Alex Reynard
presents

~~P~H~O~B~I~O~P~O~L~I~S~~

Dream V: Final Exam

	Head like a hole
	Black as your soul
	I'd rather die
	Than give you control
			-Nine Inch Nails, "Head Like A Hole"

-***-

Chapter 00

SCREAMING PAIN SCREAMING OUTRAGE OBSCENITY MURDER SADISM HORROR FILTH PAIN SCREAMING SCREAMING THE BLOOD THE BROKEN BONES THE VOMIT THE SCABS THE INSECTS THE MAGGOTS THE LIES THE UNENDING LIES IN A FURNACE OF ROLLING VENOM THE SHIT OF A BILLION LIFETIMES THE WAILING AND WEEPING OF THE INNOCENT THROUGH SO MANY CENTURIES ALL CONCENTRATED INTO A SERUM OF MADNESS JABBED RIGHT BETWEEN YOUR EYES INTO YOUR BRAIN WHERE IT CAN FESTER AND EAT AWAY EVERYTHING GOOD YOU'VE EVER LOVED ROT AND BURN YOUR HOPE AWAY PISS ON YOUR SANITY RUB SALT IN YOUR GLEAMING CUTS AND LAUGH IN YOUR FACE WHILE YOU SCREAM YOURSELF TO DEATH YOU FUCKING NOTHING SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM YOU BLOODLESS WEAKLING CRYBABY THE FIRE THE CROWS THE DROWNING THE NEEDLES THE BOOKS THE WASPS THE SOAP THE SCRUBBING THE FLESH THE RED RED BATHTUB THE DEAD WHORE MOTHER AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS CAN YOU HEAR ME CAN YOU HEAR ME CAN YOU HEAR ME I AM IN CONTROL AND THIS WILL NEVER END WHAT NO STOP YOU CAN'T YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED STOP YOU ROTTEN SONOFABITCH I'M NOT GONNA LISTEN NO MATTER WHAT FUNHOUSE MIRROR BULLSHIT YOU FLING AT ME THIS TIME CAN YOU HEAR ME CAN YOU FUCKING HEAR ME!?!?

-***-

CHAPTER 1956

The ground trembled.

There was a shifting of sand.

Then ten furless fingers broke through the surface like a family of moles.

They scrambled frantically, moving with the jerkiness of panic. Sprays of pebbles skittered in different directions. The hole slightly expanded, but as much dirt fell in as flew out. Whenever the fingers found a patch solid enough to push against, it quickly crumbled under the effort. The fingers moved with increasing desperation.

Finally a nose emerged. It took a breath. Meager. Barely a sip. Not enough. The two hands scraped and shoved to make the hole wider, yet it only allowed more sand to pour in. Grains trickled down into his nostrils. A violent sneeze cast them back out.

The heat was permeating. Buried alive in hot charcoal embers.

'Leverage,' was the clear thought that suddenly shoved its way through the feral typhoon of emotions in his mind.

The hands stopped moving. Ten fingertips, five pink and five silver, held themselves still. There was a momentary calm. Then they shoved back down again, hard, this time pressing against the two long slats of hardwood that had been willed into existence just beneath them. This made a difference. Jittering strain showed on the veins and knuckles of two small, bony hands. The nose was followed by a dirt-streaked muzzle. Whiskers sprung outward and twanged individual pebbles away. Lips were retracted in a snarl of effort as the two hands stopped their chaotic scrabble and worked instead to methodically unscrew the body, back-and-forth.

Sunlight seared two sets of eyelids. Two white ears twitched the dust away. When the shoulders finally emerged, the mouse named Toby opened his mouth and took in a much-needed lungful of air.

He nearly choked on it. Wherever this place was, its air was scorching. Like opening a car door in a hot August parking lot. He tried to remind himself that he did not technically need to breathe at all. But the body is sometimes bad at following direct instructions. Toby hung his head and took in slow, steadying breaths through his nostrils. The muscles in his thin arms quivered like cello strings.

After a moment to collect his senses, he continued exhuming himself. His chest rose and fell in a careful rhythm. It was too bright here. Even through his still-closed eyelids, he knew. The sun was a red, bullying pulse against them. He wondered if he'd managed to actually burrow up into Hell. Not exactly implausible.

"It's like being in an oven inside another oven..."

Finally he was able to haul his keister out of the hole to sit beside it. He thought that was worth a reward. He patted the ground beside him blindly until his fingers came in content with the jolting chill of ice cold metal. He popped the top of an Anisocoria Rain and killed the can in one long swallow. Before even finishing it, he'd dumbfounded another, this one purely to douse his scalp with. Ohhhh, that felt marvelous. Little chilly rivers made their way through his overheated fur, soothing his skin and bringing his mind back to a temperature he could think at.

Toby hauled himself to his feet, tossing the empties aside where they vanished. Cracking one eye, he noticed without surprise that his whole lower body looked like he'd been bathing in an outhouse. The dirt here was a sickly dark yellow. Not actually sand, just dirt so parched it had almost no substance. Like cheap, crumbly cornbread. Toby also noticed that the boards he'd created had come from his own bedroom floor. Naturally. What else could he have remembered the touch of so well, even in a state of panic?

Toby began the process of producing the same can of Rain over and over, like a magician plucking coins from a volunteer's ear. He popped each top and let it drain down his torso, not caring about drenching his shorts and sandals. He knew he did not have long here, but he also knew that looking like a miniature mud golem would distract him from clear thinking. 'This stuff feels like cake mix,' he thought. Doubly so when it got wet.

He wasn't completely rinsed, but it was good enough. The clock was ticking.

Finally he shaded his eyes to properly scan his location. "Where am I this time?"

For starters, on a plateau. Or a mesa. Whichever one was smaller. He wasn't up among the clouds, but definitely high enough to behold miles upon miles of rust-colored country surrounding him. A desert, but not barren. The parched ground was polka-dotted by gray-green tufts of grass, plump tumbleweeds, and occasional cacti. The latter resembled stranded green hitchhikers. The sun was a death ray, and the sky was so blue it almost hurt as well. But on the edge of the horizon, Toby could see a row of mountaintops. Giant's armchairs. They were rather majestic. And for as much as the heat was unbearable, at least there was no afternoon wind to rake its hot claws along his body. The still air was suffocating enough. Each breath felt like being clenched in an electric blanket straitjacket.

Nearby his position, dripping lazily down the side of the mesa, was a road. More like a pale line discernible against the sand by wheel ruts and lack of vegetation. It led to a small town. Maybe a mile away. Probably not two. Toby could see the whole breadth from where he was standing. Pretty as a postcard. He was surprised how nice it looked. Friendly.

He shook that assumption away though, as he'd been stung too many times already by Phobiopolis' deceptions.

In fact, some small part of him couldn't be convinced that he was even here right now. Dysphoria had done things to his brain. Even with his brilliant plan, some of the malevolent realm's influence had leaked in anyway. Not enough to entrap his senses, but plenty enough to screw with them. Toby was trying very, very hard at the moment to remain stable. Keep his mind clear of thoughts and his senses in the moment. Outwardly he might have appeared calm. Even bored. Inwardly, he felt like a house so unstable, only the wallpaper was keeping the boards held together.

He knew it had spoke to him, but he couldn't remember what. Maybe it was like the words on the wall in the maze: not really language at all, but the inflection and cadence of speaking. The implications of whispered taunts, letting his brain fill in the meaning. If so, Dysphoria had to be given credit for shrewdness. No one can think of more cutting insults than one's own inner self.

Toby knew his head was not entirely functional at the moment. Looking back, he should have given himself time to rest. But he couldn't justify it. There were things that needed to be done, and people were suffering for every moment he delayed.

That was another reason for his impatience. Dysphoria's talons had played with the inner toggles of his sense of time. He was certain he'd spent months screaming back at it. A year. At least a year. But he knew it couldn't have been. The distance across the asteroid field wouldn't have taken more than a few hours for George to fly across.  'It definitely didn't take a year for us to cross the first time.'

'Oh really? How can you be sure?' something inside him whispered.

'You shut the hell up right now,' he told it. Yes, it was possible that he'd never actually escaped from Dysphoria and everything afterwards had just been one massive, painful hallucination. To an extent, that even made sense. Some of the things Doll... Scaphis... had done were right in line with Dysphoria's sense of humor.

But Toby shook his head firmly and touched the tattered yellow ribbon pierced to his arm. Under his breath he muttered, "No. It had to be real, because Dysphoria could never come up with a place like Scarlatina. Never."

Or make anyone as nice as Poubelle and After. Or recreate Luxy so well. Or even make such a pretty little desert town like this. 'Which you've been staring at while letting your mind wander. Cut it out.' That was right. He had a mission here.

Sun mirages rippled along the concrete surface of a silver river, the interstate, as it stretched to infinity in either direction. The city was like a decorative bow wrapped around it. Everything in town was laid out in tidy rectangular rows. Lots of storefronts along main street, tapering off into houses and empty lots. Nothing was taller than one storey, except of course the water tower. Criss-crossing telephone wires connected the citizens by threads to civilization. The whole place was dusted with a sunbaked brown, though the colors tried to be vibrant otherwise. Toby could see deco signs for diners and a grocery store. There was a gas station with lots of neon, and chrome pumps stood outside like robot penguins. A rainbow of cars doodled to and fro, unhurriedly. Plump as beetles, or Christmas ornaments. Fat fenders, round headlights, laughably-extended tailfins. It felt like he'd gone back in time.

He turned around, expecting a flat expanse of ocher rock. Not quite. He actually jumped when confronted with the sight. This whole time he'd been standing on the edge of the largest graveyard he'd ever seen. But not for people. For war machines.

Rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of dead airplanes. Corpses of fuselages. Hulking husks of bombers and cargo planes. Jets as sleek as darts. Thousands. So many it felt like it had to be a trick of mirrors. Squinting, Toby could even make out patches of tanks and jeeps. And in some places, far in the distance, smaller planes were actually stacked up in mammoth mounds; so many it was mind-boggling. Everything had been parked out here with military precision, then left to rot. The sun and wind were slowly turning all of it to rust. Glass was long-gone from windows. Tires were blown out. There were orange, corroded holes in wings and doors and cockpits, bringing to mind images of giant metal-munching caterpillars. From the aircraft close enough to see into, the interiors had been picked scrupulously clean. Seats, engines, control panels: all yanked out. Obviously to render them inoperable, lest local hooligans decide to try a few Friday night barrel rolls over their girlfriends' houses.

And speaking of local rowdies, Toby didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to detect a few signs of juvenile delinquency. Graffiti on undercarriages. Brown glass bottles lined up on a wing for target practice. And some of those pockmarks he'd assumed were from windstorms... Nope. Definitely bullet holes.

'Well... So what? Even if I've still got a Dysphoria headache, I'm not going to be afraid of a few teenagers. I've faced convorines.' He ran his left hand along his right arm just to reassure himself that his hammer was still there. He nodded. It formed fingers when he needed them, then retracted like an animal seeking its burrow.

This situation now posed a dilemma. Toby knew exactly what he was looking for, but he was standing between two vast opposing areas. Go down the road into Postcard Town? Or start hunting through the haunted husks of aircraft? Either was a likely spot. And either could take him hours to search through. Toby chewed his lip. He definitely did not have time enough to play hide and seek in both. He could already feel a slight tingle in his muscles.

He'd have to make a decision soon. The Rain had dried out already, leading to hot, sticky sweat. Toby looked out over the cozy roadside municipality below him. A cigarette billboard. Little American flags rustling on street corners. There was even a car dealership with a big plywood King Kong installed on its roof. Toby turned back to the military junkyard. Spooky but cool. A million places to hide, or stash secret booze or girly mags. Plenty of parts to scavenge.

That last thought sealed it for him. Toby took a step towards the rusting plane of planes, then stopped.

He glanced over his shoulder. There'd be people in town who could help him search. Surely someone would know an outgoing-

People.

Toby ran a few steps towards the edge of the mesa, sandals sending pebbles skittering. He blocked the sun with both hands and focused hard. He looked carefully at every building in town. The hardware store, the local church, the soda shop... There were no people. Whatever day of the week this was, there should have been at least a few folks enjoying the afternoon. Nada. No one was walking their pets. No kids were out playing. At the very limits of his vision, Toby scanned a green pickup trundling towards the mechanic's lot on the outskirts. "No driver."

Bingo. The only place he'd seen signs of actual habitation was here at the graveyard. Someone's paw had held the can that'd sprayed 'COPS ARE SLUGS' on the side of the nearest bomber. Toby jogged a few paces towards it (and in this heat, that was enough to make him start panting). The artist had also added a boxy hot rod with speed lines coming out of it, outrunning a large snail with a police siren on its shell.

Toby turned back towards the town and shook his finger at it. At first glance it had looked like a model railroad setup, and that's all it really was. "Figured you out."

What had seemed like two choices was just another illusion. If he'd gone down the road, it'd be like wandering through a huge, deserted movie set. He wondered if the buildings were even finished, or if they were just propped-up empty walls.

A bullet nicked his ear.

Toby instantly spun around to face whatever had shot him. He didn't deploy his hammer yet- element of surprise, after all- but his eyes peeled wide despite the sun's glare. He scanned all around the rusted jets. Nothing moved.

Toby reached up and felt a drop of blood. He twitched. Exploring the wound further, it wasn't bad. Tiny, actually. A bullet wouldn't have done so little damage. 'And I didn't hear anyone fire a gun.'

While he was looking left for snipers, a 'pfft' from his right made his head twist around. He spotted a tiny crater where a marble-sized rock had hit the ground nearby. Toby's ears caught the barest trace of a chortle from somewhere out in the scrap. Someone was out here with a slingshot.

Sighing in irritation, Toby glared across the rows. "I know that wasn't the wind!!" he called out.

From behind a jet fighter with collapsed landing gear, a head poked up.

"Chee, I'm really sorry!" its owner said insincerely.

Another voice joined in, "Yeah! Sorry we missed!"

A cackle of heckling laughter followed, and the gang swaggered out into view. Toby could almost hear an imaginary jukebox start playing a rockabilly chord.

There were five of them, and it didn't take more than a second to tell who was in charge. All were dogs. A salt-and-pepper mutt, a chihuahua, a beagle, a skinny terrier, and a barrel-chested husky. The husky's fur was so silver it almost looked chrome. His yellow eyes and good-time grin were shaded by an enormous pompadour. A few other members had also greased their hair up into hood ornaments. The chihuahua was streaked with a bad impression of Indian war paint, plus a feather stuck in his derby.

They jingled as they walked towards the mouse. Combs, coins, and weaponry rattled loudly enough to be heard over their hooting and guffawing. Without exception they were all wearing blue jeans and black leather jackets. Their boots and hi-tops sent sand pluming. 

Toby watched them approach. He held his stance and kept his face neutral. 'I'm sure they're trying to be intimidating. But all I can think is, how the hell can they wear leather in this heat and not die!?'

The husky had on a grease-stained, cigarette-burned white t-shirt, with a bike chain dangling down the front like a necklace. While the others laughed, the leader only smiled. He was sizing Toby up with his gaze. Stopping about ten feet away, he held up a paw for company halt.

Their noise ceased. The other four dogs flanked their leader, two on each side.

Not breaking eye contact with Toby, the leader signaled to the terrier. "Flame on."

The wire-thin, baggy-eyed teen took only a second to fish a Zippo from his jacket pocket. It was positioned just in time for the husky to pop a cigarette in his muzzle. He grabbed the terrier's wrist like a shackle, holding the lighter in place. The terrier flinched but didn't complain. His eyes were locked on his boss, eager for approval.

The husky drew a long breath, then let it out through the side of his jaw. Smoke rose up when he said, "Thanks," and jerked his head to command the terrier back in line. The flunky jumped to his place, grinning at having pleased his master.

The pompadour'd husky turned his attention back to Toby. He drew in an appraising breath, then let it out as a grey billow. "Look what it is, men! The breeze blew in a little mouse. He looks scared, don't he?" His voice had a resonant boom, befitting a chest that looked big enough to eat chin-ups for lunch.

The chihuahua nodded enthusiastically. "Yeh, yeh!"

The husky glanced at the grey mutt. "Your slingshot sure made him jump!"

A proud gurgling giggle from the canine marksman.

Toby didn't react. He didn't think he looked particularly scared. Neither did he feel that way.

"I'll bet we skeered him so bad we turned his fur white. I'll bet he started out pink with purple polka dots." The husky leaned in. "Izzat right, mouse?"

Toby narrowed his eyes. He was not in the mood for this. "No," he said, calmly and clearly.

The gang made mock-impressed "Ooooohh!"s.

"Well jeepers, my mistake!" the husky said with sardonic politeness. "So you're always this pale? Chee, that don't seem healthy. You spendin' too much time up in your room? Maybe beatin' your meat?" He made a jerking-off gesture.

Toby winced. Mostly at the volume of the dogs' laughter. "Stop. Please. I'll split my sides," he deadpanned.

"And lookit his hand!" the beagle pointed out in a grating voice. "He ain't got no fingas!"

"Jeeziss, yeah!" said the terrier.

The beagle squawked a laugh. "I think you was right, King! He's been jerkin' it so much he sanded 'em down to nubs!!"

This got an even more raucous explosion from the crew. Toby had to admit, that was at least mildly clever.

The husky, however, did not join in laughing. His grin slowly became an ugly, bared-teeth snarl. Then, striking fast as a cobra, he snatched up a handful of the beagle's shirt and dragged him in, snout-to-snout.

"W-what'd I do!?" he yelped.

"I didn't ask for no color commentary, numbnuts!!" he roared. With a shove that nearly planted his tail in the dirt, he put the beagle back in line.

Toby caught exactly what had happened. 'His joke got a bigger laugh than yours, so you punished him.' Petty jerk. "Excuse me," he spoke up. "I'm looking for someone."

Hot-headed now, the husky jerked back towards Toby. "Well ya picked a pretty stupid place for it! Look around, egghead! You see anything but planes out here!?" Realizing he was losing his cool, he stepped back, took a drag off his cigarette, and lowered his voice. "I mean... you ain't gonna have much luck is all I'm saying. Plus, you oughtn't not put your paws wheres there's No Trespassing signs. Am I correct?"

Toby looked to his left. Miles of nothing. He looked to his right. The same. "I didn't see any."

The husky put on a face like he was explaining a very simple concept to a toddler. "Then what does that look like?" He pointed with an open palm at the nearest graffiti.

Toby was getting impatient. "It looks like you guys've been doodling on airplanes," he said flatly.

The chihuahua looked like he was about to riff on that, but a glance at the beagle made him button his lip.

The husky took a step closer and smiled with all his yellowed fangs. "I begin to get the picture you're not from around this area. Maybe even, you're not familiar with us."

"I'm not," Toby admitted. "But if this is your turf, I'm sorry I'm intruding." He decided it might be a good idea to change his tune to some politeness. After all, these were the only living beings he'd seen so far. Even if they did remind him of the punk lawnmowers in Dysphoria, there wasn't anyone else to ask for help.

The husky put up his hands. "Eyyyy, all's forgiven! You didn't know better! Lemme educate you." A sweeping bow introduced the gang. "I present to you, The Kickstands. You can guess for yourself why we's called that. And no, it don't involve motorcycles."

Some chuckles at this. The chihuahua grabbed his crotch lewdly.

"These here are the enforcers of my will." He gestured to the beagle. "Dougie."

The pup was still reeling a bit. He rubbed his chest.

"Wheeze."

The gaunt terrier tossed a smile at Toby. It attempted to be charming and came off creepy. The guy looked sick.

"Hot Time."

The chihuahua made a tomahawk motion and jumped in place, letting out a war whoop.

"And Crowbar."

The speckly grey mutt put his slingshot in his jacket. Then, giving Toby a 'Shhh! Our little secret!' wink, he drew out just enough silver from his jeans to show he was also carrying a humongous Bowie knife.

Toby grimaced. What nice boys these were.

The husky fixed his gaze on their guest again, propping his hands on his hips. "And me? Anyone with any smarts in their head just calls me King."

Toby nodded. "Okay then, King. Like I said, I'm looking for someone. And I don't have much time."

"Well, well, well. Don't wet your pants, little man. We can help. We're very helpful guys, ain't we?"

His boys all nodded and agreed. "Sure, sure!"

Toby didn't exactly trust their helpfulness, but what other choice did he have? "His name is Zinc. He's a dog like you guys. I think. About your age too. Maybe you go to school with him?"

Crowbar snickered. "He thinks we go to school.".

The husky made a 'cut it out' gesture. "Shut it. We's havin' a discussion."

Toby tried to remain polite. He could feel his legs beginning to cramp up. "So... have you seen him anywhere?"

"'Zinc' don't ring a bell," King said. "B'lieve me, it's hard not to know every name in town. Maybe he's from down the road a ways?"

Toby shook his head. 'No. I wound up here for a reason.' Maybe they'd know him by his real name? He took a moment to remember it. Luxy'd said it once. "You might know him as Anthony Galvan?"

Toby was unprepared for the response this got.

King became a charging bull. Within seconds he was in punching distance, eyes crazed and nostrils flaring. He shoved a clawed pointer finger in the mouse's face. "WHERE'D YOU HEAR THAT NAME!? NO ONE CALLS ME THAT! EVEN MY OLD MAN KNOWS BETTER THAN TO CALL ME ANYTHING BUT TONY!!"

Toby could see the other dogs cringing, letting him know with their body language that he'd crossed a very bad line. His mind boggled. "Wait, that's your name!? But that doesn't make any sense!"

Unless...

Toby felt the blood drain out of his face. His jaw fell slack. He stared at the husky, examining his facial structure. The eyes, the jaw, the ears. There was zero resemblance. But... he knew he was back in Zinc's past. Of that he was sure. 'And did you really think you'd find him looking just the same as when you last met? That he'd wave his wrench and say hi?'

Probably not. But this!? Zinc had never been this much of a bully. And for all his clownishness, he wasn't this dumb either. Or this egotistical.

'Well, you changed a lot since you've been here,' Toby reminded himself.

Was it possible?

"The fuck are you staring at me for?" King demanded. He was getting antsy. This kid was not reacting properly. He wouldn't be intimidated. Maybe he was tougher than he looked. But King was also starting to think the pink-eyed rat might have bats in his belfry.

Toby tried to picture this musclebound thug with a pair of wrenches. It didn't feel right. About the only thing they seemed to have in common was the time period and (he inferred from the guy's clothes) a love of machines. "You don't have a brother, maybe?"

"Not last time I checked," King snorted. He licked his lips, then realized something. "WHEEZE!!!" he bellowed over his shoulder. "My smoke blew out!! What the fuck are you gonna do to rectify this situation!?"

The terrier skedaddled over, lighter in hand. "Shit, shit, shit! Sorry! I wasn't paying attention."

King snatched the lighter, blazed up his coffin nail, and tossed it back without a word.

Wheeze cringed at speaking out of turn. "Um, King?"

A grunted, "Yeah?"

"I think I got an idea about our new pal here. I ain't never heard of no Zinc, but maybe I know what he's really lookin' for." He gave his boss a 'you know what I'm talking about' look.

It took a moment for the clue to dig its way through the husky's temper. "Shit, yeah... That'd explain why he's actin' so oddball. Show 'im." He patted his flunky on the back and took a few steps away to give them privacy.

It was uncomfortable having those rheumy eyes pointed at him. "You know who I'm looking for? Does he have a different name here?" Toby asked.

Wheeze put a paw on Toby's shoulder. The mouse tried to flinch away from it, but the terrier pulled him in close for a conspiratorial whisper. His breath smelled like a sickbed. "I know exactly, don't you worry. Doc's got your cure. Lemme guess, someone from another town told you 'bout us? Gave you the wrong name to ask for?"

Toby was confused and uneasy. "Excuse me?" His voice shook a little.

The terrier's gaze drilled into his. "I got it, I got it, no problem." He started rooting through his inside pockets. "Shit, where'd..." He fumbled around in his jacket, knocking out spare change and a pair of clear red dice. "The fuck did I...!" He took off his jacket and shook it, spilling random crap all over the sand.

When Wheeze's jacket came off, Toby spotted something that made a lot of things click. In his old life, he had endured more than enough injections to know what track marks looked like.

Wheeze tossed the jacket down in the sand in frustration. The other gang members were giggling at him. "Look, I don't have anything on me!! But I can get it, okay!? What do you want? Grass? Uppers? Maybe ride the white rail? What? Real cheap for a new customer."

"No," Toby said, taking a step back and shaking his head. He felt sick. "I'm fine, thanks."

Wheeze smiled disarmingly, batting his eyelashes at the mouse and coming closer. "You don't gotta be ashamed. Or did I make a mistake? You running some 'medicine' back to a friend, is that it?" He guffawed. "Hell of a friendship!"

Toby felt his stomach turn over as he saw something in Wheeze's smile that he did not want to see. Even in the blazing heat, he felt his blood turn cold. "Oh god."

"Whassamatta? Heat stroke? I'm not the boogeyman. You're actin' brainfried, kid."

Toby put his paws over his mouth. His voice was a gasp. "You... oh hell... You forgot your own name, but you remembered his, didn't you? Because you looked up to him."

Wheeze cocked his head. "The fuck're you talking about?"

Toby could feel his heartbeat pounding in his ears. The full weight of the ugly truth was oozing down like road tar. He stumbled back, never taking his eyes away from that sick, dying grin that he couldn't deny he knew. "Zinc..."

Wheeze chuckled nervously, looking side to side. "Heh. You've got the wrong guy, chief. Are you freaking out or what? You're scarin' me."

Toby didn't even see the chrome paw coming. Suddenly there was a crushing vise on his shoulder, claws digging in, and a plume of cigarette smoke was exhaled in his face.

"I'm starting to get the feeling our time's being wasted here, runt!" King barked at Wheeze, "Is this little fag a customer or ain't he!?"

The terrier shrugged. "I dunno what the hell he is, t'be honest!"

Another paw gripped Toby's other shoulder, lifting him off the ground, nose-to-nose. "Do you know what happens when some little rat turd wastes our time? We're important people. Businessmen. We got shit to do. And we DON'T-" he let Toby drop, "take babysitting jobs!!"

Toby did not even acknowledge King was there. He was still looking past, at Zinc. The fur color was all wrong. But the facial proportions... the way he stood... Even as frail as he was, there was no denying it now.

"LOOK AT ME!!" King shouted, spittle hitting Toby's muzzle. "WORDS ARE COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH AND INTO YOUR EARS! OR ARE YOU TOO FUCKED IN THE HEAD TO RECKANIZE THAT!?"

Everything felt unstable. Toby was too wracked with disbelief to acknowledge the husky's bellowing.

King spread his fingers and grabbed the mouse's scalp like a basketball. He cocked his arm back to pound him like a nail. "You are heading for a dirtnap, nosebleed! When I talk, you better goddamn answer me!"

Toby let his eyes drift vaguely towards the raised fist. Deep inside, he felt sorrow, bitterness and disappointment compress into something else. "I don't want to fight you."

King's lips peeled back. Saliva glistened, trickling down his teeth. "Then you'd better get ready to run your scrawny ass home like a jackrabbit."

"I can't run either."

With mock jolliness he burst out, "Eyyyy, then you can fight instead! Choice is simple!" His arm was trembling from its need to impact meat.

Toby looked away, down at the sand. He thought about Zinc. About the friend he'd shared peril and joy with, and then looked to the twitching trainwreck standing a few feet away. Gawking at him with zero recognition. He should have expected this.

To King, he whispered, "Yes, please. Make this easy for me."

King didn't know what the hell the little snotrag meant by that, but he wasn't about to pass up an open invitation. His chest muscles tensed like steel cables. His knuckles cracked. He brought his arm down like a judge's gavel, meaning to split this mouse's skull in half.

Toby tilted his eyes just barely enough to sense it coming.

Then King was choking back a scream of agonized shock as five steel fingers ground into his wrist. Their grip was unbreakable. The rest of the gang started shouting and pointing at the sheer impossibility.

"He caught the boss' punch! Like it was nothing!" the chihuahua shrieked.

Shaking with pain and disbelief, King saw the mouse's gleaming steel hand clutching him so tight it made the skin wrinkle like terry cloth.

Toby squeezed harder.

King shut his eyes and howled. A childlike whine of helpless, sobbing surrender. When he could force his eyes open again, the mouse was looking back. And what King saw there terrified him. Oh fuck. Oh Mary mother of Jesus. This kid was a maniac. There wasn't anything in that glare but dead-hearted infinite murder.

"I told you," Toby said.

King blubbered in panic for a second, then realized he had an audience. The whole gang was watching. Goddammit, he wouldn't normally be caught dead showing weakness to a kid half his size. Even if the asshole had a fucking magic hand. He was Tony "King" Galvan. He had a reputation. He'd taken cigarette burns without flinching. For fun! He'd run off a sheriff's deputy with a baseball bat. He'd beaten half the town at arm-wrestling. This was bullshit. His free hand darted to his back jeans pocket. He tried to keep his voice from shaking. "You just messed up big time, kiddo. I'm gonna skin you alive and hang your balls from my rear view mirror."

Toby saw King pull out a switchblade. The husky's thumb glanced the button, swinging the thin blade into view.

"That's right. Y-"

Toby let go. In the instant after his fingers loosened, they vanished like liquid into the slit in his palm.

Before King could topple over or even change expression, Toby's hammer emerged.

It gave the husky a one-two punch. The first sent him to the ground. The second made sure he didn't get lost along the way.

King's dead body slumped to the sand at Toby's feet. The rest of the gang recoiled in screeching horror at the sight of their leader's head caved in like a rotted jack-o-lantern. The stink of blood hit all their noses.

Toby looked at what he'd done. He thought of Zinc. He thought of Scaphis. He thought of Dysphoria. "I told you," he repeated quietly.

He looked up at the four cowering canines. Without King to give them orders they were frozen to the spot. Zinc still showed no trace of recall. Not even at the sight of Toby's hammer. Well, fine. That could be fixed. 'Scaphis didn't erase my memory. She just blocked everything off. And if hearing his name wasn't enough, I'll give him something he can't help but remember.'

He concentrated. 'This is all a dreamworld. It's even less real than Dysphoria. I can do anything in here. So there's no reason I can't do this.'

Toby's eyes clenched tight as an unearthly pain gouged his shoulders.

If the remaining gang members were scared shitless before, they were petrified now. Reality was unraveling in front of their eyes. They'd never seen anything like this, not in the worst monster flicks they'd ever watched. The mouse was growling in rage and pain, and his arms were expanding. Ballooning. Stretching thin and red with an overflow of blood. And then the skin began to rip like the wolfman's clothes. Toby bellowed as his shoulders gave birth to a pair of unthinkably huge blood-drenched metal wrenches.

His eyes burned directly at Zinc. "REMEMBER THESE!?"

Toby lunged at Hot Time. The chihuahua was closest, so he was the unlucky one. The skinny canine shrieked in mortal horror, but was cut off when Toby clenched his left 'hand' around the poor dog's midsection. He crimped it nearly in half. These wrenches were heavy and unwieldy, but his sheer outrage made using them effortless. Toby did not want to do this. He did not enjoy this. But he was tired of people, and nightmares, and shit-gods, giving him a hard time. He just wanted his friend back.

The mouse spun and let the dog's remains fly off the ends of his wrenches. They landed like wet sacks of trash. "ZINC!!!" he screamed.

The terrier had been staring at his second corpse of the day when his head snapped up.

Toby saw the barest flicker in his expression. 'He knows his name. Even if he doesn't realize it yet, he responded to it by reflex.'

"You're fucking crazy!" the terrier whined, backing away.

"None of this is real! I need you to snap out of it and wake up!"

"Get the hell away from me!!"

Toby growled. It seemed they'd have to speak in private.

Crowbar tried to make a run for it. Toby caught the motion in his peripheral vision. The salt-and-pepper mutt had abandoned his weaponry and was just trying to get out alive.

"I'm sorry," Toby said, and meant it. He ran and lunged for Crowbar's leg like sliding into home base.

Crowbar squawked as his ankle turned paper-thin.

Toby clamped the other wrench down to get a solid grip. The mutt screamed louder. Toby got to his feet again, planted himself solidly, then grunted in effort. With the sheer centrifugal heft of the wrenches, it was not too difficult to heave Crowbar up and over, slamming him neck-first into the dirt. Toby heard calcium break. He whipped Crowbar back to be sure. What was left of him looked like it had gotten sucked through a laundry mangle. Toby tossed it away and heard it 'thunk' hollowly against the side of the nearest airplane.

Dougie the beagle had his hands up in surrender as Toby turned around and locked eyes with him.

"No no no oh please no please Jesus please Mary I'll be a good boy please no no no no..."

"I'm sorry," Toby said, and meant it. "I'll make this quick." He began walking towards him.

"No no no no no no no NO NO NONONONONON-!!!"

The beagle's whimpering ended sharply. Toby simply strode to within striking distance, brought his right wrench down, and drove Dougie into the earth like a tent peg. The point was to generate a response, not to cause suffering. He did not even look at what he had done to the beagle, but continued on towards Zinc.

Wheeze had fallen on his ass and was now crab-walking away from the metal-armed demon. Tears cascaded down his face. His jeans had a round dark stain in front. "Holy flying Hell!! Get away from me! You killed them! You killed ALL of them!!"

Toby did not deny this. His expression had barely changed throughout the fight: a face not full of malice, but weariness.

The terrier was too weak and too shaken to have any hope of escape, much less backwards on all fours. "Please, for the luvva god! Stay back! Don't kill me too! I'm sorry for whatever I did! You killed all my friends!!"

"They've been dead for decades, Zinc," Toby said firmly. At a brisk walking pace he was easily able to overtake the emaciated canine."We're inside your memories right now." 

Zinc held his bony arms up to shield himself, knowing the killing blow was imminent. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!!!PLEASE JUST STOP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!!" he sobbed.

"I can't," Toby said, and felt a crack in his heart. He looked down at the cringing, shivering wretch at his feet. He concentrated again, and let the wrenches drop off his shoulders to CLANG in a heap at his sides.

"These are yours. Put them back on and we'll get out of here, okay?"

Zinc trembled for a few moments more, expecting his life to end at any second. But when nothing happened, he risked a glance. The mouse was still standing there, expression dead as ice. But he'd disarmed himself. Literally. The pun made a panicky laugh come bubbling out of him.

He looked at the wrenches. The pockmarked steel, awash in blood. The zigzag grooves of the jaws. The sawn-then-soldered elbow joints.

He looked past the mouse at the four dead bodies. His lifelong friends. His gang. His brothers. The guys who put up with him when no one else would. They were dead now. All dead. Yet... something felt wrong about that.

He looked at his wrenches again.

Zinc reached up to wipe the tears off his cheeks and screamed at the realization that he didn't have any arms.

Toby watched his friend shriek and garble. The terrier's shoulders now ended in two metal mounts bolted deep to the bone. His arms and hands had vanished. They'd never really been there to begin with.

Floundering, Zinc tried to get to his feet with only his legs. His eyes were wide. He was gibbering. Something was pounding at the back door of his skull, wanting in.

Toby had by now regrown his own arms. He put out a paw to steady his friend. "Hey, don't fall over. You'll be fine. Let your mind calm down." The canine was gulping breaths with his tail tucked between his legs. His fur was starting to shift colors. He was losing his sense of appearance. Toby hefted up a wrench. "Here. Lemme help screw this on."

"No..." Zinc said absently. He flinched at the feel of metal grinding against bone, and yet something about it felt familiar. Cozy. Like homecoming. He turned to stare at the mouse who was now lifting the second wrench to jam it back on. Did he know this furson from somewhere? "You're... you're..."

He looked deep into his friend's eyes. "Toby. You already know me, you just forgot. I'm Toby and you're Zinc. Zinc."

The mutt reached up a wrench to feel his own face. "I'm... Zinc? I'm who you were lookin' for? Jeez, this is makin' me seasick.."

Toby ran his paws along Zinc's shoulder's in a slow massage. His metal fingers clinked like silverware against the wrench mount. "You had your memory stolen from you. But it's okay. I did too. She took everything from us, and I only got it back when someone said my name. Toby. And you're Zinc. We're... well, I guess it's right to say we're best friends."

Zinc's head lolled bonelessly on his neck. He looked again at the four corpses. How could he be best friends with someone who'd just killed his best friends? He found himself trying to get pissed off, or mortified, or even sad about it. Yet he couldn't. Looking at King and Dougie and all the rest, didn't they all kinda look like movie props? Didn't they really? Didn't the bodies look like old burlap sacks full of ketchup? Didn't the airplanes he used to run through and play hide and seek in as a pup really just look like cardboard?

Toby hugged him. "Zinc. Zinc. I'm going to keep saying it until you remember, Zinc. Because I've come a hell of a long way for you and you're coming back with me and that's that."

The canine let his scruffy muzzle rest on the weird, crazy mouse's shoulder. "You did? All the way across, um, the place? With the bad dreams 'n shit?"

"Phobiopolis," Toby supplied.

Zinc stiffened. That name. Just hearing it cracked the door open a little wider. Things were starting to shove their way back in.

"I think that's how it works," Toby said. "Her poison takes away all the names so you don't have any reference to remember things. Zinc. Toby. Junella."

Zinc's eyes started to widen. "Yeah, yeah... I can see them..." He suddenly gasped and slapped his own face. "Oh god! How did I ever forget you, Juney!?"

Toby ended the hug to look back at his friend and tell him, "It's not your fault. Don't blame yourself. Junella, Luxy. Dorster and Alfonzo. Lady Xenoiko. Rippingbean and Woofingbutter. The Fearsleigher! Um, Millie was her name, I think?"

Zinc's eyes glazed. "Millie..." A salacious grin oozed across his muzzle. "Hoo mama. I could wreck a train on that ass."

Toby knew every inch of that grin. Zinc was coming back. He was going to be okay. "And don't forget Piffle."

There was a moment of confusion as the name rolled around inside his skull, then his eyes widened as it plunked into place. All thoughts of Millie vanished. "Piff..." he whispered.

"Hey, before you revert completely, I did wanna say that it's kinda cool seeing you with hair."

"Eh?" He combed through his pomp with his wrenches. "Don't tell me I don't have my 'do in this Phobiopolis place!"

"You can grow it back if you want to," Toby said patiently. "But for now..." He reached up and grabbed a handful of headfur.

"Hey!"

Just like pulling off a Halloween mask, Toby gave a yank and off it came, taking half of Zinc's face with it. The hair and skin devolved into rubber scraps as soon as he let them drop. They soon curdled to nothing after hitting the sand.

"Th' fuck?" Zinc touched his noggin and jumped at feeling so much empty space. "What did you DO to me?"

"I just got you back to normal. Go look for yourself." Toby pointed to the closest plane. Even with so much rust, one could still see one's reflection in the chrome.

Zinc made a beeline. He was feeling his head all over, accidentally poking himself in the eye a few times, and grimacing when his upper features flopped around on their wire stalks. When he reached his mirror image, he stopped dead in his tracks.

Toby hustled to follow him.

By now there was nothing of Wheeze left. Zinc had his real fur back, his real arms, his real face. Odd as they were, they were his. And whatever his birth name had been, it was probably lost to time now. That was simply that.

Zinc stared back at floating eyes encircled by little tin lids. "Fuck me sideways..." he breathed in disbelief. "I look like ol' Doc Frankenstein's been havin' some games with me." He turned around. "This was seriously me before?"

Toby just nodded.

"And you could stand lookin' at me!?"

A shrug. "Absolutely."

Zinc stared back at himself. "Huh." He scratched his chin. He watched his ears bob to and fro. He admired his wrenches. "I think this is actually feeling familiar now. I might even like it."

"Good." Toby bit his lip. Jittery pains were scaling up and down his shins. "Because I really can't spend much more time here."

Zinc cocked an ear. "Oh? Is it because-" He stopped mid-sentence. His features froze. He stared off into the sky like he was watching the world end. "Toby..."

The mouse looked too, but didn't see anything. Just clouds and the damn blistering sun.

"What was her name?" Zinc asked.

The mutt sounded shaken to the core. Balanced on the edge of horror and rage. "...Who?"

His voice was quiet. "You know damn well who. I can see her. The bitch who did this to me. No face and all plastic."

Toby wasn't sure whether his friend was ready to recall those awful final moments. From Zinc's perspective, the last things he'd seen were their ascent to Aldridge, Toby's meeting with the oblivion door, and her betrayal.

"Tell me, dammit."

Toby couldn't hold this back. Zinc's fuse was already lit. But he wouldn't know her as Scaphis. "Her name was Doll."

He slowly nodded.

The canine's jaw trembled. His breath quickened. His fur bristled. "Toby, amigo, I know you just said we gotta blow this joint, but couldja gimme a minute or two? Five, tops?"

Toby stepped back cautiously. He nodded.

"Thanks, pal."

The control slowly drained out of Zinc's face.

He bared his teeth and snarled.

He sucked in a deep breath, let it out in a howl of hurricane-force fury, then damn near tore the airplane in half.

As the memories came flooding back, Zinc let himself go full barbarian. His wrenches spun up to twin circular blurs. They cleaved through the old bolts and plating like it was Play Doh. He screamed the entire time. An unending siren of heartbreak, loss, disbelief, and rage most of all.

Toby backed up even faster, wanting to put some space between himself and the flight path of shrapnel.

Zinc howled out every ounce of pain that had been denied him by Scaphis' paralyzing touch. Each recovered detail connected him to more, blossoming outwards in a web. And having the good times back made those final bad ones so much worse. He remembered the feeling of her memory-venom snaking its way into his brain to do its evil duty. Just before sinking into the dream, he'd felt his face turn to porcelain and separate from his skull to fall off and break. He remembered the taunting words appearing in Scaphis' empty maw: I WANT YOU TO SEE FIRST. It wasn't enough that she'd done such a thing to him. She'd done it to torture Junella and Piffle by making them watch.

Zinc screamed louder. He churned cockpits into butter.

Toby watched for as long as he could. Aching for his friend, but physically aching too. His cold fury had made it easy to ignore during his slaughter, but now the tingle was excruciating. He was losing his grip on this place. A few moments longer and he'd be heading home with or without his friend.

The canine hurricaned his way through a total of four bombers and ten fighter jets. Toby made his way through the debris field towards him, shielding his face and ducking sporadically. He had no idea how to calm his friend down from this berserk rampage. 'I might just have to jump in front of him and bleed a bit before he'll notice me.' He cupped his hands to his muzzle: "Zinc!!"

To Toby's surprise, the destructive whirlwind stopped the moment Zinc's ear flicked towards the sound of his name. His wrenches squealed to a halt. Glowing red. Steam rose from them. Zinc's face and torso were peppered with bleeding wounds caused by flying hot droplets of slag.

Toby ran closer, avoiding chunks of fuselage crinkled up like Christmas wrapping. He was about to tug Zinc's arm but didn't want to burn his fingers off. A fistful of shirt instead. "I know how bad she hurt you. Us! I know you need to let it out. But I can't hold myself here any longer! It's not a choice! We have to go. Now!"

Zinc stared mutely for a few seconds until his awareness swam back to the present. "Oh. Okay, yeh. That's fine. I'm done now. Sorry I let myself get a little outta hand."

"Perfectly understandable," Toby said.

Zinc raised a wrench to comb through his hair, then remembered he didn't have any. He looked out across the expanse of the junkyard and the miles of open country surrounding him. "We can leave, sure, but where? You got a car we could hop in? I ain't lookin' forward to hotfootin' it to the next town over. We'd end up buzzard chow."

Toby shook his head. He looked like he desperately had to pee. "We won't need to travel at all. We're just going to go. Hold on to me! Tight!"

He looked at his wrenches, still hot as stove burners. "Dunno if I can do that without cooking you."

"No time!" Grimacing at the pain pinballing around in his nerves, Toby solved the dilemma by clutching himself tightly around Zinc's waist like an albino belt. 'I am not letting go. He's coming out with me. He's my friend. Mine. You cannot keep him here any longer, Scaphis.'

Zinc opened his mouth to ask what was happening, but then the power of speech failed him. Toby imploded. The mouse's head and limbs shrank suddenly towards a point near his bellybutton. A second later, Zinc was folded in half backwards and sucked through as well.

***

They tumbled together through non-space for an instant, and then they were back on solid ground.

Toby stumbled and had to grab onto a stalactite to keep from landing on his tail. Zinc's wrenches automatically propped him up from faceplanting, which was good because all he could do at the moment was suck in an immense breath of air. Toby had nearly squeezed the life out of him.

He inhaled and exhaled powerfully until the sparkles stopped dancing in front of his eyes. Then he could finally lift his spinning head and see where Toby had brought him.

He blinked, quite sure at first he was hallucinating.

"Jesus Christmas, we're on the moon."

Zinc was standing on a wide round carpet. Above him, stars as bright as fireflies encircled him in an endless panoramic blanket. This was not an ordinary night sky. This was an outerspace sky. That meant only one explanation for the pale grey landscape all around them, so devoid of life and landmarks that Zinc could actually see the horizon curve. Although, wasn't the moon supposed to have craters? Not all these pointy rock things? Looked like an infinite field of termite mounds.

"Sir Zinc! My goodness it-"

"YIKES!!!"

Toby's disorientation made him too slow to run over and stop Zinc from clapping poor George to death. The unfortunate construct's skull was now dust between two wrenches.

Fur standing on end, Zinc yelped at Toby, "It ain't the moon! The moon wouldn't have those-" He couldn't remember the word. "Those, those, those... light-up dead horse things!"

"The word you're looking for is bonecuddy," Toby explained. "And that's George. I thought your memory came back?"

Zinc cocked his head. "George?" After saying the name, Toby could almost see a cartoon exclamation point pop up over his head. "Oh CRIPES!" He yanked his wrenches away. "Jeeze, pal, I'm sorry!"

"No hard fee-" George ducked as Zinc swung reflexively at the voice that had suddenly appeared behind him.

"Fer cryin' out-!!"

George shook his head. "I should not have startled you. That was my fault. Nevertheless, you are forgiven, and I am exceptionally glad to see you again, Sir Zinc. I will admit, I had my doubts about Sire Toby's plan. Brilliant as he may be, a curse wrought by Madame Tarrare's own tongue is not a simple unlocking."

Zinc took a few moments to pant and quiver and get used to this soot-colored equine speaking actual full sentences at him in a radio announcer's voice. The memories were slipping back in, but the sudden shock had delayed them a bit.

"No, it's my fault," Toby said, stepping between them. "I forgot to tell him your name. I'm sorry. Both of you."

George nodded. "Appreciated. But this is a happy moment. So small an error could hardly stain it."

"Yeh," Zinc said, a little smile forming on his muzzle. He reached up and gave George's forehead a pat. He noticed the bonecuddy didn't flinch in the least at the sight of a wrench approaching. "Good to see you again, Silver."

"Your memory is incorrect, Sir Zinc. I am called George Charles Atkinson."

"No, no. I meant..." He winced. "Y'never heard of the Lone Ranger?"

"A friend of yours?"

Zinc guffawed. "Never mind." He looked side to side. "By the way, looks like you been busy, Toby." Within the ring of pillars' protective watch, there was a perfectly round area upholstered in plush maroon carpet. Upon this stood several chairs, several beds, a footstool, a curtained-off area, three lamps, and, weirdly enough, a toilet seat. "So, now that I'm out, where's the rest of us? Where's Juney? Where's Piff? And now that I think about it, where's th' car?"

Toby opened his mouth, then closed it. He sighed. He walked over to the toilet seat and picked it up.

Zinc was surprised by the sadness in the mouse's gaze as he looked at it. "Are the others... gone?" he asked, ears and tail drooping.

"No. They're..." Toby felt the lifeless plastic in his hands. "It'll be easier to show you than explain. Besides, I don't want to waste any more time than I have to."

"Awright." Zinc swiveled himself into a chair, looking down at the carpet. "Go 'head then."

Hearing the tone in his friend's voice, Toby came back over to cup Zinc's shoulder. "I don't want to run off and leave you right after we reunited. I don't. But people are counting on me. I'll stop and celebrate once you're all here, I promise."

Zinc nodded. "Okay."

"For now, George can fill you in. He's got the best memory of any of us, remember?"

The bonecuddy trotted closer to hold his head proudly. "Indeed. If your condition is similar to Sire Toby's, I will be happy to supply you with as many names of people and places as I can recall."

"That'd be swell, honestly," Zinc told him.

Toby nodded, satisfied that he wouldn't be leaving on a sour note. He stepped a few feet away, to give himself room. "Just out of curiosity, George, what did it look like when I was inside?"

"Like a wiggling pair of feet. That was all."

Toby raised his eyebrows slightly. He figured he would have vanished completely. "Zinc, I'll be back soon. See you then, and hopefully I'll bring good news. It shouldn't take long." He gave farewell nods to both his friends.

"Where're you going?" Zinc asked.

Toby silently laid the toilet seat down in front of him. The gesture was oddly reverent, like laying a wreath on a grave. "Hell if I know," he answered in a whisper. He gave himself a few moments to concentrate. He took a deep breath. And then he jumped straight in the air, flipped forward, and disappeared through the hole of the seat like an Olympic diver.

Zinc grabbed the sides of his chair to keep himself from falling off. "WHAT THE-!?"

The mouse had 95% vanished. All that was left, as George had described, were two furless pink paws.

"I would be happy to explain our plan in great detail," George offered.

Zinc leaned back, stunned. "Sure. Great." The befuddled mutt had remembered by now about mindfucking, so he reached out and grabbed himself a beer. He took a cold swig. "Today's sure been a day, ain't it? One moment I'm hittin' bullseyes in the junkyard with my crew, the next, everything I know falls apart and it was never real in the first place. I'm back here with this kooky mouse who's been my real pal the whole time. Now he's gone again." He took another drink. "Up and down. Up and down."

George did his best approximation of a smile. "I am eager to listen if you'd choose to share more."

A half-smile. "Why not?" Zinc leaned over to pull the stool closer so he could put up his feet.

George whinnied. "Sir Zinc! You might not want to put your feet upon that particular footstool!"

-***-

Chapter 1932

Thankfully, he did not have to dig his way up out of the ground this time.

Toby landed with a splash, having materialized five inches above a gargantuan pothole. The shock of cold water splashing up onto his knees was almost enough to distract him from the oncoming headlamps.

He flung himself out of the way on pure, mindless reflex. The car missed him, but it had meant a midair half-roll, resulting in one mouse jammed up against the wet, filthy curb. Toby heard the angry blats of the driver leaning on his horn and cursing out the window. And his own heart hammering. With a grimace, he grabbed onto a nearby mailbox and hauled himself to his feet. He grunted in a mixture of soreness and disgust. He'd landed pretty hard on his elbow, plus now he had to pick a candy bar wrapper and some cigarette butts off his back.

Toby got his soaked sandals out of the gutter. He felt a bit of embarrassment to be seen like this by so many people, yet that feeling blurred into confusion. There were dozens passing by him on the sidewalk. Yet none of them had seemed to notice him. He might as well have been invisible.

'Am I?' Toby considered. This was a wholly new dreamworld (he wasn't even sure whose yet), and undoubtedly it would come with new rules. 'I just have to figure them out.' He looked down at his paws. Opaque as ever. At least to him. The scattered, rushing strangers didn't spare so much as a glance.

'But that driver saw me.'

He puzzled over this for a few moments before a shiver interrupted him. 'I'll be able to think better if I stop standing out in the rain like a dummy.'

If the crowd hadn't cared about Toby's acrobatic car dodge, at least they also didn't give a shit about him weaving in and out of them, trying to get to the nearest shop with an awning. Toby squirmed past crammed wastebaskets and a knife sharpener's cart, finally putting his back against a cafe window and feeling the water torture on his fur let up. Now that he was out, he could fully appreciate how miserable it felt. He'd gone from baking desert heat to the kind of clammy April chill that doesn't seem so bad at first, but slowly robs the life out of your bones the longer you linger in it.

Toby blinked. 'I almost got hit by a car,' he realized. 'Back in my old life, that would have been a major event. Mom would have brought it up every day for a month. I'd have had nightmares. But now, I was so focused on what I'm here for, I nearly forgot it completely.' The contrast stunned him. He stared down at the stains and old gum on the sidewalk. 'I'm definitely not the same mouse anymore. I'm not sure it even makes sense to keep on calling myself Toby.'

He shook his head. 'You're on a timer, remember?' He could introspect later. How long had he been able to keep himself in Zinc's world? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Hard to tell, but it sure as heck hadn't been hours. He had to get moving. It looked like he had a whole big city to search.

Toby had assumed without question that he'd gone back in time again. But now, taking a closer look at where he'd landed, he wasn't so sure. This city had once been alive. He was surrounded by small-fry skyscrapers. Tenement buildings mostly; no more than six stories. Lots of arched windows stitched to one another by zigzags of fire escapes. At ground level it was all small businesses. Pizza and laundry and clocks and shoe repair. The streetlamps were ornate. Lots of flowerpots in windows.

But the streetlamps had as many busted bulbs as functioning ones. The flowerpots held only wilted stalks. Far down the street Toby saw an elevated subway that had been left to the elements, now looking like some kind of jungle ivy that had grown to enormous, rusty proportions. All around him, there were as many boarded-up shops as ones still lit. Maybe even twice as many. The few surviving establishments weren't doing too well. Inside the cafe, Toby could see a few patrons sitting hunched over, like furniture. A greengrocer's awning, once a vibrant pine-tree-and-gold, had faded to barely more than gray. And, just from where he was standing, Toby counted four bars. They were open.

This was emphatically a drab city. And he noticed that another detail about it might have explained why. Beyond the buildings in front of him he could see the misty blue shapes of real skyscrapers. Modern glass-and-steel juggernauts, casting a shadow over this old, outdated burg. The cars were another clue. While some were old junkers, others were, to put it an odd way, new junkers. Not models he recognized, but ones that would've been sold when his Mom was a teenager, not his great-grandmother. So he was only a few decades in the past at most. This place wasn't as old as it seemed. Merely left behind by the passage of progress.

'And it's still just someone's memory,' Toby reminded himself. Experimentally, he poked a pedestrian. The bovine lady had been clutching her shopping bags to her chest to keep them dry. When Toby touched her, she wheeled around and spat a mean look at him. But then she rigidly turned and kept scowling away along the same path, as if nothing had happened to her.

'Model cars on a track,' Toby realized. 'None of them are real. They're as fake as Postcard Town.' This would be a big help. He still didn't know whether he was inside Piffle or Junella, but now he had something to go on. King and the Kickstands had been real, because they were fursons Zinc was close to. Toby needed to find someone who looked more 'alive' than these grey puppets.

Toby debated which side of the street to start off with. Right looked slightly denser, but then he stopped and ducked back under the cafe's awning. 'Wait. The last time, the choice between the city and the junkyard was an illusion. I popped in at the exact spot I needed to be. Maybe I just need to stay here and concentrate.' It was a bit of a risk, what with the sands trickling out of his hourglass, but he committed to it. 'Everything has rules, even things that seem random. Scaphis did the same thing to all three of them, so there's no reason not to assume that all three dreamworlds won't be, basically, different levels of the same game.'

'And maybe they went back to their past because her venom blocked off all their Phobiopolis memories. So where else could they go?' That was a simple answer, but felt right.

Toby looked closer, searching for signs of extra 'realness'. There was an indescribable run-down melancholy to almost everything here. It bled into people and buildings both. Toby focused on every window in every building. Junella or Piffle could be behind any of them. Maybe he'd see some decoration, or if he got really lucky, one of them would be leaning out and looking back at him. But no, the apartments were a dead end. Toby saw nothing but closed drapes and dead plants. There was an alley nearby. Just one furson there though: a sleeping hobo who looked about as alive as the heaped-up trash bags across from him. Even a nonev cat wandering through looked like a prop.

Toby was spending so much attention on his eyesight that he'd neglected his other senses. It wasn't until the lyrics began that Toby realized he was hearing music.

His ears perked up. A brassy croon, sung over a melody that was hopeful, yet heartbreakingly sad. The singer's voice fit right in with the cornet, piano, and acoustic guitar. It was coming from somewhere down the street, so Toby turned towards it.

The closest newspaper kiosk had been jimmied open. Toby fished a Sunday edition out for a makeshift umbrella. In search of the song, he ran past a baker's dozen of surly, overcoated pedestrians. Some snarled at him, others didn't even react to being bumped. He passed a hardware store whose smashed front window had been replaced with lines of police tape. He passed a bakery with food in the window, but no fresh smells coming from inside. He passed a parked coupe with all four wheels and the headlights stolen.

Finally Toby spotted the music. Across the street was a junk shop, where a big-bellied bear was sitting outside under an awning with a record player beside him. Not a crank-handle Victrola, but still pretty old. Toby gave a nod to his deductive skills. Not only were the bear's red checkered shirt and blue overalls more noticeably colorful than everything around him, his out-of-placeness was cemented by the simple fact that he was smiling.

Careful to look both ways first, Toby clutched the newspaper tight over his head and made his way across the street. It was like dodging a minefield of potholes, but he made it without tripping. Looking again at the man's contented smile, he shifted the odds to this being Piffle's world. 'If that's not her dad or grandpa, I'll bite my tail.'

The roly poly bruin was putting some strain on an equally-antique carved wooden chair. Beside him was a rickety folding table with a vinyl record spinning. Beside that was a second chair to match the first. The bear's eyes were closed behind his thin bifocals, blind to everything about him but the sweet, sorrowful music. He smiled and tapped his foot to the rhythm.

He looked so into it that Toby couldn't bring himself to bother him until the song had ended. He stood in the relative dryness of the awning's protection and waited. He balled up the newspaper and attempted a hook shot into a nearby rubbish bin. Close.

The singer ceased. The piano played its last few notes.

Then there was just the sound of the rain and the needle's cracks and pops. The bear opened his eyes, looking refreshed.

Toby took a step closer. "Excuse me, sir, I-"

"Bust my buttons, kid! You look like you've been through the wash and not the dryer!"

Toby shrugged. "Probably, yeah. I'm looking f-"

"Not a word more. I was about to head upstairs and bring me down some refreshments anyway." His wide paws pushed against the chair arms, trying to heave himself up. His first attempt failed, and he plopped back down with a protesting squeak from the seat. Toby was about to offer assistance, but the old-timer waved it away. "I do the heavy lifting around here." Grunting, he got himself to his feet on the second try. He gave Toby a smile that was as warm as sipping eggnog by the fireplace. "Now, you just park your bottom. I'll be back in two shakes of a kitten's tail." Toby instantly forgot being cold from the rain.

There was a smaller door beside the entrance to the store, and the bear opened it to reveal a narrow staircase. Toby could hear each step moan in worry as it was trod upon.

After he'd left, Toby craned his head around the awning, peering up the side of the building. Little Piffle might be up there playing in her room at that very moment. He wondered what species she'd originally been. 'Whatever it was, she'll be adorable. I wonder how much she'll remember?' Zinc had taken some heavy convincing, but Piffle was more used to being transformed. Though she also embraced her changes wholeheartedly. This time might be even more difficult.

With nothing else to do but wait, Toby sat. The hardwood chair was pretty comfy. A butt-divot had been worn smooth by many years' use. He kicked his feet. He checked himself for the tingle. There, but far from insistent. Plenty of time left.

He swiveled around to look through the window behind him. Lots of old windup tin toys on display. Colorfully-painted ducks and bees and caterpillars. Little cast iron cars. The rest of the shop could have been mistaken for a junkyard. Oodles of dusty knickknacks, appliances, instruments, and oddities were piled up on the shelves. They fixed up broken items too; apparent from the spread of clockwork on a deerskin mat underneath a bright light on the countertop. Across the window, GUSTAFSSONS' TOYLAND was hand-painted in beautiful cursive. An absolutely charming place. 'I wish this was real and I had time to go in and take a look around,' Toby thought.

Soon enough the stairs were weeping again. "I'll get there one of these days!" the bear called out.

Then he was squeezing his ample gut through the doorframe, emerging with a silver tray, two glass tumblers of milk, and a plate of windmill cookies. Toby's eyebrows went up. "Thank you, sir! I wasn't expecting this."

The bear nodded, conveying plainly that he enjoyed exceeding people's expectations of kindness. He set the tray down with gentle care in front of the record player. "Heads up!"

Toby reflexively flinched as something yellow came flying at him. He fought against it like an attacking construct for a second before realizing it was a soft and fluffy bath towel.

The bear chuckled good-naturedly. "You looked like you could use that even more than a snack, kiddo."

As Toby dried off, he decided firmly, 'Piffle's world.' Whether the elderly gent was a brown or a grizzly, Toby knew his true classification: teddy. It was difficult to imagine Junella turning out such a spitfire with someone so comforting raising her. Whereas, if a city this sullen was where you'd grown up, you'd definitely need a mentor in optimism.

The bear flipped the record over and set it to play, adjusting the volume to not impede conversation. He drank from the closer glass and smacked his lips. The milk gave him a brief mustache. "Got a little something extra in mine," he said with a wink. "Touch of brandy. Warms the belly. Though not the kind of thing I'd serve to a cub, hope you understand."

"No problem," Toby acknowledged. He arranged the towel around his shoulders, then took a sip from his own glass. 'Wow...' He'd never tasted milk so rich. It was almost cream. He dunked a windmill in it, crunched, and shivered blissfully at the combination.

The bear let Toby finish his cookie. "Righty then. Let's get to bumpin' gums. What's on your mind, friend? And by the way, the name's Arvid Gustafsson. I'm betting you could guess at least half of that from my sign." He reached over for a shake.

The paw that enveloped his was as big as a catcher's mitt and soft as deep pile carpeting. Toby was reminded of Lady Xenoiko (or at least, half of her). "Toby deLeon, sir."

A chuckle. "Oh I'm a 'mister', not a 'sir'!"

"Okay then, Mister Gustafsson. I'm looking for someone."

A puzzled blink. "And you came to me? My shop's full of thingamabobs, but not usually people."

Toby shrugged. "You're the first furson I've seen around here who looked friendly enough to ask."

Arvid took another drink, then cast his eyes solemnly across the way. "Can't disagree," he said sadly. "Been living here almost all my life. It's a nice neighborhood, but... it's seen happier times."

Toby nodded. "So, I'm looking for a-" His mind screeched to a halt. How the heck was he going to ask about Piffle? He couldn't just say, 'She's half-hamster, half-bug!' and not be stared at like he was crazy. He had no idea what she'd look like here, or even what her name was. "Uhh... My pen pal!" He mentally patted himself on the back for the ad-lib. "We got paired up in school. All I know is that she lives around here." He tried to figure out a way to describe her without physical traits. "She's cheerful. Endlessly optimistic. Likes to help. She's got a really big heart. And... she's definitely good with money."

Arvid 'hmmm'ed. "That could describe a fair amount of li'l monkeyshiners 'round here. I know quite a few. They come in the shop to nose around. I let 'em play with the toys so long as they don't break anything. Let me think." He began crunching on a cookie.

Toby nibbled his lip. Strikeout. If this guy knew Piffle, she should have instantly come to mind at that description. 'Unless she changed that much when she came to Phobiopolis?' His gut told him she hadn't. Maybe this wasn't her dream? "You might know her sister then? Quick-tempered. Loves to fight. Got a sharp mouth, but still really smart and loyal?"

An eyebrow raise and a swallow. "Those two sound like night and day."

Toby nodded. "That's a good comparison."

A two-open-palms shrug. "Sorry, no bells are ringing. It might fit some little ones that used to live in this neighborhood, but none that I know of now. Not many kids here in general anymore. Not many families," he said sadly.

This didn't make sense. There had to be a connection between this old fellow and one of his friends. "You don't have any daughters yourself?"

At that, the old man sighed and sank down further in his seat. He took a very long drink of his extra-strength milk. He stared off into the grey. "No. My dear wife and I tried a few times, but it wasn't meant to be. Unfortunate. I would've liked to be a father. And she would have been a splendid mother, I think." A small laugh. "She did a good enough job taking care of me and all my childish ways."

Toby had been about to ask about nieces or granddaughters, when his mind switched onto a different track. He looked back at the shop's name. 'It's not plural by mistake.' He also realized whose seat he was sitting in. Why it was so well-worn. And why there had been an empty chair beside this old man in the first place.

"Could you, um, tell me about your wife, Mr. Gustafsson? If I'm not being rude by asking?"

A shake of his paw. "No, no. All my memories of her are happy. We were never the most romantic couple in the world. More like lifelong best friends. We fit together well. We'd sit out here all day in the summertime together, only getting up to mind the store. I loved her very much." There was a brief storm of tangled emotion in his eyes before he focused his intentions on another cookie.

Toby was beginning to brew a theory. Nothing certain yet, but it was worth some further questions. "Do you mind if I tell you about this book I read the other day?"

The old bear was surprised by this change in subject matter, but he was used to dealing with kids and their fickle attention spans. "Go right ahead. I'm always on the lookout for a good read at bedtime."

Toby prepared himself to speak very carefully. "It's about a world all made of nightmares."

"A scary story!" Arvid said with relish.

"Not always," Toby replied. "There's a lot of scary things in it, but also a lot of good characters. One of my favorites is this little hamster girl. But she's also partly a fly."

"A fly?" the bear asked. He wiggled two fingers behind his head for antennae. "Buzzz?"

"Exactly. She does have antennae. And a green exoskeleton, but also soft golden fur. Her wings are gorgeous. She's got these beautiful ruby-colored eyes, and she likes to dress up real frilly and cute. And she loves hugs."

The longer Toby talked, the more Mr. Gustafsson's expression changed. It began as amused indulgence, listening to a kid prattle away about their favorite book. But then he seemed perplexed. And by the end, almost frightened. "I had a dream about a bug-girl once," he mumbled hollowly.

Toby sat up straighter. His heartbeat quickened. "She's a huge ray of sunshine that helps all the other characters not give up. She gets them in trouble sometimes too, but they need her. She makes the journey worth it."

The old man was staring hard at Toby now. His next words were barely above a breath. "How do you know my dream?"

Before Toby could answer, Mr. Gustafsson made a big, noisy show of sitting back upright in his chair. He cleared his throat and wiped the crumbs from his overalls. "I must have read this same book! That's that and that's all! Long ago. I must have read it and forgotten it!" he said loudly.

"It only came out recently," Toby lied. Sort of.

The old bear set his lip. "Then it must have been based on another story. Something I read when I was small. You didn't see inside my sleep, no sir." He crossed his arms over his chest.

Toby felt that Mr. Gustafsson was starting to clam up. He had to push a little harder. "What if I told you it wasn't a story at all?"

"A moving picture then?"

Toby shook his head.

"A funnybook?"

"No. It was real."

A weak laugh. "You're not making much sense now, kiddo."

Toby rested his arms on the table, leaning closer to the old man. "Her name was Piffle," he said deliberately.

Arvid flinched like a bee had stung him. "No it wasn't," he said sourly.

Toby was sure now. 100% sure. The old bear was squirming in his seat. "She had a lot of friends. Me and Zinc and George and Junella. Her mom was called Billawhi, and she was all covered in mushrooms."

Arvid crossed his arms tighter around his chest. "You're wrong. My wife was a lovely woman. Lovely until the day she went to sleep."

That threw Toby for a loop. For a second he thought that Piffle might've been Mr. Gustafsson's spouse instead. But that theory crumbled almost instantly. If she was, then why wouldn't she be here alongside him? And he'd reacted to the mention of Piffle's mother. He thought his wife would have made a pretty good mother. Especially to an old man with childish ways.

There was incredible tension in the old man's posture now. His leg was crossed over his knee, foot tapping air at a furious pace. His face was a tight pucker. Fiercely avoiding eye contact, he wiped his glasses off on his shirt bottom, fingers trembling so much he nearly fumbled it. "I don't like to be rude, but I think your time's up, young mouse. Skedaddle on home. I'm feeling just a bit uncomfortable."

"I know," Toby said, "But I can't go."

Arvid's face darkened. His eyebrows descended into a scowl. He spoke through clenched teeth. "Young man, you need to leave. I said so."

"I can't leave without you," Toby persisted simply.

The bear laughed a single, humorless note. "Ha! I'm not going anywhere," he said stubbornly.

There was a crackle of thunder in the distance. The rain began to pour with more intensity.

Mr. Gustafsson began to rock back and forth, making the chair creak. "I can't leave here, don't be silly. I have a business and responsibilities. I live just above. I've always lived here. I've never been an insect. You're being foolish. Now scat!"

The rain was growing stronger with every word the old bear spoke. Cars turned their headlights on. Pedestrians ran to get indoors. "Piffle, you need to listen to me. I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable, but I'm not leaving without you either. I need you to remember. Even if it's hard to. She made you forget."

"Nothing of the sort," Mr. Gustafsson growled.

Another boom of thunder, this time with an accompanying flash. Much closer than the last one. The rain's pitter-pat became a throbbing hiss. The awning bulged from water weight. It came dribbling over the sides like a grey curtain.

Arvid took an angry glug of milk and spilled half of it on his shirt. "Now look what you've made me do! Please go away, young man! I do not have time for this!"

The man's face looked like he was close to either sobs or a stroke. Toby hated to make someone so kind and jolly feel such obvious pain. "I'm sorry, but I can't. I can't. You mean too much to me. I know you might be happy here, and these memories might be comforting, but you have to put them away. We need you back. Zinc especially."

Arvid wiped away the milk with his shirtsleeve, then crossed his arms again, looking like a toddler at full tantrum. "This chair is where I'm saying! I don't listen to crazytalk!"

The wind was howling. Rain-soaked garbage blew down the street like city tumbleweeds. Toby wasn't getting through.

Suddenly he knew what would. A gut feeling. "I know your full name."

"Arvid Magnus Gustafsson," the bear said petulantly. "Want my phone number too?"

Actually, Toby wasn't sure that he did know. This was a huge gamble. Even though he'd asked George to remember for him a few days ago, Piffle's name had so many words in it, so many of them with similar sounds, he had no idea if he could get them all in the right order. Toby closed his eyes, putting his mind back in time. "Shimmer Thistle..."

Rips appeared in the awning, letting droplets fall onto their fur and the milk.

"Pure silliness!" Arvid shouted.

"...Whisper Kimmy..."

The rain beat down like a hail of buckshot. Toby had to yell over its volume.

"...Vivilandria Lavender..."

The old bear clutched handfuls of his shirt in his claws. "You're going to give an old man a heart attack!"

Toby made his own heart stony enough to keep on. "...Loribelle Dorabelle..."

Lightning struck the building across the street, blacking out windows and pelting the sidewalk with chunks of brick.

"...Trixie Fizzle..."

"STOP!!!" she roared.

"...Piffle..."

"YOU'RE MURDERING ME!!"

"...McPerricone."

The old bear pivoted, shaking his finger at Toby, trying to sound stern and angry but coming off heartbroken instead. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME! YOU TERRIBLE LITTLE BOY! HOW CAN YOU BE SO CRUEL!? MY HEART CAN'T TAKE THIS! I'M NOT GOING TO-" He stopped midsentence, suddenly terrified of his own glasses.

The lenses had turned ruby red.

Arvid swatted them off his face and threw them into the street. As he did, his arm split open with a sound like a pillowcase tearing. Like a costume busting a seam. Stricken, he tried to hold the wound closed with his other hand. Instead, his elbow burst. Cotton stuffing came vomiting out. "Stop... You stop that right now..." His voice was trembling, powerless.

His cheek tore. Moaning in unchecked fear, he slapped at it. This only made the rip wider. His face split straight up through his eyeball to the top of his scalp. The skin at the seam became hollow cloth. Nothing inside but dusty white fluff. Arvid began to gasp out a series of sudden, choked groans as more and more of his body fell apart.

He tried to hold himself together, but it was like trying to keep a balloon from bursting by squeezing it. The seams appeared across fur and clothing, as they were both the same material and always had been. A split appeared directly down the center of his gut. Toby could see the threads straining inside.

Mr. Gustafsson tried to keep his innards in, but his hands had collapsed into raggedy gloves. Stuffing spewed out of his fingertips.

A second later, his entire body burst.

Toby shielded his face, but it wasn't really necessary. Wads of cotton are among the least harmful forms of shrapnel. Fluff landed on the sidewalk, on the record player, on the cookies, and all over Toby's lap.

Sitting now in Mr. Gustafsson's chair was a huge heap of brown, red, and blue fabric strips. And one crying hamsterfly.

The rain gave up. Its volume fell quiet. Its torrent became a trickle.

Piffle was chest-deep in a heap of clouds. She didn't brush the stuffing away, but did wad up strips of her former self to wipe her eyes with. She was sniffling. Naked. Tiny in comparison to the wide wooden chair. She pulled her knees to her chest to make herself even smaller.

Toby had won, but he knew his work here wasn't complete yet. There was no telling how much of her mind was back. He soundlessly got up, walked over, and reached out to pat her arm comfortingly.

She immediately jerked away. She scowled and pouted, not meeting his eyes. "You're mean. I was happy."

"Were you?" he asked.

It seemed the hamsterfly had misremembered her previous self. When she began to vent at Toby, she put both sets of hands on her hips, fingers clenched in four angry fists. "Yes I was, you bully! I was home! I had my music and my cookies! I had my shop where I could fix things all day, and sell toys to make little kids happy! Everything was just like it was sposto be! And then YOU hadda come along and get me all mixed up!" She kicked him in the shin, but even at her maddest she couldn't manage more than a light tap.

Toby did not begrudge the kick. "I know you had all that. But you were alone."

A sharp sniff. Piffle buried her eyes in one arm while wrapping the other three around her middle. "At least I remembered her. I had her back. I had her photos on the walls. Our album."

"Did she..." This part was far outside his experience, but he had to try empathizing anyway. "You said you weren't exactly romantic together. And you never had children. So, did she know? That you were... like this inside?"

Piffle shook her head, then gathered up an armful of bear fur and blew her nose into it. "I don't think even I knew. Not in words. But she did. Of course she did. She married me knowing full well I wasn't really... Well... Certainly not a rip-snortin' rugged man's man. I was a disgrace in the army. 4F all the way. The only things I ever wanted was to fix toys and be a big kid. Of course she knew."

Toby knelt on the soaked concrete sidewalk. He leaned against the armrest. This time Piffle didn't flinch when he put his hand on hers. "She must've been very patient. And loving."

An emphatic nod. "I miss her so much, Toby. I wasn't really alive after she left. The big C ate her. I kept the shop running, and I kept smiling, but I fell into a daze. I don't think I was fully awake ever again."

"I guess I can understand. I'm glad to hear you know my name though."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." Piffle said, but it was dismissive in a way that tried to cover her own gladness at that fact.

"At least," Toby said, "even if she's gone, there'll be people waiting to see you where we're going. Like I said, it's not always a scary place there."

Piffle nodded, accepting. She sniffled again. Paw shaking, she turned and unburied the windmill cookies. She needed the comfort.

Toby gave her time to get over the shock. He held her paw and could feel her tense heartbeat. The tingle in his own limbs was there, but mild. He was glad he still had time left. In a way, Zinc had been easier on him. Easier to get angry than to deliberately make a sweet old man cry. She deserved some time to recuperate after that.

Piffle squeezed Toby's paw. Then tilted her head at his hand. "Toby... you ain't got no more fingers."

A wince. "If you don't remember how that happened, I'll tell you later. It's ugly."

She nodded. "That's fine. I don't need any more bad news now, thanks."

"How much do you remember?" he asked.

She shook her head. "It's awful. Everything's fuzzy. Barely there. Kaput! I feel like I need to open myself up and reset all the springs. Oil the gears. I can see faces 'n places 'n that's about it." She looked up and met Toby's eyes. "Do I really have to go back there?"

Toby nodded solemnly.

She turned away, fussy. "I know it was fun sometimes. I liked turning into all sorts of zany stuff. Even if I can't remember exactly what, I know I liked bein' different. But it's a bad place too. The dead trees, the spiders, the dying... Right here is so much nicer."

Toby looked around at the dilapidated buildings. The uncollected trash. The unsmiling pedestrians. "Is it?"

Piffle's head slumped towards her lap. "I don't know," she mumbled.

Toby thought a bit. "Would you rather be in a comforting place all by yourself? Or someplace that can be ugly and awful a hell of a lot of the time, but with people who love you?"

She lifted her head and gave him a lopsided smile. "Are you a lawyer? Cuz that's a pretty good argument."

"I'm not. I just know you. More than anything, you like to be friendly."

A chest-hitching chuckle. "Can't do that with an empty shop, now can I?" She looked past the hand holding hers, out towards her old beloved city. "This is all just... old photographs, isn't it?"

Toby nodded.

"How long have I been here?"

Toby calculated. "Based on what L'roon said, and assuming Dysphoria didn't mess with me too much, I'd say a little over a month. Probably not two."

She shivered in disbelief. "It felt like a lifetime."

It was subtle, but Toby noticed something happening to the colors of the city. All around him, hues were fading as if the rain had washed them out. The only things that stayed the same were the brown brick apartment buildings. 'No, not brown,' Toby realized, 'sepia.' That was the word for old faded photographs. Just like Piffle had said. Her will was reacting without her awareness again.

Or maybe not. Toby noticed she was facing towards the neighborhood as its colors drained out. Maybe she was putting her toys away before leaving.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"No," she said with a sigh. "But I guess I hafta, don't I? I can't stay here. It's all falling down."

Before it did though, she wanted to say goodbye to at least one piece of it. She stood up, still holding Toby's hand, and looked longingly through the window of her old emporium. "I spiffed up every single one of those toys, Toby," she said proudly.

"Really?"

"Mm-hmm!" She let her eyes drift over the display. "I remember every one. People would bring them in broken and sell them to me for a nickel or so. I'd find new parts and I'd paint them bright and cheerful. Y'know why? When I was a little girl- I mean, when I was a little boy," she corrected herself, "people used to throw away the niftiest stuff. I'd visit the junk man and he'd show me old busted-up stuffed animals and wind-ups he'd found. I'd take them home and wash them clean and sew them up. I loved that so much! I loved finding something worn out and brightening it up. So it could brighten up someone else."

He stood beside her and patted her back. "I didn't know any of that about you, and yet it totally fits. Now that you remember doing it, maybe you can fix things in Phobiopolis too."

A bit of excitement entered her voice. "I could," she realized.

"Hey. Do you remember Zinc and Junella's pirate ship?"

A disappointed expression. "No?"

Toby winced. "Wait, you never actually saw it. I'm sorry. But they have got a TON of stuff in it. Some of that junk's gotta be broken and needing repairs."

"Ooooh!" This got a smile out of her. A genuine, honest, no reservations smile.

Toby was incredibly glad to see it. It wasn't yet her full-intensity beam, but it was headed in that direction.

Around them the city had faded so much, details were starting to go too. There were no more people on the sidewalks. Buildings looked out-of-focus. Windows were just white squares. In either direction, the street was enveloped in fog. There was no sky anymore, just blank photo stock.

Piffle was well aware. Holding onto both of Toby's paws, she watched her old home blur. Everything except her shop. Even when the world around them melted completely into sepia haze, a tiny island of sidewalk remained. Upon it were two chairs, a record player, and the window with all her well-loved toys inside.

"We can't stay here," Toby whispered.

"I know..." she replied. "But can ya blame a girl for being sentimental?" One last look at the cozy little shop that had been her treasure chest of happiest memories. "I remember holding the ladder steady while she painted that sign. Now I look at it, and it doesn't even feel like it was ever my name."

"Maybe you've always been Piffle," Toby suggested. "Maybe, when Phobiopolis makes you forget your past, all that's left is who you are in your heart."

She turned back to him. "Ya mean I've always been this silly?" she said with a titter.

A nod. "I'm afraid so."

"Shucks." Piffle wiped her eyes one more time, then pressed her forehead against his shoulder. "I remember this material. Two funny minks made this for you. And we were in a city with a lot of wheels..."

Toby nodded. "That's right. And they made you the pinkest safari outfit in the whole world, but it got ruined."

"Aw rats. Maybe they can make me another one when I get back."

"Mm-hmm." Toby tried not to let his expression show that there was no guarantee any of them would ever make it back to the places they'd been before. Not with what they'd be facing soon. But that was the last thing Piffle needed to hear right then.

Behind her, Gustafssons' Toyland began to fade. "How do we go?" Piffle asked.

"Well, step one is- you'll like this part- hug me as tight as you can."

Her antennae perked up. "O-kay!" With all four arms, she squeezed him like toothpaste.

Toby thought he heard his spine snap.

"Whoops!" The hamsterfly eased off a bit. She looked down at her arms. "Guess I don't know my own strength! Wait... did I have these other arms before?"

Toby managed to squeeze in a breath. "No, but they look good on you."

"Allright, I'll keep 'em then. Maybe Zinc won't mind the...." Her expression suddenly turned to panicked dismay. "ZINC!! I'll have to tell him I used to be...! I won't be able to hide it from him! I just couldn't! But what if he can't handle it? What if he can't..." She could not bring herself to finish the possibility.

Toby gripped her shoulders firmly. "The thing I know most about Zinc is that he rolls with it. Whatever 'it' is. Just be honest with him. He's going to care about you no matter what."

"Are you sure?" she asked, but almost immediately had another thought. "Oh! Toby, you know now! And you don't seem to give a hoot."

A shrug. "Should I?"

She hugged him tight again, smiling gratefully. "Aw. Thanks. I know I wasn't always this, but I like being this. And if you 'n Zinc like it too, then I don't mind staying this way," she told him. "Usually," she corrected with a minxy smile.

Toby understood. Piffle would always be Piffle. Nothing in any world could change that.

They stood together on the lone remaining square of sidewalk. All the rest had returned to the past, where it belonged. The satisfied hamsterfly held herself tight to Toby. Not like he was one of her fixer-upper plush, or a parent, but as a friend she was deeply indebted to.

"Let's go home."

***

One brief inversion later, Piffle's paws touched carpet.

Before she could even take note of the camp among the rocks, or the starbright sky, she felt fabric between her and Toby. She looked down at herself and saw an ocean of pleats, ruffles, bows, and general explosive pinkness. She reached up excitedly to touch her pith helmet with attached ponytail dome. "Gee whiz!! Look what I did! That's aces!!"

Zinc sat up so fast he almost launched his chair backwards. "PIFF!?"

Her head swiveled. Her grin expanded to impossible proportions. "ZINKY!!!"

Toby got the heck out of the way, lest their impending hug create a black hole that would swallow the universe.

Zinc spread his wrenches. Piffle's wings buzzed into a blur. She took off like a heat-seeking missile. They collided like a meteor impact and she bulldozed him into the nearest rock pillar, nearly knocking them both out.

Zinc was dizzy, prone on his back, possibly with a sprained tail, and none of that mattered. Two buck teeth and two disco ball eyes were looking down at him. "You're here," he gurgled.

She nodded, and replied quietly, with a tremor in her voice. "It was hard to leave, but I already know it was worth it."

He felt like his eyes were magnetized to hers. Nothing in the world had ever made him happier than to see that dynamite smile. He wrapped his wrenches around for a hug, and heard the metal clink against her exoskeleton. "Oop! Geez, I didn't mean to crush ya."

She laughed as if that was the silliest thing he'd ever said. "Why would you think I'd mind? G'wan and crush me! Bust me like a nutcracker!"

He grinned loopily, tongue popping out. "And here I thought you wuz a refined lady!"

They both giggled like schoolpups.

From a few feet away came an "Um..."

The twitterpated pair looked over to see Toby and George standing there. Toby cradled the footstool beneath his arm.

"Hiya Georgie!!" Piffle squeaked.

A deep bow from the bonecuddy. "Madame McPerricone! A great pleasure to be addressed by you once again!"

Toby hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "I'm gonna just... go do this. I figure you two can have some privacy."

Piffle's wings fluttered nervously. She looked between the mouse and the mutt. "I haven't even thanked ya, Toby."

He put up a hand. "It's okay. Thank me later. I want to get everything done while I'm still on a winning streak."

Zinc gestured at the stool. "That's who I think it is, ain't it?"

Toby nodded. "Process of elimination. And I'll admit, I'm a little worried. At least with you and Piffle, I knew you wouldn't try to cut my throat."

"Yeesh," Zinc said, but didn't deny the possibility. "Good luck then."

"I hope I don't need it." He turned to begin.

It was a little hard to talk with Piffle nuzzling his cheek, but Zinc couldn't resist his curiosity. "Wait... What was I then?"

Toby stopped and stammered. This was a bit embarrassing.

George helpfully stepped in. "You were a doormat."

Zinc grimaced. But then his expression became a strange bittersweet smirk. "Yeh. I was, wasn't I?"

The mouse and construct simply nodded in understanding.

"Well." Zinc turned his attention back to the four little paws that were exploring all over his fur. "I think we both got things to take care of."

"See you soon." Toby made an 'over there' neck-jerk to George and started walking away.

Piffle waved to him. "Bye bye! Good luck!"

Toby waved to her as well, then he and George crossed the carpet to find a quiet spot among the stalactites.

He stood with the infinite blackness of forevernight above him, staring down at a green-topped wooden-legged footstool. The last thing he heard was Piffle saying, "I gotta warn you, Zinc honey, I'm kinda scrambled eggs right now. I don't have everything back yet."

And his reply: "Same. But we're here now, ain't we? Does anything matter more than that?"

-***-

Chapter 1975

The wind nearly tore off his skin.

His face was pressed against glass so cold it felt like a freezer door. The air here was frigid, sandpaper-rough, and lacking in oxygen. He forced himself to breathe slow and deep. 'You don't even need to if it comes to that,' he reminded himself for the second time that day. But running out of breath might mean passing out, and he sure as hell didn't want to do that up here.

The ledge he was standing on was so narrow his heels were hanging off. But for the time being he was parked solid. When Toby thought he was ready to bear whatever fun surprises this location had in store for him, he opened his eyes.

He was looking down a long hallway. Well-lit. Gold trimmed doors. Maroon carpet. 'So I'm clinging to the side of a high-rise apartment building. Or a hotel.' Whichever the case, it was a pretty fancy one. And he was locked outside by inch-thick glass.

Gathering his courage, he turned his gaze downward. Of course, there couldn't happen to be a window washer's cart right below him, nooooo, that would be too convenient. His panic started shrieking, but he visualized himself shoving it into a box and locking the lid. Panic would get him killed up here. All the way down, the view was a seemingly endless carpet of austere concrete and identical windows. He was standing in birdshit a million miles up. 

The worst part was, at the bottom, there was no bottom. This dreamworld was unfinished. Where there should have been a busy metropolitan avenue and stampedes of pedestrians, instead there was a nothing. A uniform featureless grey. Toby had a feeling it was substanceless too. That if he fell, he'd just keep on falling forever. Eternally circling until he starved to a corpse.

'Okay, brain, there are a lot of reasons why that's stupid,' he said pensively to himself. Though he didn't want to find out what fate would befall him if he lost his grip.

And that was going to happen soon. These were blizzard winds up here. He could feel the warmth leaching out of his fingers and toes. Though his neck was surprisingly cozy. A glance down showed that his vest had puffed up into a huge blue Angora sweater. 'Oh right. Genuine terrorbunny wool. I forgot it did that.' So okay, maybe his core would retain heat. But he still had to somehow get inside before his digits went numb.

Toby pushed his forehead against the glass. Junella was somewhere inside this building. She had to be. Maybe even in the room directly across from him (although he doubted it could be that simple). He had to get inside. He gave the glass a tap. 'This stuff is thick.'

He had a hammer though.

It would mean giving up half his grip. But what was the alternative? He checked for a fire exit first. There was none. 'Of course not. Not this high up.'

The wind was comparable to a freight train rumbling past. Its howl felt like fists driven into his ears. Toby flattened his palm. When it was as close to a suction cup as he could make it, he let his silver fingers retract. He was glad to see them obeying his conscious command now, not just in emergencies.

He braced himself. 'The glass is going to shatter, and you are going to fall on top of it. You're going to get cut up pretty bad. But that's better than falling into that weird grey out there. And you can bash your skull into mush afterwards if it's that bad, okay?'

Toby previewed an inner simulation of his plan a few times to make sure his body was ready for it. He felt his inner steel retract back into its usual shape. He slid his hand down the pane until his elbow was cocked at the best pistoning angle.

KA-KLONNNG

The recoil almost launched him straight off the side of the building. The glass resonated like a huge bass bell, hard enough to ripple Toby's skin. His tail whipped back and forth as a counterweight to keep him from falling. He desperately willed his fingers back. Five metal claws scraped the glass with an ear-piercing screech, but they did the job.

Toby stayed motionless for three solid minutes. His heartbeat was like a tympani pressed to his ribs.

Okay, so the glass didn't shatter. But how much had he damaged it? Toby pried his eyes open to check. At least he'd created a lovely spiderweb. At the center was a divot just big enough to fit two pennies into. Other than that, the window was as solid as a mountain. 'Of course. This is safety glass. The extra high density super-duper professional grade stuff. What else could withstand the weather and air pressure this high up?'

Closing his eyes again, he resigned himself to another try. He was already feeling lightheaded, a condition that was likely to keep getting worse. He flattened his palm against the crumbly, cracked center of his previous impact and pulled his fingers in.

'I don't know if I can handle that much recoil a second time.' Toby stared at his fingerless hand. He could see the veins and tendons tensing underneath his pale skin. 'I have to hit it harder somehow. Twice as hard. How?' There had to be a way. But if there was, wouldn't he have discovered it already? Wouldn't the immediacy of lunging hungry constructs have birthed the answer from sheer necessity? 'I'm going to have to get creative.'

The wind was a giant mosquito drinking his heat. His toes quivered from the strain of holding his weight, slight as it was. His tail had gone numb to the root.

'I have to hit twice as hard. Twice as hard.' He blinked. 'What if I had two hammers? I know I can dumbfound mine again if I lose it.' In fact, to cement that idea, he took his paw from the glass and ejected it straight down into the nothingness. By the time he was touching the window again, he could feel it back home in his arm.

An insane thought came to him. Stupid as hell. But he knew by now when a crazy idea felt right. 'I can dumbfound my hammer any time I want to. Any. Time. I. Want. To.' Toby's memory traveled back to his first trip through Dysphoria. George in the subway car. George needing a mercy kill. The spine-piercing collar holding his dying body within the same molecules as his renewed body. In Phobiopolis, two copies of the same thing could exist within the same space. At least, until they were forced to merge or diverge.

"Two copies of the same thing can exist within the same space," Toby said out loud. It was an order.

His forearm leapt into a bubbling frenzy. His eyes went wide at the sight of the jittering flesh and the stomach-churning feeling of something unbearably vigorous having a grand mal seizure inside.

There was no time to stand here admiring it. He'd just made a bomb inside his arm. It was either going to take this window or his life when it went off.

Toby fired the cloned hammers at the glass.

SMASHHH!!!!!

Toby careened forward and the floor punched the breath right out of him. The roar of the wind was cut by half, likewise the chill. Despite lying on a blanket of broken glass, an uncontrollable gasp of mad laughter bubbled out of him.

'That was completely impossible!' Toby thought. 'Thanks, hammer!'

He wanted to pop it into his palm and kiss it, but he was also aware that the instant he moved, the pain would hit him like a hail of spears. The smallest wiggle of his belly came with a worrying crinkle of pulverized glass. 'I'm probably cut up all over. When I stand up, it'll be like when cartoon characters get shot and then they drink a glass of water and it all comes pouring out. Except it'll be blood instead.' He cackled in a way that worried him. 'I'll need to dumbfound up a bunch of corks!'

The wind was still lapping at his hindquarters from the abscess he'd created in the building's wall. Best to just treat this like a bandaid and get it over with. Gingerly, he popped his hammer out and used it like a cane to push himself up to his feet.

He was pleasantly surprised. Now that he could see around him, most of the glass had been flung far away from his landing spot, ending up lodged in the wall across from him. He winced at the jagged mural, hoping it wasn't Junella's apartment. She might've gotten a faceful. As for himself, he was bleeding from a couple places, but his trusty vest had kept him mostly unharmed. Mostly. He did need to pull a few splinters out of his knees, and a long nasty one from just above his eyebrow. "Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow."

He took a cleansing breath. 'Allright. I'm in.' He shivered. 'And I can move away from the wind now!' He hustled away until he felt comfortable. He rubbed his arms to get the blood flowing again, and found a few more crumbles of glass in the fur.

Now he could focus on where he was and how to accomplish his purpose here. The hallway was even more posh than his first impression had hinted at. Or at least, what this time period considered posh. The mahogany doors, tangerine wallpaper, burgundy carpet, and chocolate marble ceiling was a color scheme that made him feel oddly nauseous. Light came from solid white spheres in the ceiling, cleverly designed to look like a magician was making them float. Upon each solid-looking door was a decorative plate engraved with a number. Toby suspected they might be made of real gold. 5116 was directly across from him. He was surprised this was only the fiftieth floor. It felt a lot higher.

At each corner of the hallway was a gathering of perfectly round bushes in trapezoidal planters. Each was accompanied by a tall ashtray shaped like a shell casing. Toby wondered if the gold trim on them was real too. And on the walls every few feet were real paintings. Not prints: he could tell by the texture of the brushstrokes. Maybe by no one famous, but still pretty classy stuff. Lots of bold, abstract colorspasms. 

First deduction: Junella was not in any of these rooms across from him. Evidence? The sound of the glass shattering would have woken up anyone. But just to be sure, he went up to 5116, checked for a 'Do Not Disturb', then knocked. "Anybody in there? Um, housekeeping?"

No answer. Toby began getting another hunch. He knocked harder, pounding with the side of his fist. "Anyone!?"

Nothing. That much noise should have annoyed whoever was in the rooms to the left and right too.

'Unless there's nobody in them.'

Toby jiggled the doorknob. Then, assuring himself he'd apologize sincerely if he was wrong, he grabbed it tight in his right hand and let his hammer annihilate it. The knob shattered just fine, but the door didn't budge. Toby then used his hammer on the hinges. They also broke easily, also without results. 'Because it's not even a door. It's a wall. And the only thing behind it is more of that grey stuff outside.'

Feeling a lump in his throat, Toby looked to the far end of the hallway. Maybe twelve doors total. He sprinted to the corner. When he turned, his heart sank. He had broken in on the shorter side of the building. There had to be forty doors lining the next hallway. 'Which means another forty on the opposite side.'

He shut his eyes tight. Fine. The tingle hadn't begun yet, but he knew it would start by the time he knocked on all these doors.

Just around the corner, he noticed an elevator. Knowing damn well what the result would be, he pushed the button. It didn't even light up.

"Nothing's ever easy."

Out of sheer, petty frustration he K.O.ed the button into a sparking crater.

Toby sighed and began the thankless chore of knocking on every damn door in the hallway. He figured, between the glass and his doorknob-demolishing, the other hall was already covered. And if it wasn't, then he'd just loop around and hit everything again. Around and around he'd go, until either he found her, or the tingle wrenched him out and he'd have to dive back in and try again.

He lost patience with hitting each door individually. He figured if he just hit every other one hard enough, that'd work. Thankfully the mahogany made a nice 'boom' when he hammer-cannoned it. And the hallway had a good echo too. Toby ran along at a half-jog, bellowing out Junella's name with one hand cupped to his mouth, the other leaving dents in doors. When he got a third of the way down, there was another of those big cylindrical ashtrays. Toby figured that'd make a good noise too, so he diverted course to kick it's ass. CLANG-A-LANG!!! That was great! Like someone tossing a pair of cymbals down a laundry chute!

If he hadn't been so irritated, he might have been enjoying himself. He kept the ashtray rolling with a solid punt every few feet, while hollering, "JUNELLA!" over and over and leaving a trail of slowly-disappearing post-launch hammers in his wake.

If it wasn't for the numbers on the doors changing, Toby might have thought this hallway was just the same section repeating on an infinite loop. The other corner didn't seem to be getting any closer. 'I swear, if she's on a different floor, I'll lose my mind.' He tried to convince himself that wasn't true. 'There are no other floors. The town and the airplanes was an imaginary choice. The two sides of the street was an imaginary choice. Both times I popped in close enough to where I needed to be. She's here. Somewhere.' But his doubt nagged him nonetheless.

Toby kicked the ashtray again. It really did roll beautifully. Like the center drum of a steamroller loosed from its bearings.

Before he knew it, his worrying had dulled his senses. He arrived at the corner before he expected to. He dashed around, glad to have half his task completed.

And to his surprise, unlike the opposite half of the building, this one had something outside it. Toby ran to the window. He flattened his palms and forehead against it, not out of self-preservation this time, but amazement.

From up here he could see the curve of the world. A vast sea of blue with clouds dozing within it like herds of white cattle. Beneath was the city. The BIG city. There was no mistaking this place. Skyscrapers reached up their windowed arms. Some of them were even taller than the one he was in. A few were so gargantuan he had to crane his neck to see their tops! Unbelievable!

Below was a riot of advertising. Uncountable billboards in every aggressively-eye-catching color possible. Toby almost wished it was night instead of midday, because the bulbs and neon would have been dazzling. Though the streets were dazzling enough. Even from up here Toby could make out theaters and restaurants and department stores. A million billion people crowded the sidewalks, indistinguishable as a living carpet. If Toby squinted he could make out tiny umbrellas atop food vendor's carts. Cars as small as termites crawled along the clogged roads. Taxis and garbage trucks were discernible. This was the place all the movies were shot. He'd always halfway wanted to take a trip here, if not for the fear of grimy streets and germy people. Even if this was all just the hallucination version, it was still a sight worth remembering. Toby hated to tear himself away. More doors to pound.

Thankfully, he remembered that this was the shorter, easier side. A half-dozen knocks, tops. Just as he raised his arm to start, he looked around to see where his ashtray had gone and noticed, at the far end of the hallway, one of the doors was standing open.

Toby forgot everything else and ran for it.

And when he got close, from inside the open door he heard the best sound in the entire world. The bestest best BEST sound that had ever existed. Her voice.

"Zinc? Is that you raising all that hell out there? Getcher ass in here, it's unlocked!"

Toby put a hand to his mouth to hold back a yelp of shocked relief. It was her voice! Exactly the same as he remembered it! And she'd said a name!! The ramifications were mind-boggling! Toby nearly tripped over his feet trying to double his speed. His running footsteps echoed as loud as his hammer-knocks.

Finally he collapsed against the gold knob and leaned on the mahogany, panting. Sparkles danced in front of his eyes. 'Don't get too excited and pass out now,' he warned himself. He gulped air until his throat stopped burning.

He pulled the door open and stepped inside.

His plan had been to call her name and run to her. But the interior of the apartment stopped him in his tracks. It was nearly as impressive as the view outside.

Toby never would have guessed she'd grown up this rich. He'd always pictured Li'l Junella growing up on the bad side of town, fighting over leftovers with a pack of siblings, or beating up the bullies on a patchy, rundown playground. This was not that. He was in a compact but heavily-decorated living room, walking on pristine white shag so deep it felt like it was trying to eat him. There was a leather loveseat against the wall, facing a massive home entertainment system. The stuff inside might have been state of the art for its time, but the faux wood trim looked laughably anachronistic. And the stereo was about as big as a washing machine. Toby's eye was also drawn to a diamond-shaped shelving unit featuring all sorts of expensive-looking doodads. A miniature cactus, a religious statue, a cobalt glass bird, etc..

All around the room were portraits. A very hip male skunk sporting a snazzy blue suit with an orange cravat. A plump ladyskunk with long eyelashes; her white dress looked like flowing milk. Most numerous of all were dozens of professional shots of a precocious baby skunkette who could not have looked more greedy for the camera's attention.

Passing through the rest of the place, Toby saw a kitchen with a colossal crystal chandelier suspended over an uncomfortable-looking art-shaped dining table. There was a bathroom all done up in swirled rose tile. A bedroom for two with a circular love-pit and a vanity shaped like a waterfall. At the far end of the apartment was another cracked-open room, and Toby felt certain that was his destination. An easy prediction, considering the massive portrait of that same baby skunk hanging just outside.

Toby steeled himself to see her again. He tried not to let his emotions overwhelm him. This wasn't success yet. There was time to let happiness crash into him when this was all over. But with matters Phobiopolan, he knew he had to stave off celebration until he was sure. This realm had a way of finding inventive new ways to smash poison pies in his face whenever he let his guard down.

Hand quivering a little, Toby pushed the door open.

At the sound of the hinge, a voice called out in playful snark, "You're late, asshole. Didja at least bring some booze?"

Toby couldn't laugh or reply to that. He was too dumbstruck.

This was the pinkest room in existence. Piffle would've had an aneurysm. It was also the biggest room in the apartment by far, stocked floor to ceiling with everything a little princess could possibly wish for. The canopy bed was as big as a boxcar, featuring lavender silk curtains decorated in tiny silver stars. There were toys covering almost every square inch of the carpet. Dolls and stuffed animals of every species, nonev and anthro alike. In one corner was a humongous plush elephant with a howdah on its back and a tea party setup inside. There was a walk-in closet and a full-length mirror, with a tangle of dress-up accessories piled between them. There were makeup kits and posters and a record player and her own TV set, almost as big as the one in the living room. Pink clouds and pink hearts and pink angel skunks frolicked around on the wallpaper. The combined sight was enough to explode one's eyeballs.

And sitting on the floor on a pink spiral rug, almost knee-deep in Lego, was a little black and white furball no older than five. She had on a matching blouse and skirt that were just un-pink enough to be plausibly denied as red. Her lightning-white hair dwarfed her head in two cheerleader-pompon ponytails. She was building what looked like the Taj Mahal.

Junella put another turret on her tower with a grin that was badly trying to hide its joy. Despite her diminutive age, her voice was exactly as grown-up and no-bullshit as always, which added even more surreality to the scene. She looked up, feigning nonchalance, and her words died in her throat. "I admit I'm gl-" The plastic brick fell out of her hand.

The pair of them stared at each other.

"TOBY!?" she finally squawked.

"You're cute!" Toby blurted.

Ignoring his response, she crawled a few feet closer to him on all fours, eyes wide and mouth agape. She hadn't even noticed she'd mashed several Legos into her palms and knees.

The mouse took another step inside and rubbed the back of his neck. "You weren't expecting me," he understated.

The tiniest shake of her head was all she could manage. She looked him over from top to bottom. Suddenly she backed up, mule-kicked her fabulous creation across the room, and started sweeping all the other bricks away with her tail. When that didn't do the job fast enough, she stood up, snarled, and gave the entire rug a snap like a whip. Toby jumped back and bumped into the wall.

Junella got the rug smoothed out again and sat down on it, cross-legged. Still looking like she was seeing a barrelful of ghosts, she turned to face Toby and gave the space beside her two 'sit down' pats.

Toby crossed the room to her and sat.

She leaned closer to study his face. Her nostrils flared, checking to make sure his scent was true; that this wasn't some new mirage to torment her. "Toby," she said again.

There wasn't much he could do but nod.

Junella let herself fall backwards, caught by her mega-poof tail. "I thought it'd be Zinc. I was so sure I'd see him come scootin' in with that adorable dumbass grin of his."

Toby shrugged. "Sorry to disappoint."

She popped up instantly. "Toby, no! Disappointed is the last thing I'm feeling! STUNNED, more like it! Sweetass GOBSMACKED! I can't believe... I don't know how you found me in here, but I am amazed that you did!"

He turned away shyly from the compliment. "I'm amazed you seem to have all your memories."

She tilted her head. "The others didn't?"

'Holy shit, she's sharp.' "How'd you figure that?'"

She held up her stubby little fingers and counted off on them. "One, I heard my name hollered all up and down the hall. I thought Zinc sounded a little different, but figgered it was just the echo. Regardless, that meant you knew I was in here. Suggests prior experience."

Toby nodded.

"What confirms prior experience is the way you asked me what you just asked. How'd you know I've been having Etch-A-Sketch brain unless you'd seen it in someone else? Maybe yourself. I obviously don't know what she did to you after I got porcelainized. But just from your tone, it felt like I was breaking a pattern. Ergo, Zinc, Piffle, maybe even George too?"

Toby's eyes were bulging. He tried to think of some clever reply, but just stuttered a bit and started applauding.

She grinned at that. But then her petite muzzle drew into a sour pout. "You called me cute," she accused.

"Well..." he made a gesture indicating her much-reduced height. "You are."

She put her adorable hands on her hips and squinted. "Suck a dead dog's dick on a pile of rancid ol' dildos. Still cute now?"

Toby wrinkled his nose. "Okay, okay. Definitely not."

She nodded. Matter settled.

"That said, your eyes are... remarkable."

She recoiled in embarrassment. "They what? Oh... right. I guess you've never seen 'em this color before." She begrudgingly let him see.

Toby leaned in a little. Despite her cringing embarrassment, she was a lovely little cub. Her eyes were her centerpiece. An arresting milky blue that made him think of sapphires encased in ice.

Not waiting for him to get the hint that she didn't like being seen like this, she swiftly turned aside and changed the subject. "We've both got questions. That's obvious. So to keep us both from stumbling all over our tongues trying to get 'em out, I'll just go first with mine, then you can ask yours. Sound alright?"

"Sure," Toby agreed. "I don't have infinite time here, but I've got an okay amount."

"Alright." She arched an eyebrow. "You have a way out, I hope? You didn't just barge in here without a plan tryin' to rescue me on pure hero-faith?"

Toby shook his head. It was odd having to look down at her when he spoke. "Actually, you could say I'm on a timer. This dream doesn't want me in it. I can feel it as a tingle in my legs. It's trying to squirt me back out. You just have to hang onto me when that happens."

Junella nodded her head emphatically. "Good!" A wave of relief passed through her. "I guessed as much. You're not stupid, Toby. I figured you'd look before you leapt. I just needed to hear it to feel right, canya diggit?"

"Oh sure. Sometimes I've gotta tell myself things too."

She picked up a flat Lego brick and idly tried to bend it in half. "You got the others too? D'they know who they are?"

More nodding. "George took the most work, but he's 100% recovered by now. I just collected Piffle and Zinc a moment ago. They're still disoriented."

She leaned a little closer. "And how are you?"

Toby pulled back. He folded his hands in his lap. "I'm fine. I guess."

She 'hmm'ed with a sidelong look. He wasn't. She could see that plain as day. But if he didn't want to talk about it, she'd be the last one to pry. It was enough to see that he'd gained a few belts in competence since their parting. Though he also looked like he hadn't slept since then either.

Toby could feel her deducing things about him. "Um, I was planning on giving the whole details to everyone together, once we were all out," he said. "Unless there's anything you need to know right this second, I'll probably cover it later."

She let him change the subject. "I can't think of anything else of great importance." She looked around her room with a grimace of pure bile. "The most important thing is that you can get me the fuck away from this shit."

Toby looked around too. He shrugged. "I'm not a girl, but it seems like a pretty cool room to me. Like, a place I wouldn't mind having a sleepover in. You really hate it that much?"

She glared at him. "Does it suit me?"

Easy question. "No."

"Uh huh," she sneered. She clenched her arms around herself, like she'd suddenly gotten cold. "You wanna know how I got my memories back," she stated; not asked. "I don't hate this place just because I've been cooped up in here for God knows how long. It's not just because it's a prison cell. It's because... Toby, you know what's the one good thing about a scar?"

He thought a bit. "Supposedly they're good for attracting chicks."

She chortled, trying to imagine Toby in a bar doing that. "Okay, fine, that too. But what I mean is, a scar always reminds you of where you got it from."

That seemed quite wise. "This place gave you scars when you were a kid?"

She tapped her cranium. "In here. You don't feel rage for that long, and at those depths, without it building a permanent home in your guts. But you bet your ass, whatever this place is, it tried to make me think this was home." She pointed to her bed. "Every single morning, I still wake up feeling like it's the weekend, and Mom 'n Pops have already gone to work so I can play all day till they get home at suppertime. I was fooled for weeks, Toby. Days and days of dressing up my dolls in here, or sipping juice out in the livingroom, watching cartoons. It was real nice for a while. But you can't fool a scar. Eventually I started feeling like, 'Wait a minute... Goddammit, I was never this happy here'."

"Geez," Toby said sadly. "I'm sorry to hear that. But I'm glad you found a way to make use of it. And actually, I kinda know what you mean. Dysphoria tried to take me back to my old room and it couldn't fool me either."

Junella was amused again by the many parallels she kept finding between them. "Once that idea broke through, the mind control was over. Powerless." Her tone took on a manic quiver. "I started doing experiments. Breaking my toys. Setting fires. I'd go to sleep, then everything was brand spankin' new the next day. The more sure I got that this place was fake, the more I started feeling like my old self again. I just had to build myself back up, brick by brick." She glanced at the Legos. "Y'know, these were one thing I never hated back then. They're still good for passing the time. Plus I've read every book in the apartment. Or at least I tried to. I never did as a kid, so I had no memory of 'em. This place just copied out pages and pages of nonsense. But within 'em I kept finding words from my deep subconscious. Little things that'd open my eyes a bit more. I started reading the phone book in chunks, hours at a time."

He arched an eyebrow. "Why...?" A lightbulb clicked on. "For the names!!"

A huge, grinning nod. "Eggs-ACKT-ly! Toby, let me thank you right now for having a normal, sensible name. George too. The rest of Phobiopolis gotsta have all sorts of fancy-ass bullshit nicknames. I got Zinc from a plumbing ad, and Piffle from someone talkin' old-timey talk on a soap opera on TV. By the way, what's mine?"

Toby was confused. "I was shouting it all down the hall."

"No, no! My last name!"

"Oh!" He put on his best George voice, "I have the pleasure of introducing Madam Brox."

"HOT DAMMIT, I THOUGHT SO!!" she exploded, nearly knocking Toby across the room. "I saw an ad in that phonebook for jukebox repair and that word felt kinda right, but it kept itching at me that it wasn't all the way right!"

"Glad I could give it back to you," Toby said, recovering after her sonic blast.

Junella grunted in relief. "I owe you big time, Toby. That was the last jigsaw piece I needed to be me again."

Toby was about to tell her there was no repayment necessary, but she startled him by tossing her head back and bellowing at the ceiling like a volcano.

"YOU HEAR THAT, WHATEVER YOU ARE!? I GOT THE LAST PIECE! I'M ME AGAIN! YOUR POWER'S A DEAD BATTERY, MOTHERFUCKER! I'M GOING HOME AND YOU CAN'T KEEP ME HERE ANOTHER MINUTE!!!!"

"It's not an 'it'. It's just your own memories," Toby meekly pointed out.

Junella didn't hear him, instead fixing a maniacal Cheshire grin in his direction. "You saw outside, right? How it's only half a city? Once I figured out this place was fake, I started noticing aaaalllll kindsa other mistakes. Once I got outside the apartment, they were everywhere! There's no other rooms in this building, Toby. There's no elevators. There's no stairs. But I got out anyway."

He blinked. "How?"

She turned around to the canopy bed. "Parachute. One good thing about this skimpy body: I don't weigh jack."

Toby tried to imagine braving those Arctic winds on nothing but lavender bed curtains. "How'd you break a window?"

Without looking, she whipped her hand to the side and filled it with gleaming metal.

"Your revolver!"

She gave him an 'ain't it cool?' grin. "My hands are so small now I gotta use both of 'em. And the recoil knocks me into the next county! But you put enough shots in the same bullseye and anything'll shatter eventually." She twirled the sixgun on her thumb, then vanished it with a mystic pass.

Toby's curiosity was aroused. "What's it like down below? I saw a town in Zinc's dream but I didn't have time to go walking around in it."

"It only knows what I used to know. So, places I used to go to a lot are sharp, while everything else is..." She searched for a metaphor. "You ever look real hard at a comic book, Toby? It's all little dots when you lean in close. Same thing down there. Buildings flat as shoeboxes. The words on the signs are all throw-up. There's no people. Cars are shells. Like a set in some shitty school play."

Toby nodded. "I thought it might be."

Junella smirked wistfully. "Speaking of school, I'll admit it was a hoot seeing my old elementary again. And trashing the place! Puttin' bullet holes in the blackboards and driving down the halls screaming my head off."

"Driving?" Toby asked. "You said the cars were just props too."

Her blue eyes gleamed. She held up a 'wait a sec' finger, then stuck it down her throat and retched.

Toby backed up, thinking she was about to puke on him.

Instead, she reached into the back of her throat and extracted an inky little pill. "Remember this?"

Toby stared at it. He was sure it felt familiar... Then his eyes went wide. "That's right! You kept it with you!"

She beamed. "One gen-u-wine Fearsleigher, ready for resizing. I even bigged it up it in here a few times to give the place a machine gun makeover."

"Zinc's gonna be super happy!"

"I'll bet. Doubly so when he sees all the gear we still got left in her." She swallowed it again for safekeeping, then hopped to her feet. "Why keep him waiting? I dunno if you'll be up for it or not, but I plan to take him with me and go hunt down that faceless superbitch who backstabbed us."

Toby stood as well. He nodded solemnly. "That's exactly what I was planning. I didn't come all this way to get you back just because I care about you. I do, of course. That was always the first reason. But I also need you. You've got your cutlass too, I hope?"

She looked dumbstruck to hear those words come out of her mild, timid Toby. And then she clapped her paws to his shoulders, so savagely proud of him her gums nearly bled from grinning. "Right on."

He nodded. "I thought you'd be happy to hear that."

"You thought right, mouse." She suddenly swept past him. "Let's hit the road. I don't want this place's stink on me anymore."

He nodded. "When we've got time later, you've gotta tell me what you were like as a kid and why this room pisses you off so much. It can't be just because it's so pink."

At that she immediately flinched. Her nonchalant chuckle sounded pathetically phony. "Aw, you don't wanna hear about all that old crap. It's so unimportant it's got dust on it. We've got the future to look forward to. Friends to see. Butts to kick." She turned and headed for the hall, tail bobbing behind her like a pet cloud.

Toby was surprised. That was some blatantly transparent dishonesty. He was curious, but she was right that they had better things to concern themselves with. He followed her out past the dining room.

She abruptly stopped and Toby bumped into her (thankfully her tail was a perfect cushion). Junella didn't even apologize. Instead she looked back to the open door with her baby portrait hanging beside it. She gnawed her lip. She stepped around Toby and headed back, reluctantly, but as if she couldn't stop herself.

"Did you forget something?" he asked.

She glanced over her shoulder. She was trying to smile like this was merely a trifling afterthought, but her eyes showed a storm inside her. "Heh. Could you, um, give me just a moment, Toby? One last thing I wanna do before I never see this place again."

He leaned against the wall, not sure if this should worry him. He checked his inner countdown: the tingle was no worse than his foot falling asleep. "Okay, I suppose. How long you'll be?"

Junella looked down at her tiny hand and saw a six-chambered friend appear in it. "Not long."

Toby shrugged and gave her a 'go ahead' nod.

Junella acknowledged him politely. Then she turned her attention to the room. Her room. Her jail. Her hell. She soaked in every detail, and all the memories those pretty playthings brought to mind. She knew every inch of this place. She knew everything in its shadows.

A searing rictus of anger came over her muzzle. Spreading her feet to brace herself, she wrapped both hands around the grip of her gun. A feral scream rose from her throat like an approaching police siren. And then she was pumping bullets into absolutely everything.

Toby reflexively ducked, even though none of the bullets were headed his direction. He fled around the corner into the bathroom and peeked just his head out. It was a sight as surreal as anything Phobiopolis had shown him. A three-foot skunk cub, just past toddler age, screaming with the voice and volume of an adult, firing round after round into nothing more dangerous than playthings. Toby saw chunks of wall and carpet ricochet. He saw teddy bear stuffing fly for the second time that day. And he could have sworn he saw tears in Junella's eyes.

The young skunk screamed her throat hoarse. Her mind was white-hot turmoil. Whenever her gun went empty, she mindfucked another into her grip and, without a pause, kept pulling the trigger. She exterminated her bed and her clothes. Her mirror and her dolls. She put a hole straight through her stuffed elephant's stuffed brain.

She had done all this before. Many times. But this was the best of them, because this time she was getting out. This time she wouldn't be waking up again to find everything back the way it was, tidy and clean, taunting her with its indestructibility, trapping her here in this nightmare cage til she lost all sense of self and sanity.

Toby watched as Junella's pile of smoking revolvers ascended past her ankles. He debated whether to dash in behind her and pull her away, when she abruptly stopped on her own. The apartment went silent, except for the whining tinnitus in his ears.

Junella stood like an iron statue. Chest heaving, eyesight blurred, cheeks soaked. The bedroom was a shambles. Nothing bigger than a Lego had survived. Plushies littered the floor like a gangland hit. The walls were swiss cheese. Junella tossed her last revolver as hard as she could and it thumped satisfyingly against the carpet.

She gave her final words to the room. "I'm done with you now. You're dead. You're dead now."

She turned and stormed past Toby towards the front door. "Stop dawdling, mouse. Pick up your feet and let's go. How do we get out? You got a secret hole we gotta crawl through or somethin'?"

Toby caught up and grabbed her shoulder. "What the hell was that!?"

She whirled around, scowling furiously. "You need to ask!? I was trapped here, against my will, for YEARS!! I had my age stolen! Everything I've built myself to be! Is that not enough!?"

Toby remembered Zinc going apeshit on the airplanes. But that hadn't felt like this. Mere captivity didn't seem plausible as a motive for that much retaliation. "Junella, I don't know that I've ever seen you that angry. Or at least, I've never seen you cry when you were angry like that."

She wrenched her shoulder out of his grip. "You didn't see anything," she spat. She headed into the livingroom.

He frowned. Defiantly, he stood stock still and made his voice firm. "What happened here when you were little?" he asked.

Junella didn't even respond. She went straight to the door.

"I'm not trying to make you upset. I care about you," he said, trying to call her back. He threw out a guess. "Did your parents abuse you?"

The result was immediate. She'd been one foot into the hall, and in an instant she was standing in front of him, shaking with outrage. "FUCK YOU," she snarled.

Toby was less stunned by her insult than by her raised, stiff-fingered palm.

He gaped at it. "You were about to slap me."

She seemed as surprised by this as him. Trying to cover it up, she pointed in his face instead. "You don't talk about my parents that way. They never hurt me. You don't fucking say shit like that about them."

What first leapt to mind was that she was covering for them. Maybe Mommy and Daddy had smacked her around, and now Junella was trying to hold onto her illusions of them as a happy family. But that idea immediately felt sour. Toby looked up at the portraits on the wall. Junella's mother and father looked so proud. Happy and eager to be their best for her. And in Baby Junella's eyes, could he see something more than just little kid self-centeredness?

Still staring, the words fell out of Toby's mouth. "No... If it was them you hated, you could have shot up these photos. You could have blasted their TV or something. Instead..." He turned around to the bedroom full of bullet holes.

When Toby looked back at Junella, her eyes were wet at the edges. She very clearly wanted him to shut his damn mouth and let this go.

'But I can't.' Truth could be packed down tightly in a forgotten box, but once it was out, nothing could force it back in. "Zinc and Piffle were back to their old bodies by this point. Once they got their memories."

"Toby, stop," Junella whispered.

He ignored her. "...But you've had your memories this whole time. And yet you're still like this. Nothing's trapping you like this but you."

Lip trembling, she stared at the mouse, one of her closest friends she'd ever known. She made another gun appear in her hand and pointed it directly at him. Her eyes were pleading.

Toby looked down the barrel. It surprised him, but instead of showing fear, his expression changed to disgust. "Junella, you've already shot me half a dozen times. It's not going to do anything. It's not going to shut me up."

She knew that already, of course, but hearing him say it drove home how ridiculous she was acting. The gun clunked on the carpet as she dropped it and ran to Toby, wrapping her arms tight around his ribcage and laying her head on his vest.

Toby put his own arms around her. He slowly knelt. He let her cry and held her. He felt suddenly guilty for prying when she'd begged him to stop. He didn't ask her anything else.

Junella felt like a lifetime's emotions were pushing against her face. Pressed to the blue wool, she mumbled between sobs, "You're right. Goddamn you, you're right about all of it. When'd you get so fucking smart, you piece of shit?"

Toby ran a paw across her hair. "You swear a lot when you're upset, you ever notice that?"

She gasped a pained laugh and squeezed him tighter. "Shut up," she said lovingly.

Toby did as asked, and just kept petting her hair. Junella reached up and yanked the barrettes out, letting her headfur fall down along her shoulders.

After a few moments to get herself under control, she abruptly let go of Toby and walked across the room to the loveseat. She sat down and let her head hang down almost to her lap.

It took a few seconds for Toby to get the message that he was meant to join her. He did. The leather cushions squeaked when he sat.

Junella had her fingers interlocked in her lap. She did not look at him.

He was quiet and let her take her time. The tingle was definitely bothering him by now, but his will was strong enough to demand a few more minutes from it.

"I was a mean little kid, Toby," Junella finally said.

He leaned closer, listening.

"A brat. I mean, if there'd been an Olympics for spoiled rotten manipulative miniature witches, I would've brought home every gold. I was... There was something wrong with me. I am not talking about normal kid tantrums. You ever seen that old black and white movie, The Bad Seed?"

"It was on TV once, yeah," Toby said.

Junella propped her elbows on her knees and rested her face in her hands, covering her eyes. "That was me. We watched it once and my mom had to turn it off, it was freaking her out so bad. She didn't want to face it. I was that. I was the kid who used my big blue eyes to get out of paying the price for all the evil shit I did. I was the kid who kicked my friend's pets. I was the kid who didn't really have friends, just people who were too scared to not do what I told them. I was the kid who the principal kept calling home about how I'd been pulling hair, or scratching faces, or stealing things, or getting the other kids to fight over me, or..." She'd actually forgotten it until just then, but now the memory appeared fresh under her nose, so she could get a good long smell of it. "I put a dead cat in a teacher's desk once," she admitted. "She confiscated the new bracelet I was showing off to everyone. So the next few days, I walked to school looking for roadkill. When I found a little pussycat, I waited till recess and squished it right in where I knew she'd find it. When she did, I smiled. 'Bout gave her a heart attack." She chuckled lifelessly. "They didn't even pin it on me. I was smart; they couldn't prove it. But who else in the whole school could've thought of something that sick?"

"Jesus..." Toby whispered.

Junella let her hands droop. Her eyes seemed frozen open now, staring at the carpet without seeing. "That's why I got so mad at what you said about my parents, Toby. They weren't the problem. They loved me. They tried so hard. They gave me everything I wanted, and all it taught me was that I could beg for more. Those people were saints for putting up with me the way they did. They should have drowned me. Stuffed me down the trash compactor. I don't even think there's a God, because how could he have given me to two nice people like them?

"This one time..." Her voice cracked. She gulped and tried to force the words to out. "This one time, we were at the dinner table. We'd just finished eating, and I'd been complaining the whole time, like usual. Daddy went in the other room and came back with a shopping bag. He said that was why he'd been a little late getting home from work. He brought it out and it was a new doll. The exact one I'd seen in a TV commercial and whined about for an hour. He'd bought it for me, just to see me happy." Her chest hitched. "I looked at it. And I looked at him. And then I kicked him as hard as I could. WHACK. Right in the shin. Then I grabbed the doll and ran away to my room, laughing." She wrapped her arms around her stomach. "I did it because I knew he'd never see it coming. It'd hurt him more that way. I did it because it was funny."

At that she broke down into sobs. Toby watched her curl up on the loveseat cushion, a shuddering ball.

Staggered, almost breathless from her confession, he reached an arm toward her shoulders for a hug.

Even with her face covered up, she somehow saw the movement. Like a striking snake she smacked his arm away. "HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU STAND TO TOUCH ME!?"

He had never seen her so fragile. She had always been the epitome of confidence. Fearlessness. He rehearsed a hundred things or more he could say to comfort her, all of them sounding more phony and useless than the last.

She was staring at him. Looking ready to claw his eyes out if he came near, yet begging him with her body language to somehow make her feel better.

Finally, Toby just shook his head and let himself fall backwards into the cushions. In a calm, even tone he said, "I don't know for sure, but it's pretty likely that I got my dad sent to prison on a false charge of child molestation."

Her expression switched in an instant. "You what?"

Toby stared up at the gaudy light fixture and the avocado ceiling. "My dad was starting to figure out that Mom was out of her mind and keeping me sick so she could take care of me forever. One day he took me to a new doctor without telling her. They did some tests, and they told him the truth. When we came home he confronted her. A few days later she coached me to say that he'd been fondling my penis every night before bed and making me suck him off. I told all of this to some guy she hired to record it. She said I was a good boy and made me butterscotch pudding that night as a reward. I never saw Dad again after that. Either he ran like hell, or they got him. I don't know. I might not ever know."

Junella looked like someone had just scooped her voice box out. She stammered for a bit before managing, "B-but that's not the same! I did what I did out of pure heartless malice! Sadism! You were just being used!"

He turned his head to her. He looked tired. "I knew in the back of my mind exactly what was going on. Everything. The whole time. But I never let myself face it because it was easier that way. My cowardice destroyed my father's life. The furson who cared about me the most in the entire world."

Junella shut her eyes tight and turned away, leaning on the opposite arm of the loveseat. "Why did you tell me that?" she asked, but plainly she already knew.

Toby risked reaching across the space between them to pull her around to face him. He held her gaze with his. "Because you were a brat and I was a coward. End of story."

Junella put a paw up to her forehead. "Toby... it can't be that simple. I catch myself being her all the time. Every time I'm selfish with Zinc. Every time I was cruel to you, just to see you flinch. All the times I gave Piffle static for being girly..."

He wasn't having her pity act. "Yeah, and I was a complete wuss when we first met. I messed up a lot of things but I learned from them. You helped me with that."

She gritted her teeth. Wanting to be helped but unable to let go of her self-hatred. She smiled sadly. "Toby... do you know what I've always admired about you and never told you?"

He shifted in his seat. "What?"

She slowly opened her eyes to him. "You could admit you were a coward. And I couldn't."

Toby shook his head in rejection. "You have faults, yes, but I've never thought of you as a coward."

She snorted derisively. "I'm afraid of a five year old!" she shouted. "The bitch haunts me! I'm always comparing myself to her. Do you wanna know how I died? We were up on the top floor observation deck together. Dad, Mom, and me. I climbed up on the railing and said I'd let go if they didn't get me a swimming pool. I fucking knew they couldn't! It's an apartment building, for shit's sakes! But I was doing it just to see their horrified eyes. For a giggle. And serves me right, my grip slipped. If I hadn't hit those awnings I would've been liquid. Instead I bought myself a broken skeleton and a rest-of-my-life coma. Last thing I remember is the ambulance crew saying there was barely enough left of me to hold breath in. Then my eyes closed on my old life, for good. Looking back, that was the kindest thing I ever did for my parents. They didn't have to be tortured by me anymore."

Toby remembered her telling him about her arrival in Phobiopolis. How she'd gone on a rampage against anyone and everything that tried to get near her. Toby tried to imagine a five-year-old so limitlessly furious she could hold her own against a realm of nightmares.

She smashed her fist into the side of her head like she was knocking on a door. "I'm a bully to my best friend. I'm a bully to you. I'm a bully to everyone I know."

Toby looked at her with sympathy for a moment longer, and then something snapped in him. "Oh stop it."

She turned. He was scowling at her.

"Look, I understand everything you're saying and why you feel like this. But when I told you about my Dad, I was trying to let you know that you're not alone. You're not the only one with pain in your past. We could sit here all day, me trying to tell you you've changed for the better, you moaning about how you're the worst furson alive. But we don't have time. My whole body's itching with the tingle. The dreamworld's gonna catapult me out at any moment. I am not leaving you in here. But I'm also not going to bring a blubbering mess out with me. If I can stop being a coward, then you can too. And you NEED to stop, Junella." He poked her, hard, in the breastbone. His voice rose to top volume and fever pitch. "Because we need you! I'm sorry to be heartless about this, but we're going to be facing Scaphis Tarrare. With Aldridge's wand! She's going to be impossible to beat. But we have to somehow, because... BECAUSE! Because we have to!! And we need you to be there with us! So if nothing else, tell yourself that you're not the worst, because SHE is!!"

By the end of it, Junella was smushed in the far corner of the loveseat like a cannonball had hit her. She stared, unblinking. "Jesus Christ, Toby... Look at you. Giving orders and not taking shit."

He sighed and, hands shaking, rotated to look away from her. Feeling suddenly like he'd just screwed everything up and ruined their friendship. "I apologize. I got impatient. I-"

She yanked him back to face her. To his surprise, she looked like the rain had finally ended and the sun was coming out. "No, you amazing idiot! I'm proud of you!"

His ears drooped. "Seriously?"

An exasperated laugh, then she smiled at him with immense gratitude. "I needed to hear that, Toby. Every single word. I needed to be reminded that the world ain't just me."

He squeezed her paw. "It's more than that. I wasn't calling you selfish. I meant that I know you're stronger than this. I know it took a lot of bravery to tell me that about your old self. And yes, it's horrifying! I'm glad we were never friends as kids!"

Junella couldn't stop a laugh at that. "Yeah. I woulda beat the snot outta you, and your mom would've tried to feed me pills."

Toby almost laughed too. "Point is, I don't think there's anyone in Phobiopolis who didn't come from something terrible when they were alive. Why else would we have ended up here? It sucks up bad dreams, doesn't it? If it was just about comas, wouldn't everyone who's in one wind up here? Wouldn't no one ever wake up? Maybe the people who do, have a life worth waking up to."

She gawked at him. "You just come up with that right now? Off the top of your head?"

Toby nodded. "Yeah. It might be garbage, I dunno."

"Feels like you might be spot-on, actually."

He shrugged. "Maybe? I'm just trying to say that, if there's anything good about Phobiopolis, it's an escape. Not to a very nice place, but it's still a second chance to be something else. And me and Zinc and Piffle and George have ALL done a lot with that second chance. You have too. So you're not going to convince me otherwise."

Junella looked up at him with a tenderness he was unprepared for. She reached out a paw to touch his cheek, as if she couldn't make herself believe he was really there.

"Are you-" he started.

She lifted herself up enough to reach his lips and kiss him.

Toby's eyes popped open.

Junella held her mouth to his gently. Just for a few moments. They were good moments. And then she sat back down beside him.

Toby looked a bit like he'd been electrocuted. He touched his fingers to his mouth, then stared at them. Then stared at her. "What was that?"

"Aw hell, I don't know," she said with a smile and a chuckle.

All sorts of unforeseen possibilities swirled around in Toby's head. "Do you mean you... feel like...?"

She put her hand over his mouth. "Shut up, Toby," she said in her warmest tone. "I was just thanking you for being sweet. You were very sweet. Thank you. It doesn't have to be anything more than that. I know you have more important things on your mind right now."

He felt slightly guilty. "You're important," he said.

She nodded. "I know. That's not what I meant." She got up from the couch and combed out her tail with her fingers. "I meant that we've got some things to fix first before we can think about us."

Toby got up too. "You want there to be an 'us'?"

"I just said I don't know. Ya deaf?" She smirked. "I'm all swirlin' 'round with emotions in here. Gimme a break."

"Allright." He shrugged. "To be honest, I'm not even sure I'm built for that sort of thing. Like, mentally."

"I think maybe I already knew that about you. And that's okay. I just wanted to show my gratitude. We can have that memory together, and if that's all we have, it's okay. Like a song that's just one, pretty, little note."

That was a very nice thought. And as much as he had enjoyed it too, a relief. Toby took her small paw in his. "I assume that means you're ready to go."

Junella nodded. "No more firing guns this time. This place is just a memory. It happened. It's over."

Toby pulled her close. "Good to hear."

He let the tingle overwhelm him, and they were both taken somewhere else.

***

They emerged behind stone pillars, into the tail-end of a conversation. George was keeping a respectful distance and not eavesdropping in the slightest (maybe a little) as Piffle and Zinc sat curled up together on the carpet, various arms around one another.

Piffle was sniffling. But it was the hopeful, lighthearted end of a happy cry. "So you really, truly, really don't mind that I used to be a fella?"

Zinc looked her over, head to toe. "Y'ain't now, are ya?"

She giggled. "No, silly."

He made a 'then that's that' gesture. "I'm not gonna go through life with one hand tied behind my back."

She sighed in immense relief and snuggled him, nuzzling her nose against his scruffy neck.

He scooped the pith helmet off her head and sailed it away like a Frisbee. He skritched between her little oval ears. "B'sides, havin' a hotdog is a far more respectable past than bein' a fuckin' dope fiend. And a pusher to boot," he added disgustedly.

"'Well you ain't now, are ya?'" she parroted.

He playfully nibbled her ear. "That's my line."

She melted a little in his embrace, smiling serenely and caressing his chest ruff. "My Zincberry pie..."

"The past is gone, this is now, and that's fine." He smooched her forehead. "Plus, it ain't like you suddenly grew another pair o' arms, right? Now THAT'D be too whacky to handle!"

She burst out laughing and tickled him.

"Hey, hey!" He protested, but didn't do much to stop her.

The tickling was an effective distraction from the two fursons approaching. A face hovered into Zinc's view, standing just behind and looming over him.

He blinked in disbelief. "JUNEBUG!!" He scrambled to his feet, telling Piffle, "Sorry, darling, but I gotta take this call."

She fluttered up too. "As if you're the only one who wants to hug her!"

Junella rolled her eyes. "Aw dammit." She spread her arms. This fate was inevitable. Two furry lunkheads came crashing into her. She was swallowed up in an embrace of total joy and acceptance.

Piffle squeezed like she was trying to pop a balloon. "We're all together again!" she cried out.

Zinc was in tears. "I missed you, Junella. Sweet Jesus, I missed you."

Junella considered something snarky, but didn't have it in her to keep up the old act. "I missed you too," she said gently.

Zinc turned to the mouse standing beside her. "Thank you for bringing her back."

Toby nodded to him.

Junella nuzzled the silly mutt and sillier hamsterfly. "Both of you. You mean more to me than I can say." She lifted her head. "That goes for you too, George!!"

The construct came trotting over. "My feelings are the same, Madam Brox! This is wonderful! I didn't let myself hope for an outcome this good. I had feared there would be weeks of recuperation while your memories returned."

Junella shook her head. "Naw, I'm me. I'm pretty sure of it."

Zinc noticed Junella was able to speak even though her arms were busy hugging. Also, she was speaking. Not singing. "So d'ya not need your needles no more or-" His fur stood on end when she looked at him. "Holy cats, Juney! Yer EYES!"

She smiled at his reaction and laughed very softly. "Like 'em? I might keep them this way. A friend of mine convinced me I didn't need to hate them anymore."

Piffle gasped. "They're gorgeous!"

Junella grinned, showing off the milky blue color of her irises. Like sapphires under ice. The skunkess turned her head to make sure Toby could see too.

The mouse stood to the side with his hands in his pockets. Looking very tired, but happy.

-***-

PART EIGHTY-EIGHT

Junella ran her paw along her dome. The old familiar grooves were back, smooth and waxy as they should be, but also a new addition. Her scarf was still her stripe-and-mane-in-one, but she'd let herself grow a few stylish shards that poked slightly to the right like a tuft of hair. She didn't know how her younger self had been able to stand combing all that cotton candy every damn morning, but just a bit was nice.

The others took turns all seeing how much they could squeeze her. They chattered a million miles a minute, saying how glad they were to see her, how they liked her new look, etc. Junella was still enough of a stone cold badass to flinch a bit at so much open affection, but she was deeply appreciative of it too. Glad for friends who knew that sometimes she needed a hug no matter how much she squirmed. More than just the taunting memories of her prison room, she realized now, in the return of what had been absent, that the loneliness had been driving her mad as well.

Toby stood a few feet away and watched his friends be happy. The lamps he'd made for their campsite cast a yellow glow that was fittingly warm. Toby was pleased to see them like this.

And yet, there was a hollowness in his own heart. He was happy for them. But when he searched inside himself, the honest confession was that he couldn't share in it.

He had been feeling like this for quite a while.

He could project surface happiness, and even feel it a little. But it was a paper mask over a deep well. This was the real reason he'd hurried away from Zinc, then Piffle, rather than stay around for hugs and happiness. He scuttled away to lose himself in the next task, figuring that surely he was just preoccupied. Surely, once all three were rescued, the stony grip on his heart would relent and he'd be allowed to feel joy again. Or at least relief.

Instead, looking at his four companions huddling close and smiling bright, Toby felt almost nothing. Nothing but a tension in the muscles of his chest. He shivered, like a January wind had blown through. He stared at his celebrating friends and tried to will warmth and good cheer into his heart. Dumbfound it. No results. His ribcage was an empty shelf. And it wasn't just fatigue. Yes, he'd been awake since Dysphoria (despite his repeated attempts to sleep, his mind would not stop buzzing with preparations) and yes he'd been doing a hell of a lot of throwing his will around. He was exhausted. But that alone wouldn't have made him need to put on a false smile to not let Junella down in her moment of reunion.

He realized now. He'd said it a moment ago to her. It had gone almost unnoticed by both of them. He had not done this for her out of purehearted altruism. That was one part, yes. But another was that he needed all of them to help him get revenge on Scaphis.

Toby looked into his friends' faces and saw their happy tears. Heard their laughter.

'I pulled them out of relative safety, to join me in fighting a god.'

Back when he'd been circling Rhinolith, Toby had switched his thinking to view the whole of Phobiopolis as potential pieces of his Rube Goldberg scheme. He had done the same with his friends. His friends. He was treating them like soldiers. And the worst part was, these thoughts alone couldn't stop him from continuing. He had told Junella the truth: he did need her. And George. And Zinc. And Piffle. They were indispensable to his battle plan.

'And I can't guarantee any of us will live through this,' he realized, the final nail sinking in. 'I've drafted them for a suicide mission.'

Suddenly, all Toby wanted to do was turn away and walk several miles across the sea of rock pillars, find a quiet spot, and fall asleep forever. He didn't want a world where he had to treat the people who loved him like chess pieces.

But he had to. That caused the most pain. There was no choice to be made. Scaphis had forced this on him. She was not going to vanish when they turned their backs and walked home. She was going to keep growing until something stopped her. They could fight her now, or they could run and fight her later. Unprepared. Unguarded. With her having the element of surprise instead of them. Bad tactics. It had to be here and now. And whether one little mouse was happy about it didn't matter.

Piffle's left antenna twitched at the sound of a swallow. She turned her head and looked quizzically to see Toby standing alone.

"Don't be a wallflower, Toby. You got us all out!" She waved him closer. "Join us!"

"Okay, Piffle." Needing to keep up appearances, he trotted over. She giggled as she pulled him into their group squeeze. Toby draped his arms across her shoulders and Zinc's wrenches, feeling the familiar softness of Junella's scarf touch his nose.

Their warmth and joy passed through him as he completed the circuit, and all he could think was, 'I feel like a killer.'

***

There followed a suitably long period of rejoicing. Everyone squoze, nuzzled, back-patted, or kissed everyone else. As if from a distance, Toby watched the others reconnect. Saw their eyes light up with 'Aha!' moments as they sparked off one another's lost memories. Saw the chest-hitching relief of knowing they'd all made it through. Piffle was stuttering from how quickly she was babbling out her elation. Zinc was making light of their travails with wry jokes. George was switching his attention between all three with the rapidity of a spectator at a ping pong match. Junella allowed herself to enjoy the physical affection for as long as she deemed within her character, then started slapping their huggy paws away.

When the moment petered out and Toby began noticing the others glancing around with, 'What do we do next?' glances, he gave a nod to George.

The black steed nudged chairs towards the others. "Please sit. There are gaps in your knowledge that require filling, and your own memories do not contain the necessary elements." He herded them like a border collie, then sat down gracefully beside them on the carpet.

The trio parked their bottoms in a line: Piffle, Zinc, Junella. Toby was standing a few feet away at parade rest. They gave him their full attention.

Toby cleared his throat. Despite everything else weighing on him, there was a bit of amusement to be found in getting to speak such a cliche old line. "I suppose you're all wondering why I called you here today."

"Heh. I got some ideas," Zinc said.

Piffle folded her paws on her lap, then folded her other paws on top of them. "Zinc and Junella said we've been in there for months. Are you gonna tell us what you've been up to, Toby?"

"I'd been wondering about your ribbon," Junella pointed out.

Toby reflexively gave it a rub. The touch of crinkled silk helped calm him a little. "Yes, I think I'll start with that."

So Toby took them back in time with him to the sea of endless corpses. To Scarlatina, the cliffside village of furlessness and peace. Toby told them about Skeeto and Tak and Kat (and his voice only cracked a few times). He told them how willing he'd been to stay there forever, until a single name from a traveling peddler had obliterated that hope. He told them of trading L'roon blood for transportation, of the huddled masses at the gates of Lalochezia, and the struggling shopkeeps there. Of Poubelle and After, and the revelations their free dessert had opened his mind to. Of Tif Tif, and the gnarled, sooty sphere he'd bought from her.

"Sire Toby! May I take up the tale from here?" George asked eagerly.

Toby bowed to him, then dumbfounded himself a chair so he could vacate the stage.

George was delighted to continue. He described their battle in rapid-fire detail, reconstructing it from what his master had described. Thereafter he related the cowardice of L'roon, the road to Rhinolith, the clash of construct cars, the brawl of bonecuddies, and the furious grief of Vienna Tusk.

Toby noticed that George was merely recounting the events, leaving out all details of Scaphis and the plan for dealing with her. He was leaving this to Toby. And as the construct finished up at the walls of Phlegmasia, he passed the torch back with a nod of acknowledgment. Toby sent him a quiet, 'Thank you' as the construct sat and got comfy again.

The tired mouse pulled himself to his feet. His limbs felt suddenly like stone. There was a part of him that wanted to just keep sitting. Maybe nod off. Maybe pass out. He took his position again in front of his friends, and their expectant gazes hurt. He made a decision then and there. "I'm not going to tell you about Scaphis. Not yet."

Three puzzled expressions.

"The news is bad," he said. "Bad enough that I don't want to put that weight on you just yet. It can wait. We're all together now. Let's concentrate on that, for a little while at least. There's nothing we can do about her right this moment anyway." He could see they were not at all reassured by this, but there were no protests either, no demands for the brutal truth. They trusted him on this. Toby was glad for that.

Junella had a nitpick though. "I'll take your word, Toby, but I wanna know two things first. One: is there anything left of the world worth saving?"

"Yes," he was glad to report. "There's time. She hasn't conquered the whole of Phobiopolis yet. Not even half." Toby grimaced. That was saying too much.

Zinc grimaced too. "Still an awful big chunk."

Toby shook his head. "The furthest she's gotten is Marasmus, and that was specifically to take out Gilla-Gilla."

The canine's eyes went wide. "Gilla's gone!? DAMMIT!!" he yelped in sorrow.

"He is not dead, merely incapacitated," George quickly pointed out. "And she only accomplished his defeat through means of a craven ambush."

"Well, she'd have to. No one could scratch Gilla from head-on." He growled. "I guess we accidentally taught her that." He leaned his head on his folded wrench-arms.

Toby's anxiety started to grip him, feeling like he was letting them fall to despair already. "I'm sorry, Zinc. I'm terrible at being reassuring."

"No, no," Junella interjected softly. "These are bad times. You're trying your best. And to get off that topic, the second thing I was gonna ask is, if she's such a boogeyman, how'd you steal us away from her? I doubt she just tossed us out the window too."

Toby had earlier confessed to them his unsanitary method of escaping her clutch at Anasarca. Piffle and Zinc had wrinkled their noses, but Junella just gave him a 'whatever works' shrug. "She didn't. But to explain that part, first I have to ask, do you know where we are right now?"

Zinc raised his hand. "First thing I assumed was the moon. But I'm pretty sure I'm wrong on that."

"It's not a bad guess," Toby said. "Maybe I can help you figure it out. I'm, ah, actually kind of proud of the idea." He blushed.

"You go right ahead and feel proud, Toby," Piffle said. "You haven't even told us your big plan yet, but already, your other stories were full of swell ideas. You've got a good brain on your shoulders."

He nibbled his lip. "Thank you. So, um, where was I? Here. I, uh, realized that Scaphis might be powerful, but so far she's been thinking entirely laterally."

"You mean 'literally'?" Junella asked.

"No," Toby said simply. "I realized that the best place to hide from her, and yet stay close for when we want to begin the attack, is right where she's never bothered to look."

It was actually Zinc who caught on first. But it was so impossible, he clamped his lips shut and let Toby keep going.

Toby pointed above them to the starlit reaches. "Look up. See if you notice anything unusual."

Piffle's sharp vision caught it a moment before Junella did. "Over there! There's a big dark spot where there aren't any stars!"

"Well done," Toby said, sounding unintentionally like his first grade teacher. "I'm thinking of calling it Avulsion. You guys said that people get to name any place that hasn't been discovered before."

Zinc looked stricken. "Then I'm right. Holy Jesus! And yeah, Toby, people've poked their heads around there, but I don't think anyone's ever bothered to name it. So the claim's yours if you want it."

The shards on Junella's head stood straight up. "Then that's-!?" She turned in her seat 180 degrees to look in the exact opposite direction. There was an identical starless patch. Perfectly mirrored.

"It's the underside of Phobiopolis," Toby said.

Junella gaped. It wasn't just a patch: it was a ring. Tapering almost to invisibility in the middle, but unmistakably a cosmic-sized circle. She knew there was only one place the realm where a vantage like this was possible.

Piffle couldn't quite wrap her mind around it. "So we're on an asteroid then?"

Zinc shook his head, looking queasy. "Hold on to your antennas, kid, we're on the bottom of Anasarca!"

"What!?" Piffle reflexively spread her wings and clutched the seat of her chair.

Junella kept looking up and down (and realized those words no longer meant much). "How'd you know there'd be gravity here!?" she asked Toby.

The mouse shrugged. "I didn't. I just assumed. But I also figured, people walk around on the 'underside' of the Earth all the time. It seems like the top to them. Plus we're spirits anyway. Why should it matter?" Toby was not consciously aware the extent to which spending years reading sci-fi books had prepped him for an afterlife in Phobiopolis.

George was highly amused to see the looks of bewilderment on the others' faces. "If you like, you can tie yourselves to a stalactite tonight so you don't float away in your sleep." He snickered.

Zinc was not laughing. "So she's right above us? Or below? Or whatthefuckever?"

Toby nodded gravely. "Yes, but this is perfect. We're in her shadow. Her blind spot."

"We made sure to scout around first," George said reassuringly. "No trace of her influence. We could likely make camp here forever without ever attracting her notice."

"We could," Toby said, and hated acknowledging that such a tempting, easy option existed. He walked over to one of the pillars. "Something I hadn't expected was what this whole place is made of. Call it an unexpected bonus." He unsheathed his hammer and gave the rock a mid-strength tap. The grey mineral shattered easily, cracking and flaking away to reveal that it was only the skin of a shimmering column. A whitish crystal that flickered with iridescence.

The trio leaned forward in their seats.

Zinc stared at the sparkle, then looked down at his feet. "We're sitting on..."

Junella finished the thought for him, her voice a disbelieving rasp, "...a motherlode of imaginite that'd make the bank at EC look like pocket change."

Piffle let out a whoop of excitement. Unable to contain herself, she sprinted over to Toby and wrapped a hand around the crack in the rock he'd exposed. With a little bit of will, she was soon holding a mug of warm milk with cinnamon. She inhaled the steam, then took a sip. "Oh, this is fantastic! Toby, try some!"

It did smell good. And when a swallow warmed its way down his throat, he actually felt his mood lighten.

Piffle buzzed back to her seat to share some with Zinc too.

The mutt gazed out across the seemingly-infinite plane of pillars, knowing that each one hid a sweet candy surprise inside, just waiting to be cracked open.

Junella was already thinking logistically. "We can build anything we want here. Anything. We can make an arsenal that'd take down Godzilla. We could turn the Fearsleigher into a battleship with tank treads. We could make an a-bomb!!"

Zinc patted her on the shoulder before she got too carried away.

Toby rejoined them, looking a little sheepish. "I really wish I'd known about this at the start. Otherwise I wouldn't have had to go to Rhinolith and bankrupt them. But, y'know, you make your plans with the info you've got. At least I know how to pay them back after we're all done."

Junella had noticed earlier that Toby had never exactly explained what he'd been doing there. "I'm gonna take a wild guess: Scaphis put her flag there. I doubt they'd let you stroll in the front door and take their shit unless the joint was abandoned."

'Not exactly abandoned,' Toby thought. "I'll admit, yes."

She nodded. "I'll stop pokin'. You said you wanted to wait till later to get into all the stinking details about her." Toby was grateful for that. "I'll just concentrate on our windfall here."

"I actually have a theory about why there's so much," Toby said idly, then wondered if he should've mentioned it. "It's just a guess. I don't have any evidence."

"Hey, it's prolly worth a listen. Your instincts've been good about a lot of things so far," Junella said.

He acknowledged her encouragement with a shy nod. "So, the imaginite. I think Aldridge makes it."

Zinc sat up and cocked his head. "You'd think he might've mentioned that at some point."

"If he does I don't think he's aware of it," Toby said. "Maybe it's just his presence. Like, wherever he walks, something about his angelic nature does something to the soil. Maybe it's a gradual effect. He did say he's been in Phobiopolis longer than anyone else. And if it's true, it'd explain why there's more here than anywhere else: we're right under his house."

Junella rubbed her chin. "That holds water." She considered the possibility for a few seconds more, until another struck her like a bolt from the blue. "You said Scaphis is here. We're in her shadow. She never left, because she's just petty enough to want to kick the wiz out of his castle and make herself at home. And this is all imaginite. So you burrowed up from underneath like a jackrabbit, didn't you? That's how you got us out! Easiest thing in the world, just will the hole to open in front of you!" She looked down at the carpet, wondering if the passage was right underneath.

Toby blinked in surprise. "That's not a bad idea! Just, not correct."

The skunk pouted.

"I considered it. My main worry was, I had no idea where I'd pop out. It might be right underneath her and then she'd catch me and it'd all be over."

Junella bit her index finger. "Right, right."

Zinc was trying to puzzle it out too. "This has something to do with us all bein' transformed, doesn't it?"

Junella had not heard of this yet. "'Scuse me?"

"When Toby sprung me, George said I'd been a doormat. And you 'n Piff were both, uh, 'household objects' as well," he said delicately. Then he sneered. "That means... Aw, cripes, Toby! You crawled up our bellybuttons!! Fuckaduck, that's nasty!!" He shivered in revulsion.

Toby was confused for a bit, before remembering that Phobiopolans seemed to have a thing about bellybutton embarrassment. "It got you back, didn't it?"

Zinc uneasily agreed. "Yeah, yeah. But that's like finding out I had someone wiggling around in my asshole. It ain't a nice thought!"

Piffle was blushing.

Junella narrowed her eyes. "So... what was I?" She glared at Zinc, Toby, and George, knowing she could coax an answer out of one of them.

George it was. "A footstool, Madam Brox," he sheepishly admitted.

Her face screwed up into an incredibly ugly pucker.

"A quite stylish footstool," the construct added.

"Still an assault on my friggin' dignity," she grumbled through gritted teeth.

Piffle leaned over in her chair to ask George, "So what'd Doll make me into?" She didn't seem insulted so much as curious.

"I regret to inform you, that her choice for you, Madam McPerricone, was," he hesitated, embarrassed on her behalf, "a toilet seat."

"Oh!" Piffle laughed. "Well, I like being sat on." She laughed again. But this time there was a crack in it. She settled back in her seat and got quiet. The others noticed.

Junella reached past Zinc to pat her knee. "Must be hard realizing that someone you cared for so much'd do something that cruel to you, yeah?"

"Yeah," Piffle said very softly, kneading her paws in her lap.

Just seeing Little Miss Sunshine so sad added even more kindling to Junella's inner fire. "I got a theory of my own about that no-good, no-faced pisspile. She doesn't understand her own powers."

"How ya figure that?" Zinc asked, intrigued.

"Think about it." Junella pointed to him and Piffle. "From what you both said, your dreamworlds didn't sound any worse than mine. Meaning they could have been a hell of a lot worse. She could have put us in shackles, or prison, or even that place between Coryza 'n EC where you're afraid of everything all the time."

"Amaurosis Fugax," George supplied.

"Thank you, George," Junella acknowledged, then got back on track. "Instead, we were back in our pasts, complete with all the tragedies and comforts. So I ask: does that sound like the decision of someone so sadistic she'd turn poor sweet Piffle into a shit seat?"

Toby's eyebrows went up. "That... yeah. That does make a lot of sense. She transformed you for her own rotten amusement and probably didn't even know you were conscious inside." He gave her a 'good thinking' gesture. "That angle never occurred to me."

The skunk smirked. "No fault of yours, mouse. I might've had a bit more time on my hands to mull over the possibilities."

A nod. "You certainly did."

Zinc wordlessly put an arm around her waist.

She looked at him kindly, then rested her head on his shoulder, mindful of her new hair-shards. "Anyway, we're drifting again. How'd you fetch us away from her, Toby?" She winced. "Besides the bellybutton thing. Don't ever do that again, by the way," she said with dark intonations of violence.

"I can't imagine having another reason to," Toby quickly responded. "But, back to topic, I wonder if you guys remember what happened after we visited Gilla? When we all got in the tub and you went to the market and I got lost?"

Junella frowned. "Are we gonna play guessing game again? Can't you just spill the beans?"

George intervened on his master's behalf. "It is the prerogative of the storyteller to tell the story any way he so chooses."

The skunk glared flatly at him.

Toby looked bashful. "Admittedly, it's pretty cool watching you guys figure it out for yourselves. Here, I'll make it easier." He held up a finger for their patience. Then he took a step back, into a calm, silent stance. His face showed deep concentration. As the others watched, Toby slowly lifted a hand to his throat and felt around, searching for something.

Piffle gasped when a silver chain emerged into existence around his throat.

Toby felt it melt into reality under his touch. He nodded in a 'good, it's still there' way. Then he came closer to let his friends see. They craned their necks. "Remember this?" he asked.

It was a necklace. A simple metal chain with a tarnished silver emblem dangling from its center. The symbol had once been painted green, but now only a few traces of its color remained. It was in the shape of a circular spiral, with two waves extending from the center like bird's wings.

Piffle clapped her paws and pointed at it. "We were out shopping and then suddenly, vwawoosh! We were waking up in the desert and you were there with Mister L'roon! You said he sold you a wishing amulet and you wished for us."

Toby nodded. "Exactly."

Junella cast a skeptical eye at the trinket. "He also said it was a piece of junk."

Toby held up a finger. "Not quite. He said it'd been used before. But since I didn't know that, it might work again for me. And it did." He held the amulet up to his face, wondering again why its silver felt uncomfortably familiar. "When I needed a way to get you free from Scaphis, everything I thought of was just variations on sneaking under her feet and ending up caught. None of my ideas had a decent risk-to-success ratio. Until I remembered this." He twirled the chain around his finger.

Junella's scowl deepened. "But you used it up."

Toby looked almost cocky as he responded. "Again, not quite. L'roon told me I could only make two wishes. I figured, why couldn't I make those same two wishes over again?"

Zinc and Piffle looked at each other, both mighty vexed.

George attempted to make it clear. "Sire Toby reinterpreted the condition: 'it can only be used for two wishes', not to mean two in quantity, but two in function."

Junella looked like she'd been goosed. "Are you SERIOUS!? That is the fussiest, nerdiest, technicality bullshit I have ever heard in my life!"

The skunk's reaction amused the stallion. "Sir Zinc. Your personal shotgun has two uses as a weapon: firing at an enemy, or using it as a club. Two uses. But this does not mean it can only be used two times."

The canine started to go cross-eyed. Abruptly he turned to Toby. "Can I just say that sometimes you're so smart it scares the pants off me!?"

He looked away. "I'm not, really, I just had a lot of time to think it over and-"

"Oh shush. You're a regular Einstein." Piffle got up and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Toby wriggled in bashfulness so hard he almost imploded. "Ah, thanks, Piffle. Thank you. Um. But yeah, I'm not trying to brag. The idea just hit me out of the blue and before I could let myself think of why it wouldn't work, I just convinced myself, 'There's no reason it shouldn't'."

Piffle applauded. "And everything runs on will here, so it did! Bravo!"

"The trickiest part was remembering exactly what I'd said the first time, I had a feeling it wouldn't work unless I got it down to the letter. So I just rolled the dice and tried my best. First I wished you were here." Toby deliberately avoided using the correct words this time, for fear the amulet would kill them again. "Suddenly, there was this blackened, bloody heap of furniture bits in front of me. My second wish had been to fix the first one. 'I want all my friends and all our stuff to be here AND totally unharmed'. I hoped like hell that'd be enough. But I watched your bodies jump and convulse all over the place, and I guess the amulet's magic was doing battle with whatever hex Scaphis put on you. So the best it could do was bring you back to being a mat, a seat, and a footstool."

"A minor discouragement," George assessed, "but Sire Toby swiftly put his mind to work and unraveled this snag as well. He has proven his proficiency at that."

"George..." Toby whimpered.

"No, amigo..." Zinc reached out to gently clamp his hand on his mouse friend's shoulder. His face was as somber as Toby had ever seen it. "George is right. You ARE good at this. It wasn't a fluke, you finding your way out of the forest with a paint can. Or tellin' us we oughtta stop that runaway ferris wheel. Or winning the trial for us. You've got some kinda knack for bending this world over your knee and spanking it till it does what you want. Toby... I don't know jack shit about magic besides mindfucking up the occasional hard boiled egg, but you... You are going to be one of the greatest magicians this world has ever known."

Toby was utterly speechless. Zinc had said it with such conviction. The absolute assurance of a foregone conclusion. "I- I'm not even trying to be. I just wanted you back."

Junella put her other paw on his shoulder. "Necessity is the mother of invention."

"I..." Toby felt a lump in his throat. He suddenly couldn't face them.

"Hey." Zinc tipped the mouse's head up. "The carpet's down there. I'm over here. And I realized something else a moment ago. You didn't just get us out away from here by beating reality over the head with your nutty-ass logic."

Toby chuckled lightly.

"You had to get here first. You said you were at the wall. Anasarca's across the asteroids from it. Toby..." He turned his head. "George too. You guys went through Dysphoria for us."

Piffle and Junella both jolted in their seats. This truth was self-apparent, but the enormity of it hadn't registered yet. They both stared at the mouse and construct.

Toby found himself trembling. "It wasn't- I mean, George did most of the work."

"How in the fuck!?" Junella snapped. "And you're still SANE!? You were a wreck the first time! We all were!"

"Like I said, George-"

The stallion cut him off. "Sire Toby, without your brilliantly simple idea, it would have been impossible."

The others looked at him. Toby was stiff as a board. Now he felt a tear in his eye. "I... I..." he stammered.

George saw that he would have to explain. "Sire Toby requested from Sir L'roon a potion that would give me wings." There was another component to it, but explaining it here and now would be complicated. "This proved a highly efficient way to travel across the lands of Phobiopolis, as well as being an intense delight for me."

"I'm sure you look very handsome with them," Piffle said.

"A thousand thanks, Miss McPerricone," George said with a nod, then looked at Toby as if to say, 'that's how you accept a compliment, Sire.' "As we ascertained on our previous jaunt through that horrible place, I was afflicted to a lesser degree than the rest of you. So it was decided that I should navigate while Sire Toby did his best to hold on."

"All the way through!?" Junella shrieked.

"Not through, Madam Brox!" George corrected brightly. "Underneath!"

She blinked.

Toby nibbled his lip. "You guys said Aldridge used to fly over. So I knew that was possible. And since 'over' and 'under' are interchangeable concepts in a weightless environment like outer space... It was a pretty simple idea, really."

George would not let his master get away with such modesty. "With Sire Toby held safely inside me," George tapped his ribcage with a hoof, "I simply stepped off the edge and let myself fall. I adjusted my innerluminations to pure white, and against the twinkle of the stars I was a nigh-invisible phantom. I flew in an elegant parabola, testing the limits of Dysphoria's influence by gauging my own sense of madness. Sire Toby unfortunately took it worse. I will not dishonor him by repeating anything that he screamed."

"Thank you, George."

"Toby, do you realize what this means?" Zinc yelped. "You 'n George are the only two people to ever get across Dysphoria twice! That's like jumpin' off the moon, landing in a kiddie pool, and getting up with a somersault!!"

Toby looked down at his feet. "Someone's done it before with Aldridge's help, I'm sure. Law of probability," he muttered, 

"Who fucking cares!?" Zinc blew up. "It's still monumental! Somethin' to be proud of! Shit, if it were me I'd never shut up bragging! I'd be using it to get free drinks till I dropped dead. Instead you're actin' like your chin's magnetized to your chest. What gives, man!?"

"I think he's feeling overwhelmed," Piffle said. "He's not used to being told he did a good job. I can understand. I used to be like that sometimes."

Toby sighed. He looked down at his hands and saw they were trembling. "It's more than that, Piffle. But thank you for trying to empathize."

"What then?" She leaned over and patted his headfur.

"I just..." He spoke so low he realized there was no way they could hear him. So he forced his head and his voice to raise. "I don't want to feel like a hero about this. It's not like I set out to do anything monumental. It was desperation. I had to."

Piffle smiled. "You had to see us again."

"No!" Toby said suddenly. He hid his face behind his arm, feeling the wetness of warm tears splash his fur
there. "I mean yes! I did need to see you. All of you! I was going insane without you, thinking of what she might be doing to you! But... Oh hell, I can't even make myself say it."

Junella was firm. "Toby, we know all each other's secrets by now. One more is not likely to make a difference."

Toby shut his eyes so tight it hurt. He spoke before he could let anxiety hold it in any longer. "I brought you back so I wouldn't have to fight her alone. I drafted you."

Zinc gawked at him. "Is that ALL!? You had me worried, you asswipe!! I was ready to do that anyway!"

"You didn't even have to ask me," Junella noted. She gave Piffle a sidelong 'don't you have something to add?' look.

"Um." Piffle's wings fluttered nervously. She was not the type to choose violence if there were other options available. And this was Doll they were talking about. Doll, who she had cradled, and brushed her hair, and dressed her, and tried to fix her face and...

A weight landed on her heart.

"I'll fight, Toby," she said abruptly. Her tone was grave. "I loved her, but someone who'd be so heartless to me, well... what wouldn't she do to someone else? Anyone else?"

Zinc nodded in appreciation of her bravery.

"We have to stop her," Piffle said resolutely.

"We do," Zinc agreed. "Toby, like you said, ain't a choice about it." He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. "And yeah, I ain't feelin' 100% tip-top at the moment, but if you need me to go fist-to-face with her right now-"

Toby's head popped up in alarm. "Of course not!" he said. "I was going to say at the end, we ought to spend a few days here first. Even if she is gaining power all the time, we have to be our best if we're going to have any chance at her. We've all been through hell. We all need to rest."

"You keep having good ideas," Junella said, a little challengingly.

He winced.

"Sire Toby," George said gently, "there is no reason to feel as you do. We are all in agreement. You have done us no wrong." He nuzzled the mouse's ear. "Personally, I have considered it a fair trade. You freed me from mental enslavement. It is only natural I would feel obligated to aid you in battle."

Toby looked like he'd been hit. "I don't want anyone to feel obligated to me," he whispered.

"Too late, mouse," Junella said with an affectionate scowl. "You freed us too. We're at your side, for better or worse."

He took a deep breath to steady himself. Then felt his emotional clouds part just enough to let a ray of clarity through. "Maybe it's more than just what I said. I don't want you guys to feel indebted to me. You're my friends, for crying out loud. Friends don't... own each other like that."

"It is my own freely-made choice to feel this way, Sire Toby," George pointed out.

"Same here," Zinc said.

Toby took another deep breath. "Yes. Thank you. I think I can accept that now. But more than that, I just... I don't want to be in charge. I don't want to be brilliant. I don't want to fight an all-powerful monster. I'm not supposed to be this. I'm supposed to be at home in bed, reading books. I'm... stretched thin. And I've been like that for too long."

"Your tank's empty," Zinc said. "You're running on fumes."

"Exactly," Toby agreed.

"Hey, it's fine." He gave his mouse pal a hearty wrench-whack. "Go take a siesta. We'll be alright here."

"I still have so much else to do," he said weakly.

Junella put her hands on her hips. "Weren't you the one tellin' us just a second ago that we needed to take a few days off? Doctor Brox says you'd better follow your own advice. Take five, Toby. Or do I have to beat you unconscious first?"

Toby actually laughed slightly. "Yes sir."

With a sigh, he got to his feet. He was hit by a wave of lightheadedness and Piffle had to catch him before he stumbled over. "Easy does it!" she said.

Zinc indicated the area isolated by a curtain at the edge of the carpet. "There's beds over there, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah," Toby said absently. It was all hitting him in a rush now. Suddenly it took almost all the effort in his body just to speak or take a step.

Piffle was happy to play nursemaid, guiding him across the carpet and giving his paw soft squeezes.

Zinc ran ahead to pull the curtain back, and was not expecting to find other people sleeping there. Three beds, three unconscious fursons. A female frog, a male beaver, and a male cat. All looked as emaciated as dungeon prisoners. They slept like corpses, stiff on their backs. Their faces were creased with a thousand wrinkles of torment, suggesting unimaginable suffering.

Zinc thought the cat looked familiar. Then all his fur stood on end.

Piffle and Junella held Toby between them like a marionette. "Here we go, little mouse. Time for sweet dreams and a soft pillow," Piffle sing-songed to him.

"I'd like to rest, thank you," he mumbled. He could barely keep his eyes open. "But I still have things to tell you. We have to prepare..."

"Later," Junella said. She noticed Zinc was standing like a statue and looked past him to their three comatose guests. She didn't waste time wondering who they were, she calculated that three people in three beds meant no room for Toby. So she gave the nearest rock pillar a bash with the butt of her cutlass. Putting her paw around the exposed imaginite core, she willed it into a bed. With the fluffiest blankets and cushiest mattress she could conjure.

As Piffle laid Toby down while cooing softly in his ear, Zinc tugged Junella's arm.

"What's got you bug-eyed!?" she asked.

"Juney..." he pointed to the orange tabby in the third bed. His voice was a wavering whisper. "Tell me I'm not hallucinating. Tell me you see it too."

She rolled her eyes at his melodramatics, then squinted.

Then she clapped both hands over her mouth to keep from shrieking.

Zinc just nodded. "Uh-huh."

She didn't need to confirm it with words. Her expression told him everything. They knew this guy. Very well, in fact. They had memorized the photograph his family had given them. His name had been Julius Ounce. They had been promised a king's ransom in imaginite to bring him back. But Dysphoria does not give back what it takes. They had gone in after their bounty and returned with only a fraction of their sanity.

Junella turned and gaped in amazement at Toby. He had accomplished something they had nearly lost their lives failing at. And he hadn't even mentioned it.

Even with his head sideways on the pillow, Toby could see what they were losing their minds over. "I can't take credit. George's idea," he muttered.

The construct nodded at Zinc and Junella's awestruck looks. "From my vantage point on our flight over, I was able to view Dysphoria without illusion. An unfortunate many souls floated inside among the asteroids. And though it increased the mental strain upon myself and especially Sire Toby, I couldn't allow myself to do nothing. Those who floated close, I made a grab for. I dared not try twice. A few did slip from my clutch, which is a regret which will haunt me forever. But I caught three. They may never wake up, but at least their nightmares are their own now."

Junella let out a low whistle. "George, you and I are going to have to discuss this at length."

Zinc's mind spun towards the future. "We could fly out there with the harpoon gun... Spear 'em like cocktail wieners. Bring 'em all home."

Junella turned to him, dazed. "Jesus, we could... And think of the reward money!!"

"You two will have to do your mad scheming someplace else," Piffle told them firmly. She fluffed Toby's pillow and tucked him in. "A certain brave mouse needs his rest."

"M'not brave," Toby mumbled.

"Shush," she said, and kissed his ear. Then she hustled the others away with a satisfied smile and pulled the curtain closed.

The light from the lamps went away. Toby's eyes were now touched only by moonlight. The bed Junella had made for him was implausibly comfy. Magically soft. The mattress was so squishy, it felt like it might just swallow him up like quicksand. And that sounded pretty damn nice, actually.

He heard Piffle's gentle, musical voice wish him goodnight. Then there was only the hushed whispers of Junella, Zinc, and George walking away to continue their talk, and the pitter-pat of Piffle's paws following behind.

Toby's eyelids weighed as much as the world. Now that he had finally stopped pushing forward, he realized he'd run out of energy a long time ago. He had been coasting on pure purpose. Pushing himself beyond his limits. He'd read about marathon runners doing something similar.

He wanted very much to sleep. But he had to do one last thing first.

Just one, he promised himself. No 'one more thing' after that. Just this.

And it wasn't even anything important. Nothing earthshaking. Just a curiosity that had come to him sometime during the rescues of his three friends. Toby sat up in bed.

He couldn't see them past the curtain, but they were there. 'I did it,' he let himself acknowledge. 'This is reality. I'm not dreaming it. We're all here, and we're okay, and we're still friends.' His eyes began to moisten.

He felt a little dizzy just from sitting up. Better get this done before consciousness yanked the rug out from under him. Toby pulled open his vest and looked down at his bellybutton.

He wanted to see it one more time. He wanted to know if it had changed. His old room. Would it seem like a haven to him now, or a nightmare? Or would he simply see it as it really was? As both.

He let himself fall forward.

***

He was not where he expected.

The room was dark, but much smaller than he remembered. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, as the only light came from a cracked-open door and a lamp in the hallway. Toby turned around, letting the shapes emerge out of the shadows and become recognizable.

There was no sickbed. No shelves of vinyl books. No pill bottles lined up in rows.

This was a messy, lived-in little bedroom. Small and warm. There were posters on the carved-rock walls and toys on the floor. There was a folded-away hang glider propped against the wall beside the closet. In the air were smells of pottery and home cooking. And splayed in the bottom bunk of a double decker bed was a young furless kitten, snoring. Toby could see the green ribbon on his wrist.

'He's even loud when he sleeps,' he thought fondly.

***

The small mouse emerged, back in the bed behind the curtain. It would have been nice to stay a while longer, but he knew he would have been spat back out eventually. And it was only an illusion. A nice one. It was enough to see, and to know. He didn't know when it had changed. But it made sense. It was still a portal to his bedroom. Just, his proper one now.

Sighing, feeling the last knots of tension unclench from his overtaxed muscles, Toby slumped and let his head hit the pillow. He fell almost immediately into a much-needed ten hour coma.

He didn't dream anything. It was great.

-***-

Chapter 90

Two days later, the pig had definitely gotten smarter.

Above its garbage-compactor bellows of feral fury, Toby tried to concentrate his focus. A moment ago when he'd dodged a charge, it had already begun altering course to where he would be. It had actually attempted a feint. Nearly succeeded, too. Toby was startled by the bluff and yanked himself out of the path of its onrushing tusks on sheer reflex. In the three seconds he had available to rest before it could get itself turned around, he let himself marvel at having created this thing, while still not knowing how it worked.

Iron hooves gouged the ground as it circled. It's snort sounded like the chuff of pneumatic brakes. Its head hinged left and right, splinters and spittle flying like flakes of dandruff, as the shutters in its camera-eyes zoomed in and out, searching. Recognizing Toby, it adjusted tactics and tried another charge.

They were battling to the death again in a twenty-foot circular arena. It had required that much clear-cutting of imaginite to bring it to life. Toby had wanted to make something that would keep his battle skills sharp, but he knew an autonomous sparring robot was a heavy task. If his first try failed, he'd planned to ask Piffle and Zinc to join hands and add to his will. But Toby had surprised himself, and the imaginite had surprised him too. He'd based his robot off one of the pigthings that prowled around Ectopia's garbage heaps. Aside from George, they were the constructs he'd encountered most often, and so he had the best chance of remembering their movements and how to imprint them.

The pigdroid's head was massive, recalling the cowcatcher on the front of a steam train. Its tusks were curved slabs of rusted junkyard metal. Its short, powerful legs propelled it like a missile. Indeed, it looked like something Zinc might have designed in his palace of parts behind the Jennie-Mae. Sparking gears rotated alongside engine pistons and blinking electronics, visible through gaps in its cobbled body. Wood, metal, clockwork, and silicon: technology from every age, all working together, hellbent on killing a mouse.

Toby swerved sideways to avoid its next rush, and nearly got his hand around its ear to swing himself onto its back for a neck shot. A glance over his shoulder showed it had herded him near the edge of the arena. Already it was turning to bulldoze him against the rock spikes. It charged, then dug in two hooves to snap-swivel, intent on mashing Toby to pulp with the slab of its side. Toby saw all this happening in a heartbeat.

When the others watched him fighting it, Piffle said Toby looked like an owl. Junella said he looked like some creepy-ass glass-eyed mannequin. Toby didn't take offense, as both observations were accurate. He was trying to develop a fighting style based primarily on observation and recalculation. During combat he kept his eyes wide open, blinking as little as possible. The rest of his face was slack, devoid of expression. Not wasting energy on reactions. He wanted to make himself into a calculator. See the outcome before it came; adjust his response accordingly. Not without thought, but without doubt.

The robotic beast was drifting sideways at him like a clanking tidal wave. There was no hesitation as he ran backwards to the arena's wall. As soon as his foot touched a pillar, he tensed like a grasshopper and sprung off it. It was close, but his sandal-clad foot gained enough height to hook the edge of the pigdroid's back and vault over.

Toby attempted a blind-aimed shot at the beast's reset port. No such luck. But he'd avoided being crushed, and he landed on his feet afterwards, so that was more than enough to satisfy him.

George had been cheerleading throughout the fight. He whinnied a laugh. "Excellent, Sire! What a display of acrobatics!" Toby did not look over to acknowledge this compliment, and George didn't take any offense when he didn't. He knew his master became a being of pure focus when he fought the swine. George continued shouting encouragement nonetheless. Sire Toby had even told him to; saying that if he couldn't fight with some mild distractions going on around him, this training was pointless anyway. George found his respect for Sire Toby swelling larger day by day. The mouse had evolved so much since they had met. George dared to wonder if he had been a factor of help in this. He hoped so. His master had proven himself and his actions worthy of unquestioning trust. Although sometimes he wondered why, if Sire Toby desired to spar, he had invented a pig when there was a willing and able parasomnic construct by his side. George thought he might even enjoy a replay of their market battle, now that he was in control of himself and it could be fought in the spirit of camaraderie. Perhaps Sire Toby knew this, and had wanted specifically an enemy that would be guaranteed not to show him the mercy a friend might. George thought he could be merciless if asked. But still, Sire Toby would give an answer when it was time. He simply needed to be patient.

Toby let the taser fall out of his hand, switching back to his hammer. He'd designed the pig's armor to withstand all manner of bashing and fired strikes, but his primary weapon was still dandy for diversion. Toby aimed on the run and launched a hammer across the arena. Deadeye on its snout, knocking its attention away and giving him some breathing room.

George would have been happy to know, his guess was largely correct. As much of a pain in the tail as the pigdroid's dead-hearted relentlessness was, it was useful. Scaphis would not pull her punches either. But Toby had multiple purposes for building this thing. He'd tell them once he was ready. One was to spar, one was to prove to himself he could make something this complex, and one was to practice dumbfounding a disposable second weapon like Junella could.

The constructed construct's silver eye irised wide and narrow, refocusing. Scanning in both directions, it caught Toby in its gaze again. It barreled towards him on a bee line course. When they were close enough, it did not waste the time it would take to pivot. It simply launched itself into the air, trying for a flying body slam.

Toby dodged it easily with a nimble hop. No more difficult than a housefly evading a grizzly bear's swat.

A metal snout drove the wind from his lungs.

'It was another feint,' Toby thought as he went flying.

Whether a bluff or a lucky strike, when the boar splatted on its belly a foot away from Toby, it was in the perfect position to jerk its head sideways with enough force to bat the mouse across the arena like a paddle swatting a pinball.

Toby wasn't hurt by the thwack, but bad luck hit him on impact. A lance of blinding-white pain struck his leg. His ankle was cranked nearly 180 degrees. The rest of him hit the grey dust and he coughed from the cloud it puffed up. His ankle felt like a tiny sun was now burning inside of it. A sprain at best, though probably a break.

He felt the vibrations in the ground of the pigdroid's onrushing coup de grâce. It was heading straight for him like a train on rails. Toby slowed time to a freeze, forcing himself to think lighting fast. He played out several possible attacks and counterattacks. Some ideas were futile. Some were stupid. Some he didn't have time or leverage for.

'Why not try a stupid one? It's not like the injury'll be permanent.'

Stupid was unpredictable. Unpredictable was good.

Toby faked struggling helplessly as the boar neared closer. Between the grind of its cogs and the pounding of its hooves, the beast was as loud as an earthquake. It lowered its tusks like a snowplow, hoping to either impale him or launch him.

Toby kept his eyes open, seeing every detail. Calculating time and distance. Waiting till the exact right fragment of a second to move.

It wasn't expecting Toby to do another jump-and-grapple. Not from the front, and not using the very ankle it had just taken out of action.

Toby screeched at the floral bloom of agony caused by leaping up and springing forward on his bad leg. But it was not an unexpected pain, therefore it could be prepared for. Toby kept his eyes open as his right hand reached out to its full length, steel fingers tense like mousetraps, until he clutched a handful of pig forehead.

Toby's arm pulled back like reeling in a fishing line. His good leg shot forward to get leverage off the pig's nose. This burst of effort was enough to roll him into a perfect flying somersault.

The pig's eyes whirred wildly as they tried to compensate for a target that gravity had seemingly stopped regulating.

Toby's breath and heartrate were perfectly calm as he sailed upside-down over the pigdroid's back. He was going to have a cataclysmically shitty landing like this, but that was fine. The only thing that mattered was that, just past the apex of his arc, he had a gorgeous line of sight at the pigdroid's reset port. Red border like a bullseye.

His left arm swung out in front of him. Right when it needed to, the 50,000 volt police-issue taser appeared in his palm. There were other ways to kill the pigbot, but this was the only one Toby allowed himself. Never his hammer. The taser was the key. He had conjured the first one from imaginite, and had dumbfounded it countless times since then. He needed to be able to produce it at an instant's notice, no matter the stress he was under. He had just enough reach to jam it into the reset port.

Purple-white lightning illuminated his face as the circuit closed.

The pigthing's eyes immediately lost their shine. The pistons in its legs went slack. Momentum coasted it forward several feet till it ground to a stop like a ship hitting shore.

Toby gave himself a nod of satisfaction. Then he hit the dirt crown-first and shattered his neck and both collarbones.

He was a dizzy splatter of mousefur when George came galloping up. The pain in his neck had stolen priority from his ankle and was yelling for Toby's attention, but he took slow breaths and ignored it. 'It's only pain. It's only pain. It's only pain,' his inner voice repeated. 'Pain ends. Victory is more important than pain.'

"Excellent denouement, Sire Toby!" George shouted proudly as he skidded to a stop. "Another thrilling show! Watching your fights is grand entertainment."

Toby forced his jaw to unlock and his throat to unclench. "I should charge tickets."

George cocked his head at that, then realized it was a joke. He chuckled, impressed that his once-fragile master could keep his good humor now, even with half a clavicle poking out of his fur.

Toby tried to raise his right arm, but that was not happening. He imagined his body as a hotel on fire with a 'condemned' sign across the front door. "George, I can't seem to kill myself. Could you, please?" he asked politely.

An immediate bow of acknowledgment. "My pleasure, Sire." George took a step closer to position himself. "Not that it would be a pleasure to kill you, Sire! My apologies! I meant only that I am glad to alleviate your suffering."

The throb in his broken bones made his eyes water. "Gotcha. Please do."

George nodded in acknowledgment of his task. Then, like a good friend, he raised his leg to deliver a kick that could shatter concrete.

Toby saw a vast black hoof float into view. Then it introduced itself to his grey matter.

One brief oblivion later, he blinked and caught his balance, having for some reason popped back to life standing up. Toby still wasn't sure how that worked. Resurrection was so random. Especially the part where sometimes he'd simply blink into a new mouse, yet other times there'd be a copy corpse left behind. Like the thing beneath George's leg that was extraordinarily not alive anymore. Toby stuck his tongue out. "Ew."

George lifted his hoof out of the mess and began to scrape it along the dirt.

Toby gave his legs and back a good stretch. As usual after a combat death, he could still feel faint, fading impressions of his injuries and adrenaline. He dumbfounded a chocolate milk to help him relax. He slurped from the cool glass bottle and surveyed the inert pigdroid. "George?"

"Yes, Sire Toby?"

"How about you dispose of that," he pointed at his corpse, "while I go look for Piffle. The pig was rattling a lot. I think its due for another tune-up."

A nod of salute. He looked down at the mess o' mouse at his feet. Sometimes bodies disappeared after people stopped looking at them. Other times they needed a good kick to send them cartwheeling into the starlit void. George idly wondered just how much debris was floating in space around Phobiopolis. Nothing to decay it. It would just orbit eternally. 'Until it is retrieved,' he thought, remembering the three bedridden fursons he had rescued. They had still not woken up, but just knowing they were out of that terrible place brought George a smile.

Toby circled the pig for a brief inspection of the damage. Looked fine on the outside, but it had left a trail of shards and screws behind it like dandruff. It was annoying not knowing for certain whether he'd won on his own merits, or if his opponent had handicapped itself by overworking its innards loose. "By the way, do you have any idea where she is?"

George raised his head and flared his sinus cavity. "Madam McPerricone is wearing perfume and is located two hundred feet to our west."

Toby still enjoyed the impossibility of George being able to smell things in a place with no atmosphere. Technically, there shouldn't have been gravity either. Definitely not the same as back on Phobiopolis soil. More proof that this world reacted to whatever was expected of it.

Toby passed the stallion and gave his flank a pat. "Thanks again, just for being a spectator. It's not like I'm trying to show off, but it's good to feel like I'm not doing this alone."

"Very much agreed." He affectionately scraped his skull along the mouse's headfur. "And do not think it is an imposition. I have no more important duty than to support you."

Toby blushed a little, patted the loyal steed's forehead, then went off to find a hamsterfly.

***

Not for the first time, Toby thought that their hiding place under the mountain was beautiful in its own unique way. The land was a uniform grey, and the rock columns resembled monster zits, but the vast barren sameness had a certain serenity. And the stars above (below?) were dazzling. Back in his Earth life, car exhaust and city lights had clouded the night sky. Here, the black sky was an infinite sea of resting fireflies.

Toby detoured by the main camp to check on their three rescuees. Still asleep, but that was allright. Zinc had said it might take them months to wake up, if ever. 'A coma within a coma...' Toby didn't expect a miracle recovery. A day's tour through Dysphoria had put him in a state of profound nihilism. Even a quick flyover at George-speed had left him disjointed, irritable, and joyless. To have spent years in that place, constantly bombarded by Logdorbhok's sadistic games... Even if you could see through them and win a few times, there'd never be any rest before the next one began. Never. Toby didn't want to dwell on that thought. He closed the curtain around the three beds.

He looked around briefly for Junella. With the Fearsleigher back and plenty of time on their hands, they were finally able to enjoy the books they'd bought at Pick's, way back in Coryza. Junella was often parked in a beanbag chair with her novels, but not today. Toby continued on.

He headed towards a spot where he could see a lantern hung. Piffle was indeed wearing perfume. Toby caught a whiff of something that reminded him of strawberry bubble bath.

He heard the pair before he saw them. Piffle's birdlike coo and Zinc's laid-back banter. They'd set up their own enclave among the columns. Toby could see the edges of a red-checkered picnic blanket protruding.

He circled to the closest gap and had to turn his head sideways to squeeze it through. "Hey, I w-" When his eyes opened, he immediately blushed.

They'd finished their picnic lunch quite a while ago. The stained plates and napkins had been kicked to the side and lay in a messy jumble. Zinc was lying on his back using the much-battered-but-still-functional cornucopia as a pillow. His arms were extended up over his head, and he was shirtless. Piffle was nestled in beside him, cozy as a kitten at the hearth. Two of her four arms were draped across his scruffy chest. Both looked perfectly contented.

"Sorry! Sorry, sorry!" Toby tried to back up and bonked his temples against the rock pillars.

Piffle's shoulders jiggled when she chuckled. "Oh you're fine, Toby. We are too."

Zinc creaked an eyelid open. He looked wholly unperturbed. "Heya, chief. Don't let your imagination blush. We wasn't doin' anythin' dirty."

Piffle nodded. "Yup. No horizontal hoochie-koo goin' on around here," she said with a giggle.

Sensing no real awkwardness in his arrival, Toby stepped fully between the rocks and tilted back to lean against them.

Zinc sat up a little. "Not that we didn't start out planning to..." He gave Piffle a toothy grin and nuzzled around her antennae. She squirmed joyfully and pulled herself tighter to him. "We had us a fun li'l picnic. Fed each other grapes 'n like that. I was trying to be romantic at first, but I couldn't get in the mood. I just... wanted to lie here. With my gal." He looked into Piffle's eyes for a moment, in awe of the scope of their shared affection.

The mutt turned back to Toby. "I think I just now figured out why. It was a feeling before. Now I get it. I think, in some way, I knew in my gut that if you hadn'ta un-stuck us, I'd never have this again." He gestured to himself and Piffle. "Just this. Us, together-like. I'm not usually the type to get all cosmic in my thinkworks, but I wanted to, y'know, just be here with her. Bask in the fact that we can."

Piffle didn't need to say a word. She nodded, letting Toby know that Zinc's words spoke for her as well.

Toby was happy for them. Seeing them together like this, it was more clear than ever how perfect they interlocked. At times they could be fun and goofy, but it was good to see how well they meshed even when the moment was quiet. "I'm glad you guys can have that too."

"Thank you, Toby," Piffle said. She dipped her antennae towards him in a motion reminiscent of a grateful bow.

"Same here. Can't ever thank you enough," Zinc said.

"You're welcome." Toby had noticed, though the canine was often sincere, he'd rarely seen him solemn like this. He remembered something. "I'm doubly glad to see you like this because, I'd been meaning to ask, Zinc, how you've been dealing with what Piffle told you about her past."

He looked honestly confused. "What's to get upset about?"

"Well..." Toby turned a little redder. "I mean, about her gender. Um, not always being, what it is, currently."

Piffle didn't even react to that. This had been fully settled between her and her fuzzy junkyard dog. It was a done subject. From her restful reclining pose nestled against Zinc's chest, it was easy to imagine she might slip at any moment into an easy doze.

"Oh that," Zinc said. He turned his head away from the two of them, and his teeth involuntarily showed off a sneer of disgust. Yet Toby knew right away it was not directed at Piffle, nor at himself for asking.

Zinc wriggled a bit on the picnic blanket, reorienting his wrenches. "I thought about that for a while, yeah. I don't mind you askin'. I admit it took me some time to get over it 'n not have the willies. I mean, it is a weird thing to find out about someone. No denying it. Especially someone you're attracted to." He turned his head to look up at the stars and let his gaze wander. "It felt a little like a bad taste in my mouth at first. Reminded me of when she turned into that big red goat monster, you rememmer that?"

Toby nodded.

"But that thought kinda put me in a new frame of mind. I didn't feel any different 'bout her once she came back from that, right? So what changed now? I tried to really ask myself. 'What's different about this,' I says. 'Well for starters, your old crew woulda never let you hear the end of it if they found out. They'd call you queerbait and homo-lips and fag-kisser and all sortsa shit, houndin' me around till the end of time."

He growled, fangs showing again. "And that was what really did it for me. That was what changed my outlook. Y'see, because those guys were assholes. Real nominees for the Dumbfuck Hall Of Heroes. Why would I waste any more of my time caring what THEY think of me? Why would I care what they thought of Piffle? Shit, Toby, I'm glad she'll never meet 'em. I'm glad I'm not runnin' with 'em nomore."

Zinc stretched out one wrench to wrap tenderly around her. He stuffed the tip of the other in his jeans pocket. "The past is dead, Toby," he said with a grunt of finality. "That's the way it should be. We're alive right now, in this tick of the clock right here. Everything else can go sit 'n spin."

Toby nodded, understanding. "I remember telling George something like that."

Piffle giggled musically and kissed her mutt's shoulder. "You told me something else about it, 'member?"

"Oh, yeah." Zinc looked to Toby. "What else I figured was, I'm not what I was back then. And neither is she, y'follow?"

Toby nodded. "You could say that about all of us."

"True. But it's deeper than that. I think I was wearing a mask the whole time I was with my old crew. Bein' like them to fit in. Biting my tongue when they'd go too far. The dope was my own fault: I'll cop to that. They just didn't say boo about it 'cuz it brought in cash we could buy extra beers 'n engine parts with. But I was... well, kind of a pathetic wimp, let's be honest. I wanted someone to like me. Even if it was shitheaps like them. I put up with a hell of a lot that I'm not proud of, Toby."

"I can imagine," the mouse said quietly. "You looked miserable with them."

Zinc shot back a 'you got that right, brother,' look. "And so I realized, it goes both ways. I was wearing a costume to be like them. And Piff, she was too. Who's to say she didn't always look like this on the inside? Who's to say? She told me about feeling lost 'n lonely, never really a hunnert percent happy with herself. How th' hell am I gonna deny that, when I know what it feels like too?" He pulled her closer and kissed her soft lips, as if daring the galaxy to object.

"That's really admirable, Zinc," Toby said earnestly. He looked away from the kiss, feeling his cheeks get warm. "To be perfectly honest, my own reasons weren't as poetic. For one, I kinda wasn't really surprised. It felt like it made sense the more I thought about it. But mostly it was just being too busy planning for Scaphis to waste time being upset over something like this that didn't matter." He instantly winced. "Not to say it didn't matter to you, Piffle."

She chortled, waving away his embarrassment with a paw. "I know what you meant, Toby. And I don't need any fancy reasons from either of you boys. I'm just glad you're as okay with me as I am."

She smiled when she said that. But then there was a flutter of unease. As if she'd remembered a forgotten chore that needed tending to.

Toby noticed the change in her expression. He perked his ears to listen, but when she didn't say anything more, he decided to let her bring it up in her own time. Or not at all if it was personal. When Piffle looked back at Zinc, he saw the pure, loving warmth in her gaze. That eased his mind.

"Were you gonna ask somethin' else, Toby?" Zinc inquired. "You looked like you came in here for a reason. Though if you wanted a snack," he grinned and patted his belly, "you're out of luck in that department."

"No, but thanks for offering. And for reminding me. Piffle?"

She raised her head.

Toby rubbed the back of his neck. "I ran the pigdroid pretty ragged. Do you mind getting it back into shape again?"

She tossed her head and gave a mock-dramatic sigh. "You and that pig, Toby! I do declare, you spend more time with it than any of us!"

He blushed. "Well, I wanted to keep my-"

"I'm just teasing, you silly mouse!" she said with a laugh. "I'll go an' peek at it, don't worry."

He nodded gratefully. "It doesn't have to be right now," he assured. "Just, whenever you get a chance. I get the feeling George's been eager to take its place for some prime time wrestling anyway."

Zinc perked up. "That I would not mind seeing. You 'n him described a helluva scrap at Lalochezia."

"It probably wouldn't be that dramatic. No hot dog carts this time."

Zinc chortled.

Toby looked like he was about to turn and go. "Actually," Piffle piped up, "I'm grateful you've let me work on it. My toymaking is one thing I don't mind keeping from my old life. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to get my hands on a project and make it tick again."

"You'n me are gonna build us some outlandish stuff when we get back to Jennie," Zinc whispered tantalizingly into her fur. She squeaked cutely.

Seeing them so snuggly elevated Toby's mood. "You're welcome, Piffle. That was exactly why I wanted your help. I could tell you really enjoyed your old job."

She nodded, antennae bobbing. "It's nice to feel useful," she said. And then there was that same pang of remembrance again.

Toby cocked his head, curious if she'd follow it up. She looked like she wanted to. But the little hamsterfly was keeping her lips shut for now. "I guess then I'll just go. I'll busy myself somehow. Leave you two to be close. I'm happy for the both of you, I really am."

"Yer a true gentleman's gentleman," Zinc said. "If it were me, I'd be jealous as hell. What red-blooded American boy could resist a knockout dame like this?" He chucked Piffle gently on the chin and she tittered.

'I think they're gonna be fine,' Toby thought to himself. He stepped back between the pillars and squeezed his head through, leaving them to their canoodling.

"Some kinda lucky..." Zinc said fondly. He let Piffle's angelic golden fur brush through the grooves of his wrench-jaw. The little tufts reminded him of a wheat field.

He was so lost in this image that it took him a moment to realize Piffle was still staring at where Toby had been. "Piff? Babe?"

She kept staring, as if every step the mouse took was paining her heart by degrees. Her shoulders suddenly hunched resolutely. "Zinc, sweetiepie, I'm sorry. I know we were having a special moment, but there's something I have to tell him."

"Can't say I'm not disappointed. You're awful fun to cuddle with."

She gave him a beautiful smile. She touched her nose to his, then started to stand up. "I won't be long."

Zinc was confused by her sudden change, and briefly felt a flash of jealousy. But no, she was not about to go run off and tell Toby her heart secretly beat for him. This was something important. "You'll tell me later what's eatin' ya? I want you to be happy, y'know."

"Of course you do," she said, and patted his wrench-fingers. "I'll be back soon. Don't fret."

"Allright, babe." He was still a bit perplexed, and a bit worried, but also confident that, if she needed him to deal with these troubles at her side, she would have asked. He let her go.

She stepped over him, light-footed as always despite her adorable roly-polyness. She took a wing-buzzing hop and sailed over the rocks.

Zinc let his head sink back against the cornucopia. "Shoot. What am I gonna do with myself now?" He got an idea and reached beneath his head. "Do you have a hotdog for me? Oh yes it feels like you do." With no Piffle around to feed his senses, some mustard, onions, and relish would do for the moment.

***

Piffle didn't have far to catch up. Toby had not hurried.

His ears caught the sound of fluttering. "Hm?"

Piffle landed next to him and tucked her wings neatly at her back. She clasped her pairs of hands in front of her tummy, looking contrite. She bit her lip.

Toby waited for her to speak. She seemed to be having a difficult time of it. "Did you want to ask me something else?"

She shook her head. "I lied, Toby."

He blinked in surprise. "About what?"

Piffle looked down at the dirt and kicked away a grey pebble. "Um, I spose it's not exactly that I told a lie. More like I didn't speak my mind when I meant to. I held back. I didn't know how to say it. Still don't, to be honest. Ha ha. But I guess it's not the most important thing anyone's ever said. It's just-"

"You're babbling," Toby told her gently.

She met his eyes. His tone had conveyed he'd be accepting of whatever it was. She was reminded again of why she cared so much for him, and why this hurt so much to say. "You're right. I'm stalling like an old rustbucket engine. It's something that's been on my mind these last few days."

"You're still not saying what it is," he teased.

A soft giggle. That was good, it helped shake the words loose. "I..." She paused to take a deep breath, then let it out. "Toby, do you really need me around anymore?"

The question was so unexpected he actually took a couple steps back. "Excuse me?"

Piffle took two steps too. "Just what I asked. Do you need me? Not just to fix your silly ol' pig. I mean..." She crimped the hem of her dress in her paws. "I mean, at all."

Toby immediately put his paws on her shoulders. "Of course I do! How can you ask that!?"

A trace of tears reflected starlight. "Like I said, it's been on my mind for a while now. Ever since you woke us up. Ever since I saw the new you, Toby. You've changed."

He searched her face for clues. This was not adding up for him. "I guess so. And?"

"And I know you've got this great big plan for Doll-" She shook her head. "Scaphis. And you've got Zinc and Junella. They're both heavyweight champs at fighting, and you're amazing now too. I watch you fight that pig and you move like lightning! You're incredible!"

He tried not to look away at the compliment. "Th-thanks."

She smiled at the modesty he just couldn't get rid of, then reached up to bring his paws down into hers. Her fingers kneaded his palms in little circles. "You've changed so much. And that made me start thinkin'... I guess, when we first met, I saw someone I could help. Someone scared. Someone needed a friend, and a guide. You sure don't need anyone to guide you anymore, Toby. You don't need anyone to," her throat hitched, "babysit you."

So that was it. "Aw geez, Piffle. Is that what you think you were to me?"

She nodded.

"At first, absolutely! I needed a babysitter! Christ, I was useless."

"That's my dilemma," she said. "You're not now. So what d'you need silly little me for? Toby... you're all grown up. And if you're going to go off 'n confront her, what could I do to help?"

She wasn't asking for suggestions; she legitimately couldn't see any way to contribute. "Oh Piffle," Toby said sadly. "I can't believe you're worrying about this." He stroked her paws and straightened his posture. "Listen to me. You are more than just my babysitter. You've always been. What was the other thing you said you were to me? My friend. God, I need that. Against a world this ugly, of course I need that."

She nodded, then sniffed. "That part, I understand. I'm proud to be your friend, Toby. And I'm so happy you're mine too. But the army doesn't need friends. The marines don't need pals. They need fighters. And-"

He stopped her before she could continue that thought. "And you're not? Piffle, have you forgotten all the times you helped out in all the insanity we got into along the way here? The convorines? Rither? The biteranodons! You turned into a giant and were batting them out of the air with that fork of yours!"

Somehow that only seemed to make her sadder. "I know! But you said it yourself. When Junella asked me to get a weapon, I got a big dumb goofy golden fork. Because it made me laugh. She was right to read me the riot act over that. I don't have a mind for tactics. I..."

She gripped Toby's paws tighter. "Zinc 'n me talked a lot about who we used to be in our old lives. I've done a lot of thinking. And remembering. I remember when he sat me down and told me I couldn't keep on jumpin' out of the car to go off getting changed all willy-nilly. I had other people to consider. I was being irresponsible. But in my old life, I was plenty responsible. I had a job I kept for forty years. I had a marriage I made work for even longer somehow. I paid my bills on time and kept us out of debt. What happened to me?"

Toby wasn't sure if she was literally asking him. "I don't know."

She shook her head. "I figured out why. Because Zinc was right: this has always been inside me all along." She swept her other hands along her pink safari outfit. "Being a boy or girl didn't really matter so much to me. What I always was at heart was young. I was a good provider and a good husband, but I always woke up feeling like I'd gotten lost and walked into the wrong furson's life somehow.

"When I got here, I assumed I was in a long dream. When I didn't die, no matter how many times I got lunch-n-dinnered, that just made me even more sure. But I got transformed too. And maybe that was me easing my real self along without knowing it. How else to explain how I ended up like this? Just by chance? Without ever being able to say it, even to myself, I ended up exactly like what I'd always wanted to see in the mirror. Young and small, and cute, and pretty." She bit her lip. "I was in a nightmare, but it was also my best dream ever. That was why it was so easy to forget, Toby. To just let it all drift away and be Piffle. I found Billawhi in the woods, all covered in mushrooms, and now I realize I kinda forced on her the fantasy of being a little lost girl in the forest. She was protective of me, yes, but she wasn't my mother. I regret making her be that without ever really asking her."

Toby dumbfounded a tissue to wipe her eyes with, and she did. "Thank you for telling me all this, Piffle. I understand how it'd weigh on you. I've actually felt a lot of what you're saying myself."

Her antennae perked.

"Worrying that I was just roping you and the others into taking care of me. Worrying that my real desire was just a selfish need to get back to a life without any expectations on me." This time he squeezed her paws. "But like Zinc said, the past is gone. We can be different now. All of us. And recognizing what you were, that's the best first step. I was a coward. I'm not anymore. I made that choice."

"Thanks, Toby," she said softly. "I don't want to be a dimwit anymore either. Flutterin' around going 'la la la', letting whatever come what may. I want to be by your side when you march forward. I just don't know how."

"You want to know how?" Toby had held back on giving them much info about his plan for Scaphis. He wanted this to be time for re-finding themselves. The exact kind of thinking Piffle was doing now. He didn't want their minds overflowing with battle strategies like his was. But for right now, he thought Piffle could use a small preview. "How about this. You are going to be responsible for all of us out there."

A weak, self-deprecating chuckle. "I'm not so sure that's a good idea."

"Nonsense. For starters, you're our reason for fighting. A world without Piffle's smile is not a world worth living in."

At that she immediately blushed and giggled. "Oh, you kid!"

He was not smiling. "I mean it. But not just yours. I'm not trying to flatter you. Piffle, you represent everything good and kind and bearable about this place. I'm sure there's lots of Piffles out there. In Coryza, in Ectopia Cordis. I met some, in Lalochezia and Scarlatina. I want us to go visit there someday after this is all over. That means I want it to still be there. I want there to still be Piffles out there, smiling to help others smile. This world could be nothing but Dysphoria, and it's not, because people out there have people like you."

Piffle was crying again, but this time her eyes were wide and shining with disbelief at such a beautiful notion. She had never dreamt that her silliness could actually be important.

"You're our morale officer," Toby told her, with the solemnity of a general issuing ranks. "We need your indomitable will to keep our spirits up. Because I'm dead sure there'll be moments when it's gonna seem hopeless. We will need to see you cheering us on."

"Like beating a drum, or waving a banner," she said.

"Exactly. And don't dismiss your fighting skills either. You're right that Junella's better at kicking ass. Zinc's a demigod of destruction. And I'm getting pretty allright myself. But you, Piffle, have an asset that is always useful in war, and it's precisely because you're not a conventional fighter."

Her antennae perked up. "Whazzat?"

"You have a Fort Knox of willpower to make insane things happen. Do you think those biteranodons could have ever predicted a fork-wielding giant hamsterfly?"

She began to see his point. "You can't prepare for what you can't see coming."

He nodded, glad to see she was taking this to heart. And now he stepped closer and drew her eyes to his, looking grim and making sure she understood that this was the most important part. "But everything I just said is secondary. It's all important, but it's pep-talk-stuff. You want real responsibility? Piffle, I need you because you're our best flyer. You are going to be our air support."

Her expression showed that the idea both intrigued and scared her. "But George-"

"George is going to be busy," Toby said with cryptic finality. "That leaves you. We don't just need your smile and your will, we need your wings. And your aim, too. Because I need you for something very, very specific. Two things, actually."

"What are they?" Piffle asked breathlessly. Toby was clutching her hands a little too tight now. He looked like he did not want to be putting this burden on her, yet knew it was necessary for all of their sakes.

"First. When we're fighting her, and an empty hand raises up, I need you to be there to fly down and fill it with a weapon. You can dumbfound anything, Piffle. You know how we fight and you'll know what we need."

"I can do that," she said resolutely.

"The other thing is..." He sighed. This was unpleasant. "I'm actually really glad you grew those other arms. Two for dumbfounding, and two to hold a rifle."

"I'm not the best with those," she admitted.

"Whatever you are best at, whether it's a laser cannon or a slingshot, you'll need it. So you can blow our brains out at a moment's notice."

Piffle gasped.

"What's the most obvious thing she'll do? Try and catch us and paralyze us like she did before. You, Piffle, have to dodge around and evade her, all while killing any of us who get caught."

"So we'll pop back to life, uncaught!"

"You got it. If she tries to torture us, boom: bullet to the head. If she tries to fling us into space, boom: bullet to the head. You have got to be sharp and fast. You have got to keep us safe and uncaught so we can keep on fighting till it's all over and done. That's what I need you for. Can you do that, Piffle?"

"Yes, Toby!!" she shouted, and gave him a joyfully overwhelmed salute. She'd be like a mother hen, circling the skies to keep her brood safe. Hot dog, that idea appealed to her! It'd be a doozy of an assignment, but to know Toby had such faith in her meant the world. She had admitted turning her back on reality and slipping into a happy-go-lucky dream, admitted letting her own life slide away from her memory so she could frolic in eternal childhood... Even after all that, he was willing to put his trust in her. "I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it."

"I know I can count on you," he said.

That broke the dam. Piffle could not hold off hugging him any longer. Though she was careful this time not to squeeze the wind out of him. It was a gentle hug. A grownup hug. "Thank you, Toby. I really was lost. I really did feel like you guys didn't need me anymore."

Another thought occurred. "Hey, no matter what else, Zinc needs you."

She nodded, cheekfur rustling against his. "That too. And I'm gonna go run back and tell him all about this. But first, Toby, you wanna hear a secret?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Sure."

Piffle stood on tiptoes to whisper feather-soft into his ear: "You're as good a morale officer as I am. Maybe even better."

And before the mouse knew what had hit him, she gave him a huge smooch on the cheek and fluttered off, her wings blowing his fur back.

Toby stood for a moment, pleasantly stunned.

***

He thought that maybe he should go see Junella next. See if maybe he could play morale officer for her too.

He checked the main camp first. Still no skunk paws poking up from the beanbag chair. George was practicing with his own wings overhead, challenging himself with tight banks and tailspins. When Toby called out, the stallion circled low and directed his master to the west where a strange tower had sprung up since the morning's breakfast. Toby thanked him and, still feeling buoyant from being around Piffle, leapt straight up and managed to high-five a hoof. George was highly amused by this. He soared straight up and showed off a triple rollercoaster loop.

Toby set off for the west. If he squinted he could see something out there, but it did not contrast well against the black of the constant universe. Along the way he broke off a chunk from a pillar and turned it into a side of french fries.

As luck would have it, he finished the last of them just as he reached the base of the spiral staircase.

It stood in the middle of another bare patch of pillarless grey dirt, like his arena. She'd been building. Toby craned his neck. Like a wrought iron model of Ectopia Cordis, the tower stretched upwards thirty feet or so. At the very top, he could just make out a platform, and a small coiled shadow sitting there.

The staircase was ornate as a balcony, but painted matte black. The steps were narrow and patterned with curling floral shapes. Toby held onto the railing and gave the first step a testing kick. The whole structure vibrated with a tone that worked shivers up his fur.

Completely on a whim, Toby decided to challenge himself. Instead of going up the easy way, he hefted himself onto the twining rail and started climbing the outside.

At the top, a panting Toby finally pulled himself over the side onto the small square platform (which was a perfect size for two fursons to sit together). He eased down beside Junella with his legs dangling over. A glance at the edge made him clamp cautiously to the railing. His worry was that a fall from this height might not actually kill him. Plunging off the cliff at Scarlatina had been a sure thing. This might leave him in another pleading heap, this time with no George around to stomp him goodnight.

A skunkette looked up from her solitude with blue eyes and said, "Showoff."

"Dunno what got into me," he told her. "Piffle, I guess. I just got done having a good talk with her about her role in the group."

The skunk sat with one leg over the side, tail threaded between the railing, other knee up and arms wrapped around it. Her head rested against her wrist. "Perpetual pain in my ass, you mean?" she said with a mean little smile.

Toby rolled his eyes at her. "Actually, her role in keeping you and me from taking ourselves too seriously. And also, when we get into our fight, I want her flying above and popping our heads off if we get stuck in trouble." He mimed shooting a sniper rifle at a faraway target.

"Smart," Junella admitted.

"I like your staircase."

A twitch of her lip. "I saw it in my dream last night. Figured It'd be something to do to keep my hands busy and my mind blank. It's a nice place for stargazing, I guess."

Toby looked at her. Specifically her mouth, now full of pink tongue and white teeth instead of a black vinyl funnel all the way down. "Y'know, it's still weird hearing you talk. I got used to you using your finger needles. Always sounding like a radio being switched to different stations."

She smirked. "You think you're not used to it! It's still spooky hearing my regular voice, comin' outta my skull instead of my skin." She shrugged in a 'what's done is done' way. "But I figgered, I'm gonna need my hands free for battle. Speaking like that was an affectation. One I could've, and should've, tossed out a long time ago."

"I liked your singing voice," Toby said sincerely.

She smiled lopsidedly at him. She ran her finger along her left shoulder: "Well that's very nice of you to say, pipsqueak."

He brightened. "You can still do it!"

"If I want to," she clarified. "And that's the important part. I didn't have a choice before. Or rather, I didn't give myself one. I understand now. I could've changed that part of me back at any time. Might've not even needed a potion for it. Maybe just will. I think I kept it around on purpose, for it to get in my way and annoy me."

Toby cocked his head, confused.

Junella sighed and looked down at the acres of rock-spires. "When you grow up angry, angry starts feeling normal. You start gettin' nervous without it. You start finding ways to keep yourself angry when you don't need to be, just so you can feel like yourself. I ain't never been a junkie or an alcoholic, but I can imagine there's similarities."

Toby got quiet. He leaned back against the twisting rail. He wondered if maybe her comparison applied to fear as well.

"I been walking myself through my past over the last coupla days. Seein' things different. I realize now, I've spent a hell of a lot of my Phobiopolis life keeping myself mad. Being stubborn. Mouthing off. Lookin' for aggravation 'n then rubbing my face right in it. Always acting like it was someone else's fault. That's another thing different about us, Toby," she said, pulling her scarf a little tighter around her shoulders. "You always want the fight to end. I always want one to start."

Even though there was no air here, Toby swore he could feel a wind caress its chill fingers along his backfur. Maybe that wasn't a hallucination. The end of Junella's scarf was fluttering. "I think that's a good description of us."

If she heard him, she didn't show it. Her eyes were unfocused. Likely watching a mind movie of Past Junella's Irritation Highlights.

Toby looked out across the greyness. He spotted the round carpet, looking like a dot of spilled red wine on cement. He could see George darting around like a trained circus fly. He could even, if he squinted, make out the tiny speck of color where Zinc and Piffle were still cuddled together. He guessed they had lots to talk about.

"It's a nice view up here," he said.

"Yeah," Junella agreed. She traced her finger along the designs in the platform. "It came out pretty nice. Based off something I used to climb on at an old park a coupla blocks down the street from our building. Not everything from back then was a bad memory." She flicked a finger at where Zinc and Piffle were. "How're they doin'?"

"Them? Oh, fine," he said without hesitation. "We've all been through a lot, but they're the best medicine for each other. They're gonna be allright."

"Good, good," Junella said, nodding. "To 'fess up, I didn't just come up here to sightsee. I've been avoiding them."

Toby had the feeling that they were about to start wading into the deep conversation they'd so far been dipping toes in. He made himself more comfortable. Without judgment, he asked, "Why's that?" No pressure, just letting her know he was ready to hear her.

Junella's crystal cobalt eyes looked out across the distance. "Guilt," she said simply. "And yeah, some of it's jus' wanting them to have time alone to be all lovey-dovey. But more than that... Zinc told me about his old gang. I'm not sure he sees the parallels. But right away, I had to ask myself if he, on a subconscious level, was trying to find the same kind of relationship when he partnered up with me."

"He obviously likes being with other people," Toby said.

Junella shook her head twice, quickly. "No. I meant like, the way he talked about that King sonofabitch barking him around. Treating him mean. Like a slave."

Toby frowned. "You can't think you're anything like that to him."

She fixed him a look that said, 'maybe I do'.

Toby would not allow her to believe that. "Junella, I saw firsthand how he treated Zinc. You two might bicker, and you might tease him a lot, but I've never seen you be sadistic to him just because you could. I've never seen you show the... the contempt that guy had. The glee of having someone around who'll do anything you ask, and abusing that for fun."

Junella listened to all this with quiet acknowledgment. "I can't say I was never like that."

"Then you were," Toby tossed back. "We had a talk about 'then' and 'now' remember? I think Zinc did see the parallels, and he didn't say anything because he didn't want you to mope like you're doing now. And because you're not that asshole husky!" He saw the next thing she was about to say and wasn't about to allow it. "And you're not that spoiled brat from your old bedroom either!"

For a second she looked wrathfully offended. She stiffened. The record shards in her tail clattered like a rattlesnake's. Then, just as abruptly, she slumped back down and looked defeated. "Stop being good at this, Toby. Can't you just let me get away with some good solid melancholy once in a while?" she teased, showing a hint of an appreciative smile.

"Actually, I don't think I can, no," he responded frankly. "Remember me right after Dysphoria?"

She nodded. "You got into some industrial-strength apathy back there."

"Exactly. And you pulled me out. You and the others stood up to me when I was lying to myself, and I'm glad you did. It felt terrible. And it was pointless."

She chuckled bittersweetly. "Pointless? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe sometimes you gotta go low so you'll understand what it really feels like. Keep you from heading back. But that's not the point." She clapped her paws on both knees. "No point denying it. That little brat in the apartment is exactly what this is all about. And Toby, don't think I don't I appreciate the pep-up you gave me before. But..." She chewed her lip. "My hatred goes hard and deep. We're talking years. A lifetime. I'm not gonna get over it so easy."

Toby looked down at the space between them and nodded pensively. "That's allright. People don't just magically get better the moment they want to."

She was grateful to him for not arguing with her on that. "I can't stop thinking about her and Zinc. All my worst moments bein' a shithead to him. My best friend. And the more I didn't want to, the more I'd catch myself doing it. Saying things I didn't mean, doin' things he didn't deserve. It's like..." A deep breath. "When you hate something that much, it's like it's always on your horizon. You try to run away from it, and you run hard and you run hard, then you look up and somehow you've switched and you're running towards it instead."

"That's very wise."

"I ain't tryna write poetry. I'm just trying to figure my life out. It's difficult. I keep seein' paradoxes. I hated my old self, but ended up letting her in. I acted fearless to the world, while inside she still scared me." She snorted. "I guess that's why, when I got this full-body wax treatment, I never changed back." She turned her arm side-to-side, letting it catch the moonlight. "I could have, sure. Normally I'd get rid of transformations like a dog shaking off water. But I kept this one. Partly the look, yeah."

Toby made a 'no disagreement' gesture.

"But maybe also, 'cause it made me feel like this was breaking off my old life. Maybe I was glad for the change because there wasn't nothing of the original me I was keen on keepin'..."

Toby noticed her voice gradually quieting as she spoke. Withering. "I can't imagine there was nothing of her that was worthwhile. I mean, she turned into you."

Junella initially bristled at how sentimentally sappy that felt. She was about to reply with sarcasm. But that was something Toby didn't deserve. She was just talking about that impulse. He'd meant it sincerely, as he meant almost everything. "Thanks."

A sudden good idea tapped him on the shoulder. "Have you talked much with Lady Xenoiko?"

That seemed like a non sequitur. She cocked her head. "When I'm in town, yeah. We pass information. Work talk."

"I meant about this."

A slight tilt of the head. "Haven't had time to. All this crap came mudslidin' down my slope just in the last few evenings."

"Well then, sometime afterwards. I think you should. She used to be, to put it bluntly, evil. And she got over it. She's happy now with a husband who loves the hell out of her. If anyone'll know what you're going through, it's her."

Junella blinked. "That's... I hadn't considered that. I think I will."

"Good." He suddenly scooted himself into a new position, side by side with her. "And if this takes a long time for you to work out, then that's allright. I'll keep helping you. I'll keep listening when you need me to."

Junella was surprised, then grinned sweetly and threw an arm around the mouse. "Goddamn, Toby. You just won't let me be a lost cause up here in peace, will you? I was working on a perfect deep blue funk, and you hadda come along and ruin it."

"Dunno how or when, but it seems like I've somehow gotten good lately at making people happy," he said.

She poked him with her knee. "Pity party pooper."

He shrugged: 'that's me.' "So what's, like, the core of this, do you think? What's the part that's clinging on that you can't let go of?"

She tipped her head towards the stars and sighed lengthily. "Christ, where to start!? I'm afraid to go to sleep, thinkin' I'm gonna wake up back there again and it's gonna be Sunday afternoon forever. I can't stop going over the old memories. Running through them like a tape on repeat. I can't stop second-guessing everything I do now. 'Am I like this 'cause of her? Am I like THIS 'cause of her?' All that neurotic, go-see-a-shrink type bullshit."

"You aren't her. She's gone," Toby said reassuringly. And, wondering if this might go too far, but thinking it might be just right, he added, "She's dead."

"Ding dong," Junella agreed. She rubbed her face in her palms (the motion made a perfect DJ scratch). "Rrrrrrrrgh! Toby, you know what the worst part of this is? I know I oughtta be over this! I got my head settled fine, but my guts won't fucking listen. I know it's over. I believe you when you said I'm different now, and thank you yet again for that."

"You're welcome."

"It's just..." She let her head collapse against her scarf. She rubbed her cheek on its calming softness. "I worry it's become a habit, obsessing over her. I was doing it without realizing it for so long, it got ingrained on me like my grooves. How do I get that part of me erased?"

"Maybe you don't need to," Toby suggested. "I'm not happy with who I was either, but at some point I just shrugged and said, 'oh well'." He thought of something else. "And I don't think of Past Me as a separate furson either. I noticed you do that. Maybe that makes her more like a ghost following you."

"Could be," she acknowledged. And her eyes opened wider the more she juggled the thought around and saw how well it fit. She took a second to squint at Toby. It wasn't long ago she was giving him advice. Now here he was volunteering as her damn therapist. And doing a decent job of it too.

Out of the blue she remembered watching him fight that crazy-ass pig contraption he'd made. His new fighting style was elegantly deadly. Avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid, KILLSHOT. He'd twirl around like a ballet dancer, keeping out of its way until the opportunity presented itself to end the fight in one fell swoop. He showed the same strategy the few times she'd sparred with him. It was damned hard to deal with, even when she was expecting it. One time he'd even lured her into thinking she'd won by skewering him on her cutlass. It was all to get in close enough to pulverize her gun hand with his hammer, then, in the moment where she was stunned by his deception, another hammer took her face clean off.

Junella had walked away from that match with a backpat and an offhand joke about how if they kept this up, he'd rack up more wins than losses against her. But it wasn't a joke. Somewhere along the line he'd become her equal. She stopped these little contests with him because she didn't want to reach the point where the numbers proved it.

It would have been something she could have discussed with Piffle. Seeing her milksop client grow so fast he was now within inches of surpassing her, what did that make her now? When would she stop being of any use to him?

Toby did not sense these thoughts cross her face. He thought her simmering quiet was due to dwelling on her past. He stayed close silently, letting her arm stay perched on his shoulder. Ready to listen whenever she began again.

Seeing that, she decided. 'I can't tell him about this.' It was not a selfish or cowardly decision. It was an acknowledgment that her fears of inadequacy were her own damn problem, not his. And it was precisely because he didn't know- or care!- how much more powerful he had become that she had to keep mum. He was in no way trying to be better than her. He was still soft-spoken and humble and a little clumsy and easily-embarrassed. Most of the old Toby was gone, yeah. But he'd clearly made more peace with his past than she had. And grown stronger.

"Toby, d'you mind if I make a little confession?" This was something she had not planned to bring up, but right now, it felt like the honest thing to do.

"Sure," he said, then guessed, "You aren't having second thoughts about fighting Scaphis, are you?"

"Fuck no!" came the immediate reply. "Gimme a broken bottle and a pointy stick and I'll go after her cheap ass right this second!"

That was an expected response. "Good," Toby said simply. "But yes, I'm okay with whatever you want to tell me."

She lifted her head to give him a good long look at her sapphire eyes. "Toby, how upset would you be with me if these went away?"

That, however, was entirely unexpected. "Um. A little? Maybe? I don't really know. I thought you liked them."

She shook her head, like the jig was up. "I don't. I gotta be honest. I made a big deal out of getting them back, and at first I really did think they looked dynamite. Brilliant baby blues. After a while though... I kept mindfuckin' up mirrors to look at myself, and the experience went sour." She turned to face him. "I can't keep this up, Toby. They remind me too much of her." She blinked. "...Me," she amended.

Toby nodded. He patted the back of her hand. "I can understand that. But if you want to change back, it's your own body. You don't have to ask my permission."

She seemed dumbfounded at this. "Toby, I changed them as... as basically a gift to you! Because you said you liked them. Because you did your best to help me feel better about 'em."

It started to make more sense to him now. "I do like how they look. Sure. But I liked your old record-label-eyes too. Just like how I like your vinyl, and your scarf, and your new head-shard-thingies."

She chuckled. "Thanks. I'm keepin' those."

Toby squeezed her paw and said firmly, "I like them because they're yours, Junella."

She smiled. Then she rested her forehead against his. "If it was anyone else sayin' that, it'd sound like the phoniest bullshit pickup line in history. But I can trust it coming out of you, Toby. Because you're so honest you make me flinch sometimes. I envy that about you."

"It is true," he confirmed, taking the subject back to her.

She nodded, then leaned back against the iron rail. "I debated over this. I didn't want to feel like some two-face. Stealing back what I gave you outta gratitude."

"If it makes you feel better, I'd never see it that way."

"Hey, sometimes we spin wild fantasies in our heads of how other people'll think about us," she said with a snort. "Doesn't mean they got anything to do with reality. But they can still mess your heart up."

At that he nodded. "Okay."

"So, yeah... Every time I looked at myself, I saw a ghost's eyes looking back. It started giving me the creeps. But I didn't want to give in and switch back. It's like they were a promise to you, Toby. That I was okay with myself. But I wasn't. I'm not."

Toby understood. Though he didn't want to just say for the thousandth time that she didn't have to feel bad about her past anymore. He mused a bit until a new idea occurred. "Do you know what I saw in your old eyes?" he asked.

"What'd you see, Toby?"

He looked into her blues, remembering back when they were harvest moon orange. "They were distinctive. Like no one else's. They looked fierce. Those spindle-hole pupils always had this look of intense focus. Like you were just about to pounce and kill."

"I guess," she said. This was actually making her feel a bit worse. The on-the-warpath look would've suited her young self a lot better than blue.

"They looked merciless," Toby said.

Junella said nothing to this, but gazed past the edge of the stairs.

As if an afterthought, Toby tossed off, "I mean, you think she deserves any mercy?"

That got her head to pop back up.

"You know exactly who I mean. I don't even need to say it. We're going to bring all-out war to her soon. Do you want to be looking at her with beautiful eyes, or merciless ones?"

Junella began to smile a little.

"I don't think she deserves anything but you at your worst. That's what I want you to unleash. I think, that if you still feel some conflict about your past, that's okay. That's understandable. But we need hellcat Junella. We need the most fearless furson in Phobiopolis. We need you to kick her a new butthole. So if you're having problems running away from Past You, maybe the solution is to just know when to let her have the driver's seat. Because right now, a complete psychopath would be really damn helpful to us."

The smile became an outright grin.

"You know what?" Toby had another thought. "I'm glad you want to change back. The more I think about it, I'm glad your blue eyes are something only we'll see. Your best friends. She doesn't deserve a secret like that, right? Screw her! Isn't it better, just keeping it among us? Doesn't that make it cooler?"

"I think you might be onto something, mouse," she replied, and her voice cracked a little.

He checked, making sure this was doing the good he hoped it would. Her smile was encouraging.

"I keep saying 'thank you'. I'm starting to sound like I got a stuck needle. But you keep earning my gratitude, dammit." She scratched her temple, trying to hide the tears she was brushing away. "What you said about letting her in sometimes, maybe you've got a point. That's always been my worst fear. But what the hell good has it done me so far?"

Toby could definitely nod in agreement with that. "All the fears I got over, it only happened when I just closed my eyes, braced myself and let them happen. Hiding never made me stronger. Being afraid never made fear easier to deal with."

"You got that right." An idea sparked. "I think maybe... Let's admit it Toby, I'm pretty good at violence. Might even call myself an artist," she smirked.

"That's fair," he said earnestly.

"That's one thing I'm glad I got from her. Damn useful skill. And I guess..." She trailed off. Like many profound truths, the thought that struck her next was one she'd known for years, but had never grasped the full breadth of. "I guess the big difference between me and her is who we turn it on. She craved to hurt the helpless. I want to hurt assholes. Maybe I wouldn't care about justice so much without having seen it from both sides. Maybe running from my old self gave me something to run towards."

He patted her paw, proud of her for this insight. "Absolutely. Junella, you care about injustice more than anyone I've ever met. Possibly excluding Luxy."

She gave him an 'I'm not gonna argue with that' expression.

Toby's eyes traced the curve of her scarf, along her side to her arm, and to the hand his was placed on top of. "Part of why I care about you is your passion for fairness. You and I had that talk about not thinking the world's as simple as a comic book. About doing things that might feel bad because they need to be done by someone. That's really stuck with me."

She turned her hand upwards to curl her fingers around his.

"You taught me that anger isn't bad. Even violence isn't. You're angry with a conscience, Junella. You get mad at injustice and torture and cruelty. Things a furson should be angry at."

"I try to, yes. I try to walk that line of what's justified."

"I think you do a good job of it. So, if you keep on feeling conflicted, like if you don't know whether you're too much like your old self, you can always ask me. I'll help you decide if you need me to. But I don't even think you need that. I think you've been doing fine on your own for a long time before we even met."

Junella looked down affectionately at their two hands intertwined. White fur and black vinyl. Like yin and yang. "If you say so, Toby. But it does get easier when I have you to think of."

He nodded. "Happy to help."

She scratched one finger-needle across the back of his hand, feather-gently.

"So..." Toby asked, "do you want to switch back now? Show me your eyes again?"

God, she liked how he said that! Hers. Maybe it wasn't so terrible thinking of past and present Junella as two different people. Maybe she could think of her old self as the one still trapped in that bedroom, while she was the one who was free. The one on the outside, with people that made travel and fighting and pain worthwhile. Baby Junella was still thinking up rotten little revenge plans for her classmates, still dreaming up ways to make Daddy and Mommy jump. Stuck in the past, where she belonged.

She closed her eyes. "If it's allright with you Toby, I think I will."

"It is."

She sighed and concentrated. Reaching out, she felt around until she found his other hand, then brought both paws up to place them on the sides of her face. "I'm thinking I might need some of your magic rubbing off, to pull this off without a potion."

It felt nice, her hands holding his. He'd always liked the sensation of her grooved surfaces. "I'm not magic," he said.

"Whatever you wanna call it, you're the guy who flew across Dysphoria on a nightmare and yanked us outta Scaphis' castle on a pure nerdy rules-fucking. I need summa that."

"Fair enough," he agreed. He tried to calm his heart and flow some of his will into her hands.

Junella took deep breaths. "This isn't me running away," she told him, as well as herself. "I'm not turning my back on these eyes just because they're hers and they hurt to look at. I am consciously rejecting them. I'm saying I am someone new now, and I don't need her around anymore. She can stay in my memory. I can call on her in hot moments when she's needed, but that's all. This is my car and I'm the one driving."

"They were nice while they lasted, but that sounds pretty good," Toby told her.

Slowly, Junella opened her eyes.

Toby smiled to see that first trace of orange. Her familiar record labels emerged like two suns on the horizon.

She blinked. Rolled her orbs around a bit, as if trying to see them. "Are they back? Did it work?"

Toby nodded. "Perfectly."

She exhaled, shivering in relief. "Good. I don't even need a mirror, I trust you. Just hearing you say that makes me feel, I don't know, more at home."

Toby's hands dropped down from her face to her shoulders. "If you really do want to give me a gift, then be happy with yourself, Junella. That's all I want."

She grinned. "I think I can handle that." Then she raised her brows to show off her new optics. "By the way, did I ever let you read 'em?"

Toby squinted. "Oh right, there is tiny writing on there! No, I don't think I ever quite got that close. Plus, they keep moving."

"Here then. I'll keep still and you lean in. I wanna know if they still say the same thing. That, and I like the idea of you and me having another good secret between us."

"I like that idea too," he said, and leaned in. Though he suddenly stiffened. "Um, is this a trick to kiss me again?"

She chortled. "I hadn't considered that, mouse. Now the idea's in my head, so I guess you'll just have to risk it."

"I guess I will," Toby said. He got as close to Junella as he could. He made his eyes refocus on the tiny black print.

She was trying her best to keep her gaze relaxed, but anyone's eyes can't help twitching a bit. Toby was lucky in that both irises read the same, so he could compare between them.

"Dauntless Records, inc." he read. "Never Let Myself Lose, by Junella Fucking Brox."

She grinned like the Cheshire cat. That was exactly what the mirror had always shown before. "You betcher tail I don't."

Toby laughed. "So your middle name is literally 'Fucking'?"

"This surprises you?" she said with a shrug.

"It fits you incredibly well, actually. Every word of it," Toby said. Then he playfully ducked out of kissing range.

She noticed, and played like he'd been too fast for her. Truth was, she knew it wasn't the right time yet. They had other matters to attend to first.

Toby gave her a hug. "They really do look good on you. I mean it. It was a gorgeous blue, but to be honest, black, white, and a dash of orange is a stronger color combination."

"Like Halloween," she added. "But that's okay. I'm a Halloween kinda cat."

Toby squeezed softly. "Absolutely."

He turned and looked down at the miniature world below. Junella really had made a perfect place for sitting and thinking heavy thoughts. He sighed. He felt good. Better even than after meeting with Piffle. But still, that was a tiny chunk out of the colossal weight of what they would soon be forced to commit themselves to.

Nearly all the tension had melted out of Junella's posture, compared to the tight knot she'd been before. Though she looked across and noticed that, even with his own mood lightened too, Toby's shoulders were still tight. His brow was still creased. And something else. Something that had remained unchanged ever since he'd come back for her. "Hey. Mouse."

He'd been drifting into his own thoughts again. "Huh?"

She gave him a very gentle smile, not sure how he'd react to this. "I'm kinda in the mood to return a favor. I've got something I could tell you about a certain rodent. Something to prove you're not the only motherfucker 'round here capable of crappin' out deep psychological observations."

He snorted. "You are unladylike," he teased.

"You just noticed?" she kidded. "Seriously though. It's a pattern you've been keeping all this time. I started picking up on it before we even left my apartment. It's been consistent for days. But you broke it just now."

She was looking at him like there was a big hunk of broccoli between his buck teeth. "What, exactly?"

Her eyes lit up. "You haven't noticed! Holy shit! Toby The Great Observer actually let this one slip by!"

He started looking down all over his vest, fur, and shorts. "What, what!?"

A needle-tipped finger angled his chin up to sync their gazes. And though she was grinning, she also looked very, very sad to have to share this with him. That he hadn't realized it on his own. "Toby, I don't know when it started. Maybe since Dysphoria; that'd do it to anyone. I even thought at first, maybe it had something to do with me. But no. Toby, ever since we got back..." She took a deep breath, giving him one last moment to catch the answer first.

That was not going to happen. The mouse's face was wholly clueless, waiting nervously for her to fill him in.

Fine then. Junella straightened her posture, like a doctor about to pass along a hard diagnosis. "Toby, you don't smile anymore."

Toby blinked. Involuntarily his hand rose up to touch his face, inspecting the corner of his mouth. "Really? No..." She couldn't be right.

Her eyes said gently, 'You know I'm telling the truth.'

Toby riffled back through his memory. "Can't be. I know I've been overwhelmed, and set on my plans, and even a little depressed. But I know I've laughed. Not much, sure, but I'm sure I have recently. At least a few times."

She shook her head. "A laugh's not the same as a smile. And even when a half-chuckle makes it through that stony mug, your eyes don't smile. They keep that same, hollow bleakness. I know what it's called, Toby. Soldiers coming home from war get it. They call it the thousand yard stare."

Toby remembered Piffle telling him he looked like an owl when he fought the pigdroid. Junella compared him to a mannequin with glass eyes.

"That's what happens," Junella continued, "when you've seen more ugliness than your heart and mind can take. So you just... blow a fuse. You shut down the part of yourself that can still feel happiness, to protect it from getting wiped out for good."

Toby was unintentionally displaying that exact stare now. He let his sight roam distractedly across the landscape. He felt very cold. "I... Really? I hadn't..."

A caring hand cupped his shoulder. Junella leaned in close. "But I'll bet you didn't notice something else."

He grimaced. "What now?"

The warmth in her smile let him know this wasn't more bad news. Far from it. "A bit ago, when you helped me get my eyes back, you did smile. I saw it. Just for a moment, but it was real."

Toby hadn't noticed. He wished he had, so he could have properly appreciated the moment. In fact, he tried to smile again. He really, honestly did. But something was wrong with his lips. They quivered, and his eye twitched, but they couldn't produce anything but the sickest, weakest mockery of a smile. A smile on its deathbed.

Junella reached out to touch his lips. She swept the pseudo-smile away. "It's fine. Don't rush it. If you're broken, then just remember that I am too, and your analytical ass just spent all this time helping me get allright with that. There'll be time to find your way back later on."

He looked relieved to be told he didn't have to try anymore. He had noticed, ever since leaving Scarlatina, that being happy was damn hard. Reverting to instinctive worry, he wondered if he'd lost some integral part of himself. If this latest pass through Dysphoria had done more damage than he realized. 'You took out Zinc's friends with completely cold blood. D'you think maybe that's a sign you weren't feeling your best?' Whatever the case, it was still unpleasant to realize that he'd only succeeded in hiding it from himself.

'Though, after the first time through Dysphoria when I was at my worst, my friends saw through me then too. And I also thought back then I was permanently damaged. But I wasn't.'

Junella touched his cheek very tenderly, seeing all his pain. "You don't have to be blue about it, Toby. Look at it this way. Does she deserve to see a smile from you?"

Toby laughed at that. It was more like a croaked gasp, but it was as close as he could seem to make.

She nodded, letting him know it was a fine effort. 

He opened his mouth to say some witty response, and instead something else spilled out. It was the stark, bleak core of what he'd been feeling for days. The words he'd tried to keep his inner voice from speaking, because the group simply did not have the leisure of dealing with problems like this. They had so much else to do in preparation. There wasn't energy to waste dealing with a mouse who felt he was well along the path to his goal, but was leaking pieces of himself along the way like a shattered clock. To the point where he dared not check inside to see if there was anything left.

His voice didn't even sound like his own when he said it.

"I don't know who or what I am anymore."

The words caused a silence between them. Toby was frozen by hearing his own throat betray a feeling he'd been keeping under lock and key. Junella was unprepared by the rawness of the confession. Especially from the mouse who seemed to have all the answers about everything else.

Toby tried to conjure words to explain, downplay, dismiss. His mouth opened, but it created nothing more than stutters of breath.

Junella's eyes were no longer soft blue, but they could still show concern. "Toby...?"

"I can't-"

Suddenly he was falling against Junella and letting her catch him. Letting her enfold him gently. Suddenly he was shaking all over like he was standing ankle-deep in ice.

He was aware that this was the type of moment where he should have been crying. But nothing was coming out. His face was frozen solid. A mannequin.

Junella held him without a word. And now it wasn't because her hands were too occupied to run her needles along her grooves and make a song. They had simply said everything important. Quiet mattered more now. And touch.

He held on like she was the side of a skyscraper, and the wind was about to rip him away into the void.

-***-

CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

The next morning, Piffle tried an odd experiment with imaginite. Just to see if she could, she made a fire. A special flame that would provide pleasing heat without torching the carpet. Zinc said it reminded him of the night they'd first met, having a campfire cookout with her as the meat. Exactly her intention, she said, as she slipped his wrench jaws gently around her throat.

After a bit of resurrection and kissing, Piffle left him to the cooking while she fluttered over to rustle Junella out of her sleeping bag. The skunk was a bit grouchy, though no more than normal.

Next, Piffle checked on the three rescuees. Still snoozing. George had been flying all night long just to see if he could. Piffle flew up to his altitude and whistled. After a good-morning hug, she pointed him down to the campsite, then peeled her eyes for any sign of Toby.

He and Junella had talked for a very long time. Both of them were quiet at dinner. He hadn't rejoined them for bedtime. Now Piffle spotted the mouse sitting at the foot of the staircase Junella had made. Just from his posture, she had an immediate hunch he'd stayed up all night long. She tutted in worry, hoping he wasn't falling back into somber solitude. 'Maybe it was just insomnia.'

She fluttered down to a silent landing, then put a paw to her mouth. Toby's posture was rock rigid. He looked like he'd been sitting on the bottom step since the beginning of time. Except for his left leg, the only part of him unstatuefied. It jittered up and down like a telegraph needle.

c-clack

Something fell from his hand.

Piffle came closer. Whatever it was, it had fallen into a pile that was all the way up past his knee. "T-Toby?"

The mouse slowly turned his head. She expected it to sound like a creaky door. He blinked with difficulty. "Hey, Piff. Was I being too loud out here?"

She honestly couldn't tell if that had been a joke, but laughed politely anyway. She trotted closer and leaned on the rail. "Nervous energy?" she inquired.

Toby squinted blearily at her, deep bags beneath his pink eyes. Then he looked down to his fidgety leg. "Oh." He made it calm down and sit still.

"No, I meant the other thing. The..." She pointed at the mound engulfing his feet.

Toby had been subconsciously dumbfounding tasers all night long. Hundreds of little black plastic rectangles. The only reason he hadn't buried himself alive in them was that the ones on the bottom disappeared as they were forgotten about. "Um. I was trying to get good at making these."

"Guess that worked out." She patted his shoulder. "Though, no offense, but ya kinda look terrible."

He yawned cavernously. "I'm sure I do. I didn't intend to spend all night out here. It is morning, right?"

She nodded.

"I've just been thinking a lot. Ever since me and Junella talked. I meant to get some sleep, but I couldn't make my mind relax. I came out here. I thought it'd be just for a while."

"Poor Toby," she cooed. "Well, Nurse McPerricone thinks that some nice hot breakfast will do you some good." She tugged his arm. "C'mon! I made a fire!!"

He cocked his head, puzzled that she sounded so proud of something so simple. But Piffle was Piffle. "Okay. Actually, I-" His stomach rumbled. "Actually, I feel like I could eat an aircraft carrier."

"We got enough imaginite to make one," she replied sunnily.

***

Toby worried he might lapse into sleep mid-step, so Piffle solved the problem by gripping his wrists and taking to the air. This startled him into substantial alertness. After a short jaunt with some pleasant in-flight humming, she set him on the carpet, gentle as a leaf.

Zinc had already made himself a tin plate overflowing with steak, sausages, baked beans, fried eggs, and cornbread. "Heyyyy, Toby! Check it out. Real camping-out chow. You look kinda on the fritz. I could make you a plate too if you want."

George was nearby, sitting with his legs tucked beneath him like a giant dead housecat. He nodded greetings to Toby, as did Junella, who was looking like she really would have preferred eight more hours of sleep. She reached over and punched the crust off an imaginite pillar. Wrapping a paw around it, she dreamed herself a cup of clear gold. "Me and my gin," she said fondly. "Keeps me mean."

Toby was about to refuse Zinc's offer by reflex. All those heavy foods? He'd never- 'Stop that,' he told himself. 'Zinc's been wallowing in comfort food since we got here, and look at his mood compared to mine. Maybe some comfort's what I need.' He nodded decisively. "I'd like that very much, Zinc. Thanks. What you've got there looks wonderfoh my goodness Piffle you did make a fire."

She giggled at him finally noticing it.

He walked over to the happy little campfire and noticed that the carpet beneath it wasn't even singed. He bent down. The flames were just resting there, like a throw pillow. Carefully, he poked a steel finger into it. Then his whole hand. "Feels like a July afternoon. Neat."

Zinc and Piffle pulled off a beautiful bit of team-dumbfounding. When the mutt handed her his plate to give to Toby, he covertly kept his grip on it. She took it anyway, creating a duplicate. Zinc resumed eating while Piffle passed the food along. "Here ya go. Eat up!"

Toby tried not to spill anything. Beans were already tumbling off. "Thanks. And nice job on the fire."

She curtseyed. Then she sat down next to the cornucopia and pulled out a hot bowl of cream o' wheat with some Ovaltine.

Junella sipped her liquid breakfast. "How's your head?" she asked Toby.

"Worn-out," he admitted. "I'm hoping I can just convince myself that missing a night of sleep won't matter."

Zinc pointed. "Pass that man some coffee, Piff."

"At your service," she said, tittering. She produced a steamy mug from the closest pillar. "Careful, it's hot."

Toby set his plate down beside him on the log and accepted the cup in both hands. "Yikes, it is!" The warmth soaked right into his palms. It felt pretty good, actually. He hadn't realized it before, but it'd gotten chilly out by the stairs overnight. "I've never had coffee before. Smells good."

"I figured you'd be new to it. I put in a bunch of cream and sugar for you," Piffle said.

Toby looked at her and smiled. Not a huge one. Kind of rickety. It was genuine though.

Junella noticed. She didn't say anything, but felt serenely triumphant.

Toby took a slight sip. Way too hot. He set it down between his feet to keep them toasty as he tried some of Zinc's cowboy food. His eyebrows went up. "This stuff is good." He shoveled in a few more forkfuls and swallowed. "You were right, Zinc."

The canine grinned: 'Of course'.

The smoky, hearty flavors lit up something inside Toby. He was suddenly twice as ravenous as before. He flew through his meal, letting out little satisfied moans and getting his chin and vest spotty. When the coffee cooled a bit, the feel of its smooth heat traveling down his core was even lovelier. In minutes he had a clean plate. But he was still hungry. Or rather, the food was such a pure, simple pleasure, he wanted more of that feeling. He'd spent the night alone with dour thoughts. Now he was cozy with friends around a campfire. He wanted to feel good again.

'While I still can,' his inner voice piped up.

He growled at it. But yes, that was part of the reason. In a few more days, they'd be heading off to bring war to Scaphis' doorstep. There was no guarantee they'd win.

But that was for later. This was now. Toby asked Piffle for the cornucopia. She set it between them so they could share. Toby reached inside the frayed wicker cone and tried to think of some decadent junk he could dive into. He told his brain it could take a vacation: right now the tongue was in charge.

Toby ate like a convorine. The others were amused to see their rail-thin companion losing himself in waffles, sundaes, burgers, onion rings, cakes, and barbecue ribs. With some of these dishes, he needed his friends' help. Having never eaten them before, he had no memories for the cornucopia to work with. They were glad to assist. It was nice to see their mouse happy again.

The fire crackled pleasantly and the travelers talked. Junella came slowly out of her crankiness. She even hummed a few quiet campfire songs.

With knife and fork, Piffle leaned over Zinc's plate and cut up his steak for him. They both knew darn well he could manage it with his wrenches, but he let her anyway. It lit her up to do little things for others. Zinc thought her smile as she busied herself was the prettiest little thing in the world. She even speared one of her strawberries and fed it to him like flying a plane into the hanger.

Meanwhile, George bragged excitedly about the new flying tricks he'd taught himself. Unlike Toby, he'd gone without sleep to no ill effect. He was actually quite chipper, babbling happily about the joys of being airborne. And he had some good news for them too. In testing how far and how fast he could fly, he'd decided to do a bit more experimentation with Dysphoria. This piqued everyone's interest.

George had managed to define the exact border of its influence, dipping in and out until he found the shortest route that could be traveled without even a headache. He said it was a much, much wider parabola than he'd flown with Sire Toby, and apologized for not taking his time and being more thorough then. Toby waved it off as water under the bridge. He was more interested in the applications of this new knowledge. Junella understood right away that it meant a safe route of retreat if they needed to get away from Anasarca in a hurry. Toby agreed, and while he didn't say so yet, he also realized that it meant a way to bring Luxy over if circumstances necessitated backup.

Toby suddenly stopped eating his slice of lemon cake, mid-bite.

His head slowly rose. He looked into the faces of his companions.

Junella smiling wryly. George talking animatedly. Piffle slurping on a milkshake. Zinc burping, then guffawing.

All the sound around the campfire seemed to melt away. Time froze into a photograph. 'They're happy,' Toby marveled. 'We're us again. We're whole.'

The question passed from his lips without him even realizing he'd spoken aloud.

"Are we ready?"

Their heads turned towards him.

"Ready for what?" Zinc asked.

But Toby didn't have to answer. They all suddenly picked up on his wavelength. The clatter of forks across their plates ceased. Piffle put her milkshake down.

They all looked at one another.

There was a reason why they were here. And it wasn't to have a nice time chatting around a campfire. Though, that was a part of it. After being freed from their memory-prisons, they had needed time to recuperate and get themselves back to normal. It had been three days so far. Three of the easiest days any of them had ever spent in Phobiopolis. Now here they were. Smiling easily. No longer tormented by doubt and regret.

One by one, they asked each other silently: 'Are we?'

Junella decided that if no one else was going to be the first to say it, she would. She let her plate of scrambled egg crumbs fall to her feet with a jangle that made everyone jolt. She flung her fork into the dirt. "If you mean, Toby, are we ready to head up the mountain to chop off ol' bitchtruck's head and shit down that outhouse-hole she calls a face, then I'm in."

"Brimming with tact as always, partner," Zinc deadpanned.

She cocked her head at him. "Like you don't wanna cuss at her too? Look at what she did to us. And now that we've kicked up our feet and had a nice rest, I think Toby's right on. I think it's today."

Again, they all exchanged glances.

Piffle kneaded her paws together. "I've been enjoying myself here. Getting to relax, and to be with you, Zinc." She twiddled her antennae at him. "All of you. It's been swell having everyone together again."

Junella thought the hamsterfly was about to launch into excuses why they should put it off for a few more days. Or a week. Instead, she was surprised.

Piffle set her mouth in a small, determined line. "But I know good and well by now, the party has to stop sometime. We can't just sit here. Even though that'd be nice, we can't. We've got work to do."

"Well said, Madam McPerricone," George commended.

"Thanks, Georgie. I think..." She swallowed. "I think, yes, I'm ready to go fight. How about you?"

"I agree that our time here has been pleasant. A treasure to me, in fact." An eager clenched grin spread across the horse's aura. "But I have also felt restless for the unpleasantness to begin."

Zinc snickered. "Attaboy, George. And yeah, now that the question's been popped, I'm in too. I haven't beaten the shit out of anything in days." He rolled his shoulders. "I might be gettin' soft."

Everyone chuckled.

Though Zinc got serious when he pointed his wrench at Toby. "You ain't answered yet."

The mouse was a bit startled. "I..."

"I'm fuckin' serious, Fearless Leader. Are you ready?" The words were a challenge, but there was an edge of real concern to them. Zinc looked into Toby's haunted, bloodshot eyes. He and the others were all well-rested. Toby clearly wasn't.

And the mouse knew it too. Toby was both flustered and grateful to Zinc for putting him on the spot like this. It meant he had to give an answer. It meant he had to search himself and find one. "I..."

"We could take a few more days," Junella said quietly, testing his waters, "if we need to."

"No," Toby said in response. He took a deep breath, about to begin on some kind of inspiring speech. Something about fighting hard and doing their best and... And it all felt hollow. They deserved the truth. "I'm not ready," he said. And the words were oddly uplifting, like a heavy stone rolling off his heart.

"I don't mind a bit more time here," Piffle said comfortingly.

Toby held a hand up. "No," he said again, this time with confidence. "I'm not ready. But we're going today anyway. Because you guys are."

Zinc winced. "Chief, you don't have to pull this crap. You don't have to act brave for us."

"I'm not," Toby said, and his voice was far away. His eyes darted to and fro, not focusing on anything in particular. He was rifling through his mental files and drawers, double-checking that what he was about to say was true. "I'm not ready," he repeated. "When am I ever going to be? When could I possibly be?"

He looked to all of them, feeling a strange boldness begin to stir. "It's one thing to talk about it. To say we're going to. But are any of us ready, really ready, to finish breakfast, put down our plates, stand up, and go pick a fight with the end of the world?"

The others shared uneasy looks, not sure if Toby was calling them liars.

"We're not," he said reassuringly. "Because no one could be. And that's okay. If we're all still kinda banged-up, and me most of all, that's okay too. There's never going to be a perfect moment. I'll never hear a 'ding' and go, 'Oh look! It's time to fight Scaphis!'." He let his hands droop into his lap, one metal, one flesh. "I've been going over my plans over and over. I'm driving myself crazy. I'm doubting myself. But I have to stop that. I made this plan, it's already set in motion, so I have to keep it going. I've gotta trust that it'll be good enough. Luxy even gave it his vote of confidence."

Zinc's tin eyelids shot up. "Luxy's in on this!?"

Toby nodded. "And probably getting seriously impatient with us."

"Well, fuck-a-damn!" Zinc's tail started wagging. "Makes me feel a hell of a lot better knowing it's not just gonna be us five!"

Toby shook his head, grinning a little. "You have no idea. I've got so much I need to fill you guys in on! But lemme finish what I was saying first."

"Go ahead, Toby," Piffle said, staring at him attentively. She reached across to take Zinc's wrench in her paw.

He repositioned himself on the log, then set his jaw and breathed deeply. "The point is, I'm still a wreck. I told Junella some of this yesterday. I've been having, like, an identity crisis for weeks now. 'Is my plan good or bad? Am I good or bad?'" He threw his hands up. "I need to stop caring! Because it's not important! It doesn't matter if I know who I am. It doesn't matter if I know what I am. What matters is that I know what I have to do."

"Fuck yeah," Zinc whispered.

Toby stood up, head low, posture rigid. He looked far from unbreakable. He'd never fully regained the weight Logdorbhok had stripped from him. There were still pink streaks at the corners of his eyes from where his tears had boiled in the sunlight of Scarlatina's sea. But his fists were clenched at his sides. The dancing fire reflected on his metal fingers.

The mouse walked stiffly across the space between them, then knelt in front of Junella and Zinc. He held his arms open. He looked briefly to George and Piffle.

Piffle nudged closer. Zinc cradled a wrench around her, and another around his partner. George scooted awkwardly across the carpet on his knees until he could bump shoulders with Madam Brox and Sire Toby. The skunk let a hand drift to George's forehead and began idly petting him.

Toby leaned in and draped his weary arms around them all. It was a good thing they were huddled like this, because his words were barely above a whisper.

"I already lost you once. And then I met a new family, and I lost them too. I don't know if I can go through that again and stay sane. But it's not about what I want. It's not about my grief. Piffle already said it: we've got work to do. But she's also right that it would be nice if we didn't have to. So let's just... grieve for that idea, okay?" He sniffed.

"Let's just... Guys, I cannot tell you how much I want to just forget everything and stay here for the rest of my life with you. Abandon the plan. Ignore Scaphis. Just stay where we're safe and we've got good food and a warm campfire. George can practice flying, and Junella can read her books. And I don't have to lose any of you." A sob caught in his throat. "Because it could happen. I'm not ready, but we have to, and this could be the last time we ever spend together. Scaphis could take out any of us. All of us. Of course I'm not ready for that..."

Tears had arrived now, rolling down the end of his muzzle to splash against the grey ground. "We could stay here. On vacation. Just, hide out together and not have to fight. We could make a house. We could have a nice life. We could stay here. We could. We could. But we can't."

At that the tears turned to floodwaters. Toby felt timbers inside of him break and give way. He fell onto his friends' shoulders and began to cry with helpless intensity. The tears had not come yesterday, but they were here now. His mind's eye saw all of them. George, Piffle, Zinc, Junella. Skeeto, Tak, and Kat. Luxy and Dorster and Lady Xenoiko and L'roon and Gilla and Red and everyone else he loved. He imagined their portraits fading into dust. Envisioned losing everyone. That would be the worst fate; to end up the lone survivor of the battle to come. And it could happen that way. There was only so much he could plan for. He'd tried to give himself every advantage, but Scaphis could still be stronger. He might've underestimated her by light years. He'd never know until it was too late. If they fought, she might kill all his friends. Not a Phobiopolis death where you bounced back to life a moment later, dizzy but fine. She could pick them up and throw them across the universe. Steal their memories permanently. She could spit them into Logdorbhok's eager hands. He might lose everyone today.

So the tears fell like rain. But Toby comforted himself with knowing that, right here and now, their arms were around each other. In this moment, they were still all together. His best friends. Whatever else happened, they would have this moment right now.

Toby cried until he thought he'd choke. The part of his brain that could not stop thinking strategically said that this was a good thing. Get his emotions out now before the battle. Keep a clear head during it. Toby told that part of himself to shut the hell up and let him have this without any interruption. It didn't matter why he needed to do this, he needed to. Soft fur and a carapace. Pitted metal. Record grooves. Charred bone. These textures meant more to him than his own life. If today was the last day he felt them, he wanted to burn the memory into his soul so deep that Scaphis could never blot it out.

The others cried too. All of them. Piffle started first. Zinc and Junella held out for a while, but their facades eventually fell and their teardrops dotted the ground. George had no tear ducts, but that was unimportant. His bones shook and his inner colors flickered as he touched his forehead to his friends'.

They made the moment last for as long as they could.

But sooner or later, eyes run dry and muscles cramp. Zinc drew in a long, deep breath, then let it out. His chest shuddered. He hadn't felt this scared a moment ago. Or maybe he hadn't let himself face that fear. "F'r starters, Toby, fuck you for makin' me weep like a baby."

The mouse couldn't help a snorted laugh.

"Th' hell are you trying to do to me? In front of my girl? I got an image to uphold."

George and Piffle both snickered. Junella whacked Zinc lightly on the seat of his pants with her tail.

"For seconds though," the canine said, "I think it's about time our Fearless Leader let us in on all the details of his grand plan."

Toby sniffed up a rope of snot. His eyes were practically a lake, but he couldn't take his arms away to wipe them off. "Yeah," he said. "I think that's a good idea too. Are we ready?" he asked again. Wanting real answers this time, now that they all knew the consequences. "I'm still not, but I am."

With 100% sincerity, George intoned, "I am at your side till the heavens collapse, Sire Toby."

"Me too," Piffle pledged. "I don't know what'll happen, but we'll be together when it does."

Zinc nodded. "I can think of worse ways to go out."

Junella looked at the others with her Halloween-orange eyes. "Let me make this clear. I promise, to all of you, that I will fight on until there's not a speck of me left in eternity. For all the pretty reasons you just said, Toby..." She gave him a light kiss on the forehead.

He smiled.

"And also because, ain't nobody turns Junella Brox into a fuckin' footstool and lives."

All five of them broke up laughing. Which led to more crying. Which led to more laughing.

***

And so he told them the plan. Every nut and bolt. Every stitch and seam. Once Piffle dumbfounded some tissues for everyone and they got their tears under control, they sat around the campfire and Toby unleashed a flood of details. There were gasps. There were disbelieving stares. But there were no objections.

Zinc whistled at the names of the expeditioners. "I can't believe you got so many old legends out of mothballs for this, Toby."

Modest as ever, he shrugged. "Luxy did the networking. I just had the idea."

"Still!" the canine exploded. "Waxacada and Driuwej!? Everybody thought those guys fell off the edge of reality a hunnert years ago! Where'd he dig 'em up?"

Toby just shrugged.

The canine marveled breathlessly, "Ike Fanshaw is just across Dysphoria from us, and I ain't got my autograph book." He shook his head. "Though, and this is not a complaint, all those old wizards, plus Luxy, plus Red, plus the Bargeld, plus us... Ain't that kinda overkill?"

Junella pointed a needle at him. "Better safe than sorry."

"No, it is," Toby conceded. "Overkill's exactly what I was going for. Nothing would make me happier than if we threw all this at Scaphis and K.O.'d her in ten seconds. But she's already powerful to a level I have no comprehension of. Plus she has Aldridge's wand! I am not taking any chances! The one advantage we've solidly got on our side is that there's a lot of us. Whatever it is she's gonna retaliate with, it'll take concentration. So we're not going to allow that. There are going to be so many people doing so many horrible things to her from all angles, her ability to deal with any one of us is going to be chopped into fractions."

Zinc grinned and shook his head. "Woooo-wee. I still can't believe logistics this good is coming out of our meek li'l mouse. What's that thing people say? 'Devils run in terror when a good man goes to war'?"

"I like the sound of that," Piffle said.

"Saw it in a comic book somewheres," he replied.

"That is where some of this stuff is coming from," Toby admitted. "Don't forget: I spent a lot of years reading adventure books and watching action movies." He shrugged. "Though I've tried my best to sort out what's actually plausible from what's, y'know, geeky hero fantasies."

"If an idea works, its origin is inconsequential," George said reassuringly.

Toby appreciated that. "Thank you, George."

Junella had been pensively chewing on a cherry stem as she listened. Now she spat it out and sat up. "Allright. I like everything you've said so far, Toby. We got ground troops. We got a great big gift for Scaphis. Might even have a surprise guest star. So what do we do?" she asked, indicating herself and the others around the campfire. "I want specifics. What've you got cooked up for us when we're facing her?"

Toby knew this would not go down easy. He looked Junella dead in the eye. "There is no plan past that point. Once the fight starts, it's all improv."

The others could see a hurricane-force blast of incredulous outrage about to erupt from the skunk. However, even though her eyebrows nearly touched the sky, she kept her lips clamped shut. Her expression conveyed to Toby that she was waiting to hear his explanation for this.

"I think I understand," Piffle squeaked.

Everyone looked at her.

"It's like you were saying to me, Toby, 'bout how I'm unpredictable? If we all are, well, then, we'll wind her up like a cuckoo clock."

Toby gave her an immense smile for nailing it on the nose. "That's it! To be perfectly honest, I came up with a TON of plans for Scaphis. Hundreds of ideas. All sorts of clever, macho, bullshit. Stuff that'd work in a movie, but any villain with half a brain cell in the real world would see right through it. No. The ideas I settled on are all pre-planning. Setting everything in place for the right moment. Then when we spring it..." He mimed an explosion with his hands. "Complete chaos. I only have a few vague ideas for stuff she'll try. Most obviously, she'll grab us and squeeze us like an octopus. And that's why I told Air Marshall Piffle to fly around and pop us if that happens."

She saluted him with a bright smile.

"Other than that..." Toby shrugged. "She's made of liquid. She's really powerful and really pissed. Your guess is as good as mine what she'll do with that. And since I can't know, I can't know how to counter it. All I know is, like..." He trailed off, then thought of a good explanatory example. "George, you remember the market battle?"

"Only what you described, Sire Toby,"  he said. "My own memory of the event was in a fog."

"Right, right. Anyway, you were totally berserk, kicking people and snorting up fireballs and stuff. And I had to get you under control somehow while also not getting killed. I did things in that fight, there's no way I could've planned them beforehand. But in the moment, I needed to win, so ideas just... came outta me."

Zinc pointed a wrench. "You don't gotta explain the concept to me 'n Junebug. We been there before, plenty. I just call it 'battle smarts'. Either some horrible shit's gonna go down, or you pull a brilliant plan entirely out of your ass and prevent it. Like me standing on the roof of the Fearsleigher, makin' myself a double windmill to knock zombies out of the park."

"Or having Junella make me big so I could swat biteranodons," Piffle remembered.

"Or figuring how to get rid of them cat heads while driving a zillion miles per hour up a freeway loop," Junella recalled.

"Or when I calculated that it would be necessary to impair one ferris wheel to stop another," George added.

Toby nodded to all of them. "Yes, yes, yes, and yes. That's the kind of crazy split-second thinking we need. And you can only get it by being in the moment and needing it to happen."

Junella tossed a grin at him. "You want us all to be like you. Throwin' paint cans at the moon."

"Exactly!!" he exploded. He collapsed with his head in his lap, mumbling, "I am so glad you guys are okay with this. I was worried you'd call me a lunatic and tie me up in the trunk." His head popped up. "Not literally. I've got more faith in you than that."

"You were worried your ideas wouldn't be good enough for us," Junella summarized. "That we'd have better ones and we'd take over."

Toby made a 'kinda sorta' gesture. "I was worried I'd disappoint you, yes. But I absolutely wouldn't mind if you upstaged me. I told Luxy the same thing. All I care about is good ideas. They don't all have to come from me."

She nodded approvingly. "Rest easy, mouse. If I have anything better, I'll say so. And nothin's come up so far, so that oughtta let you know how you're doing."

"Thank you," he said.

"Admittedly..." She sat up sternly. "For a second there, when you said we were just gonna wing it, I was ready to bite your head off. But then I thought, 'Waitaminnit, isn't this exactly the same deal me and Zinc laid out for Dysphoria? Plan ahead like crazy, then once you're inside, just hold on tight and see what happens?'" She shrugged. "Can't argue with myself."

"That helped inspire me," Toby acknowledged. "Also the part about, 'if you don't have a perfect plan, but you've got a lot of little ones, use all the little ones at once'."

George cleared his throat.

"...George was invaluably inspirational too," Toby corrected.

The stallion nodded, satisfied.

Toby looked back to Junella. "But let me reassure you. There's no solid plan for Scaphis, but there is an end goal." He hesitated, fidgeting. There was absolutely nothing noble about this. "She wins if she captures all of us at once. We win if we get Aldridge out. And to do that..." he grimaced, "we torture her until she surrenders. Simple as that."

Zinc grimaced. "Not to put too fine a point on it, eh?"

Toby turned to him, and his eyes showed how agonizing this decision had been to make. "Let's be honest. We are going to inflict pain until she gives up the wand and Aldridge. There's not going to be any compromise. No forgiveness. We are going to hurt her until she does what we want. We are going to make her suffer until we break her will." His tone was quiet, but iron-firm. He wanted all of them to face this without illusion or euphemism.

Junella leaned back and cracked her knuckles. "I am one-hun-dred percent comfortable with this."

"No surprises there, partner." Zinc grunted. "I try not to put what I do in such unheroic terms, but, yeah." He cast a sidelong look at Piffle.

She put all four hands on her hips, offended. "I'm not gonna wimp out! I told you I would fight and I will. You know I don't like to, but she's not giving us a choice. She'll swallow the whole world if we don't."

George clopped a hoof in applause.

Toby looked up. "I'm glad you said that, Piffle. About this being bigger than us."

The others turned to him and felt a chill. Something in him had changed. He sat with his elbows on his knees, fingers steepled, forehead resting against them. 

When he spoke again, it was in the most coldly serious tone they'd ever heard from him. "We are not heroes."

"Oh Toby! But you are heroic!" Piffle said immediately, trying to be comforting.

Zinc made a 'hold it' gesture to her. The mouse had more to say.

Toby didn't look directly at any of them. His gaze was on the future. "What I meant is, we're not the good guys in a fairy tale. There's no audience watching us that has to be handed a happy ending. We're alone out here. We have each other, yes, but nothing's gonna come out of the sky to magically spin fate for us. We have to do this ourselves, with our own hands. We have to win. There is no ambiguity about this. We have to win. And we have to do it in one shot. There will not be a second chance. If we fail today, even if we manage to escape, there is no rematch. Because, if she doesn't know we're coming, we can prepare. If she does know, then she can prepare. That means we lose.  Luxy told me how diabolical she is, and ruthless. We only win if we catch her off guard and keep her dizzy. We win by stacking the deck. By making sure it's never a fair fight. We can't afford to be heroes. We have to cheat. We have to be brutal. We have to be ready to lose everything, even each other, even ourselves. Because if we lose this fight, the world ends. Period. No second chance. We have to win at ANY cost."

"Jesus Christ, Toby..." Zinc muttered.

The mouse looked up slightly. The others could see his emotionless slab of an expression. And the tears on his cheeks. And the firelight reflected in his eyes. "We leave nothing in reserve. We hold nothing back. Our survival doesn't matter. We are not doing this for us. We're doing it for everyone down there. Because someone has to. Or else she takes everything. There is no future unless we give everything right now."

The others were silent. The only voice was the campfire.

Toby slowly blinked. "I'm... sorry. That was too much. I was just letting my worries ramble. I..."

"You're right about all of it," Junella said. "I couldn't have put it better."

"Thank you. I wish I wasn't," Toby said.

Zinc wasn't looking at either of them. He was staring down at his chest. At the location of a little round faux-fur patch.

Piffle realized what he was thinking. "No!"

"He said everything, Piff." The canine looked somberly up at Toby. "Did I ever show you this?"

Toby blinked. "I don't know what you mean."

Zinc cut to the chase and tugged the patches aside, front and back. He nodded to Piffle, who lifted up his jacket so the light could shine through.

Toby's eyes widened. George leaned in close. Junella had always known, but it was still a marvel to behold.

Zinc let them all get a good look at the golden dynamo that whizzed eternally back-and-forth in his chest's transparent chamber. "I got a tin man's heart."

Piffle gazed and rubbed her beau's wiry stomach. "I'm glad I get to see it again. It's like a little gold hummingbird."

He smiled that it brought her enjoyment.

Toby was a bit dumbstruck. "I'm surprised I never knew this about you."

A shrug. "I showed it to Piffle once when we were ridin' on Red, but you were distracted at the time. I normally keep it under wraps. For one, sunlight's not good for the mechanism. For two, it's better if most people don't know I'm walking around with enough kinetic energy in my ribs to level Mount Rushmore."

Toby recoiled. "Seriously?"

"Only a bit of an exaggeration. If I let this thing out, it'd tear Scaphis up good, I guarantee it. Imagine a spinning top with the force of an earthquake. But the thing is, if I do let it out..." He held out his wrenches. "These stop working."

"Geez, I'm sorry to hear that..." Toby nibbled his finger absent-mindedly. "But... wasn't Cleanup Crew able to use them?"

"Sure. Short bursts, yeah. But without a powerhouse, there's no power. They'd be just as strong as, well, regular ol' limbs."

Toby remembered Zinc's revulsion towards his own skinny flesh-and-blood arms. "I would never want to take away something that's such an important part of you. So, how about we make that our Plan Z?"

"Secret weapon of last resort?" he guessed.

"Exactly. If you have to, I will take you anywhere in the world you need to go to get another one of... whatever-that-is. But we'll need your wrenches in the fight. So hold off on unleashing it unless we run dry and Scaphis is still going strong."

Zinc nodded; a soldier accepting orders.

Piffle took the fur patches and re-arranged them just as they'd been. "I hate to even think about it."

"No sweat, pussycat. I'll be okay." He rustled her headfur. Then he cocked his head vaguely behind-a-ways. "What about the car?"

"What about it?" Toby asked.

"How do we get it up the mountain? Guess you could swallow it again, Ju-"

"We're leaving it here," she said. She glanced at Toby for confirmation.

He nodded, glad she was syncing with him so well.

She explained to Zinc, "When we're up there bashing The Blob, the Fearsleigher'll be armored, but too big a target. We wanna be mosquitoes buzzing around her head. Cockroaches darting around her feet. If there's one bit of strategy we can definitely apply, no matter what she does, it's to keep our asses moving."

Toby pointed at her. "Yes. It's more important that she misses than we hit."

Junella mimed her revolver. "Don't take time to aim. Shoot wild. You'll probly hit her anyway. I wanna see a lot of strategic retreat while firing behind our backs. If you do stand out there in the open and pull some dumbass hero shit," she gave a cocky grin, "either let it be a distraction for somebody else, or really make it count."

Zinc nodded. "All clear, partner. I just..." he looked over his shoulder at his beloved spiky behemoth. "If we're gonna go out in a blaze of glory, she deserves to too."

Junella patted his wrench. Craftsmen always see their creations as children. "I know how you feel. But we're still keeping her parked. That way, even if we all get 86'd, she'll still be here. Like a marker. Like that plaque up on the moon."

A slow, fond smile spread across the canine's muzzle. "Yeah, okay. I like that."

"Not to say we ain't gonna unload her a bit first," the skunk added. "Piff, if you're gonna be our supply chief, I want you to go rummage 'round in the back and the hood. Get all our bang-bangs out and familiarize yourself enough to make more if we need 'em. 'Specially Zinc's shotgun."

Piffle saluted. "Will do, Sergeant Skunktail."

Junella stifled a chuckle. "Toby? Zinc? You guys want any treats from the trunk?"

Toby thought a bit. "The egg bombs would be nice, but they won't work on her since she's not a construct... Oh! I'll want my bracers back, and my returning pouch," he remembered.

Zinc shook his head. "I'm wearing all I need. Though, we got enough imaginite around for a little surprise I've been dreamin' up. Plus," he ran a wrench through the air above his head, "I been thinkin' about getting my 'do back."

Junella was rather curious to finally see him with hair. "I got somethin' too. Scaphis saw me buy it at Lalochezia, but she only saw me use it to weld our collars together. 'Member that green backpack? Works as a torch, but its main use is the same as those pig-control sticks in EC. Got a generator in the pack and two wands. The tips heat up fierce. Ever stuck your finger in a bug zapper?"

Piffle winced. "Ooch."

"Scaphis ain't gonna like me," the skunk said, smirking. "What about you George? Want us to nail some machine guns to your backside?"

He whinnied a laugh. "I do not believe I will need them. Similar to Sir Zinc, I travel light and am well-armed wherever I go."

Toby was reminded of something else. He reached in his shorts for the remaining vials of L'roon's transformation potion. He counted out eight, then handed four of them to Piffle. "Here, I want you to guard these. We might need them in battle."

Piffle solemnly accepted the precious little tubes into her cupped palms. She tucked them away in her dress and gave the pocket a pat. "I'll keep 'em safe, Toby. Scout's honor. You holdin' onto the other ones for just-in-casies?"

An enigmatic grin. "Not quite. Two of them have a specific use later. The remaining two are for you guys." And he handed one each to a surprised Zinc and Junella.

The canine blinked at the capsule.

Junella arched an eyebrow. "I thought these were just for constructs?"

Toby's grin edged close to cryptic. "I gave L'roon very specific instructions."

"So, these are gonna...?" Zinc flapped his wrenches.

"They are," Toby said. "The safest place to hide is up. I go in first. You guys drop down after the smoke clears."

George looked aggrieved. "I could have carried them, Sire Toby."

Toby was surprised by the ache in his friend's voice. "I'm sure you could. But you're with me when it starts, remember?"

"Ah, yes!" George recalled. "Still..." He gazed forlornly at the two small vials in Sire Toby's hand. "Eight remaining is a respectable amount. Though I lament the fact that, once they are gone, my flying days will end."

Toby smiled gently and put his hands on his hips. "George. C'mon. Are you telling me you can't remember the feel of your wings enough to regrow them without a potion?"

George's spectral ears pricked up. "Could I?" He pondered for a moment. "The possibility had not occurred to me. It would be similar to dumbfounding."

"You made an apple a while back," Zinc remembered.

"I was utilizing imaginite to do so, but both involve the force of one's will. Parasomnic constructs are not normally capable of such a feat."

Zinc reached behind him and crunched off a chunk of the shiny mineral. He hucked it in George's direction.

It was an apple when it landed between his hooves.

"You seem capable to me, hoss," Zinc said.

George stared at it. He muttered under his breath, "I have not yet let myself consider the ramifications of this ability. If I am using will, it means I am more than I began as. How much more, I am not sure I dare to say."

"I don't know how much either," Toby said. "But I know you've earned every bit of it."

The stallion bowed his head. "Thank you, Sire."

Zinc looked around at everyone. It felt like that last moment had gotten everything settled. He patted his knees. "So. My engine's idling. Everyone ready to race?"

Toby held up a finger. "There's one more thing." He did not look confident about it. Almost queasy. "I've been thinking about Dysphoria, and the idea I added to it. Junella, you said the Adderalls helped us all get through. I thought I'd ask everyone, should we try them again?"

The response seemed to be a unanimous, 'Ehhhh...?'

Junella crossed her arms. "I think the adrenaline'll be enough of a pep-me-up."

"I considered that," Toby said.

"That place tricked with our heads," she said. "This'll be a regular fistfight, right?"

"She might try the-" Piffle waggled her tongue. "-thing again and brainwash us."

"I don't think pills are gonna stop that. Best to prevent it from happening, period," Junella countered.

Piffle accepted this. That was her job, after all.

Zinc pointed a wrench at Toby. "Plus, chief, ain't you already swallowed enough pills in your life?"

That clinched it. Toby nodded decisively. "Right. I figured this would be the reaction. I just wanted to put everything on the table. All possibilities. That's kind of what I've been obsessing over for the past few however-long-it's-been." He sighed at this next step. Closing his eyes and concentrating, he reached out blindly and felt his hand wrap around a little plastic pill bottle.

Zinc went crosseyed. "Didn't we just-!?"

"Oh, these aren't Adderalls!" Toby reassured him. "These are..." He looked at the bottle, reading the name on the printed label. Fentanyl. He gulped. "These are for the next part. Mom used to give them to me when nothing else worked. Two were enough to black out just about anything." He held down the cap, squeezed, unscrewed, then let everyone watch as he deliberately tipped out four into his palm. He gulped all of them, then dumbfounded a Rain to wash them down.

Piffle looked horrified. "Jeezum crow, Toby! What're you gonna do?"

Toby shook his head, then finished swallowing. "Not me. You. Piffle, you're gonna sit next to me and talk me through it. Zinc, George, you're gonna hold me down. Junella, I trust you with the blade."

All of them looked uneasy, though none more so than Toby. The skunk glanced at her cutlass. "You want me to...?" She drew a finger across her throat.

"No. Not kill me. You've got to keep me alive for this." He grimaced. "Heck, I'll just show you." He turned and looked out across the rock pillars towards the arena. He concentrated as hard as he could, calling with his mind.

They soon heard running footsteps.

Everyone turned, and gawked at the strange figure running towards them.

Junella couldn't decide if she felt more horror or astonishment. "What the hell kinda Pinocchio nightmare horseshit is this!?"

Piffle gasped as things went click in her mind. "The pigdroid was just a prototype..."

Toby took another swig of water. "Sorry I didn't tell you guys about him earlier. Honestly, I didn't want to think about it much myself. I'd better explain quick, because I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna be able to say anything but screams once we get started."

-***-

Part 95

The climb was agonizing, backbreaking work.

Toby was grateful for it. Pain to stoke his fire with.

He was alone on the side of the mountain. Halfway up now. At his back, an unlimited ocean of silence and cold. The stars lit his path with stark clarity. He remembered seeing this kind of light from the photos astronauts took.

Below him was miles of falling. Rocks to bounce off of and break his bones.

Ahead was hours more vertical exertion.

And at the top, a faint glow. An unknown source.

Toby had no idea what he would find up there. Maybe Scaphis had moved into Rebecca's living shell. Maybe she'd be a viscous horror upon a throne of skulls. Maybe she'd built a new tower.

The important thing now was that he had to hate her as much as possible. Like making L'roon's yellow potion overflow.

Hand over hand, Toby climbed. Cognizant at all times of the slithering beige river of flesh that cascaded counter-clockwise down the length of Anasarca's spiral.

She filled the channel where they had ridden the escalator up. It was now a neverending bathtub of rolling plastic vomit. This was not what he'd seen at Gilla-Gilla's shack and the assault on Rhinolith. Scaphis was not a still frame, frozen in her moment of victory. She was active here. Naturally, so close to home. More than that, she was busy with her new collection.

Toby clutched handfuls of chalky rock, grey as the campsite below. Urchin-like blossoms of raw imaginite grew out of the mountainside everywhere. He'd quickly gotten tired of groping for handholds and winding up with a prickly pawful of pain, so he worked out a solution. Imaginite was easier to sculpt than force into an entirely new substance. Whenever Toby touched a spiky lump, it only took a split-second to mold a handle out of it. It was the one easy thing about this experience.

He'd taken his sandals off and stuffed them in his side pockets. His bare feet gripped the rock better, claws acting as miniature grappling hooks. Not to say his pawpads weren't scraped and bleeding by now. They'd bleed a lot more before he reached the top. He desperately hoped she wouldn't be able to smell the red streaks he was leaving.

His palms throbbed. It was nothing compared to the blazing, sizzling, all-over agony from his skin. Head to toe, he burned. The pills had done their best, but hours had passed and they were losing the battle. Pain was dancing up, down, and all around his nerves. Toby imagined tiny imps with razor blades.

Hand over hand. Grip the rocks. Pull himself onward. Up to the top of the cosmos. The galaxies swirled in their eternal dance around him. The work was monotonous. He could not let himself get lost in it. He was glad for the pain. It kept his focus.

He was glad, too, for the constant sight of Scaphis. He needed the reminder of why he was here. Every time he came to a point where he had to jump a gap, he would look down to see her vinyl flesh bubbling below him. Inhale the nauseating stench of burning PVC.

She had taken everything from him. Now was not the time to dredge up old doubts about what he was planning. Now was not the time to think about the plan at all. It was time to think about her.

Because when he got to her door, he would have to put on a mask. Which she would see through if he wasn't convincing.

So this was method acting. He would require calm later, but right now his body needed to feel hatred. He had to ingrain the stress and flush of relentless, burning wrath. It would not be enough to fake it. He would have to project the exact right body language, expression, and exhaustion. He needed to steam himself in anger like a sauna. Steep himself in bitterness like tea.

Scaphis Tarrare. He had known her as another name. She was a junked, dirty toy standing in the middle of a moonlit dirt road. He feared her. She pleaded. She begged for his trust. And in his ignorance, he gave it.

By now, Toby had forgiven himself for this. Showing compassion was the right way, even when it was taken advantage of. Of all the people he had opened his hand to, the vast majority had been worth the risk. Even when he'd been hit in the face with a loathsome, phlegmmy sock. Vienna Tusk was maddened with rage, and she had fooled him, but she was still a soul with an understandable motivation. Misguided, but well-intentioned. Scaphis had consciously faked her entire personality to gain sympathy and a seat on their expedition. She'd helped out just enough to make herself trustworthy. She'd let herself be hugged. All the while, nothing ever mattered to her more than the mountain. Revenge. Aldridge had imprisoned her in plastic, therefore he had to pay. Her companions were expendable.

Toby forced himself to see them all in that fatal, final moment. The moment Doll was no longer Doll. The Neculaunis room, while the silver door itself watched impassively. The crunch of George's bones compressing. Zinc's struggles. Junella's defiance. Piffle's valiant last attempt to reach her captor's heart. Aldridge had tried to use reason, so she took him by the head and tore him in half like paper. Ate him. Ate his wand. Became a goddess of cruelty.

'I only escaped because I went into system failure. Emotional paralysis. Then I shat in her hand and she flicked me off into the void.'

The void. Her face. Outer space at least had starlight and asteroids and, somewhere in it, other life. Within Scaphis' cavernous allmouth was nothing. A blank room. A place where any normal living furson had eyes and lips, expressions, words, emotions, a mind, a soul. Scaphis had a nothingness. When she'd been Doll, Piffle had taken her to the hospital in Coryza, where they'd tried to give her back her face. But Toby understood now. She'd never had one to begin with.

This was a guess, but one he was confident in. She'd had the same void long before Aldridge's spell ensnared her. The same un-face. It summed up her personality in one perfect, striking image.

'I am separate from you. Above you. All of you. I don't even need to show you a reflection of your own life.'

Toby dug his fingers into an outcropping. It crumbled in his grip. He felt himself falling. His eyes flashed below, to the swimming pool of Scaphis he was about to plunge into.

His hammer saved him. The metal fingers extended in a flash, spearing into the rock like climbing pitons.

Toby stayed motionless for several heartbeats, just to be sure he was stable.

He looked down again. Maybe if he fell, nothing would happen. Maybe she already knew he was on his way. Maybe she could sense him. Maybe she would ferry him up to her castle, eager to keep their meeting.

He didn't think so.

Hand over hand, he kept on. The climb was not difficult, but it required his steady attention.

It wasn't just that she'd hurt him and his friends. It was so much more than that. A world more. Toby tried to expand his view to encompass the entirety of Phobiopolis.

Scaphis had made a beeline for Gilla-Gilla. Broke his defenses, rammed her way into his home, and engulfed him like a venus fly trap.

She had bulldozed Dysphoria to do it, shattering the nightmare itself. Unbelievably, her will was stronger.

Bypassing the worthless lost souls in the maze, she'd taken Papilloma first. A settlement already at the edge of madness. What chance had they stood against her? Striking in the night like a blind cobra, she'd scattered their community, snatching up as many fleeing villagers as she could get her flesh around. The others were left to wander to Lalochezia, cast adrift and destitute in a town that would soon begin to bleed dry. Toby remembered the lost, dead eyes of the refugees there. Some paralyzed by hopelessness, others ravenous for any scrap a stranger could give. Toby remembered their staring eyes in vivid, heartbreaking detail.

The market itself. Once thriving, now withering. Madame Tif Tif having to move her goods into a flimsy tent on someone's front lawn. So many shuttered shops. How long until Poubelle and After shut down their kitchen? How long until Jaziezal packed up his potions? How long until there'd be nothing left for Chorizo to scavenge?

Toby remembered hunting through bedrooms in Rhinolith. Feeling the eyes of plastic-drenched prisoners following his movements as he stole their life's earnings. And all the while, there was a goldmine of imaginite right where he was already headed. He didn't know. There was no way he could have known. He'd walked through their town, seeing statues everywhere. Mummified in vinyl. The chief had begged to release him or let him die. Toby remembered having to harden his heart and refuse. Then he looted the royal treasury while the man stood there helpless and watched it being carried away. Scaphis brought misery wherever she went, and had forced Toby to create yet more.

Hand over hand. Toby tensed his legs and leapt, for what felt like the hundredth time, over the escalator channel. The tendons in his hands tensed to bear his weight. The palms felt like they were gripping stove burners. His toes seared with pain as they scrabbled against the ledge.

How many more towns had she swallowed up, that he didn't even know about? Little places. Maybe caravans. Or just wandering travelers in the badlands. Had she caught L'roon yet? Would she bother with him? Maybe she'd want to tear open his cart and shake it out, searching for magical items she could make her own wishes on.

Toby thought of Scarlatina. It was closest to her but she'd left it alone so far. Either she didn't know about it, or it wasn't worth her energy to bother with. The second felt more likely.

She was heading for Ectopia Cordis. Once she had that, the rest of Phobiopolis was in the bag. Toby envisioned her swarming up the sides of the tower-city, the guardsmen firing everything they had, the cranes bashing away at her like swatting hands. What if all that was happening right now while Luxy was away? Correction: Luxy and everyone else powerful enough to defend the city?

If she took the ferris wheels, she would steamroll Coryza. With all those captured Ectopians now serving as her batteries, she could dig her fingers into Coryza's mighty metal panels and pry them open like a Christmas gift. Then mop up everything else at her leisure. Sander's shop. Stoma. The mushroom woman. The caves. And then she would cover the entire world.

Maybe L'roon was right. Maybe, even if she won, she would be left unsatisfied with no one around to oppose her. Maybe she'd get sloppy. Maybe people would go into hiding. An insurgency. Maybe all hope would not die out.

Or maybe it would.

Toby's metal claws punched holes in the cliff face, wishing it were flesh. The way the flanges around the edges of her void twitched and wiggled like a sea anemone's tentacles. He wanted to hold her down and tear them off one by one.

He wanted to shape his hammer into a gleaming silver fist and just punch her until the end of time. Punch her till her head was a flattened smear. Kick her and spit on her and scream at her in disbelief that anyone could be so horrible. Curse at her for what she'd turned him into in opposing her. It hardly mattered that she'd created her own arch-enemy in him. Built her own downfall. What would he be when all this was over? When he'd clustered his friends around for one last hug, didn't he know deep down inside that he was saying goodbye to them? That, even if by some miracle they all survived...

'Whatever happens today, I don't think I'm still going to be Toby at the end of it.'

Hand over hand. Feet pushing against stone and gravity, tail counterbalancing. One hand anchored, the other reaching out for the next rung of the ladder. 'It doesn't matter what she turns me into. It doesn't matter if she kills me or blanks my mind or throws me off the mountain. So long as she goes down too. I am nothing. I am an acceptable casualty.'

Something about that last thought struck him. Not the bit of military jargon he'd overheard on the evening news, the other part.

'I am nothing.'

Hand over hand. Pulling himself forward.

He'd grown up in interminable sickness. Filled himself with books and television and every other distraction from the lie. Anything to avoid facing the reality that he'd started out perfectly healthy and the only real sickness was in his mother's mind. 'Maybe that's why I'm good at dumbfounding,' he mused. 'I had a lot of practice believing the impossible without doubt.'

He took the drugs, he followed commands, he sat and watched comforting fiction.

He absorbed. That was it.

'I took all my personality from books. Heroes. Good guys. What am I really? At my core? A sponge. Soaking up what Mommy told me. Soaking up TV.'

And more. 'Even now. I took ruthlessness from Junella. Tenacity from Zinc. Resilience from Piffle. Lethality from George. Judgment from Luxy. What did I take from Scaphis then?'

He laughed joylessly at the answer. 'A brutal, ugly need to control.'

That's what he was. A collection of parts. A cobbled-together consciousness. A jigsaw puzzle formed from dozens of different images.

'I copied everyone I met along the way. I added their traits onto me, because... what was I to start with?'

He kept his physical self moving, pulling himself up the mountain, hand over hand, while his mental self wandered its own empty halls.

'I am nothing,' he said to himself, and found the thought was not insulting, but strangely empowering. He was a blank sheet of paper that copied down other people's qualities. He glanced at his white fur. Perfectly fitting.

'Nothing. See-through. Clear. Diamonds are clear. They're also the hardest substance in the world.'

"I am nothing," he said aloud. Barely a whisper, just in case she could hear him. But it felt important to speak this, to let his own ears hear it.

"I'm nothing. Nothing. A blank sheet. I am zero. I am dividing by zero." His voice trembled, but felt as resolute as crystal.

"I am the neutralizer. I absorb all wavelengths. I am subtraction. I am a black hole. I am the all-killing absolute cold of outer space.

"I am where she ends."

He looked up to see how far he had left to go. Perhaps a hundred feet straight up.

Easy.

***

Toby had seen the bulges floating along in Scaphis' soupy body. He'd thought at first they were rocks.

Now he could see them clearly. People. Helpless, stricken, cocooned people. All ages, species, genders, types. All with glassy eyes, faces frozen in the last emotion they'd felt before they were collected and conscripted into service. Sucked dry of their will to power a living plague's conquest. Scaphis was pulling them all towards her.

In some areas along the escalator-turned-river, the bodies were so thick Toby could have scampered across them like a lumberjack on a log flow. He made himself meet those tortured gazes, every one of them. Men snarling in hatred as they fought a doomed battle. Women collapsing in anguish as they were ripped away from their lives. Children screaming blindly for someone, anyone, to save them. All were motionless. 'She turned them into mannequins. Dolls, like her.'

The river flowed against gravity, up to the top of the mountain. To their new home.

Toby hooked his arm onto the final plateau and hauled himself over. He had to stop and balance himself. Just a few meager feet of barren space to stand on. He stood and witnessed silently.

This was no longer Aldridge's tidy front yard. No more patio furniture, no more grass. The only good thing left was the awe-inspiring view behind him of Phobiopolis in totality. But he wasn't looking behind him.

The house was gone. The castle was gone. Scaphis had cannibalized them both and built something new in their place. A lighthouse at the end of the world.

Bodies, innumerable bodies, flowed towards it from both sides of the clearing in front. Lifeless trapped citizens, dragged over bumps and rocks. None complaining. Moving as if an infinite army of ants was carrying them along towards the dark structure. Sentient ivy creeping up along its sides.

Toby understood now why Luxy hadn't let Ectopia Cordis stay as she'd designed it.

One might have thought she'd put up scaffolding, then forgot to fill in the rest. But the bare metal was the intention. A trellis. A three-hundred-foot tall burnished metal arrangement reaching up towards the domain of gods.

It was not strictly functional. Artistic flourishes abounded. Ornamental cornices. Twining arches. Gargoyles and angels. Toby could practically feel the chill of the metal, like a railing clutched by bare hands in winter. Scaphis had also repurposed bits of Aldridge and Rebecca's former home for her design. Wooden trim. Brick arches. Stone buttressing. It was like a cathedral. It was like a clock tower. Toby drew an unwelcome parallel to Junella's spiral staircase. 'Did she know? Didn't she say something about having a dream before she built it?'

Scaphis' naked flesh snaked and entwined its way along the universe-scraping citadel's massive length, carrying her prisoners to their final destination. A plume of smoke rose from the highest point, drifting into outer space. Toby hoped it wasn't a crematorium.

He tried to keep his eyes on one furson as they made their long journey up the side of the tower. Scaphis' tendrils pulsated and slid, writhed and ascended, stretched and constricted. Her living, liquid flesh had never horrified him so much. He chose one shape among many and tried to focus on it. Past the base of the tower, up the fancifully sculpted columns, over statuary, around arches and balconies, though a portcullis, around a damaged cement fountain that spewed nothing. Toby followed with his eyes until he began to squint, and then the body was lost among hundreds. One moving shape amongst a multitude. 'Alone among millions.'

He could hear the wailing. Moans of cosmic terror, bleak despair, helpless panic, and unfathomable sorrow. Maybe this close to their denouement, she loosened her grip on their minds. There was no longer any hope of escape, so why not conserve energy? The sound was worse than Phlegmasia. Toby wouldn't have thought it was possible. But in the maze, the trapped souls were simply insane. Babbling, tranquilized lunatics. These people were awake. Aware. Sane. They sounded like they knew exactly where they were and what was being done to them.

He was reminded of a nature documentary. Some kind of wasp. The drones caught other insects and brought them to the hive. Eggs were laid in their still-living flesh. They had to wait, squirming and powerless, as the larvae grew in their innards and slowly ate their way out.

Shivering, Toby reflexively rubbed his right arm, searching for the calming texture of his ribbon. It was gone. For an instant he panicked. Then he calmed himself by remembering he'd taken it off before beginning the climb. Piercings too. If Scaphis knew about Scarlatina, one look at the ribbon might lead to the deduction that he'd re-crossed Dysphoria to reach her. She might be wary of him then, realizing his true endurance.

He checked his body and found that his costume of rage had fully consumed him. He was now a lone scared, angry, pitiful hero. Heedless in his grief. Barely able to make it up the side of the mountain, no strength in reserve to combat the monster he'd come to confront. One tiny mouse in blue shorts against three hundred storeys of malice and power.

Toby idly wished for a mirror, and was surprised when one was granted.

The other Toby gazed back across the width of the plateau. A thin mouse with silver bracers and a metal hand, seeming to sag under the weight of both. Baggy, burning eyes. 'Maybe I'm glad I didn't sleep last night.'

It was his doppelganger. His alter-image that had climbed the other side of the mountain, copying his movements down to the last electron. 'Phobiopolis was omega-shaped,' he remembered. The bottom bars had collapsed together, fusing to become Anasarca. The debris was Dysphoria. And the remaining ring was the two parallel halves of this forlorn afterlife. A cosmic conjoined twin.

Toby thought back to his days spent underneath the mountain. Had they camped close enough to the center that there was only one set of them? No, he would have seen himself and George fly in, and merged with them. This meant another group of lost travelers had made a campfire there, slept under the stars there, tended to three bedridden catatonics there.

Just to see what it looked like from the outside, Toby held up his right hand and flashed it into his hammer. The other Toby did as well. They smiled weakly, comforted mildly by the sight of their small, loyal weapon.

He turned back towards the tower. Perhaps he wouldn't have to climb it after all. There was a door at the base. Aldridge's door. She'd left it intact.

The stupid hero he was portraying would take that bait.

Whatever the case, he was certainly okay with no more climbing. He looked down at his red, callused palms and the blood around his fingernails.

He headed towards the door. His copy did too. Scaphis was everywhere, but so were scattered chunks of her construction project. Doors and slabs of wall. Hunks of metal. Broken-off statuary. It was a lot like playing The Floor Is Lava, which thankfully he'd gotten pretty good at. It was one of the few games a kid could play by themselves while locked up for years in a bedroom. Toby watched his opposite self jump from haven to haven, ungraceful but accurate. He wobbled a few times (especially when that gargoyle's nose suddenly broke off), but he kept up his perfect no-falling streak.

'She has to know I'm here by now. I'm jumping around on top of her. I can't be this lucky to actually surprise her.' Though if he was, heck, he wasn't about to complain.

With a final awkward side hop, he and the mirror-Toby slipped into one another on the doorstep. 'The welcome mat's still here,' he marveled.

Toby, now singular, took a moment to catch his breath and appreciate solid ground. He was here. Again. The monotonous part was over. The pain had dulled to manageable by now, and the workout had left him with an accomplished throb in his muscles. Plus a clear mind. 'Maybe I was so dull back on Earth because I never got out and exercised.'

He looked at the door and doorbell. A wave of deja vu shivered through him. 'I remember standing here before, still rattled from when Logdorbhok had his pet germs nibble me. I looked up and saw Aldridge's big catfish face. Not knowing whether I deserved to be there. Not really believing I was living a moment I'd been waiting on for so long, planning so hard to get to.' That was absolutely an emotional state he could appreciate right now.

He stared down at his feet. Just to gift himself a last moment of cowardly hesitation, he bent down to put his sandals back on. The deer leather was velvety soft. He knew he might never feel comfort again. Might as well savor it.

Then he stood up, facing the door. He checked that his bracers were strapped on tight. He checked that his pouch was full of shurikens and caltrops. He melted his hammer back into his palm. The door was painted just glossy enough that he could see a bleary reflection of his face.

Looking back was a weary, lost, smoldering, shaken trainwreck. A mouse lucky enough to propel himself up the mountain on pure rage, who was now wholly unprepared to reap what he'd sown.

'Perfect.'

Toby took a moment longer to reassure himself. 'If I were a supervillain and one of my old enemies walked through my front door, I'd snatch them up and never let them see the light of day again. Maybe that's what I'm walking into right now. But if so, that's okay. This part is optional. If it works, it's icing on the cake. The cherry on a sundae. A chance to gather information by reading between the lines, and hopefully wreak some psychological warfare.'

He could abandon it all at a moment's notice. Everything else was already in place.

Knowing he could fail this part helped. If he did, they'd just get to the action sooner. If not, then maybe all the pain he'd put into this risk would be worth it.

'I've already won. I cannot let her know that yet, but from here on out it's all just a big magic trick. Her card's been forced. The deck is in my control. The act is already in motion. I just have to play it out.'

He let a small slice of his true confidence show through. That was part of the mask as well.

'Might as well start the show.'

He reached out towards that shiny brass knob. He turned it.

-***-