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Mistakes are learned from with no small amount of strife.", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Heroes and heroism come in all shapes and sizes, but for all of them the acts of the hero can leave painful reminders of just what it means to live in the service of others.That pain can come from anywhere; be it the villains, the very people one serves, or the heroes themselves. Mistakes are learned from with no small amount of strife.", "writing": "A brilliantly burning ball of pure luminescence drifted in a lazy trajectory to get between two construct soldiers who were guarding the hospital doors. They fired at it, but their weapons found no purchase against the energy manifested, and when the orb was positioned directly between the two, it burst in a rush of photonic power that threw the constructs away, shattering them upon impact with the ground. With the way cleared, Lumina ducked out of hiding behind the posted Locksmouth General Hospital sign in the grassy knoll in front of the building. Duplex was close behind her, the two of them making a dash for the doors and getting inside before Epheral’s soldiers could converge on them. Lumina barged through with her shoulder, throwing the doors open with a loud slam that echoed through the empty reception lobby.\n\nDuplex bounded in behind, panting for breath when the doors closed after her.\n\n“How are you holding up?” Lumina asked the other Inkling, gently resting a hand on her shoulder to be there for her while she caught her breath.\n\n“Fine!” Duplex answered, “We are fine. We’re holding together.”\n\n“Literally,” Lumina commented, checking her palm for any residue from the blue and yellow lava lamp that Duplex had become, finding her hand bare of any ink that should otherwise compose Duplex’s form. “Good.”\n\nThey scanned the immediate area for threats and survivors and found neither. “What do you think?” Lumina asked.\n\nDuplex looked around the foyer and stepped forward to check behind the desk in case anyone was hiding. The lights were dim, running on emergency power. That would have been because of the damage they saw on the outside as they were coming in. Epheral’s construct-spawning prana crystal hadn’t touched down near the hospital like Officer Murphy had said, but rather it had crashed into the hospital, and had put a hole in the upper-west side of the building. That meant the constructs were already inside, and the Inklings had to work fast. Duplex checked up and down each corridor splitting off from the place, able to see more soldiers coming in from that west side.\n\nDuplex split apart into a trio of inked pig girls and hurried to create a barricade using the waiting benches in the foyer. Even though they were bolted firmly to the ground, the cloned pigs were able to heft it up on either end, causing the plastic supports to creak and break apart, separating it from its foundation. They pushed it to bar the entrance to the west wing, while Lumina took a position behind the newly-made cover and began firing at the advancing troops down the hall. Duplex got out of the way, hiding off to either side of the entryway, while the original kept a wide berth and hid well out of sight.\n\nLumina went between sticking her head out to fire beams down the hall and ducking down to avoid the return fire. The few constructs that were coming at her were struck down, with the very last shattering over the barrier that Duplex had put in place. It was a close call.\n\n“We’re reminded of when this all started…” One of the Duplexes said, sighing as they gathered around Lumina. “But more important than that, we have to find the patients and doctors. We don’t see anyone here.”\n\n“My bet is that we’ll find them in the direction those soldiers are coming from,” Lumina said. She looked past the gathered trio of pigs to read the display screen sign over the corridor. “Maternity, neonatal, or physio…”\n\nDuplex and its duplicates all soured their expressions. “They better leave those babies alone.”\n\n“Or the mothers,” Lumina added, “They don’t need this kind of stress.”\n\n“Then we have to go!” Duplex insisted.\n\nLumina stood, taking a moment to just take in the scene around her. Three Duplex duplicates were with her, already having done some heavy lifting just getting them to the hospital. She didn’t appear any worse for wear, though her strangely dimorphic body was such a queer sight, even among Inklings, that she couldn’t help but wonder. “You’re fine with this? It wasn’t long ago that you had doubts about playing the role of a hero.”\n\nDuplex brought it’s duplicates together, standing before Lumina rank and file. “Maybe we’re not heroes, but still… many hands make light work, you know?” One said, “We can support you, if nothing else, but if it’s possible… we’d like to avoid having to fight. It feels like Epheral could tear us apart again at any moment.”\n\n“How comforting that she could do the same to me.” Lumina said snidely, “She is welcome to try, of course. I believe that compared to Osoth, Epheral is not so frightening. Epheral is a much simpler force, even if she is strong. I don’t need to watch my back at every moment. Subterfuge doesn’t seem like Epheral’s style.”\n\n“This is correct,” Duplex said, “Epheral has long abandoned any sense of subtlety or guile. She relies entirely on snowballing – gaining more and more power rapidly until she can’t be stopped. We really need to find this crystal and get rid of it and as many of her constructs as we can.”\n\n“That sounds like slowing her down, not stopping her.” Lumina said.\n\nOne of Duplex’s copies nodded. “Because that’s exactly what it is. Until we have a clear shot at Epheral’s core, we have to slow her down as much as possible.”\n\n“When will it be too late?” Lumina asked.\n\nDuplex’s copies looked at one another. The one center of the group offered a sorry expression. “We believe that will be obvious when the moment comes.”\n\n“No more time to waste then,” Lumina said, hopping the barrier, “Come on.”\n\nDuplex and its duplicates climbed over the would-be barricade one at a time and followed the light of Lumina as they descended into the darkened corridors of Locksmouth General Hospital.\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\nA stray shot from Epheral’s soldiers nearly clipped Sylph right in the head. She ducked back around the corner, cursing her luck. She was having trouble crossing the precipice into the hotel rooms. Epheral’s soldiers were many, and the hallways were only so wide as to fit maybe three or four people across. It made sense that they’d be able to form an impassible barrier, doubling as a firing line. It didn’t help that they had all sorts of things to hide behind – knocked over trollies, odds and ends, and the occasional piece of luggage served well enough as cover against Sylph’s rifle; and hers was non-lethal. Epheral’s soldiers, on the other hand, shot to injure or kill, whichever came first.\n\nLaila had never been shot at by a deadly weapon before. Very few humans in the last long while had. All the symbiotic strength in the world didn’t make her any more used to the sensation any faster. Sylph stared at the clear-cut hole that had been blown out of the corner of the wall. It was narrow and flat, and very sharp at the edge. Those were bullets that could hit hard and cut deep at the same time. They were made to pound, then tear. It could do a number on Inkling and human alike, and the cherry on that sundae was Epheral’s corrupted prana being left behind to infect the target like a disease. She’d eat them away, just like half the buildings in Harbington.\n\nLaila was scared. Worse still, so was Sylph. How many more narrow misses could she pull off before she found herself on the wrong end of one of those things? Neither the Inkling nor the host wanted to be eaten alive from the inside out and churned up into some prana-like mess to power a psychopathic core with a chip on her shoulder.\n\n“The heck am I don’ here…?” Sylph muttered, seating herself with her back flush to the wall. She stared at the weapon in her hands and had half a mind to throw it across the hotel lobby. She felt disgusting holding onto it. Weapons were disgusting things, beneath someone like her. Yet, there she was, using it and her powers to blow her enemies apart. Air was terribly effective at taking life, and Sylph had thought she’d grown out of such things.\n\nTo soldiers bolted out from the corner to turn on her and fire. With a cry, she blew them away with a gale that stuck them like a wall, lifting their shattering bodies off their feet and sending them flying so fast and so powerfully that they crashed through the windows at the far side of the lobby, and punched a hole into the shutters. Their blasted-apart, jagged pieces tore a hole into the sturdy, resilient material like she was punching through a paper bag. Their constructed bodies didn’t last the trip, barely a piece of them touched the stonework walkways outside. Cold air rushed in through the opening and wafted over the empty lobby. The air came back and wrapped around Sylph with a chill, making her shiver in discomfort.\n\nShe sighed and hung her head. “Reckon I was done with this… Thought it’d be just a short jaunt. Quick like a bunny, then I’d be gone. I don’t like this.”\n\nShe pressed her head back against the wall despondently. She didn’t want to be fighting, even if she told herself it was for a good cause. Running was more her forte. Not many people could catch her. Were it any other time, she’d have already left Earth and been well on her way somewhere else; anywhere else. It never mattered where she’d go, as long as she was free and didn’t have to fight everything everywhere she went. Sylph could not for the life of her understand why she chose to stay.\n\n“Hello?” A voice, muffled and almost too quiet to hear, came from just a short way down the hall. The wind carried the gentle voice to Sylph’s ears, and the Inkling looked up to hear it call out again. “Hello? Is someone there?”\n\nEpheral’s soldiers didn’t speak, so she was sure that was a human. “Hey!” She called back, “It’s. uh, me! Laila!”\n\n“Laila?” The voice repeated. It sounded like a young girl. “Oh, thank goodness! Laila, we need help. We’re stuck and can’t get out.”\n\n“Who’s that?” Sylph asked, “Reckon I heard you somewhere before.”\n\n“Um… Harley,” The girl said, “It’s me, Harley! Laila, please… we’re scared. We really want to get out of here.”\n\nSylph peeked around the corner. She saw the linen closet door, all bent out of shape and jammed. Harley’s voice was coming from in there. “Anyone hurt in there?” She asked.\n\n“No,” Harley answered, “We’re okay, we’re just so scared. Can you get us out? Please?”\n\nSeeing Epheral’s forces gathering down the hall, Sylph ducked back. She had to save Abigail and Lincoln, and now she had to save these kids. She decided that would be difficult, and the most inconvenient, but proper thing to do. She didn’t have anybody giving her orders, it was her choice to do it. She’d been used to choice a bit longer than most Inklings, and she’d exercised it like it was going out of style. To do, or not to do, was up to her. That situation, though… doing nothing meant that others could get hurt. Even though it was the easiest option, she knew it wasn’t really an option at all. Doing nothing was what got the gray fox’s kit killed by Epheral. Hiding and running hadn’t done anything to change that.\n\nShe so wanted to do it, even so. She was bonded with a human now, though, and that human voice inside her was screaming at her to get up and get moving. Sylph did not like being told what to do… but she’d let it slide, just this once.\n\nEpheral’s soldiers had formed a dual firing squad. A row of them kneeled to fire down the hall toward her, while a row behind that stood tall to fire over the first. The sudden barrage of prana bullets startled Sylph out of her procrastination, and she pulled herself further around the corner to avoid the slightest possibility of getting struck. The bullets tore up the lobby across from her, peeling up destruction wherever they hit. The kids in the closet all screamed, thinking that what they were hearing was surely the end having come for them.\n\n“Nuh uh,” Sylph said, readying her weapon, “Ain’t no more lil’ kits getting’ whacked if I got anythin’ worth sayin’ about it.”\n\nTaking a deep breath, she steeled herself before leaping out around the corner. Bullets struck her immediately, and the burning pain was quick and intense. Her body wanted to bunch up squat and fall to the floor as the white-hot prana bullets cut into her face, her shoulders, her stomach and her legs. Her inky body rippled and twisted out of shape with jagged ends of prana shards sticking out of it every which way, turning her into a pin cushion. She cried out and threw her weapon forward, swinging the rifle, and with it, kicking up a gale of wind that tore back into the barrage like a hurricane. The walls shook, the light fixtures were torn from the walls, the linen closet door was scooped up and taken away by the rush of air, and the soldiers’ bullets were turned back around on those who fired them. The maelstrom bulldozed through the halls, taking doors, lights, and debris with it, barreling into the construct soldiers like a wrecking ball. The shards in Sylph’s body were ripped out by the force of the wind, and her body snapped back into shape, albeit with some glowing scars. She rushed forward, following her buffet of wind by launching herself into the hallway after it. She tore up carpet and wall in her wake, the sound of her launch resembling that of a thunder strike.\n\nHer power was stifled so much indoors. No sooner had she taken off had she tried to slow herself. Her body tore through the soldiers blocking her way, riding the wind so swiftly that her impact was too much to withstand. They shattered like glass all around her, and her form blew past faster than they could fly apart. In less than a second, she found herself at the end of the hallway, and the last door was coming at her faster than she could even register it.\n\nBAM.\n\nShe stopped. The world spun around her, feeling like gravity was finally catching up with her speed. Inertia hit, heaving her insides toward her face in whiplash, making her harshly exhale. “Buuuh!” She lurched forward, expecting to fall but finding herself constructed. She blinked her eyes and shook her head, her inky ponytail slapping her in the face. “What the…?” Her shoulders were bunched up against her sides, and she twisted and wiggled to try and find some purchase. Lifting her head, she finally realized just where she was as she stared into the small den of a hotel room, a queen size bed off to the side, a couple cowering under the sheets that shook with their fright as they stared at her.\n\nShe’d blown a hole right through the door with her own body.\n\nTrying to move her legs was useless, as she’d piled up so much debris behind her that she had effectively barricaded the room with the doors of several other rooms. She still held the rifle she had, but on the outside of the door against her stomach where her hands were pinned. She grunted and fussed as she tried desperately to free herself. At the very least, she sent a gust of wind back behind her to blow the doors pinning her away, pushing them off herself and revealing her backside stuck wedged in the hole she’d bashed into the door.\n\n“Tarnation!” She shouted, “Dag nabbit! N’ other things like that!”\n\nThe couple on the bed were holding one another tightly, shaking with fright. They stuttered and whimpered, not sure of what to make of the situation. They screamed when the refrigerator flew open, its door slamming against the wall. From within, Lincoln tumbled out with various pieces of Abigail following him. He rolled onto the floor and sat up, holding Abigail’s head in his hands, swaying in place as his head spun. Abigail’s various limbs plopped onto the ground all around him, writhing in discomfort, though the expression on her face looked no different than usual.\n\nSylph sighed, surrendering to her situation and receding into her host. Laila blinked at Lincoln as he stared quizzically at her.\n\n“… Did you seriously bash your head through the door?” Abigail asked, her head barely tilting in question between Lincoln’s crossed legs.\n\nLaila stared at her, unimpressed. “Did ya’ll seriously hide in a fridge?” She asked, trying to squirm her way out again. “Ya’ll got any butter in there?”\n\nOn the other side of the door, Harley, Isabella, Brooklyn and Oliver approached. They were confused and cautious, stepping delicately toward the door. Seeing that Sylph had given way to Laila once more, they were relieved. Brooklyn was the first to step forward, staring in wonder. Reflected in her glasses was Laila’s wriggling backside, her tail whipping around out the back of her jumpsuit in frustration.\n\n“Yay!” Brooklyn beamed, zipping forward and throwing her arms around Laila’s legs in a hug. She mashed her face against one of Laila’s butt cheeks, nuzzling into it like one would a fond family member. “Our hero!”\n\nLaila yipped, bolting up and kicking her foot back, knocking Brooklyn to the floor. “Who’s there?! Watch what yer grabbin’ on!” She shouted, shooting a glare backwards at the door.\n\nHarley took a moment to check on Brooklyn, who had gotten the wind kicked out of her and was wheezing for breath on the floor but seemed otherwise happy. She stepped over the frog and toward Laila, carefully moving aside to avoid any more kicks. “Laila?” She said, “Are you okay?”\n\n“Huh?” Laila’s anger gave way to concern, “That you, lil’ lady? Harley? Ya’ll okay back there?”\n\n“We didn’t get to see anything!” Oliver complained, “What did you do? One second we were in that dark room, then WOOSH! The door flew RIGHT OFF! And it was super windy and everything went FWOOSH, sucked down the hall super fast! Did you use your wind powers? How did you get stuck in the door?”\n\n“… And are you okay?” Harley repeated.\n\nLaila tried again to wiggle free, only twisting and grunting, shaking her hips to Brooklyn’s delight. “I’m stuck proper!” Laila said, “But I’m right as rain! Just… stuck!”\n\n“Don’t worry!” Brooklyn bounced forward to grab one of Laila’s legs. She was met with another sudden kick as Laila yelped, knocking a croak out of the frog girl and sending her back to the floor. Brooklyn coughed, wheezed, and took a shot from her pen to get her breath back before getting right back on that horse, so to speak. She grabbed Laila’s leg and held it firm. “We’ll get you out! Everybody, grab her legs!”\n\n“What?! Hey, what’re you doin’ back there?!” Laila barked.\n\nBrooklyn’s glasses shined with almost sinister glee. “Yeeees, her long, lovely legs. Hurry up everyone!”\n\nIsabella shrugged, flicking her bangs away from her eyes before striding forward and grabbing Laila’s other leg. Oliver and Harley were close behind, and with two of them to a leg, they began to heave. Brooklyn lead the charge, counting them down. “One, two, pull!” The kids grunted, and Laila’s eyes bugged uncomfortably as they pulled hard on her to try and get her back through the hole. “Again! One, two, pull!” The kids grunted and tugged, giving it all they had to yank the giraffe free.\n\n“Ow!” Laila yelped, “Watch it y’little varmints! Ah! Gentle, darnit!”\n\nAbigail, having literally pulled herself together, cast a shadow over Laila’s front. “Since when did you like gentle?” She asked, barely grinning.\n\nLaila gave her the huffy look of an annoyed bull, but Abigail smothered it with the floppy sleeves of her sweater as she shoved on Laila’s head to help in the efforts. “Heave, ho.” The jellyfish chanted flatly, barely putting any effort into it at all, no more than it took it annoy and further inconvenience her savior at any rate. Somehow, between her efforts and that of the kids, a few good, solid tugs that felt like they’d dislocate Laila’s hips finally succeeded. The giraffe popped back out the other side, the kids tumbling behind her as she landed among them. While she was glad to not feel a door constricting her ribs whenever she tried to breathe, she did get up quickly. Little Oliver had been squashed beneath her, but he seemed to just be giggling over the whole thing and not terribly hurt at all.\n\nBrooklyn bounced up and down pumping her fists in the air one after the other. “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” She shouted. Harley clapped her hands quietly, and Isabella just rolled her eyes at the antics of her companions. Laila looked at them all in turn and couldn’t help but crack a smile herself. Abigail reached through the hole in the door and opened it from the outside, letting it slide open before she stepped out, nearly bowled over by Lincoln, who zipped out to latch on to Laila’s back and squeeze her for dear life.\n\nAbigail gave her a careful consideration. “Took you long enough.”\n\nThe kids’ disposition soured immediately upon seeing Abigail there. Isabella stepped forward, pushing Laila aside. All she said was, “Move.” Then, she slapped Abigail across the face. Abigail cocked her head aside, flinching a little, and her usual line-mouth turned into a bit of a frown. The slap left a faint red handprint right on her cheek.\n\n“You nearly got us killed!” Isabella yelled at the girl, “You fucking stupid bitch!”\n\n“Yeah you… suck! You suck a lot!” Oliver joined in. Brooklyn crossed her arms and turned her head away, raising her chin in haughty dismissal of the jellyfish girl. “You are the least cool Inkling who ever lived!” She added. Harley, not prone to outburst or anger, crossed her arms too and just stared daggers into Abigail.\n\n“That makes you even less cool than Osoth.” Brooklyn huffed, “The Inkling Fan Club officially recognizes you as a big stupid jerkface.”\n\nAbigail gave them a side-eyed look, and then just focused on a point on the wall.\n\nLaila joined in on being unimpressed with Abigail, but a thought hit her that demanded attention. “Oh for the love of…” She reached out and grabbed Abigail’s arm, pulling her forward, “You, get’cher butt over here. Now.”\n\nShe stumbled back, her grip suddenly being hit with slack. Abigail’s arm flopped out of her sleeve and onto the floor, and Laila nearly tripped over the kids. The giraffe was surprised, for a moment, but when she looked at Abigail’s face, the jellyfish girl was staring defiantly back at her. Laila doubled down, picking up Abigail’s arm, then squatting down to pick up the entirety of Abigail. She threw the girl over her shoulder and then turned to march down the hall, with both Abigail and Lincoln dangling off her back. Confused, the younger kids followed them, with other citizens and civilians starting to peek out of their doors since the commotion had settled.\n\nLaila marched them out into the lobby. They didn’t have to get all the way before Lincoln dropped off Laila’s back and zipped forward on his wings in a hurry. “Jimmy!” he cried. He zipped over to his friend’s side and grabbed hold of him with one hand, and his own hair in the other. He pulled on his white locks while squeezing Jimmy’s arm for dear life. Jimmy growled in pain but seemed too weak and battered to do anything about it.\n\nJimmy’s entire upper arm was a spider web of prana fractures, all the way down to the bicep. They spread out under his clothes, the tendrils of it creeping over his collar and toward his neck. He was sweating, and teary-eyed, letting out little whimpers of pain before he could collect himself and try to maintain some semblance of composure in front of a crowd. He panted for breath, seeming to strain to do so, wincing when breathing too hard hurt.\n\nHe looked at Abigail as Laila was putting her down. “You’re okay,” He smiled, “That’s g… gnh… great.”\n\nAbigail turned to see him, and her brows twitched. “What…” She barely got the question out before Laila shoved her arm back to her, and then forcibly held Abigail so she couldn’t turn away.\n\n“THIS is your fault!” Laila scolded her. “YOU did this!”\n\nAbigail was stricken speechless for a moment as she stared at Jimmy’s obvious injuries. She winced in disgust at the way that weird prana stuff looked like it was burrowing through his body. She quickly tried to get her thoughts together. “No, I didn’t,” She said, “I didn’t do anything.”\n\n“Oh yes you did!” Laila argued, “You screwed around, and people got hurt! And it’s not just your fault, it’s all your faults!”\n\nLincoln bolted upright and stared pleading at Laila. Jimmy just dropped his head. Abigail pulled away from Laila and turned to face her defiantly. “We didn’t mean to get Jimmy hurt,” She said, “That was the monsters, they did that.”\n\n“And what about us?!” Isabella added. By now, people were coming out of their rooms to see what was going on, and Abigail looked around to see them closing in. She scratched her cheek with her detached arm and kind of rolled her eyes to look of somewhere else. “Well, I mean… They’re fine.” She said, “They just got stuck in a room, they were probably safer in there anyway. See? They’re fine. You don’t have to cry about it.”\n\n“Y-Yeah! It’s not like we were trying to get people hurt or anything!” Lincoln rushed to defend himself, fidgeting incredibly nervously. “Back off! Let’s just get Jimmy some help!”\n\n“OH.” Laila started, exasperating, “MY GOD. Ya’ll…! You bunch just don’t know when t’quit, do ya?! Ya’ll just can’t turn it off, can ya?! Ya’ll just do whatever you want, nuts to anyone else and whoever ya hurt! You do this ALL THE TIME! What’n the heck is so messed up in ya’ll’s brains that ya’ll can’t see what you do to people?! Yer gonna tell me while one of you gets burned up into prana for Epheral’s goons, that NOTHIN’S WRONG? SERIOUSLY?!”\n\nLincoln was frozen. Abigail stared at Laila as the giraffe took a moment to cool off. “… What do you mean burned up into prana?” Abigail asked calmly, “… Do you mean… Jimmy’s really in trouble?”\n\n“Gee!” Laila grabbed Abigail again and turned her around, thrusting her hand out to display Jimmy’s clearly afflicted, barely conscious form, “YA THINK?”\n\nLaila stepped out in front and grabbed Abigail’s cheek, stretching it far out to the side to make her wince in discomfort. “Abby, darlin’, sweetie-pie, blue razzleberry, listen to me. Ya’ll are so darn stupid, yer gonna get someone you care about a whole heck of a lot killed.”\n\nShe released Abigail’s cheek, and it snapped back. The girl rubbed her face, staring at Jimmy. “… Killed?”\n\nLaila sighed somberly. “Yeah.”\n\n“… But…” Abigail started, but couldn’t finish, sounding as if she had every intention of deflecting the blame somewhere else.\n\nLincoln teared up, his big, red eyes glossing over. “But I don’t want Jimmy to die!” He cried, sniffling, “No!”\n\nThe kids, so angry at them just a second ago, crowded around in concern. They didn’t know what was happening, but Jimmy appeared to be in a tremendous amount of pain and seeing that overrode their earlier disdain. “Oh, my goodness,” Harley said, her expression twisting up on the brink of tears, “How awful.” Isabella covered her mouth and rubbed her face uncomfortably. Brooklyn looked flat-out scared of the possibility that someone could die to Epheral. Many others were horrified that the same thing could happen to them if they weren’t careful.\n\nAbigail reattached her arm, just so she could wrap both around herself. “Uh…” She shifted uncomfortably, though her expression changed very little, her eyes and body language said it all. She was feeling the vibe of the room. Laila stared angrily at the back of Abigail’s head. The longer it took her to say anything toward taking ownership of the situation, the more Laila’s anger grew. After a while, she couldn’t take it anymore. Truly and wholly disgusted by her ex-pack’s actions once again, she spat onto the floor.\n\n“You were raised better, Abby.” She said, the honey of her twang lost to a dry, barren tone of pity.\n\nAbigail looked up at Laila and said with a tinge of anger, “Screw. You.”\n\nLaila stepped way, past the teens and the kids and out toward the blown-out hole in the shutter. The wind caught her hair, whipping it into her face as she stepped outside into the crummy weather. Combing it away, she stared out over the pier and at the ugly, malformed crystal that had smashed into the boardwalk. With the people in the hotel seeming safe now, Laila turned her sights on that. Sylph was all but drained, though. There was going to be no Inkling help on this one. Still, it was up to her to take that thing out, however she could.\n\nThe thing seemed to twist and shift. No doubt it was ready to churn out another battalion of soldiers to make her life hell. Shaking off the lingering feelings of hate for her former friends, Laila set out to find a way to get the job done. She swept her gaze across the pier and the beach, looking for anything that might make a big enough impact to shatter that thing for good. Given the size of it, it would have to be something awful significant… something powerful. Something she couldn’t hope to lift on her own.\n\nShe settled her gaze on the small collection of vehicles that were still scattered around the hotel. Some of them weren’t even parked properly. People had certainly been in a rush.\n\nShe looked back at the small crowd that had gathered at the shutters. “Hey,” She said, “Who here ain’t all that attached to their car? The bigger, the better.”\n\nShe was answered by a few hesitantly raised hands. That put a smile back on her face. “That’ll do, I reckon.”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\nFor the time being, merging back into a single entity was best for Duplex. There was no sense crowding the halls and moving as a large group when it wasn’t both obvious where to go and more beneficial to be trouncing around in large numbers. Even if the prana soldiers could easily sniff them out by their prana signatures, like Epheral could, it was still faster to move as a pair rather than a herd. It wouldn’t have served to get too far from Lumina’s light anyway. The emergency lighting was barely passable, and that left plenty of things to trip over. Not that the hospital wasn’t kept clean – even in the distress they were in, there weren’t any obstacles left cluttering the halls. Still, knowing Duplex, it would have easily tripped up over a waiting bench or a planter, or even a water cooler somewhere.\n\nChances weren’t something they could afford to take. Lumina took few herself, as any soldier she saw, no matter what they were doing or if they were coming at her or not, she took them down. Using corners as cover, she blasted down anything that got in their way while keeping an eye out for where the trapped patients and doctors might be. It was proving to be more and more difficult the deeper they got. Epheral’s forces were getting more varied, which didn’t help matters. Foot soldiers and rocket troopers were bad enough in numbers, but she had begun forming marksmen, shield-bearers, and grenadiers as well. They were moving in strategic unit formations to maximize their effectiveness. Long-range targets kept back and distanced themselves from any fighting, and things like the shield-bearers were taking point up front, creating a thick prana wall to chisel through before any other progress could be made.\n\nFortunately, there was no distance light could not reach, and no force too dark it could not penetrate. It may have been by the skin of their teeth most of the time, but Lumina saw them through. It was taking its toll, however. Her light dimmed as her prana energy was spent, and it wasn’t long before she was just barely a better alternative than the dim emergency lighting. Tired, strained, she kept herself alight as a beacon to follow, and did her best to shoulder the burden. She may not have been a fighter much in the past, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from giving it everything she could spare.\n\nAfter burning down one more soldier in the span of many, Duplex and Lumina happened upon a large viewing window. They kept down low to creep under its span, to avoid getting seen by anything or exposing themselves as a target. The light inside whatever room it was flickered, lighting the hallways erratically. The struggling circuits provided the only noise in the otherwise sterile, quiet air of the hospital. They were in deep enough that there was nary a window to let the outside in, and the place only seemed to get more still and silent as they went on. There were no further threats up the corridor, and so once they reached the center, where anything rounding the corners ahead or behind would grant them many precious moments to react, they stopped to rest. Lumina glanced up at the signage on the wall that hung overhead amidst a small gallery of bright, colourful paintings. “This is the nursery,” She said, “Right in this room.”\n\nCuriously, Duplex turned and got up on its knees to peek over the bottom edge of the window. It moved slowly and only rose as far as necessary to see into the room, barely clearing half the precipice. The room was clean, colourful, and pleasant-looking. Untouched, it seemed, by Epheral’s soldiers – not that Epheral herself would have cared. Children weren’t off-limits for her and hadn’t been for a while. Infants weren’t spared this lack of discrimination either. That not even the door was damaged was a good sign, and when Duplex got enough of a view to see well to the floor, whatever cribs were left over were empty. Duplex sighed in relief and lowered again to press its back against the wall. “All gone,” It said, “They probably got moved.”\n\n“Well, that’s good!” Lumina said, “Then we don’t need to worry ourselves here. Let’s move on.”\n\nDuplex set its gaze on a small crack creeping up from the floor, just an inch or so from the base of the wall. The little fracture was glowing white. “What do you think happened to them?” Duplex asked, pushing doom say from her mind. “Where would they go? It has to be somewhere that could hold them all, plus the doctors and other patients.”\n\n“It couldn’t be maternity,” Lumina said, “Most maternity wards are kind of small, aren’t they?”\n\n“Not enough births to justify making them bigger,” Duplex concluded, “So what would there be more of?”\n\n“I don’t know…” Lumina said, “… Not-babies?”\n\nDuplex turned its attention to the signs above, ponderously. Each sign had a coloured square on it to match a coloured line on the floor. These lines split off at various junctions and joined along side others in places, all with the intent to lead any hospital personnel or visitor to the area they needed to be. A pink line had lead them to the nursery, and that line rounded the corner to no doubt end up at the door, which Duplex knew would be security locked. A yellow line broke away at the junction up the hall, which would have lead them to the daycare center, where most young toddlers would have been brought to be looked after. Physio’s purple line followed the yellow line, where people of all ages would have gone to do multiple range of movement exercises to encourage the recovery of their motor skills in case of injury.\n\n“Well…” Duplex began.\n\n“Wait,” Lumina cut it off, “I hear something. Shh.”\n\nDuplex stopped and went silent. The Inklings pricked their ears up and listened. The halls remained silent, dead air lingering in the space with barely even the buzz of power to accompany it. Then, suddenly, something shifted. Like the scuff of a shoe on the tiled floor, and Duplex looked down as if it expected to see a black streak where someone’s shoe rubbed off. The sound was brief, half a second in and gone all the quicker. Lumina rose to her knees and investigated the nursery again, able to see out the other two viewing windows on the far side and end of the room. Epheral’s prana soldiers often stood out against the dark, super-imposed into reality as they were. Lumina didn’t see anything like that, and so part of her wondered if perhaps someone was walking around outside the safety of whatever haven the doctors undoubtedly had set up. Still, she wasn’t going to call out, not until she knew for sure what was going on out there. She moved to get up and ushered Duplex along to follow her, and the two of them crept forth into the darkness to investigate further.\n\nThey reached the T junction at the end of the hall. No one was to the left. No one was to the right. The halls remained empty, not even a prana soldier to stop them. They stopped and listened again for any sound that would tip them off as to which direction they should go. For several moments, there was only silence. Several moments longer, and they gave up trying and simply guessed. Moving toward physio and following the purple line, they continued to creep and move as quietly as they could. Their inked feet moved like well-fitting slippers on the ground; not noisy in the slightest, save for maybe the occasional softest tap of their feet.\n\nLumina lead the charge, her ears straining to pick up on even the slightest sound. She had to find who or what that was, either to take it out, or to protect them if they were human. Duplex followed behind, struggling to keep up as Lumina moved much more deftly than it did. The two of them followed the purple line all the way to the physiotherapy room, where Lumina stopped and threw the doors open to look inside.\n\nThe room resembled a small gym in many ways. The equipment inside was the same sort one would find in any publicly available exercise center. Stationary speed bikes, stair climbers, weight benches, and a variety of mats, climbing apparatuses, and hand bars for balancing gave patients several means to assist in regaining mobility. The floors were almost soft, like a clay court, and the walls were clean and white. The lights were off entirely, and the room was pitch black. Only Lumina’s own glow allowed them to peer inside. The room seemed empty, which at least assured them that the survivors weren’t holed up in there.\n\nLumina and Duplex lingered for several moments, scanning the room from the entryway just to make sure they didn’t miss anything. They were just about to turn away when something was knocked over, a metallic clanging sound giving it away. Lumina whipped back and stepped into the room, finally calling out. “I know you’re in here, whoever you are! Come out!”\n\nNo response came, and so Lumina moved further into the room. Duplex followed, but Lumina stopped it. “Stick to the doors,” She said, “In case they try to run.”\n\nBeing all for taking any opportunity to hang back, Duplex nodded and took up a position blocking the door. It stood there in the center of the entryway, trying to be ready in case anything moved. Lumina left Duplex to that and carefully began moving around the sizable room, not daring to go too quickly and possibly miss a detail in her search. She was in no hurry anyway – there was only one way in or out of that room. Her target was cornered; it was only a matter of sussing them out. She took it one careful, deliberate step at a time, letting her light shine in the nooks and crannies to illuminate every possible hiding place.\n\nSilence, silence, all around. Lumina couldn’t see or hear a thing in her search. She brushed her hands along the equipment, feeling it out as she went. In her mosey around the room, she knelt to look under things, under benches, behind bikes… She made one whole trip around the room not spotting anything. A second go-around was naturally the next step, looking in places she missed the first time. A shuffle alerted her to something near the corner of the room but turning to it revealed nothing. Her light bathed the walls and revealed nothing but colourful hand-grips jutting out of the wall for use in climbing exercises. She paused and sniffed the air. Something was there – she could smell it, even, but couldn’t see it.\n\nWhatever it was, it took the chance to bolt, as suddenly, the sounds of its feet and body just started clattering off everything in a mad dash to the other end of the room. Lumina and Duplex both looked in the direction of the sounds, but nothing was revealed to them. It was quick, and it wasn’t long until it had reached the far wall and started raising quite a commotion. By the time Lumina had rushed in to meet the person or creature, she found only an open vent about two-thirds up the wall, hanging on its hinges, and could hear whatever had escaped them crawling through the ducts that ran through the building.\n\n“Damn!” Lumina cursed, “What was that? No prana construct, that’s for sure. We would have seen it.”\n\n“I don’t… ACK!” Duplex sought to respond, but the doors blew open behind it before it could finish, throwing it to the floor. Lumina quickly turned to see a construct coming straight at her in a lunge, long, narrow arms wide open, preparing to clamp down around her. She dropped, and the construct passed right over her. It deftly landed, moving with surprising agility to prop itself up in a low, all-fours stance that kept its limbs widely splayed. It peered at Lumina from beneath a shape like a hat, and its humanoid body seemed to bear two arms affixed with long, slender blades at roughly forearm level.\n\nThat was an assassin, if ever Daxton had seen one. It had the athletic form fitting its stealthy, agile role, and wasted no time using it to pounce at Lumina again. She decided it was best to close in and meet it before it could ready those blades, so she sprinted forth and dove aside just before meeting her foe, avoiding a left-side slash, and tumbling to avoid the follow-up leg-sweep and spinning right-side slash. The assassin construct carried itself on momentum almost unnatural, allowing it to leap into the air and flip, poising itself on one of the weight benches only briefly before leaping at Lumina again. Lumina blasted it out of the air with a quick beam, then moved to get a better position while it was thrown back.\n\n“Ah, be careful!” Duplex cried, squealing when the assassin turned on it instead. It flipped and rolled over the exercise equipment with expert precision and leapt into the air to come down on Duplex from above. Its blade passed right through, as Duplex split apart into two identical copies of itself, the point of the split running perfectly in time with the descending blade to rob it of finding any ink to slice. Now with one target on either side, the assassin leapt up and delivered a spinning kick to strike them both. They were knocked away, but Lumina was quick to take their place, rushing in to deliver a heavy haymaker to the construct, which connected.\n\nThe assassin rolled with the hit, digging one of its blades into the floor and scraping the other in a crescent as it turned on Lumina and struck back. The Inkling was put immediately on the defensive, stumbling back to avoid the swift, deadly slices of the assassin’s blades. She bumped into an exercise bike, and that stopping moment allowed the assassin to catch her, delivering a backwards-crescent kick up under Lumina’s chin, kicking her up and over the bike while the construct flipped backward. It landed in an open space, squat and close to the floor and raising to move in on Lumina. Duplex charged in from behind, clumsily attempting to tackle the construct. It whipped around in a flash, sending a blade right through the inked pig, revealing it to simply be a copy as it split apart and popped.\n\nAnother Duplex rushed in to be cut down, and then another, and then another, the assassin construct taking them into a twirling dance of blades and slicing them up one after the other. One finally got a hit in and used it only to shove the construct with all its strength accompanied by a frustrated cry of triumph. The construct was thrown into one of the exercise bikes, crashing into it and knocking it to the floor along with its prana-made body. Lumina capitalized on this moment by jumping the construct while it was down, striking down at it with her fists and hitting it a few times before it brought its legs up to wrap around Lumina’s head, and use her as a vaulting point to rise again.\n\nLumina stood with the assassin on her shoulders, and then threw the construct off. It flipped in the air to land on its feet again, ever the agile opponent. It came at her once more, lunging in, arms crossed and ready to slash out. Lumina took it low, ducking under the cross-slash and ramming her shoulder into its body. Rather than carry it forward, she grappled it, spinning around to its back and seizing it tightly before throwing her weight into lifting it off the floor. She threw it back, and bent with it, suplexing the assassin head-first into the floor. The pranic, glassy crack of its body hitting the floor was more than a little satisfying. So much so in fact, that she opted to do it again. She flipped herself and the assassin over and heaved the construct into a second suplex that she then released, throwing the assassin into the rows of exercise bikes, taking each one down like dominos and leaving it in a heap.\n\nLumina rose, shaking the daze out. Moves like that did as much damage to her as it did to her opponents. Taking from Daxton’s repertoire was from that moment on deemed risky. Duplex watched the spectacle from its spot at the door, not having moved a muscle and had simply been sending replicas of itself into the fight. The Inkling pig was impressed, marveling at the shining Inkling’s combat skills. The display was only made more impressive as Lumina’s movements and impacts were topped off with flashes of light – made to deal more energy damage on top of her attacks, but more visually impressive than anything else to the untrained eye.\n\n“Whoa…” Duplex said, “Amazing!”\n\nThe assassin wasn’t finished with just that, and it rolled to a low stance, ready to lunge again. Lumina turned to face it. “What a pain…” She said, “I’m done with you.”\n\nThe assassin ran forth, dragging its blades across the ground, leaving a sliced trail in its wake. Before it could so much as lift one inch off the ground to jump, however, a beam of light met it square right in its face. The impact burned through its pranic body in an instant, searing the appendage clear off, and with the damage done the construct finally fell to pieces.\n\n“Yay!” Duplex cheered, somewhat quietly, giving Lumina’s performance a gentle applause.\n\nLumina breathed a heavy sigh and receded. Her inky skin and form disappeared, and Daxton was left standing in the darkened room, with only the faint light from the hallway to see with. He stood tall and stretched his neck, cracking it two times before turning toward Duplex and posing with a haughty thumbs-up. “Yeah!” He cheered, and then relaxed. “Alright, time to give Lumina a rest. She’s wiped.”\n\nDuplex was concerned. “We’re… not sure we have time to rest,” It said, “Should we keep moving?”\n\nDaxton shrugged his shoulders. “I can keep up,” He said, “And it won’t take long. We can pull her out if we really need to, but for now we’re gonna have to go on without. Shouldn’t be too long… heck, by then we might just have everything cleaned up anyway.”\n\n“Okay,” Duplex nodded, “Then… just leave it to us! The patients aren’t here, so they have to be somewhere else. We should double back.”\n\n“A-greed,” Daxton said, “Let’s hustle.”\n\nDaxton only took one step when something came up from the floor. Claws punctured the flooring beneath his feet in four carefully measured areas around him, seeming to latch on and dig in. Daxton paused, turning in place to see them positioned in a square around him – four perfect corners, roughly a meter apart. Amidst the sounds of Duplex’s gasp and panic, Daxton could hear a subtle… beeping. A timer.\n\n“Ah,” He cursed, “Crap.”\n\nThe claws were charges, and they went up in vertical, contained explosions that broke apart the ground under Daxton’s feet. The entire floor taken out from under him, he fell with the debris into the level below, crying out in surprise as he did. Duplex ran forward, arms out to try and catch him, but it was too helplessly slow to do so. By the time it reached the edge of the blown-in square hole, Daxton was plunged into the darkness below. “Daxton!” it cried, getting on its knees and squinting into the dark. “Daxton?! Are you okay?!”\n\nDaxton coughed. At least he was breathing. He’d fallen straight down, and his ankles were really feeling the pain. The debris shook off him as he sat up from where he tumbled. It was pitch black but activating the dark-vision on his STOP revealed the room he had fallen into. It seemed to be a surgical theatre – that much was obvious by the surgical table nearby. The theatre looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. Aside from the busted-in ceiling, it was pristine. The auditorium around it, where doctors and their colleagues would watch procedures in progress to learn from them, were also empty and cast in darkness. He looked up to see Duplex peering down through the hole. It wasn’t too high up, but far enough that there was no way he was going to be able to reach it.\n\n“I’m fine! Sorta…” Daxton called back. He immediately grumbled, pain aching in just about every part of his body he could think of. His left heel felt extra sore. Curling his toes in his shoes, he wondered if he’d twisted it. “Ow, alright, so I’m a little hurt. Let’s see…”\n\nTo test it, he pulled himself to his feet as he normally would if he were standing up. Pain in his heel shot up his leg and made it quiver, nearly making his knee buckle. He caught himself on the surgical table, saving himself from falling back over. It wasn’t twisted or sprained, but definitely bruised. He hadn’t rolled with the fall perfectly. He hissed in pain, growling as he did his best to tough it out. “Yeah okay, my foot’s a little messed up,” He said, “But I’m good! Nothing an ice pack and a pen won’t fix.”\n\nDuplex began to fret. “Oh no, what do we do?” It asked, “We really shouldn’t come down after you this way… maybe we can find the stairs? Or the elevator?”\n\n“We’ll both look,” Daxton decided, “While you do, keep an eye out for the others, and the crystal too. And stay out of trouble. Don’t get hurt.”\n\n“Okay,” Duplex agreed, reluctantly stepping away from the hole. “We’ll see you soon! Stay safe!”\n\nDaxton heard Duplex trounce back out the doors of the physio room. He carefully dabbed the side of his face and withdrew his fingers to see blood on them. “Ah, what do I have to worry about?” He muttered, “I’m just a guy whose Inkling is pretty much worn out. No big deal. Better make a call though, just in case…”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\nAs smoke cleared around the crater Arus had left in the street, her quaking white hand slowly extended from the depths to grip the edge and pull herself out. She shook not in fear, or pain, but in anger. She rose from the grave dug out special just for her by prana ballistics fire, violet eyes narrowed in a fixed glare straight ahead at the spider-like war machine that stared her down from a golf swing away. A long trail of upturned street marked where she stood and chronicled her trip down the midway with various body-sized divots and chunks to where she had finally been properly dug in and buried. It was there she was stuck for some time; because every time she pulled herself out of that hole, the small army that had converged on her put her back in.\n\nJust a single step out of the grave, and she was met by the bullet rain from the Walker unloading scores of bullets into her, more than one a second. She tensed up and took it on the chest, the prana bullets flying off as they struck her inky body and were promptly resisted. The storefronts and buildings at either side of the street were peppered once again by the spray, leaving behind Epheral’s characteristic white energy fused into the shutters and construction, whittling away at the protective barriers that were keeping people safe. Arus could do little more than withstand, unable to move forward with the pressure of the spray bearing down on her. She waited it out – again.\n\nWhen it finally stopped, things moved on to the second step of the dance, where the prana construct soldiers positioned on the rooftops to her left and laid into her with rifle fire once more. Again, she withstood, standing statue still, tense, barely even flinching as the ricochet tore up everything in a nine-foot circumference around her. Several seconds of this ended in an explosive climax, where rocket trooper constructs had taken up a position behind her, pelting her with rockets and underslung grenade explosives – or the prana facsimile of such – enveloping her in a cloud of white energy. Nothing got through, but her skin felt the tingle of Epheral’s efforts to burn her away. That poisonous prana was a danger that Arus had scarcely ever encountered. But even something that could worm and wriggle its way into her very flesh found itself repelled with some effort on her part.\n\nHer trip down the main street did grant one benefit, however. When the fire finally let up for long enough, Arus quickly bolted to grab a vending machine from the midway. Its sleek, spartan, rounded bulk and all the contents therein were nothing to her strength, and with a grunt she ripped it straight out of the ground and above her head. She turned and threw it with every ounce of strength she could muster, sending it sailing further down the street, smashing the rocket troopers apart and destroying the machine when it hit the ground and burst open. PET peripherals scattered over the streets.\n\nThat’s when Carrie’s PET chirped at her. A section of her leg melted away to reveal Carrie’s own, where her PET was strapped. Arus quickly grabbed it, closed the opening in her membrane, and answered the call as the minigun hail began raining down over her back, showering her in prana ballistics that she endured as she brought up Daxton’s distress call. Laila and Kenny appeared to have already answered, but Arus’ inclusion in the conference immediately overtook the entire thing as she hunched up, protecting her PET from the rifle fire that followed the Walker’s barrage, as it always had the five times before.\n\n“What the hell?” Kenny groused, “Carrie, is all that racket [i]you[/i]?”\n\n“Yes and no,” Arus answered, her anger more measured and calmer than Carrie’s was, though no less ferocious, and thus even more intimidating. “Where’s my back-up?”\n\n“That’s what I’m asking for,” Daxton explained, “I got split up from Quincey and I’m a little banged up at the hospital. We could use a hand.”\n\n“You’re at a hospital,” Arus pointed out, “There are worse places to be hurt in.”\n\n“Yeah well they’re not exactly running right now,” Daxton said, “And we haven’t found the crystal or any of the people. Quincey’s by herself, and that’s just bad.”\n\n“I’ve got a whole bunch of kids with me,” Kenny said, “And Epheral’s soldiers are everywhere right now. I can’t do anything.”\n\n“Well, I just ran a truck into the crystal by the beach, and this place is lookin’ pretty dandy,” Laila said, “In fact, I got some folk here that could probably use a hospital. I’ll grab ‘em and swing on by.”\n\n“Swing by here [i]first[/i],” Arus said, “I need your help.”\n\n“Tarnation,” Laila said, “Where are ya?”\n\nThe loud, booming thrum of the Walker’s mounted turret revving up to blast Arus away deafened the call for just a moment. She glanced back in irritation, and then turned her attention to Laila. “I’ll be easy to find,” She said, her end of the call cutting out as the cannon fired on her once again. The others were left momentarily concerned.\n\nLaila swallowed. “Ah, yeah, I oughta just scoot on over there and give ‘er a gander. I’ll be right there with ya soon, Dax.”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\nSome things really tested the mettle of an officer. Marcello had to rank dragging her half-paralyzed self around a defunct hospital in the middle of an alien invasion as pretty far up the list of things that had ever challenged her, both as a detective, and as a person.\n\nClaiming to drag [i]herself[/i] around would have been false, however, though it felt like it much of the time. She instead relied heavily on the hospital staff and the police to get her from place to place. By the end of the initial commotion, she found herself locked up in the playground where parents would have brought their children to give them something to do if their trip to the hospital didn’t involve them. In the white florescent of the emergency lighting, the playground had lost an abundance of its vibrant colour and warmth. Cold shadows compressed the whacky and wild shapes of the spiral slide and monkey bars. The fort on which they were attached to loomed over the area to cast a sharp silhouette against the light no matter what direction one looked at it from. Still, it hadn’t stopped some kids from crawling around in its various passageways, peeking out the plastic windows at everyone else in the room.\n\nThere were enough people there for the normally large and open room to be crowded. Most people wouldn’t have even thought to go there, but it seemed to be where the patients and doctors just ended up corralling themselves. The doors were shut tight, barricaded with some of the activity tables for the kids, and several of the mats made available for safe tumbling and messing about. No one expected there to be anyone else coming, so they piled the stuff very high and very dense. That played double-duty, allowing a large, open space for the bed-ridden patients to have their cots set up and spread out, their vital monitoring systems having been taken with them when they were evacuated from their rooms.\n\nIf one were observant, it was apparent that the patients consisted of very few Locksmouth citizens. The bulk of them were Harbington folk who had been injured in Epheral’s attack. The doctors, too, were a bit of a mixed bag. Harbington’s medical professionals could think of little more they could do than help where their expertise allowed. The place had become overstaffed to the umpteenth, but they still managed to keep busy. The police officers on site were also a combination of Harbington and Locksmouth forces performing their due diligence. Blackwell – now Captain Blackwell – was doing her best to work with the highest-ranking Locksmouth officer among them. They argued over their course of action now and then, but ultimately, they stuck to one simple rule:\n\nNo one in, and no one out. When the all-clear is given, they can leave.\n\nNaturally this put people on edge. Marcello watched every one of them, dissecting their behavior and nervous ticks, tells, and habits that gave her little insights into the sorts of people she was dealing with. The woman pacing from one end to the playground to the other was in hysterics and barely holding it together. She could not stop fidgeting when she moved, and she dragged her feet a little. Either she wasn’t used to moving around all too much, or she had some physical troubles. Her tell-tale lean gave it away, the way she kept her weight on her left leg. She had clearly knocked her knee. A pair of young ones, just old enough to be entering high school, stuck together and tried to hide from everyone else. They were scared, but their bigger concern seemed to be getting some alone-time to OC. It wasn’t happening. Supervision was too strict.\n\nAll in all, people weren’t taking it well. They were getting stressed, and some were cracking under the pressure.\n\nMarcello had pushed it from her mind. There she sat in her chair closest to the spiral slide, the grav skiffs keeping her a couple of inches off the ground. Still in little more than a hospital gown and her under-things, there was little she could do. She felt confined in a much smaller prison, helpless but hopeful, trying to move her toes every now and then just hoping that it would work one time. Her logical mind chastised her optimism as naïve. She would be out of commission for months, even with therapy and treatment. Anything short of surgery to manually repair her vertebrae was going to leave her waiting for quite some time. If it were up to her, she’d have dermal vibrational plates affixed to her back already, but Epheral wasn’t going to play nice and let her have it.\n\nShe took her eyes off the others for a moment, seeming to stare off into space. For a while, she sat still and unblinking. She slid to lean in her chair, angling her gaze further toward the wall. She had noticed the open vent up high, and some playground objects conveniently stacked up by it to ascend nearly to its level. She’d been watching it for a while, and while others couldn’t detect anything amiss, she heard the open latch on the vent squeak. The light from her esca revealed nothing, no creature, no person, and no prana construct. Still, she rolled her eyes.\n\n“You’ve been in and out of here about three times, and you’ve never stopped to say hello,” She said aloud to no one, “But I do wonder why something that can’t be seen feels the need to take obscure passageways to travel, remaining hidden from the naked eye. Given that you’re obviously a little sneak, and invisible, there’s no real question who you are, is there?”\n\nShe received no answer, but she smiled all the same. “Coul Sael, I presume.”\n\nNo answer. Not right away. After a few moments, the very air next to her seemed to ripple in the distinct shape of a small person. The form of an Inkling seemed to impress itself on the air, the image of the surroundings bending just slightly as Vissage’s cloaking faltered. From there, the membrane melted away, and Coul stood in the shadows next to Marcello’s chair. The young raccoon stuffed his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie in annoyance. “How’d you know that?” He asked, staring at the detective.\n\nMarcello regarded him casually. She’d seen enough already that an invisible Inkling wasn’t going to put her off. “As I said, you’ve been through here a few times now,” She explained, “And I noticed that whenever you’ve passed through, you’ve left some things disturbed. Things kept moving, yet no one was moving them. They follow a distinct pattern around the outside of this room, meaning you were keeping to the walls to not accidentally reveal your presence here. After a while, you started bringing in the scent of the sterile air from some of the hospital’s cleaner rooms, meaning you’d been wandering about and returning here over and over.”\n\n“I read all the files the LDPD had on the local Inklings, and there’s plenty on you and your friends. Coul Sael, several counts of mischief, misdemeanours, public displays of violence, and more trips to the principal’s office than even Cedric Onyx himself. Brown hair, amethyst eyes, short and slender stature, raccoon, only child. Bonded with an invisible Inkling, name unknown by the officials. Prone to breaking and entering and running reconnaissance for his pack.” Marcello ran through some of the details on Coul’s file as if she were reading it right off her PET; which she was, in a way, recalling the image in her mind and going through it again. She shot him a cool, studious look, studying his form and clothes. “Your pants are dirty, the scuff marks indicating that you’ve been crawling around on your hands and knees. Similar markings on your elbows and shoulders suggest doing so in a space not that much bigger than you, and certainly not one any of those prana monsters can get through. Again, being invisible but still hiding would indicate to me that your invisibility is useless against these monsters, and so it’s safe to assume that you had an Inkling due to Epheral’s ability to seemingly sniff them out. There is minor bruising on your collar and a tear on the right leg of your pants that suggest you’ve been in a struggle, and the collar of your shirt is stretched out where someone grabbed you and held you by it.”\n\nShe paused a moment to look at Coul’s face. The boy didn’t even seem to be listening, instead looking toward the doors. Marcello turned her gaze that way too but saw nothing but the pile of junk blocking it. “… And you’re either expecting trouble,” She said, “Which is a reasonable conclusion since your presence here would in theory draw the prana monsters to us…”\n\n“Or you’re hoping someone comes through that door.” Marcello turned her attention back to Coul, who was staring at her in one-part annoyance and one-part disturbed awe. “Expecting your boss?” Marcello asked.\n\nCoul fixed his eyes on the door for a good while before he let out a frustrated sigh and stepped away from Marcello. “He won’t come,” He said, “No way.”\n\n“Something happened.” Marcello observed, “Trouble in paradise?”\n\n“…” Coul seemed uneasy, like he was wrestling with something in his head that he couldn’t understand. “I just… I don’t get it. When that Epheral guy showed up, his goons kicked the crap out of us! But… Cedric doesn’t even care. He just went off to fight with that other girl.”\n\nHe turned to Marcello, loosening his posture and stepping carelessly back. “Look lady, I dunno how you even know who I am, but if you’re freaked out that Cedric might show up, it’s never gonna happen. Okay? We didn’t do anything.”\n\n“I never said you did,” Marcello countered, leaning forward in her chair and dropping her hands in her lap. “I am curious, though… what brings you here if Cedric is off somewhere else?”\n\nCoul was hesitant to answer. He said nothing, staring distrustfully at Marcello before simply fading away and disappearing right before her eyes. Marcello sat back, eyebrow raised, and began watching the surrounding area more closely. Coul left no prints on the floor to track him by, and the light didn’t reflect off his body in any way as he moved. Against all the laws of physics, he left no trace whatsoever that he was anywhere in that space.\n\nThe only thing that gave him away was his clumsy fumbling of some of the medical equipment near where the doctors had set up their temporary treatment center. One of the boxes of pencils was rummaged through when the doctors weren’t looking, and he seemed to take only a few before stuffing them away in his pockets and moving on. Next, some bandages were snatched away. After that, a small shot of painkiller. Marcello had him timed between each station. It didn’t take him long to slink up, grab what he needed, and then slip away. He moved at roughly the same pace between each stop, so when she didn’t see any more activity a few seconds after his last, she changed gears, counted to ten, and then reached out.\n\nShe snagged his shirt on his way to the vents.\n\nCoul stopped and smacked her hand away, reappearing quickly. “This is none of your business, lady!” He said, “Buzz off!”\n\nMarcello eyed the bulge in his hoodie’s front pouch pocket, full of medical supplies. “You came here after the initial strike,” Marcello said, “Not alone, either. One of your friends got hurt.”\n\n“She isn’t my friend,” Coul said, “I liked it better when it was just Cedric, Allie, and me. Nobody else was gonna do anything though.”\n\nMarcello shot him a smug little smile, then released him. She sat back, prim and proper, folding her hands in her lap. “Well, run along then.” She said, shrugging her shoulders, “But if I were you, I would avoid the lower levels. I noticed several points where that… white… stuff… is coming up from down there. Also, the crystal fell somewhere in the opposite end of the building from here, so don’t go too far that way. There’s also an emergency medical kit in every room in the hospital that has everything you’ve grabbed except for the painkiller… and if you’re going to use that stuff, push some out first, and only use half at a time at the absolute most. If she’s small enough to be carried here by you, she’s not sturdy enough for a full dose. That being the case, the list of your co-conspirators only lists one other person even near your size, when she’s not turning into other people.”\n\n“… How do you keep doing that?” The boy asked, put off by Marcello’s prying. He pulled away from her, stumbling as she let him go.\n\n“Just deductive reasoning and observation, kiddo.” Marcello said, “And a very good memory. And just a little wisdom; always craft theories from facts, because if theories come before facts, facts will inevitably be twisted to suit theories.”\n\nCoul gave her a side-eyed look. “Well, here’s a fact for you: that pig girl’s coming, and she’ll be here soon. I’m just gonna pretend I didn’t see her, because if Cedric knew where she was, I think he’d thump her.”\n\nMarcello gave the boy a curious look. “Treasonous statement, that.”\n\n“Yeah, well…” Coul looked away, “Whatever.”\n\nCoul disappeared again, and Marcello watched as the objects stacked near the vent seemed to shake and wobble with his weight as he climbed them one by one, finally reaching the vent and crawling inside, where the latch shut closed behind him – fast enough to be seemingly by accident. Likely knocked into place by his tail.\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n“Well, that’s that, then…”\n\nDaxton stuffed his PET into the pocket of his shorts and made for the exit. The doors into the operating theatre were stuck shut, so he had to pry them apart with his bare hands. Dragging the hard construct plastic doors against its hydraulic mechanisms was difficult at first as it provided some resistance, but after enough space had been forced open, they slackened. Daxton was able to push his arm through and shove it open with his shoulder, driving his weight into the door to shove it ajar where it remained, not closing again. If the darkness wasn’t indication enough, that certainly assured him that the power to that area had been completely cut.\n\nIf only that were the sole problem. The darkness opened to webbing white fissures along the walls and floor, spreading out like creeping tendrils over its surface. Patches of the walls had been eaten away and left as blank white space. It was the same as what was happening at Harbington High, though perhaps in its infantile stages. Daxton’s high school had been eaten away until it looked like a blank slide, an empty photograph with no walls, floors, or ceilings – simply an infinite white expanse in every direction. Locksmouth General Hospital still had its structure and its reality, but Epheral’s influence was spreading at an alarming rate. The white cracks split open down the hallways, crawling and eating up more and more to leave nothing behind. From right and heading left, the hallways were beginning to resemble a steadily spreading mosaic gradient. Black and white stained glass, with the black darkness crumbling away as it headed toward the opposing wing.\n\nWhat if it had eaten the stairs? The elevator? The questions reared their ugly heads in Daxton’s mind, but he just as quickly smothered them, so they couldn’t take root. There was no chance he wouldn’t get out of there, he thought, but the first order of business was to move toward the spread of the corruption. Epheral’s spread always started from somewhere, and it made sense in Daxton’s mind that it would have started where the crystal landed. He could look for an exit and find the crystal at the same time. By then, Lumina should have rested just enough that she would be able to destroy it, and then they could move on.\n\nHe kept his attention on the floor; the further he went, the more cracks there were. It seemed like it all could have fallen away at a moment’s notice. It was so cracked and fractured, he wouldn’t have been surprised if his foot punched right through like it was thin ice. He wasn’t afraid of that, but the mere possibility made him tread lightly. It was an instinctual response to potential danger that he couldn’t shake, but he wasn’t going to let it stop him. \n\nHe already knew that the real world connected with the emptiness in vague, unclear ways. Even if it had all crumbled away and left nothing but the empty white behind, he’d still have something to stand on. The outside was still there. He could have turned around and stepped back into more human surroundings at any time. If even a little bit remained, there was ground under his feet and a chance to take it all back. It became a matter of suppressing what came natural to a person and moving forward. That was reflective of the state of things, in an almost poetic way.\n\nHe stopped and looked back, seeing how far he’d come. It was shamefully little. He looked forward again and scanned his surroundings. If the crystal had really fallen there, it would have left an opening in the ceiling. It was the best thing to keep an eye out for as he went. It didn’t help that he was in an unfamiliar place. Each corner he’d turn went somewhere, but he couldn’t even read any signs to help him discern where he was by then. Worse still, his mind was preoccupied with threats that didn’t seem to be coming. He’d been pulled down there, but there hadn’t been even a single construct to cut him off. That was perhaps the strangest and most confusing part.\n\nTaking several lefts and rights going forward confirmed the suspicion after a while. He seemed to be completely alone. He turned in place, gentle on his ankle, looking all around. The webbing of cracks along the walls, floors, and ceiling felt like they could have closed in on him at any moment, but for some reason they didn’t. He could feel something amidst the mess, but it wasn’t painful or otherwise uncomfortable. If it was trying to press in on him, it wasn’t succeeding. Perhaps Epheral still followed the same rules as any other Inkling. Perhaps it was a matter of will that could fend her off. Daxton had never been afraid of her, and was never one to let her in. She’d cut him, hurt him, and was then surrounding him, and he was even coming into direct contact with her. Even so, he remained free of her influence.\n\nThat’s right. Try as she might, he remained unbuckled.\n\n“Hey!” Daxton shouted, bravado swelling over, “Epheral! Where you at, girl?” He threw his arms out to either side of him, striding forward, bruised ankle and all. “Not the first time we’ve been here!” He called out into the emptiness, “Why are you hiding? If you’re so powerful and stuff, why don’t you just step up and fight?! What are you stalling for? Trying to get a bunch of power before you go to Canvas? Maybe you’re not as strong as you say you are!”\n\nThe total lack of response only angered the boy. “Come on!” He shouted again, “I know you’re out there, so what are you waiting for?!”\n\nA hand clapped down on his shoulder without warning, gripping him firmly near the collar with its fingers. He reacted in an instant, bearing down on his injured ankle and ignoring the pain that shot up his leg to twist and grip the monster’s arm. He pulled them forward and threw his strength into tossing whatever monster had gotten the jump on him into the nearby wall. Rather than see the charcoal scrawls of a construct, though, he caught a glimpse of fleshy tones and bright colours, making it all too clear that whoever it was had been no construct. He couldn’t stop it though, he’d committed. He threw the person against the wall, smashing them face-first into the fractured surface, pinning them while keeping their arm twisted behind their back. Daxton had pushed into them before he had even the thought to stop, driving the knee of his healthy leg into their back to pin them.\n\nQuincey gasped and squeaked out a breathless whimper of pain, caught completely by surprise and thrown around in the moment of confusion. She squashed up against the wall, unable to help but try and fight her way out of Daxton’s grip. When Daxton realized that it was her, he released her with a start, grasping her shoulders and pulling her away from the wall to turn her so she faced him. He looked down into her wide, scared green eyes, and all his bluster left him in stammering syllables. “Quincey, I… what the?” He struggled to match the pace of his own thoughts, shaking his head, “Quincey!”\n\n“Owww!” Quincey complained, “What are you doing you dummy?!”\n\nDaxton released her and took a step back, though he fussed over her condition even so. “How’d you get here so fast?!” He asked, “Jeez, I left you just a few minutes ago!”\n\nQuincey huffed, not impressed by her boyfriend’s actions. He couldn’t blame her for that, of course. “I found some stairs!” She said, “So let’s go!”\n\nDaxton furrowed his brow when Quincey turned to head back. He stopped her by grabbing her arm. “Whoa, whoa, hold on,” He said, “Wait, we can’t go back up just yet.”\n\nQuincey ripped her arm out of his grip, fast and strong enough to make him fumble to try and get it back. He very nearly ran into her but stopped himself by placing his hands on her shoulders. She looked at him, quizzically. “What do you mean we can’t go back? This place is weird, we should just go!”\n\nShe tried to leave again, but Daxton kept her planted. “Hold on,” He repeated, “Wait, wait. Look.” He took a moment to look around the darkened hallways. If there were lights down there, they’d been snuffed out; and even though Epheral’s prana glowed with energy, the light wasn’t cast out, and what remained continued to be shrouded in darkness as if the energy wasn’t even there. “Quincey, this is obviously close to where the crystal is,” He explained, “We still have to find it.”\n\n“We can’t!” Quincey snapped back at him, seeming to surprise herself. She retreated into something more reserved, lowering her voice. “I mean… we really shouldn’t. We should make sure we’re safe first. Who knows where it is? Not me, and not you. You’re hurt though, so we should worry about that first.”\n\n“Oh, whatever.” Daxton shrugged his shoulders, “It’s not a huge deal. Finding this crystal is more important. I can tough it out.”\n\nQuincey shook her head. “No, you can’t. Maybe you’re right, but you can’t do anything like you are.”\n\nDaxton scoffed. “Excuse me?” He rebutted, “You do know who you’re talking to, don’t you? It’s just a bruised ankle, it’s not like I’m missing my leg.”\n\n“You can’t, you just can’t,” Quincey argued, “You may be strong, but Epheral’s stronger. You shouldn’t try and fight her like this. What will you do even if you find it?”\n\n“Lumina’s still good to blow the thing up, and besides, there’s no soldiers here,” Daxton said, “It’s a perfect chance! Then we can go find the people and clean up the rest of Epheral’s goons on the way. We’re right here anyway, why wouldn’t we? We just have to find it.”\n\nQuincey glared at him. “Stop arguing with me,” She said, “You do what I say, remember? That’s the way it’s always been.”\n\nDaxton reared back in surprise, staring down at Quincey dumbfounded. He tilted his head just slightly and tightened his jaw. “… Okay?” He said, not even hiding his confusion past any bravado. “I know you’re usually right about these things,” He said, “But I’m pretty sure there’s nothing wrong with my plan. I have you here to help me, this is kinda what we came here to do in the first place.”\n\nQuincey looked around again, once more gauging the situation before returning to Daxton, her expression unchanged. “I… ugh, but this is a little much for you, don’t you think?” She pressed her point, “If you do this… I won’t help you.”\n\n“You won’t help me,” Daxton repeated flatly, “Huh?”\n\n“No.” Quincey said.\n\nDaxton released the girl and steepled his fingers together in front of his face. “Okay, a few things about that…” He started, “One, you are not that fast. Even if you did find the stairs quickly, you’re not the most active girl in the world. You’d have to run, full speed, the entire way to get here that fast, and you’re not even out of breath. Two, you’d never sneak up on me. You’re too heavy, your footsteps on a tile floor, even with all this prana damage, would be kinda loud in your kind of shoes. Third, you’d never pull rank on me. Or anyone. You just don’t. Fourth, no, I don’t always listen to you, and that is not how it has always been. And lastly? You always help everyone. Always.”\n\nQuincey lifted her head back just slightly, one eyebrow raised high as she regarded him with a sort of displeasure. Daxton shook his head, taking another deep breath. He was maintaining his composure. “You don’t stand right,” He said, “You don’t move right, you don’t talk right, you don’t act right. Close… but not exactly.”\n\n“What are you talking about?” She asked.\n\nDaxton lowered his hands, pushing them together, cracking his knuckles on one fist. “Quincey, if I’m wrong about this… I’m going to feel so, so bad.”\n\nThen, quick as he could, he jabbed his fist forward and punched her her right in the nose. As one might expect, Quincey’s head jerked back, and she stumbled, but it was a light enough shot that she didn’t fall. He wasn’t trying to take her down. As she recovered from the shock of being hit so unexpectedly, Daxton shifted his posture and dragged his hurt foot back behind him, away from her. When she finally stopped seeing stars she stared in disbelief at him, holding her nose, Daxton was all poised to fight, one hand low and one fist forward.\n\n“What was that?!” Quincey shouted at him from behind her hands.\n\nDaxton waited, just for a few moments. Then he smirked, pointing at her. “You’re not crying,” He said, “Not even a little bit. Is your nose running? Even a little?”\n\nDaxton’s smirk faded into a scowl of disgust, and he stepped forward slowly to strike her again. This time, she moved, and quicker than she ever would have been able to, dodging his right jab by moving to his right side. He braced his arm and tackled her against the wall then, his forearm bearing down on her neck, punching her in the side repeatedly with his left until she pushed him away. He awkwardly stepped away, his ankle making his movements much, much slower and unsteady than they needed to be.\n\n“Cut the crap, Epheral!” Daxton said, “Quincey’s too good for you.”\n\n“Fine!” The Quincey copy threw its arms up in frustration, “I had to try it, at least once.”\n\n“Neat trick, but if you don’t change outta my girlfriend’s body right now, I’m going to smear you all over the walls.” Daxton growled.\n\nEpheral said nothing, and only shrugged at him with a very un-Quincey-like goading smile on her face. Daxton moved in to wipe that look off her face, giving her a left cross strike in her cheek to do just that. His fist connected, then stopped, embedded in her fat cheek. There were a few things wrong about that, but it was namely how she didn’t seem to be hurt that stuck out in Daxton’s mind the most and was sounding off the alarms in his head. She barely moved, she didn’t even flinch, and in Daxton’s moment of stupor she slammed her open palm into his chest with Captain Comet levels of force. This threw him at the wall behind him, slammed him into it, and dropped him to the floor.\n\n“Agh, god damnit…” Daxton coughed, “Ow.” He managed to lift himself onto his hands and knees, coughing and wheezing for breath again. While he took time to get a handle on that situation, Epheral approached him, oozing confidence from every freckle of her Quincey look-alike body. Daxton was able to look up at her smug face for a time and hate what he saw, at least until she planted one of those Mary-Jane shoes on the back of his head, slamming it down to force him into a bow. Daxton bunched up his shoulders and hissed through his firmly grit teeth, failing to not drool on himself slightly.\n\nEpheral ground her foot down on Daxton’s head. “You pathetic human boy,” She said, “Though I must say you surprise me. I assumed you would be more easily manipulated by your emotions. You really are a paranoid one though, aren’t you? How closely you watch everyone! Nothing gets by you, Daxton, does it?”\n\n“Well, I am pretty awesome…!” Daxton muttered through his teeth, rewarding him with a little slack. It only served to allow Epheral a second stomping, digging her sole back into Daxton’s head once again, making him grunt in pain.\n\n“So cocky, but I know you better than that!” Epheral said, “You don’t [i]trust[/i] anybody! Always watching for the exact moment they turn on you, always so afraid and so fragile.”\n\nDaxton fought against her pinning heel, pushing up with his hands and head to lift her foot. He growled, “Well, when you’re right, you’re right.”\n\n“Thank you,” Epheral mused, “But how could I be wrong? I’m not too proud to confess that I do the exact same thing. However, I don’t just wait around to see what happens. I stop it before it can happen.”\n\n“Like with Duplex?” Daxton listed his head enough that he hoped she could see him smile.\n\nShe was not impressed.\n\nShe lifted her foot again, and from the heel of her shoe, a spike protruded. Exercising that prana-construct freedom of form, she proved she needn’t conform to the rules of human anatomy even while mimicking it to such a degree. She drove that spike down, and Daxton threw himself aside to avoid it. It stuck in, for a moment, yanking down on his ear briefly before it carried on and Epheral had driven it into the floor. Daxton was safely away, but a hot, stinging pain lit up like fire at the very tip-top of his right ear. “Ow, fuck!” He shouted, scrambling to get away and get to his feet again, which he managed to do less than gracefully. He found his stance a little wobbly as pain throbbed in his head. Carefully he reached up and touched his ear, immediately finding something wrong with the shape of it.\n\nHe jerked his hand back and looked at the blood that had gathered on his fingers. “You sliced off the tip of my fucking ear you bitch!”\n\n“Aw,” Epheral pouted for him, “I was aiming for your brainstem.”\n\n“Ah, god…” Daxton groaned dramatically, “Lady, this face isn’t exactly a money-maker, you can’t just keep adding insult to injury. Nnnngh, it hurts like hell.”\n\nDaxton pressed his palm to his ear and pushed it against his head, but any contact at all hurt, and the feeling of his knit hat rubbing against the wound may as well have been sandpaper. He shook his head, taking a few breaths to center himself again. “Oof, ow, whew, that’s some shit right there. You owe me an ear and a tooth.”\n\n“Would you quit rambling?!” Epheral cried, rushing forward to put a stop to Daxton’s words. Daxton snapped to attention, his lure successful, and as she came straight at him, he twisted aside so her straight thrust found nothing. Then, while she was completely open, wrapped his arm around her wrist, twisting and bracing it taught. Then, he drove his hand up under her elbow, putting pressure on it and her wrist until he snapped the entire thing out of its joint. Epheral’s deception was only further revealed by the way her breaking arm sounded more like fracturing glass than bone. With that arm useless, Daxton pulled her, throwing her away from him.\n\nEpheral kept her footing, and she looked inconvenienced at her now floppy arm. With a roll of her shoulder and a flick of her wrist, her arm snapped back into place, none the worse for wear. “You’ll find that while I can resemble your disgusting species, I’m not so easily broken,” She said, “That girl made the mistake of assuming I’m as hindered as you too. She thought she could hide from me. Now she’s wasting away, and I can use this little power of hers for a real purpose. It might come in handy when I move on to the rest of your world.”\n\n“So that’s some other Inkling’s power? Shapeshifting?” Daxton asked, “Huh. Creepy thought. But it won’t work, not for you. You don’t know the first thing about humans.”\n\nEpheral shrugged. “Well, by then they won’t be able to stop me anyways. The first order of business is to take out their would-be heroes. That would be you, Mr. Harbington Hero. A hero for a city that will soon no longer exist.”\n\n“What a coincidence,” Daxton said, “First order of business for us is to take [i]you[/i] out. Now, I’m pretty sure I’m not talking to your actual self. You’ve got that all shoved up Garrison’s ass, and you sure as hell ain’t Garrison.”\n\n“Mm, unfortunately no,” Epheral smiled, “But, I have to give you some credit, Daxton. I can’t help but want to take a personal touch when it comes to you. You’ve impressed upon me that you and I may be more alike than I initially thought – aside from you being a weak, feeble human and me being, well, me.”\n\n“Yeah, I wouldn’t really wish being you on my worst enemy,” Daxton said, “Though my worst enemy is you, so I guess that’s too late. Anyway, if you want to take a personal touch, you should probably quit being such a wuss and actually come and get it.”\n\nEpheral shook her head. “I’m somewhat indisposed now. Your little friends are working their way through the city, and I just can’t have them making things difficult for me. It’s best to kill them now and get it over with. This extension of myself will be more than enough for you.”\n\nDaxton glowered, readying to fight. Epheral’s face almost lit up. “Oh! You’re worried about them?” She asked, “Even though if you had to, you’d take them down too? Daxton, you do confuse me. But the most confusing aspect of all is how you can stand there, beaten, battered, weary, and still think that you have even a remote chance of doing this right now. I know you’re aiming to find my ‘crystals,’ as you call them, but even if you do by some miracle make it past me… how do you expect to do that?”\n\nDaxton shrugged. “I kind of just make this up as I go,” He said, “You seem to like it.”\n\nEpheral’s gaze and expression flattened. “Quite.”\n\n“Well then,” She said, “If you think you’re so strong, then I’ll prove to you that you’re not. We’ll fight on an even playing field. I’ll match your capabilities.”\n\n“Pulling your punches?” Daxton asked, “Doesn’t seem like the crazy psychopath thing to do. What’s the catch?”\n\n“No catch,” Epheral said, holding her arms out as prana energy rose up from the ground to encase her piece by piece, folding out like a glass cocoon to frame her Quincey-like form. It did so crudely, and then compressed in on her. The sounds of crunching glass resembled the mulching of a human body, compressing it and warping it sickly. Daxton didn’t so much as flinch, but he stood at the ready, especially when glowing white light escaped from the cracked and fissures in the form taking shape in front of him. When the black charcoal bits began to flake away, Daxton’s lips parted just a little in a offended expression. When Epheral’s transformation finished, and the last bits of that shell crumbled away, he found himself standing across from… himself. She had taken his form, becoming his exact double right down to the clothes he was wearing.\n\n“I just wish to prove that you’re not so mighty.”\n\nDaxton would have rolled his eyes, if he had any. “Not this shit again,” He complained, “What is your problem? I’ve already had this fight.”\n\n“Eh.” Epheral even sounded like him and seemed to be mimicking his mannerisms and movements as well… though she notably did not have any trouble with her left heel and wasn’t missing the tip of her right ear. “Maybe not quite like this. Anything you can do, I can do better. Not only do I have your strength and your powers, but I have all that I’ve learned from the others as well. I could change shape at any moment, I could duplicate myself, stick to the walls, heal myself, withstand damage, run at super speeds, launch ice or magma… or even manipulate force like your pre-splice friend. I have all your powers… but as I said, we’ll be fighting on equal terms this time. I’ll use only what you are capable of.”\n\n“Why?” Daxton demanded.\n\n“To prove to you that you can’t beat the one person you should be able to overcome,” Epheral said, “Yourself. That even when you are perfectly matched against someone, you will fail. I simply wish to take that ego of yours and crush it into dust. I want to flatten your resolve. I want to break your will so that in your final moments you will be truly helpless. I want this for you most of all, Daxton… and Duplex, too. You, though, have stood against me like the little hero you are, always on your own, always trying to take the brunt of it for others. I want to put an end to that in the best way possible. You wouldn’t be the first to try, so you could call it a hobby of mine. There is always one idealistic fool standing in the way of my destiny. They have all ended the same way, and I have to say… some of them were even stronger than yourself.”\n\nDaxton steeled himself. “If you think all that’s going to put me off, you’ve got another thing coming,” He said, “I told you… I’ve had this fight before.”\n\n“Yes, yes,” Epheral said, “So confident in your strength. I want you to remember that every peak of your ability, I can match and surpass… If your feeble little mind can even comprehend such a thing. The simple way to put it, is that everything you can do…”\n\nEpheral listed her hand to run it through her hair. She pushed her fingers up under the replica STOP she was wearing, lifting it off her head and letting it fall to the floor. She combed back Daxton’s blonde locks and let them stay blown back on her head. She gazed at him with hazel eyes that Daxton did not have, no less confident in herself than Daxton was in himself. “… I can do better.”\n\nDaxton took a deep breath through his nose, both coming to terms with what he was seeing, and maintaining a lid on the growing anger of it. “… Cute.”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\nA clean slice through, with a little help from Polaris’ powers, was enough to take the head clean off one of those constructs. It didn’t escape Kenny how they were sturdier than before – like actual human bodies, as opposed to just clay statues or something. So, he was essentially cutting down small dispatches of humans, in a morbid way of thinking. Morbid was kind of how Kenny regarded a lot of things, but it was in a realistic way rather than some far-fetched, outside way of thinking. It wasn’t good, and he was always put off by his own thoughts, but he could appreciate them for reminding him that he thought his thoughts were bad. These things were anything but human, though it begged the question… where had they come from initially? What were they before they were prana puppets?\n\nEach one he cut down was an amalgamation of different lives and different places. Polaris regarded it all with a sense of familiarity and professionalism. He’d been to some of those places before. He’d conquered them and moved on. Epheral had no doubt swept through and completely obliterated anything Osoth had elected to leave behind. In many ways, it was just ending the same lives over again. That was doing them a service, he thought. An act of mercy. He and Kenny could agree thoroughly that neither of them would have wanted even a bit of their prana to become part of Epheral’s ambitions.\n\nThey had more important things to worry about than their own morality now. Turning back to where Shelly and the kids were hidden, Kenny waved them over to get them moving. Shelly awkwardly fumbled out of her hiding place and bound toward the next alleyway, which were getting incredibly narrow as they passed between buildings that weren’t made with that in mind. They were squeezed together so tight that Shelly could barely fit… and only Shelly. Everyone else had an easy enough time getting through. Kenny got through last just as more soldiers came around the corner and filed into the alleyway where they were last seen. This was becoming more and more frequent, which really put the pressure on them to pick up the pace.\n\nShelly popped out the other side, literally speaking. She took a deep breath and rubbed her chest, wincing. “Ow, that sucks!” She complained, as quiet as she could, before turning her attention to their goal. Their goal was just… away. As far out to the outskirts as they could get. They were making decent time, but the activity of Epheral’s forces was getting denser by the moment, and whatever was happening with Carrie made it sound like bombs were going off just downtown. The big prana dropship was making its way over there as well. It stood to reason that if not for Carrie, the group would have had far more trouble than they were encountering. Just one more thing for Shelly to be thankful for.\n\n“Alright, like, up this way.” Shelly gestured up the street, “And don’t run so fast this time! Like, I totally say this KNOWING that it’s outside of the realm of possibility, taking the laws of motion, gravity, and momentum and trajectory into account, but I’m gonna hit myself in the face with my own tits.”\n\n“We can’t slow down, Shelly, we’ll get caught if we do!” Aren said, “We have to run fast!”\n\nShelly sighed, slumping. “It’s just so easy for you guys,” She said, “You’re, like, all small and I’m not.”\n\n“Maybe… we’ll try going through fewer small spaces?” Simon suggested.\n\nKenny had taken the rear, so he was the last one out. He heard them all discussing things and came up on the tail end of Simon’s statement. “Look, Epheral isn’t making these things small. They’re all the standard size and stature of an old soldier, which if you remember, is generally just bigger than any of us anyway.” He said, looking up at Shelly, “Sorry, but going through small spaces is the best way we’re going to avoid them. I don’t want to get you guys into a fight.”\n\nShelly sighed again, not even trying to hide her disdain. She then tugged at her dress. “I’m totally regretting changing into this right before everything started,” She said, “I can barely breathe in this thing!”\n\n“Well then why’d you buy it?” Simon asked.\n\nShelly froze, pinching the tube top of her dress to tug it up over her bosom, and she held that position of hiking their gravid shapes up high with that alone. “Uh,” She said, “Because it was hot, duh?”\n\nSimon stared at her dress for a moment. “But it’s too small?” He pointed out.\n\n“Uh-huh,” Shelly confirmed, “Totes.”\n\n“…” Simon shook his head and said, “But we’ve been getting attacked for days now. I put on things that would be comfortable to move in.” He stuck out his leg to show off his shorts. “See? Like that.”\n\n“Oh my god,” Gren said, “You two. Stop. Let’s just keep going.”\n\n“It’s like the blind leading the deaf,” Kenny said, “Alright, you heard the commander. Let’s get moving.”\n\n“Aw, why does she get to be commander?” Aren complained as they linked hands and carried on down the way. Kenny reached back to grip Simon’s hand, and Simon took Shelly’s hand to lead her along with him. The five of them continued this way up the street, and when a prana tank rounded the corner at the crosswalk ahead, they ducked into a thankfully wider alleyway between a café restaurant and a clothing store. Restaurants were becoming less prevalent as they went, which suggested that they were getting well away from the commercial core and were coming up on the outer rim of hobby shops and boring department stores people bring their kids to but don’t let them touch anything. The alleyways had some side entrances into hang-out spots more geared for adults. Gone was the teenage paradise that was the epicenter of the commercial district, but that meant they were one step closer to potential safety.\n\nBut then there was that [i]tank[/i]. An entire gravity tank, just like the one the Locksmouth Militia used during their fight against Osoth’s forces, and Laibon’s defeat. Murphy had piloted one, with Natalie’s help, and then it had been promptly and quickly decommissioned in accordance to the laws. Those kids had never actually seen one up close, and never truly realized how big they could be. They were definitely bigger than a person, and the mounted fusion cannon on the top was much more intimidating once they saw just how large it was. Forget blowing a hole in your chest, it could have easily blown a human being to pieces. Soldiers always had the proper protections and shields to keep that from happening, but a bunch of kids? Even the elastic Shelly would have been lucky not to find herself in pieces.\n\n“Go, go!” Kenny hurried the kids and Shelly along, taking position in the back again and making sure they hurried their asses before the prana tank showed up. Unfortunately, those things travelled a bit faster than their pre-splice, tread-bearing counterparts, and it pulled up to the end of the alley too quickly. It mechanically aimed its turret down range, taking the time to get it just right to wipe them out in one go. “Aw, shit,” Kenny groused, “Keep going!”\n\nHe stopped, turning in a wide sweep, pulling his sword sheath from his back and affixing it to his arm using his powers. The sheath extended into its shield, and he held it in front of him in a bid to protect himself and hopefully the others from harm. If he blocked it just right, he could take the blow and be knocked off his feet. If he was even the slightest bit off, someone was going to get hurt. He was more than happy to defer to Polaris on that one, and so with a little help from his Inkling, he managed to get it in roughly the right spot just as that gun started to power up.\n\nHe gritted his teeth in anticipation of the strike. What he didn’t expect was feeling little hands on his body. “Whoa!” He looked down to see that Simon had practically jumped on him to get his arms around him, touching his armor. “Kid, what’re you doing?!”\n\n“Just… something!” Simon flustered, holding on tight for a moment and not letting go even as Kenny tried to shake him off.\n\n“Get offa me, you’e gonna get us both blasted!” Kenny shouted.\n\nSimon released him, stepping down and scurrying away without so much as a word. He bound after the others who were very nearly out the other end. Kenny turned his attention forward again and did his best to keep pace with him and not offer too much of an opening for the shot to get by and hit them. Time had run out by then, the tank fired. The shot went loud, and the sound of it rushing through the narrow space toward them made Kenny wilt his ears, and the force of it blew his hood off his head before it even reached him.\n\nHe’d gauged it perfectly. Bracing himself for the impact didn’t really help, but it hit him dead on his shield… which surprisingly did not bend, buckle, or even so much as dent with the impact. Neither did his armor when the force carried on and struck him, where he perhaps should have crumpled up even just a little bit. The padding beneath the armor plates cushioned the blow considerably, and Kenny found himself simply thrown backwards, where he did his best to tuck his head before he hit the street outside. He barreled past the other kids and landed with a hard thump on the street, clearing the sidewalk by a couple of feet.\n\nThe metallic drag stopped, and Kenny carefully looked up from his fetal position. Remarkably, he had taken little damage at all – yes, the force had born down on his legs, leaving them a little sore, but it hadn’t gotten past the plates on his boots. His shield had performed more than effectively, blocking the entire blast on its face. He uncurled and looked at his shield arm to check on it, and aside from having a searing red-hot patch on it where the impact heat stuck, it was perfectly fine. He rose shaking his shield about to cool it, only then noticing that the others hadn’t cleared the area very far. They cleared the alley but hadn’t budged an inch since.\n\n“What are you guys still…?” Kenny started, but trailed off as he heard the heavy footsteps of something approaching from behind him – and being that he was facing the others, he only then noticed them all looking past him at whatever it was. He turned at once and stopped cold himself. “Oh no.”\n\nEpheral had found them; and not just some construct of hers, but Epheral herself… as much as Epheral could be a singular entity. Garrison’s body, which she had forcibly inhabited, had been gobbled up by what seemed to be a pranic black shell, charcoal like that of her constructs, white aura and all. It made him look incredibly angular, on top of his already impressive size and presence. His arms had some jagged edges on them, not one the same shape as the other, jutting out of his forearms and elbows, some out of his knees and the back of his neck as well. He was still quite obviously a bear, and still held some similarities to Garrison himself, namely the shape of his angry eyes, glowing white off the black shell. Every threatening protrusion of prana looked like an overgrowth; areas where Epheral had overdone it a little. Some were thick, some were narrow, some big, some small…\n\nBut what stood out the most was Epheral’s core. Buried deep in Garrison’s chest, it radiated with prana energy, and seemed to have literally taken root using tendrils of white prana energy as a base to lodge itself into its new home. His chest was a web of roots that entangled themselves in the shell, spreading up and out from the middle, making it clear that it was born in and pushing out to grip him. It reinforced just how much of a shield Epheral had given him. He seemed… even more considerably bulky and large than normal. The man had become a giant.\n\nHis breaths came raspy, and every exhale blew a mist of white energy from his grit teeth that solidified and sprinkled the ground at his feet with shards. Some of his movements, right down to merely breathing, pressed some of the shapes of his shell in against each other, causing them to crack, splinter, break off, and then grow over again in a more appropriate shape to accommodate what he was doing. The aura around him moved sickeningly, more active than anything they’d seen before. He seemed to get more powerful just standing there. His energy became more intense by the second. The Inklings among them could feel it pressing down on them. It was akin to the tightening of of a human’s chest when in danger, a strangling feeling of fear that crept up and lingered, looming inside.\n\nGren and Aren’s legs were quaking at the mere sight of Epheral. They made themselves as small as possible behind Shelly, who was trying to make herself as small as possible too. Their first instinct was simply to hide from the danger. It was on a base emotional level that couldn’t be denied. An Inkling predator in the body of an apex predator of the animal kingdom, molded into human shape and designed for grueling combat. Only the most battle hardened would do anything else.\n\nKenny held up his shield and gripped his sword at the top of it, drawing it. Simon could only stare on in fearful fascination of the creature, but he kept his little fists balled up and wouldn’t back down.\n\n“Shelly,” Kenny said. She didn’t answer, but he didn’t expect her to. “Shelly, you’ve gotta run.”\n\n“I thought Jacent was supposed to be here!” Shelly said.\n\n“Well he’s obviously not!” Kenny said, “Take the kids and go!”\n\n“I… I can help!” Simon insisted, standing at Kenny’s side.\n\n“No, you can’t!” He said, “Get outta here, kid!”\n\nSimon ignored him, raising one of his hands to reach into an inky black portal that appeared at his side out of nowhere. He dug into it up to his elbow, but when he withdrew, he pulled out a large metal object with him. The hilt of it held a tassel of old purple cloth, and the guard of the weapon bore a mechanism upon which the big, broad blade sat. The blade itself was straight, keen, and edged at the tip of it at a sharp angle suited for opening boxes rather than use in combat. It was a clearly a sword in any case, but far from what would have been the traditional depictions of one, like Kenny’s own. Kenny stared as Simon took that sword in both hands and readied himself to fight. The final touch was him inking over, his Inkling appearing to be an almost garish bright orange, with pink eyes and features.\n\n“I can,” The Inkling said, “And I will.”\n\nKenny was overcome by Polaris, who inked over him by force. All at once, Kenny’s body was taken by Polaris, who readied his shield and turned his attention on Epheral. “Well, now I see who’s been feeding the boy such slanderous stories about me,” Polaris said, “Hello Fortis. I’m surprised Osoth didn’t have you for supper. Sylph sends her regards.”\n\n“It was touch and go for a little while,” Fortis said, readying his weapon as well, “I do hope you remember how to use those things. And Sylph can keep them.”\n\n“And I hope you even know what [i]that[/i] weapon even is,” Polaris said, “At the ready! And Shelly, darling!”\n\nShelly perked up from her huddle with Gren and Aren.\n\n“Bloody hell, would you RUN already?!” Polaris shouted back at her.\n\nPolaris and Fortis took off from their positions, spreading out to either side to come at Epheral with a pincer maneuver. Epheral snapped to attention and took off just as quickly, charging forward on thunderous steps to meet the two head on. Fortis attacked first, stopping early to run his blade across the ground, sending the reverberating sound of the blade forward in a soundwave that struck Epheral’s body. Small scratches appeared on the surface of the shell, but they healed over in the half-second it took to meet Polaris and take his sword lunge to the abdomen, the blade sliding off her body. Polaris blocked the counter-blow, his shield bouncing off her fist and sending him bounding back where he was forced to take a knee if he didn’t want to just fall on his rear end.\n\nFortis continued the assault without missing a step, leaping onto a nearby peTra and bounding off it to bring his blade across Epheral’s body. Epheral twisted, snapping her body in unnatural ways likely detrimental to her host, to catch Fortis with her arm, stopping his plunging attack. She swung him viciously, the raw power of her movement battering him with a kinetic shock as he left her, blasting him down the street head over heels in the opposite direction. Then, Polaris came at her from behind, slashing her back several times to little effect. The scrapes his blade left were miniscule compared to the force he’d put into the effort, and they closed up almost as quickly as he could deliver them. Again, Epheral snapped around, bringing her fists down on top of him clasped together. He rose his shield and stepped up into the strike to meet it. The impact onto his shield rippled his membrane and buried his feet into the street with a thunderous boom, nearly putting him off balance. She reared up to bash him once again, and he pulled himself out of that, dragging his body out by way of his shield, throwing himself backwards. Epheral missed him entirely, but she bore down into the street up to nearly her massive biceps with the impact.\n\nShe got herself unstuck with barely a shrug, and drew back her massive, open hand to thrust it forward. A dazzling ray of light poured forth in a beam that Polaris just barely deflected. The beam bounced off his shield, but the impact sent him back across the ground, dragging his body back past Shelly, Gren, and Aren, who were doing their best to flee in panic. The beam very nearly hit them, and Polaris was just barely able to angle his shield in time to send it over Shelly’s head, burning into the buildings just past her.\n\nFortis was back, running up on Epheral from behind and scampering up her large, bulky body. It was surprisingly easy to climb with all its rough edges and misshapen parts. He was up on her shoulders quickly, standing above her and striking down at her head with his blade’s tip. He stabbed down again and again, trying to impale her hardened shell, only to have her repel him time and again. She whirled around to try and face him, but he latched on to her back and continued to stab at her as she spun and turned in a rampage to try and get her hands on him. Fortunately for the small inked squirrel, her arms were too large and too bulky to reach behind her very effectively.\n\nEpheral lashed out, beginning to stampede down the street, bashing her body off everything she could on the way by. Fortis swayed and was swung about, but he remained steady on her back, once again mounting her shoulders and standing on their broad surface. He desperately kept his footing as his ink was steadily replaced by another, a silver shine with eyes like hardened gemstones. This new Inkling drove its blade into Epheral’s hardened shell time and again, until one last hard strike connected and dug straight into what would have been Garrison’s jugular.\n\nHe pressed in, twisting the blade as hard as he possibly could. Appropriately, a bust of prana energy erupted from the opening like blood, spraying out into the open and causing Epheral to wail. Like her breathing, it crystalized in the air and spilled out onto the street in shards. Finally, in a fit of rage, Epheral slammed her own head down into the street, throwing the boy on her shoulders off balance and sending him tumbling to the ground before her. She pulled free, lifting her head to glare hatefully into the Inkling’s diamond eyes. He moved to react but found her massive hands grabbing him at either side, lifting him into the air. “Whuh-oh!” He shouted, kicking his feet. She lifted him high above her head to slam him down again, though she was able to see Polaris coming in with his shield raised, attempting to tackle her with it. She instead threw the other Inkling forward, making him crash into Polaris instead, and sending them both to the ground in a heap.\n\nThey both sat up, Polaris staring at this new Inkling in shock. “Who the hell’re you?!”\n\nThe now silver squirrel flourished his blade. “Adama, at your service!” He introduced himself, but turned his attention quickly to Epheral, “Duck!”\n\nAdama shoved Polaris’ head down, and the two of them narrowly ducked a skull-cracking hook from Epheral. Once they were down low, they both took their blades and drove them into Epheral’s exposed gut as hard as they could, but once more found that their swords wouldn’t penetrate the shell at just the initial strike. Epheral brought her arms down between them and then opened them to throw them both to either side of the street, where they both slammed into the buildings hard and collapsed onto the ground. With just enough time to shake himself back to attention, Polaris looked aside to extend his powers to a nearby parked peTra. He lifted the idle vehicle by all its metal insides and hurtled the several-hundred-pound thing at Epheral desperately.\n\nIt struck, but Polaris only looked on in shock as the plasteel frame of the vehicle bent and warped around Epheral’s body rather than do anything to the tune of knocking her down, or away, or even so much as hurting her. She dug into the vehicle with her hands, crushing handles into its side with brute strength, and then threw it away, looking more inconvenienced than hurt. The car soared, and Polaris threw his hand out to reach out with his ferrokinesis and stop it in the air, just above the heads of Shelly, Gren, and Aren, who stared unmoving at what had been their impending doom just seconds before.\n\nAdama returned to the fray, slashing several times at Epheral’s carapace, meeting Epheral in combat when she turned on him. The exchange of blows was brief, with Adama delivering several, and Epheral returning with just one. Adama was sent back down the street again by a heavy back-hand, sending him tumbling down the street back by Shelly’s side. When he slid to a stop, the kids called out to him to see if he was alright. He could barely hear their voices as he sat himself up, rubbing his head. “Oogh, this is no good… That prana shell is resistant to my abilities!” He said, “Damnit all.”\n\nEpheral stomped her foot into the street, shattering it as she turned to face the larger group of young teens. With a monstrous roar, she opened her beastly maw, preparing a heavy gathering of energy in her jaws. The light from within burned and flickered rapidly, the prana energy whirling about inside of her almost out of control. The tendrils pumped it visibly into her core, which shone just as brightly, like a beacon to signify what was coming. Adama darted up, hurrying to the others, ushering them to get down somewhere as safe as could be. “Prana, is it?” He muttered, “Well, we have something for that, don’t we?”\n\nThe silver shine of Adama’s inky body was taken yet again, this time by a pale white and cream, a gentle blend of lighter colours that made Simon almost look like a marshmallow. Shelly, Gren and Aren stared slack-jawed at the new Inkling, not knowing what to say or do, the situation so beyond them that they were stunned and struck to absolute silence. The Inkling got them all as close to a wall as they could. “Get down as low as you can,” They said, their voice a mixture of a young girl’s and Simon’s own, “Stay behind me, please!”\n\nSeeing the attack coming, Polaris hurried alongside the street, running to catch up to the others and protect them. He watched as the energy built in Epheral’s face more and more, until the flashing of energy was nearly blinding, making him squint. He just hoped he could make it in time. When his gaze fell onto Shelly and the others, he was desperate to fulfill the newfound duty he had sworn himself to. He had to protect them, no matter the cost. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he failed a second time.\n\nThe ground rumbled under Epheral as the energy amassed became nearly unstable. Then, with a mighty, roaring bellow, she unleashed it all in a blinding torrent of prana hell, encompassing the entire street and everything in sight, tearing up street lights, plants, cars, and everything in its wake. They disintegrated on contact, burned down into no doubt more energy to feed the rolling wave that was set to crash down on the kids. Polaris threw himself forward with everything he had, desiring nothing more than to place himself between them and that which threatened them. He propelled himself by his shield, sheathing his sword to dedicate himself entirely to the act of defending them. He was very nearly overtaken himself by the prana wave and landed before them with a second to spare.\n\n“Wait, no!” Simon’s Inkling cried.\n\nPolaris turned and sprung up, planting himself as firmly as he knew how, shield up in front of him to protect the others. The wave hit him, his shield, and overtook him. He pressed against it with everything he could muster, pouring migraine-inducing levels of his own energy into pushing his shield forward, to not relent under the assault. The others huddled up together, with Simon and his Inkling offering what protection they could. Their efforts made a bubble in the chaos, a pocket in which they just barely remained safe. Polaris acted as the front bulwark, displacing the energy around him, though it burned into his membrane and whittled him down slowly. He had little choice but to retreat but held out until he could do so no more. Simon, too, seemed to act as a buffer. The prana energy around them was pushed away, creating a safer space. As he did so, however, even his Inkling began to succumb to the effects of prana burn.\n\n“W-What is this?!” Simon shouted, clenching his eyes shut. “Agh! I can’t…! It’s not natural!”\n\n“AHHH! NOOO!” Gren and Aren cried, squeezing Shelly so hard she couldn’t breathe.\n\nThe sound drowned out their voices, the pressure of it bearing down on them and everything around them so hard, it was like being caught in a hurricane. Polaris physically peeled away from Kenny’s body bit by bit, but he remained steadfast against the rush. Not until the very last fabric of his being was at risk of being blown away did he surrender, retreating into his host. Kenny was left to face the brunt of it himself, his footing faltering and his shield becoming more difficult to hold straight.\n\nIt was at that moment the wave ended, rushing past them. Silence overtook them, the energy dissipating into a rain of prana shards from the sky, shattering onto the street several blocks away. There wasn’t even smoke to clear… there wasn’t anything but bare street and midway left behind. The buildings at either end were stained, marred by the prana fractures that had overtaken Harbington. Kenny still stood, completely without Polaris. His body allowed him respite, and he collapsed onto his hands and knees, barely holding himself up. The others remained unscathed as well, relatively speaking. Simon’s Inkling seemed to be battling with Epheral’s influence, the burning white streaked across their creamy membrane. With some effort, though, and a cry of triumph, they forced it out. More prana shards rained down around her, leaving her weakened and breathless.\n\nShelly lifted her head from her embrace of the children, seeing the cloudy Locksmouth sky again. “W… We’re n-not dead?” She said, “O… Oh my god… Gren? Aren?”\n\nThe two of them had sought shelter as firmly pressed against her bosom as they could possibly manage. When they heard their names, their ears lifted, followed by their faces. They looked blearily up at Shelly, sniffling and wiping away their tears. “Shelly!” Aren cried, “We… we’re okay!”\n\n“We’re alive!” Gren laughed hysterically, “We did it!”\n\nKenny hit the road with his elbow keeping him from simply falling on his face. His body trembled, feeling sick and weak. “Oh… man…” He panted, his every word a shuddering mess, “That…” He lifted his head, gazing down the street at Epheral, who stood looming and menacing, growling like a beast. She began to walk toward them, one heavy, powerful step at a time. Kenny perked up frightfully, feeling his fur bristle. He looked back to the others, relieved to see them safe. Simon’s Inkling shifted back to Fortis, who rose to join him, but Kenny threw his hand up to halt him.\n\n“Nah… No…” Kenny commanded breathlessly, “Get them… Get them outta here…”\n\nFortis stopped in place, looking between Kenny and the other kids.\n\n“They’re… not safe,” Kenny reasoned, “We can’t beat this… by ourselves.”\n\nFortis stomped his foot. “You’re the one worn down to the bone here!” He argued, “If I leave you here, you’re as good as dead!”\n\n“I said I’d protect them,” Kenny said, pushing himself to his feet. He fumbled and ended back up on his knees, so he unsheathed his sword and drove it into the street to use it as a prop. He stood once more, though his every part trembled. “I can’t do that… if I don’t have any power left! You gotta do it! I can barely move!”\n\n“But…!” Fortis stared past Kenny at Epheral, who continued her lumbering approach. Perhaps she also needed time to recover from that expenditure of energy… or perhaps she was in no rush to end them. Regardless, comparing her to Kenny at that moment was like comparing a bomb to a lamb. “What are you doing?!”\n\n“Look! We don’t have time to argue about this!!” Kenny screamed at them, “If you’ve got power left, you gotta use it to protect people, alright?! Polaris wants you Inklings to be different now! This is what he wants, okay?! This is what we both want…”\n\nKenny turned to face Epheral. A few painful moments and she’d be upon him. “Besides…” He said, “I always deserved to die. But if I gotta go, I don’t want anyone else to die because of me! I’ll… I’ll fight [i]for[/i] life, not against it! That’s… what I want to be!”\n\n“Kenny, don’t!” Gren shouted at him, “Don’t do that!”\n\n“You’re not… really trying to sacrifice yourself right now?” Shelly asked, “Like, for real? Like, for real-real?”\n\n“I’m sorry…” Kenny swallowed, “… For so much. But you’ve got to.”\n\nHe looked back. “Alright?”\n\nFortis stared speechlessly at him. “That… is the way it always ends up for people like us,” He said, “Right at the end. Alright… I’ll do it. You can count on me.”\n\n“Wait, hold on! This is nuts!” Aren cried, trying to hurry forward, but Fortis scooped him up and held him as he kicked and fussed. The squirrel turned away and pushed Gren and Shelly to get them moving, and their legs did so after a moment, their minds not moving fast enough to get them to move quickly or snappily. Kenny put out his shield, the tulip emblem in clear view, and held his thumb up as they left. Then, to distract Epheral, he stepped forward, pulling his sword out of the ground.\n\nHe stared down the goliath, prana sickness welling up inside him. He swallowed simply to keep from throwing up, his heart pounding and his body breaking out in a cold sweat. Even so, he readied his weapon and his shield, continuing toward Epheral. Her evil, burning eyes settled on him, and she almost seemed to smile.\n\n“Is that how you want it?” She spoke for the first time, her voice warped and distorted with several tones at once, part her voice, part Garrison’s voice, and several others that echoed a wailing death in the innermost recesses of it. “The soldier, the murderer, laying down his own life to save others. It’s useless, you know. You’re not saving them from anything. They’ll get two blocks from here and my army will be upon them. They’ll die.”\n\n“You’ve been bluffing this whole time,” Kenny said, “Why believe you now? You’re finished. You can try to kill us all, you can even try to take over Canvas… but you’ve got Quincey against you. Even Daxton can’t stand up to her. You’ve got… no chance. If she doesn’t do it, that annoying cat and Natalie will.”\n\n“Empty threats from a dying child,” Epheral said, “Come then, little one. Come and take the death you’ve wanted for so long. You don’t need to worry; your friends will join you soon enough. But there is no afterlife, Kenny. There is only me. I will be all that remains. Prepare yourself for the cold emptiness of nothing.”\n\nKenny grimaced. “You’re making a [i]grave[/i] mistake,” He said, “Old knights never die… they just shuffle off their metal coils.”\n\nEpheral loomed over him then and reached down to grab his entire head in one palm. She lifted him off the ground, leaving him dangling before her. “Jokes? Now?” She asked.\n\nKenny shook, sniffling as he hung there, helplessly. “… Of corpse,” He said, “I like bad humor, it [i]kills[/i] me.”\n\nThe monster drove her fist into the boy’s chest, nearly breaking him in half to do so, crashing into his chest place, but not damaging it. A small spark of prana energy struck him through, barely flickering out the other side of him. One solid strike, and that was it. Kenny heard his heart pounding in his ears right up until then, then it abruptly stopped. His body seized up, his breath caught in his chest. He gasped, but all at once his body ceased to feel. Epheral released him, dropping him onto his feet, which barely held him up by some miracle. He stared at her with blank eyes, his weapon clattering onto the ground as sound seemed to fade away and his vision tunneled into darkness.\n\nIt felt… cold.\n\nHe made little breathless sounds. Tears rolls down his paling face. His heart wasn’t beating. She’d struck him just right, in the perfect spot to stop it. He stumbled back, then fell, collapsing onto the ground where he lost consciousness, staring empty into the void.\n\nEpheral turned away from him, looking pleased with herself. “Now, without a host, Polaris will…”\n\nA sudden, loud eruption caught her attention, coming from a nearby rooftop. She barely had a chance to look up before something crashed down upon her, burying her entire massive body into the street. It was none other than Captain Comet. Jacent crashed down on her with the force of a bomb, his much smaller frame leveling hers in an instant and sending her tearing up the street toward the nearby buildings. Then, he immediately dropped to his knees to help Kenny. “Kenny?” He spoke, quiet and gentle. He repeated himself, but a little louder, as he shook the boy’s shoulder. “Kenny? Can you hear me?”\n\nWith no response, Jacent got down low, ripping the metal plate easily off Kenny’s chest and pressing his ear to his sternum. This brought a far-gone fear to the forefront, confirming that the boy’s heart was not beating, and he was not breathing. Jacent quickly checked for his pulse, which in those final few seconds, was weakening considerably.\n\n“Oh, god…” Jacent muttered, quickly placing his hands to Kenny’s chest and starting to pump them, trying to induce a rhythm to Kenny’s heart. He only did this for some seconds, however, before Epheral was back on her feet, shaking off debris. Jacent rose to stand between Kenny’s body and Epheral, doing what he could to protect the boy from further harm… though every second that went by, Jacent knew, meant Kenny was further gone.\n\n“You…” Jacent glowered, “You monster.”\n\nHe reached down to the pack he wore at his hip, getting very nearly inside to reach one of his yo-yos before stopping. He instead gripped the pouch and ripped it off his hip with one firm tug, tossing it away. He breathed in, and then out. Then again, in and out. He scowled, brows knit. The anger he felt inside him was raging like a tempest, and try as he might, he could not tame it.\n\nEpheral would not wait for him to move. She charged him, arms outstretched to grab him, possibly aiming to break him. The response was so simple. She’d taken to Garrison’s brutal style of fighting, one that Jacent had figured out so easily once before. He remained unafraid. Let her come, if she wished. He would punish her [i]rigorously[/i].\n\nShe threw herself into a grab, which he dropped under, then he thrust both his hands overlapped against her chest, stopping her forward momentum dead in its tracks. He barely moved back under her gravity, and he planted himself firmly to keep his heel from even so much as touching Kenny’s body. The weak spot seemed so obvious… And so, he unleashed a flurry of blows upon Garrison’s heavy chest, delivering rapid boosted punches to the shelling that covered Epheral’s core. His fists crashed into her like gunshots, chipping away her prana protection one bit at a time, leaving knuckle-marks digging away deeper and deeper into the cavity. She regained her footing and stepped back, energy flaring up in her maw, that Jacent proceeded to silence by slamming his palm up under her chin, snapping her jaws shut and shattering her teeth.\n\nHe delivered a swift kick to one of Garrison’s weak legs, audibly snapping it out from under Epheral and bringing her to his level. Thunderous hands crashed into her face at either side, battering her around, until finally he took to her side, bringing his leg up in a leaping spin-kick that went from normal, human levels of speed and force to something super-human by the time it connected. Were it not for Jacent shielding himself from the force of his own attack, his leg would have likely never been usable again. Unfortunately for Epheral, this was not the case, and she took the full force of it in the face. It exploded, rocketing her massive, bulky frame down the street like she was little more than a kickball. She tumbled and rolled at a force hard enough to tear a human body into absolute ribbons. Garrison’s bones snapped and broke as fast as Epheral could forcibly repair them, making his trip down several blocks a gruesome one.\n\nA cloud of dust trailed in her wake. Jacent turned his head to avoid breathing it in. When he lifted his head, he set his emerald eyes forward to where Epheral had landed.\n\n“[b]You[/b]… [b]will[/b]… [b]pay[/b].”", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "A brilliantly burning ball of pure luminescence drifted in a lazy trajectory to get between two construct soldiers who were guarding the hospital doors. They fired at it, but their weapons found no purchase against the energy manifested, and when the orb was positioned directly between the two, it burst in a rush of photonic power that threw the constructs away, shattering them upon impact with the ground. With the way cleared, Lumina ducked out of hiding behind the posted Locksmouth General Hospital sign in the grassy knoll in front of the building. Duplex was close behind her, the two of them making a dash for the doors and getting inside before Epheral’s soldiers could converge on them. Lumina barged through with her shoulder, throwing the doors open with a loud slam that echoed through the empty reception lobby.

Duplex bounded in behind, panting for breath when the doors closed after her.

“How are you holding up?” Lumina asked the other Inkling, gently resting a hand on her shoulder to be there for her while she caught her breath.

“Fine!” Duplex answered, “We are fine. We’re holding together.”

“Literally,” Lumina commented, checking her palm for any residue from the blue and yellow lava lamp that Duplex had become, finding her hand bare of any ink that should otherwise compose Duplex’s form. “Good.”

They scanned the immediate area for threats and survivors and found neither. “What do you think?” Lumina asked.

Duplex looked around the foyer and stepped forward to check behind the desk in case anyone was hiding. The lights were dim, running on emergency power. That would have been because of the damage they saw on the outside as they were coming in. Epheral’s construct-spawning prana crystal hadn’t touched down near the hospital like Officer Murphy had said, but rather it had crashed into the hospital, and had put a hole in the upper-west side of the building. That meant the constructs were already inside, and the Inklings had to work fast. Duplex checked up and down each corridor splitting off from the place, able to see more soldiers coming in from that west side.

Duplex split apart into a trio of inked pig girls and hurried to create a barricade using the waiting benches in the foyer. Even though they were bolted firmly to the ground, the cloned pigs were able to heft it up on either end, causing the plastic supports to creak and break apart, separating it from its foundation. They pushed it to bar the entrance to the west wing, while Lumina took a position behind the newly-made cover and began firing at the advancing troops down the hall. Duplex got out of the way, hiding off to either side of the entryway, while the original kept a wide berth and hid well out of sight.

Lumina went between sticking her head out to fire beams down the hall and ducking down to avoid the return fire. The few constructs that were coming at her were struck down, with the very last shattering over the barrier that Duplex had put in place. It was a close call.

“We’re reminded of when this all started…” One of the Duplexes said, sighing as they gathered around Lumina. “But more important than that, we have to find the patients and doctors. We don’t see anyone here.”

“My bet is that we’ll find them in the direction those soldiers are coming from,” Lumina said. She looked past the gathered trio of pigs to read the display screen sign over the corridor. “Maternity, neonatal, or physio…”

Duplex and its duplicates all soured their expressions. “They better leave those babies alone.”

“Or the mothers,” Lumina added, “They don’t need this kind of stress.”

“Then we have to go!” Duplex insisted.

Lumina stood, taking a moment to just take in the scene around her. Three Duplex duplicates were with her, already having done some heavy lifting just getting them to the hospital. She didn’t appear any worse for wear, though her strangely dimorphic body was such a queer sight, even among Inklings, that she couldn’t help but wonder. “You’re fine with this? It wasn’t long ago that you had doubts about playing the role of a hero.”

Duplex brought it’s duplicates together, standing before Lumina rank and file. “Maybe we’re not heroes, but still… many hands make light work, you know?” One said, “We can support you, if nothing else, but if it’s possible… we’d like to avoid having to fight. It feels like Epheral could tear us apart again at any moment.”

“How comforting that she could do the same to me.” Lumina said snidely, “She is welcome to try, of course. I believe that compared to Osoth, Epheral is not so frightening. Epheral is a much simpler force, even if she is strong. I don’t need to watch my back at every moment. Subterfuge doesn’t seem like Epheral’s style.”

“This is correct,” Duplex said, “Epheral has long abandoned any sense of subtlety or guile. She relies entirely on snowballing – gaining more and more power rapidly until she can’t be stopped. We really need to find this crystal and get rid of it and as many of her constructs as we can.”

“That sounds like slowing her down, not stopping her.” Lumina said.

One of Duplex’s copies nodded. “Because that’s exactly what it is. Until we have a clear shot at Epheral’s core, we have to slow her down as much as possible.”

“When will it be too late?” Lumina asked.

Duplex’s copies looked at one another. The one center of the group offered a sorry expression. “We believe that will be obvious when the moment comes.”

“No more time to waste then,” Lumina said, hopping the barrier, “Come on.”

Duplex and its duplicates climbed over the would-be barricade one at a time and followed the light of Lumina as they descended into the darkened corridors of Locksmouth General Hospital.

-

--

-

A stray shot from Epheral’s soldiers nearly clipped Sylph right in the head. She ducked back around the corner, cursing her luck. She was having trouble crossing the precipice into the hotel rooms. Epheral’s soldiers were many, and the hallways were only so wide as to fit maybe three or four people across. It made sense that they’d be able to form an impassible barrier, doubling as a firing line. It didn’t help that they had all sorts of things to hide behind – knocked over trollies, odds and ends, and the occasional piece of luggage served well enough as cover against Sylph’s rifle; and hers was non-lethal. Epheral’s soldiers, on the other hand, shot to injure or kill, whichever came first.

Laila had never been shot at by a deadly weapon before. Very few humans in the last long while had. All the symbiotic strength in the world didn’t make her any more used to the sensation any faster. Sylph stared at the clear-cut hole that had been blown out of the corner of the wall. It was narrow and flat, and very sharp at the edge. Those were bullets that could hit hard and cut deep at the same time. They were made to pound, then tear. It could do a number on Inkling and human alike, and the cherry on that sundae was Epheral’s corrupted prana being left behind to infect the target like a disease. She’d eat them away, just like half the buildings in Harbington.

Laila was scared. Worse still, so was Sylph. How many more narrow misses could she pull off before she found herself on the wrong end of one of those things? Neither the Inkling nor the host wanted to be eaten alive from the inside out and churned up into some prana-like mess to power a psychopathic core with a chip on her shoulder.

“The heck am I don’ here…?” Sylph muttered, seating herself with her back flush to the wall. She stared at the weapon in her hands and had half a mind to throw it across the hotel lobby. She felt disgusting holding onto it. Weapons were disgusting things, beneath someone like her. Yet, there she was, using it and her powers to blow her enemies apart. Air was terribly effective at taking life, and Sylph had thought she’d grown out of such things.

To soldiers bolted out from the corner to turn on her and fire. With a cry, she blew them away with a gale that stuck them like a wall, lifting their shattering bodies off their feet and sending them flying so fast and so powerfully that they crashed through the windows at the far side of the lobby, and punched a hole into the shutters. Their blasted-apart, jagged pieces tore a hole into the sturdy, resilient material like she was punching through a paper bag. Their constructed bodies didn’t last the trip, barely a piece of them touched the stonework walkways outside. Cold air rushed in through the opening and wafted over the empty lobby. The air came back and wrapped around Sylph with a chill, making her shiver in discomfort.

She sighed and hung her head. “Reckon I was done with this… Thought it’d be just a short jaunt. Quick like a bunny, then I’d be gone. I don’t like this.”

She pressed her head back against the wall despondently. She didn’t want to be fighting, even if she told herself it was for a good cause. Running was more her forte. Not many people could catch her. Were it any other time, she’d have already left Earth and been well on her way somewhere else; anywhere else. It never mattered where she’d go, as long as she was free and didn’t have to fight everything everywhere she went. Sylph could not for the life of her understand why she chose to stay.

“Hello?” A voice, muffled and almost too quiet to hear, came from just a short way down the hall. The wind carried the gentle voice to Sylph’s ears, and the Inkling looked up to hear it call out again. “Hello? Is someone there?”

Epheral’s soldiers didn’t speak, so she was sure that was a human. “Hey!” She called back, “It’s. uh, me! Laila!”

“Laila?” The voice repeated. It sounded like a young girl. “Oh, thank goodness! Laila, we need help. We’re stuck and can’t get out.”

“Who’s that?” Sylph asked, “Reckon I heard you somewhere before.”

“Um… Harley,” The girl said, “It’s me, Harley! Laila, please… we’re scared. We really want to get out of here.”

Sylph peeked around the corner. She saw the linen closet door, all bent out of shape and jammed. Harley’s voice was coming from in there. “Anyone hurt in there?” She asked.

“No,” Harley answered, “We’re okay, we’re just so scared. Can you get us out? Please?”

Seeing Epheral’s forces gathering down the hall, Sylph ducked back. She had to save Abigail and Lincoln, and now she had to save these kids. She decided that would be difficult, and the most inconvenient, but proper thing to do. She didn’t have anybody giving her orders, it was her choice to do it. She’d been used to choice a bit longer than most Inklings, and she’d exercised it like it was going out of style. To do, or not to do, was up to her. That situation, though… doing nothing meant that others could get hurt. Even though it was the easiest option, she knew it wasn’t really an option at all. Doing nothing was what got the gray fox’s kit killed by Epheral. Hiding and running hadn’t done anything to change that.

She so wanted to do it, even so. She was bonded with a human now, though, and that human voice inside her was screaming at her to get up and get moving. Sylph did not like being told what to do… but she’d let it slide, just this once.

Epheral’s soldiers had formed a dual firing squad. A row of them kneeled to fire down the hall toward her, while a row behind that stood tall to fire over the first. The sudden barrage of prana bullets startled Sylph out of her procrastination, and she pulled herself further around the corner to avoid the slightest possibility of getting struck. The bullets tore up the lobby across from her, peeling up destruction wherever they hit. The kids in the closet all screamed, thinking that what they were hearing was surely the end having come for them.

“Nuh uh,” Sylph said, readying her weapon, “Ain’t no more lil’ kits getting’ whacked if I got anythin’ worth sayin’ about it.”

Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself before leaping out around the corner. Bullets struck her immediately, and the burning pain was quick and intense. Her body wanted to bunch up squat and fall to the floor as the white-hot prana bullets cut into her face, her shoulders, her stomach and her legs. Her inky body rippled and twisted out of shape with jagged ends of prana shards sticking out of it every which way, turning her into a pin cushion. She cried out and threw her weapon forward, swinging the rifle, and with it, kicking up a gale of wind that tore back into the barrage like a hurricane. The walls shook, the light fixtures were torn from the walls, the linen closet door was scooped up and taken away by the rush of air, and the soldiers’ bullets were turned back around on those who fired them. The maelstrom bulldozed through the halls, taking doors, lights, and debris with it, barreling into the construct soldiers like a wrecking ball. The shards in Sylph’s body were ripped out by the force of the wind, and her body snapped back into shape, albeit with some glowing scars. She rushed forward, following her buffet of wind by launching herself into the hallway after it. She tore up carpet and wall in her wake, the sound of her launch resembling that of a thunder strike.

Her power was stifled so much indoors. No sooner had she taken off had she tried to slow herself. Her body tore through the soldiers blocking her way, riding the wind so swiftly that her impact was too much to withstand. They shattered like glass all around her, and her form blew past faster than they could fly apart. In less than a second, she found herself at the end of the hallway, and the last door was coming at her faster than she could even register it.

BAM.

She stopped. The world spun around her, feeling like gravity was finally catching up with her speed. Inertia hit, heaving her insides toward her face in whiplash, making her harshly exhale. “Buuuh!” She lurched forward, expecting to fall but finding herself constructed. She blinked her eyes and shook her head, her inky ponytail slapping her in the face. “What the…?” Her shoulders were bunched up against her sides, and she twisted and wiggled to try and find some purchase. Lifting her head, she finally realized just where she was as she stared into the small den of a hotel room, a queen size bed off to the side, a couple cowering under the sheets that shook with their fright as they stared at her.

She’d blown a hole right through the door with her own body.

Trying to move her legs was useless, as she’d piled up so much debris behind her that she had effectively barricaded the room with the doors of several other rooms. She still held the rifle she had, but on the outside of the door against her stomach where her hands were pinned. She grunted and fussed as she tried desperately to free herself. At the very least, she sent a gust of wind back behind her to blow the doors pinning her away, pushing them off herself and revealing her backside stuck wedged in the hole she’d bashed into the door.

“Tarnation!” She shouted, “Dag nabbit! N’ other things like that!”

The couple on the bed were holding one another tightly, shaking with fright. They stuttered and whimpered, not sure of what to make of the situation. They screamed when the refrigerator flew open, its door slamming against the wall. From within, Lincoln tumbled out with various pieces of Abigail following him. He rolled onto the floor and sat up, holding Abigail’s head in his hands, swaying in place as his head spun. Abigail’s various limbs plopped onto the ground all around him, writhing in discomfort, though the expression on her face looked no different than usual.

Sylph sighed, surrendering to her situation and receding into her host. Laila blinked at Lincoln as he stared quizzically at her.

“… Did you seriously bash your head through the door?” Abigail asked, her head barely tilting in question between Lincoln’s crossed legs.

Laila stared at her, unimpressed. “Did ya’ll seriously hide in a fridge?” She asked, trying to squirm her way out again. “Ya’ll got any butter in there?”

On the other side of the door, Harley, Isabella, Brooklyn and Oliver approached. They were confused and cautious, stepping delicately toward the door. Seeing that Sylph had given way to Laila once more, they were relieved. Brooklyn was the first to step forward, staring in wonder. Reflected in her glasses was Laila’s wriggling backside, her tail whipping around out the back of her jumpsuit in frustration.

“Yay!” Brooklyn beamed, zipping forward and throwing her arms around Laila’s legs in a hug. She mashed her face against one of Laila’s butt cheeks, nuzzling into it like one would a fond family member. “Our hero!”

Laila yipped, bolting up and kicking her foot back, knocking Brooklyn to the floor. “Who’s there?! Watch what yer grabbin’ on!” She shouted, shooting a glare backwards at the door.

Harley took a moment to check on Brooklyn, who had gotten the wind kicked out of her and was wheezing for breath on the floor but seemed otherwise happy. She stepped over the frog and toward Laila, carefully moving aside to avoid any more kicks. “Laila?” She said, “Are you okay?”

“Huh?” Laila’s anger gave way to concern, “That you, lil’ lady? Harley? Ya’ll okay back there?”

“We didn’t get to see anything!” Oliver complained, “What did you do? One second we were in that dark room, then WOOSH! The door flew RIGHT OFF! And it was super windy and everything went FWOOSH, sucked down the hall super fast! Did you use your wind powers? How did you get stuck in the door?”

“… And are you okay?” Harley repeated.

Laila tried again to wiggle free, only twisting and grunting, shaking her hips to Brooklyn’s delight. “I’m stuck proper!” Laila said, “But I’m right as rain! Just… stuck!”

“Don’t worry!” Brooklyn bounced forward to grab one of Laila’s legs. She was met with another sudden kick as Laila yelped, knocking a croak out of the frog girl and sending her back to the floor. Brooklyn coughed, wheezed, and took a shot from her pen to get her breath back before getting right back on that horse, so to speak. She grabbed Laila’s leg and held it firm. “We’ll get you out! Everybody, grab her legs!”

“What?! Hey, what’re you doin’ back there?!” Laila barked.

Brooklyn’s glasses shined with almost sinister glee. “Yeeees, her long, lovely legs. Hurry up everyone!”

Isabella shrugged, flicking her bangs away from her eyes before striding forward and grabbing Laila’s other leg. Oliver and Harley were close behind, and with two of them to a leg, they began to heave. Brooklyn lead the charge, counting them down. “One, two, pull!” The kids grunted, and Laila’s eyes bugged uncomfortably as they pulled hard on her to try and get her back through the hole. “Again! One, two, pull!” The kids grunted and tugged, giving it all they had to yank the giraffe free.

“Ow!” Laila yelped, “Watch it y’little varmints! Ah! Gentle, darnit!”

Abigail, having literally pulled herself together, cast a shadow over Laila’s front. “Since when did you like gentle?” She asked, barely grinning.

Laila gave her the huffy look of an annoyed bull, but Abigail smothered it with the floppy sleeves of her sweater as she shoved on Laila’s head to help in the efforts. “Heave, ho.” The jellyfish chanted flatly, barely putting any effort into it at all, no more than it took it annoy and further inconvenience her savior at any rate. Somehow, between her efforts and that of the kids, a few good, solid tugs that felt like they’d dislocate Laila’s hips finally succeeded. The giraffe popped back out the other side, the kids tumbling behind her as she landed among them. While she was glad to not feel a door constricting her ribs whenever she tried to breathe, she did get up quickly. Little Oliver had been squashed beneath her, but he seemed to just be giggling over the whole thing and not terribly hurt at all.

Brooklyn bounced up and down pumping her fists in the air one after the other. “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” She shouted. Harley clapped her hands quietly, and Isabella just rolled her eyes at the antics of her companions. Laila looked at them all in turn and couldn’t help but crack a smile herself. Abigail reached through the hole in the door and opened it from the outside, letting it slide open before she stepped out, nearly bowled over by Lincoln, who zipped out to latch on to Laila’s back and squeeze her for dear life.

Abigail gave her a careful consideration. “Took you long enough.”

The kids’ disposition soured immediately upon seeing Abigail there. Isabella stepped forward, pushing Laila aside. All she said was, “Move.” Then, she slapped Abigail across the face. Abigail cocked her head aside, flinching a little, and her usual line-mouth turned into a bit of a frown. The slap left a faint red handprint right on her cheek.

“You nearly got us killed!” Isabella yelled at the girl, “You fucking stupid bitch!”

“Yeah you… suck! You suck a lot!” Oliver joined in. Brooklyn crossed her arms and turned her head away, raising her chin in haughty dismissal of the jellyfish girl. “You are the least cool Inkling who ever lived!” She added. Harley, not prone to outburst or anger, crossed her arms too and just stared daggers into Abigail.

“That makes you even less cool than Osoth.” Brooklyn huffed, “The Inkling Fan Club officially recognizes you as a big stupid jerkface.”

Abigail gave them a side-eyed look, and then just focused on a point on the wall.

Laila joined in on being unimpressed with Abigail, but a thought hit her that demanded attention. “Oh for the love of…” She reached out and grabbed Abigail’s arm, pulling her forward, “You, get’cher butt over here. Now.”

She stumbled back, her grip suddenly being hit with slack. Abigail’s arm flopped out of her sleeve and onto the floor, and Laila nearly tripped over the kids. The giraffe was surprised, for a moment, but when she looked at Abigail’s face, the jellyfish girl was staring defiantly back at her. Laila doubled down, picking up Abigail’s arm, then squatting down to pick up the entirety of Abigail. She threw the girl over her shoulder and then turned to march down the hall, with both Abigail and Lincoln dangling off her back. Confused, the younger kids followed them, with other citizens and civilians starting to peek out of their doors since the commotion had settled.

Laila marched them out into the lobby. They didn’t have to get all the way before Lincoln dropped off Laila’s back and zipped forward on his wings in a hurry. “Jimmy!” he cried. He zipped over to his friend’s side and grabbed hold of him with one hand, and his own hair in the other. He pulled on his white locks while squeezing Jimmy’s arm for dear life. Jimmy growled in pain but seemed too weak and battered to do anything about it.

Jimmy’s entire upper arm was a spider web of prana fractures, all the way down to the bicep. They spread out under his clothes, the tendrils of it creeping over his collar and toward his neck. He was sweating, and teary-eyed, letting out little whimpers of pain before he could collect himself and try to maintain some semblance of composure in front of a crowd. He panted for breath, seeming to strain to do so, wincing when breathing too hard hurt.

He looked at Abigail as Laila was putting her down. “You’re okay,” He smiled, “That’s g… gnh… great.”

Abigail turned to see him, and her brows twitched. “What…” She barely got the question out before Laila shoved her arm back to her, and then forcibly held Abigail so she couldn’t turn away.

“THIS is your fault!” Laila scolded her. “YOU did this!”

Abigail was stricken speechless for a moment as she stared at Jimmy’s obvious injuries. She winced in disgust at the way that weird prana stuff looked like it was burrowing through his body. She quickly tried to get her thoughts together. “No, I didn’t,” She said, “I didn’t do anything.”

“Oh yes you did!” Laila argued, “You screwed around, and people got hurt! And it’s not just your fault, it’s all your faults!”

Lincoln bolted upright and stared pleading at Laila. Jimmy just dropped his head. Abigail pulled away from Laila and turned to face her defiantly. “We didn’t mean to get Jimmy hurt,” She said, “That was the monsters, they did that.”

“And what about us?!” Isabella added. By now, people were coming out of their rooms to see what was going on, and Abigail looked around to see them closing in. She scratched her cheek with her detached arm and kind of rolled her eyes to look of somewhere else. “Well, I mean… They’re fine.” She said, “They just got stuck in a room, they were probably safer in there anyway. See? They’re fine. You don’t have to cry about it.”

“Y-Yeah! It’s not like we were trying to get people hurt or anything!” Lincoln rushed to defend himself, fidgeting incredibly nervously. “Back off! Let’s just get Jimmy some help!”

“OH.” Laila started, exasperating, “MY GOD. Ya’ll…! You bunch just don’t know when t’quit, do ya?! Ya’ll just can’t turn it off, can ya?! Ya’ll just do whatever you want, nuts to anyone else and whoever ya hurt! You do this ALL THE TIME! What’n the heck is so messed up in ya’ll’s brains that ya’ll can’t see what you do to people?! Yer gonna tell me while one of you gets burned up into prana for Epheral’s goons, that NOTHIN’S WRONG? SERIOUSLY?!”

Lincoln was frozen. Abigail stared at Laila as the giraffe took a moment to cool off. “… What do you mean burned up into prana?” Abigail asked calmly, “… Do you mean… Jimmy’s really in trouble?”

“Gee!” Laila grabbed Abigail again and turned her around, thrusting her hand out to display Jimmy’s clearly afflicted, barely conscious form, “YA THINK?”

Laila stepped out in front and grabbed Abigail’s cheek, stretching it far out to the side to make her wince in discomfort. “Abby, darlin’, sweetie-pie, blue razzleberry, listen to me. Ya’ll are so darn stupid, yer gonna get someone you care about a whole heck of a lot killed.”

She released Abigail’s cheek, and it snapped back. The girl rubbed her face, staring at Jimmy. “… Killed?”

Laila sighed somberly. “Yeah.”

“… But…” Abigail started, but couldn’t finish, sounding as if she had every intention of deflecting the blame somewhere else.

Lincoln teared up, his big, red eyes glossing over. “But I don’t want Jimmy to die!” He cried, sniffling, “No!”

The kids, so angry at them just a second ago, crowded around in concern. They didn’t know what was happening, but Jimmy appeared to be in a tremendous amount of pain and seeing that overrode their earlier disdain. “Oh, my goodness,” Harley said, her expression twisting up on the brink of tears, “How awful.” Isabella covered her mouth and rubbed her face uncomfortably. Brooklyn looked flat-out scared of the possibility that someone could die to Epheral. Many others were horrified that the same thing could happen to them if they weren’t careful.

Abigail reattached her arm, just so she could wrap both around herself. “Uh…” She shifted uncomfortably, though her expression changed very little, her eyes and body language said it all. She was feeling the vibe of the room. Laila stared angrily at the back of Abigail’s head. The longer it took her to say anything toward taking ownership of the situation, the more Laila’s anger grew. After a while, she couldn’t take it anymore. Truly and wholly disgusted by her ex-pack’s actions once again, she spat onto the floor.

“You were raised better, Abby.” She said, the honey of her twang lost to a dry, barren tone of pity.

Abigail looked up at Laila and said with a tinge of anger, “Screw. You.”

Laila stepped way, past the teens and the kids and out toward the blown-out hole in the shutter. The wind caught her hair, whipping it into her face as she stepped outside into the crummy weather. Combing it away, she stared out over the pier and at the ugly, malformed crystal that had smashed into the boardwalk. With the people in the hotel seeming safe now, Laila turned her sights on that. Sylph was all but drained, though. There was going to be no Inkling help on this one. Still, it was up to her to take that thing out, however she could.

The thing seemed to twist and shift. No doubt it was ready to churn out another battalion of soldiers to make her life hell. Shaking off the lingering feelings of hate for her former friends, Laila set out to find a way to get the job done. She swept her gaze across the pier and the beach, looking for anything that might make a big enough impact to shatter that thing for good. Given the size of it, it would have to be something awful significant… something powerful. Something she couldn’t hope to lift on her own.

She settled her gaze on the small collection of vehicles that were still scattered around the hotel. Some of them weren’t even parked properly. People had certainly been in a rush.

She looked back at the small crowd that had gathered at the shutters. “Hey,” She said, “Who here ain’t all that attached to their car? The bigger, the better.”

She was answered by a few hesitantly raised hands. That put a smile back on her face. “That’ll do, I reckon.”

-

--

-

For the time being, merging back into a single entity was best for Duplex. There was no sense crowding the halls and moving as a large group when it wasn’t both obvious where to go and more beneficial to be trouncing around in large numbers. Even if the prana soldiers could easily sniff them out by their prana signatures, like Epheral could, it was still faster to move as a pair rather than a herd. It wouldn’t have served to get too far from Lumina’s light anyway. The emergency lighting was barely passable, and that left plenty of things to trip over. Not that the hospital wasn’t kept clean – even in the distress they were in, there weren’t any obstacles left cluttering the halls. Still, knowing Duplex, it would have easily tripped up over a waiting bench or a planter, or even a water cooler somewhere.

Chances weren’t something they could afford to take. Lumina took few herself, as any soldier she saw, no matter what they were doing or if they were coming at her or not, she took them down. Using corners as cover, she blasted down anything that got in their way while keeping an eye out for where the trapped patients and doctors might be. It was proving to be more and more difficult the deeper they got. Epheral’s forces were getting more varied, which didn’t help matters. Foot soldiers and rocket troopers were bad enough in numbers, but she had begun forming marksmen, shield-bearers, and grenadiers as well. They were moving in strategic unit formations to maximize their effectiveness. Long-range targets kept back and distanced themselves from any fighting, and things like the shield-bearers were taking point up front, creating a thick prana wall to chisel through before any other progress could be made.

Fortunately, there was no distance light could not reach, and no force too dark it could not penetrate. It may have been by the skin of their teeth most of the time, but Lumina saw them through. It was taking its toll, however. Her light dimmed as her prana energy was spent, and it wasn’t long before she was just barely a better alternative than the dim emergency lighting. Tired, strained, she kept herself alight as a beacon to follow, and did her best to shoulder the burden. She may not have been a fighter much in the past, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from giving it everything she could spare.

After burning down one more soldier in the span of many, Duplex and Lumina happened upon a large viewing window. They kept down low to creep under its span, to avoid getting seen by anything or exposing themselves as a target. The light inside whatever room it was flickered, lighting the hallways erratically. The struggling circuits provided the only noise in the otherwise sterile, quiet air of the hospital. They were in deep enough that there was nary a window to let the outside in, and the place only seemed to get more still and silent as they went on. There were no further threats up the corridor, and so once they reached the center, where anything rounding the corners ahead or behind would grant them many precious moments to react, they stopped to rest. Lumina glanced up at the signage on the wall that hung overhead amidst a small gallery of bright, colourful paintings. “This is the nursery,” She said, “Right in this room.”

Curiously, Duplex turned and got up on its knees to peek over the bottom edge of the window. It moved slowly and only rose as far as necessary to see into the room, barely clearing half the precipice. The room was clean, colourful, and pleasant-looking. Untouched, it seemed, by Epheral’s soldiers – not that Epheral herself would have cared. Children weren’t off-limits for her and hadn’t been for a while. Infants weren’t spared this lack of discrimination either. That not even the door was damaged was a good sign, and when Duplex got enough of a view to see well to the floor, whatever cribs were left over were empty. Duplex sighed in relief and lowered again to press its back against the wall. “All gone,” It said, “They probably got moved.”

“Well, that’s good!” Lumina said, “Then we don’t need to worry ourselves here. Let’s move on.”

Duplex set its gaze on a small crack creeping up from the floor, just an inch or so from the base of the wall. The little fracture was glowing white. “What do you think happened to them?” Duplex asked, pushing doom say from her mind. “Where would they go? It has to be somewhere that could hold them all, plus the doctors and other patients.”

“It couldn’t be maternity,” Lumina said, “Most maternity wards are kind of small, aren’t they?”

“Not enough births to justify making them bigger,” Duplex concluded, “So what would there be more of?”

“I don’t know…” Lumina said, “… Not-babies?”

Duplex turned its attention to the signs above, ponderously. Each sign had a coloured square on it to match a coloured line on the floor. These lines split off at various junctions and joined along side others in places, all with the intent to lead any hospital personnel or visitor to the area they needed to be. A pink line had lead them to the nursery, and that line rounded the corner to no doubt end up at the door, which Duplex knew would be security locked. A yellow line broke away at the junction up the hall, which would have lead them to the daycare center, where most young toddlers would have been brought to be looked after. Physio’s purple line followed the yellow line, where people of all ages would have gone to do multiple range of movement exercises to encourage the recovery of their motor skills in case of injury.

“Well…” Duplex began.

“Wait,” Lumina cut it off, “I hear something. Shh.”

Duplex stopped and went silent. The Inklings pricked their ears up and listened. The halls remained silent, dead air lingering in the space with barely even the buzz of power to accompany it. Then, suddenly, something shifted. Like the scuff of a shoe on the tiled floor, and Duplex looked down as if it expected to see a black streak where someone’s shoe rubbed off. The sound was brief, half a second in and gone all the quicker. Lumina rose to her knees and investigated the nursery again, able to see out the other two viewing windows on the far side and end of the room. Epheral’s prana soldiers often stood out against the dark, super-imposed into reality as they were. Lumina didn’t see anything like that, and so part of her wondered if perhaps someone was walking around outside the safety of whatever haven the doctors undoubtedly had set up. Still, she wasn’t going to call out, not until she knew for sure what was going on out there. She moved to get up and ushered Duplex along to follow her, and the two of them crept forth into the darkness to investigate further.

They reached the T junction at the end of the hall. No one was to the left. No one was to the right. The halls remained empty, not even a prana soldier to stop them. They stopped and listened again for any sound that would tip them off as to which direction they should go. For several moments, there was only silence. Several moments longer, and they gave up trying and simply guessed. Moving toward physio and following the purple line, they continued to creep and move as quietly as they could. Their inked feet moved like well-fitting slippers on the ground; not noisy in the slightest, save for maybe the occasional softest tap of their feet.

Lumina lead the charge, her ears straining to pick up on even the slightest sound. She had to find who or what that was, either to take it out, or to protect them if they were human. Duplex followed behind, struggling to keep up as Lumina moved much more deftly than it did. The two of them followed the purple line all the way to the physiotherapy room, where Lumina stopped and threw the doors open to look inside.

The room resembled a small gym in many ways. The equipment inside was the same sort one would find in any publicly available exercise center. Stationary speed bikes, stair climbers, weight benches, and a variety of mats, climbing apparatuses, and hand bars for balancing gave patients several means to assist in regaining mobility. The floors were almost soft, like a clay court, and the walls were clean and white. The lights were off entirely, and the room was pitch black. Only Lumina’s own glow allowed them to peer inside. The room seemed empty, which at least assured them that the survivors weren’t holed up in there.

Lumina and Duplex lingered for several moments, scanning the room from the entryway just to make sure they didn’t miss anything. They were just about to turn away when something was knocked over, a metallic clanging sound giving it away. Lumina whipped back and stepped into the room, finally calling out. “I know you’re in here, whoever you are! Come out!”

No response came, and so Lumina moved further into the room. Duplex followed, but Lumina stopped it. “Stick to the doors,” She said, “In case they try to run.”

Being all for taking any opportunity to hang back, Duplex nodded and took up a position blocking the door. It stood there in the center of the entryway, trying to be ready in case anything moved. Lumina left Duplex to that and carefully began moving around the sizable room, not daring to go too quickly and possibly miss a detail in her search. She was in no hurry anyway – there was only one way in or out of that room. Her target was cornered; it was only a matter of sussing them out. She took it one careful, deliberate step at a time, letting her light shine in the nooks and crannies to illuminate every possible hiding place.

Silence, silence, all around. Lumina couldn’t see or hear a thing in her search. She brushed her hands along the equipment, feeling it out as she went. In her mosey around the room, she knelt to look under things, under benches, behind bikes… She made one whole trip around the room not spotting anything. A second go-around was naturally the next step, looking in places she missed the first time. A shuffle alerted her to something near the corner of the room but turning to it revealed nothing. Her light bathed the walls and revealed nothing but colourful hand-grips jutting out of the wall for use in climbing exercises. She paused and sniffed the air. Something was there – she could smell it, even, but couldn’t see it.

Whatever it was, it took the chance to bolt, as suddenly, the sounds of its feet and body just started clattering off everything in a mad dash to the other end of the room. Lumina and Duplex both looked in the direction of the sounds, but nothing was revealed to them. It was quick, and it wasn’t long until it had reached the far wall and started raising quite a commotion. By the time Lumina had rushed in to meet the person or creature, she found only an open vent about two-thirds up the wall, hanging on its hinges, and could hear whatever had escaped them crawling through the ducts that ran through the building.

“Damn!” Lumina cursed, “What was that? No prana construct, that’s for sure. We would have seen it.”

“I don’t… ACK!” Duplex sought to respond, but the doors blew open behind it before it could finish, throwing it to the floor. Lumina quickly turned to see a construct coming straight at her in a lunge, long, narrow arms wide open, preparing to clamp down around her. She dropped, and the construct passed right over her. It deftly landed, moving with surprising agility to prop itself up in a low, all-fours stance that kept its limbs widely splayed. It peered at Lumina from beneath a shape like a hat, and its humanoid body seemed to bear two arms affixed with long, slender blades at roughly forearm level.

That was an assassin, if ever Daxton had seen one. It had the athletic form fitting its stealthy, agile role, and wasted no time using it to pounce at Lumina again. She decided it was best to close in and meet it before it could ready those blades, so she sprinted forth and dove aside just before meeting her foe, avoiding a left-side slash, and tumbling to avoid the follow-up leg-sweep and spinning right-side slash. The assassin construct carried itself on momentum almost unnatural, allowing it to leap into the air and flip, poising itself on one of the weight benches only briefly before leaping at Lumina again. Lumina blasted it out of the air with a quick beam, then moved to get a better position while it was thrown back.

“Ah, be careful!” Duplex cried, squealing when the assassin turned on it instead. It flipped and rolled over the exercise equipment with expert precision and leapt into the air to come down on Duplex from above. Its blade passed right through, as Duplex split apart into two identical copies of itself, the point of the split running perfectly in time with the descending blade to rob it of finding any ink to slice. Now with one target on either side, the assassin leapt up and delivered a spinning kick to strike them both. They were knocked away, but Lumina was quick to take their place, rushing in to deliver a heavy haymaker to the construct, which connected.

The assassin rolled with the hit, digging one of its blades into the floor and scraping the other in a crescent as it turned on Lumina and struck back. The Inkling was put immediately on the defensive, stumbling back to avoid the swift, deadly slices of the assassin’s blades. She bumped into an exercise bike, and that stopping moment allowed the assassin to catch her, delivering a backwards-crescent kick up under Lumina’s chin, kicking her up and over the bike while the construct flipped backward. It landed in an open space, squat and close to the floor and raising to move in on Lumina. Duplex charged in from behind, clumsily attempting to tackle the construct. It whipped around in a flash, sending a blade right through the inked pig, revealing it to simply be a copy as it split apart and popped.

Another Duplex rushed in to be cut down, and then another, and then another, the assassin construct taking them into a twirling dance of blades and slicing them up one after the other. One finally got a hit in and used it only to shove the construct with all its strength accompanied by a frustrated cry of triumph. The construct was thrown into one of the exercise bikes, crashing into it and knocking it to the floor along with its prana-made body. Lumina capitalized on this moment by jumping the construct while it was down, striking down at it with her fists and hitting it a few times before it brought its legs up to wrap around Lumina’s head, and use her as a vaulting point to rise again.

Lumina stood with the assassin on her shoulders, and then threw the construct off. It flipped in the air to land on its feet again, ever the agile opponent. It came at her once more, lunging in, arms crossed and ready to slash out. Lumina took it low, ducking under the cross-slash and ramming her shoulder into its body. Rather than carry it forward, she grappled it, spinning around to its back and seizing it tightly before throwing her weight into lifting it off the floor. She threw it back, and bent with it, suplexing the assassin head-first into the floor. The pranic, glassy crack of its body hitting the floor was more than a little satisfying. So much so in fact, that she opted to do it again. She flipped herself and the assassin over and heaved the construct into a second suplex that she then released, throwing the assassin into the rows of exercise bikes, taking each one down like dominos and leaving it in a heap.

Lumina rose, shaking the daze out. Moves like that did as much damage to her as it did to her opponents. Taking from Daxton’s repertoire was from that moment on deemed risky. Duplex watched the spectacle from its spot at the door, not having moved a muscle and had simply been sending replicas of itself into the fight. The Inkling pig was impressed, marveling at the shining Inkling’s combat skills. The display was only made more impressive as Lumina’s movements and impacts were topped off with flashes of light – made to deal more energy damage on top of her attacks, but more visually impressive than anything else to the untrained eye.

“Whoa…” Duplex said, “Amazing!”

The assassin wasn’t finished with just that, and it rolled to a low stance, ready to lunge again. Lumina turned to face it. “What a pain…” She said, “I’m done with you.”

The assassin ran forth, dragging its blades across the ground, leaving a sliced trail in its wake. Before it could so much as lift one inch off the ground to jump, however, a beam of light met it square right in its face. The impact burned through its pranic body in an instant, searing the appendage clear off, and with the damage done the construct finally fell to pieces.

“Yay!” Duplex cheered, somewhat quietly, giving Lumina’s performance a gentle applause.

Lumina breathed a heavy sigh and receded. Her inky skin and form disappeared, and Daxton was left standing in the darkened room, with only the faint light from the hallway to see with. He stood tall and stretched his neck, cracking it two times before turning toward Duplex and posing with a haughty thumbs-up. “Yeah!” He cheered, and then relaxed. “Alright, time to give Lumina a rest. She’s wiped.”

Duplex was concerned. “We’re… not sure we have time to rest,” It said, “Should we keep moving?”

Daxton shrugged his shoulders. “I can keep up,” He said, “And it won’t take long. We can pull her out if we really need to, but for now we’re gonna have to go on without. Shouldn’t be too long… heck, by then we might just have everything cleaned up anyway.”

“Okay,” Duplex nodded, “Then… just leave it to us! The patients aren’t here, so they have to be somewhere else. We should double back.”

“A-greed,” Daxton said, “Let’s hustle.”

Daxton only took one step when something came up from the floor. Claws punctured the flooring beneath his feet in four carefully measured areas around him, seeming to latch on and dig in. Daxton paused, turning in place to see them positioned in a square around him – four perfect corners, roughly a meter apart. Amidst the sounds of Duplex’s gasp and panic, Daxton could hear a subtle… beeping. A timer.

“Ah,” He cursed, “Crap.”

The claws were charges, and they went up in vertical, contained explosions that broke apart the ground under Daxton’s feet. The entire floor taken out from under him, he fell with the debris into the level below, crying out in surprise as he did. Duplex ran forward, arms out to try and catch him, but it was too helplessly slow to do so. By the time it reached the edge of the blown-in square hole, Daxton was plunged into the darkness below. “Daxton!” it cried, getting on its knees and squinting into the dark. “Daxton?! Are you okay?!”

Daxton coughed. At least he was breathing. He’d fallen straight down, and his ankles were really feeling the pain. The debris shook off him as he sat up from where he tumbled. It was pitch black but activating the dark-vision on his STOP revealed the room he had fallen into. It seemed to be a surgical theatre – that much was obvious by the surgical table nearby. The theatre looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. Aside from the busted-in ceiling, it was pristine. The auditorium around it, where doctors and their colleagues would watch procedures in progress to learn from them, were also empty and cast in darkness. He looked up to see Duplex peering down through the hole. It wasn’t too high up, but far enough that there was no way he was going to be able to reach it.

“I’m fine! Sorta…” Daxton called back. He immediately grumbled, pain aching in just about every part of his body he could think of. His left heel felt extra sore. Curling his toes in his shoes, he wondered if he’d twisted it. “Ow, alright, so I’m a little hurt. Let’s see…”

To test it, he pulled himself to his feet as he normally would if he were standing up. Pain in his heel shot up his leg and made it quiver, nearly making his knee buckle. He caught himself on the surgical table, saving himself from falling back over. It wasn’t twisted or sprained, but definitely bruised. He hadn’t rolled with the fall perfectly. He hissed in pain, growling as he did his best to tough it out. “Yeah okay, my foot’s a little messed up,” He said, “But I’m good! Nothing an ice pack and a pen won’t fix.”

Duplex began to fret. “Oh no, what do we do?” It asked, “We really shouldn’t come down after you this way… maybe we can find the stairs? Or the elevator?”

“We’ll both look,” Daxton decided, “While you do, keep an eye out for the others, and the crystal too. And stay out of trouble. Don’t get hurt.”

“Okay,” Duplex agreed, reluctantly stepping away from the hole. “We’ll see you soon! Stay safe!”

Daxton heard Duplex trounce back out the doors of the physio room. He carefully dabbed the side of his face and withdrew his fingers to see blood on them. “Ah, what do I have to worry about?” He muttered, “I’m just a guy whose Inkling is pretty much worn out. No big deal. Better make a call though, just in case…”

-

--

-

As smoke cleared around the crater Arus had left in the street, her quaking white hand slowly extended from the depths to grip the edge and pull herself out. She shook not in fear, or pain, but in anger. She rose from the grave dug out special just for her by prana ballistics fire, violet eyes narrowed in a fixed glare straight ahead at the spider-like war machine that stared her down from a golf swing away. A long trail of upturned street marked where she stood and chronicled her trip down the midway with various body-sized divots and chunks to where she had finally been properly dug in and buried. It was there she was stuck for some time; because every time she pulled herself out of that hole, the small army that had converged on her put her back in.

Just a single step out of the grave, and she was met by the bullet rain from the Walker unloading scores of bullets into her, more than one a second. She tensed up and took it on the chest, the prana bullets flying off as they struck her inky body and were promptly resisted. The storefronts and buildings at either side of the street were peppered once again by the spray, leaving behind Epheral’s characteristic white energy fused into the shutters and construction, whittling away at the protective barriers that were keeping people safe. Arus could do little more than withstand, unable to move forward with the pressure of the spray bearing down on her. She waited it out – again.

When it finally stopped, things moved on to the second step of the dance, where the prana construct soldiers positioned on the rooftops to her left and laid into her with rifle fire once more. Again, she withstood, standing statue still, tense, barely even flinching as the ricochet tore up everything in a nine-foot circumference around her. Several seconds of this ended in an explosive climax, where rocket trooper constructs had taken up a position behind her, pelting her with rockets and underslung grenade explosives – or the prana facsimile of such – enveloping her in a cloud of white energy. Nothing got through, but her skin felt the tingle of Epheral’s efforts to burn her away. That poisonous prana was a danger that Arus had scarcely ever encountered. But even something that could worm and wriggle its way into her very flesh found itself repelled with some effort on her part.

Her trip down the main street did grant one benefit, however. When the fire finally let up for long enough, Arus quickly bolted to grab a vending machine from the midway. Its sleek, spartan, rounded bulk and all the contents therein were nothing to her strength, and with a grunt she ripped it straight out of the ground and above her head. She turned and threw it with every ounce of strength she could muster, sending it sailing further down the street, smashing the rocket troopers apart and destroying the machine when it hit the ground and burst open. PET peripherals scattered over the streets.

That’s when Carrie’s PET chirped at her. A section of her leg melted away to reveal Carrie’s own, where her PET was strapped. Arus quickly grabbed it, closed the opening in her membrane, and answered the call as the minigun hail began raining down over her back, showering her in prana ballistics that she endured as she brought up Daxton’s distress call. Laila and Kenny appeared to have already answered, but Arus’ inclusion in the conference immediately overtook the entire thing as she hunched up, protecting her PET from the rifle fire that followed the Walker’s barrage, as it always had the five times before.

“What the hell?” Kenny groused, “Carrie, is all that racket you?”

“Yes and no,” Arus answered, her anger more measured and calmer than Carrie’s was, though no less ferocious, and thus even more intimidating. “Where’s my back-up?”

“That’s what I’m asking for,” Daxton explained, “I got split up from Quincey and I’m a little banged up at the hospital. We could use a hand.”

“You’re at a hospital,” Arus pointed out, “There are worse places to be hurt in.”

“Yeah well they’re not exactly running right now,” Daxton said, “And we haven’t found the crystal or any of the people. Quincey’s by herself, and that’s just bad.”

“I’ve got a whole bunch of kids with me,” Kenny said, “And Epheral’s soldiers are everywhere right now. I can’t do anything.”

“Well, I just ran a truck into the crystal by the beach, and this place is lookin’ pretty dandy,” Laila said, “In fact, I got some folk here that could probably use a hospital. I’ll grab ‘em and swing on by.”

“Swing by here first,” Arus said, “I need your help.”

“Tarnation,” Laila said, “Where are ya?”

The loud, booming thrum of the Walker’s mounted turret revving up to blast Arus away deafened the call for just a moment. She glanced back in irritation, and then turned her attention to Laila. “I’ll be easy to find,” She said, her end of the call cutting out as the cannon fired on her once again. The others were left momentarily concerned.

Laila swallowed. “Ah, yeah, I oughta just scoot on over there and give ‘er a gander. I’ll be right there with ya soon, Dax.”

-

--

-

Some things really tested the mettle of an officer. Marcello had to rank dragging her half-paralyzed self around a defunct hospital in the middle of an alien invasion as pretty far up the list of things that had ever challenged her, both as a detective, and as a person.

Claiming to drag herself around would have been false, however, though it felt like it much of the time. She instead relied heavily on the hospital staff and the police to get her from place to place. By the end of the initial commotion, she found herself locked up in the playground where parents would have brought their children to give them something to do if their trip to the hospital didn’t involve them. In the white florescent of the emergency lighting, the playground had lost an abundance of its vibrant colour and warmth. Cold shadows compressed the whacky and wild shapes of the spiral slide and monkey bars. The fort on which they were attached to loomed over the area to cast a sharp silhouette against the light no matter what direction one looked at it from. Still, it hadn’t stopped some kids from crawling around in its various passageways, peeking out the plastic windows at everyone else in the room.

There were enough people there for the normally large and open room to be crowded. Most people wouldn’t have even thought to go there, but it seemed to be where the patients and doctors just ended up corralling themselves. The doors were shut tight, barricaded with some of the activity tables for the kids, and several of the mats made available for safe tumbling and messing about. No one expected there to be anyone else coming, so they piled the stuff very high and very dense. That played double-duty, allowing a large, open space for the bed-ridden patients to have their cots set up and spread out, their vital monitoring systems having been taken with them when they were evacuated from their rooms.

If one were observant, it was apparent that the patients consisted of very few Locksmouth citizens. The bulk of them were Harbington folk who had been injured in Epheral’s attack. The doctors, too, were a bit of a mixed bag. Harbington’s medical professionals could think of little more they could do than help where their expertise allowed. The place had become overstaffed to the umpteenth, but they still managed to keep busy. The police officers on site were also a combination of Harbington and Locksmouth forces performing their due diligence. Blackwell – now Captain Blackwell – was doing her best to work with the highest-ranking Locksmouth officer among them. They argued over their course of action now and then, but ultimately, they stuck to one simple rule:

No one in, and no one out. When the all-clear is given, they can leave.

Naturally this put people on edge. Marcello watched every one of them, dissecting their behavior and nervous ticks, tells, and habits that gave her little insights into the sorts of people she was dealing with. The woman pacing from one end to the playground to the other was in hysterics and barely holding it together. She could not stop fidgeting when she moved, and she dragged her feet a little. Either she wasn’t used to moving around all too much, or she had some physical troubles. Her tell-tale lean gave it away, the way she kept her weight on her left leg. She had clearly knocked her knee. A pair of young ones, just old enough to be entering high school, stuck together and tried to hide from everyone else. They were scared, but their bigger concern seemed to be getting some alone-time to OC. It wasn’t happening. Supervision was too strict.

All in all, people weren’t taking it well. They were getting stressed, and some were cracking under the pressure.

Marcello had pushed it from her mind. There she sat in her chair closest to the spiral slide, the grav skiffs keeping her a couple of inches off the ground. Still in little more than a hospital gown and her under-things, there was little she could do. She felt confined in a much smaller prison, helpless but hopeful, trying to move her toes every now and then just hoping that it would work one time. Her logical mind chastised her optimism as naïve. She would be out of commission for months, even with therapy and treatment. Anything short of surgery to manually repair her vertebrae was going to leave her waiting for quite some time. If it were up to her, she’d have dermal vibrational plates affixed to her back already, but Epheral wasn’t going to play nice and let her have it.

She took her eyes off the others for a moment, seeming to stare off into space. For a while, she sat still and unblinking. She slid to lean in her chair, angling her gaze further toward the wall. She had noticed the open vent up high, and some playground objects conveniently stacked up by it to ascend nearly to its level. She’d been watching it for a while, and while others couldn’t detect anything amiss, she heard the open latch on the vent squeak. The light from her esca revealed nothing, no creature, no person, and no prana construct. Still, she rolled her eyes.

“You’ve been in and out of here about three times, and you’ve never stopped to say hello,” She said aloud to no one, “But I do wonder why something that can’t be seen feels the need to take obscure passageways to travel, remaining hidden from the naked eye. Given that you’re obviously a little sneak, and invisible, there’s no real question who you are, is there?”

She received no answer, but she smiled all the same. “Coul Sael, I presume.”

No answer. Not right away. After a few moments, the very air next to her seemed to ripple in the distinct shape of a small person. The form of an Inkling seemed to impress itself on the air, the image of the surroundings bending just slightly as Vissage’s cloaking faltered. From there, the membrane melted away, and Coul stood in the shadows next to Marcello’s chair. The young raccoon stuffed his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie in annoyance. “How’d you know that?” He asked, staring at the detective.

Marcello regarded him casually. She’d seen enough already that an invisible Inkling wasn’t going to put her off. “As I said, you’ve been through here a few times now,” She explained, “And I noticed that whenever you’ve passed through, you’ve left some things disturbed. Things kept moving, yet no one was moving them. They follow a distinct pattern around the outside of this room, meaning you were keeping to the walls to not accidentally reveal your presence here. After a while, you started bringing in the scent of the sterile air from some of the hospital’s cleaner rooms, meaning you’d been wandering about and returning here over and over.”

“I read all the files the LDPD had on the local Inklings, and there’s plenty on you and your friends. Coul Sael, several counts of mischief, misdemeanours, public displays of violence, and more trips to the principal’s office than even Cedric Onyx himself. Brown hair, amethyst eyes, short and slender stature, raccoon, only child. Bonded with an invisible Inkling, name unknown by the officials. Prone to breaking and entering and running reconnaissance for his pack.” Marcello ran through some of the details on Coul’s file as if she were reading it right off her PET; which she was, in a way, recalling the image in her mind and going through it again. She shot him a cool, studious look, studying his form and clothes. “Your pants are dirty, the scuff marks indicating that you’ve been crawling around on your hands and knees. Similar markings on your elbows and shoulders suggest doing so in a space not that much bigger than you, and certainly not one any of those prana monsters can get through. Again, being invisible but still hiding would indicate to me that your invisibility is useless against these monsters, and so it’s safe to assume that you had an Inkling due to Epheral’s ability to seemingly sniff them out. There is minor bruising on your collar and a tear on the right leg of your pants that suggest you’ve been in a struggle, and the collar of your shirt is stretched out where someone grabbed you and held you by it.”

She paused a moment to look at Coul’s face. The boy didn’t even seem to be listening, instead looking toward the doors. Marcello turned her gaze that way too but saw nothing but the pile of junk blocking it. “… And you’re either expecting trouble,” She said, “Which is a reasonable conclusion since your presence here would in theory draw the prana monsters to us…”

“Or you’re hoping someone comes through that door.” Marcello turned her attention back to Coul, who was staring at her in one-part annoyance and one-part disturbed awe. “Expecting your boss?” Marcello asked.

Coul fixed his eyes on the door for a good while before he let out a frustrated sigh and stepped away from Marcello. “He won’t come,” He said, “No way.”

“Something happened.” Marcello observed, “Trouble in paradise?”

“…” Coul seemed uneasy, like he was wrestling with something in his head that he couldn’t understand. “I just… I don’t get it. When that Epheral guy showed up, his goons kicked the crap out of us! But… Cedric doesn’t even care. He just went off to fight with that other girl.”

He turned to Marcello, loosening his posture and stepping carelessly back. “Look lady, I dunno how you even know who I am, but if you’re freaked out that Cedric might show up, it’s never gonna happen. Okay? We didn’t do anything.”

“I never said you did,” Marcello countered, leaning forward in her chair and dropping her hands in her lap. “I am curious, though… what brings you here if Cedric is off somewhere else?”

Coul was hesitant to answer. He said nothing, staring distrustfully at Marcello before simply fading away and disappearing right before her eyes. Marcello sat back, eyebrow raised, and began watching the surrounding area more closely. Coul left no prints on the floor to track him by, and the light didn’t reflect off his body in any way as he moved. Against all the laws of physics, he left no trace whatsoever that he was anywhere in that space.

The only thing that gave him away was his clumsy fumbling of some of the medical equipment near where the doctors had set up their temporary treatment center. One of the boxes of pencils was rummaged through when the doctors weren’t looking, and he seemed to take only a few before stuffing them away in his pockets and moving on. Next, some bandages were snatched away. After that, a small shot of painkiller. Marcello had him timed between each station. It didn’t take him long to slink up, grab what he needed, and then slip away. He moved at roughly the same pace between each stop, so when she didn’t see any more activity a few seconds after his last, she changed gears, counted to ten, and then reached out.

She snagged his shirt on his way to the vents.

Coul stopped and smacked her hand away, reappearing quickly. “This is none of your business, lady!” He said, “Buzz off!”

Marcello eyed the bulge in his hoodie’s front pouch pocket, full of medical supplies. “You came here after the initial strike,” Marcello said, “Not alone, either. One of your friends got hurt.”

“She isn’t my friend,” Coul said, “I liked it better when it was just Cedric, Allie, and me. Nobody else was gonna do anything though.”

Marcello shot him a smug little smile, then released him. She sat back, prim and proper, folding her hands in her lap. “Well, run along then.” She said, shrugging her shoulders, “But if I were you, I would avoid the lower levels. I noticed several points where that… white… stuff… is coming up from down there. Also, the crystal fell somewhere in the opposite end of the building from here, so don’t go too far that way. There’s also an emergency medical kit in every room in the hospital that has everything you’ve grabbed except for the painkiller… and if you’re going to use that stuff, push some out first, and only use half at a time at the absolute most. If she’s small enough to be carried here by you, she’s not sturdy enough for a full dose. That being the case, the list of your co-conspirators only lists one other person even near your size, when she’s not turning into other people.”

“… How do you keep doing that?” The boy asked, put off by Marcello’s prying. He pulled away from her, stumbling as she let him go.

“Just deductive reasoning and observation, kiddo.” Marcello said, “And a very good memory. And just a little wisdom; always craft theories from facts, because if theories come before facts, facts will inevitably be twisted to suit theories.”

Coul gave her a side-eyed look. “Well, here’s a fact for you: that pig girl’s coming, and she’ll be here soon. I’m just gonna pretend I didn’t see her, because if Cedric knew where she was, I think he’d thump her.”

Marcello gave the boy a curious look. “Treasonous statement, that.”

“Yeah, well…” Coul looked away, “Whatever.”

Coul disappeared again, and Marcello watched as the objects stacked near the vent seemed to shake and wobble with his weight as he climbed them one by one, finally reaching the vent and crawling inside, where the latch shut closed behind him – fast enough to be seemingly by accident. Likely knocked into place by his tail.

-

--

-

“Well, that’s that, then…”

Daxton stuffed his PET into the pocket of his shorts and made for the exit. The doors into the operating theatre were stuck shut, so he had to pry them apart with his bare hands. Dragging the hard construct plastic doors against its hydraulic mechanisms was difficult at first as it provided some resistance, but after enough space had been forced open, they slackened. Daxton was able to push his arm through and shove it open with his shoulder, driving his weight into the door to shove it ajar where it remained, not closing again. If the darkness wasn’t indication enough, that certainly assured him that the power to that area had been completely cut.

If only that were the sole problem. The darkness opened to webbing white fissures along the walls and floor, spreading out like creeping tendrils over its surface. Patches of the walls had been eaten away and left as blank white space. It was the same as what was happening at Harbington High, though perhaps in its infantile stages. Daxton’s high school had been eaten away until it looked like a blank slide, an empty photograph with no walls, floors, or ceilings – simply an infinite white expanse in every direction. Locksmouth General Hospital still had its structure and its reality, but Epheral’s influence was spreading at an alarming rate. The white cracks split open down the hallways, crawling and eating up more and more to leave nothing behind. From right and heading left, the hallways were beginning to resemble a steadily spreading mosaic gradient. Black and white stained glass, with the black darkness crumbling away as it headed toward the opposing wing.

What if it had eaten the stairs? The elevator? The questions reared their ugly heads in Daxton’s mind, but he just as quickly smothered them, so they couldn’t take root. There was no chance he wouldn’t get out of there, he thought, but the first order of business was to move toward the spread of the corruption. Epheral’s spread always started from somewhere, and it made sense in Daxton’s mind that it would have started where the crystal landed. He could look for an exit and find the crystal at the same time. By then, Lumina should have rested just enough that she would be able to destroy it, and then they could move on.

He kept his attention on the floor; the further he went, the more cracks there were. It seemed like it all could have fallen away at a moment’s notice. It was so cracked and fractured, he wouldn’t have been surprised if his foot punched right through like it was thin ice. He wasn’t afraid of that, but the mere possibility made him tread lightly. It was an instinctual response to potential danger that he couldn’t shake, but he wasn’t going to let it stop him.

He already knew that the real world connected with the emptiness in vague, unclear ways. Even if it had all crumbled away and left nothing but the empty white behind, he’d still have something to stand on. The outside was still there. He could have turned around and stepped back into more human surroundings at any time. If even a little bit remained, there was ground under his feet and a chance to take it all back. It became a matter of suppressing what came natural to a person and moving forward. That was reflective of the state of things, in an almost poetic way.

He stopped and looked back, seeing how far he’d come. It was shamefully little. He looked forward again and scanned his surroundings. If the crystal had really fallen there, it would have left an opening in the ceiling. It was the best thing to keep an eye out for as he went. It didn’t help that he was in an unfamiliar place. Each corner he’d turn went somewhere, but he couldn’t even read any signs to help him discern where he was by then. Worse still, his mind was preoccupied with threats that didn’t seem to be coming. He’d been pulled down there, but there hadn’t been even a single construct to cut him off. That was perhaps the strangest and most confusing part.

Taking several lefts and rights going forward confirmed the suspicion after a while. He seemed to be completely alone. He turned in place, gentle on his ankle, looking all around. The webbing of cracks along the walls, floors, and ceiling felt like they could have closed in on him at any moment, but for some reason they didn’t. He could feel something amidst the mess, but it wasn’t painful or otherwise uncomfortable. If it was trying to press in on him, it wasn’t succeeding. Perhaps Epheral still followed the same rules as any other Inkling. Perhaps it was a matter of will that could fend her off. Daxton had never been afraid of her, and was never one to let her in. She’d cut him, hurt him, and was then surrounding him, and he was even coming into direct contact with her. Even so, he remained free of her influence.

That’s right. Try as she might, he remained unbuckled.

“Hey!” Daxton shouted, bravado swelling over, “Epheral! Where you at, girl?” He threw his arms out to either side of him, striding forward, bruised ankle and all. “Not the first time we’ve been here!” He called out into the emptiness, “Why are you hiding? If you’re so powerful and stuff, why don’t you just step up and fight?! What are you stalling for? Trying to get a bunch of power before you go to Canvas? Maybe you’re not as strong as you say you are!”

The total lack of response only angered the boy. “Come on!” He shouted again, “I know you’re out there, so what are you waiting for?!”

A hand clapped down on his shoulder without warning, gripping him firmly near the collar with its fingers. He reacted in an instant, bearing down on his injured ankle and ignoring the pain that shot up his leg to twist and grip the monster’s arm. He pulled them forward and threw his strength into tossing whatever monster had gotten the jump on him into the nearby wall. Rather than see the charcoal scrawls of a construct, though, he caught a glimpse of fleshy tones and bright colours, making it all too clear that whoever it was had been no construct. He couldn’t stop it though, he’d committed. He threw the person against the wall, smashing them face-first into the fractured surface, pinning them while keeping their arm twisted behind their back. Daxton had pushed into them before he had even the thought to stop, driving the knee of his healthy leg into their back to pin them.

Quincey gasped and squeaked out a breathless whimper of pain, caught completely by surprise and thrown around in the moment of confusion. She squashed up against the wall, unable to help but try and fight her way out of Daxton’s grip. When Daxton realized that it was her, he released her with a start, grasping her shoulders and pulling her away from the wall to turn her so she faced him. He looked down into her wide, scared green eyes, and all his bluster left him in stammering syllables. “Quincey, I… what the?” He struggled to match the pace of his own thoughts, shaking his head, “Quincey!”

“Owww!” Quincey complained, “What are you doing you dummy?!”

Daxton released her and took a step back, though he fussed over her condition even so. “How’d you get here so fast?!” He asked, “Jeez, I left you just a few minutes ago!”

Quincey huffed, not impressed by her boyfriend’s actions. He couldn’t blame her for that, of course. “I found some stairs!” She said, “So let’s go!”

Daxton furrowed his brow when Quincey turned to head back. He stopped her by grabbing her arm. “Whoa, whoa, hold on,” He said, “Wait, we can’t go back up just yet.”

Quincey ripped her arm out of his grip, fast and strong enough to make him fumble to try and get it back. He very nearly ran into her but stopped himself by placing his hands on her shoulders. She looked at him, quizzically. “What do you mean we can’t go back? This place is weird, we should just go!”

She tried to leave again, but Daxton kept her planted. “Hold on,” He repeated, “Wait, wait. Look.” He took a moment to look around the darkened hallways. If there were lights down there, they’d been snuffed out; and even though Epheral’s prana glowed with energy, the light wasn’t cast out, and what remained continued to be shrouded in darkness as if the energy wasn’t even there. “Quincey, this is obviously close to where the crystal is,” He explained, “We still have to find it.”

“We can’t!” Quincey snapped back at him, seeming to surprise herself. She retreated into something more reserved, lowering her voice. “I mean… we really shouldn’t. We should make sure we’re safe first. Who knows where it is? Not me, and not you. You’re hurt though, so we should worry about that first.”

“Oh, whatever.” Daxton shrugged his shoulders, “It’s not a huge deal. Finding this crystal is more important. I can tough it out.”

Quincey shook her head. “No, you can’t. Maybe you’re right, but you can’t do anything like you are.”

Daxton scoffed. “Excuse me?” He rebutted, “You do know who you’re talking to, don’t you? It’s just a bruised ankle, it’s not like I’m missing my leg.”

“You can’t, you just can’t,” Quincey argued, “You may be strong, but Epheral’s stronger. You shouldn’t try and fight her like this. What will you do even if you find it?”

“Lumina’s still good to blow the thing up, and besides, there’s no soldiers here,” Daxton said, “It’s a perfect chance! Then we can go find the people and clean up the rest of Epheral’s goons on the way. We’re right here anyway, why wouldn’t we? We just have to find it.”

Quincey glared at him. “Stop arguing with me,” She said, “You do what I say, remember? That’s the way it’s always been.”

Daxton reared back in surprise, staring down at Quincey dumbfounded. He tilted his head just slightly and tightened his jaw. “… Okay?” He said, not even hiding his confusion past any bravado. “I know you’re usually right about these things,” He said, “But I’m pretty sure there’s nothing wrong with my plan. I have you here to help me, this is kinda what we came here to do in the first place.”

Quincey looked around again, once more gauging the situation before returning to Daxton, her expression unchanged. “I… ugh, but this is a little much for you, don’t you think?” She pressed her point, “If you do this… I won’t help you.”

“You won’t help me,” Daxton repeated flatly, “Huh?”

“No.” Quincey said.

Daxton released the girl and steepled his fingers together in front of his face. “Okay, a few things about that…” He started, “One, you are not that fast. Even if you did find the stairs quickly, you’re not the most active girl in the world. You’d have to run, full speed, the entire way to get here that fast, and you’re not even out of breath. Two, you’d never sneak up on me. You’re too heavy, your footsteps on a tile floor, even with all this prana damage, would be kinda loud in your kind of shoes. Third, you’d never pull rank on me. Or anyone. You just don’t. Fourth, no, I don’t always listen to you, and that is not how it has always been. And lastly? You always help everyone. Always.”

Quincey lifted her head back just slightly, one eyebrow raised high as she regarded him with a sort of displeasure. Daxton shook his head, taking another deep breath. He was maintaining his composure. “You don’t stand right,” He said, “You don’t move right, you don’t talk right, you don’t act right. Close… but not exactly.”

“What are you talking about?” She asked.

Daxton lowered his hands, pushing them together, cracking his knuckles on one fist. “Quincey, if I’m wrong about this… I’m going to feel so, so bad.”

Then, quick as he could, he jabbed his fist forward and punched her her right in the nose. As one might expect, Quincey’s head jerked back, and she stumbled, but it was a light enough shot that she didn’t fall. He wasn’t trying to take her down. As she recovered from the shock of being hit so unexpectedly, Daxton shifted his posture and dragged his hurt foot back behind him, away from her. When she finally stopped seeing stars she stared in disbelief at him, holding her nose, Daxton was all poised to fight, one hand low and one fist forward.

“What was that?!” Quincey shouted at him from behind her hands.

Daxton waited, just for a few moments. Then he smirked, pointing at her. “You’re not crying,” He said, “Not even a little bit. Is your nose running? Even a little?”

Daxton’s smirk faded into a scowl of disgust, and he stepped forward slowly to strike her again. This time, she moved, and quicker than she ever would have been able to, dodging his right jab by moving to his right side. He braced his arm and tackled her against the wall then, his forearm bearing down on her neck, punching her in the side repeatedly with his left until she pushed him away. He awkwardly stepped away, his ankle making his movements much, much slower and unsteady than they needed to be.

“Cut the crap, Epheral!” Daxton said, “Quincey’s too good for you.”

“Fine!” The Quincey copy threw its arms up in frustration, “I had to try it, at least once.”

“Neat trick, but if you don’t change outta my girlfriend’s body right now, I’m going to smear you all over the walls.” Daxton growled.

Epheral said nothing, and only shrugged at him with a very un-Quincey-like goading smile on her face. Daxton moved in to wipe that look off her face, giving her a left cross strike in her cheek to do just that. His fist connected, then stopped, embedded in her fat cheek. There were a few things wrong about that, but it was namely how she didn’t seem to be hurt that stuck out in Daxton’s mind the most and was sounding off the alarms in his head. She barely moved, she didn’t even flinch, and in Daxton’s moment of stupor she slammed her open palm into his chest with Captain Comet levels of force. This threw him at the wall behind him, slammed him into it, and dropped him to the floor.

“Agh, god damnit…” Daxton coughed, “Ow.” He managed to lift himself onto his hands and knees, coughing and wheezing for breath again. While he took time to get a handle on that situation, Epheral approached him, oozing confidence from every freckle of her Quincey look-alike body. Daxton was able to look up at her smug face for a time and hate what he saw, at least until she planted one of those Mary-Jane shoes on the back of his head, slamming it down to force him into a bow. Daxton bunched up his shoulders and hissed through his firmly grit teeth, failing to not drool on himself slightly.

Epheral ground her foot down on Daxton’s head. “You pathetic human boy,” She said, “Though I must say you surprise me. I assumed you would be more easily manipulated by your emotions. You really are a paranoid one though, aren’t you? How closely you watch everyone! Nothing gets by you, Daxton, does it?”

“Well, I am pretty awesome…!” Daxton muttered through his teeth, rewarding him with a little slack. It only served to allow Epheral a second stomping, digging her sole back into Daxton’s head once again, making him grunt in pain.

“So cocky, but I know you better than that!” Epheral said, “You don’t trust anybody! Always watching for the exact moment they turn on you, always so afraid and so fragile.”

Daxton fought against her pinning heel, pushing up with his hands and head to lift her foot. He growled, “Well, when you’re right, you’re right.”

“Thank you,” Epheral mused, “But how could I be wrong? I’m not too proud to confess that I do the exact same thing. However, I don’t just wait around to see what happens. I stop it before it can happen.”

“Like with Duplex?” Daxton listed his head enough that he hoped she could see him smile.

She was not impressed.

She lifted her foot again, and from the heel of her shoe, a spike protruded. Exercising that prana-construct freedom of form, she proved she needn’t conform to the rules of human anatomy even while mimicking it to such a degree. She drove that spike down, and Daxton threw himself aside to avoid it. It stuck in, for a moment, yanking down on his ear briefly before it carried on and Epheral had driven it into the floor. Daxton was safely away, but a hot, stinging pain lit up like fire at the very tip-top of his right ear. “Ow, fuck!” He shouted, scrambling to get away and get to his feet again, which he managed to do less than gracefully. He found his stance a little wobbly as pain throbbed in his head. Carefully he reached up and touched his ear, immediately finding something wrong with the shape of it.

He jerked his hand back and looked at the blood that had gathered on his fingers. “You sliced off the tip of my fucking ear you bitch!”

“Aw,” Epheral pouted for him, “I was aiming for your brainstem.”

“Ah, god…” Daxton groaned dramatically, “Lady, this face isn’t exactly a money-maker, you can’t just keep adding insult to injury. Nnnngh, it hurts like hell.”

Daxton pressed his palm to his ear and pushed it against his head, but any contact at all hurt, and the feeling of his knit hat rubbing against the wound may as well have been sandpaper. He shook his head, taking a few breaths to center himself again. “Oof, ow, whew, that’s some shit right there. You owe me an ear and a tooth.”

“Would you quit rambling?!” Epheral cried, rushing forward to put a stop to Daxton’s words. Daxton snapped to attention, his lure successful, and as she came straight at him, he twisted aside so her straight thrust found nothing. Then, while she was completely open, wrapped his arm around her wrist, twisting and bracing it taught. Then, he drove his hand up under her elbow, putting pressure on it and her wrist until he snapped the entire thing out of its joint. Epheral’s deception was only further revealed by the way her breaking arm sounded more like fracturing glass than bone. With that arm useless, Daxton pulled her, throwing her away from him.

Epheral kept her footing, and she looked inconvenienced at her now floppy arm. With a roll of her shoulder and a flick of her wrist, her arm snapped back into place, none the worse for wear. “You’ll find that while I can resemble your disgusting species, I’m not so easily broken,” She said, “That girl made the mistake of assuming I’m as hindered as you too. She thought she could hide from me. Now she’s wasting away, and I can use this little power of hers for a real purpose. It might come in handy when I move on to the rest of your world.”

“So that’s some other Inkling’s power? Shapeshifting?” Daxton asked, “Huh. Creepy thought. But it won’t work, not for you. You don’t know the first thing about humans.”

Epheral shrugged. “Well, by then they won’t be able to stop me anyways. The first order of business is to take out their would-be heroes. That would be you, Mr. Harbington Hero. A hero for a city that will soon no longer exist.”

“What a coincidence,” Daxton said, “First order of business for us is to take you out. Now, I’m pretty sure I’m not talking to your actual self. You’ve got that all shoved up Garrison’s ass, and you sure as hell ain’t Garrison.”

“Mm, unfortunately no,” Epheral smiled, “But, I have to give you some credit, Daxton. I can’t help but want to take a personal touch when it comes to you. You’ve impressed upon me that you and I may be more alike than I initially thought – aside from you being a weak, feeble human and me being, well, me.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t really wish being you on my worst enemy,” Daxton said, “Though my worst enemy is you, so I guess that’s too late. Anyway, if you want to take a personal touch, you should probably quit being such a wuss and actually come and get it.”

Epheral shook her head. “I’m somewhat indisposed now. Your little friends are working their way through the city, and I just can’t have them making things difficult for me. It’s best to kill them now and get it over with. This extension of myself will be more than enough for you.”

Daxton glowered, readying to fight. Epheral’s face almost lit up. “Oh! You’re worried about them?” She asked, “Even though if you had to, you’d take them down too? Daxton, you do confuse me. But the most confusing aspect of all is how you can stand there, beaten, battered, weary, and still think that you have even a remote chance of doing this right now. I know you’re aiming to find my ‘crystals,’ as you call them, but even if you do by some miracle make it past me… how do you expect to do that?”

Daxton shrugged. “I kind of just make this up as I go,” He said, “You seem to like it.”

Epheral’s gaze and expression flattened. “Quite.”

“Well then,” She said, “If you think you’re so strong, then I’ll prove to you that you’re not. We’ll fight on an even playing field. I’ll match your capabilities.”

“Pulling your punches?” Daxton asked, “Doesn’t seem like the crazy psychopath thing to do. What’s the catch?”

“No catch,” Epheral said, holding her arms out as prana energy rose up from the ground to encase her piece by piece, folding out like a glass cocoon to frame her Quincey-like form. It did so crudely, and then compressed in on her. The sounds of crunching glass resembled the mulching of a human body, compressing it and warping it sickly. Daxton didn’t so much as flinch, but he stood at the ready, especially when glowing white light escaped from the cracked and fissures in the form taking shape in front of him. When the black charcoal bits began to flake away, Daxton’s lips parted just a little in a offended expression. When Epheral’s transformation finished, and the last bits of that shell crumbled away, he found himself standing across from… himself. She had taken his form, becoming his exact double right down to the clothes he was wearing.

“I just wish to prove that you’re not so mighty.”

Daxton would have rolled his eyes, if he had any. “Not this shit again,” He complained, “What is your problem? I’ve already had this fight.”

“Eh.” Epheral even sounded like him and seemed to be mimicking his mannerisms and movements as well… though she notably did not have any trouble with her left heel and wasn’t missing the tip of her right ear. “Maybe not quite like this. Anything you can do, I can do better. Not only do I have your strength and your powers, but I have all that I’ve learned from the others as well. I could change shape at any moment, I could duplicate myself, stick to the walls, heal myself, withstand damage, run at super speeds, launch ice or magma… or even manipulate force like your pre-splice friend. I have all your powers… but as I said, we’ll be fighting on equal terms this time. I’ll use only what you are capable of.”

“Why?” Daxton demanded.

“To prove to you that you can’t beat the one person you should be able to overcome,” Epheral said, “Yourself. That even when you are perfectly matched against someone, you will fail. I simply wish to take that ego of yours and crush it into dust. I want to flatten your resolve. I want to break your will so that in your final moments you will be truly helpless. I want this for you most of all, Daxton… and Duplex, too. You, though, have stood against me like the little hero you are, always on your own, always trying to take the brunt of it for others. I want to put an end to that in the best way possible. You wouldn’t be the first to try, so you could call it a hobby of mine. There is always one idealistic fool standing in the way of my destiny. They have all ended the same way, and I have to say… some of them were even stronger than yourself.”

Daxton steeled himself. “If you think all that’s going to put me off, you’ve got another thing coming,” He said, “I told you… I’ve had this fight before.”

“Yes, yes,” Epheral said, “So confident in your strength. I want you to remember that every peak of your ability, I can match and surpass… If your feeble little mind can even comprehend such a thing. The simple way to put it, is that everything you can do…”

Epheral listed her hand to run it through her hair. She pushed her fingers up under the replica STOP she was wearing, lifting it off her head and letting it fall to the floor. She combed back Daxton’s blonde locks and let them stay blown back on her head. She gazed at him with hazel eyes that Daxton did not have, no less confident in herself than Daxton was in himself. “… I can do better.”

Daxton took a deep breath through his nose, both coming to terms with what he was seeing, and maintaining a lid on the growing anger of it. “… Cute.”

-

--

-

A clean slice through, with a little help from Polaris’ powers, was enough to take the head clean off one of those constructs. It didn’t escape Kenny how they were sturdier than before – like actual human bodies, as opposed to just clay statues or something. So, he was essentially cutting down small dispatches of humans, in a morbid way of thinking. Morbid was kind of how Kenny regarded a lot of things, but it was in a realistic way rather than some far-fetched, outside way of thinking. It wasn’t good, and he was always put off by his own thoughts, but he could appreciate them for reminding him that he thought his thoughts were bad. These things were anything but human, though it begged the question… where had they come from initially? What were they before they were prana puppets?

Each one he cut down was an amalgamation of different lives and different places. Polaris regarded it all with a sense of familiarity and professionalism. He’d been to some of those places before. He’d conquered them and moved on. Epheral had no doubt swept through and completely obliterated anything Osoth had elected to leave behind. In many ways, it was just ending the same lives over again. That was doing them a service, he thought. An act of mercy. He and Kenny could agree thoroughly that neither of them would have wanted even a bit of their prana to become part of Epheral’s ambitions.

They had more important things to worry about than their own morality now. Turning back to where Shelly and the kids were hidden, Kenny waved them over to get them moving. Shelly awkwardly fumbled out of her hiding place and bound toward the next alleyway, which were getting incredibly narrow as they passed between buildings that weren’t made with that in mind. They were squeezed together so tight that Shelly could barely fit… and only Shelly. Everyone else had an easy enough time getting through. Kenny got through last just as more soldiers came around the corner and filed into the alleyway where they were last seen. This was becoming more and more frequent, which really put the pressure on them to pick up the pace.

Shelly popped out the other side, literally speaking. She took a deep breath and rubbed her chest, wincing. “Ow, that sucks!” She complained, as quiet as she could, before turning her attention to their goal. Their goal was just… away. As far out to the outskirts as they could get. They were making decent time, but the activity of Epheral’s forces was getting denser by the moment, and whatever was happening with Carrie made it sound like bombs were going off just downtown. The big prana dropship was making its way over there as well. It stood to reason that if not for Carrie, the group would have had far more trouble than they were encountering. Just one more thing for Shelly to be thankful for.

“Alright, like, up this way.” Shelly gestured up the street, “And don’t run so fast this time! Like, I totally say this KNOWING that it’s outside of the realm of possibility, taking the laws of motion, gravity, and momentum and trajectory into account, but I’m gonna hit myself in the face with my own tits.”

“We can’t slow down, Shelly, we’ll get caught if we do!” Aren said, “We have to run fast!”

Shelly sighed, slumping. “It’s just so easy for you guys,” She said, “You’re, like, all small and I’m not.”

“Maybe… we’ll try going through fewer small spaces?” Simon suggested.

Kenny had taken the rear, so he was the last one out. He heard them all discussing things and came up on the tail end of Simon’s statement. “Look, Epheral isn’t making these things small. They’re all the standard size and stature of an old soldier, which if you remember, is generally just bigger than any of us anyway.” He said, looking up at Shelly, “Sorry, but going through small spaces is the best way we’re going to avoid them. I don’t want to get you guys into a fight.”

Shelly sighed again, not even trying to hide her disdain. She then tugged at her dress. “I’m totally regretting changing into this right before everything started,” She said, “I can barely breathe in this thing!”

“Well then why’d you buy it?” Simon asked.

Shelly froze, pinching the tube top of her dress to tug it up over her bosom, and she held that position of hiking their gravid shapes up high with that alone. “Uh,” She said, “Because it was hot, duh?”

Simon stared at her dress for a moment. “But it’s too small?” He pointed out.

“Uh-huh,” Shelly confirmed, “Totes.”

“…” Simon shook his head and said, “But we’ve been getting attacked for days now. I put on things that would be comfortable to move in.” He stuck out his leg to show off his shorts. “See? Like that.”

“Oh my god,” Gren said, “You two. Stop. Let’s just keep going.”

“It’s like the blind leading the deaf,” Kenny said, “Alright, you heard the commander. Let’s get moving.”

“Aw, why does she get to be commander?” Aren complained as they linked hands and carried on down the way. Kenny reached back to grip Simon’s hand, and Simon took Shelly’s hand to lead her along with him. The five of them continued this way up the street, and when a prana tank rounded the corner at the crosswalk ahead, they ducked into a thankfully wider alleyway between a café restaurant and a clothing store. Restaurants were becoming less prevalent as they went, which suggested that they were getting well away from the commercial core and were coming up on the outer rim of hobby shops and boring department stores people bring their kids to but don’t let them touch anything. The alleyways had some side entrances into hang-out spots more geared for adults. Gone was the teenage paradise that was the epicenter of the commercial district, but that meant they were one step closer to potential safety.

But then there was that tank. An entire gravity tank, just like the one the Locksmouth Militia used during their fight against Osoth’s forces, and Laibon’s defeat. Murphy had piloted one, with Natalie’s help, and then it had been promptly and quickly decommissioned in accordance to the laws. Those kids had never actually seen one up close, and never truly realized how big they could be. They were definitely bigger than a person, and the mounted fusion cannon on the top was much more intimidating once they saw just how large it was. Forget blowing a hole in your chest, it could have easily blown a human being to pieces. Soldiers always had the proper protections and shields to keep that from happening, but a bunch of kids? Even the elastic Shelly would have been lucky not to find herself in pieces.

“Go, go!” Kenny hurried the kids and Shelly along, taking position in the back again and making sure they hurried their asses before the prana tank showed up. Unfortunately, those things travelled a bit faster than their pre-splice, tread-bearing counterparts, and it pulled up to the end of the alley too quickly. It mechanically aimed its turret down range, taking the time to get it just right to wipe them out in one go. “Aw, shit,” Kenny groused, “Keep going!”

He stopped, turning in a wide sweep, pulling his sword sheath from his back and affixing it to his arm using his powers. The sheath extended into its shield, and he held it in front of him in a bid to protect himself and hopefully the others from harm. If he blocked it just right, he could take the blow and be knocked off his feet. If he was even the slightest bit off, someone was going to get hurt. He was more than happy to defer to Polaris on that one, and so with a little help from his Inkling, he managed to get it in roughly the right spot just as that gun started to power up.

He gritted his teeth in anticipation of the strike. What he didn’t expect was feeling little hands on his body. “Whoa!” He looked down to see that Simon had practically jumped on him to get his arms around him, touching his armor. “Kid, what’re you doing?!”

“Just… something!” Simon flustered, holding on tight for a moment and not letting go even as Kenny tried to shake him off.

“Get offa me, you’e gonna get us both blasted!” Kenny shouted.

Simon released him, stepping down and scurrying away without so much as a word. He bound after the others who were very nearly out the other end. Kenny turned his attention forward again and did his best to keep pace with him and not offer too much of an opening for the shot to get by and hit them. Time had run out by then, the tank fired. The shot went loud, and the sound of it rushing through the narrow space toward them made Kenny wilt his ears, and the force of it blew his hood off his head before it even reached him.

He’d gauged it perfectly. Bracing himself for the impact didn’t really help, but it hit him dead on his shield… which surprisingly did not bend, buckle, or even so much as dent with the impact. Neither did his armor when the force carried on and struck him, where he perhaps should have crumpled up even just a little bit. The padding beneath the armor plates cushioned the blow considerably, and Kenny found himself simply thrown backwards, where he did his best to tuck his head before he hit the street outside. He barreled past the other kids and landed with a hard thump on the street, clearing the sidewalk by a couple of feet.

The metallic drag stopped, and Kenny carefully looked up from his fetal position. Remarkably, he had taken little damage at all – yes, the force had born down on his legs, leaving them a little sore, but it hadn’t gotten past the plates on his boots. His shield had performed more than effectively, blocking the entire blast on its face. He uncurled and looked at his shield arm to check on it, and aside from having a searing red-hot patch on it where the impact heat stuck, it was perfectly fine. He rose shaking his shield about to cool it, only then noticing that the others hadn’t cleared the area very far. They cleared the alley but hadn’t budged an inch since.

“What are you guys still…?” Kenny started, but trailed off as he heard the heavy footsteps of something approaching from behind him – and being that he was facing the others, he only then noticed them all looking past him at whatever it was. He turned at once and stopped cold himself. “Oh no.”

Epheral had found them; and not just some construct of hers, but Epheral herself… as much as Epheral could be a singular entity. Garrison’s body, which she had forcibly inhabited, had been gobbled up by what seemed to be a pranic black shell, charcoal like that of her constructs, white aura and all. It made him look incredibly angular, on top of his already impressive size and presence. His arms had some jagged edges on them, not one the same shape as the other, jutting out of his forearms and elbows, some out of his knees and the back of his neck as well. He was still quite obviously a bear, and still held some similarities to Garrison himself, namely the shape of his angry eyes, glowing white off the black shell. Every threatening protrusion of prana looked like an overgrowth; areas where Epheral had overdone it a little. Some were thick, some were narrow, some big, some small…

But what stood out the most was Epheral’s core. Buried deep in Garrison’s chest, it radiated with prana energy, and seemed to have literally taken root using tendrils of white prana energy as a base to lodge itself into its new home. His chest was a web of roots that entangled themselves in the shell, spreading up and out from the middle, making it clear that it was born in and pushing out to grip him. It reinforced just how much of a shield Epheral had given him. He seemed… even more considerably bulky and large than normal. The man had become a giant.

His breaths came raspy, and every exhale blew a mist of white energy from his grit teeth that solidified and sprinkled the ground at his feet with shards. Some of his movements, right down to merely breathing, pressed some of the shapes of his shell in against each other, causing them to crack, splinter, break off, and then grow over again in a more appropriate shape to accommodate what he was doing. The aura around him moved sickeningly, more active than anything they’d seen before. He seemed to get more powerful just standing there. His energy became more intense by the second. The Inklings among them could feel it pressing down on them. It was akin to the tightening of of a human’s chest when in danger, a strangling feeling of fear that crept up and lingered, looming inside.

Gren and Aren’s legs were quaking at the mere sight of Epheral. They made themselves as small as possible behind Shelly, who was trying to make herself as small as possible too. Their first instinct was simply to hide from the danger. It was on a base emotional level that couldn’t be denied. An Inkling predator in the body of an apex predator of the animal kingdom, molded into human shape and designed for grueling combat. Only the most battle hardened would do anything else.

Kenny held up his shield and gripped his sword at the top of it, drawing it. Simon could only stare on in fearful fascination of the creature, but he kept his little fists balled up and wouldn’t back down.

“Shelly,” Kenny said. She didn’t answer, but he didn’t expect her to. “Shelly, you’ve gotta run.”

“I thought Jacent was supposed to be here!” Shelly said.

“Well he’s obviously not!” Kenny said, “Take the kids and go!”

“I… I can help!” Simon insisted, standing at Kenny’s side.

“No, you can’t!” He said, “Get outta here, kid!”

Simon ignored him, raising one of his hands to reach into an inky black portal that appeared at his side out of nowhere. He dug into it up to his elbow, but when he withdrew, he pulled out a large metal object with him. The hilt of it held a tassel of old purple cloth, and the guard of the weapon bore a mechanism upon which the big, broad blade sat. The blade itself was straight, keen, and edged at the tip of it at a sharp angle suited for opening boxes rather than use in combat. It was a clearly a sword in any case, but far from what would have been the traditional depictions of one, like Kenny’s own. Kenny stared as Simon took that sword in both hands and readied himself to fight. The final touch was him inking over, his Inkling appearing to be an almost garish bright orange, with pink eyes and features.

“I can,” The Inkling said, “And I will.”

Kenny was overcome by Polaris, who inked over him by force. All at once, Kenny’s body was taken by Polaris, who readied his shield and turned his attention on Epheral. “Well, now I see who’s been feeding the boy such slanderous stories about me,” Polaris said, “Hello Fortis. I’m surprised Osoth didn’t have you for supper. Sylph sends her regards.”

“It was touch and go for a little while,” Fortis said, readying his weapon as well, “I do hope you remember how to use those things. And Sylph can keep them.”

“And I hope you even know what that weapon even is,” Polaris said, “At the ready! And Shelly, darling!”

Shelly perked up from her huddle with Gren and Aren.

“Bloody hell, would you RUN already?!” Polaris shouted back at her.

Polaris and Fortis took off from their positions, spreading out to either side to come at Epheral with a pincer maneuver. Epheral snapped to attention and took off just as quickly, charging forward on thunderous steps to meet the two head on. Fortis attacked first, stopping early to run his blade across the ground, sending the reverberating sound of the blade forward in a soundwave that struck Epheral’s body. Small scratches appeared on the surface of the shell, but they healed over in the half-second it took to meet Polaris and take his sword lunge to the abdomen, the blade sliding off her body. Polaris blocked the counter-blow, his shield bouncing off her fist and sending him bounding back where he was forced to take a knee if he didn’t want to just fall on his rear end.

Fortis continued the assault without missing a step, leaping onto a nearby peTra and bounding off it to bring his blade across Epheral’s body. Epheral twisted, snapping her body in unnatural ways likely detrimental to her host, to catch Fortis with her arm, stopping his plunging attack. She swung him viciously, the raw power of her movement battering him with a kinetic shock as he left her, blasting him down the street head over heels in the opposite direction. Then, Polaris came at her from behind, slashing her back several times to little effect. The scrapes his blade left were miniscule compared to the force he’d put into the effort, and they closed up almost as quickly as he could deliver them. Again, Epheral snapped around, bringing her fists down on top of him clasped together. He rose his shield and stepped up into the strike to meet it. The impact onto his shield rippled his membrane and buried his feet into the street with a thunderous boom, nearly putting him off balance. She reared up to bash him once again, and he pulled himself out of that, dragging his body out by way of his shield, throwing himself backwards. Epheral missed him entirely, but she bore down into the street up to nearly her massive biceps with the impact.

She got herself unstuck with barely a shrug, and drew back her massive, open hand to thrust it forward. A dazzling ray of light poured forth in a beam that Polaris just barely deflected. The beam bounced off his shield, but the impact sent him back across the ground, dragging his body back past Shelly, Gren, and Aren, who were doing their best to flee in panic. The beam very nearly hit them, and Polaris was just barely able to angle his shield in time to send it over Shelly’s head, burning into the buildings just past her.

Fortis was back, running up on Epheral from behind and scampering up her large, bulky body. It was surprisingly easy to climb with all its rough edges and misshapen parts. He was up on her shoulders quickly, standing above her and striking down at her head with his blade’s tip. He stabbed down again and again, trying to impale her hardened shell, only to have her repel him time and again. She whirled around to try and face him, but he latched on to her back and continued to stab at her as she spun and turned in a rampage to try and get her hands on him. Fortunately for the small inked squirrel, her arms were too large and too bulky to reach behind her very effectively.

Epheral lashed out, beginning to stampede down the street, bashing her body off everything she could on the way by. Fortis swayed and was swung about, but he remained steady on her back, once again mounting her shoulders and standing on their broad surface. He desperately kept his footing as his ink was steadily replaced by another, a silver shine with eyes like hardened gemstones. This new Inkling drove its blade into Epheral’s hardened shell time and again, until one last hard strike connected and dug straight into what would have been Garrison’s jugular.

He pressed in, twisting the blade as hard as he possibly could. Appropriately, a bust of prana energy erupted from the opening like blood, spraying out into the open and causing Epheral to wail. Like her breathing, it crystalized in the air and spilled out onto the street in shards. Finally, in a fit of rage, Epheral slammed her own head down into the street, throwing the boy on her shoulders off balance and sending him tumbling to the ground before her. She pulled free, lifting her head to glare hatefully into the Inkling’s diamond eyes. He moved to react but found her massive hands grabbing him at either side, lifting him into the air. “Whuh-oh!” He shouted, kicking his feet. She lifted him high above her head to slam him down again, though she was able to see Polaris coming in with his shield raised, attempting to tackle her with it. She instead threw the other Inkling forward, making him crash into Polaris instead, and sending them both to the ground in a heap.

They both sat up, Polaris staring at this new Inkling in shock. “Who the hell’re you?!”

The now silver squirrel flourished his blade. “Adama, at your service!” He introduced himself, but turned his attention quickly to Epheral, “Duck!”

Adama shoved Polaris’ head down, and the two of them narrowly ducked a skull-cracking hook from Epheral. Once they were down low, they both took their blades and drove them into Epheral’s exposed gut as hard as they could, but once more found that their swords wouldn’t penetrate the shell at just the initial strike. Epheral brought her arms down between them and then opened them to throw them both to either side of the street, where they both slammed into the buildings hard and collapsed onto the ground. With just enough time to shake himself back to attention, Polaris looked aside to extend his powers to a nearby parked peTra. He lifted the idle vehicle by all its metal insides and hurtled the several-hundred-pound thing at Epheral desperately.

It struck, but Polaris only looked on in shock as the plasteel frame of the vehicle bent and warped around Epheral’s body rather than do anything to the tune of knocking her down, or away, or even so much as hurting her. She dug into the vehicle with her hands, crushing handles into its side with brute strength, and then threw it away, looking more inconvenienced than hurt. The car soared, and Polaris threw his hand out to reach out with his ferrokinesis and stop it in the air, just above the heads of Shelly, Gren, and Aren, who stared unmoving at what had been their impending doom just seconds before.

Adama returned to the fray, slashing several times at Epheral’s carapace, meeting Epheral in combat when she turned on him. The exchange of blows was brief, with Adama delivering several, and Epheral returning with just one. Adama was sent back down the street again by a heavy back-hand, sending him tumbling down the street back by Shelly’s side. When he slid to a stop, the kids called out to him to see if he was alright. He could barely hear their voices as he sat himself up, rubbing his head. “Oogh, this is no good… That prana shell is resistant to my abilities!” He said, “Damnit all.”

Epheral stomped her foot into the street, shattering it as she turned to face the larger group of young teens. With a monstrous roar, she opened her beastly maw, preparing a heavy gathering of energy in her jaws. The light from within burned and flickered rapidly, the prana energy whirling about inside of her almost out of control. The tendrils pumped it visibly into her core, which shone just as brightly, like a beacon to signify what was coming. Adama darted up, hurrying to the others, ushering them to get down somewhere as safe as could be. “Prana, is it?” He muttered, “Well, we have something for that, don’t we?”

The silver shine of Adama’s inky body was taken yet again, this time by a pale white and cream, a gentle blend of lighter colours that made Simon almost look like a marshmallow. Shelly, Gren and Aren stared slack-jawed at the new Inkling, not knowing what to say or do, the situation so beyond them that they were stunned and struck to absolute silence. The Inkling got them all as close to a wall as they could. “Get down as low as you can,” They said, their voice a mixture of a young girl’s and Simon’s own, “Stay behind me, please!”

Seeing the attack coming, Polaris hurried alongside the street, running to catch up to the others and protect them. He watched as the energy built in Epheral’s face more and more, until the flashing of energy was nearly blinding, making him squint. He just hoped he could make it in time. When his gaze fell onto Shelly and the others, he was desperate to fulfill the newfound duty he had sworn himself to. He had to protect them, no matter the cost. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he failed a second time.

The ground rumbled under Epheral as the energy amassed became nearly unstable. Then, with a mighty, roaring bellow, she unleashed it all in a blinding torrent of prana hell, encompassing the entire street and everything in sight, tearing up street lights, plants, cars, and everything in its wake. They disintegrated on contact, burned down into no doubt more energy to feed the rolling wave that was set to crash down on the kids. Polaris threw himself forward with everything he had, desiring nothing more than to place himself between them and that which threatened them. He propelled himself by his shield, sheathing his sword to dedicate himself entirely to the act of defending them. He was very nearly overtaken himself by the prana wave and landed before them with a second to spare.

“Wait, no!” Simon’s Inkling cried.

Polaris turned and sprung up, planting himself as firmly as he knew how, shield up in front of him to protect the others. The wave hit him, his shield, and overtook him. He pressed against it with everything he could muster, pouring migraine-inducing levels of his own energy into pushing his shield forward, to not relent under the assault. The others huddled up together, with Simon and his Inkling offering what protection they could. Their efforts made a bubble in the chaos, a pocket in which they just barely remained safe. Polaris acted as the front bulwark, displacing the energy around him, though it burned into his membrane and whittled him down slowly. He had little choice but to retreat but held out until he could do so no more. Simon, too, seemed to act as a buffer. The prana energy around them was pushed away, creating a safer space. As he did so, however, even his Inkling began to succumb to the effects of prana burn.

“W-What is this?!” Simon shouted, clenching his eyes shut. “Agh! I can’t…! It’s not natural!”

“AHHH! NOOO!” Gren and Aren cried, squeezing Shelly so hard she couldn’t breathe.

The sound drowned out their voices, the pressure of it bearing down on them and everything around them so hard, it was like being caught in a hurricane. Polaris physically peeled away from Kenny’s body bit by bit, but he remained steadfast against the rush. Not until the very last fabric of his being was at risk of being blown away did he surrender, retreating into his host. Kenny was left to face the brunt of it himself, his footing faltering and his shield becoming more difficult to hold straight.

It was at that moment the wave ended, rushing past them. Silence overtook them, the energy dissipating into a rain of prana shards from the sky, shattering onto the street several blocks away. There wasn’t even smoke to clear… there wasn’t anything but bare street and midway left behind. The buildings at either end were stained, marred by the prana fractures that had overtaken Harbington. Kenny still stood, completely without Polaris. His body allowed him respite, and he collapsed onto his hands and knees, barely holding himself up. The others remained unscathed as well, relatively speaking. Simon’s Inkling seemed to be battling with Epheral’s influence, the burning white streaked across their creamy membrane. With some effort, though, and a cry of triumph, they forced it out. More prana shards rained down around her, leaving her weakened and breathless.

Shelly lifted her head from her embrace of the children, seeing the cloudy Locksmouth sky again. “W… We’re n-not dead?” She said, “O… Oh my god… Gren? Aren?”

The two of them had sought shelter as firmly pressed against her bosom as they could possibly manage. When they heard their names, their ears lifted, followed by their faces. They looked blearily up at Shelly, sniffling and wiping away their tears. “Shelly!” Aren cried, “We… we’re okay!”

“We’re alive!” Gren laughed hysterically, “We did it!”

Kenny hit the road with his elbow keeping him from simply falling on his face. His body trembled, feeling sick and weak. “Oh… man…” He panted, his every word a shuddering mess, “That…” He lifted his head, gazing down the street at Epheral, who stood looming and menacing, growling like a beast. She began to walk toward them, one heavy, powerful step at a time. Kenny perked up frightfully, feeling his fur bristle. He looked back to the others, relieved to see them safe. Simon’s Inkling shifted back to Fortis, who rose to join him, but Kenny threw his hand up to halt him.

“Nah… No…” Kenny commanded breathlessly, “Get them… Get them outta here…”

Fortis stopped in place, looking between Kenny and the other kids.

“They’re… not safe,” Kenny reasoned, “We can’t beat this… by ourselves.”

Fortis stomped his foot. “You’re the one worn down to the bone here!” He argued, “If I leave you here, you’re as good as dead!”

“I said I’d protect them,” Kenny said, pushing himself to his feet. He fumbled and ended back up on his knees, so he unsheathed his sword and drove it into the street to use it as a prop. He stood once more, though his every part trembled. “I can’t do that… if I don’t have any power left! You gotta do it! I can barely move!”

“But…!” Fortis stared past Kenny at Epheral, who continued her lumbering approach. Perhaps she also needed time to recover from that expenditure of energy… or perhaps she was in no rush to end them. Regardless, comparing her to Kenny at that moment was like comparing a bomb to a lamb. “What are you doing?!”

“Look! We don’t have time to argue about this!!” Kenny screamed at them, “If you’ve got power left, you gotta use it to protect people, alright?! Polaris wants you Inklings to be different now! This is what he wants, okay?! This is what we both want…”

Kenny turned to face Epheral. A few painful moments and she’d be upon him. “Besides…” He said, “I always deserved to die. But if I gotta go, I don’t want anyone else to die because of me! I’ll… I’ll fight for life, not against it! That’s… what I want to be!”

“Kenny, don’t!” Gren shouted at him, “Don’t do that!”

“You’re not… really trying to sacrifice yourself right now?” Shelly asked, “Like, for real? Like, for real-real?”

“I’m sorry…” Kenny swallowed, “… For so much. But you’ve got to.”

He looked back. “Alright?”

Fortis stared speechlessly at him. “That… is the way it always ends up for people like us,” He said, “Right at the end. Alright… I’ll do it. You can count on me.”

“Wait, hold on! This is nuts!” Aren cried, trying to hurry forward, but Fortis scooped him up and held him as he kicked and fussed. The squirrel turned away and pushed Gren and Shelly to get them moving, and their legs did so after a moment, their minds not moving fast enough to get them to move quickly or snappily. Kenny put out his shield, the tulip emblem in clear view, and held his thumb up as they left. Then, to distract Epheral, he stepped forward, pulling his sword out of the ground.

He stared down the goliath, prana sickness welling up inside him. He swallowed simply to keep from throwing up, his heart pounding and his body breaking out in a cold sweat. Even so, he readied his weapon and his shield, continuing toward Epheral. Her evil, burning eyes settled on him, and she almost seemed to smile.

“Is that how you want it?” She spoke for the first time, her voice warped and distorted with several tones at once, part her voice, part Garrison’s voice, and several others that echoed a wailing death in the innermost recesses of it. “The soldier, the murderer, laying down his own life to save others. It’s useless, you know. You’re not saving them from anything. They’ll get two blocks from here and my army will be upon them. They’ll die.”

“You’ve been bluffing this whole time,” Kenny said, “Why believe you now? You’re finished. You can try to kill us all, you can even try to take over Canvas… but you’ve got Quincey against you. Even Daxton can’t stand up to her. You’ve got… no chance. If she doesn’t do it, that annoying cat and Natalie will.”

“Empty threats from a dying child,” Epheral said, “Come then, little one. Come and take the death you’ve wanted for so long. You don’t need to worry; your friends will join you soon enough. But there is no afterlife, Kenny. There is only me. I will be all that remains. Prepare yourself for the cold emptiness of nothing.”

Kenny grimaced. “You’re making a grave mistake,” He said, “Old knights never die… they just shuffle off their metal coils.”

Epheral loomed over him then and reached down to grab his entire head in one palm. She lifted him off the ground, leaving him dangling before her. “Jokes? Now?” She asked.

Kenny shook, sniffling as he hung there, helplessly. “… Of corpse,” He said, “I like bad humor, it kills me.”

The monster drove her fist into the boy’s chest, nearly breaking him in half to do so, crashing into his chest place, but not damaging it. A small spark of prana energy struck him through, barely flickering out the other side of him. One solid strike, and that was it. Kenny heard his heart pounding in his ears right up until then, then it abruptly stopped. His body seized up, his breath caught in his chest. He gasped, but all at once his body ceased to feel. Epheral released him, dropping him onto his feet, which barely held him up by some miracle. He stared at her with blank eyes, his weapon clattering onto the ground as sound seemed to fade away and his vision tunneled into darkness.

It felt… cold.

He made little breathless sounds. Tears rolls down his paling face. His heart wasn’t beating. She’d struck him just right, in the perfect spot to stop it. He stumbled back, then fell, collapsing onto the ground where he lost consciousness, staring empty into the void.

Epheral turned away from him, looking pleased with herself. “Now, without a host, Polaris will…”

A sudden, loud eruption caught her attention, coming from a nearby rooftop. She barely had a chance to look up before something crashed down upon her, burying her entire massive body into the street. It was none other than Captain Comet. Jacent crashed down on her with the force of a bomb, his much smaller frame leveling hers in an instant and sending her tearing up the street toward the nearby buildings. Then, he immediately dropped to his knees to help Kenny. “Kenny?” He spoke, quiet and gentle. He repeated himself, but a little louder, as he shook the boy’s shoulder. “Kenny? Can you hear me?”

With no response, Jacent got down low, ripping the metal plate easily off Kenny’s chest and pressing his ear to his sternum. This brought a far-gone fear to the forefront, confirming that the boy’s heart was not beating, and he was not breathing. Jacent quickly checked for his pulse, which in those final few seconds, was weakening considerably.

“Oh, god…” Jacent muttered, quickly placing his hands to Kenny’s chest and starting to pump them, trying to induce a rhythm to Kenny’s heart. He only did this for some seconds, however, before Epheral was back on her feet, shaking off debris. Jacent rose to stand between Kenny’s body and Epheral, doing what he could to protect the boy from further harm… though every second that went by, Jacent knew, meant Kenny was further gone.

“You…” Jacent glowered, “You monster.”

He reached down to the pack he wore at his hip, getting very nearly inside to reach one of his yo-yos before stopping. He instead gripped the pouch and ripped it off his hip with one firm tug, tossing it away. He breathed in, and then out. Then again, in and out. He scowled, brows knit. The anger he felt inside him was raging like a tempest, and try as he might, he could not tame it.

Epheral would not wait for him to move. She charged him, arms outstretched to grab him, possibly aiming to break him. The response was so simple. She’d taken to Garrison’s brutal style of fighting, one that Jacent had figured out so easily once before. He remained unafraid. Let her come, if she wished. He would punish her rigorously.

She threw herself into a grab, which he dropped under, then he thrust both his hands overlapped against her chest, stopping her forward momentum dead in its tracks. He barely moved back under her gravity, and he planted himself firmly to keep his heel from even so much as touching Kenny’s body. The weak spot seemed so obvious… And so, he unleashed a flurry of blows upon Garrison’s heavy chest, delivering rapid boosted punches to the shelling that covered Epheral’s core. His fists crashed into her like gunshots, chipping away her prana protection one bit at a time, leaving knuckle-marks digging away deeper and deeper into the cavity. She regained her footing and stepped back, energy flaring up in her maw, that Jacent proceeded to silence by slamming his palm up under her chin, snapping her jaws shut and shattering her teeth.

He delivered a swift kick to one of Garrison’s weak legs, audibly snapping it out from under Epheral and bringing her to his level. Thunderous hands crashed into her face at either side, battering her around, until finally he took to her side, bringing his leg up in a leaping spin-kick that went from normal, human levels of speed and force to something super-human by the time it connected. Were it not for Jacent shielding himself from the force of his own attack, his leg would have likely never been usable again. Unfortunately for Epheral, this was not the case, and she took the full force of it in the face. It exploded, rocketing her massive, bulky frame down the street like she was little more than a kickball. She tumbled and rolled at a force hard enough to tear a human body into absolute ribbons. Garrison’s bones snapped and broke as fast as Epheral could forcibly repair them, making his trip down several blocks a gruesome one.

A cloud of dust trailed in her wake. Jacent turned his head to avoid breathing it in. When he lifted his head, he set his emerald eyes forward to where Epheral had landed.

“You… will… pay.”", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Issue 32: Duty-Bound", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "application/msword", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "3", "name": "Violence", "description": "Mild violence", "rating_id": "1" }, { "content_tag_id": "5", "name": "Strong Violence", "description": "Strong violence, blood, serious injury or death", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "f", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "2", "views": "144" }