Somebody Stop Him [Chapters 11-16] (Patreon)

Chapter 11: Breaking the Incarnator

I blinked awake not in the rebirth cavern, but in what appeared to be the nurse's office, my head throbbing. The humming fluorescent lights seemed unnecessarily bright as my vision slowly focused. A familiar winged silhouette paced nearby, ranting animatedly.

"That red-scaled beerch!" Cinder was growling, her wings bristling with rage. "She threw that ball way too hard on purpose!"

I tried to sit up, immediately regretting the decision as the room spun. "Ow."

Cinder whirled around, eyes locking onto me. "You idiot! Stay down!"

"Were you worried about me?" I managed to grin despite the pounding in my head.

"No!" Cinder snapped, her wings flaring defensively. "I just... didn't want Emerald getting in trouble for murdering the new kid on his second day."

"Emerald, huh?" I touched the tender spot on my head gingerly. "Your ruby friend has quite an arm. I'm at like one HP left I think. Yeesh."

"She's a Slayer," Cinder shrugged.

"A Slayer who will regret leaving a dangerous deviant like me un-slayed. Just you wait till I unleash my master plan of revenge," I declared dramatically from the medical bed. "It will be epic and... uhh... completely unexpected!"

"Sounds like a dumb plan to get yourself killed," Cinder pointed out. "Emerald isn't someone you want to mess with."

"Too late! The wheels of vengeance are already turning," I tapped my temple, then winced at the pain. "Ow. Note to self: avoid head gestures while concussed."

"You're an idiot," Cinder stated flatly, but I caught a hint of reluctant amusement in her voice. "A complete and total idiot with a death wish."

"You should try harder if you want to win my love," I said. "That was a 1/10 complement."

"W-what?! I'm not trying to win your anything! I'm just... making sure you don't die before I can properly get revenge for those videos!"

"Sure, sure," I grinned, wincing slightly as the movement sent a sharp pain through my head. "Your revenge plot sounds totally believable."

Cinder growled something under her breath, her face elongating and looking more predatory. Her anatomy was definitely somewhat fluid. Her wings could absolutely fold into themselves and stretch unnaturally wide. I wondered if she was high level enough to actually turn into a giant feathered snake.

"Why are you even mad about the videos?" I asked, propping myself up on the medical bed. "Isn't your whole goal to get famous and rich? Why else would you be in a troupe?"

"WHAT? No!" Cinder froze mid-pace

"Oh?" I pressed. "What exactly is your goal? Why are you in a monster-slayin' troupe?"

Cinder's wings twitched, her feathers rapidly fading to grays and blacks. "It's complicated," she muttered.

"Complicated how?" I challenged. "You're in a troupe doing music to summon monsters. You've got talent. Those videos I recorded? They're basically free publicity. Also, in the age of social media and generative AIs consent is a fluid concept."

"Consent is NOT fluid! That's exactly the kind of manipulative bullshit-"

"Says the person who can literally turn invisible and sneak around to terrorize innocent humans," I interrupted. "Pot, meet kettle. Say, do you ever turn invisible to sneak into the boys' showers?"

"WHAT?!" Cinder's entire figure ignited with black-gold-pink-red.

"Ha," I grinned. "Made your entire body blush. You're too easy to rile up. Learn to be more stoic."

Cinder choked at my words, forcibly turning her entire body gray.

"Just saying, if I had invisibility powers, I'd totally use them for... scientific research." I said, tapping my chin. "Maybe spy on some angels."

Cinder's wings flared again, feathers shifting from gray to a vibrant, angry red.

"Say is changing color the only thing you can do?" I asked. "Can you project other stuff, be a TV? Quick tune to the news."

"Are you seriously asking me to turn into a TV?"

"Medical professionals recommend entertainment during recovery. And who better to provide said entertainment than my favorite rock star?" I winked.

Cinder sent me a dangerous glare and then her entire head ignited with a million colors as if her feathers were monitor pixels going through channels filled with colorful static. In a few seconds the colors settled and then my own face stared back at me.

"Satisfied?" She asked in my own voice.

"Whoa," I breathed out. "This is some high grade mimicry. I always wondered what I'd look like with a hot femme bod."

Cinder's feathers instantly shifted back to their normal silver, her original Quetzi face flushing with embarrassment and anger.

"Argh!" She sputtered. "I was trying to intimidate you, not... not..."

"Give me ideas about alternate universe versions of myself?" I teased cheerfully. "Too late! Now I'm imagining myself dating a female version of myself! This is primo fanfiction material! Wait... you're like the perfect infiltrator. Damn now I'm extra-jelly."

"I swear, if you don't shut up..." Her wings fluttered with agitation.

"You'll what? Hit me with another dodgeball? That's probably against medical advice right now."

The school nurse, an elderly mermaid with pale blue scales, bustled over on a wheelchair. Her lower body was a sleek, iridescent fish tail that gleamed under the fluorescent lights, and her upper body was wrapped in a crisp white medical uniform. Silver-blue hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and reading glasses perched precariously on her sharp, angular nose. A dark Kitlix sat on her shoulder shimmering with green sparks.

"Ah. Mr. Glock," she said, "I see you're awake and makin' jokes. Good. I'm Nurse Keystoni.

Cinder stepped back, her wings instinctively folding closer to her body. The nurse's gaze was sharp enough to cut through even a Quetzalcoatl's bravado.

"How are you feeling?" The nurse's voice was crisp and professional.

"Like I've been hit by a very angry dodgeball," I said.

"You've endured a pretty bad concussion," the nurse tutted, scribbling something on her clipboard. "I healed some of the damage."

"Just some?" I asked.

"Healing takes energy. Can't restore everything instantly," she shrugged as the Kitlix flowed down to her lap. "The school was built directly above the Leviathan's place of awakening and has highest Aetheric density in the world and yet it is still far, far below Arx where these little guys are born," the nurse continued, stroking her Kitlix. "Alas, our magical potential is limited, so yes... I fixed much as I could. You'll need to take it easy for the rest of the day. No more dodgeball or other strenuous activities."

"Does that include... vigorous activities with extra-angry Quetzalcoatls?" I asked innocently.

Cinder growled in my direction.

The nurse's sharp eyes flicked between Cinder and me. "Miss Nova, are you harassing our new mixed-heritage student?"

"What? No! He's the one who keeps-" Cinder started to protest.

"I was merely suggesting that Miss Nova's presence has certain... cardiovascular effects," I interrupted with an innocent smile. "Completely unrelated to any dodgeball incidents."

Cinder choked beside me.

Perhaps you should take the rest of the day off to recover," the nurse suggested dryly. "I'll write you a note excusing you from classes."

"But what about my education?" I protested. "My burning desire for knowledge? My need to maintain perfect attendance?"

"Your burning desire can wait until tomorrow," the nurse replied firmly. "Now, about getting you home safely..."

I put on my best pained expression. "About that... Walking might be... challenging." I winced dramatically, touching my head. "Everything's still spinning and my balance feels... off."

The nurse's sharp eyes studied me carefully. "Hmm. We can't have you stumbling around campus in this condition. You might fall and worsen your injury. Hrm. We do have temporary mobility assistance available," the nurse said. "Hold on."

She quickly dried herself with a quick swipe of a towel, her tail suddenly sparking with green energy. Then her scales slowly shifted and reformed, transforming into human-like legs. She stood up smoothly, put on slippers and walked out of the room.

"Dang. That's cool," I whispered to Cinder. "Can you do that?"

"Do what?" the Quetzi peered down at me.

"Can you manifest a tail and then split it into legs?"

"Do I look like I can just manifest new body parts?" Cinder growled. "I can change colors and mimic appearances for a bit, not transform my entire body! I already have a tail, if you didn't notice!"

"So can you split it into an extra pair of legs, turn into a spider?"

"WHAT?! That's not how any of this..."

"Shame," I sighed. "Maybe in your next evolution?"

"I'm not a Pokemon!" she snapped.

"Could've fooled me with the face-swaps and all those color changes," I grinned. "What level do you need to be to learn Hyper Beam?"

Before Cinder could respond, the nurse returned pushing a sleek wheelchair and holding what appeared to be a temporary disability parking placard and elevator access card.

"Here we are," she announced. "This should help you get around safely until you've fully recovered. And this placard will let you park closer to the buildings."

"Oh wow, thank you!" I beamed, accepting the lanyard.

"You," the nurse pointed at Cinder, "will help Mr. Glock get to his car or Suber safely. No arguments."

"WHAT?!" Cinder squawked. "Why me?"

"Because you're already here and clearly concerned about his wellbeing," the nurse replied smoothly. "Unless you'd prefer I write up a very stern report about that dodgeball incident? Who was it that threw the ball so hard at our newest student again?"

Cinder's wings drooped in defeat. "Fine," she muttered.

"Excellent!" I chirped, carefully sliding into the wheelchair wincing as my brain wobbled. "Now I can start a wheelchair racing team with Katherine! Think we can convince Coach Canard to add it as an official sport?"

“Katherine?" Cinder asked, automatically taking control of my wheelchair to roll me out from the domain of healing.

"An incredible artist who tried to murder me with her own wheelchair this morning. Almost succeeded too! You two would get along great - she's got the whole 'I hate everything, especially this annoying human' vibe down."

"Katherine Kells?" Cinder's voice took on a strange tone. "You met Katherine?"

"Yeah! She tried to eat my soul with her spooky eyes and everything. It was great! Well, terrifying actually, but great! She's like this amazing artist who-"

"I know who Katherine is," Cinder interrupted quietly. "She's... Iogann's half-sister. We used to be friends, back when..."

She trailed off, her wings drooping slightly.

"Back when what?" I asked, genuinely curious about the shift in Cinder's mood.

"I don't want to bring up old shit," she muttered, pushing my wheelchair perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary. "She went through some stuff. Started drinking. Stopped hanging out with anyone except Io. To be honest, I haven't really talked to her in ages."

"Sounds like a tragic backstory trope that could use a kick in a different direction," I mused as Cinder wheeled me through the hall. "Maybe we should form a support group - 'People Who Have Tried to Murder Alex Club.' You can be the founding president!"

"Pfff," she exhaled. "Pretty sure that'll include half the school by the end of the month at the rate you're going."

"A month?" I arched an eyebrow. "You underestimate my powers. Give me a week. Nah, two weeks. I've a busy schedule filled with Stollwurm and Quetzi wrangling."

"Wrangling?" She smirked.

"Wrangling into friendship," I declared dramatically. "Absolute, pure, unadulterated friendship that will make you both question your life choices!"

Cinder stared at me for a long moment, then burst out into an uneven grin. "You're going to 'friendship' Katherine Kells? Good luck."

“Eh, I’ll get there. For now, she's my sworn nemesis," I grinned.

"Your... nemesis?" Cinder's voice dripped with skepticism as she wheeled me through the hallway. "With the amount of tormenting me with your annoying... everything, you'd think that I would be your nemesis.'

"Not at all!" I twisted in the wheelchair to look up at her. Her wings were partially folded over me, creating an iridescent, metallic canopy above us. "You're my guardian angel, obviously! Or romantic interest number one if you fall for me." I rubbed my chin. "Are you into highly questionable male protagonists constantly on the run from the law?"

Cinder's wings bristled as she stopped pushing my wheelchair abruptly. "What did you just say?"

"Which part?" I grinned up at her. "The guardian angel bit or the romantic interest angle? Because I'm happy to elaborate on either-"

The wing canopy overhead ignited with violet, reds, pinks and golds as if a sun was setting above me.

"I swear to Slayer..." Cinder growled, her claws tightening on the wheelchair handles. Without warning, she spun my chair around to face her, leaning down until we were eye-to-eye.

"Listen here, you annoying little chuppy," she hissed. "Do you have a deathwish?"

"Actually?" I asked. "Yes. I'm heavily concussed and its mildly annoying. Please stab me through the heart with a sharp pointy claw-hand and reincarnate me."

"What?" Cinder's ocean-blue eyes went wide.

"Wait, I have a better plan that doesn't involve dying horribly," I rubbed my chin. "Take me to the Genesis Pool."

"Why?"

"I want to take a swim in it, see if it fixes my concussion without dying."

"You want to... WHAT?!"

"Take a swim in the Genesis Pool," I repeated, my tone casual. "Might help with this concussion."

"That's not how it works!" Cinder hissed, her wings flaring with agitation. "The Genesis Pool isn't some magical healing hot tub!"

"Worth a shot," I shrugged, wincing slightly at the movement. "Better than sitting in this wheelchair all day."

Cinder's eyes narrowed. "You're serious? You want to just... casually dive into one of the most sacred spaces in Omnithean culture?"

"Yep," I nodded. "Sounds fun. Wanna be my guide? We could skinny-dip in together!"

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" She growled.

"Aiiiiight then," I shrugged. "I'll just roll myself there. You can go to class, Miss Square."

"You're not going anywhere near the fucking Genesis Pool," Cinder growled. "And I'm definitely not letting you go alone in your current state. You're obviously concussed stupid!"

"Look," I said. "People drop bracelets into it to grow an entirely new body. But... has anyone tried to jump into it, WHILE badly concussed and wearing the bracelet?"

"How the fuck should I know?!" She hissed. "Go ask the Vice Principal! He'll probably explain to you why it's a monumentally stupid idea."

"Nah. Let's find out!" I said cheerfully. "For science! Come on, don't you want to know what happens? Maybe it'll give me super powers! Or maybe it'll just fix my headache. Either way, win-win!"

"Or maybe it'll just kill you!" Cinder snapped.

"If it does, THEN you can take the bracelet off my corpse and dump that in," I said. "Either way - no more concussion! Come on, you break rules all the time. Let's break them into an actually useful direction."

Cinder's wings flared with gray, black and auburn tones of absolute frustration.

"Alright then, I dare you to roll me down there and dump me the pool," I changed my strategy. "Don't you want revenge? Weren't you all like 'I'm gonna smash your face with a ball' this morning? The fierce rebel Cinder, afraid of a little sacred pool? What happened to all that anti-establishment energy? Maybe you're not that goth after all. Maybe you're just... faking it."

Cinder's wings bristled instantly, her feathers shifting to a deep, challenging red. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," I grinned, knowing exactly which buttons I was pushing. "All talk, no action. The great rebel Cinder Nova, scared of breaking a few rules? Pfft."

"I am NOT scared," she growled, leaning down until we were eye-to-eye. "Fine. You want to go to the Genesis Pool? Let's go."

. . .

The elevator ride down to the Genesis Pool was painfully awkward.

Cinder leaned against the wall in one corner, arms crossed. I sat in the wheelchair, spinning slowly and deliberately.

"Stop. Twirling in one spot." She ground out through clenched teeth.

"Can't help it," I grinned. "Wheelchair. Spinning is its primary function. Wheeeee-eee-e."

Cinder's eye twitched.

The elevator music - a bizarre Omnithean jazz remix that sounded like whale sounds mixed with electronic beats - did nothing to ease the tension. Cinder looked like she was already regretting her life choices.

The elevator doors opened with a soft chime.

The silver surface of the Genesis Pool stretched out before us, eerily still and reflective. The massive statue of the masked, naked female Omnid loomed overhead, her stone wings spread wide and her sword pointed down at the fluid's surface.

"This is a terrible idea," Cinder muttered as I rolled closer to the edge. "We shouldn't be here. We aren't actually resurrecting anyone and..."

"Sacred schmacred," I waved off her concerns, activating the hexmesh suit under my clothes. The tiny beast core hummed to life. "Sometimes you gotta take risks!"

Before Cinder could react, I launched myself from the wheelchair with a whoop of excitement. The hexmesh suit's beast core amplified my muscles as I sailed through the air, my body arcing towards the silvery surface of the Genesis Pool.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Cinder screamed, her wings flaring wide in shock.

Time seemed to slow down. The reflective surface of the pool rushed up to meet me, impossibly still and mirror-like. For a moment, I could see my own reflection - eyes wide with worry and exhilaration.

Then impact and then I was under.

The silvery liquid enveloped me, filling my mouth and eyes, choking and suffocating me. It filled me from within in less than a second and reached out to the burning bracelet on my wrist and suddenly up was down and down was up as if gravity had turned inside out.

[System Error]

Two words comprises from brilliant sparks filled my vision.

Something inside me broke with a twinkle.

Chapter 12: As Above So Below

Autumn. Falling leaves. A suburban backyard, complete with a massive oak tree.

The colors all around too vivid, saturated like an old photograph that had been artificially enhanced, like a painting made up from thick brushstrokes.

Katherine's painting. It was like I was inside her work.

I stared up.

A girl with platinum blonde hair and silver-blue eyes was perched in a treehouse made entirely of stolen traffic signs. The massive "Saint Mary Exit 7b" sign that formed the roof caught the sunlight in a way that made my head hurt.

"Sup Mittens," she grinned.

"What?" I sputtered. "Who are you? Where am I? What... what did you just call me?"

"Mittens," she repeated. "You're my minion. Mittens."

"I don't understand..." I started, but something tugged at the edges of my memory. The girl seemed familiar somehow, like a half-forgotten dream. I've seen her.

The girl from Katherine's drawings.

She pulled her silver-blue hair back with a grin and there it was. The fractal crack on her forehead pulsed with impossible colors, like an oil slick catching sunlight. Each pulse sent waves of vertigo through me.

"You're not real," I managed. "You're... you're from Katherine's art."

"Am I?" The girl's grin widened, blue eyes twinkling down at me. "Or is Katherine drawing what she sees in the spaces between spaces? The cracks in reality where forgotten things hide?"

Her silver-blue eyes dug into me. I knew them. I knew her, but from where... from when?!

"That doesn't tell me fuck all!" I snarled. "Who are you? Where is this?!"

"This is... us," the girl leaped from the tree, bouncing up and down as she landed. I stared at her reinforced shoes covered in springs. "You and me. Inside out. Upside down. Good job on breaking the Incarnator. Sixty nine thumbs up and a high five."

She held up her hand.

I stared at her, feeling mentally derailed. Derailing people was my job, damn it! Wait... that was my joke! I used it on Cinder...

"I'm Alexa," she said, lowering her hand before I could even raise mine. He paced around me, bouncing ever so slightly.

I felt my brain momentarily short-circuit at her words.

"You're... what, my sister from another dimension?" I demanded.

"Mmmmm.... no," Alexa shook her head. "I'm a supervillain. When they rolled over everything, a part of me remained in your noggin due to the brain spiders."

"What?! They?"

"System Wizards," Alexa said.

"System Wizards?" I asked, trying to make sense of her words. "What system? What wizards?"

"The ones who rolled everything over, duh," Alexa continued, circling me like a shark. "Rewrote the narrative. The ones who made you forget. But they missed a tincy-wincy spot!" She tapped the fractal crack on her forehead. "Right here."

"Stop being cryptic and just tell me what the fuck-" I growled in frustration.

"Sorry!" Alexa suddenly leaned forward and gave me a tight hug, nuzzling into my side. "Time to go, M. If you stay in the Genesis soup too long I'll decay away too much and you'll become like everyone else, broken, incapable of breaking the narrative. Don't dive in again while you are alive. Just remember this - you're not alone. I love you. I'm here for you. I'm with you. Inside and outside. Find all four of us and save us. Keep going M, no matter what. Don't let anyone stop you!”

Gravity inverted and the view of another place and time came apart into silver streaks.

A felt a strong, clawed hand that grabbed me, hauling me up from the depths of the Genesis Pool.

I broke the surface gasping and choking, dredging silver fluid from my lungs, my mind reeling.

"YOU ABSOLUTE IDIOT!" Cinder's voice pierced through my disorientation as she dragged me onto the stone ledge. Her wings were flared wide with agitation, droplets of silver fluid flying everywhere as she shook me. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!"

I coughed up more of the metallic-tasting liquid, my brain sliding sideways ever so slightly.

"I was thinking... of having a nice bath," I spat with a small smile.

"I didn't think that you'd actually freaking jump in there! Nazareth, why are you like this?" Cinder growled with an exasperated expression.

"Like what?" I managed between coughs, "That was... actually... somewhat enlightening! You should try it. Maybe you'll... remember things too, get a new perspective on life."

"Remember what?" Cinder demanded, wings bristling. "What are you talking about? Did you hit your head again in there?"

"I'm fine," I assured her, though my voice sounded strange, off even to my own ears. "Just had a weird... moment under. Like a dream, but... not?"

"The fuck are you on about?" She asked. "You clearly damaged what little brain you had left."

I sprang to my feet, surprised to find my balance perfectly steady, bouncing up and down. The concussion symptoms were completely gone. My thoughts were crystal clear once again. Clearer than they had ever been before, sharp like the blade of a two-dimensional knife.

I smiled.

"You didn't die in there... right?" She stared at me. "No. You're way too smug looking for someone who'd seen the Wheel a second time."

"No Wheels," I said. "Only me. I saw myself... I think. My... real self. Or maybe my reflection. My shadow?"

Cinder stared at me, her wings shifting through a kaleidoscope of confused colors - murky grays, uncertain blues, a hint of worried purple. "You're not making any sense. What do you mean, 'saw yourself'?"

"Exactly what I said," I shrugged. "Met a version of me. Or maybe not me. Hard to tell."

I looked at the shimmering pool.

"As above, so below," I murmured.

I lifted the hexagonal bracelet on my left hand to my face. "Hello old friend. You don't belong to this dimension at all, do you?"

Cinder stared at me with growing concern. "Okay, you're clearly having some kind of breakdown."

"Just making an educated guess about the bracelet, chill," I shrugged.

The hexagonal bracelet seemed to pulse slightly in response to my scrutiny, its dark metal surface catching the light in strange ways. Had it always looked so... alive?

"Stats," I whispered.

My menu came up. Every stat was still at zero... Except for one little change:

[Anima: 89/89 + [89]]

I squinted at the extra, inexplicable addition of 89 soul. Was I some kind of a twin-soul human now? Twice as human? Strange. Very, very strange. I had no idea what having more soul did. Would probably have to ask an Animancy teacher about this development.

"Alex... are you really okay?" Cinder let out.

Progress! She really was worried about me.

"Yep, check this out!" I pulled on the power of the hexasuit and did a cartwheel across the cavern, last bits of silver leaving my body.

"See? Perfectly balanced!" I straightened out. "As all things should be."

"Again with dumb movie quotes?" Cinder bit her lower lip. "The Pool isn't some magical healing spring! It's for resurrection only!"

"Maybe that's just what they want you to think," I grinned, tapping my temple where I knew an invisible shear across reality sat beneath skin and bone. "Maybe we should question everything we think we know about everything."

Cinder twitched. "You sound like Em with her stupid Predator Theory nonsense."

"If you think it's so stupid then why burden yourself with a Kaleid name, Cinder?" I asked.

Cinder deflated, looking like a girl who had been beaten far too long and too many times by life.

"You smell like death, go shower off," she turned around, refusing to meet my eyes.

I sighed, studying my reflection in the Genesis Pool's surface. For a moment, I thought I saw a flash of silver-blue eyes and a fractal crack, but it was gone before I could be sure.

"Argh. I should... get going," Cinder muttered, checking her phone with a frown. "I've already wasted enough time babysitting your crazy ass. Have to get ready for the show tonight."

"Aww, you're not going to make sure I don't drown in the shower?" I teased.

"You're clearly fine," she growled. "Try not to get yourself killed without supervision. I've got show prep. I’ve wasted enough time with your bullshit today.”

"No promises!" I called after her retreating form. "Break a leg at practice! Or someone else's leg! Whatever makes ya smile!"

Cinder's only response was a dismissive wave of her wing as she disappeared up the stairwell in a rush of rainbow-color.

I sat back into the chair and rolled myself into the elevator. I was no longer concussed but maintaining the appearance of weakness could be useful.

I left the wheelchair in my van and took Suber to Thundertown and was back in time to attend another class before lunch.

Cinder's seat remained empty.

I found myself sketching her from memory during the teacher's dull lecture - her wings mid-flight, combat boots poised to kick, fingers dancing across piano keys. Each drawing captured a different facet of her: the fierce rocker, the talented musician, the angry goth, the vulnerable, broken person beneath it all.

My sketchbook rapidly filled as I barely paid attention to the class. Without Cinder to tease and her wings to gawk at, class seemed extra-dull.

. . .

At lunch, I wheeled myself into the cafeteria, the noise level resembling a stampeding herd of giants. The lunch line was a mass of pushing, shoving, and tail-whacking as hungry, spiked, rowdy Omnitheans fought for position.

Ah, now I remember why I sent June the Kelpie to fetch food for me.

Time for some crowd control.

I pulled out a small firecracker from my bag, lit it with my lighter, and put on large construction earmuffs, dropping the firecracker on the floor directly in front of me.

BANG!

The cafeteria went dead silent, all heads turning to me.

"EVERYBODY BE COOL! THIS IS A WHEELCHAIR ROBBERY!" I announced into the stunned silence, rolling forward dramatically. "I HAVE A DOCTOR'S NOTE AND I'M NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!"

The crowd of dazed, colorful Omnids parted before me like the Red Sea as I wheeled through.

"Beep beep! Decrepit half-human coming through! No shoving in line or I'll file for emotional damage! My lawyer is very enthusiastic about disability discrimination cases!" I called out cheerfully as I wheeled through the parted crowd. "She's a tiny Domovoi with a HUGE legal portfolio!"

The line of students maintained a respectful distance as I reached the counter and ordered my massive sushi platter.

I wheeled away from the counter with my sushi boat balanced precariously on my lap when a familiar Death skill Mothman stepped into my path.

"That was quite the entrance,” Iogann smiled. "Want to join us for lunch?”

"Sure," I nodded, hoping to see my angel.

I followed Iogann's bouncing hat, carefully balancing my mountain of sushi. As we approached a table by the windows, I spotted a familiar camo coat form.

"Katherine, this is Alex, the new human student I was telling you about," Iogann gestured as we approached. "Alex, this is Katherine Kells, my half-sister.”

I grinned at Katherine, who was already at the table near the window. "Is this seat taken?" I gestured to the empty space next to her wheelchair.

The girl in the goggles simply grunted in response.

Strong and silent type, huh? Two could play at this game.

Chapter 13: Dimensional Magic

I wheeled up to the table and carefully maneuvered my wheelchair into position.

"Hnngh," I grunted in greeting, gesturing at my sushi platter. "Ghrmmm?"

Katherine's head snapped to me.

I began nomming the sushi.

"So Alex, that dodgeball head bonking was pretty intense..." Iogann started.

"Hrrmmmph," I nodded sagely at Iogann's comment, stuffing another piece of sushi in my mouth.

"Are you... okay?" Iogann asked, his fluffy gray antennae twitching with concern.

"Mrrrrgh," I shrugged, then gestured at my head with chopsticks and made an explosion sound. "Grmmmm. No Word. Only grunt."

Katherine's shoulders tensed slightly beside me.

"Hnngh?" I grunted at her.

"The nurse said you had a big concussion..." Iogann continued, looking increasingly confused by my caveman communication style. "That was a grisly way to go down by the way... I think that's what my doom-sense warned about."

"Nghhhh," I waved dismissively, offering him a California roll with an eloquent "Hrm?"

"Ah yea, don't mind if I do," Iogann accepted the roll. "Thanks."

Katherine's claws tightened around her canteen as I continued my grunt-based conversation with Iogann.

"Why are you not using words? Did the hit to your head affect your speech?" Iogann asked.

"Pffffftt," I snorted, rolling my eyes.

Katherine growled from where she was sitting, her long tail beginning to lash dangerously.

I dug into my bag and pulled out an old USSR army flask, complete with hammer and sickle emblem that I'd bought in one of Thundertown's tourist shops. I unscrewed the cap with exaggerated care and took a long swig, making sure to wink at Katherine as I did so. Then I put on a pair of dark, wide sunglasses.

"THAT'S IT!" Katherine slammed her hands on the table, making everyone's drinks jump. "Are you seriously mocking me right now?!"

"Hrrmm?" I grunted innocently, taking another sip from my flask.

"Stop. That." Each word was punctuated by her tail lashing against her wheelchair. "Stop with the stupid grunting and the... the flask and the... everything!"

"Everything?" I blinked.

"Sis..." Iogann started, his antennae wiggling in the holes of his wide Snufkin hat.

“Piss off, Jan!" Katherine snapped at her half-brother and turned to me. "You! Why the fuck you even in a wheelchair? You were walking fine this morning!”

"Got hit in the head with a dodgeball courtesy of an angry wyrm," I shrugged, dropping the grunting act. "The nurse insisted I use this fancy chair until I recover. Pretty sweet ride though."

"And the flask?" Katherine demanded.

"This?" I held up the USSR flask. "Just delicious water. Thought that you flask was neat, so I got one myself. Cheers."

I clinked the flask against hers with a sly grin.

“And glasses?!” She hiss-growled.

“Just wanted to be cool like you,” I grinned. "Am I not allowed to copy your Schwarzenegger-inspired look?"

Katherine growled, her claws tightening around her own flask until the metal creaked.

"Sis, chill," Iogann placed his fuzzy hand on her shoulder. "Alex is just being friendly. Em actually did knock him out pretty hard during gym."

"And you!" Katherine snapped at her brother. "Why are you hovering over me? Why aren't you luncheoning with your precious troupe?"

Iogann sighed heavily. "Because Em and Cinder are at each other's throats again and I am not needed unless actual gateway opening happens. What, can't I just spend some quality time with my sister?"

"Oh, so I'm your lunch backup plan when your cool friends are fighting?" She growled.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," Iogann's antennae drooped. "I just... miss hanging out with you. It's not healthy to eat lunch alone in a corner."

"Whatever," Katherine muttered, taking a long drink from her flask. "Go back to your stupid-ass troupe. I'm sure they need you more than I do. Maybe you'll get ninety people killed this time around, if that many even show up to your stupid show."

"What happened at the Spring's End Festival wasn't..."

"Wasn't your fault? Wasn't preventable? Yeah okay. Which part of bringing high-level abominations from doomed dimensions makes sense in your brainless moth-head?"

"Emerald..." Iogann began.

"Is a moron," Katherine snapped. "Her knights are morons. You are a moron. Cass is a moron. Even if nobody dies tonight, people aren't coming to applaud you. They're coming to laugh at you morons. Read the Omnigram posts about yourselves! Your inverted-dungeoneering is peak idiocy."

The Mothman opened his mouth to defend himself.

"Not done!" She barked, silencing him. "Nobody actually wants to see you summon monsters from other dimensions just so Em can try to punch them in the face and fail. It's not art, it's not meaningful, it's just... stupid! I told you that it was stupid years ago, Iogann. I told you to study dimensional anchoring, to learn to create proper two-way gates. But noooooo... you morons want to be special snowflakes..."

"Actually," I interjected, trying to brighten the excessive hostility radiating from the Stollwurm, "I'd love to see that show. When is it?"

Both siblings turned to stare at me.

"Today after school," Iogann said quietly, looking like he wanted to sink into the floor.

"Perfect!" I beamed. "Wouldn't miss it for the world! Sounds absolutely metal - interdimensional gates, monster fights, the potential for catastrophic failure... Sign me up!"

"Did that dodgeball knock out what little sense you had?" Katherine demanded.

"Probably!" I agreed cheerfully. "But come on - how often do you get to see live interdimensional monster summoning? That's like... peak entertainment right there! 'Sides, I want to see my angel sing."

"Your... angel?" She asked.

"Oh yeah, Cinder's got this amazing voice," I grinned. "You should hear her sing! Though I guess you probably have, back when you were friends..."

"We were never friends," Katherine growled. "And Cass isn't some angel. She's just another self-absorbed knobwit following Em's stupid philosophy."

"Sis..." Iogann started.

"Don't 'sis' me," Katherine snapped. "You know I'm right. This whole troupe thing is going to end badly. Everything around you ends badly."

The Mothman stared at his sister with deep, gray-black eyes.

"And you're there because you're drawn to disasters." Katherine laughed bitterly. "Go on, admit it. You're not there for the art, or levelling up, or whatever other bullshit Em spews - you're there because it's going to be a complete catastrophe!"

"That's not..."

"Yes it is!" Katherine obliterated her brother with her chiding tone, jabbing at him with a dark clawed finger. "You can't help it, can you? Just like how you couldn't help getting involved in that Spring's End Festival disaster. You're literally programmed to seek out the biggest potential clusterfucks possible! If Em's dumb-ass troupe actually succeeded at anything you wouldn't be anywhere near it! Come on–say it ‘I’m a dustbrain addicted to disasters!’"

"Okay, timeout!" I clapped my hands together loudly, drawing both siblings' attention. "While this family therapy session is fascinating, I've got a better idea. Katherine, why don't you come to the show too?"

"No, nuh-huh, no way," the Stollwurm shook her head. "You think I want to be eaten or infested by some random cosmic bullshit? Do I look suicidal to you?"

"Actually, yes," I said, eyeing her flask meaningfully. "But that's not the point. The point is - if you're so convinced this show is going to be a disaster, wouldn't you want to be there to say 'I told you so' when it all goes wrong? Plus, you could document the whole thing! Think of the artistic possibilities - capturing the moment everything falls apart..."

Katherine's tail lashed angrily. "I don't need to be there to know it's going to be a shitshow."

"But wouldn't you rather see it firsthand?" I pressed. "Come on, where's your artistic spirit?"

"Dead," she said coldly.

"Very dark," I whistled. "You should write Romantic poetry. Or song lyrics! Maybe collaborate with Cinder on some proper goth music. Draw them some posters?"

Katherine's tail lashed dangerously. "You think this is funny? You think my situation is some kind of joke? It's enough that this idiot is constantly feeding off my disaster of a life." She waved a gloved hand at Iogann. "Now you're on my case too? Why the fuck would I want to contribute to anything Em does? She's a psychopathic, controlling bitch who should go die in a hole. Get off my case unless you want me to send you to the deep again and leave you there."

"Eh, your deep doesn't scare me anymore," I grinned, tapping my temple. "Already got some quality void time in this morning. Really puts things in perspective, ya know?"

Katherine's claws opened and closed. "You're either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid."

"Actually," I said. "I'm incredibly curious. I thought that your power is psychic, not dimensional."

"I'm related to this aimless twat," Katherine waved a hand at Iogann. "Obviously, my power is dimensional."

"So the deep is an actual place then? Is it dimensionally aligned with local topography? Can you use it to... go through walls to reach otherwise inaccessible places on Earth?" I asked.

Katherine stared at me. My mind was already reeling excitedly with possibilities. A dimensional power that permitted one to walk into anywhere across darkness? The potential applications were endless - bank vaults, secure facilities, anywhere with valuable data or resources...

"Why are you so interested in the mechanics of my abilities?" She demanded.

"Pure scientific curiosity!" I assured her quickly. Perhaps too quickly. "Just trying to understand how different Omnithean powers work. Like, hypothetically speaking, could you use the deep to go anywhere on Earth?"

"Why would you want to know something like that?" She demanded.

I realized I'd been a bit too eager, too direct. Time to pivot.

"Art," I said. "I'm thinking about a photography project. Conceptual stuff about liminal spaces, boundaries between dimensions. Your power sounds fascinating from an artistic perspective."

"You're lying." She stated sharply.

"Fine," I crossed my arms, copying her stance. "I want to go into forbidden places and take photos of forbidden things. Happy?"

Katherine pursed her lips. Her tail lashed once, then stilled.

"Appreciate the honesty, but you're not getting anywhere near my dimensional abilities," she said flatly. "Nice try."

"Worth a shot," I shrugged. "Want some sushi? I can't finish this gargantuan platter myself."

"Why'd you buy an entire sushi boat then?" She demanded. "You some kind of moron who can't count his daddy’s money?"

"Nah," I replied. "My parents are dead and buried and they left me mostly debts.”

“Then how are you affording sushi?”

“Meal cards for the destitute,” I shrugged, jiggling my Invader Xim lanyard. “Anywayyyss… Sushi boats are good for breaking the ice between potential art rivals."

I slid the sushi boat over to Katherine, making boat noises and then a crash noise when it collided with her camo-coat wrapped chest.

Katherine stared at the sushi boat now resting against her bulky coat. "I already told you–I'm not interested in rivals," she muttered, pushing the boat back slightly. "And I haven't even seen a single drawing of yours."

"The lady demands dinner and a show?" I grinned. "Very well. I aim to please."

I reached behind me and pulled out my sketchbook and a set of pens and pencils, my hands already moving across the page.

Katherine stared.

I began drawing with quick, energetic strokes.

The drawing took shape: Katherine, transformed into a massive kaiju-sized version of herself, her dark scales gleaming. She towered over a comically oversized sushi boat, her tail whipping through the air like a destructive tentacle.

I tagged the boat as "SushTanic."

Tiny sushi-shaped passengers fired smol machineguns at her scales.

Katherine stared at the drawing with google-hidden eyes. Despite her resistance, her claws reached out and plucked a piece of sushi from the boat.

"Huh," she muttered. "So you CAN draw after all."

Iogann leaned over. "Is that... me?" He pointed at a tiny version of himself sitting on the edge of the SushTanic.

"Yep," I grinned. "Captain Iogann, observing the disaster of his sinking ship due to Katzilla.

The Mothman chuckled appreciatively. Katherine huffed, puffing up like an angry pigeon in her coat.

"Hey, Io, can you feed off drawings of disasters?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Your Gateway skill," I elaborated. "Does potential disaster energy work the same way whether it's real or imagined? Like, could a... drawing of a potential catastrophe activate your abilities?"

Iogann's gray eyes went wide. "That's... an interesting theory. No one's ever asked me that before. I do appreciate watching disaster movies."

"He's got like 400 terabytes of disaster porn," Katherine commented. "Nothing but plane crashes and earthquakes and other depressing bullshit."

"They're not porn!" Iogann protested, blushing with grays dancing across his facial hair. "They're... research materials!"

"Sure, Jan," Katherine scoffed.

"Hmmm. Can you open a gateway to this drawing of a disaster?" I asked the Mothman.

"I don't think so," he said.

"Want to try it?" I asked with a sly grin.

"Mkay." Iogann pulled out a weathered harmonica from his pocket. His face scrounged up in concentration as he began to play a haunting, discordant melody.

Nothing happened.

"See?" Katherine muttered. "Jan is hopeless. Case closed.”

"Maybe there's not enough emotional connection there," I tapped my chin staring at his harmonica. "Katherine's power, if I understand it correctly, operated on trying to scare me as a target. Maybe you need a target that appeals to you."

"What do you mean?" He asked.

Chapter 14: Sideways Elevator

The Mothman looked at me with a curious expression.

"What's your most favorite disaster film of all time?" I asked.

"The Day After Tomorrow," Iogann said without hesitation. "Climate disaster genre. Absolutely perfect blend of scientific speculation and pure, unadulterated chaos."

"Interesting choice," I nodded, already pulling out my phone. "Want to test it?"

"Don't encourage him," Katherine sighed at both of us, throwing more sushi passengers into her mouth.

But Iogann was already leaning forward. "How would we test it?"

I pulled up a high-resolution clip of the movie's most dramatic scene - the massive tsunami hitting New York City. I showed him the clip.

"See this scene playing on my phone as a looped clip? Open the gate to where my phone is," I grinned.

Iogann nodded, pulling out his harmonica. His gray eyes focused intently on the phone screen, watching the tsunami scene.

I slid the phone under the table. "And go," I ordered.

Iogann closed his eyes, bringing the harmonica to his lips. A low, haunting note emerged, unlike any musical sound I'd ever heard. The note seemed to vibrate with potential energy, resonating at a frequency that made the air feel thick and heavy.

His antennae began to pulse with a soft, silvery light.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, beneath and above the table, two thin, wavering lines of darkness began to form. It looked like a crack in reality, no wider than a pencil line at first, but slowly expanding.

"Holy shit," Katherine muttered. "You opened a gate... in local reality?! To a specific location?! No friggin way."

Iogann's harmonica continued its haunting melody, the two connected gates expanding incrementally.

"Great job!" I grinned at the Mothman.

Iogann's harmonica slipped from his trembling fingers, clattering onto the cafeteria table. The dark circles froze mid-expansion, then began to rapidly contract. I slipped a pencil in between the two seeing if the gateway would slice it in half when it closed.

"I... I've never done that before," he stammered with dark, wide eyes. "I... always opened gates to some distant elsewhere, wherever the song of doomsday was strongest."

"Hum," Katherine leaned forward examining the gates above and below the table. "You actually opened a targeted gate. To a specific location from a digital representation. And nobody died. Consider me impressed, Jan.”

Iogann's face turned a deep shade of gray. "I can't believe I just... I mean, I've watched that movie like a hundred times and never thought to... open a gate to it. That's brilliant!"

"Uh-huh," I nodded with a smug look.

The gate closed and my pencil snapped in half. I waved the pencil remnant at the half-siblings like a maestro.

"This... this changes everything," Iogann muttered, his voice growing more confident with each syllable. "I can... I can open gates to my favorite movie! I have to tell Em! We can change up the program! We can..."

"Hate to burst your bubble, Jan," Katherine interrupted. "You think just because you opened a tiny gate to this idiot's phone, you're suddenly going to revolutionize your troupe's performance?"

Iogann's excited momentum deflated slightly. "But... didn't you see? I targeted a specific location! That's never happened before!"

"And?" Katherine raised an eyebrow.

"I... well... I don't know exactly, but it's something! It's a targeted gate, Kat! Maybe we can go into an actual dungeon and gate out of it to a movie screen and..."

"Em is too stupid and too stubborn to permit changes," Katherine cut him down ruthlessly. "I bet she's got her entire performance mapped out to the I'. You really think she'll listen to some random idea you cooked up with this halfwit halfkin four hours before the show begins?" She jerked a thumb at me.

"Halfwit?" I tsked. "I prefer 'innovative disruptive element'."

Both siblings ignored me.

"I have to try to..." Iogann said.

"Good luck dying horribly," Katherine waved him off.

"I'm going to go to the guys in the auditorium and propose this idea right now!"

"Suit yourself," Katherine shrugged, taking another swig from her flask. "Don't come crying to me when she rips your wings off."

As Iogann hurried away, Katherine turned to me. "So. You a Cinder are a thing or something?"

"A thing?" I nearly choked on my sushi piece.

"An item? A couple?" She pressed. "Not that I give a shit, just curious. Didn't take her for a halfkin appreciator. How are you not covered in bruises? Isn't she like fifty times stronger than you?"

"We're not a thing!" I sputtered, my face heating up. "She did kick my van a lot and threatened to break my spine. The usual first-date stuff."

"Oh? She kicked your van? And you're... what? Charmed by this?"

"Absolutely," I grinned. "Nothing says 'I'm interested' like potential vehicular assault, right?"

"You're obviously somehow fucked in the head," Katherine muttered, taking another swig from her flask. "Completely and totally unhinged.”

"So I've been told," I shrugged. "Multiple times in fact. By multiple people. Mostly Cinder."

Katherine studied me for a long moment.

"You do realize that Cass is completely mental, right? And that Em is going to murder you. In fact she's going to murder my brother right now. Damn it. Ughhh. Really didn't want to get involved in this shit. Way to go. Way to encourage the troupe of idiots, idiot."

Katherine dumped the rest of the sushi boat into her mouth like some kind of anime hamster, her cheeks puffing out comically. She swallowed it all in one gulp like a snake and rolled away from the table without another word, heading for the elevator.

I followed her, wheeling alongside. "So... we're going to save your brother from certain doom?"

"No," she growled back. "I'm going to watch Em murder him and then tell him 'I told you so' after I incarnate his ass. Also, why are you following me?"

"Um," I considered. "I appreciate a good murder-viewing party?"

"Just so you know I'm not incarnating your ass when Em or one of her minions snaps your spine in half."

"Noted."

...

The elevator ride was long, with our two wheelchairs taking up most of the space. Katherine fixed me with a piercing glare of dark glasses.

"So," she said as the transparent elevator began to move sideways, her tail lashing slightly in the confined space. "You really got a thing for Quetzalcoatl tail? I can see why Jan chose to talk to you today, a Quetzi and halfkin relationship sounds like a disaster.”

"I don't have a 'thing' for Quetzalcoatls," I protested. "I have only met one Quetzi so far. She's rawd and we are not a disaster. We're..."

"Uh-huh. Sure," she interrupted my train of thought. "And I'm just a totally normal, well-adjusted artist who definitely doesn't drink high-grade alcohol during lunch."

"Fair," I conceded. "We're both masters of healthy coping mechanisms. Also, wheee... sideways elevator."

The elevator glided left across a multitude of halls. In another minute its transparent one-way mirror walls revealing a breathtaking Art Nouveau style auditorium that looked more like a living, breathing organism than a performance space. Organic curves dominated the architecture, with sweeping lines that mimicked feathered wings and intricate metalwork curving around massive arches.

The walls within the arch hollows were a living canvas of bioluminescent plants - alien flora with translucent petals that shifted colors like mood rings. Tendrils of soft green and blue light wove between ornate brass fixtures, creating an ethereal atmosphere that seemed to breathe and pulse with its own rhythm.

Katherine and I disembarked the shiny elevator as the doors slid open on the second floor of the auditorium, a red carpet leading to a dim balcony space almost directly above the stage.

We rolled towards the edge of the balcony and I looked down.

Iogann stood center stage, his skull-capped wings twitching with nervous energy as he addressed the four girls - Cinder, Emerald, Vespera, and Solace. His wide-brimmed hat was slightly askew, and he was gesticulating wildly with his hands.

"...change everything about our performance!" he insisted, pulling out his phone to show them the video clip from The Day After Tomorrow. "I can target gates now! Specifically! To this movie clip!”

Emerald Stratos, the Rubicund Lindworm, stood with her arms crossed, her ruby scales catching the stage lights and casting sharp, crimson reflections across the floor. Her gold-orange eyes narrowed dangerously as she listened to Iogann's excited explanation.

"And?" She demanded when he finished.

"I need time," Iogann repeated. "Just a few weeks. Maybe a month. To practice these targeted gates. We should change the date of the show to..."

"A month?!" Emerald's red-orange tail lashed dangerously. "We're performing TONIGHT! Everything's ready! Quincy already sorted everything out with the Vice Principal! Some other cunts might have the hall booked in a month!"

"Em, please! As it stands, our show is a looming disaster for everyone involved," the Mothman insisted. "You smell like..."

"Like what?" Emerald's gold-orange eyes narrowed.

"Like death," Iogann swallowed. "You're going to die or someone close to you is going to die tonight."

"Well no duh, moron," Emerald rolled her eyes. "We're killing a big monster that Cinder's gonna attract. Death is a given."

"No, you don't understand," Iogann pressed on, his voice taking on a desperate edge. "The disaster energy around this stage is... overwhelming. We need to postpone, to practice with targeted gates. If I can control where the gates open..."

Emerald's scales flashed with irritation. She snapped her fingers, the sound echoing through the auditorium like a gunshot, dragonfire sparks raining down.

Vespera unfolded from where she'd been lounging on a bean bag, her wigs crackling as she hefted an oversized medieval iron mace.

"Soooo, Io," Emerald's voice dripped with false sweetness as Vespera approached with the mace. "How would you prefer it? Quick and messy, or slow and painful? Because those are your only options if you keep suggesting we delay MY show."

"Em," Cinder stepped forward, her wings flaring protectively. "He's just trying to help. Maybe we should at least hear him out..."

"I heard him already! He's obviously chickening out just cus he learned some new gate trick! Stay out of this, Ci," Emerald snapped, her ruby scales catching the light like fresh blood. "You're already on thin ice after missing practice."

"I..."

"Yeah, you. YOU are far too preoccupied with that damn nullie. Why is that?" Emerald demanded.

"That's none of your business," Cinder's wings shifted through defensive shades of gray and red.

"Everything about this troupe is my business," Emerald growled. "I'm the leader. I make the decisions. And right now, I'm deciding that both you and Io are being incredibly annoying."

"Em," Cinder began.

"Shut your yap before you throw off my chill," Emerald snapped. "I've had just about enough of you two spineless musicunts questioning my vision. The show goes on tonight. As planned. No changes. The wards and amplifiers are already set up. Next person to suggest changing things last minute is going to get their kneecaps broken. Neither of you needs to have intact knees to make musical noises."

"Em!" Iogann tried one last time, his antennae drooping. "Please. I can feel it. Something terrible is going to happen tonight. We need to..."

"You NEED to shut the fuck up and do your job," Emerald cut him off. "Open the gate when I tell you to. That's it. That's your only purpose here. You're not the Slayer star, you're not the decision maker, you're just the gateway opener. Got it?"

"But… What if everyone in attendance dies?” Io pressed.

"So what?!" Emerald barked. "You want to stay in this troupe? Everyone has their place in life. Everyone gets XP from the operation. It doesn't matter if everyone in the audience croaks! When more twats die, we benefit. We get stronger. Eff the audience! This is about us gaining levels ten times faster than those delver dorks with their dumb-ass rules and regulations. Do you want to be weak, pathetic… prey again? Well, do you?!”

“No,” Iogann deflated, wings dropping.

“That's right, beech.” Emerald grinned with sharp chompers. “Cus you know what happens to prey in this school.”

She inhaled deep.

“Wait,” her eyes ignited red from within. “Why do I smell prey nearby? V! Check the gallery, make sure there's no rats up there trying to spy on our prep!”

Vespera’s black and white wings unfurled with a crackle of thunder. She rose into the air heading straight up towards us.

Brilliant electrical currents arched across the medieval mace in her right claws, making it look like a Tesla coil.

Yep. This is how I was going to die. An electrified mace to the noggin.

Hello darkness my old friend.

Chapter 15: Catastrophe

Katherine's claws suddenly wrapped around my wrist digging into my skin with inhuman strength. Her grip was cold, almost metallic. A pulse of pure fear rushed from her hand up my spine, making hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Then darkness swallowed us whole, the glowing plant life of the fancy auditorium and the deadly mace heading our way winking away.

The darkness was absolute, pressing against my eyeballs like a physical weight. I blinked rapidly, trying to adjust, but there was nothing to adjust to.

"Katherine?" I whispered.

A low, rumbling growl answered me. Not quite a response, more like a warning.

"Thanks," I said.

Fumbling in my pocket, I found my trusty Pyroxia X-12. The bright screen almost blinded me when I logged in. Two clicks through the apps to the flashlight and then a beam of harsh white light erupted, cutting through the darkness like a knife.

Katherine hissed, blinded by the light.

My phone's light revealed a dark and desolate version of the auditorium we'd just been in, recording everything.

The organic curves of the Art Nouveau architecture had warped and rotted, as if something had been slowly consuming the building from the inside out. Massive roots - thick as tree trunks - burst through cracked marble floors and twisted around fallen support columns. Bioluminescent plants that had once pulsed with soft blues and greens now hung like withered, blackened tendrils.

"Sooo..." I said. "This is the deep, huh? A parallel Earth where everything went to shit?"

"Shut. That. Off," she hissed again. "The light attracts things."

"What things?" I turned the flashlight off, switching to the infrared cam.

As if in response, something skittered in the darkness. A sound like chitinous legs scraping against decayed marble echoed through the desolate auditorium.

Katherine's claws tightened on her wheelchair's wheels. "Hungry things."

Another skittering sound. Closer this time.

"Follow, unless you want to stay here," the wheelchair-bound Stollwurm ordered.

She somehow rolled over the roots and broken rubble like it was nothing, using her tail as a lever to overcome random elevation changes.

I stood up and pulled my backpack on, forsaking my wheelchair to the gloom. My footsteps crunched on broken bits.

The chitinous skittering sounds continued, sometimes seeming to come from above, sometimes below, sometimes directly behind us. But nothing emerged from the darkness.

"Stop breathing so loudly," Katherine hissed.

"I'm not breathing loudly," I whispered back. "You're breathing loudly."

A low growl rumbled from her throat. "Do you want to get eaten?"

"Not particularly," I replied.

Another skittering sound - closer this time. Something metallic scraped against the rubble nearby.

Katherine's wheelchair froze. Her tail went absolutely still.

"Don't. Move," she breathed.

I froze mid-step, one foot hovering just above a broken piece of ceiling.

The skittering sound circled us. Not random anymore. Deliberate. Calculating.

Something was hunting us.

Then Katherine's eyes ignited with green fire and my heart skidded to a stop.

Pure, concentrated fear radiated from her like an explosion - like someone had distilled absolute dread into a psychic weapon and was broadcasting it on all frequencies.

The skittering stopped.

Absolute silence descended, so thick I could hear my own heartbeat thundering in my ears.

Katherine's tail wrapped around my waist, yanking me closer to her wheelchair. "Move. Now."

We quickly rolled/moved to the end of the balcony. Her movements were fluid, exact - like she'd navigated this dark landscape countless times before.

We reached the elevator shaft, but the elevator itself was conspicuously absent. Through the infrared cam, I saw a gaping vertical tunnel stretching up into impenetrable blackness, with rusted metal cables hanging like dead spider webs.

"No elevator," I whispered. "Now what?"

Katherine's tail tightened around my waist, making my ribs ache. Her wheelchair positioned precisely at the shaft's edge, angled for maximum visibility.

A pulse of pure weaponized dread once again ran from Katherine's tail across my body.

The darkness began to gradually dissolve, the outline of the elevator manifesting through the gloom. Katherine tapped her card and the barely visible elevator doors slid open. She shoved me inside and then pressed one of the barely visible buttons. The gloom slowly receded in its entirety as the elevator rapidly flew out of the auditorium.

Emerald and the others were still on stage. Vespera had landed back near them, looking dissatisfied.

I glanced at Katherine.

"So, um, is my wheelchair gone forever now?" I asked.

She turned her head to me, slipping dark goggles back on to hide her weary-looking emerald eyes.

"No," she said. "I can get it... later. Also, since when can you walk normally?"

"A miracle cure through pure, undistilled terror!" I proclaimed dramatically, jazz-handing my suddenly mobile legs. "Who knew being hunted by unspeakable horrors was such effective physical therapy?"

"You're telling me," she said slowly, tail arming up to whip me as she pressed a button to halt the elevator halfway between floors. "that you needed a wheelchair because of a concussion, but you can walk just fine now?"

"Yes. To be honest," I began, "I was pretty dizzy so the nurse told me to stay in a chair... but then I had a rather intense encounter with the Genesis Pool this morning, which may have... recalibrated some of my bodily functions."

Her tail whip stopped mid-lash. "What?"

"I jumped into the genesis pool," I said. "While being alive."

"You did WHAT?" She stammered out, tail coming down.

"Jumped. Into. The. Genesis. Pool," I repeated, enunciating each word as she did in the deep. "While alive. Helped me walk."

Katherine's mouth opened and closed like she was fishing for words.

"What... That is possibly the most ridiculous thing I've heard so far from you," she finally let out.

"What? Full-blooded Omnids don't go swimming in the Genesis pool for shits and giggles?" I asked.

"Obviously not!" She barked. "The Lazarus cavern is one of the most sacred spaces to Skyfall! It's one of the foundational artifacts, the Academy was literally built around and above it! To submerge yourself in it... while being still alive is unthinkable blasphemy! Nazaeth! Have you no effin' shame?!"

"Eh," I shrugged. "I'm not from here. Nobody told me that I couldn't swim in it. Didn't think it was that big a deal. Cass... err Cinder pulled me out of it twice now with her hands. Doesn't that count?"

"It's completely different... pulling someone out is fine, idiot!" Katherine growled, her tail lashing against her wheelchair. "Brief contact to help resurrect someone versus... How long were you under there?! Were you fully submerged?"

"Dove in pretty deep yep," I nodded. "I think I was under a few minutes?"

"Slayer!" Katherine choked. "Do you have any idea what that could have done to you? It could have shattered your mind or grown another you inside you, killing you in a truly horrific way! Abyss, it could have broken your Lazarus bracelet!"

"I'm fine," I assured her. "Actually, I saw something interesting in there. A girl. Silver-blue hair, orange vest. Sound familiar?"

Katherine went absolutely still. Her tail stopped mid-lash, her body frozen like a statue.

"What?" she whispered.

I repeated the description. "...Fractal crack on the side of her head. Called herself Alexa. Ring any bells?"

Katherine's goggles slipped slightly, revealing a flash of intense emerald eyes. "That," she muttered. "That's... not possible."

"Apparently quite possible," I shrugged. "She said something about 'brain spiders' and 'system wizards'. Any context?"

Katherine's wheelchair jerked violently, spinning to face me directly. "Where. Did. You. Hear. Those. Words."

"Under the Genesis pool," I said. "She had these quirky jump shoes on and a safety vest. I think that she also lives in a treehouse made from stolen sighs. Saint Mary's Township?"

"No," Katherine shook her head violently, her face going pale beneath her scales. "That's... It's just my imagination. My art. You must have seen my sketches somewhere and..."

"I didn't see her shoes," I pointed out. "Or the treehouse. So, either we're suffering from some sort of a collective delusion... or..."

"She can't be real!" Katherine barked. "Someone like that can't exist!"

"Why not?" I arched an eyebrow.

"Because..." Katherine's tail lashed violently. "Because she's... she was purposefully written to win at everything, a key designed to open any door. She's not real, you absolute knob! She's just a character from a story I wrote when I was young! About another... alternative Earth, a world filled with Superheroes and Villains... without Omids... where... where everything turns out just fine in the end! Real life doesn't work like that!"

She sniffed. I remained silent, contemplating her words.

"It's... a world... where I'm not broken and sick," she let out. "Where I can run really fast in my head... It's just a fictional story where a girl named Alexa found a lonely girl name Katherine and helped her, uplifted her to become something more..."

Katherine trailed off, her tail drooping. "But that's all it is. A novel, that no Omnid would ever read cus it features super-powered humans. Just my dumb imagination. Just my stupid art that most people aren't interested in cus it portrays four humans as the protagonists. You couldn't have seen her. You're lying. You have to be!"

"I'm not lying," I said softly. "She hugged me. Called me her minion... 'Mittens'. Said something about me needing to find all four of us and to never stop. Said she loved me. Which was weird because I've never met her before. At least... I don't think I have."

"Stop it. Just... stop. You're messing with me. THIS ISN'T FUNNY!" Katherine snarled loudly. She pulled her goggles off, her eyes filled with tears.

"Not trying to be funny," I said. "Just telling you what I saw. What I experienced. Maybe we're both crazy. Maybe the Genesis Pool showed me your memories somehow. Or maybe.... Alexa is real."

Green-silver eyes looked at me. "You're not Martin Kilborne! You're not a character from my story, you look nothing like him! Stop trying to be someone that you are..."

"What... did you just say?" I stammered out.

"Martin Kiborne," Katherine repeated. "The second mc from my book about superheroes. Alexa's first minion. Her best friend. Her love interest. Why am I even telling you this shit?" Her voice dropped.

My brain careened sideways. Either Katherine was a monster who had somehow manipulated me, used her psychic powers to learn my real name or...

Or something far more impossible was happening.

"Katherine... How do you know that name?" I whispered.

"I told you," she growled back. "I made it up! Imagined it! For a book!"

"Nu-huh," I shook my head. "Not possible."

"What the fuck are you on about?" She demanded, wiping her tears with a sleeve.

I studied Katherine carefully, weighing my options. Her emerald eyes blazed with an ocean of anger, confusion, and something deeper - a raw, vulnerable hope that she was desperately trying to suppress.

"Tell me about this story of yours," I said carefully.

Katherine's tail lashed defensively. "Why should I tell you anything?"

"Because," I leaned forward, my voice low and sharp, "either you're playing an incredibly elaborate mind game, or something truly screwy is happening. Something that I would consider insane... at least before I dove headfirst into the Genesis pool. Just tell me more about Alexa, please."

"Absolutely not. I am NOT letting you mock my writing. You've spent this entire day making jokes about me!"

"I did," I sighed. "Sorry. That's a thing I do. I cope with how effed up my life is by being a clown. I was just trying to... make you smile, I swear."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," Katherine pulled her dark goggles back on.

"I'm not simply trying to...!" I stammered out. "I just want to understand what's going on. I thought that I had everything sorted. I had accounted for absolutely everything, made plans, came to this place... and now everything is careening sideways, like a freight train that encountered a giant boulder on the tracks and is now flying off a bridge."

"Sounds like a you problem," she said. "And I don't have the energy to deal with whatever issues you have."

I stared at her, a mixture of frustration and desperation bubbling up inside me. "Come on, Katherine. I just saw a girl who looks exactly like a character from your stories inside the Genesis Pool. That's not a coincidence!"

Katherine's tail lashed aggressively. "Coincidences happen all the time. You're reading too much into this!"

"Am I?" I challenged. "You literally just said my... birth name - Martin Kilborne - a name I've never told anyone here. A name from a story you claim to have written."

She went very still then, as still as the elevator hovering between two floors.

"What?" She finally asked. "Is this another stupid joke?"

"Follow," I said, pressing the M button for the main entrance.

The elevator hummed as it moved sideways and then down, following the complex path to the main entrance.

In another few minutes Katherine's wheelchair rolled silently behind me as I strode through the empty halls, my footsteps echoing against the polished floors.

The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the parking lot as I approached my beat-up van, still bearing the fresh boot dents from Cinder's assault. Katherine followed silently like a shark amidst deep water.

I yanked open the back doors, climbing inside. The Winter-ee-Mass lights flickered on automatically, casting a soft glow over the interior. Katherine positioned her wheelchair at the entrance, watching intently as I dug through my backpack.

"Here," I said, pulling out a worn envelope. Inside was my original birth certificate, carefully preserved in a plastic sleeve. "Martin James Kilborne. Born in Znetc reservation, North Acadia."

Katherine leaned forward, her emerald eyes peering through the dark goggles at the birth certificate. Her tail twitched slightly as she studied the document.

"This... this can't be real," she muttered.

"Oh, it's real," I said. "Genuine, certified copy. Issued by North Acadian Reservation Authority."

"But..." Katherine's voice trailed off. She reached out with a clawed hand, then pulled back as if the document might burn her. "It can't! How could it?! Wait."

Her expression suddenly grew cold, lips pursed. "Did... Cass tell you about the story I was writing? Did you print this at a shop to mess with me? This is some kind of a stupid prank, isn't it? Ha ha. Very funny. Make fun of a dying girl who can't even..."

My eye twitched. I dug into my bag again and shoved my North Acadian passport at her face.

"I don't know what's going on either. But this is who I am. Martin J Kilborne. Born in North Acadia!" I insisted, laying out all the cards in a desperate hope that she would listen.

"Nu-huh. Nope. You're Alexander Glock," she said shoving the passport and birth certificate back at me. "I checked your pics on Omnigram after you added me to your friends-list. Quit screwing with me!"

I threw the documents back into my bag, my face burning. I only had myself to blame for this. My manufactured backstory was made too solid, too... real.

I'd created an entire social media footprint for Alexander Glock - a variety of scattered mentions and tagged photos to survive an Omnid Scrutimancer's background check. Strategic posts about growing up with my human mother, some angst about my father, and the occasional comment about struggling with my Nullie identity. The kind of digital breadcrumbs that made a person feel VERY real at a glance. I even posted tons of AI-modded photos of me studying in a conveniently burned down Nazarite Private school in South-Eastern Acadia. There was an entire gallery of AI-generated photos of me standing next to my Thunderbird 'father' in various tourist spots during See-Mass.

I had played myself into a corner and because of it whatever otherworldly, inexplicable link existed between me and Katherine was quickly fraying.

"Welp," she murmured. "Thanks for nothin'. I hope you get lots of views out of this on Omnigram later. Har har."

"Wait," I called after Katherine as she turned her wheelchair away. "I can explain..."

"Save it," she snapped, her tail lashing angrily. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but I'm done. You're clearly just another manipulative asshole who somehow found out about my private writing and decided to use it to troll me hard... just like the others did. Just like... Em and Cass."

"That's not... I would never..." I stammered out.

"I said save it!" Her voice cracked. "You want to know the worst part? For a moment there, I actually thought... I actually hoped... that I finally found someone that I could be friends with..." She trailed off, her shoulders slumping.

"Katherine, please..." I said.

"Don't," she whispered. "Just... don't. I'm genuinely not amused with whatever this is! An attempt to impress your Quetzi GF? Or a way to get out of the frendzone and into her bedroom? Maybe a clever way to get Emerald to permit your halfsie pink-skin ass into their inner circle as a sixie? Whatever. Go, watch their anti-delving show. I hope you die or get a memetic stuck in your head. I don't care. Never talk to me again."

I stood frozen by my van, watching Katherine roll away.

Just like when I saw Cassiopea's rainbow-wings for the first time, I found myself completely shattered, speechless.

No witty comeback. No clever deflection. No carefully crafted lie to smooth things over. No way to fix this mess.

Some part of me wanted to chase after her, to tell her everything but my legs refused to move, my mind spinning uselessly like a computer caught in an infinite loop. Out of all the scams I'd pulled, all the identities I'd crafted, all the careful plans I'd made... nothing had prepared me for this awful moment.

There was no script for this situation. No pre-planned contingency. No clever way to explain how I could be both Alexander Glock and Martin Kilborne without sounding completely insane or an absolute dick who generated excessively elaborate pranks to troll people.

I watched Katherine disappear up the front stairwell.

What could I even say to her? "Hey, sorry about the fake identity thing, but I'm actually the character from your story who somehow exists in real life too, and I have no idea how or why? I actually came to Skyisle, faked my entire identity to make Frontenachii Omnicorp and the Omnithornia Superstate officials pay for what they did to my human mom?" Yeah, that would go over real well.

I climbed into my van, shutting the doors behind me with trembling hands. The colorful lights cast their soft glow over the interior, but they did nothing to dispel the hollow, throbbing feeling in my chest.

For the first time since arriving at Skyfall, I felt completely and utterly lost. The carefully constructed facade of Alexander Glock - the overly cheerful, slightly nerdy transfer student who used jokes as weapons - crumbled away, leaving only the raw truth underneath.

The me that I didn't want to look at. The me that let my mom suffer all alone, pushed her away.

Truth that I had no idea how to deal with, now featuring jagged, multi-dimensional edges that weren't helping one bit.

I glanced at the small mirror mounted on my van's wall, and for a split second, crystalline-blue eyes stared back at me instead of my usual green-brown ones. I blinked hard, and they were gone, replaced by my normal reflection.

Chapter 16: Pre-Show

I skipped the rest of my classes, thanks to the nurse's medical leave note. My van became my sanctuary of frustration, the bean bag chair swallowing me whole as I stared at the ceiling, replaying my disastrous conversation with Katherine over and over.

"Yulia," I called out, "play Omnithornication by Cinder."

Cinder's voice filled the van, raw and passionate.

The emotion in her performance of Omnithornication made me feel marginally better, like silver iridescent rain shower pouring over me. It made the hole in my chest hurt marginally less.

How had everything gone so sideways so quickly? How had Katherine wurmed herself into my heart? Why did losing her friendship, accidentally making her feel bad feel worse than drowning?

"It's the edge of the world, the heart of Omnid civilization
The sun may rise in the East, at least it settled in a final location
It's understood that Cradlefall sells Omnithornication," I sang along with Cinder.

"Yulia, analyze Katherine's words about her story," I ordered in Kaska when the song finished. "Look for any mentions of Martin Kilborne or Alexa in her social media history."

"No results found," Yulia replied.

I sighed. "Yulia, what do you think is happening? What did I screw up?"

"Insufficient data for meaningful answer," she responded. "Anomalous variables detected disconnected from overall pattern. Recommendation: gather more information before drawing conclusions."

"Helpful," I muttered sarcastically. "Pretty up Christi's pics in Lazarus cavern and post the best ones on my Omnigram tagging her in them. Let's see if my social score increases."

"Can do."

I closed my eyes, listening to Cinder's other songs for the rest of my free time.

My phone buzzed, interrupting my musical reverie. A message from an unknown number on Omnigram.

[Unknown]: Don't come to the show. Stay away.

The number wasn't saved in my contacts. I stared at it. Pfff, yeah okay. I typed in a response and clicked send.

[Alex G:] Who be?

[Unknown]: A friend.

[Alex G:] I'm not hearing a name, frien. Why shouldn't I attend Hogwarts, Dobby?"

[Unknown]: ☠️ It's going to be a catastrophe.

[Alex G:] Is that you, Iogann? Way to out yourself. How'd you get my contact?

No response came. My message hung there, unanswered. Maybe Em told him to stop texting and focus on show prep.

Another text popped up immediately after.

[Vesp🌩:] Hey mixie! Come to our show. Auditorium in 30. Front row. VIP pass. 😘

[Alex G:] Why the sudden invite?

[Vesp🌩:] Saw yo Omnigram pics of Christi in Lazarus cavern. Bring yo cam! I want my best angles captured.

[Alex G:] I heard from Io that Em is pissed. Don't want to get chopped up 'accidentally' by a flame sword.

[Vesp🌩:] Pff. She's never not pissed. Don't be a wuss. If you get chopped in half, I'll incarnate ya.

[Alex G:] Free incarnation, huh? Sounds like a deal. But what's the catch?

[Vesp🌩:] No catch! Just want some killer shots slayin' shit for my socials. U tots the best photographer in the school right no

[Alex G:] Been here two days. Not sure that's a high bar.

[Vesp🌩:] 🤣 U funny. comin or not?

[Alex G:] Only if u protec me and my equipment from possibl dragon-ree. can't bless u with quality shots if I'm dead.

[Vesp🌩:] Deal. I'll keep u safe. Front row VIP pass incoming.

A ping. An electronic ticket materialized in my Omnigram inbox. VIP PASS: FRONT ROW - D&D SLAYER PERFORMANCE, SEAT 17A.

Free front row seats? With Vespera's protection? Seemed like things were looking up! Guess that Kat pulled me into the deep before Vespera spotted us. Or this was a ruse and maybe I was going to get murdered. Then again, judging by her Omnigram pics Vespera didn't seem like the kind of person clever enough to orchestrate a trap. Either way, the show would hopefully distract me from the Katherine-induced sulk.

I pulled on all of my stolen hexamesh suits and grabbed my camera bag, checked my equipment, and headed towards the auditorium. The VIP pass glowed softly in my Omnigram app as I scanned it at the entrance door, the digital golden ticket promising front-row access to what was apparently going to be a disastrous snow. The ward let me into the mostly empty auditorium. A large table at the front featured plentiful snacks from the cafe.

Don't mind if I do.

Lance and Christi were there already.

Cinder's brother stood near the side entrance, a gray bulky figure. His orange eyes were narrowed with obvious tension, scanning the auditorium repeatedly as if expecting something to go wrong.

The Cherufe girl paced closer to the stage, in a new pink-purple suit-dress. Her flames flickered erratically. She too seemed stressed.

"Sup L-man?" I asked.

Lance spun to me as if spooked, then relaxed.

"Helping Cassi... err, Cinder," he exhaled. "Just went through final ward checks."

"Good stuff I'd help but I don't know enough about wards," I said. "Also, you don't have to twist yourself into a pretzel in front of me."

"What do you mean?" Lance blinked.

"You can say 'Cassie' around me, if you feel like it. I'm not the Kaleid-name enforcement agency," I said.

"It's just... it's been hard, you know? One day Cassie was my little sister, and then suddenly… I have to say Cinder all the time and pretend like we aren't related or whatever,” His fists opened and closed.

"Don't worry. I'll sort it out." I said.

"Sort it out?" He blinked at me. "What? ...How?"

"Give me forty two hours," I added.

"What? You've known her for, what, two days?" Lance pointed out. "I've been trying to help Cass with... her issues for so many years. And you think you can just..."

"I don't operate by the rules you've all built around yourselves,” I said. “There are no boxes. Come back with your complaint in forty two hours if it's still unresolved."

He crossed his arms.

“I already made her smile. I can make you smile too. She’s totally warming up to me." I said.

"Hrm. She doesn't usually... warm up to people this quickly. Or at all, really."

"Really?" I feigned surprise. "She seemed perrrrfectly friendly after chasing me down kicking my van a few dozen times."

His eyes widened. "She… did what?"

"Cassie is very angry," I told him. "She's hurting and I'm not going to stop until I figure out why. Maybe it’s because of the troupe and Em, maybe it’s something else. Regardless of what the issue is, I’m going to untangle it.”

I put my hand on his tense-looking shoulder.

"Promise," I looked into his orange eyes.

"Cassie- I mean, Cinder doesn't like it when other Omnids try to 'figure her out'," he warned.

"Good thing I'm mostly human then," I grinned.

Lance stared at me, clearly having little faith in my capabilities.

"Oh! Alex!" Christi flared slightly, approaching us. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to come to the show! Totally spaced out with all the... stuff going on. Sorry."

"S'fine," I shrugged. "Vespera sent me a ticket."

"Vespera invited you?" Lance blinked. "Really? How'd you pull that off?"

"I'm good with people," I shrugged.

Lance and Christi exchanged a look that suggested they deeply doubted my statement.

The auditorium was filling rapidly. Students crowded into seats, arms full of catering food, their excited chatter creating a dull roar. Magical wards shimmered subtly around the stage - intricate geometric patterns that pulsed with soft blues and greens.

"So, where you guys sitting at?" I asked.

"We were asked not be here," Lance sighed.

"Aw. You ain't watching the show then?"

"Cass and Em don't want us here," Christi sighed.

"Student council is permitted to assist with general prep, but banned from attending," Lance nodded. "Em thinks we'll interfere with the show by being annoying. Or worse, try to stop her."

"Stop her from doing what?" I asked.

Christi's flames flickered nervously. "Summoning something... really dangerous."

"Isn't summoning a giant demon the point of this whole shebang?" I asked.

The couple exchanged a look. Christi whispered something into her boyfriend's ear. He nodded and glanced around and then slipped a runestone into my fingers, his gray hands trembling ever so slightly.

Then both of them rapidly retreated as if they didn't even know me. I put the runestone into my pocket and went to my assigned seat, setting up my equipment. I set up a Rricoh 360 degree camera on a tripod in front of me to capture the audience reactions as well as the performers.

My phone buzzed almost immediately after with a text from Christi:

[C-iris🪷:] Hi. I convinced Lance to give you the ward control runestone. I trust you. Use it... if... when things go bad.

[Alex G:] Use it how? Can it stop the summoning?

[C-iris🪷:] No, since the summoning is performed by Io, it can't be stopped.

[C-iris🪷:]diagram.pdf

These are emergency ward-focus runes. If pressed in the correct sequence as listed in this manual, they can create a temporary full-dome barrier around the bearer. The second sequence listed will produce a much stronger shield facing away from the central hexagram. The preformers will have similar stones. Don't show it off unless you're targeted. Em has the master one, she could disable yours if she suspects anything.

[Alex G:] So basically a get-out-of-death-free card? Thanks!

[C-iris🪷:] More like a precaution. Whatever Cass summons might be able to punch right through the shield. Create a dome as soon as something comes through. It'll help keep any mental effects out.

[Alex G:] Mental effects? What kind?

[C-iris🪷:] I don't know. Bad, intrusive thoughts. There's no consistency with Io's gates!

[Alex G:] Thanks, Pink Chancellor. Really appreciate the aid.

[C-iris🪷:] Protect Cass... if you can. Lance might not show it, but he's super worried that she'll get hurt. She will have her own shield-stone, but if you get close to her, the effect will stack.

[Alex G:] Understood. Over n out.

The auditorium lights began to dim. The crowd stirred. I heard snickers behind me.

"Dreadful Delvers? More like... dreadful losers," A Sasquatch behind me commented.

"Bet you ten bucks something goes wrong," a Thunderbird whispered loudly to her friend.

"Make that fifty," her laima friend replied with a laugh, waving her phone. "I'ma record how badly they fuck up this time. Gonna get all the clicks on Omnigram. Surprised Graves let 'em preform in school."

"Ye. Did you see what happened last time?" the Thunderbird continued. "Those idiots nearly opened a gate to some flesh-hellscape during the Spring's End Festival!"

"Surprised you came at all," the laima commented.

"Pff I ain't a pansy," the Thunderbird rolled her eyes, tapping on her massive jewel-hexagram on a necklace. "Got a personal ward barrier. Best shit mom's company could get. Pro delver stuff. Would take a LV125 monster to punch thru one of these babies."

More snickers and whispers.

"Heard Em's gotten even more unhinged since the Festival..." someone laughed. "Like, full-on psycho beerch mode."

"Her Moth griftwit can't even open a gate to a normal dungeon. It's always random shite."

"And that Quetzi Bard Altnil?" Another voice chimed in. "Total fake. Pretending to be all dark and edgy with that Kaleid name bullshit..."

My hands tightened on my camera.

"Yeah, what kind of twitbrain name is 'Cinder' anyway?" A Kelpie sneered. "She ain't no fire elemental."

"Big-tiem daddy issues, obvs."

I hadn't expected this much escalation - this gleeful anticipation of failure, this barely concealed hostility. The audience wasn't here to support D&D. They were here for the spectacle, waiting for a catastrophe.

Ten minutes. Enough time.

I got out of my spot and walked across the rows, discretely pointing Yulia-connected hidden wrist cam at every single face, using the AI to find their Omnibook profiles and names.

The AI rapidly identified and tagged each sneering face. Most of them were from wealthy families. Trust fund kids and their sixies looking for entertainment at others' expense.

I returned to my seat just as the house lights dimmed completely and the red curtain dramatically slid apart.

Fog rolled across the stage, and a single spotlight illuminated Emerald as she strode out.

Her ruby mane caught the spotlight, sending crimson reflections flickering across the walls. She wore what appeared to be magisteel, gold-plated armor, stylized with dragon motifs and studded with an ungodly amount of gaudy, oversized rubies etched with defense hexagrams. A massive magisteel sword hung from her side. Her whole getup could probably buy an entire town in North Acadia.

"Welcome, prey," she announced via a magitek microphone, her voice carrying easily across the auditorium. "Tonight, you'll witness true power. True hunting. True predation! The Dreadful Delvers will show you what REAL dungeoneering looks like!"

More snickers from the audience. Emerald scoffed at the people in attendance with gold-orange eyes. She dropped the microphone and stepped on it, crushing it underfoot with a deafening feedback noise. I knew that could project her voice without it, she meant to do it as part of her act.

The audience fell silent, wincing.

Iogann emerged from the fog in his oversized hat and hippie shawl, skull-capped wings trailing behind him. Vespera and Solace joined Emerald's side, wrapped in lavish medieval armor. The Thunderbird had the mace she had nearly used against me and the Olgoi-Khorkhoi carried an enormous executioner's axe.

And then Cinder walked out. Unlike the Slayer and Knights trio she wasn't wearing armor. A dark headband, almost like the one from my drawing, pulled her feathery mane back. Her entire figure and wings were dark gray, her face twisted into a scowl.

Vespera spotted me and sent me an exaggerated wink. I lifted my DSLR, taking photos of everyone on stage. The camera clicked rapidly, capturing each member of the Dreadful Delvers in sharp detail.

Cinder spotted me and her face went slack.

'What the fuck are you doing here? Who invited you?!' her expression stated.

I grinned and waved, making sure to catch her momentary look of shock on camera. She quickly recovered, her wings flashing with red which immediately faded back to dark gray and black.

"Gate!" Emerald barked, swinging her oversized sword in the air.

Iogann stepped forward, pulling out his old harmonica. He slowly raised it to his face.

Then he hesitated, his harmonica trembling slightly at his lips. Something flickered in his gray eyes - doubt, fear, resistance.

"GATE!" Emerald barked again, her voice carrying an unnatural resonance that made my skull vibrate. "Find a true disaster for me! Something truly high level!"

My hands suddenly twitched, trying to reach for... something. A gateway-opening artifact which I didn't even have? I wasn't even a gater. The compulsion faded as quickly as it came, leaving me disturbed. Emerald commands clearly contained some kind of powerful mind control magic.

Iogann's body went rigid, his resistance crumbling as if overridden by something stronger than his will. The harmonica touched his lips and haunting, alien music began. It danced across the stage, carrying with it deep, gut-wrenching, awfully somber tones.

The haunting notes from Iogann's harmonica twisted through the air like living things, layered stop of each other, each tone carrying almost a physical manifestation of utter doom. The melody wasn't just music - it was a dirge, a funeral march for reality itself.

Dark lines began to dance across the stage floor, at first thin as pencil marks, then widening like cracks in the foundation of the world. They moved with horrible purpose, spiraling outward from where Iogann stood, leaving trails of wispy darkness in their wake.

The lines converged and began to fold upward, defying gravity as they wove themselves into a perfect circle hanging in the air. The edge of the gateway rippled like the surface of an oil slick, colors that shouldn't exist bleeding through from whatever lay beyond.

"Bard!" Emerald commanded Cinder. "Draw our prey through!"

Again, I almost started to sing right then and there, Emerald’s orders affecting me on a fundamental level. I bit my tongue to silence myself.

Cinder stepped forward, her wings suddenly unfurling in a burst of iridescent color that made my brain short-circuit. The dark grays and blacks exploded into a living rainbow that danced across all of her feathers like aurora borealis.

Then she began to sing.

If her performance in music class had been impressive, this was transcendent, divine. Her voice carried otherworldly harmonics that seemed to resonate with something buried in the depths of my soul. She called out to me like a siren, like a Charisma goddess, like the most beautiful, most precious thing in the universe.

I suddenly bumped into the stage wall, my feet carrying me forward without my conscious control. In another minute I was somehow at the side stairwell. The audience behind me erupted in laughter as I rushed up the stairwell and stumbled against the magical barrier separating the crowd from the performers.

"Look at the dum nullie!" Someone called out. "He's totally enthralled!"

"Pathetic!" Another voice jeered. "Can't even resist basic bardic magic!"

My hands pressed against the shimmering barrier as Cinder's voice wrapped around my mind like silk threads, pulling me towards her. Her wings were a kaleidoscope of colors that made my eyes water, her voice irresistibly alluring.

The world beyond her ceased to exist - there was only her voice, her wings, her presence drawing me in like a powerful electromagnetic pull would pick up a metal flake.

Through my Cinder-induced haze, I dimly registered movement from the gateway. Something tall and lanky began to push through, distorting the circular opening in reality like a membrane being stretched to its limits.

Cinder's song cut off abruptly as she retreated behind the armed slayers.

Emerald's sword ignited with blinding flames.

"That's it, beetch," She growled. "Commere. Time to die."