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Support me via tip jar on [url=https://www.patreon.com/Milkie]Patreon[/url]!", "description_bbcode_parsed": "The battle between Echelon and Vor continues in this action-packed issue of Harbington Heroes - will Natalie and Quincey escape Caduceus Manor with Vor, Haze, Polaris, and the Eos soldiers all fighting to keep them in?

Like my work? Support me via tip jar on Patreon!", "writing": "\tThe large steel door to Vor’s chamber opened with a rusty screech, sliding shut with a similar sound. Garrison’s heavy boots clopped across the hard tile floor to the edge of the field containing the Inkling and its host, who sat as he always did on one lone metal bench in the very center. The old cobra didn’t even lift his head to regard his guest, but when he spoke his voice was loud enough to carry. “I hear the alarms,” He said, “What’s going on?”\n\n“Echelon’s men got here. They’re trying to rescue her.” Garrison reported.\n\nThe old cobra lifted his head just a little. “And how did that happen?” He asked, “I thought you said you’d be able to keep anyone from finding us.”\n\nGarrison grunted. “It must have been that detective.”\n\n“I thought I told you to take care of her.” The old man scolded the big grizzly bear.\n\nGarrison folded his arms across his barrel of a chest. “What did you want us to do?” He asked, “We made sure she didn’t get in the way of the vote, but we couldn’t do much else. She’s playing her part and if we took her out people would have lost their minds. Just because we have Echelon now doesn’t mean we can just start pissing around.”\n\n“I [i]expected[/i] you to perform your role.” The old man stood from his spot and approached the edge of the barrier, peering through it with narrowed eyes. Garrison had to look down at him, but he didn’t lower his head to do so. The old man continued, unflinching. “Your job was to organize this circus. You’re supposed to be the most experienced in the subject of battle, but even I could have told you that leaving her to run her mouth would have ended up poorly for us. Perhaps I should have left you in that tank where I found you.”\n\nGarrison’s brow creased in a glare. “I’m trying to play your game, old man. You want us to be favourable, to avoid using the full extent of our power just so you can slide in like the snake you are. I was just doing what you wanted, so we didn’t upset our friends in that hick dome. You wanted to save face, remember? Nothing to hide?”\n\n“That was a [i]lie[/i],” The old man raised his voice, “We have [i]everything[/i] to hide. It’s still too early to usurp control from those stupid arbitrators, not until we can push some of them out. When that detective was assigned to us, I was promised that she wouldn’t be a problem.”\n\n“Sounds like that’s not my problem.” Garrison took a deep breath, “Maybe you should talk to the police about that one.”\n\nThe old cobra took a deep breath himself, setting his jaw sternly as he stared through Garrison. “You are truly an idiot,” He said, “But no matter. I’m revoking the twenty-four hours. Bring me the other prisoner. I want Echelon to know what it means to deny us.”\n\n“You’re a freak just like the rest of them.” Garrison huffed, turning and skulking back the way he came. He forced the steel door open, dragging its metal across the floor with an uncomfortable screech to pass through it and slam it shut behind him. The guards outside the room flinched at the echoing slam that reverbed through the corridors. Garrison looked to either one of them, watching them stare straight ahead and avoid giving him any looks. He stomped past them, his large hands gripping at the combat vest he was finding to be too small for his bulky frame and tugging it into something resembling a comfortable position. There weren’t many others down below, most of his men had run off to hold the Inklings off, but the reports he kept getting back made it sound unlikely that they would succeed. It was up to the Inklings to fight their own kind and he wasn’t very comfortable with that outcome.\n\nThe sooner he could get things over with, the better. He reached the makeshift holding cell where Natalie and Quincey were being held and likewise grabbed hold of the bulky metal handle of the door to throw it open. It slid angrily into its enclosure and slammed, startling the girls inside. Fortunately they’d been staying out of trouble, except for the one outburst where Natalie had attacked Polaris. Garrison didn’t really mind that if he were being honest – he’d considered punching the Ink right out of that cat numerous times before.\n\nGarrison ducked down to enter the door, rising again on the other side to his full, intimidating height that made the girls look miniscule in comparison. His eyes met Natalie’s, the wolf not looking intimidated at all by him but still defensive. She was a fighter, that one, and it was a wonder why she hadn’t tried anything earlier… Garrison had suspected she was up to something the moment she walked into that room on her own two feet. Quincey on the other hand was shaking, fearful of his size and raw power. She’d taken him down once before with a lucky shot, but that wasn’t going to happen again… never, ever again, if he understood his boss.\n\n“It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet,” Natalie commented, “What do you want?”\n\n“Plans changed,” Garrison answered, “You, pig, you’re up.”\n\nQuincey’s eyes widened. “M-Me? But why?” She asked, “W-What are you going to do?”\n\n“I’m not doing anything,” Garrison loomed over her, grabbing her by her forearm and yanking her off one off the metal crate she sat on. She squeaked and stumbled to her feet, roughly handled by the larger man to stay standing. He squeezed her arm too hard, making her whimper in pain. “The boss is going to do something though.” He added.\n\n“No!” Quincey fussed, struggling to break away from him. His grasp was like a steel trap, however, and her twisting her arm accomplished very little. “He said he’d hurt me! You can’t!” She pleaded, her eyes tearing up.\n\nGarrison just growled in frustration and yanked on her arm, nearly wrenching her shoulder out of socket. She yelped and choked on her tears, but he was undeterred. He pulled her along forcefully, ignoring her cries and protests. When Natalie pushed off her crate to make a move on him, he simply palmed her entire face, pinning her ears back under the fingers of his free hand. With a hard shove, he pushed the young wolf girl back and she slammed into the crate where she slumped to the floor. She growled at him, ears back and teeth bared, but she didn’t make a move beyond that. Garrison simply huffed at her and turned to drag Quincey away.\n\n“Natalie! Help!” Quincey screamed, “Natalieeee!! Ah!”\n\nShe tripped out of the room in the burly bear’s charge, and Garrison slammed the door closed again behind him. “If that girl makes a move, paste her.” He instructed the two guards posted at the door. Quincey had grabbed his hand in an effort to pry his large sausage fingers off to no avail. She grunted and snorted as she tried to free herself desperately, sniffling as her nose ran and tears trickled down her chubby face. Garrison hauled her along, one good pull making her feet drag across the floor. Her glasses fell off her face and onto the floor, where she instinctively tried to pick them up but her movement was seen as more effort to get away, so Garrison forced her along to leave them behind. “Stop!” Quincey begged, “Please!”\n\n“Shut up and keep walking.” Garrison grunted.\n\n“Please, your boss is an Inkling too!” Quincey sobbed, “He’s going to kill us!”\n\nGarrison snorted. “Well, yeah,” He said, “You’re a bunch of monsters, after all. You can’t expect me to be surprised. Don’t worry, he’ll get what’s coming to him.”\n\n“Ngh!” Quincey grit her teeth and tried kicking at Garrison’s thick leg. Her little shoes didn’t do much anything to him. “You’re crazy!” She cried.\n\nGarrison rounded a corner and hoisted her up by her arm, uncomfortably twisting her shoulder to hold her dangling in the air in front of him. The sudden act scared the girl so much that she stopped fighting, just for a moment, to stare at his intense, little eyes as he held her at that level. He didn’t say anything, he just stared her down for a moment and then lowered her to the floor and kept walking. She followed along, reluctant and stumbling and trying to get away the whole time. She was powerless against him and he knew it. He walked her back to Vor’s chamber like an unimpressed parent dragging their kid out of a theatre. Once there, he opened the door, threw her inside, and closed it before she could scurry back out.\n\nQuincey hit the heavy metal door at full-force and ended up falling back onto the floor. Uncomfortably she pushed herself up to a sitting position, though her ears perked up when she heard the dissipating hum of something powering down. She turned to look behind her, seeing the old cobra man sitting along in the middle of the room. He didn’t seem to be moving or acknowledging her, and for several moments the two of them sat in silence. Quincey rose to her feet, nervously rubbing her sweaty palms against her sides as she took a few careful steps forward. She passed the pylons that powered the strong-force containment, the field having been switched off.\n\nQuincey was surprised. Natalie had told her about Vor and she pictured in her mind something much more frightening than the aged reptile that sat in front of her. His face looked tired and gentle almost, though the light threw sinister shadows over his cheek bones and eyes. He was hunched and had messy gray hair and a proper dark blue suit that looked black in the light provided. When he lifted his head, he stared at her with grayed blue eyes. He had to be ninety years old at the very least.\n\n“Keep your distance,” He said, “Getting close to me is not wise.”\n\nQuincey stopped, her posture stiff. “W… Who are you?” She asked.\n\n“You know who I am.” The man answered, “I trust you understand the terms I’ve put forth.”\n\nQuincey nodded. “You… w-want me to give up my Inkling… or else… or else you’ll…”\n\n“Allow me to say that I take no joy in threatening a fellow human like this.” The old cobra cut her off, “I’ve spent my life helping my people. Even my Inkling sympathizes with the human race and values them terribly much… However, the Inklings are beyond any sense of redemption.”\n\nQuincey swallowed. “B-Believe me, sir, I understand through my own Inkling that they have done some awful things. But… if your Inkling cherishes humans, then how are they beyond redemption?”\n\nThe man Inked over, and the orange skin of Vor overtook his contours. The Inklings deep, black eyes stared into Quincey, and appeared bottomless. “Do you know what it is I do?”\n\nQuincey tensely shook her head.\n\n“I was once an enforcer for Osoth, something of a pet project you could say.” Vor began, sitting up straight and almost casual. “I was created to be an extension of herself. I was made to silence her opposition in all forms, and I did so relentlessly. It is, after all, better to be the Devil’s right hand…”\n\n“… T-Than to be in His path.” Quincey finished.\n\nVor nodded. “One day, our infiltrator disappears. He slips through my clutches after Osoth sends me to deal with him. After that, we needed a replacement – someone who could go to worlds and size them up. Despite my failings, or perhaps because of them, Osoth selected me to fill Tempus’ shoes. I began to go to other worlds where I learned the horror of my purpose.”\n\n“Inklings hunger for prana.” Vor stood from his seat and began to take slow, careful steps toward Quincey. “Humans hunger for food. Meats, grains, dairy, vegetables, fruits… Your bodies are all designed to need these things whereas mine is not. An Inkling doesn’t experience hunger in the same way you do, not until they understand the sensation by having you host them.”\n\n“I consume.” Vor glowered as he continued his careful steps. Quincey stepped back even while he was still several feet away. “When a subject under Osoth’s rule would… defect, I would end them by eating them. My purpose, or my power as you might call it, is to eat. I can eat all manner of things. Why, I could have eaten my way out of this prison if I wanted… though it wouldn’t have solved the [i]hunger[/i].”\n\nVor exhaled, a moist breath. “I’ve never been hungry, you see…” He said, his mouth creasing. “Though the moment I first took a host, I experienced the need to eat. Something about my form, my purpose, causes my hosts to hunger. It’s almost like starving, in a way. I can even feel it now, an emptiness in the pit of my stomach – and I’ve eaten, oh… I’ve eaten plenty. I ate full-course meals, I’ve eaten raw foods, I’ve eaten furniture and electronics. If I could fit it in my mouth, I ate it, and if I couldn’t, I ate it in parts. Nothing ever helps.”\n\nThe way he spoke was unnerving. He was almost whispering, though loud enough for her to hear. He stared at her the whole time, his eyes bottomless pits just like his stomach. It was like inside of him was nothingness. He rasped as he described various concepts – honestly it made Quincey hungry just hearing about his struggles. But he kept saying that he could eat, and eat anything and everything, and he was just staring at her the whole time. She didn’t like it, it frightened her. She stepped back until she felt her back hit the door, and he continued toward her in his slow and deliberate pace.\n\n“You understand now, yes?” Vor asked. He gently kneaded his stomach. “It’s a curse, really, to be bound with me. It’s torture. It’s enough to drive a man mad. This man was already deranged when I found him, but he manages. We’ve reached a level of concentration where we can almost ignore the sensations, but they nibble at us so. It’s better than before, much better… My first host on Earth was a little boy. I ate his toys, his pillow, I devoured his clothes and bit holes in the mattress of his bed. I was ravenous – I didn’t expect the feelings to be so intense.”\n\nThe Inkling stopped, just five feet from the girl. He raised his hand to his mouth and kneaded the shape of his muzzle. “His brother tried to stop me,” He said, “His parents came home to see us hunched over the boy’s body, chewing on his meat.”\n\nQuincey’s eyes bugged. Her lip trembled as she stared at Vor, heart racing. “Ugh…!” She was stunned to silence and a lack of breath. She’d never been so jarred and disgusted by an idea in her life.\n\n“Of course… they didn’t have to see for long.” Vor added, his eyes narrowing slightly.\n\nA few steps closer. A few feet away then, almost in arm’s reach. “I was created this way.” The Inkling said, “That black-hearted usurper took a certain joy in my gluttony. I couldn’t help it, and I tried… I tried so very hard. But I cannot escape what I am and what I was created to be… and no other Inkling can either.”\n\n“Echelon needs a villain to fight. Arus needs something to destroy. I need something to eat.” Vor ran his hand down over his chin, a black, forked tongue flicking out from his mouth to lap at the air. “I can think of only one way to save you from us. Will your Inkling part with you? Or must I… be what I was always meant to be?”\n\nQuincey was speechless. She stared at this creature and couldn’t see him as an Inkling, not the sort of Inkling that Echelon or even Duplex was. Vor had a whole different air about him that was amplified by his calm attitude and his hungry stare. He had an aged voice, the kind she’d expect to hear from someone’s grandfather, but he said such awful things! And Vor had [i]done[/i] such awful things. He sounded remorseful, but terrifying in his insistence that he was a monster, that he couldn’t change his nature. Quincey had never felt fear like that before. It gripped her heart and tightened her throat. She was scared beyond tears or cries for help.\n\nVor stepped closer, casting a shadow over the girl. She cringed and lifted her arms, holding them tightly against her chest defensively.\n\n“I… I…”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n“Where’s all the Ink-LUHNGS!”\n\nHaze’s question was cut short as Koralo propelled himself from outside the manor into the foyer in a missile drop-kick that slammed into his back by sheer chance. He’d simply flung himself into the cloud of smog without really thinking about it, and the soles of his feet just so happened to hit pay-dirt. Haze was thrown forward onto the floor, but his form disappeared into the cloudy yellow smoke completely, leaving Koralo to spring up to his feet and look around.\n\nThe interesting part was that he wasn’t coughing or gasping for breath like the others. Max was safe and sound with Koralo on the outside, as the Inkling didn’t really breathe in the literal sense. Max did, but the air passed over Koralo’s yellow mouth before reaching the boy, and the gross fog didn’t pass through the same way. That was a benefit, but it didn’t help in seeing where Haze was hiding. Nothing could pierce the veil of the thick cloud. Koralo couldn’t see two feet in front of him no matter how hard he squinted. This left him open to counter-attack, and it came at his legs, Haze thrusting himself into Koralo’s knees to take him down. The boy hit the floor and tried to grab for the smoky Inkling, but his hands found no purchase. Haze was off and hiding again in an instant.\n\n“Where are you hiding?!” Koralo demanded, rising to his feet and frantically looking around.\n\n“Not telling!” Haze teased. The reptilian Inkling turned swiftly toward the direction of Haze voice and he threw out his tongue like a whip. He shot the sticky appendage into the must and it hit something that he quickly reeled himself toward. He ran, jumped, and tackled his opponent, only to find himself on top of Laila with his tongue stuck to her chest.\n\n“Bleh!” Koralo cried, trying to pry his tongue off of Laila’s turtleneck.\n\n“W… What’re ya’ll doin’?!” Laila coughed, having been tackled by Koralo and pinned under him on the floor. She grabbed his tongue to try and pull it off, her hands getting stuck on it as if by glue. She struggled against the adhesive nature of Koralo’s tongue, making the Inkling deeply uncomfortable as she pulled and yanked his tongue into interesting contours and shapes.\n\n“SCHTOP!” Koralo wailed.\n\nA sudden kick to the side of Koralo’s head sent him reeling, shoving him off of Laila and onto the floor next to her. Laila peeled her hands off the bright yellow tongue still stuck to her chest and grabbed at her rifle, lifting it up to fire around the area where the Inkling boy had been. Her shots didn’t connect with Haze, who was probably long gone by that point. She coughed and rolled aside to finally rip Koralo’s tongue off of her, and the boy reeled it back in to get up and get back to fighting. He took a step and tripped back over Laila, falling forward onto the floor once again where his chin struck the tile. “Oof!” He cried.\n\n“Aw get offa me or I’ll blast ya!” Laila fussed.\n\nOutside the front doors, Mhend had joined Phactys and Lastik in peering into the smokescreen. “What do we do? I can’t see a thing!” She stressed.\n\n“Try and grab ‘em!” Lastik, the orange butterfly, declared. She bounced into the smoke and only seconds later she squeaked in alarm as she was caught, pushed, and bounced along the floor until she hit the wall. The buoyant rubber Inkling could get some distance on surfaces like that, and she felt dizzy after essentially being folded into a ball and jostled around. Her antennae angled toward where she heard Haze’s movements. Sitting up against the wall she lashed out with her arms, stretching them far into the smog until her mitts grabbed hold of a body. She snapped them back with all her might, yanking her captive in.\n\n“GAH!” Kenny squeaked as he snapped back across the room, his sword clattering onto the tile floor. His body jerked with the sudden pull, his jacket pulled down past his nose and exposing his lungs to the unhealthy air around him. He felt a little suffocated, which was also due in part by being squeezed against Lastik’s chest to imprison him. The Inkling butterfly hadn’t realized immediately that she’d caught the wrong person. She clutched him with arms and legs coiling around his body with impossible flexibility, and she crushed him as hard as she could. Kenny’s entire world was Inkling butterfly boob. His head vanished between the swells.\n\nNormally he’d be pretty pleased about such a thing, but he frantically flew into a panic and tried to tear himself away. “You idiot!” He coughed, “What the heck are you doing?!”\n\n“Huh?” Lastic blinked her eyes. “Oh, darnit!”\n\n“You guys are ridiculous!” Haze giggled from somewhere else. “And [i]you[/i] beat Osoth? Was it an accident?”\n\n“Ha, ha, huh?” Haze mocked the bumbling kids only to have to lean aside when a yo-yo flew past his head. It angled around in the mist coming right back at him, and he had to duck it. His body moved fluidly in his smoke, almost too much so, but even with his evasiveness he’d just barely avoided the toy. He followed it as it retreated back outside of his smoke cloud to Jacent’s hand. The teenage super hero held a second yo-yo, this one blue where the other was red, and he unwound them both to grab their wires around their midsections.\n\nHe spun the yo-yos in his hands as fast as he could manage – and thanks to his powers, the speeds those toys could reach were phenomenal. He spun them in circles in the air out to his side, swinging them around and around and around so quickly they traced coloured circles in the air to his left and right. They moved so fast that they cleared the smoke around him as he waded into the mess, parting the yellow cloud as he ventured inside the manor. Haze’s mauve eyes were exposed as Jacent marched nearer, staring at the boy in wonder. Jacent remained light on his feet, twirling as he swung the red yo-yo out in a lash, keeping the blue one spinning like a fan blade to keep the smoke away.\n\nHaze gasped as he hopped backward, stumbling over Daxton’s body and falling onto the floor. He landed on his butt with his legs over the corgi boy, but was grounded only for a moment before he scampered to his feet. “Wow, neat trick!” The Inkling applauded Jacent for his problem-solving skills, and it didn’t sound disingenuous. Still, Haze retreated to where the cloud was thicker so that he remained hidden, away from Jacent’s wildly spinning yo-yos and angry green-eyed stare. His yo-yos spun so swiftly they whistled in the air, creating a constant ringing sound that he couldn’t control. Even so, his ears picked up on Haze’s voice whenever he spoke, and Jacent’s eyes were on the Inkling in an instant, even if he didn’t have visual confirmation of his presence.\n\nMore smoke bellowed from Haze, clouding Jacent’s path and enveloping him in the stuff. Jacent was able to keep to an isolated pocket of clear air however, and he used it to its fullest advantage. He stepped around Daxton, and steered clear of the other kids as he marched tirelessly toward Haze’s approximate position. Haze moved unseen, but not unheard, his footfalls being the only ones other than Jacent’s, and Jacent was doing his best to keep quiet. A decidedly accurate thrust of one yo-yo hit its mark, swinging down over Haze’s body like a club when Jacent gave it enough slack to travel the distance. Back and forth he swung, slugging Haze’s body a couple of times before the Inkling again retreated.\n\nJacent pulled the yo-yo back and resumed his windmill technique.\n\n“Yo, get him Jacent!” Max cheered.\n\n“Knock it off!” Haze complained.\n\nJacent locked on to the sound of Haze’s voice and thrust his body forward in a sudden Comet Crash. He rocketed across the foyer and drove his shoulder into the Inkling, connecting with a firm tackle to take him off-balance. The smoke parted around his charge giving him a brief opening of visibility on Haze’s form, so he twirled, throwing the blue yo-yo into an upswing that struck Haze’s chin. On his toes, he spun, clutching the red yo-yo in his hand, using it to cushion a hard palm strike square into Haze’s chest. The force of which was similar to an oncoming car, lifting Haze off his feet and throwing him into the nearby wall.\n\n“Ngh!” Haze grunted, getting his footing back as he fell to the floor. Jacent had once again started up his vortex windmill with his toys. Haze didn’t like that one bit.\n\nJacent heard the Inkling move straight ahead, and he’d turned to swing his yo-yo in another strike. However the Inkling arrived faster than he’d anticipated, his feline form emerging from the mists a second sooner than Jacent thought was possible. Haze stuck his arm out, and one of the spinning toys was caught around it, wrapping and looping around it until it had completely coiled around. Having stopped at least one end while Jacent continued to spin the other, Haze grabbed the super hero by his neck and held him as he exhaled a particularly thick cloud of off-yellow sickness right into his face.\n\nHe tried to hold his breath, but Haze drove a knee into his stomach to force him to exhale. The resulting gasp for air filled his lungs with invasive smog that burned and clogged, causing him to choke up almost too quickly. His eyes watered as his body was sent into a fit of hacking coughs that sapped his strength. The blue yo-yo’s spinning slowed, and the red one slackened around Haze’s arm to free the Inkling. Jacent felt hands on his head, gripping him and holding him up so that Haze’s knee could be thrust up against his chin and throat. The boy practically gargled a breath and collapsed onto the floor, clutching at his chest in the intense need to breathe but the inability to find any air.\n\n“Haha! Yay!” Haze cheered, “I got you! Now, back to those other Inklings.”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n“… No.”\n\nVor was taken aback. “No?”\n\nQuincey shook her head, wiping tears from her eyes in the same moment. “No,” She repeated, “I won’t part with Duplex. I won’t. I won’t willingly send another creature to death.”\n\nVor raised his brow. “I [i]will[/i] devour your Inkling,” He said, “One way or another. I am giving you a chance to save your own life. If you do not separate from this creature, then I’ll be forced to consume you to get to it. You understand this, do you not?”\n\nQuincey couldn’t meet eyes with the Inkling. She instead stared straight down at her feet, head hung low. “… A long time ago, before we were spliced with the DNA of animals, humans did unspeakable things because they were different from one another.” She said, “The highest rates of incarceration were held by minorities. Hate groups thrived in an environment where their actions were sometimes celebrated by high-standing individuals. When we emerged from the other side of the Skin Plague, individuals who had happened to be spliced with creatures such as flies and spiders were regarded with a stigma simply due to phobic fears of insects and arachnoids. Even in this building there is a history of conquest, of force, to try and change the beliefs of all those who thought differently. Vor, sir… our history is muddied by the fear of those who are different from ourselves. Humans have shown time and again a lack of compassion and empathy, simply due to the fact that not all humans share a common environment. All simply because evolution built us differently to withstand the elements of our homes better. All because there was diversity that should have been cherished.”\n\n“Back then, to find a sentient alien race would likely have started a narrative that should never have existed.” The girl clutched her shirt, balling the fabric up in her hands. “It would have been a question. Should we treat them with the same decency that we are expected to treat our fellow humans? Even if… we didn’t always treat fellow humans with respect. We have been learning and relearning ever since we started to dig up relics of our past that we should not repeat the same mistakes as before. So… no, Vor, I will [i]not[/i] surrender Duplex to you. To do so would be no different than ending the life of a fellow human.”\n\n“… If Inklings are beyond redemption, then what makes us any different?”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\nPolaris charged forth, shield sturdy and spear at the ready. The Baoding balls that orbited his form moved more intensely, whipping around his body in a storm. Arus prepared for the brunt of the attack, tensing her muscles and meeting his shield with her shoulder where his charge was stopped. The metal spheres buffeted her body at a very short distance, forcing her to either be right in close or too far to be effective. She chose close, allowing him to get into body contact where she grabbed the shaft of his pointed spear and held it still, the sharpened spearhead just grazing her side under her arm.\n\n“Even I could tell you that all you can do is thrust with that!” Arus said, pulling the spear to put off the other Inkling’s footing. Before she could attack he threw out his shield, broadsiding her with it right in the face. Her head jerked back with the impact and she stumbled, allowing Polaris to withdraw the spear and slide back. He didn’t step in the regular fashion, instead rising to his toes where he could slide across the floor. He was likely using the weight of his weapons and magnetism to move him around in ways impossible by normal standards. It probably also explained how he hit so [i]hard[/i].\n\n“Guh, you bitch!” Arus groused, flexing her nose and shaking off the blow. She had little time to prepare for the barrage of metal as the Baoding balls entered her range, swinging up and down at her at all angles. One struck her shoulder and jerked her torso back, another clipped her forehead. It hurt, a little, but past that she firmed up, muscles flexed in frustration. Polaris was wily. He dipped and moved and had enough little tricks up his sleeve that there was almost too much to be prepared for. That made him incredibly annoying, and Arus glowered her discontent at him.\n\nPolaris stepped in, thrusting three times with his spear and stepping back out before Arus’ fist could connect with him. He shuffled aside, moving around her in half-circles to avoid being anywhere head-on with her. He always came in at an angle, in some way where she’d have to twist her torso or turn to give him a shot. He controlled her momentum, knowing that once she got going she’d be like a runaway train. If nothing else, his glancing blows with the spear and shield-smacks were only to disrupt her and keep her from gaining any traction. He never attempted to stab her directly – not one attack was aimed at any vitals or the center of her mass simply because he knew it to be useless. Arus could be struck by a meteor and come out the other side unharmed; a little metal spear wasn’t going to do [i]anything[/i] to her.\n\nThe downside to Arus’ powers was that she was required to hold mostly still in order to brush off such fatal blows. She could have stayed unmoving and Polaris wouldn’t have been able to scratch her, but that wasn’t going to win her any fights. It was a matter of moving very little, to keep her defenses up and maintain her unyielding poise while still somehow fighting back. She did this using slow steps, dragging her feet across the wood and carpet rather than lifting them in a step. Polaris would dip in for an attack and she’d swing for what little exposure he had behind that shield he kept brandished. He stepped to her opposing side each time, causing her to either miss or strike the metal of the shield, and he angled the plate in such a way that her fist would often slide off of it. She wasn’t getting anywhere.\n\nForced to retreat, Arus ambled back out of range of the orbiting spheres. “You think you’re so smart with your metal balls and crap.” She said.\n\n“I’ve been fighting all my life, Arus, just like you.” He responded, “The key to taking down a goliath isn’t to match their strength, but to whittle them down. Death by a thousand cuts.”\n\n“Whittle down this!” Arus knelt down, grabbed a chunk of the shattered wooden table she’d smashed upon her entry and whipped the corner leg piece like some kind of Frisbee. Polaris ducked behind his shield, the wood splintering into pieces when it struck the metal. “Argh!” Arus charged forth, fist cocked back as she pierced the protective barrier of flying metal and taking every little hit along the way. The spheres smacking into her face and shoulders didn’t deter her much, though the impacts ached. She muscled through, and Polaris peeked out just in time to see her approach. He cowered behind the shield again and Arus straight-armed the metal plate with her full force. Her knuckles dented the metal on impact and the force of thrust kicked Polaris back off his feet. He sailed through the air and struck the wall next to the hearth, gasping as his back shattered some shelving there.\n\nThe white Inkling continued her assault. Polaris’ protective shielding of rotating orbs didn’t follow him faster than she had, and she charged forth again to slam into his shield once more. He held it up to protect himself, but Arus simply began crashing down on it with punch after punch. Her slow, winding blows shoved her opponent against the wall, cracking the wood paneling past the wallpaper. Large, fist-shaped dents deformed the Caduceus emblem, projecting outward from the back of the shield toward Polaris’ face, but failing to find purchase in the strong yield of the metal. Every fist exploded against the metal with a loud, booming crash. The kite shield gradually lost its shape under the flurry.\n\nPolaris tried to fight back with the spear, but Arus anticipated this feeble attempt and halted her assault to grab the weapon with both hands. She forced it into a bend, grunting as she hooked the solid metal shaft around on itself so that the pointed head of the spear angled back on its wielder. Although he was shocked, Polaris took that as his opportunity to slip away, pushing himself aside to escape. He used the new crook of his spear to hook Arus’ foot, and with a hard yank he tripped her up. She fell onto her back on the floor, where just above her the fourteen Baoding balls congealed into one large metal orb and slammed down into her gut. Unprepared for that, it drove the air out of her lungs.\n\nPolaris panted, the bend in the spear correcting itself by the use of his powers, straightening out into a proper weapon once more. The large divots in the shield did the same to a lesser extent, pushing back out only a slight ways. Evidence of Arus’ assault still remained, though the shield reformed to something closer to its original proportions rather than a bent and gnarled mess. The cluster of Baoding balls rose to slam down on Arus once more, but instead met her fist as she threw a blind punch upward at the mass. The balls scattered around the room as she smashed the orb apart. They quickly resumed their orbit around Polaris’ body in the time it took for Arus to get back to her feet.\n\n“What’s the matter, need to take a break?” Arus shook out her hands before returning them to tightly clenched fists.\n\n“Hrah!” Polaris threw his spear, and it flew in a perfectly straight line almost as fast as Arus could blink. She snatched it out of the air before it could impale her face, and it served as distraction enough for Polaris to close the gap. He was led by his shield, both hands on the grips on its back as he thrust forth in a shoulder tackle that had him gliding across the room startlingly fast. He slammed into the other Inkling and forced her back, flattening her against the wall just under the stairs. Arus was jarred but not completely blindsided, and with one hand holding the spear she used her other to try and punch him in the head.\n\nPolaris stepped back, causing her to miss. She threw another haymaker to his shield side, which he parried. He threw her fist aside with a swing of his shield that left her completely exposed. He reared his own fist back, and the swarm of metal spheres clustered around his hand into a makeshift ball mace that he slammed into her face. A splash of colour erupted behind her closed eyes at the impact, the Baoding balls slipping away from Polaris’ fist as it came across her face. He took the spear from her hand as she was dazed and thrust it at her, jamming it into the wall beside her head to make her flinch just long enough for him to get away.\n\nHe stumbled backward his footing failing as he stepped over the shattered parts of the wooden coffee table. He nearly tripped, but instead his legs buckled to a kneel that he quickly corrected.\n\nArus fumed. She glared intensely at the red and blue Inkling, anger burning in her violet eyes. She tore the spear from the wall and smashed it two-handed onto the floor, bending and deforming its shape again before she threw it away. She watched the metal spheres at Polaris’ command swarm back behind him, fanning out in a circle before lazily resuming their protective orbit.\n\n“You seem upset.” Polaris pointed out condescendingly.\n\nArus smiled angrily. “No, no… I haven’t had this much fun in a while.”\n\nPolaris chuckled, “Honestly, that’s high praise coming from you. You always were something of a legend among the ranks.”\n\n“Flattery is only going to get you hit harder.” Arus responded.\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n“You’re certainly something special, aren’t you?” Vor crossed his arms as he peered down at Quincey. “But you’re naïve. While you may be sympathetic to Inklings, to them you’re just a means to an end. You’re food and little else.”\n\nQuincey bit her lip, watching him fearfully.\n\nVor closed his eyes and lowered his head somberly. “If that is your choice, then I suppose I’ve done my best to convince you. I’ve failed. This will be just one more sin to live with.”\n\nQuincey gasped as Vor lunged forward, crowding her against the door with his hands planted to either side of her to keep her trapped. The girl screamed, cowering against the cold metal and trying her best to protect herself from the Inkling’s advance, but it was little use. He topped her in size, and pushed in so close that she couldn’t wiggle her way free. She felt pins and needles creep along her head and neck as he leaned over her and looked down on her from above, and she couldn’t bring herself to meet his empty gaze.\n\nVor parted his maw. His shape of a snake was befitting of the act, as his jaw unhinged to open, gaping like a true reptile’s mouth ready to swallow prey too large to normally eat. His inky face contorted, stretching ugly as his jaw stretched lower and wide, pulling the flesh of his face down to stretch his eyes and elongate his nose. He rasped, his mouth expanding like a black hole to the size of Quincey’s whole head. His warm breath and dripping, inky drool rained down on her, and she screamed and curled up to hide from him helplessly. Once he’d gaped his face to the appropriate size, he lowered, descending upon her like a predator to snap his jaws shit around the top of her cranium.\n\nShe squeaked, tensing up and cutting off the sound of her fright. Her entire body froze as he clamped down over her head and stopped as well. The two of them stood there for a moment, black ink drooling over Quincey’s features in grotesque, slobbish lines. Vor blinked his eyes in confusion, mouth wrapped around Quincey’s hairline almost entirely, swallowing her red bob cut. The Inkling withdrew, his lips stretching out briefly as if stuck to Quincey’s head, popping off almost comically when he’d pulled far enough away. His face snapped back to normal proportion, with some of Quincey’s red hairs sticking out of his mouth.\n\nQuincey’s scalp had all been peeled away, and beneath was just viscous, silvery ink swirling with rainbow fumes. Quincey meekly lifted her head to peer back up at the Inkling as he stepped back, his expression wrought with confusion.\n\n“… You’re not a human at all!” Vor spat.\n\nQuincey smiled. “Nope!”\n\nHer entire body inflated and then popped like a balloon, the silver gunk that built her insides speckling into the air as small droplets and disappearing. Vor lifted his arms a little as if to block the explosion, but it was more akin to a cartoonish pop than an actual burst of considerable mass. It even sounded like the unrealistic farce it resembled. Vor covered his mouth, swallowing what remained inside, his brow creased as his mind raced.\n\nThe taste was unmistakable. It was Inkling.\n\nHe slowly lowered his hand, staring ahead at the door intensely. He breathed out a raspy hiss as it dawned on him: he’d been duped. Whatever Inkling that was, their host was still safe and sound in that room where he’d left her.\n\n“Echelon…” He growled, shaking in anger.\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\nWhen Quincey was dragged out of the room, Natalie sat there on the floor for a few moments. Then she popped into a black, inky mess and disappeared. Slowly one of the crates’ lids opened up, and a pair of red eyes peeked out.\n\n“Ha! They bought it!” Natalie grinned. She forced the metal crate’s top off with a thrust of her arms, and it flew into the air and clattered onto the floor. She rose from the crate and stretched her arms and legs, her rear likewise flexing in her little pink shorts as she worked out the strain from cramming herself into the box. She wasn’t alone inside, Quincey rose and slumped over the side of the box, gasping for breath. It’d been rather cramped inside with the both of them.\n\nNatalie shook her head, swinging her dreads about. “This guy’s powers are useful! I never would have been able to move those crates or get them open without them!” She said. She turned a little to peer back at Quincey, giving her an apologetic smile. “Sorry for crushing you to death under my butt.”\n\n“We agreed that I was the bigger one, so…” Quincey rubbed her head, mussing her bob cut. She righted her glasses on her snout and carefully climbed out of the crate to stretch her legs. She was thankful to not be in that confined space for any longer than she had, but she did wonder as she smoothed out her clothes just what Natalie had in mind for what came next.\n\nNatalie stepped out as well. “You alright?” She asked.\n\n“Huh? Oh,” Quincey looked Natalie’s way, “I’m fine. Duplex is managing. I don’t know for how long though… it’s gotten in to see Vor already, so we should do whatever you’re going to do as quickly as we can.”\n\n“Right.” Natalie agreed. She inked over quickly, Echelon’s black form with its pink shine taking over as her skin. Unlike most Inklings, Echelon seemed to wear some clothes. Tracings of a one-piece leotard were formed over her flesh, a bright pink skull planted square on her chest in the center of it. The light caught her and made her black body shine, particularly around her rear, which Quincey couldn’t help but take notice of. The inked wolf raised her hand, calling on Polaris’ powers to help her. She pushed forward, putting pressure on the steel door to bend it outward, causing the metal to creak and groan. She shoved a considerable dent into it, warping its shape.\n\nThen, she got down like a sprinter, fingers touching the floor and feet curled up to start a dash. Her little tail wagged above her bulbous backside, shaking it around as she smirked. “Comet Crash!” She shouted, picking up in a high-speed run. Jacent’s super powers increased her momentum exponentially, until she came crashing into the door with a couple of applied G-forces. The steel came loose, ripping from the frame and shooting across the hall where it struck the wall and fell to the floor with a deafening crash. Echelon skid to a stop just outside, with an Eos soldier to her left and right. She caught the man and the woman completely unawares, throwing her body into a spin-kick that connected with the one on the right, her propelled foot crashing into their face and sending them careening to the floor.\n\nShe spun and stopped facing the other soldier. Their weapon was armed and ready, and they fired a blast to subdue her. “Actima!” She shouted, just before the shot went off, and her form blurred as she stepped aside faster than most eyes could follow. She zipped like a shadow to the right, then further still until she stepped up onto the wall.\n\n“Comet Crush!” She shouted, pushing off the wall like a catapult, thrusting her rear back into the man’s body to smash him against the wall. He let out a hoarse, breathless grunt as he squished up against the steel, and when Echelon landed, the Eos man slumped to the floor unconscious.\n\nQuincey stepped out of the room, her hands grasping the bent and battered doorframe as she observed the scene in awe. She turned her attention to the dent in the wall where Echelon’s bee-sting had crushed a fully grown adult male so intensely that he couldn’t seem to get up. “Whoa…” She blushed, “You are [i]so cool[/i].”\n\n“I’ve been waiting a long time to give these people what’s coming to them.” Echelon punched her fist into her open palm, feeling vindicated with her beat-down. “Are you ready? Let’s get out of here.”\n\n“O-Okay!” Quincey agreed, hurrying out and stepping over one of the groaning soldiers as she and Echelon hurried down the hall.\n\nTheir footfalls echoed through the mostly empty corridors, the two of them running as quickly as they could to escape. They had a rough approximation as to where the elevator was that brought them down into that facility, but everything looked so similar to what came before it that it was impossible to know just where they were. The place was formed into one giant loop though, and Echelon knew if she kept going around she would eventually find the path. The problem was time; those PA speakers were blaring an alarm, making it both hard to concentrate and reminding the girls that they only had so much time before they’d be found and caught.\n\nOther footsteps were stomping on up ahead from around a nearby corner. Echelon stopped when Garrison rounded the bend with two other Eos soldiers in tow. “There they are!” Garrison barked, “Get them!”\n\n“Oh!” Quincey panted, stumbling to a stop and bumping into Echelon from behind. This stopped her, and she quickly grabbed hold of Echelon’s shoulders, pushing up against her back frightfully. The girl could only turn her attention to her left where the large automatic blast doors sat, the ones leading into the strange factory they’d seen before. Insistently she pulled on Echelon, tugging her to the side and hurrying with her to the doors. They opened for the girls and they rushed inside as they closed behind them.\n\nEchelon turned and looked to either side of the door to find the control panel for it on the left side. Practically jumping on it, she rammed her fist into the panel as hard as she could, smashing a hole into the console. Metal plates bent, sparks fizzled out, and in doing so the door was rendered inert. She could hear the soldiers on the other side pounding on the door as it refused to open for them.\n\n“Oh my God…” Quincey marveled at the facility that stretched out before her. It was a fully-fledged Fabricatory, with all the common trappings of a standard construction facility, though crudely made and set up into a small, more crowded space. Everything from architect consoles, to smelting machines, to molding presses had been set up along a twisted and tangled assembly line connected by conveyer belts that blocked off several sections of the room. Machines with tiny, automatic, robotic arms worked, welding and fusing complicated circuitries together, assembling them from wires and chips into forms that were later cased.\n\nThe air was hot in the room. The shielded smelter melted down various machinery into liquid components that were then transferred to be shaped and hardened. A lot of what went into it looked like old junk, particularly stuff from hospitals. Echelon turned to spy a crash kit get gobbled up by the waiting maw of the smelter, to be melted down and deposited into containment to send it along to be molded. Welding fumes and melted plastic permeated the air, where the workers there wore masks to handle the scent.\n\nThe place was fully staffed. Many workers in white lab coats and heat-retardant suits worked at various stations, either supplying the line or working the machinery. Anything that required human hands was done, including taking the finished product off the end of the line and stashing it into boxes. Quincey watched a koala woman take a finished rifle from a table and fire it at a target at the end of the room. She didn’t quite see the shot impact, but then that was the point. It was the same sort of rifle that Eos had been using that whole time – the same ones that they’d fired at her so many days ago.\n\n“Is this what I think it is?” Echelon asked.\n\n“They were making them here the whole time.” Quincey finished the thought.\n\nThe workers started to notice them. It was understandable that they had been unable to pick up on their presence before then, what with the tremendous noise coming from all the machinery filling the entire room. Eventually though they began to see that two girls had somehow gotten into the factory, and they were smart enough to know what that meant.\n\n“H’oh boy.” Echelon said.\n\nQuincey watched as the workers started picking up weapons to defend themselves with. She intended to run, but a sudden backlash made her gasp in shock, where she clutched her chest and nearly collapsed had Echelon not caught her. The Inkling looked at her in surprise. “What’s wrong?!” She asked.\n\nQuincey breathed heavily, silent for only a moment as her gaze seemed to wander in thought, like she was listening to something. “Vor… tried to eat Duplex,” She said, much to Echelon’s surprise. “He [i]eats[/i] Inklings!”\n\n“What do you mean he eats Inklings?” Echelon inquired.\n\nQuincey blinked rapidly up at Echelon. “He eats [i]everything[/i]!” She exasperated, “My God, we have to get out of here.”\n\n“That’s going to be easier said than done,” Echelon said, taking Quincey’s hand and pulling her as she dashed into the factory, collapsing behind some of the conveyer belts for cover. The pig girl stumbled and tripped, landing on her belly on the floor. Echelon helped her up, at least enough to sit up where she wasn’t completely exposed. “Move, move!” She said, leading Quincey through the twisted route of the factory as impact bullets began to ting and bang off the metal machinery around them. Some shots scattered metal scrap around the room, screws and cogs being thrown off the belts when shots just barely missed the girls’ heads.\n\nThey hid behind a molding press, its mighty piston pushing down to force the melted metal scrap into shapes that would house a fusion core. Not too far from them was a clustered area where high amounts of such energy were stored in a massive container, containing tremendously lethal amounts of plasma energy that crackled in its supercharged state. The machines kept chugging along, performing their duties of assembly with robotic limbs suspended on rails above working the more intricate tasks. For the most part the workers weren’t afraid to fire into the mess, even going so far as to blow one of the metal arms off the rail where it fell limp and lifeless to the ground. Quincey tried to peek out around the machine, but a shot nearly took her in the air. She jerked back behind her cover and rubbed her ear sorely, the sound of the hard-force bullet striking the metal press machine ringing in her head.\n\nEchelon reached aside and plucked a single hair off Quincey’s head. “Ow!” The girl squealed.\n\n“Sorry, I just need to use this.” Echelon said, “I’m going to divide their fire as best as I can. We need to make our way to one of the other doors before that dump truck with arms finds his way in here.”\n\n“O-Okay…” Quincey nodded, “I think the nearest one is over there!”\n\nShe pointed past the press machine, past a line of conveyer belt, past the fusion energy supply, to an area where stacked crates, junk, and machinery took up a majority of the space. They had been meticulously placed, almost a perfect blocks on their own atop skids used to lug them around. Echelon peered over to see a door tucked into the stacks, a big one just like all the others. “Hey, remember that cargo lift out front? Maybe that leads out there.” Echelon theorized, “We should try going out that way!”\n\n“Agreed!” Quincey concurred.\n\n“Alright,” Echelon nodded. “Duplex!”\n\nIn moments Echelon’s form split like a cell, tearing into two. The forms were equally sized, with neither losing any mass, creating an exact duplicate of Echelon’s shiny black and pink body. It was a little gradual, and they split with a wobble that rippled their frames like gelatin. The two Inklings made sure Quincey was prepared before they took off. One ditched left, and the other – assumedly the original Echelon – headed to the right with Quincey following behind. The plan worked as intended. Some of the factory workers fired at the duplicate and some did not. Ultimately, any fewer shooters made the trip easier for the girls, who scuttled as quickly as they could while trying to avoid getting hit. Unfortunately they weren’t small enough targets.\n\nQuincey was struck in the shoulder by a fist-sized projectile of invisible force. The impact smacked her flesh loudly and threw her aside where she stumbled and hit the floor. The ache was immediate, but the damage wasn’t severe. It was enough force to numb her arm, but it still stung right around the center of her upper bicep. She cried out as she hit the floor, which Echelon responded to quickly by turning to run back and retrieve her. This caused her to get struck as well, her ink rippling a couple of times as two shots connected with her back. They had a unique effect on an exposed Inkling in the sense that Echelon truly acted as a shell for Natalie’s body. She seemed to shake and morph to the blows like a loosened suit stuck to a human body. She snapped back proper in mere moments, but the sensations that remained made her knees shake. She powered through the pain to pick Quincey up off the ground, and with one arm around the girl she hurried her toward the door.\n\nThe Echelon duplicate eventually unraveled under fire, its body splitting apart and popping like a balloon to disappear into inky droplets in the air. Still, it had served its purpose. Echelon reached the doors with Quincey and they opened to let them through. Garrison stood outside with the two soldiers at his flanks just as before. They had been too slow in their escape and were confronted with a situation where the large super soldier penned them in, with gun-toting lab coats closing in behind them. Garrison had his weapon charged and ready along with his cohorts, and he didn’t wait a second before opening up on the girls.\n\n“Aru…!” Echelon tried to call on Arus’ powers, the only ones she knew of that would be able to withstand the barrage, but Quincey moved first. The rotund pig girl threw herself at Echelon to protect her front, wrapping her arms around the Inkling and holding tight as the shots started hitting her in the back. The sound she made as the impact shots smacked her flesh was a choked cry of pain. The hits forced the air out of her lungs and made it hard to breathe, and she cringed heavily, slumping against Echelon’s body to protect her with her wider frame. Garrison and his cronies had to have fired around eight shots in total, and by the sixth Quincey was getting limp. Her grasp on Echelon slipped away and she slid against the Inkling wolf’s body on her way to the floor. Echelon had to hold her up as pain racked her body too intensely for her to stand.\n\nGarrison called a cease fire when it became evident that Quincey was going down. They moved on Echelon instead while Quincey’s knees buckled and she gasped for breath. Echelon didn’t have time to act, and so she grabbed hold of Quincey and scooped her up into her arms. The weighted pig was no light lift, but Echelon picked her up in her arms to hold her in a bridal carry. She barely managed to hoist the hefty girl, but once her legs were off the ground Echelon rushed forth. Actima’s powers became useful once more as she went from 0 to 100 in under a second, rushing past Garrison as a black, pink, and pig coloured streak.\n\nMoving that fast was difficult. Echelon didn’t have as much of a grasp on the power of super speed as Actima himself did, and so her mind just couldn’t keep up with how fast she was going. It was a sprint if nothing else, and the exertion it took was no less intense than a regular meters-long dash carrying a girl who weighed somewhere around the one-hundred and eighty pound area. By the time she had reached the end of the hall to the T-junction that fed back into the loop, Echelon was panting heavily for breath. She nearly fell forward as she slowed faster than she anticipated herself doing, but managed to keep her desperate footing. A look to her left and right and she saw yet another large, bi-sectioned vertical-opening door at the end of the hall to her right. That seemed as good a place as any to handle large shipments, so she hurried that way.\n\n“Nn…” Quincey whined, wincing and sniffling as she cried.\n\n“You’re okay. Come on, we’re doing fine.” Echelon assured her, huffing as she ran down the hall.\n\nShe was only feet from the door when Garrison rounded the corner and more shots came her way. Echelon called on Arus’ powers as she slowed her dash to a near stop, tensing up so that the force shots that hit her back would just bounce off. They jerked her body forward whenever they hit, and she took two, four, six… ten shots to her shoulders and back while shuffling her feet across the floor and doing her best to keep Quincey from taking any more damage. She held her breath through the entire ordeal, where a vein would have bulged in her forehead as she struggled forward. The last few feet felt like ages, with shots whistling past her ears deafeningly and more still striking her body and almost causing her to fall down. The doors opened as she dragged herself toward them, and then closed behind her to be belted by the bullets instead.\n\nOnce again she turned, released her hold on Arus’ abilities, and slammed her foot into the console next to the door to damage it enough to keep it from opening. She turned then to see just what she had been looking for – a massive cargo lift with rails on the sides of it. There were boxes and machinery lining the outside of the room, creating an enclosure around the lift that made everything seem smaller. Even one of the modified Eos trucks was parked at the far end, having likely been transported down there by the lift that was big enough to house it. The lights were dim, but a number of them on the ceiling lit up a massive steel section on the roof that was clearly the door leading to the outside. The giant metal teeth of the portal were clamped shut, but a console next to the lift clearly controlled the opening and the lift’s operations.\n\nEchelon carried Quincey to the lift, watchful for more soldiers. She started by laying the girl out on the edge. Quincey laid back and stared at the closed metal door in the ceiling, sucking in air she was thankful to take. She whimpered and sobbed, but wiped away her tears. Echelon frowned at the girl, but with her safety assured for the moment she returned to the console and pulled the big squared switch that said “OPEN” in big letters. The silent room became noisy as the massive doors above slowly parted, machinery whirring to life, machinations clanking and clacking to open their way to freedom. Next she dragged her finger upward across the screen, lighting up a slider that went from red, to yellow, to green as it rose. The hydraulics of the lift were set into motion, the locks releasing on it with a boom to allow it to raise.\n\nEchelon hurried back to the lift as it rose and she climbed onto it next to Quincey to ride it up. On her hands and knees she looked down upon Quincey and placed one hand on her shoulder. “Quincey, are you okay?”\n\n“It hurts…” Quincey whined.\n\nEchelon smiled just a little as she cupped Quincey’s cheeks in her hands. “Don’t worry, it’s almost over.” She said, “Thank you for protecting me. You were very brave.”\n\nQuincey coughed, sobbing even still. Echelon carefully lifted her up and embraced her, resting her chin on the girl’s shoulder and wrapping her arms around her to hold her tight. Quincey hugged Echelon, holding to her for the sense of safety the super-powered Inkling provided. While they hugged, Echelon carefully peeled the back of Quincey’s shirt up to see bruises formed on her flesh, marring the pink flesh with disgusting, darkened injury. She breathed out an empathetic sigh, lowering her shirt again and caressing her as comfortingly as she could.\n\n“Mhend.” The Inkling said. Using her comrade’s healing powers, she backed off Quincey’s hug to instead give the girl a kiss. Quincey tensed, but while Mhend’s healing powers did their work she found herself relaxing as the pain her in her subsided to warm, pleasant tingles instead. Her head felt light, perhaps explaining why she insisted on staying lip-locked with Echelon for the few seconds more than were necessary, but in the end she felt better. Her injuries and her pain weren’t completely cured, but what was an almost unbearable, stinging pain became no more than a lightly pinched nerve that kept her from twisting too far.\n\nThe slow ascent to the outside seemed like a quiet moment to enjoy, but only for so long. Loud crashes were heard as a door from a walkway above was brutalized. Screeching and groaning metal echoed throughout the chamber punctuated by heavy slams. Quincey and Echelon looked up to see the door be punctured by an orange, inky hand that grabbed pieces of the steel and circuitry to rip them away. Once a hole had been worked into it large enough, Vor pushed his head through and clamped down with his jaws. He took large bites out of the metal until he could fit his body through, chomping and smacking his lips together, swallowing sharp, jagged shapes that bulged his throat and disappeared into his body. He ate his way through the door, and even as he stepped out onto the catwalk only a few feet above them and away, wires and metal chunks flaked from his maw like cookie crumbs.\n\n“You don’t understand, Echelon!” The Inkling bellowed at the girls. He threw himself over the rail of the catwalk, leaping from there to the lift in one fluid motion, landing like a trained acrobat. The disgusting Inkling man was raging, panting and grunting, viscous black goo dripping from his maw that he sloppily slurped up when he’d the mind to. The sticky saliva sprinkled from his mouth as he shouted at them.\n\n“You [i]cannot[/i] leave! I cannot allow you back into the world to endanger the lives of the humans! You can’t escape what you are!” He screamed at them, “I [i]will[/i] consume you, and I will do it here and now!”\n\n“You don’t have the right.” Echelon rose, leaving Quincey at the edge of the lift to step forward. She clenched her fists and took a fighting stance. “I’m not going to let you endanger the lives you claim to be saving.”\n\n“We are [i]monsters[/i]. We are [i]demons[/i] who bring nothing but Hell in our wake!” Vor growled in exhaustion.\n\n“Speak for yourself!” Echelon boosted forward, and the Inklings clashed.\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n“Aiee! Help! I’m being [i]victimized[/i]!” Mhend cried, flailing her arms and legs as Haze drew her into the smoke and tossed her around. She squealed as she flew through the air, the sound cut short when she hit the floor in a combination ink-bat and metal-leg sound of smack and clunk. She’d long since lost her air pistol, which Haze had smartly disarmed her of at the beginning when he decided to get Phactys and her in on the fun.\n\nPhactys was struggling. His sense of foresight could only really tell him one thing: he was going to be hit, and it was going to be from somewhere he couldn’t see. Based on the sounds coming from various directions he could form an idea of where things might happen from, but even he couldn’t say for certain how things were playing out. It was taking his one big strength and making it useless. He instead came up with another plan – rather than fight Haze actively on his home turf, he sought to get together with his friends and act as one to react.\n\n“Guys, join up!” He called into the smoke, “Get over here!”\n\nLastik was the first to find him, practically running into him carrying Kenny. Phactys had them join hands. Haze, able to see and hear this with all clarity, tried to break them up. He came in, swatted at their arms, pushed around anyone who broke off, but the others would scramble to jump Haze as a singular unit. The smoky Inkling’s opening became rather small, as every time he’d dip in to attack he’d have two more sets of hands on him trying to hold him down. A few times he just barely managed to wiggle free.\n\nKoralo found his way into the chain, and the group sought out Mhend who was stressing on the floor. They scraped her up and got her settled, finding Laila near the truck as they stepped around the room batting away Haze when he tried to terrorize them. They ushered Laila and Kenny into the truck and had them hold the doors closed to keep them safe, though Daxton had yet to be found in the mist, as did Jacent. The police remained outside, some still struggling with Eos stragglers, but for the most part things were going well out there.\n\n“You can’t take all of us at once!” Phactys declared.\n\nHaze made a frustrated sound. “Look! We’re just trying to take you all home where we can find a different planet and leave the humans alone!” Haze said, “They don’t deserve to be terrorized by us!”\n\n“We agree whole heartedly on that notion!” Mhend said, “But we’re not terrorizing the humans! I would never terrorize a person!”\n\n“Or horrorize or nightmarate or panicify!” Koralo added.\n\n“Yeah well you don’t give people asthma attacks!” Haze said. He rushed in to attack them, coming right at Lastik who meandered with her friends in the smoke. He smacked into her arm with the full force of both of his, trying to break her grip on Phactys’ fingers. Instead of breaking them apart, he sagged when Lastik’s arm gave way like a rubber band, entrapping Haze’s axe-handle smash. “Oh!” Lastik exclaimed, “Here! He’s here!”\n\nKoralo lashed out his tongue and stuck it to the side of Haze’s head. Haze had tried to flee, but found himself tethered to Koralo by way of the sticky, yellow tongue that latched on like crazy glue and wouldn’t let go. Haze fussed, tugging on Koralo’s tongue to try and free himself while attempting to move away at the same time, to get some distance between him and the group. “Gothim!” Koralo slurred around his tongue.\n\nThe line of Inklings closed around him in the worst game of ring around the rosy that Haze had ever played. Even so, their sudden assault of open-hand slaps and shin-kicks weren’t the most effective attacks that Haze had been hit by in the last ten minutes, let alone his whole life. If anything, it was agitating. Haze flinched and raised his arms to try and defend himself, grousing at their slaps. “Hey, quit it!” He yelled, “Stop it you dummies!”\n\nOne person who could see the entire scene grinned to himself, pushing on one smashed skiff on the truck to lift himself to a sitting position. Daxton could see the whole thing play out, from Phactys’ plan to stick together to the entertaining beat-down group the Inklings had assembled to wrestle him. Since the Inklings were all bound by humans and just so happened to follow certain rules of human physiology, they all had heat signatures. Admittedly those signatures were masked, as were most things on the outside when an Inkling took over. Certain elements of human sturdiness gave way to fluid flexibility of an Inkling’s body – especially in Shelly’s case. They didn’t have to breathe in the smokescreen that Daxton bunched his shirt up over his face to protect himself from. But they [i]did[/i] make heat, and Daxton’s STOP could see the green-orange figures moving around.\n\nHe felt a little weakened from inhaling as much of Haze’s pollution as he did. Without being able to breathe proper, his muscles felt weak and strained and his heart pounded. His head felt like it was bulging and his face must have been awful red. Still, he managed to pull himself up using the truck for leverage. He got to standing and dragged his feet around back behind to find the opening in the flatbed where he could roll himself onto it. Taking the smallest breaths he could, the corgi boy rolled across the back of the truck until his back his the tripod-mounted turret.\n\nFrom there he reached up, grabbed a handle of the device, and grit his teeth as he pulled down as hard as he could. He lifted his upper body, his legs staying stiff and limp for a moment before he could tuck his feet up under himself. He slapped his other hand onto the other handle of the weapon and pulled harder, groaning as he heaved his body to slump over his prize. He had more or less manned the turret, though he practically had to mount it himself as his feet felt like wet spaghetti noodles. He might have been suffocating, or somewhere close to it. Perhaps his vision would have been tunneling, if he had eyes. Indeed, the signal from his STOP was a little fuzzy at times, static distorting the images before him, but he tried not to think about it.\n\nHaze finally had enough, and he thrust his fist into Mhend’s face as hard as he could. As sturdy as her one metal limb was, her tiny little body couldn’t withstand the blow and she released her hold on her friends’ arms and toppled to the floor. Haze took that as his opening to break away, slipping through their fingers before they could recover. He bumbled out of the circle, spinning around to address them as he got his distance again.\n\n“Okay, listen! Seriously you guys!” Haze protested, “I like humans too, I really do! They’re really neat and the best hosts ever, but Vor’s right! Osoth made us bad! Why can’t you see that?”\n\n“We’re not all bad.” Phactys said, “You’re standing in a room full of the most harmless Inklings Osoth ever made!”\n\n“Yeah, like, oh nooo…” Lastik teased, “I’m so scary because I’m [i]stretchy[/i]!”\n\n“Surely Mhend’s healing powers will be the death of us all!” Mhend joined in, picking herself up off the floor and rubbing her nose.\n\n“Maybe if I hork a loogie into the fountain at the mall, everyone will get super grossed out!” Koralo cackled.\n\nHaze blinked his eyes, stuttering a little. “W-Well, I mean…! No! It’s not about that! It’s about…! But you…! Echelon! Echelon used to be Osoth’s best general ever! She tore down entire civilizations! And you think that she can really just beat Osoth and then just leave it?!”\n\n“Well, yeah, dude.” Koralo answered. “Why not?”\n\n“But look at her!” Haze squeaked, “She practically IS…!”\n\n“Hey! Smoky!”\n\n“Huh?” Haze’s ear twitched and he turned his head to see the barrel of Daxton’s turret angled right at him, able to hear the high-pitched hum of the weapon’s full charge. He had only a moment to register what was about to happen.\n\n“Uh oh.”\n\nDaxton fired. The volley of hard-force energy actually rumbling rather than whistling, simply due to the sheer size of it. Haze was struck right in the center, folded in half and carried across the foyer were he splattered against the wall just next to the entryway to the sitting room. The ink covering his body splashed over the wall like wet paint, revealing the host beneath. A black cat from head to toe save for his shocked cyan hair, the young adult male’s big yellow cat eyes were wide with shock. His long and crooked whiskers twitched, from his muzzle and his eyebrows. He was dressed casually. His pants were slim-fit at the waist but wide near the bottom, black and patterned with gold. His shirt, if one could call it that, was just a pink paste of fabric that covered his chest, and another covered his upper back. He had chains hanging off his pockets and white gloves where every other finger was missing. For a moment he stayed stuck to the wall as if plastered there, the smoke in the room swiftly beginning to disappear.\n\nOnce he was visible, the black cat’s eyes fluttered and he slid off the wall unconscious. He fell face-first onto the ground, arms at his sides and legs straight back like a plank. He landed on the floor with Haze’s ink desperately retreating into his body.\n\nDaxton broke out into a wheezing laugh as he hunched over the turret, covering the drool that escaped his mouth with one of his wrists.\n\nThe Inklings stood there just staring for a second. Jacent was revealed to be somewhere near the stairs, seated up against them to catch his breath. Koralo was the first to break the red rover chain and spring forward in a dance of joy. “Whoa dude! Primo strats!” He cried, rushing the truck and hopping up onto the side of the vehicle to smack Daxton on the back. “You pasted him!”\n\nDaxton let out a hoarse cough when Koralo smacked him, slouching more pitifully over the turret. “Yeah.” He wheezed.\n\nKenny and Laila got out of the truck, and Murphy entered the foyer through the front entrance. The officer quickly approached the unconscious cat and knelt down over him to turn him over onto his back. She peered at his face, gave him a couple of gentle smacks in the cheek. “Well, he’s not dead.” She noted, resting a hand on his chest. He was still breathing, he just had his daylights knocked out. “How’s the bruiser doing?”\n\n~ (_) ~\n\nThe impact of Haze hitting the wall caught Polaris’ attention in the midst of his battle with Arus. He paused only for a second to look toward the door, seeing that Haze’s cloud of off-yellow smog had started to fade. “Oh no,” He muttered, “Remi.”\n\nHis lapse in defense was Arus’ opening, and she was on him in a moment. She palmed his forehead and put her full weight into bringing him to the floor. She buried his head part-way into the foundation of the manor, crushing a hole through hardwood and cement as she came down on him. Dazed, Polaris was helpless as she pulled his head up and slammed it down again, harder than before, bashing his head into the concrete over and over again. Wooden floorboards shot up, cracks spread over the concrete, and Polaris must have been part-way to the basement by the time Arus stopped. The metal balls that floated around his body fell out of the air one by one, clattering onto the ground and rolling away.\n\nBut she wasn’t finished there, oh no. She grabbed his foot as she stood, yanking him out of his hole and dragging him across the floor before lurching into a spin. She picked up momentum and speed as she dragged him in a circle, soon lifting him off the floor and spinning him around in the air. Like a professional in the hammer toss, Arus wound up into a rapid spin that had Polaris’ yelling cutting out as the sound tried to trail his vocals. The sheer speed at which the air rushed past his body bent his face and features into an arc. Once she’d gotten a wind-up inhuman by any standard, Arus released Polaris and let him soar through the air. He crashed into the wall next to the doorway to the foyer. He struck so hard that the wall collapsed around him and he landed on the other side.\n\nDebris scattered all over the rest of the Inkling group as Polaris hit the floor in a tumble, his shield sliding across the tile. He fell limp on his front, but groaned as he pushed his hands under himself to lift his body and look up. His eyes fell onto the black cat that hosted Haze and fixated on them as he pushed himself up to his feet.\n\nMurphy tried to act, but the slightest twitch brought the flying broad side of a kite shield to her. Polaris thrust the shield at the canine cop, slamming into her front and shoving her away from Haze. Jacent pushed up off the floor to move on Polaris as Arus exited the sitting room to continue her smackdown. Polaris grit his teeth, or did the Inkling equivalent to it, throwing his hand out toward the truck, which shuddered in protest as it lifted off the ground. Kolaro let out a cry and dropped off the truck as it rose a few feet into the air with an angry metal groan, but Daxton was too slow. With a swing of his arm, Polaris threw the entire vehicle into the sitting room, sending it and Daxton careening into Arus, whom the truck took out and carried back to the hearth in the other side of the room.\n\nThe vehicle slammed into the stone and wood on its side, shattering its windows and crushing its own shape, no doubt flattening the two teens into the wall. The others gasped and screamed in alarm, and Jacent sprung angrily into action just as Polaris moved to pick Haze’s host up and shoulder his unconscious body. Polaris made a gesture with his finger, and the wire-bound yo-yos in Jacent’s pack rose to life like angry serpents. They coiled around his body and clamped tight, pinning the boy’s arms to his sides before he could attack. Jacent fell back to the floor tangled in his own devices.\n\n“Enough!” Polaris panted, ducking under Haze’s host’s arm to keep it over his shoulders. “Enough. You’ve won. Leave him be.”\n\n“Like hell, you bastard!” Kenny screamed, charging Polaris and tackling the Inkling. They all fell to the ground, Polaris dropping the other cat and forced to the floor by Kenny.\n\nThe truck in the sitting room scraped across the floor as Arus pushed it outward with her legs, a soot-covered Daxton clutched protectively in her arms. The two had landed in the hearth, no worse for wear.\n\nPolaris rolled onto his back as Kenny mounted him, the ink on his body receding until the host beneath remained. Kenny didn’t stop, grabbing the calico cat’s tweed jacket and hefting him up just to punch him in the face multiple times. Two, three, four… Kenny fed him fists until the cat’s nose started to bleed. He released the man when he was satisfied at the reconfiguration of his face, though his eyes remained wild and angry.\n\nPolaris coughed. “Enough,” He repeated, “We can’t best you.”\n\nKenny’s nostrils flared. He picked Polaris up by the scruff again and punched him a fifth time, releasing him to let his head smack against the floor. “Where’s Quincey?!” He demanded.\n\n“And where is Natalie for that matter?” Mhend joined, stepping over to thrust her metal foot down onto Polaris’ chest, pinning him to the floor. The man grimaced in pain as his sternum was crushed underfoot, his chest heaving for breath.\n\n“I imagine Wilde has her now.” He breathlessly answered.\n\n“Wilde?” The others gathered around, with Laila helping untangle Jacent.\n\nPolaris’ host kept his eyes closed, his head tilted back, arching his back against Mhend’s pinning boot. “N-Ngh…” He grunted, “He hosts the Inkling Vor. Little… reject, just like the rest of us.”\n\n“He waited…” Polaris winced. “When Echelon revealed herself to fight Osoth he waited until one defeated the other. The plan was to… remove whoever was left. Take them back to Canvas. End everything once and for all.”\n\nThe man swallowed, sputtering a weak laugh. “But we didn’t think there’d be so many left over… or that you’d… accept them. Why? We’re soldiers. We fight wars… it’s all we know. It’s all… [i]you[/i] know. What happens when there’s no fighting left…? When there’s no more enemies… who will you turn on?”\n\nPhactys stepped forward and gazed down at the man. “We’re not going to turn on anybody.” He said, “These hosts, these people… they’re agreeable. We’ve made so many strides already; we don’t have to fight.”\n\nThe man opened his eyes, one blue and one brown, to regard Phactys. “At this point we ought to just give ourselves to Canvas…” He cocked a little smirk, “We’ll cause a lot less trouble that way. Surely you don’t honestly think… that you were the only ones to see where Osoth had taken us? We are [i]lost[/i]. Whatever we were before, we’ll never be again. At least when we’re all gray, we’ll have a chance. If it doesn’t pan out, we could die and not have a care in the world.”\n\n“That’s disgusting.” Mhend wrinkled her nose. “You’ve given up.”\n\n“There’s not enough forgiveness in the world for what we’ve done.” The man sighed. “Though I will admit something… You remind me of better days. Days where I thought I fought for something, something better. But, I was just an oppressor. Optimism never does get you very far when it comes to war and conquest.”\n\n“Just you wait.” He said, lifting his head somewhat, “Echelon, that… Osoth [i]shill[/i]. She thinks she has all the answers, but we’ve heard that before, haven’t we? She’s almost as black as [i]her[/i], you know. They’re so similar. What are freedom and control if not just concepts? In the end, is Osoth’s defeat any freedom at all? Her sticky tendrils are in so much, so rooted in everything we ever do. You can’t just… pull up the weed and expect the roots to die.”\n\n“Eh, just ignore him. He’s all hat and no cattle.” Laila stepped up and nudged the man’s arm with her boot. “Whatever he’s talkin’ about, he’ll say whatever he’s gotta to justify what he’s been doin’.”\n\nThe man tilted his head in a shrug, pursing his lips. “Maybe you’re right.” He lowered his head back to the floor, “It would be so nice to believe, wouldn’t it? Regardless, Haze and I aren’t any challenge for the whole lot of you, this much is clear. Those soldiers we picked up are about as useless as I imagined. But at this point I don’t see much use in fighting. We’re just going to endanger our hosts at this rate.”\n\n“A lost warrior,” Jacent commented, finishing winding up his yo-yos. “With no faith in his purpose. Perhaps Osoth sewed these seeds long ago. As with Actima, she seems to be so ingrained in Inklings’ minds that some don’t believe in an existence without her.”\n\n“I wouldn’t put it past her.” Phactys crossed his arms.\n\n“I believe the only way to be rid of it is to end everything. If we really could truly restart from scratch, then and only then would I be convinced that Osoth is gone for good.” The calico said, “Polaris… he really wished he could fight for a better future, but that future turned into indentured servitude for him, for all Inklings, and for innocent worlds. Osoth has lifetimes ahead of you to keep things in her favour. The only way to win the game is to stop playing it.”\n\n“And so you’d have us all waste away.” Mhend said.\n\nThe man grinned painfully. “It’s a sort of insane genius, isn’t it? Osoth [i]made[/i] the rules, but [i]we[/i] are the pieces. Take all her pieces away and what game does she have left to play?”\n\nArus stepped back into the room with Daxton in her arms. “This is all pretty heavy stuff,” She said, “It’s also bullshit. If you can’t even believe that our victories are victories, then you lost before you started.”\n\nThe feline turned his head and peered at Arus with an amused smile. “God you’re inspiring.” He chuckled.\n\n“This is the kind of person we should never be.” Arus addressed the remainder of the group. “Someone who buckles the moment he thinks that victory is unachievable.”\n\n“Maybe you’re right,” The man sighed, “Maybe you’re right. But in that you’ve plastered poor Remi into a wall, Polaris and I agree that if we carry on we’ll only hurt ourselves – the exact thing we’ve aimed to avoid. Do what you want, I say… though you’ve still got Vor to contend with. He’s a right frightening sort, I don’t think he’s going to take no for an answer.”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\nVor snatched at Echelon’s arms when she struck at him with punches. The gluttonous Inkling danced between defending himself and catching her, though Echelon suspected that he might have been trying to keep her still. Vor’s goal was to eat her. Disconcerting as that was, she knew that to be eaten like a prey animal, her predator would do their best to keep her from moving. She wanted to avoid this above anything else; Vor seemed strong enough to overpower her if he managed to get his hands on her. Every fist she threw was Comet-boosted, since that gave them enough power to compete. Vor blocked with his arms, keeping a punch from his face by intercepting it with his forearm and throwing it away. When he came back on the offensive, Echelon moved back to stay at arm’s reach at the very least, ducking and weaving around thrown straight-arms.\n\nMaybe Vor’s host wasn’t a very strong man, but Vor was a strong Inkling. Given his previous profession, he probably had to be. He was likely designed to overpower. It was a simplistic design choice that made him a force to be reckoned with. Osoth always did love those kinds of approaches, making weapons out of Inklings that were designed for a singular purpose. Echelon herself was probably the only real exception to the rule. She had been a tool like all the others, but her applications were always more multi-faceted.\n\nVor swept her legs and managed to catch her with a swift foot before she could get away, He kicked her feet out from under her and she was on her back in the middle of the rising platform, staring up as he lifted a leg high into the air to drive her ankle down at her head. She barely rolled aside, where she was safe and Vor’s axe-kick landed behind her head instead. The resulting slam sounded like a loud, low gong strike, and Vor’s foot drove some inches into the metal. Echelon quickly maneuvered back onto her back and planted her hands so she could lift herself and kick at Vor’s legs. While un-boosted and ultimately less effective as an attack, hoofing him in the shin at least made him step backward to get his balance, opening enough time for Echelon to roll backward and rise to her feet.\n\nShe rushed in and leapt into a jump-kick aimed square at Vor’s chest, which connected and pushed him back a good foot toward the edge of the rising lift. At the end he shoved her foot aside to throw her, sending her through a loop that saw her scrambling to catch herself on the floor. Vor instead grabbed her hand on the way down and hauled her up, opening up his jaws to snap them down around her wrist as she struggled to recover. Twisted awkwardly, Echelon was hunched down, legs barely splayed so that her feet still touched the floor. Vor had very nearly twisted her arm right around, but she was well aware that her positioning was the least of her worries. “Arus!” She called on Arus’ powers yet again, balling her fist tight and flexing her forearm to make it bulge as his mouth clamped down around it.\n\nGross black liquid gushed from his mouth around her arm, trickling down his chin and chest. She could feel her hand sloshing around in the strange gunk, but as she had hoped his jaws couldn’t penetrate her skin with Arus’ powers being used. She slowly twisted her arm back right around and shifted her stance to a kneel so she could push up, thrusting her other fist into Vor’s jaw. The first hit made him flinch, but she continued to batter his face and head with her punches until one good hit dislodged him. He popped free of her arm and swayed, and she flicked away Vor’s black saliva from her left arm while she cocked back her right and delivered a boosted right to the side of his face, sending him reeling to the ground.\n\nVor swallowed his goopy spit, panting as he wiped off his mouth with his arm. “Your taste is [i]foul[/i],” He said, “But satisfying.”\n\n“Yeugh.” Echelon winced, still shaking her left hand to fleck off what remained of Vor’s juices.\n\nVor lifted himself off the floor and snatched out at Echelon, which she’d thought she dodged until his fist closed around her inky hair. She winced as he pulled, jerking her head back as he opened wide to snap down on her shoulder, thrusting his face at her in a hunter’s lunge. She closed his mouth by thrusting a fist up under his chin, snapping his jaws shut before his face collided with her collar. He righted himself quickly, pulled her hair to yank her aside, then he rammed his other fist into her gut a couple of times, finishing off with a strong kick to throw her back when he released her.\n\nShe cringed as she landed on her back on the ground, groaning as she pushed up onto her elbows. Vor had turned his attention away from her and was stalking toward Quincey, drool globbing from his maw. “Come here,” He growled, “Your taste is much better I’m sure.”\n\nQuincey had been watching from the very edges of the platform, where she had been loaded onto it. By not making a movement or even so much as a sound she had avoided drawing any attention until then, but when Vor’s dark eyes turned on her she gasped. Her chest was gripped with fright and her legs shook as she moved to stand on them, but she wasn't about to sit there eight feet above the ground and get eaten. She ran away from him, hurrying to the side of the lift where rails would keep her from simply falling off. Her picking up into a run was like a trigger for Vor and he ran after her, their feet stomping on the metal lift as he chased her.\n\nQuincey hit the rail and it impressed against her gut. She gripped it as tightly as she could, her body wrenching over the end of it as she’d run full-force at it. She felt a hand grab at her shoulder and she screamed. “Ah! No!” She wildly squirmed, throwing her shoulder to tear away from Vor’s grabby hands, where she dragged herself along the rail to run side-long and get away. Vor was tripped up for a moment as she stomped away, but he was quick to pursue her. The girl kept her arms wrapped around herself as she ran, bumbling from one corner of the lift to the next. She provided no loose arms for Vor to grab, and he pawed at her shoulder and bicep, but she forced herself away with every squeeze to her fat, smooth flesh.\n\nShe turned to look back when she reached the far corner of the rail-guarded lift, only to see him lumbering toward her. The sight frightened her so that she squealed and clenched her eyes shut. He grabbed and she let herself drop as a pitiful defense, becoming dead weight that immediately crumpled to the floor. He grasped her and tore back, but managed only to rip the blue necktie she wore away from her. He crammed the fabric into his mouth, slurping it up like a spaghetti noodle and consuming it in an instant. Before he could reach down and grab the girl though, Echelon tackled him into the rail.\n\nHis back thrust up against the rail, his shoulders dipping back as his weight almost sent him over the side. He barely managed to grip and hold the rail to keep from plunging down below, but that only left him open to a flurry of Comet-boosted fists to strike his body. Echelon was indiscriminate against where her blows landed, but she directed them mostly at his face while she braced her forearm across his chest to keep the pressure on, exposing him to the constant risk of falling. It didn’t help that her knuckles came crashing into his eyes, nose and temples over and over again. Every thundering blow had as much power as she could muster without having to slow considerably to deliver them. The result was one punch a second, ticking away at his facial features. He bent back to avoid further brutality, seeing that the lift was finally about to reach the outside – the edge came pressing down toward his head.\n\nIn a hurry he thrust his hands forward and grabbed Echelon’s head, jamming his thumbs into her eyes. It didn’t harm an Inkling quite the same way as a human, but it certainly proved painful enough as Echelon’s shape deformed slightly under his desperate grip. He threw her and himself forward to avoid getting his head taken off by the coming threshold, the two of them collapsing to the ground as the lift docked at the surface. It shook the entire platform briefly as supports clamped into place to hold it above-ground. The open air of the early morning twilight nipped them as Echelon shoved Vor away from her and scrambled to her feet. He also rose, turning his attention briefly to the manor.\n\nThe Locksmouth police had all but locked down most of the Eos forces that had met them outside, but when the Inklings emerged with Quincey the fighting with who had remained came to a stop. The few remaining Eos soldiers and all the officers, hiding among the gardens and the parked cruisers, stopped fighting to turn their attention to Echelon and Vor. For the most part, all eyes were on Vor. Even a majority of the Eos soldiers had never actually seen him before. He stood there, blackened drool dripping down his face, panting like a wild animal and swallowing almost constantly. The growling could have been him or his stomach… either way it didn’t sound quite right.\n\n“Huh?” Inside, Daxton’s ear lifted. “Hey, listen, outside. The fighting’s… stopped?”\n\nCuriously Natalie and Quincey’s packs moved toward the entryway, peering out the windows and out the large, open double doors into the gardens. The lift was so far off to the side that inly Lastik saw them first, and she perked up immediately upon the discovery. “Hey it’s Natalie!” She declared, pointing out toward them.\n\n“And Quincey!” Daxton cried, bolting immediately from the window to the door. He ran outside, leaping down off the stone patio and stumbling on hands and feet in the grass before sprinting toward the lift. Seeing him, Quincey stood up and hurried to meet him. The two of them met and threw their arms around one another, with the piggy girl burying her face against Daxton’s shoulder while the corgi boy held her tight and rubbed the side of his head against hers.\n\n“Natalie!” Arus shouted as she sprinted out into the gardens as well, batting a dumbfounded Eos soldier away and into the side wall of the manor as she rushed past them toward the cargo lift. Everyone else followed, eager to meet up with their missing pack leader.\n\nEchelon held out her hand to halt them. “Stop!” She commanded, and they did indeed stop dead in their tracks mid-run. “Don’t.” She said.\n\n“What? What are you doing?” Arus asked.\n\n“Who’s that guy?” Phactys asked, “[i]Another[/i] Inkling?”\n\nEchelon regarded Vor, staring him down as he kept his eyes intensely set upon her. “That, is Vor. He’s leading this group and trying to put an end to Inklings.”\n\n“Wait, but, isn’t he an Inkling?” Lastik asked, confused. “That makes, like, [i]no[/i] sense at all.”\n\n“We know about their plans.” Mhend informed their leader, “They want to force all Inklings back to Canvas and keep them from taking more hosts so that they all get worn away by the elements and become gray.”\n\n“Like, super-duper, blobby gray!” Kolaro supplied, “The grayest!”\n\nQuincey stood connected to Daxton’s side, with Kenny at her other side and Laila behind them all. The girl turned to face Echelon and Vor and shook her head. “That’s not right,” She said, “Vor doesn’t want to do that. He wants to kill all the Inklings by eating them himself.”\n\nLaila’s eyes widened and she stared down at Quincey. “Whoa, can he do that?”\n\n“I think he can.” Echelon concurred.\n\n“Like how Osoth could eat Inklings, or what?” Arus asked.\n\n“ENOUGH!” Vor’s voice roared over the crowd, stunning them to silence. He stepped to spin around, observing the entire scene around him. Echelon’s companions had arrived, the pig had outwitted him and gotten away, his soldiers had been piled into Locksmouth squad cars, and Polaris’ host had just stepped out the front door helping Haze’s host, Remi, along as he regained consciousness. It had become obvious that he’d been foiled. Had things gone better he would have been seeing a very different scene… but instead he’d been beaten by a [i]bunch of kids[/i].\n\n“I agree, that’s enough.” Echelon said. Her blackened, inky flesh gave way somewhat to Natalie’s fur and features beneath. She was Natalie once more, in her white and pink hoodie and pink booty shorts, her white socks and her sneakers. Her dreads were brown and her eyes a ruby red, but everything was darkened. The colours of Echelon’s black flesh and pink off-tones still remained, albeit dimly, casting Natalie’s features in a shade of those colours. “It’s about time I show you how much of an idiot you are.”\n\n“What the heck is that…?” Remi asked, weakly lifting his head at Polaris’ host’s side.\n\n“… I don’t rightly know,” The calico man answered, “Is she… human?”\n\nVor stared at the girl. “I’ll eat you up just like all the others. There’s no use hiding behind your host any longer!”\n\n“Who’s hiding?” Natalie asked. “Echelon is my partner. We fight together.”\n\n“Actima! Phactys!” Natalie sped forward, blurring past Vor as he swung at her to head her off. Faster than the eye could see, she ducked backward under the attack, her nose just barely skimming the bottom of Vor’s forearm. She snapped back upright and dashed into the woods, stepping up onto the first tree she encountered to plant her feet on the bark. She dropped Phactys’ powers and pushed off turning with her fist cocked back. “Comet… Crash!!”\n\nNatalie launched like a rocket, her body cutting a path through the air at super speeds boosted by Jacent’s powers. She left a vacuum in her wake that left a jet-stream trail and swallowed any sound she made until her body met Vor’s. Her fist hit like a missile in the cheek. His head deformed, black slobber knocked from his face and spraying over the garden. Their bodies carried, launched by Natalie’s force into the manor. They crashed into the sitting room, speeding past the hearth, scattering Baoding balls around the room as they slammed through the next wall. They passed through a dining room, and through the next wall into the kitchen, and crashed through the pantry. Vor’s body took the brunt of every entry to the next room, crumbling through wood and mortar.\n\nNatalie smashed out the back wall into a courtyard, feeding Vor all the right hooks his gluttonous self could eat. They barreled through the stone of a broken water fountain, spraying the stagnant water of the pool around the gnarled hedge work of the yard. Natalie rode Vor’s body right on through, grinding him into the dirt as he dragged across the ground. “Duplex!” She gave up Actima’s powers in favour of Duplex’s, a second Natalie splitting from the first to get in behind Vor and haul him out of the ground to hold him up. She pinned his arms back behind him, while the original Nat continued to wildly swing, pummeling his stomach with boosted left and right jabs.\n\n“GRGH-RGH-ARGH!” Vor choked and coughed, his sickly black slobber splashing over Natalie’s face as she beat it out of him. She wound back a haymaker and crashed it into his face, jerking his head back with a snap, knocking some of the orange ink on him across the yard. Her duplicate ducked down and released him, kicking him forward as she stepped back. Natalie punched him back, sending him stumbling into her double. They passed him back and forth, boosted punches and kicks throwing him between them.\n\n“RAH!” Natalie cried out as she through her whole body into a straight that connected with Vor’s chest. He flew backward, grabbed by Natalie’s double and spun, released into a throw that shot him back at the manor. The Nat-double popped then as the wolf girl picked up in pursuit of him, using Koralo’s powers with Actima’s to sprint to the manor and up the side of the wall.\n\nMarcello pored over a terminal inside the upstairs study only to have Vor come crashing through the window, taking a large chunk of the wall with him. The detective yanked the console of the ornate wooden desk it was on and stumbled back to avoid the Inkling’s body as he crashed and rolled into the study, sprawling out on the floor. She gawked at the creature and the exposed scales beneath, watching the orange ink close over the gaps as he sorely rose to his feet. He stood just in time to see Natalie over-shoot the window as she darted up the side of the building, kicking off the lip of the roof and into the air where she angled herself into a boosted descent straight at the study. She crashed through the roof, sending dust and splinter all over and forcing Marcello to shield her face as she fell back.\n\nNatalie’s body slammed once more into Vor’s, taking him through a tour of the house again. She smashed him out into the manor’s foyer, punching a hole into the second story wall with his body as they shot out over the front gardens once more. Natalie buried him in the grass at the edge of the wood, his head slamming into the base of a tree and cracking it. Finally she stopped, mounted on the Inkling villain, panting for breath. She lifted herself off of him, weakly getting on her feet and ambling backward away from him. Still inked, Vor strained to even move his limbs, wheezing like the old man he was as he rolled over, hacking black spit into the dirt.\n\nNatalie swallowed, out of breath and tired. How Vor still managed to stand after all of that was nothing short of a miracle. He clutched his stomach, snapping low branches off the tree as he pulled himself up by them, stuffing them into his mouth and crunching the fiber down. He shook as he trudged toward her, and the shading of Echelon’s colours left Natalie’s body as she stepped back, tripped, and fell. Vor caught her arm and hauled her back to her feet, sputtering a cough into her face as he crowded in close. He opened his jaws and pulled her hand in close, her fingers getting drizzled in his saliva as she pulled and twisted, trying to wrench her arm free.\n\n“Vor, stop!”\n\nRemi broke away from Polaris’ host to step forward, almost falling down the steps as he hurried toward them. “Vor, she’s a human! What are you doing?!”\n\n“Remi, wait!” Polaris’ host called out after the cat. He didn’t listen and instead ran forward to grab hold of Vor’s arm, the off-yellow Inkling forming around its host in the moment.\n\nVor tried to clamp down on Natalie’s hand, but Haze shoved the orange Inkling away, forcing the two apart. “We don’t hurt humans!” Haze scolded, “That’s what we said! That we wouldn’t harm them! What were you even [i]doing[/i]?! What’s all this eating stuff they’re talking about?!”\n\n“You dare!” Vor back-handed Haze across his face.\n\nPolaris’ host stepped forward into the gardens. “Remi, wait, stop what you’re doing! Don’t get involved!”\n\nHaze rubbed his face, pouting angrily as he stood up. “No! We had an agreement! We weren’t going to harm any more humans, not after what you did!”\n\nVor growled, his fist shaking as he clenched it. “We’re beyond help, imbecile! Did you honestly believe that we could simply turn around and go home? After everything that harpy made us do?! If you truly believed even for a moment that things could be repaired, you’re more of a moron than I thought!”\n\nHaze was taken back, visibly recoiling from Vor’s words. He raised a hand as he stepped back, holding it toward his own chest. “What are you saying? How could you even think that? These humans, they’re good, aren’t they? They didn’t do anything wrong! But you… you were about to bite her hand off! You were, weren’t you?! What’s [i]wrong[/i] with you?!”\n\nThe atmosphere seemed to take a dark turn, as the rising sun was swallowed up by blackened clouds that had floated in from the distance. What had been an early morning twilight gave way to a darker night than had been previous. It happened so quickly that those gathered out front of the manor noticed the change past the scene that was unfolding before them. Natalie looked up toward the sky at the black clouds, darker than any storm cloud she had ever seen before, and not really a storm cloud at all. Still, they rumbled, angrily churning.\n\n“Oh man…” She groused, turning her attention to haze. “Hey! Get away from that guy!”\n\nVor slurped his drool, his shoulders rising and falling as he panted with rage. “Allow me to show you what I do to insubordinate fools!”\n\nVor snapped, grabbing Haze’s forearm and squeezing as hard as he could. Haze gasped in shock, letting out a cry as he was pulled forward into Vor’s waiting jaws. In only a second, the orange glutton had opened his maw, engulfed Haze’s right arm to mid forearm, and then snapped down. Like a sprung steel trap he clamped down, viscous black squirting from the bite like drawn blood. Haze pierced the air with a shrill scream of horror as ink, flesh, and bone gave way under the compress of that toothless mouth. Vor tore through the ink with a splat, Remi’s skin with a wet tear, and the bone with a hearty snap. Haze’s ink was slurped up, sucked into Vor’s mouth like he were emptying a juice box. In seconds, the Inkling was gone, and Vor pulled back to tear sinew and muscle, parting Remi from his right hand and leaving a bloodied stump.\n\n“AAAGH!” Remi screamed in pain and terror, falling back onto the ground clutching what remained of his arm. Polaris’ host ran for him as the others sprang into action. Echelon’s team were on Vor in a moment. He swallowed his meat and was ready for them.\n\nArus was the first on him, throwing a fist that he caught in his hand, stopping her momentum. His jaw unhinged, parting as a long, black, serpentine tongue waved out at her. She grabbed it in her other hand, pulling the gross appendage and then thrusting her fist into his face using the inertia. “You want to eat?!” She shouted, jamming her fist into his mouth and tearing it back out again coated in black slime. She thrust it in again, and again, and again, splashing the dark saliva all over his face, all over her face, and all around them.\n\nHe caught her fist in her mouth once and bit down, but she tensed her arm and he found no purchase. Instead, she clasped his bottom jaw in her other hand and pried it open, ripping her fist back out. She socked him in the mouth as hard as she could, puckering his lips in on his own skull and throwing him to the ground where she bent down, grabbed his foot, and began to toss him around like a limp doll. She lashed him like a whip, smashing his spine into the dirt time and again, then turned, whipped him over her shoulder, and slammed his face on the ground in the same manner. She went absolutely ballistic on him, dragging him through the mud until she released him in a hard throw that smashed him against a tree. The force would have paralyzed any normal human being, if not killed them outright.\n\n“Hnngh!” Remi rolled on the ground as Polaris’ host dropped to his knees next to him. The calico cat took off the jacket of his suit, using one of the sleeves to tie it around Remi’s arm as he held the feline down. He turned it into a knot and pinned Remi’s arm to the ground using his knee. With both hands and his teeth, he pulled the slack of the knot so that it closed tight, slowing the flow of blood that escaped the gaping wound.\n\n“Hold on, Remi!” The man cried, “Oh God…”\n\n“Hold on, let me through!” Mhend approached, pushing Polaris’ host aside. She peeled a chunk of her inky coiffure off and smeared the bubblegum pink glob over Remi’s wound, creating a seal that kept the blood in and began to rapidly heal the skin. Remi kicked his feet, stomping on the ground as Mhend pinned him down, allowing him to heal before she took another piece of her and pushed it into the black cat’s mouth. She closed his mouth around it, urging him to swallow. When he did, his panic began to subside.\n\nVor rose from the ground, though his hunched posture was forced down once again by dual red and blue yo-yos that slammed down on the back of his neck. Jacent wielded the toys like long, wired pendulums, the plastic on the end smashing down like steel maces to pin Vor to the ground. Jacent pulled the toys back and alternated crashing them down one after the other between Vor’s shoulder blades. He twirled them with a flourish after several strikes, swinging them back around himself and down on Vor again, crashing them into the ground in front of the Inkling with enough raw power to kick Vor’s body upward. Dropping the toys, Jacent charged forth, meeting Vor and taking him into the woods.\n\nThe Inkling’s body clear-cut a path through the trees with Jacent’s shoulder leading the way. The force of kinetic energy around Jacent made a shield for him, but Vor’s spine smashed into tree after tree, uprooting them and shattering their wooden stalks. This carried for no small distance, the two of them blazing a bold trail of upturned dirt yards upon yards into the forest, kicking rocks, shrubs, and debris aside as they went. Vor screamed, his voice cut off by frequent gurgles and gasps for air as he was driven into another thick oak or maple. Pine needles, leaves, splinters of wood and dust from the ground formed a ball around Jacent as he flew, making it appear as if Vor was being hurled by Earth itself. Fifty yards became a hundred, then two hundred, dragging Vor’s punishment far, far from the manor where it had started.\n\nJacent finally stopped some ways out, planting his heels into the soil to stop himself. Vor continued some feet into a clearing, skipping across the water of a lake and splashing into the drink. Jacent pat out a flame that had sprout on his shoulder, teeth grit and jaw set as he rose and strode into the lakeside clearing. Vor emerged from the water, dragging himself through the shallows, battered and beaten. He limped as he pulled himself through the mud like a broken animal, barely able to get his feet under himself to hold up his weight. He stood, impossibly resilient, hacking and coughing, sputtering black gunk into the clear blue water.\n\n“Useless…” Vor wheezed, “We cannot… we… won’t… change…”\n\n“Humanity has been committing atrocities long before now, and yet we persist. Not everyone is a monster.” Jacent said, “Those whom you condemn to death, are those in which you see a reflection of your own despicable self, unfairly projected upon them by a tortured mind.”\n\nVor hobbled, hand outstretched. Jacent stood stalwart as he approached, unflinching as the Inkling grasped his shirt and balled the fabric in his fist. Vor’s weight slumped against Jacent, and the Inkling’s orange skin subsided. Bit by bit, the weak old cobra beneath was revealed. The old man’s eyes stared intensely into Jacent’s, though the rest of him seemed weak. “Some of us just know what’s best… You aimless soul.” He said, his grip loosening as he fell at Jacent’s feet in a heap.\n\nJacent stared sour at the man, turning when he heard the roar of a number of engines overhead. Eos trucks fled the scene in numbers, tearing through the sky to escape the failure that was the manor. The number that fled was no doubt much lower than what it could have been had they not shown up. It was regrettable that they escaped, but then Jacent knew better than most; rats will always flee a sinking ship.\n\nHe reached down and grabbed the cobra man by his jacket, hefting him up over his shoulder. Jacent turned and carried the man back down the trail he’d created, heavily breathing and dragging his own feet somewhat. The clouds overhead cleared, just as the orange glow of the sunrise began to spread over the wood. For the first time in a while, silence and the sounds of nature met Jacent’s ears.\n\nIt was over, for the moment.\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n“What the heck was [i]that[/i]?” Marcello chuckled as she stepped down into the foyer, two portable consoles tucked under her arm. She approached Murphy who was organizing a final sweep of the manor that had since become empty.\n\nMurphy turned to her. “And just where were [i]you[/i] during all that mess?” She asked, “Did you really wander off under my watch?”\n\nMarcello shrugged her shoulder, running her gloved fingers through her sweaty, damp hair. “Everyone seemed so busy with the super-fights that nobody was paying attention to the other rooms. I was just doing some snooping around, and boy would you be surprised at what I found!” Marcello explained, “Not only is this place been a nest for the Eos soldiers but it has definitely been receiving all the missing shipments we lost track of. They’ve been getting them for months!”\n\nMurphy took off her officer’s hat, batting it against her leg, wiping some sweat off her own brow. For once, she looked somewhat relieved. “You got what you needed then?” She asked.\n\n“I got more than that! Come on over here for a second.” Marcello gestured for Murphy to follow her, and the two waded through debris and clutter scattered about the floor as they made their way deeper into the home, passing through the sitting room and the dining area, right into a downstairs study that had been relatively untouched in all the commotion. The room was dark until Marcello flicked on a light switch, an electric lamp on the desk offering warm illumination. A classic mahogany desk housed a work console, in front of which sat a wooden, cushioned chair. The room had an old-fashioned decorum that fit the manor, the walls covered in red wallpaper with golden patterns. A large, circular rug covered much of the wood floor, and a locked case displayed numerous bottles of fermented drink. A tiny ship in a bottle sat on a lone side-table in the middle of the room.\n\nMarcello turned her attention to a classic bookshelf shoved into an odd side of the room. She studied it for a moment before she demurely thumbed through the selection of bound tomes. “Eldric the First…” She said, pulling on one of the books, the tome angling as a mechanical clack was heard. Murphy watched in interest as Marcello sought another. “The Second Coming…” She pulled on the book like a lever, and more gears could be heard behind the walls. “Annnnd the Three Musketeers.”\n\nMarcello pulled the last book, angling it out and then releasing it. The book snapped back in, and the gear work behind the walls clicked and clacked as the bookshelf pulled back into the wall, impressing into an area behind it and sliding aside, revealing a modern-day steel door with operating controls for an elevator. Marcello grinned, looking sidelong at Murphy’s surprised expression. “Strength in numbers.” She said, “What we’re looking at now is a hidden passage that had been retrofitted by Dr. Remi Brokowvski, a mechanical engineer who worked for the Lo-Tec Corporation and went missing half a year ago.”\n\n“I think we’ve met.” Murphy concluded.\n\n“I wouldn’t be surprised. His diary said he’d come into contact of an Inkling named Haze, he and his partner Dr. Julian Belfourd.”\n\nMarcello turned to Muphy. “Dr. Julian Belfourd was hired on as Jersey Wilde’s personal doctor when he hit the ripe old age of one hundred and ten. Three years ago, Jersey Wilde died, but Dr. Belfourd didn’t leave his service. Instead, it seems that he hosted an Inkling named Polaris, and Mr. Wilde himself got caught up with Vor, the leader of some off-world scouting party. Wilde faked his own death so he could collaborate in secret with these Inklings, kicking off the Eos Initiative. He got in touch with a number of investors in the Eos project and got it off the ground, siphoning his own resources into it without them being tracked, on account of his supposed death and all.”\n\nTurning toward the secret passage, Marcello smirked. “So I have a feeling that this leads under the manor, where I’m going to find everything I need to prove these guys have been manufacturing weapons well before Osoth ever arrived.” She informed the officer.\n\nMurphy rubbed her chin in thought. “… Wilde’s part of House Caduceus, isn’t he?”\n\n“Bingo.” Marcello nodded.\n\nMurphy shook her head. “… Vor gets to take out the Inklings, and in doing so Wilde gets House Caduceus the public support in a massive anti-Inkling movement to slip right into a position of power, all with his very own army. He was going to start a dictatorship; start a movement, split civilization right down the middle.”\n\n“Clever, ain’t he? He was using his Inkling to get what he wanted.” Marcello said.\n\nMurphy frowned. “Well, I have a feeling it didn’t turn out the way he’d planned.”\n\nMarcello cocked a brow. “How do you figure?”\n\n“You look around down there and I’ll send some of my boys in after you. I’ll give you about ten minutes, but [i]don’t[/i] mess anything up.” Murphy said, turning to leave the study. “I’ve got some arrests to make.”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n“He’s gone.” Remi sat wrapped up in a blanket. Around him the police cruisers had started taking off, taking Eos soldiers away to be tried and probably thrown into jail until someone could decide what to do with them. Remi sat there on the ground, shivering not from the cold, but from an aching feeling of emptiness in his gut. He kept the stump of his arm tucked into the blanket, clutching it with his only available hand to keep it wrapped around him. He looked up at Polaris’ host, Dr. Belfourd, a tremendous sadness in his teary eyes.\n\n“I can’t believe he’s gone.” Remi pitifully whimpered. “Haze, he…”\n\nDr. Belfourd wrapped his arms around Remi. He could hardly believe it himself – it’d been years since he met Polaris, Haze, and Vor… and he never thought things would turn out that way. It was a lot for him to absorb, and his thoughts and feelings on the matter were mixed. For the moment, he simply held on to Remi and refused to let go, stroking the feline’s cyan hair and doing everything he could to comfort him. Remi started to cry, and Dr. Belfourd had no words for him. He only looked up when Murphy approached them.\n\n“Well,” Dr. Belfourd shed a sad, wry smirk in his typical manner. He turned to Remi and gently rubbed his arm. “Are you ready to be tossed into the slammer, Remi?”\n\nRemi cringed, so the doctor helped pick him up off the ground and get him standing. “Up you get.” He said, brushing Remi off before holding out his hands. Murphy clamped handcuffs around his wrists, and Remi got a handcuff of his own from Combs, the honeybee officer struggling to handcuff a one-handed man.\n\n“Julian Belfourd, Remi Brokowvski…” Murphy started.\n\n“Yes, yes – conspiracy, assault against an officer, assault against a minor, abduction of a minor, reckless endangerment, possible possession of illegal weaponry, and about fifty million counts of guilt by association. Also, we’ve been just all-around unpleasant.” Dr. Belfourd clicked his tongue, “Did I miss anything?”\n\n“Don’t be a smartass.” Murphy shoved the man toward her cruiser.\n\nCombs kept his hands firmly gripped on Remi’s arms, doing his best to hold them behind the cat. Dr. Belfourd sighed. “Well Remi my boy, it seems the worst has come to pass. We’re criminals now. But I suppose I’ll take it if it means you’re alright. I think I’ve had about enough of this Inkling business.”\n\n“B-But Haze…” Remi started.\n\n“Is Echelon’s problem now,” Dr. Belfourd finished. He timed this perfectly as he just passed Natalie, and he dug his heels in to stop Murphy from leading him along. He fussed against the officer as he regarded Natalie. “Isn’t that right, Echelon? You’ll see to it that Vor gets what’s coming to him, won’t you? Remi was rather attached to old Haze, you see.”\n\nNatalie crossed her arms and gave the calico cat a queer look, unsure of what to make of him. “Um… yeah.” She answered, “He’s not getting away with what he’s done.”\n\nMurphy finally gave him a proper shove to get him moving, and roughly handled him in getting him to the cruiser. “Do stop by, won’t you?!” Dr. Belfourd called back.\n\nCarrie stepped up next to Natalie and nudged the wolf with her hip. She wrapped an arm around her girlfriend’s shoulders and pulled her in close, affectionately nuzzling her head. “What do you make of those guys?” She asked.\n\n“I don’t know,” Natalie cuddled up to Carrie, rubbing her face against the feline’s fur. “They sure seemed surprised at Vor. They don’t really come off as being like him.”\n\n“Speaking of that dickwad,” Carrie began loosening up on Natalie, “Turns out he’s some one hundred-something old guy. He almost died when Vor got too weak to keep him standing. He’s alright though, just… old, I guess. I bet he’s gonna be locked up for a long time.”\n\n“Well, we gotta get Vor back to Canvas. He’s too dangerous to keep around here.” Natalie concurred.\n\n“Probably, yeah.” Carrie shrugged. She smiled and hugged Natalie again. “I’m just happy to have you back.”\n\nNatalie grinned. “I was fine the whole time, I could have escaped any time I wanted.”\n\nCarrie noogied the girl. “Yeah right!” She laughed.\n\nNatalie laughed and pushed at her girlfriend to pry her off. She fussed with her dreadlocks to straighten everything back pout proper, checking to see if Carrie had somehow messed up the tight braids. As she did this, she spotted Quincey and her back off near one of the other cop cruisers. She smiled to herself and looked to Carrie. “Be right back.” She said.\n\nWhen Natalie turned to head over to Quincey, Carrie gave her a weird look and shrugged. She followed the wolf to the Harbington pack, who were all huddled around Quincey, getting all cute with just how happy they were to have her back. They all gathered around the girl in a group hug, with Laila standing behind the lot of them, her longer arms wrapped around the group squeezing them all together. Quincey giggled as Daxton smooched at her cheek and neck, and Kenny held awkwardly to her other side, his face reddened and blushing as he stayed mostly quiet.\n\n“Hey.” Natalie spoke up as she stepped close, getting everyone’s attention. Quincey looked up from her affection to smile at Natalie.\n\n“Natalie!” Quincey beamed, “Oh, thank you so much! If it wasn’t for you, I…!”\n\nNatalie reached out and took hold of Quincey’s hands, cutting the girl off as she shrugged. “Don’t worry about it,” She said, “You were great. Thank you, too. Duplex’s powers really got us out of that mess, and you did a lot to help me out.”\n\nQuincey blushed. “Oh, I didn’t…”\n\n“Yes, you did.” Natalie butt in. She then turned her attention to the rest of Quincey’s pack. “You guys helped too.”\n\n“Even if you were all total idiots.” Carrie added with a smirk, “Diving a truck into the front doors? Are you guys insane?”\n\n“That’d be her!” Kenny pointed up at Laila.\n\nLaila only smiled big. “Gets the job done!” She declared proudly.\n\nDaxton chuckled. “We weren’t just going to sit back while Quincey was in trouble,” He said, “Even people without super powers can pull off some pretty amazing stuff. They just have to try, you know?”\n\nNatalie crossed her arms, giving them all a disbelieving look. “I think I agree with Carrie on this one. You’re all nuts.” She said.\n\n“Ha!” Daxton shined a toothy smile. He turned and tipped his fingers up under Quincey’s chin to get her to look at him. “Only thing I’m crazy for is you.” He said, stealing a kiss from her lips. Quincey blinked rapidly, her face going beat red.\n\nCarrie mocked a gag. Natalie palmed her face, giggling at the two of them.\n\n“Ah, u-um…” Quincey stuttered, regaining her composure, “What now?”\n\n“Now?” Natalie looked around. The officers were finishing up their initial seizure of the property, the Eos soldiers had all been packed up and taken away to be locked up in Locksmouth. The soldiers who had gotten away were never found, with Garrison being among them. Vor was stuffed into a cruiser and taken away with Jacent riding with them to ensure he got back without any trouble. Dr. Belfourd and Remi had been taken care of, though it had been tragic what happened to Haze. Natalie’s pack helped out where they could, with Sam taking care of the injured most of all, but people were quickly running out of things to do.\n\n“I guess we go home.” Natalie suggested, “Maybe not home-home for you guys yet… but I think we’ve got enough here to nail these Eos guys and get you back to Harbington soon.”\n\nQuincey couldn’t hide her smile, or her tears. She broke away from her pack and threw herself at Natalie, wrapping her arms around her as tightly as she could. “Thank you so much!” She gushed.\n\nNatalie chuckled and pat Quincey on the head. “Hey, that’s why we do it.” She said, smiling at the girl. “Come on, we’re all really tired.”\n\nCarrie stretched her arms above her head, her tail flicking straight out to stretch as well. She grunted as she arched her back, pushing her chest out as she rose onto her toes. She stretched everything she had for a few moments, then bounced back flat on her feet and let it all go. “I’ll say!” She said, “I’ve got to piss like a horse, too.”\n\nEveryone looked at her in shock. Kenny eyed her chest, then her face, his look critical. “[i]Wow[/i].” He said, “Just… [i]wow[/i].”", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "\tThe large steel door to Vor’s chamber opened with a rusty screech, sliding shut with a similar sound. Garrison’s heavy boots clopped across the hard tile floor to the edge of the field containing the Inkling and its host, who sat as he always did on one lone metal bench in the very center. The old cobra didn’t even lift his head to regard his guest, but when he spoke his voice was loud enough to carry. “I hear the alarms,” He said, “What’s going on?”

“Echelon’s men got here. They’re trying to rescue her.” Garrison reported.

The old cobra lifted his head just a little. “And how did that happen?” He asked, “I thought you said you’d be able to keep anyone from finding us.”

Garrison grunted. “It must have been that detective.”

“I thought I told you to take care of her.” The old man scolded the big grizzly bear.

Garrison folded his arms across his barrel of a chest. “What did you want us to do?” He asked, “We made sure she didn’t get in the way of the vote, but we couldn’t do much else. She’s playing her part and if we took her out people would have lost their minds. Just because we have Echelon now doesn’t mean we can just start pissing around.”

“I expected you to perform your role.” The old man stood from his spot and approached the edge of the barrier, peering through it with narrowed eyes. Garrison had to look down at him, but he didn’t lower his head to do so. The old man continued, unflinching. “Your job was to organize this circus. You’re supposed to be the most experienced in the subject of battle, but even I could have told you that leaving her to run her mouth would have ended up poorly for us. Perhaps I should have left you in that tank where I found you.”

Garrison’s brow creased in a glare. “I’m trying to play your game, old man. You want us to be favourable, to avoid using the full extent of our power just so you can slide in like the snake you are. I was just doing what you wanted, so we didn’t upset our friends in that hick dome. You wanted to save face, remember? Nothing to hide?”

“That was a lie,” The old man raised his voice, “We have everything to hide. It’s still too early to usurp control from those stupid arbitrators, not until we can push some of them out. When that detective was assigned to us, I was promised that she wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Sounds like that’s not my problem.” Garrison took a deep breath, “Maybe you should talk to the police about that one.”

The old cobra took a deep breath himself, setting his jaw sternly as he stared through Garrison. “You are truly an idiot,” He said, “But no matter. I’m revoking the twenty-four hours. Bring me the other prisoner. I want Echelon to know what it means to deny us.”

“You’re a freak just like the rest of them.” Garrison huffed, turning and skulking back the way he came. He forced the steel door open, dragging its metal across the floor with an uncomfortable screech to pass through it and slam it shut behind him. The guards outside the room flinched at the echoing slam that reverbed through the corridors. Garrison looked to either one of them, watching them stare straight ahead and avoid giving him any looks. He stomped past them, his large hands gripping at the combat vest he was finding to be too small for his bulky frame and tugging it into something resembling a comfortable position. There weren’t many others down below, most of his men had run off to hold the Inklings off, but the reports he kept getting back made it sound unlikely that they would succeed. It was up to the Inklings to fight their own kind and he wasn’t very comfortable with that outcome.

The sooner he could get things over with, the better. He reached the makeshift holding cell where Natalie and Quincey were being held and likewise grabbed hold of the bulky metal handle of the door to throw it open. It slid angrily into its enclosure and slammed, startling the girls inside. Fortunately they’d been staying out of trouble, except for the one outburst where Natalie had attacked Polaris. Garrison didn’t really mind that if he were being honest – he’d considered punching the Ink right out of that cat numerous times before.

Garrison ducked down to enter the door, rising again on the other side to his full, intimidating height that made the girls look miniscule in comparison. His eyes met Natalie’s, the wolf not looking intimidated at all by him but still defensive. She was a fighter, that one, and it was a wonder why she hadn’t tried anything earlier… Garrison had suspected she was up to something the moment she walked into that room on her own two feet. Quincey on the other hand was shaking, fearful of his size and raw power. She’d taken him down once before with a lucky shot, but that wasn’t going to happen again… never, ever again, if he understood his boss.

“It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet,” Natalie commented, “What do you want?”

“Plans changed,” Garrison answered, “You, pig, you’re up.”

Quincey’s eyes widened. “M-Me? But why?” She asked, “W-What are you going to do?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Garrison loomed over her, grabbing her by her forearm and yanking her off one off the metal crate she sat on. She squeaked and stumbled to her feet, roughly handled by the larger man to stay standing. He squeezed her arm too hard, making her whimper in pain. “The boss is going to do something though.” He added.

“No!” Quincey fussed, struggling to break away from him. His grasp was like a steel trap, however, and her twisting her arm accomplished very little. “He said he’d hurt me! You can’t!” She pleaded, her eyes tearing up.

Garrison just growled in frustration and yanked on her arm, nearly wrenching her shoulder out of socket. She yelped and choked on her tears, but he was undeterred. He pulled her along forcefully, ignoring her cries and protests. When Natalie pushed off her crate to make a move on him, he simply palmed her entire face, pinning her ears back under the fingers of his free hand. With a hard shove, he pushed the young wolf girl back and she slammed into the crate where she slumped to the floor. She growled at him, ears back and teeth bared, but she didn’t make a move beyond that. Garrison simply huffed at her and turned to drag Quincey away.

“Natalie! Help!” Quincey screamed, “Natalieeee!! Ah!”

She tripped out of the room in the burly bear’s charge, and Garrison slammed the door closed again behind him. “If that girl makes a move, paste her.” He instructed the two guards posted at the door. Quincey had grabbed his hand in an effort to pry his large sausage fingers off to no avail. She grunted and snorted as she tried to free herself desperately, sniffling as her nose ran and tears trickled down her chubby face. Garrison hauled her along, one good pull making her feet drag across the floor. Her glasses fell off her face and onto the floor, where she instinctively tried to pick them up but her movement was seen as more effort to get away, so Garrison forced her along to leave them behind. “Stop!” Quincey begged, “Please!”

“Shut up and keep walking.” Garrison grunted.

“Please, your boss is an Inkling too!” Quincey sobbed, “He’s going to kill us!”

Garrison snorted. “Well, yeah,” He said, “You’re a bunch of monsters, after all. You can’t expect me to be surprised. Don’t worry, he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

“Ngh!” Quincey grit her teeth and tried kicking at Garrison’s thick leg. Her little shoes didn’t do much anything to him. “You’re crazy!” She cried.

Garrison rounded a corner and hoisted her up by her arm, uncomfortably twisting her shoulder to hold her dangling in the air in front of him. The sudden act scared the girl so much that she stopped fighting, just for a moment, to stare at his intense, little eyes as he held her at that level. He didn’t say anything, he just stared her down for a moment and then lowered her to the floor and kept walking. She followed along, reluctant and stumbling and trying to get away the whole time. She was powerless against him and he knew it. He walked her back to Vor’s chamber like an unimpressed parent dragging their kid out of a theatre. Once there, he opened the door, threw her inside, and closed it before she could scurry back out.

Quincey hit the heavy metal door at full-force and ended up falling back onto the floor. Uncomfortably she pushed herself up to a sitting position, though her ears perked up when she heard the dissipating hum of something powering down. She turned to look behind her, seeing the old cobra man sitting along in the middle of the room. He didn’t seem to be moving or acknowledging her, and for several moments the two of them sat in silence. Quincey rose to her feet, nervously rubbing her sweaty palms against her sides as she took a few careful steps forward. She passed the pylons that powered the strong-force containment, the field having been switched off.

Quincey was surprised. Natalie had told her about Vor and she pictured in her mind something much more frightening than the aged reptile that sat in front of her. His face looked tired and gentle almost, though the light threw sinister shadows over his cheek bones and eyes. He was hunched and had messy gray hair and a proper dark blue suit that looked black in the light provided. When he lifted his head, he stared at her with grayed blue eyes. He had to be ninety years old at the very least.

“Keep your distance,” He said, “Getting close to me is not wise.”

Quincey stopped, her posture stiff. “W… Who are you?” She asked.

“You know who I am.” The man answered, “I trust you understand the terms I’ve put forth.”

Quincey nodded. “You… w-want me to give up my Inkling… or else… or else you’ll…”

“Allow me to say that I take no joy in threatening a fellow human like this.” The old cobra cut her off, “I’ve spent my life helping my people. Even my Inkling sympathizes with the human race and values them terribly much… However, the Inklings are beyond any sense of redemption.”

Quincey swallowed. “B-Believe me, sir, I understand through my own Inkling that they have done some awful things. But… if your Inkling cherishes humans, then how are they beyond redemption?”

The man Inked over, and the orange skin of Vor overtook his contours. The Inklings deep, black eyes stared into Quincey, and appeared bottomless. “Do you know what it is I do?”

Quincey tensely shook her head.

“I was once an enforcer for Osoth, something of a pet project you could say.” Vor began, sitting up straight and almost casual. “I was created to be an extension of herself. I was made to silence her opposition in all forms, and I did so relentlessly. It is, after all, better to be the Devil’s right hand…”

“… T-Than to be in His path.” Quincey finished.

Vor nodded. “One day, our infiltrator disappears. He slips through my clutches after Osoth sends me to deal with him. After that, we needed a replacement – someone who could go to worlds and size them up. Despite my failings, or perhaps because of them, Osoth selected me to fill Tempus’ shoes. I began to go to other worlds where I learned the horror of my purpose.”

“Inklings hunger for prana.” Vor stood from his seat and began to take slow, careful steps toward Quincey. “Humans hunger for food. Meats, grains, dairy, vegetables, fruits… Your bodies are all designed to need these things whereas mine is not. An Inkling doesn’t experience hunger in the same way you do, not until they understand the sensation by having you host them.”

“I consume.” Vor glowered as he continued his careful steps. Quincey stepped back even while he was still several feet away. “When a subject under Osoth’s rule would… defect, I would end them by eating them. My purpose, or my power as you might call it, is to eat. I can eat all manner of things. Why, I could have eaten my way out of this prison if I wanted… though it wouldn’t have solved the hunger.”

Vor exhaled, a moist breath. “I’ve never been hungry, you see…” He said, his mouth creasing. “Though the moment I first took a host, I experienced the need to eat. Something about my form, my purpose, causes my hosts to hunger. It’s almost like starving, in a way. I can even feel it now, an emptiness in the pit of my stomach – and I’ve eaten, oh… I’ve eaten plenty. I ate full-course meals, I’ve eaten raw foods, I’ve eaten furniture and electronics. If I could fit it in my mouth, I ate it, and if I couldn’t, I ate it in parts. Nothing ever helps.”

The way he spoke was unnerving. He was almost whispering, though loud enough for her to hear. He stared at her the whole time, his eyes bottomless pits just like his stomach. It was like inside of him was nothingness. He rasped as he described various concepts – honestly it made Quincey hungry just hearing about his struggles. But he kept saying that he could eat, and eat anything and everything, and he was just staring at her the whole time. She didn’t like it, it frightened her. She stepped back until she felt her back hit the door, and he continued toward her in his slow and deliberate pace.

“You understand now, yes?” Vor asked. He gently kneaded his stomach. “It’s a curse, really, to be bound with me. It’s torture. It’s enough to drive a man mad. This man was already deranged when I found him, but he manages. We’ve reached a level of concentration where we can almost ignore the sensations, but they nibble at us so. It’s better than before, much better… My first host on Earth was a little boy. I ate his toys, his pillow, I devoured his clothes and bit holes in the mattress of his bed. I was ravenous – I didn’t expect the feelings to be so intense.”

The Inkling stopped, just five feet from the girl. He raised his hand to his mouth and kneaded the shape of his muzzle. “His brother tried to stop me,” He said, “His parents came home to see us hunched over the boy’s body, chewing on his meat.”

Quincey’s eyes bugged. Her lip trembled as she stared at Vor, heart racing. “Ugh…!” She was stunned to silence and a lack of breath. She’d never been so jarred and disgusted by an idea in her life.

“Of course… they didn’t have to see for long.” Vor added, his eyes narrowing slightly.

A few steps closer. A few feet away then, almost in arm’s reach. “I was created this way.” The Inkling said, “That black-hearted usurper took a certain joy in my gluttony. I couldn’t help it, and I tried… I tried so very hard. But I cannot escape what I am and what I was created to be… and no other Inkling can either.”

“Echelon needs a villain to fight. Arus needs something to destroy. I need something to eat.” Vor ran his hand down over his chin, a black, forked tongue flicking out from his mouth to lap at the air. “I can think of only one way to save you from us. Will your Inkling part with you? Or must I… be what I was always meant to be?”

Quincey was speechless. She stared at this creature and couldn’t see him as an Inkling, not the sort of Inkling that Echelon or even Duplex was. Vor had a whole different air about him that was amplified by his calm attitude and his hungry stare. He had an aged voice, the kind she’d expect to hear from someone’s grandfather, but he said such awful things! And Vor had done such awful things. He sounded remorseful, but terrifying in his insistence that he was a monster, that he couldn’t change his nature. Quincey had never felt fear like that before. It gripped her heart and tightened her throat. She was scared beyond tears or cries for help.

Vor stepped closer, casting a shadow over the girl. She cringed and lifted her arms, holding them tightly against her chest defensively.

“I… I…”

-

--

-

“Where’s all the Ink-LUHNGS!”

Haze’s question was cut short as Koralo propelled himself from outside the manor into the foyer in a missile drop-kick that slammed into his back by sheer chance. He’d simply flung himself into the cloud of smog without really thinking about it, and the soles of his feet just so happened to hit pay-dirt. Haze was thrown forward onto the floor, but his form disappeared into the cloudy yellow smoke completely, leaving Koralo to spring up to his feet and look around.

The interesting part was that he wasn’t coughing or gasping for breath like the others. Max was safe and sound with Koralo on the outside, as the Inkling didn’t really breathe in the literal sense. Max did, but the air passed over Koralo’s yellow mouth before reaching the boy, and the gross fog didn’t pass through the same way. That was a benefit, but it didn’t help in seeing where Haze was hiding. Nothing could pierce the veil of the thick cloud. Koralo couldn’t see two feet in front of him no matter how hard he squinted. This left him open to counter-attack, and it came at his legs, Haze thrusting himself into Koralo’s knees to take him down. The boy hit the floor and tried to grab for the smoky Inkling, but his hands found no purchase. Haze was off and hiding again in an instant.

“Where are you hiding?!” Koralo demanded, rising to his feet and frantically looking around.

“Not telling!” Haze teased. The reptilian Inkling turned swiftly toward the direction of Haze voice and he threw out his tongue like a whip. He shot the sticky appendage into the must and it hit something that he quickly reeled himself toward. He ran, jumped, and tackled his opponent, only to find himself on top of Laila with his tongue stuck to her chest.

“Bleh!” Koralo cried, trying to pry his tongue off of Laila’s turtleneck.

“W… What’re ya’ll doin’?!” Laila coughed, having been tackled by Koralo and pinned under him on the floor. She grabbed his tongue to try and pull it off, her hands getting stuck on it as if by glue. She struggled against the adhesive nature of Koralo’s tongue, making the Inkling deeply uncomfortable as she pulled and yanked his tongue into interesting contours and shapes.

“SCHTOP!” Koralo wailed.

A sudden kick to the side of Koralo’s head sent him reeling, shoving him off of Laila and onto the floor next to her. Laila peeled her hands off the bright yellow tongue still stuck to her chest and grabbed at her rifle, lifting it up to fire around the area where the Inkling boy had been. Her shots didn’t connect with Haze, who was probably long gone by that point. She coughed and rolled aside to finally rip Koralo’s tongue off of her, and the boy reeled it back in to get up and get back to fighting. He took a step and tripped back over Laila, falling forward onto the floor once again where his chin struck the tile. “Oof!” He cried.

“Aw get offa me or I’ll blast ya!” Laila fussed.

Outside the front doors, Mhend had joined Phactys and Lastik in peering into the smokescreen. “What do we do? I can’t see a thing!” She stressed.

“Try and grab ‘em!” Lastik, the orange butterfly, declared. She bounced into the smoke and only seconds later she squeaked in alarm as she was caught, pushed, and bounced along the floor until she hit the wall. The buoyant rubber Inkling could get some distance on surfaces like that, and she felt dizzy after essentially being folded into a ball and jostled around. Her antennae angled toward where she heard Haze’s movements. Sitting up against the wall she lashed out with her arms, stretching them far into the smog until her mitts grabbed hold of a body. She snapped them back with all her might, yanking her captive in.

“GAH!” Kenny squeaked as he snapped back across the room, his sword clattering onto the tile floor. His body jerked with the sudden pull, his jacket pulled down past his nose and exposing his lungs to the unhealthy air around him. He felt a little suffocated, which was also due in part by being squeezed against Lastik’s chest to imprison him. The Inkling butterfly hadn’t realized immediately that she’d caught the wrong person. She clutched him with arms and legs coiling around his body with impossible flexibility, and she crushed him as hard as she could. Kenny’s entire world was Inkling butterfly boob. His head vanished between the swells.

Normally he’d be pretty pleased about such a thing, but he frantically flew into a panic and tried to tear himself away. “You idiot!” He coughed, “What the heck are you doing?!”

“Huh?” Lastic blinked her eyes. “Oh, darnit!”

“You guys are ridiculous!” Haze giggled from somewhere else. “And you beat Osoth? Was it an accident?”

“Ha, ha, huh?” Haze mocked the bumbling kids only to have to lean aside when a yo-yo flew past his head. It angled around in the mist coming right back at him, and he had to duck it. His body moved fluidly in his smoke, almost too much so, but even with his evasiveness he’d just barely avoided the toy. He followed it as it retreated back outside of his smoke cloud to Jacent’s hand. The teenage super hero held a second yo-yo, this one blue where the other was red, and he unwound them both to grab their wires around their midsections.

He spun the yo-yos in his hands as fast as he could manage – and thanks to his powers, the speeds those toys could reach were phenomenal. He spun them in circles in the air out to his side, swinging them around and around and around so quickly they traced coloured circles in the air to his left and right. They moved so fast that they cleared the smoke around him as he waded into the mess, parting the yellow cloud as he ventured inside the manor. Haze’s mauve eyes were exposed as Jacent marched nearer, staring at the boy in wonder. Jacent remained light on his feet, twirling as he swung the red yo-yo out in a lash, keeping the blue one spinning like a fan blade to keep the smoke away.

Haze gasped as he hopped backward, stumbling over Daxton’s body and falling onto the floor. He landed on his butt with his legs over the corgi boy, but was grounded only for a moment before he scampered to his feet. “Wow, neat trick!” The Inkling applauded Jacent for his problem-solving skills, and it didn’t sound disingenuous. Still, Haze retreated to where the cloud was thicker so that he remained hidden, away from Jacent’s wildly spinning yo-yos and angry green-eyed stare. His yo-yos spun so swiftly they whistled in the air, creating a constant ringing sound that he couldn’t control. Even so, his ears picked up on Haze’s voice whenever he spoke, and Jacent’s eyes were on the Inkling in an instant, even if he didn’t have visual confirmation of his presence.

More smoke bellowed from Haze, clouding Jacent’s path and enveloping him in the stuff. Jacent was able to keep to an isolated pocket of clear air however, and he used it to its fullest advantage. He stepped around Daxton, and steered clear of the other kids as he marched tirelessly toward Haze’s approximate position. Haze moved unseen, but not unheard, his footfalls being the only ones other than Jacent’s, and Jacent was doing his best to keep quiet. A decidedly accurate thrust of one yo-yo hit its mark, swinging down over Haze’s body like a club when Jacent gave it enough slack to travel the distance. Back and forth he swung, slugging Haze’s body a couple of times before the Inkling again retreated.

Jacent pulled the yo-yo back and resumed his windmill technique.

“Yo, get him Jacent!” Max cheered.

“Knock it off!” Haze complained.

Jacent locked on to the sound of Haze’s voice and thrust his body forward in a sudden Comet Crash. He rocketed across the foyer and drove his shoulder into the Inkling, connecting with a firm tackle to take him off-balance. The smoke parted around his charge giving him a brief opening of visibility on Haze’s form, so he twirled, throwing the blue yo-yo into an upswing that struck Haze’s chin. On his toes, he spun, clutching the red yo-yo in his hand, using it to cushion a hard palm strike square into Haze’s chest. The force of which was similar to an oncoming car, lifting Haze off his feet and throwing him into the nearby wall.

“Ngh!” Haze grunted, getting his footing back as he fell to the floor. Jacent had once again started up his vortex windmill with his toys. Haze didn’t like that one bit.

Jacent heard the Inkling move straight ahead, and he’d turned to swing his yo-yo in another strike. However the Inkling arrived faster than he’d anticipated, his feline form emerging from the mists a second sooner than Jacent thought was possible. Haze stuck his arm out, and one of the spinning toys was caught around it, wrapping and looping around it until it had completely coiled around. Having stopped at least one end while Jacent continued to spin the other, Haze grabbed the super hero by his neck and held him as he exhaled a particularly thick cloud of off-yellow sickness right into his face.

He tried to hold his breath, but Haze drove a knee into his stomach to force him to exhale. The resulting gasp for air filled his lungs with invasive smog that burned and clogged, causing him to choke up almost too quickly. His eyes watered as his body was sent into a fit of hacking coughs that sapped his strength. The blue yo-yo’s spinning slowed, and the red one slackened around Haze’s arm to free the Inkling. Jacent felt hands on his head, gripping him and holding him up so that Haze’s knee could be thrust up against his chin and throat. The boy practically gargled a breath and collapsed onto the floor, clutching at his chest in the intense need to breathe but the inability to find any air.

“Haha! Yay!” Haze cheered, “I got you! Now, back to those other Inklings.”

-

--

-

“… No.”

Vor was taken aback. “No?”

Quincey shook her head, wiping tears from her eyes in the same moment. “No,” She repeated, “I won’t part with Duplex. I won’t. I won’t willingly send another creature to death.”

Vor raised his brow. “I will devour your Inkling,” He said, “One way or another. I am giving you a chance to save your own life. If you do not separate from this creature, then I’ll be forced to consume you to get to it. You understand this, do you not?”

Quincey couldn’t meet eyes with the Inkling. She instead stared straight down at her feet, head hung low. “… A long time ago, before we were spliced with the DNA of animals, humans did unspeakable things because they were different from one another.” She said, “The highest rates of incarceration were held by minorities. Hate groups thrived in an environment where their actions were sometimes celebrated by high-standing individuals. When we emerged from the other side of the Skin Plague, individuals who had happened to be spliced with creatures such as flies and spiders were regarded with a stigma simply due to phobic fears of insects and arachnoids. Even in this building there is a history of conquest, of force, to try and change the beliefs of all those who thought differently. Vor, sir… our history is muddied by the fear of those who are different from ourselves. Humans have shown time and again a lack of compassion and empathy, simply due to the fact that not all humans share a common environment. All simply because evolution built us differently to withstand the elements of our homes better. All because there was diversity that should have been cherished.”

“Back then, to find a sentient alien race would likely have started a narrative that should never have existed.” The girl clutched her shirt, balling the fabric up in her hands. “It would have been a question. Should we treat them with the same decency that we are expected to treat our fellow humans? Even if… we didn’t always treat fellow humans with respect. We have been learning and relearning ever since we started to dig up relics of our past that we should not repeat the same mistakes as before. So… no, Vor, I will not surrender Duplex to you. To do so would be no different than ending the life of a fellow human.”

“… If Inklings are beyond redemption, then what makes us any different?”

-

--

-

Polaris charged forth, shield sturdy and spear at the ready. The Baoding balls that orbited his form moved more intensely, whipping around his body in a storm. Arus prepared for the brunt of the attack, tensing her muscles and meeting his shield with her shoulder where his charge was stopped. The metal spheres buffeted her body at a very short distance, forcing her to either be right in close or too far to be effective. She chose close, allowing him to get into body contact where she grabbed the shaft of his pointed spear and held it still, the sharpened spearhead just grazing her side under her arm.

“Even I could tell you that all you can do is thrust with that!” Arus said, pulling the spear to put off the other Inkling’s footing. Before she could attack he threw out his shield, broadsiding her with it right in the face. Her head jerked back with the impact and she stumbled, allowing Polaris to withdraw the spear and slide back. He didn’t step in the regular fashion, instead rising to his toes where he could slide across the floor. He was likely using the weight of his weapons and magnetism to move him around in ways impossible by normal standards. It probably also explained how he hit so hard.

“Guh, you bitch!” Arus groused, flexing her nose and shaking off the blow. She had little time to prepare for the barrage of metal as the Baoding balls entered her range, swinging up and down at her at all angles. One struck her shoulder and jerked her torso back, another clipped her forehead. It hurt, a little, but past that she firmed up, muscles flexed in frustration. Polaris was wily. He dipped and moved and had enough little tricks up his sleeve that there was almost too much to be prepared for. That made him incredibly annoying, and Arus glowered her discontent at him.

Polaris stepped in, thrusting three times with his spear and stepping back out before Arus’ fist could connect with him. He shuffled aside, moving around her in half-circles to avoid being anywhere head-on with her. He always came in at an angle, in some way where she’d have to twist her torso or turn to give him a shot. He controlled her momentum, knowing that once she got going she’d be like a runaway train. If nothing else, his glancing blows with the spear and shield-smacks were only to disrupt her and keep her from gaining any traction. He never attempted to stab her directly – not one attack was aimed at any vitals or the center of her mass simply because he knew it to be useless. Arus could be struck by a meteor and come out the other side unharmed; a little metal spear wasn’t going to do anything to her.

The downside to Arus’ powers was that she was required to hold mostly still in order to brush off such fatal blows. She could have stayed unmoving and Polaris wouldn’t have been able to scratch her, but that wasn’t going to win her any fights. It was a matter of moving very little, to keep her defenses up and maintain her unyielding poise while still somehow fighting back. She did this using slow steps, dragging her feet across the wood and carpet rather than lifting them in a step. Polaris would dip in for an attack and she’d swing for what little exposure he had behind that shield he kept brandished. He stepped to her opposing side each time, causing her to either miss or strike the metal of the shield, and he angled the plate in such a way that her fist would often slide off of it. She wasn’t getting anywhere.

Forced to retreat, Arus ambled back out of range of the orbiting spheres. “You think you’re so smart with your metal balls and crap.” She said.

“I’ve been fighting all my life, Arus, just like you.” He responded, “The key to taking down a goliath isn’t to match their strength, but to whittle them down. Death by a thousand cuts.”

“Whittle down this!” Arus knelt down, grabbed a chunk of the shattered wooden table she’d smashed upon her entry and whipped the corner leg piece like some kind of Frisbee. Polaris ducked behind his shield, the wood splintering into pieces when it struck the metal. “Argh!” Arus charged forth, fist cocked back as she pierced the protective barrier of flying metal and taking every little hit along the way. The spheres smacking into her face and shoulders didn’t deter her much, though the impacts ached. She muscled through, and Polaris peeked out just in time to see her approach. He cowered behind the shield again and Arus straight-armed the metal plate with her full force. Her knuckles dented the metal on impact and the force of thrust kicked Polaris back off his feet. He sailed through the air and struck the wall next to the hearth, gasping as his back shattered some shelving there.

The white Inkling continued her assault. Polaris’ protective shielding of rotating orbs didn’t follow him faster than she had, and she charged forth again to slam into his shield once more. He held it up to protect himself, but Arus simply began crashing down on it with punch after punch. Her slow, winding blows shoved her opponent against the wall, cracking the wood paneling past the wallpaper. Large, fist-shaped dents deformed the Caduceus emblem, projecting outward from the back of the shield toward Polaris’ face, but failing to find purchase in the strong yield of the metal. Every fist exploded against the metal with a loud, booming crash. The kite shield gradually lost its shape under the flurry.

Polaris tried to fight back with the spear, but Arus anticipated this feeble attempt and halted her assault to grab the weapon with both hands. She forced it into a bend, grunting as she hooked the solid metal shaft around on itself so that the pointed head of the spear angled back on its wielder. Although he was shocked, Polaris took that as his opportunity to slip away, pushing himself aside to escape. He used the new crook of his spear to hook Arus’ foot, and with a hard yank he tripped her up. She fell onto her back on the floor, where just above her the fourteen Baoding balls congealed into one large metal orb and slammed down into her gut. Unprepared for that, it drove the air out of her lungs.

Polaris panted, the bend in the spear correcting itself by the use of his powers, straightening out into a proper weapon once more. The large divots in the shield did the same to a lesser extent, pushing back out only a slight ways. Evidence of Arus’ assault still remained, though the shield reformed to something closer to its original proportions rather than a bent and gnarled mess. The cluster of Baoding balls rose to slam down on Arus once more, but instead met her fist as she threw a blind punch upward at the mass. The balls scattered around the room as she smashed the orb apart. They quickly resumed their orbit around Polaris’ body in the time it took for Arus to get back to her feet.

“What’s the matter, need to take a break?” Arus shook out her hands before returning them to tightly clenched fists.

“Hrah!” Polaris threw his spear, and it flew in a perfectly straight line almost as fast as Arus could blink. She snatched it out of the air before it could impale her face, and it served as distraction enough for Polaris to close the gap. He was led by his shield, both hands on the grips on its back as he thrust forth in a shoulder tackle that had him gliding across the room startlingly fast. He slammed into the other Inkling and forced her back, flattening her against the wall just under the stairs. Arus was jarred but not completely blindsided, and with one hand holding the spear she used her other to try and punch him in the head.

Polaris stepped back, causing her to miss. She threw another haymaker to his shield side, which he parried. He threw her fist aside with a swing of his shield that left her completely exposed. He reared his own fist back, and the swarm of metal spheres clustered around his hand into a makeshift ball mace that he slammed into her face. A splash of colour erupted behind her closed eyes at the impact, the Baoding balls slipping away from Polaris’ fist as it came across her face. He took the spear from her hand as she was dazed and thrust it at her, jamming it into the wall beside her head to make her flinch just long enough for him to get away.

He stumbled backward his footing failing as he stepped over the shattered parts of the wooden coffee table. He nearly tripped, but instead his legs buckled to a kneel that he quickly corrected.

Arus fumed. She glared intensely at the red and blue Inkling, anger burning in her violet eyes. She tore the spear from the wall and smashed it two-handed onto the floor, bending and deforming its shape again before she threw it away. She watched the metal spheres at Polaris’ command swarm back behind him, fanning out in a circle before lazily resuming their protective orbit.

“You seem upset.” Polaris pointed out condescendingly.

Arus smiled angrily. “No, no… I haven’t had this much fun in a while.”

Polaris chuckled, “Honestly, that’s high praise coming from you. You always were something of a legend among the ranks.”

“Flattery is only going to get you hit harder.” Arus responded.

-

--

-

“You’re certainly something special, aren’t you?” Vor crossed his arms as he peered down at Quincey. “But you’re naïve. While you may be sympathetic to Inklings, to them you’re just a means to an end. You’re food and little else.”

Quincey bit her lip, watching him fearfully.

Vor closed his eyes and lowered his head somberly. “If that is your choice, then I suppose I’ve done my best to convince you. I’ve failed. This will be just one more sin to live with.”

Quincey gasped as Vor lunged forward, crowding her against the door with his hands planted to either side of her to keep her trapped. The girl screamed, cowering against the cold metal and trying her best to protect herself from the Inkling’s advance, but it was little use. He topped her in size, and pushed in so close that she couldn’t wiggle her way free. She felt pins and needles creep along her head and neck as he leaned over her and looked down on her from above, and she couldn’t bring herself to meet his empty gaze.

Vor parted his maw. His shape of a snake was befitting of the act, as his jaw unhinged to open, gaping like a true reptile’s mouth ready to swallow prey too large to normally eat. His inky face contorted, stretching ugly as his jaw stretched lower and wide, pulling the flesh of his face down to stretch his eyes and elongate his nose. He rasped, his mouth expanding like a black hole to the size of Quincey’s whole head. His warm breath and dripping, inky drool rained down on her, and she screamed and curled up to hide from him helplessly. Once he’d gaped his face to the appropriate size, he lowered, descending upon her like a predator to snap his jaws shit around the top of her cranium.

She squeaked, tensing up and cutting off the sound of her fright. Her entire body froze as he clamped down over her head and stopped as well. The two of them stood there for a moment, black ink drooling over Quincey’s features in grotesque, slobbish lines. Vor blinked his eyes in confusion, mouth wrapped around Quincey’s hairline almost entirely, swallowing her red bob cut. The Inkling withdrew, his lips stretching out briefly as if stuck to Quincey’s head, popping off almost comically when he’d pulled far enough away. His face snapped back to normal proportion, with some of Quincey’s red hairs sticking out of his mouth.

Quincey’s scalp had all been peeled away, and beneath was just viscous, silvery ink swirling with rainbow fumes. Quincey meekly lifted her head to peer back up at the Inkling as he stepped back, his expression wrought with confusion.

“… You’re not a human at all!” Vor spat.

Quincey smiled. “Nope!”

Her entire body inflated and then popped like a balloon, the silver gunk that built her insides speckling into the air as small droplets and disappearing. Vor lifted his arms a little as if to block the explosion, but it was more akin to a cartoonish pop than an actual burst of considerable mass. It even sounded like the unrealistic farce it resembled. Vor covered his mouth, swallowing what remained inside, his brow creased as his mind raced.

The taste was unmistakable. It was Inkling.

He slowly lowered his hand, staring ahead at the door intensely. He breathed out a raspy hiss as it dawned on him: he’d been duped. Whatever Inkling that was, their host was still safe and sound in that room where he’d left her.

“Echelon…” He growled, shaking in anger.

-

--

-

When Quincey was dragged out of the room, Natalie sat there on the floor for a few moments. Then she popped into a black, inky mess and disappeared. Slowly one of the crates’ lids opened up, and a pair of red eyes peeked out.

“Ha! They bought it!” Natalie grinned. She forced the metal crate’s top off with a thrust of her arms, and it flew into the air and clattered onto the floor. She rose from the crate and stretched her arms and legs, her rear likewise flexing in her little pink shorts as she worked out the strain from cramming herself into the box. She wasn’t alone inside, Quincey rose and slumped over the side of the box, gasping for breath. It’d been rather cramped inside with the both of them.

Natalie shook her head, swinging her dreads about. “This guy’s powers are useful! I never would have been able to move those crates or get them open without them!” She said. She turned a little to peer back at Quincey, giving her an apologetic smile. “Sorry for crushing you to death under my butt.”

“We agreed that I was the bigger one, so…” Quincey rubbed her head, mussing her bob cut. She righted her glasses on her snout and carefully climbed out of the crate to stretch her legs. She was thankful to not be in that confined space for any longer than she had, but she did wonder as she smoothed out her clothes just what Natalie had in mind for what came next.

Natalie stepped out as well. “You alright?” She asked.

“Huh? Oh,” Quincey looked Natalie’s way, “I’m fine. Duplex is managing. I don’t know for how long though… it’s gotten in to see Vor already, so we should do whatever you’re going to do as quickly as we can.”

“Right.” Natalie agreed. She inked over quickly, Echelon’s black form with its pink shine taking over as her skin. Unlike most Inklings, Echelon seemed to wear some clothes. Tracings of a one-piece leotard were formed over her flesh, a bright pink skull planted square on her chest in the center of it. The light caught her and made her black body shine, particularly around her rear, which Quincey couldn’t help but take notice of. The inked wolf raised her hand, calling on Polaris’ powers to help her. She pushed forward, putting pressure on the steel door to bend it outward, causing the metal to creak and groan. She shoved a considerable dent into it, warping its shape.

Then, she got down like a sprinter, fingers touching the floor and feet curled up to start a dash. Her little tail wagged above her bulbous backside, shaking it around as she smirked. “Comet Crash!” She shouted, picking up in a high-speed run. Jacent’s super powers increased her momentum exponentially, until she came crashing into the door with a couple of applied G-forces. The steel came loose, ripping from the frame and shooting across the hall where it struck the wall and fell to the floor with a deafening crash. Echelon skid to a stop just outside, with an Eos soldier to her left and right. She caught the man and the woman completely unawares, throwing her body into a spin-kick that connected with the one on the right, her propelled foot crashing into their face and sending them careening to the floor.

She spun and stopped facing the other soldier. Their weapon was armed and ready, and they fired a blast to subdue her. “Actima!” She shouted, just before the shot went off, and her form blurred as she stepped aside faster than most eyes could follow. She zipped like a shadow to the right, then further still until she stepped up onto the wall.

“Comet Crush!” She shouted, pushing off the wall like a catapult, thrusting her rear back into the man’s body to smash him against the wall. He let out a hoarse, breathless grunt as he squished up against the steel, and when Echelon landed, the Eos man slumped to the floor unconscious.

Quincey stepped out of the room, her hands grasping the bent and battered doorframe as she observed the scene in awe. She turned her attention to the dent in the wall where Echelon’s bee-sting had crushed a fully grown adult male so intensely that he couldn’t seem to get up. “Whoa…” She blushed, “You are so cool.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time to give these people what’s coming to them.” Echelon punched her fist into her open palm, feeling vindicated with her beat-down. “Are you ready? Let’s get out of here.”

“O-Okay!” Quincey agreed, hurrying out and stepping over one of the groaning soldiers as she and Echelon hurried down the hall.

Their footfalls echoed through the mostly empty corridors, the two of them running as quickly as they could to escape. They had a rough approximation as to where the elevator was that brought them down into that facility, but everything looked so similar to what came before it that it was impossible to know just where they were. The place was formed into one giant loop though, and Echelon knew if she kept going around she would eventually find the path. The problem was time; those PA speakers were blaring an alarm, making it both hard to concentrate and reminding the girls that they only had so much time before they’d be found and caught.

Other footsteps were stomping on up ahead from around a nearby corner. Echelon stopped when Garrison rounded the bend with two other Eos soldiers in tow. “There they are!” Garrison barked, “Get them!”

“Oh!” Quincey panted, stumbling to a stop and bumping into Echelon from behind. This stopped her, and she quickly grabbed hold of Echelon’s shoulders, pushing up against her back frightfully. The girl could only turn her attention to her left where the large automatic blast doors sat, the ones leading into the strange factory they’d seen before. Insistently she pulled on Echelon, tugging her to the side and hurrying with her to the doors. They opened for the girls and they rushed inside as they closed behind them.

Echelon turned and looked to either side of the door to find the control panel for it on the left side. Practically jumping on it, she rammed her fist into the panel as hard as she could, smashing a hole into the console. Metal plates bent, sparks fizzled out, and in doing so the door was rendered inert. She could hear the soldiers on the other side pounding on the door as it refused to open for them.

“Oh my God…” Quincey marveled at the facility that stretched out before her. It was a fully-fledged Fabricatory, with all the common trappings of a standard construction facility, though crudely made and set up into a small, more crowded space. Everything from architect consoles, to smelting machines, to molding presses had been set up along a twisted and tangled assembly line connected by conveyer belts that blocked off several sections of the room. Machines with tiny, automatic, robotic arms worked, welding and fusing complicated circuitries together, assembling them from wires and chips into forms that were later cased.

The air was hot in the room. The shielded smelter melted down various machinery into liquid components that were then transferred to be shaped and hardened. A lot of what went into it looked like old junk, particularly stuff from hospitals. Echelon turned to spy a crash kit get gobbled up by the waiting maw of the smelter, to be melted down and deposited into containment to send it along to be molded. Welding fumes and melted plastic permeated the air, where the workers there wore masks to handle the scent.

The place was fully staffed. Many workers in white lab coats and heat-retardant suits worked at various stations, either supplying the line or working the machinery. Anything that required human hands was done, including taking the finished product off the end of the line and stashing it into boxes. Quincey watched a koala woman take a finished rifle from a table and fire it at a target at the end of the room. She didn’t quite see the shot impact, but then that was the point. It was the same sort of rifle that Eos had been using that whole time – the same ones that they’d fired at her so many days ago.

“Is this what I think it is?” Echelon asked.

“They were making them here the whole time.” Quincey finished the thought.

The workers started to notice them. It was understandable that they had been unable to pick up on their presence before then, what with the tremendous noise coming from all the machinery filling the entire room. Eventually though they began to see that two girls had somehow gotten into the factory, and they were smart enough to know what that meant.

“H’oh boy.” Echelon said.

Quincey watched as the workers started picking up weapons to defend themselves with. She intended to run, but a sudden backlash made her gasp in shock, where she clutched her chest and nearly collapsed had Echelon not caught her. The Inkling looked at her in surprise. “What’s wrong?!” She asked.

Quincey breathed heavily, silent for only a moment as her gaze seemed to wander in thought, like she was listening to something. “Vor… tried to eat Duplex,” She said, much to Echelon’s surprise. “He eats Inklings!”

“What do you mean he eats Inklings?” Echelon inquired.

Quincey blinked rapidly up at Echelon. “He eats everything!” She exasperated, “My God, we have to get out of here.”

“That’s going to be easier said than done,” Echelon said, taking Quincey’s hand and pulling her as she dashed into the factory, collapsing behind some of the conveyer belts for cover. The pig girl stumbled and tripped, landing on her belly on the floor. Echelon helped her up, at least enough to sit up where she wasn’t completely exposed. “Move, move!” She said, leading Quincey through the twisted route of the factory as impact bullets began to ting and bang off the metal machinery around them. Some shots scattered metal scrap around the room, screws and cogs being thrown off the belts when shots just barely missed the girls’ heads.

They hid behind a molding press, its mighty piston pushing down to force the melted metal scrap into shapes that would house a fusion core. Not too far from them was a clustered area where high amounts of such energy were stored in a massive container, containing tremendously lethal amounts of plasma energy that crackled in its supercharged state. The machines kept chugging along, performing their duties of assembly with robotic limbs suspended on rails above working the more intricate tasks. For the most part the workers weren’t afraid to fire into the mess, even going so far as to blow one of the metal arms off the rail where it fell limp and lifeless to the ground. Quincey tried to peek out around the machine, but a shot nearly took her in the air. She jerked back behind her cover and rubbed her ear sorely, the sound of the hard-force bullet striking the metal press machine ringing in her head.

Echelon reached aside and plucked a single hair off Quincey’s head. “Ow!” The girl squealed.

“Sorry, I just need to use this.” Echelon said, “I’m going to divide their fire as best as I can. We need to make our way to one of the other doors before that dump truck with arms finds his way in here.”

“O-Okay…” Quincey nodded, “I think the nearest one is over there!”

She pointed past the press machine, past a line of conveyer belt, past the fusion energy supply, to an area where stacked crates, junk, and machinery took up a majority of the space. They had been meticulously placed, almost a perfect blocks on their own atop skids used to lug them around. Echelon peered over to see a door tucked into the stacks, a big one just like all the others. “Hey, remember that cargo lift out front? Maybe that leads out there.” Echelon theorized, “We should try going out that way!”

“Agreed!” Quincey concurred.

“Alright,” Echelon nodded. “Duplex!”

In moments Echelon’s form split like a cell, tearing into two. The forms were equally sized, with neither losing any mass, creating an exact duplicate of Echelon’s shiny black and pink body. It was a little gradual, and they split with a wobble that rippled their frames like gelatin. The two Inklings made sure Quincey was prepared before they took off. One ditched left, and the other – assumedly the original Echelon – headed to the right with Quincey following behind. The plan worked as intended. Some of the factory workers fired at the duplicate and some did not. Ultimately, any fewer shooters made the trip easier for the girls, who scuttled as quickly as they could while trying to avoid getting hit. Unfortunately they weren’t small enough targets.

Quincey was struck in the shoulder by a fist-sized projectile of invisible force. The impact smacked her flesh loudly and threw her aside where she stumbled and hit the floor. The ache was immediate, but the damage wasn’t severe. It was enough force to numb her arm, but it still stung right around the center of her upper bicep. She cried out as she hit the floor, which Echelon responded to quickly by turning to run back and retrieve her. This caused her to get struck as well, her ink rippling a couple of times as two shots connected with her back. They had a unique effect on an exposed Inkling in the sense that Echelon truly acted as a shell for Natalie’s body. She seemed to shake and morph to the blows like a loosened suit stuck to a human body. She snapped back proper in mere moments, but the sensations that remained made her knees shake. She powered through the pain to pick Quincey up off the ground, and with one arm around the girl she hurried her toward the door.

The Echelon duplicate eventually unraveled under fire, its body splitting apart and popping like a balloon to disappear into inky droplets in the air. Still, it had served its purpose. Echelon reached the doors with Quincey and they opened to let them through. Garrison stood outside with the two soldiers at his flanks just as before. They had been too slow in their escape and were confronted with a situation where the large super soldier penned them in, with gun-toting lab coats closing in behind them. Garrison had his weapon charged and ready along with his cohorts, and he didn’t wait a second before opening up on the girls.

“Aru…!” Echelon tried to call on Arus’ powers, the only ones she knew of that would be able to withstand the barrage, but Quincey moved first. The rotund pig girl threw herself at Echelon to protect her front, wrapping her arms around the Inkling and holding tight as the shots started hitting her in the back. The sound she made as the impact shots smacked her flesh was a choked cry of pain. The hits forced the air out of her lungs and made it hard to breathe, and she cringed heavily, slumping against Echelon’s body to protect her with her wider frame. Garrison and his cronies had to have fired around eight shots in total, and by the sixth Quincey was getting limp. Her grasp on Echelon slipped away and she slid against the Inkling wolf’s body on her way to the floor. Echelon had to hold her up as pain racked her body too intensely for her to stand.

Garrison called a cease fire when it became evident that Quincey was going down. They moved on Echelon instead while Quincey’s knees buckled and she gasped for breath. Echelon didn’t have time to act, and so she grabbed hold of Quincey and scooped her up into her arms. The weighted pig was no light lift, but Echelon picked her up in her arms to hold her in a bridal carry. She barely managed to hoist the hefty girl, but once her legs were off the ground Echelon rushed forth. Actima’s powers became useful once more as she went from 0 to 100 in under a second, rushing past Garrison as a black, pink, and pig coloured streak.

Moving that fast was difficult. Echelon didn’t have as much of a grasp on the power of super speed as Actima himself did, and so her mind just couldn’t keep up with how fast she was going. It was a sprint if nothing else, and the exertion it took was no less intense than a regular meters-long dash carrying a girl who weighed somewhere around the one-hundred and eighty pound area. By the time she had reached the end of the hall to the T-junction that fed back into the loop, Echelon was panting heavily for breath. She nearly fell forward as she slowed faster than she anticipated herself doing, but managed to keep her desperate footing. A look to her left and right and she saw yet another large, bi-sectioned vertical-opening door at the end of the hall to her right. That seemed as good a place as any to handle large shipments, so she hurried that way.

“Nn…” Quincey whined, wincing and sniffling as she cried.

“You’re okay. Come on, we’re doing fine.” Echelon assured her, huffing as she ran down the hall.

She was only feet from the door when Garrison rounded the corner and more shots came her way. Echelon called on Arus’ powers as she slowed her dash to a near stop, tensing up so that the force shots that hit her back would just bounce off. They jerked her body forward whenever they hit, and she took two, four, six… ten shots to her shoulders and back while shuffling her feet across the floor and doing her best to keep Quincey from taking any more damage. She held her breath through the entire ordeal, where a vein would have bulged in her forehead as she struggled forward. The last few feet felt like ages, with shots whistling past her ears deafeningly and more still striking her body and almost causing her to fall down. The doors opened as she dragged herself toward them, and then closed behind her to be belted by the bullets instead.

Once again she turned, released her hold on Arus’ abilities, and slammed her foot into the console next to the door to damage it enough to keep it from opening. She turned then to see just what she had been looking for – a massive cargo lift with rails on the sides of it. There were boxes and machinery lining the outside of the room, creating an enclosure around the lift that made everything seem smaller. Even one of the modified Eos trucks was parked at the far end, having likely been transported down there by the lift that was big enough to house it. The lights were dim, but a number of them on the ceiling lit up a massive steel section on the roof that was clearly the door leading to the outside. The giant metal teeth of the portal were clamped shut, but a console next to the lift clearly controlled the opening and the lift’s operations.

Echelon carried Quincey to the lift, watchful for more soldiers. She started by laying the girl out on the edge. Quincey laid back and stared at the closed metal door in the ceiling, sucking in air she was thankful to take. She whimpered and sobbed, but wiped away her tears. Echelon frowned at the girl, but with her safety assured for the moment she returned to the console and pulled the big squared switch that said “OPEN” in big letters. The silent room became noisy as the massive doors above slowly parted, machinery whirring to life, machinations clanking and clacking to open their way to freedom. Next she dragged her finger upward across the screen, lighting up a slider that went from red, to yellow, to green as it rose. The hydraulics of the lift were set into motion, the locks releasing on it with a boom to allow it to raise.

Echelon hurried back to the lift as it rose and she climbed onto it next to Quincey to ride it up. On her hands and knees she looked down upon Quincey and placed one hand on her shoulder. “Quincey, are you okay?”

“It hurts…” Quincey whined.

Echelon smiled just a little as she cupped Quincey’s cheeks in her hands. “Don’t worry, it’s almost over.” She said, “Thank you for protecting me. You were very brave.”

Quincey coughed, sobbing even still. Echelon carefully lifted her up and embraced her, resting her chin on the girl’s shoulder and wrapping her arms around her to hold her tight. Quincey hugged Echelon, holding to her for the sense of safety the super-powered Inkling provided. While they hugged, Echelon carefully peeled the back of Quincey’s shirt up to see bruises formed on her flesh, marring the pink flesh with disgusting, darkened injury. She breathed out an empathetic sigh, lowering her shirt again and caressing her as comfortingly as she could.

“Mhend.” The Inkling said. Using her comrade’s healing powers, she backed off Quincey’s hug to instead give the girl a kiss. Quincey tensed, but while Mhend’s healing powers did their work she found herself relaxing as the pain her in her subsided to warm, pleasant tingles instead. Her head felt light, perhaps explaining why she insisted on staying lip-locked with Echelon for the few seconds more than were necessary, but in the end she felt better. Her injuries and her pain weren’t completely cured, but what was an almost unbearable, stinging pain became no more than a lightly pinched nerve that kept her from twisting too far.

The slow ascent to the outside seemed like a quiet moment to enjoy, but only for so long. Loud crashes were heard as a door from a walkway above was brutalized. Screeching and groaning metal echoed throughout the chamber punctuated by heavy slams. Quincey and Echelon looked up to see the door be punctured by an orange, inky hand that grabbed pieces of the steel and circuitry to rip them away. Once a hole had been worked into it large enough, Vor pushed his head through and clamped down with his jaws. He took large bites out of the metal until he could fit his body through, chomping and smacking his lips together, swallowing sharp, jagged shapes that bulged his throat and disappeared into his body. He ate his way through the door, and even as he stepped out onto the catwalk only a few feet above them and away, wires and metal chunks flaked from his maw like cookie crumbs.

“You don’t understand, Echelon!” The Inkling bellowed at the girls. He threw himself over the rail of the catwalk, leaping from there to the lift in one fluid motion, landing like a trained acrobat. The disgusting Inkling man was raging, panting and grunting, viscous black goo dripping from his maw that he sloppily slurped up when he’d the mind to. The sticky saliva sprinkled from his mouth as he shouted at them.

“You cannot leave! I cannot allow you back into the world to endanger the lives of the humans! You can’t escape what you are!” He screamed at them, “I will consume you, and I will do it here and now!”

“You don’t have the right.” Echelon rose, leaving Quincey at the edge of the lift to step forward. She clenched her fists and took a fighting stance. “I’m not going to let you endanger the lives you claim to be saving.”

“We are monsters. We are demons who bring nothing but Hell in our wake!” Vor growled in exhaustion.

“Speak for yourself!” Echelon boosted forward, and the Inklings clashed.

-

--

-

“Aiee! Help! I’m being victimized!” Mhend cried, flailing her arms and legs as Haze drew her into the smoke and tossed her around. She squealed as she flew through the air, the sound cut short when she hit the floor in a combination ink-bat and metal-leg sound of smack and clunk. She’d long since lost her air pistol, which Haze had smartly disarmed her of at the beginning when he decided to get Phactys and her in on the fun.

Phactys was struggling. His sense of foresight could only really tell him one thing: he was going to be hit, and it was going to be from somewhere he couldn’t see. Based on the sounds coming from various directions he could form an idea of where things might happen from, but even he couldn’t say for certain how things were playing out. It was taking his one big strength and making it useless. He instead came up with another plan – rather than fight Haze actively on his home turf, he sought to get together with his friends and act as one to react.

“Guys, join up!” He called into the smoke, “Get over here!”

Lastik was the first to find him, practically running into him carrying Kenny. Phactys had them join hands. Haze, able to see and hear this with all clarity, tried to break them up. He came in, swatted at their arms, pushed around anyone who broke off, but the others would scramble to jump Haze as a singular unit. The smoky Inkling’s opening became rather small, as every time he’d dip in to attack he’d have two more sets of hands on him trying to hold him down. A few times he just barely managed to wiggle free.

Koralo found his way into the chain, and the group sought out Mhend who was stressing on the floor. They scraped her up and got her settled, finding Laila near the truck as they stepped around the room batting away Haze when he tried to terrorize them. They ushered Laila and Kenny into the truck and had them hold the doors closed to keep them safe, though Daxton had yet to be found in the mist, as did Jacent. The police remained outside, some still struggling with Eos stragglers, but for the most part things were going well out there.

“You can’t take all of us at once!” Phactys declared.

Haze made a frustrated sound. “Look! We’re just trying to take you all home where we can find a different planet and leave the humans alone!” Haze said, “They don’t deserve to be terrorized by us!”

“We agree whole heartedly on that notion!” Mhend said, “But we’re not terrorizing the humans! I would never terrorize a person!”

“Or horrorize or nightmarate or panicify!” Koralo added.

“Yeah well you don’t give people asthma attacks!” Haze said. He rushed in to attack them, coming right at Lastik who meandered with her friends in the smoke. He smacked into her arm with the full force of both of his, trying to break her grip on Phactys’ fingers. Instead of breaking them apart, he sagged when Lastik’s arm gave way like a rubber band, entrapping Haze’s axe-handle smash. “Oh!” Lastik exclaimed, “Here! He’s here!”

Koralo lashed out his tongue and stuck it to the side of Haze’s head. Haze had tried to flee, but found himself tethered to Koralo by way of the sticky, yellow tongue that latched on like crazy glue and wouldn’t let go. Haze fussed, tugging on Koralo’s tongue to try and free himself while attempting to move away at the same time, to get some distance between him and the group. “Gothim!” Koralo slurred around his tongue.

The line of Inklings closed around him in the worst game of ring around the rosy that Haze had ever played. Even so, their sudden assault of open-hand slaps and shin-kicks weren’t the most effective attacks that Haze had been hit by in the last ten minutes, let alone his whole life. If anything, it was agitating. Haze flinched and raised his arms to try and defend himself, grousing at their slaps. “Hey, quit it!” He yelled, “Stop it you dummies!”

One person who could see the entire scene grinned to himself, pushing on one smashed skiff on the truck to lift himself to a sitting position. Daxton could see the whole thing play out, from Phactys’ plan to stick together to the entertaining beat-down group the Inklings had assembled to wrestle him. Since the Inklings were all bound by humans and just so happened to follow certain rules of human physiology, they all had heat signatures. Admittedly those signatures were masked, as were most things on the outside when an Inkling took over. Certain elements of human sturdiness gave way to fluid flexibility of an Inkling’s body – especially in Shelly’s case. They didn’t have to breathe in the smokescreen that Daxton bunched his shirt up over his face to protect himself from. But they did make heat, and Daxton’s STOP could see the green-orange figures moving around.

He felt a little weakened from inhaling as much of Haze’s pollution as he did. Without being able to breathe proper, his muscles felt weak and strained and his heart pounded. His head felt like it was bulging and his face must have been awful red. Still, he managed to pull himself up using the truck for leverage. He got to standing and dragged his feet around back behind to find the opening in the flatbed where he could roll himself onto it. Taking the smallest breaths he could, the corgi boy rolled across the back of the truck until his back his the tripod-mounted turret.

From there he reached up, grabbed a handle of the device, and grit his teeth as he pulled down as hard as he could. He lifted his upper body, his legs staying stiff and limp for a moment before he could tuck his feet up under himself. He slapped his other hand onto the other handle of the weapon and pulled harder, groaning as he heaved his body to slump over his prize. He had more or less manned the turret, though he practically had to mount it himself as his feet felt like wet spaghetti noodles. He might have been suffocating, or somewhere close to it. Perhaps his vision would have been tunneling, if he had eyes. Indeed, the signal from his STOP was a little fuzzy at times, static distorting the images before him, but he tried not to think about it.

Haze finally had enough, and he thrust his fist into Mhend’s face as hard as he could. As sturdy as her one metal limb was, her tiny little body couldn’t withstand the blow and she released her hold on her friends’ arms and toppled to the floor. Haze took that as his opening to break away, slipping through their fingers before they could recover. He bumbled out of the circle, spinning around to address them as he got his distance again.

“Okay, listen! Seriously you guys!” Haze protested, “I like humans too, I really do! They’re really neat and the best hosts ever, but Vor’s right! Osoth made us bad! Why can’t you see that?”

“We’re not all bad.” Phactys said, “You’re standing in a room full of the most harmless Inklings Osoth ever made!”

“Yeah, like, oh nooo…” Lastik teased, “I’m so scary because I’m stretchy!”

“Surely Mhend’s healing powers will be the death of us all!” Mhend joined in, picking herself up off the floor and rubbing her nose.

“Maybe if I hork a loogie into the fountain at the mall, everyone will get super grossed out!” Koralo cackled.

Haze blinked his eyes, stuttering a little. “W-Well, I mean…! No! It’s not about that! It’s about…! But you…! Echelon! Echelon used to be Osoth’s best general ever! She tore down entire civilizations! And you think that she can really just beat Osoth and then just leave it?!”

“Well, yeah, dude.” Koralo answered. “Why not?”

“But look at her!” Haze squeaked, “She practically IS…!”

“Hey! Smoky!”

“Huh?” Haze’s ear twitched and he turned his head to see the barrel of Daxton’s turret angled right at him, able to hear the high-pitched hum of the weapon’s full charge. He had only a moment to register what was about to happen.

“Uh oh.”

Daxton fired. The volley of hard-force energy actually rumbling rather than whistling, simply due to the sheer size of it. Haze was struck right in the center, folded in half and carried across the foyer were he splattered against the wall just next to the entryway to the sitting room. The ink covering his body splashed over the wall like wet paint, revealing the host beneath. A black cat from head to toe save for his shocked cyan hair, the young adult male’s big yellow cat eyes were wide with shock. His long and crooked whiskers twitched, from his muzzle and his eyebrows. He was dressed casually. His pants were slim-fit at the waist but wide near the bottom, black and patterned with gold. His shirt, if one could call it that, was just a pink paste of fabric that covered his chest, and another covered his upper back. He had chains hanging off his pockets and white gloves where every other finger was missing. For a moment he stayed stuck to the wall as if plastered there, the smoke in the room swiftly beginning to disappear.

Once he was visible, the black cat’s eyes fluttered and he slid off the wall unconscious. He fell face-first onto the ground, arms at his sides and legs straight back like a plank. He landed on the floor with Haze’s ink desperately retreating into his body.

Daxton broke out into a wheezing laugh as he hunched over the turret, covering the drool that escaped his mouth with one of his wrists.

The Inklings stood there just staring for a second. Jacent was revealed to be somewhere near the stairs, seated up against them to catch his breath. Koralo was the first to break the red rover chain and spring forward in a dance of joy. “Whoa dude! Primo strats!” He cried, rushing the truck and hopping up onto the side of the vehicle to smack Daxton on the back. “You pasted him!”

Daxton let out a hoarse cough when Koralo smacked him, slouching more pitifully over the turret. “Yeah.” He wheezed.

Kenny and Laila got out of the truck, and Murphy entered the foyer through the front entrance. The officer quickly approached the unconscious cat and knelt down over him to turn him over onto his back. She peered at his face, gave him a couple of gentle smacks in the cheek. “Well, he’s not dead.” She noted, resting a hand on his chest. He was still breathing, he just had his daylights knocked out. “How’s the bruiser doing?”

~ (_) ~

The impact of Haze hitting the wall caught Polaris’ attention in the midst of his battle with Arus. He paused only for a second to look toward the door, seeing that Haze’s cloud of off-yellow smog had started to fade. “Oh no,” He muttered, “Remi.”

His lapse in defense was Arus’ opening, and she was on him in a moment. She palmed his forehead and put her full weight into bringing him to the floor. She buried his head part-way into the foundation of the manor, crushing a hole through hardwood and cement as she came down on him. Dazed, Polaris was helpless as she pulled his head up and slammed it down again, harder than before, bashing his head into the concrete over and over again. Wooden floorboards shot up, cracks spread over the concrete, and Polaris must have been part-way to the basement by the time Arus stopped. The metal balls that floated around his body fell out of the air one by one, clattering onto the ground and rolling away.

But she wasn’t finished there, oh no. She grabbed his foot as she stood, yanking him out of his hole and dragging him across the floor before lurching into a spin. She picked up momentum and speed as she dragged him in a circle, soon lifting him off the floor and spinning him around in the air. Like a professional in the hammer toss, Arus wound up into a rapid spin that had Polaris’ yelling cutting out as the sound tried to trail his vocals. The sheer speed at which the air rushed past his body bent his face and features into an arc. Once she’d gotten a wind-up inhuman by any standard, Arus released Polaris and let him soar through the air. He crashed into the wall next to the doorway to the foyer. He struck so hard that the wall collapsed around him and he landed on the other side.

Debris scattered all over the rest of the Inkling group as Polaris hit the floor in a tumble, his shield sliding across the tile. He fell limp on his front, but groaned as he pushed his hands under himself to lift his body and look up. His eyes fell onto the black cat that hosted Haze and fixated on them as he pushed himself up to his feet.

Murphy tried to act, but the slightest twitch brought the flying broad side of a kite shield to her. Polaris thrust the shield at the canine cop, slamming into her front and shoving her away from Haze. Jacent pushed up off the floor to move on Polaris as Arus exited the sitting room to continue her smackdown. Polaris grit his teeth, or did the Inkling equivalent to it, throwing his hand out toward the truck, which shuddered in protest as it lifted off the ground. Kolaro let out a cry and dropped off the truck as it rose a few feet into the air with an angry metal groan, but Daxton was too slow. With a swing of his arm, Polaris threw the entire vehicle into the sitting room, sending it and Daxton careening into Arus, whom the truck took out and carried back to the hearth in the other side of the room.

The vehicle slammed into the stone and wood on its side, shattering its windows and crushing its own shape, no doubt flattening the two teens into the wall. The others gasped and screamed in alarm, and Jacent sprung angrily into action just as Polaris moved to pick Haze’s host up and shoulder his unconscious body. Polaris made a gesture with his finger, and the wire-bound yo-yos in Jacent’s pack rose to life like angry serpents. They coiled around his body and clamped tight, pinning the boy’s arms to his sides before he could attack. Jacent fell back to the floor tangled in his own devices.

“Enough!” Polaris panted, ducking under Haze’s host’s arm to keep it over his shoulders. “Enough. You’ve won. Leave him be.”

“Like hell, you bastard!” Kenny screamed, charging Polaris and tackling the Inkling. They all fell to the ground, Polaris dropping the other cat and forced to the floor by Kenny.

The truck in the sitting room scraped across the floor as Arus pushed it outward with her legs, a soot-covered Daxton clutched protectively in her arms. The two had landed in the hearth, no worse for wear.

Polaris rolled onto his back as Kenny mounted him, the ink on his body receding until the host beneath remained. Kenny didn’t stop, grabbing the calico cat’s tweed jacket and hefting him up just to punch him in the face multiple times. Two, three, four… Kenny fed him fists until the cat’s nose started to bleed. He released the man when he was satisfied at the reconfiguration of his face, though his eyes remained wild and angry.

Polaris coughed. “Enough,” He repeated, “We can’t best you.”

Kenny’s nostrils flared. He picked Polaris up by the scruff again and punched him a fifth time, releasing him to let his head smack against the floor. “Where’s Quincey?!” He demanded.

“And where is Natalie for that matter?” Mhend joined, stepping over to thrust her metal foot down onto Polaris’ chest, pinning him to the floor. The man grimaced in pain as his sternum was crushed underfoot, his chest heaving for breath.

“I imagine Wilde has her now.” He breathlessly answered.

“Wilde?” The others gathered around, with Laila helping untangle Jacent.

Polaris’ host kept his eyes closed, his head tilted back, arching his back against Mhend’s pinning boot. “N-Ngh…” He grunted, “He hosts the Inkling Vor. Little… reject, just like the rest of us.”

“He waited…” Polaris winced. “When Echelon revealed herself to fight Osoth he waited until one defeated the other. The plan was to… remove whoever was left. Take them back to Canvas. End everything once and for all.”

The man swallowed, sputtering a weak laugh. “But we didn’t think there’d be so many left over… or that you’d… accept them. Why? We’re soldiers. We fight wars… it’s all we know. It’s all… you know. What happens when there’s no fighting left…? When there’s no more enemies… who will you turn on?”

Phactys stepped forward and gazed down at the man. “We’re not going to turn on anybody.” He said, “These hosts, these people… they’re agreeable. We’ve made so many strides already; we don’t have to fight.”

The man opened his eyes, one blue and one brown, to regard Phactys. “At this point we ought to just give ourselves to Canvas…” He cocked a little smirk, “We’ll cause a lot less trouble that way. Surely you don’t honestly think… that you were the only ones to see where Osoth had taken us? We are lost. Whatever we were before, we’ll never be again. At least when we’re all gray, we’ll have a chance. If it doesn’t pan out, we could die and not have a care in the world.”

“That’s disgusting.” Mhend wrinkled her nose. “You’ve given up.”

“There’s not enough forgiveness in the world for what we’ve done.” The man sighed. “Though I will admit something… You remind me of better days. Days where I thought I fought for something, something better. But, I was just an oppressor. Optimism never does get you very far when it comes to war and conquest.”

“Just you wait.” He said, lifting his head somewhat, “Echelon, that… Osoth shill. She thinks she has all the answers, but we’ve heard that before, haven’t we? She’s almost as black as her, you know. They’re so similar. What are freedom and control if not just concepts? In the end, is Osoth’s defeat any freedom at all? Her sticky tendrils are in so much, so rooted in everything we ever do. You can’t just… pull up the weed and expect the roots to die.”

“Eh, just ignore him. He’s all hat and no cattle.” Laila stepped up and nudged the man’s arm with her boot. “Whatever he’s talkin’ about, he’ll say whatever he’s gotta to justify what he’s been doin’.”

The man tilted his head in a shrug, pursing his lips. “Maybe you’re right.” He lowered his head back to the floor, “It would be so nice to believe, wouldn’t it? Regardless, Haze and I aren’t any challenge for the whole lot of you, this much is clear. Those soldiers we picked up are about as useless as I imagined. But at this point I don’t see much use in fighting. We’re just going to endanger our hosts at this rate.”

“A lost warrior,” Jacent commented, finishing winding up his yo-yos. “With no faith in his purpose. Perhaps Osoth sewed these seeds long ago. As with Actima, she seems to be so ingrained in Inklings’ minds that some don’t believe in an existence without her.”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.” Phactys crossed his arms.

“I believe the only way to be rid of it is to end everything. If we really could truly restart from scratch, then and only then would I be convinced that Osoth is gone for good.” The calico said, “Polaris… he really wished he could fight for a better future, but that future turned into indentured servitude for him, for all Inklings, and for innocent worlds. Osoth has lifetimes ahead of you to keep things in her favour. The only way to win the game is to stop playing it.”

“And so you’d have us all waste away.” Mhend said.

The man grinned painfully. “It’s a sort of insane genius, isn’t it? Osoth made the rules, but we are the pieces. Take all her pieces away and what game does she have left to play?”

Arus stepped back into the room with Daxton in her arms. “This is all pretty heavy stuff,” She said, “It’s also bullshit. If you can’t even believe that our victories are victories, then you lost before you started.”

The feline turned his head and peered at Arus with an amused smile. “God you’re inspiring.” He chuckled.

“This is the kind of person we should never be.” Arus addressed the remainder of the group. “Someone who buckles the moment he thinks that victory is unachievable.”

“Maybe you’re right,” The man sighed, “Maybe you’re right. But in that you’ve plastered poor Remi into a wall, Polaris and I agree that if we carry on we’ll only hurt ourselves – the exact thing we’ve aimed to avoid. Do what you want, I say… though you’ve still got Vor to contend with. He’s a right frightening sort, I don’t think he’s going to take no for an answer.”

-

--

-

Vor snatched at Echelon’s arms when she struck at him with punches.  The gluttonous Inkling danced between defending himself and catching her, though Echelon suspected that he might have been trying to keep her still. Vor’s goal was to eat her. Disconcerting as that was, she knew that to be eaten like a prey animal, her predator would do their best to keep her from moving. She wanted to avoid this above anything else; Vor seemed strong enough to overpower her if he managed to get his hands on her. Every fist she threw was Comet-boosted, since that gave them enough power to compete. Vor blocked with his arms, keeping a punch from his face by intercepting it with his forearm and throwing it away. When he came back on the offensive, Echelon moved back to stay at arm’s reach at the very least, ducking and weaving around thrown straight-arms.

Maybe Vor’s host wasn’t a very strong man, but Vor was a strong Inkling. Given his previous profession, he probably had to be. He was likely designed to overpower. It was a simplistic design choice that made him a force to be reckoned with. Osoth always did love those kinds of approaches, making weapons out of Inklings that were designed for a singular purpose. Echelon herself was probably the only real exception to the rule. She had been a tool like all the others, but her applications were always more multi-faceted.

Vor swept her legs and managed to catch her with a swift foot before she could get away, He kicked her feet out from under her and she was on her back in the middle of the rising platform, staring up as he lifted a leg high into the air to drive her ankle down at her head. She barely rolled aside, where she was safe and Vor’s axe-kick landed behind her head instead. The resulting slam sounded like a loud, low gong strike, and Vor’s foot drove some inches into the metal. Echelon quickly maneuvered back onto her back and planted her hands so she could lift herself and kick at Vor’s legs. While un-boosted and ultimately less effective as an attack, hoofing him in the shin at least made him step backward to get his balance, opening enough time for Echelon to roll backward and rise to her feet.

She rushed in and leapt into a jump-kick aimed square at Vor’s chest, which connected and pushed him back a good foot toward the edge of the rising lift. At the end he shoved her foot aside to throw her, sending her through a loop that saw her scrambling to catch herself on the floor. Vor instead grabbed her hand on the way down and hauled her up, opening up his jaws to snap them down around her wrist as she struggled to recover. Twisted awkwardly, Echelon was hunched down, legs barely splayed so that her feet still touched the floor. Vor had very nearly twisted her arm right around, but she was well aware that her positioning was the least of her worries. “Arus!” She called on Arus’ powers yet again, balling her fist tight and flexing her forearm to make it bulge as his mouth clamped down around it.

Gross black liquid gushed from his mouth around her arm, trickling down his chin and chest. She could feel her hand sloshing around in the strange gunk, but as she had hoped his jaws couldn’t penetrate her skin with Arus’ powers being used. She slowly twisted her arm back right around and shifted her stance to a kneel so she could push up, thrusting her other fist into Vor’s jaw. The first hit made him flinch, but she continued to batter his face and head with her punches until one good hit dislodged him. He popped free of her arm and swayed, and she flicked away Vor’s black saliva from her left arm while she cocked back her right and delivered a boosted right to the side of his face, sending him reeling to the ground.

Vor swallowed his goopy spit, panting as he wiped off his mouth with his arm. “Your taste is foul,” He said, “But satisfying.”

“Yeugh.” Echelon winced, still shaking her left hand to fleck off what remained of Vor’s juices.

Vor lifted himself off the floor and snatched out at Echelon, which she’d thought she dodged until his fist closed around her inky hair. She winced as he pulled, jerking her head back as he opened wide to snap down on her shoulder, thrusting his face at her in a hunter’s lunge. She closed his mouth by thrusting a fist up under his chin, snapping his jaws shut before his face collided with her collar. He righted himself quickly, pulled her hair to yank her aside, then he rammed his other fist into her gut a couple of times, finishing off with a strong kick to throw her back when he released her.

She cringed as she landed on her back on the ground, groaning as she pushed up onto her elbows. Vor had turned his attention away from her and was stalking toward Quincey, drool globbing from his maw. “Come here,” He growled, “Your taste is much better I’m sure.”

Quincey had been watching from the very edges of the platform, where she had been loaded onto it. By not making a movement or even so much as a sound she had avoided drawing any attention until then, but when Vor’s dark eyes turned on her she gasped. Her chest was gripped with fright and her legs shook as she moved to stand on them, but she wasn't about to sit there eight feet above the ground and get eaten. She ran away from him, hurrying to the side of the lift where rails would keep her from simply falling off. Her picking up into a run was like a trigger for Vor and he ran after her, their feet stomping on the metal lift as he chased her.

Quincey hit the rail and it impressed against her gut. She gripped it as tightly as she could, her body wrenching over the end of it as she’d run full-force at it. She felt a hand grab at her shoulder and she screamed. “Ah! No!” She wildly squirmed, throwing her shoulder to tear away from Vor’s grabby hands, where she dragged herself along the rail to run side-long and get away. Vor was tripped up for a moment as she stomped away, but he was quick to pursue her. The girl kept her arms wrapped around herself as she ran, bumbling from one corner of the lift to the next. She provided no loose arms for Vor to grab, and he pawed at her shoulder and bicep, but she forced herself away with every squeeze to her fat, smooth flesh.

She turned to look back when she reached the far corner of the rail-guarded lift, only to see him lumbering toward her. The sight frightened her so that she squealed and clenched her eyes shut. He grabbed and she let herself drop as a pitiful defense, becoming dead weight that immediately crumpled to the floor. He grasped her and tore back, but managed only to rip the blue necktie she wore away from her. He crammed the fabric into his mouth, slurping it up like a spaghetti noodle and consuming it in an instant. Before he could reach down and grab the girl though, Echelon tackled him into the rail.

His back thrust up against the rail, his shoulders dipping back as his weight almost sent him over the side. He barely managed to grip and hold the rail to keep from plunging down below, but that only left him open to a flurry of Comet-boosted fists to strike his body. Echelon was indiscriminate against where her blows landed, but she directed them mostly at his face while she braced her forearm across his chest to keep the pressure on, exposing him to the constant risk of falling. It didn’t help that her knuckles came crashing into his eyes, nose and temples over and over again. Every thundering blow had as much power as she could muster without having to slow considerably to deliver them. The result was one punch a second, ticking away at his facial features. He bent back to avoid further brutality, seeing that the lift was finally about to reach the outside – the edge came pressing down toward his head.

In a hurry he thrust his hands forward and grabbed Echelon’s head, jamming his thumbs into her eyes. It didn’t harm an Inkling quite the same way as a human, but it certainly proved painful enough as Echelon’s shape deformed slightly under his desperate grip. He threw her and himself forward to avoid getting his head taken off by the coming threshold, the two of them collapsing to the ground as the lift docked at the surface. It shook the entire platform briefly as supports clamped into place to hold it above-ground. The open air of the early morning twilight nipped them as Echelon shoved Vor away from her and scrambled to her feet. He also rose, turning his attention briefly to the manor.

The Locksmouth police had all but locked down most of the Eos forces that had met them outside, but when the Inklings emerged with Quincey the fighting with who had remained came to a stop. The few remaining Eos soldiers and all the officers, hiding among the gardens and the parked cruisers, stopped fighting to turn their attention to Echelon and Vor. For the most part, all eyes were on Vor. Even a majority of the Eos soldiers had never actually seen him before. He stood there, blackened drool dripping down his face, panting like a wild animal and swallowing almost constantly. The growling could have been him or his stomach… either way it didn’t sound quite right.

“Huh?” Inside, Daxton’s ear lifted. “Hey, listen, outside. The fighting’s… stopped?”

Curiously Natalie and Quincey’s packs moved toward the entryway, peering out the windows and out the large, open double doors into the gardens. The lift was so far off to the side that inly Lastik saw them first, and she perked up immediately upon the discovery. “Hey it’s Natalie!” She declared, pointing out toward them.

“And Quincey!” Daxton cried, bolting immediately from the window to the door. He ran outside, leaping down off the stone patio and stumbling on hands and feet in the grass before sprinting toward the lift. Seeing him, Quincey stood up and hurried to meet him. The two of them met and threw their arms around one another, with the piggy girl burying her face against Daxton’s shoulder while the corgi boy held her tight and rubbed the side of his head against hers.

“Natalie!” Arus shouted as she sprinted out into the gardens as well, batting a dumbfounded Eos soldier away and into the side wall of the manor as she rushed past them toward the cargo lift. Everyone else followed, eager to meet up with their missing pack leader.

Echelon held out her hand to halt them. “Stop!” She commanded, and they did indeed stop dead in their tracks mid-run. “Don’t.” She said.

“What? What are you doing?” Arus asked.

“Who’s that guy?” Phactys asked, “Another Inkling?”

Echelon regarded Vor, staring him down as he kept his eyes intensely set upon her. “That, is Vor. He’s leading this group and trying to put an end to Inklings.”

“Wait, but, isn’t he an Inkling?” Lastik asked, confused. “That makes, like, no sense at all.”

“We know about their plans.” Mhend informed their leader, “They want to force all Inklings back to Canvas and keep them from taking more hosts so that they all get worn away by the elements and become gray.”

“Like, super-duper, blobby gray!” Kolaro supplied, “The grayest!”

Quincey stood connected to Daxton’s side, with Kenny at her other side and Laila behind them all. The girl turned to face Echelon and Vor and shook her head. “That’s not right,” She said, “Vor doesn’t want to do that. He wants to kill all the Inklings by eating them himself.”

Laila’s eyes widened and she stared down at Quincey. “Whoa, can he do that?”

“I think he can.” Echelon concurred.

“Like how Osoth could eat Inklings, or what?” Arus asked.

“ENOUGH!” Vor’s voice roared over the crowd, stunning them to silence. He stepped to spin around, observing the entire scene around him. Echelon’s companions had arrived, the pig had outwitted him and gotten away, his soldiers had been piled into Locksmouth squad cars, and Polaris’ host had just stepped out the front door helping Haze’s host, Remi, along as he regained consciousness. It had become obvious that he’d been foiled. Had things gone better he would have been seeing a very different scene… but instead he’d been beaten by a bunch of kids.

“I agree, that’s enough.” Echelon said. Her blackened, inky flesh gave way somewhat to Natalie’s fur and features beneath. She was Natalie once more, in her white and pink hoodie and pink booty shorts, her white socks and her sneakers. Her dreads were brown and her eyes a ruby red, but everything was darkened. The colours of Echelon’s black flesh and pink off-tones still remained, albeit dimly, casting Natalie’s features in a shade of those colours. “It’s about time I show you how much of an idiot you are.”

“What the heck is that…?” Remi asked, weakly lifting his head at Polaris’ host’s side.

“… I don’t rightly know,” The calico man answered, “Is she… human?”

Vor stared at the girl. “I’ll eat you up just like all the others. There’s no use hiding behind your host any longer!”

“Who’s hiding?” Natalie asked. “Echelon is my partner. We fight together.”

“Actima! Phactys!” Natalie sped forward, blurring past Vor as he swung at her to head her off. Faster than the eye could see, she ducked backward under the attack, her nose just barely skimming the bottom of Vor’s forearm. She snapped back upright and dashed into the woods, stepping up onto the first tree she encountered to plant her feet on the bark. She dropped Phactys’ powers and pushed off turning with her fist cocked back. “Comet… Crash!!”

Natalie launched like a rocket, her body cutting a path through the air at super speeds boosted by Jacent’s powers. She left a vacuum in her wake that left a jet-stream trail and swallowed any sound she made until her body met Vor’s. Her fist hit like a missile in the cheek. His head deformed, black slobber knocked from his face and spraying over the garden. Their bodies carried, launched by Natalie’s force into the manor. They crashed into the sitting room, speeding past the hearth, scattering Baoding balls around the room as they slammed through the next wall. They passed through a dining room, and through the next wall into the kitchen, and crashed through the pantry. Vor’s body took the brunt of every entry to the next room, crumbling through wood and mortar.

Natalie smashed out the back wall into a courtyard, feeding Vor all the right hooks his gluttonous self could eat. They barreled through the stone of a broken water fountain, spraying the stagnant water of the pool around the gnarled hedge work of the yard. Natalie rode Vor’s body right on through, grinding him into the dirt as he dragged across the ground. “Duplex!” She gave up Actima’s powers in favour of Duplex’s, a second Natalie splitting from the first to get in behind Vor and haul him out of the ground to hold him up. She pinned his arms back behind him, while the original Nat continued to wildly swing, pummeling his stomach with boosted left and right jabs.

“GRGH-RGH-ARGH!” Vor choked and coughed, his sickly black slobber splashing over Natalie’s face as she beat it out of him. She wound back a haymaker and crashed it into his face, jerking his head back with a snap, knocking some of the orange ink on him across the yard. Her duplicate ducked down and released him, kicking him forward as she stepped back. Natalie punched him back, sending him stumbling into her double. They passed him back and forth, boosted punches and kicks throwing him between them.

“RAH!” Natalie cried out as she through her whole body into a straight that connected with Vor’s chest. He flew backward, grabbed by Natalie’s double and spun, released into a throw that shot him back at the manor. The Nat-double popped then as the wolf girl picked up in pursuit of him, using Koralo’s powers with Actima’s to sprint to the manor and up the side of the wall.

Marcello pored over a terminal inside the upstairs study only to have Vor come crashing through the window, taking a large chunk of the wall with him. The detective yanked the console of the ornate wooden desk it was on and stumbled back to avoid the Inkling’s body as he crashed and rolled into the study, sprawling out on the floor. She gawked at the creature and the exposed scales beneath, watching the orange ink close over the gaps as he sorely rose to his feet. He stood just in time to see Natalie over-shoot the window as she darted up the side of the building, kicking off the lip of the roof and into the air where she angled herself into a boosted descent straight at the study. She crashed through the roof, sending dust and splinter all over and forcing Marcello to shield her face as she fell back.

Natalie’s body slammed once more into Vor’s, taking him through a tour of the house again. She smashed him out into the manor’s foyer, punching a hole into the second story wall with his body as they shot out over the front gardens once more. Natalie buried him in the grass at the edge of the wood, his head slamming into the base of a tree and cracking it. Finally she stopped, mounted on the Inkling villain, panting for breath. She lifted herself off of him, weakly getting on her feet and ambling backward away from him. Still inked, Vor strained to even move his limbs, wheezing like the old man he was as he rolled over, hacking black spit into the dirt.

Natalie swallowed, out of breath and tired. How Vor still managed to stand after all of that was nothing short of a miracle. He clutched his stomach, snapping low branches off the tree as he pulled himself up by them, stuffing them into his mouth and crunching the fiber down. He shook as he trudged toward her, and the shading of Echelon’s colours left Natalie’s body as she stepped back, tripped, and fell. Vor caught her arm and hauled her back to her feet, sputtering a cough into her face as he crowded in close. He opened his jaws and pulled her hand in close, her fingers getting drizzled in his saliva as she pulled and twisted, trying to wrench her arm free.

“Vor, stop!”

Remi broke away from Polaris’ host to step forward, almost falling down the steps as he hurried toward them. “Vor, she’s a human! What are you doing?!”

“Remi, wait!” Polaris’ host called out after the cat. He didn’t listen and instead ran forward to grab hold of Vor’s arm, the off-yellow Inkling forming around its host in the moment.

Vor tried to clamp down on Natalie’s hand, but Haze shoved the orange Inkling away, forcing the two apart. “We don’t hurt humans!” Haze scolded, “That’s what we said! That we wouldn’t harm them! What were you even doing?! What’s all this eating stuff they’re talking about?!”

“You dare!” Vor back-handed Haze across his face.

Polaris’ host stepped forward into the gardens. “Remi, wait, stop what you’re doing! Don’t get involved!”

Haze rubbed his face, pouting angrily as he stood up. “No! We had an agreement! We weren’t going to harm any more humans, not after what you did!”

Vor growled, his fist shaking as he clenched it. “We’re beyond help, imbecile! Did you honestly believe that we could simply turn around and go home? After everything that harpy made us do?! If you truly believed even for a moment that things could be repaired, you’re more of a moron than I thought!”

Haze was taken back, visibly recoiling from Vor’s words. He raised a hand as he stepped back, holding it toward his own chest. “What are you saying? How could you even think that? These humans, they’re good, aren’t they? They didn’t do anything wrong! But you… you were about to bite her hand off! You were, weren’t you?! What’s wrong with you?!”

The atmosphere seemed to take a dark turn, as the rising sun was swallowed up by blackened clouds that had floated in from the distance. What had been an early morning twilight gave way to a darker night than had been previous. It happened so quickly that those gathered out front of the manor noticed the change past the scene that was unfolding before them. Natalie looked up toward the sky at the black clouds, darker than any storm cloud she had ever seen before, and not really a storm cloud at all. Still, they rumbled, angrily churning.

“Oh man…” She groused, turning her attention to haze. “Hey! Get away from that guy!”

Vor slurped his drool, his shoulders rising and falling as he panted with rage. “Allow me to show you what I do to insubordinate fools!”

Vor snapped, grabbing Haze’s forearm and squeezing as hard as he could. Haze gasped in shock, letting out a cry as he was pulled forward into Vor’s waiting jaws. In only a second, the orange glutton had opened his maw, engulfed Haze’s right arm to mid forearm, and then snapped down. Like a sprung steel trap he clamped down, viscous black squirting from the bite like drawn blood. Haze pierced the air with a shrill scream of horror as ink, flesh, and bone gave way under the compress of that toothless mouth. Vor tore through the ink with a splat, Remi’s skin with a wet tear, and the bone with a hearty snap. Haze’s ink was slurped up, sucked into Vor’s mouth like he were emptying a juice box. In seconds, the Inkling was gone, and Vor pulled back to tear sinew and muscle, parting Remi from his right hand and leaving a bloodied stump.

“AAAGH!” Remi screamed in pain and terror, falling back onto the ground clutching what remained of his arm. Polaris’ host ran for him as the others sprang into action. Echelon’s team were on Vor in a moment. He swallowed his meat and was ready for them.

Arus was the first on him, throwing a fist that he caught in his hand, stopping her momentum. His jaw unhinged, parting as a long, black, serpentine tongue waved out at her. She grabbed it in her other hand, pulling the gross appendage and then thrusting her fist into his face using the inertia. “You want to eat?!” She shouted, jamming her fist into his mouth and tearing it back out again coated in black slime. She thrust it in again, and again, and again, splashing the dark saliva all over his face, all over her face, and all around them.

He caught her fist in her mouth once and bit down, but she tensed her arm and he found no purchase. Instead, she clasped his bottom jaw in her other hand and pried it open, ripping her fist back out. She socked him in the mouth as hard as she could, puckering his lips in on his own skull and throwing him to the ground where she bent down, grabbed his foot, and began to toss him around like a limp doll. She lashed him like a whip, smashing his spine into the dirt time and again, then turned, whipped him over her shoulder, and slammed his face on the ground in the same manner. She went absolutely ballistic on him, dragging him through the mud until she released him in a hard throw that smashed him against a tree. The force would have paralyzed any normal human being, if not killed them outright.

“Hnngh!” Remi rolled on the ground as Polaris’ host dropped to his knees next to him. The calico cat took off the jacket of his suit, using one of the sleeves to tie it around Remi’s arm as he held the feline down. He turned it into a knot and pinned Remi’s arm to the ground using his knee. With both hands and his teeth, he pulled the slack of the knot so that it closed tight, slowing the flow of blood that escaped the gaping wound.

“Hold on, Remi!” The man cried, “Oh God…”

“Hold on, let me through!” Mhend approached, pushing Polaris’ host aside. She peeled a chunk of her inky coiffure off and smeared the bubblegum pink glob over Remi’s wound, creating a seal that kept the blood in and began to rapidly heal the skin. Remi kicked his feet, stomping on the ground as Mhend pinned him down, allowing him to heal before she took another piece of her and pushed it into the black cat’s mouth. She closed his mouth around it, urging him to swallow. When he did, his panic began to subside.

Vor rose from the ground, though his hunched posture was forced down once again by dual red and blue yo-yos that slammed down on the back of his neck. Jacent wielded the toys like long, wired pendulums, the plastic on the end smashing down like steel maces to pin Vor to the ground. Jacent pulled the toys back and alternated crashing them down one after the other between Vor’s shoulder blades. He twirled them with a flourish after several strikes, swinging them back around himself and down on Vor again, crashing them into the ground in front of the Inkling with enough raw power to kick Vor’s body upward. Dropping the toys, Jacent charged forth, meeting Vor and taking him into the woods.

The Inkling’s body clear-cut a path through the trees with Jacent’s shoulder leading the way. The force of kinetic energy around Jacent made a shield for him, but Vor’s spine smashed into tree after tree, uprooting them and shattering their wooden stalks. This carried for no small distance, the two of them blazing a bold trail of upturned dirt yards upon yards into the forest, kicking rocks, shrubs, and debris aside as they went. Vor screamed, his voice cut off by frequent gurgles and gasps for air as he was driven into another thick oak or maple. Pine needles, leaves, splinters of wood and dust from the ground formed a ball around Jacent as he flew, making it appear as if Vor was being hurled by Earth itself. Fifty yards became a hundred, then two hundred, dragging Vor’s punishment far, far from the manor where it had started.

Jacent finally stopped some ways out, planting his heels into the soil to stop himself. Vor continued some feet into a clearing, skipping across the water of a lake and splashing into the drink. Jacent pat out a flame that had sprout on his shoulder, teeth grit and jaw set as he rose and strode into the lakeside clearing. Vor emerged from the water, dragging himself through the shallows, battered and beaten. He limped as he pulled himself through the mud like a broken animal, barely able to get his feet under himself to hold up his weight. He stood, impossibly resilient, hacking and coughing, sputtering black gunk into the clear blue water.

“Useless…” Vor wheezed, “We cannot… we… won’t… change…”

“Humanity has been committing atrocities long before now, and yet we persist. Not everyone is a monster.” Jacent said, “Those whom you condemn to death, are those in which you see a reflection of your own despicable self, unfairly projected upon them by a tortured mind.”

Vor hobbled, hand outstretched. Jacent stood stalwart as he approached, unflinching as the Inkling grasped his shirt and balled the fabric in his fist. Vor’s weight slumped against Jacent, and the Inkling’s orange skin subsided. Bit by bit, the weak old cobra beneath was revealed. The old man’s eyes stared intensely into Jacent’s, though the rest of him seemed weak. “Some of us just know what’s best… You aimless soul.” He said, his grip loosening as he fell at Jacent’s feet in a heap.

Jacent stared sour at the man, turning when he heard the roar of a number of engines overhead. Eos trucks fled the scene in numbers, tearing through the sky to escape the failure that was the manor. The number that fled was no doubt much lower than what it could have been had they not shown up. It was regrettable that they escaped, but then Jacent knew better than most; rats will always flee a sinking ship.

He reached down and grabbed the cobra man by his jacket, hefting him up over his shoulder. Jacent turned and carried the man back down the trail he’d created, heavily breathing and dragging his own feet somewhat. The clouds overhead cleared, just as the orange glow of the sunrise began to spread over the wood. For the first time in a while, silence and the sounds of nature met Jacent’s ears.

It was over, for the moment.

-

--

-

“What the heck was that?” Marcello chuckled as she stepped down into the foyer, two portable consoles tucked under her arm. She approached Murphy who was organizing a final sweep of the manor that had since become empty.

Murphy turned to her. “And just where were you during all that mess?” She asked, “Did you really wander off under my watch?”

Marcello shrugged her shoulder, running her gloved fingers through her sweaty, damp hair. “Everyone seemed so busy with the super-fights that nobody was paying attention to the other rooms. I was just doing some snooping around, and boy would you be surprised at what I found!” Marcello explained, “Not only is this place been a nest for the Eos soldiers but it has definitely been receiving all the missing shipments we lost track of. They’ve been getting them for months!”

Murphy took off her officer’s hat, batting it against her leg, wiping some sweat off her own brow. For once, she looked somewhat relieved. “You got what you needed then?” She asked.

“I got more than that! Come on over here for a second.” Marcello gestured for Murphy to follow her, and the two waded through debris and clutter scattered about the floor as they made their way deeper into the home, passing through the sitting room and the dining area, right into a downstairs study that had been relatively untouched in all the commotion. The room was dark until Marcello flicked on a light switch, an electric lamp on the desk offering warm illumination. A classic mahogany desk housed a work console, in front of which sat a wooden, cushioned chair. The room had an old-fashioned decorum that fit the manor, the walls covered in red wallpaper with golden patterns. A large, circular rug covered much of the wood floor, and a locked case displayed numerous bottles of fermented drink. A tiny ship in a bottle sat on a lone side-table in the middle of the room.

Marcello turned her attention to a classic bookshelf shoved into an odd side of the room. She studied it for a moment before she demurely thumbed through the selection of bound tomes. “Eldric the First…” She said, pulling on one of the books, the tome angling as a mechanical clack was heard. Murphy watched in interest as Marcello sought another. “The Second Coming…” She pulled on the book like a lever, and more gears could be heard behind the walls. “Annnnd the Three Musketeers.”

Marcello pulled the last book, angling it out and then releasing it. The book snapped back in, and the gear work behind the walls clicked and clacked as the bookshelf pulled back into the wall, impressing into an area behind it and sliding aside, revealing a modern-day steel door with operating controls for an elevator. Marcello grinned, looking sidelong at Murphy’s surprised expression. “Strength in numbers.” She said, “What we’re looking at now is a hidden passage that had been retrofitted by Dr. Remi Brokowvski, a mechanical engineer who worked for the Lo-Tec Corporation and went missing half a year ago.”

“I think we’ve met.” Murphy concluded.

“I wouldn’t be surprised. His diary said he’d come into contact of an Inkling named Haze, he and his partner Dr. Julian Belfourd.”

Marcello turned to Muphy. “Dr. Julian Belfourd was hired on as Jersey Wilde’s personal doctor when he hit the ripe old age of one hundred and ten. Three years ago, Jersey Wilde died, but Dr. Belfourd didn’t leave his service. Instead, it seems that he hosted an Inkling named Polaris, and Mr. Wilde himself got caught up with Vor, the leader of some off-world scouting party. Wilde faked his own death so he could collaborate in secret with these Inklings, kicking off the Eos Initiative. He got in touch with a number of investors in the Eos project and got it off the ground, siphoning his own resources into it without them being tracked, on account of his supposed death and all.”

Turning toward the secret passage, Marcello smirked. “So I have a feeling that this leads under the manor, where I’m going to find everything I need to prove these guys have been manufacturing weapons well before Osoth ever arrived.” She informed the officer.

Murphy rubbed her chin in thought. “… Wilde’s part of House Caduceus, isn’t he?”

“Bingo.” Marcello nodded.

Murphy shook her head. “… Vor gets to take out the Inklings, and in doing so Wilde gets House Caduceus the public support in a massive anti-Inkling movement to slip right into a position of power, all with his very own army. He was going to start a dictatorship; start a movement, split civilization right down the middle.”

“Clever, ain’t he? He was using his Inkling to get what he wanted.” Marcello said.

Murphy frowned. “Well, I have a feeling it didn’t turn out the way he’d planned.”

Marcello cocked a brow. “How do you figure?”

“You look around down there and I’ll send some of my boys in after you. I’ll give you about ten minutes, but don’t mess anything up.” Murphy said, turning to leave the study. “I’ve got some arrests to make.”

-

--

-

“He’s gone.” Remi sat wrapped up in a blanket. Around him the police cruisers had started taking off, taking Eos soldiers away to be tried and probably thrown into jail until someone could decide what to do with them. Remi sat there on the ground, shivering not from the cold, but from an aching feeling of emptiness in his gut. He kept the stump of his arm tucked into the blanket, clutching it with his only available hand to keep it wrapped around him. He looked up at Polaris’ host, Dr. Belfourd, a tremendous sadness in his teary eyes.

“I can’t believe he’s gone.” Remi pitifully whimpered. “Haze, he…”

Dr. Belfourd wrapped his arms around Remi. He could hardly believe it himself – it’d been years since he met Polaris, Haze, and Vor… and he never thought things would turn out that way. It was a lot for him to absorb, and his thoughts and feelings on the matter were mixed. For the moment, he simply held on to Remi and refused to let go, stroking the feline’s cyan hair and doing everything he could to comfort him. Remi started to cry, and Dr. Belfourd had no words for him. He only looked up when Murphy approached them.

“Well,” Dr. Belfourd shed a sad, wry smirk in his typical manner. He turned to Remi and gently rubbed his arm. “Are you ready to be tossed into the slammer, Remi?”

Remi cringed, so the doctor helped pick him up off the ground and get him standing. “Up you get.” He said, brushing Remi off before holding out his hands. Murphy clamped handcuffs around his wrists, and Remi got a handcuff of his own from Combs, the honeybee officer struggling to handcuff a one-handed man.

“Julian Belfourd, Remi Brokowvski…” Murphy started.

“Yes, yes – conspiracy, assault against an officer, assault against a minor, abduction of a minor, reckless endangerment, possible possession of illegal weaponry, and about fifty million counts of guilt by association. Also, we’ve been just all-around unpleasant.” Dr. Belfourd clicked his tongue, “Did I miss anything?”

“Don’t be a smartass.” Murphy shoved the man toward her cruiser.

Combs kept his hands firmly gripped on Remi’s arms, doing his best to hold them behind the cat. Dr. Belfourd sighed. “Well Remi my boy, it seems the worst has come to pass. We’re criminals now. But I suppose I’ll take it if it means you’re alright. I think I’ve had about enough of this Inkling business.”

“B-But Haze…” Remi started.

“Is Echelon’s problem now,” Dr. Belfourd finished. He timed this perfectly as he just passed Natalie, and he dug his heels in to stop Murphy from leading him along. He fussed against the officer as he regarded Natalie. “Isn’t that right, Echelon? You’ll see to it that Vor gets what’s coming to him, won’t you? Remi was rather attached to old Haze, you see.”

Natalie crossed her arms and gave the calico cat a queer look, unsure of what to make of him. “Um… yeah.” She answered, “He’s not getting away with what he’s done.”

Murphy finally gave him a proper shove to get him moving, and roughly handled him in getting him to the cruiser. “Do stop by, won’t you?!” Dr. Belfourd called back.

Carrie stepped up next to Natalie and nudged the wolf with her hip. She wrapped an arm around her girlfriend’s shoulders and pulled her in close, affectionately nuzzling her head. “What do you make of those guys?” She asked.

“I don’t know,” Natalie cuddled up to Carrie, rubbing her face against the feline’s fur. “They sure seemed surprised at Vor. They don’t really come off as being like him.”

“Speaking of that dickwad,” Carrie began loosening up on Natalie, “Turns out he’s some one hundred-something old guy. He almost died when Vor got too weak to keep him standing. He’s alright though, just… old, I guess. I bet he’s gonna be locked up for a long time.”

“Well, we gotta get Vor back to Canvas. He’s too dangerous to keep around here.” Natalie concurred.

“Probably, yeah.” Carrie shrugged. She smiled and hugged Natalie again. “I’m just happy to have you back.”

Natalie grinned. “I was fine the whole time, I could have escaped any time I wanted.”

Carrie noogied the girl. “Yeah right!” She laughed.

Natalie laughed and pushed at her girlfriend to pry her off. She fussed with her dreadlocks to straighten everything back pout proper, checking to see if Carrie had somehow messed up the tight braids. As she did this, she spotted Quincey and her back off near one of the other cop cruisers. She smiled to herself and looked to Carrie. “Be right back.” She said.

When Natalie turned to head over to Quincey, Carrie gave her a weird look and shrugged. She followed the wolf to the Harbington pack, who were all huddled around Quincey, getting all cute with just how happy they were to have her back. They all gathered around the girl in a group hug, with Laila standing behind the lot of them, her longer arms wrapped around the group squeezing them all together. Quincey giggled as Daxton smooched at her cheek and neck, and Kenny held awkwardly to her other side, his face reddened and blushing as he stayed mostly quiet.

“Hey.” Natalie spoke up as she stepped close, getting everyone’s attention. Quincey looked up from her affection to smile at Natalie.

“Natalie!” Quincey beamed, “Oh, thank you so much! If it wasn’t for you, I…!”

Natalie reached out and took hold of Quincey’s hands, cutting the girl off as she shrugged. “Don’t worry about it,” She said, “You were great. Thank you, too. Duplex’s powers really got us out of that mess, and you did a lot to help me out.”

Quincey blushed. “Oh, I didn’t…”

“Yes, you did.” Natalie butt in. She then turned her attention to the rest of Quincey’s pack. “You guys helped too.”

“Even if you were all total idiots.” Carrie added with a smirk, “Diving a truck into the front doors? Are you guys insane?”

“That’d be her!” Kenny pointed up at Laila.

Laila only smiled big. “Gets the job done!” She declared proudly.

Daxton chuckled. “We weren’t just going to sit back while Quincey was in trouble,” He said, “Even people without super powers can pull off some pretty amazing stuff. They just have to try, you know?”

Natalie crossed her arms, giving them all a disbelieving look. “I think I agree with Carrie on this one. You’re all nuts.” She said.

“Ha!” Daxton shined a toothy smile. He turned and tipped his fingers up under Quincey’s chin to get her to look at him. “Only thing I’m crazy for is you.” He said, stealing a kiss from her lips. Quincey blinked rapidly, her face going beat red.

Carrie mocked a gag. Natalie palmed her face, giggling at the two of them.

“Ah, u-um…” Quincey stuttered, regaining her composure, “What now?”

“Now?” Natalie looked around. The officers were finishing up their initial seizure of the property, the Eos soldiers had all been packed up and taken away to be locked up in Locksmouth. The soldiers who had gotten away were never found, with Garrison being among them. Vor was stuffed into a cruiser and taken away with Jacent riding with them to ensure he got back without any trouble. Dr. Belfourd and Remi had been taken care of, though it had been tragic what happened to Haze. Natalie’s pack helped out where they could, with Sam taking care of the injured most of all, but people were quickly running out of things to do.

“I guess we go home.” Natalie suggested, “Maybe not home-home for you guys yet… but I think we’ve got enough here to nail these Eos guys and get you back to Harbington soon.”

Quincey couldn’t hide her smile, or her tears. She broke away from her pack and threw herself at Natalie, wrapping her arms around her as tightly as she could. “Thank you so much!” She gushed.

Natalie chuckled and pat Quincey on the head. “Hey, that’s why we do it.” She said, smiling at the girl. “Come on, we’re all really tired.”

Carrie stretched her arms above her head, her tail flicking straight out to stretch as well. She grunted as she arched her back, pushing her chest out as she rose onto her toes. She stretched everything she had for a few moments, then bounced back flat on her feet and let it all go. “I’ll say!” She said, “I’ve got to piss like a horse, too.”

Everyone looked at her in shock. Kenny eyed her chest, then her face, his look critical. “Wow.” He said, “Just… wow.”", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Issue 18: Hunger", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "application/msword", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "5", "name": "Strong Violence", "description": "Strong violence, blood, serious injury or death", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "f", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "2", "views": "177" }