give Grendel the one-two!”

Jessalynn glanced sidelong at him, unrolling bandages from her arm. “One-two? She’d have given you the ten count.”

“No way!” he insisted. “My style is extra invincible now! Tell them, Natalie!”

“Are you guys alright?” Nat smiled, concerned.

Quincey smiled brightly right back at her, the bridge of her nose crinkling and concentrating her freckles. “We’re okay, Natalie.” Daxton managed a silent thumbs-up, which was about all he could in his condition; the healing had helped, but he was going to take a while to recover his strength. Kenny and Simon seemed uninjured now, both physically and otherwise, buoyed by the emotional support of Shelly. 

Jonesy was sitting up in a chair already, looking strangely satisfied in a way that was rare for him. “That was a good fight. I want another. Soon.”

“Careful what you wish for,” Carrie mumbled through a medstick. “Personally I’m good for a little bit.” She brought a knee up to her considerable chest. “Wish they’d hurry up and find Jacent though.”

That was, indeed, the weight that refused to lift from the room. 

“Hey, um.” Natalie broke the silence. “Where’s Sam?”

“She’s in the back,” Talon thumbed toward a branching room attached to the one they were in. “She wanted me to show her how to work a VCR. Guess she found some tapes down there or somethin’? Didn’t know she was a collector.”

“... She’s... not.” The wolf cocked her head and made her way for it. “Excuse me, guys.”

The sight inside the back room was chaotic. Several holographic vid screens displayed blurry, scanlined footage of ancient facilities- robots, weapons, technology of all kinds strewn here and there without caution. An old male voice with a striking accent droned on about plans, destroyed facilities, new projects, all within seconds of each other, yet at a laborious pace. 

“Atmospheric eraser was too slow...”
“... to build more M types....”
“... perfect genocide engine...”
“Forgot to feed myself again...”
“... all the others are imperfect matches...”
“The boy is getting impatient...”

There was one piece of audio in the middle of it all that kept getting replayed, however.

“...back together... back together... back together... back together...”

“Sam??”

“AH!” The bat snapped out of her trance. “Don’t... scare me like that...”

“Sorry... I know you’re really worried about Jacent.” Natalie looked around. “But, what’re you doing in here?”

Samantha looked up at her, stood up, and pushed past her out into the meeting room.

“Bwah??” She moved aside, then followed. “Sam???”

The diminutive bat kicked the center console, shutting off the holographic display, and climbed up onto it, standing taller than she could normally. “There’s something wrong with all this!”

Kei looked confused. “What do you mean??”

“This entire situation makes no sense,” Samantha stated plainly, pacing around the thing. “Nothing about the way it played out matches up with what we know.”

“Sam, slow down,” Natalie requested. “What are you talking about?”

“We were attacked, right?” The bat poked a finger into her palm. “Grendel decided to fight us out of nowhere, for no reason.”

“Well, yeah,” Talon reasoned. “She’s crazy. She wants to go nuts on people. It’s kind of her thing, right?”

“That’s exactly the problem,” she responded. “We weren’t attacked. We were given a game to play, wherein some of us would be goaded into a fight. When has Grendel ever done this before?”

“War Games. Six issue mini-series,” Jonesy answered. “... A personal favorite.”

“The inking wasn’t great,” Widget commented.

Natalie blinked, remembering the issues he was talking about. “Oh, yeah, War Games. But that just ended up being a ruse so she could blow up as much stuff as possible.”

“That’s exactly my point,” Sam agreed. “Grendel has never hesitated in the face of numbers. She doesn’t care about firepower or the odds of winning or anything else. She’s a death machine made by a madman- the only plans she ever makes stop as soon as it’s time for violence to happen, at which point she gorges herself on all of it at once, as if it were the most addictive thing on earth.” She gestured. “But this time, not so. She ran away from the most violent tussle she could have had several times to go pursue lesser conflicts. She held back.”

“Um??” Kenny asked, incredulous. “She cut my head off,” he reminded her.

“And if she’d so desired, she could have instead blasted you into ash using the gun in her leg,” Samantha stated, pulling out her squirt gun and miming the motion. “I know, because I used it myself.”

Kenny scrunched his brows together. “So you’re saying she went easy on us??”

“No.” She shook her head. “She was just as vicious as always. There was another reason she was holding back.”

“Hmm,” Erwin wondered. “Natalie, you saw her several times, did you notice anything?”

Natalie wracked her brain. “I mean, she was pretty much the same as I’ve always seen her in every issue of Cap’n Comet- other than that new armor.” She paused. “Wait a sec, that thing in her chest! It was glowing brighter... every time I saw her. Like it was getting hotter, or something.”

Samantha pondered this. “But that would mean...”

 -
- -
 -

A metaphorical mile beneath the surface of the earth, something spun. Below Locksmouth. Below the forgotten cities of those who came before. Below the deepest pipe and tunnel, a rotating top 50 yards in diameter drilled ever downward. Gear teeth ground endlessly, endowed with a mechanical hunger no amount of rock and soil could satiate. Sparks flew as metal and stone ground against each other, and in this hellish place, two raven-haired entities fought with vicious ardor.

“HURGHK!!” Jasmine gurgled as she was impaled through the chest for the fourth time. 

The sword was ripped out of her as a giant spectral skeleton fist tore out of the floor and slammed into Grendel like a car, bashing her against the wall for the tenth time. “Urgh... you’re a vicious little monster, aren’t you...”

“You wanted this one-on-one...” She vomited black blood all over the floor- far more than she possessed in her body, on the provisio that she even had a body- and wiped her mouth. “Don’t start crying now.”

Grendel laughed coldly. “You seem a little worse for wear.”

“You know you can’t kill me with this! I’m already- uck, agh, gluck...” She stumbled on her own blood, seeping copious black ooze from her wounds.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” the machine teased. “What could be the problem~?”

“Uch, I just, hgrlgkh, h-hate your stupid face...” she retched. “Makes me nauseous.” She stared up loathingly through her hair, one angry eye leering out. “But you’ll run out of luck before I run out of hate. I’m the s-... strongest there ever was...” she stood, desummoning the skeletal hand and regaining her ‘real’ arm. “You hear me? I’m not scared of your stolen power.” She stumbled and fell to one knee. “Ugh. God damn it...”

 -
- -
 -

“So you noticed it too?”

Natalie’s friends found themselves surprised by the entrance of Lorna, who took up the entire doorway she was leaning on. “Mom?”

She walked in, taking a seat next to where Sam was standing. “I’ve been listening to Nhilus’ insane audio journals longer than anyone, so I’ve learned a lot about this cantankerous old man. And there’s two things he keeps talking about. The first is the Genocide Engine.”

“Do you think that has something to do with what’s going on here?” Dr. Dubois asked.

“I have a theory.” She adjusted her coat collar, then folded her hands in front of her. “We know that PSYCO abilities affect Automa, right?”

“You’re not kidding,” Widget complained.

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Lorna explained. “The Sandbox is the ultimate closed circuit system. Even understanding that they’re people’s brains made into sand-like data structures, there’s no reason anything should be able to interfere with what’s going on in there. The only reason the PSYCOdrive would interfere with one... is if they were related in some way.”

“Oh,” Erwin intuited. “You think they were designed to work against one another?”

“It makes sense to me. The old man was all about contingency plans, so why not make the Genocide Engine to go with it- pit one creation against another? After all, that’s what both Jacent and Grendel actually are, right?”

That question clearly made a lot of people very uncomfortable.

“But!” Shelly butted in. “Like, why would it only work one way then? Automa don’t seem to like, affect PSYCOs the same way from what you told us?”

“Right. But what if that’s because there aren’t multiple Genocide Engines? What if all the other ones were failures? Imperfect attempts to make the one, final, successful one? The Perfect Genocide Engine, able to destroy psychic energy?”

Sam and Widget looked at each other in shock.

“Then they’re in incredible danger.”

“Dr. Grayswift!!” Clip burst into the room. “We have visuals on Jacent!”

 -
- -
 -

~Thap~

The entrance wasn’t thunderous. He’d slid down rope after rope with the use of a towel, the shredded remains of which he tossed now at his feet.

Grendel turned around with a face barely holding back a laugh. “I can’t believe you came here.”

Jacent stood, silent, eyes blank white. Haze emptied from his mouth and nose.

“You could have run away as fast as you can. You could have raised an army. But instead, you come to me? Just. Deliver yourself?” She laughed. “I already tore apart one blind fool today, did you just really want to make it two?”

Jacent wordlessly unfurled a canvas roll full of melee weapons onto the ground. The fog continued to spread at his feet.

“It’s incredible. I thought I’d have to lay a trap for you. Now I can just take care of both of you at once? Really??” She gestured to the sky mockingly. “O lord, thank you for this feast!” 

“Ugh... Jie Xian...” Jasmine struggled to stand in a pool of her own blood. “Why did you come...?”

“He’s committing suicide, stupid,” Grendel retorted coldly. “You drove him to this, of course.”

He fiddled with his PET for a few moments, activating a video feed, then slipping the watch back underneath his bracer.

“F-... Fuck you...” Jasmine coughed. “I’ll fucking kill you...”

“Yeah well I’ll give you plenty of reason to, you little monster,” Grendel purred, her core glowing hot.

Jacent weighed a chinese sword in one hand and a meteor hammer in the other. He frowned at the sword, then tossed it onto the ground. “Are you going to stop talking and kill me with all that godlike power you have now, or what?”

Grendel would normally have ramped up this encounter slowly, reaching a crescendo as was her preference; this time, she decided to cut right to the chase, bolting his direction and throwing a punch to turn his head into something akin to a smashed watermelon. It was cruel. It was overkill. 

It was a complete miss.

Instead, he had ducked down, created a platform out of his arms and slid her along them, launching her into the wall behind him with brutal force- none of which came from him. She had to extricate her fist from the rock wall, landing on the platform again. Confusion registered on her face. “What... was... no. Nevermind.” She ignored this and instead launched a serpentine attack, side-jumping toward him at breakneck speeds until she closed in and kicked him with enough force to shatter his spine into dust. It was brutal. It was merciless.

It was, also, somehow, utterly unable to connect. He jumped just in time to sail right over it, and dropkicked her in the face, sending her sliding across the floor.

She laid there for a moment. “... The first time could have been a mistake.” She rose to her feet. “But you would have to have reacted to the strike a full second before I threw it. I was still advancing then. How are you doing this...?” she demanded, annoyed.

Jacent stood watchfully. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to fight without limits when you’re wielding power you can’t control?” He regarded her carefully. “Jasmine’s powers were a beast I could never fully tame. But now you face me at full strength. My strength.”

“Hahaha, dumb bitch!!” Jasmine mocked, coughing up a lung. “Kick her ass, Jie Xian!”

Grendel drew her burstgun and ignited the sword, beginning a harrying blade dance that was impossible to trace with the naked eye. Her murderous intent grew as she got closer and closer, practically salivating at the idea of finally cutting this fool into horrifying meat slices. Her swing was met with a lean back- he kicked the weapon out of her hand. “You worm,” she raged, swinging at him with deadly force. He dodged her attacks with just barely enough distance to rob them of all force, her limbs sliding across his clothes. Even though it was too fast for a human to see, he stared at her the entire time, dispassionate, patient. She finally got him in a pincer technique from which he couldn’t escape, her eagerness to murder him growing exponentially. “AAARGH!!” Her sword finally landed, pinning her forearm to the floor. She looked up just in time to see Jacent kick her in the chest, ripping components out of her arm by way of the sword-piton still stuck to the floor.

“By her own power, a fool is undone,” he commented.

“You’re really starting to piss me off,” she warned, furious.

Jacent raised his eyebrows. “Then I would suggest, as my good friend Carrie would say, that you die mad about it.”

Grendel flipped end over end, pirouetting in a deadly dance. 

Jacent grabbed the slow, heavy arm she’d stolen off of Winch’s body and sent her to the ground. “Your arm, sundered by a berserker.”

“What?!” She demanded, attempting to kick him in the face.

He twisted out of the way, her movements slowed by her inflexibly welded torso. He yanked with all his weight and leverage, pulling the poorly secured arm off with the entirety of his body. “... Your core, shattered by a bolt of light.”

“DIE.” Grendel kicked him off, something he seemed moderately prepared for. Her chest grew white-hot and blinding, a deafening energy discharge sounding as she blasted a beam of plasma the size of a house at him.

He threw his meteor hammer at her before it fired, creating a cone of safety that he jumped up into, landing just when the beam ended, having ripped through both metal balls. “Your beam emitter, bent and weakened by a boxer and brawler.”

The death robot glowed hot with rage, firing her burstgun at Jacent. He dodged the line of shots with aggravating dexterity. A loud terrible grinding sounded; she activated her arm-mounted SSANsporter and began shooting bursts of plasma into a static distortion. The resultant storm of plasma that shot through the tunnel was a veritable hail of ultra-hot bullets and falling debris shot out of the walls of the tunnel- a constantly rotating maze of death. 

Jacent leapt, slid, jumped, dropped and rolled out of the way of the indiscriminate shower of doom as if he’d had days to practice doing so, before kicking Grendel back into the portal-bent fire of her own gun. Metal shredded as she lost both legs, and he kicked her gun away into the hot metal grinder at the edges of the drill platform. “Your sensors dulled by a knight of polarity- your anti plasma coating dispersed by a knight of the sound.”

And then, as if he’d expected it the entire time, Jacent stood back and allowed himself a little smile as his friends, finally unburdened by walls of plasma and sub-space pollution, appeared behind him in one big smash of green static.

~(_)~ 

On the Ink Well, Clip, Truss and Clutch hugged each other and cheered, startling everyone around them, before their infectious enthusiasm grew.

~(_)~

Grendel stared up at Jacent with utter disbelief. Every single possible long-shot thing that could happen, had happened. She hadn’t managed to kill a nearly-powerless man with flawless attacks, all because he simply knew some things she didn’t. That was farcical. That was ridiculous.

“That was awesome,” Jasmine laughed, now fully healed and walking around to face the robot. “Well, bitch, how’s that humble pie taste?”

“This is... extremely embarrassing,” Grendel admitted, sobered.

“That’s what happens!” Jessalynn mimed a right hook at her.

“You fucked around and found out!” Daxton taunted.

She looked aside. “Hm. Well, I guess it’s okay. I win anyway.”

There was a pause. “... Wow J-Man you broke her head, too,” Talon grinned.

“... Hey. What’s-” Jasmine looked at her hands, which were now appearing to crumble, little by little, layer by layer, into infinitesimal bits of dust. “What’s going on...?”

“What should have happened in the first place, all those years ago,” Grendel cooed.

Samantha’s mind processed sixteen things at once, and they all flashed into her head in one realization. She furiously dug out the note from her pocket.

[ === ===
Nhilation Labs Test Subject #6
TEMP Score: 9010
Status: Retrieve
[ === ===

Retrieve.

Retrieve.

“Oh..... no...” Sam whispered with dread.

“The PSYCOdrive and the Genocide Engine weren’t meant to work against each other...” Shelly realized. “They were supposed to work together.”

“Wait!” Quincey blinked. “Grendel’s going to eat Jasmine???”

“And her psychic powers with it,” Erwin confirmed grimly. “Because, physically speaking, that’s her sandbox. Grendel... is Jasmine.”

“No,” Widget gasped, horrified. She grabbed Jasmine’s hand desperately. “Stop it! Stop this!!”

“They can’t,” Grendel said peacefully. There was a disquieting nature to her serenity. “I originally needed to kill Jacent to free Jasmine’s ‘soul.’ But now I have enough power that I can simply rip her from him passively.”

“Wonder if that works when you don’t,” Jonesy said, stepping forward with the remains of Rhend’s destructive power.

“Sure, kill me,” she shrugged. “The reaction’s too far gone to stop now, except by use of her powers. Destroy me and you’ll just set off my reactor- a psychic detonation made to kill all sentient life it can reach in one gigantic shockwave.” A sick look of pleasure came over her face. “How far will it reach? This planet? This star system? Maybe even further... the predicted range was possibly infinite. The Perfect Genocide Engine.” Her eyes glazed over blissfully at the thought. “Oh, and even if you managed not to set it off, Jasmine would die with me anyway- why do you think those cowards failed to hit me when I was down?”

Jonesy’s brow pinched at the middle. His allies behind him reeled at the gravity of what she’d just said. It beggared belief, but... was it really out of the realm of possibility? With everything that had happened? Nhilus’ greatest creation... the ultimate cessation of life.

“No! D-Dammit...!” Jacent punched the ground helplessly. “Why...? I accounted for everything... I finally won! I did everything right... w-why can’t I-...” His knuckles bled, tears falling from his eyes.

“Even a man with future sight can’t see what he refuses to,” Grendel mocked him.

A sickening feeling of despair was beginning to wash over them. This was a trap set up by a sick monster, someone who selfishly wished to die and take the entire world with him, even so long after the fact.

“... There’s one more option,” Jasmine said, summoning her bat.

Natalie blinked. “What’re you doing??”

Jazz didn’t look back. “If I kill the reaction with my powers, with everything I have, I can limit it to just one death.” She swallowed. “Mine.”

Grendel frowned, which was all the tell they needed to know it was true.

Natalie’s heart sank as she remembered Pathos’ words. Destroy the Dragon. The two halves that made the whole were right here, and destroying one... “But-!”

“Take care of Widge, okay Jie Xian?”

Jacent shut his eyes tightly, nodding as best he could.

“NO!” Widget cried. “No, no, no no no no no, you can’t! You can’t do that!! PLEASE!!!” Jacent held her back, and their friends looked on with dread.

This couldn’t be happening. It was a cruel joke. Natalie’s mind raced, playing those words over and over in her head. Destroy the Dragon. Destroy the Dragon. “Wait...” There was another half. She was forgetting the first half. Cowardice kills. Ugh, that was even worse! It wrenched her heart. She didn’t want to let Jasmine go. She’d known her less than a day and the thought of losing her, even for the greater good, was agonizing- it was cruel to characterize her soft heart as a weakness, as cowardice. Her very being rebelled against it. “But Jazz!” Natalie protested, trying even just to buy some time. “You waited all this time to live again! Widget- she spent all this time just to see you again!”

Jasmine grimaced, tortured. “Don’t you think I know that?!” she snapped. “Dammit, Grayswift! It’s not like I wanted this! Sometimes you just don’t get a choice. Sometimes, shit just happens outside of your control, and you don’t get a happy ending.” She wound up her hitting stance. “That’s my... fucking life story,” she muttered in miserable resignation.

~Pthap~

Jasmine tugged, then looked up, and back. Natalie’s hand was firmly wrapped around the bat’s head, holding it in place. Her eyes were smoldering with purpose. The wolf radiated pink and black energy, exuding will from her body. “This isn’t your story,” she said forcefully.

Her face now framed by the light of a core that was warping with heat, Jasmine blinked, bewildered. “What...?”

Natalie pulled something strange from out of a mirror in her pocket. It was... a marble, stolen from a playroom. Well, it looked like many shapes failing to congeal into a singular form, resembling a handful of ever-changing, otherworldly insects... but it also just looked like a simple marble. It ate the mirror and spread to her flesh, defocusing her hands from reality, making them phase in and out in maddening ways. “This is my story now,” she said with steely resolve, picking up Grendel by the neck with one corrupted hand and burning her other hand on the core. “And like it or not, you’re still a part of it!” she cried, summoning every last ounce of strength to activate the abilities of Waymaker Pathos.

Simon recognized what she was doing. It was arrogant- no, it was insane. But worst of all, it wasn’t going to work. Echelon would have to Shade to perfect-copy Pathos’ ability, but that left Natalie’s flesh unprotected- and perhaps not enough to do what she was trying to in the first place. “Guys!!” he motioned desperately. “Your prana! Give it to me!!” He ran over to Natalie, desperately searched for somewhere to place his hands, then finally decided this was no time for modesty, wrapping his arms around her hips and hanging on as tight as he could. “Hurry!!” he pleaded, activating Lizbet’s abilities.

“Natalie needs our help!” Carrie called on her pack, each one of them grabbing Simon’s tail in turn and funneling their life force into him.

Simon winced, watching the corruption spread up Natalie’s arms. “Nngh... she needs more!”

“Right! Come on!!” Daxton led his troupe, each putting a hand on the boy’s head and willing him their strength.

“Hhmmmnnngghhh...” Natalie stared Grendel down with a manic grin, teeth gritted, sweat pouring down her face. “M-... man this hurts...”

Simon’s face was flush with sweat from the effort of having all of this prana pumped through him, supercharging its efficiency and giving it to the wolf in front of him. “Just... a little more...!”

“Let’s go!” Talon ran over with Jonesy, Roselyn, Jacent and even Widget, who gripped Simon’s arms and made their essences his, and therefore hers.

Simon watched with bated breath as Echelon’s trademark black and pink body began to manifest on Natalie’s arms, creating a border between her flesh and the corruption. “It’s working! IT’S WORKING!!” he cried.

Natalie Grayswift let out a cry of herculean effort, having pushed this boulder all the way up the hill with the help of her friends and allies. She focused everything into one singular desire, made it the focal point of her entire mind, and manifested Pathos’ powers just once, for a second.

 -
- -
 -

Heat.

Heat was the one thing that made life possible.

Heat was the spark of desire, of imagination, making it even conceivable that anything might exist.

Heat had died here, long ago. It had been ages longer than the time that it had existed. There was no light here. No warmth. Nothing, except an infinite vastness that had, after a staggeringly, unthinkably long life, finally decided to wither and pass into darkness.

A speck appeared. Blue. Brilliant, like a sapphire.

Deep in its darkest recesses, it shrieked a horrible scream that burned right down to the soul, a mind rending reaper’s call to the underworld.

But this world, in all its placidity, would have to have awoken to even hear it at all.

Instead, it peacefully slumbered.

 -
- -
 -

“AAAAGH!!” Natalie fell backward onto Simon and countless other friends. Grendel’s shocked head, now sans any body at all, deactivated, powerless, and clattered onto the floor.

It took what felt like minutes for the shock to wear off.

Natalie slowly rose. She realized after a few moments why it was so hard to get up, staring at the six inch long Echelon-colored stumps that remained of her arms. “Haha... hahahahaha.....” She used her abdominal muscles to rise into a sitting position. “Did... did it work??”

Jasmine stared, dumbfounded, at the dog girl. “... I can’t believe you.” She shook her head. “That was insane. You could’ve died. We all could have died. Why-...” she muttered breathlessly, staring at her feet. “What the f-... what were you...”

The wolf breathed a soundless laugh. “Do you know what cowardice is?”

Jazz blinked, disarmed.

Natalie panted softly. “Cowardice... is sacrificing a friend because someone else said that you had to.” She rose completely to her feet with the help of her countless allies, sitting, to kneeling, to standing. “If I did that, it wouldn’t be my story anymore; it’d be the story of some sad girl who gave up because she got scared.” She stared at her intensely, brash and confident. “That’s just not who I am.”

Numbness faded into delirium for Jasmine. She sputtered. Snickered. Then laughed uproariously. She wheezed and doubled over and fell to her hands and knees, and the laughter became sobbing and the sobs became laughter again. She gathered up her composure, grabbed Grendel’s hair in her hands, then lifted her face-to-face with herself. “If you’d given me a million chances, I couldn’t have seen this coming.” She pointed to Grendel’s face, goading her. “Which is why you couldn’t either!” She broke out in hysterical laughter again, as the robot’s blank expression returned nothing. “Natalie Grayswift... you are the wildest bitch I’ve ever met in my life.” She wiped a tear from her face and slung Grendel’s head behind her back like a ruck sack. “Let’s go home.”

And everyone present cheered one last exhausted hurrah. Finally, finally they had won the day.

 -
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