Pray for the Wicked - Chapter 28 - JCMorrigan (2024)

Chapter Text

Back then…

Something was wrong with Ganath Haros.

That much was evident the moment Tari and her party set foot on its swamplands. There was an air of misery hanging thick in the atmosphere, one that could hardly be explained. When they reached the capital city of Pelegion and beheld its towering crystal spires, however, they realized what was wrong.

The city gates were held by a league of guards who bade the six heroes halt.

“Are you Tari and her companions?” one of them asked.

“They have names…” Tari began before realizing that maybe tipping their hand and giving too much information to the enemy was not the smartest opening move. She cleared her throat; “What makes you think I’m her?”

“You are the only ones scheduled to arrive,” said the guard. “And there are no unscheduled arrivals in Ganath Haros!”

Theo shivered. “Okay, that’s super creepy.”

“Well, maybe we ARE unscheduled.” Tari folded her arms. “Maybe we just wanted to drop by and see the kingdom. Unannounced.”

“I’ll ask you one more time,” the guard seethed. “Are you Tari and her companions?”

“We HAVE NAMES!” Law yelled.

“And no one ever said those names were Tari’s friends!” Rinwell said hurriedly to cover for his blunder.

“Then I’m afraid you cannot pass,” said the guard. “Only one traveling party is allowed safe passage to Castle del Fharis. Leave the premises now or we will be forced to take action.”

Maybe protecting their identities was the real mistake. “Is it too late to say we ARE Tari and friends?” Tari laughed nervously.

The guards were already rallying up their weapons.

“I think I just put a miniboss fight where one shouldn’t be,” Tari realized.

“No matter.” Dohalim braced his staff. “I don’t see how this should be any more difficult than Almeidrea’s pet.”

He was right. The guards fell quite easily, and the way Tari decided to see it, it was free EXP that they wouldn’t have gotten in the base game.

“Now,” Kisara resolved, dusting off her hands as she stepped over the fallen Renan armor. “Let’s see what Vholran has waiting for us.”

She shoved at the city gates, unable to budge them at first. Law joined in, and between the two of them, the massive gates creaked open, revealing Pelegion’s azure streets and plazas.

“So he’s just waiting for us?” Law reiterated. “He was willing to let us get in without a fight?”

“The fight was more fun anyway,” Theo scoffed.

“I’m just not sure how smart it is to…walk in through the front door,” Rinwell admitted. “If he’s waiting for us…then he has something planned that he thinks can beat us.”

“Or he trusts entirely too much in his own status as Sovereign,” Dohalim countered. “Perhaps he has been made overconfident by Rena’s experiments.”

“I’m hoping it’s that second one,” said Tari.

On they proceeded, the glass streets clicking beneath their feet, and the problem with Ganath Haros soon became painfully clear. Pelegion was a ghost town. Fountains and waterfalls crashed, and that was the only visible movement. No people. No stray cats. Not even any more of the guards from before.

“Not a slave in sight,” Kisara observed. “Where is everyone? There aren’t even any soldiers.”

“Something feels off,” Rinwell agreed. “I don’t like it.”

“Like the fact that the enemy could ambush us at any moment?” said Law. “Yeah. Not crazy about that either.”

“No, not that,” Rinwell insisted. “Something else.”

“That must be Vholran’s castle up ahead,” Dohalim identified. “I suppose he’ll let us walk right up to it, then?”

“It doesn’t sound like the smartest idea on paper,” Tari admitted, “but Shionne’s in there. And I’m not letting her suffer a second longer than she has to.” She looked up at the castle’s tallest spire. “I’m not even sure what Vholran wants from her. That’s what scares me the most.”

“Hostage?” Theo suggested. “Prisoner? Is he gonna turn her into a trophy to decorate his room like an achievement?”

“That’s it,” Rinwell realized, eyes wide. “I realized what’s so wrong about this city. It’s not just that it’s empty. It’s that it feels…like decoration. Artifical. Like no one’s supposed to live here at all.”

“Or like a prison,” Law added. “That vibe’s strong.”

“Think maybe it’s a district just for the Renans alone?” Kisara asked, worry creeping into her voice.

“With all this open space?” Law countered. “Seems unlikely.”

A sonorous bell chimed from the high tower of the castle. All could hear it, despite being at the city’s edge. “That can’t mean anything good,” Tari commented.

The next sound to follow it up was that of chanting, steadily getting closer: “Glory be to Ganath Haros. Glory be to Vholran. Glory be to Ganath Haros…”

“Where is it coming from?” Kisara wondered aloud.

“Over there!” Theo pointed through the railing of one of the bridges that overlooked a canal on the lower level. A small rowboat made its way steadily down the canal. It was filled with the first Dahnans that anyone had seen so far in Pelegion, all with bowed heads and chanting the same two statements ad infinitum.

Law ran over to the railing, waving to flag them down. “HEY! YOU GUYS! WHAT’S GOING ON?”

They did not answer. They didn’t even look at him. They just kept their heads down, as though Law didn’t exist in their perception, and kept chanting. It was around this time that Law also noticed that despite the boat being designed like a rowboat, no one was rowing. It was propelled by water artes – set on a course that no passenger could stop.

“What was THAT about?” Law said incredulously as the boat kept proceeding, under the bridge and onward into the city. “They were Dahnans, right?”

“That wasn’t normal,” said Rinwell. “…Wait. You don’t think it could’ve been the Fruit of Helgan, do you?”

“No,” Dohalim said flatly. “They seem too…docile. What about astral energy? Could you sense any coming from them?”

“No,” Rinwell said, growing ever dourer. “And I’m pretty sure I could tell if it was. If not that, though…then what?”

Tari’s stomach twisted. “Something’s wrong. Even more wrong than we thought.”

“It didn’t even look like anyone was guarding them,” said Law.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Theo asked.

“Why wouldn’t Vholran put anyone there to make sure they wouldn’t escape?” Law posed. “Why didn’t anyone choose to get off the boat?”

“We HAVE to follow that boat,” Tari resolved. She took off running. No one argued with her, all just hurrying to keep pace.

A steady rain began to fall. The party made their way to a gate at the end of the road, one which seemed locked. However, opening it was a secondary priority, for the boat had arrived at the end of its journey. The bridge where Tari and her friends stood overlooked the canal’s conclusion. Still chanting, the passengers rode inside of what seemed to be some sort of garage, the entrance to a tunnel under the castle.

Then, the minute they were through, every person aboard was vaporized. Only astral energy remained in the boat.

The sickening feeling in Tari’s stomach grew stronger. She’d thought Almeidrea’s massacre would be the worst of it.

“Tari!” Kisara pointed up toward the castle.

Tari had no words. The castle was glowing. Light was pouring from the canals – no, from the tunnels at the ends of the canals – up toward the glowing central spire, where the Master Core must have been kept.

“Astral energy!” Rinwell gasped. “But then – that means – “

Tari looked back out to the canal. An adjacent tunnel spat an empty boat back out. Sparkles of light trailed off of it, joining the stream that fed the core. She almost lost her stomach’s contents then and there. “They’re…they’re being FARMED for their astral energy, and…and butchered…”

“HEYYYYY!” Theo waved down at another boat. “YOU’RE ALL GONNA DIE IN THERE! GET OFF THE BOAT NOW!”

They took no notice. “Glory be to Vholran…”

“THAT’S THE GUY WHO’S MURDERING YOUR FRIENDS!” Theo yelled. “YOU GOTTA LISTEN!”

“Glory be to Ganath Haros…”

“They…may already know,” Dohalim realized. “Yet they continue to praise. It seems they are well aware of their final fate. They simply…do not care.” He shuddred.

The gates to the tunnels lowered. The gates in front of the party of six opened up of their own accord.

“It seems we’re being summoned,” Dohalim realized.

“He…he wanted us to see…that…” Tari bit her lip hard to keep from being sick. Her head swam, and she feared she might faint. Not even Sheridan had gotten the chance to do anything this horrific.

“THAT MURDERING MONSTER!” Law yelled.

“It’s all a demonstration designed to provoke,” Dohalim said matter-of-factly. “To prove to us – no, to Tari – just what he’s capable of.”

Kisara put a hand on Tari’s shoulder to steady her. “Are you going to be all right?”

“I have to be.” Tari glared up at the gates. “He’s waiting for me. All this because I’m the Sovereign. No – because Alphen was the Sovereign. I didn’t even ask to be, and neither did he! But…I know that even if there was no other Sovereign, he would still be this monster. All those people who die – it’s to put the energy back in his hands. What if it’s a warning? What if what he’s really telling me is that if I don’t hurry – if I don’t face him – then Shionne will…”

She began to walk briskly through the gates. “We have to hurry,” she insisted.

“You really think he’d…do that to Shionne?” Law asked as the others ran after her.

“I don’t think anything is too depraved for Lord Vholran,” said Dohalim. “I believe I see, now, why he kept his distance from the rest of us in Lenegis. Had I known this is what he would become…then I would have done everything in my power to stop him from ascending to the throne.”

Only a short time later…

Two years. It had been two years, to the day, since the fateful events that had taken place at the horror park called Illbleed. In that time, Eriko, Kevin, Michel, and Randy had graduated. The former three had been accepted to different colleges across the state; Randy bided his time doing odd jobs while waiting for a football scholarship to magically drop into his lap.

Their lives might have gone separate ways, but the four of them always, always made sure to meet up at least once a month in their hometown. And always, on the anniversary of when Eriko had rescued the other three from Illbleed, they gathered at the same beach where Eriko had declared she would be going back to fight her way through the park alone.

Maybe it was those events that had made them inseparable. Maybe it was their shared love of horror movies, and all the new entries to the genre that needed to be evaluated. Or maybe they were always meant to be part of one another’s lives, even without the trauma of what had happened.

“Where’s Jorg?” Kevin asked as he stretched out his striped beach towel. “Not coming this year?” A reference to a man they’d met on Illbleed’s grounds, who had become a satellite to their group.

“He had a hot date with his new girlfriend,” Eriko answered.

“Oh?” Kevin’s brows raised. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

“Anna Liddell,” said Eriko.

“Anna Liddell?” Michel repeated. “That name sounds so familiar.”

“Are you kidding me?” Eriko laughed. “You forgot already the name of the voice actress who played Queen Worm Rachel? Apparently when my father ‘hired’ her for the park, it was more of a kidnapping scenario, and she was forced to record lines for the animatronics in exchange for food. Getting rid of him meant she could live a normal life again. I imagine all the park staff have it better now that he’s not around.”

She stared off into the sunset. A particular face swimming across her memory. And, well, another notable part of the body besides the face.

“I wonder where she is,” Eriko muttered.

“You’re STILL on about Sexy Doll?” Michel laughed. “She was just playing a character! It’s not like she actually liked you! No offense.”

“That…sounded pretty offensive,” Randy pointed out.

“No, she’s right,” said Eriko. “And I guess I shouldn’t care. The crush was mostly physical.”

“I’m pretty sure that butt was at least part fake anyway,” said Kevin.

“That doesn’t mean I wanted anything bad to happen to her after the park closed down, though,” said Eriko. “Jorg found Anna, so…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. She isn’t here, and we all are.”

Randy held up a pigskin; “Wanna play Beach Football?”

Everyone agreed that was a good idea, and spent the next while playing a very truncated version of American football that involved a lot of sand. Afterward, they brought out sandwiches and chatted, at first about the weird sandwiches that Randy had brought (“Nutella and Velveeta? Gross!”) and then about other things. Their lives, their academic and professional performances, the movies they’d seen and wanted to see.

“They’re making a new Matt Helms slasher!” Michel said excitedly. “Matt 7: At The Mountains of Matt-ness.”

“Seriously?” Kevin groaned. “Haven’t they run out of Matt ideas? They’ve done everything!”

“I’d rather see him than another Killerman,” Eriko stated.

“Yeah, Killerman’s done to death,” said Michel. “Literally, since he died anonymously in the middle of Illbleed. Super weird that he ended up being a real person.”

“You think Matt Helms is a real person in some other kind of…Akashic dimension?” Randy asked.

“He better f*cking not be,” Eriko said.

“Akashic?” Kevin repeated. “Stop making up words.”

Eventually, the sun set, leaving the four in star-spangled darkness. It was time to pack up, stuff everything in Eriko’s dented-up beater car, and begin the long drive home through the woods.

Sure, driving through the forest at night with only the car headlights to see with was unnerving, and maybe not the best idea for four people who’d been through so much horror-related trauma. But by that point, they’d all seen far scarier. None of them was really afraid of the dark. (Not anymore. Eriko had experienced a panic attack for a few days after the death of her father – but then recovered, a little to Kevin’s dismay.)

However, all four of them were afraid of the prospect of being charged with vehicular manslaughter. Which was why, when the headlights suddenly lit up a figure standing in the road around a sharp turn, Michel, Randy, and Kevin all screamed for Eriko to stop the car.

At that momentum, actually stopping wouldn’t have worked in time, so Eriko instead jerked the wheel. The car’s front end slammed into a tree and crumpled mildly. Infuriated, Eriko popped open the driver’s-seat door and went marching toward the person who she blamed for the crash.

“ERIKO!” Michel yelled. “I’M PICKING UP BAD PSYCHIC VIBES FROM THAT GUY!”

But Eriko didn’t care. She kept on course to the person – a man wearing a long, hooded cloak that seemed burgundy in the taillights of the car. “Hey, pal!” she barked. “What do you think you’re doing standing in the middle of the road?” She gestured to her car. “You see this? You could’ve gotten yourself and all of us killed! Are you LISTENING to me – “

Only now was she registering the horns that protruded from the man’s hood. Some sort of odd hat, she hoped. But then the man turned to look at her, fixing luminous red eyes upon her. In the taillight glow, she could see his face, withered and skeletal. Like something out of her father’s film catalog.

“I would not have died,” he stated in a voice that sounded positively unearthly. “You, however, are fated to.”

“What ARE you?” Eriko yelled. “Is that some kind of cheap costume, or are you from the same planet my dad’s from?”
“I am the Horned King,” the figure stated. “I have come to witness the destruction of this world.”

“Okay, you better start explaining yourself right now,” Eriko growled. “How the f*ck are you going to destroy the world? Because I can’t let that happen, and telling me your plan was your first mistake – “

Then she was thrown back, flying until her back connected with a tree. She dropped to the ground, winded but thankfully not hurt beyond bruising.

“ERIKO!” Michel, Kevin, and Randy screamed. Kevin started trying to open his door to run out and check on her, but it was jammed shut from the car’s deformation. Michel and Randy just cowered – they loved Eriko, but they had a feeling that if they went out there without a plan, it would just result in them both dying immediately and being no help to anyone.

Eriko’s head swam, but she forced herself to her feet.

“Your actions are futile,” said the Horned King. “Even now, the warship rises high overhead.”

“What warship?” Eriko snapped. “What the f*ck are you talking about?”

“ERIKO!” Kevin screamed. “UFO AT TWELVE O’CLOCK!”

She turned to look at the car, where all three of her friends were pointing into the sky. Then up to where they were pointing, to see that a massive object had blotted out most of the stars.

“…No way,” Eriko breathed. However, she knew better than anyone else that alien encounters were possible and all too real on her world. After all, she was the byproduct of one of them.

From the bottom of the spaceship, a massive drill protruded, pointing directly down into the earth like a snake’s striking fang. As it pierced the surface, the whole planet shook. Eriko was nearly thrown back to the ground.

Then the drill began to turn, and Eriko felt it in her bones.

“Dominator’s part begins,” said the Horned King. “Thus does mine end. And yet…not before I leave a parting gift.”

He threw out his arms to either side. His hands blazed with fire, the light displaying just how rotted they were. He hurled one fireball one way, and another in the opposite direction. Both struck the wood of the trees, catching quickly on the flammable forest.

Darkness swallowed the Horned King. He was gone as quickly as he’d arrived. Dominator’s spaceship, however, was going nowhere.

Eriko’s experience with her father had taught her that she wasn’t fully immune to fear. In order for something to shake her, however, it had to be extremely far outside the reaches of what she could ever expect, or deeply connected to something she held dear. Under these conditions, it was easy for her to understand why, when she saw the literal cracks forming in the ground beneath the burning forest, she felt a spike of pure terror.

Back to the car. She slammed herself back into the driver’s seat, throwing the vehicle in reverse and careening away from the tree before zooming forward along the road, trying to beat the flames.

“WHAT’RE WE GONNA DO?” Kevin yelped. “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! WHAT’RE WE GONNA DO?”

“I’m trying to get a psychic reading on whatever’s in that spaceship!” Michel said. “But I’ve got nothing!”

“Hey, Eriko,” said Randy. “You’re half alien. You got any idea what this is?”

“I hope you realize that’s like asking someone from Norway what’s going on with South Africa because neither one is in the States,” Eriko snarked, keeping her focus on the road so she could make sharp turns while flooring it as much as possible. “This has nothing to do with me…I think. And if it does, no one told me about it.”

The earth shook again. “I’m getting panicked readings from all over the planet,” Michel panted. “Everyone’s afraid, all over the world!”

Michel’s psychic powers were dubious at best. There was room to doubt that she was doing anything but projecting her own fear upon the world. But still Eriko snapped, “Kevin. Radio.”

“Y-yes ma’am!” Kevin flipped on the radio. “Rock or Top 40?”

“Ugh – NEWS!” Eriko yelled, jerking the wheel in order to avoid a collision with a heavy trunk.

She didn’t even need to worry about specifying. Every single radio station had been hijacked by the news broadcast that sought to inform the people of the world exactly what the context was of this disaster: “Reports say that half of Australia has already broken off of the planet, exposing the mantle and entering the atmosphere as a satellite. The planet’s gravitational field is weakening due to the colossal structural failure. This…may truly be the end times.”

“IT REALLY IS ALL OVER THE WORLD?” Michel shrieked. “I MEAN – I KNEW IT WAS, BUT I WAS HOPING I WAS WRONG!”

All four of the friends’ cell phones went off at once. Not hard to guess who. “Somebody answer mine and put it on speaker for me!” Eriko barked.

Kevin was quick to the uptake yet again, grabbing her cell and holding it out to her, the call answered and amplified. At the same time, he answered his own; “Dad! I don’t know – I don’t KNOW; I’m really scared!”

At the same time, Michel and Randy sobbed to their own parents:

“Mom, I’m so sorry! I’m sorry for everything! I love you!”

“MOMMY, DADDY, I’M SCARED AND I JUST WANNA GO HOME! …WHAT DO YOU MEAN HOME GOT DESTROYED?”

From Eriko’s phone, the voice of her panicked mother emitted: “Eriko? ERIKO! Eriko, honey – “

“I’m fine,” Eriko said. Calm as ever. She’d had enough time by now to get used to the fact that the world was ending. “But I have no idea what happens next.”

“Where ARE you?”

“Driving home from the beach,” said Eriko. “Or…trying to, anyway. I can’t exactly promise that I’ll make it.”

“Eriko, honey,” her mom panted, “whatever happens tonight, I want you to know that I love you, and I always will love you, and I’m sorry for everything I put you through when you were a kid. And I – “

“I love you too, Mom,” Eriko stated. “And I’m not mad. I just hope I can make it home.”

“Honey, there isn’t any ‘home’ anymore. The neighbors and I are out on the street corner, the houses are falling into sinkholes, there’s this…Darkness raining from the sky – “

“Then I’ll come pick you up,” said Eriko.

“You might not make it. No…I know you won’t. Focus on saving yourself, Eriko. And no matter what happens – “

“I can’t just sit back and not try,” Eriko stated firmly. “But if I don’t make it, then…I’ll remember you fondly for the rest of my life, however short that is. I have to go now. The woods are on fire, and if I don’t focus, the flames will catch up to me.”

“Eriko? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE WOODS – “

Eriko disconnected the call. “I’ve said everything I need to,” she muttered. “You just have to take me at my word now.”

There was a massive shudder. She saw what had caused it. Her mother’s words about Darkness raining from the sky finally made sense. Black orbs composed of shadow, falling down to impact the ground. Where they hit, the cracks grew wider.

The ground dropped away from under the back wheel of the beater car. Michel shrieked, clinging to Randy, and he shrieked louder, clinging right back to Michel. Eriko kept her course, and the car thumped back to solid ground.

However, to say they were between a rock and a hard place was an understatement. Between the flames, the falling orbs, and the cracking earth, there seemed to be no respite. All Eriko could do was stay on the road, since trying to drive between the trees would be suicide. And if the road got blocked, then…

Well. She’d learn that the hard way. Because one of the dark orbs was on a collision course with the car.

The gas pedal literally hit the floor. The car sped as fast as it could. A couple awful pops sounded from beneath the hood – the vehicle had paid its price for hitting the tree earlier. The engine stuttered.

“Come on,” Eriko growled.

The car wouldn’t be clear before the orb hit.

“COME ON!”

The orb dropped right on top of the car. Now all that could be seen outside the windows was Darkness. Pure Darkness, like thick, black construction paper forming the background of existence. Eriko kept the car going straight and hit no obstacle. This was a problem because if they were still in the woods, there should have been trees, or stumps where the trees had been.

“Where…are we?” Kevin asked, trembling.

“We’re in the void!” Randy gasped. “We’re gonna be lost forever! There’s no way out!”

“IS THIS HOW WE DIE?” Michel shrieked.

Eriko was the only one to see the glimmer of light ahead. She gunned the speed, aiming the car’s crumpled nose toward the pinprick.

The engine groaned and coughed. The car lost power briefly, then regained it.

“ALMOST - !” Eriko gasped through gritted teeth.

The light became wide and bright enough to swallow the car. The vehicle burst out of the Darkness and immediately came to a screeching halt. A loud THUMP and CLANG indicated a collision of some sort. Then the car died completely, putting the four friends at a standstill.

There was a heavy silence for a moment. Then, they all realized they had to address the elephant in the room: the fact that outside the car, there was no longer black nothingness. There was now, very definitely, something and somewhere.

“Where…are we?” Michel asked timidly.

Randy pressed his face to the glass of his window. “There’s a lot of lights. Maybe we’re in Vegas!”

Eriko slowly got out of the car, setting foot on the brown flagstones beneath the tires. What the car had knocked over was a lamppost, and though at first it looked pretty dented from the collision, a quick look at its nearby twin, still standing, proved that it had always been that crooked, a sign of whimsicality. Though the lampposts gave off a warm, cozy light, they were outshined by the bright lights that signaled the location of the Accessory Shop.

Eriko only needed this one look at Traverse Town to realize that she was nowhere near anywhere she would recognize.

The others had all crawled out through her open door to avoid fiddling with the broken locks on their own. “Yeah, it’s Vegas!” Randy said with complete certainty.

“No, it looks more like Paris,” Michel mused.

“You’re both wrong,” said Kevin. “This is Galena, Illinois. I’d recognize it anywhere.”

“I’m not sure this is a place we could find on a map,” Eriko said in awe. “We’d better find a local and ask around.”

However, by that time, a few locals were already hurrying on their way to see the crashed car. “Are you all right?” Pavo asked in concern, having abandoned the shop counter. “What happened to you?”

He was followed by Mog and Fish. “Are you here from another world, kupo?” Mog asked.

Fish reminded Mog of the other refugees, the family Madrigal and their neighbors who’d come riding over in Casita. As far as he was concerned, this was no coincidence.

“…It is very concerning indeed, kupo,” Mog agreed.

“We’re…um…fine physically,” Eriko responded. “Where are we?”

“Did that guy say ‘another world’?” Michel hissed to Kevin.

“You’re in Traverse Town,” said Pavo. “And if you’re here, that means either you’ve been on a long trip through the cosmos…or you’ve just been stranded without anywhere else to go.”

Eriko blinked once. “Well. I guess it really was the end of the world. f*ck.”

Here and now…

The interrogation chamber of Naraka was golden, of course. Stevie and Quirrell were slammed down into golden chairs, locked in at their wrists and ankles.

“This is cruel and unusual punishment,” Stevie tried to argue. “I bet if I told the higher-ups what was going on in this prison, they’d defund you. Don’t try me, or I WILL get you defunded by God.”

The angels responded by using the interrogation chair to pump electricity into her, turning her into a shrieking, writhing mass of pain. Quirrell swallowed hard and resolved to hold his own tongue.

The torture was ended, and Stevie had a chance to catch her breath and slow her heart rate. “Interrogation may begin,” said one of the angels who’d brought them in and strapped them down.

Then all of said angels stood around and stared blankly at Quirrell and Stevie.

“…Well?” Stevie panted, at the risk of getting zapped again. “Are you going to interrogate us or what?”

“Apologies for the inconvenience,” said one angel.

“Apologies are not required for sinners,” said another.

“Standard interrogation procedure dictates that the process is usually carried out by Pael’s right hand,” said a third. “However, Pael’s most recent right hand, designated under the legal name ‘Fingers,’ is on a leave of absence.”

“What happened to him?” Stevie asked hoarsely, against her better judgment.

“He failed Pael, thereby committing insubordination, and was severed from his heart,” said the third angel. “His soul was terminated and his body stored in the Graveyard of Right Hands Past, where it will rot evermore alongside his past and future incarnations.”

“That’s not a leave of absence,” said Stevie. “That’s upper management literally killing whoever doesn’t comply. You’re all scared stiff of this ‘Pael,’ aren’t you?”

“Personal feelings on Pael are a classified topic of discussion during work hours,” said the second angel.

“Pael’s command is absolute in the plane of Naraka,” said the first. “To disobey is insubordination and will be punished.”

Stevie now knew the name of her enemy. Good. And from the sounds of it, it wasn’t God him/her/them/itself giving the orders. That meant there was a chance she actually was right about upper management not fully being aware of the atrocities committed here. “So what’s the big question, then? What is it you need from the two of us?”

“Reports state that you hail from the same world as a wanted target,” said the first angel. “The target is liable under counts of tampering with the natural order, committing taboo acts by cosmic law, and, most importantly, resurrecting what should never be resurrected.”

“So to resurrect is to become your target, then?” Quirrell blurted.

“The dead returning to life is not ideal, but not enough of a high-level crime to warrant Naraka’s concern,” said the second. “Our target has committed the resurrection of one who was wiped from existence, both living and dead, and has exposed a rift in the border between existence and the Realm of Nothingness.”

“The nature of Nothingness is that it must be nothing,” said the first. “To take what had become nothing and return it to a state of something is to go against all laws of the cosmos.”

“Imagine what would happen if there were no law against it,” the third said calmly. “There would no longer be any distinction between living, dead, and nonexistent. Chaos would reign and tear apart the fabric of reality.”

“At least, it would reshape reality into something that Pael would not approve of,” corrected the first.

Stevie had a few snarky comebacks that she swallowed.

“Allow us to show you footage of the perpetrator,” said the second.

A sort of screen materialized in the air before Stevie and Quirrell, blotting out all else in the room. It showed a scene in a bustling tavern, where strange creatures of every shape and size were gathered. Though drinks were passed all around, the mood of the tavern seemed distinctly somber.

“Behold the Tavern at the End of the Multiverse,” said the second. “By cosmic law, one may cross from reality into nonexistence here, but never vice versa.”

Now Stevie and Quirrell noticed the wall. Or, rather, the lack of wall. Where one of the walls of the tavern should have been, there was instead a gaping void. Dark, yes, but in a way different from the color black or from Dark magic. It swallowed light, trying to pull entities closer to it.

“Why not seal it off if people can break the law there?” Stevie asked. It would probably get her in trouble, but she didn’t want to be distracted thinking about that plot hole.

“It is best to leave strategic points of access to the Realm of Nothingness open,” said the third. “That way, we may retrieve…” They trailed off.

“Yes, indeed,” said the second. “We may retrieve…” This angel paused also.

“There is nothing we seek to retrieve in the Realm of Nothingness,” the first stated. “However, it is in our best interest to keep the portal open.”

Quirrell started doing the math. Obviously, they’d lost someone or something to nonexistence, to the point where they shouldn’t even have remembered that someone or something ever was there. And yet, they did remember, on some level, and were leaving rifts open so they could get it back.

“Most mortals cannot cross from the Realm of Nothingness to that of existence,” stated the first angel. “However, at exactly 30:77 on Stuesday, Junetober 97^th, a Nobody and a dead soul entered the tavern. Due to the tavern’s nature, the dead soul was able to be perceived by all inside. The following incident took place.”

In walked two people dressed in black hooded cloaks, though the makes of those garments were far cries from one another. One was all leather, to the point where one would expect to hear it squeak whenever its wearer moved, and tailored to fit the body. The other was cloth and looser. Something that Quirrell himself might’ve worn in the Wizarding World if trying to keep a low profile.

Wait. Wasn’t this about his Wizarding World? What did this tavern have to do with anything?

The two figures walked up close to the not-wall and stared into the void. The one in the cloth cloak took his hood down. “Here it is…Superior,” he said nervously. “The rift to what you seek.”

That already answered a lot of questions. Quirrell knew that man. He’d seen him many a time before, at conventions of the Death Eaters. Everyone within that order knew that man. Upon recognition, Quirrell let slip a whispered “bollocks.”

The footage paused. “We are certain you both recognize Peter Pettigrew,” stated the first angel.

“Um, no, I don’t,” said Stevie. “Am I supposed to?”

“Are you SUPPOSED to?” Quirrell barked. “He was only the right-hand to the Dark Lord himself! Were you not in service of the Death Eaters?”

“I was across the pond, in case you forgot!” Stevie hissed.

“Probability seems low that you would not have crossed paths on your world of origin,” said the second angel.

“…HOW?” Stevie asked. “Do you have any idea how big a planet is? We were on different continents!”

That gave all three of the angels pause. “A planet is smaller than a plane of Heaven,” said the third. “Data shows that planets are small, communal societies by comparison.”

“That tells me a LOT about how big this plane is,” Stevie said in awe. “Seriously, you guys are like Brits thinking they can come to America and just drive across the country in a couple hours.”

“…You cannot?” Quirrell was astounded. “How does America qualify as a single nation?”

“Believe me, I’ve asked myself that question several times,” replied Stevie. “I see it as more of a regime. But so is pretty much every other global entity, including the EU.”

“You are saying that not everyone on your world of origin is acquainted with one another,” said the third angel.

“Uh, duh!” Stevie groaned.

“We will make note of that data,” said the second.

“Right Hand Fingers would have known of that,” said the first.

“Right Hand Fingers was branded insubordinate and is irrelevant to today’s proceedings,” said the third.

The footage resumed. Now the other man pulled down his own hood, revealing a shock of silver hair. “Indeeeed,” he stated in a deep voice that might have been sultry if it were only more expressive. “It does seem to be precisely what you had promised. A gateway into the realm I had hoped to command.”

The footage paused again. “This is Xemnas,” stated the first angel. “He is an interdimensional criminal and has broken countless natural laws. However, as he is classified as a Nobody, his state of existence is dubious, and thereby, he is outside of Naraka’s jurisdiction.”

“While vestiges of Xehanort’s heart have been found within him,” said the second, “he still cannot legally qualify as Somebody due to his incomplete yet hybrid nature and the process by which his heart was lost.”

“Mortal and immortal souls who aid and abet such criminals, however, are within our jurisdiction,” said the third.

“Xemnas has already trespassed over the boundary between existence and Nothingness,” said the first angel. “However, each time, the powers that be have reinforced the veil between the two so that he will be less easily able to do so.”

“Keybearers Sora and Riku, who he brought with him on a recent trip, are under evaluation as to whether they will become forfeit to Naraka for this crime upon their deaths,” said the third.

“Why do I get the feeling he dragged them there against their will,” Stevie said, “and you’re just looking to bring the book down on a pair of innocents?”

There was a light static crackling in the air. She bit her lip and said no more, so as not to endure another round of agony.

“We cannot seal the rift at the tavern,” the second stated. “It was our hope that Xemnas would never become aware of it.”

“The tavern is a fixed point of cosmic importance,” said the first, “and to sever its border with the Realm of Nothingness would be to inspire unimaginable consequences.”

“It is the only place we can hope to retrieve…” said the third.

“There is no one we must retrieve,” said the first.

“Are we certain?” asked the second.

“We are certain,” said the first.

So there was another reason they couldn’t seal it off, or so they said. But, Quirrell deduced, either they were hiding behind that reason so they could look for the person they were missing, or the absence of that person was so distressing to them that it took precedence over the cosmic order they were supposed to keep.

The footage resumed. “I’ve held up my end of the bargain, Superior,” Pettigrew said shakily. “Now…if you’ll give me what I’ve requested, then you…can have access to it. All to yourself!”

“Hmmm.” Xemnas pondered this. “Are you certain you can be of no further use to me?”

“Why, I am but a coward,” Pettigrew said – and his tone of voice sure backed that up. “A failure. Your Organization must only be the cream of the crop! And I am…the curdled milk that sinks to the bottom.”

Quirrell rolled his eyes.

“But what I have given you is a valuable tool,” Pettigrew went on, desperation creeping into his voice. “And that tool is worth rewarding…is it not?”

“I would agree,” said Xemnas. “What’s more, to retrieve what you ask of me will be a test of whether this rift is viable. If he can be transferred safely, then so can what I seek. If not…then I suppose neither of us gets what he wants.”

Pettigrew swallowed hard, trembling like a leaf.

Quirrell had never learned exactly how Pettigrew died. That was long after his time. It seemed, however, that since Quirrell’s demise, other Death Eaters had learned what torment awaited those who gave body and soul to Lord Voldemort. What a hard lesson it was.

Xemnas extended a hand outward to the rift. From it, magical energy in the shape of thorny vines, night-black and snow-white, crackled and twisted forward, extending into the rift. Feeling around, like appendages. Pettigrew watched anxiously, with what almost seemed to be a prayer etched onto his face.

Then the vines retracted. Something was held within them – a small, misshapen human, one that might be mistaken for a baby. Before anyone could get a better look, Pettigrew threw a blanket over the small form and took it into his arms.

Quirrell gasped. “No…”

He’d known how Pettigrew had intended to resurrect Voldemort, to sever him from Quirrell’s body. Something Quirrell had never truly looked forward to. What was very apparent was that in the ritual that used blood, flesh, and bone to resurrect the half-dead, the first state of the resurrected would be as a truncated human body. The size of a baby.

“He can’t be out to bring the Dark Lord back to life,” Quirrell gasped. “Not when Pettigrew himself is dead, he…he couldn’t…”

But had the little rat not been loyal to a fault? Certainly not even death would stop him from trying to put Voldemort back into power. The question was how Voldemort’s misshapen soul had ended up in the Realm of Nothingness – something about that just didn’t seem to fit – but Quirrell knew that any number of things could have happened in the time he was away.

He didn’t have much time to mull it over before Xemnas nodded at Pettigrew. “Go. This is no longer of any concern to you. Should I have need of your services again, I will call you.”

Peter cradled the infant-shaped soul to his chest, backing away nervously. “Yes – and I shall stand ready – you will not be wanting, Superior – “ He then turned and bolted out of the tavern with his prize.

Xemnas sent more vines into the void, this time from both hands. Two new shapes breached the void from the other side, returning to existence, before the “screen” disappeared. “Peter Pettigrew is in possession of a contraband soul,” stated the third angel. “We need any and all information that can lead us to him so that we can take him into custody and destroy the contraband.”

Quirrell didn’t know the first thing about where Pettigrew might be now. That was both good and bad. Good, because it meant they couldn’t bring the man into the same building as Quirrell. Bad, because if that soul truly was Voldemort (and who else would it be?), it was better off destroyed.

(But why the Realm of Nothingness?)

“Go back,” said Stevie.

Static crackled once more, threatening her.

“I SAID GO BACK,” said Stevie. “It’ll help me figure out where your guy is, okay?”

The three angels exchanged glances, then put up the screen again. Right when Xemnas was retrieving his own targets: a massive blob of red and a slender figure in white.

“What happens next?” Stevie asked. “I know you have the footage.”

It resumed. Two men were fished from the Nothingness, placed in the tavern with bewildered expressions.

“PAUSE,” Stevie commanded. “Q, do you recognize the guy in red?”

“No,” Quirrell said flatly. “Should I?”

“That guy should be dead,” Stevie explained. “As in: Mandie, Divatox, and Haruko threw him into a volcano.”

“Miss Nichols, you shall HAVE to be more clear.”

“It’s Lord Balseph,” said Stevie. “And the guy in white? I bet that’s the other one. The one who had the two gangs in the snow country. We KILLED those guys. And they’re just…back?”

“You see why disrupting the veil between existence and Nothingness has been made illegal,” stated the first angel.

“But you’re still not gonna arrest the guy who actually did it because he ‘doesn’t exist,’” Stevie groaned.

“Correct,” said the first angel.

“How messed up is that anyway?” Stevie ranted. “He’s right there, he has a body, he has free will, but because of some weird loophole in what he’s made of, he doesn’t EXIST to you? I call that racism – “

She cut herself off with a piercing scream when more voltage was shot through her. It ended quickly, and she bit her tongue on the subject, even though her opinion hadn’t changed.

“You had stated that this information would help you to locate Peter Pettigrew,” said the second angel. “Is that or is that not true?”

Stevie thought it over. “…Yeah. I have a lead.”

“You do?” Quirrell was taken aback.

Stevie shot him a glare that warned him to play along.

“Tell us, or we shall force you to speak,” said the third angel.

But they apparently had no way around it if their informant decided to lie. “I will,” said Stevie. “Look up someone from my world. Someone named Alex Russo.”

The third angel opened up a screen from absolutely nowhere, simply materializing it in front of themself and beginning to type into it using a touchpad that was also spontaneously generated. “Results show 45,289 humans on the Wizarding World with that name.”

Stevie gave a frustrated sigh. “Alexandra Margarita Russo. Lives in Manhattan, New York. Her father is Jerry, her mother is Theresa, and her weirdly incestuous brother is named Justin.”

Tap, tap, tap. “Here it is,” said the third angel. “Alex Russo. Designation: mage. Daughter of Jerry Russo. Designation: mage. Also daughter of Theresa Russo. Designation: nonmagical human.”

“They’re the ones,” said Stevie. “If I know Peter, he’ll be…h…”

Only then did it sink in. “What…did you say?”

“Alex Russo,” the third angel repeated. “Designation: mage. Daughter of Jerry Russo. Designation: mage. Also daughter of Theresa Russo. Designation: nonmagical human.”

Stevie felt like the lightning had jolted her all over again. “She’s a half-blood?” she whispered hoarsely. “She…she sold me out to protect herself. She could’ve stood with me, and…” She erupted into a scream: “SHE SOLD ME OUT TO PROTECT HERSELF! SHE TOLD ME – SHE TOLD EVERYONE SHE WAS A PUREBLOOD! SHE LIED IN ORDER TO HURT ME? ME! I COULD’VE BROUGHT HER TO GREATNESS! I COULD’VE MADE HER SOMETHING! BUT SHE CHOSE HERSELF!” Her breathing became hoarse. “But I guess that’s par for the course, isn’t it, ALEX? You never – she NEVER cared about anyone but herself. Not me, not her family, not any cause.”

“Please set aside all personal feelings to describe the relationship between Pettigrew and Russo,” the second angel stated calmly.

“She’s hiding him,” Alex growled. It was what she’d always planned to say, even knowing that the odds were infinitesimal. All she’d seen was a golden opportunity to punish Alex. But now, it was about more than revenge. “She’s hiding him somewhere, and you’ll find him if you arrest her and her WHOLE STUPID FAMILY!”

“As an Animagus,” Quirrell contributed, “he will likely be hiding in the walls in the form of a rat. Be thorough, and if he fails to turn up, then Miss Russo will be your next lead for questioning.”

He knew what Stevie was aiming for, and now how important it was to give her what she wanted. Besides, it was a false lead. They wouldn’t find Pettigrew, and Quirrell wouldn’t have to worry about being within a hundred miles of him ever again.

“That will be sufficient information,” said the first angel. “You may return to your cells.”

The restraints snapped open. Stevie was first on her feet, eyes blazing with sheer murder. Quirrell put a hand on her shoulder; “Think of the child. And, more importantly, of what the child is holding onto.”

“I don’t care,” Stevie hissed. “It’s physically impossible to calm down after THIS. I trusted her, Quirinus! She was my FRIEND! I had…I had a…” She swallowed hard.

“You must now return to your cells,” the second angel stated.

Stevie and Quirrell were escorted out of the interrogation room, the former still fuming. Quirrell cleared his throat; “I believe I know how you were going to end that sentence. Believe me…you’re better off without her.”

“Am I better off dead because of her?” Stevie hissed.

“Sometimes…” Quirrell sighed. “Death is the only escape.”

Back then…

They came upon Shionne in a spacious, empty hall, lined with stained glass of deep blue and dark violet. She stood in place, unmoving, at the room’s center, dressed in a simple black shift that was a far cry from her preferred couture.

As soon as her friends entered the room, they hurried toward her, but Tari was out front and center, barreling at top speed while screaming “SHIONNE!”

“No, WAIT!” Kisara yelled, putting on the brakes. “Something’s not right!”

That something was probably related to how Shionne didn’t even seem to notice the others. She simply stood in the midst of the hall, muttering to the floor. As Tari neared, she could hear some of Shionne’s murmurs: “I’m all alone…it’s dark…please help me…”

Tari reached out to grab Shionne’s hand. A crackling aura of thorns reminded her that she was no longer immune to the pain Shionne dealt; Tari recoiled out of instinct. “Shionne, I’m here!” she urged. “Everything’s going to be okay now!”

Shionne’s voice hitched; “It’s so dark! Everyone…”

“Shionne…?” Tari felt anxiety swirl in her stomach. “Can you hear me? Can you see…any of us?”

That finally seemed to get Shionne’s attention. Her head snapped up, and her gaze met Tari’s – but it wasn’t any expression of Shionne’s that Tari knew. Her eyes were two voids, staring dead ahead, no emotion.

She whispered one word: “Lies.”

Then she melted down, thorns crackling and surrounding her as she screamed in utter agony, her body contorting.

“Shionne…” Tari’s voice quavered. “What do I…what do I do…”

Her Meta Runner vision wasn’t helping, in that regard. All it told her was where there would soon be obstacles. So Tari ducked and sidestepped as for the first time, Shionne’s thorns became real plants, erupting from Shionne as their root, twisting and enveloping the hall.

Tari was forced to the floor, thorns growing over her like a covering. Behind her, she could hear Dohalim, Kisara, Law, Rinwell, and Theo trying to combat the thorns, chopping and casting and bashing and yelling. It was an obvious boss fight. She needed to be with them. She needed to play out this story the way it was intended.

But that wasn’t what she was going to do.

She crawled forward, breastplate scraping the floor. Under the thorns she slipped until she could stand. There, she found herself in the heart of the thicket, walls of thorns closing in and making the space ever more claustrophobic. Shionne stood in place, her pain subsided, once again muttering her delusions: “I’m alone. Alone…I’m completely alone…”

Tari wondered what she was seeing. The world, but devoid of all human life? A dark, empty void? Or had she just been tricked into giving in to what some had said to destroy her spirit?

“No,” Tari said. “No, you’re not! I’m right here – we’re all right here! Law, Rinwell, Kisara, Dohalim, Theo! We came to rescue you!” Her brow furrowed. “And we’re not leaving without you.”

Shionne still couldn’t see her. Couldn’t hear her. But that left one possibility. Tari wondered, given that it was well-known that Shionne’s touch brought agony to others, if Vholran had thought it unnecessary to even bother removing her ability to feel the world around her on her skin. This would be painful, but it had to be done, and it should’ve been done all the way back on the fortress Gradia, when Shionne needed Tari the most.

Tari stepped in quickly before the thorns could separate the two with a barrier. She threw her arms around Shionne, clutching tight – every muscle was on fire, and her instincts, her Meta Runner vision, everything told her that the only logical choice was to just let go.

But Tari refused to listen to any of those inner voices. “Sh…Sh-Sh-Shionne,” she sputtered – the thorns’ curse was making her shake as though shocked by innumerable voltage, slurring her speech. “I’m…h…h-here…it’s ok…o-o-okay…”

She held tight.

Then, through her armor, through the torment of the thorns that were coursing through her very veins, she was made aware of Shionne slowly, tentatively raising her arms to encircle them around Tari in return. A soft, unsure whisper: “Tari? Is that you?”

“It’s m-me,” Tari affirmed. “I c-came to g-g-g…get you.”

“I…” Shionne said hoarsely. “I don’t know what to say…”

Later on, if you would have asked Shionne, she would have denied being the one to initiate what came next, as she would never have dared think to lay her lips on another and transfer the curse that way. If you would have asked Tari, she also would have denied it, declaring that kissing without clearing permission first was just bad form. But nonetheless, the two found their way to one another, lips meeting and locking in a kiss that finally said so much of what they had been afraid to.

Then it became too much, and Tari lost consciousness, going limp in Shionne’s arms. Shionne’s grip tightened in time to stop her clattering to the floor.

The thorns – the physical ones, anyway – shattered and dissolved, their remains withering away and clearing out the hall to its pristine crystal state. The others, relieved of their battle burden, all looked to Shionne and Tari to see what had saved them. There, they saw Shionne gently but quickly laying Tari’s unconscious body on the floor, backing away, holding out her hands to perform a healing arte from a safe distance.

“TARI!” Theo and Law were the first to run toward the two.

“SHIONNE!” Kisara and Rinwell followed.

Dohalim didn’t say a word, but his thoughts raced nonetheless as he brought up the rear of the team. For a moment, he feared the worst: was Tari motionless because…?

The bright white light of Shionne’s healing filled the space between her hands and Tari’s chest. Tari gave a grunt and a stir.

“THANK ELDER TOMATO!” Theo cried, throwing up his hands in the air and leaping for joy.

Tari’s eyes pried open. “Shionne,” she rasped. “Did…did the curse break? Can you see me?”

“I can see you,” Shionne replied, tears welling and falling from her eyes rapidly. “I can see all of you, and I can hear you. I know I’m not alone anymore. But Tari, don’t ever hurt yourself like that again, not even for me. If I lost you, I…you can’t get hurt, Tari…I think I might…” She swallowed hard. “I know I care about you.”

“So do I,” Tari said softly. “I mean I care about you, not that I care about me too – “

Shionne stifled a laugh. “I didn’t want to give my heart to you. I was afraid it would just cause you pain. I’m still afraid of that. That kiss – just now – we can never do that again.”

“Or we could break the curse,” Tari replied with a woozy smile. “This seems like the sort of story where the heroes will figure out a way to do that by the end. But until then, we don’t have to kiss to talk about what we feel for each other. If…you’ve decided that’s what you – “

“Yes,” Shionne sobbed. “I shouldn’t. You’ll only get hurt in the end. But I want to be with you, Tari, I want us to be together, I don’t want to be alone anymore and you make me feel like I never will be again – “

“Then let’s do it,” Tari said, finding the strength to sit up. “Let’s be together. And I’ll make sure you won’t be alone again.”

(Sofia. Lamar. Belle. Masa. Lucinia. They already knew they would have to move on without Tari. They didn’t need her the way Shionne did…and Tari was starting to suspect she wouldn’t need them the way she would need Shionne. If this was goodbye to her life as a Meta Runner, then so be it. She’d already discovered a world she could call home, here on Dahna.

Though she still hadn’t ruled out the idea of taking her new friends back to her world to meet the others. In fact…)

“Shionne.” Both women were standing now, and Tari was realizing the next step that lay ahead of her. “There’s something I have to tell you. A lot of things. All the secrets I’ve been hiding from you since the very start. You need to know – “

“Do I need to know right now, before we stop Vholran?” Shionne retorted. “Because the way I see it, we can’t wait any longer.”

Tari figured Shionne had seen the boats sail into the tunnels where the Ganath Haros citizens were pressed into Vholran’s fuel. The image still haunted her. The longer they stood there, the more people would meet that fate.

“No,” Tari affirmed. “It can wait. We need to end this.”

The Master Core of fire blazed at Shionne’s chest. “Then I entrust this blade to you,” Shionne said. “I know you’ll know what to do with it.”

Tari reached toward the Core, grasping the sword’s hilt. However, this time, as she drew the Blazing Sword, she was reminded of a new variable, and it came out of her mouth in a panic while she manifested the sword: “Ohhhhhh that’s right THIS ACTUALLY HURTS NOW!”

Shionne gasped. “Tari, put it back – “

“NO!” Tari raised the sword aloft. “I’m – I’m going to have to get used to a little pain! That’s all!”

Shionne was taken aback. Was Tari saying that she wanted to become tolerant enough to touch Shionne despite the curse being unbroken? She was probably reading too much into it.

(Except that was exactly what Tari was thinking.)

“We’re coming for you, Vholran,” Tari snarled, coming to terms with the red-hot burning in her sword hand. “It ends here.”

Here and now…

No Guys’ Day was off to a wonderful start. Giffany skipped happily – she’d been singing a jaunty tune earlier, but Medusa and Evelyn had yelled at her to knock it off, so now the group walked in a more peaceful, conversational atmosphere. Evelyn and Nefera seemed to have put their relationship drama on hold, only firing each other the occasional venomous glance but otherwise staying apart from each other and focusing on the others in the group.

“All I’m saying is this place better have a fashion boutique,” Fury sighed. “The stuff at the Fifth District mall is so played out.”

“Yeah,” Euryale agreed. “It’s so last…” She paused to think on it. “Actually, the problem is all the good stuff was over two millennia ago. The fashion got too far FORWARD.”

“Mass production and the industry really did kinda tank the art form,” Taylor agreed. “And that’s before fast fashion even came into play.”

“Fast fashion?” Nefera asked. “I haven’t heard of any such thing. Is that a way to obtain more fashionable things faster?”

“I mean, I guess,” Taylor groaned. “If you’re okay with the quality being negotiable. And other concerns about labor and the environment that I should really wait for Stevie or Electra to get back before talking about.”

“I mean, if you ask me,” said Electra, “it’s all corporate preppy blah blah blah the same. Fashion sucks. You should be like me and buy the all-black stuff that people think is unique but is just as overdone.”

There was a pause. Then Fury’s snakes shot out, binding and lifting the false Electra. With pure rage in her eyes, Fury hissed, “WHO…ARE…YOU?”

“Hey, HEY!” “Electra” squirmed. “I thought you’d be happy to see me! Especially since I’m a girl, so I can come on your girls’ trip!”

“THIS ISN’T FUNNY!” Fury growled. “OWN UP OR I PETRIFY YOU RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, NOT EVEN KIDDING!”

The fake Electra rolled her eyes. Then, in a blink, “she” reverted back to the true form of Mandrake. “You’re such a party pooper,” he groaned.

“Why…would you…do that?” Fury hissed.

“Because I wanted to come on your shopping trip,” Mandrake explained. “I heard there was a mage shop at the new strip mall, and I had to check it out. But you had a stupid ‘no guys’ rule, so I had to get…creative.” He smirked. “Also, I wanted to see the look on your face. It was pretty priceless.”

“Put him down,” Evelyn sighed.

Reluctantly, Fury did so. She pointed two fingers to her eyes, then gestured them around at all the eyes on all her snakes, then pointed the fingers back to Mandrake; the snakes whipped about to begin surveillance on him.

“I’ll cut you a deal,” Evelyn told him. “We can adjust it to ‘no guys’ day, plus one guy’ IF you don’t pull any more mischief, you don’t abuse any of your co-shoppers, and basically you don’t do anything to screw up your chances of ever getting invited out by us again. Deal?”

Mandrake was silent.

“DEAL?”

“I’m thinking it over,” Mandrake told her. He finished weighing it out in his mind: the ability to cause others’ suffering versus quality time with friends. “Okay, yeah, I’ll be domesticated for a couple hours. But if you want to keep the ‘no guys’ theme, I do have other options.”

“Tread VERY CAREFULLY,” Fury snarled.

In a blink, he changed again. This time he was a girl who was a bit shorter, her fluffy pink hair bound up into twin tails that looked like pom-poms. The visage was completed with a leather-and-lace dress that looked somewhere between battle-ready and best for a day out on the park, as well as a sheath that bore a glimmering sword lashed across the back.

“Ooh, look at me!” Mandrake began to prance around. “I’m stupid and dumb and gullible as f*ck! I only care about hot boys like Aster! I just got lucky that one time I kicked Mandrake’s ass, and if that catbitch hadn’t stabbed him in the gut, I’d be dead right now! Believe it!”

“…You obviously have nemesis issues,” Taylor pointed out.

“Don’t we all?” Mandrake asked in the voice of the pink-haired girl.

“I don’t have a nemesis, actually,” Taylor said. “I mean, since I came here, there’ve been people who antagonized me, but no one recurring enemy that I feel an immediate need to get revenge on. It feels pretty freeing, to tell you the truth.”

“But also, we really should introduce you to Jake Long sometime,” Euryale said. “Because I REALLY wanna see you do HIM.” She grinned with glee thinking about what it would look like for her own current nemesis to run around insulting himself poorly.

“I’d like to see you give Tari a go,” Evelyn agreed, picturing more or less the same thing but with the woman she wasn’t aware was sealed in the basem*nt of Vholran’s opera house.

“Ugh, let’s just keep going!” Nefera barked. “I need to see if these shops sell anything worthy of a royal!”

Eventually, they all arrived at the mall tucked away in the back streets between districts. A rickety wooden sign upon which neon letters were affixed hung high overhead, proclaiming the area to be the “MALL OF NOWHERE.” As the group approached, the letters spelling “MALL OF” crackled and then burned out.

“Well, that’s ominous,” said Taylor. “Kinda getting vibes of when I first sat down in Albert’s office. Y’know when something just feels…off?”
As for the mall itself, it was a fairly standard strip mall. At the far left and right end were two-story buildings with boarded-up windows. In between was a row of shops, of which only seven seemed to be operational. The rest were plain white facades with more boards over the doors. The seven shops that were up and running were all decorated with wildly different facades that gave off clashing aesthetics. A small fountain was located out front; strangely, the water it churned seemed to be filthy and greenish and not at all inviting. Next to it was a small round stall marked “INFO” in which it seemed someone would sit, but currently, it was empty…though a small bell sat on its counter, tempting someone to ring it.

“Why would a strip mall with seven stores need an info desk?” Nefera rolled her eyes.

“Maybe it’s more complicated than it looks,” Medusa suggested. “That wasn’t sarcasm, by the way.”

“Thanks for clarifying!” Giffany said without a hint of irony. “Your tone of voice makes it super hard to tell!”

“I’m gonna take that as a compliment,” Medusa replied, also without irony.

Chane, in the meantime, had taken it upon herself to approach the desk.

“I don’t think we’ll need any info, Chane,” Evelyn groaned.

“No,” Taylor argued. “I wanna see where she’s going with this.”

Chane rang the small bell once. Its DING seemed to echo throughout the back streets.

“Looks like nobody’s home,” said Linda. “Oh well – “

She was cut short when she witnessed what everyone else saw: a rather large, semi-anthropomorphic cat, bright crimson and with quite sharp features, rising up from below the counter, as though he’d been crouched in wait for someone to ring the bell. “Hello,” he said in a voice that sounded rather bored and quite elegantly British. “Welcome to the Mall of Nowhere. How may I be of service?”
“Uhhhh…” Taylor and Linda both expressed their loss for words thusly.

“What can you tell us about this place?” Fury asked. “This can’t be a normal mall. For one…you shouldn’t be able to see us.”

“Quite correct,” said the cat at the desk. “Every building in this plaza is marked to be able to serve the living and the dead alike. You currently stand within the field of the Info Desk, and therefore, you can be seen. As for the rest of the mall, do be warned. The wares here aren’t for the naïve or the unsuspecting. Most of the proprietors deal in the dark and the dangerous. In other words, buyer beware.”

“DARK AND DANGEROUS?” Another feminine silhouette dropped down from a nearby rooftop. “All right, you’ve sold me! I’m in!”

All Chesspeople present turned to stare at Stocking Anarchy. “Were you…following us by doing roof parkour?” Evelyn asked.

“You got a problem with that?” Stocking snapped. “I wanted to see if this was any good before I invited myself along. If you were just going to some girly pink fashion shop, I woulda hightailed my ass back to find something better to do with my time, like taking Monty apart screw by f*cking screw, hiding all the pieces around End of Line, and watching Dist and the doc hunt them down.”

“How would that have been a better use of your time?” Taylor asked incredulously.

“I didn’t say it was a good use of my time,” Stocking groaned. “I’m just saying that even putting hours of work into actually setting our team back would be preferable to haute couture.” She stared the cat down. “So tell me more about this dark and dangerous sh*t.”

“Well, for starters, the founders of this mall in its current state largely come from the same point of origin,” the cat explained. “As you can see, I am – “ He glanced downward. “Oh dear. How unprofessional of me.”

He peeled a sticker off his side of the desk, then slapped it right onto the fur of his chest. It was a standard “Hello, my name is” sticker, with “Katz” written on it in elegant calligraphy and ink that looked a very suspicious shade of red.

“I am Katz,” the cat went on. “My six colleagues and I hail from the Middle of Nowhere, a territory that was unfortunately rendered uninhabitable thanks to a traitorous French duck and a pompous puppeteer gator.”

“Uninhabitable?” Taylor asked.

“To put it quite simply,” Katz answered, “it was destroyed.”

(The dark vortex had swallowed everything. Katz clung for dear life to a chunk of farmland that had been ripped up in the eruption, his claws digging in deep. He spotted Le Quack and Fusilli standing on the only chunk of land that was being held perfectly stationary by some sort of strange Dark magic.

“Why, you cads among cads!” Katz accused. “You traitors! I had thought we were all in agreement regarding our goals! Was your desire to see the dog eliminated truly stronger than your aversion to doing anything this ASININE?”

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” Le Quack replied. “A fool who believed in honor among thieves?”
“The Great Fusilli and his feathered friend are on to a bigger stage with brighter lights!” Fusilli proclaimed, stretching his arm up to point toward the heavens, threading the eye of the storm. “A chorus-line extra like you could never understand!”

The monstrous creature who had seduced them into this horrendous act of betrayal, a massive dragonesque monster with three rows of teeth and a protrusion that vaguely resembled a woman’s upper half situated atop its back, winged into place behind them. “All man-things are the same, whether human or feline!” Lady Dimitrescu roared. “Let us be done with him!”

She moved to strike a blow. Katz, thinking fast, let go first. He was sucked away into the pull of the Darkness – alive, untouched by the vampiress, but now at the mercy of the cosmos.)

“Only a few of us – might I say the cream of the crop – arrived in this all-too-pleasant little town,” Katz explained further. “Thankfully, the more annoying and purehearted of our home territory seem to have not been able to make the journey. What a pity.” His lip twitched into the smallest possible smirk. “The rest of us have been attempting to make our way here, as it seems that our prior ventures have been plunged into aether. It seems that in this town, the easiest way to get by is to open up a small business, and so that is what we did. In fact, two of our current number haven’t come from our world at all; they’ve apparently been traveling awhile, and when their caravan came into town, we found them kindred spirits, if slightly juvenile. They pointed us the way to a set of convincingly forged business licenses, and now we peddle suspect goods to the unawares, waiting for the moment to strike at something greater.”

“Why tell us all the evil stuff?” Taylor asked. “How do you know we’re not cops or something?”

“Really?” Katz sighed. “Look at you. Gorgons, a well-preserved mummy, an obvious underling, an even more obvious assassin who can barely hide her blades, and an overall air of wealthy snobbery. If this is a band of enterprising do-gooders, I shall be very surprised indeed.”

Euryale shrugged. “He’s got us there.”

“Is everything you sell meant to harm the buyer?” Evelyn asked. “Or…are there things here that we could make use of?”

“Oh, the enterprising can most certainly find useful tools on the shelves if they know where to look,” Katz stated. “Or even harmless valuables…that we may not have acquired through legal means. Be ready to pay a fair price for everything, monetary or otherwise.”

“Yes, but is there decent fashion?” Evelyn asked.

Katz rolled his eyes. “Not yet. I do wish you hadn’t asked that. Everyone always does. The fact of the matter is that the two-story affair at the right end of the mall seems to have at one point been a boutique, but we’ve not yet found anyone with the proper skills to do it justice. Though we do have a selection of handmade clothes in one particular shop, but I can already tell they won’t be to your liking. Try not to insult the seamstresses. It won’t end well for you if you do.”

“Already losing interest,” Nefera sighed.

“Are you KIDDING?” Stocking yelled. “This is a goth paradise! And look! A CANDY STORE!”

“Honey, what you waitin’ for…” Euryale sang quietly.

Fury elbowed her in the side. “Shut UP, Euryale.”

“We should at least look around,” said Taylor. “It sounds like so long as we’re the bad guys, they’ll be…cordial to us. And we could find something we need here. Like maybe something to help us get the others back from where they are.”

“I will leave you to browse, if you’ve no further questions,” said Katz. He then lowered himself back under the counter.

“Wait a moment – “ Evelyn seized the counter. Then she peered over the desk in pure confusion. “He’s gone? But how – he was just – oh, never mind it.” She sighed. “Obviously nothing high-end here, but Taylor’s right. There could be something both plebeian and practical.”

“Might as well check it out,” Fury agreed.

“And we’ll start there.” Mandrake pointed to a gaudy storefront upon which glittering golden letters labeled the establishment as “Mondo Magic.” “The shop I heard about.”

“Uh, f*ck to the no,” Stocking groaned. “We’re starting THERE.”

She pointed to a storefront of rickety wood and rusted metal. The only inviting thing about it was the garishly pastel sign in which resin gumdrops and lollies had been pasted to form the words “Katz Kandy.”

“Pretty sure that’s a murder house,” Taylor pointed out.

“You can get some of the best candy from murder houses, though!” Giffany proclaimed. “Unlike the white vans. They always lie about having candy.”

“There are SEVERAL things there that I would love to unpack but am not going to,” Taylor replied.

“We’re doing the magic shop first, and you can’t stop me,” Mandrake argued, stamping his foot. Or the foot of the girl whose form he’d assumed.

“Candy store or I slit all your throats right here, right now,” Stocking growled.

“Will you both SHUT UP?” Fury barked with such conviction that both actually flinched. “We’re going to do both anyway, so it doesn’t matter which we do first. But the magic shop is on the end, so I say we start there and work our way right to save backtracking. Any objections?”

Her snakes hissed and swayed, suggesting that those who did object would find themselves taken for granite.

Stocking folded her arms and pouted. “Fiiiiine. But don’t drag this out.”

Together, the group walked toward the purple storefront and entered.

Inside was even more glitz and glamor: shades of lavender and plum intermingling, with glittering shelves upon which various potions and powders were sorted out perfectly. It was a bit of an eyesore, really.

Mandrake immediately zipped over to the nearest shelf. “Elixirs THIS CHEAP? And they have SPARKSPELLS! I KNEW this was the best place to start!” He began to load up his arms with bottles, bags, little glass globes, and other glittering enchantments.

“Ugh, so gaudy,” Evelyn huffed. “Whoever decorated this place tried…and failed.”

“Not candy,” Stocking grumbled. “Don’t care.”

“Who even runs this place?” Taylor wondered, looking over to the checkout desk.

On cue, a plume of purple smoke erupted behind that desk. From it, the silhouette of a man emerged. He seemed the tall, dark, and handsome sort, with a chiseled chin and a broad chest. “Welcome to Mondo Magic!” he proclaimed in a deep baritone. “Your one-stop shop for everything from prestidigitation to high sorcery!”

He smiled and bowed. It was around this time that the others began to realize something was off about him. His skin almost looked rubbery, and the way his eyes moved put one in mind of a face wearing a mask. His mouth was just a second behind his speaking, and his arm movements, fluid as they may have been, were mildly jittery in an unnatural way. All in all, he didn’t look as though he belonged, even in his own skin.

“I am Mondo himself,” he continued, stepping out from behind the desk. “My, what lovely ladies we have in the audience today!”

Taylor noticed a sort of odd green spike poking out of the back of his left shoulder. Like something bursting from beneath the ill-fitting skin. “Uh…not a lady,” they stammered, unable to take their eyes off the errant spine.

“But lovely nonetheless,” Mondo continued. “Why, I might just even think to make one of you my bride, given your perfection!”

“Just try it,” Mandrake seethed. “I dare you.”

“Well, I DON’T dare you,” Evelyn scoffed. “We came here to shop, NOT be harassed by a pervert!”

“Oh, worry not,” Mondo assured, his grin just a few seconds too late for the emotion he was expressing. “Some time ago, I might have been tempted…but as it stands, there is only one I have eyes for. I have already decided she is to be mine, but she has yet to present me with any of the ceremonial gifts she bestows upon her mates. I fear she has not realized the chemistry between us yet. I simply must work up the nerve to tell her my true feelings…” He sighed, his hand over his heart. Or, rather, over the general chest area, but not even close to where a heart would be in a human. “But it might be quicker to jump right to the transformation, don’t you think? Tell me…if you admired someone, would you risk being rejected or would you simply change them into your desired species and dive headfirst into romance?”
“Um, I don’t think – “ Taylor attempted.

“NEVER take a rejection!” Giffany blurted. “Do what you need to do to keep the one that’s yours all to yourself! Even if it means brainwashing, murdering the competition, or chaining them to the furniture so they can’t leave you ever!”

“That’s terrible advice,” said Taylor.

“That’s WONDERFUL advice!” Mondo countered. “Once you’ve made your purchases, I shall gather my transformation powders and go next door to look upon her ugly face!”

“Is this one of those ‘ugly is beautiful’ things, or…” Fury asked.

“Well, she wears a face that would be beautiful to most,” Mondo explained, “but I find it most hideous. Yet underneath is her TRUE face…a vision of a goddess.” He sighed wistfully.

“Can we go back to the part where you force her to marry you?” Taylor tried again. “And then not do that?”

“We’re actually probably gonna go next door after this!” said Linda. “We’re exploring the whole strip mall!”

“So maybe, like, hold off your drama until AFTER we’ve seen all the shops,” Nefera scoffed.

“Tell us more about this place, actually,” said Fury. “The cat at the info desk gave us the basics, but what are YOU all about?”

“And is anyone gonna comment on the obvious fake skin he’s wearing and that he’s not a f*cking human?” Stocking added.

The others all looked at her, flabbergasted.

“What?” Stocking sighed. “Like we weren’t all thinking it.”

“I guess expecting Stocking to be diplomatic was too big of an ask,” Evelyn grumbled.

“Don’t worry!” Euryale said quickly. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want. We’ve all needed to present human at some point or another. Fury just wears a big tacky hat to hide her snakes!”

“…Tacky?” Fury repeated.

“Whatever you are under that skinsuit, that’s YOUR business!” Euryale insisted.

“You said you liked my hat,” Fury argued. “You actually asked me where I got the hat so you could buy your own hat, and I said no because I wanted it to be mine exclusively. Are you just mad that I never told you where to buy it, or were you faking it from the start?”

“The answer’s probably ‘yes,’” Medusa droned.

“Yes to WHICH ONE?” Fury growled.

“YES,” Medusa reiterated.

“Ah, my secret is out,” Mondo sighed. “I prefer not to show my true face in a place like this, you know. It would be…bad for business. The people here aren’t ready for my kind. In fact, they’re barely ready for my level of magic as it is, but that’s another story!” He gave a chuckle. “As for my tale…I hail from far away among the stars. I found myself bound to a particular world for some time, exploring its sights, when suddenly, a vision of a human woman appeared to me on the front lawn of a barren farm! My attempts to court her were less than successful, but if at first you don’t succeed - ! Of course, along the way, that’s when I realized she was only the second best I could have. The real prize was waiting in the puddle in the back yard, and I never knew…” He sighed again.

“But you’re legit, right?” Mandrake now had a veritable bouquet of magic items in his hands. “These things work?”

“You doubt the great Mondo?” Mondo asked slyly. “How about…a demonstration?”

He reached over to a shelf, taking down a bag of a glittering, silvery powder. “Who would like to be my lovely assistant for the act?” he asked.

Everyone backed up three giant steps, except Linda, who was distracted by a fly buzzing around the shop.

“Ah, yes!” Mondo declared. “Our volunteer from the audience!”

“…What?” Linda was truly confused.

Mondo sprinkled the powder over Linda’s head, where it fell to her scalp like a light snow. Then, all of a sudden, where Linda had been, there was a goose that made a very obnoxious noise.

“Put her back,” Evelyn commanded.

“Are you not going to marvel at the potency of my creation first?” Mondo asked. “I blended this powder from raw elemental – “

“PUT. HER. BACK,” Evelyn seethed.

Mondo actually flinched. “For a human, you are MOST unsettling.” He sprinkled more powder on the goose, which transformed back into Linda.

“Weird,” Linda said as she rubbed her head. “I had the strangest urge to just cause problems on purpose, like break people’s glasses or steal their keys and stuff.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s just what normally goes through your head,” Nefera reminded her.

“Hey, yeah, it is!” Linda laughed.

Chane attempted to sign something to Mondo, who shook his head. “I’m afraid I haven’t learned that particular language yet,” he said.

So Chane spoke the universal language of drawing a knife and letting it glitter before him.

“Ah!” Mondo realized. “You’re saying that if I try any sort of trick on any of you again, I will face dire consequences, is that it?” He chuckled again. “I’m afraid you don’t know who you’re up against.”

“Do YOU know who YOU’RE up against?” Evelyn countered.

“Yeah, hi.” Fury waved. “Former ruler of an entire magical world. Could be again if I cared about doing that more than trying to get my literal life back.”

“I am sensing we may be cut from the same velvet,” Mondo realized.

“As in you’re a shady evildoer, and we’re all shady evildoers?” Fury replied. “What was your first clue? The shapeshifter loading up on instant-death poisons?”

Mandrake set down his first load of goods on the counter. “I’m not done yet,” he explained, going back for another round.

“Shapeshifter?” Mondo repeated. “That one…is a woman, correct?”

Taylor, who wasn’t in the mood for this sort of microaggression, simply said “Yes. Girliest girl ever. Just trying a new hairstyle. No accidental gay thoughts here.”

Mandrake decided to lean into it. “You like what you see, big boy?” he asked in Rosemary’s voice. “…Actually, you better not. I think I’m fourteen or something.” He then set out to wondering just how old his adversaries actually were. “…When’s my birthday?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mondo said, going wistful again. “For my love is an eternal beauty, a siren of the seas for centuries past and centuries to come!”

“I’m getting morbidly curious about the shopkeeper next door and if she’s actually into this,” Medusa said.

“I think we should set them up!” Giffany cheered.

“And I think we should NOT do that!” Taylor countered.

Evelyn sighed. “Look. We’re on a mission, and we’re not above playing dirty to get what we want. Would your shop have things that…cater to that?”

“Oh, plenty,” Mondo said slyly. “In fact, it’s going to be such a relief to advertise my curses and hexes for what they really are. As fun as it is to dupe the innocent into believing they’re purchasing good-luck spells, there’s just something missing when the clientele isn’t truly appreciative of my wares. I’m glad the youngest among you is finding so much to her tastes.”

“LOOK AT THIS!” Mandrake waved a dagger in the air. “THIS IS SO OBVIOUSLY CURSED! I’LL TAKE FIVE!”

“You can literally SPAWN ENDLESS KNIVES,” Stocking groaned. “Why do you need more? God, you’re almost as bad as Panty in a lingerie shop.”

“You may browse at will,” Mondo encouraged.

“I think we’re good for now,” said Fury. “But really, we do need a place like this. We kinda locked ourselves out of buying health potions at the good-guy stores. Worth it, though.”

“We were behind the pirate raid of Divatox and Haruko!” Euryale chirped. “Were you here for that part?”
“Erm…” Mondo was confused. “No.”

“Oh,” Euryale moaned.

“And I’m sure if I ever break my Phoenician snake bracelet…” Fury held up her arm to show the trinket off. “You can hook me up with the location of a replacement.”

“The location?” Mondo scoffed. “Oh, please. I have seven in my inventory right now.” He gestured to a shelf where identical bracelets were lined up.”

“WHAT THE – “ Fury zoomed over to the shelf, plucking a bracelet, biting it to verify its authenticity. “These are the REAL DEAL! Where were you back on my homeworld when I had to trick some doofus into trading his for thinking I put a love spell on a dumb cheerleader?”

“It seems we were destined to cross paths,” Mondo said with a smirk. “Oh, how I am glad to meet clients with whom I can be honest. Perhaps one day, I may even show you my true face…but let’s not get ahead of ourselves!”

Mandrake put a final load of items on the counter. “Okay. I’m done.”

“Do you have ANY idea how much that’s going to cost?” Evelyn snapped.

“We can all pitch in to buy it for her!” Giffany suggested.

“Why would we do that?” Evelyn retorted.

“Because it might as well be her birthday,” Giffany said. “Since she doesn’t know.”

“I dunno, that’s kinda wholesome.” Taylor slapped their munny down on the counter. “Happy birthday, Mandr…um.”

“Rosemary,” Mandrake hissed.

“Happy birthday, Rosemary,” Taylor said confidently.

“Happy birthday!” Euryale ponied up her own money.

“Are we f*cking serious right now?” Stocking asked.

Chane placed a few more munny down and signed “Happy birthday.”

Between those three, Linda, and surprisingly Medusa, the costs were covered. Mandrake scooped it all into his adventurer’s pack.

“Don’t be strangers,” Mondo told them. “For your kindred spirits, you will always be safe beneath my roof. Others…won’t be so fortunate.”

“Well, it’s a good thing those others aren’t our problem, then,” Evelyn scoffed.

“Let’s blow this joint,” Stocking sighed. “We’re only two away from candy. TWO AWAY.”

“Right,” Evelyn said. “We’d better get moving, else Stocking’s going to turn into a candy monster and swallow us whole.”

“You joke,” Stocking droned, “but the way I’m feeling, that just might happen.”

“And we still have to matchmake Mondo with the lady next door!” Giffany declared.

“WE’RE NOT DOING THAT,” Taylor insisted.

“We’re SO DOING THAT!” Linda argued.

Mondo waved as the group left his shop and moved one over. This shop had a calm, blue façade, with “Queen’s Nautical Treasures” in neat calligraphy on the sign above the door.

“Are we seriously going to try and steer this poor woman into that guy’s arms?” Taylor hissed to Evelyn.

“It’s not like I want to!” Evelyn hissed back. “But good luck changing Giffany’s mind on anything! I don’t think we’re going to be able to stop her from doing what she wants!”

“God damn it, you’re right,” Taylor groaned.

The two had matching dour expressions as they entered the blue shop.

This one was just as glamorous as Mondo Magic, with calm blue walls painted to reflect shifting ocean waters. Its shelves were laden with gold, jewels, pearls – all fashioned into pretty baubles to wear or household items like goblets and clocks. It shone like an undersea treasure trove.

Evelyn gasped, rushing toward a shelf of gaudy jewelry. “He said there wouldn’t be any high fashion here! These are AMAZING! And they look handmade, but in the artisan way, not the made-this-on-the-garage-crafting-table way!”

She reached to pick one up. Taylor and Mandrake both hurried to her side to stop her.

“I wouldn’t,” said Mandrake.

“Evelyn,” Taylor said worriedly, “I think this is one of those ‘buyer beware’ things, and THAT’S why we weren’t told about it!”

“It’s magic,” Mandrake continued. “Definitely magic. Probably some of the same curses as we saw next door. Or worse.”

Evelyn withdrew her hand. “How could I have been such an idiot?” she hissed to herself.

“Or whoever set this up is REALLY good at what they do,” Taylor posed. “Remember. We’re in the thick of villain territory here.”

“And I, for one, love it.” Mandrake licked his Rosemary lips as he surveyed the glimmering array. “The things here I could use to drive people into an early grave! And knowing the kind of curses that usually come on wearables, it’d be FUN to watch, too!”

“Ugh, hello?” Fury called out. “Is anybody even in here? Because no cashier means no customers!”

There was the significant sound of water dripping from the ceiling. A leak in the roof, behind the sales desk.

“Weird,” Stocking remarked. “This place looks more well-constructed than that. I wouldn’t expect it to leak like my sister’s – “

Chane, not knowing what Stocking was about to compare it to but unable to think of anything that “leaked” and was appropriate, silently and efficiently slid a hand over Stocking’s mouth to stop the sentence. Stocking glared at her, but didn’t argue.

The water kept dripping, then came down harder and faster, a regular flow.

“There’s no hole in the ceiling, either – “ Linda observed.

They were all cut off when the water came down in one final splash and forged itself into a tall shape. That shape then solidified into the proprietor of the shop, standing behind the sales counter.

She was inhumanly beautiful. All shoppers present felt a strange pull toward her, though they could observe that her violet eyes were maybe a bit too big to be a normal human woman’s. She had pale skin tinted the slightest blue, like the pallor of a drowned corpse, and a veritable waterfall of dark hair that cascaded down her back. Her figure was almost impossibly slender, with just enough curves to form an hourglass silhouette shrouded in a black gown.

“Welcome to my shop,” the woman said seductively, beckoning with a hand.

Without really knowing why, everyone else took a step toward her.

“Do you see anything that interests you?” the woman asked. “Why, these jewels would look so stunning around your throats.”

“Nice try,” said Mandrake. “So how can we handle these so we don’t get cursed, but we can use them on OTHER sorry saps?”

“WHAT THE – “ The woman’s calm countenance broke. “HOW’D YOU FIGURE THAT OUT SO FAST? I SWEAR TO – “ She then took a deep breath to compose herself. “I mean…such a clever young woman. Or is that label correct?” She raised a brow. “I’ve worn many a false face myself, of course. I can see through them so easily.”

Mandrake stuck his tongue out at her.

“He’s our pet shapeshifter!” Giffany said excitedly. “Before there are any wacky misunderstandings, I should let you know that we’re all extremely evil and self-serving, so you can be yourself around us and you don’t have to try to trick us!”

“Yeah, because telling somebody ‘you don’t have to trick us’ will sooooo totally make them stop trying to trick you,” Fury groaned. “But seriously. Nice cursed artifact hut. I probably could’ve made use of some of these back when I was alive. Shame we never ran in the same neighborhood.”

“There are some here that grant power, you know,” said the strange woman. “But which are power, and which grant only pain to the possessor? I wouldn’t give away all my secrets upon first meeting.”

“Who even are you?” Fury asked. “The sign said ‘Queen.’ Are you queen of anything, or is that just you being braggy?”

“Why, I am the Queen of the Black Puddle!” The Queen spun gracefully, reality almost becoming slow-motion around her to highlight her ethereal beauty. “My domain thankfully was able to be transferred with me when my home world was destroyed, and so I still reign supreme over a kingdom of bones.”

“Oh, that’s so badass,” Taylor commented. “The way you said that, I mean.”

“Hang on,” said Medusa. “The guy next door said you were wearing a fake face. Are we seeing the real you, or the you that you want us to see?”
The Queen chuckled. “Ah, Mondo. Such a charming man. If only he would be confident enough in his own face to let it show to me. It’s truly so beautiful. As for me, what you see is a guise…but I don’t think you’re ready quite yet for the truth.” She winked.

“So is there anything here you’re gonna be upfront about helping us get our hands on to use for nefarious purposes?” Fury sighed. “Or should we just move on to the candy place so Stocking doesn’t explode?”

With the way Stocking was drooling and vibrating while standing in place, no one was convinced she wouldn’t literally do just that.

“Well, I do specialize in matters of the heart,” the Queen said seductively. “Is there someone you wish to be caught in the fisherman’s net of infatuation?”

“YES!” Giffany hopped up and down. “His name is Warechu, and he’s the most adorable little mouse! But I want to make sure he can never, ever, EVER leave! EVER.” Her voice distorted horribly on that last word.

The Queen smiled. From almost nowhere, she produced a necklace of seashells, holding it up. “This necklace has magical properties. Gift it to the person of your choice…and they will be bound as a thrall for all time.”

Giffany gasped, her eyes literally sparkling with all the stars of a night sky. Yes, literally. You would just have to use the zoom function to see it all. “THAT’S PERFECT! I’ll take ten!”

“HOLD ON,” Taylor broke in. “Whose thrall? Hers or yours?”

The Queen chuckled. “Oh, clever, clever!” She lay the necklace on the table. “This one’s enchantment links back to me. I could make you one of your own, if you wanted, one that would make this Warechu an absolute slave to you.” She leaned forward, putting a couple fingers under Giffany’s chin seductively to tilt Giffany’s attention toward her. “For the right price, of course.”

“Um, do you mean money, or do you mean, uhhhh, favors?” Euryale asked.

Stocking snapped out of her candy-driven reverie long enough to say “She means ‘Are you gonna ask us to whor* our bodies out to you to pay for your magic sh*t, you f*cking perv?’.” Then she went right back to zoning out and drooling.

“Oh, I wouldn’t ask that of kindred spirits,” the Queen said, lowering her hand and gaze from Giffany’s face to address the crowd. “I might have a little fun with mischief, maybe, but the payment I’m asking for is monetary. The thing about a hoard of gold from a thousand shipwrecks is that the Traverse Town banks haven’t figured out how to convert it to munny yet, so all my wealth is basically useless here until I get a decent exchange rate. Until then, I’m going to need to ask for high markups on my merchandise. You understand.”

“Oh, I understand, all right,” Evelyn groaned. “I understand you’re no less greedy than anyone else in this room.”

“We really are kindred spirits,” the Queen chuckled.

“One more thing,” said Giffany. “We just came from Mondo’s magic shop next door, and Mondo would really like to kidnap you and force you to be his bride. It’s so romantic! Please, please, PLEASE tell me you’re interested!”

“Oh my God.” Taylor hid their face in their hands. “I’m so sorry.”

“He…” The Queen’s face flushed. “He said that about me?”

“I know,” Taylor groaned. “It’s horrible. Look, if you want us to tell him to back off – “

The Queen gave a dreamy smile, flipping over onto her back and lying on the counter. “I had no idea he felt so strongly,” she giggled. “He should have told me earlier! I myself had contemplated throwing my own necklace around him so many times…but having him as a mindless thrall wouldn’t do. The problem is I don’t know any other way to get my fins in the door…but if he’s planning to make the first move and sweep me off my fins!” She kicked her feet, giggling even more high-pitchedly. “I wonder if he’ll do it soon! Oh, I can’t wait!”

Taylor uncovered their face. “I should be surprised. I should be disappointed. Somehow I’m not either of those things, and that’s what actually makes me mad.”

“You realize he wants to turn you into a…whatever he is,” Evelyn said. “Which we don’t know because he never took off that human suit. How bad is it, really?”

“Oh, Mondo is beautiful, as are the women of his species,” the Queen sighed. “But unfortunately, that look just…isn’t me.”

“He did say your real face was beautiful,” Chane signed. “Maybe he just needs to realize it’s all he needs.”

The Queen did in fact know sign language, and so she nodded in agreement as she righted herself to stand behind the counter. “He’s just had such awful luck with women. I’m sure he made passes at all of you, despite your…wretched humanoid appearances.”

“Our WHAT?” Evelyn snapped.

“Uh, excuse you!” Fury barked. “I am all Gorgon! A monsterlover’s dream!”

“He probably thinks the transformation is the only crutch left on which he can rely,” the Queen sighed.

“Okay,” Taylor grumbled. “I’m going to make an ATTEMPT with the new context. I think…you two need to TALK to each other about this. He likes you, you like him, now you know he likes you, we can double back and tell him you like him if that’s necessary but I would rather not because at this point, you two can solve it yourselves. And…take your mutual forced marriage kink where other people don’t have to look at it.”

“Talk to him,” the Queen muttered. “Hmm, yes. But I shouldn’t go without a present. I wonder…” She scanned the shelves. “Hexes, hexes, and more hexes. It looks like I’ll have to craft something new.”

“We’ll leave you to that,” Stocking said suddenly. “Anyway, you heard the woman, she wants to be alone and IT’S CANDY TIME!” Then she was out the door.

Evelyn and Fury both sighed and shook their heads.

“I guess we’re going too,” said Fury.

“Good luck with the mutual romantic entrapment!” Giffany said with a wave on her way out.

Mandrake was the last to exit, and the Queen was so caught up in her thoughts of romance that she almost didn’t notice him stuffing three hexed bracelets into his pocket on the way out the door. “HEY, YOU!” she yelled in her deeper, raspier timbre. “YOU GET BACK HERE AND PAY FOR THAT!”

She made a run for the door, and as she did so, her body began to elongate, to twist and change into something completely else, the shape of a predator –

Mandrake slammed the shop door shut just as she reached it. She slammed into it hard, and then all that could be heard was a muffled “WHEN I GET OUTTA HERE I’M GONNA – “ that devolved into language probably best not repeated.

“Let’s go before she realizes it’s her own door and she can just open it!” Fury hissed.

Chane gave Mandrake a smack on the back of the head, as was deserved, and then, at long last, everyone entered Katz Kandy.

It surprisingly looked far less like a murder shack on the inside. It had a vintage design, with fruit-patterned wallpaper and great bell jars full of small assorted candies on the wooden counter. The shelves were laden with just about every sweet one could imagine: lollipops and chocolates and caramels and more. Stocking thought she just might die of happiness here.

There was, once again, no one at the checkout counter. “Uggghhh,” Fury groaned. “Lemme guess: we gotta wait for whoever runs this place to make another dramatic entrance. Is this gonna be how it works in every store?”

Chane, however, had noticed the desk bell. Once more, she simply walked up to it and gave it a ding.

Katz slowly rose up from behind the counter, though he surely hadn’t been there before. “Welcome to Katz Kandy,” he greeted in monotone. “I am Katz.”

“We’ve met,” Evelyn reminded him. “At the info desk.”

“Yes, well, these days, a feline has to take multiple jobs just to make ends meet,” Katz explained.

“Or you’re just an overachieving loser,” Nefera taunted. “So, is any of this candy edible or is it just poison?”

“It’s all edible,” Katz explained. “Probably more edible than the stock at the first Katz Kandy, to be fair. The flagship location was located next to a toxic waste dump. To most, that would be a no-sell on the property, but to OUR sort, it increases the value of the lot. But you knew that. Here, I rather miss the churn of the radioactive turbines, but it does make for purer sweets.”

“So what’s the evil part?” Taylor asked.

“All proceeds of Katz Kandy sales go toward funding the Mall of Nowhere’s research and development,” Katz explained. “That means Mondo’s magic, the Queen’s hexes, my behind-the-scenes murderous schemes…and you haven’t met the others yet, so we’ll keep the rest a surprise. The candy itself is innocuous…mostly.” He smirked.

“Mostly?” Nefera winced.

“Oh, there is one little touch I forgot to mention,” Katz said proudly. “The recipe is plagiarized.”

There was a pause. Then Fury said “Wowwww. I REALLY thought it was gonna be something less petty than that.”

“Petty?” Katz’s brow furrowed. “You find my longstanding rivalry with Muriel Bagge PETTY? Every year, she would defeat me at the local sweet-making contest, dooming me to the humiliation of second place!”

“You racked up second place every single year?” Taylor reiterated. “That actually sounds like a pretty good achievement. I’d pat myself on the ba – “

“IT WAS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!” Katz snapped. “No, I had to win. It was bad enough that that woman had escaped my venomous spiders, denying them their evening meal at my hotel, and that she had exposed my scheme to cause a submarine accident that would earn me a significant amount of money at the expense of only a few dozen innocent lives. But she had to outdo me at candy-making! I couldn’t let it stand a moment longer!”

“…So one of those three incidents sounds WAY below the level of the other two,” Taylor pointed out. “I’m just saying.”

“It took great sacrifice on my part,” Katz sighed. “Well, it wasn’t supposed to, but how was I to know that the taffy puller I’d engineered to cause Muriel’s demise would end up entrapping me instead?”

“Are you OKAY?” Taylor asked.

“Oh, of course I am,” Katz replied. “I simply had to spend a few weeks as radioactive taffy, but who hasn’t?”

No one knew how to answer that question. Euryale just gave an “Uh…”

“In the end, however, I acquired the knowledge of her secret ingredient,” Katz said. “Now, this is the finest candy in all the worlds – and given that Muriel is long gone, possibly even sent to the great beyond, there is no one to challenge me within Traverse Town!”

He was suddenly taken off guard when Stocking jumped over the counter and picked him up by the underarms, shaking him violently. “THE FINEST CANDY IN ALL THE WORLDS?” she screeched. “I CAN’T TAKE IT ANY LONGER! I NEED IT NOW! HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT?”

“I’ll – I’ll give you a free sample if you simply put me down!” Katz sputtered. He knew a bona fide fallen angel when he saw one. It just wasn’t very often that he saw one willing to go to bat over caramels.

Stocking let him drop like a stone, so he quickly sputtered “The jar on the counter, take five!”.

Stocking practically ripped off the lid, but then her feral rage subsided as she saw the selection inside. It was a delightful mix of round and square, soft and hard, all wrapped up in bright colors. She couldn’t just grab willy-nilly. Like a gourmet, she needed to choose sweets that would complement each other. Delicately, she picked out her first, unwrapping a pure milk chocolate square and putting it gracefully in her mouth. The minute it hit her tongue, her poise was gone, and she made a noise most inappropriate while practically melting to the floor. “So…good…”

“She’s mad,” Katz remarked.

“Yeah, we know,” Nefera groaned.

“We’re all mad here,” Fury pointed out.

Chane nodded, signing “Well-chosen reference.”

“…Reference?” Fury asked. “To what? I was just saying what we are. Ugh, never mind.”

Stocking was digging for a peanut butter cup by that point, and was very pleased to find one that was extra thick. “So what’s the secret ingredient?” she asked before taking another bite and acting like she had just received a pleasure that certainly wasn’t candy. Then she snapped back to normal; “You’re killin’ us with the suspense here.”

“Now why would I tell you that?” Katz asked with a wink. “I couldn’t have you becoming my competition, now, could I?”

“It’s vinegar,” said Mandrake.

Katz gave a start. “But how did you – I never – “

“Because I know the taste of vinegar anywhere,” said Mandrake around a full mouth.

Katz looked from him to another jar and back. “I never said YOU could help yourself.”

“And I never said I cared.” Mandrake popped another mint. “I never thought of vinegar for candy, though. It’s the opposite of sweet, which is why no one would expect it. I usually just like to drink it right out of the bottle.”

“EWWW!” Fury recoiled. “WHY?”

Mandrake shrugged. “Iunno. My guess is it’s genetic, but I don’t exactly have parents to ask.”

“You’re lying,” Stocking countered. “No way this is made with vinegar.” She bit into a marshmallow truffle. “It has to be only the finest sugar, the most expensive cocoa beans imported from faraway lands, flavors distilled by hand in a cursed cauldron under the light of a full moon – “

“No, it’s the vinegar,” Katz sighed. “Though I hadn’t thought of that lunar ritual idea. I may very well take that without asking.”

“Well, none of us have any interest in making candy,” Evelyn sighed, “so I don’t think you have to worry about us spilling your secret. It’s basically useless.”

“Uh, hello?” Nefera countered. “It’s a secret ingredient. We just have to find the right competitor and we can sell that secret for millions.”

“Oh, way to burn the bridge the minute you step on it!” Evelyn snapped.

“This is why you keep losing, you know,” Nefera countered. “You think too small.”

“WHY YOU – “

Evelyn would have lunged on Nefera if Taylor hadn’t stepped in between them to hold Evelyn back by the shoulders. “Not worth it,” they urged. “Also, if Mandrake figured out the vinegar in one bite, it’s not that secret.”

Stocking slowly savored the last bite of her fifth chocolate. Then, after giving a satisfied sigh, she suddenly returned to feral, slamming her hands on the counter; “MORE! I NEED MORE!”

“Wh-what sort?” Katz was trying not to let his nerves show.

“ALL OF IT,” Stocking hissed.

“Why don’t you put together some little random grab bags for each of us?” Evelyn suggested. “Or a big random grab bag for her. In return, we’ll fund some of your R&D.”

Katz gave a nod. He then slowly sank beneath the counter.

Chane and Medusa peered over the counter to see that no one was there. “Yep, he’s gone,” Medusa sighed.

Stocking pouted, her eyes watering. The others had begun to drag her out of the shop when Katz slowly rose up from behind the counter again; “Where do you think you’re going? I have what you asked for right here.”

He placed ten small candy bags and one comically larger one on the counter. The cash register gave a cha-ching and displayed the price.

“But you were just – “ Linda sputtered. “We thought – “

“We thought you flew the coop,” Medusa clarified.

“Yeah,” Mandrake agreed, popping another stolen candy. “That’s what most salespeople do when I show up. And I’m proud of that.”

“We’re never gonna understand how…you…work, are we?” Taylor asked. “Or most of your friends.”

“My advice is to quit while you’re behind,” Katz warned them.

The candy was paid for. “Aaaaany chance you can give us the scoop on what Mondo and the Queen’s true forms are?” Taylor attempted. “I know the Queen’s has something to do with fins…”

“Believe me,” said Katz. “That’s something you won’t want to know until it becomes absolutely necessary. Now, ta ta. Other customers could arrive at any moment, and we can’t have you all holding up the line.”

“He seems nice,” Linda said as the group exited the shop.

“I’m not even gonna unpack that,” Fury sighed.

Stocking was just happily lost in candyland, eating slowly and a little too appreciatively.

The next shop was rickety, wooden, a façade you might find from a rural shop you’d have to drive a couple hours to reach only to find that most of its merchandise seemed mildly cursed. Its name was simply “Antique-Style Quilt Shop.”

“I already hate this,” Evelyn sighed.

“Same.” Nefera tossed her ponytail.

“Well, I wanna see what’s in here,” Taylor said with a big grin. It was ominous and foreboding, which meant it had to be at least interesting.

The interior was just as rustic as the exterior. Shelves and racks displayed nothing but quilt fabric – blankets, patchwork jackets and pants, old-fashioned throw pillows. It was all made of quilt. Overhead, muffled organ music was being piped in, giving a sense of unease to all who listened too long.

“THIS IS WHAT HE MEANT WHEN HE SAID THERE WAS A FASHION SHOP?” Evelyn sputtered, almost gagging.

“Ewwww!” Nefera backed away, trying to get to a midpoint far from all the displays. “Don’t let it touch me!”

“This is awesome!” Linda immediately dove toward a rack of quilted clothing. “Check out these prices! Finally, I can afford CLOTHES!”

“And THAT’S all the proof I need that my presence is wasted here,” Nefera spat. “It’s a shop for poor people!”

“Oh, it’s so much more than that…” a feminine, aged-sounding voice said from one of two doors behind the counter.

“Here we go,” Evelyn sighed.

“Take bets,” Taylor whispered to her. “On a scale of one to ten, how weird you think this one is?”

“Seven,” Evelyn replied.

The shopkeeper leaned out from one of the doors, revealing her slender frame, her vintage black gown that seemed appropriate for a funeral and not much else, and a pale, angular face. “Welcome to the Antique-Style Quilt Shop!” she greeted.

Then she disappeared, and leaned out the other door. “We were going to call it the ‘Antique Quilt Shop,’” she said – though was her voice a little different? – “but hardly anything here is truly that old. Our specialty is in crafting new memories for whatever era we need to fit.”

“Why two doors?” Evelyn whispered.

“Wait for it,” Taylor whispered back.

The shopkeeper then picked one door through which to enter – and as it turned out, it wasn’t one shopkeeper. One body, yes, clothed in funereal black, but with two heads on top, almost identical to one another with their tight-pulled ballerina buns.

“Two heads?” Evelyn whispered. “Couldn’t’ve guessed that.”

“They’re just conjoined twins,” Taylor whispered back. “That’s not even a monster thing. That’s, like, a two maximum.”

“Welcome,” said one of the heads. “I am Elisa Stitch – “

“And I am Eliza Stitch,” said the other.

“UGGHHHH!” Nefera gave a scream as though she had just seen vermin. “They’re even worse than the clothes!” She backed away, tripping over her own heels and landing on the creaky floorboards.

“Careful, sweetie,” said Elisa. “Fall too hard and you might break through to the basem*nt. Customers don’t really want to go down there. That’s where we keep the SPECIAL inventory.”

“What a disgrace!” Eliza scoffed. “Monsters these days, with all their young and pretty offspring, forgetting all about how we are also their kind!”

“But you’re not monsters,” Taylor blurted. “You’re just twins.”

The Stitch Sisters exchanged a glance, craning their heads on their bony necks, then broke into a fit of giggles. “Not monsters!” Elisa cackled.

“If that’s what you choose to believe,” Eliza said ominously, “then by all means.”

“Hey, check out this cool hoodie!” Linda called out, lifting a garment off the rack. She glanced at the Stitch Sisters, unfazed; she’d seen stranger in Gamindustrii. “This is kinda my style, don’t you think?”

“If you want to look like the inside of a garbage can!” Nefera spat.

“This is so awesome.” Linda traced over the quilt squares that made up the hoodie – entirely black and white except for a few splashes of red. “This is exactly my colors. Wait, hang on. This is weird. You two sewed all this yourselves?”
“We may have had the odd help here and there…” Eliza teased.

“What’s weird about it?” Taylor asked.

“Check out all this detail!” Linda ran over to them.

“Let me see that.” Medusa barged in, taking the fabric into her own hands. “Huh. Hieroglyphics on this patch, this is the many-headed Hydra, these are cave paintings…didn’t think I’d recognize the hit patterns from OUR decade.”

“And all with complete authenticity!” Elisa boasted.

“No way,” Medusa said. “That’d mean you were there for all of these things.”

The Stitch Sisters smirked.

“Hang on,” Fury realized. “You’ve been around…a WHILE, haven’t you?”

“Perhaps…” both sisters said in unison.

“Finally!” Fury groaned. “It has been SO hard trying to connect to these mortals who’ve only been around for less than a century each. No offense.”

“Stocking isn’t mortal,” Euryale pointed out. “She could be older than – “

“I AM NOT!” Stocking yelled, spraying bits of chocolate from what she was eating onto one of the display racks. “DON’T YOU DARE f*ckING FINISH THAT SENTENCE!”

The Stitch Sisters walked over to the rack with disapproval. Elisa reached out (they all assumed it was Elisa’s hand, anyway, since it was on the same side of the body as her head) to pluck the chocolate-and-spit-soiled garment off the rack. “These stains aren’t easy to get out of this fabric, you know,” Elisa scolded.

“We’ll have to charge for it whether you wanted it or not,” Eliza stated coldly.

Stocking swallowed her mouthful of sugar. “And this is why you don’t f*ckING ask an angel her age!”

“Sure, because that was so the problem,” Fury huffed.

Linda ran over to the garment, a long black quilted coat. “Hey, I’ll wear it even if it does have chocolate stains!” she insisted. “Let’s buy it, and I’ll be the one who uses it!”

“Why would you contaminate your skin by touching it?” Nefera asked, getting up from the floor and attempting to dust herself off. It seemed that every surface in this store not holding clothes was covered in a good layer of dust, and the floor was no exception. Nefera spun in a panic like a dog chasing its tail, trying to brush away the detritus from her now stained outfit.

“Hang on.” Taylor reached out to grab the coat, taking a look at its larger patches. “Is this…MOVING?”

The design was reminiscent of an undulating snake body bordered by octopus tentacles. They writhed, there on the fabric, the longer they were looked at, and the patterns they made were already giving Taylor a headache. They felt far more confused than they had when entering the shop.

“You have to be careful with some of the higher-end merchandise,” Eliza taunted. “It may be more than you bargained for.”

“I’ll still take it,” Linda said shyly.

“Even if it drives you mad at the sight of it?” Mandrake posed.

“I mean, I’ll be wearing it,” Linda said, “so it’s gonna be other people who look at me and get driven mad, and that’s pretty boss.”

“…Fair,” said Mandrake. “I’d take one myself if they weren’t so tacky.”

“CAN SOMEONE HELP ME?” Nefera screamed; the dust had left gray markings inset on her top and skirt. “I’M A TOXIC WASTE DUMP!”

“You know, maybe she wasn’t worth it,” Evelyn whispered to Taylor.

“You mighta dodged a bullet,” Taylor whispered back. “…You two are broken up, right?”
“I don’t even know, but I’m half tempted to make it official right here and now.”

“Hey!” Linda laughed. “You got a dirt kiss! I always used to love when I’d get fun mud stains on my jackets. This one time, there was one stain that looked just like a teddy bear, and I got so sad when I had to wash it off – “

“WHAT ARE YOU, SOME KIND OF ANIMAL?” Nefera shrieked.

“All right, so let’s drop the act,” Fury told the Stitch Sisters. “Everyone in this mall so far has been some level of shady, and honestly, we respect that. We’re not your next victims, but we ARE willing to help you out if it benefits all of us. Mondo is a monstrous stalker, the Queen of the Black Puddle is some kind of yandere cannibal fish lady, Katz is…Katz…what’s your story? Obviously that you’ve been around a long, LONG time and seen some horrors.”

The Stitch Sisters giggled in unison. “How refreshing it is to see this attitude among youth!” Eliza snickered. “And here we thought our ways had gone to the dogs in this era of morality!”

“There’s an easy way we could explain it all to you,” Elisa offered. “Have you ever wanted to belong to something greater than yourselves?”
“I mean, we already do,” said Taylor. “We have a faction name and everything.”

“Mmm…perhaps,” Elisa mused. “But would you ever like to have a greater, more eternal support network? We offer a quilting club, you know, and if you wish to join…the meetings would enlighten you.”

“Sure,” said Taylor. “What do I have to – “

“Um, NO!” Fury barked. “Quilt club’s a trap. We might all be shady here, but it still takes one to know one, and I KNOW what I’m looking at.”

“But we were just honest with each other,” said Taylor. “And I wanna see if quilting is fun.”

“All you have to do is pour your heart and soul into a creation,” Elisa went on. “If it’s good enough – “

“Then we’ll let you in,” said Eliza, “and you’ll be among the elites who know the darkest of secrets.”

“I mean, I don’t care about elites,” said Taylor, “but I would like to meet more people. When you say ‘heart and soul’ – “

“IT’S LITERAL, YOU MANTICORE-SHED-FOR-BRAINS!” Fury barked.

“Excuse YOU!” Evelyn spat. “Don’t insult the person who’s been responsible for holding most of this faction together!” Then she leaned in to whisper to Taylor; “She is right about it being a trap though. They’re absolutely trying to…make you part of the quilts or something.”

“How do I know it’s not just a fun club?” Taylor asked.

“TAYLOR,” Evelyn hissed. “Your ability to reason with people and socialize is VERY much appreciated, but not in this case. Right now, we need you to focus on getting Nefera to not break down in tears because she got ‘dirt kissed.’”

Nefera began to bawl loudly.

“Too late,” Evelyn sighed.

“Nefera!” Taylor hustled over to her. “Seriously, it’s okay, we can just raid Gem’s closet when we get back and put you in something better – “

“Are there no other offers to join the quilt club?” Elisa asked with a pout. “None at all?”

“We’re seriously good,” said Fury.

Both Stitch sisters pouted, their heads hanging. “You would have been such fine additions to keep,” Eliza moaned.

“I mean, I’m flattered,” said Evelyn. “I always knew I was wonderful enough to want to be the centerpiece of every collection of hapless victims. The problem being that I’m far from hapless.”

“We may as well give you one of the answers you seek, then,” Elisa said solemnly. “To own a quilt from our shop means to own memories both old and new, across space and time. Every patch that represents a culture or a life carries a part of its creator inside of it.”

“More than you would suspect,” Eliza said with a smirk.

“I think we picked on the subtext that there’s somehow people in the quilts,” Fury groaned.

“People in the quilts?” Linda gave her first hoodie a second look. “Coooool.”

“We’ve also added some of our own designs,” said Elisa. “Things that have captured our morbid interest over the centuries. Things only appreciated by a certain audience.”

Evelyn glanced over to the second garment, the coat with the writhing appendages gracing its embroidery.

“We may be old-fashioned,” said Eliza.

“But we’re masters of our work,” Elisa finished. “Some may call our designs ugly – “

“But there are certain types who will appreciate them more than others,” Eliza continued. “We think you just may be of that type.”

“You don’t need to sell me any more on the clothes,” Linda said. “I’m already buying them.”

“Then let us proceed,” Elisa stated.

Both garments were rung up, paid for, and handed back to Linda, neatly folded. Linda put the Eldritch coat in her pack and immediately traded out her bear-ears hoodie for the one adorned with the cultural relics (and probably literal blood) of dozens of deceived seamstresses.

“Can we get out of here now?” Nefera whined.

“Fine, ya whiny bitch,” Stocking answered.

“Stocking!” Taylor snapped. “Don’t be mean!” They then turned to Nefera. “You are being a bit of a whiny bitch though. No offense.”

Chane just gestured with a hand, beckoning for the others to leave. She locked eyes with Eliza.

“You look like you have plenty of stories to tell in your stitches,” Eliza told her.

Chane didn’t even change expressions to respond. She simply turned around and left. And the others followed.

“If I find out it was just an ordinary after-work quilt club,” Taylor said on the way out, “I’m gonna be seriously pissed, you know.”

The shop next door seemed far more modern in its bright white façade, with a brightly lit sign proclaiming it to be “World of Doc Gerbil.” However, the interior left much to be desired. First off, the sales floor was less than half the size of that of the other shops, leaving the group just enough room to crowd around a checkout desk quite close to the door. What there was for inventory display seemed to have no coherent theme whatsoever, with shelves on the minimal wall space devoted to deodorant, shampoo, baked goods, windshield wiper fluid, vacuum cleaner bags, shoe polish, acrylic paints in limited colors, glitter glue, marshmallow fluff (labeled “Now non-toxic!”), and a few strange gadgets whose purposes couldn’t be divined just from looking at them.

However, the worst part about it wasn’t the minimalism or the lack of space. It was the fact that the PA system overhead was playing only one song, which seemed to have only one lyric, repeated endlessly: “It’s Doc Gerbil’s world! It’s Doc Gerbil’s world…”

After about ten Doc Gerbil’s worlds, Evelyn stamped a foot; “ALL RIGHT, I WANT TO BE BACK IN THE QUILT SHOP WITH THE OMINOUS CHURCH MUSIC!”

“Let’s give this place a chance at least.” Taylor took a bottle of glitter glue from the shelf and planted it on the counter.

Everyone else stared at them.

“What?” they protested. “Sun loves this stuff! And Moon occasionally uses it to try and glue people’s mouths shut, so they both get their mileage!”

“I wonder what kind of shopkeeper we’re dealing with this time!” Euryale said cheerily.

There was a sudden loud noise coming from the area behind the locked door that the checkout counter guarded. That noise could best be described as a high-powered buzzsaw screaming as it cut through metal, but it was accompanied by a rather human-sounding scream with a definite “OH GOD, MAKE IT STOP!”. Lights flashed erratically from the crack beneath the door.

“…My kind of guy, it sounds like,” Mandrake said with a growing smirk.

“I feel like I should maybe do something about this?” Taylor wondered. “Nah. Probably not my business.”

The sound was cut off as quickly as it had begun. There was a sound of tiny, pattering footsteps, and then the door unlatched. The shopkeeper slid through, quick to close the door so that no one could see exactly what was behind it, though by now, they’d all figured out that the reason for the shop’s limited floor space was because most of the building was probably taken up by an R&D workshop, to put it politely. This shopkeeper, a vaguely anthropomorphic purple gerbil who was less than half the height of anyone else present, climbed up on a stack of boxes in order to get his head to the height behind a counter where you’d expect a cashier to even be. He wore a plaid shirt and a jaunty yellow bowler hat.

“Pardon the noise,” he said with a smooth Southern accent. “Welcome to Doc Gerbil’s world; I’m Doc Gerbil. Though my friends call me Lulu Mae. Here, we have the finest assortment of products to suit your every need. Whatever it is you desire, anything at all, put in a request and we’ll start work on engineering it. Guaranteed results faster and more satisfying than any local Gizmo Shop that might be run by any local oversized mouse.”

“Anything?” Fury scoffed. “Please. I couldn’t ask you for a Phoenician snake bracelet – “

“Phoenician snake bracelet,” Doc Gerbil repeated. “Hmm, now that would be some potent magic, real difficult to recreate on the workbench, might take upwards of twenty years to figure it out, but with a few willin’ test subjects, I’m sure we could get it right.”

“You can’t just RECREATE the snake bracelet,” Fury snapped. “It’s an ancient artifact with layered enchantments.”

“Well, I have been lookin’ to expand into the magic market,” Doc Gerbil admitted. “Granted, my specialty has always been science, mechanics and chemistry, but a shop’s gotta change with the times, and startin’ with a big challenge would be a surefire way to master the art.”

“You have no idea what you’re getting into, do you?” Fury accused.

“What I know is that here at Doc Gerbil’s, I, Doc Gerbil, consider no innovation out of reach,” Gerbil went on. “People will pay big for custom items that fit their exacting specifications. And I intend to deliver on those items no matter what it takes.”

“How about some decent fashion?” Nefera grumbled.

“Well, now, there is one exception,” Gerbil said sheepishly. “I’m an innovator, not an artist. My designs are for function over form. Now, a piece of clothing that’d keep you warm in the winter but is made from the thinnest fabric, or bulletproof underwear, those things, I could provide, but not if you’re lookin’ for something where the lookin’s the only important part.”

“Is this glitter glue special?” Taylor asked.

“Why, that would be Doc Gerbil brand arts-and-crafts glitter glue,” Gerbil replied. “You’re holdin’ the mild version, which is easy to clean up and washes off anythin’ it should accidentally stain. Perfect for projects with kids. Now, the STRONG version is a near-permanent adhesive, for…larger projects, or things you need to make sure can’t leave their spot ever again.”

“Yeah, no, that’s a big red flag right there,” said Taylor. “I’ll stick with the mild.”

“It even glows in the dark a little,” Gerbil boasted.

“So,” Evelyn said. “Lulu Mae – “

Gerbil’s brow furrowed. “I said my FRIENDS call me Lulu Mae. We ain’t friends…yet.”

“Are we going to discuss the elephant in the room?” Evelyn asked.

“I can assure you I have not seen such thing as an elephant enter my workshop since inception,” Gerbil responded, “and any terrified elephant noises you may or may not have heard are easily explainable by a variety of excuses.”

“I meant the…” Evelyn paused. “So there’s an elephant back there too along with the human.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of any other living beings in my workshop,” Gerbil went on, “except to say that there is none. Which would be denial, now, wouldn’t it? I guess I deny it.”

“Oh, come on!” Evelyn groaned. “You’re OBVIOUSLY doing horrible experiments on human test subjects in order to make your bizarre products!”

“You don’t need to hide it from us,” Mandrake said honestly. “We get it. We LOVE horrible experiments on human test subjects.”

“Most of us do,” Taylor corrected. “Some of us have BEEN the subjects and see it a little differently.”

“I see.” Doc Gerbil thought it over. “Now, I will admit I’ve been a little understaffed lately. How would one or more of you like to take advantage of a great business opportunity? All you’d have to do is sit still for some harmless procedures, and I’d pay you ten thousand munny for your trouble.”

“Yeah, no, THAT one’s obviously a trap,” Taylor groaned. “Please. I’ve already been a human experiment once. I got lucky it worked out for me.”

“Hang on…” Linda was obviously thinking it over. “Ten thousand munny is a LOT. Maybe if you pay upfront – “

“The answer’s no, and I’m speaking for all of us,” Evelyn said flatly.

“Uh, who said you speak for the group?” Fury snapped. She then glared down Gerbil; “The answer’s no, and I’M speaking for all of us.”

“I see,” Gerbil said. “Well, it’s your loss.”

The distinct sound of someone gargling and choking on their own blood, dying in the attempt, could be heard from behind the workshop door.

“We will support your business with our munny, though,” Euryale said. “Especially if you can outfit us with some nasty tools to beat our rivals.”

“Bitches are practically tripping over each other to come f*ck us up sideways,” Stocking clarified.

“Goody-two-shoes heroes, rival villain factions, you name it,” Fury went on. “So if you’ve got any secret weapons, don’t hold back.”

“Actually, it sounds like we could get some mileage out of that glitter glue!” Giffany chirped.

“No, we can’t,” Evelyn sighed. “No matter how many warning labels we put on it, Cesare would still eat it before we ever got a chance to USE IT, and then we have no weapon and a cyborg with his guts glued together.”

“Oh, riiiiight,” everyone remembered at once.

Chane, however, reached out to the shelf, taking down a fancy fountain pen.

“What good is THAT gonna do us?” Nefera scoffed. “It’s not like the pen is actually mightier than the – “

Chane pointed the pen away from herself, away from anyone else, and clicked it. Immediately, a wickedly long and dangerously thin blade shot out from it. That blade glowed a suspicious green color. Chane gave Gerbil a nod.

“That’ll be nine ninety-five,” Gerbil said.

“That’s pretty cheap for a radioactive knife-pen,” Evelyn pointed out.

“Oh, it’s not radioactive,” said Gerbil. “That would kill the user, and a good salesman knows that’s no way to collect profit. And the price is to justify anybody who picks it up and DOESN’T figure out what it is, and it just wouldn’t be fair to mark it up for its true value, now, would it?”

“If it isn’t radioactive…” Taylor let the rest of the question trail off.

“It’s magic,” Gerbil said. “They got all kinds of magic here to experiment with – more than Mondo could ever offer back home, bless his heart. This blade’s enchanted so any wound it makes can’t close up and heal!”

Chane immediately put her munny on the counter, plus a sizeable tip.

“Yeah, I think we need to buy that just to make sure nobody else can buy that to use against us,” Taylor said.

“You know, Paulo used to love unorthodox weapons before he got taken away from us by our enemies and locked away in an impenetrable angel prison!” Giffany pointed out. “We should give it to him!”

Chane glowered at her, shaking her head as she held the now-closed pen dagger protectively close.

“You’re not gonna let me borrow it either, are you?” Mandrake sighed.

Chane gave him a glare that even made him afraid of her despite the fact that he was a witch and she had no magic to speak of.

They left with the pen dagger and the more innocent version of the glitter glue, bagged in plastic that bore a logo of Gerbil’s face. It wasn’t a flattering photo. Then they made tracks because the overhead music was really starting to get on all their nerves.

“Y’all don’t be strangers now, ya hear?” Gerbil called out as he waved. “And if any of you changes your mind on that job offer – “

A chorus of “NO!” was yelled back at him.

The next store in line, the last before the duplex, was a shabby state of affairs. The wood that made up its face seemed rotten, and literal termites were spotted crawling in and out of the knotholes. The sign overhead that gave its name seemed to have been made of mysterious greenish-brown sludge smeared on posterboard like finger paint to make the name “Live Long Like Conway.”

“I think we might actually die if we go in here,” Fury said.

“I want to agree with you,” Evelyn sighed, “but as a gamer, I know you have to explore EVERYTHING, because sometimes they throw you off with something like this to hide the good loot.”

“The f*ck kind of ‘good loot’ are we gonna find in this manifestation of an unclean asshole in boutique form?” Stocking asked.

“You know,” Taylor pointed out, “there’s a point at which your vulgarity wraps right back around to literal poetry, and I’m kinda jealous.”

“I think this place looks sweet!” Linda declared. “Let’s check it out!”

“NO,” Nefera barked.

Linda had already charged into the shop.

“I’m not going in that dump!” Nefera complained.

“Fine, then,” Evelyn scoffed, brushing past her. “More loot for me.”

“Oh, NO, you don’t get to do that!” Nefera marched after her. “If there’s any ‘loot’ in there, it belongs to ME!”

Everyone filed into the shop to realize that it was just as bad on the inside as it was on the outside. It looked like the entire building might collapse at any given moment. The shelves were lopsided, carrying bottles and jars of suspicious fluids and powders. Worst of all, though, was the cleanliness, or lack thereof. It wasn’t just that the place had never been cleaned; it seemed the staff had gone out of their way to make it dirtier. Mold and mushrooms carpeted the corners. Piles of what might have at one point been used tissues were strewn about. There were plenty of food wrappers and canisters, probably from every single lunch break the proprietor had ever taken. A literal tumbleweed filled with spiders rolled past the would-be shoppers.

“I have very mixed feelings here,” Mandrake said.

“I hate it,” Evelyn sighed.

“Yeah,” Taylor agreed. “Let’s go before we all come down with radiation poisoning or something.”

“Uh, hello?” Fury had noticed something odd going on with Stocking. Namely that the angel had frozen in place, staring wide-eyed toward the checkout counter. “We’re leaving! Like you wanted!” She waved a hand in front of Stocking’s dinner-plate eyes. “Hel-looooo!”

Stocking just gave a gasp. Then a squeak, and both a smile and a blush spread wide across her face.

“WHAT is so interesting?” Fury snapped.

There came the sound of a horrible, hacking cough from the checkout counter.

For the first time, Fury looked past the piles of detritus and moldy half-eaten food piled up on the counter to realize there was, in fact, a person manning the register. And judging by Stocking’s expression… “Oh, no. You’re NOT serious.”

The shopkeeper was seemingly ancient, with lumpy, pockmarked, almost greenish skin and only a few stray hairs on his entire head. He looked like he was probably playing host to twelve diseases at once. His eyes bugged out of his head, and as he coughed up mucus onto the counter, those eyes closed – the lids sealed sideways from how they might on virtually anyone else, so now Fury knew that whatever she was looking at, it wasn’t a human. He wore a grubby, moth-eating jacket (as in the moths eating it were still there and literally doing the job) accessorized with a bright pink scarf that amazingly was relatively cleanish compared to everything else.

“He’s…” Stocking squealed. “He’s perfect…”

“HOW?” Fury yelled.

“Oh, for the LOVE of God!” Evelyn snapped.

Stocking slowly, reverently approached the counter, hearts in her eyes as she beheld this man of incredibly poor hygiene. When he noticed her in return, he gave a start – he did notice, right away, that she was a very pretty woman, but business came first, of course. “Welcome to my store!” he greeted in a grating, raspy voice. “How can I help you?”

“Sweep me off my feet and carry me down the aisle,” Stocking squealed.

“Ugh!” Fury pushed her way into the scene, shoving Stocking back a few paces. “Okay, let’s make this quick. Who are you, what’s your deal, and is there any reason AT ALL we should care about this dump?”

“Name’s Conway,” the shopkeeper introduced with a smile. “Some folks would call me a ‘contaminationist,’ but really, I’m just a simple man who’s discovered the secret to perfect health and a long life. I’m over a hundred years old, you know, but you wouldn’t guess by looking!”

“…Uh, yeah, I did,” Fury said dryly.

“But that’s nothing to be ashamed of!” Stocking chimed in. “Older men are so much more MATURE, and they KNOW THINGS…”

“Oh, I know things, all right!” Conway said proudly. “Every product here is tailor-made for a healthier lifestyle so my clients can live longer and live better!”

“Yeah, no, it’s all poison,” said Fury. “We’ve BEEN in the other shops. We know the deal by now.”

“Oh, but it’s true!” Conway protested. “While the others might sell items that are meant to backfire on the user or be used to cause harm to the client’s enemies, my business model is far more upfront. Everything here is exactly what it’s advertised to be!”

Taylor turned one of the jars on the shelf to face them. “Protein sludge,” they read off the label. “The miracle weight-loss cure.”

Linda shook another jar that was full of dust. “Potpourri lint,” she read. “Guaranteed to increase your lung capacity within three weeks of regular inhalation.”

Mandrake had found a jar of literal leeches, overcrowded and squirming. “Good for anaphylaxis attacks?” he read off the label. “Who the hell would believe THAT?”

“Trust me,” Conway said, “I don’t sell a thing here that I wouldn’t use myself – in fact, I don’t sell a thing here that I HAVEN’T used myself! And now look at me: the picture of health!”

“Uh, yeah, if that picture was painted by a Cyclops with a cataract,” Fury groaned.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Conway told her. “You’ve probably only been on this earth a few decades.”

“Thank you!” said Fury. “But wrong. You have NO idea. By the way, have you ever tried just encasing your whole body in stone? GREAT anti-aging effects.”

Conway actually took out a notepad and wrote that down.

“I was – “ Fury groaned. “Oh, never mind.”

“You may be nonbelievers,” Conway said, “but within a week of using my products, you’ll notice a difference. I’m living proof! How else could I be this old and energetic as ever if this didn’t work?”

“Maybe because you’re not a f*cking human being and you probably have a quintuple lifespan?” Mandrake droned.

Conway blinked at him several times. “Well, I don’t really see what that has to do with it.”

“You’d…probably actually be able to live the same amount of years but be less miserable if you cleaned up a bit,” Taylor said. “Your house. Yourself. Everything. Clean everything. Clean ALL the things.”

“Miserable?” Conway was taken aback. “Who says I’m MISERABLE? Why, I feel fantastic!”

He jumped up on the counter and began to do a sprightly jig. He did in fact look perky and not really hobbled by any of the confounding factors.

“So…adorable…” Stocking squeaked.

“Why, thank you, m’dear!” Conway extended a hand down to her. “Care to join me for a dance?”

Stocking reached up toward him, literally drooling. Fury slapped her hand down. “Gross. You JUST looked at him. How can you decide he’s your soul mate?”

“Soul mates, is it?” Conway stopped jigging in order to think it over.

“Yes,” Stocking sighed, her voice quavering. “Like peanut butter and nougat.”

“Well, I do admit that’s moving a little fast,” Conway mused. “After all, when someone’s got practically eternity, one learns the value of going slow when making important choices in matters of romance.”

“THANK YOU,” Fury groaned. “Also, that’s probably the last time I’m going to thank you for anything.”

Conway glanced at the clock on the wall, which somehow had roaches crawling inside of its face. “Oh, silly me! It’s long past lunch time. I hope you don’t mind if I eat and converse.”

He brought up a battered, rusty tin lunch box that stunk horrendously.

“Don’t you DARE open that!” Fury yelled.

But Conway did. Fury and Stocking could see that he’d packed as his entrée a sandwich that seemed to be just mold between two pieces of also-moldy bread. A few dead co*ckroaches lingered in the corner of the box, twitching slightly; Conway picked one up and threw it into his mouth, crunching it like a potato chip. As for the rest of the box, it was filled with –

“KATZ KANDY!” Stocking gasped. “And pudding and mini cakes and cookies!”

And none of it was moldy, rotten, or expired, either.

“Yeah, what’s with all the sweets?” Fury asked. “No offense, but it kinda goes against your whole…” She made finger-quotes around the next word: “‘Aesthetic.’”

“The sweets are the most important part of the meal!” Conway gasped. “Everyone knows that in order to properly balance the nutrients in your body, you have to ingest incredible amounts of refined sugars.”

“FINALLY, SOMEBODY SAID IT!” Stocking cried. She seemed to have been snapped out of her romance-induced stupor. “I’ve been trying to argue this for YEARS, but my sister was just like ‘That sh*t will make you fat! You’re such a blubber-ass!’ Well, WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, PANTY?”

“Your sister sounds despicable,” Conway said. “Especially since she would insult someone like you, who seems like such a sweetheart! I’ll tell you what: if there’s anything in the box you want, you can take it. I can make up the difference later with some of the sludge growing behind the toilet in the employee restroom.”

Nefera almost threw up.

“Don’t hold it back, dear,” Conway told her. “Better out than in! The floor needs a new coat to wax it anyway.”

Nefera had to clamp both hands on her mouth then, because that statement made her nausea worse, but she was absolutely not going to give him floor vomit if that meant he would win.

“O-oh…I couldn’t take your food…” Stocking said softly, quivering in place.

“My dear, I insist!”

“Okay,” said Stocking. “In that case, I’ll take that three-layer pudding, the petit fours, the caramel fudge, and ALL the peppermints.”

Conway hadn’t expected to fork over that much…but he had insisted. This was on him. He delicately placed all the requested items, wrapped and pristine, on the counter where Stocking could grab them and stuff them in her candy bag. “You know,” he said, “there’s more on the left shelf, but those won’t be freebies.”

“SERIOUSLY?” Stocking zoomed over to the furthest left shelf in the shop. Indeed, tucked away from the rest of the “health” supplements, there was a whole rack of candies and cakes, again jarringly perfect and clean-looking.

“And they’re not filled with sludge?” Fury asked sardonically.

“That would dilute the sugar!” Conway argued. “These recipes are from the best bakeries I ever had the honor of trying to sleep in the dumpsters out back of! The proprietors were always so rude about chasing me away that I ‘borrowed’ a few things out of their kitchen. I didn’t alter the recipes in any way!”

“WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE?” Stocking screamed at Conway. She then cleared her throat. “Sorry. I mean, what’s your favorite? This is a very important question that will determine my opinion of you for the rest of both our lives.”

“A favorite sweet?” Conway thought it over. “That’s a difficult question! There are far too many to pick from! But I think for me, it would have to be lava cakes made with milk chocolate and strawberry filling and iced in peanut butter caramel fudge with marshmallows on top.”

“That’s my new favorite,” Stocking sighed. “You really are perfect.”

Conway chuckled. “My dear, we hardly know each other! Of course, there is a way to solve that problem. After all, it seems we both have many years ahead of us to get to know all about one another and find out if it is indeed a healthy match.”

“Aaaand you’re going to be doing that on YOUR OWN time that isn’t on our shopping day,” Fury growled. “I think we’ve all spent way too much time in here. WAY too much time.”

“I feel like I can taste burnt meat in the back of my mouth because of the air quality in here,” Linda coughed. “I take back what I said. This place is NOT awesome.”

Nefera shook her head, still holding her mouth shut to keep back the bile.

“Yeah, we wore out the welcome a long time ago,” Taylor sighed.

“Except Chane, who left about five minutes ago,” Giffany chirped.

Sure enough, through the grimy store windows, Chane was visible out front of the shop, practicing knifeplay with her new toy from Doc Gerbil.

“And we ALL should have gone with her,” Evelyn groaned. “Stocking, if you want to deal with this…piece of sentient garbage, do it without the rest of us.”

“W-wait!” Stocking urged. “Maybe he can help us, like the other shops!” She turned to Conway. “Listen. I’m gonna be real. We’re not good people. We’re the kind of people who would buy from the other shops to push that stuff on other dumbasses who wouldn’t see it coming. Do you have anything that could help us with what most people might call an ‘evil scheme’?”

“Hmm.” Conway pondered it. “Well, if I’m being honest, there ARE some people who have experienced…adverse effects to my products…”

“NO ONE’S SURPRISED,” Evelyn scoffed.

“And if they suffer for it,” Conway chuckled, “well, that’s just too bad. After all, profits come first. I’m not about to advertise that one size doesn’t fit all. All I’ll say in your case is that if there’s someone you want off the board who happens to have a black mold intolerance, you might get some EXTRA mileage out of what I offer.”

“Literally everyone has a bl – “ Taylor shook their head. “Nope. Just leaving.”

Most everyone filed out. Stocking, of course, lingered – and so did Fury. “I’ll come back for you,” Stocking whispered hungrily.

“…And I’m gonna be real: I’m a bit interested in the idea of using this stuff to poison our rivals,” Fury said. “Some of us might be back. Just not without those handy gas mask things they invented this past century.”

“Hey,” Mandrake piped up – apparently he’d been sifting through the candy aisle. “Why do you have sugar-free gummy bears? I thought that went against your whole thing.”

“They make excellent laxatives,” Conway said. “Good for the digestive system. You can do a whole cleanse on them!”

“Yeah, those things are infamous because if you eat too many, you’ll be sh*tting all day,” Stocking translated.

“I’m gonna need ten bags,” Mandrake said.

“You’re going to put them out in a free-for-all bowl at End of Line and see who gets the runs first, aren’t you?” Fury groaned.

“Until I get somebody to hunt down and stab for sport,” Mandrake said flatly, “I have to entertain myself SOMEHOW around here.”

“Eh. Makes sense.”

After the purchase of the trick gummies, Fury and Mandrake literally had to drag Stocking out of Conway’s shop. Conway gave her a pleasant wave as she looked back at him with a lopsided, dreamy smile.

Outside the shop, Mandrake inhaled deeply; “Gods. It was so bad in there that the air out here literally tastes sweet.”

“Why the HELL?” Evelyn barked at Stocking.

“I can’t help it!” Stocking whimpered. “He’s exactly my type! I’ve always had such a thing for older bachelors who have a bit of trouble taking care of themselves!”

“…A BIT of trouble,” Fury repeated.

“He reminds me of the last man I loved, actually,” Stocking said. “He was perfect in every way.”

“Ugh, do we WANT to know what he was really like?” Medusa groaned.

“But he…he disappeared after…” Stocking’s brow furrowed. “After Panty had to go and get involved because SHE thought she knew what was BEST for me. She never thought he was good enough, and now he’s – he’s - ! Well, the point is, I’ll never see him again. But even if I could…he isn’t ANYTHING next to Conway. I didn’t even know my heart could flutter this much!” She paused. “Maybe…maybe I should…gift him some candy next time I – NO! I could never just let a MAN touch my personal stash! But…but he deserves it…and he gave me half of his desserts…”

(She also conveniently omitted that her past lover had technically crossed the veil between life and death after learning to love, and that in the long run, Panty’s sabotage attempts had nothing to do with their separation. After all, if that were the commonly accepted version of events, it would mean that Stocking was more at fault than Panty, and that just wasn’t right.)

“I think it’s adorable that Stocking fell in love!” Giffany chirped. “If you want to kidnap him and bring him back to keep tied up in your room, I’ll DEFINITELY help out!”

“…Rain check on that one,” said Stocking, who was considering it.

“Let’s just move on to the last shop,” Evelyn sighed. “Wait. Where’s Nefera!”

Nefera came stumbling out of World of Doc Gerbil. “Euuuurrgh,” she groaned. “I don’t think there’s anything left in me to throw up. By the way, you should use the bathroom in there sometime. The toilets are cutting-edge tech. ALMOST De Nile quality.”

The last shop was the duplex: a double-wide boutique that seemed to be split in two but with no physical barrier down the middle. Two signs identified the halves as “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad – Pawn and Trade” and “Acme Gadgets Outlet.”

“Hey!” Taylor ran toward the storefront. “I’m at the pawn shop! I’m at the outlet store! I’m at the combination pawn shop and outlet store!”

The others stared blankly at her. Then Chane sighed the phrase “What the hell?”
“Is this another of your mee-mees?” Euryale asked.

“…Forget I said anything,” Taylor muttered.

Compared to literally every other shop visited so far, except perhaps Katz Kandy, this was the most normal-looking place. The left half was the pawn shop, featuring all manner of goods that had seemingly been traded in…but closer inspection revealed that something was off. There was a vintage chess set that would have been beautiful if ten of its pieces weren’t randomly missing. A gorgeous old-fashioned gown hung on a mannequin; the majority of its formerly floor-length skirt had been chopped off neatly for no discernible reason. A pearl necklace seemed to only have about two-thirds the pearls it should have, with a long length of bare chain.

As for the other half of the shop, the Acme outlet, Fury, Evelyn, and Mandrake gaped. It was everything a gang of aspiring villains could ask for, stocked with blades, guns, literal dynamite, a small display catapult, and other assorted weapons and devices for scheming.

Both counters had bells on them. Chane approached the pawn shop counter first, giving it a loud ding.

There was the sound of excitedly skittering feet as the proprietor of this half of the boutique came scrambling out to greet his customers. “Welcome, everyone!” he said, throwing his arms out wide as he arrived at the counter. “It would be my pleasure to help you today in any way you might need!”

In response, he was met with a host of blank, flabbergasted stares. So far, the shopping group had seen a lot of strange folks. That much couldn’t be denied. But this one was perhaps the strangest yet. At least the others could be categorized, or resembled living things that were recognizable.

This man looked as if someone had 3D-printed a massive white plastic 2 and an equally large 3, as well as a horizontal bar, and stacked it all up to make a “2/3” fraction that was as large as a human being, if on the short side. From the 2 protruded thin, black, sticklike arms that one might think of in the art style of a child’s drawing, and similarly impossibly thin legs were situated below the 3 to keep him balanced.

“Ah, I see,” said the walking number. “I get this reaction a lot, you know. It’s not often that folks see my kind. When I first left the haven of the fraction country, the first sort I came across was whole integers, and they didn’t take too kindly to me at all. I had to explain to them that I’m just like any other number, and that I’m not so different from your average 1 or 763. I’m just the humble 2/3.” He pronounced his name “Two-Thirds.”

Again, no one spoke (or signed). That so-called explanation had spurred far more questions than it had answered, and no one knew what order to ask them in.

“I’ll give you some time to get used to the sight of me,” 2/3 decided. “Really, though, I’m not that different from you, regardless of how I might look. Feel free to take a look at my wares – all completely legally and ethically sourced, mind you. Though might I ask, before you begin, that the charming lady in the Stitch Sisters sweater and the girl with the plump pigtails give back the items in their pockets?”

Linda and Mandrake exchanged glances. “What items?” Linda said nervously. “We don’t know about any items – “

“We didn’t steal anything, asshole,” Mandrake argued.

Somehow, it became apparent that if 2/3 had a face, it would have displayed disappointment that came up just short of anger. “I’m afraid there needs to be a certain level of trust between my clients and myself before I can allow you to shop here. And if your act of theft is indicative of…other qualities, you won’t want to miss out on what I have to offer.”

“Just give the stuff back,” Fury commanded.

Linda and Mandrake reluctantly emptied their pockets of all the jewelry they’d swiped from around the store.

“When did you even have time to take all that?” Evelyn asked in wonderment.

“You’re talking to a pair of professionals,” Mandrake reminded her.

“I just didn’t think I’d be able to afford any of it,” said Linda. “And I know people would pay a lot for this stuff, even though it’s broken – “

“Broken?” 2/3 was confused, picking up one of the necklaces that seemed to be missing some of its gems. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. Oh, I might have a guess, though – see, as a fraction, I can only do things by two-thirds. Everything I stock is in keeping with that theme. It’s built into my nature. It might not be to everyone’s taste, but I delight in catering to the esoteric. As for the prices, you’ll find that everything has at least a one-third markdown from its expected retail price, but sometimes, I marked it down another one-third after that and then one-third after that. I also pride myself on being affordable.”

“Why is all this fancy stuff so cheap?” Taylor asked. “Is it cursed? Because that’s a theme we’ve been seeing lately.”

2/3 chuckled. “Why, no. I wouldn’t even know how to curse items if I wanted to. I simply am not in this business for the money. Profit is a secondary motivation. This shop is a passion project for me, and I like to make my wares indicative of that.”

“Now HOLD on.” Evelyn picked up one of the things that Linda had given back. “I recognize this. Mostly. This is supposed to be a celestriad cuff, and you can ONLY get it at the Accessory Shop in the First District. I KNOW because I’ve been eyeing one for a while, but I can’t wear it until I find a new ensemble or five to match its color scheme, so I haven’t bought it.” She tapped the design on top of the cuff link, which featured two stars crowded on one side so that they looked rather lopsided. “There’s supposed to be three stars here, but one’s missing, like it’s been pried off.”

“I’m not quite sure what you’re implying,” 2/3 told her.

“And WHAT THE – “ Evelyn picked up another bauble. “This is a golem chain, but it’s shorter than it should be, like someone cut off a third of the links! The bell’s gone from this draw ring, some of the gems were dug out of this sorcerer’s ring…” She then held up a badge that was supposed to be in the shape of a stylized heart, but just had a third of it roughly snapped off. “REALLY?”

“As I said, my wares are esoteric,” 2/3 said calmly.

“They’re STOLEN is what they are,” Evelyn accused. “You steal from other shops and alter them so they have a third of them gone, don’t you?”

“THAT’S why you said we might be more interested in your stuff when you noticed us stealing!” Taylor gasped. “And it’s why your prices are so low: you’re turning a profit no matter what, and it’s the stealing part that’s important, not the selling!”

“These are quite strong accusations,” 2/3 said, still unflapped.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Fury groaned. “We’re all a bunch of bad guys who just spent at least half an hour buying suspiciously shady things that we intend to use to sabotage others. We LOVE stolen stuff.”

Mandrake held up one of the bags of sugar-free gummy bears and Chane held out the magic pen dagger to prove the kind of wares they were interested in.

“Hmm…” 2/3 thought it over. “Well, I suppose it might be a risk to take you at your word, but to be frank, looking at you as a whole, I’m inclined to believe your word. After all, if you’ll pardon me, your aesthetic is neither humble nor wholesome.” He nodded his 2 in Taylor’s direction. “With the exception of theirs.”

“I’m the odd one out,” Taylor said.

“This will make business quite easier if you are as you say,” 2/3 went on. “All right. I will admit to it. Theft is my passion, and the resale just icing on the cake. A significant portion of my wares MAY have been acquired from elsewhere in Traverse Town, as well as some holdovers from the worlds I’ve visited before this. And, of course, altered to fit my specifications, as I can only do things by two-thirds.” He stopped to turn his 2 toward the Gorgon Sisters. “I’m terribly sorry, but I simply MUST ask – are you triplets, and if so, would two of you and only two of you be interested in a part-time job stocking my shelves? It would be incredibly fitting of my aesthetic to have two out of three triplets working here.”

“Hard pass,” all three Gorgons said as one.

“I expected as much,” said 2/3, “but faint heart never did win faithful employee.”

“So you’ve been through other worlds before this one?” Evelyn asked.

“Oh, yes, of course,” said 2/3. “My associate – the one who runs the outlet store on the other half of the retail space – and I have spent quite some time questing across the multiverse. We sell our wares, yes, but it’s only so we can get by while we chase our true pursuit. Though he should really be here when you’re told about it. I’d say he should be the one to tell you about it, but that’s rather difficult for him, you see. If you ring the bell, however, he should come running.”

Giffany skipped over to the bell on the Acme side, giving it several enthusiastic dings. There was immediately the sound of a massive crash from the back storeroom – whoever the bell was meant to summon seemed to have tripped and caused a cascade of disaster. There was a chain of sounds of several more things falling over, glass breaking, and a cat meowing before the salesman of the outlet store showed up in the storeroom doorway, bedraggled and mussed – quickly straightening up and brushing off his fur to look as professional as could be.

Well, at least as professional as a human-sized anthropomorphic coyote could achieve.

He immediately gave a dramatic bow, gesturing from the would-be shoppers toward his inventory. Struck by the inspiration to make a pitch, he picked a gadget labeled “INSTANT TORCH” off the wall. It gave the impression of a medieval torch, a fluted metal rod, but with no flame and a switch at the base. The coyote flicked the switch proudly, and absolutely nothing happened. So he flicked it a few more times, then turned it to his eye, looking down its barrel to see what was wrong –

“I wouldn’t,” 2/3 advised with the exhaustion of someone who already knew his warning would not be heeded.

The torch suddenly started working, shooting out a massive jet of flame that enveloped the coyote’s head.

“OH MY GOD!” Taylor screamed, making to move toward him.

“He’s fine,” 2/3 said casually.

And in fact, when the flames subsided, the coyote was mostly unharmed – just covered in a layer of ash. Embarrassed, he brushed it all off, regaining his normal brown coat, and gently, as if afraid of the device, set the torch back on its shelf.

“Well, this keeps getting more and more bizarre,” Evelyn huffed.

“You two are friends or something?” Fury asked.

“Wile E. and I go back quite a bit,” 2/3 explained. To this, the coyote – one Wile E. Coyote to be precise – nodded emphatically. “He’s a man of few words – well, no words, really - but that’s hardly stopped him from chasing down his ambitions.”

“Your ambitions of running a joint store in the middle of Traverse Town and selling half-broken merchandise and faulty torture devices,” Fury droned.

“One-third broken, I will remind you,” 2/3 said indignantly. “And our venture here is but funding for our true goal. One that has taken us across many colorful worlds to meet with many colorful friends.”

“I know you want us to ask,” Evelyn sighed, “so what is it? What is this big true goal that you have in mind!”

“Is it world domination?” Mandrake asked excitedly.

“A massive prank?” Linda asked with the same fervor.

“If it’s to seduce Conway, both of you can step the f*ck off,” Stocking growled.

Chane, however, had wondered, the moment she saw Wile E., if he might not communicate using her method. She quickly signed to him, “Why don’t you tell us?”

Wile E. was surprised to see that someone in the group signed. It clicked with him that she hadn’t spoken once since entering the building. He knew the language, but while he was adept at reading it, giving it back was never his specialty. He did, however, have certain alternatives. Quickly, he ducked behind the checkout counter, picking up a large white picket-style sign and producing a black marker. In thick letters, he wrote a single word on the sign, then picked it up to face Chane directly, though in view of everyone else:

“ROADRUNNER”

“Okay, I’m lost,” said Fury.

“The Roadrunner is a very infuriating creature,” 2/3 explained. “An old nemesis of Wile E.’s. What started out as a simple hunt for prey has turned into…well, I suppose they call it a ‘white whale’ in some circles, don’t they? He’s found and caught other birds, but that one eludes him. At first, when his chase of the Roadrunner combined with some errant stardust took him to my world, I tried to convince him that it wasn’t worth the trouble.” He gave a deep sigh. “Then the Roadrunner managed to somehow pass me while I was hauling a certain…payload away from the Numerical Bank, and it split the sack open in the process. Inspector 763 was called and I was on the run. It had become very personal, though not as personal as it could ever be for him.”

Wile E. now held up a crude drawing of a lanky blue bird – one that looked more like a deformed emu than a roadrunner – and then slammed it down on the counter. From the shelves, he took a fold-away multitool, springing a fork attachment out from it and using it to angrily stab the bird over and over again.

“I threw my 2 into the ring,” 2/3 explained, “and thus the chase began. It really was the oddest set of coincidences that took us to the worlds we passed through. Along the way, we met like minds, and we dubbed ourselves, well, ‘The Roadrunner Hunters.’ For, you see, somehow that blue bird managed to menace every single one of us. At present, we’ve decided to split up and chase other ventures in the hopes of gathering the resources and information that will tell us where the Roadrunner has gone and how to finally take it down once and for all, but Wile E. and I wished to stick together. After all, it began with the two of us, and that’s certainly how it’s going to end. Here – let me show you some of the souvenirs of our travels.”

He brought out a large photo album (though it seemed to only be two-thirds as thick as what one might see in a normal tome) and opened it up to flick through the pages. “Here, Wile E. and I stand with the sorceress Malicia,” 2/3 explained. “A quick wit, with a knack for the literary and mathematical as well as the magical. She practically predicted Wordle, you know.”

“Wordle?” Fury repeated. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

“There’s no other person in that picture!” Evelyn pointed out. “It’s just the two of you!”

“Ah, yes, well…moving on,” 2/3 said. “Here, you can see when our numbers had expanded greatly. There’s us with Malicia, and that’s Polly Spark, a genius young girl. Oh, and as for the Deinosuchus and Ichthyornis, they came from a land most bizarre – one might even say it was before time.”

“There are literally no dinosaurs in that photo,” Taylor said. “But the woman you mentioned last time is there, so good job!”

Indeed, the image contained a tall, blue-skinned, square-jawed woman with wan blonde hair and a mouth full of sharp teeth, dressed in what might be a princess’ gown that had seen better days. Presumably this was Malicia. There was also a small child, a blonde girl with massive pigtails, clothed in a scientist’s lab coat and goggles. But no prehistoric creatures.

“Ah, yes…that,” said 2/3. “Well, let’s move on to – “

“Oh, I just figured it out,” Evelyn groaned. “You must’ve set your camera on a timer to take these, and because you’re…what you are, it’s only ever two-thirds of the f*ckING group.”

“I admit my photography skills leave much to be desired,” 2/3 sighed. “About thirty-three percent to be desired, in fact. But I’m the only one the group trusted to take the photos. Most of us didn’t know how to work a camera, Wile E. managed to blow one up just by touching it last time he tried, and Polly just attempts to 3D-print miniature dioramas each time, which is incredibly impressive but won’t fit in the album. Besides, it bothers me immensely that she prefers THREE dimensions.”

“And you just do two out of the three,” Fury grumbled.

“Now you’re getting it,” said 2/3.

“I mean, I think it’s kinda cool,” Taylor said. “It’s kinda like…a special interest? It makes you unique for sure.”

“I thank you,” said 2/3, “though I never had any doubts of that. There is only one 2/3 in all of numerical value, and there only ever can be. 4/6, 6/9, 8/12, 66.6-repeating-%...they’re all just me in different hats.”

“6/9,” Linda snickered. “Nice.”

Stocking rolled her eyes at that while Giffany gave a high-pitched and heavily filtered giggle that went on way too long for a simple 69 joke.

“So basically, we can expect never to see the whole group in these pics,” Fury sighed.

“Unfortunately correct,” said 2/3. “It seems the only remedy is for you to be introduced to them, perhaps one day in the far-flung future. Our destinies could align, given that we are of similar moral standards.”

“I’m not wasting my precious time catching a fast bird,” Evelyn said flatly.

“That’s what they all say at first,” 2/3 reminded her. “Believe me.”

“I kind of want to help them catch it!” Euryale said excitedly. “It sounds like fun!”

“Like a game of tag!” Giffany said, clapping.

“I mean, we might as well help out if we see the thing,” said Taylor. “…Was that drawing accurate?”
“Yes,” said 2/3. “Roadrunners on other worlds seem to be quite lackluster compared to those from Looney Tune Land. A pity. And of course, where I come from, there aren’t any animals at all – only wild classification problems. Oh, but another thing to note is that this particular Roadrunner is wearing the Amulet of Life from planet Millennia. It’s hard to miss.”

“Yeah, this all sounds like information we’re gonna have to take a rain check on,” Fury grumbled. “You know, like, never.”

“I kinda wanna know the story,” said Taylor.

“It’s long to be certain,” said 2/3. “Though we have had some quite rollicking times and enjoyed many a moment as friends. See here? It’s us creeping through the borders of the Battle of Helm’s Deep while using the ongoing slaughter as a distraction! And here’s the time we all had to go undercover in formal clothing to attend the wedding of – well, let’s just say there’s a good reason they call it the Red Wedding now!”

Wile E. let out a breathy snicker.

“Now I REALLY need to know this story,” Taylor urged with wide eyes.

“Well, it’s not our story, and it’s not getting told now,” Fury snapped. “Maybe some other time later. Or maybe we just ignore this and pretend it never happened because honestly, there’s nothing good in here to buy and I’m bored.”

Chane signed directly to Wile E., “I hope we can be friends. It’s good to have another safe space for our operation.”

Wile E. produced another picket sign reading “FRIENDS FOREVER!”

“Though before you go,” 2/3 said, “Wile E., why don’t you give them THE pitch?”

Excitedly, Wile E. brought out a contract and a thick stack of papers, offering it to the group. It stated that anyone who signed up could become an independent Acme salesperson, so long as they paid upfront for an initial merchandise package, kept their profits above certain margins, and recruited ten more Acme salespeople per year.

“Yeah, no, that’s an MLM,” said Taylor. “But, uh, good luck keeping your standing.” Thinking to themself that whoever ran Acme was probably draining the poor coyote’s bank account and soul simultaneously.

“Ah, well,” said 2/3. “There’s always the next customer. After all, it’s already proven all of you are a different breed…but there’s two out of three born every minute, and that’s who we’re waiting for to pass by.”

“Okay, we’re done here, byeeeee,” Fury groaned. “Thanks for the completely useless stores filled with broken merch.”

“Furyyyy!” Euryale elbowed her hard.

“We just made new besties!” Giffany pleaded. “Don’t be mean!”

Fury sighed. “I mean, it’s nice having allies. I’m not sure when any of this is ever going to be relevant again, but if it does, we know where to come knocking.”

“And where should we go to find you?” 2/3 asked.

“Traverse Palace theater,” said Evelyn. “Or, more accurately, the high-end nightclub connected to it. Technically, it SHOULD be a secret, but thanks to SOMEONE, every other high-ranking villain on the block knows exactly where we are – “

“You leave her out of this,” Fury snarled.

“Just come in and watch movies until you get noticed and we’ll let you in,” Evelyn said. “Probably. If we’re paying attention.”

“And the theater is kind of…owned by people who want us out,” Taylor said, “so if you could be a bit…careful telling them too much? They’re not friends. I mean, they seem like nice people, but there’s a bit of a conflict of interest going on.”

“Understood,” 2/3 said as Wile E. nodded. “It’s been a while since a good film festival, hasn’t it? Anything ranked three and a third stars out of five speaks to me, of course.”

Wile E. pondered if the theater ever showed vintage cartoons.

“Seriously, though,” Fury said. “There’s nothing else we need here. So. BYE.”

She and Evelyn both led the group out of the store; Nefera followed with a dramatic toss of her ponytail to drive home that she was thoroughly unimpressed. Chane, Taylor, Giffany, Linda, and Euryale, however, all waved on their way out.

“All right, then!” Evelyn said. “We’ve seen every shop, with mixed results, but I think we can say it was an entertaining day if nothing else.”

“Let’s head back,” said Fury. “But first: head count.” She pointed to everyone in the group one by one…and let out a frustrated groan. “Okay, WHEN did we lose Stocking? I KNOW she went into the pawn shop with us!”

“And Mandrake’s gone,” Evelyn pointed out. “Great. Just wonderful.”

“Well, I have a good idea where both of them went,” Fury realized. “Come on. Let’s drag them back out.”

“The rest of you stay here,” Evelyn commanded, “and let’s not get anyone else split off the group, all right? Taylor, make sure no one else splits off the group.”

Taylor saluted. “Mission accepted.”

Fury and Evelyn stormed back toward Live Long Like Conway, which was the obvious first step in the journey.

Stocking quivered as she stood before the checkout counter wordlessly, clutching her giant grab bag from Katz. Conway looked up at her with understanding eyes, realizing that she had something weighty on her mind. “What is it, my dear?”

“I…I want to just be able to rip out my heart and cut off a piece and give it to you,” Stocking said.

“You would likely die if you did that, my dear,” Conway replied in concern.

“I know,” Stocking squeaked. “Which is why…I…I’m doing the next-best thing!”

She reached into the candy grab bag, plucked a handful, and dropped it on the table before him.

It took only a brief moment for the association to click. At first, Conway didn’t understand, and then, all of a sudden, he did. “My dear! Candy from your private stash?” He’d seen enough of her relationship with sweets to know how unwilling she was to part with them. “I…I hardly know what to say. This is a very incredible gift!”

“Y-you gave me your candy,” Stocking stammered, “and now I gave you m-mine. And hopefully…someday…that’s not all we can swap.”

“You know,” Conway told her, “if you can get away for a few moments sometime, I would love to talk to you about the secrets of your own long, long life.”

“Tomorrow,” Stocking blurted. “When you’re done with work.”

“Hmm…” Conway thought it over. “I wish I could give you a time, but the clocks around here hardly seem to agree.”

“I’ll just come and wait for the end of your shift,” Stocking said, “and then we can go somewhere else. L-like the fountain!”

“The fountain?” Conway recoiled. “I would rather not. The quality of the water there…it’s unnaturally pure. What if it gets on me? It might ruin my laundry routine, and we can’t have that.”

“Then the sewer!” Stocking suggested. “We’ll meet in the sewer. It’s nice and gross in there…I think.”

Neither of them had really seen yet how Traverse Town’s waterways were a little less gross than most cities’, so Conway agreed. “I think that sounds like a lovely idea.”

Then Evelyn and Fury practically kicked in the door. “There she is!” Fury pointed at Stocking accusingly.

“YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!” Stocking shrieked, turning to face them with wide eyes.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Stocking, we just want to go home from the shopping trip!” Evelyn groaned.

Fury just extended her snakes, and they shot across the store, wrapping around Stocking. “Got her!” Fury said with a fist pump.

“D-don’t!” Stocking was blushing quite red. “I’ll leave peacefully with you. But if you tie me up like this…” A bit of saliva trickled out of the corner of her mouth. “I’m gonna get some really confusing feelings about you…and ask your snakes to constrict tighter – “

Nothing could’ve more quickly gotten Fury to recall the snakes and drop Stocking on the floor. “Nope. Not going there. Now hurry up and let’s get Mandrake back from the magic shop.”

Stocking trudged out the door, defeated. Evelyn was the last of the three to leave, and before she did so, she turned to give Conway a smug look. “There. You know what she’s into. You’re welcome.”

Conway was blushing. Probably. It was hard to tell given all the dirt on his face. But his soft smile was another clue.

While all this was taking place, Mandrake was back at Mondo Magic, scouring the inventory for anything else that could be used as a quick hex. Mondo was across the store, restocking another shelf.

All of a sudden, Mandrake heard a voice: “THERE you are! I’ve been looking everywhere! I’m so glad you found this place! Can you believe it?”

Mandrake froze. That voice was unfortunately recognizable, even though he’d only met its owner briefly. There was no way in all the worlds that it should be her. Just no way.

Yet, when he turned around, he was looking into the face of a teenage girl with a short blue bob, clothed in a witch’s robe and pointed hat. A girl he knew because he’d failed to assassinate her and burn down her school, and that failure had ultimately led to his execution.

They called her Sage. And Mandrake was currently wearing the face of her best friend.

“They have SparkSpells here!” Sage said excitedly. “And all sorts of New and Old Magic…but that’s the thing. I don’t think they even have a difference on this world. It’s all just treated like…magic. Like it should be. I mean, I think, anyway. So what did you find? Anything cool?”

Mandrake needed only a moment to think of his response. He forced an expression of rage onto Rosemary’s face: “Can’t you just leave me alone for ten seconds?”

“Wha – I’m sorry.” Sage backed off. “I didn’t realize…I mean…okay.”

She was buying it all the way to the sinker. And why wouldn’t she? After all, the coincidence was just too great. If she’d come here with Rosemary, there should have been no conceivable odds that someone able to wear Rosemary’s guise would also be able to show up to the same place.

(She’d come with Rosemary? How many of those brats were here? Why were they here to begin with? This could spell bad news for the Chessmen, given how many Academy students were heroes-in-training…)

“No, it’s NOT okay.” Mandrake took a stomp toward Sage. “Ugh, why do you have to be like this? Why are you so goddamn annoying?”

“Rosemary?” Sage was flabbergasted. “Did I do something wrong? Whatever I did or said, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you – “

“Of COURSE you didn’t mean to offend me,” Mandrake went on. “You never do, but it happens anyway. And you wanna know why it happens anyway? Because you’re just such a wet blanket. Ever since we got here, I’ve been sick of you following me around, but I thought maybe it would get better. Guess what? It hasn’t! So I’m making a decision. New world, new friends.”

“Rosemary, what are you saying?” Sage’s eyes watered.

“Uh, hello?” Mandrake replied. “What does it SOUND like I’m saying? We’re…not…friends…anymore. Is that too much for your dumbass brain to handle?”

“Why?” Sage was already sobbing. “Rosemary, please, whatever I did, I swear I’m sorry – “

“IT’S TOO LATE FOR THAT!”

Mondo was, of course, watching by this point. Discreetly, in between stocking. Entertained immensely, because he could already guess the plot twist. (Which meant the pink-haired one hadn’t actually been a girl at all, probably. Disappointing, but he had to admit amusem*nt to how this shapeshifter had managed to deal him a punchline as well.)

“Get out of my life,” Mandrake went on, advancing upon Sage. “I don’t ever want to see you again. And you can shove those crocodile tears up your – “

The door flung open. “HEY SAGE!”

“Oh, sh*t,” Mandrake squeaked.

In charged the actual, real Rosemary. “You gotta try the bathroom down at the gerbil-world place!” she gushed. “It’s like from three thousand years in the future! The rest of the store’s not worth anything, though. There’s, like, nothing cool to buy, though I didn’t really look around that hard because this SUPER annoying song was blasting o…ver…”

She finally registered that Sage seemed to have been having a conversation with her body double.

“Uh…what’s going on here?” Rosemary asked. “Who’s this?”

Sage was beginning to realize she’d been duped. Wiping away her tears, she stared Mandrake down fiercely. “Who ARE you?”

“Oh,” replied Mandrake. “You know…they say everyone has a double somewhere. I guess this is mine. If you mistook me for her, then I probably mistook you for my friend who’s YOUR double. Wow, awkward, right? So, uh, let’s just pretend this never happened and – “

Then in came Evelyn, with Fury and Stocking in tow. “Urgh, hurry it UP, Mandrake!” Evelyn groaned. “Stop wasting time tormenting civilians so we can get back to base!”

The M-word registered hard with both Rosemary and Sage, who immediately turned to glower at the Rosemary double.

“EVELYN!” Mandrake screamed. “WHY THE f*ck WOULD YOU BLOW MY COVER LIKE THAT?”

“What, like these people know you?” Fury scoffed.

Rosemary drew her mother’s sword. Sage’s staff was out, the terra-crystal at its end glittering and ready for action. “Well, well,” Rosemary growled. “Not only is it YOU, but apparently you TORMENT CIVILIANS here.”

“Oh,” said Fury. “I guess they know you.”

“The exact replica of the disguise he picked wasn’t your first f*cking clue?” Stocking snarked.

“I was too busy being distracted by the blue one’s horrible taste in fashion, okay?” Fury growled.

“Mandrake,” Sage snarled. “You’re going to tell us exactly what you’re doing here and everything that happened since our world was destroyed.”

“Uh, f*ck no, I’m not,” Mandrake replied. “And I – wait, WHAT the f*ck did you just say? Our homeworld was DESTROYED?”

“Uh, duhhhh, you were there!” Rosemary scoffed. “You HAD to be. When it happened, a bunch of us got thrown here, so we figure you got blown here from Witch Country too.”

Mandrake didn’t want to tip the scale by revealing that he was dead and in a zone where the living could see him. Nor did he fail to realize that Rosemary had said “a bunch of us.” A bunch of High Guardians in training, people devoted to eradicating evil, had been dropped on top of the Chessmen’s entire operation.

Great.

Acting on instinct, Mandrake swiped a couple of pellets from the shelf. “Sorry to shop and run,” he said, “but…”

He cast them on the ground. The entire boutique was suddenly filled with glittering purple smoke that smelled of Elfroot and set Rosemary and Sage off coughing. Mandrake bolted for the door, and he, Evelyn, Fury, and Stocking made a break for it.

“Couldn’t we take those girls in a fight?” Fury asked.

“They’re tougher than you think,” Mandrake spat.

“And also, NOT the time, NOT the place,” Evelyn added. “We’ll talk about exactly what this all means when we have a chance to strategize around it.”

“Strategize is right,” Mandrake clarified. “We might have kind of a huge problem on our hands.”

“What kind of problem?” Fury asked.

“Some kind of magic cops are after us?” Evelyn teased.

“Exactly,” said Mandrake.

The villains had been in the store enough to know how to find the door through muscle memory, but Sage and Rosemary didn’t have that same knowledge. Sage figured it best to stand still and try not to breathe whatever smoke bomb had just been set off, but Rosemary figured she could find the door even in the fog. She figured wrong, and crashed into the walls about three separate times. Sage could hear the impact of each one, but before she could ask if her friend was all right, Rosemary yelled over, “I’M OKAY!”

Then the smoke finally thinned. “DOOR!” Rosemary pointed.

“He had plenty of time to get away, though!” Sage looked desperately from Rosemary over to Mondo.

Mondo shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’m only a humble shopkeeper.”

“He couldn’t get THAT far!” Rosemary charged for the door. “Let’s GO!”

Sage followed, hot on her heels. But by the time they exited the shop, all they could see was Stocking popping candies into her mouth at the edge of the mall’s plaza.

“Where the hell…?” Rosemary looked here and there, but turned up nothing.

“Hey!” Sage pointed at Stocking. “You were with them!”

“With who?” Stocking asked. “Those losers back at the magic shop? Please. We just tried to go in the store at the same time. I have no idea who those freaks are.”

“Well, uhh…” Rosemary had run out of ideas. “You seen an idiot asshole and his entourage come this way? Pink hair, brown skirt, looked just like me? Or maybe didn’t anymore…”

“An idiot asshole who looked like you?” Stocking replied. “Oh, I don’t know, have you tried looking in a MIRROR?”

“You’re mean,” said Rosemary. “Look, you might not be one of the actual bad guys, but I’m calling it right now that I’m not gonna like you.”

“Rosemary…” Sage cautioned. She looked to Stocking; “Sorry to bother you. We’ll…keep looking.”

She turned away, and Rosemary had to be convinced to follow with a couple of arm-tugs. “She isn’t worth it,” Sage whispered, and Rosemary gave in.

“I can’t believe that dolt is here,” Rosemary said as she trudged off with Sage. “And he had at least one weird friend. Maybe more. You don’t think there’s, like…an evil guild of sorcerers underground here, do you? That one girl looked like a Gorgon…”

“Let’s not assume the worst…yet,” Sage replied. “All we know is that Mandrake is here and he knows at least one other person. Or that person knows him. And she talked about a ‘base.’”

“A whole lot of people are in danger right now,” Rosemary said.

“Yeah,” Sage agreed. “I thought it was bad enough when we heard about the phantom of the movie theater, but…I guess things here aren’t as peaceful as they look on the surface.”

“Guess they needed a few High Guardians after all.”

“I just hope we’ve learned enough to be up to the task.” They took a few more paces. “Hey, Sage? Was it just me, or did the magic shop owner guy kinda look like he was wearing a fake rubber skin suit?”
“I…uh…”

The two girls were unaware that they were walking straight through the now-invisible Chessmen, who were standing too far away from any of the shops to be able to interact with the living realm anymore.

“So what’s their damage?” Fury asked.

“We all know heroes, right?” Mandrake said. “The people who train to be able to fight any evil and strike people like us down when we so much as have a little fun? Where I come from, there’s a whole school for those.”

Linda shuddered. “That sounds awful. I hope that’s the only world where there’s ever been a school like that.”

“I wouldn’t take that bet,” Nefera chimed in.

“The job I failed that got me executed was running an attack on that school,” said Mandrake. “The reason I failed was those two airheads and their stupid friends.” He finally let the Rosemary disguise drop, taking on his masculine physique and purple bangs. “And the worst part? The one who brought down the sword on my neck was the mom of the pink one. Which is why she’s always the one who gets to me MOST.”

“And why you picked her for a disguise,” Medusa said flatly. “Sort of a reclaiming-the-power thing.”

“I don’t have to RECLAIM anything from her,” Mandrake hissed. “Anyway, she said a ‘bunch’ of them got dropped here in Traverse Town, so we might have some new enemies in the neighborhood.”

“Oh,” Fury scoffed, “you mean besides the witches with guns, the demon hunters, the little kids who know too much, the Moogles who probably hold a huge grudge, and now the teenagers who run the theater our lair is set in? Great. Just great.”

“Don’t forget some of the longstanding civilians that might one day get fed up enough with us to learn how to defend themselves properly!” Giffany chirped.

“And that wasn’t the only thing she said that was weird.” Mandrake paused. “…She said our world was destroyed. She thought I was still alive and got thrown here when she did.”

“Oh, God,” Taylor said on instinct. “I’m sorry – “

“There was nothing left for me there anymore!” Mandrake snapped. “…I don’t have anything to miss about it. It’s not my home, and no one in Witch Country was my family.”

“Because WE are!” Euryale gasped.

“Do NOT make me say it,” Mandrake growled.

“Yeah.” Stocking was sucking loudly on a mint, but talked around it. “There’s some levels of sugar even I can’t take.”

“It’s just…weird,” Mandrake said. “Why would it just be gone? HOW would it even…what could destroy our whole world? The entire planet? I mean, there was the Rot, but it doesn’t set in that fast. And people could still have built over it and tried to live out their lives until it forced them to starve. I dunno, I just feel like there’s a chance whatever happened over there could end up being our problem over here.”

“Like some kinda planet-eater?” Linda mused.

“Coco said there were a whole lot of new refugees,” Fury recalled. “She knew worlds were going out like lights. We all got that hint from her that day, but I don’t think any of us have a clue how it’s all connected, or if it even is. My vote? We don’t even worry about it. It’s not like we need to have this on our plates along with everything stinking else.”

“Probably the best strategy,” Taylor said. “We focus on what we can change in the moment.”

“…Well, we’ve seen all the stores,” Evelyn ventured. “A few useful things, but nothing groundbreaking.”

“I’d say we picked up one very important thing on our day out,” Fury said with a smirk.

“The best candy in this or any world?” Stocking sighed dreamily.

Chane held out her knife, extending its shining blade.

“Neither of those things,” Fury groaned. “Our ALLIANCES. It seems like the shopkeepers are our kind of people, and I think we made a few new friends today. And got a few new annoying satellites who will be our friends whether we want them or not. We might be able to call on them if things get hairy.”

“And there’s hardly anything more valuable than a good friend!” Giffany squealed. “Unless that friend tries to move in on your senpai, in which case, you’ll have to bring out a knife and – “

“Speaking of friends.” Taylor was sure not to let Giffany finish that sentence. “I…um…I wanted to say something.”

“No one’s stopping you,” said Fury.

“It means a lot to me that you invited me out here and did this whole trip to help me feel better.” Taylor’s eyes misted. “Look, I’m gonna be real. Things still kinda suck for us, and I think we all know it.”

Fury in particular looked at the tips of her shoes, trying hard not to think about what it meant that Electra was trapped in Hell.

“But you all still wanted to try and make me happier,” Taylor said, crying harder now. “And we’re not exactly known for being nice or anything, so I guess it kind of catches me off guard whenever somebody in the group actually is. Sometimes I feel like I have to be the empathy center of the entire group, but that’s not really true, and I…I’m glad you’re all my friends. I’m glad you’re all my new family, and that you would do this kind of thing for me. You all even had to put aside your differences.”

Evelyn and Nefera looked to one another awkwardly. It wasn’t hard to figure that “you all” meant just two.

“I guess I just want to say thank you,” Taylor wept. “Thank you so, so much.”

Evelyn sighed and rolled her eyes, but still put a hand on Taylor’s shoulder. “Look, even I can recognize that this is a co-op game and we’re never getting out of it alive without a good team strategy. And, well, you sort of are the ‘empathy center’ of the group, so when you’re down, the rest of us are going down as well. But don’t get me wrong on this. We’re NOT using this as a substitute for the ones we lost. We’re STILL going to get them back, okay?”

“We have a lead,” Fury reminded everyone. “That ‘John Doe’ urban legend. If we find him, well, we might have a chance at learning some forbidden knowledge. Or he might try to kill us all. It’s a fifty-fifty shot. But we’re on the right world to find him, and I think I have some ideas of how to put out some bait.”

“Yeah,” Taylor said with a smile. “We’re not down yet.”

“No matter what happens, we can get through it together!” Giffany cheered. “Especially the no-guys-squad plus Mandrake!”

“…I hope so, anyway,” Fury said, eyes widening. “Because you KNOW there’s going to be a storm when Divatox figures out we had a no-guys-plus-one-guy day without her.”

“Pretend like we were doing boring stuff, and then I can invite her to something else tomorrow while Stocking’s on her sewer date?” Taylor suggested.

“That works,” said Fury.

They all set off back toward the Traverse Palace. “Which reminds me, Stocking,” Taylor said. “Meeting an old guy alone in the sewers is your business, but it’s also not, um, really that safe, so could you maybe text one of us every half hour or so to let us know – “

“I’m literally an angel with the power to kill ghosts and make swords out of my stockings, but if it’ll calm your tit*.”

“Hey!” Linda barked. “Not cool! Don’t misgender Taylor!”

“When did I do that?” Stocking asked venomously. “EVERYONE has tit*. Guys. Girls. Nonbinary. Dumbasses like you.”

“Hey, be nice!” Taylor scolded. “But seriously, Linda, everyone has tit*. Guys, girls, nonbinary…”

Chane gave one last look to the Mall of Nowhere. Katz had returned to man the Information Booth. He made direct eye contact with her and raised a paw to wave, claws extended.

A normal interaction if not for the fact that under no circ*mstances should he have been able to see the dead Chessmen at that distance. Chane was surprised at first, but the longer she thought about it, the more it made sense. Katz was, after all, a cat. Cats were skilled at seeing that which was hidden from mortal human eyes. And if any cat could flat-out see the dead and other such forbidden things, it was a cat that hailed from the Middle of Nowhere.

She waved back, then turned to follow her friends home.

Back then…

Dohalim described it best. “This area’s the grandest-looking of the lot. And not a single soldier in sight.”

The vaulted halls, the ornate double doors – it all spoke to Vholran’s nesting place. Tari wasted little time in prying those doors apart and storming into the cavernous throne room beyond, murder in her eyes. Behind her, Theo, Shionne, Rinwell, Law, Dohalim, and Kisara followed, ready to back her up.

Vholran was perched lazily atop a towering throne of crystal, co*ckily looking down upon his houseguests without an ounce of surprise. Guards in Renan armor lined the pathway to his seat.

“VHOLRAN!” Tari barked, moving ever closer to his throne. “I’VE HAD ENOUGH!”

The guards made to block her path, but Vholran put up a hand, stopping them from doing so. His eyes flicked to Shionne. “Did you really come all this way just so I could take you back over her dead body?” he taunted.

“HEY, I’M THE ONE TALKING TO YOU!” Tari reminded him.

“And you better LISTEN, you bastard!” Shionne drew her rifle, co*cking it.

The guards once again moved to a defensive stance, but Vholran dismissed them entirely by waving a hand, causing them to sink into pools of ethereal water that transported them out of the room.

“Seven on one?” Theo remarked. “Seriously? This guy’s either got some serious guts or some superboss HP and defense stats.”

Rinwell and Kisara, on the other hand, noted one other person in the room. Seemingly a brunette woman with striking dark eyes, her chestnut hair cut short, clothed in a red tunic. A handmaid, they guessed, and they dismissed her on sight. This, of course, was a mistake.

“Intimidate me all you want,” Tari spat, “but your crazed ambitions stop RIGHT HERE! No more killing Dahnans to stock up the most astral energy! No more menacing the rest of the planet! And you’re going to leave my friends ALONE!”

“Ambitions?” Vholran repeated. “Is that what you think they are?”

He gracefully slid off the throne, practically floating down to its base, with his sword in hand. “I have no ambitions,” he informed Tari, who was now within a few feet of him.

She halted in place, bracing herself. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“Then perhaps this will make things clearer.”

Vholran’s eyes glowed bright blue. The crest of Ganath Haros blazed brightly over his forehead, etched in a blue light the same color as his irises. His blade was the next to take on the color, glimmering wickedly with magic.

“Since the beginning, everything was mine to control,” Vholran explained. He thrust his sword outward to the side, marking his willingness to attack; droplets of magically charged water spritzed outward from the blade, and his grip seemed coated in a white frost that emanated a chilling mist. “Everything…including your life!”

That was right. What Alphen and Naori had told her.

“And if you even knew the first thing about my life or where I’d came from,” she seethed, “you’d know JUST how wrong that is!”

“I know where you began,” Vholran seethed. “Now let me be the one to END IT!”

He rushed, hoping to get the jump on her. She was quick to the draw, zooming right toward him with a scream of rage. He was assuming her backstory was simply Alphen’s all over again. He had no idea of the way her vision even now was relaying her his strengths, his weaknesses, how to defeat him, and she was absorbing every datum.

For Shionne, she had to.

“WE GOTTA HELP!” Law cried, running into the fray. The others followed. As far as Tari saw, those who made it into Vholran’s boss-battle field were Law, Dohalim, and of course Shionne.

Tari and Vholran traded blows, rapidly and forcefully, blades striking, metal on metal. Then Shionne breezed past with a cry of “HERE!”; Tari was quick to reach for her heart and draw out the Blazing Sword. Now the strikes between her and Vholran were of fire on water, sending waves of steam up through the throne room.

(Throughout all this, Theo hurled coconuts from the side, but all of a sudden, he noticed that the handmaiden in red was still there at the edge of the room. Standing stone-still. Making no move to help or hinder her lord.)

Then, the next thing Tari knew, Vholran was on his knees before her. His sword flew wildly into the air, erupting into droplets and vanishing. Tari felt a warmth inside as so much EXP flooded into her. It only occurred to her then: this…was the final boss battle, wasn’t it?

Vholran was clearly vulnerable, head lowered into a hand. Tari approached him, her non-blazing sword pointed directly at him. “I’m never going to let you hurt her again,” she seethed. “Or ANY of them.”

“Just slice and dice him already!” Law urged.

“No,” Tari growled. “Actually, he’s going to give the order to stop ALL the boats. Because that’s the only thing that would do it, but the entire operation would come to a grinding halt at one word, wouldn’t it? Do that before anyone else dies and you can live.” Her brows furrowed further. “But it won’t be the life of luxury you’re used to.”

To her surprise, Vholran stood. “You think this is over?” he hissed, not meeting her eyes.

“Oh, no,” Tari realized. “I knew that was too easy. You’ve got a phase two, haven’t you?”

In equal parts rage and confusion, Vholran lifted his head, eyes blazing, to scream at her, “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?”

Raw astral energy blasted the entire party backward. His crest erupted in bright white light behind him, like angelic wings. Not, however, the crest of Ganath Haros.

The crest of the Sovereign. Tari’s symbol. Alphen’s.

A manic glee overtook Vholran; he beamed with giddiness as his power surged, blowing out the glass walls and windows of the throne room to make it one with the balcony, open to the night air. Tari instinctively moved in front of Shionne during the explosion, ready to block any shrapnel with her armor. They were both thrown backward onto the floor.

When the dust cleared, Vholran stood before them renewed.

“No, that’s…” Shionne sputtered.

Tari reached for her hand. Instinctively, Shionne drew it away, remembering the curse – but Tari grabbed onto it anyway, holding it tightly, pushing past the pain that was shooting into her from her palm.

“It’s…it’s like she said,” Rinwell realized. “She and Vholran are both Sovereigns…they’re cut from the same cloth…”

The crest burned in miniature inside his right eye. Same as on Tari. He advanced on them slowly.

“Then the Crown Contest really was just a façade invented by the Renans,” Kisara remarked. “I didn’t want to believe it…everyone who died to stop it…Migal…it was all for nothing?”

“And I fought against a system that never existed,” Dohalim breathed, acceptance creeping into his tone. “All my work to create a better province – to try and ascend the ranks in order to spread peace and freedom to other lands – it was never going to get there, so long as he held the crown. We were enslaved by a ruse!”

They were all back on their feet immediately, ready to stand firm against Vholran’s next assault.

He summoned his blade anew, though its metal was now white rather than blue. With a wicked grin, he demanded, “Bow before your Sovereign!”

Tari once again held the Blazing Sword, glaring him down. “NEVER.”

This time, Kisara and Rinwell were in the boss field. As was Shionne, on her second turn. Tari was the central player, though, as her blade slammed into Vholran’s again and again.

(The handmaiden in red nodded, interested in this change of pace, but still stood in place. Theo wondered if he should draw attention to her…but why distract the others if she wasn’t part of the boss battle?)

“STOP THIS NOW!” Tari yelled. “If you’re ready to admit it, then I know you can stop more than the death procession outside! You could FREE ALL OF DAHNA! If you do that now, then you can walk away with your life! But if you’re REALLY willing to die for Dahna’s enslavement, then I hope it was WORTH IT!”

“Are you not intending to free Dahna upon my demise, should you win?” Vholran posed. “Does that not render your offer pointless?”

“Pointl – it would mean the same thing would happen either way, but in one scenario, you LIVE!”

“No, it would mean that you would NEVER intend to let me walk away with my life! Don’t try and claim you have integrity, false Sovereign! None in this world do.”

“YOU’RE – WRONG!”

“Haven’t you seen for yourself?” Vholran challenged. “In every kingdom you’ve crossed. Calaglians and their violence and hatred! Cyslodians selling each other to the state! Menancians poisoning their own society from the inside out! The people of Mahag Saar, ready to become the very villains you fought to stop; admit that it was a benefit to you that Almeidrea killed them all!”

Tari let out a wordless scream of rage. Her blade faltered, and Vholran would have decapitated her if Kisara hadn’t quickly intercepted the blow with her shield.

“I learned long ago that the only virtues that matter in this or any world are how far you are willing to go to take what is rightfully yours,” Vholran hissed. “All else is pointless in the face of the Darkness of both Renans and Dahnans alike!”

He winced as a shot from Shionne’s rifle clipped him. “You know, I used to think a lot like you,” she snapped. “I’d almost wish you’d find your own friends to teach you what the world is really all about. But whatever friends you’d find would just be wasted on you.”

“Friends?” Vholran bellowed at her. “I have known from the start that I am destined to be ALONE!”

He charged her. She held firm, aiming right between his eyes. He sidestepped; the shot missed. A coconut shell from Theo’s off-the-field assistance slid under his feet and he tripped, hitting the ground before he could cleave Shionne in two.

Shionne thrust a hand toward Tari; “THIS ENDS NOW!”

Their dual attack. Tari let it take over, propelling her toward Vholran as she brought the Blazing Sword down hard; “IT’S OVER, VHOLRAN!”

But it wasn’t. He rolled out of the way, letting Tari strike the final blow – though the boss arena dissipated, informing her that though Vholran was still alive, as far as the game was concerned, she had won the battle and moved to cutscene territory with that last shot. Now it was just Tari and Vholran dueling once more.

“This guy’s still standing?” Law groaned in disbelief.

“VICTORY!” Vholran screamed as blow after blow clashed, sparks flying. “THE THRONE! EVERYTHING RIGHTFULLY BELONGS TO ME! I AM HE WHO DEVOURS! WHO RULES OVER AND CRUSHES THOSE WHO CRAWL AT HIS FEET! AND YOU ARE NEXT!”

“Oh, come on, how much more of a stereotype of a villain could this guy get?” Theo moaned.

Once some distance appeared between Tari and Vholran, the latter charged, absolute glee spread across his face.

Tari swapped out her combat sword for the Blazing one, running at him full tilt.

There was a loud BANG. Vholran stumbled off balance, eyes going wide. Shionne had fired, hitting him right in the side of the stomach.

That falter was all Tari needed to drive the Blazing Sword right into his chest.

(And maybe, just maybe, she understood why Masa – why Sheridan had killed Lucks.)

When she withdrew the sword, the wound was aflame. Vholran gurgled and choked, putting a hand over where fire spewed from his insides. Then he collapsed onto his back.

Panting, Tari sheathed both swords. “It’s…it’s over.”

With a clacking sound, the Master Core of Water rolled toward her, loosed from Vholran’s hold. Tari bent to pick it up.

“Shionne,” she said with a smile. “It’s here. We did it. The last Core. We can make the Renas Alma! And now…now he can’t hurt you again – “

She ran toward Shionne, pulling her into an embrace.

“Tari,” Shionne reminded her. “My thorns – “

“Actually,” Tari sighed, “Vholran gave me so many bruises I can barely feel them.” And she was telling the truth.

She moved to place another kiss on Shionne’s lips, wincing only slightly at the shock of the thorns, and Shionne let herself be kissed, a tear falling from each eye. She had never, ever thought she could be kissed, let alone by someone she cared about. And that frightened her to death.

“So, uh…are we gonna make the magic plot device thingy or what?” Theo asked.

They found a round table within the throne room, placing four out of the five the five accumulated Master Cores on equidistant points around the tabletop, leaving a free space for that of Fire.

“That’s five,” Law said. “So what do we do now?”

“This is how we make the Renas Alma, right?” Tari asked, just to be sure.

Dohalim nodded. “So it is said.”

“We can finally free Shionne of her thorns,” Kisara stated.

“Shionne?” Tari turned to her.

Shionne looked almost sheepish as she retrieved the last Master Core from within herself.

“Shionne, is everything all right?” Tari asked. “You look like there’s…something you want to say.”

Shionne simply stared at the sphere in her hands. She took graceful steps forward, hesitant to place the core with the rest, but then slammed it down hard onto the table so that she could not take back her decision.

And nothing happened.

“Huh?” Shionne gasped.

“No, I don’t get it,” Tari said. “We beat the final boss! He had a second phase and everything! This is the part where everything wraps up, isn’t it? …Isn’t it?”

Shionne was too shocked by the result in front of her – or lack thereof – to even question Tari’s wording.

Then Theo yelled “HEY, SHE MOVED!”

“BEHIND YOU!” Kisara cried, eyes round.

The handmaiden in red had finally left the corner. She’d somehow moved straight upward, levitating stone-still in the air near the shattered roof. Then, suddenly, she teleported several feet closer to the group, then closer again, then closer still until –

For a moment, she stared directly into Tari’s eyes. Tari could see now that the woman’s eyes weren’t just black in the normal sense. There was no white, no iris, no pupil. Each entire eye was a jet-black orb set in the socket.

“Who…who are…” Tari sputtered.

Then her Sovereign’s Crest erupted behind her, as had Vholran’s earlier. A different symbol carved of light broke out behind Shionne – based on what Alphen and Naori had said, this should be the symbol of the Maiden.

“What is this?” Shionne cried. “Why is this happening?”

Tari couldn’t figure out how to tell her about the Maiden, about Alphen, about Naori in the few precious seconds they had.

Only when Law screamed “WHAT THE – THE MASTER CORES!” did Tari then notice that the five orbs had risen up, glowing with the colored lights of their respective astral energies. Those colors spilled into the hands of the woman in red, where a new sphere was forging itself. A sphere of black, tinted deep purple.

“Is that…Darkness?” Dohalim realized. “A Dark Master Core?” Such knowledge was absent from any teaching he had ever known.

Rings of light – gold, sea green, yellow, blue, red-orange, bright violet – erupted from the final core. Then its shape changed – instead of an orb like the others, it was now a more elliptical object, thin metallic plates folding under one another to forge its skin.

“Is that the Renas Alma?” Tari turned to Dohalim, the one who would know.

“Yes,” Dohalim said somberly. “Yes, it is…but it’s only supposed to consist of the five Dahnan elements!”

Mystery or no mystery, Tari needed that Renas Alma. For Shionne. She leapt at the shimmering metal, grabbing with both hands; “GIVE IT HERE!”

The woman in red had no intention of doing so. There was a massive eruption of Darkness; Tari was thrown back and away. She bounced off the table as the others cowered, unable to move for the great force thrust upon them.

Then it let up, the Dark clearing. The woman in red was gone. So was the Renas Alma. (So was Vholran’s body, though no one noticed it at first.) The five Master Cores lay dormant, useless pieces of metal rolling about on the tabletop.

“What in the world just happened?” Rinwell asked worriedly.

“TARI!” Shionne ran over to where Tari had fallen, lying on her back like an armored beetle. “ARE YOU – “

“The Renas Alma,” Tari interrupted. “The Renas Alma is gone…we needed that…we needed it for YOU, Shionne…”

“Tari,” Shionne pleaded. “Just tell me you’re okay!”

“I’m all right,” Tari said. “But…you wanted to end your curse…and now…”

Shionne wept. She wept with relief, because Tari was alive and would recover. She wept with despair, because she had seen her last hope for herself right in front of her eyes, only to be whisked away to locations unknown.

As for Tari, one fact became harrowingly clear.

She’d only completed the first act of the game.

The woman in red had returned to Rena. Though that perhaps is an inaccurate statement in several ways. For one, xe wasn’t a woman. Xe barely understood the concept of human gender, but the visage of the woman had seemed the most innocuous in order to slip into society undetected by all but Vholran.

For another, xe did not wear red. Xe was red. Here, on xyr home planet, xe let xyr disguise drop. Xe was no human at all, but a creature far taller, bipedal and with no facial orifices. Xyr skin was the bright red that had translated to the tunic of the human glamour. Xe was one of the Helganquil, the ancient extraterrestrial race that ruled over Dahna and Rena alike. In fact, the Renan armor was designed in the Helganquil’s image.

This was of course a plot twist that Tari wouldn’t learn for some time.

Finally, the Helganquil perhaps had not gone to Rena proper. Rena, after all, was a hollowed-out shell, a planet tilted so that only its good side faced Dahna. So none could see that it had the true shape of an apple eaten to the core. The Helganquil – and the Renan upper class – tended to prefer conducting business on the satellite of Lenegis, though the Renans were blissfully unaware of the Helganquil or of the fact that their supposed homeworld had never been real. All but two, anyway.

One of those two was recuperating in a medical bay. Though Vholran had been run straight through with a flaming sword, it was little more than an annoyance for the Helganquil; his vitals had barely been missed, and he’d been scooped up before he could bleed out. Helganquil medical technology was immediately applied – though the Helganquil could not resurrect the dead, they had come far enough to be able to nurse any body back to health so long as the slightest glimmer of life remained within it. If Tari had taken a second stab closer to the heart, or taken off his head, he would have been unsalvageable. How unlucky for her to have managed to only send him to the brink of the grave.

It would take a while to put him back together, though. And even longer to figure out what to do with him now that the original plan had gone to ruin. Two Sovereigns, a Maiden running unchained, and the irreversible damage caused during the Blazing Sword’s rebellion? At this rate, the ritual would never be completed…but that couldn’t be allowed to happen.

The Helganquil entered a chamber where others of xyr kind were gathered around a computer terminal. Xe greeted the rest without words. The Helganquil were a telepathic race, able to communicate via thought. Of course, this meant no secrets.

So xe learned immediately that something was wrong. The others had been investigating Tari and her rise. Of course, that there was a Blazing Sword at all had never been in the cards, but there was something else that concerned them now. A time anomaly. One imperceptible to humans, but glaring in the face of the Helganquil who knew how to seek it.

The first Helganquil gathered the facts. Tari was so steeped in the anomaly that it was likely she in fact was the anomaly. It was now looking entirely likely, though not able to be proven, that Tari was never supposed to have been upon that world. Either she had replaced the role of another or simply been written in as a new player in a history that had never involved her. And without knowing the exact nature of the anomaly, it couldn’t be reversed. The Helganquil only knew how to evaluate time, not to manipulate it, and the only way to put history back on track would be to manually correct the altered events. There was, of course, no guide as to which events were altered and which were not. Ergo, the Helganquil were stuck with the anomalous Tari whether they wanted her or not.

It was quickly decided among the telepathic conference that drastic measures would need to be taken. If history was not proceeding as it should, then of course their plan would stand no chance. They had to change it, to find a way to alter their own course as drastically as the environment around them had been altered. They could only guess at what method to use, but the end point seemed clear: find a faster, cleaner way to speed toward the ritual.

The speed of thought flying across the room at the conference meant that a brainstorm session was carried out at a fraction of the time it would have taken humans to come up with a new plot. All ideas were pitched at once and sorted through. Only the most viable was left standing. That option involved the other Renan who knew what none should.

Two Sovereigns existed. But waiting in the wings was a dormant third, to be activated in the event of extreme emergency. The subject had come into Helganquil custody after Vholran’s ascension to Ganath Haros had left her orphaned. The Helganquil, knowing not to put all their fruit in one basket, had repeated the processes performed on Vholran to bequeath him with his power. The only difference was that the other had yet to be unlocked.

It seemed the time had come to do just that. Far earlier than any would ever have expected, but a time anomaly forces hands.

One of the Helganquil was dispatched to her holding cell. She could sense xem coming; they’d gifted her with one extra power that Vholran did not have. Basic telepathy. Nothing near what the Helganquil could do – only able to pick out one train of thought at a time, with conscious access of each mind at a separate time – but for a human, Helganquil telepathy would have been an overload anyway. (There were documented cases of humans on other worlds who received that sort of power by other means and were driven to insanity, but that was another story.)

Before the door was even open, the girl knew what the Helganquil was about to ask. Xe’d already asked it just by thinking about it in her presence. Xe wanted her to go down to Dahna, to infiltrate the ranks of a Sovereign (hadn’t she and Vholran been the only ones?), and to report back any and all relevant data about that Sovereign and her entourage.

The Helganquil couldn’t hide the thought that the girl should be ready to destroy this Sovereign if commanded. The girl wasn’t sure, and said so; “I don’t know if I can do that.”

The Helganquil made it clear she had no choice in the matter. This was what she had been engineered to do.

She crept out of the shadows, off her meager cot. “You’ll let me out, and I can go to the world if I promise you this?”

The answer was affirmation.

She stepped into the light. Her white bangs fell into her eyes. She was no older than Rinwell. “Okay,” she said. “I will go.”

The Helganquil could sense that she was still unsure. But in the end, she would have to defer to her original programming. If nothing else, seeing the true nature of humanity would remind her that she didn’t belong in such an imperfect world. The girl had already been shattered once by the evils, and curious as she might be, she would come crawling back.

The girl heard the Helganquil thinking all this and wondered if it was true. It very well may have been. She had no idea what to expect anymore. After all, she’d never been in control of her own life, from the moment she was born. Long before the Helganquil had revealed themselves to her, she had been a prisoner inside her own home, a slave among slaves. Never once had she made a decision of her own in her life, and never once did she think she would until the day she died.

Such was the existence of Nazamil Hildris.