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Epheral's plan has been known from the get-go, but what does she need to pull it off?

Echelon, that's what.", "writing": "\tWhere was this? Quincey looked around her immediate area and saw an amalgamation of buildings and windows, places she may have seen before but she wasn’t sure where. She stood in the middle of a city, but it wasn’t Harbington. There was too much sand and too many palm trees around. She could hear the ocean but she couldn’t see any water. People walked past her, but she couldn’t really see them. They were wearing swimsuits perhaps, but whenever she focused on a body, it disappeared and resumed walking just outside her peripheral vision. It didn’t take long for the isolation to set in. Wherever she was, it was unfamiliar, and the people didn’t seem to care she was there. She felt a wash of emotions aside from that – attraction to the people around her, envy that they were enjoying themselves and she wasn’t. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.\n\nShe asked for help. She tried to ask for help, anyway. When she spoke, she didn’t hear her own voice. It was as if she was too afraid to speak out. She opened her mouth and her throat just closed. She struggled with words for a little while, but eventually she just quit altogether. She tugged nervously on her shirt as people walked around her, just realizing that she was wearing one. She tugged it out and looked at it, seeing that it was an Au Motti t-shirt like the one Daxton wore. That was a weird thing to be caught in, she thought, but comforting. She lifted it to her nose and smelled it. It smelled like Edward’s shampoo – fruity and nice.\n\nShe walked, but didn’t go anywhere. Everything just looked the same everywhere she went. Maybe she did go places but she had no way of really noticing. She couldn’t feel her legs, as if they just weren’t there. Whenever she glanced down she saw her feet, but she didn’t feel the weight of her steps or even hear the tapping of her leather shoes. Why was she wearing those? They didn’t go well with that outfit at all. Nothing really made sense, yet she couldn’t help but feel that she was navigating it flawlessly.\n\nWhen she looked up she was somewhere else. A forest on the edge of the city she was in. It was bleak and foggy, but the leaves seemed to be green and lush, even if the bark of the trees they were on was dull and gray. When she looked back, the city was gone. She was on a trail leading through the foggy woods and the ground under her feet seemed well-worn, like several people had walked the path before. Nobody was around, she was alone. She faced forward again, but without knowing where she was going or coming from, she wasn’t sure which way was forward.\n\n“Hello?” She found her voice and called out into the woods. She heard nature, almost musical in its silence. The chirping of birds and buzzing of insects were instruments for the breeze that rustled the branches in response to her.\n\n“Hello.”\n\n“Bwah!” Quincey nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the deep, heroic voice of a man. She jumped and threw herself toward the source, stopping short when she saw a tall canine man standing there. He wore ridiculous clothing, the sort of tight space suit with meaningless rings around the cuffs of the long boots and around the shoulders that screamed science fiction. The helmet on his head was a big glass dome. He was broad of shoulder and chest but narrow of leg, and his white teeth were perfect, as was the brown wave of his hair.\n\n“C… Commander Benson?” Quincey gawked. Why was she talking to an old cartoon character?\n\nShe used to watch him on TV, on a channel that ran old shows. She loved Commander Benson as a kid. He was part of a team of heroes that flew through space and saved people on planets. The show delved into all sorts of outdated socio-political themes, but the big focus had always been on environment. “You only have one planet,” Commander Benson would say, “Take care of it.” The only reason she’d found the show in the first place was an old toy she found in the dirt outside her house one day – a fish-like mutant man she called Mr. Fish-Face before she discovered his name was Nautilus, a character from the show.\n\n“Sorry,” Benson held up one of his large, red-gloved hands, standing with straight posture and his barrel of a chest poised outward, “This was all I could come up with on short notice. I’m not actually Commander Benson.”\n\n“But you look like Commander Benson.” Quincey said.\n\n“But I’m not.” Benson insisted.\n\n“Then why do you look like him?” Quincey asked.\n\nBenson closed his eyes and shook his head. “Look, I’m only here because someone brought you here,” He said, “It’s been a long time, but I think I recognize who. You’re not supposed to be here, and I don’t really want to deal with you. I want to find who brought you here, as they’re using their powers to keep you here.”\n\nQuincey stepped back, raising her hands so they boxed him into her vision. “What are you talking about?” She demanded.\n\n“You were hosting a pair of Inklings, is that correct?” He asked.\n\nQuincey paused. Something in her head clicked as soon as he said that, and things started to get much clearer. She was dreaming, and as soon as she came to that realization she felt separated from it. She blinked a few times, registering the new information, processing it. “Oh,” She said, “Um, yes? Wait, no, I was only hosting one Inkling. People can’t host two, can they? And how do you know that?”\n\n“A group of people can host a single Inkling, and one person can host multiple… though to do so is often dangerous, as the demand for prana is far too great under those circumstances,” Benson said, “Regardless, you’ve got two of them keeping you here – one keeping you asleep, and one easing your body into a dream state that, all told, should be rather pleasant. You’re quite happy in the real world right now, I’m sure. You’ll wake up feeling like a million bucks.”\n\n“Assuming we can get you to wake up at all,” He concluded, looking around in that determined, heroic manner, “Something is wrong.”\n\n“Hmm…” Quincey looked around as well. She saw nothing that stood out. Inklings and their correlation to dreams was something she wasn’t sure she’d ever figure out. She didn’t know how big dreams could be. The ones keeping her asleep could have been hiding anywhere and she knew from experience that when an Inkling didn’t want to be found, she’d have a hard time turning that around. If they were bound with her, however, she should have been able to feel them. She’d gotten good at reaching down deep and sensing whether Duplex was with her or not. It should have worked on these other two.\n\nWith Commander Benson at her side, or at least someone who looked like him, she was feeling the right mood to go on a little adventure. The girl started walking to wherever her feet would take her. The dream figure of Benson followed her curiously, walking with her as she navigated the forest in which she found herself. The path was mostly straight for a time, with some hills and divots that made the terrain rough. Her shoes weren’t made for hiking, but in a dream world that didn’t seem to matter. She walked along surprisingly calm and focused. She had been getting good at navigating these dreams. Benson watched her with interest, picking up on that very fact.\n\n“So far as I know, there should be one around here somewhere…” Benson said.\n\n“But where is here?” Quincey asked.\n\n“This is a nothing space,” Benson said, “Just filler for the world. Completely nondescript in any way, and very low-key. It’s the sort of place something would hide in, which ironically would make it the first rock one might check under.”\n\nThe two of them stopped when they heard a gentle sound of weeping on the wind. It was very quiet, but rather distinct. The sound drifted eerily through the foggy forest, the sound of crying.\n\nBenson sighed. “But then they never were very smart.”\n\nQuincey followed the sound, which was difficult. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. Something about the science of how sound moved through the trees may have had something to do with it, but in the end, it was a dream world; it didn’t have to make any sense. Benson followed along, his hands on his utility belt, upon which hung a funny-looking ray gun. His belt kind of clattered when he walked, like he had a wealth of things in the one tiny box pouch the belt bore. Quincey walked a few paces ahead of him and stopped. The sound had been coming from in front of her, but then it came from her right. She turned and waded into the brush, ignoring the way the grass tickled her bare calves. She realized in that moment that she wasn’t wearing any pants.\n\nA few more steps and the sound came from the left. She turned and followed it. Then it came from behind. She turned and followed it back. The crying kept coming from different places and she found herself weaving a trail into a murky mire. It was wet and cold, the mud was deep, and moving her legs became difficult. She stopped when the dirt squelched underfoot, only to find that she was knee-deep in the muck. She lifted her arms and wiggled, unable to get free. Benson didn’t seem to have this problem, walking over it as if it were nothing… but he made no effort to pull her free. She glared at him momentarily, then pressed on. She dragged herself through the mud further.\n\nEventually she happened upon something of interest. One lone stump stood in a cropping of dirt that rose it above the mud. It was surrounded by reeds and tall grass in a circle, but it was cleared by a good several feet all around the little island. Fireflies danced in the foggy air, buzzing around the stump and marking it clearly. The stump itself was rotten, its upper half jagged, the outside sagging. It appeared to be hollow. The sound of the crying was clearly coming from there, without a doubt. Quincey waded through the muck until she stepped onto the dirt, pulling herself free from the quagmire.\n\nShe approached the stump and placed her hands on the outer edges of the hollowed-out middle. She peered inside.\n\n“Oh my god.” She said.\n\nBlue ink filled the stump with little yellow eyes and a mouth in it. It sagged like melted ice cream, swirling into itself to create an icky brown colour at the edges of the facial features. The mouth was turned into a grotesque frown, and the eyes were misshapen and asymmetrical in size. When Quincey peered in at it, it looked up at her in horrible, pitiful sadness. Quincey was struck by the appearance of the Inkling, and couldn’t stop staring at it in morbid fascination.\n\nBenson stepped up to Quincey’s side and gazed into the stump, his arms crossed in disapproval. “Dormence, you fool.”\n\n“I’m sorry…!” The melted Inkling wailed in a groaning pitch, gurgling on its words and tears, “Urgai, I’m sorry!”\n\n“Dormence?” Quincey lifted her gaze to meet Benson, “One of the Inklings that made Duplex?”\n\nBenson shook his head. “Dormence was once a whelp, truly pathetic at his core. I’d never seen someone so willingly fall at Osoth’s feet. He had his uses, but in the Empress’ world, sending people to sleep wasn’t particularly useful, less so when it was only one target at a time. I’ve become particularly familiar with him and his cohort Tranquil, the bringer of warmth. It seems they’ve gotten into you and are keeping you here, for whatever reason.”\n\nQuincey racked her brain. She tried to remember how and when she got into contact with Duplex. There was a point in her memory that was just blank. She didn’t remember what she was doing before she fell asleep. If Dormence was supposedly keeping her there, it was safe to assume that he was the reason she fell asleep in the first place. She stared at the blue goop for a time, and it stared sorrowfully back at her.\n\nShe reached down and submerged her hands into the stuff. It stuck to her fingers, suckling on them like a babe. There was a solid mass in there, to Quincey’s surprise. She gripped it in both hands and pulled. She lifted a form from the mass of blue ink, and her eyes went wide as she saw what she removed. It used to be a body, that much was certain. It had the shape of a torso and one arm, and half a head. The Inkling’s face sagged to one side, and ink dripped from its severed-away parts, taking the place of viscera that would have been gushing out of a human. Some of the sagging parts resembled a spine or other limbs. The poor thing had been decapitated.\n\nIt bore some resemblance to an actual human body. Quincey guessed, from what she knew from her parents’ medical texts, that Dormence had been pulled apart.\n\nThat was when she remembered what happened. It came to her with a gasp, an epiphany. Epheral had done this. Epheral tore Duplex apart into the two separate entities it once was. Past that point, everything had become a blur. She must have lost consciousness, perhaps she fainted in fear of the monstrous little girl. Whatever had happened, it had decimated Duplex, and the dripping mass she was holding was but one half of her former Inkling.\n\n“Dupl… Dormence.” Quincey spoke.\n\nDormence sobbed, moaning in pain. Quincey frowned. “Dormence, can you hear me?” She asked. The Inkling’s yellow eyes blinked a few times and seemed to focus on her, but it was difficult to say. The way its face seemed intent on melting down the side of what was left of its head, Quincey would have to angle her own head sideways just to seem on the level with it.\n\n“She tore you up, didn’t she?” Quincey asked, swallowing. “You poor thing.”\n\n“Quincey?” Dormence groaned, “Oh, Quincey…”\n\n“It’s alright.” Quincey struggled to stay calm, putting on a gentle smile. She hugged Dormence, holding him close to her body, tight and secure. When she squeezed him, blue ink squirted out of him and over her arms. She eased up in consideration of his state, but she didn’t let go. It didn’t matter if her skin was getting gross with Dormence’s fluids. “Shhh, it’s okay,” She insisted, “It’s alright now.”\n\n“I’m… dying…” Dormence worked out the words with tremendous difficulty, “Wanted to… make… you… not hurt…”\n\nDormence was ice cold to the touch. Quincey sniffed, holding back tears. She could feel it inside her, a growing emptiness left behind as Dormence and assumedly Tranquil faded away. She stood with the Inkling in silence, with Benson watching over her and not saying a word. She listened to the sounds of nature around her, the croaking of swamp toads and the chirping of crickets. She listened to her breathing, and to how Dormence’s slop splattered onto the ground. She tried to let the sounds calm her, even though she couldn’t control her shivering.\n\n“I-I see…” She spoke, though her voice wavered with sadness, “You just wanted to protect me.”\n\nDormence and Tranquil had put her to sleep so she didn’t have to feel the pain of what Epheral would do to her.\n\nThey took all that pain into themselves and they were suffering with it. They were dying with it. When they finally disappeared, she’d wake up without an Inkling. They weren’t even taking her prana anymore… they rested benign in her, waiting to die.\n\n“I never… anything right…” Dormence groaned, wrapping his one arm around his former host, “Our fault.”\n\n“Don’t say that,” Quincey said, “You did everything you could. You don’t have to do any more.”\n\nQuincey slowly loosened her grip on Dormence. The Inkling’s arm slackened as well, falling limp at his side. Dormence became very still, and very quiet. Quincey held him for a few moments more, wanting to warm his body, but it rejected her. He didn’t fit with her like he did before. He wasn’t a piece of her like he was when he was Duplex. Somehow being split up made him a very different Inkling. He wasn’t the one she carted to Locksmouth. He wasn’t the one that helped save Harley from her apartment. He wasn’t the one that she spent days and nights introducing to human concepts, like how nice it could be to be outside on a sunny day, or the love of a good book. He wasn’t the one she cuddled with, or was affectionate with.\n\nBut he was half of that one.\n\nDuplex had become a person almost. It didn’t speak with that same forced tone it once did. It had learned how to weave together tone and pitch to hold a conversation. It had learned this from Quincey, and over their time together it had learned so much more. It emulated her to near perfection. It could do this by knowing her inside and out. Duplex knew her better than anyone did, really, and it had taken the time to learn it all not knowing if it would live long enough to reap the benefits. Quincey wanted to teach it happiness, she wanted it to feel included in her life. She went through so much for its benefit already, she wasn’t ready to admit defeat just then.\n\nThere was so much more to show it, she couldn’t just let it die.\n\nQuincey draped Dormence over her back. His blue ink had smeared onto her body, dying her skin the same colour in splotches and streaks. She ignored this, pulling his one arm over her shoulder to brace him there. Dormence was confused, surprised, and lost all at the same time. He had no idea what was going on, but he hadn’t the energy to so much as ask. He rested against Quincey’s back, and the girl stepped off. She waded back into the deep mud past Benson. The canine commander watched her with a studious gaze.\n\n“What are you doing?” He asked, watching as she marched through the muck for several paces.\n\nThe girl stopped, turning her head to look back over her shoulder. “I’m going to find my other half,” she said. Then she faced forward again and continued her trek through the mire.\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\nWhat changed?\n\nYvette kept asking herself that question, over and over again. She asked the question in lieu of having answers. Maybe, she thought, if she kept asking herself that question, eventually an answer would come.\n\nShe could only ask herself. Her comrades weren’t a valuable source of input anymore. Most of them wouldn’t speak. What had happened shook them up as much as it had her. Kris was normally such a chatterbox, all too happy to share his opinion on the current situation; now he was silent too. There was a whole room crammed full of Eos soldiers and none of them were going to say a word to each other.\n\nHandcuffs kept them all restrained, but they were otherwise allowed to get up and walk around the receiving area they were locked in. Police officers stood at every door and there were more inside the room, making the rounds to ensure none of them did anything rash. Some of the soldiers had tried to fight or argue their case the day before, but a few quick neurod applications and they got silenced quick. Under any normal circumstance, Yvette would have thought that the police were using too much power to keep them in line, but given the circumstances that left them all there, it was more likely they were using just enough. She couldn’t blame them.\n\nThere she sat, cross-legged, tucked into the bottom shelf of a rack where boxes and crates usually sat. There was enough space for her in there if she hunched over a bit, and she did. It felt refreshingly cool out of the armor she’d fitted to herself when Garrison made his move on the mall. Thinking back on the clunky metal suit, she didn’t like it very much. A part of her had been excited to put it on, acting like a real soldier. That part of her was dead.\n\nHer blue eyes peered out from the shadows she hid under when someone’s legs stopped in front of her. The figure knelt down, revealing themselves to be the detective who did so much to bring Eos down to the point of desperation. Yvette used to hate that woman. Her goofy cyan hair and stupid hanging esca had at one point been annoying to look at. It symbolized someone who thought they understood more than they did. In hindsight, maybe the detective was right to put the clamps on them. Yvette didn’t have the energy to hate her anymore. The Siamese cat frowned when Marcello squat down to be level with her.\n\n“Yvette?” Marcello spoke, “Come with me for a second. It’s your turn to answer questions.”\n\nMarcello had always looked like she was ready to go for a swim, what with the pale violet bikini she was wearing under her jacket and fatigues. Now she was starting to look like she’d just stepped out of the water. Her hair was getting heavy, matting down to her head as the days went by without a proper shower. She had lines under her eyes, probably from a lack of sleep. Regardless of this fact, her grunge cast her in a determined shadow. Her gold eyes still peered out in her relentless pursuit of answers. She’d already been interrogating them, negotiating community service with them, as opposed to straight-up jail or exile from Harbington. She found out the locations of a number of Eos weapons stashes, small though they may have been.\n\n“I don’t think there is anything more to tell you,” Yvette lowered her eyes, “What could you want from me?”\n\nMarcello held out her gloved hand. “Don’t make me get my badge out.”\n\nYvette glared at the offered hand and instead pushed herself free and stood up straight. She was a slender, svelte feline, real graceful-looking. The spandex bodysuit she wore, what she had been wearing under her battle armor, revealed plenty. She walked with Marcello, her feet barely making a sound on the tile as she moved. Marcello took her outside of the receiving area, and only stopped a few paces from the officers posted at the door.\n\n“What happened?” Marcello asked.\n\nYvette knew exactly what she was talking about. She looked away. “I don’t know.”\n\n“I don’t believe that,” Marcello said, “You were second-in-command, Procsman already told me so. If anyone was close enough to that bear to have a good idea of what was going on, it was you. So what changed, Yvette?”\n\n“[i]I don’t know[/i],” Yvette stressed, “Our leadership changed, clearly. Garrison didn’t want to let go. He couldn’t.”\n\n“What was the goal?” Marcello asked.\n\nYvette narrowed her eyes at a spot on the wall. “… I thought it was to be heroes to the people,” She said, “[i]Human[/i] heroes, capable [i]human[/i] fighters who could do something against the threat the Inklings pose. We had seen the sort of terror they bring with our own eyes. Garrison was a soldier, he said he fought for people’s freedoms back in the day. We all wanted to protect humanity against the unknown, so that maybe people could sleep at night not worrying about some blobby boogeyman getting into them and causing chaos.”\n\n“Seems counterproductive that you’d work with one of those boogeymen then,” Marcello commented, resting her hands behind her neck casually, “A means to an end, right? Vor wanted to take out the Inklings too. Enemy of my enemy and stuff like that.”\n\n“Right.” Yvette nodded, “We put up with them until they weren’t useful to us anymore. Then Garrison took control. A lot of us abandoned the whole thing after what happened at Caduceus Manor, but those of us who stayed believed that what we were doing was the right thing to do.”\n\n“That’s why… I don’t understand what changed,” Yvette’s expression softened somberly, “I don’t understand why Garrison would threaten the life of a human like that, Inked or not. Originally the goal was simply to force the Inklings out, no human lives lost. Now, I suppose, the terms have changed.”\n\nMarcello nodded in understanding. “You know, I’ve heard a lot of the same stuff from the rest of you,” She said, “It sounds to me like this Garrison guy is kind of doing his own thing.”\n\n“He was a commander,” Yvette said, “And back then, he didn’t fight aliens, he fought people. He fought with them over disagreements made by others who didn’t get their hands dirty. Like the old rocket troopers, you know? Blasting each other over land or resources… He told me once that people can be wrong. They can make a decision that would ultimately burn them, and we all thought that siding with the Inklings was a decision like that.”\n\n“If you ask me, Garrison’s given up on people,” She concluded, “We watched as an Inkling madman did the same and lost, showing us just how horrific these things could be… if they turned on us, we’d be helpless. I think… he might believe that anyone willing to allow that to happen is his enemy.”\n\nThe feline leaned against the wall behind her in the corridor. “But I can’t,” She said, “I thought when this whole thing started that it would be likely we would have to stand up against people. That’s what soldiers did back then, and I thought I could expect it when it came. But we had anti-personnel rifles, police issue. We weren’t going to kill, we would never have been able to. I should have known when we got out the fusion cannons that things would be different… I had just hoped, secretly, that such a thing was impossible.”\n\nMarcello listened, lowering her arms to her sides again. “Trust me when I say that I know what it can be like following orders from a superior who doesn’t have your best interests at heart,” She said, “The HDPD just had the same problem. That being said, we feel like a little lenience toward anyone acting under orders is necessary… not that you won’t be doing your time. You’ll be doing plenty.”\n\nYvette closed her eyes and breathed in and out through her nose. She crossed her arms, wrapping them around herself for some small sense of comfort. “I understand that, and I accept what will come. Being able to play soldier, to play hero, isn’t worth ending a human life, no matter what the cause. I accept the punishment for my role in this. Perhaps the therapy will help me not be so afraid.”\n\nMarcello looked up and down the hall. “That brings us to the leniency,” She said, “You can start making up for what you did right now. You know how to work that armor, right?”\n\nYvette blinked at Marcello. “I do, yes, I got some training in it before this whole monster invasion broke loose,” She said, “… Why? What is it that you want me to do?”\n\n“If you want to protect the people, then that’s good. We want all the help we can get,” Marcello explained, “The second those things come bearing down on this mall, we’re toast if we don’t have some capable fighters on our side. If we let you back in that armor, we want you to protect the people in the mall if worse comes to worse.”\n\n“Really?” Yvette asked, surprised.\n\n“We’re not deputizing you or anything,” Marcello said, “In fact, you’re going to be performing this under duress, should you agree to it. It’s either you do that, or you and your friends keep sitting in that room. If you want to protect the people, start by working with the HDPD to keep things going.”\n\n“You want Eos to work with you?” Yvette clarified, “But Garrison wouldn’t…”\n\n“Garrison is out of commission, so it falls to the second-in-command to call the shots,” Marcello cocked a brow, “And that’s you, Yvette. So, what’s it going to be? This is the only choice we’re giving you, and if you agree to this, you’re going to be under full command of the stand-in Deputy. You and any Eos soldiers who decide to stick with you. That means protecting the Inked citizens that we’ve sworn to protect at all costs, regardless of their alien associations.”\n\nYvette’s eyes widened, and her posture tensed. “You want me to protect [i]them[/i]?” She asked, “You can’t be serious.”\n\n“Why not?” Marcello grinned, “You protected one already.”\n\nYvette grit her teeth, feeling sour with the idea. “If those parasites didn’t hide under human flesh, it would have been much different.”\n\n“But they do,” Marcello said, “And so far as we know, the humans who have them? Still human. They’re still at the wheel on this one. All I’m asking is that you protect them, nothing more. I’m not saying you have to like it, but it might keep you out of jail.”\n\nYvette’s ears twitched and turned, the left one flicking in agitation, as did her tail as it swiped back and forth behind her. She grumbled as she considered her options. She still refused to make eye contact with Marcello, and the detective’s eyes staring at her made her feel uncomfortable, pressured.\n\n“… Fine,” Yvette conceded, “I’ll do it.”\n\n“Good,” Marcello smiled, “The police will be happy to hear that. I’ll leave you to round up whatever Eos soldiers you can. Anyone who doesn’t join up is fine, just make it clear that you’re serving your punishment early. If you decide to change your mind at any point, don’t expect us to be so gentle next time. You’ll not be living here in Harbington any more if you betray its people one more time, you hear me? You’ll be out. Exiled. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll end up at a Naturalist village, but considering they’re not so keen on dome folk, you might have to luck out that some other dome would be stupid enough to take you in.”\n\n“Would you really do that?” Yvette questioned.\n\n“I hear my old boss is doing pretty well for herself in the sticks.” Marcello bitterly retorted.\n\n\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n“And so this meeting of the Inked Teenagers comes to order.”\n\nNatalie tapped her fist on the table as a gavel. Sitting around that table were Daxton, Kenny, and Laila. Everyone looked at Laila.\n\n“And I’m here too!” She said with a big smile and a shrug.\n\n“Yeah, okay,” Natalie resumed, “So, Daxton, Kenny, you guys have Inklings now.”\n\nDaxton nodded along, but he rested on his hand, propped up by his elbow. He yawned tiredly. Kenny nodded in understanding, arms and legs crossed.\n\n“Still, you have that Polaris guy?” Daxton directed his question at Kenny, “Seriously? He tried to crush me with a truck.”\n\n“Yeah, I know,” Kenny responded with a harsh edge, “Trust me, I remember that. I also remember punching him in the face a bunch of times.”\n\nNatalie raised a finger. “Technically that was his host,” she pointed out.\n\n“Whatever,” Kenny said, “Either way, I know he was a royal dick before. He knows it too. But I told you guys, he said he wants to try working with you rather than against you. I guess it’s either that or go to Inkling jail.”\n\n“Yeah he’d absolutely go to Inkling jail,” Natalie nodded decisively, “Echelon has an Inkling jail. Vor is there right now.”\n\n“Ha!” Laila laughed, “That’s what he gets!”\n\nThe four of them took a break in their discussion to eat some of their food. They had gathered in a restaurant and sat in one of the booths where they were allowed a modest breakfast free of charge. Truth be told, everyone was allowed that modest breakfast. People were being let in, seated, fed, and seen out in a routine, timely manner. All the food outlets in the entire mall were doing that, spreading what they could around the population there, all in the interest of helping where they could. Every one of those people had spent the night fearing an attack from Epheral, after all, but nothing had come. The only reason the four teenagers were allowed to stay anywhere longer than anyone else was because they had Inklings, and were thus the sole driving force against the possible assault; and that was only knowing about two of the three of them.\n\nNatalie swallowed some scrambled egg and politely dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “Anyway, since you two have Inklings now, the Echelon in me wants to point out how super important that is. Cap would probably want me to say it too.” She spoke to the boys in turn, “Daxton, Kenny, you have real super powers. You’re literally stronger than any human being in existence, probably.”\n\n“Except for maybe Garrison,” Daxton grumbled, tearing off a piece of the ham that was stuck on his fork. He continued while he chewed, “That guy’s nuts.”\n\nNatalie agreed, “Well yeah, except for crazy Jurassic super soldiers, sure, maybe.”\n\n“So, what?” Kenny questioned Natalie, “You’re telling us to use our powers for good or something?” He waved his hands and wiggled his fingers, both mocking an exaggerating what he said.\n\nNatalie blinked at him. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”\n\nDaxton chuckled. “Come on, Natalie,” He said, “I’ve been using my powers for good since you were in diapers!”\n\n“We’re the same age.” She glared at him.\n\nDaxton grinned. “And that is just how much of a good guy I am! Seriously, if I was evil I’d be, like… I don’t even know. I can’t even think of anything.”\n\nNatalie’s attention turned to Kenny and the boy took a deep breath. “Look,” He said, “I know I’m a messed-up guy, I get it. I’m probably the only person in this building who’s ever…” He paused, struggling with the words. “… Done… something… [b]really[/b] bad before. That’s… something I did. I get it. But I’m [b]not[/b] bad guy material, okay? I don’t give a damn what Polaris was like before, if he tries to take me over I’ll beat him out of me myself. If Quincey can do it, I don’t see why I can’t.”\n\nLaila leaned in, forcing herself into the conversation. “That’s right! Lil’ Quincey peeled Duplex off [i]herself[/i],” She said, “That’s really hard to do, right?”\n\nNatalie was surprised, quite frankly. She’d never heard of anyone doing that before. Quincey continued to surprise her. “It is really hard, or it’s supposed to be,” she said.\n\n“Anyway, I’m just saying, it’s really important that you guys get it. Like, I’ve almost died a couple times.” Natalie said, counting on her fingers. “I got my skull fractured once on a tree I’m pretty sure,” She counted one finger, “I got trapped in a dream world once,” She counted another, “And after I beat Osoth I was in a coma for days,” She counted a third. “This is really serious stuff! I just kinda fell into it, but you guys can at least weigh the risks.”\n\n“Natalie, baby, darling,” Daxton said, waving a limp wrist her way, “I don’t think we really have a choice. Let’s look at the facts. Epheral is here and she’s wrecking up the place. She’s attacking both Locksmouth and Harbington at the same time. You guys need to stick to Locksmouth to keep people from getting messed up by these prana monsters. What does that leave us with?”\n\nLaila crunched into a fried egg sandwich that dripped yolk down her chin. She pulled away from it trying in desperation to scoop the mess off her fur and get it into her mouth. “One lil’ lemming with the temperament of a buckin’ bull and the powers of a magnet, and one stubborn-as-a-mule blind light-show.”\n\nKenny huffed, and Daxton stretched his arms up over himself with a groan. “Wow, the options are endless!” He said.\n\n“Okay, okay, I get it,” Natalie raised her hands in surrender, “Well then good.”\n\n“So what’s the point of all that?” Kenny asked, “What are we going to do?”\n\n“Well that’s just the thing,” Natalie said, biting into a piece of toast. She chewed and swallowed, downing it with some juice before continuing, “Epheral comes by and just erases planets, right? That’s how I figure she had enough prana to not only make her own army, but to whip through space just to get here. We didn’t see her last night though, and the few times we’ve run into her, she’s been kind of strong, but nothing really crazy. My question is: why is she taking so long? What’s she waiting for?”\n\n“I still think if she had all that power, she’d use it,” Kenny said, “Ergo, deductive reasoning settles on that she [i]doesn’t[/i] have all that power.”\n\n“But Quincey said that Duplex said that Epheral has been to and wiped out multiple planets that Osoth visited before,” Natalie pointed out, “So she must have at least that much stored up.”\n\n“Yeah, but if she had it all on hand, then what? Earth would be just dead.” Kenny said, “Earth is not dead, so she doesn’t have it all.”\n\n“Well how much energy does it take to go through space?” Daxton asked.\n\nNatalie shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe she used a ton just to get here.”\n\n“Maybe,” Kenny said, “Or, and not to be a downer or anything, she’s waiting for that.”\n\n“For what?” Daxton asked.\n\n“For the rest.”\n\nThey sat there for a moment, taking all that possibility in. Laila put down the crusts of her sandwich, finding that her appetite wasn’t up to the task of finishing it all of a sudden.\n\nNatalie closed her eyes and rubbed her chin, thinking. “We saw what she did to Joe,” She said, “That security guy at the CCC. She’s ready to start sucking everything up. If she is waiting for more power to get here, I think we’re going to be in huge trouble when it comes.”\n\n“She’ll start killing all kinds of people and turning them into more power,” Kenny said, “She’s gonna snowball.”\n\n“And if she starts picking us off,” Daxton said, “Then it’s just gonna get worse… so, I think it’s pretty obvious what we have to do.”\n\n“What’s that?” Kenny looked from across the table, wrapping his lips around the straw of his strawberry milk drink.\n\nDaxton sat back with a shrug. “We have to beat her up,” He said, “Smash her core. She’s got one of those, right? It’s here, right? It’s either that or we smash those crystals, taking away from the power she’s already got here, so when she gets more she’ll just be in the same spot. Either way I think it’s a win-win for us.”\n\n“Sounds all hat n’ no cattle, if you ask me,” Laila interjected, “Reckon smashin’ Epheral directly is the only thing that’s gonna get ya any real results.”\n\n“Well,” Natalie hummed, “He’s not wrong. At the end of the day, Epheral’s got to go down. The problem is finding her.”\n\n“How does she get around if she’s just a core, anyway?” Kenny asked, “And what does a core even look like? How would we know when we see her?”\n\nNatalie furrowed her brow. “Well, let’s see… a core is… like an Inkling’s heart. It’ll look kind of like that? Like a… ball or something, that’s what Osoth’s looked like.”\n\n“A ball? Weird.” The Harbington teens pondered over what that might be, conjuring separate images in their heads.\n\nDaxton’s ears shot up. “Wait! I saw something like that!” He blurted out.\n\n“What? Where?” Natalie inquired.\n\nDaxton sat up straighter. “When I was saving Quincey,” He explained, “There was this prana monster, right? But it looked like a little girl or something, like it was wearing a kind of dress? It had, like, a big white and brown ball or something that it shoved into itself. Then it transformed into a bigger, scarier girl and started beating me up. It ran away after a while. That must have been it!”\n\n“Wait, you ran into the galactic devil, just like that?” Laila gave the boy a flat look, “Ya’ll gotta be kiddin’ me.”\n\n“No, I’m serious,” Daxton nodded to the giraffe, then again to Natalie, “I swear it. She’s around here somewhere probably.”\n\nNatalie rubbed her chin, closing her eyes to fuss over all the little details and try to come up with a plan. She went quiet, and so did the Harbington crew, leaving the four of them not saying anything while Natalie thought. “Hmm…” She growled in her throat, finding it frustrating that she had so little to work with. “Nngh, if I still had access to her powers it’d be easier to find her; but if Echelon uses that power, it just hurts Echelon. She can’t use it for very long, Epheral’s still got control over the prana Echelon’s got to use to make that happen. I don’t think we can just go looking for her.”\n\n“We need to put pressure on her,” Natalie decided, “We should take out her crystals and smash as much of her army as we can. If we can put the grips on her, she’ll have to do something about it.”\n\n“Draw her out of hiding,” Kenny nodded, “I guess it could work.”\n\n“The police should know where most of the crystals around the city are, and there are still people who need saving,” Natalie said, “We should hit that, and hit it hard.”\n\nThe girl pounded her fist into her hand for emphasis.\n\nDaxton smiled. “Aha, now beating on a bully is something I can get behind!” He said, “Somebody’s got to stay here though, in case something happens.”\n\n“That’ll be me,” Kenny interjected, “It wouldn’t make much sense if I went out, people don’t know I have Polaris with me. I can stay back so if she shows up and things get really bad, I can fight off whatever she throws at us as a kind of last resort.”\n\nLaila groaned, letting her head dip to one side. “Now I’m just startin’ to feel left out…”\n\n“What, you [i]want[/i] an alien living inside you?” Kenny cocked a brow and half-smirked at her, “It’d make you a target for these things, you know.”\n\n“I know but I’m just sittin’ here like a bump on a log!” Laila complained, throwing her hands up, “I wanna help too, y’know!”\n\nDaxton rubbed his chin in thought. “I think you [i]can[/i] help,” He said, “And I have the [i]perfect[/i] job for you.”\n\nNatalie slid out of her seat and stood in the aisle between all the tables, stretching her legs. With a full belly and a somewhat decent night’s rest, she felt as ready to go as she figured she could be. “Let’s check in with the police first.”\n\nDaxton saluted. “Aye-aye Captain.”\n\n“Wait, what job?” Laila grabbed Daxton’s arm to get his attention.\n\nDaxton turned to her as he stood to follow Natalie. “One only you would do,” He said, “That’s for sure.”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n“Y’know, when ya’ll said you had a job for me in mind, I didn’t figure ya meant chauffer!”\n\nLaila adjusted her rear-view mirror to look out of the back of the Eos truck at Daxton, who grinned real wide at his PET while maintaining his grip on the mounted turret in the flatbed. The image of his stupid face projecting itself from the mount on the dashboard where her own personal electronic taskmaster was in a call with him.\n\n“I told you it was one only you would do though,” He explained, “You’re the only one here that’s crazy enough of a driver to actually make it through all this mess. You’ve been doing pretty good so far.”\n\n“Yeah well you be careful or I’m gonna do a barrel roll n’ forget you don’t have a seatbelt back there.” The giraffe snarked. She turned her attention back to the streets in front of her. She was flying the truck approximately ten feet off the ground where the roads were, not that anyone really used roads as roads… they were more like flight paths, really. Even so, there was enough going on at street-level to keep her in the air. Monsters still roamed the streets and buildings were starting to take on a strange white fracturing. Blazing white cracks were eating away at the foundations of the stores along the way.\n\n“Boy howdy…” The girl sighed, leaning on the truck’s steering wheel to gaze out over the mess, “Would you take a gander at that. What’d ya’ll reckon they’re doin’ eatin’ the buildings like that? Do buildings have prana too?”\n\n“I don’t know, maybe?” Daxton shrugged, “I thought just living things had prana.”\n\n“Well steel n’ metal are inorganic,” Laila said, “They ain’t livin’ anything. I mean if ya think about it, Epheral’s power is life energy, right? So, what… she’s pumpin’ not-livin’ things fulla livin’?”\n\n“Sounds insane enough to work for her,” Daxton said, “Crazy… But it’s people that’re really in trouble. Let’s get to the school.”\n\nThe truck sped past the tram station, and Daxton saw it swarmed by monsters. Maybe it had been a largely populated area when the crystals hit. He imagined that people would have lined up to catch the first train out of there. Laila drove by too fast for him to really get a good look at the area, so he didn’t get a chance to look too closely and see if anyone was down there. He hoped that no one got caught in that mess, that no one ended up like the guy at the CCC. The monsters had taken out half of the supports to the overhead that kept the passengers dry while they waited for the train to come. It had collapsed and no train would have been passing through there.\n\n“How many people do y’think have died?” Laila dropped the bombshell question.\n\n“Hopefully not many,” Daxton grimly answered, “I’m gonna save as many as I can. There were tons of people at the mall, there’s gotta be more living people than not.”\n\nLaila pursed her lips in thought. “Well, everyone on my farm is okay,” Laila said, “N’ we’re one of the biggest. I reckon, since the agricultural sector got the least of the damage? They must’ve got everyone out okay. It’s more the people stuck closer to here, really.”\n\n“Well there’s supposed to be some holed up at the school. I guess if the police have had trouble getting in, something has to be up. I’m going to have to blow a hole in the thing and get those people out.” Daxton turned his attention forward, knowing that Harbington High was only a few more blocks away.\n\n“If the creek don’t rise,” Laila said, “Yeah.”\n\n“Eh, it’ll be fine,” Daxton assured her, “Let’s swing by and see what’s going on first, then we can decide how we’re going to play this.”\n\nLaila took a hard turn, the truck’s engine roaring as she did, only to stop upon the rounding. “Bogeys, up high!” She said, able to see the flock of harpies coming their way through the sky.\n\n“I see them!” Daxton shouted, angling the turret to aim skyward, “Just keep moving!”\n\nLaila floored it, the skiffs on the truck burning up and jetting out in a rush of motion to send them straight at the flock. The ominous black bird-women screeched and dove, attacking as direct and fiercely as they may. With their sharp talons poised to strike, they descended from the sky, and Daxton met them with revved-up shots from the turret in the back. Each blast kicked the weapon back, ejecting a force behind that flapped his coat harshly in the wind. The sheer power of the blasts could shatter the monsters on impact, and it did just that to one target in the center of the flock, causing the rest to scatter as Laila passed them by.\n\nLaila was far from gentle on the vehicle, slamming on the brakes hard enough to nearly throw Daxton off the back. It was the boy’s grip on the bolted-on gun that kept him safe, and he struggled to regain his balance as Laila made a wide turn to circle around and point Daxton in the right direction. She sped off again, trying to strafe the harpies as they flew after them. Daxton grunted as he shoved the gun into position, aimed slightly high, and fired again. He clipped one of their wings, shattering it and causing it to fall from the group. The others gave chase, unable to turn sharply enough and maintain enough speed for the bulk to descend upon them. One lucky bird-beast managed, however, slamming into Daxton in the flatbed of the vehicle and taking him off the gun.\n\n“Rgh!” Daxton’s back hit the side of the truck hard, but he kept himself from going over. The harpy clung to him, and he wasn’t granted the liberty of things slowing down for him to deal with it. Laila kept on driving, swerving, shaking him and the monster around in the back. The harpy’s talons tore into his shirt and raked his chest as the monster screeched in his face. It buffeted him with its wings as well, though the real cutting damage came from the talons. Daxton grabbed hold of the monster and wrestled with it, eventually getting thrown onto his back.\n\n“Buzz off!” Daxton shouted, cocking back his fist. It glowed brightly, incandescent with energy that was released when he punched the thing in the side of its head. It wailed in pain, getting thrown off the boy and leaving an opening for him to get back up. He forced himself onto it, throwing it into the half-wall that kept them from falling and pinning it there to smash it with two more well-placed punches. He shattered its head and then pushed the remainder of it off the vehicle. With that dispatched, he quickly manned the gun again, spinning it around to take aim at the swarm of harpies that were nearly upon him.\n\nHe was forced to duck as soon as he fired, the shot tearing through the swarm, breaking pieces off that he couldn’t connect to any one being fast enough to know what he’d done. He dropped to a knee and lowered his head to let the harpies pass. They did so in a black, charcoal cloud, limbs banging off the truck, denting its outer chassis, doing plenty of damage to the frame and possibly just as much to themselves. One was particularly clever, as it snatched the mounted gun with its talons and harshly beat its wings to fly away with it. The harpies weren’t strong in and of themselves, but apparently, they had enough strength to put considerable strain on the bolts that kept the weapon in place. The metal creaked, serving as a warning for Daxton to act. He sprung up and threw a punch, clipping the bird-lady and making it let go. It flew away before it could get any more damage to join the others.\n\nLaila turned again. She had been circling the truck around and around, but it seemed to only get them so far. She decided she needed to change things up. Her turn pointed her straight at the swarm. She shifted the vehicle into high gear, the kind of output that would make the fusion engine roar and the creases on the truck glow red with generated heat. She slammed her foot on the pedal and the truck shot like a bullet toward the harpies. She closed the span of several yards in a short time. Daxton was thrown to the back of the truck, but he wisely fell onto his butt to hit the back end and keep himself from just flying away. Laila aimed right for the monsters, finding the biggest, blackest congregation in the mass of flapping bird limbs and crashing through it.\n\nThe birds squawked and screamed as they were thrown every which way, parts of their bodies shattering upon impact from the truck. It absolutely [i]devastated[/i] them, cutting the number of them effectively by half. It also devastated the truck, denting the hood and forcing it to pop up, obscuring Laila’s vision. Eventually the hood lost its hinges and just came off, flying over the back of the vehicle and over Daxton’s head. Other charcoal bodies crashed into the windshield, cracking, then smashing it. Laila shielded herself from the glass and damage, but it jarred the truck considerably, throwing her off-course and into a nearby store. She and Daxton were only safe because she slammed on the brakes and jerked the whole thing to slide sideways. The broad side of the vehicle smashed into the building, knocking out windows and dealing more damage to the chassis itself.\n\n“Crap, Laila!” Daxton shouted as he picked himself up, his body feeling more beaten by being thrown around than by anything the harpies had done. His neck felt stiff, and he rubbed it to nurse the tender pain. Wincing, he pulled himself back onto the turret and took aim to fire another invisible force blast that exploded the prana-harpy it hit. Laila shook herself out of a daze and gripped the steering again to get moving. The engine seemed to groan in protest, but the truck managed to drag itself out of its divot in a shower of sparks and metal squeals.\n\nShe took off down the street, level with the rooftops of the stores and restaurants down below. She swerved, fish-tailing the truck sideways to create what would have been a blockade, had there been ground under the skiffs. Daxton took aim, squeezing the triggers on the handles of the gun as hard as he could and bracing himself for the jerky recoil that impacted him when he fired. One, two, three; he fired three shots and took down two more harpies. Only one remained, and it swooped from on high with its talons bared and ready to tear into him. He panicked, throwing himself onto the weapon to weigh down its heavy back-end and point it upward. He blasted off a few rounds, managing only to shatter the last one when it was close enough to rain on him when he did. The recoil of the weapon punched him in the face a few times, and he stumbled off the weapon when everything ended.\n\nDaxton fell onto his butt again, panting for breath. His PET rang with a familiar banjo jingle, and he picked it up to see Laila’s frazzled expression.\n\n“Well, hell n’ high water, that was.” Laila said.\n\nDaxton chuckled. “I don’t know what’s scarier… them, or your driving.”\n\nLaila seemed offended. “You wanna walk, tough guy?”\n\nDaxton raised an assuring hand. “No, No,” He said, “Let’s just get to the school, okay?”\n\n“Right,” Laila agreed, the engine humming to life again, wavy heat escaping the exposed engine core like a smokestack above them. “Just over here.”\n\nShe rounded the bend at the end of the block to see the high school. It sat stalwart near the center of the dome, where the schools made a comfortable ring around the Climate Control Center and its nature reserves. It stood in a community of high walls around houses that acted as fences, with only a chain-link equivalent to protect itself. That hadn’t done a thing to dissuade the monsters that surrounded the building. A small army of who-knew-what had amassed and was doing its best to attack the school from seemingly every side. They’d done a terrible number on the yard, up-ending picnic tables and even going so far as to tear down the goal posts on the sports field.\n\nThe building throbbed with white energy. Epheral’s power was taking it like a sickness; an ugly rash that was spreading from the base. There was no way to see into the cafeteria any more, not with static-flickering whiteness overtaking the windows. It bled; globs of its sickly, burned brown flecking off into the air. It looked as if half the building had become a prana crystal somehow, and the sight of it was terrifying. Laila slammed onto the brakes at first sight of it and just stared slack-jawed at it. Daxton had to bend aside to see past the truck’s cabin, but he too was just as gob smacked.\n\nThe worst part of it was that the front doors had been opened. The prana-sickness taking the place opened there like a cavernous maw, allowing monsters to pour in.\n\n“Well,” Laila said, her words coming out as a whisper, “That ain’t good.”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n“And everything is going okay over there?” Natalie asked Carrie, who shrugged nonchalant on her end of the call.\n\n“We’re fine,” Carrie said, “Whenever someone reports that they’ve seen any of those monsters, we go and smash them up. We’re on top of this.”\n\nNatalie smiled. “I meant more if [i]you guys[/i] were okay, but that’s good to know.”\n\n“Oh, [i]us[/i]. Well yeah. See, the good thing about Erwin, Shelly, and Sam being total wusses is that they won’t go anywhere near those things.” Carrie grinned, “And Epheral doesn’t seem to be able to get through Arus, and she can’t catch Koralo, and Cap’s been hitting them before they can get him. There were a couple close calls, but nothing serious. You know, we could probably send someone over now.”\n\nNatalie thought about it, but ultimately decided against it. “No, it’s okay. With Daxton and Kenny having their own Inklings, I think we can manage right now. Just make sure that you bust up every crystal in Locksmouth before you even think about coming out here.”\n\n“And you’re sure about those guys?” Carrie asked.\n\nNatalie tilted her head. “Who? Daxton and Kenny? Or Polaris and Lumina?”\n\n“The last ones,” Carrie said, “Polaris in particular. Might I remind you, he tried to crush me with a truck!”\n\n“Yeah, I don’t know about him… but he hasn’t been causing any trouble yet,” Natalie answered, scratching her cheek, “He’s doing some kind of new leaf thing? And Lumina seems on the level. She says she was helping Echelon before it was cool, not that she can remember.”\n\n“Well, you be careful. I’d feel a lot better if it was us out there instead.” Carrie expressed her concerns, giving her girlfriend a gentle, concerned look.\n\n“Well right now it’s just me,” Natalie assured her, “So I’ll talk to you after I bust a crystal, okay? It’s in the nature reserve.”\n\n“Alright,” Carried conceded, “Talk to you then. Love you.”\n\n“Love you too, Carr-bear.”\n\nPocketing her PET, Natalie turned her attention toward a clearing in the reserve. It hadn’t been hard to find the crystal, even with her bearings being thrown off from the change of angle. The thing was bigger than she was, making it easy to pick out between the gaps in the trees. Avoiding the prana construct monsters had been the hard part. They could sense her everywhere she went, and when one of them found her out, the rest were soon to follow. There wasn’t enough time to sit back and think of a strategy or an escape plan. She had to get in, smash the crystal, and get out.\n\nA thunderous rumble shook the tree line in the distance, scaring birds off their perches to scatter in a tweeting flurry. Those sounds had been going off ever since Natalie arrived, and they were what made the job doable. Several times, prana constructs had simply passed her by to head toward the source of the sounds, which seemed to be some many yards away. Natalie’s only company had been the animals, which were darting around the forest to hide and be safe. She felt sorry for them as they were so frightened and helpless against the swarm of prana monsters, having no possible way to defend themselves. It was up to her to end the menace, and the animals gave her the motivation she needed, not to mention all the humans in hiding back at the mall.\n\n“Alright.” Natalie stood from her place kneeling at the base of a tree, stepping into the clearing that was part there, and part carved by the crystal’s descent. A hole had been punched into the leafage above and many tree limbs were scattered around the crystal making it clear the exact angle it had fallen in on. Natalie studied the silent, lonely scene for only a few moments before inking over. Echelon took over, clenching a fist and poising to strike. “I have to hit it as hard as I can. A Comet Punch ought to do it.”\n\nEchelon leapt forward immediately, coming at the massive, stationary crystal like it would fight back. “Comet Punch!” She shouted, if only to give her the extra oomph. Jacent’s powers activated, and Echelon’s cocked-back fist rushed forward, splitting the air it travelled through and creating a rush of force around her knuckles that impacted with the force of an industrial metal press. Her fist crashed into the hard surface of the pixelating crystal, bouncing off the glasslike surface with simple rebound shock. Even so, she struck it hard enough to fracture the surface of the solid prana, and the force travelled far enough that the cracks split and spread around the surface. The prana energy seemed to intensify, giving Echelon pause.\n\nThe energy went out of control as the physical construct created to contain it ruptured. It exploded, hitting her with a force of pure energy powerful enough to send her flying across the clearing. The crystal’s shard rained over her inky flesh as she was thrown into the tree line with one such tree being what stopped her travel. She slammed her back off the bark of the tall maple, letting out a gasp of air upon impact before she crumpled at the tree’s base. The sound of the explosion was deafening, enough to leave a ringing in the Inkling’s head as she tried to pick herself up. If there had been any birds left in the reserve, they all would have run away at that. Collecting herself, Echelon looked out over the clearing. All the debris had been swept away in the explosion… as well as all the grass and even some of the nearby trees were slanted, their roots having been torn up from the ground.\n\n“Oof…” Echelon rose to a knee, resting there. “Those things pack a punch.”\n\nA rustle from the bush caught her ear. She sprung to attention immediately, jumping to her feet and getting ready to defend herself. “Who’s there?!”\n\nA construct stepped out from the brush. Echelon hadn’t seen it at first among the foliage because it was so small, smaller than even many of the goblin creatures that the constructs took the shape of. Right away it seemed different for more than simply that fact; the shape of the little charcoal shadow suggested that it was a small humanoid wearing a dress. In fact, it looked mostly like a pre-splice human. It walked upright on two legs and had animal ears upon its head. Its scratchy form shifted bizarrely, making it impossible to tell just what animal the construct seemed to resemble. The only things that stood out from its black body were the white, undulating, burnt-edge aura surrounding it, the pure white smiling mouth upon its face, and what it held in its little hands.\n\nIn one hand, the orb it held, Echelon knew right away what it was. Even though it looked like a bubble of the same aura that surrounded its body, the size and shape of it was easily recognizable to any Inkling. It was an Inkling core. Echelon’s eyes widened at the realization when it hit her, and she stared at the core as it wavered in the construct’s grasp. In its other hand was a blue jay. The bird squawked and tweeted as it thrashed around in the construct’s grip, but the thing had a death grip around its neck that wouldn’t release.\n\n“Epheral.” Echelon glared at the core rather than the construct, knowing who she should be addressing.\n\nThe prana-girl smiled wider. “Very good!” She spoke for Epheral who, as a core, had no way of doing so herself. “You must be so proud of yourself for everything you’ve done…”\n\nEpheral’s smile faded. She slowly turned her head to regard the bird in her hand, which let out a shrill sound as burning white cracks spread out over its entire body. The jay went rigid as its tone reached a pitch, and then its body simply burst in glittering prana. Everything that had once constructed it was altered before Echelon’s very eyes into prana, which was absorbed greedily into the core that Epheral’s construct held. She’d killed the little bird and didn’t even flinch. Instead, she turned away from Echelon and began to wander the clearing, seemingly searching.\n\n“Ah!” Echelon gasped, “What are you doing?! Stop that!”\n\n“No.” Epheral answered.\n\n“Stop it or I’ll make you!” Echelon shouted.\n\n“If you were going to do that, you’d be attacking me and not just standing there.” Epheral said, moving to one of the trees at the outer edge of the clearing. She squatted down in front of it, then reached into a hole that was hollowed out of the stump. A small creature yelped, and Epheral withdrew a small fox kit from inside. The little pup kicked its feet and yipped and barked, as did numerous other little kits inside once Epheral took its kin away.\n\n“But you’re just standing there, because you’re afraid.” Epheral said, turning back to Echelon and holding the small animal in her hand up by the scruff of its neck. The little gray fox thrashed around, unable to get free, and two others pounced out from the burrow in the tree to leap at Epheral’s legs and claw at her. The construct didn’t move a muscle or react to the scratches along its shins. She pushed the core into the construct, the orb melding into the girl’s middle and embedding in there, appearing as a pulsating nucleus in the darkness.\n\n“Everything on this planet is afraid, and it should be.” Epheral turned the little kit in her hand to face her, considering its eyes. “What else would you feel when faced with something as powerful as me?”\n\n“Grr! Actima!” Echelon rushed forth in a blur of motion, wherein if anyone had blinked they would have missed her mad dash for the small prana girl. She was in at the blink of an eye, and delivering a kick that would have sideswiped the little girl in the opposing side of her head from the fox pup. Given their disparity in sizes, Epheral’s construct would have been taken out, pushed over, perhaps even its head would have simply been kicked clean off. Every other construct had been made of similar density, and the expectation was that it would go the same way.\n\n“Your Empress was afraid of me.” Epheral scowled. Echelon froze, her leg extended. Her kick had made a clear connection to the side of Epheral’s constructed head, and there it sat. The prana, which normally shattered with anything around the force of a swung hammer, was entirely intact. Echelon’s leg hadn’t so much as scuffed the thing. A full-speed kick that could have cleaved through a street sign had done nothing at all. Epheral closed her hand around the fox’s little head, and with the gut-churning sound of a yelp followed by a wet crunch, the animal went silent and limp. Echelon’s breath wavered as another little life was extinguished with all the care of swatting a mosquito. Much like the blue jay before it, the dead fox’s body burned brightly white, and popped like a little glitter bomb. The energy was sucked right into Epheral’s form.\n\nEpheral grabbed hold of Echelon’s ankle quickly. The Inkling wolf panicked, readying herself before leaping up and taking a swipe with her other foot, pumping some kinetic force into the blow via Jacent’s power set. Echelon kicked Epheral across the face. It hit with a loud CRACK, and Echelon fell to the ground as she found herself released. She didn’t stay down there for long, however, and quickly scrambled to her feet to make some distance between her and the little monster.\n\nEpheral kicked at the foxes that bounced around her feet and nipped at her. She wound up and hoofed them as hard as she could to send them flying into the woods. The pitiful yelps they made as their ribs broke was heartbreaking.\n\n“I have so… much… power,” Epheral said, “Much more than you, no matter how similar we are.”\n\n“I am not like you,” Echelon said, “I don’t go around murdering innocent animals and turning them into prana! Come here, you little brat!”\n\nEchelon leapt forward, drawing back her fist. Her leap was powerful, kicking up dust as her force of movement was amplified almost tenfold. Air rushed around her, making her look as a bullet closing the distance between her and Epheral. “Comet…!”\n\n“Punch!” Epheral shouted, meeting the incoming boosted fist with her own fist. The two of them crashed into one another, and the resulting shockwave killed all the sound around them for mere moments as it shoved the vibrations in the air away. The further out it got, the more it dispersed, until finally the echo of the impact caught up, making the crash of their meeting fists happen long after the event took place. The amplified rush of kinetic force had met a similarly amplified force, and the two of them had cancelled one another out, but not without sounding like thunder had struck between them.\n\nThey remained locked in place, fist-to-fist. Epheral’s limbs cracked, fractured, splintered, and then shot out several feet. Her legs, arms, torso, everything grew to give what had at once been the form of a little girl the feminine, long-limbed, athletic form of a teenager that overtook Natalie for height. Her elbows and knees bore sharp protrusions. It happened so quickly, Echelon had little time to react before Epheral stepped forward and shoved with her fist, pushing the Inkling’s arm back and creating an opening. Epheral reared back a side kick and delivered it straight to Echelon’s gut, knocking the girl away and to the ground.\n\n“We’re very similar, actually.” Epheral explained.\n\nEchelon had hit the ground in a tumble. She winced, but pulled herself to her hands and knees, working to stand again. Epheral had given her a Comet Punch. Only Jacent and herself had the power to wield such forces! “How did you do that?” Echelon asked, “You can’t do that.”\n\nEpheral frowned. “Why not?” She asked, “What is an Inkling’s power but a unique utility of prana energy that only they can perform? You Inklings are all so stupid, thinking you’re so special. You don’t even know what makes you special! What makes me special is that I know what makes you special.”\n\n“Think of Polaris,” Epheral held up her hand as if she were cradling the concept there, “Polaris gets prana, and that prana is his energy. He uses that energy to manipulate metal. That is his power, it is what he does that others cannot.”\n\n“Then there is you,” She held up her other hand, “What is your power? Your power is to use his power. But how do you do this? It’s almost genius really… Osoth nearly figured out what made me so terrifying to her.”\n\nEchelon grit her teeth. “I get it, alright? You’re saying I can use prana like other people can use it.”\n\n“You mimic the… frequencies, let’s just say; and not perfectly, either. I was quite surprised to discover this about you during our time together.” Epheral grinned, “Why, you can even use prana the same way I do! Which must have been so liberating for you. You will never find someone so adept at utilizing prana as I. Just look at what I can do with it. You must be so jealous.”\n\n“So you can do what I can do.” Echelon concluded.\n\nEpheral pointed a finger at her, and stood straighter. “I can do what you can do better than you can do it, and I can do far more than that! I control prana, that is my power! You’ll never hope to match me, even if you ‘steal’ it.”\n\nEpheral raised a hand to her mouth, resting her curled fingers under where her nose would be, thoughtfully. “I could have dismantled Osoth easily.”\n\n“Well that’s good for you,” Echelon said, taking a stance, “Did you come here just to brag or what?”\n\nEpheral’s mouth made a surprise ‘o’ shape. “Oh? Well, by all means, try and fight me.”\n\nMentally switching to Phactys’ powers, Echelon moved in on the attack. She threw a punch, which Epheral blocked, but when Epheral returned fire, Echelon was well out of the way. One punch was all it seemed to take to push Epheral into action, the prana-girl starting to throw punches and kicks in a series of well-timed strikes. Epheral saw them all in slow motion, seeing red shadows move before Epheral’s body to tell her exactly where each attack was coming from. She waved left, right, blocked a knee with her hands and stepped back to avoid further attacks. She stepped in, swept Epheral’s legs, and when the construct jumped that attack, she thrust Tiger Palm strike into the construct’s side. Epheral flinched and stepped away, twisting into a Comet Punch attack she sent straight down at Echelon’s head.\n\nThe Inkling wolf dashed aside, missing the attack by a hair. Epheral’s fist struck the ground, hammering a crater into the dirt that collapsed in on itself. Echelon returned the attack with a boosted heel smash into the small of Epheral’s nape, the shattering blow cleaving through and taking the construct’s head clear off. Epheral crumped under the blow, but being headless didn’t give her much pause. Instead, she backed off, giving her constructed form enough time to sprout a new, mostly featureless, charcoal head.\n\n“For all the things I know about you though, there’s something I don’t understand,” Epheral spoke, like nothing had happened, “Mirror Slide. If I could only figure that out…”\n\nShe didn’t expect Echelon’s fist to lash out at her like a flail from so far away. Again, her expression changed to one of surprise before Echelon’s fist connected with her cheek, making her stumble back. The Inkling wolf retracted her rubbery arm like a paddle ball, the appendage whip-lashing back into place. She grinned, proud of her surprise attack. “Well sorry, I’m not going to tell you.”\n\n“I didn’t expect you to…” Epheral pushed her jaw to twist her head, as if to crack her construct’s neck.\n\nEchelon took the offensive again, but Epheral just cupped her hand over her fist and reared back to swing. Her fists melded, taking on the form of a giant mallet head that she swung into Echelon’s side as soon as she came into range. It struck clean, knocking the wolf away like a croquet ball and sending her into the dirt. Keeping her hands fused into such a weapon, Epheral chased after Echelon to bear down on her with the mallet, raising it above her head to crash down on the Inkling in the dirt. Echelon narrowly escaped the attack, swiftly scrambling to escape another. Everywhere Epheral struck left a massive, perfect circle imprinted in the dirt. She continued to tirelessly pursue Echelon as she ran, doing her best to catch the Inkling under her hammer hands.\n\n“But I WILL find out!” Epheral shouted, slamming hard into the dirt again, frustrated that her attack didn’t find Inkling flesh. Echelon had sprung out of the way, like a little rubber ball. “Whether you like it or not, I will discover how you reach Canvas, and when I do? You can say goodbye to every single one of you!”\n\n“Even if that means…” Epheral turned, seeing Echelon coming straight at her. Her white mouth turned up in a grin and she swung with all the momentum she could muster to intercept Echelon again. She caught the Inkling wolf right in the side, hard enough to make the girl squeak as air struggled to escape her. She launched Echelon into the air, the wolf flailing in the sky. “I have to break down every little piece of you to do it!”\n\n“Well how do you like this piece?!” Echelon shouted from the side. Epheral barely had time to look before she took a bunch to the face from somewhere Echelon had just not been before. Or had she lost track of her?\n\n“Maybe you like this one?!” Echelon kicked her, making Epheral stumble, dragging her overweighed mallet hands with her, the heavy melding of her fists leading her inertia. She spun into another Echelon, who fed her an uppercut right under her chin, then kicked her fused hands like a tetherball to spin her ‘round again. Epheral growled in agitation. Duplex’s powers were at work there, and Epheral didn’t much like the thought of that abomination being used against her. She broke her hands apart, shattering the giant cylinder she had fused them into to instead use her bare hands to grab hold of Echelon’s head when she turned back toward her. The prana construct got a shot right in the middle where her core lay at rest, but it didn’t make her flinch. She instead spun and threw one Echelon into the other, taking them both off their feet and to the ground.\n\nEpheral leapt on them like an animal, holding her fingers out and together until the ends of her arms morphed into spike tips. In frantic rage, she skewered them, piercing their inky membranes one after another, in rapid succession. They were fakes, the both; she felt it as soon as she stabbed in their first holes. It didn’t stop her from carrying on, puncturing them in several places, stabbing their faces and chests, until they lost form and popped like balloons. The wolves cried out in pain and agony as they were stabbed to death. It was music to Epheral’s ears. Once they were only inky splatters at her feet, Epheral rose and turned her sights on the only Echelon remaining – the one she’d knocked away. She was just standing up, rubbing her rear as she had landed harshly on it.\n\n“Your tricks aren’t going to save you,” Epheral said, reforming her hands into five-fingered digits, “The only hope you have is giving me what I want. Then maybe I’ll absorb [i]you[/i] last.”\n\n“And what if I refuse?” Echelon dryly responded.\n\n“It doesn’t matter,” Epheral said, “Nothing you do matters against me. I’m the next step. I’m what’s going to propel Inklings and all of existence into a whole new age! I’ve beaten worlds of you, now they’re part of me. When I finally get rid of each and every one of you, I’ll make a new world with this power. A world you and your kind don’t [i]deserve[/i] to live in!”\n\n“Gee, it sure sounds like Osoth in here!” Echelon said.\n\nThe bushes rustled all around, and monsters emerged from the forest in droves. From all around the clearing, goblins, kobolds, elven riders, gorgons, all kinds of fantasy creatures in charcoal trappings and white auras came pouring in. “Quiet, you pest!” Epheral shouted, not wasting any time for villainous monologue, and instead allowing her menagerie of prana-constructed monsters to dogpile on the Inkling.\n\n“Crap! Actima!” Natalie ran, not wanting to be at the center point of meeting when the monsters finally jumped her. She zipped away and slid across the ground, in a baseball slide that sent her under the legs of the saber-toothed mount of one of the riders. Dust billowed behind her until she stopped. She rolled to her feet and turned, facing the horde of constructs with the benefit of having the forest behind her open for her retreat. Her mind raced for possibilities, grabbing at straws for answers. Strategy was failing her. Retreat seemed the only option. With the crystal broken, she had no reason to stay.\n\nJust as she considered leaving, a familiar, pale fox burst from the woods. With an angry snarl, it rushed through the air in a rush of wind that sent it careening into Epheral’s body. It smashed into her side, curled up like a cannon ball. She grunted, being pushed aside as the fox fell to the ground and began to dart around the clearing. It launched in a rush of air from one point to the next, kicking up dirt and dust and debris with the gale force blasts. It crashed through the constructs, shattering some as it passed, blowing others away like leaves in the wind. The small animal wrought havoc among the constructs, and stopped only to grab the leg of a goblin between its jaws and shake it around. It squealed in alarm, flailing its little arms and legs as the fox thrashed about.\n\nAs it did this, what remained of the forces surrounded the animal. “Gah, jeez!” Echelon cried, “Come on, we gotta pull out everything!”\n\nEpheral reached down and plucked the inked fox off her construct. It released the goblin reluctantly, kicking its feet and snapping its jaws when Epheral turned it to face her. “Aw,” She said, “Don’t worry. You’ll join your babies soon.”\n\n“No…!” Natalie launched, soaring through the air at breakneck speeds, speeds the threw constructs every which way, until she made contact with Epheral’s chest. Her torso was separated from all her limbs, making her head, arms, and legs fall into a bundle on the ground. “… You!”\n\nEpheral’s torso skipped and rolled across the dirt like a pebble, bits of its outer prana chassis chipping off as it went until it finally hit a tree and shattered entirely. Epheral’s core settled on the ground alone, and immediately the construct horde abandoned Natalie and the inked fox to protect the core. They surrounded the core, and among all their noises, the cracking of crystal forming sounded out until the little girl construct was created again. It formed from pieces of the other constructs, and when one of the elven riders was shattered, the girl took its place. She hopped on top of the saber-toothed mount, clutching Epheral’s core in her little hands.\n\n“What is THAT?” She demanded. She studied Natalie’s form, which was as normal as ever, except pinkish in hue at places. She looked strange. Epheral’s mouth turned down in a growl. “What are you?”\n\n“Human!” Natalie bellowed, picking the little fox up off the ground and holding it under her arm, “Another thing you and Osoth have in common… you don’t know who you’re dealing with!”\n\n“What?!” Epheral demanded, “You… you’ve become one with your host?! How?! That’s not a power of yours! That’s…!”\n\n“Impossible!” Natalie throw up her hand in mock panic, “The sky is falling!”\n\n“How dare you?!” Epheral shouted.\n\n“Like this!”\n\nNatalie turned around, stuck out her butt, and gave it a smack. Then she shot a look over her shoulder and blew a raspberry at Epheral.\n\n“Thbbpt!”\n\n“Ngh!” Epheral was taken back.\n\n“Beep!” Natalie cried before speeding off. She darted away like a shot from a pistol, a dust cloud shaped vaguely like her left in her wake.\n\n“You… You!!” Epheral screamed, jumping up and down on her prana mount, “You will die! I’ll end you!!”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\nThe Eos truck touched down on the roof of the school. Daxton hopped out, planting his feet on the familiar red-bricked flooring installed around the glass dome that looked down into the cafeteria. The rooftop garden was free of hostiles for the moment. It was comforting to catch a glimpse of the Gardening Club’s little pet projects still in their planter, undisturbed by the chaos that had been unleashed on the city. Epheral’s creeping influence hadn’t made it to the roof, or even the second story. Going in from the top down was the logical thing to do.\n\nThe truck stood out like a big, black, bulky sore thumb. Laila scanned the skies as she stepped out of the vehicle, hoping none of the harpies that were soaring the skies had seen it. In her hands, she toted the rifle she had likewise “borrowed” from Eos. She wasted no time in slinging the leather strap slipped through it onto her shoulders, ignoring how the nippy cold spread out against the unzipped portion of her work suit and the low neck of her tank top. “Alrighty then,” She spoke, regarding Daxton, “Ya’ll are the super hero here, what do ya reckon?”\n\nDaxton approached the rooftop access door and gripped the trigger handle, pushing it in and unlocking the metal bar on the other side. “We go in, get the people, and get out,” He explained, glancing back at the girl, “What else?”\n\n“Mm…” Laila pondered in hesitance, “All those monsters in there though? Should I just linger here, watch the truck?”\n\nDaxton was caught by surprise. The suggestion was sound. “Well, I guess it’d be bad if anything happened to it,” He said, “Maybe that’ll work. So I’ll be going in there alone.”\n\nLaila fidgeted with her rifle, shifting her weight from one leg to the other in a show of discomfort. She couldn’t make eye-contact with the corgi boy, and rolled her shoulders in a shrug. “Without one of them Inklings, I ain’t gonna be any use. I don’t wanna know what all can happen to me if they can eat people like Kenny said.”\n\nDaxton sighed. He didn’t want to go in alone, but Laila had a point. “Alright, well, just stay out of sight then. They shouldn’t be able to know where you are, but they sure as heck know where I am.”\n\n“If ya’ll get into a mess, give me a ring, y’hear?” She nudged the gun toward him in lieu of fingers to point with, “I’ll… well I’ll do somethin’. Call me when you find our lost cattle do, would ya? I wanna know when ya’ll plan on high-tailin’ it back here so I can be ready.”\n\nDaxton flashed her a thumb up.\n\n“Well, go get ‘em, tiger.” Laila shrugged again, but offered a smile for his comfort.\n\nDaxton chuckled, then turned and opened the door to descend into the darkness of the school under the murky skies above. The glass roofing had always let light in, even on the stairwells where yet more windows lined the walls like stripes. The weather was so overcast, however, that light was in short supply. Under regular circumstances, the building’s interior lighting would have kicked in to make up the difference, but the place was eerily darkened, as if the lights had not been turned on. This created an environment of deep, foreboding shadows that stretched away from the windows at every turn. Daxton grabbed for the railing as he trotted his way down the stairs in a jog, meeting the second story landing with a clap of his sneakers on the tile. A sudden turn on the soles of his shoes caused a loud squeak that no doubt snuffed the flooring, but the echoing sound was contained in the stairwell. He wasn’t sure if sound even registered with Epheral’s prana constructs, but even he wasn’t stupid enough to trounce around making a racket.\n\nIt was fortunate that darkness wasn’t an issue for his STOP. Opening the sliding glass door at the landing manually, Daxton leaned out from the entryway to peer up and down the corridor unimpeded by the lack of light. His vision instead adjusted, the microfiber cameras in his knit cap going to work to print out a clear image of his surroundings with the lighting and contrast toyed with the lessen the severity of the shade and bring out the natural light from the glass roofing above. The scene he saw didn’t look well. The monsters had been pouring in on the first floor, but it was evident that they had gotten upstairs just by the state of the place. Lockers and doors, garbage bins and fountains, all smashed or dented, or otherwise in states of disrepair.\n\nThe heating was out. It was as cool inside the building as it was outside. Daxton closed his coat around himself, zipping it up over his chest to keep warm. He wasn’t going to be in there long, if all went well; he just had to find who he was looking for. To that end, he was going in blind. The police hadn’t been in contact with the people there for almost twenty-four hours. If he was going to find them, it would have to be the old-fashioned way.\n\nHis ear gave a twitch. Echoing from the far end of the hall were the joyous cries of chittering goblins. Daxton sidled up next to the lockets nearest the stairwell doors and waited to see the little charcoal creatures come bursting through the double doors at the far end. They shattered the glass panes to get through, and the trio of goblin creatures charged down the hall with their weapons brandished, swinging them haphazardly over their heads to spur themselves forward. They hooted and hollered, giggled and cheered, just marauding about the place. Three goblin constructs shouldn’t have been difficult to deal with at all, Daxton thought, and he owed them from the day before.\n\nTHUD. BANG. A cyclopean construct followed behind them, lagging as it squatted to wedge its wide, bulky frame through the double doors. It pushed its broad shoulders through and stumbled forward to catch itself on the floor, then rise to its full, impressive stature. It only needed to wedge through doorways such as that, where the ceilings in the school were so high from the ground that even the eight foot, towering mass of scratchy charcoal and bulk had plenty of room to move around. The goblins had stopped for its sake, and the floor shook under Daxton’s feet as the massive monster picked up in a run down the hall to gallivant with its fellows. Daxton ducked hurriedly behind cover as they resumed their stampede. Three goblins and a cyclops was a bit more stacked against him.\n\nThe goblins smashed into the lockers, making a terrible ruckus as they played the bent plastic containers like drums with their prana-formed clubs bound to their hands. They did this for some feet up the corridor, but they slowed and soon stopped after those paces. Daxton peeked around the lockers again to see every one of them with their gazes fixated on his location. They could sense Lumina with him. He ducked back and took a breath to steady himself, pressing his back flush with the lockers and raising his hand to poise his fingers into a weapon – index, middle, and thumb outward, his final two digits curling in to make the crude shape of a gun. He braced his forearm with his other hand and took another deep breath to ready himself.\n\n“Daxton Kemberge steps up to the plate…” The boy murmured as he heard the creatures begin to snarl. He wasn’t going to give them the opportunity to strike first, and so he leapt out from cover to stand before them. He aimed his finger-gun at the creatures and began flexing his thumb as a makeshift trigger. “Pew, pew, pew!” Straight, narrow rays of light fired from his fingertips, darting through the air and striking the oncoming rush of monsters. A shot struck one and shattered it, but the other two went wide. The remaining two goblins closed in quick, with the giant form of the trundling in behind them.\n\nDaxton switched stances, twisting his body parallel to the enemy he judged as being the first to arrive. The little pointy-eared charcoal goblin came rushing in, swinging its club menacingly in circles above his head, winding up for a strike. Daxton stepped quickly back, giving himself just enough arm length to grasp the very tip of the club in his hand. He guided the swing from left to right, never pushing it with its already present momentum to spin the construct around. Utilizing his height advantage, he pulled the club up over the goblin’s head, and the thing refused to relinquish it into Daxton’s grasp. Instead it doubled down and held on with both hands, finding itself turned backward, its arms raised above its head, and its back arched as Daxton yanked the weapon toward him.\n\nOne swift kick to the back of the leg and the goblin took a knee. The boy then dipped aside, shoving the monster toward its attacking kin, using it as a shield to take the blow. The helpless humanoid had its head smashed in by its duplicate, and when the shards started flying, Daxton shoved the thing forward to simply walk over it and press the assault to the other. “Hnh!” Daxton raised his arm to block the backhand swing of the goblin’s club with his forearm, which stung like heck, but he gritted his teeth and bore the brunt of the pain to instead take hold of the goblin’s oversized head, which he them slammed off the tile floor with a total lack of grace. Daxton fell with the little creature to put his full weight into the effort, and the thing’s cranium burst into fragments the second its pointy nose collapsed into the floor.\n\n“Groooh!” The massive cyclops came charging in, giving Daxton no time to roll or dodge. It kicked the boy, punting him from the floor into a row of lockers. Daxton slammed into what seemed to be left of the pristine capsules to deform the doors and hinges with the impact of his spine. Daxton coughed out and collapsed to the floor, where he had to move before the monster kicked him again. He rolled aside just when the cyclops kicked the bottom row of lockers in, which would have left him a very broken boy had he been in the way still.\n\nDaxton rolled onto his back, pointed his finger-gun out upside down, and fired a photon beam into the knee of the hulk. It cut clean through, and the immediate imbalance sent the brute careening for the floor. It did so without using its hands to catch itself, slamming its front and chin off the tile with a shuddering boom. Its arms extended as if trying to protect something it was holding, but it failed. Whatever the small, blue object was, it tumbled out of the beast’s hands with a splat on the floor as it rolled along.\n\nThe corgi boy stood only to get a punch in the gut. It drove the wind out of him and threw him back onto the floor, where the cyclops attempted to get on top of him. It wasn’t difficult for the massive charcoal monster to loom over the boy, but when it raised its fists to make him into puppy paste, Daxton extended both of his palms out flat. Light energy collected there for a small charge before blasting off in a wide spread, a buckshot of dazzling, glittering, prismatic light. It smashed into the cyclops, tore a chunk out of its front, and pushed it away from the boy to give him some space.\n\nDaxton quickly curled his knees up under himself and pushed on his elbows to get himself upright. He threw himself at the monster, clumsily getting into a scrunched-up, fist-clenched boxer’s rush. Light trails followed his movements as he weaved left, right, and then threw a right hook with all his might. He chipped the monster’s jaw, and he followed it with another strike with his left fist before finally balling up light in his palm to force it through the construct. He shoved the light into the monster’s chest, and it burst out the other side in an eruption of prana shards. It was the final straw, and the cyclops shattered into pieces only moments after.\n\nDaxton panted, and his expanding lungs put pressure on his then sore ribs. He wrapped one arm around him to press his hand against his side. “Gah, jeez… Gotta be more careful.”\n\nThere were bound to be more, so it was unwise to linger. Daxton was ready to start his search for the lost humans, but not before checking what he noticed the cyclops had been carrying. He stepped over to the little blue blob that lay upon the floor, eying it curiously. It certainly wasn’t just a ball, it was shaped too strangely, and had odd protrusions. Was it some other kind of monster?\n\nAs Daxton knelt to examine the thing more closely, it stirred. He jerked his hand back before he got too close, his heart thumping with a start. The ball rolled over, blinking ruby red eyes with dark half-circles underneath at him.\n\n“Oh, hey Daxton.”\n\n“Guh!” Daxton sprung back when the thing spoke to him. Now that he could see it had features, what he was looking at seemed quite clear… it was a human head! More specifically, it was the head of a familiar jellyfish girl who Daxton had seen many, many times before. Her blue skin was nearly gelatinous, which explained the strange shape her natural bell cap made against the flat tile floor. Her cap looked kind of like his own, except saggy, and blobby, and the same sky blue as the rest of her flesh. Tentacles fading from bright blue, to deep blue, to purple draped down from that jelly cap like sparse locks of hair. With a deadpan expression, the girl raised just one of her tentacles and waved at him with it.\n\n“G’oh, shit, Abby?!” Daxton exasperated, his breathing picking up in a panic, “W-What the?!”\n\n“Hi.” The girl, Abigail Condoleezza, seemed oddly undisturbed by her lack of anything from the neck down. “What’re you doing here?”\n\n“What happened to you?!” Daxton asked, dropping to his knees and struggling to decide what to do. He opted to grab the girl’s head and pick it up, turning her upright in his grasp. Her tentacles hung down below her. Daxton remembered them to drape down to her chest, but that part of her was absent.\n\nIt felt strange to hold her while her facial features made the barely-there expressions she made. Ultimately, she appeared bored. “Eh,” She pouted her lip as if to shrug, “It’s kind of a long story.”\n\n“I, you… H’whuh?” Daxton fumbled with his words.\n\nAbigail snorted. “Hey, you help people. Help me find the rest of me, huh?” She studied Daxton’s utterly gob smacked expression and rolled her eyes. “I’ll tell you about it while we look.”\n\nDaxton lifted his gaze from Abigail’s head and stared down the hallway, trying to reason with himself that seeing a girl’s disembodied head, still talking and moving like nothing was wrong, wasn’t the strangest thing he’d seen over the past while.\n\n“Hey, you listening? Come on already.” Abigail cut in.\n\nDaxton snapped to attention. “Uh! Right!” He said, “Uh, what’re we doing?”\n\n“Finding the rest of my body,” Abigail informed him a second time with apparent disinterest, “It’s around… somewhere.”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n“Woops, watch out for that one.”\n\nCrack! Daxton took a club on the back of the head, making him hunch, flinch, and hiss in pain. He returned by whipping around, tossing his hand out, and blowing the little goblin that could away with a big, fat blast of light.\n\n“You’re a real help.” The boy grimaced.\n\n“Anyway, where was I…? Ah, right.” Abigail comfortably maintained her spot in Daxton’s hands. The boy ran with her cradled at abdomen level, and she just looked around at the passing scenery as they went from classroom to classroom looking around.\n\n“Okay, so, last August I went on one of those OC message boards, you know? Hot young jellyfish looks for hot dick. Fun, right?” Abigail continued her story as Daxton searched. Honestly the boy wasn’t even sure how to feel about what he was hearing.\n\n“So a guy from Locksmouth drops a line and I’m all, yaaay. I don’t really OC much, you know? So, totally fun. I get on the inter-dome train and away I go. I get to Locksmouth, meet this guy, and we decide just to order food and do absolutely nothing but grind on each other for three whole days.”\n\nDaxton blushed, giving Abigail an odd look. Was it her story or the monotonous, casual way she told it that put him off? He couldn’t decide.\n\n“Then, aliens. Kaboom. Aliens everywhere. But we’ve got food and stuff and his place is pretty safe so we just lock the door and keep going. What else are you gonna do during the apocalypse?”\n\nDaxton stepped up to the door to the science lab, which was slightly ajar. Carefully he peeked into the room. The dim light from the sheer glass wall at the far end of the rows of lab tables and stools barely lit the place to any respectable degree. He couldn’t even see the monster at the other side of the door that lashed out the moment he moved the door even the fraction of an inch. A scratchy black tentacle smashed through the small glass window right next to Daxton’s head. He yelped and dropped down onto his butt on the floor, hunching down low to avoid the thrashing prana appendage as it whipped around trying at once to both find and throttle him. By chance, it whipped down and coiled around his neck like a rope, making him croak on his breath.\n\n“Hey, you okay up there?” Abigail asked, lifting one tentacle to her forehead in some expression of concern. “Anyway, we go at it until we run out of pizza and sparkling water, and then we’re screwed. We gotta go out, get more food. So we both decide to go, because safety in numbers, and I wasn’t going to just hang around his place by myself. While we’re out, gray goopy people come outta nowhere and they grab him, y’know? Like zombies or whatever. He’s gray too, just like that. Real turn-off.”\n\nDaxton kicked his feet and struggled with the thrashing tentacle that was trying to strangle the life out of him. Dropping Abigail’s head in his lap, he grabbed hold of the thing and tried to wrestle with it. He kicked his legs and thrashed around as well, bouncing Abigail’s head around until she simply tumbled onto the floor. He couldn’t suck in any air, making his lungs feel like dried up raisins. Just when his head started pounding and his vision got a little blurry, he managed to wrest the thing away from himself. Daxton then scrambled to his feet, inked over, and used the improved strength of Lumina’s Inkling form to drag a row of lockers in front of the then-broken door.\n\n“Whew…” Daxton sighed. He coughed as he tried to catch his breath, returning to his regular form.\n\n“Hey,” Abigail rolled her head on the ground a little, simply teetering to one side, “Rude.”\n\nDaxton knelt down and picked her up again. “You wanna just get to the point already, Abby?”\n\n“Well long story short one of those Inkling dweebs gets in me and this happens.” Abigail finished, “Tried to open the door to the guy’s apartment too hard and my hand popped off. Yeah. It was weird, but I got some lunchbox packages from the grocery store nearby, so I was good.”\n\nDaxton could have figured that Abigail had an Inkling. It was literally the only thing capable of doing what she was doing. “So that’s probably why these things are all over the school…” He reasoned, “They go after Inklings. What’s yours called?”\n\n“Kerplunk.”\n\nDaxton’s ears swiveled up. “Screw off.”\n\nAbigail tried to look up at him. “Serious.”\n\n“You’re [i]never[/i] serious.” Daxton said.\n\nAbigail paused. “… Yeah, you’re right. Her name’s Kinex.”\n\n“Serious?”\n\n“Serious.”\n\nDaxton would have squinted, if it were possible. Abigail had always been the kind of girl to just say things. Whether she was telling the truth or making something up entirely, she’d spit it out without any hesitation and deliver truth and lies with the same straight face. It made it almost impossible to tell if she were fibbing, granted she came up with a particularly convincing lie. That was the problem with her, in the end. She just couldn’t help herself. She delighted in the way she’d confuse and put people off. She thought it was hilarious, but it just made her alien to her peers. That easily explained how she managed to fall in with the wrong crowd. Her pack put these things on a pedestal rather than encourage her to take a different approach.\n\n“Abby, when was the last time you saw Jimmy?” Daxton asked, tucking her head under his arm and resuming the search.\n\n“Oh, you know… a while ago.” Abigail hummed.\n\n“But he’s here,” Daxton pointed out, “And Lincoln too?”\n\nAbigail tried to nod. “Yup, we got detention.” She said, then she snorted in amusement, “We snuck into the maintenance closet and changed the pressure in the fountains so they sprayed people in the face. It was hilarious.”\n\n“When did you do that?” Daxton craned his neck to glare down at Abigail, who just stared right back up at him. That was the nature of their relationship. Jimmy, Abigail, and Lincoln were trouble-makers, and Daxton was the kind of guy who didn’t hesitate to tell them off. He and Jimmy, Abby’s pack leader, had gotten into more than one fight over various infractions such as the fountain prank they had apparently pulled and Daxton somehow missed.\n\nAbby just averted her eyes and mumbled something incoherent as an answer.\n\n“Oh, well, would you look at that,” Daxton glowered, “If you guys weren’t such huge jerks, you wouldn’t even be here right now.”\n\n“Whatever,” Abigail said, “It was the tits.”\n\nDaxton had reached the end of the hall, having checked through all the classrooms he could. The science labs, music room, and the four classrooms of no real specific purpose, all had turned up nothing. He found himself at the far end where he opened the doors to another stairwell, this one leading down to the first floor. That was the dangerous floor. Even stepping out into the stairs, Daxton could see that the further down the stairs went, the more… corrupted the entire building seemed to be. The clean white walls gave away to glowing white fissures, and the walls and floors eventually became one blank mess. It looked like an empty slide, a projector screen with nothing on it. In fact, he couldn’t quite see where the walls met the floor. Physical space seemed to lose its meaning down there, making it look more like a pit.\n\n“Hey, speaking of tits…” Abigail nudged her head against Daxton’s side, and gestured with one of her tentacles up toward the ceiling.\n\nHer torso was caught by her sweater on the light that hung down from the ceiling. As Daxton glanced up at it, it waved down at him. Abigail grinned, moving her arms even though her head was detached. Her frantic waving motions swung her floppy, over-long sleeves around, while the front of her maroon sweater, too big for her slender body, had ridden up and bunched around her chest, showing off her smooth blue abdomen and the bottoms of her perky breasts.\n\n“Get me down, Daxton.”\n\nDaxton didn’t give it a moment’s thought. He simply held his finger out like a gun and fired, shooting a thin beam of light up through one of the cables holding the light in place. There was a loud pop, a shower of sparks, and the entire thing gave way. Abigail’s torso fell several feet to the floor, hitting with a thud. She winced in Daxton’s grasp, sucking in a gasp as her graceful belly flop had winded her. It seemed even when apart from herself, Abigail not only had control over her body as if she were whole, but could still sense what her individual parts were going through. Daxton quickly knelt and grabbed the back of her sweater to haul her torso upright. She balanced perfectly on the stump where her waist would have met her hips, had they still been attached.\n\n“Gimmie.” Abigail’s torso held up her hands, which were smothered by the long woolen sleeves that extended half a foot past them, instead making grabby shapes from under the fabric as it loosely danced around with her movements. Daxton handed down her head, which she took and placed right on the bare spot where her neck would connect to her collar. She seemed to stick like a suction cup, her neck sealing cleanly between her shoulders, only her head was on backwards. She rectified this by simply grabbing her head and spinning it. Her tentacles whipped in circles through the air as her head spun around a few times, then she stopped it when she was facing forward, as if to have screwed it on right.\n\n“Woo!” Abigail shimmied on the floor, performing a twisting motion by utilizing her elbows for momentum, shifting her position only somewhat. She patted herself down, then reached up to tug the oversized, loose collar of her sweater open. She stuffed her face into it for a few seconds, and then withdrew. “Everything’s still here. Awesome.”\n\nNow Daxton was looking at the upper body of a slender teenage girl, not that anyone would know it by what she was wearing. The maroon sweater she fancied, and rarely ever changed out of, was a fabric puddle around her. The sleeves were too long and the collar was too loose. It sagged to one side that exposed one of her shoulders. It wouldn’t have been hard at all to slip her out of it. Her gradient blue-to-purple tentacles hung down low enough to drape over her chest and mid-back. She put her hands on her cheeks and gave Daxton a big, beaming smile that almost seemed genuine. Almost. She was almost cute down there, all things considered.\n\nShe held her arms up, sleeves dangling, in a clear motion that she desired to be picked up. Daxton blushed and lifted her up by her underarms.\n\n“Right, so, my legs, they’re around… somewhere.” Abigail said, glancing down toward her empty lower half. “I’m kicking my feet right now. I think I’m upside down again. They’re stuck in something, I can’t get out.”\n\n“Something like what?” Daxton asked.\n\nAbigail grunted like she was fussing, shimmying her torso around a little. “I dunno, like a tube or something? I think I lost one of my boots. Sure feels like it.”\n\nDaxton shrugged. “I guess we’ll find it as we go,” He said, “So come on.”\n\nHe lifted Abigail and turned her around so he could place her on his back. She hung off his neck like a drawstring bag, and so he held onto her arms and hunched forward to shoulder her weight as conveniently as possible so he could keep going. He hauled her along, moving to the stairs to step down one at a time, carefully maneuvering without his hands free. The girl on his back used her tentacles to touch his ears, which had the sensation of little pin-pricks that made him flinch. “Onward, noble steed,” She said, “See? I knew you were good for something.”\n\n“Stop touching me with those!” Daxton turned his head and pulled away from her. “Feels so freaky!”\n\nAbigail withdrew her tentacles, and they resumed simply resting draped over Daxton’s shoulders as well. “S’not like I’m gonna poison you.”\n\n“Don’t care,” Daxton said, “Knock it off or I’ll drop you here.”\n\n“Pfft…” Abigail huffed, slumping onto his back in boredom.\n\nWhen Daxton reached the bottom of the stairs, he stepped off into the white, empty void. His foot touched floor like it normally would have, but it was difficult to see where the walls were. Corners had seemingly been eliminated. The doorway into the first-floor corridors was still intact, and stood before him as they normally would, but seemed to do so in empty space. The boy stepped forward, and very carefully held out his hand to smooth it against the wall. It was still there, but not in the same space he was inhabiting. It looked more as if he was putting his hand up against nothing, stopped by an invisible force in the void. His footsteps reverberated and echoed in a way that made no sense either.\n\n“This isn’t right,” His voice echoed far, further than should have been possible, “Weird…”\n\n“Man, I don’t want to stick around here…” Abigail said, “Can we just find the others and go or what?”\n\nDaxton couldn’t have been more on board with that plan. “Alright, but if I have to fight, I’m dropping you.”\n\n“Yeah, sure, go ahead.” Abigail huffed, “No, that’s totally alright. Really. [i]I don’t mind at all[/i].”\n\n“Yeah whatever.” Daxton chuckled, reaching out to push the doors open and step through into the blank nothingness that his school had become.\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n“Whew!”\n\nNatalie skid, stumbled, bumbled, and waved her arm to keep balance before she stopped on her toes. Going from blurring speeds to a hard stop wasn’t the best idea, but she needed to rest. She’d given up Shading not long after fleeing from Epheral and instead switched simply to using powers un-inked, but she’d used a lot of prana to do it. On top of that, she needed to stop and get her bearings in Harbington. She hadn’t been there as many times as she had been to other domes like Anchorsway, so her sense of direction was failing her. Where was the mall? She looked up and down the streets and byways of Harbington trying to determine just where that was, in a place that was clear of enemies but showed obvious signs of their passing.\n\nThe small fox under her arm kicked its feet and flailed around, trying to wrest itself from her grasp. As it thrashed, she held it tight. “Hey! Settle down!” She said, but it only started to yip and yelp and growl, making it more than clear it did not want to be held. The pale blue Inkling animal would not hold still, and between its movements, size, and the inky flesh of it, it ended up slipping from her grasp.\n\n“Hey!” Natalie turned and reached out for the animal, but it was long gone. She only turned in time to see it already several paces down the street. “Hey! Come back! Don’t…! Ugh.”\n\nShe’d grabbed the fox to save whatever Inkling it was bound with, the one who could blast the monsters away with gusts of wind. That was a clear, obvious power when she thought about it… and she’d already met Inklings of fire, ice, and water. Why not throw another element into the mix? Why it ran away, she didn’t know. She wanted to chase after it, but just when she decided to do so, activity from the distance caught her ear. A distant roar echoed through the air and managed to steal the girl’s attention away.\n\n“Oh man…” Natalie gave one last look down the street where the fox had long since disappeared, frowning. “Sorry little guy, but if Epheral catches me it’s game over for us.”\n\nHoping that it would be safe, Natalie continued her dash through the streets. She forewent the use of Actima’s powers… she only had so much of that super speed to go around, and if she needed more genetic material to tap into it, odds were Actima wasn’t going to give it up. She took to a regular old run on her regular old feet, giving Echelon a well-deserved rest. She moved in the direction she thought the mall was in, keeping a close, watchful eye on her surroundings all the while. Epheral’s monsters were still roaming, though it seemed to be in smaller packs than before. Whenever one such roaming group stepped out onto the street, Natalie ducked into the alleys between the stores.\n\nWhile she took her round-about route, she checked doors and windows, testing them to see if they would open. The trip to the mall on foot was dangerous, but if she could find just one mirror, she could go to Canvas and use the Hall of Mirrors to get back to the Balls in Your Court in the Harbington mall. Her tapping footsteps echoed in the alleys as she darted from door to door, service exits and fire escapes, tugging on the handles of each one if she could. Unfortunately, exits like that often only opened from the inside. She was met with disappointment in the first clothing store she’d found, and the two restaurants after that.\n\nBack out to the main street. Natalie had hit the end of the block and needed to either cut across or head further out from the center of the dome. She hurried to the opening of the alley only to be stopped short by the appearance of marching prana construct soldiers – humanoid ones comparable in height to an actual adult, but bulkier. They clattered as if they wore armor, and they held weapons and shields in their hands. Natalie tucked herself back against the wall and kept out of sight, waiting to see if they might pass. She came to learn that there were a great number of them, however, as she waited and waited. She never counted, but she’d never seen that many in one place.\n\nShe decided to double back around the building and try to cut across on further back, perhaps go around the entire thing altogether. But as she rounded the corner, she saw the same thing: scores of “armored” prana constructs, geared for war, marching down the street. They seemed to be heading in the same direction, funneling in with the other group to make a major, driving force that stretched from one side of the street to the next.\n\nThat was an army she saw, and it worried her. Over her head, harpies flew, and soon the larger, ogre-like constructs were joining the main forces. Epheral seemed to be preparing for another siege.\n\nFeeling uncomfortable being so close to them, Natalie sunk back into the alleyway and looked for another way out. She swept the place from brick to quasi-steel walls, only to find a ladder positioned some feet above her head that fed into a catwalk and stairs that scaled the building – an alternate fire escape that came down from the roof. That was an option, and perhaps her only one. The streets were becoming rather congested. Mapping out her method of ascent in her mind, she took a deep breath and sprung to action.\n\nShe ran at the nearby brick wall and stepped up onto it, using what speed she could manage to scale the mortar against gravity, and then leap off with arms outstretched. She barely managed to grab hold of the bottom rung of the ladder, shoulders strained as she swung forward, then back. She quickly steadied herself and pumped her legs into allowing her to climb, pulling her weight up until she could chance at grabbing the next rung. Huffing, puffing, and grunting, the wolf girl eventually hauled herself up to place her feet on the ladder and climb. From there it was a simple matter of taking the stairs up.\n\nShe marched with urgency, but not too quickly. As monsters passed by overhead, ranging from harpies to pterodactyl creatures, she did her best to stay low and unseen. The bulk of it had just passed when she reached the rooftop and stepped out onto it.\n\nFrom there, seeing the mall was easy. In the distance, toward the center of the commercial sector, it stood three stories high, well above most other buildings.\n\nThat was when she turned and saw the dragon. She paused at the majesty of the thing – enormous, black, with the same white aura as the soldiers below. Its eyes blazed, peering straight at her from where it swooped from the sky. She’d never seen something so enormous – it looked as if it could have housed an entire prana crystal in its belly, easily. Its wings stretched open so far, spanning buildings almost, dark enough to blot out the sun. It was a scratchy monster, like a moving charcoal drawing… but it may as well have been the abyss. Its core was so dark and menacing, it practically sucked away natural light.\n\nAll that, and it was heading straight for her.\n\n“Break time’s over, Echelon!” Natalie cried. At the mere mention of her Inkling partner’s name, Echelon took control. She housed Natalie’s form in her inky black skin, shining pink in the light, protecting the girl from harm as she turned, ran, and leapt.\n\nJacent’s powers made a running long jump into a street-spanning spectacle, boosting Echelon’s momentum like a rocket pack. On her heels, the dragon’s prana-breath bathed the rooftop of the building. It didn’t catch fire, like regular dragon’s breath may have done. Instead, it just crushed all it came into contact with, bearing down on the brick and mortar, cracking the classic structure of the store below, and buckling the roof. Echelon landed on the other side of the street on another building, and didn’t give herself time to even check where she was going before she was off again. She turned left, ran, and leapt, boosting across to the next building, and then the next, and the next. By then she’d drawn plenty of attention, and with the prana dragon chasing her over the rooftops, prana arrows had begun flying her way. Fortunately, Jacent’s boosting powers created such a rush of force, any that would hit were simply shattered before they could touch.\n\nLanding on a slanted rooftop, she slid until the edge, then leapt, boosting across to another. She zig-zagged across the street like a ping-pong ball, batting away darkened arrows and harpies and pterodactyls alike. When she found flat ground again, she stumbled into a run. The dragon swooped past, the air rushing past it nearly blowing Echelon over. She ran, leapt, and boosted. The dragon landed before she could on the next building, crashing into the structure, digging its sharp, enormous claws into the roof, shattering the glass skylight that looked inside the place. Echelon was mid-air when this happened, and had no chance of stopping her forward momentum once it was in motion. The dragon’s eyes narrowed, and it reared back, inhaling deep with white, burning prana-energy blazing in its maw.\n\n“Whoa whoa whoaaaa!” Echelon kicked her fit and swung her arms, only to land roughly on the rooftop in a tumble. She rolled forward, pushed onto her feet, and then fell into the broken skylight. The dragon’s breath washed over the rooftop as Echelon fell below. “Oh noooooo!” She cried, seeing only a mass of green and colour approaching her quickly.\n\nWhen she landed, it was a soft landing in a bed of tall, lush sunflowers. They caught her like a net as she broke the stalks and stems of them, forcing them to bow under her weight. She still hit with impact, one that jarred her, but she was otherwise unharmed. Echelon shook out the daze quickly and bolted to sit up, only then to notice what had saved her. She had fallen right into the centerpiece of a florist’s shop. She’d ruined several sunflowers, and leaves had kicked up where she landed to rain down on the tile floor between the aisles where other flowers waited on display to be bought, in specialized growing containment that, while not solid like a hard-force shield, still managed to house the misty, well-lit conditions the flowers needed to grow and displayed holographic projections of price and species information.\n\nThe dragon peered down into the store, craning its long neck to push its head into the broken window. Echelon scrambled as the creature’s breath washed the area she’d been sitting on in that strange, altered prana flame. Whatever it touched, it broke. The flowers themselves were turned stark white and seemed to dissolve into glitter. The sheer amount of prana Echelon could feel off it was more than she’d ever thought possible for one single being to have. Even just getting near it, her own body felt out of whack. Epheral must have been using it to try and put her own energy off-kilter. The force of it hitting the floor was enough to throw her off the display and onto the tile.\n\n“Urhg…” Echelon pushed off the ground, rising to her knees. She could see out the front doors of the store that the prana army was coming in. Soldiers and creatures were battering down the door. “Uuuugh…!” The Inkling girl groaned in frustration, getting her feet under herself so she could stand. There was no getting out, so she looked around the store to plot out her strategy… either that or her last moments on Earth. Natalie’s human heart pounded in anticipation of whatever might come.\n\nBut she felt better when she saw a full-length mirror fixed to one of the walls.\n\n“Oh, heck yeah!” Echelon smiled. She almost skipped over to the mirror, which stood between two floral displays. Who knew why it was there? It didn’t really matter. The fact that it wasn’t shattered was a boon, and with the Dragon trying to squeeze its gigantic body in through the hole in the roof and the armies of evil breaking through the door, Echelon didn’t have time to worry about such trivial things. Instead, she simply pressed her hands to the reflective surface of the glass, and as soon as she felt any give at all, she threw herself into it.\n\nWhen she appeared at the other end, in Castle Blackwolf’s Hall of Mirrors, the mirror she just stepped out from cracked and fractured. It had been immediately shattered on the other side.\n\n“Whew…” Echelon breathed a sigh of relief, dropping to her knees in the middle of the hall. Her legs felt like jelly. It had been some time since she was that scared. She took her time catching her breath, collecting her thoughts, and letting her heartbeat settle. Her mind cleared, giving her purchase to think straight once again.\n\nThat gathered force was quite large… the largest she’d seen, by far. There had to be a hundred prana creatures, possibly more, and a massive dragon. They were numerous and organized. They had been marching through the streets, all funneling toward one spot.\n\n“The mall!” Echelon voiced her conclusion, “Damn it!”\n\nShe stood and threw her hand aside, sending the mirrors into a breakneck slide before her, tens of them passing by in the blink of an eye of all shapes and sizes until the Balls in Your Court bathroom mirror stopped on a dime in front of her. The writing Kenny had left was still there, marking it clearly.\n\nWasting no time, Echelon leapt through the mirror. At least she’d get there first.", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "\tWhere was this? Quincey looked around her immediate area and saw an amalgamation of buildings and windows, places she may have seen before but she wasn’t sure where. She stood in the middle of a city, but it wasn’t Harbington. There was too much sand and too many palm trees around. She could hear the ocean but she couldn’t see any water. People walked past her, but she couldn’t really see them. They were wearing swimsuits perhaps, but whenever she focused on a body, it disappeared and resumed walking just outside her peripheral vision. It didn’t take long for the isolation to set in. Wherever she was, it was unfamiliar, and the people didn’t seem to care she was there. She felt a wash of emotions aside from that – attraction to the people around her, envy that they were enjoying themselves and she wasn’t. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

She asked for help. She tried to ask for help, anyway. When she spoke, she didn’t hear her own voice. It was as if she was too afraid to speak out. She opened her mouth and her throat just closed. She struggled with words for a little while, but eventually she just quit altogether. She tugged nervously on her shirt as people walked around her, just realizing that she was wearing one. She tugged it out and looked at it, seeing that it was an Au Motti t-shirt like the one Daxton wore. That was a weird thing to be caught in, she thought, but comforting. She lifted it to her nose and smelled it. It smelled like Edward’s shampoo – fruity and nice.

She walked, but didn’t go anywhere. Everything just looked the same everywhere she went. Maybe she did go places but she had no way of really noticing. She couldn’t feel her legs, as if they just weren’t there. Whenever she glanced down she saw her feet, but she didn’t feel the weight of her steps or even hear the tapping of her leather shoes. Why was she wearing those? They didn’t go well with that outfit at all. Nothing really made sense, yet she couldn’t help but feel that she was navigating it flawlessly.

When she looked up she was somewhere else. A forest on the edge of the city she was in. It was bleak and foggy, but the leaves seemed to be green and lush, even if the bark of the trees they were on was dull and gray. When she looked back, the city was gone. She was on a trail leading through the foggy woods and the ground under her feet seemed well-worn, like several people had walked the path before. Nobody was around, she was alone. She faced forward again, but without knowing where she was going or coming from, she wasn’t sure which way was forward.

“Hello?” She found her voice and called out into the woods. She heard nature, almost musical in its silence. The chirping of birds and buzzing of insects were instruments for the breeze that rustled the branches in response to her.

“Hello.”

“Bwah!” Quincey nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the deep, heroic voice of a man. She jumped and threw herself toward the source, stopping short when she saw a tall canine man standing there. He wore ridiculous clothing, the sort of tight space suit with meaningless rings around the cuffs of the long boots and around the shoulders that screamed science fiction. The helmet on his head was a big glass dome. He was broad of shoulder and chest but narrow of leg, and his white teeth were perfect, as was the brown wave of his hair.

“C… Commander Benson?” Quincey gawked. Why was she talking to an old cartoon character?

She used to watch him on TV, on a channel that ran old shows. She loved Commander Benson as a kid. He was part of a team of heroes that flew through space and saved people on planets. The show delved into all sorts of outdated socio-political themes, but the big focus had always been on environment. “You only have one planet,” Commander Benson would say, “Take care of it.” The only reason she’d found the show in the first place was an old toy she found in the dirt outside her house one day – a fish-like mutant man she called Mr. Fish-Face before she discovered his name was Nautilus, a character from the show.

“Sorry,” Benson held up one of his large, red-gloved hands, standing with straight posture and his barrel of a chest poised outward, “This was all I could come up with on short notice. I’m not actually Commander Benson.”

“But you look like Commander Benson.” Quincey said.

“But I’m not.” Benson insisted.

“Then why do you look like him?” Quincey asked.

Benson closed his eyes and shook his head. “Look, I’m only here because someone brought you here,” He said, “It’s been a long time, but I think I recognize who. You’re not supposed to be here, and I don’t really want to deal with you. I want to find who brought you here, as they’re using their powers to keep you here.”

Quincey stepped back, raising her hands so they boxed him into her vision. “What are you talking about?” She demanded.

“You were hosting a pair of Inklings, is that correct?” He asked.

Quincey paused. Something in her head clicked as soon as he said that, and things started to get much clearer. She was dreaming, and as soon as she came to that realization she felt separated from it. She blinked a few times, registering the new information, processing it. “Oh,” She said, “Um, yes? Wait, no, I was only hosting one Inkling. People can’t host two, can they? And how do you know that?”

“A group of people can host a single Inkling, and one person can host multiple… though to do so is often dangerous, as the demand for prana is far too great under those circumstances,” Benson said, “Regardless, you’ve got two of them keeping you here – one keeping you asleep, and one easing your body into a dream state that, all told, should be rather pleasant. You’re quite happy in the real world right now, I’m sure. You’ll wake up feeling like a million bucks.”

“Assuming we can get you to wake up at all,” He concluded, looking around in that determined, heroic manner, “Something is wrong.”

“Hmm…” Quincey looked around as well. She saw nothing that stood out. Inklings and their correlation to dreams was something she wasn’t sure she’d ever figure out. She didn’t know how big dreams could be. The ones keeping her asleep could have been hiding anywhere and she knew from experience that when an Inkling didn’t want to be found, she’d have a hard time turning that around. If they were bound with her, however, she should have been able to feel them. She’d gotten good at reaching down deep and sensing whether Duplex was with her or not. It should have worked on these other two.

With Commander Benson at her side, or at least someone who looked like him, she was feeling the right mood to go on a little adventure. The girl started walking to wherever her feet would take her. The dream figure of Benson followed her curiously, walking with her as she navigated the forest in which she found herself. The path was mostly straight for a time, with some hills and divots that made the terrain rough. Her shoes weren’t made for hiking, but in a dream world that didn’t seem to matter. She walked along surprisingly calm and focused. She had been getting good at navigating these dreams. Benson watched her with interest, picking up on that very fact.

“So far as I know, there should be one around here somewhere…” Benson said.

“But where is here?” Quincey asked.

“This is a nothing space,” Benson said, “Just filler for the world. Completely nondescript in any way, and very low-key. It’s the sort of place something would hide in, which ironically would make it the first rock one might check under.”

The two of them stopped when they heard a gentle sound of weeping on the wind. It was very quiet, but rather distinct. The sound drifted eerily through the foggy forest, the sound of crying.

Benson sighed. “But then they never were very smart.”

Quincey followed the sound, which was difficult. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. Something about the science of how sound moved through the trees may have had something to do with it, but in the end, it was a dream world; it didn’t have to make any sense. Benson followed along, his hands on his utility belt, upon which hung a funny-looking ray gun. His belt kind of clattered when he walked, like he had a wealth of things in the one tiny box pouch the belt bore. Quincey walked a few paces ahead of him and stopped. The sound had been coming from in front of her, but then it came from her right. She turned and waded into the brush, ignoring the way the grass tickled her bare calves. She realized in that moment that she wasn’t wearing any pants.

A few more steps and the sound came from the left. She turned and followed it. Then it came from behind. She turned and followed it back. The crying kept coming from different places and she found herself weaving a trail into a murky mire. It was wet and cold, the mud was deep, and moving her legs became difficult. She stopped when the dirt squelched underfoot, only to find that she was knee-deep in the muck. She lifted her arms and wiggled, unable to get free. Benson didn’t seem to have this problem, walking over it as if it were nothing… but he made no effort to pull her free. She glared at him momentarily, then pressed on. She dragged herself through the mud further.

Eventually she happened upon something of interest. One lone stump stood in a cropping of dirt that rose it above the mud. It was surrounded by reeds and tall grass in a circle, but it was cleared by a good several feet all around the little island. Fireflies danced in the foggy air, buzzing around the stump and marking it clearly. The stump itself was rotten, its upper half jagged, the outside sagging. It appeared to be hollow. The sound of the crying was clearly coming from there, without a doubt. Quincey waded through the muck until she stepped onto the dirt, pulling herself free from the quagmire.

She approached the stump and placed her hands on the outer edges of the hollowed-out middle. She peered inside.

“Oh my god.” She said.

Blue ink filled the stump with little yellow eyes and a mouth in it. It sagged like melted ice cream, swirling into itself to create an icky brown colour at the edges of the facial features. The mouth was turned into a grotesque frown, and the eyes were misshapen and asymmetrical in size. When Quincey peered in at it, it looked up at her in horrible, pitiful sadness. Quincey was struck by the appearance of the Inkling, and couldn’t stop staring at it in morbid fascination.

Benson stepped up to Quincey’s side and gazed into the stump, his arms crossed in disapproval. “Dormence, you fool.”

“I’m sorry…!” The melted Inkling wailed in a groaning pitch, gurgling on its words and tears, “Urgai, I’m sorry!”

“Dormence?” Quincey lifted her gaze to meet Benson, “One of the Inklings that made Duplex?”

Benson shook his head. “Dormence was once a whelp, truly pathetic at his core. I’d never seen someone so willingly fall at Osoth’s feet. He had his uses, but in the Empress’ world, sending people to sleep wasn’t particularly useful, less so when it was only one target at a time. I’ve become particularly familiar with him and his cohort Tranquil, the bringer of warmth. It seems they’ve gotten into you and are keeping you here, for whatever reason.”

Quincey racked her brain. She tried to remember how and when she got into contact with Duplex. There was a point in her memory that was just blank. She didn’t remember what she was doing before she fell asleep. If Dormence was supposedly keeping her there, it was safe to assume that he was the reason she fell asleep in the first place. She stared at the blue goop for a time, and it stared sorrowfully back at her.

She reached down and submerged her hands into the stuff. It stuck to her fingers, suckling on them like a babe. There was a solid mass in there, to Quincey’s surprise. She gripped it in both hands and pulled. She lifted a form from the mass of blue ink, and her eyes went wide as she saw what she removed. It used to be a body, that much was certain. It had the shape of a torso and one arm, and half a head. The Inkling’s face sagged to one side, and ink dripped from its severed-away parts, taking the place of viscera that would have been gushing out of a human. Some of the sagging parts resembled a spine or other limbs. The poor thing had been decapitated.

It bore some resemblance to an actual human body. Quincey guessed, from what she knew from her parents’ medical texts, that Dormence had been pulled apart.

That was when she remembered what happened. It came to her with a gasp, an epiphany. Epheral had done this. Epheral tore Duplex apart into the two separate entities it once was. Past that point, everything had become a blur. She must have lost consciousness, perhaps she fainted in fear of the monstrous little girl. Whatever had happened, it had decimated Duplex, and the dripping mass she was holding was but one half of her former Inkling.

“Dupl… Dormence.” Quincey spoke.

Dormence sobbed, moaning in pain. Quincey frowned. “Dormence, can you hear me?” She asked. The Inkling’s yellow eyes blinked a few times and seemed to focus on her, but it was difficult to say. The way its face seemed intent on melting down the side of what was left of its head, Quincey would have to angle her own head sideways just to seem on the level with it.

“She tore you up, didn’t she?” Quincey asked, swallowing. “You poor thing.”

“Quincey?” Dormence groaned, “Oh, Quincey…”

“It’s alright.” Quincey struggled to stay calm, putting on a gentle smile. She hugged Dormence, holding him close to her body, tight and secure. When she squeezed him, blue ink squirted out of him and over her arms. She eased up in consideration of his state, but she didn’t let go. It didn’t matter if her skin was getting gross with Dormence’s fluids. “Shhh, it’s okay,” She insisted, “It’s alright now.”

“I’m… dying…” Dormence worked out the words with tremendous difficulty, “Wanted to… make… you… not hurt…”

Dormence was ice cold to the touch. Quincey sniffed, holding back tears. She could feel it inside her, a growing emptiness left behind as Dormence and assumedly Tranquil faded away. She stood with the Inkling in silence, with Benson watching over her and not saying a word. She listened to the sounds of nature around her, the croaking of swamp toads and the chirping of crickets. She listened to her breathing, and to how Dormence’s slop splattered onto the ground. She tried to let the sounds calm her, even though she couldn’t control her shivering.

“I-I see…” She spoke, though her voice wavered with sadness, “You just wanted to protect me.”

Dormence and Tranquil had put her to sleep so she didn’t have to feel the pain of what Epheral would do to her.

They took all that pain into themselves and they were suffering with it. They were dying with it. When they finally disappeared, she’d wake up without an Inkling. They weren’t even taking her prana anymore… they rested benign in her, waiting to die.

“I never… anything right…” Dormence groaned, wrapping his one arm around his former host, “Our fault.”

“Don’t say that,” Quincey said, “You did everything you could. You don’t have to do any more.”

Quincey slowly loosened her grip on Dormence. The Inkling’s arm slackened as well, falling limp at his side. Dormence became very still, and very quiet. Quincey held him for a few moments more, wanting to warm his body, but it rejected her. He didn’t fit with her like he did before. He wasn’t a piece of her like he was when he was Duplex. Somehow being split up made him a very different Inkling. He wasn’t the one she carted to Locksmouth. He wasn’t the one that helped save Harley from her apartment. He wasn’t the one that she spent days and nights introducing to human concepts, like how nice it could be to be outside on a sunny day, or the love of a good book. He wasn’t the one she cuddled with, or was affectionate with.

But he was half of that one.

Duplex had become a person almost. It didn’t speak with that same forced tone it once did. It had learned how to weave together tone and pitch to hold a conversation. It had learned this from Quincey, and over their time together it had learned so much more. It emulated her to near perfection. It could do this by knowing her inside and out. Duplex knew her better than anyone did, really, and it had taken the time to learn it all not knowing if it would live long enough to reap the benefits. Quincey wanted to teach it happiness, she wanted it to feel included in her life. She went through so much for its benefit already, she wasn’t ready to admit defeat just then.

There was so much more to show it, she couldn’t just let it die.

Quincey draped Dormence over her back. His blue ink had smeared onto her body, dying her skin the same colour in splotches and streaks. She ignored this, pulling his one arm over her shoulder to brace him there. Dormence was confused, surprised, and lost all at the same time. He had no idea what was going on, but he hadn’t the energy to so much as ask. He rested against Quincey’s back, and the girl stepped off. She waded back into the deep mud past Benson. The canine commander watched her with a studious gaze.

“What are you doing?” He asked, watching as she marched through the muck for several paces.

The girl stopped, turning her head to look back over her shoulder. “I’m going to find my other half,” she said. Then she faced forward again and continued her trek through the mire.

-

--

-

What changed?

Yvette kept asking herself that question, over and over again. She asked the question in lieu of having answers. Maybe, she thought, if she kept asking herself that question, eventually an answer would come.

She could only ask herself. Her comrades weren’t a valuable source of input anymore. Most of them wouldn’t speak. What had happened shook them up as much as it had her. Kris was normally such a chatterbox, all too happy to share his opinion on the current situation; now he was silent too. There was a whole room crammed full of Eos soldiers and none of them were going to say a word to each other.

Handcuffs kept them all restrained, but they were otherwise allowed to get up and walk around the receiving area they were locked in. Police officers stood at every door and there were more inside the room, making the rounds to ensure none of them did anything rash. Some of the soldiers had tried to fight or argue their case the day before, but a few quick neurod applications and they got silenced quick. Under any normal circumstance, Yvette would have thought that the police were using too much power to keep them in line, but given the circumstances that left them all there, it was more likely they were using just enough. She couldn’t blame them.

There she sat, cross-legged, tucked into the bottom shelf of a rack where boxes and crates usually sat. There was enough space for her in there if she hunched over a bit, and she did. It felt refreshingly cool out of the armor she’d fitted to herself when Garrison made his move on the mall. Thinking back on the clunky metal suit, she didn’t like it very much. A part of her had been excited to put it on, acting like a real soldier. That part of her was dead.

Her blue eyes peered out from the shadows she hid under when someone’s legs stopped in front of her. The figure knelt down, revealing themselves to be the detective who did so much to bring Eos down to the point of desperation. Yvette used to hate that woman. Her goofy cyan hair and stupid hanging esca had at one point been annoying to look at. It symbolized someone who thought they understood more than they did. In hindsight, maybe the detective was right to put the clamps on them. Yvette didn’t have the energy to hate her anymore. The Siamese cat frowned when Marcello squat down to be level with her.

“Yvette?” Marcello spoke, “Come with me for a second. It’s your turn to answer questions.”

Marcello had always looked like she was ready to go for a swim, what with the pale violet bikini she was wearing under her jacket and fatigues. Now she was starting to look like she’d just stepped out of the water. Her hair was getting heavy, matting down to her head as the days went by without a proper shower. She had lines under her eyes, probably from a lack of sleep. Regardless of this fact, her grunge cast her in a determined shadow. Her gold eyes still peered out in her relentless pursuit of answers. She’d already been interrogating them, negotiating community service with them, as opposed to straight-up jail or exile from Harbington. She found out the locations of a number of Eos weapons stashes, small though they may have been.

“I don’t think there is anything more to tell you,” Yvette lowered her eyes, “What could you want from me?”

Marcello held out her gloved hand. “Don’t make me get my badge out.”

Yvette glared at the offered hand and instead pushed herself free and stood up straight. She was a slender, svelte feline, real graceful-looking. The spandex bodysuit she wore, what she had been wearing under her battle armor, revealed plenty. She walked with Marcello, her feet barely making a sound on the tile as she moved. Marcello took her outside of the receiving area, and only stopped a few paces from the officers posted at the door.

“What happened?” Marcello asked.

Yvette knew exactly what she was talking about. She looked away. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe that,” Marcello said, “You were second-in-command, Procsman already told me so. If anyone was close enough to that bear to have a good idea of what was going on, it was you. So what changed, Yvette?”

“I don’t know,” Yvette stressed, “Our leadership changed, clearly. Garrison didn’t want to let go. He couldn’t.”

“What was the goal?” Marcello asked.

Yvette narrowed her eyes at a spot on the wall. “… I thought it was to be heroes to the people,” She said, “Human heroes, capable human fighters who could do something against the threat the Inklings pose. We had seen the sort of terror they bring with our own eyes. Garrison was a soldier, he said he fought for people’s freedoms back in the day. We all wanted to protect humanity against the unknown, so that maybe people could sleep at night not worrying about some blobby boogeyman getting into them and causing chaos.”

“Seems counterproductive that you’d work with one of those boogeymen then,” Marcello commented, resting her hands behind her neck casually, “A means to an end, right? Vor wanted to take out the Inklings too. Enemy of my enemy and stuff like that.”

“Right.” Yvette nodded, “We put up with them until they weren’t useful to us anymore. Then Garrison took control. A lot of us abandoned the whole thing after what happened at Caduceus Manor, but those of us who stayed believed that what we were doing was the right thing to do.”

“That’s why… I don’t understand what changed,” Yvette’s expression softened somberly, “I don’t understand why Garrison would threaten the life of a human like that, Inked or not. Originally the goal was simply to force the Inklings out, no human lives lost. Now, I suppose, the terms have changed.”

Marcello nodded in understanding. “You know, I’ve heard a lot of the same stuff from the rest of you,” She said, “It sounds to me like this Garrison guy is kind of doing his own thing.”

“He was a commander,” Yvette said, “And back then, he didn’t fight aliens, he fought people. He fought with them over disagreements made by others who didn’t get their hands dirty. Like the old rocket troopers, you know? Blasting each other over land or resources… He told me once that people can be wrong. They can make a decision that would ultimately burn them, and we all thought that siding with the Inklings was a decision like that.”

“If you ask me, Garrison’s given up on people,” She concluded, “We watched as an Inkling madman did the same and lost, showing us just how horrific these things could be… if they turned on us, we’d be helpless. I think… he might believe that anyone willing to allow that to happen is his enemy.”

The feline leaned against the wall behind her in the corridor. “But I can’t,” She said, “I thought when this whole thing started that it would be likely we would have to stand up against people. That’s what soldiers did back then, and I thought I could expect it when it came. But we had anti-personnel rifles, police issue. We weren’t going to kill, we would never have been able to. I should have known when we got out the fusion cannons that things would be different… I had just hoped, secretly, that such a thing was impossible.”

Marcello listened, lowering her arms to her sides again. “Trust me when I say that I know what it can be like following orders from a superior who doesn’t have your best interests at heart,” She said, “The HDPD just had the same problem. That being said, we feel like a little lenience toward anyone acting under orders is necessary… not that you won’t be doing your time. You’ll be doing plenty.”

Yvette closed her eyes and breathed in and out through her nose. She crossed her arms, wrapping them around herself for some small sense of comfort. “I understand that, and I accept what will come. Being able to play soldier, to play hero, isn’t worth ending a human life, no matter what the cause. I accept the punishment for my role in this. Perhaps the therapy will help me not be so afraid.”

Marcello looked up and down the hall. “That brings us to the leniency,” She said, “You can start making up for what you did right now. You know how to work that armor, right?”

Yvette blinked at Marcello. “I do, yes, I got some training in it before this whole monster invasion broke loose,” She said, “… Why? What is it that you want me to do?”

“If you want to protect the people, then that’s good. We want all the help we can get,” Marcello explained, “The second those things come bearing down on this mall, we’re toast if we don’t have some capable fighters on our side. If we let you back in that armor, we want you to protect the people in the mall if worse comes to worse.”

“Really?” Yvette asked, surprised.

“We’re not deputizing you or anything,” Marcello said, “In fact, you’re going to be performing this under duress, should you agree to it. It’s either you do that, or you and your friends keep sitting in that room. If you want to protect the people, start by working with the HDPD to keep things going.”

“You want Eos to work with you?” Yvette clarified, “But Garrison wouldn’t…”

“Garrison is out of commission, so it falls to the second-in-command to call the shots,” Marcello cocked a brow, “And that’s you, Yvette. So, what’s it going to be? This is the only choice we’re giving you, and if you agree to this, you’re going to be under full command of the stand-in Deputy. You and any Eos soldiers who decide to stick with you. That means protecting the Inked citizens that we’ve sworn to protect at all costs, regardless of their alien associations.”

Yvette’s eyes widened, and her posture tensed. “You want me to protect them?” She asked, “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?” Marcello grinned, “You protected one already.”

Yvette grit her teeth, feeling sour with the idea. “If those parasites didn’t hide under human flesh, it would have been much different.”

“But they do,” Marcello said, “And so far as we know, the humans who have them? Still human. They’re still at the wheel on this one. All I’m asking is that you protect them, nothing more. I’m not saying you have to like it, but it might keep you out of jail.”

Yvette’s ears twitched and turned, the left one flicking in agitation, as did her tail as it swiped back and forth behind her. She grumbled as she considered her options. She still refused to make eye contact with Marcello, and the detective’s eyes staring at her made her feel uncomfortable, pressured.

“… Fine,” Yvette conceded, “I’ll do it.”

“Good,” Marcello smiled, “The police will be happy to hear that. I’ll leave you to round up whatever Eos soldiers you can. Anyone who doesn’t join up is fine, just make it clear that you’re serving your punishment early. If you decide to change your mind at any point, don’t expect us to be so gentle next time. You’ll not be living here in Harbington any more if you betray its people one more time, you hear me? You’ll be out. Exiled. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll end up at a Naturalist village, but considering they’re not so keen on dome folk, you might have to luck out that some other dome would be stupid enough to take you in.”

“Would you really do that?” Yvette questioned.

“I hear my old boss is doing pretty well for herself in the sticks.” Marcello bitterly retorted.



-

--

-

“And so this meeting of the Inked Teenagers comes to order.”

Natalie tapped her fist on the table as a gavel. Sitting around that table were Daxton, Kenny, and Laila. Everyone looked at Laila.

“And I’m here too!” She said with a big smile and a shrug.

“Yeah, okay,” Natalie resumed, “So, Daxton, Kenny, you guys have Inklings now.”

Daxton nodded along, but he rested on his hand, propped up by his elbow. He yawned tiredly. Kenny nodded in understanding, arms and legs crossed.

“Still, you have that Polaris guy?” Daxton directed his question at Kenny, “Seriously? He tried to crush me with a truck.”

“Yeah, I know,” Kenny responded with a harsh edge, “Trust me, I remember that. I also remember punching him in the face a bunch of times.”

Natalie raised a finger. “Technically that was his host,” she pointed out.

“Whatever,” Kenny said, “Either way, I know he was a royal dick before. He knows it too. But I told you guys, he said he wants to try working with you rather than against you. I guess it’s either that or go to Inkling jail.”

“Yeah he’d absolutely go to Inkling jail,” Natalie nodded decisively, “Echelon has an Inkling jail. Vor is there right now.”

“Ha!” Laila laughed, “That’s what he gets!”

The four of them took a break in their discussion to eat some of their food. They had gathered in a restaurant and sat in one of the booths where they were allowed a modest breakfast free of charge. Truth be told, everyone was allowed that modest breakfast. People were being let in, seated, fed, and seen out in a routine, timely manner. All the food outlets in the entire mall were doing that, spreading what they could around the population there, all in the interest of helping where they could. Every one of those people had spent the night fearing an attack from Epheral, after all, but nothing had come. The only reason the four teenagers were allowed to stay anywhere longer than anyone else was because they had Inklings, and were thus the sole driving force against the possible assault; and that was only knowing about two of the three of them.

Natalie swallowed some scrambled egg and politely dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “Anyway, since you two have Inklings now, the Echelon in me wants to point out how super important that is. Cap would probably want me to say it too.” She spoke to the boys in turn, “Daxton, Kenny, you have real super powers. You’re literally stronger than any human being in existence, probably.”

“Except for maybe Garrison,” Daxton grumbled, tearing off a piece of the ham that was stuck on his fork. He continued while he chewed, “That guy’s nuts.”

Natalie agreed, “Well yeah, except for crazy Jurassic super soldiers, sure, maybe.”

“So, what?” Kenny questioned Natalie, “You’re telling us to use our powers for good or something?” He waved his hands and wiggled his fingers, both mocking an exaggerating what he said.

Natalie blinked at him. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Daxton chuckled. “Come on, Natalie,” He said, “I’ve been using my powers for good since you were in diapers!”

“We’re the same age.” She glared at him.

Daxton grinned. “And that is just how much of a good guy I am! Seriously, if I was evil I’d be, like… I don’t even know. I can’t even think of anything.”

Natalie’s attention turned to Kenny and the boy took a deep breath. “Look,” He said, “I know I’m a messed-up guy, I get it. I’m probably the only person in this building who’s ever…” He paused, struggling with the words. “… Done… something… really bad before. That’s… something I did. I get it. But I’m not bad guy material, okay? I don’t give a damn what Polaris was like before, if he tries to take me over I’ll beat him out of me myself. If Quincey can do it, I don’t see why I can’t.”

Laila leaned in, forcing herself into the conversation. “That’s right! Lil’ Quincey peeled Duplex off herself,” She said, “That’s really hard to do, right?”

Natalie was surprised, quite frankly. She’d never heard of anyone doing that before. Quincey continued to surprise her. “It is really hard, or it’s supposed to be,” she said.

“Anyway, I’m just saying, it’s really important that you guys get it. Like, I’ve almost died a couple times.” Natalie said, counting on her fingers. “I got my skull fractured once on a tree I’m pretty sure,” She counted one finger, “I got trapped in a dream world once,” She counted another, “And after I beat Osoth I was in a coma for days,” She counted a third. “This is really serious stuff! I just kinda fell into it, but you guys can at least weigh the risks.”

“Natalie, baby, darling,” Daxton said, waving a limp wrist her way, “I don’t think we really have a choice. Let’s look at the facts. Epheral is here and she’s wrecking up the place. She’s attacking both Locksmouth and Harbington at the same time. You guys need to stick to Locksmouth to keep people from getting messed up by these prana monsters. What does that leave us with?”

Laila crunched into a fried egg sandwich that dripped yolk down her chin. She pulled away from it trying in desperation to scoop the mess off her fur and get it into her mouth. “One lil’ lemming with the temperament of a buckin’ bull and the powers of a magnet, and one stubborn-as-a-mule blind light-show.”

Kenny huffed, and Daxton stretched his arms up over himself with a groan. “Wow, the options are endless!” He said.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Natalie raised her hands in surrender, “Well then good.”

“So what’s the point of all that?” Kenny asked, “What are we going to do?”

“Well that’s just the thing,” Natalie said, biting into a piece of toast. She chewed and swallowed, downing it with some juice before continuing, “Epheral comes by and just erases planets, right? That’s how I figure she had enough prana to not only make her own army, but to whip through space just to get here. We didn’t see her last night though, and the few times we’ve run into her, she’s been kind of strong, but nothing really crazy. My question is: why is she taking so long? What’s she waiting for?”

“I still think if she had all that power, she’d use it,” Kenny said, “Ergo, deductive reasoning settles on that she doesn’t have all that power.”

“But Quincey said that Duplex said that Epheral has been to and wiped out multiple planets that Osoth visited before,” Natalie pointed out, “So she must have at least that much stored up.”

“Yeah, but if she had it all on hand, then what? Earth would be just dead.” Kenny said, “Earth is not dead, so she doesn’t have it all.”

“Well how much energy does it take to go through space?” Daxton asked.

Natalie shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe she used a ton just to get here.”

“Maybe,” Kenny said, “Or, and not to be a downer or anything, she’s waiting for that.”

“For what?” Daxton asked.

“For the rest.”

They sat there for a moment, taking all that possibility in. Laila put down the crusts of her sandwich, finding that her appetite wasn’t up to the task of finishing it all of a sudden.

Natalie closed her eyes and rubbed her chin, thinking. “We saw what she did to Joe,” She said, “That security guy at the CCC. She’s ready to start sucking everything up. If she is waiting for more power to get here, I think we’re going to be in huge trouble when it comes.”

“She’ll start killing all kinds of people and turning them into more power,” Kenny said, “She’s gonna snowball.”

“And if she starts picking us off,” Daxton said, “Then it’s just gonna get worse… so, I think it’s pretty obvious what we have to do.”

“What’s that?” Kenny looked from across the table, wrapping his lips around the straw of his strawberry milk drink.

Daxton sat back with a shrug. “We have to beat her up,” He said, “Smash her core. She’s got one of those, right? It’s here, right? It’s either that or we smash those crystals, taking away from the power she’s already got here, so when she gets more she’ll just be in the same spot. Either way I think it’s a win-win for us.”

“Sounds all hat n’ no cattle, if you ask me,” Laila interjected, “Reckon smashin’ Epheral directly is the only thing that’s gonna get ya any real results.”

“Well,” Natalie hummed, “He’s not wrong. At the end of the day, Epheral’s got to go down. The problem is finding her.”

“How does she get around if she’s just a core, anyway?” Kenny asked, “And what does a core even look like? How would we know when we see her?”

Natalie furrowed her brow. “Well, let’s see… a core is… like an Inkling’s heart. It’ll look kind of like that? Like a… ball or something, that’s what Osoth’s looked like.”

“A ball? Weird.” The Harbington teens pondered over what that might be, conjuring separate images in their heads.

Daxton’s ears shot up. “Wait! I saw something like that!” He blurted out.

“What? Where?” Natalie inquired.

Daxton sat up straighter. “When I was saving Quincey,” He explained, “There was this prana monster, right? But it looked like a little girl or something, like it was wearing a kind of dress? It had, like, a big white and brown ball or something that it shoved into itself. Then it transformed into a bigger, scarier girl and started beating me up. It ran away after a while. That must have been it!”

“Wait, you ran into the galactic devil, just like that?” Laila gave the boy a flat look, “Ya’ll gotta be kiddin’ me.”

“No, I’m serious,” Daxton nodded to the giraffe, then again to Natalie, “I swear it. She’s around here somewhere probably.”

Natalie rubbed her chin, closing her eyes to fuss over all the little details and try to come up with a plan. She went quiet, and so did the Harbington crew, leaving the four of them not saying anything while Natalie thought. “Hmm…” She growled in her throat, finding it frustrating that she had so little to work with. “Nngh, if I still had access to her powers it’d be easier to find her; but if Echelon uses that power, it just hurts Echelon. She can’t use it for very long, Epheral’s still got control over the prana Echelon’s got to use to make that happen. I don’t think we can just go looking for her.”

“We need to put pressure on her,” Natalie decided, “We should take out her crystals and smash as much of her army as we can. If we can put the grips on her, she’ll have to do something about it.”

“Draw her out of hiding,” Kenny nodded, “I guess it could work.”

“The police should know where most of the crystals around the city are, and there are still people who need saving,” Natalie said, “We should hit that, and hit it hard.”

The girl pounded her fist into her hand for emphasis.

Daxton smiled. “Aha, now beating on a bully is something I can get behind!” He said, “Somebody’s got to stay here though, in case something happens.”

“That’ll be me,” Kenny interjected, “It wouldn’t make much sense if I went out, people don’t know I have Polaris with me. I can stay back so if she shows up and things get really bad, I can fight off whatever she throws at us as a kind of last resort.”

Laila groaned, letting her head dip to one side. “Now I’m just startin’ to feel left out…”

“What, you want an alien living inside you?” Kenny cocked a brow and half-smirked at her, “It’d make you a target for these things, you know.”

“I know but I’m just sittin’ here like a bump on a log!” Laila complained, throwing her hands up, “I wanna help too, y’know!”

Daxton rubbed his chin in thought. “I think you can help,” He said, “And I have the perfect job for you.”

Natalie slid out of her seat and stood in the aisle between all the tables, stretching her legs. With a full belly and a somewhat decent night’s rest, she felt as ready to go as she figured she could be. “Let’s check in with the police first.”

Daxton saluted. “Aye-aye Captain.”

“Wait, what job?” Laila grabbed Daxton’s arm to get his attention.

Daxton turned to her as he stood to follow Natalie. “One only you would do,” He said, “That’s for sure.”

-

--

-

“Y’know, when ya’ll said you had a job for me in mind, I didn’t figure ya meant chauffer!”

Laila adjusted her rear-view mirror to look out of the back of the Eos truck at Daxton, who grinned real wide at his PET while maintaining his grip on the mounted turret in the flatbed. The image of his stupid face projecting itself from the mount on the dashboard where her own personal electronic taskmaster was in a call with him.

“I told you it was one only you would do though,” He explained, “You’re the only one here that’s crazy enough of a driver to actually make it through all this mess. You’ve been doing pretty good so far.”

“Yeah well you be careful or I’m gonna do a barrel roll n’ forget you don’t have a seatbelt back there.” The giraffe snarked. She turned her attention back to the streets in front of her. She was flying the truck approximately ten feet off the ground where the roads were, not that anyone really used roads as roads… they were more like flight paths, really. Even so, there was enough going on at street-level to keep her in the air. Monsters still roamed the streets and buildings were starting to take on a strange white fracturing. Blazing white cracks were eating away at the foundations of the stores along the way.

“Boy howdy…” The girl sighed, leaning on the truck’s steering wheel to gaze out over the mess, “Would you take a gander at that. What’d ya’ll reckon they’re doin’ eatin’ the buildings like that? Do buildings have prana too?”

“I don’t know, maybe?” Daxton shrugged, “I thought just living things had prana.”

“Well steel n’ metal are inorganic,” Laila said, “They ain’t livin’ anything. I mean if ya think about it, Epheral’s power is life energy, right? So, what… she’s pumpin’ not-livin’ things fulla livin’?”

“Sounds insane enough to work for her,” Daxton said, “Crazy… But it’s people that’re really in trouble. Let’s get to the school.”

The truck sped past the tram station, and Daxton saw it swarmed by monsters. Maybe it had been a largely populated area when the crystals hit. He imagined that people would have lined up to catch the first train out of there. Laila drove by too fast for him to really get a good look at the area, so he didn’t get a chance to look too closely and see if anyone was down there. He hoped that no one got caught in that mess, that no one ended up like the guy at the CCC. The monsters had taken out half of the supports to the overhead that kept the passengers dry while they waited for the train to come. It had collapsed and no train would have been passing through there.

“How many people do y’think have died?” Laila dropped the bombshell question.

“Hopefully not many,” Daxton grimly answered, “I’m gonna save as many as I can. There were tons of people at the mall, there’s gotta be more living people than not.”

Laila pursed her lips in thought. “Well, everyone on my farm is okay,” Laila said, “N’ we’re one of the biggest. I reckon, since the agricultural sector got the least of the damage? They must’ve got everyone out okay. It’s more the people stuck closer to here, really.”

“Well there’s supposed to be some holed up at the school. I guess if the police have had trouble getting in, something has to be up. I’m going to have to blow a hole in the thing and get those people out.” Daxton turned his attention forward, knowing that Harbington High was only a few more blocks away.

“If the creek don’t rise,” Laila said, “Yeah.”

“Eh, it’ll be fine,” Daxton assured her, “Let’s swing by and see what’s going on first, then we can decide how we’re going to play this.”

Laila took a hard turn, the truck’s engine roaring as she did, only to stop upon the rounding. “Bogeys, up high!” She said, able to see the flock of harpies coming their way through the sky.

“I see them!” Daxton shouted, angling the turret to aim skyward, “Just keep moving!”

Laila floored it, the skiffs on the truck burning up and jetting out in a rush of motion to send them straight at the flock. The ominous black bird-women screeched and dove, attacking as direct and fiercely as they may. With their sharp talons poised to strike, they descended from the sky, and Daxton met them with revved-up shots from the turret in the back. Each blast kicked the weapon back, ejecting a force behind that flapped his coat harshly in the wind. The sheer power of the blasts could shatter the monsters on impact, and it did just that to one target in the center of the flock, causing the rest to scatter as Laila passed them by.

Laila was far from gentle on the vehicle, slamming on the brakes hard enough to nearly throw Daxton off the back. It was the boy’s grip on the bolted-on gun that kept him safe, and he struggled to regain his balance as Laila made a wide turn to circle around and point Daxton in the right direction. She sped off again, trying to strafe the harpies as they flew after them. Daxton grunted as he shoved the gun into position, aimed slightly high, and fired again. He clipped one of their wings, shattering it and causing it to fall from the group. The others gave chase, unable to turn sharply enough and maintain enough speed for the bulk to descend upon them. One lucky bird-beast managed, however, slamming into Daxton in the flatbed of the vehicle and taking him off the gun.

“Rgh!” Daxton’s back hit the side of the truck hard, but he kept himself from going over. The harpy clung to him, and he wasn’t granted the liberty of things slowing down for him to deal with it. Laila kept on driving, swerving, shaking him and the monster around in the back. The harpy’s talons tore into his shirt and raked his chest as the monster screeched in his face. It buffeted him with its wings as well, though the real cutting damage came from the talons. Daxton grabbed hold of the monster and wrestled with it, eventually getting thrown onto his back.

“Buzz off!” Daxton shouted, cocking back his fist. It glowed brightly, incandescent with energy that was released when he punched the thing in the side of its head. It wailed in pain, getting thrown off the boy and leaving an opening for him to get back up. He forced himself onto it, throwing it into the half-wall that kept them from falling and pinning it there to smash it with two more well-placed punches. He shattered its head and then pushed the remainder of it off the vehicle. With that dispatched, he quickly manned the gun again, spinning it around to take aim at the swarm of harpies that were nearly upon him.

He was forced to duck as soon as he fired, the shot tearing through the swarm, breaking pieces off that he couldn’t connect to any one being fast enough to know what he’d done. He dropped to a knee and lowered his head to let the harpies pass. They did so in a black, charcoal cloud, limbs banging off the truck, denting its outer chassis, doing plenty of damage to the frame and possibly just as much to themselves. One was particularly clever, as it snatched the mounted gun with its talons and harshly beat its wings to fly away with it. The harpies weren’t strong in and of themselves, but apparently, they had enough strength to put considerable strain on the bolts that kept the weapon in place. The metal creaked, serving as a warning for Daxton to act. He sprung up and threw a punch, clipping the bird-lady and making it let go. It flew away before it could get any more damage to join the others.

Laila turned again. She had been circling the truck around and around, but it seemed to only get them so far. She decided she needed to change things up. Her turn pointed her straight at the swarm. She shifted the vehicle into high gear, the kind of output that would make the fusion engine roar and the creases on the truck glow red with generated heat. She slammed her foot on the pedal and the truck shot like a bullet toward the harpies. She closed the span of several yards in a short time. Daxton was thrown to the back of the truck, but he wisely fell onto his butt to hit the back end and keep himself from just flying away. Laila aimed right for the monsters, finding the biggest, blackest congregation in the mass of flapping bird limbs and crashing through it.

The birds squawked and screamed as they were thrown every which way, parts of their bodies shattering upon impact from the truck. It absolutely devastated them, cutting the number of them effectively by half. It also devastated the truck, denting the hood and forcing it to pop up, obscuring Laila’s vision. Eventually the hood lost its hinges and just came off, flying over the back of the vehicle and over Daxton’s head. Other charcoal bodies crashed into the windshield, cracking, then smashing it. Laila shielded herself from the glass and damage, but it jarred the truck considerably, throwing her off-course and into a nearby store. She and Daxton were only safe because she slammed on the brakes and jerked the whole thing to slide sideways. The broad side of the vehicle smashed into the building, knocking out windows and dealing more damage to the chassis itself.

“Crap, Laila!” Daxton shouted as he picked himself up, his body feeling more beaten by being thrown around than by anything the harpies had done. His neck felt stiff, and he rubbed it to nurse the tender pain. Wincing, he pulled himself back onto the turret and took aim to fire another invisible force blast that exploded the prana-harpy it hit. Laila shook herself out of a daze and gripped the steering again to get moving. The engine seemed to groan in protest, but the truck managed to drag itself out of its divot in a shower of sparks and metal squeals.

She took off down the street, level with the rooftops of the stores and restaurants down below. She swerved, fish-tailing the truck sideways to create what would have been a blockade, had there been ground under the skiffs. Daxton took aim, squeezing the triggers on the handles of the gun as hard as he could and bracing himself for the jerky recoil that impacted him when he fired. One, two, three; he fired three shots and took down two more harpies. Only one remained, and it swooped from on high with its talons bared and ready to tear into him. He panicked, throwing himself onto the weapon to weigh down its heavy back-end and point it upward. He blasted off a few rounds, managing only to shatter the last one when it was close enough to rain on him when he did. The recoil of the weapon punched him in the face a few times, and he stumbled off the weapon when everything ended.

Daxton fell onto his butt again, panting for breath. His PET rang with a familiar banjo jingle, and he picked it up to see Laila’s frazzled expression.

“Well, hell n’ high water, that was.” Laila said.

Daxton chuckled. “I don’t know what’s scarier… them, or your driving.”

Laila seemed offended. “You wanna walk, tough guy?”

Daxton raised an assuring hand. “No, No,” He said, “Let’s just get to the school, okay?”

“Right,” Laila agreed, the engine humming to life again, wavy heat escaping the exposed engine core like a smokestack above them. “Just over here.”

She rounded the bend at the end of the block to see the high school. It sat stalwart near the center of the dome, where the schools made a comfortable ring around the Climate Control Center and its nature reserves. It stood in a community of high walls around houses that acted as fences, with only a chain-link equivalent to protect itself. That hadn’t done a thing to dissuade the monsters that surrounded the building. A small army of who-knew-what had amassed and was doing its best to attack the school from seemingly every side. They’d done a terrible number on the yard, up-ending picnic tables and even going so far as to tear down the goal posts on the sports field.

The building throbbed with white energy. Epheral’s power was taking it like a sickness; an ugly rash that was spreading from the base. There was no way to see into the cafeteria any more, not with static-flickering whiteness overtaking the windows. It bled; globs of its sickly, burned brown flecking off into the air. It looked as if half the building had become a prana crystal somehow, and the sight of it was terrifying. Laila slammed onto the brakes at first sight of it and just stared slack-jawed at it. Daxton had to bend aside to see past the truck’s cabin, but he too was just as gob smacked.

The worst part of it was that the front doors had been opened. The prana-sickness taking the place opened there like a cavernous maw, allowing monsters to pour in.

“Well,” Laila said, her words coming out as a whisper, “That ain’t good.”

-

--

-

“And everything is going okay over there?” Natalie asked Carrie, who shrugged nonchalant on her end of the call.

“We’re fine,” Carrie said, “Whenever someone reports that they’ve seen any of those monsters, we go and smash them up. We’re on top of this.”

Natalie smiled. “I meant more if you guys were okay, but that’s good to know.”

“Oh, us. Well yeah. See, the good thing about Erwin, Shelly, and Sam being total wusses is that they won’t go anywhere near those things.” Carrie grinned, “And Epheral doesn’t seem to be able to get through Arus, and she can’t catch Koralo, and Cap’s been hitting them before they can get him. There were a couple close calls, but nothing serious. You know, we could probably send someone over now.”

Natalie thought about it, but ultimately decided against it. “No, it’s okay. With Daxton and Kenny having their own Inklings, I think we can manage right now. Just make sure that you bust up every crystal in Locksmouth before you even think about coming out here.”

“And you’re sure about those guys?” Carrie asked.

Natalie tilted her head. “Who? Daxton and Kenny? Or Polaris and Lumina?”

“The last ones,” Carrie said, “Polaris in particular. Might I remind you, he tried to crush me with a truck!”

“Yeah, I don’t know about him… but he hasn’t been causing any trouble yet,” Natalie answered, scratching her cheek, “He’s doing some kind of new leaf thing? And Lumina seems on the level. She says she was helping Echelon before it was cool, not that she can remember.”

“Well, you be careful. I’d feel a lot better if it was us out there instead.” Carrie expressed her concerns, giving her girlfriend a gentle, concerned look.

“Well right now it’s just me,” Natalie assured her, “So I’ll talk to you after I bust a crystal, okay? It’s in the nature reserve.”

“Alright,” Carried conceded, “Talk to you then. Love you.”

“Love you too, Carr-bear.”

Pocketing her PET, Natalie turned her attention toward a clearing in the reserve. It hadn’t been hard to find the crystal, even with her bearings being thrown off from the change of angle. The thing was bigger than she was, making it easy to pick out between the gaps in the trees. Avoiding the prana construct monsters had been the hard part. They could sense her everywhere she went, and when one of them found her out, the rest were soon to follow. There wasn’t enough time to sit back and think of a strategy or an escape plan. She had to get in, smash the crystal, and get out.

A thunderous rumble shook the tree line in the distance, scaring birds off their perches to scatter in a tweeting flurry. Those sounds had been going off ever since Natalie arrived, and they were what made the job doable. Several times, prana constructs had simply passed her by to head toward the source of the sounds, which seemed to be some many yards away. Natalie’s only company had been the animals, which were darting around the forest to hide and be safe. She felt sorry for them as they were so frightened and helpless against the swarm of prana monsters, having no possible way to defend themselves. It was up to her to end the menace, and the animals gave her the motivation she needed, not to mention all the humans in hiding back at the mall.

“Alright.” Natalie stood from her place kneeling at the base of a tree, stepping into the clearing that was part there, and part carved by the crystal’s descent. A hole had been punched into the leafage above and many tree limbs were scattered around the crystal making it clear the exact angle it had fallen in on. Natalie studied the silent, lonely scene for only a few moments before inking over. Echelon took over, clenching a fist and poising to strike. “I have to hit it as hard as I can. A Comet Punch ought to do it.”

Echelon leapt forward immediately, coming at the massive, stationary crystal like it would fight back. “Comet Punch!” She shouted, if only to give her the extra oomph. Jacent’s powers activated, and Echelon’s cocked-back fist rushed forward, splitting the air it travelled through and creating a rush of force around her knuckles that impacted with the force of an industrial metal press. Her fist crashed into the hard surface of the pixelating crystal, bouncing off the glasslike surface with simple rebound shock. Even so, she struck it hard enough to fracture the surface of the solid prana, and the force travelled far enough that the cracks split and spread around the surface. The prana energy seemed to intensify, giving Echelon pause.

The energy went out of control as the physical construct created to contain it ruptured. It exploded, hitting her with a force of pure energy powerful enough to send her flying across the clearing. The crystal’s shard rained over her inky flesh as she was thrown into the tree line with one such tree being what stopped her travel. She slammed her back off the bark of the tall maple, letting out a gasp of air upon impact before she crumpled at the tree’s base. The sound of the explosion was deafening, enough to leave a ringing in the Inkling’s head as she tried to pick herself up. If there had been any birds left in the reserve, they all would have run away at that. Collecting herself, Echelon looked out over the clearing. All the debris had been swept away in the explosion… as well as all the grass and even some of the nearby trees were slanted, their roots having been torn up from the ground.

“Oof…” Echelon rose to a knee, resting there. “Those things pack a punch.”

A rustle from the bush caught her ear. She sprung to attention immediately, jumping to her feet and getting ready to defend herself. “Who’s there?!”

A construct stepped out from the brush. Echelon hadn’t seen it at first among the foliage because it was so small, smaller than even many of the goblin creatures that the constructs took the shape of. Right away it seemed different for more than simply that fact; the shape of the little charcoal shadow suggested that it was a small humanoid wearing a dress. In fact, it looked mostly like a pre-splice human. It walked upright on two legs and had animal ears upon its head. Its scratchy form shifted bizarrely, making it impossible to tell just what animal the construct seemed to resemble. The only things that stood out from its black body were the white, undulating, burnt-edge aura surrounding it, the pure white smiling mouth upon its face, and what it held in its little hands.

In one hand, the orb it held, Echelon knew right away what it was. Even though it looked like a bubble of the same aura that surrounded its body, the size and shape of it was easily recognizable to any Inkling. It was an Inkling core. Echelon’s eyes widened at the realization when it hit her, and she stared at the core as it wavered in the construct’s grasp. In its other hand was a blue jay. The bird squawked and tweeted as it thrashed around in the construct’s grip, but the thing had a death grip around its neck that wouldn’t release.

“Epheral.” Echelon glared at the core rather than the construct, knowing who she should be addressing.

The prana-girl smiled wider. “Very good!” She spoke for Epheral who, as a core, had no way of doing so herself. “You must be so proud of yourself for everything you’ve done…”

Epheral’s smile faded. She slowly turned her head to regard the bird in her hand, which let out a shrill sound as burning white cracks spread out over its entire body. The jay went rigid as its tone reached a pitch, and then its body simply burst in glittering prana. Everything that had once constructed it was altered before Echelon’s very eyes into prana, which was absorbed greedily into the core that Epheral’s construct held. She’d killed the little bird and didn’t even flinch. Instead, she turned away from Echelon and began to wander the clearing, seemingly searching.

“Ah!” Echelon gasped, “What are you doing?! Stop that!”

“No.” Epheral answered.

“Stop it or I’ll make you!” Echelon shouted.

“If you were going to do that, you’d be attacking me and not just standing there.” Epheral said, moving to one of the trees at the outer edge of the clearing. She squatted down in front of it, then reached into a hole that was hollowed out of the stump. A small creature yelped, and Epheral withdrew a small fox kit from inside. The little pup kicked its feet and yipped and barked, as did numerous other little kits inside once Epheral took its kin away.

“But you’re just standing there, because you’re afraid.” Epheral said, turning back to Echelon and holding the small animal in her hand up by the scruff of its neck. The little gray fox thrashed around, unable to get free, and two others pounced out from the burrow in the tree to leap at Epheral’s legs and claw at her. The construct didn’t move a muscle or react to the scratches along its shins. She pushed the core into the construct, the orb melding into the girl’s middle and embedding in there, appearing as a pulsating nucleus in the darkness.

“Everything on this planet is afraid, and it should be.” Epheral turned the little kit in her hand to face her, considering its eyes. “What else would you feel when faced with something as powerful as me?”

“Grr! Actima!” Echelon rushed forth in a blur of motion, wherein if anyone had blinked they would have missed her mad dash for the small prana girl. She was in at the blink of an eye, and delivering a kick that would have sideswiped the little girl in the opposing side of her head from the fox pup. Given their disparity in sizes, Epheral’s construct would have been taken out, pushed over, perhaps even its head would have simply been kicked clean off. Every other construct had been made of similar density, and the expectation was that it would go the same way.

“Your Empress was afraid of me.” Epheral scowled. Echelon froze, her leg extended. Her kick had made a clear connection to the side of Epheral’s constructed head, and there it sat. The prana, which normally shattered with anything around the force of a swung hammer, was entirely intact. Echelon’s leg hadn’t so much as scuffed the thing. A full-speed kick that could have cleaved through a street sign had done nothing at all. Epheral closed her hand around the fox’s little head, and with the gut-churning sound of a yelp followed by a wet crunch, the animal went silent and limp. Echelon’s breath wavered as another little life was extinguished with all the care of swatting a mosquito. Much like the blue jay before it, the dead fox’s body burned brightly white, and popped like a little glitter bomb. The energy was sucked right into Epheral’s form.

Epheral grabbed hold of Echelon’s ankle quickly. The Inkling wolf panicked, readying herself before leaping up and taking a swipe with her other foot, pumping some kinetic force into the blow via Jacent’s power set. Echelon kicked Epheral across the face. It hit with a loud CRACK, and Echelon fell to the ground as she found herself released. She didn’t stay down there for long, however, and quickly scrambled to her feet to make some distance between her and the little monster.

Epheral kicked at the foxes that bounced around her feet and nipped at her. She wound up and hoofed them as hard as she could to send them flying into the woods. The pitiful yelps they made as their ribs broke was heartbreaking.

“I have so… much… power,” Epheral said, “Much more than you, no matter how similar we are.”

“I am not like you,” Echelon said, “I don’t go around murdering innocent animals and turning them into prana! Come here, you little brat!”

Echelon leapt forward, drawing back her fist. Her leap was powerful, kicking up dust as her force of movement was amplified almost tenfold. Air rushed around her, making her look as a bullet closing the distance between her and Epheral. “Comet…!”

“Punch!” Epheral shouted, meeting the incoming boosted fist with her own fist. The two of them crashed into one another, and the resulting shockwave killed all the sound around them for mere moments as it shoved the vibrations in the air away. The further out it got, the more it dispersed, until finally the echo of the impact caught up, making the crash of their meeting fists happen long after the event took place. The amplified rush of kinetic force had met a similarly amplified force, and the two of them had cancelled one another out, but not without sounding like thunder had struck between them.

They remained locked in place, fist-to-fist. Epheral’s limbs cracked, fractured, splintered, and then shot out several feet. Her legs, arms, torso, everything grew to give what had at once been the form of a little girl the feminine, long-limbed, athletic form of a teenager that overtook Natalie for height. Her elbows and knees bore sharp protrusions. It happened so quickly, Echelon had little time to react before Epheral stepped forward and shoved with her fist, pushing the Inkling’s arm back and creating an opening. Epheral reared back a side kick and delivered it straight to Echelon’s gut, knocking the girl away and to the ground.

“We’re very similar, actually.” Epheral explained.

Echelon had hit the ground in a tumble. She winced, but pulled herself to her hands and knees, working to stand again. Epheral had given her a Comet Punch. Only Jacent and herself had the power to wield such forces! “How did you do that?” Echelon asked, “You can’t do that.”

Epheral frowned. “Why not?” She asked, “What is an Inkling’s power but a unique utility of prana energy that only they can perform? You Inklings are all so stupid, thinking you’re so special. You don’t even know what makes you special! What makes me special is that I know what makes you special.”

“Think of Polaris,” Epheral held up her hand as if she were cradling the concept there, “Polaris gets prana, and that prana is his energy. He uses that energy to manipulate metal. That is his power, it is what he does that others cannot.”

“Then there is you,” She held up her other hand, “What is your power? Your power is to use his power. But how do you do this? It’s almost genius really… Osoth nearly figured out what made me so terrifying to her.”

Echelon grit her teeth. “I get it, alright? You’re saying I can use prana like other people can use it.”

“You mimic the… frequencies, let’s just say; and not perfectly, either. I was quite surprised to discover this about you during our time together.” Epheral grinned, “Why, you can even use prana the same way I do! Which must have been so liberating for you. You will never find someone so adept at utilizing prana as I. Just look at what I can do with it. You must be so jealous.”

“So you can do what I can do.” Echelon concluded.

Epheral pointed a finger at her, and stood straighter. “I can do what you can do better than you can do it, and I can do far more than that! I control prana, that is my power! You’ll never hope to match me, even if you ‘steal’ it.”

Epheral raised a hand to her mouth, resting her curled fingers under where her nose would be, thoughtfully. “I could have dismantled Osoth easily.”

“Well that’s good for you,” Echelon said, taking a stance, “Did you come here just to brag or what?”

Epheral’s mouth made a surprise ‘o’ shape. “Oh? Well, by all means, try and fight me.”

Mentally switching to Phactys’ powers, Echelon moved in on the attack. She threw a punch, which Epheral blocked, but when Epheral returned fire, Echelon was well out of the way. One punch was all it seemed to take to push Epheral into action, the prana-girl starting to throw punches and kicks in a series of well-timed strikes. Epheral saw them all in slow motion, seeing red shadows move before Epheral’s body to tell her exactly where each attack was coming from. She waved left, right, blocked a knee with her hands and stepped back to avoid further attacks. She stepped in, swept Epheral’s legs, and when the construct jumped that attack, she thrust Tiger Palm strike into the construct’s side. Epheral flinched and stepped away, twisting into a Comet Punch attack she sent straight down at Echelon’s head.

The Inkling wolf dashed aside, missing the attack by a hair. Epheral’s fist struck the ground, hammering a crater into the dirt that collapsed in on itself. Echelon returned the attack with a boosted heel smash into the small of Epheral’s nape, the shattering blow cleaving through and taking the construct’s head clear off. Epheral crumped under the blow, but being headless didn’t give her much pause. Instead, she backed off, giving her constructed form enough time to sprout a new, mostly featureless, charcoal head.

“For all the things I know about you though, there’s something I don’t understand,” Epheral spoke, like nothing had happened, “Mirror Slide. If I could only figure that out…”

She didn’t expect Echelon’s fist to lash out at her like a flail from so far away. Again, her expression changed to one of surprise before Echelon’s fist connected with her cheek, making her stumble back. The Inkling wolf retracted her rubbery arm like a paddle ball, the appendage whip-lashing back into place. She grinned, proud of her surprise attack. “Well sorry, I’m not going to tell you.”

“I didn’t expect you to…” Epheral pushed her jaw to twist her head, as if to crack her construct’s neck.

Echelon took the offensive again, but Epheral just cupped her hand over her fist and reared back to swing. Her fists melded, taking on the form of a giant mallet head that she swung into Echelon’s side as soon as she came into range. It struck clean, knocking the wolf away like a croquet ball and sending her into the dirt. Keeping her hands fused into such a weapon, Epheral chased after Echelon to bear down on her with the mallet, raising it above her head to crash down on the Inkling in the dirt. Echelon narrowly escaped the attack, swiftly scrambling to escape another. Everywhere Epheral struck left a massive, perfect circle imprinted in the dirt. She continued to tirelessly pursue Echelon as she ran, doing her best to catch the Inkling under her hammer hands.

“But I WILL find out!” Epheral shouted, slamming hard into the dirt again, frustrated that her attack didn’t find Inkling flesh. Echelon had sprung out of the way, like a little rubber ball. “Whether you like it or not, I will discover how you reach Canvas, and when I do? You can say goodbye to every single one of you!”

“Even if that means…” Epheral turned, seeing Echelon coming straight at her. Her white mouth turned up in a grin and she swung with all the momentum she could muster to intercept Echelon again. She caught the Inkling wolf right in the side, hard enough to make the girl squeak as air struggled to escape her. She launched Echelon into the air, the wolf flailing in the sky. “I have to break down every little piece of you to do it!”

“Well how do you like this piece?!” Echelon shouted from the side. Epheral barely had time to look before she took a bunch to the face from somewhere Echelon had just not been before. Or had she lost track of her?

“Maybe you like this one?!” Echelon kicked her, making Epheral stumble, dragging her overweighed mallet hands with her, the heavy melding of her fists leading her inertia. She spun into another Echelon, who fed her an uppercut right under her chin, then kicked her fused hands like a tetherball to spin her ‘round again. Epheral growled in agitation. Duplex’s powers were at work there, and Epheral didn’t much like the thought of that abomination being used against her. She broke her hands apart, shattering the giant cylinder she had fused them into to instead use her bare hands to grab hold of Echelon’s head when she turned back toward her. The prana construct got a shot right in the middle where her core lay at rest, but it didn’t make her flinch. She instead spun and threw one Echelon into the other, taking them both off their feet and to the ground.

Epheral leapt on them like an animal, holding her fingers out and together until the ends of her arms morphed into spike tips. In frantic rage, she skewered them, piercing their inky membranes one after another, in rapid succession. They were fakes, the both; she felt it as soon as she stabbed in their first holes. It didn’t stop her from carrying on, puncturing them in several places, stabbing their faces and chests, until they lost form and popped like balloons. The wolves cried out in pain and agony as they were stabbed to death. It was music to Epheral’s ears. Once they were only inky splatters at her feet, Epheral rose and turned her sights on the only Echelon remaining – the one she’d knocked away. She was just standing up, rubbing her rear as she had landed harshly on it.

“Your tricks aren’t going to save you,” Epheral said, reforming her hands into five-fingered digits, “The only hope you have is giving me what I want. Then maybe I’ll absorb you last.”

“And what if I refuse?” Echelon dryly responded.

“It doesn’t matter,” Epheral said, “Nothing you do matters against me. I’m the next step. I’m what’s going to propel Inklings and all of existence into a whole new age! I’ve beaten worlds of you, now they’re part of me. When I finally get rid of each and every one of you, I’ll make a new world with this power. A world you and your kind don’t deserve to live in!”

“Gee, it sure sounds like Osoth in here!” Echelon said.

The bushes rustled all around, and monsters emerged from the forest in droves. From all around the clearing, goblins, kobolds, elven riders, gorgons, all kinds of fantasy creatures in charcoal trappings and white auras came pouring in. “Quiet, you pest!” Epheral shouted, not wasting any time for villainous monologue, and instead allowing her menagerie of prana-constructed monsters to dogpile on the Inkling.

“Crap! Actima!” Natalie ran, not wanting to be at the center point of meeting when the monsters finally jumped her. She zipped away and slid across the ground, in a baseball slide that sent her under the legs of the saber-toothed mount of one of the riders. Dust billowed behind her until she stopped. She rolled to her feet and turned, facing the horde of constructs with the benefit of having the forest behind her open for her retreat. Her mind raced for possibilities, grabbing at straws for answers. Strategy was failing her. Retreat seemed the only option. With the crystal broken, she had no reason to stay.

Just as she considered leaving, a familiar, pale fox burst from the woods. With an angry snarl, it rushed through the air in a rush of wind that sent it careening into Epheral’s body. It smashed into her side, curled up like a cannon ball. She grunted, being pushed aside as the fox fell to the ground and began to dart around the clearing. It launched in a rush of air from one point to the next, kicking up dirt and dust and debris with the gale force blasts. It crashed through the constructs, shattering some as it passed, blowing others away like leaves in the wind. The small animal wrought havoc among the constructs, and stopped only to grab the leg of a goblin between its jaws and shake it around. It squealed in alarm, flailing its little arms and legs as the fox thrashed about.

As it did this, what remained of the forces surrounded the animal. “Gah, jeez!” Echelon cried, “Come on, we gotta pull out everything!”

Epheral reached down and plucked the inked fox off her construct. It released the goblin reluctantly, kicking its feet and snapping its jaws when Epheral turned it to face her. “Aw,” She said, “Don’t worry. You’ll join your babies soon.”

“No…!” Natalie launched, soaring through the air at breakneck speeds, speeds the threw constructs every which way, until she made contact with Epheral’s chest. Her torso was separated from all her limbs, making her head, arms, and legs fall into a bundle on the ground. “… You!”

Epheral’s torso skipped and rolled across the dirt like a pebble, bits of its outer prana chassis chipping off as it went until it finally hit a tree and shattered entirely. Epheral’s core settled on the ground alone, and immediately the construct horde abandoned Natalie and the inked fox to protect the core. They surrounded the core, and among all their noises, the cracking of crystal forming sounded out until the little girl construct was created again. It formed from pieces of the other constructs, and when one of the elven riders was shattered, the girl took its place. She hopped on top of the saber-toothed mount, clutching Epheral’s core in her little hands.

“What is THAT?” She demanded. She studied Natalie’s form, which was as normal as ever, except pinkish in hue at places. She looked strange. Epheral’s mouth turned down in a growl. “What are you?”

“Human!” Natalie bellowed, picking the little fox up off the ground and holding it under her arm, “Another thing you and Osoth have in common… you don’t know who you’re dealing with!”

“What?!” Epheral demanded, “You… you’ve become one with your host?! How?! That’s not a power of yours! That’s…!”

“Impossible!” Natalie throw up her hand in mock panic, “The sky is falling!”

“How dare you?!” Epheral shouted.

“Like this!”

Natalie turned around, stuck out her butt, and gave it a smack. Then she shot a look over her shoulder and blew a raspberry at Epheral.

“Thbbpt!”

“Ngh!” Epheral was taken back.

“Beep!” Natalie cried before speeding off. She darted away like a shot from a pistol, a dust cloud shaped vaguely like her left in her wake.

“You… You!!” Epheral screamed, jumping up and down on her prana mount, “You will die! I’ll end you!!”

-

--

-

The Eos truck touched down on the roof of the school. Daxton hopped out, planting his feet on the familiar red-bricked flooring installed around the glass dome that looked down into the cafeteria. The rooftop garden was free of hostiles for the moment. It was comforting to catch a glimpse of the Gardening Club’s little pet projects still in their planter, undisturbed by the chaos that had been unleashed on the city. Epheral’s creeping influence hadn’t made it to the roof, or even the second story. Going in from the top down was the logical thing to do.

The truck stood out like a big, black, bulky sore thumb. Laila scanned the skies as she stepped out of the vehicle, hoping none of the harpies that were soaring the skies had seen it. In her hands, she toted the rifle she had likewise “borrowed” from Eos. She wasted no time in slinging the leather strap slipped through it onto her shoulders, ignoring how the nippy cold spread out against the unzipped portion of her work suit and the low neck of her tank top. “Alrighty then,” She spoke, regarding Daxton, “Ya’ll are the super hero here, what do ya reckon?”

Daxton approached the rooftop access door and gripped the trigger handle, pushing it in and unlocking the metal bar on the other side. “We go in, get the people, and get out,” He explained, glancing back at the girl, “What else?”

“Mm…” Laila pondered in hesitance, “All those monsters in there though? Should I just linger here, watch the truck?”

Daxton was caught by surprise. The suggestion was sound. “Well, I guess it’d be bad if anything happened to it,” He said, “Maybe that’ll work. So I’ll be going in there alone.”

Laila fidgeted with her rifle, shifting her weight from one leg to the other in a show of discomfort. She couldn’t make eye-contact with the corgi boy, and rolled her shoulders in a shrug. “Without one of them Inklings, I ain’t gonna be any use. I don’t wanna know what all can happen to me if they can eat people like Kenny said.”

Daxton sighed. He didn’t want to go in alone, but Laila had a point. “Alright, well, just stay out of sight then. They shouldn’t be able to know where you are, but they sure as heck know where I am.”

“If ya’ll get into a mess, give me a ring, y’hear?” She nudged the gun toward him in lieu of fingers to point with, “I’ll… well I’ll do somethin’. Call me when you find our lost cattle do, would ya? I wanna know when ya’ll plan on high-tailin’ it back here so I can be ready.”

Daxton flashed her a thumb up.

“Well, go get ‘em, tiger.” Laila shrugged again, but offered a smile for his comfort.

Daxton chuckled, then turned and opened the door to descend into the darkness of the school under the murky skies above. The glass roofing had always let light in, even on the stairwells where yet more windows lined the walls like stripes. The weather was so overcast, however, that light was in short supply. Under regular circumstances, the building’s interior lighting would have kicked in to make up the difference, but the place was eerily darkened, as if the lights had not been turned on. This created an environment of deep, foreboding shadows that stretched away from the windows at every turn. Daxton grabbed for the railing as he trotted his way down the stairs in a jog, meeting the second story landing with a clap of his sneakers on the tile. A sudden turn on the soles of his shoes caused a loud squeak that no doubt snuffed the flooring, but the echoing sound was contained in the stairwell. He wasn’t sure if sound even registered with Epheral’s prana constructs, but even he wasn’t stupid enough to trounce around making a racket.

It was fortunate that darkness wasn’t an issue for his STOP. Opening the sliding glass door at the landing manually, Daxton leaned out from the entryway to peer up and down the corridor unimpeded by the lack of light. His vision instead adjusted, the microfiber cameras in his knit cap going to work to print out a clear image of his surroundings with the lighting and contrast toyed with the lessen the severity of the shade and bring out the natural light from the glass roofing above. The scene he saw didn’t look well. The monsters had been pouring in on the first floor, but it was evident that they had gotten upstairs just by the state of the place. Lockers and doors, garbage bins and fountains, all smashed or dented, or otherwise in states of disrepair.

The heating was out. It was as cool inside the building as it was outside. Daxton closed his coat around himself, zipping it up over his chest to keep warm. He wasn’t going to be in there long, if all went well; he just had to find who he was looking for. To that end, he was going in blind. The police hadn’t been in contact with the people there for almost twenty-four hours. If he was going to find them, it would have to be the old-fashioned way.

His ear gave a twitch. Echoing from the far end of the hall were the joyous cries of chittering goblins. Daxton sidled up next to the lockets nearest the stairwell doors and waited to see the little charcoal creatures come bursting through the double doors at the far end. They shattered the glass panes to get through, and the trio of goblin creatures charged down the hall with their weapons brandished, swinging them haphazardly over their heads to spur themselves forward. They hooted and hollered, giggled and cheered, just marauding about the place. Three goblin constructs shouldn’t have been difficult to deal with at all, Daxton thought, and he owed them from the day before.

THUD. BANG. A cyclopean construct followed behind them, lagging as it squatted to wedge its wide, bulky frame through the double doors. It pushed its broad shoulders through and stumbled forward to catch itself on the floor, then rise to its full, impressive stature. It only needed to wedge through doorways such as that, where the ceilings in the school were so high from the ground that even the eight foot, towering mass of scratchy charcoal and bulk had plenty of room to move around. The goblins had stopped for its sake, and the floor shook under Daxton’s feet as the massive monster picked up in a run down the hall to gallivant with its fellows. Daxton ducked hurriedly behind cover as they resumed their stampede. Three goblins and a cyclops was a bit more stacked against him.

The goblins smashed into the lockers, making a terrible ruckus as they played the bent plastic containers like drums with their prana-formed clubs bound to their hands. They did this for some feet up the corridor, but they slowed and soon stopped after those paces. Daxton peeked around the lockers again to see every one of them with their gazes fixated on his location. They could sense Lumina with him. He ducked back and took a breath to steady himself, pressing his back flush with the lockers and raising his hand to poise his fingers into a weapon – index, middle, and thumb outward, his final two digits curling in to make the crude shape of a gun. He braced his forearm with his other hand and took another deep breath to ready himself.

“Daxton Kemberge steps up to the plate…” The boy murmured as he heard the creatures begin to snarl. He wasn’t going to give them the opportunity to strike first, and so he leapt out from cover to stand before them. He aimed his finger-gun at the creatures and began flexing his thumb as a makeshift trigger. “Pew, pew, pew!” Straight, narrow rays of light fired from his fingertips, darting through the air and striking the oncoming rush of monsters. A shot struck one and shattered it, but the other two went wide. The remaining two goblins closed in quick, with the giant form of the trundling in behind them.

Daxton switched stances, twisting his body parallel to the enemy he judged as being the first to arrive. The little pointy-eared charcoal goblin came rushing in, swinging its club menacingly in circles above his head, winding up for a strike. Daxton stepped quickly back, giving himself just enough arm length to grasp the very tip of the club in his hand. He guided the swing from left to right, never pushing it with its already present momentum to spin the construct around. Utilizing his height advantage, he pulled the club up over the goblin’s head, and the thing refused to relinquish it into Daxton’s grasp. Instead it doubled down and held on with both hands, finding itself turned backward, its arms raised above its head, and its back arched as Daxton yanked the weapon toward him.

One swift kick to the back of the leg and the goblin took a knee. The boy then dipped aside, shoving the monster toward its attacking kin, using it as a shield to take the blow. The helpless humanoid had its head smashed in by its duplicate, and when the shards started flying, Daxton shoved the thing forward to simply walk over it and press the assault to the other. “Hnh!” Daxton raised his arm to block the backhand swing of the goblin’s club with his forearm, which stung like heck, but he gritted his teeth and bore the brunt of the pain to instead take hold of the goblin’s oversized head, which he them slammed off the tile floor with a total lack of grace. Daxton fell with the little creature to put his full weight into the effort, and the thing’s cranium burst into fragments the second its pointy nose collapsed into the floor.

“Groooh!” The massive cyclops came charging in, giving Daxton no time to roll or dodge. It kicked the boy, punting him from the floor into a row of lockers. Daxton slammed into what seemed to be left of the pristine capsules to deform the doors and hinges with the impact of his spine. Daxton coughed out and collapsed to the floor, where he had to move before the monster kicked him again. He rolled aside just when the cyclops kicked the bottom row of lockers in, which would have left him a very broken boy had he been in the way still.

Daxton rolled onto his back, pointed his finger-gun out upside down, and fired a photon beam into the knee of the hulk. It cut clean through, and the immediate imbalance sent the brute careening for the floor. It did so without using its hands to catch itself, slamming its front and chin off the tile with a shuddering boom. Its arms extended as if trying to protect something it was holding, but it failed. Whatever the small, blue object was, it tumbled out of the beast’s hands with a splat on the floor as it rolled along.

The corgi boy stood only to get a punch in the gut. It drove the wind out of him and threw him back onto the floor, where the cyclops attempted to get on top of him. It wasn’t difficult for the massive charcoal monster to loom over the boy, but when it raised its fists to make him into puppy paste, Daxton extended both of his palms out flat. Light energy collected there for a small charge before blasting off in a wide spread, a buckshot of dazzling, glittering, prismatic light. It smashed into the cyclops, tore a chunk out of its front, and pushed it away from the boy to give him some space.

Daxton quickly curled his knees up under himself and pushed on his elbows to get himself upright. He threw himself at the monster, clumsily getting into a scrunched-up, fist-clenched boxer’s rush. Light trails followed his movements as he weaved left, right, and then threw a right hook with all his might. He chipped the monster’s jaw, and he followed it with another strike with his left fist before finally balling up light in his palm to force it through the construct. He shoved the light into the monster’s chest, and it burst out the other side in an eruption of prana shards. It was the final straw, and the cyclops shattered into pieces only moments after.

Daxton panted, and his expanding lungs put pressure on his then sore ribs. He wrapped one arm around him to press his hand against his side. “Gah, jeez… Gotta be more careful.”

There were bound to be more, so it was unwise to linger. Daxton was ready to start his search for the lost humans, but not before checking what he noticed the cyclops had been carrying. He stepped over to the little blue blob that lay upon the floor, eying it curiously. It certainly wasn’t just a ball, it was shaped too strangely, and had odd protrusions. Was it some other kind of monster?

As Daxton knelt to examine the thing more closely, it stirred. He jerked his hand back before he got too close, his heart thumping with a start. The ball rolled over, blinking ruby red eyes with dark half-circles underneath at him.

“Oh, hey Daxton.”

“Guh!” Daxton sprung back when the thing spoke to him. Now that he could see it had features, what he was looking at seemed quite clear… it was a human head! More specifically, it was the head of a familiar jellyfish girl who Daxton had seen many, many times before. Her blue skin was nearly gelatinous, which explained the strange shape her natural bell cap made against the flat tile floor. Her cap looked kind of like his own, except saggy, and blobby, and the same sky blue as the rest of her flesh. Tentacles fading from bright blue, to deep blue, to purple draped down from that jelly cap like sparse locks of hair. With a deadpan expression, the girl raised just one of her tentacles and waved at him with it.

“G’oh, shit, Abby?!” Daxton exasperated, his breathing picking up in a panic, “W-What the?!”

“Hi.” The girl, Abigail Condoleezza, seemed oddly undisturbed by her lack of anything from the neck down. “What’re you doing here?”

“What happened to you?!” Daxton asked, dropping to his knees and struggling to decide what to do. He opted to grab the girl’s head and pick it up, turning her upright in his grasp. Her tentacles hung down below her. Daxton remembered them to drape down to her chest, but that part of her was absent.

It felt strange to hold her while her facial features made the barely-there expressions she made. Ultimately, she appeared bored. “Eh,” She pouted her lip as if to shrug, “It’s kind of a long story.”

“I, you… H’whuh?” Daxton fumbled with his words.

Abigail snorted. “Hey, you help people. Help me find the rest of me, huh?” She studied Daxton’s utterly gob smacked expression and rolled her eyes. “I’ll tell you about it while we look.”

Daxton lifted his gaze from Abigail’s head and stared down the hallway, trying to reason with himself that seeing a girl’s disembodied head, still talking and moving like nothing was wrong, wasn’t the strangest thing he’d seen over the past while.

“Hey, you listening? Come on already.” Abigail cut in.

Daxton snapped to attention. “Uh! Right!” He said, “Uh, what’re we doing?”

“Finding the rest of my body,” Abigail informed him a second time with apparent disinterest, “It’s around… somewhere.”

-

--

-

“Woops, watch out for that one.”

Crack! Daxton took a club on the back of the head, making him hunch, flinch, and hiss in pain. He returned by whipping around, tossing his hand out, and blowing the little goblin that could away with a big, fat blast of light.

“You’re a real help.” The boy grimaced.

“Anyway, where was I…? Ah, right.” Abigail comfortably maintained her spot in Daxton’s hands. The boy ran with her cradled at abdomen level, and she just looked around at the passing scenery as they went from classroom to classroom looking around.

“Okay, so, last August I went on one of those OC message boards, you know? Hot young jellyfish looks for hot dick. Fun, right?” Abigail continued her story as Daxton searched. Honestly the boy wasn’t even sure how to feel about what he was hearing.

“So a guy from Locksmouth drops a line and I’m all, yaaay. I don’t really OC much, you know? So, totally fun. I get on the inter-dome train and away I go. I get to Locksmouth, meet this guy, and we decide just to order food and do absolutely nothing but grind on each other for three whole days.”

Daxton blushed, giving Abigail an odd look. Was it her story or the monotonous, casual way she told it that put him off? He couldn’t decide.

“Then, aliens. Kaboom. Aliens everywhere. But we’ve got food and stuff and his place is pretty safe so we just lock the door and keep going. What else are you gonna do during the apocalypse?”

Daxton stepped up to the door to the science lab, which was slightly ajar. Carefully he peeked into the room. The dim light from the sheer glass wall at the far end of the rows of lab tables and stools barely lit the place to any respectable degree. He couldn’t even see the monster at the other side of the door that lashed out the moment he moved the door even the fraction of an inch. A scratchy black tentacle smashed through the small glass window right next to Daxton’s head. He yelped and dropped down onto his butt on the floor, hunching down low to avoid the thrashing prana appendage as it whipped around trying at once to both find and throttle him. By chance, it whipped down and coiled around his neck like a rope, making him croak on his breath.

“Hey, you okay up there?” Abigail asked, lifting one tentacle to her forehead in some expression of concern. “Anyway, we go at it until we run out of pizza and sparkling water, and then we’re screwed. We gotta go out, get more food. So we both decide to go, because safety in numbers, and I wasn’t going to just hang around his place by myself. While we’re out, gray goopy people come outta nowhere and they grab him, y’know? Like zombies or whatever. He’s gray too, just like that. Real turn-off.”

Daxton kicked his feet and struggled with the thrashing tentacle that was trying to strangle the life out of him. Dropping Abigail’s head in his lap, he grabbed hold of the thing and tried to wrestle with it. He kicked his legs and thrashed around as well, bouncing Abigail’s head around until she simply tumbled onto the floor. He couldn’t suck in any air, making his lungs feel like dried up raisins. Just when his head started pounding and his vision got a little blurry, he managed to wrest the thing away from himself. Daxton then scrambled to his feet, inked over, and used the improved strength of Lumina’s Inkling form to drag a row of lockers in front of the then-broken door.

“Whew…” Daxton sighed. He coughed as he tried to catch his breath, returning to his regular form.

“Hey,” Abigail rolled her head on the ground a little, simply teetering to one side, “Rude.”

Daxton knelt down and picked her up again. “You wanna just get to the point already, Abby?”

“Well long story short one of those Inkling dweebs gets in me and this happens.” Abigail finished, “Tried to open the door to the guy’s apartment too hard and my hand popped off. Yeah. It was weird, but I got some lunchbox packages from the grocery store nearby, so I was good.”

Daxton could have figured that Abigail had an Inkling. It was literally the only thing capable of doing what she was doing. “So that’s probably why these things are all over the school…” He reasoned, “They go after Inklings. What’s yours called?”

“Kerplunk.”

Daxton’s ears swiveled up. “Screw off.”

Abigail tried to look up at him. “Serious.”

“You’re never serious.” Daxton said.

Abigail paused. “… Yeah, you’re right. Her name’s Kinex.”

“Serious?”

“Serious.”

Daxton would have squinted, if it were possible. Abigail had always been the kind of girl to just say things. Whether she was telling the truth or making something up entirely, she’d spit it out without any hesitation and deliver truth and lies with the same straight face. It made it almost impossible to tell if she were fibbing, granted she came up with a particularly convincing lie. That was the problem with her, in the end. She just couldn’t help herself. She delighted in the way she’d confuse and put people off. She thought it was hilarious, but it just made her alien to her peers. That easily explained how she managed to fall in with the wrong crowd. Her pack put these things on a pedestal rather than encourage her to take a different approach.

“Abby, when was the last time you saw Jimmy?” Daxton asked, tucking her head under his arm and resuming the search.

“Oh, you know… a while ago.” Abigail hummed.

“But he’s here,” Daxton pointed out, “And Lincoln too?”

Abigail tried to nod. “Yup, we got detention.” She said, then she snorted in amusement, “We snuck into the maintenance closet and changed the pressure in the fountains so they sprayed people in the face. It was hilarious.”

“When did you do that?” Daxton craned his neck to glare down at Abigail, who just stared right back up at him. That was the nature of their relationship. Jimmy, Abigail, and Lincoln were trouble-makers, and Daxton was the kind of guy who didn’t hesitate to tell them off. He and Jimmy, Abby’s pack leader, had gotten into more than one fight over various infractions such as the fountain prank they had apparently pulled and Daxton somehow missed.

Abby just averted her eyes and mumbled something incoherent as an answer.

“Oh, well, would you look at that,” Daxton glowered, “If you guys weren’t such huge jerks, you wouldn’t even be here right now.”

“Whatever,” Abigail said, “It was the tits.”

Daxton had reached the end of the hall, having checked through all the classrooms he could. The science labs, music room, and the four classrooms of no real specific purpose, all had turned up nothing. He found himself at the far end where he opened the doors to another stairwell, this one leading down to the first floor. That was the dangerous floor. Even stepping out into the stairs, Daxton could see that the further down the stairs went, the more… corrupted the entire building seemed to be. The clean white walls gave away to glowing white fissures, and the walls and floors eventually became one blank mess. It looked like an empty slide, a projector screen with nothing on it. In fact, he couldn’t quite see where the walls met the floor. Physical space seemed to lose its meaning down there, making it look more like a pit.

“Hey, speaking of tits…” Abigail nudged her head against Daxton’s side, and gestured with one of her tentacles up toward the ceiling.

Her torso was caught by her sweater on the light that hung down from the ceiling. As Daxton glanced up at it, it waved down at him. Abigail grinned, moving her arms even though her head was detached. Her frantic waving motions swung her floppy, over-long sleeves around, while the front of her maroon sweater, too big for her slender body, had ridden up and bunched around her chest, showing off her smooth blue abdomen and the bottoms of her perky breasts.

“Get me down, Daxton.”

Daxton didn’t give it a moment’s thought. He simply held his finger out like a gun and fired, shooting a thin beam of light up through one of the cables holding the light in place. There was a loud pop, a shower of sparks, and the entire thing gave way. Abigail’s torso fell several feet to the floor, hitting with a thud. She winced in Daxton’s grasp, sucking in a gasp as her graceful belly flop had winded her. It seemed even when apart from herself, Abigail not only had control over her body as if she were whole, but could still sense what her individual parts were going through. Daxton quickly knelt and grabbed the back of her sweater to haul her torso upright. She balanced perfectly on the stump where her waist would have met her hips, had they still been attached.

“Gimmie.” Abigail’s torso held up her hands, which were smothered by the long woolen sleeves that extended half a foot past them, instead making grabby shapes from under the fabric as it loosely danced around with her movements. Daxton handed down her head, which she took and placed right on the bare spot where her neck would connect to her collar. She seemed to stick like a suction cup, her neck sealing cleanly between her shoulders, only her head was on backwards. She rectified this by simply grabbing her head and spinning it. Her tentacles whipped in circles through the air as her head spun around a few times, then she stopped it when she was facing forward, as if to have screwed it on right.

“Woo!” Abigail shimmied on the floor, performing a twisting motion by utilizing her elbows for momentum, shifting her position only somewhat. She patted herself down, then reached up to tug the oversized, loose collar of her sweater open. She stuffed her face into it for a few seconds, and then withdrew. “Everything’s still here. Awesome.”

Now Daxton was looking at the upper body of a slender teenage girl, not that anyone would know it by what she was wearing. The maroon sweater she fancied, and rarely ever changed out of, was a fabric puddle around her. The sleeves were too long and the collar was too loose. It sagged to one side that exposed one of her shoulders. It wouldn’t have been hard at all to slip her out of it. Her gradient blue-to-purple tentacles hung down low enough to drape over her chest and mid-back. She put her hands on her cheeks and gave Daxton a big, beaming smile that almost seemed genuine. Almost. She was almost cute down there, all things considered.

She held her arms up, sleeves dangling, in a clear motion that she desired to be picked up. Daxton blushed and lifted her up by her underarms.

“Right, so, my legs, they’re around… somewhere.” Abigail said, glancing down toward her empty lower half. “I’m kicking my feet right now. I think I’m upside down again. They’re stuck in something, I can’t get out.”

“Something like what?” Daxton asked.

Abigail grunted like she was fussing, shimmying her torso around a little. “I dunno, like a tube or something? I think I lost one of my boots. Sure feels like it.”

Daxton shrugged. “I guess we’ll find it as we go,” He said, “So come on.”

He lifted Abigail and turned her around so he could place her on his back. She hung off his neck like a drawstring bag, and so he held onto her arms and hunched forward to shoulder her weight as conveniently as possible so he could keep going. He hauled her along, moving to the stairs to step down one at a time, carefully maneuvering without his hands free. The girl on his back used her tentacles to touch his ears, which had the sensation of little pin-pricks that made him flinch. “Onward, noble steed,” She said, “See? I knew you were good for something.”

“Stop touching me with those!” Daxton turned his head and pulled away from her. “Feels so freaky!”

Abigail withdrew her tentacles, and they resumed simply resting draped over Daxton’s shoulders as well. “S’not like I’m gonna poison you.”

“Don’t care,” Daxton said, “Knock it off or I’ll drop you here.”

“Pfft…” Abigail huffed, slumping onto his back in boredom.

When Daxton reached the bottom of the stairs, he stepped off into the white, empty void. His foot touched floor like it normally would have, but it was difficult to see where the walls were. Corners had seemingly been eliminated. The doorway into the first-floor corridors was still intact, and stood before him as they normally would, but seemed to do so in empty space. The boy stepped forward, and very carefully held out his hand to smooth it against the wall. It was still there, but not in the same space he was inhabiting. It looked more as if he was putting his hand up against nothing, stopped by an invisible force in the void. His footsteps reverberated and echoed in a way that made no sense either.

“This isn’t right,” His voice echoed far, further than should have been possible, “Weird…”

“Man, I don’t want to stick around here…” Abigail said, “Can we just find the others and go or what?”

Daxton couldn’t have been more on board with that plan. “Alright, but if I have to fight, I’m dropping you.”

“Yeah, sure, go ahead.” Abigail huffed, “No, that’s totally alright. Really. I don’t mind at all.”

“Yeah whatever.” Daxton chuckled, reaching out to push the doors open and step through into the blank nothingness that his school had become.

-

--

-

“Whew!”

Natalie skid, stumbled, bumbled, and waved her arm to keep balance before she stopped on her toes. Going from blurring speeds to a hard stop wasn’t the best idea, but she needed to rest. She’d given up Shading not long after fleeing from Epheral and instead switched simply to using powers un-inked, but she’d used a lot of prana to do it. On top of that, she needed to stop and get her bearings in Harbington. She hadn’t been there as many times as she had been to other domes like Anchorsway, so her sense of direction was failing her. Where was the mall? She looked up and down the streets and byways of Harbington trying to determine just where that was, in a place that was clear of enemies but showed obvious signs of their passing.

The small fox under her arm kicked its feet and flailed around, trying to wrest itself from her grasp. As it thrashed, she held it tight. “Hey! Settle down!” She said, but it only started to yip and yelp and growl, making it more than clear it did not want to be held. The pale blue Inkling animal would not hold still, and between its movements, size, and the inky flesh of it, it ended up slipping from her grasp.

“Hey!” Natalie turned and reached out for the animal, but it was long gone. She only turned in time to see it already several paces down the street. “Hey! Come back! Don’t…! Ugh.”

She’d grabbed the fox to save whatever Inkling it was bound with, the one who could blast the monsters away with gusts of wind. That was a clear, obvious power when she thought about it… and she’d already met Inklings of fire, ice, and water. Why not throw another element into the mix? Why it ran away, she didn’t know. She wanted to chase after it, but just when she decided to do so, activity from the distance caught her ear. A distant roar echoed through the air and managed to steal the girl’s attention away.

“Oh man…” Natalie gave one last look down the street where the fox had long since disappeared, frowning. “Sorry little guy, but if Epheral catches me it’s game over for us.”

Hoping that it would be safe, Natalie continued her dash through the streets. She forewent the use of Actima’s powers… she only had so much of that super speed to go around, and if she needed more genetic material to tap into it, odds were Actima wasn’t going to give it up. She took to a regular old run on her regular old feet, giving Echelon a well-deserved rest. She moved in the direction she thought the mall was in, keeping a close, watchful eye on her surroundings all the while. Epheral’s monsters were still roaming, though it seemed to be in smaller packs than before. Whenever one such roaming group stepped out onto the street, Natalie ducked into the alleys between the stores.

While she took her round-about route, she checked doors and windows, testing them to see if they would open. The trip to the mall on foot was dangerous, but if she could find just one mirror, she could go to Canvas and use the Hall of Mirrors to get back to the Balls in Your Court in the Harbington mall. Her tapping footsteps echoed in the alleys as she darted from door to door, service exits and fire escapes, tugging on the handles of each one if she could. Unfortunately, exits like that often only opened from the inside. She was met with disappointment in the first clothing store she’d found, and the two restaurants after that.

Back out to the main street. Natalie had hit the end of the block and needed to either cut across or head further out from the center of the dome. She hurried to the opening of the alley only to be stopped short by the appearance of marching prana construct soldiers – humanoid ones comparable in height to an actual adult, but bulkier. They clattered as if they wore armor, and they held weapons and shields in their hands. Natalie tucked herself back against the wall and kept out of sight, waiting to see if they might pass. She came to learn that there were a great number of them, however, as she waited and waited. She never counted, but she’d never seen that many in one place.

She decided to double back around the building and try to cut across on further back, perhaps go around the entire thing altogether. But as she rounded the corner, she saw the same thing: scores of “armored” prana constructs, geared for war, marching down the street. They seemed to be heading in the same direction, funneling in with the other group to make a major, driving force that stretched from one side of the street to the next.

That was an army she saw, and it worried her. Over her head, harpies flew, and soon the larger, ogre-like constructs were joining the main forces. Epheral seemed to be preparing for another siege.

Feeling uncomfortable being so close to them, Natalie sunk back into the alleyway and looked for another way out. She swept the place from brick to quasi-steel walls, only to find a ladder positioned some feet above her head that fed into a catwalk and stairs that scaled the building – an alternate fire escape that came down from the roof. That was an option, and perhaps her only one. The streets were becoming rather congested. Mapping out her method of ascent in her mind, she took a deep breath and sprung to action.

She ran at the nearby brick wall and stepped up onto it, using what speed she could manage to scale the mortar against gravity, and then leap off with arms outstretched. She barely managed to grab hold of the bottom rung of the ladder, shoulders strained as she swung forward, then back. She quickly steadied herself and pumped her legs into allowing her to climb, pulling her weight up until she could chance at grabbing the next rung. Huffing, puffing, and grunting, the wolf girl eventually hauled herself up to place her feet on the ladder and climb. From there it was a simple matter of taking the stairs up.

She marched with urgency, but not too quickly. As monsters passed by overhead, ranging from harpies to pterodactyl creatures, she did her best to stay low and unseen. The bulk of it had just passed when she reached the rooftop and stepped out onto it.

From there, seeing the mall was easy. In the distance, toward the center of the commercial sector, it stood three stories high, well above most other buildings.

That was when she turned and saw the dragon. She paused at the majesty of the thing – enormous, black, with the same white aura as the soldiers below. Its eyes blazed, peering straight at her from where it swooped from the sky. She’d never seen something so enormous – it looked as if it could have housed an entire prana crystal in its belly, easily. Its wings stretched open so far, spanning buildings almost, dark enough to blot out the sun. It was a scratchy monster, like a moving charcoal drawing… but it may as well have been the abyss. Its core was so dark and menacing, it practically sucked away natural light.

All that, and it was heading straight for her.

“Break time’s over, Echelon!” Natalie cried. At the mere mention of her Inkling partner’s name, Echelon took control. She housed Natalie’s form in her inky black skin, shining pink in the light, protecting the girl from harm as she turned, ran, and leapt.

Jacent’s powers made a running long jump into a street-spanning spectacle, boosting Echelon’s momentum like a rocket pack. On her heels, the dragon’s prana-breath bathed the rooftop of the building. It didn’t catch fire, like regular dragon’s breath may have done. Instead, it just crushed all it came into contact with, bearing down on the brick and mortar, cracking the classic structure of the store below, and buckling the roof. Echelon landed on the other side of the street on another building, and didn’t give herself time to even check where she was going before she was off again. She turned left, ran, and leapt, boosting across to the next building, and then the next, and the next. By then she’d drawn plenty of attention, and with the prana dragon chasing her over the rooftops, prana arrows had begun flying her way. Fortunately, Jacent’s boosting powers created such a rush of force, any that would hit were simply shattered before they could touch.

Landing on a slanted rooftop, she slid until the edge, then leapt, boosting across to another. She zig-zagged across the street like a ping-pong ball, batting away darkened arrows and harpies and pterodactyls alike. When she found flat ground again, she stumbled into a run. The dragon swooped past, the air rushing past it nearly blowing Echelon over. She ran, leapt, and boosted. The dragon landed before she could on the next building, crashing into the structure, digging its sharp, enormous claws into the roof, shattering the glass skylight that looked inside the place. Echelon was mid-air when this happened, and had no chance of stopping her forward momentum once it was in motion. The dragon’s eyes narrowed, and it reared back, inhaling deep with white, burning prana-energy blazing in its maw.

“Whoa whoa whoaaaa!” Echelon kicked her fit and swung her arms, only to land roughly on the rooftop in a tumble. She rolled forward, pushed onto her feet, and then fell into the broken skylight. The dragon’s breath washed over the rooftop as Echelon fell below. “Oh noooooo!” She cried, seeing only a mass of green and colour approaching her quickly.

When she landed, it was a soft landing in a bed of tall, lush sunflowers. They caught her like a net as she broke the stalks and stems of them, forcing them to bow under her weight. She still hit with impact, one that jarred her, but she was otherwise unharmed. Echelon shook out the daze quickly and bolted to sit up, only then to notice what had saved her. She had fallen right into the centerpiece of a florist’s shop. She’d ruined several sunflowers, and leaves had kicked up where she landed to rain down on the tile floor between the aisles where other flowers waited on display to be bought, in specialized growing containment that, while not solid like a hard-force shield, still managed to house the misty, well-lit conditions the flowers needed to grow and displayed holographic projections of price and species information.

The dragon peered down into the store, craning its long neck to push its head into the broken window. Echelon scrambled as the creature’s breath washed the area she’d been sitting on in that strange, altered prana flame. Whatever it touched, it broke. The flowers themselves were turned stark white and seemed to dissolve into glitter. The sheer amount of prana Echelon could feel off it was more than she’d ever thought possible for one single being to have. Even just getting near it, her own body felt out of whack. Epheral must have been using it to try and put her own energy off-kilter. The force of it hitting the floor was enough to throw her off the display and onto the tile.

“Urhg…” Echelon pushed off the ground, rising to her knees. She could see out the front doors of the store that the prana army was coming in. Soldiers and creatures were battering down the door. “Uuuugh…!” The Inkling girl groaned in frustration, getting her feet under herself so she could stand. There was no getting out, so she looked around the store to plot out her strategy… either that or her last moments on Earth. Natalie’s human heart pounded in anticipation of whatever might come.

But she felt better when she saw a full-length mirror fixed to one of the walls.

“Oh, heck yeah!” Echelon smiled. She almost skipped over to the mirror, which stood between two floral displays. Who knew why it was there? It didn’t really matter. The fact that it wasn’t shattered was a boon, and with the Dragon trying to squeeze its gigantic body in through the hole in the roof and the armies of evil breaking through the door, Echelon didn’t have time to worry about such trivial things. Instead, she simply pressed her hands to the reflective surface of the glass, and as soon as she felt any give at all, she threw herself into it.

When she appeared at the other end, in Castle Blackwolf’s Hall of Mirrors, the mirror she just stepped out from cracked and fractured. It had been immediately shattered on the other side.

“Whew…” Echelon breathed a sigh of relief, dropping to her knees in the middle of the hall. Her legs felt like jelly. It had been some time since she was that scared. She took her time catching her breath, collecting her thoughts, and letting her heartbeat settle. Her mind cleared, giving her purchase to think straight once again.

That gathered force was quite large… the largest she’d seen, by far. There had to be a hundred prana creatures, possibly more, and a massive dragon. They were numerous and organized. They had been marching through the streets, all funneling toward one spot.

“The mall!” Echelon voiced her conclusion, “Damn it!”

She stood and threw her hand aside, sending the mirrors into a breakneck slide before her, tens of them passing by in the blink of an eye of all shapes and sizes until the Balls in Your Court bathroom mirror stopped on a dime in front of her. The writing Kenny had left was still there, marking it clearly.

Wasting no time, Echelon leapt through the mirror. At least she’d get there first.", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Issue 25: Motive", "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": "6", "views": "153" }